The Invisible Hand of capitalism

[Publius]

Since my demonstration was thwarted, I'll just post the article:

I, Pencil
My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read



I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write.*


Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that's all I do.


You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery—more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, the wise G. K. Chesterton observed, "We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders."


I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that's too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple.


Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year.


Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye—there's some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser.


Innumerable Antecedents



Just as you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so is it impossible for me to name and explain all my antecedents. But I would like to suggest enough of them to impress upon you the richness and complexity of my background.


My family tree begins with what in fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon. Now contemplate all the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding. Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that went into their fabrication: the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes, motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls, the cookery and the raising of all the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand in every cup of coffee the loggers drink!


The logs are shipped to a mill in San Leandro, California. Can you imagine the individuals who make flat cars and rails and railroad engines and who construct and install the communication systems incidental thereto? These legions are among my antecedents.


Consider the millwork in San Leandro. The cedar logs are cut into small, pencil-length slats less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. These are kiln dried and then tinted for the same reason women put rouge on their faces. People prefer that I look pretty, not a pallid white. The slats are waxed and kiln dried again. How many skills went into the making of the tint and the kilns, into supplying the heat, the light and power, the belts, motors, and all the other things a mill requires? Sweepers in the mill among my ancestors? Yes, and included are the men who poured the concrete for the dam of a Pacific Gas & Electric Company hydroplant which supplies the mill's power!


Don't overlook the ancestors present and distant who have a hand in transporting sixty carloads of slats across the nation.


Once in the pencil factory—$4,000,000 in machinery and building, all capital accumulated by thrifty and saving parents of mine—each slat is given eight grooves by a complex machine, after which another machine lays leads in every other slat, applies glue, and places another slat atop—a lead sandwich, so to speak. Seven brothers and I are mechanically carved from this "wood-clinched" sandwich.


My "lead" itself—it contains no lead at all—is complex. The graphite is mined in Ceylon. Consider these miners and those who make their many tools and the makers of the paper sacks in which the graphite is shipped and those who make the string that ties the sacks and those who put them aboard ships and those who make the ships. Even the lighthouse keepers along the way assisted in my birth—and the harbor pilots.


The graphite is mixed with clay from Mississippi in which ammonium hydroxide is used in the refining process. Then wetting agents are added such as sulfonated tallow—animal fats chemically reacted with sulfuric acid. After passing through numerous machines, the mixture finally appears as endless extrusions—as from a sausage grinder-cut to size, dried, and baked for several hours at 1,850 degrees Fahrenheit. To increase their strength and smoothness the leads are then treated with a hot mixture which includes candelilla wax from Mexico, paraffin wax, and hydrogenated natural fats.


My cedar receives six coats of lacquer. Do you know all the ingredients of lacquer? Who would think that the growers of castor beans and the refiners of castor oil are a part of it? They are. Why, even the processes by which the lacquer is made a beautiful yellow involve the skills of more persons than one can enumerate!


Observe the labeling. That's a film formed by applying heat to carbon black mixed with resins. How do you make resins and what, pray, is carbon black?


My bit of metal—the ferrule—is brass. Think of all the persons who mine zinc and copper and those who have the skills to make shiny sheet brass from these products of nature. Those black rings on my ferrule are black nickel. What is black nickel and how is it applied? The complete story of why the center of my ferrule has no black nickel on it would take pages to explain.


Then there's my crowning glory, inelegantly referred to in the trade as "the plug," the part man uses to erase the errors he makes with me. An ingredient called "factice" is what does the erasing. It is a rubber-like product made by reacting rape-seed oil from the Dutch East Indies with sulfur chloride. Rubber, contrary to the common notion, is only for binding purposes. Then, too, there are numerous vulcanizing and accelerating agents. The pumice comes from Italy; and the pigment which gives "the plug" its color is cadmium sulfide.


No One Knows



Does anyone wish to challenge my earlier assertion that no single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me?


Actually, millions of human beings have had a hand in my creation, no one of whom even knows more than a very few of the others. Now, you may say that I go too far in relating the picker of a coffee berry in far off Brazil and food growers elsewhere to my creation; that this is an extreme position. I shall stand by my claim. There isn't a single person in all these millions, including the president of the pencil company, who contributes more than a tiny, infinitesimal bit of know-how. From the standpoint of know-how the only difference between the miner of graphite in Ceylon and the logger in Oregon is in the type of know-how. Neither the miner nor the logger can be dispensed with, any more than can the chemist at the factory or the worker in the oil field—paraffin being a by-product of petroleum.


Here is an astounding fact: Neither the worker in the oil field nor the chemist nor the digger of graphite or clay nor any who mans or makes the ships or trains or trucks nor the one who runs the machine that does the knurling on my bit of metal nor the president of the company performs his singular task because he wants me. Each one wants me less, perhaps, than does a child in the first grade. Indeed, there are some among this vast multitude who never saw a pencil nor would they know how to use one. Their motivation is other than me. Perhaps it is something like this: Each of these millions sees that he can thus exchange his tiny know-how for the goods and services he needs or wants. I may or may not be among these items.


No Master Mind



There is a fact still more astounding: the absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work. This is the mystery to which I earlier referred.


It has been said that "only God can make a tree." Why do we agree with this? Isn't it because we realize that we ourselves could not make one? Indeed, can we even describe a tree? We cannot, except in superficial terms. We can say, for instance, that a certain molecular configuration manifests itself as a tree. But what mind is there among men that could even record, let alone direct, the constant changes in molecules that transpire in the life span of a tree? Such a feat is utterly unthinkable!


I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human energies—millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human master-minding! Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree.

The above is what I meant when writing, "If you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing." For, if one is aware that these know-hows will naturally, yes, automatically, arrange themselves into creative and productive patterns in response to human necessity and demand—that is, in the absence of governmental or any other coercive masterminding—then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith.

Once government has had a monopoly of a creative activity such, for instance, as the delivery of the mails, most individuals will believe that the mails could not be efficiently delivered by men acting freely. And here is the reason: Each one acknowledges that he himself doesn't know how to do all the things incident to mail delivery. He also recognizes that no other individual could do it. These assumptions are correct. No individual possesses enough know-how to perform a nation's mail delivery any more than any individual possesses enough know-how to make a pencil. Now, in the absence of faith in free people—in the unawareness that millions of tiny know-hows would naturally and miraculously form and cooperate to satisfy this necessity—the individual cannot help but reach the erroneous conclusion that mail can be delivered only by governmental "master-minding."


Testimony Galore



If I, Pencil, were the only item that could offer testimony on what men and women can accomplish when free to try, then those with little faith would have a fair case. However, there is testimony galore; it's all about us and on every hand. Mail delivery is exceedingly simple when compared, for instance, to the making of an automobile or a calculating machine or a grain combine or a milling machine or to tens of thousands of other things. Delivery? Why, in this area where men have been left free to try, they deliver the human voice around the world in less than one second; they deliver an event visually and in motion to any person's home when it is happening; they deliver 150 passengers from Seattle to Baltimore in less than four hours; they deliver gas from Texas to one's range or furnace in New York at unbelievably low rates and without subsidy; they deliver each four pounds of oil from the Persian Gulf to our Eastern Seaboard—halfway around the world—for less money than the government charges for delivering a one-ounce letter across the street!


The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

[redstar2000]

Why such a long post to make such a simple point?

Yes, the process of production and distribution in a technologically advanced economic system is far too complicated for any single individual to understand.

Who would argue with that?

But does that mean that the only thing we can understand is our own "tiny fragment" of the process? The part that we personally do?

If that were true, then any form of cooperative labor would be very difficult...and certainly a massive corporation employing hundreds of thousands of people would be a flat-out impossibility. No human or small group of humans could even remotely grasp all the variables involved.

But corporations do exist...and some of them grow larger and larger with every passing year. How is that possible?

Computer technology helps...but you still have to know what to ask the computer to do.

The answer is to concentrate on the significant variables...and hope that you don't overlook one of them.

That's why a corporation is not only possible but practical -- its management (with greater or lesser competence) seeks out the significant variables and learns to understand those...and just ignores the rest.

The difference between a large corporation and a "command economy" is purely verbal; within the boundaries of a large corporation are found all the characteristics of a planned economy.

Up to and including a "great leader".

I recall reading an interesting note once: Cuba is the 72nd largest planned economy in the world today -- the other and larger 71 are huge multi-national corporations.

Of course, incompetence has its price -- both private and public corporations can be led into bankruptcy (Enron, the USSR). Important variables can be dismissed as insignificant; the leaders can be a bunch of crooks.

But if, for example, you evaluated the USSR in the same way that you evaluated a large corporation...the USSR had a pretty decent run before it tanked. Certainly vastly superior to Enron though admittedly inferior to General Electric. Stalin was a much better CEO than Ken Lay...though inferior to Jack Welch.


Originally posted by Publius
There is a fact still more astounding: the absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work. This is the mystery to which I earlier referred.

Mysticism. There is no single "master mind" but there is a relatively small number of "master minds" who do dictate that pencils shall be brought into being.

As well as all other modern commodities.

All of the millions of people involved in the actual labor of producing pencils and everything else are under the command of a very small number of CEO's -- the capitalist class.

And they better obey those commands or else!

Adam Smith's "invisible hand" was a striking metaphor in the waning years of the 18th century -- when the marketplace was one of hundreds and thousands of competing small businesses.

But note that even he realized its limitations; there's a famous quote from him to the effect that businessmen engaged in a particular trade never meet, even socially, without immediately engaging in a conspiracy against their customers.

What would he have made of Enron? :o :o :o

Nowadays, the "invisible hand" is picking our pockets!


For, if one is aware that these know-hows will naturally, yes, automatically, arrange themselves into creative and productive patterns in response to human necessity and demand—that is, in the absence of governmental or any other coercive masterminding—then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith.

Ideology...in the bad sense of the word.

Wage-labor is coercive...if you refuse to do it, then you go hungry, become homeless, get sick and die.

That's bad enough. But this "freedom" is even worse! Should no capitalist see any profit to be made in hiring you, then you suffer the same penalty completely regardless of your "willingness to do wage-labor".

At least in the USSR, Inc., you were guaranteed a job and a paycheck and a place to live and health care and education...unless you criticized the boss, of course.

In both systems, lack of servility was/remains a capital offense.

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=32820


Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand.

Should I move this thread to the Religion subforum? :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Publius]

I thought the essay was interesting, not just from an economic perspective but also how complex the global economy is. It was somewhat humbling.

Yes, any individual, but also any group of individuals. It takes millions of people to produce a pencil, how can you expect a group of a dozen or a hundred governemnt officials to produce a car, effectively and efficiently? It just boggles the mind to try to understand the complexities of a modern economy. To think that anyone or any group could run an econonomy producing good products, well, is clearly not understanding what does into making even something as simple as a pencil.


Because a corporation is singular in it's purpose. Let's say, it makes cars. It only has to deal with a minute part of the overall economy. The beans grown in the south don't effect it's decisions in any way. They are seperate. Even the largest corporation is almost infinitely smaller than the economy itself.

Take this as an example: The government says "We have to much wheat, people aren't eating it all, let's cut back on production", so they do. What they don't realize is that they cut production to much, to little grain is produced. In turn, it's harder to get grain and harder to get products containing grain, and harder to get animals that eat grain and so on. This cut in production also causes a smaller need for farm tools. Some farm tool producers are now out of a job. Because of this, fewer train cars are being filled due to there being less grain and less farm equipment. Fewer train workers are needed. With less demand for train workers and trains, producers of trains and parts for trains are no longer is high of demand.

Think how far I could carry this out and you can almost see the complexity of the economy. Planned economies always fail, because the figures are always wrong. They CANNOT succeed, at least very well compared to their capitalist brethern.



And I'm not so certain about your Cuba statistic. Perhaps it's true in dollars, but not in complexity.


The USSR had a horrible run before it tanked. Stalin tried to collective the farms in the Ukraine, to add them to the planned economy, it resulted in 6 million Ukranian deaths.

The stories of similar incidents are really trivial. The Soviet Union was held together not because it's leaders could run an economy, but because they had all the guns.



The invisible hand is not robbing us. The invisible hand is building society around us. Compare the Western World today to the Western World 200 years ago. The difference is night and day. Compare the world of 200 years ago to the world of 2000 years ago. The differences are negligable.

This was industrailization due to capitalism, improving the quality life everywhere thorughout the world.




Wage labor isn't coercive. You are not forced to work for anyone. You can sustain yourself any way possible. Coercion is communism, not capitalism. Capitalism is freedom.



In the USSR all you gained was the hand outs of a crumbling government. Their education, health care, jobs and paychecks were all failing. In capitalism, you can easily get all of this for a fraction of your income. In the Soviet Union, this was ALL you got because it was all the economy could handle -- the barest necessities.



You could put it in there. You already dictate where we can or can not post.

