Communism vs Capitalism

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Yet another question starting off my post.

Why do people think that capitalism and communism are opposites? They are not. Capitalism is an economic system and communism is a governmental system. It would be far more accurate for this discussion to be about capitalism and socialism. Communism is basically socialism that is forced upon the people and the government controls the allocation of everything. Anyone that loves freedom will not like communism.

About the USA-China debate: Both are mixed economies. The USA is not a pure capitalism, nor is China pure socialism.

Since your economic principles have already been adequately torn apart, I won't waste my time doing it myself, suffice it to say that socialism does not work due to human nature. Period. This is best illustrated with an example, and I'll use one of the ones that a Professor of Business once told me, shortened for time constraints.

Imagine that you were stranded on a deserted island with a group of people. A small group sets out on their own to try to survive. You happen to find the only source of fresh water on the island. You now have a source of water, but no food or shelter. Another person manages to find a patch of fruit trees. He now controls the food supply, but has no water or shelter. The third guy happens to be a carpenter and he cuts up some wood and builds a shelter. He now has a place to stay, but no sustenance. Now, you, with water start getting hungry. So, you trade with the guy with the fruit trees and you now eat. You trade your water to the guy with the shelters for a place to stay. You will not give your water to the people who cannot give you anything in exchange, so they'll die off. That is pure capitalism, and in practice, it does not work.

Now for socialism. The same group of people divides up into three parts. One group is responsible for finding food. The second group is responsible for finding water, and the third will build a shelter. However, just for this example, let's say that one of the people has a broken leg, so cannot do any of the work. Now, the first night, you all meet up again and all equally share the water, food, and shelter. So far, it sounds like an incredible system, doesn't it? Now, for the second day. One of the people noticed that the injured guy does not have to do work. So he figures, "Why should I work hard when I don't get anything more than that guy?" So, he just lounges around on the beach that day. That night, all share evenly again. The third day, more people start slacking around. That is pure socialism, and it, likewise, does not work.

The truth of the matter is that there will be no advancement and no betterment for all if there is no incentive for people to be productive. In practice, a mixed economy with more effort on the capitalistic side of things tends to yield sufficient compassion for fellow man and adequate incentive for people to continue the advancement of technology.

How are the idle costing those that work money? Perhaps you are referring to our costs of supporting them (welfare, social security, etc.) Need I point out once again that in a pure capitalistic society, none of those elements would exist. Those that are idle will die. This is the primary reason why pure capitalism is nonexistant in our world today and why mixed economies are so prevalent.

I'm sorry to keep picking on you, Sniper, but your points illustrate mine perfectly. A communistic society does have a leader. The purpose is not to put everyone into a leadership position. The government and the leaders of it will decide how to allocate supplies. Communism is where a few people force socialism onto the masses.

Also, for those of you who are massively in favor of Communism, read "1984" by George Orwell. That is exactly what could happen if the whole world goes purely communist.

 

Sorry to take down your theories Rastor but your classification of socialism and communism isnt correct. Socialism is it all and it is a strictly economical system, it has really not much to do with goverment. Communism is the belief that the only way to achieve socialism is through use of force and not through democratic means. It advocates revolution instead of socialdemocracy that advocates democratic reforms. Thats the only difference. You are correct though on your describtion of the world, most european nations have had socialdemocratic goverments have implemented socialism as far as possible without getting where you are in your extremely simplified example. I do think your faith are a bit too lacking in humanity.
The US did contrary to Europe and implemented capitalism as far as possible but making sure they didnt let people starve on the streets (well not too visible atleast).
No country that claims communism has been nothing but dictatorships, the economical system have been a rigid and mocking copy of a socialist system. Soviet, Cuba and China only adapted few parts of socialism. We think of extreme goverment control and a authoritarian society when we think of them, the point of socialism was just the opposite. To remove goverment and authority, everything and nothing should be the goverment so to speak. With no other authority than a thought about the common good. Soviet and the rest enforced their half hearted believes on the people they had set out to free and therefore made them even less freer than before not to mention that they got intoxicated with power. So you are partly right when you say that human nature makes it impossible to work but I have alittle more hope in humanity than that.
Marx assumed that everyone but the very few extremely well off would want a socialistic system implemented but that has never come to be. it was a small click of people in Russia that took the power after the Czar, they didnt even have the support of the socialist party in Russia. In Cuba and China it was perhaps more people that supported it but it wasnt the whole people rose up, it was a small part of it.

