Capitalism vs. Communism

[The Merchant Republics]

@The Merchant Republics

violence against their workers (not something that should happen in a free market, despite the misconceptions)

Please explain how it would not happen?

It seems to you guys that the free-market is something sacred and can never falter or do evil. ALL systems have their flaws granted, but don't be so naive about free-markets.
I try to critisise my own viewpoints. Granted it takes time, but I do try to look at it from the other side.

Pardon, but you misquoted me.

The correct quote is:

[The Government] turned a blind eye to blatant violence against their workers (not something that should happen in a free market, despite the misconceptions)

Please note the bolded: I am not saying that the market would prevent firms from committing violence against their workers (unless we're talking full market anarchy), rather i am saying that violence should not be tolerated in a free market. It would and should be illegal to harm your workers or prevent them from organizing. The market was not free in the Industrial Revolution because workers we're prevented from collective bargaining and organizing freely through violent means, while the government tolerated and participated in this, therefore it would be inaccurate to call those markets free.

It's the same reason a society with slavery should not be called a free market. If there are slaves, then they're cannot be freedom. Slavery should not be legal in a free market society.

[LiangLai]

What's all this free market nonsense anyway? How is the free market going to work if communism can't.
Why do you trust people to not become corrupt and do wrong in a free market, but not in communism?
Just because communism asks people to share property, it seems.
Free market relies on the goodness of human hearts as much as communism.

If government is separated from the marketplace, more competition will ensue. Competition will force people to give better wages, and better products, lest they lose their workers from those who can pay better wages, and create better products.

[Laissez-Faire]

What's all this free market nonsense anyway? How is the free market going to work if communism can't.
Why do you trust people to not become corrupt and do wrong in a free market, but not in communism?
Just because communism asks people to share property, it seems.
Free market relies on the goodness of human hearts as much as communism.

Well, If it does, then free markets at least expand the dependence on the adequacy of human hearts and decision to the population through individuals.

Sure, people will always do wrong- if the government comes at them with a tissue, there is no repercussion that would be felt in a free market. When there is a number of elite, there is simply no chance for competition.

Damage to individuals comes in any sort of market, of course. But a truly free market is not one wherein that abuse so easily continues itself.

[Sovietiya]

What's all this free market nonsense anyway? How is the free market going to work if communism can't.
Why do you trust people to not become corrupt and do wrong in a free market, but not in communism?
Just because communism asks people to share property, it seems.
Free market relies on the goodness of human hearts as much as communism.

This.

[Conscentia]

What's all this free market nonsense anyway? How is the free market going to work if communism can't.
Why do you trust people to not become corrupt and do wrong in a free market, but not in communism?
Just because communism asks people to share property, it seems.
Free market relies on the goodness of human hearts as much as communism.

If government is separated from the marketplace, more competition will ensue. Competition will force people to give better wages, and better products, lest they lose their workers from those who can pay better wages, and create better products.

Competition is not always good. Sometimes it harms the market.
When the government banned cigarette advertising, their profits increases temporarily because they were not competing and they stopped wasting money on huge advertising campaigns to out-do each other.

[Laissez-Faire]

If government is separated from the marketplace, more competition will ensue. Competition will force people to give better wages, and better products, lest they lose their workers from those who can pay better wages, and create better products.

Competition is not always good. Sometimes it harms the market.
When the government banned cigarette advertising, their profits increases temporarily because they were not competing and they stopped wasting money on huge advertising campaigns to out-do each other.

Long-term stability comes from such competition- If you measure economic success by the profit margin of individual businesses, of course it will appear to be against the market. However, in terms of the economy, competiton ensures the moderation of all businesses and the betterment of efficient practice. Yes, failure is an option and must always be.

[Conscentia]

What's all this free market nonsense anyway? How is the free market going to work if communism can't.
Why do you trust people to not become corrupt and do wrong in a free market, but not in communism?
Just because communism asks people to share property, it seems.
Free market relies on the goodness of human hearts as much as communism.

Well, If it does, then free markets at least expand the dependence on the adequacy of human hearts and decision to the population through individuals.

