Being a Communist

[MrFun]

grrrrrrrrr

[Theben]

Trolls you, Funsie!

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Whoha
Because wealth creation benefits everyone, I live a lot better life then my ancestors did for a reason.

Wealth creation does not benefit everyone. It benefits those who own, and it may benefit the rest of us, if we force them to share it with us. You live better than your ancestors because communists threatened the ruling class with total expropriation if they didn't give up things like social security, a minimum wage, unemployment insurance, an eight-hour day, etc. You might like to take a look at how well people live in countries without those social benefits.

There is one thing, however, that we do lack more than our ancestors, and that is leirsure time. Our ancestors had far more leisure time at the founding of our republican than their decendents do today (with the exception of the ancestors of slaves). We may have more junk, but we have less time to use it or to socialize.

[notyoueither]

Che, do you care to support that bit about leisure time? Because it sounds patently silly if you've ever been anywhere near a farm, or watched people cook and clean without modern conveniences.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Indeed nye... a LOT of communists say this and I don't think they have any idea of an agricultural life.

Furthermore, and leisure time would have been much more boring than ours today. All they would have had is talking to one another and reading (if they could read).

[chequita guevara]

The Overworked American

And being a farmer doesn't involve constant work, even if you have animals. There is a reason why migrants farm workers are migrants. That's why it's called seasonal work.

[Imran Siddiqui]

An important, hard-hitting, well-documented look at the overworking of America, this study finds that Americans now spend more hours working than at any time since WW II.

I never knew the founding of our republic was in WW2 .

[chequita guevara]

You'd have to read the book, and not the reviews. He wanted a source, I cited.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Besides 'leisure time' is considered by Schorr (the author) to be time not working or DOING HOUSEHOLD CHORES! Let's compare to 1800 agg life, where if you weren't working, all you did were household chores.

Furthermore more hours working are done by choice, because people want nicer things. We still got a 40 hour work week. Hardly any industry mandates overtime work (in fact many will send you home if you hit 40 hours).

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by St Leo

Originally posted by Arrian
The same tune has been sung for quite a while now (since Marx wrote about it, in fact).

The thing is, "capitalist" societies have adapted, making compromises with socialism that have brought a measure of stability to the system. So the system Marx wrote about has evolved some. Given that, it is certainly reasonable to ask whether his analysis is still applicable (and that's even assuming it was applicable in the first place, which we capitalist pig dogs do not concede ).

-Arrian

Fortunately for communists, capitalists have forgotten why those compromises were made and want to unmake them with all their heart.

Eh. I like the balance.

You would be incorrect, in general. Most people in business and governmenty today have no intention of obliterating work place rules, social programs, or other advances our societies have made in the last 100 or more years.

However, what you might be observing is the recent realisation among those who govern (and more importantly by those who elect) that they do not possess a free money machine, and our governments must pay as we go. There is a large difference between a desire to return to Dickensian conditions on one hand and the refusal to bankrupt the next generations on the other.

[chequita guevara]

I don't know about where you work, but where I work, I see lots of mandatory, unpaid overtime. I've seen it for years. It's also prevalent in manufacturing. Most people would perfer to be with family or friends, not putting in massive overtime.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Everywhere I've and my family has worked (only counting private employers), there was always a push to make sure you didn't work over 40 hours. The only places where that wasn't the case was in law firms, but I have, to date, never worked for one... and, of course, that is ONLY done to weed people out from being partners.

My cousin is working for an accounting firm right now and only works overtime so he can get that time and a half pay. Of course, he can set his own hours for that.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Tingkai
The question I have is why do people support the existing capitalistic system in the west that is built and maintained for the corporate elite and hereditary rich.

The so-called free market is really an economic system designed to benefit mega-corporations. They're the ones getting the lion share of government funding.

Meanwhile, small and medium-sized businesses are the ones creating the majority of new jobs.

Information is becoming more and more controlled by mega-corporations like Time-Warner who control smaller corporations down the line.

The workers (blue collar, white collar, whatever) create the profits, but the corporate elite are the ones taking home multi-million dollar salaries, even when they are running a corporation into the ground.

The corporate elite ship good jobs to low-income countries, which means they can get richer while the rest of us get poorer.

Why support this? Why not demand a government that looks after the interests of the majority instead of the pampered rich?

There's this thing called a middle class. You should check into it.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I don't know about where you work, but where I work, I see lots of mandatory, unpaid overtime. I've seen it for years. It's also prevalent in manufacturing. Most people would perfer to be with family or friends, not putting in massive overtime.

Let's stick to industry and commerce, and leave farms alone, because they make a mockery of the claim re leisure time.

So, you (and the author) will maintain that the average time worked today is greater then it was when a 10 or 12 hour day was standard? And what about when a 6 day week was common? I am really curious about the numbers to justify this claim.

What about mandated holidays? Most people in the industrialised world get them. You do get them in the States, do you not?

As an employer in Canada in 2004, I am required by law to pay all employees for 20 days of work per year for which they do nothing, zero, zilch, nada. After a period of employment the amount of time goes up, but the 20 days are the minimum. That is roughly 7.5% of the year for paid holidays.

I guarantee you that no such thing occured in the Canada of 1870, and I doubt it happened in the US of 1780.

Oh, and for St. Leo and others who think all employers are neo-Dickensians, there have been no calls for changes to paid holiday time that I have ever heard of.

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Zevico
Christians believe in the Coming of Christ; Communists believe in the Coming of Communism.
I see no difference between the two.

Only in that both groups will be very disappointed.