Oh well it isnt an easy subject, but it isnt easy. What works best is as with most things, the middle road. Take the best parts of everything

 

That's exactly what I said, I just failed to differentiate between the two at a few points as I had to talk about a government but did not want to state that socialism has to be associated with totalitarianism (as communism is). Guess I could have said either communism or socialdemocracy, but that would have been a lot more typing. Anyway, thank you for expanding it.

I suppose that's why almost every nation in the world now uses a mixture of capitalism and socialism in their economic systems.

 

The theory of communism (everyone gets a bit of averything) is much better than the theory of capitalism. But we still have yet to see a government implement communism in all its glory. Until the rest of the world has reached enlightenment on a par with Buddhist monks in Tibet, capitalism is the better system.

 

In my opinion, there is some confusion of terms. Socialism references, or can at least, both an economic system and a political system. After all, of what use is a political system which fails to account for economics and vice versa. Communism is most rightly described as a subcategory of socialism in my opinion.

In the face of the utter failure of centrally planned economies, socialists have scurried to find alternatives.

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/polphil.htm#Socialism

I don't understand those that claim Communism is preferable in theory to Capatalism. In theory Communism fails because it rests upon a flawed Labor Added theory of value and any centrally planned economy of any respectable size is doomed to failure in my opinion for the reasons I listed in my initial post; a centrally planned economy is incapable of handling and relaying the massive amounts of information to make a respectable economy work. So, even in theory Communism is fatally flawed and how can a fatally flawed system be preferable to one that can work, unless you mean in a "golly gee wouldn't it be swell if we all got along" type of way.

[ October 09, 2002, 05:09: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

It's also misleading to suggest that force is a distinguishing characteristic of communism but not of socialism. Socialism cannot be implemented without the use of force and without laws that drastically reduce the liberties of citizens. Voluntary use of personal resources to the benefit of society is called CHARITY, not socialism.

Let's look at an example: a nation is 100% capitalist but decides to implement one socialised service. Let's say it decides to have only health care socialised. Now let's see what uses of force the state will need to use to implement that.

- Confiscation of private property. Most basically, taxation will be increased. All taxation involves implied force, of course- if you do not give the government the amount of money it demands, you go to prison. Additionally, hospitals, clinics, and medical equipment that was previously privately owned may be "reappropriated" by the government. Certainly the original owners will no longer be allowed to use their property and equipment freely.

- Medical practitioners will lose the right to work freely at their trades. They can only do the work the government contracts them to perform, at the time and place the government contracts them to perform it. There is an absolute monopoly on health care employment: if the government is a bad employer, the doctors, nurses etc have no options but to work on the black market, flee the country, or (sometimes) refuse to work at all.

- Citizens lose the right to purchase health care services from their choice of provider. Only the government can provide health-care services, and the citizens have no control over the quality of that service or even over its availability. It's the problem of monopoly, which is always a risk under capitalism but is intrinsic to socialism.

Ultimately, this is the most morally objectionable part of socialism. It doesn't matter how many other freedoms you have, you can't use your hard-earned money to buy perfectly moral and legal services that you need, so you are not a free person. The government decides, for example, how many radiograms it can afford to pay for in a month, and if you are not in the quota, tough luck. If you protest that you can afford to buy the whole damn radiogram machine, pay to put a new wing on the hospital, will invest millions of dollars into the healthcare system in exchange for a test or treatement that will save your life- nope. Can't be done. You can wait, or you can die, but you can't buy what you need. Because someone else might NOT be able to do it, and if he has to die because he can't afford treatment, so do you, in the interests of "fairness". Equality before liberty.