Sure, people will always do wrong- if the government comes at them with a tissue, there is no repercussion that would be felt in a free market. When there is a number of elite, there is simply no chance for competition.

Damage to individuals comes in any sort of market, of course. But a truly free market is not one wherein that abuse so easily continues itself.

What, there won't be elite in free markets? The supposed un-free markets we have now have mean't most wealth is held by the top 1% most wealthy and connected organisations. A very recent scientific study showed that less than 1% of the companies controlled 40% of the economy due to the massive amount of connections. (That means if one of these goes bankrupt, the system suffers heavily, by the way.)

[Laissez-Faire]

Well, If it does, then free markets at least expand the dependence on the adequacy of human hearts and decision to the population through individuals.

Sure, people will always do wrong- if the government comes at them with a tissue, there is no repercussion that would be felt in a free market. When there is a number of elite, there is simply no chance for competition.

Damage to individuals comes in any sort of market, of course. But a truly free market is not one wherein that abuse so easily continues itself.

What, there won't be elite in free markets? The supposed un-free markets we have now have mean't most wealth is held by the top 1% most wealthy and connected organisations. A very recent scientific study showed that less than 1% of the companies controlled 40% of the economy due to the massive amount of connections. (That means if one of these goes bankrupt, the system suffers heavily, by the way.)

The current status quo is far from a true free market. The proposition of failure and competition as a whole create much more competition.

Sure, a level of success above others is innate in a free market- it is simply not this elite that so many look upon in the traditional fear.

[Conscentia]

Competition is not always good. Sometimes it harms the market.
When the government banned cigarette advertising, their profits increases temporarily because they were not competing and they stopped wasting money on huge advertising campaigns to out-do each other.

Long-term stability comes from such competition- If you measure economic success by the profit margin of individual businesses, of course it will appear to be against the market. However, in terms of the economy, competiton ensures the moderation of all businesses and the betterment of efficient practice. Yes, failure is an option and must always be.

That can happen in a regulated economy. You don't have to scrap all regulation.
Similarly, over-regulation is problematic too as it simply gets in the way.

The point was competition is not always good.

[LiangLai]

Well, If it does, then free markets at least expand the dependence on the adequacy of human hearts and decision to the population through individuals.

Sure, people will always do wrong- if the government comes at them with a tissue, there is no repercussion that would be felt in a free market. When there is a number of elite, there is simply no chance for competition.

Damage to individuals comes in any sort of market, of course. But a truly free market is not one wherein that abuse so easily continues itself.

What, there won't be elite in free markets? The supposed un-free markets we have now have mean't most wealth is held by the top 1% most wealthy and connected organisations. A very recent scientific study showed that less than 1% of the companies controlled 40% of the economy due to the massive amount of connections. (That means if one of these goes bankrupt, the system suffers heavily, by the way.)

Yes, those who create the best products, and/or have the best prices for their products will generally rise to the top, but not to the extent that they are in today. Corporations are so big due to government intrusion.

Businesses must be allowed to fail. If we bail out businesses that go bankrupt, we are just propping up inefficient companies. If a company fails, another will come to replace it.

[Laissez-Faire]

Long-term stability comes from such competition- If you measure economic success by the profit margin of individual businesses, of course it will appear to be against the market. However, in terms of the economy, competition ensures the moderation of all businesses and the betterment of efficient practice. Yes, failure is an option and must always be.

That can happen in a regulated economy. You don't have to scrap all regulation.
Similarly, over-regulation is problematic too as it simply gets in the way.

The point was competition is not always good.

And my point was, you cannot base that judgement off of individual businesses.

[Conscentia]

What, there won't be elite in free markets? The supposed un-free markets we have now have mean't most wealth is held by the top 1% most wealthy and connected organisations. A very recent scientific study showed that less than 1% of the companies controlled 40% of the economy due to the massive amount of connections. (That means if one of these goes bankrupt, the system suffers heavily, by the way.)

