new capitalism vs communism thread

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
You can contend all you want that that is not communism.

However, that is clearly what the Manifesto advocates.

I have read the Manifesto multiple times. I just went back and read it again a few minutes ago. You do not know what you are talking about.

There is nothing in that section that you quoted that describes what a communist society would look like. It describes, at best, a few policies that such societies would persue. Notice that several of these polices have also been enacted in capitalist nations, but I would not call Great Britain or the US capitalist because of the existence of progressive income taxes, government banks, and public education.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Spiffor
The company is not a contract. The company is a terrain, a building, with productive machinery in it (be it computer or machine tools). And people working on this machinery. The company is a "moral person" (as opposed to a "physical person" - well, at least that's the terminology in French, but I guess it's the same in English) that signs contracts with its employees, manager included. But the owner of the company is accountable to no one but himself.
Actually, there are several legislations according to the size of a company: there are companies with unlimited responsiblity: if there is a problem, a failure to pay debts, etc, the owner will be forced to pay until the last dime from his pockets (and may have to sell his house, his clothes, or whatever). Such a legislation applies to very small companies, generally mono-personal.
Societies with limited responsiblity are basically the same principle, except that you can't rip the owner off everything he has. Such legislation applies to small, but not minuscule, companies.
Lastly, big companies are Anonymous societies, where the ownership is supposed to be divided among many people (but it's not mandatory: you may have an Anonymous Society with one person, or one "mother company" having all shares, and everybody knowing who that is). In this case, the owner is completely irresponsible. His company can have billions of debt, he'll never be worried. Useless to say, it can be very interesting to pillage a company and then let it die in a gutter with such a system.

If he owns the company, and he sends it into horrible debt and everything and it becomes worthless, then he's lost money. The company is one of his assets.

Tell that to the Siberians who have lost their jobs in the hand of greedy managers. Tell that to the 50-year-old workers who have spent their lives in the company, knowing no other job, and who'll never find a willing employer again. Tell that to these women for whom there is no work left in their branch. Tell that to those people who are left with zero income to feed their family, and who have to find a way to scrap some money, quickly. Tell that to people who entered depression as their world crumbled around them. Tell that to the inhabitants of the village surrounding the factory, who have lost all economic activity.

Yep, tell that to them.

It's fairly easy for the likes of you and me to find work afterwards. We are alone, we have nobody to feed but ourselves, we are young (and hence able to learn a new job), we are well educated, we have parents to shelter us while on the dole.
Those who suffer first from this kind of pillaging, however, aren't as favored as us. They have families to feed. They are usually old or middle aged, and learning is much more difficult at that age. They are poor and have very little time margin to find a new source of income. And they are often despaired because they assisted powerlessly at the destruction of a workplace they held dear.

Yeah, that's so easy to find a new job

This is why I support a "social safety net" and the government employing people for various civil works (like road maintenence).

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


I have read the Manifesto multiple times. I just went back and read it again a few minutes ago. You do not know what you are talking about.

There is nothing in that section that you quoted that describes what a communist society would look like. It describes, at best, a few policies that such societies would persue. Notice that several of these polices have also been enacted in capitalist nations, but I would not call Great Britain or the US capitalist because of the existence of progressive income taxes, government banks, and public education.

No, but the critical distinctions are the points made about taking state control of both the means of production and of communication.

Totalitarianism!

[Kuciwalker]

Oh, and wrt patents, I hold the view of Jared Diamond - that is, they are one of the proximate causes of the technological superiority of Western civilization, not a fundamental cause.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
No, but the critical distinctions are the points made about taking state control of both the means of production and of communication.

Totalitarianism!

Is Britain totalitarian? The have control of much of production and almost total control of communication.

[Berzerker]

Is Britain totalitarian? The have control of much of production and almost total control of communication.

In practice? Almost. In mindset? Yes.

[Az]

Death to the evil commie queen!!!!!!111

[DaShi]

Someone found the queen!

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Azazel
Death to the evil commie queen!!!!!!111

[Kidlicious]

Re: new capitalism vs communism thread

Originally posted by skywalker
don't just say "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs".

Ah, but this is the most important part. First you have to make the primary purpose of your system to treat all citizens equally. That's where real change comes. Otherwise only the rulers change.

Please make your question more specific. Some of use don't have time for very long posts.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Ow, ow, my eyes hurt. To...much...spam...

Anyways, I'l make the argument that capitalism works because it fosters ownership. Ownership helps to extend a person's understanding of self through the ability to give away and receive compensation for things created. By being able to own what you have created you can extend greater control over your ideas and your identity.

The general case is for someone else to own what you create and for you to recieve a wage for creating it.

[JohnT]

.... he's baaaaAAAAAAaaaaack....

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Wheres my rabid dog emoticon?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ned
Spiffor, here is a bit from the Manifesto. I see nothing in this that requires the IMMEDIATE cessation of government. The USSR appears to be the very empitome of the what Marx described as communism (in its intermediate form) in the Manifesto.

"We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...festo/ch02.htm

The only thing missing from this plan is political structure of the government. A constitution with checks and balances is needed so that power is distributed in a effective way. That's what the USSR missed. Other than that the plan is a good one. People don't just instantly conform to communism. Government needs to mold citizens into communists.

[Ned]

Kidicious, I'm glad you agree that the USSR was in fact a Communist state.