Capitalism doesn't work!

[aek]

Capis claim that socialism is only a theory that cannot work in practice. Yet they forget that their own political system has failed around the world and only prospered in countries that exploit and use imperialism as their means of obtaining wealth from overseas. Without plunder, capitalism is useless. Where is capitalism in South America, in Africa, in Asia? Where is capitalism in the 1/4 American's who live under the poverty line? Where was capitalism when Augusto Pinochet came to power? It was right there assisting him and providing him with weapons to shoot civilians and a democratically elected socialist government. History has taught us that capitalism is responsible for imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, wars, poverty and the establishment of totalitarian regimes around the world.

[reagan lives]

And what has history taught us about socialism?

[aek]

That it is difficult to operate under such inhumane conditions such as economic blockades, worldwide alienation, political and economic attacks, wars and absolutely no assistance from anybody other than those few members in the socialist camps.

[pastradamus]

hey butternuts,socialism has never been given a chance to work,it's only been tryed out in a few struggling countries.capitilism had it's chance and only works in countries with high resorces.

[bleed3r]

correct me if i'm wrong, but i dont believe there ever has been a socialist government in it's firmest and strictest principles.

[pastradamus]

Free abu-jamal!

[sabre]

im sure you right wingers wouldnt like "capitalism" so much if you lived in another "capitalist" country, maybe back under pinochet... that was a "democracy", righy?

[hardcore capitalist]

Who is augusto pinochet?

[vox]

hc, you're kidding, right? Pinochet was the dictator of Chile, installed after a US-backed coup against the democratically elected Allende. This is, actually, a very good thing to study, thanks to a ton of documentation about it.

If your question was serious, you may want to check out the Church Committee Report (http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/chile/doc/covert.html) which dealt with covert US operations in Chile, among other things.

vox

[Supermodel]

Muchas gracias vox for the link. Printing it now.

Both capitalism and socialism work. Both have enormous failings. Countries like the european nations before they became colonialists were still capitalist.

[MrWinkle]

Quote: from bleed3r on 8:05 am on Feb. 3, 2002
correct me if i'm wrong, but i dont believe there ever has been a socialist government in it's firmest and strictest principles.


Yes, but there has never but been pure free-market capitalism either. One of the major problems I think with arguments along these lines are that historically a) attempts at socialism tend to fail when ostracised internationally. This was the case with, arguably, with the Soviets, and it is still the case with Cuba. By contrast, the socialist and leftist governments of Western Europe areable to maintain themselves much more easily because of their relations. B) The free-market is also getting a bad name because it's "tried" for such a brief period of time and with so many regulations, restritictions, so as to oftentimes fail. This is the case in America with things like Amtrak, the airline industry, California's power industry. Their often sited by the media as being the short comings of capitalism, when in fact they are just the results of capitalism being told to run with its legs cut off.

To what does this lead? Some wierd muntant hybrid of the inefficient Statist status quo. But it's also something that should be kept in mind; namely one shouldn't expect either system to work well when mutilated, nor should one call that the failure of the system. I happen to think the (truly) free-market will work much better, but that's a much larger argument...

[vox]

Winkle wrote:

"This is the case in America with things like Amtrak, the airline industry, California's power industry. Their often sited by the media as being the short comings of capitalism, when in fact they are just the results of capitalism being told to run with its legs cut off."

That's funny, for it was the owners of power in CA who wanted the new laws to be passed, and who lobbied hard to get them past.

Does Winkle expect us to believe that the industry was acting against its own best interests?!?!?

This is clearly not the case. What Winkle fails to mention in his sorry excuses for the free market is that the free market itself plays a huge role in gov't!

Capitalism cannot, I submit, exist without a power structure to prop it up. Capitalism is by definition political. To say that no regulation at all, as Winkle suggests, would somehow improve things is to, firstly, deny the historical record and secondly discount capitalism's reliance upon a gov't to protect its interests.

Winkle presents us with a truly bizarre notion: a world in which capitalism is sustainable without gov't intervention. It hasn't happened because it can't happen. Like they say, comrades, FDR saved capitalism, the the capitalists have never forgiven him for it.

vox