[redstar2000]

For a moment there, I thought we were going to have an intelligent discussion...but then you let me down, Publius.

Instead of reasoned argument, you just reply with dogmatic assertions like..."a Stalinist".

Perhaps an intelligent defender of capitalism will show up on this board one day and we can have a real discussion.

Meanwhile...


Because a corporation is singular in its purpose.

Only in the sense that its singular purpose is to maximize profit.

Major corporations manufacture and distribute thousands and even tens of thousands of different goods and services...most of them far more complicated than pencils.

It all gets done because a small number of people (top management) make the critical decisions that determine the major priorities, and a larger number of people (middle management) work out the detailed decisions, and a very large number of people do the actual work -- a.k.a. the working class.

There's nothing "invisible" about that and "faith" is not required.

But it is coercive as hell, especially at the bottom of that pyramid. Not having a job and a reliable paycheck is catastrophic!


Even the largest corporation is almost infinitely smaller than the economy itself.

There's already one corporation that has grown large enough to visibly affect "the official economic numbers" -- it's Wal-Mart.

If Marx was right, the concentration of capital will continue to accelerate right up to the end of the capitalist system itself.


Planned economies always fail, because the figures are always wrong.

Tell it to Wal-Mart...or any other corporate giant of the present day.

Sometimes planned economies fail...under capitalism, we call it "bankruptcy"...liquidation of the assets, paying off the creditors, dissolution of the corporation.

The USSR, Inc. went bankrupt in 1992.


The USSR had a horrible run before it tanked. Stalin tried to collectivize the farms in the Ukraine, to add them to the planned economy, it resulted in 6 million Ukrainian deaths.

The actual number was a little under 2,000,000 deaths. Take-overs can get pretty rough.

Still, the USSR, Inc. managed to hold off the Nazi take-over bid...no small achievement for what was, after all, a "start-up" only 20 years earlier.


The Soviet Union was held together not because its leaders could run an economy, but because they had all the guns.

Visit any American corporate location. See those guys with guns? Think they're there for "decoration"?


Compare the Western World today to the Western World 200 years ago. The difference is night and day.

Indisputable...but your point is obscure, to say the least.

However, speaking of comparisons, what you really ought to do is compare the industrialization of the USSR with the period of industrialization in the western countries.

How was life for an industrial worker in America in, say 1890, compared to a Russian worker in 1938?

I suspect that the Russian guy in 1938 was considerably better off than the American guy of 1890.


Wage labor isn't coercive. You are not forced to work for anyone. You can sustain yourself any way possible.

Good! I'll go sell marijuana. No? I'm not allowed to do that?

Actually, there are a whole bunch of ways that you are not allowed to "sustain yourself". In Florida, even begging is illegal (in some cities).

Best bet? Get your ass born rich. If you weren't such a lazy sod, you'd have been one of Sam Walton's kids and now worth a cool $12 billion just for making your way through Mrs. Walton's birth canal.

If you have enough income or accumulated wealth to live without a job, then and only then is wage-labor not coercive.

Otherwise, boy, get back to work!


In the USSR all you gained was the hand outs of a crumbling government. Their education, health care, jobs and paychecks were all failing. In capitalism, you can easily get all of this for a fraction of your income. In the Soviet Union, this was ALL you got because it was all the economy could handle -- the barest necessities.

Yeah, the USSR, Inc. was in pretty bad shape by 1992...though not as bad as Enron, Worldcom, etc.

Now, since Russia has returned to capitalism, millions of Russians don't get the "barest necessities" -- both the population and the life expectancy are declining.

Like "God", the "invisible hand" is invisible because it doesn't exist.


You already dictate where we can or can not post.

It's board policy. Supporters of capitalism are restricted to posting in this forum (including Religion) because we don't wish to be distracted by irrelevant posts in the serious forums.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Publius]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2005, 03:10 AM
For a moment there, I thought we were going to have an intelligent discussion...but then you let me down, Publius.

Instead of reasoned argument, you just reply with dogmatic assertions like..."a Stalinist".

Perhaps an intelligent defender of capitalism will show up on this board one day and we can have a real discussion.

Meanwhile...


Because a corporation is singular in its purpose.

Only in the sense that its singular purpose is to maximize profit.

Major corporations manufacture and distribute thousands and even tens of thousands of different goods and services...most of them far more complicated than pencils.

It all gets done because a small number of people (top management) make the critical decisions that determine the major priorities, and a larger number of people (middle management) work out the detailed decisions, and a very large number of people do the actual work -- a.k.a. the working class.

There's nothing "invisible" about that and "faith" is not required.

But it is coercive as hell, especially at the bottom of that pyramid. Not having a job and a reliable paycheck is catastrophic!


Even the largest corporation is almost infinitely smaller than the economy itself.

There's already one corporation that has grown large enough to visibly affect "the official economic numbers" -- it's Wal-Mart.

If Marx was right, the concentration of capital will continue to accelerate right up to the end of the capitalist system itself.


Planned economies always fail, because the figures are always wrong.

Tell it to Wal-Mart...or any other corporate giant of the present day.

Sometimes planned economies fail...under capitalism, we call it "bankruptcy"...liquidation of the assets, paying off the creditors, dissolution of the corporation.

The USSR, Inc. went bankrupt in 1992.


The USSR had a horrible run before it tanked. Stalin tried to collectivize the farms in the Ukraine, to add them to the planned economy, it resulted in 6 million Ukrainian deaths.

The actual number was a little under 2,000,000 deaths. Take-overs can get pretty rough.

Still, the USSR, Inc. managed to hold off the Nazi take-over bid...no small achievement for what was, after all, a "start-up" only 20 years earlier.


The Soviet Union was held together not because its leaders could run an economy, but because they had all the guns.

Visit any American corporate location. See those guys with guns? Think they're there for "decoration"?


Compare the Western World today to the Western World 200 years ago. The difference is night and day.

Indisputable...but your point is obscure, to say the least.

However, speaking of comparisons, what you really ought to do is compare the industrialization of the USSR with the period of industrialization in the western countries.

How was life for an industrial worker in America in, say 1890, compared to a Russian worker in 1938?

I suspect that the Russian guy in 1938 was considerably better off than the American guy of 1890.


Wage labor isn't coercive. You are not forced to work for anyone. You can sustain yourself any way possible.

Good! I'll go sell marijuana. No? I'm not allowed to do that?

Actually, there are a whole bunch of ways that you are not allowed to "sustain yourself". In Florida, even begging is illegal (in some cities).

Best bet? Get your ass born rich. If you weren't such a lazy sod, you'd have been one of Sam Walton's kids and now worth a cool $12 billion just for making your way through Mrs. Walton's birth canal.

If you have enough income or accumulated wealth to live without a job, then and only then is wage-labor not coercive.

Otherwise, boy, get back to work!


In the USSR all you gained was the hand outs of a crumbling government. Their education, health care, jobs and paychecks were all failing. In capitalism, you can easily get all of this for a fraction of your income. In the Soviet Union, this was ALL you got because it was all the economy could handle -- the barest necessities.

Yeah, the USSR, Inc. was in pretty bad shape by 1992...though not as bad as Enron, Worldcom, etc.

Now, since Russia has returned to capitalism, millions of Russians don't get the "barest necessities" -- both the population and the life expectancy are declining.

Like "God", the "invisible hand" is invisible because it doesn't exist.


You already dictate where we can or can not post.

It's board policy. Supporters of capitalism are restricted to posting in this forum (including Religion) because we don't wish to be distracted by irrelevant posts in the serious forums.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif
I'll admit I'm not the greatest defender of capitalism, but I think I'll suffice.



Yes, the purpose of corporations is to maximize profits. Don't use it like a pejoritive. It's not wrong.



No, you're ignoring my point. Yes, corporations are very complex, but regardless of how large they are, they still aren't a major part of the economy. The CEO of Ford doesn't have to worry about grain prices or prices of 99.9% of things. The central planning agency does. It's night and day.



It isn't coercive at all. Coercive is collectivism.




So there is one corporation that almost effects the whole economy, and even it is slowly losing market share to Target and wholesale retailers like Costco.

Capitalism isn't self-defeating as Marx proposed. He didn't mean capitalism would eventually fail, he meant it would fail soon. It didn't, and Marxist thought has since outlived it's relevance.




You're just commiting fallacies here. I bring up exactly why planned economies fail and you completely ignore it, you acknowldge the futility of planned economies only when taking a shot at capitalism.

I might not be the best defender of capitalism but apparently I don't need to be when I'm debating someone who ignores significant portions of my posts and commits egrigious logical fallacies.

And a corporation is not a planned economy. The economy is the whole, the corporation is the part.



Hahaha, 6 million deaths IS hilarious isn't it? I like a little bit of anti-capitalist humor with my mass murders as well.

Condoning 6 million deaths (Or 2 million as you maintain, wrong as that is) is morally disgusting.



Your capitalism metaphor isn't so much witty as farcical. Equating a mutually beneficial business deal such as Gilette being bought by P&G to war that caused 60 million deaths isn't funny, interesting, or anything other than morally repugnant.



The guns of capitalism are meant for protection, the guns of communism are meant for robbery.

The difference may be lost on you as protecting yourself means nothing in a collective society and robbery doesn't exist in your distopia, but those of us in the real world note the difference.



You left out the other part of my analogy. Why?

And the life of the Soviet worker was much easier because he didn't do anything and still got payed. That was always the appeal of collectivism. You don't have to work as long as someone else does: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need right? More like: From each according to his stupidity, to each according to his made-up need.




For someone as "enlightened" as yourself, you think you would be able to seperate an economic system such as capitalism from a government.

The government makes laws that restrict freedoms, not companies. Criticising capitalism because the government does something wrong is like criticising the color yellow because the sun burned your skin.



Do you know that a capitalist isn't one who owns the means of production, as you likely state, but someone who earned his own means of production? The Walton kids aren't capitalists because their wealth wasn't earned, their great father, was a capitalist because he earned his fortune.




Another non sequitir, while failing to admit to the failure of the Soviet Union, you take another shot at capitalism.

I'll admit the failure of certain capitalist entities such as Enron but you fail to admit to the failure of communist entities such as the Soviet Union. What does that say about you, your intelligence and your objectivity?

If you were so right, would you have to ignore evidence?



Now you state the "invisible hand" doesn't exist? The invisible hand is a metaphor for the free market forces creating products free from government planning or coercion.

Saying it doesn't exist is like saying heat doesn't exist because it too is invisible.





Hilarious. Can't handle the heat, obviously.

And as a side note, do you know who Publius is?

[Bianconero]

But does that mean that the only thing we can understand is our own "tiny fragment" of the process? The part that we personally do?

If that were true, then any form of cooperative labor would be very difficult...and certainly a massive corporation employing hundreds of thousands of people would be a flat-out impossibility. No human or small group of humans could even remotely grasp all the variables involved.

But corporations do exist...and some of them grow larger and larger with every passing year. How is that possible?

Computer technology helps...but you still have to know what to ask the computer to do.

The answer is to concentrate on the significant variables...and hope that you don't overlook one of them.

That's why a corporation is not only possible but practical -- its management (with greater or lesser competence) seeks out the significant variables and learns to understand those...and just ignores the rest.

The difference between a large corporation and a "command economy" is purely verbal; within the boundaries of a large corporation are found all the characteristics of a planned economy.

Up to and including a "great leader".

I recall reading an interesting note once: Cuba is the 72nd largest planned economy in the world today -- the other and larger 71 are huge multi-national corporations.

Of course, incompetence has its price -- both private and public corporations can be led into bankruptcy (Enron, the USSR). Important variables can be dismissed as insignificant; the leaders can be a bunch of crooks.

But if, for example, you evaluated the USSR in the same way that you evaluated a large corporation...the USSR had a pretty decent run before it tanked. Certainly vastly superior to Enron though admittedly inferior to General Electric. Stalin was a much better CEO than Ken Lay...though inferior to Jack Welch.

Comrade, can you tell me about some article/book where this is explained in greater detail? I've heard about an economist (not sure if he's an economist) named "Schweickhart."

I'd appreciate it, thanks in advance.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Bianconero+--> (Bianconero)Comrade, can you tell me about some article/book where this is explained in greater detail? I've heard about an economist (not sure if he's an economist) named "Schweickhart."[/b]

Never heard of him and google returned no results for Schweickhart + economist.

The analogy between planned economies and large corporations was inspired by the Cuba statistic -- which I ran across in an old issue of Harper's Magazine...probably in the "Harper's Index".


Publius
And as a side note, do you know who Publius is?

A knucklehead who decided to post on this board.

Historical references (532,000) here...

http://www.google.com/search?q=Publius&sou...:en-US:official (http://www.google.com/search?q=Publius&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official)


It isn't coercive at all. Coercive is collectivism.

I see. I explain something to you and you respond with a ringing declaration.

Have you considered a career in the higher clergy?


