US Truckers plan to start strike today over high gas prices.

[Arrian]

Ok, sure. On the flipside, people have choices they can make for themselves, rather than having the Kommissar make choices for them. Sometimes their options will suck - but then choices made for you suck even if they don't really suck, ya know?

The way I see it, capitalism results in concentrated wealth (though we can - and have, to vary degrees of success - enact measures to try to prevent a permanent wealthy class) whereas communism has (so far, in practice) resulted in concentrated power...

And what is wealth but power, essentially? If we assume a non-stalinist communism that is democratic and respects the rule of law, there will still be bureacrats who wield considerable power, much like the CEOs of today, and I assure you they will not have the same standard of living as the average Joe. What's the difference, really, between the communist official appointed by the Party to run the People's Gas and Electric and the CEO of PG&E?

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian
Ok, sure. On the flipside, people have choices they can make for themselves, rather than having the Kommissar make choices for them. Sometimes their options will suck - but then choices made for you suck even if they don't really suck, ya know?

It depends. Do you really think people want to have to choose between taking less pay and taking a different job? Sure you dont' want to have to be a garbage man or something, but then maybe garbage men should be paid a little more so that it will be fair.

The way I see it, capitalism results in concentrated wealth (though we can - and have, to vary degrees of success - enact measures to try to prevent a permanent wealthy class) whereas communism has (so far, in practice) resulted in concentrated power...

And what is wealth but power, essentially? If we assume a non-stalinist communism that is democratic and respects the rule of law, there will still be bureacrats who wield considerable power, much like the CEOs of today, and I assure you they will not have the same standard of living as the average Joe. What's the difference, really, between the communist official appointed by the Party to run the People's Gas and Electric and the CEO of PG&E?

-Arrian

Arrian, in a democracy those things are decided by the people. In a communist system the people are like the shareholders. There are all kinds of possibilities for organizing society.

[snoopy369]

Kid, Arrian's hit the nail on the head. In theory, both Communism and Capitalism are 'democratic' in that everyone has a fair shot, at the start. In practice, though, both end up with a concentration of power=wealth, because success, monetarily or politically, begets more success and more power. Some people are more charismatic than others, and thus will end up with more power in a Communist system (more ability to convince others to support their causes); they will do things that help themselves, naturally, even if not directly, and this will beget more power. Then their descendants - literal or political - will gain power as a result of following in their coattails.

Concentration of power is pretty much inevitable, I think, unless and until we are at the point where power is not as important - ie, power is lessened itself, because people become, again, self-sufficient (the first men were essentially self-sufficient, back in the pre-civilization days; after Sumeria, no (sigficant population of) man has been truly self-sufficient up to now, and that will continue until technology improves to the point that there is no resource scarcity for necessaries and lower level 'wants' (ie, no food scarcity, no clothing scarcity, etc.) and, essentially, people can just replicate things that they want from material that is costless. At that point it's possible power will be less meaningful (as no political entity will be able to deny anyone food/water/shelter for any reason), and this may be less of an issue. Until then... it will always be a problem.

[Wezil]

Sorry to interupt your perfectly fine argument...

Originally posted by snoopy369
I think you could end up having significant price competition for their business, quite possibly 30-40 cents per gallon off (but admittedly i'm just pulling that out of my rear).

My "few cents a litre" would be about 10-15 cents per gallon. 10 cents per litre would be your hope/guess.

Currently at the local truck stop they are paying $1.17 per litre for diesel ($4.43 per gallon).

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Kid, Arrian's hit the nail on the head. In theory, both Communism and Capitalism are 'democratic' in that everyone has a fair shot, at the start. In practice, though, both end up with a concentration of power=wealth, because success, monetarily or politically, begets more success and more power.
Some people are more charismatic than others, and thus will end up with more power in a Communist system (more ability to convince others to support their causes); they will do things that help themselves, naturally, even if not directly, and this will beget more power. Then their descendants - literal or political - will gain power as a result of following in their coattails.

Concentration of power is pretty much inevitable, I think, unless and until we are at the point where power is not as important - ie, power is lessened itself, because people become, again, self-sufficient (the first men were essentially self-sufficient, back in the pre-civilization days; after Sumeria, no (sigficant population of) man has been truly self-sufficient up to now, and that will continue until technology improves to the point that there is no resource scarcity for necessaries and lower level 'wants' (ie, no food scarcity, no clothing scarcity, etc.) and, essentially, people can just replicate things that they want from material that is costless. At that point it's possible power will be less meaningful (as no political entity will be able to deny anyone food/water/shelter for any reason), and this may be less of an issue. Until then... it will always be a problem.

You really are on to the reason why I'm a communist. It's because people think taht because we all get to vote and we have all these rights that we are a democratic society. We aren't because some people have much more power. And why do they have more power? Because of stupid things like they have more charisma. So I'm not saying that just creating a communist society is going to make things different. Really people are going to have to change for things to get better. That can still happen even though we still have a capitalist system. I mean there's no reason why we can't solve our problems with the current system. But we don't a lot of the time.