WARNING: Might Cause You To Think.

You got a point there.


.. Just grow some hair and no one will ever notice

 

Honestly...don\'t you think this one is a bit extreme?

I do agree with the anti-privatisation problem...socialism in it\'s infinite form would not give rights of ownership to the individual...but that\'s not the essence...

The essence is basically good: Dividing the goods, sharing the goods. But in reality that would never work because of human nature...we are just too greedy or too lazy...

But I could easily write an atricle on capitalism with the same outcome. I just think some of the comparisons are a bit far off. How the hell did he manage to get the Nazi regime in there? And slavery? There\'s no more slavery in socialism than in capitalism...it\'s all about working for your food...only in capitalism it might be easier to accumulate goods if you\'re either smart or ruthless...

 

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20040817.shtml

 

Got nothing to do with socialism...Hitler provided work for the unemployed...that was enough for them...in your version of socialism, he would have had to supply everyone with free goods to make his regime socialist...

That seems to be your favourite argument, \'cause I\'ve seen it repeated soo many times...you done with it soon? In a modern socialist state like Norway, you get unemployment money for a limited period of time. If you\'ve never worked, that amount is so small, you can\'t live off it. Then you have to apply for a certain number of jobs (remember Spud in Trainspotting?). If you don\'t find one, they\'ll finally find one for you that you\'re required to take, or you turn it down but do no longer recieve unemployment money...

So you see...socialism in it\'s purest form doesn\'t work...that doesn\'t mean it can\'t work at all...

It all needs moderators...like capitalism...or is inside trading legal in America? E.g. are you allowed to warn your buddies before a comany goes down...so they can sell their shares and earn millions, while millions of others loose everything? Capitalism without control would be just as doomed as socialism...

 

I used to be a libertarian but now I\'m definetly more left than that in terms of my view on economic policy these days. While their idealization of capitalism and human nature in general appealed to me for some time, real world experience tells you that it doesn\'t really work this way. When money and property are the only things considered, there\'s a lot more important things that are being forgotten about, and those have to be incorporated into the picture when deciding how government policies should be decided. After all, we are human beings, not just computers trying to calculate the highest numbers.

 

I beleive that welfare needs to be heavily reformed but not stopped altogether. Don\'t lie to yourself, it\'s true that most people are pretty selfish. The richest people who are being taxed the most, and thus providing the most support to these programs, are the same people who use cutthroat business tactics to destroy competition and make more money for themselves. They care more about raising their stock value than they do about the quality of life of their employees. Employees to them are thousands of people, most of whom they will never meet, whose job is to produce more wealth for them. The CEO of Barnes and Noble is wealthy but the cahsier who has worked there for 30 years is no better for it. The truth is, capitalism, like socialism and communism, is a flawed system, that, if allowed to exists on its own, would ultimately lead to some kind of social demise. Beleive me, I know all the points of libertarianism well, I used to debate the hell out of people... but I\'ve come to realize that human nature is a lot darker than we might want to beleive, and people aren\'t as giving and charitable as we wish there were.

 

I aslo just wanted to add something about the people\'s relationship with the government. Our government now is treated with general suspicion and animosity by very many people, because we don\'t feel in control or connected to the government. However, ideally, a government is meant to be an instituion run BY and FOR the people... ours, however, isn\'t and that\'s why we perceive it to be such an evil, looming entity. If we had a government that genuinely ruled in our best interest (is that possible?), then maybe we would stop viewing it as an enemy, but rather as something that we are in control and responsible for. How many people today feel as if they have much control over the government? Only the ones who are actually in it, probably... this system is wrong and it doesn\'t work but it doesn\'t mean that government always HAS to be bad.

 

Lets not forget that the reason the government intervenes in economic and social issues now is because of what happened around the turn of the century with monopolies and conditions for factory workers and the like. I\'m not saying that rich people are evil, or that business owners are evil or anything like that... I\'m just saying that human nature renders pure capitalism a dangerous system, the same thing it does to communism and socialism.

Just because the government is fucked beyond recognition now, doesn\'t mean that all governments have to be that way. A government that is an exention of the people rather than a seperate, opposing entity would be much more effective. People would pay taxes not because they are forced but on a voluntary basis induced by a greater understanding of long-term social and economic relationships. The question is, of course, how to do this.

But the fact remains that many human beings are selfish and greedy and not everyone has the same amount of power. Libertarianism basically says that personal property rights are the ultimate virtue, but that leaves a lot of other things out.