Capitalism isn't self-defeating as Marx proposed. He didn't mean capitalism would eventually fail, he meant it would fail soon. It didn't, and Marxist thought has since outlived its relevance.

Yes, Marx and Engels were rather chronically over-optimistic; I think perhaps it's an occupational hazard of revolutionary commitment.

But if Marxist thought had "outlived its relevance" then you wouldn't be here...because this board would not exist.


Condoning 6 million deaths (Or 2 million as you maintain, wrong as that is) is morally disgusting.

"Moral disgust" does not sit well on the face of a defender of capitalism; you have far too many skeletons in your own closet.

And yes, it really was a little under 2,000,000 deaths in the Ukraine; the higher figure comes from anti-Soviet Ukrainians (many of which were pro-Nazi during World War II).


Equating a mutually beneficial business deal such as Gillette being bought by P&G to war that caused 60 million deaths isn't funny, interesting, or anything other than morally repugnant.

Since you keep bringing it up...World War II was begun in Asia when Japan (a capitalist country) invaded China (a semi-feudal country). It began in Europe when Germany (a capitalist country) invaded Poland (also a capitalist country). In fact, besides China and the USSR, all of the participants in World War II were capitalist countries. Good job on the "moral front". :lol:

Now, your latest example of the concentration of capital -- that's going to mean big layoffs, isn't it? Thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of people are going to lose their jobs.

What do you think will happen to them?

Perhaps they should burn a candle to "The Invisible Hand"?

Or apply for a shitty job at Wal-Mart. :(


The guns of capitalism are meant for protection, the guns of communism are meant for robbery.

:lol: :lol: :lol:


And the life of the Soviet worker was much easier because he didn't do anything and still got paid.

Yeah...all those factories and dams and apartment blocks just up and built themselves. Maybe the USSR also had an "Invisible Hand".


Criticising capitalism because the government does something wrong is like criticising the color yellow because the sun burned your skin.

*yawns* Governments in capitalist societies are the executive committee of the capitalist class. You understand what that means? Laws are passed because it's thought that they will benefit the capitalist class as a whole...even though certain capitalists might suffer from them.


Do you know that a capitalist isn't one who owns the means of production, as you likely state, but someone who earned his own means of production?

Do you know that you're an ignoramus?

Probably not. <_<


I&#39;ll admit the failure of certain capitalist entities such as Enron but you fail to admit to the failure of communist entities such as the Soviet Union.

Hey...didn&#39;t I say flat out that the USSR, Inc. went bankrupt in 1992?

Besides, you are conflating a communist society with the claims of Leninists to be "ideological communists".

That&#39;s not your fault, of course...it&#39;s been the "accepted wisdom" since 1917 of both capitalist and Leninist ideologues.

Sometimes, "accepted wisdom" is just plain wrong.

What is Communism? A Brief Definition (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1082898978&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Publius]

A knucklehead who decided to post on this board.

Historical references (532,000) here...


How fitting, you don&#39;t who Publius is. Read the Federalist Papers, you might learn something.



I see. I explain something to you and you respond with a ringing declaration.

Have you considered a career in the higher clergy?

I doubt that would want me as I&#39;m an atheist.

I can respond with declarations when you respond with distortions, it&#39;s only fair.




Yes, Marx and Engels were rather chronically over-optimistic; I think perhaps it&#39;s an occupational hazard of revolutionary commitment.

But if Marxist thought had "outlived its relevance" then you wouldn&#39;t be here...because this board would not exist.

It isn&#39;t relevant, a lot of college kids THINK it&#39;s relevent, but it isn&#39;t.

Talk to someone who suffered under communism, someone who left the field of theory where you marxists feel so safe and secure and actually lived in a communistic hellhole.



"Moral disgust" does not sit well on the face of a defender of capitalism; you have far too many skeletons in your own closet.

And yes, it really was a little under 2,000,000 deaths in the Ukraine; the higher figure comes from anti-Soviet Ukrainians (many of which were pro-Nazi during World War II).

"Stalin’s Purges and Forced Famine [1932-1938]

Estimated Death Toll: Approx. 100-200,000 Jews; 5 million Ukrainians killed 1932-33, 14-15 million Soviet peasants 1930-37, and at least 3 million "enemies of the people" 1937-38.

During Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror in Russia and the Soviet Republics his regime killed or starved an estimated 15 million peasants, 5 million Ukrainians, 200,000 Jews; and as many as 3 million enemies of the state. Stalin used mass annihilation as a tactic to control dissent, force cooperation with state policies and to unify an incredibly diverse population people by targeting specific scapegoat groups.

Soviet Jews were killed as scapegoats, Ukrainian peasants were killed as part of Stalin’s collectivization pogrom and political opponents and intellectuals were killed as enemies of the state. The combined tragedy of the Soviet’s political genocide exceeds even the scope of the Nazi Holocaust.

Today’s revolts in Chechnya, Georgia and other former republics of the U.S.S.R., have deep roots in the atrocities of the Stalin era"

http://www.flashpoints.info/issue_briefing...nocide_main.htm (http://www.flashpoints.info/issue_briefings/Genocide/Genocide_main.htm)


I don&#39;t care what your communist symp site says. Communists have always denied the pass murders of Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin and Lenin. Even when they do admit to them, they try to reduce the figures or demonize the victims.

It never works.




Since you keep bringing it up...World War II was begun in Asia when Japan (a capitalist country) invaded China (a semi-feudal country). It began in Europe when Germany (a capitalist country) invaded Poland (also a capitalist country). In fact, besides China and the USSR, all of the participants in World War II were capitalist countries. Good job on the "moral front". :lol:

Now, your latest example of the concentration of capital -- that&#39;s going to mean big layoffs, isn&#39;t it? Thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of people are going to lose their jobs.

What do you think will happen to them?

Perhaps they should burn a candle to "The Invisible Hand"?

Or apply for a shitty job at Wal-Mart. :(


Germany wasn&#39;t capitalist, they were National Socialists. The industries were nationalized and controlled by the government to be used war purposes.

Italy was fascistic and fascism isn&#39;t capitalism.

In fascism major industries are controlled by the state and every other industry is grouped into a state-ran cartel.

Russia was obviously communistic.

Japan was nearly fuedalistic as well.


It seems to me this was a war of capitalism (The Allies and Russia) against Collectivism/communism/socialism/fascism (The Axis).

And Russia was never really an ally so you put them with the Axis.


Clearly you know nothing about history or fascism as fascism wasn&#39;t far right, but far left.



Yeah...all those factories and dams and apartment blocks just up and built themselves. Maybe the USSR also had an "Invisible Hand".

Maybe they did.

Yes, all that was impressive, but nothing compared to what the U.S. accomplished and the fact remains the same, bridges and buildings mean nothing when the people are starving.



*yawns* Governments in capitalist societies are the executive committee of the capitalist class. You understand what that means? Laws are passed because it&#39;s thought that they will benefit the capitalist class as a whole...even though certain capitalists might suffer from them.

Yawn. Another moron who doesn&#39;t know what the hell he&#39;s talking about.

You do know that capitalism is a free-market right? Lessaize-faire meaning hands off. A true capitalist economy has no government intervention.

Once the government intervenes, it&#39;s no longer capitalism, but mercantilism.

In a capitalist economy, laws are never passed that benefit the capitalists. That&#39;s a mercantilist economy.





Do you know that you&#39;re an ignoramus?

Probably not. <_<

Yet I&#39;m the only one here that knows anything about capitalism.


[quote]
Hey...didn&#39;t I say flat out that the USSR, Inc. went bankrupt in 1992?

Besides, you are conflating a communist society with the claims of Leninists to be "ideological communists".

That&#39;s not your fault, of course...it&#39;s been the "accepted wisdom" since 1917 of both capitalist and Leninist ideologues.

Sometimes, "accepted wisdom" is just plain wrong.

What is Communism? A Brief Definition (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1082898978&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif
[quote]

Playing the "The Soviets weren&#39;t REAL communists" card huh? That&#39;s a popular one among Marxists, it frees them from the failure that was the Soviet Union.

[Drathir]

Clearly you know nothing about history or fascism as fascism wasn&#39;t far right, but far left.

right... you need to read some more... just cause they called themselves socialist doesnt make them so... its like saying China is democratic cause its officialy the Democratic Republic of China...


I don&#39;t care what your communist symp site says. Communists have always denied the pass murders of Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin and Lenin. Even when they do admit to them, they try to reduce the figures or demonize the victims.

It never works.

ok... i wont deny that there were slaughters in the name of communism etc... but let me ask you this... how many Native Americans did the US government kill since they gained independance? Oh, and Stalin et al might have killed a lot of people, but none of their administration actually used an A-Bomb. If you tell me that the bombs were dropped so that american soldiers wouldnt die, you can go read up some history, as the japanese were gonna surrender anyway...


It isn&#39;t relevant, a lot of college kids THINK it&#39;s relevent, but it isn&#39;t.

Talk to someone who suffered under communism, someone who left the field of theory where you marxists feel so safe and secure and actually lived in a communistic hellhole.


Tell you what... you talk to some friends of mine... they have mental illnesses and have been laid off because of that, while that is legally not allowed, the shit happens anyway, and due to the lack of a universal health coverage in the US, they cant afford to see a shrink or get meds... plus medicare takes about 2 years to get, and they have to apply for SSDI about 10 times before actually getting it... and that process takes 7 months every time.(the average amount of times someone applies for SSDI before they actually get it because they have a mental illness in Texas is 14, and the country&#39;s average is 11)


Playing the "The Soviets weren&#39;t REAL communists" card huh? That&#39;s a popular one among Marxists, it frees them from the failure that was the Soviet Union.

If you really think that the Soviets were communists, that just goes to show how ignorant you are on communism. It was a dictatorial regime, nothing more, nothing less. Please, next time you talk, talk with a foundation for your opinion.

[Publius]

right... you need to read some more... just cause they called themselves socialist doesnt make them so... its like saying China is democratic cause its officialy the Democratic Republic of China...

1. We demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples.

2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in respect to the other nations; abrogation of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.

3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the sustenance of our people, and colonization for our surplus population.

4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the race.

5. Whoever has no citizenship is to be able to live in Germany only as a guest, and must be under the authority of legislation for foreigners.

6. The right to determine matters concerning administration and law belongs only to the citizen. Therefore we demand that every public office, of any sort whatsoever, whether in the Reich, the county or municipality, be filled only by citizens. We combat the corrupting parliamentary economy, office-holding only according to party inclinations without consideration of character or abilities.

7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens. If it is impossible to sustain the total population of the State, then the members of foreign nations (non-citizens) are to be expelled from the Reich.

8. Any further immigration of non-citizens is to be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans, who have immigrated to Germany since the 2 August 1914, be forced immediately to leave the Reich.

9. All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.

10. The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all Consequently we demand:

11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery.

12. In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).

14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.

15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.

16. We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality.

17. We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.

18. We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, Schieber and so forth are to be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.

19. We demand substitution of a German common law in place of the Roman Law serving a materialistic world-order.

20. The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbuergerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the State of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession.

21. The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.

22. We demand abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a national army.

23. We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press. In order to enable the provision of a German press, we demand, that: a. All writers and employees of the newspapers appearing in the German language be members of the race: b. Non-German newspapers be required to have the express permission of the State to be published. They may not be printed in the German language: c. Non-Germans are forbidden by law any financial interest in German publications, or any influence on them, and as punishment for violations the closing of such a publication as well as the immediate expulsion from the Reich of the non-German concerned. Publications which are counter to the general good are to be forbidden. We demand legal prosecution of artistic and literary forms which exert a destructive influence on our national life, and the closure of organizations opposing the above made demands.

24. We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: common utility precedes individual utility.

25. For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich. Unlimited authority of the central parliament over the whole Reich and its organizations in general. The forming of state and profession chambers for the execution of the laws made by the Reich within the various states of the confederation. The leaders of the Party promise, if necessary by sacrificing their own lives, to support by the execution of the points set forth above without consideration.





Read the bolded portions and tell me they weren&#39;t real socialists. They were a left-wing party. You just don&#39;t want to be associated with them.

It is true, they weren&#39;t communists, they supported some private property rights but large industries were cartelized and collectivized.

They were a socialist party in name and practice.



ok... i wont deny that there were slaughters in the name of communism etc... but let me ask you this... how many Native Americans did the US government kill since they gained independance? Oh, and Stalin et al might have killed a lot of people, but none of their administration actually used an A-Bomb. If you tell me that the bombs were dropped so that american soldiers wouldnt die, you can go read up some history, as the japanese were gonna surrender anyway...

Between 1 and 2 million Native Americans were killed. I&#39;m not condoning it but comparing a war between 2 groups (With some large massacres) to a government murdering millions of it&#39;s own citizens is insane. They are totally seperate.