Yes, those who create the best products, and/or have the best prices for their products will generally rise to the top, but not to the extent that they are in today. Corporations are so big due to government intrusion.

Businesses must be allowed to fail. If we bail out businesses that go bankrupt, we are just propping up inefficient companies. If a company fails, another will come to replace it.

You can't blame the government for all the too big to fails.
Bankruptcy can cause major economic harm if the bankrupt business got big enough at a time when it's bankruptcy was inconceivable.

[Laissez-Faire]

Yes, those who create the best products, and/or have the best prices for their products will generally rise to the top, but not to the extent that they are in today. Corporations are so big due to government intrusion.

Businesses must be allowed to fail. If we bail out businesses that go bankrupt, we are just propping up inefficient companies. If a company fails, another will come to replace it.

You can't blame the government for all the too big to fails.

Yet, government is still the root source for many.

[The Merchant Republics]

What's all this free market nonsense anyway? How is the free market going to work if communism can't.
Why do you trust people to not become corrupt and do wrong in a free market, but not in communism?
Just because communism asks people to share property, it seems.
Free market relies on the goodness of human hearts as much as communism.

If government is separated from the marketplace, more competition will ensue. Competition will force people to give better wages, and better products, lest they lose their workers from those who can pay better wages, and create better products.

Well, to answer you Consentia, beyond Lianglai's eloquent response. Which is essentially correct. A free market need not rely on human kindness, merely that humans will obey the rules and not fight each-other, law will still exist, just in a freer contractual form.

Further, you would be wrong to believe that I oppose communism because I think humans are inherently selfish or evil, indeed I strongly disagree, I think humans have an innate tendency towards social cooperation and good, something I think more than confirmed by anthropological and psychological study.

The reason I oppose utopian communism is because it believes society can rely fully on human kindness, which is absolute folly. Humans are capable of such kindness but ironically communist societies tend to create conditions that rob people of any capability or reason to be kind.

Charity first of all generally requires that you, yourself are better off than those you are helping. The hungry simply cannot share with the starving, the well-fed however will always have much more to give. We should hope to engender a society where there is enough wealth for everyone to share it of their own volition, I believe it is uncontested that the best society to create this wealth is a market capitalist one.

Charity second of all requires a perception of need and sympathy, communism hopes to engender in everyone a complete duty to assist his fellow, but ironically what this actually does is make a common out of the poor. When everyone is supposed to help the poor, everyone will want to be the last one who has to actually help them. In the current state, the starving are unowned in the eye's of society, (sorry that's an absolutely vulgar term) that means that there will always be people who will, seeing no one feels the need to take care of them, will try to take care of them.

Finally charity requires love. If every person loved every other person, then poverty likely wouldn't exist regardless of the system. Communism simply cannot engender a universal love for all mankind, the only thing it can do, is enforce a duty to love, and such a thing will in fact create a horrid and ugly system where in love is not something given and taken freely among equals but is expected as a birthright, enforced upon others. Such a system would paradoxically engender bitter hatred for one's fellow man, rather than feel pity for the poor, you would be expected to love them, no matter how horrid they are, you will inevitably become bitter over having to help those people that refuse to work, the people who are rude and mean. Communism makes people selfish by making love cheap.

Which leads finally to my coup de grace, a communist system eliminates the only productive release for selfish desires, the market is the only system in which the natural selfish inclination of mankind can be transformed to positive social good, selfishness is not the only state of mankind, but it is nonetheless a state and it cannot be eliminated so easily. A selfish person in a market society is rewarded the most by benefiting his fellow man, but in a communist society quite ironically a selfish man is best rewarded by hurting his fellow man. In a capitalist or market society if you wish to work less, you have to make your work more valuable, by providing better service to others, in a communist or collectivist society, if you wish to work less, your best choice is to simply work less, no one can stop you, and everyone is still required to provide for your basic needs.

Collectivism does not fail because mankind is too evil for it to work, collectivism fails because it engenders evil in mankind.

[Conscentia]

If government is separated from the marketplace, more competition will ensue. Competition will force people to give better wages, and better products, lest they lose their workers from those who can pay better wages, and create better products.