 

ok.... this bit just pisses me off. the rest of it fair enough, its to be expected, the same old ideology vs ideology propaganda... but bullshitting religious FOLLOWERS into thinking lies about their already corrupted religion is just sick. what am i talking about...? JESUS WAS A SOCIALIST! http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/13693.htm http://www.christianparents.com/jason.htm heck... theres\' too many pages backing that up... check \'em out for yourself. http://www.google.co.uk/search?sour...s=RNWC,RNWC:2003-38,RNWC:en&q=jesus+socialist

the word socialism has been ill-used in the past. i.e. Hitler was part of the national socialist party of germany.... and we all know how that went. all these terminologies are fairly shite really. like capitalist democracy. wtf!? most money gets most votes!?

the rhetoric used to demonise socialism hides from the \"theft\" issue very cleverly. instead of collective \"theft\" in a robbin hood style (if you have too much, we take and spread the wealth) we\'d get theft from anyone richer or poorer individually if we were to follow the extremist right wing ideology of some in the \"Libertarian\" party. laissez faire ... isn\'t that what they call it? sounds an awful lot like capitalism to me. and what is capitalism all about...? money. and it takes money to make money. so the more money you have the richer you can get. .... heh, see where that leads? hello king gates! it creates an authoritarian state and holds back people from having the means to make any change. sounds an awful lot like the authoritarian left wing doesnt it. if only more of the libertarian party in america really were for LIBERTY, and a sustainable one at that. http://www.infoshop.org
if they were truely libertarian, ie, anarchistic, they wouldn\'t need to read this: http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secFcon.html

oh, and just for fun... i might as well post this too... http://www.infoshop.org/octo/matrix/index.php/Capitalism
^ closest thing i can find to the other side of the coin equivalent to gill\'s initial post on socialism.
more on this... http://www.infoshop.org/octo/matrix/index.php/Anti-capitalism from the matrix.



point being from all my waffle....
too often we get bogged down in discussions between left and right, when really, we should be talking about freedom. be it ecconomic freedom, or personal freedom. whether we see ecconomics and currency as a fiction we need to learn to survive without or if you think people with bad taste need to be brought into line with the mainstream is irrelevant... if we stop trying to take each other\'s freedoms, we\'d realise that there\'s a much better way to live FREE.


and to prove to you all that i am a smelly hippie...

LOVE is the answer.

people too often use \"human nature\" being \"greed\" as an example of why anarcho-socialism will never work... as i put it to them, is that really in human nature, or is the existance in a high pressure capitalist society that encourages and perhaps even CREATES that greed?..... hmmm?

think on folks. i\'m out. i tire of these political discussions that rarely get us anywhere, because we never step back.

 

certainly not. too many people ground their ideas in the \"real world\"*. how the fuck is anything expected to progress if we only ever look at \"what is\" and never look to all the millions of \"could be\" possabilities.

History is writen by the victors. isn\'t that what they say? well, capitalism won the \"cold war\" (very cleverly too i might add) so i guess our history books must all be tarred with that brush eh?

it might suprise you to learn this, but not all systems work off having a figure head. do you have the imaginative capacity to envision a system that does not rely on the top-down distribution of power?

I never said i hated him for having the drive to become successful. If it\'s gonna be said i hate him, its because he won not by producing better software, not by being better than the competitors, he won by having the will to do what the competition were too \"moral\" to do, he won by actively destroying the competition, and now in that position of holding onto a very very large share of the market, he can do as he pleases.

anyways, thats not why i mentioned \"king gates\". the term was meant to imply the danger of allowing anyone to become so powerfull as to be truely untouchable. knowing all the pop info on how naughty microsoft is, it makes me wonder how much they get upto that i havn\'t a clue about, and all this, still, no court in the world has the power to compete with the sheer weight of influence microsoft has. Bill gates can give away very high percentages of his wealth, and still be the richest man in the world.

what happens when he realises his power? what happens when he tries to use it for his own benefit regardless the expense of others. i\'m not saying he does or will... but who\'s to say he doesnt? who\'s to say the next one wont?

do you have something against the idea that digital code should be free?

all the methods that\'s been tried to restrict the copying of software aren\'t enough, and its coming to the realisation that the only way to ensure all those bad people who want free software don\'t manage to get it is to monitor their every move.... hello orwell\'s 1984. ha, and some people still try to claim it was a warning against \"socialism\"... nah, it was extremes of authority, ie, totalitarianism that the warning was for.

umm.... my socialist state? you mean my anarcho socialist population living in free association.... where the state does not outweigh the individual.

please, don\'t argue my point for me. assumptions about where my politics lie are almost certainly wrong.