You don&#39;t know as much about history as you think you do because I have a book on my book shelf that discusses this very issue. The A-Bomb saved between 2 and 4 million American and Japanese lives.

And until the first bomb was dropped there had not been a single discussion of surrender, in fact, they thought they could hold out against an American invasion.



Tell you what... you talk to some friends of mine... they have mental illnesses and have been laid off because of that, while that is legally not allowed, the shit happens anyway, and due to the lack of a universal health coverage in the US, they cant afford to see a shrink or get meds... plus medicare takes about 2 years to get, and they have to apply for SSDI about 10 times before actually getting it... and that process takes 7 months every time.(the average amount of times someone applies for SSDI before they actually get it because they have a mental illness in Texas is 14, and the country&#39;s average is 11)

What should I say to them? They need to get jobs or if they cannot, enter a care facility.

There are rescources for the destitute in situations like this namely charities.



If you really think that the Soviets were communists, that just goes to show how ignorant you are on communism. It was a dictatorial regime, nothing more, nothing less. Please, next time you talk, talk with a foundation for your opinion.


How were that not communists? They collectivized the industries, redistributed the wealth and did all that jazz.

[Drathir]

4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the race.

23. We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press. In order to enable the provision of a German press, we demand, that: a. All writers and employees of the newspapers appearing in the German language be members of the race: b. Non-German newspapers be required to have the express permission of the State to be published. They may not be printed in the German language: c. Non-Germans are forbidden by law any financial interest in German publications, or any influence on them, and as punishment for violations the closing of such a publication as well as the immediate expulsion from the Reich of the non-German concerned. Publications which are counter to the general good are to be forbidden. We demand legal prosecution of artistic and literary forms which exert a destructive influence on our national life, and the closure of organizations opposing the above made demands.

24. We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: common utility precedes individual utility.

Lesson no.1... in any communist society, all people are equal, without division due to race, sex, captitol or religion. Tis true, im sure that almost all communists are opposed to religious activity, but they wouldnt be as self-centered as a fascist to deny someone else the right to practice whatever religion they want. Plus its a well known fact that fascists hate socialists and communists... why else do you think Hitler invaded Russia? You must have thought that he wanted to see the Siberian tigers or something :P .


Between 1 and 2 million Native Americans were killed. I&#39;m not condoning it but comparing a war between 2 groups (With some large massacres) to a government murdering millions of it&#39;s own citizens is insane. They are totally seperate.

You don&#39;t know as much about history as you think you do because I have a book on my book shelf that discusses this very issue. The A-Bomb saved between 2 and 4 million American and Japanese lives.

And until the first bomb was dropped there had not been a single discussion of surrender, in fact, they thought they could hold out against an American invasion.

Ummm and Native Americans dont belong to this land which was originally theirs and stolen from them?

And here I thought you were intelligent enough not to form your decision based on one book. Its like reading Mein Kampf and stating that what was written there are facts.That being said, do tell me which book that is, im genuinenly interested in seeing where you come from, even if the basis for your opinion is a single book.


What should I say to them? They need to get jobs or if they cannot, enter a care facility.

There are rescources for the destitute in situations like this namely charities.

Right.. like there are enough charities to provide care for all tens of millions of Americans that dont have health insurance... They say ignorance is bliss, and you seem to be enjoying it... maybe I should tell my friends to do the same... that way they wont have to worry about how theyre gonna pay for their dinner from the next day. And besides, they might have a place to stay for a few weeks, but what about their kids? Some of em have even had to give away their children for adapotion due to an unexpected pregnancy and lack of funds.


How were that not communists? They collectivized the industries, redistributed the wealth and did all that jazz.

Lesson no.2... in a true communist society, everyones income would be the same, whether the person were the communist party leader or a farmhand.

[ComradeRed]

You don&#39;t know as much about history as you think you do because I have a book on my book shelf that discusses this very issue. The A-Bomb saved between 2 and 4 million American and Japanese lives.

And until the first bomb was dropped there had not been a single discussion of surrender, in fact, they thought they could hold out against an American invasion. The japanese factories were made out of wood. This made them vulnerable to fire, the US figured this out and fire bombed the lot. Japan thereby was running on very few supplies. How long can a war be fought without fuel, food, ammunition, or weapons?

According to Martin Gilbert&#39;s The Second World War, the Japanese came to surrender with only one condition: the Emperor lives. Of course, the US was too proud to accept this, since they boasted that only an uncoditional surrender would do. This meant the Japanese couldn&#39;t surrender&#33; Finally, after the bomb and the death of approximately 270000 civilians, the Japanese surrendered.


Germany wasn&#39;t capitalist, they were National Socialists. The industries were nationalized and controlled by the government to be used war purposes. The four year plan didn&#39;t nationalize the industries. If you assert that it did, provide proof.


Italy was fascistic and fascism isn&#39;t capitalism. No, the means of production resided in the hands of the capitalists, it remained capitalist. Provide proof that fascism is not capitalism.


In fascism major industries are controlled by the state and every other industry is grouped into a state-ran cartel. Proof.


Russia was obviously communistic.[sic] It was socialist.


Japan was nearly fuedalistic as well. They industrialized 70 years before WWII&#33; They began imperialist expeditions into Korea, they fought Russia over part of China, and began expanding into China in the thirties. China was "semi-feudal".


It seems to me this was a war of capitalism (The Allies and Russia) against Collectivism/communism/socialism/fascism (The Axis).

And Russia was never really an ally so you put them with the Axis. So Russia, an ally and an Axis[?], fought with and against Germany, Italy, the US, UK, France, Japan, and China? Despite the fact that Japan threatened to invade, Germany declared war on them, and the USSR was officially a member of the Allies?

As a matter of fact, Stalingrad was the turning of the European Theatre.


Clearly you know nothing about history or fascism as fascism wasn&#39;t far right, but far left. Try cracking open a book and reading rather than tossing them in a pile and burning them. All in the name of your holy "Invisible Hand", right?

[edit]:
The invisible hand is not robbing us. The invisible hand is building society around us. Compare the Western World today to the Western World 200 years ago. The difference is night and day. Compare the world of 200 years ago to the world of 2000 years ago. The differences are negligable. This is a terrible argument. This works for anything&#33; The slaves were much better of in 1859 than in 1759.

Under Stalinism, the Russians were much better off because they industrialized in one generation...that&#39;s why it had such an appeal and was such a threat to capitalists&#33; Don&#39;t get me wrong, Stalinism is bad, but it is better at the end of one generation than at its beginning. That&#39;s it&#39;s appeal to everywhere it was applied&#33;

That&#39;s why capitalism, which required several generations to industrialized, had no appeal&#33;

Capitalism is better off 100 years later, does that make it good? No&#33;

[ComradeRed]

Another non sequitir, while failing to admit to the failure of the Soviet Union, you take another shot at capitalism. Ah, argumentum ad ignorantium. You have no clue what you are talking about(i.e. you have no clue what the difference between socialism, marxism, leninism, stalinism, maoism, and communism) yet you continue to argue, despite your blatant stupidity...er, ignorance.

[Publius]

Lesson no.1... in any communist society, all people are equal, without division due to race, sex, captitol or religion. Tis true, im sure that almost all communists are opposed to religious activity, but they wouldnt be as self-centered as a fascist to deny someone else the right to practice whatever religion they want. Plus its a well known fact that fascists hate socialists and communists... why else do you think Hitler invaded Russia? You must have thought that he wanted to see the Siberian tigers or something :P .

O.K.

Call it "Racist socialism" if you like.

"It&#39;s a well known fact" usually means it&#39;s just your opinion.

Actually, Musollini WAS a socialist until he was kicked out of the party.

He agreed with them ideologically, as can be seen from his domestic policy, he just hated them because they didn&#39;t like him.

Like all dictators, he had ego problems.



Ummm and Native Americans dont belong to this land which was originally theirs and stolen from them?

And here I thought you were intelligent enough not to form your decision based on one book. Its like reading Mein Kampf and stating that what was written there are facts.That being said, do tell me which book that is, im genuinenly interested in seeing where you come from, even if the basis for your opinion is a single book.

Let me put it more bluntly. We were in a war. They lost.

It doesn&#39;t excuse what happend but it&#39;s the best explanation.

It doesn&#39;t matter how many books it&#39;s in. If it&#39;s true, it&#39;s true.

As Einstein said about the 100 books published to discredit him in Nazi Germany, "If what I said wasn&#39;t true, they would only need one".



Right.. like there are enough charities to provide care for all tens of millions of Americans that dont have health insurance... They say ignorance is bliss, and you seem to be enjoying it... maybe I should tell my friends to do the same... that way they wont have to worry about how theyre gonna pay for their dinner from the next day. And besides, they might have a place to stay for a few weeks, but what about their kids? Some of em have even had to give away their children for adapotion due to an unexpected pregnancy and lack of funds.

Most of those people can work, can save money and could afford health insurance if they really wanted it. They just choose to spend their money elsewhere.

Health care is incredibly cheap. Anyone with a job can afford it.

Only 2% of "poor" in America (People below the poverty line of which there are 35 million) in America suffer from hunger more than occasionally.

So 2% of 35 million ( 700,000 ) people in a country of 300 million suffer from chronic hunger.

And this could be stopped if they would get jobs.

Some of them shouldn&#39;t get pregnant because they don&#39;t have money to take care of children. How is it my problem that a bunch of poor people don&#39;t know how to keep their dick in their pants?

If all you have are emotionally charged but factually inaccurate sob stories, consider this debate done.



Lesson no.2... in a true communist society, everyones income would be the same, whether the person were the communist party leader or a farmhand.

Sure it would. It would happen exactly like that. /sarcasm

[Publius]

The japanese factories were made out of wood. This made them vulnerable to fire, the US figured this out and fire bombed the lot. Japan thereby was running on very few supplies. How long can a war be fought without fuel, food, ammunition, or weapons?

According to Martin Gilbert&#39;s The Second World War, the Japanese came to surrender with only one condition: the Emperor lives. Of course, the US was too proud to accept this, since they boasted that only an uncoditional surrender would do. This meant the Japanese couldn&#39;t surrender&#33; Finally, after the bomb and the death of approximately 270000 civilians, the Japanese surrendered.

According to historian Richard B. Frank, this is false.

Taken from What If 2, Richard B. Frank:

"To this day, no pre-Hiroshima document has been produced from Japan demonstrating that ny one of these eight men ever contemplated a termination of the war on any terms that coud, or should, have been acceptable to the United States and her allies"

The real death toll is between 100-200,000 as well.

Actually, letting him survive wasn&#39;t an option as he was the deity of the Japanese people. There could be no meaningful peace with their god around, to hinder our efforts.

And they were the losers, they should have sacraficed their emperor (Allowed us to try him) if they cared about human lives.

They did not.

The Japanese people suffered because of the arrogance of their leaders and for no other reason.



And Russia was never really an ally so you put them with the Axis. So Russia, an ally and an Axis[?], fought with and against Germany, Italy, the US, UK, France, Japan, and China? Despite the fact that Japan threatened to invade, Germany declared war on them, and the USSR was officially a member of the Allies?

As a matter of fact, Stalingrad was the turning of the European Theatre.[/quote]

I meant they fought against Germany but were nevery an ally of ours. As Rommel said, we shouldn&#39;t have stopped at Berlin, we should kept going until we reached Moscow.

True, Stalingrad was a great turning point.



Try cracking open a book and reading rather than tossing them in a pile and burning them. All in the name of your holy "Invisible Hand", right?

I venture to read I&#39;ve read more than you have.

For example, I know the true nature of Fascism whereas you don&#39;t.




This is a terrible argument. This works for anything&#33; The slaves were much better of in 1859 than in 1759.

No it isn&#39;t. It&#39;s showing the effects of industrial capitalism on the world.

[quote]
Under Stalinism, the Russians were much better off because they industrialized in one generation...that&#39;s why it had such an appeal and was such a threat to capitalists&#33; Don&#39;t get me wrong, Stalinism is bad, but it is better at the end of one generation than at its beginning. That&#39;s it&#39;s appeal to everywhere it was applied&#33;

That&#39;s why capitalism, which required several generations to industrialized, had no appeal&#33;

Capitalism is better off 100 years later, does that make it good? No&#33;

Capitalism is better, was better and always has been better than any form of collectivism be it fascism, socialism, communism or anarchism.

[ComradeRed]

"It&#39;s a well known fact" usually means it&#39;s just your opinion.

Actually, Musollini WAS a socialist until he was kicked out of the party.

He agreed with them ideologically, as can be seen from his domestic policy, he just hated them because they didn&#39;t like him. "Fascism is the complete opposite of Marxian socialism" -- Mussolini

Yeah, he&#39;s a marxist all right :rolleyes:



Let me put it more bluntly. We were in a war. They lost.

It doesn&#39;t excuse what happend but it&#39;s the best explanation.