Well, to answer you Consentia, beyond Lianglai's eloquent response. Which is essentially correct. A free market need not rely on human kindness, merely that humans will obey the rules and not fight each-other, law will still exist, just in a freer contractual form.

Further, you would be wrong to believe that I oppose communism because I think humans are inherently selfish or evil, indeed I strongly disagree, I think humans have an innate tendency towards social cooperation and good, something I think more than confirmed by anthropological and psychological study.

The reason I oppose utopian communism is because it believes society can rely fully on human kindness, which is absolute folly. Humans are capable of such kindness but ironically communist societies tend to create conditions that rob people of any capability or reason to be kind.

Charity first of all generally requires that you, yourself are better off than those you are helping. The hungry simply cannot share with the starving, the well-fed however will always have much more to give. We should hope to engender a society where there is enough wealth for everyone to share it of their own volition, I believe it is uncontested that the best society to create this wealth is a market capitalist one.

Charity second of all requires a perception of need and sympathy, communism hopes to engender in everyone a complete duty to assist his fellow, but ironically what this actually does is make a common out of the poor. When everyone is supposed to help the poor, everyone will want to be the last one who has to actually help them. In the current state, the starving are unowned in the eye's of society, (sorry that's an absolutely vulgar term) that means that there will always be people who will, seeing no one feels the need to take care of them, will try to take care of them.

Finally charity requires love. If every person loved every other person, then poverty likely wouldn't exist regardless of the system. Communism simply cannot engender a universal love for all mankind, the only thing it can do, is enforce a duty to love, and such a thing will in fact create a horrid and ugly system where in love is not something given and taken freely among equals but is expected as a birthright, enforced upon others. Such a system would paradoxically engender bitter hatred for one's fellow man, rather than feel pity for the poor, you would be expected to love them, no matter how horrid they are, you will inevitably become bitter over having to help those people that refuse to work, the people who are rude and mean. Communism makes people selfish by making love cheap.

Which leads finally to my coup de grace, a communist system eliminates the only productive release for selfish desires, the market is the only system in which the natural selfish inclination of mankind can be transformed to positive social good, selfishness is not the only state of mankind, but it is nonetheless a state and it cannot be eliminated so easily. A selfish person in a market society is rewarded the most by benefiting his fellow man, but in a communist society quite ironically a selfish man is best rewarded by hurting his fellow man. In a capitalist or market society if you wish to work less, you have to make your work more valuable, by providing better service to others, in a communist or collectivist society, if you wish to work less, your best choice is to simply work less, no one can stop you, and everyone is still required to provide for your basic needs.

Collectivism does not fail because mankind is too evil for it to work, collectivism fails because it engenders evil in mankind.

I was arguing against those free marketeers who believe communism can't work because people are bad, by arguing that the free market requires the human kindness they believe doesn't exist.

You were not the target of my statement.

[Anti Neo Nazis]

I'm mostly on your side here, but during the IR the markets were virtually 100% free. Industrialists had free reign to exploit the working class (Christ I sound like a marxist). Its quite likely that without government regulation monopolies and oligopolies and trusts would dominate industry, paying their workers subsistence wages and hold prices above productive efficiency. Hell the latter exists today in some specific cases. I don't think there is any serious argument for the complete elimination of the state or state regulations of the market. It's almost as fallacious as Communism is, it doesn't work in practice because it makes serious misjudgments about human nature.

That's actually a major misconception.

The markets we're anything but free, keep in mind that most of the world during the IR was wrestling between Mercantilist and Nationalist policies, government routinely subsidized their domestic firms particularly railways and steamships, turned a blind eye to blantant violence against their workers (not something that should happen in a free market, despite the misconceptions) and often made absolutely ridiculous regulations (I can think of one law, that prevented charging different prices for hauling different goods, a policy which helped make made James J. Hill's Empire Builder Railway the most profitable and entirely private railway in the US at the time) and subject to favouritism and cronyism.