in my ideology, everyone is \"rich\". so what happens when everyone leaves? it gets left to the rest of nature to evolve without humans. call that a shithole if you want, but if thats how ya see things, you\'re gonna grow very bitter and hateful at just about everything.

and what of the people who already have drive, ambition and vision? oh, they need money. that great idea they have... not gonna happen without money. so they gotta waste half their lives chasing money to get an idea off the ground that could have pushed humanity forward. also... are you not aware of how shitty the education system is? what lucky exceptional part of society do you exist in where education isnt so much education as more conditioning and training to fit specialised roles.

you talk about ecconomic growth as if that is the goal in itself. wasn\'t ecconomic growth supposed to be to raise the standard of living? isn\'t that a little backwards to sacrafice the standard of living for the majority for the benefit of the ecconomy?

i\'m not here to talk up \"socialism\" or change your mind on your views on a certain type of authoritarian socialism, or indeed of marxism. i\'m just here to offer you the point of view that there are many benefits to a little leftism, and that its not as simple as left v right. (but i know you know the second part of that already anyway... surely, dont ya?)
the idea that by raising the lowest standard of living you deprive the populace of all drive is quite simply, a lie. by doing this you\'re raising the standard of living, the oppertunitys, the base line from which people can launch themselves or an idea or a creation.

nope. cos you don\'t want to learn. you just want to be right and be smug about it.

the only point i lay claim to about the libertarian party is that they are right wing, not simply libertarian, as their name suggests. which given where they are, you can hardly blame them.



*real world.
what is this myth you speak of? the world that surrounds us, encases our every waking existance? the world that is transmitted to us through media, and word of mouth based on media? ah, it is the world that says humans are greedy, get used to it, so go out and be greedy too. the world that says we need money. the world that says we need to work for a living, when really we\'re working for a boss. the world that says conform, because the opinions of an individual are to be shunned as insanity. the world that says we\'re free, but everything costs money.

please.

reality looks different from every different angle. ever tried stepping outside your own views gilligan? ever thought of looking through the eyes of another? do it. I did, and it was great. i try to do it as often as possable now. it stops me from seeing things just one way, it stopped me from being deluded that how i saw things were the way things were.

i suspect you think you\'re right, and you think i think i\'m right. right?

wrong. I don\'t. i think we\'re all wrong. reccognition of this will keep us searching to be right, rather than simply convincing ourselves that we are.

i\'m not in \"real world\". intentionally so? perhaps. but maybe what we think is real is instead just a cleverly constructed lie.

 

And that is why capitalism doesn\'t really work... in America the vast majority of the wealth and real estate in this county are held by 1% of the population. Economic data also shows the gap between the \"rich\" and \"poor\" to be widening. So is capitalism really creating more opportunity and distributing power more equally? Money IS power and capitalism inherently results in it being very unevenly concentrated. Those who were born with more money and more opportunity call the shots, and very few who were born with jack shit are ever able to make anything out of their lives. It doesn\'t mean they don\'t work hard... an illegal immigrant worker picking strawberry\'s all his life has a much more unpleasent job than the rich CEO of the fruit company he is employed by and yet what is his compensation compared to the owners of the company? Not much... so hard work and money earned don\'t have much of a correllation, there are plenty of other examples, use your imagination. Huge corporations run by capitalists have been gypping the masses for ages, and just because they\'re been conditioned to be too complacent to catch on doesn\'t mean that its okay.

 

What is this run on paying taxes. I pay my taxes happily. My taxmoney goes towards free education for all. And that includes university. My money go to universal healthcare. My money go to support those who cannot support themselves for shorter or longer periods. My money goes to ensure security and a semblance of justice by keeping the firedepartment, courts, penalsystem and police funded.

I might not agree on everything my government use my money on. But that is why we have elections every now and again, so that our politicians can bicker over how to spend that money in accordance with the democratic support they get. If my government wasted billions on invading harmless countries halfway on the other side of the globe or some other halfassed idea, we\'d kick that government and install a new one.

That\'s the contract. Government is administrating our society, our little club of citizens, our country. To do that they receive taxes. We trust our administration to use that money wizely to the betterment of the entire society as a whole and its citizens individually.

But then again, I live in an actual democracy, where citizens matter. Not in a psudo-democratic imperialistic plutocratic corporative-fascist state.