It doesn&#39;t matter how many books it&#39;s in. If it&#39;s true, it&#39;s true. Let me put it as bluntly as possible: you made treaties, which you broke, with the Native Americans, and butchered thousands. That is your fault, there was no declaration of war, you killed innocents.


As Einstein said about the 100 books published to discredit him in Nazi Germany, "If what I said wasn&#39;t true, they would only need one". Wishful thinking fallacy.



Health care is incredibly cheap. Anyone with a job can afford it. Any rich bastard can afford it, I work and I can&#39;t afford it.



Only 2% of "poor" in America (People below the poverty line of which there are 35 million) in America suffer from hunger more than occasionally. I eat an average of two meals a day, one being coffee the other being -ussually- some form of meat (whatever is cheapest). What does it mean to suffer from hunger more than occassionally? Is it because I eat twice as opposed to once that I don&#39;t suffer?



So 2% of 35 million ( 700,000 ) people in a country of 300 million suffer from chronic hunger.

And this could be stopped if they would get jobs. Argumentum ad lazarum, I have a job and I starve. Not everyone who doesn&#39;t work is from choice, they don&#39;t all choose not to work.

Boy, ain&#39;t capitalism grand :rolleyes: Further, capitalism encourages farmers to destroy crops to raise the prices, the supply goes down while the demand remains constant. What a great system&#33; And the farmers are paid to do so&#33;

[ComradeRed]

According to historian Richard B. Frank, this is false.

Taken from What If 2, Richard B. Frank:

"To this day, no pre-Hiroshima document has been produced from Japan demonstrating that [a]ny one of these eight men ever contemplated a termination of the war on any terms that coud, or should, have been acceptable to the United States and her allies" Which "any of these 8 men"?


The real death toll is between 100-200,000 as well. Proof? From Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki)
By the end of 1945, it is estimated that 60,000 more people died due to nuclear fallout sickness, bringing the total killed in Hiroshima in 1945 to 140,000. Since then several thousand more people have died of radiation-related causes.[5] (http://www.rerf.or.jp/eigo/faqs/faqse.htm) (According to the city of Hiroshima, as of August 6, 2004, the cumulative death toll of atomic-bomb victims was 237,062, but it remains uncertain how many of them exactly died of the effects of the bombing.



Actually, letting him survive wasn&#39;t an option as he was the deity of the Japanese people. There could be no meaningful peace with their god around, to hinder our efforts.

And they were the losers, they should have sacraficed their emperor (Allowed us to try him) if they cared about human lives.

They did not.

The Japanese people suffered because of the arrogance of their leaders and for no other reason. ARgumentum ad ignorantium. This is all baseless speculation.



I meant they fought against Germany but were nevery an ally of ours. As Rommel said, we shouldn&#39;t have stopped at Berlin, we should kept going until we reached Moscow. Ironic you are taking advice from a NAZI.



I venture to read I&#39;ve read more than you have.

For example, I know the true nature of Fascism whereas you don&#39;t. Self-evidently you don&#39;t the "true nature" of anything&#33; Try reading Mussolini&#39;s "What is fascism" or is that not on your reptoire?



No it isn&#39;t. It&#39;s showing the effects of industrial capitalism on the world. What are you talking about? It is showing that after a significant period of time after something started, it always gets better.



Capitalism is better, was better and always has been better than any form of collectivism be it fascism, socialism, communism or anarchism. Wishful thinking fallacy, argumentum ad ignorantium, Homunculus fallacy, and Argumentum ad crumenam.

[Publius]

He agreed with them ideologically, as can be seen from his domestic policy, he just hated them because they didn&#39;t like him. "Fascism is the complete opposite of Marxian socialism" -- Mussolini

Yeah, he&#39;s a marxist all right :rolleyes:

Mussolini criticized "the selfish pursuit of material prosperity"

said that fascism was " a reaction against the flaccis materialistic positism of the 19th century"

He urged Italians to stop reading Adam Smith and "the economistic literature of the 18th century"

"IF the nineteenth century was the century of the individual this is the collective century and therefore is the century of the state....Fascism spells government."


But of course all of this is meaningless because actions speak louder than words.

Mussilini and his cronies nationalized industry, cartelized industry and ran the economy as they saw fit.

Government made sure that the "principle of private initiaitive" didn&#39;t get in the way of the government.

So yeah, he didn&#39;t like Marx, but he was a socialist in speak and in action.

EDIT: All of this taken from How Capitalism Saved America by Thomas DiLorenzo, read it some time.



Let me put it as bluntly as possible: you made treaties, which you broke, with the Native Americans, and butchered thousands. That is your fault, there was no declaration of war, you killed innocents.

As I said, I don&#39;t agree with the killings but it WAS a war. I don&#39;t the fact that we broke treaties and slaughtered innocents but it did.

It was a war, with atrocities on both sides, which they lost.



Wishful thinking fallacy.

Firstly, that isn&#39;t an actual logical fallacy.

Second, what I said was true so it isn&#39;t relevent.



Any rich bastard can afford it, I work and I can&#39;t afford it.

Sell your computer/tv/jewelry/something else.



I eat an average of two meals a day, one being coffee the other being -ussually- some form of meat (whatever is cheapest). What does it mean to suffer from hunger more than occassionally? Is it because I eat twice as opposed to once that I don&#39;t suffer?

What is it that you do, if you don&#39;t mind me asking?



Argumentum ad lazarum, I have a job and I starve. Not everyone who doesn&#39;t work is from choice, they don&#39;t all choose not to work.

Boy, ain&#39;t capitalism grand :rolleyes: Further, capitalism encourages farmers to destroy crops to raise the prices, the supply goes down while the demand remains constant. What a great system&#33; And the farmers are paid to do so&#33;

Compare your minor discomfort (You have a tv, a computer, a place to stay with heat, air conditioning, food) to the outright poverty of every communistic state.

Notice how you are slightly uncomfortable and they are all starving to death.

[ComradeRed]

Mussilini and his cronies nationalized industry, cartelized industry and ran the economy as they saw fit.

Government made sure that the "principle of private initiaitive" didn&#39;t get in the way of the government. Proof. What laws did this, what did he do? You can&#39;t say "well, I read in this libretarian book that this happened so it must be true" Give me the exact proof, not opinion.


As I said, I don&#39;t agree with the killings but it WAS a war. I don&#39;t the fact that we broke treaties and slaughtered innocents but it did.

It was a war, with atrocities on both sides, which they lost. There was no declaration of war, how can it be called a war?



Firstly, that isn&#39;t an actual logical fallacy.

Second, what I said was true so it isn&#39;t relevent. First, your entire rebuttle is "I&#39;m right your wrong, and it isn&#39;t a fallacy" You can&#39;t do that&#33; Why isn&#39;t it a fallacy? Secondly, provide proof, not your "I&#39;m right&#33; I&#39;m right&#33; I&#39;m right&#33; I&#39;m right&#33;" argument; by the way your committing an argumentum ad logicum.



Sell your computer/tv/jewelry/something else. I&#39;m using the public library&#39;s computer. Do you suggest, then, that I sell my only pair of pants, my two shirts, or my jacket?



What is it that you do, if you don&#39;t mind me asking? I&#39;m a wage slave, damn it, and forced by coercion to do so.



Compare your minor discomfort (You have a tv, a computer, a place to stay with heat, air conditioning, food) to the outright poverty of every communistic state.

Notice how you are slightly uncomfortable and they are all starving to death. You assume too much. I live in an appartment, I have no TV, computer, nor could I afford heating, air conditioning, and barely afford food.

Notice how poor I am&#33; I go to free clinics because the bourgeois doctors won&#39;t hold up their hippocratic oath(how hypocratic&#33;).

The outright poverty comment, argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy again.

[Publius]

Proof. What laws did this, what did he do? You can&#39;t say "well, I read in this libretarian book that this happened so it must be true" Give me the exact proof, not opinion.

He used government cartels to control industries.

He set up organizations such as the National Fascist Confederation of Commerce and the National Fascist Confederation of Credit and Insurance to prop up prices, set wages, control output and run the economy.

He did it to eliminate competition and use the government to enforce monopolies.



here was no declaration of war, how can it be called a war?

Was Vietnam a war? How about Korea? Afganistan, Iraq?



First, your entire rebuttle is "I&#39;m right your wrong, and it isn&#39;t a fallacy" You can&#39;t do that&#33; Why isn&#39;t it a fallacy? Secondly, provide proof, not your "I&#39;m right&#33; I&#39;m right&#33; I&#39;m right&#33; I&#39;m right&#33;" argument; by the way your committing an argumentum ad logicum.

Actually, I forget what the original point was about.



I&#39;m using the public library&#39;s computer. Do you suggest, then, that I sell my only pair of pants, my two shirts, or my jacket?

Hmm, quite the dire straights.



I&#39;m a wage slave, damn it, and forced by coercion to do so.

You aren&#39;t coerced at all. Coercion is working under the threat of gun.



You assume too much. I live in an appartment, I have no TV, computer, nor could I afford heating, air conditioning, and barely afford food.

Notice how poor I am&#33; I go to free clinics because the bourgeois doctors won&#39;t hold up their hippocratic oath(how hypocratic&#33;).

The outright poverty comment, argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy again.

There really isn&#39;t much to say, in regards to that.

[Publius]

Which "any of these 8 men"?

The emperor, the Prime minister, the war minister, foreign minister, chief of staff, chief of the navy, and the emperor&#39;s advisors.


Proof? From Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki)
By the end of 1945, it is estimated that 60,000 more people died due to nuclear fallout sickness, bringing the total killed in Hiroshima in 1945 to 140,000. Since then several thousand more people have died of radiation-related causes.[5] (http://www.rerf.or.jp/eigo/faqs/faqse.htm) (According to the city of Hiroshima, as of August 6, 2004, the cumulative death toll of atomic-bomb victims was 237,062, but it remains uncertain how many of them exactly died of the effects of the bombing.

It&#39;s what the book says. Surely a less dubious source than an online enyclopedia anyone can edit?



ARgumentum ad ignorantium. This is all baseless speculation.

So the Japanse DIDN&#39;T regard the emperor as a deity?

They weren&#39;t willing to fight to the last man for their homeland?

I have nothing wrong with you pointing out the logical fallacies in my argument, it really is beneficial to me, but it isn&#39;t arguing from ignorance when something is known.

Yes, we cannot say exactly what would have happend but just as you state the bombing was wrong, I state it was right.

How are you not arguing from ignorance by claiming the bombing was wrong?




Ironic you are taking advice from a NAZI.

I wrote down Rommel. What was I thinking? I meant Patton.

I really have no idea why I wrote down Rommel, though I&#39;m sure he agreed with the sentiment.

My mistake.



Self-evidently you don&#39;t the "true nature" of anything&#33; Try reading Mussolini&#39;s "What is fascism" or is that not on your reptoire?

I might get around to it.



What are you talking about? It is showing that after a significant period of time after something started, it always gets better.

Something always gets better after a significant period of time?

Like cancer? That also might qualify for argumentum ad antiquitatem.



Wishful thinking fallacy, argumentum ad ignorantium, Homunculus fallacy, and Argumentum ad crumenam.

Oops.

[Osman Ghazi]

"To this day, no pre-Hiroshima document has been produced from Japan demonstrating that [a]ny one of these eight men ever contemplated a termination of the war on any terms that coud, or should, have been acceptable to the United States and her allies"

There was an offer to surrender as long as the Emperor remained Head of State. After they accepted the unconditional surrender of Japan, they allowed Hirohito to remain as Emperor.

Therefore, the conditions of the original offer of surrender were in fact acceptable, making the quoted statement untrue.

[Publius]

We left him in place as a figurehead, he had no real power.

The choice was up the Japanese, they could have surrendered unconditionally at any time.

They started the war, they can stop it.

I&#39;m no proponent of an eye for an eye because I don&#39;t support civilian deaths but if those leaders had any respect for life or their people, they would have stepped down.

They did not.

They opened themselves up to any and all of our weapons.

We even warned them in writing that anything short of unconditional surrender would not be acceptable.

And the above statement is true for a number of different reasons.

1. no DOCUMENT has been found.

2. "acceptable terms" I don&#39;t know all the terms that were talked about, but I&#39;m sure they far from unconditional surrender.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Publius
I really have no idea why I wrote down Rommel...

Hmm...a famous Nazi general.

I think I have a pretty good idea why you wrote down his name. :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[ComradeRed]

We left him in place as a figurehead, he had no real power. He never had power&#33;



It&#39;s what the book says. Surely a less dubious source than an online enyclopedia anyone can edit? You can&#39;t assert that without proof. Poisoning the well.


So the Japanse DIDN&#39;T regard the emperor as a deity?

They weren&#39;t willing to fight to the last man for their homeland?