I guess the term free was a bad one to use. What I meant to say that there were substantially less regulations than there are today. The transition from mercantilism to capitalism was far from smooth and was rife with corruption that could only be stifled by the Ultra-Badass that was Teddy Roosevelt. I misspoke, but my contention still remains that regulation isn't a bad thing if you're sensible about it.

[The Merchant Republics]

Well, to answer you Consentia, beyond Lianglai's eloquent response. Which is essentially correct. A free market need not rely on human kindness, merely that humans will obey the rules and not fight each-other, law will still exist, just in a freer contractual form.

Further, you would be wrong to believe that I oppose communism because I think humans are inherently selfish or evil, indeed I strongly disagree, I think humans have an innate tendency towards social cooperation and good, something I think more than confirmed by anthropological and psychological study.

The reason I oppose utopian communism is because it believes society can rely fully on human kindness, which is absolute folly. Humans are capable of such kindness but ironically communist societies tend to create conditions that rob people of any capability or reason to be kind.

Charity first of all generally requires that you, yourself are better off than those you are helping. The hungry simply cannot share with the starving, the well-fed however will always have much more to give. We should hope to engender a society where there is enough wealth for everyone to share it of their own volition, I believe it is uncontested that the best society to create this wealth is a market capitalist one.

Charity second of all requires a perception of need and sympathy, communism hopes to engender in everyone a complete duty to assist his fellow, but ironically what this actually does is make a common out of the poor. When everyone is supposed to help the poor, everyone will want to be the last one who has to actually help them. In the current state, the starving are unowned in the eye's of society, (sorry that's an absolutely vulgar term) that means that there will always be people who will, seeing no one feels the need to take care of them, will try to take care of them.

Finally charity requires love. If every person loved every other person, then poverty likely wouldn't exist regardless of the system. Communism simply cannot engender a universal love for all mankind, the only thing it can do, is enforce a duty to love, and such a thing will in fact create a horrid and ugly system where in love is not something given and taken freely among equals but is expected as a birthright, enforced upon others. Such a system would paradoxically engender bitter hatred for one's fellow man, rather than feel pity for the poor, you would be expected to love them, no matter how horrid they are, you will inevitably become bitter over having to help those people that refuse to work, the people who are rude and mean. Communism makes people selfish by making love cheap.

Which leads finally to my coup de grace, a communist system eliminates the only productive release for selfish desires, the market is the only system in which the natural selfish inclination of mankind can be transformed to positive social good, selfishness is not the only state of mankind, but it is nonetheless a state and it cannot be eliminated so easily. A selfish person in a market society is rewarded the most by benefiting his fellow man, but in a communist society quite ironically a selfish man is best rewarded by hurting his fellow man. In a capitalist or market society if you wish to work less, you have to make your work more valuable, by providing better service to others, in a communist or collectivist society, if you wish to work less, your best choice is to simply work less, no one can stop you, and everyone is still required to provide for your basic needs.

Collectivism does not fail because mankind is too evil for it to work, collectivism fails because it engenders evil in mankind.

I was arguing against those free marketeers who believe communism can't work because people are bad, by arguing that the free market requires the human kindness they believe doesn't exist.

You were not the target of my statement.

Nor were you, necessarily the target of mine. That is simply my belief as it regards the inadequacy of communism.

[Anti Neo Nazis]

capitalism has caused countless to suffer aswell.

Thats the most laughable and unfounded statement I've ever read.

[Sibirsky]

1. than how do you know that yours doesn't about what happened before you were born?

Multiple sources, observation, logic.

2. computers are useless? then get off yours. airplanes are useless? remind me what the quickest transport anywhere is? (HINT: its not teleportation, and it takes jet fuel.) not rocket science.

Computers were invented in the west. The typical Soviet person, never flew on an airplane. What use was it to them? They had none of it.

3. because you are.

This is not proof.

4. then dont bitch near government officials and rats.

So much for freedom.

5. the cause didn't fail, the revolution was betrayed. by Gorbachev. fuck the profligates' system of oppression.

Communism is impossible. The cause failed. Gorby adjusted by increasing social and economic freedom.