 

hey, that\'s what i\'ve been shouting for a while.

um, yeah, thats kinda the idea isnt it?

i don\'t lock my door, i don\'t lock my car... what aspect of human nature are you suggesting i look for in these locks?

go live in canada for a while, i hear they don\'t lock their doors either. oh no! what have i said! now all you american\'s reading this, so full of \"human nature\" will go take advantage of all those people who don\'t lock themselves in their cages.

i think you confuse alot of \"human nature\" with greed inspired by the lives we\'ve led. not everyone has been brought up to be a dog eating dog.

you\'re not paying attention to the longer term movie.

and does all socialism have to be of the statist variety? hows about getting some libertarian socialism eh? you should know now i\'m even more set against authority than yourself, do you think i\'d be arguing for an authoratative socialism?

so you are for free software after all! you\'ve reccognised the power of digital, and how property rights clearly don\'t work for digital information.

revolutionary? ... umm... windows? can you point out to me even just ONE thing, that microsoft can truely claim to have done that was revolutionary? take a look at all their patents and you\'ll see, they werent the first, they\'re lawyers were just the first to say they were.

thats true. we\'re sheep.
i was never one to truely buy the idea of the public being behind the driving seat... look at each person, who\'s driving them... their brain? and look around at their influences, their inputs... especially in the USA.
advertising, advertising, advertising.
it\'s like a crack addict. you can say it\'s their choice, but really, their hand is forced.

you\'re fully aware, yet you didn\'t attend public school. hmm... how can you be fully aware then?

yep. well, as long as you\'re aware of it.

!!! you don\'t think that maybe they\'d have something really worthwhile to contribute and would contribute it if they didn\'t have to spend they\'re lives struggling to make the rent payments?

refer to a society that doesn need to live in fear and lock its doors. yeash. it sickens me to think that so many people live like that.

all would be completely unecessary, or nonexistant in a society that provided basic needs and didn\'t seek to inspire false desire for useless products constructed for the sole purpose of being sold to generate profit, where all software is free as it should be as it can be distributed at no cost, and where drugs are available to those who know what they\'re getting themselves in for.

man, wake up! you\'re \"real world\" begins and ends at a $ sign. I won\'t shout at you that \"there is more to life\" (though i almost did before i deleted it), money is a fiction! do you think the necessity to have numbers running through bank\'s computers is really a necessity? do you think that if we were to ask for our money (i.e. gold) we\'d actually get it, or that there\'s even enough of the shiney metal for us all to get it if we all did?

does the entirety of the rest of the animal life on earth exist outside the \"real world\"?

i know, it\'s not easy making this mental leap from having existed in such a rigidly enforced philosophy of ecconomic pressure, i went through this myself. Money is not the sole source of motivation. Nor (more importantly) should it be. There is no need to apply such pressure on people, that forces them in ONLY ONE DIRECTION, that which makes profit. have you ever considered, that maybe, \"that which makes profit\" is not the best driving force and steering device for society? maybe, this would produce errors and oversights that may lead us irreversably to our own self anihilation? it is not completely unheard of, other species have done this too surely. in the big picture, we\'re little further on than ameobas, incapable of knowing what it is we live on. we\'re biologicaly fairly indistinguishable from those humans a few hundred years back that thought the world is round. we just might not know everything, y\'know?

and with that, i raise the point that it\'s not such a bad idea to have people just sit around, thinking, living, being... anything other than being forced to produce, steal, exploit, get out of exploitation, sell, buy, aquire, work, waste, polute.

its a culture of WORK OR DIE, effectively. you think, honestly, that this is freedom? is this really \"choice\"?

[quote name=\'Gilligan\']
well, funny you should say that. it\'s only been my plan for the past 4 yearsish, held back by health, and more so... lack of finances. ooh look at that... the existance of money is holding me back!


here\'s a question for you...
does \"society\" exist?


...






if you\'ve answered yes... wouldn\'t it be cool and groovy for that society to be pleasant to live in? rather than having to lock your door?

if you\'ve answered no, then... what do you call the collective of humans (and other beings) amongst which we live?

there is no reason, barring the will of the rich and powerfull few and their perpetuation of the contrary, that we cannot live without money, that people, if they wish could still have all those comforts afforded to those of us who are rich enough, and live hapily, more like we are built for. go genetically engineer a human more suited to work and money if that is what you really dessire, but me, i look at humans and think... we look like tropical creatures, built for long distance running, and froliking among trees and on beaches. ... that wasn\'t really my own observation, but it makes more sence than what either you or i think of \"human nature\", at least, on a biological level.

ok, i\'ll stop. thats way more than enough for you to come back at.

ps, i feel like animalmother from full metal jacket, when doc just said \"you might not think it, but animal mother when under fire is one of the finest examples of humanity, all he needs is someone to throw hand grenades at him the rest of his life\".
thanks for the handgrenades gilligan. don\'t stop throwing them. please.