I have nothing wrong with you pointing out the logical fallacies in my argument, it really is beneficial to me, but it isn&#39;t arguing from ignorance when something is known. The Japanese did warship the Emperor as a God...that&#39;s why there only condition of surrendering was to let the Emperor live&#33; When you run out of food and supplies, logically morale runs out next; couincidentally it did happen(Martin Gilbert&#39;s factual book as opposed to the "What if pt.II").



Yes, we cannot say exactly what would have happend but just as you state the bombing was wrong, I state it was right.

How are you not arguing from ignorance by claiming the bombing was wrong? Martin Gilbert&#39;s Book&#33; It&#39;s based on fact, not speculation of "what if...". It is fact that the Japanese factories were made out of wood, it is fact that the U&#036; firebombed the Japanese factories, and it is fact that this caused the Japanese supplies to run low. The reason why the bomb was dropped was to show the "godless commies" that the "free capitalists" have a superior weapon at their disposal.



I might get around to it. Yeah, one of these days maybe you&#39;ll read what fascism is according to fascists.



Something always gets better after a significant period of time?

Like cancer? That also might qualify for argumentum ad antiquitatem. Tu quoque. You aren&#39;t listening, your argument can be used with any form of government or economic system. According to you, because man is better off in 2005 rather than 1700, capitalism must be the cause and makes it good. Wrong. Stalinism made the Russian life better in 1950 compared to 1850, the Chinese man&#39;s life in 2000 is better than in 1910. Does that mean Stalinism is good? It applies to slavery too, the slaves&#39; life in 1850 was better than in 1750, your logic dictates slavery is good. Doesn&#39;t surprise me to hear that from a capitalist.



He used government cartels to control industries.

He set up organizations such as the National Fascist Confederation of Commerce and the National Fascist Confederation of Credit and Insurance to prop up prices, set wages, control output and run the economy.

He did it to eliminate competition and use the government to enforce monopolies. Proof? And did these monopolies reside in the hands of private individuals?


Was Vietnam a war? How about Korea? Afganistan, Iraq? All genocides.


Hmm, quite the dire straights. I&#39;ll give you a bigger hint, and restate everything which is obvious. I use the PUBLIC LIBRARY&#39;s computer, and I&#39;m on most of the day. I&#39;m POOR. What could I do? I work at the library[hint hint hint].


You aren&#39;t coerced at all. Coercion is working under the threat of gun. Actually, it is better defined as working under the threat of losing your life. This has been argued at the point of a gun which you lose your life from, however the point is that you worked or die.


And the above statement is true for a number of different reasons.

1. no DOCUMENT has been found.

2. "acceptable terms" I don&#39;t know all the terms that were talked about, but I&#39;m sure they far from unconditional surrender. How many books have you read about the surrender of Japan? As a Librarian, I&#39;ve seen a good deal, and read quite a few myself.

[Publius]

He never had power&#33;

He had power. Never much, it was mostly ran by the military ring, but he had power.



You can&#39;t assert that without proof. Poisoning the well.

Give me 5 minutes and I&#39;ll change that number.

Would it be right after I change it?

Anything on Wikipedia can be assumed untrue until substantiated.


So the Japanse DIDN&#39;T regard the emperor as a deity?

They weren&#39;t willing to fight to the last man for their homeland?

[quote]
The Japanese did warship the Emperor as a God...that&#39;s why there only condition of surrendering was to let the Emperor live&#33; When you run out of food and supplies, logically morale runs out next; couincidentally it did happen(Martin Gilbert&#39;s factual book as opposed to the "What if pt.II").

If they were out of morale, why didn&#39;t they surrender?



Martin Gilbert&#39;s Book&#33; It&#39;s based on fact, not speculation of "what if...". It is fact that the Japanese factories were made out of wood, it is fact that the U&#036; firebombed the Japanese factories, and it is fact that this caused the Japanese supplies to run low. The reason why the bomb was dropped was to show the "godless commies" that the "free capitalists" have a superior weapon at their disposal.

I know we firebombed them.

It was a war. If they didn&#39;t want their cities firebombed they could have not started the war.

If they didn&#39;t want nuked they could have not started the war.

Until they signed a peace treaty, they were fair game/



Yeah, one of these days maybe you&#39;ll read what fascism is according to fascists.

The quotes I presented weren&#39;t from a fascist? They didn&#39;t cartelize industries?

I might get around to reading it but until then you can appease me by explaining away those facts.



Tu quoque. You aren&#39;t listening, your argument can be used with any form of government or economic system. According to you, because man is better off in 2005 rather than 1700, capitalism must be the cause and makes it good. Wrong. Stalinism made the Russian life better in 1950 compared to 1850, the Chinese man&#39;s life in 2000 is better than in 1910. Does that mean Stalinism is good? It applies to slavery too, the slaves&#39; life in 1850 was better than in 1750, your logic dictates slavery is good. Doesn&#39;t surprise me to hear that from a capitalist.

I was comparing the increase in betterment, not the fact that there was bettermeant. You aren&#39;t listening.

The increase in those 200 years was greater than the previous 2000.

It&#39;s true that China and Russia improved their standards of living but not in a manner comparable to the capitalist west.



Proof? And did these monopolies reside in the hands of private individuals?

They were quoted from How Capitalism Saved America which cited Bolshevism, Fascism and Capitalism by Luigi Villari, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions by Mussolini, The Italian Corporative State by Fausto Pitigliani and foreward to Benito Mussolini, My Autobiography by Richard Washburn Child.

Look into them if you care.



All genocides.

Incorrect.



Actually, it is better defined as working under the threat of losing your life. This has been argued at the point of a gun which you lose your life from, however the point is that you worked or die.

You don&#39;t need a job to survive.



How many books have you read about the surrender of Japan? As a Librarian, I&#39;ve seen a good deal, and read quite a few myself.

4 that I remember, maybe more.

I&#39;ll look into a few more though.

Any reccomendations?

[ComradeRed]

He had power. Never much, it was mostly ran by the military ring, but he had power. After the 1860s(I think it was 1865) when Admiral Perry came to Japan and ended the Tokagawa Shogunate, the Emperor received power and so did his advisers. But after the government was reorganized, the power passed to the leader of the diet (modeled after Germany&#39;s Reichstag and Britain&#39;s Parliament). Nevertheless, the Emperor retained some power. It wasn&#39;t until the Russo-Japanese war and afterwards that the Emperor became a fighurehead again (because of the rampant militarism and imperialism).



If they were out of morale, why didn&#39;t they surrender? Ad circulum. They tried to conditionally surrender, the U&#036; bragged about being too proud to accept a surrender other than an unconditional one.



I know we firebombed them.

It was a war. If they didn&#39;t want their cities firebombed they could have not started the war.

If they didn&#39;t want nuked they could have not started the war.

Until they signed a peace treaty, they were fair game/ Using your logic, because the US invaded the middle east, if the middle east nukes LA and New York it&#39;s "fair game".



The quotes I presented weren&#39;t from a fascist? They didn&#39;t cartelize industries?

I might get around to reading it but until then you can appease me by explaining away those facts. Here are some quotes from Mussolini:

Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number...

Fascism believes now and always in sanctity and heroism Interestingly, so does Objectivism.

In rejecting democracy Fascism rejects the absurd conventional lie of political equalitarianism, the habit of collective irresponsibility, the myth of felicity and indefinite progress.

The Ministry of Corporations is not a bureaucratic organ, nor does it wish to exercise the functions of syndical organizations...since they aim at organizing, selecting and improving the members of syndicates. No syndicates? No collectivization? Yeah, the&#39;yre real socialists all right :rolleyes:


I was comparing the increase in betterment, not the fact that there was bettermeant. You aren&#39;t listening.

The increase in those 200 years was greater than the previous 2000. Yes, so was I. The increase in betterment in the USSR&#39;s 20 years matched the U&#036;&#39; [then] 80 years. The increase in those 20 years were better than the previous 2000.


It&#39;s true that China and Russia improved their standards of living but not in a manner comparable to the capitalist west. I disagree, here&#39;s why: the USSR changed in less than 20 years from a feudal society to a [then] modern society. They industrialized in less than 20 years&#33; England took about a century and a half to fully industrialize, and the USSR took one seventh (that&#39;s 14.28571%) the amount of time Britain took.

That&#39;s an impressive achievement, although today in an industrialized siociety it seems rather...statistical rather than an achievement. But why do you think Stalinism had an appeal? It sounds "cool"? Or that it industrializes in one generation?


They were quoted from How Capitalism Saved America which cited Bolshevism, Fascism and Capitalism by Luigi Villari, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions by Mussolini, The Italian Corporative State by Fausto Pitigliani and foreward to Benito Mussolini, My Autobiography by Richard Washburn Child. I meant that he actually nationalized the industry, not that he boasted that he&#39;d nationalize it.

Orwell rightly described fascism as being an extension of capitalism. It is an economy in which the government serves the interests of oligopolies, a state in which large corporations have the powers that in a democracy devolve to the citizen. From GIULIANI, JEWS, ART & FASCISM BY Sam Smith.



Incorrect.
200000+ Vietnamese are listed as killed in a conflict that has no declaration of war. That is a genocide. 500000+ North Koreans killed, with no declaration of war. What do you call it besides a mere "conflict"?



You don&#39;t need a job to survive. If I pray really hard food and shelter will fall from the sky, along with 5000 virgins, right? :rolleyes:



4 that I remember, maybe more.

I&#39;ll look into a few more though.

Any reccomendations? The best I&#39;ve seen was Martin Gilbert&#39;s The Second World War, but also The Mystery of Fascism by David Ramsay Steele.

[Publius]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31 2005, 11:57 PM



4 that I remember, maybe more.

I&#39;ll look into a few more though.

Any reccomendations? The best I&#39;ve seen was Martin Gilbert&#39;s The Second World War, but also The Mystery of Fascism by David Ramsay Steele.


After the 1860s(I think it was 1865) when Admiral Perry came to Japan and ended the Tokagawa Shogunate, the Emperor received power and so did his advisers. But after the government was reorganized, the power passed to the leader of the diet (modeled after Germany&#39;s Reichstag and Britain&#39;s Parliament). Nevertheless, the Emperor retained some power. It wasn&#39;t until the Russo-Japanese war and afterwards that the Emperor became a fighurehead again (because of the rampant militarism and imperialism).


I know it was the military junta in controll of the wars, but Hirohito was more than complacent in his support and his opinion was less than that of most figurehead leaders because he was viewed as a God. His support was necessary for the regime to have legitimacy among the people.

But yes, you are correct.



Ad circulum. They tried to conditionally surrender, the U&#036; bragged about being too proud to accept a surrender other than an unconditional one.

But they started the war that resulted in 10s of millions of deaths. They can make some concessions.

We said "Unconditional Surrender", they said "No".



Using your logic, because the US invaded the middle east, if the middle east nukes LA and New York it&#39;s "fair game".

True. That&#39;s what we&#39;re trying to prevent. They see this as a total war and we need to stop them from turning it into one.




Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number...

Fascism believes now and always in sanctity and heroism Interestingly, so does Objectivism.

In rejecting democracy Fascism rejects the absurd conventional lie of political equalitarianism, the habit of collective irresponsibility, the myth of felicity and indefinite progress.

The Ministry of Corporations is not a bureaucratic organ, nor does it wish to exercise the functions of syndical organizations...since they aim at organizing, selecting and improving the members of syndicates. No syndicates? No collectivization? Yeah, the&#39;yre real socialists all right :rolleyes:

A syndicate by any other name would still smell so collective. He can say whatever he likes, but cartelizing an industry is an act of government intervention in the economy.

All socialists say they support "competition" and mean to "help" it by cartelizing industries but once government takes action to collectivize it, competition is removed.




Yes, so was I. The increase in betterment in the USSR&#39;s 20 years matched the U&#036;&#39; [then] 80 years. The increase in those 20 years were better than the previous 2000.

No it wasn&#39;t. They had horrible products, massive starvation and a repressive government.

Soviet industrialization was a failure. They built factories but produced things horribly, had no product innovation, copied western ideas and forced people to work at gun point.

Saying their industrialization was quicker isn&#39;t true because it never reached western levels in terms of production, efficiency, quality or any other level.

If their industrialization was successful, they wouldn&#39;t have starved.





I disagree, here&#39;s why: the USSR changed in less than 20 years from a feudal society to a [then] modern society. They industrialized in less than 20 years&#33; England took about a century and a half to fully industrialize, and the USSR took one seventh (that&#39;s 14.28571%) the amount of time Britain took.

That&#39;s an impressive achievement, although today in an industrialized siociety it seems rather...statistical rather than an achievement. But why do you think Stalinism had an appeal? It sounds "cool"? Or that it industrializes in one generation?

I didn&#39;t know Stalinism ever had any appeal with anyone other than Stalin. It was never very good.



I meant that he actually nationalized the industry, not that he boasted that he&#39;d nationalize it.