On a more personal note: People - specifically I am thinking at the moment of Hilary Clinton - keep pointing to Canada as an example of socialised health care done "right". Well, I live in that utopia, and I can tell you these people have not spent all day or all night waiting in a Canadian emergency-room lobby for the exhausted doctor to get a free moment. Why do you think Canadian old people move to the United States in droves? In part, because that's where they can buy the health care services they need, instead of being put on endless waiting lists that may be longer than their life expectancy. It's also where all the Canadian doctors and nurses are, having fled the sweatshops the Canadian government runs.

 

Dear Sprite, it is only a tiny percentage of the population that can afford to buy an entire wing of the hospital and donate a few million bucks to get that radiogram, the other 99,9% wouldnt even have the oppurtunity to get one if it wasnt supplied by the state. Do you know what health care cost? No one can afford it if it isnt supplied by the goverment or as in the US by insurances. You are also presuming that just because there is a monopoly on something it makes it flawed by design. It isnt, the things you pointed out is a great risk but something that people do notice and whine about and if their goverment want to keep their jobs they better do something about it. You seem to assume that a goverment is malevolent and wants to make as much problem for their citizens as possible, if you have that stance nothing will satisfy you have to atleast hope that the goverment is there for its citizens best and is benevolent.
As I said in my earlier post so isnt use of force nescessary in a perfect socialism, the idea is that everyone will see the 'light' and think that it is a jolly good idea. But it isnt surprising that the ones that already have it very well of doesnt want to share with the ones that dont. And as my law proffessor said to us last week; 'you cant work so you get a fortune, it is impossible, you have to either steal it or otherwise get it in some shady way'.

 

Sprite,

Health care is a poor example for several reasons:

1) Are you suggesting that health care should be excluded from those who cannot afford to pay for it directly? Now THAT would be immoral.
2) In most European countries with a centralised health service you CAN buy private services and thus skip the queue so to speak. I expect it can be done that way in Canada too?
3) It is an area where licencing is required for drugs, doctors etc, so some government intervention is required regardless of how it's paid for, but some things I do not trust business to take adequate care of...

Take another example, like defence. Do you think people would pay for it on a charitable basis for the defence of your country? I think not.

Would we build roads on a charitable basis, or should they be paid for through taxation?

Take money. Now how would we issue money if there is no central control to install the confidence that it was worth something? Consider that it really is just a piece of paper after all.

There are some things that needs central planning and funding, and thus we automatically have a mixed economy. It's the degree of mix I suppose that is debateable, since either form of pure economy would fail it's people.

No intervention means no government meaning Anarchy. Complete intervention and centralised provision kills itself off as has been debated in earlier posts.

 

Viking: re "In most European countries with a centralised health service you CAN buy private services and thus skip the queue so to speak. I expect it can be done that way in Canada too?"

No, in a purely socialised health care system, such as Canada's, you lose your medical license for taking part in that sort of thing. You can absolutely not skip the queue in any way, no matter how much money you are willing to invest in the system (some very rich people have tried). The mitigating factor you refer to is the good influence of capitalism!

And I don't think you're correct that health care is not a good example. It is usually the defining factor between a nation considered "socialist" and a country considered "capitalist". It's the most significant social-infrastructure difference between the US and Canada, and yet the US is virtually never considered "Socialist" and Canada virtually always is.

Having said that, I lived off and on in France (where I was born) until I was 26, and that is an unrelentingly socialist country. However, France's centralised economy is riddled with corruption, whereas Canada's main problem is money wasted on well-intentioned bureaucracy. And in many ways the corruption made it *easier* to function freely in France. I got a lot of pharmaceutical and medical services at a cut rate on the black market in France (not that I'm saying it's moral or that I'd do it now), whereas in Canada you just have to wait in a queue for months or years for the surgery or treatment you need. If there is a black market for medicine here I've yet to encounter it.

No, of COURSE I'm not saying people should not be given health care if they need a service they can't afford. But giving someone what they need is charity, not socialism. Socialism is when the service or product can only be provided at the discretion (or whim?) of the society. It's inseparable from central planning monopolies.