The man was great. Specifically for increasing social and economic freedom.

6. try 1%, thats 1/100 americans.

That's fucking bullshit. About 100,000 Americans are "chronically homeless." That is, 0.2% of the poor, like I said. And 0.032% of the total population. It's sucks. But it's insignificant.

Most of them, have some kind of mental illness, and are unaware of the options available to them.

7. its entirely relevent; it shows you have no damn idea what your talking about; plus, ignoring that 67% of the rich inherited their wealth..

Right. And you're so well educated on all matters.

Even if 67% of rich Americans inherited their wealth, so fucking what? I respect property rights, and the right of their ancestors to give it to whom they damn well please.

8.no, you enjoyed middle class life, courtesy of the government you despise.

By western standards, it was poverty. The standard of living in the USSR, was barely above that of Africa.

The government I despise, caused that poverty, as well as limited all sorts of basic human rights, and killed several members of my family, while impoverishing the rest.

[Conscentia]

capitalism has caused countless to suffer aswell.

Thats the most laughable and unfounded statement I've ever read.

So you don't think people hadn't ignored safety of workers or failed to protect the environment in order to maximise profits?
I can assure you it's happen plentiful times in the past.

[The Merchant Republics]

The markets we're anything but free, keep in mind that most of the world during the IR was wrestling between Mercantilist and Nationalist policies, government routinely subsidized their domestic firms particularly railways and steamships, turned a blind eye to blantant violence against their workers (not something that should happen in a free market, despite the misconceptions) and often made absolutely ridiculous regulations (I can think of one law, that prevented charging different prices for hauling different goods, a policy which helped make made James J. Hill's Empire Builder Railway the most profitable and entirely private railway in the US at the time) and subject to favouritism and cronyism.

I guess the term free was a bad one to use. What I meant to say that there were substantially less regulations than there are today. The transition from mercantilism to capitalism was far from smooth and was rife with corruption that could only be stifled by the Ultra-Badass that was Teddy Roosevelt. I misspoke, but my contention still remains that regulation isn't a bad thing if you're sensible about it.

Law isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in general regulations have been.


Most regulations do the same job as laws but through sloppy-heavy handed ways, putting your worker's in undue harm might, and probably should be a breach of contract. But government's solution, rather than to enforcing those contract is to make people conform to their opinions of safety.

Building a home with inadequate wiring should be a breach of contract, but government's solution of mandating their preferred wiring set-up causes more problem.

[Sibirsky]

logic. children will work cheaply; children dont report stuff. ergo, they will be ideal workers.

also, think about it; if slavery were to be legal, how many corporations would buy slaves? i think many.

You have shown, a consistent lack of logic.

Children are less productive. Further, as society grows more productive and prosperous (thanks to technological development, capital investment, etc) parents do not want, and more importantly do not need, their kids to work.

[Sibirsky]

And it seizes to be a free market. Now you're planning shit.

Planned economies are less efficient.

except for when they work; then you call it capitalism.

They are always less efficient. Always. All ways.

[Conscentia]

I was arguing against those free marketeers who believe communism can't work because people are bad, by arguing that the free market requires the human kindness they believe doesn't exist.

You were not the target of my statement.

Nor were you, necessarily the target of mine. That is simply my belief as it regards the inadequacy of communism.

"to answer you Consentia" - seems to me like I was.

[Sibirsky]

So, level the playing field by manipulating the standards of the market? If a market will allow a certain business to develop, true stability arises when that business arises from the market, not government meddling with the market through grants and subsidies.

Why not? Governments have been doing it for years. Without government meddling fossil fuels would become significantly less profitable. In-fact, if the US re-directed all funds to coal power to solar power, solar would become vastly cheaper than coal power.

Why not meddle with it some more to make something good happen out of government meddling rather than killing the planet.

Because government has no idea what technology is best. It should not dictate what power people use.

Let the markets decide what people will use. And if there is room for solar, it will develop. Otherwise, it's unethical, and wasting public funds.

Capitalism, is not killing the planet.