Orwell rightly described fascism as being an extension of capitalism. It is an economy in which the government serves the interests of oligopolies, a state in which large corporations have the powers that in a democracy devolve to the citizen. From GIULIANI, JEWS, ART & FASCISM BY Sam Smith.

Capitalism is the government staying out of the economy.

When the market and economy converge, you have socialism, or fascism.

They are the same thing. The government controlling the market.

Companies were forced to produce what the government wanted. That&#39;s nationalization.



200000+ Vietnamese are listed as killed in a conflict that has no declaration of war. That is a genocide. 500000+ North Koreans killed, with no declaration of war. What do you call it besides a mere "conflict"?

They were conflicts. Wars without declarations.

A genocide isn&#39;t the same thing as a conflict.

And if those 2 countries didn&#39;t decide to invade their neigbors, none of those deaths would have happend.

Though I do not support Vietnam or Korea. They were no concern of ours.


And I&#39;ll look into those books.

I recently got one that might interest you:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/157...7915838-1863140 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1576753018/104-7915838-1863140)

[ComradeRed]

We said "Unconditional Surrender", they said "No". Not exactly. The U&#036; said "Unconditional surrender" the Japanese said "Only on one condition".


True. That&#39;s what we&#39;re trying to prevent. They see this as a total war and we need to stop them from turning it into one. So if the Middle East nukes the U&#036;, it&#39;s just?


A syndicate by any other name would still smell so collective. He can say whatever he likes, but cartelizing an industry is an act of government intervention in the economy.

All socialists say they support "competition" and mean to "help" it by cartelizing industries but once government takes action to collectivize it, competition is removed. And yet, what occurred in practice was the means of production remained in the hands of "private individuals".


No it wasn&#39;t. They had horrible products, massive starvation and a repressive government. So does the U&#036;.


Soviet industrialization was a failure. They built factories but produced things horribly, had no product innovation, copied western ideas and forced people to work at gun point.

Saying their industrialization was quicker isn&#39;t true because it never reached western levels in terms of production, efficiency, quality or any other level. The point remains that they lived better then compared to 2000 years ago(or however long your comparison was). It applies to Stalinism, using your logic Stalinism is good.


If their industrialization was successful, they wouldn&#39;t have starved. :lol: The foundry tried to make food, but they had to steel it :lol:


They were conflicts. Wars without declarations.

A genocide isn&#39;t the same thing as a conflict. Your right, they didn&#39;t take U&#036; oppression sitting down. The point remains that it was illegal, unjust, and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.

[Publius]

Not exactly. The U&#036; said "Unconditional surrender" the Japanese said "Only on one condition".

...which wasn&#39;t gonna cut it.


So if the Middle East nukes the U&#036;, it&#39;s just?

I wouldn&#39;t say just, but maybe justified.


And yet, what occurred in practice was the means of production remained in the hands of "private individuals".
owned by private individuals, controlled by the government.

Yes. And private ownership exists in socialism.



So does the U&#036;.

Name a poor product.

What&#39;s the starvation rate or number of starving?

How is the government repressive?

Question, is it witty to type a dollar sign instead of the S? I didn&#39;t see how it&#39;s so biting a criticism so say the U.S. is rich, wealth is good, but I don&#39;t see how it&#39;s really that witty.


O.K. Using my logic Stalinism is better but capitalism is even better than Stalinism.

That&#39;s about right.

[quote]Farm products. Transportation. Consumer products.

There is more to food than the food itself.



Your right, they didn&#39;t take U&#036; oppression sitting down. The point remains that it was illegal, unjust, and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.

How was the U.S. oppressing the North Koreans and the North Vietnamese?

Maybe the Japanese and the French, but no the U.S.

[quote

[ComradeRed]

...which wasn&#39;t gonna cut it. But you admit they tried to surrender. That&#39;s my point.



owned by private individuals, controlled by the government. Capitalism requires only that "private or corporate ownership of capital"; whoever says "I need you to make me x number of z" is irrelevant. That makes fascism capitalist, yes.


Name a poor product. Cars, they keep exploding.


What&#39;s the starvation rate or number of starving?


How is the government repressive? Try going out into the theatre and shouting fire; or better yet try to voice your opinion. There have been innumerable cases of people being censored (e.g. Sherman, Mumia jamal, etc.), this is repression.


O.K. Using my logic Stalinism is better but capitalism is even better than Stalinism.

That&#39;s about right. No, you still don&#39;t understand. You compare capitalism to 200 years ago and claim its the best system because of how great it is now rather than then. This supposedly makes it good.

Yet that argument can be used for anything. Slaves were better off in 1850 rather than 1750, your logic dictates slavery is good. Russians were better off in 1960 rather than 1860, therefore Stalinism is good. Yet you argue they&#39;re bad, however your logic dictates they&#39;re good. There is a contradiction in your logic.


There is more to food than the food itself. And World War I had no effect on the production of agriculture, that it was entirely the fault of "evil communism".



How was the U.S. oppressing the North Koreans and the North Vietnamese?

Maybe the Japanese and the French, but no the U.S. The U&#036; came in where France and Japan ended, they butchered, raped, pillaged, etc. But this isn&#39;t oppression? What is it? "Liberation"?

[Publius]

But you admit they tried to surrender. That&#39;s my point.

Didn&#39;t try to hard.



Capitalism requires only that "private or corporate ownership of capital"; whoever says "I need you to make me x number of z" is irrelevant. That makes fascism capitalist, yes.

As less capital is owned and controlled by private people, it becomes less capitalistic.

So yes, fascism is capitalistic but is more aptly titled socialism.



Cars, they keep exploding.

Most don&#39;t.



Try going out into the theatre and shouting fire; or better yet try to voice your opinion. There have been innumerable cases of people being censored (e.g. Sherman, Mumia jamal, etc.), this is repression.

That isn&#39;t repression. Repression would be someone actually doing that and it being allowed.

And would you like to debate me about Mumia? I agree, Sherman was censored but Mumia is so guilty it isn&#39;t even funny.

He was found laying shot by the officers gun, next to the dead officer, Mumia&#39;s gun was empty, recently fired, ejecting the same type of shell that killed Officer Faulkner.

Neither Mumia nor anyone else at the scene said there was anyone who DID shoot Faulker and no witness stated otherwise.

Mumia can provide no explanation for what happend, merely that he didn&#39;t do it.

The case was not mishandled as you&#39;ll see if you read these links.

This is what happend:

WHAT HAPPENED ON
DECEMBER 9TH, 1981

These are the events of the morning of December 9, 1981 as they have been testified to in the initial 1982 Trial and the subsequent 1995 and 1996 PCRA (Post Conviction Collateral Relief Hearings.) These facts have withstood direct appeal and they represent the testimony of numerous witnesses to this crime that have been deemed "credible" by the court.

At 3:55 AM on December 9, 1981 Daniel Faulkner, a twenty five year old police Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner observed a light blue Volkswagen driving down 13th Street (a one way street) the wrong way and then turning east onto Locust Street. Officer Faulkner then pulled the Volkswagen over in view of several eyewitnesses.

Prior to leaving his car, Faulkner radioed for a police wagon to back him up. Unknown to him, this would later help preserve the scene of his own murder. Officer Faulkner exited his vehicle and approached the driver&#39;s side of the Volkswagen, which was being driven by Mr. William Cook. Officer Faulkner asked Mr. Cook to exit his car. As the officer was looking away, several witnesses stated that they saw Mr. Cook punch Officer Faulkner in the face, violently attacking him. The officer responded by striking Cook, apparently with his flashlight, and then turned Cook towards the car attempting to subdue him.

For reasons that remain unknown today, sitting in a taxicab across the narrow street and watching the events as they unfolded, was William Cook&#39;s older brother, Wesley Cook (AKA Mumia Abu Jamal). According to witnesses, Mr. Jamal exited his taxi and ran across the street toward the Officer and his brother, William Cook. While Officer Faulkner was distracted by Mr. Cook, with his back turned to Mr. Jamal, Mr. Jamal was seen raising his arm and then firing one shot that found it&#39;s mark in Officer Faulkner&#39;s back. A tract Metal Test for Primer Lead done before the trial positively showed that the shot was fired from approximately 10- 12 inches.

Officer Faulkner was able to draw his gun and fire one return shot at his assailant, Mumia Abu-Jamal. This bullet was later extracted from Mr. Jamal&#39;s upper abdomen. Having fired this shot, Officer Faulkner fell to the sidewalk. While the wounded officer lay helpless and unarmed on his back, Mr. Jamal was seen by four individuals standing over the Officer with his five shot, .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver in his hand. From approximately 3 feet, Jamal began to fire at the officer&#39;s upper body.

Officer Faulkner is believed to have been conscious at this point and to be looking up at his assailant, who was later identified by several people at the crime scene as Mumia Abu Jamal. It&#39;s believed that in an attempt to save his life, Faulkner began to roll from side to side as Jamal fired at him. Jamal missed his first several shots. He then moved closer to Faulkner and bent down over him. Mr. Jamal put the muzzle of his gun within inches of Officer Faulkner&#39;s face, and squeezed off the final, and fatal, shot. The bullet entered the officer&#39;s face slightly above the eye and came to rest in his brain, killing him instantly.


http://www.danielfaulkner.com/Pages/map2.html

http://www.danielfaulkner.com/mythsdir.html

http://www.danielfaulkner.com/

Saying Mumia Abu Jamal is innocent is like saying Ted Bundy is innocent.



No, you still don&#39;t understand. You compare capitalism to 200 years ago and claim its the best system because of how great it is now rather than then. This supposedly makes it good.

Yet that argument can be used for anything. Slaves were better off in 1850 rather than 1750, your logic dictates slavery is good. Russians were better off in 1960 rather than 1860, therefore Stalinism is good. Yet you argue they&#39;re bad, however your logic dictates they&#39;re good. There is a contradiction in your logic.

That argument cannot be used for "anything". All things don&#39;t get better as they go along. Some do, some don&#39;t.

My logic doesn&#39;t dictate slavery is good, merely that later slavery is better than earlier slavery WHICH IS WHAT YOU ARE SAYING.

I said capitalism and industrialism were necessary.

Stalin got 1 out 2 right and did indeed raise the standard of living but my point was that it would have been raised higher through capitalism like it was everywhere else in the world.




And World War I had no effect on the production of agriculture, that it was entirely the fault of "evil communism".

Authoritarianism, but yeah, it&#39;s almost the same thing.



The U&#036; came in where France and Japan ended, they butchered, raped, pillaged, etc. But this isn&#39;t oppression? What is it? "Liberation"?

You stated that we oppressed them, THAN fought them.

Yes, we shouldn&#39;t have fought those wars but I read your statement to mean that we first oppressed them and then killed them.

[ComradeRed]

As less capital is owned and controlled by private people, it becomes less capitalistic.

So yes, fascism is capitalistic but is more aptly titled socialism. :rolleyes: Capitalism requires private ownership of capital, there is no "set number". Fascism has private ownership of the capital. Fascism is capitalism, QED.



Most don&#39;t. Yeah, most foreign cars don&#39;t.


He was found laying shot by the officers gun, next to the dead officer, Mumia&#39;s gun was empty, recently fired, ejecting the same type of shell that killed Officer Faulkner.

Neither Mumia nor anyone else at the scene said there was anyone who DID shoot Faulker and no witness stated otherwise.

Mumia can provide no explanation for what happend, merely that he didn&#39;t do it. Sorry, that doesn&#39;t cut it. You have to prove that he did it, not that he probably did it. You have the burden of proof to prove he killed the cop, not to prove there was no one else. It becomes more convincing, but it doesn&#39;t give grounds to convict. It is mere circumstantial evidence that Mumia is condemned to death on; that&#39;s your repression, err, justice.

Interestingly, your fairy tale says: While the wounded officer lay helpless and unarmed on his back, Mr. Jamal was seen by four individuals standing over the Officer with his five shot, .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver in his hand Which contradicts you saying there were no witnesses(there really weren&#39;t&#33;).


My logic doesn&#39;t dictate slavery is good, merely that later slavery is better than earlier slavery WHICH IS WHAT YOU ARE SAYING.

I said capitalism and industrialism were necessary.

Stalin got 1 out 2 right and did indeed raise the standard of living but my point was that it would have been raised higher through capitalism like it was everywhere else in the world. I have the name of fallacy which you argued originally: flase analogy fallacy. Compared to 2000 years ago everything was worse&#33; Arguing that capitalism is good because you compare now to then that "it is so much better" and it "must" be from capitalism is fallacious&#33;

The standards of living were raised 200 years after anything occurs. The standard of living under Stalin was better (education, medicine, etc.) compared to under Ivan the Terrible. Is Stalinism good? You logic reasons it is.

The condition of the Slave in 1850 was much better than 1750; they weren&#39;t killed from the farming equiptment and granted slightly better conditions from the whites. Does that make slavery all of the sudden good? Your logic dictates it is so.