 

Unfortunately, that's what many people consider to be the major flaw of both systems. Human nature is (gasp!) to be greedy and selfish. We enjoy having our property, we enjoy the acquisition of it, and we (sometimes) enjoy the practice of obtaining more of it. The only truly viable system would be something akin to what you see in some futuristic utopian visions where the driving force of humanity is no longer the acquisition of wealth, but I can't see that happening during any of our lifetimes.

You obviously have little faith in the enterprenur. Since more qualified people are likely to obtain more business, they'll be making more money, which therefore makes them more likely to do a good job. Personally, I'm more of an advocate of little government regulation in business. Although some is obviously necessary (Healthcare for example), negating many of the government's economic programs would likely benefit us more than not.

I beg to differ. Many of the people within a country have the intelligence to realize that if their nation were invaded, all the money that they had worked hard to earn would be for naught as they become slaves to some foreign power. On the other hand, however, if all countries depended on charity and nobody donated, it would effectively nullify most if not all wars.

 

i do NOT like to own more things than anyone else... i think that everyone should follow Fidel Castros example and make the world better... i am a socialist and an active supporter of SKP - a swedish communist party... Viva la Castro...

 

I do accualy prefere kpml(r) over Skp myself....

 

I would go with, Monarchy! It would be so cool to be the king!

 

Turandil and Ass,

You haven't responded to the economic critique of centrally planned economies (which you advocate.) Here is the thing, there is more to it than saying "if everyone is nice and hold hands it can work!" I assert that it can't. Communism fails internally, not just externally. In other words, we've watched centrally planned economies fail over and over and over. We don't need all of the empirical evidence to know they'll fail though, we can see communism fails just by analyzing it and seeing that it is based on flawed and unworkable theory.

You seem to be ignoring this. I would be interested if you could cite one modern, reputable economist who can explain why the labor added theory of value can be combined with a centrally planned economy to work on a respectable scale. How do you make the hundreds of trillions of calculations every single day that will be necessary and then disseminate that information?

Rather than take a system that is flawed in theory, and that has failed time and time again, why not take a system that has proven itself to work over the centuries and then work to make it more gentle?

 

Laches, I must commend you on your posts thus far. You seem well versed in political knowledge, and the Smurf link had me laughing quite hard. Anyway, I am pro-Capitalism all the way, but I must make one small distinction.

Right. So the farmer who works 14-hour days for a mere pittance is less deserving than the pampered son of a CEO who earns 100K a month for sitting on his ass? Or should the earnings be the other way around? Communism vs. Capitalism is not about what people deserve. It's about the reality of what people have.

 

Slim, Corporate Executives have a much harder job than "sitting on their ass" as you so eloquently put it. Many of them actually invest their own money in their businesses so if they didn't, they'd be the ones out on the street scrounging through your trash.

They need salaries like that. In a major corporation, the CEO is oftentimes away from the main office multiple times per month and they may have to maintain a second house with payments due to how often they are away.

Second, it is an incredibly stressful job. Knowing that the livelihood of thousands of people and millions of customers is riding on your shoulders is quite pressuring on a human mind. Aside from that, they have boatloads of decisions to make every day, billions of dollars to manage, and innovation to ensure. I'd say that they are among the most talented and hardest working people in the Global Economy today.

While I'm certainly not attempting to downgrade the farmers, it would be impractical for them to actually recieve what they deserve. If they did, the price of food would be so astronomical that only the very wealthy people could afford it. You may argue that the government could subsidize them so that they would gain increased money. Guess who would pay for that? The taxpayers. Enjoy your new 60% income taxes.

 

Oh, this could get fun. I have to disagree with your characterizations of CEOs Rastor. From US business writer James Surowiecki:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,761548,00.html

Very good article, took me just a couple of minutes to find it. In short, I believe you give CEOs entirely too much credit.

 

Thanks, BTA.

Rastor, you eloquently [ha!] and totally missed what I was trying to say...in no way was I minimizing the importance of the jobs of the CEOs.

P.S. Living in NYC, I'm paying 40% income tax as of now...PARTIALLY BECAUSE OF GOVERNMENT SUBSIDATION OF CROPS.

[ October 24, 2002, 22:20: Message edited by: SlimShogun ]