Likewise, comparing today&#39;s standard of living and the way it was 2000 years ago is fallacious, but crediting Capitalism for it is wrong.



Authoritarianism, but yeah, it&#39;s almost the same thing. Wishful thinking fallacy.



You stated that we oppressed them, THAN fought them. Where? I stated that the U&#036; oppressed them, and they fought.


Yes, we shouldn&#39;t have fought those wars but I read your statement to mean that we first oppressed them and then killed them. No, U&#036; imperialist oppression ussually is accompanied by fighting from the denizens against imperialism; afterall, it is better to die on your feet than your knees.

[Publius]

:rolleyes: Capitalism requires private ownership of capital, there is no "set number". Fascism has private ownership of the capital. Fascism is capitalism, QED.


Private ownership of capital? But the government controlls capital.

It&#39;s socialism my friend.


Yeah, most foreign cars don&#39;t.

...

Percentage?


Sorry, that doesn&#39;t cut it. You have to prove that he did it, not that he probably did it. You have the burden of proof to prove he killed the cop, not to prove there was no one else. It becomes more convincing, but it doesn&#39;t give grounds to convict. It is mere circumstantial evidence that Mumia is condemned to death on; that&#39;s your repression, err, justice.

Interestingly, your fairy tale says: While the wounded officer lay helpless and unarmed on his back, Mr. Jamal was seen by four individuals standing over the Officer with his five shot, .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver in his hand Which contradicts you saying there were no witnesses(there really weren&#39;t&#33;).


There were witnesses.

There were people who saw him do this.

I think you need to read a little bit more.



I have the name of fallacy which you argued originally: flase analogy fallacy. Compared to 2000 years ago everything was worse&#33; Arguing that capitalism is good because you compare now to then that "it is so much better" and it "must" be from capitalism is fallacious&#33;

The standards of living were raised 200 years after anything occurs. The standard of living under Stalin was better (education, medicine, etc.) compared to under Ivan the Terrible. Is Stalinism good? You logic reasons it is.

The condition of the Slave in 1850 was much better than 1750; they weren&#39;t killed from the farming equiptment and granted slightly better conditions from the whites. Does that make slavery all of the sudden good? Your logic dictates it is so.

Likewise, comparing today&#39;s standard of living and the way it was 2000 years ago is fallacious, but crediting Capitalism for it is wrong.

It isn&#39;t a false analogy becuase it isn&#39;t my analogy.

I stated that industial capitalism did more in 200 years than was done in the previous 2000.

There is nothing fallacious about it.

Yes, Stalinism is better than living under Ivan. You&#39;re tripping right over it. The standard of living was higher. That&#39;s what I&#39;m stating.

No, my logic doesn&#39;t dicate that, merely that recent slavery was better than older slavery due to the reasons you described.

Crediting it to capitalism isn&#39;t wrong because the raise in standard of living coincided with the rise of industrial capitalism.



Wishful thinking fallacy.

Communism is authoritarian by nature. It has to be.



Where? I stated that the U&#036; oppressed them, and they fought.

We meant different things.

I thought you meant we oppressed them and then warred against them.

You didn&#39;t state that.

But you know, if they didn&#39;t want the U.S. oppressing them, they could have not attacked their peaceful neighbors.

Just a thought.



No, U&#036; imperialist oppression ussually is accompanied by fighting from the denizens against imperialism; afterall, it is better to die on your feet than your knees.

How is it imperialism if we don&#39;t imperialize them?

[ComradeRed]

Private ownership of capital? But the government controlls capital.
Irrelevant, someone owns the capital. Definitionally, it&#39;s capitalism.



Percentage?
99.7% foreign cars don&#39;t explode only .3% do from accidents, or not getting repairs at the right time, etc.

As far as rerpression&#39;s concerned the PATRIOT ACT takes away freedom and prostitutes it back to the rich&#33;



It isn&#39;t a false analogy becuase it isn&#39;t my analogy. So it must be logical? I applied the same logic to Stalinism, and it works for slavery. It can justify any system. It works for Nazism too, the Germans were much better off under Hitler than they were 2000 years ago, and in 10 years it was better than the past 10000 years; your analogy dictates it&#39;s a good one. Is it?



I stated that industial capitalism did more in 200 years than was done in the previous 2000.

There is nothing fallacious about it. Actually, as I stated above, it misleads one into thinking that such a system is a good system. Is Nazism good?


We meant different things.

I thought you meant we oppressed them and then warred against them.

You didn&#39;t state that.

But you know, if they didn&#39;t want the U.S. oppressing them, they could have not attacked their peaceful neighbors. They didn&#39;t attack their "peaceful neighbors", they were having revolutions and were attacked by the U&#036;. Another "liberation" well done, with several times the number of deaths in Iraq.


Communism is authoritarian by nature. It has to be. OK, Mister smarty, what&#39;s communism?



How is it imperialism if we don&#39;t imperialize them? What you did was subsidize them and fuse them into your "United States". Then you got served by "mere third world peasents".


Crediting it to capitalism isn&#39;t wrong because the raise in standard of living coincided with the rise of industrial capitalism. The problem is that it works with any form of society, especially ones like slavery or nazism which are self-evidently bad.

[Publius]

Irrelevant, someone owns the capital. Definitionally, it&#39;s capitalism.


Is Sweden socialist or capitalist?



99.7% foreign cars don&#39;t explode only .3% do from accidents, or not getting repairs at the right time, etc.


I&#39;ve never actually heard anything about this before.

So you&#39;ve abandoned Mumia? Good. I did too.



So it must be logical? I applied the same logic to Stalinism, and it works for slavery. It can justify any system. It works for Nazism too, the Germans were much better off under Hitler than they were 2000 years ago, and in 10 years it was better than the past 10000 years; your analogy dictates it&#39;s a good one. Is it?


It wasn&#39;t Nazism that improved their state over that 2000 years. Nazism did improve their lives for a few years (Than destroyed them).

And if you agree that things get better with time, as you said with Stalininism, wouldn&#39;t you admit that capitalism is the best system since it improved lives the most?



Actually, as I stated above, it misleads one into thinking that such a system is a good system. Is Nazism good?

Nope. Nazism was better than the Weimer Republic though.

Just as capitalism is better than communism.


They didn&#39;t attack their "peaceful neighbors", they were having revolutions and were attacked by the U&#036;. Another "liberation" well done, with several times the number of deaths in Iraq.


Yeah, they were having revolutions against other people, people who DIDN&#39;T want revolutions.

You don&#39;t have a right to come murder me just because "you&#39;re having a revolution".


OK, Mister smarty, what&#39;s communism?

Communism is the forceful redistrobution of wealth.



What you did was subsidize them and fuse them into your "United States". Then you got served by "mere third world peasents".

Huh?


The problem is that it works with any form of society, especially ones like slavery or nazism which are self-evidently bad.

Not quite.

[ComradeRed]

Is Sweden socialist or capitalist? Capitalist, of course.



So you&#39;ve abandoned Mumia? Good. I did too. The irrationalization of the rational will only result irrationally if you want a rational answer.



I&#39;ve never actually heard anything about this before. U&#036; cars are notorious for their ability to explode when in strange conditions, that&#39;s why japanese cars have such a great market.



It wasn&#39;t Nazism that improved their state over that 2000 years. Nazism did improve their lives for a few years (Than destroyed them). No, I said: the Germans were much better off under Hitler than they were 2000 years ago

The German people lived better 10 years under Hitler than they did 10000 years before; therefore your analogy dictates Hitler and Nazism is good.


And if you agree that things get better with time, as you said with Stalininism, wouldn&#39;t you admit that capitalism is the best system since it improved lives the most? No, that is the argument I argued against&#33; Its ridiculous to say "Well capitalism will get better as time goes on, so I might as well enjoy capitalism" because I could replace capitalism with slavery(although that still wouldn&#39;t change much), Nazism, Stalinism, etc. Your analogy dictates that these ideologies are good because the living standards increased while these apparti were instituted.



Nope. Nazism was better than the Weimer Republic though.

Just as capitalism is better than communism.
Interesting you choose the eras with genocides over the eras of democracy.



Yeah, they were having revolutions against other people, people who DIDN&#39;T want revolutions. North Korea wasn&#39;t revolutionizing Russia, Japan, or China. Vietnam only went through Cambodia because the U&#036; invaded, going through Cambodia was the only way to get supplies through. If the U&#036; didn&#39;t invade, there would be no need to go through Cambodia. If the Vietnamese didn&#39;t go through Cambodia, who knows if there would have been a revolution there.



You don&#39;t have a right to come murder me just because "you&#39;re having a revolution". But you have a right to murder me because I am?



Communism is the forceful redistrobution of wealth. Actually no, Socialism is the redistribution of wealth. Would you like to try again? Or would you like me to tell you?



Huh? You made them protectorates, but then the denizens threw off the Yankee Yoke.

[Publius]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2005, 09:11 PM



Capitalist, of course.

So socialism is the redistrubushion of wealth and Sweden redistributes wealth but is capitalist?

Do tell me your definitions.

I hope they&#39;re a non-contradiction.



The irrationalization of the rational will only result irrationally if you want a rational answer.

I&#39;m going to take that as a capitulation.

You just avoided the question of whether he was guilty by attacking the premises.

The premises were find, did Mumia abu Jamal kill officer Faulker, you just ignored the question.



U&#036; cars are notorious for their ability to explode when in strange conditions, that&#39;s why japanese cars have such a great market.

Other than the Pinto I have never heard of a car exploding when hit.

Surely it could happen, gasoline and all, but I don&#39;t know of anyone who bought a Japanese car because it didn&#39;t blow up.



No, that is the argument I argued against&#33; Its ridiculous to say "Well capitalism will get better as time goes on, so I might as well enjoy capitalism" because I could replace capitalism with slavery(although that still wouldn&#39;t change much), Nazism, Stalinism, etc. Your analogy dictates that these ideologies are good because the living standards increased while these apparti were instituted.

Are you denying it was capitalism that improved people&#39;s lives?



Interesting you choose the eras with genocides over the eras of democracy.

I picked freedom and slavery over slavery and freedom.

Even trade.


North Korea wasn&#39;t revolutionizing Russia, Japan, or China. Vietnam only went through Cambodia because the U&#036; invaded, going through Cambodia was the only way to get supplies through. If the U&#036; didn&#39;t invade, there would be no need to go through Cambodia. If the Vietnamese didn&#39;t go through Cambodia, who knows if there would have been a revolution there.


South Korea and South Vietnam weren&#39;t big on these revolutions and they comprised them.



But you have a right to murder me because I am?

There is a clause about treason in the Constitution. It covers it.



You made them protectorates, but then the denizens threw off the Yankee Yoke.

I liked that "yoke" thing but it really would help if I knew what and who you were talking about.

[ComradeRed]

So socialism is the redistrubushion of wealth and Sweden redistributes wealth but is capitalist?

Do tell me your definitions.

I hope they&#39;re a non-contradiction. Socialism has collectively owned means of production by the workers themselves. There are private capitalists in Sweden.


I&#39;m going to take that as a capitulation.

[...]

The premises were find, did Mumia abu Jamal kill officer Faulker, you just ignored the question. Yes, you are a great resource on ignorance. Can you not read?

Rationalizing with irrational people results in nothing getting done. Whereof an argument of your own is presented, thereof I shall begin. Until then, there really isn&#39;t a point in arguing against a "copy/paste" argument.



Are you denying it was capitalism that improved people&#39;s lives? :rolleyes: Yes, that&#39;s what I am saying.

OK...once more, your premise was:
1. Humans were better off in the last 20 years than the past 2000 years.

You then say its capitalism which makes it so great.

Problem: humans were better off under Stalin in those 20 years than the previous 2000 years. Problem: Germans were better under Hitler under the 10 years in the thirties than the previous 2000 years.
Problem: Slaves were better off in the 1840s-1859 than they were in the previous 2000 years.
Conclusion: Slavery, Nazism, and Stalinism are therefore good.

Problem: Slavery, Nazism, and Stalinism are bad&#33;

You don&#39;t reconcile yourself&#33; You keep asking the same question and bringing up the same point over and over and over and over and over again.




I picked freedom and slavery over slavery and freedom.

Even trade. Sorry, that wasn&#39;t a choice. I&#39;ll assume from your previous answer that you still support genocides, which explains why you support Nazism, Stalinism, and Slavery so much.



South Korea and South Vietnam weren&#39;t big on these revolutions and they comprised them. So those who weren&#39;t big on these revolutions compromised them? By compromise you mean ask the U&#036; for imperialist assistance, then thank you for stating the obvious.



There is a clause about treason in the Constitution. It covers it. Sorry, doesn&#39;t cover it. The social contract was breeched, which is justifiable in capitalism I suppose :rolleyes:



I liked that "yoke" thing but it really would help if I knew what and who you were talking about. That&#39;s why you go back in the conversation and figure out I was talking about Vietnam and Korea.