Voters steer Europe to the right
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 18, 2026 16:35
VIEWED: 24282
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I've thought about that quite a bit. I think what an economy needs to accumulate and implement, more than anything else, is efficient production technology. Capitalism excels at that.
Let me explain the good part of capitalism: Let's say you could accurately put a value on the entire world's output and find that it was a $10T a year. Then, if you look at all of the wages paid, you might find it was $8T a year, the remainder $2T goes to the owners of companies as "profit". Let's say that of that $2T, only $1T is used to buy goods like houses and stuff and the rest is left over. There is a word for the remainder, and it's called "savings". So on the one hand, you can call it "profit" and spit on it, on the other hand you can call it "savings". Under capitalism, there is a HUGE incentive to take those "savings" and spend it on automation. The drive is towards more production with less labor cost, and that's what we want. BUT.
Quote:Why does one need to "compete"? WHAT are we competing for?
But signy you have to ask yourself if there would really be opportunity in a marxist society that is economically uncompetitive? Would the wage-slaves in these developing capitalist economies be better off in a marxist country, even if that country's industry loses out, and becomes slowly more and more uncompetitive?
Quote:You're talking about two different things: competition, and lifting people out of poverty. I find that where capitalism touches, poverty isn't far behind. I have to wonder: in a world where so many people need water, housing, schooling, and medicine (including family planning!), and so much of the world NEEDS to be remediated- reforested, cleaned up etc.... why are people out of work?? Unemployment seems to be a product of capitalism.
What about in ten years, thirty years, fifty years...? Seems to me if you want to be a tiger economy that will lift your people out of grinding poverty, capitalism is your best bet.
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We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy
Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy
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Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:Quote:
In theory, a "communist state" is an oxymoron.
Has communism had the opportunities for better, more promising leadership, and just missed them? And so generally just been unlucky to have been largely perpetrated by thugs?
Heads should roll
And also outside influences
If the US hadn't of reacted with hostility immediately after the Cuban revolution, no bay of pigs, no embargo, and Castros government didn't have the security concerns created by those outside influences, what may have changed?
With no need to run to the Soviet Union for protection, maybe relations with the US could have been much more balanced, economic pressures would point to the US as the mast desirable export market, and perhaps without the fear of direct invasion, or the threat of US backed counter revolutionarys a system of this type might have prospered.
With money from these exports channeled into healthcare and education ( we have seen that they have spent whatever they could there as it is ) reforms in everything under the sun might have come out 1965-1975 as these people changed their own system from within.
Damn I am beginning to ramble
" They don't hate America, they hate Americans " Homer Simpson
Lets party like its 1939
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Quote:
Why does one need to "compete"? WHAT are we competing for?
These developing capitalist economies that you are always decrying - the implication is that those toiling lower classes would be better off after a marxist revolution? But would their industries be competitive on a global scale, would they be able to attract businesses and so on? And so the answer is a marxist revolution might benefit these people by spreading the country's wealth more evenly, but their children and their grandchildren would miss out if the country had significantly less wealth!
Is marxism only viable if it's universal then? Or do you believe in the possibility of a marxist tiger economy?
Heads should roll
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Quote:
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:Quote:
In theory, a "communist state" is an oxymoron.
Has communism had the opportunities for better, more promising leadership, and just missed them? And so generally just been unlucky to have been largely perpetrated by thugs?
Heads should roll
And also outside influences
If the US hadn't of reacted with hostility immediately after the Cuban revolution, no bay of pigs, no embargo, and Castros government didn't have the security concerns created by those outside influences, what may have changed?
With no need to run to the Soviet Union for protection, maybe relations with the US could have been much more balanced, economic pressures would point to the US as the mast desirable export market, and perhaps without the fear of direct invasion, or the threat of US backed counter revolutionarys a system of this type might have prospered.
With money from these exports channeled into healthcare and education ( we have seen that they have spent whatever they could there as it is ) reforms in everything under the sun might have come out 1965-1975 as these people changed their own system from within.
Damn I am beginning to ramble
" They don't hate America, they hate Americans " Homer Simpson
Lets party like its 1939
No that's ok, fair points. Can't all those changes still come though? There's no soviet union anymore, and there's not going to be any more bay of pigs/assassination plots.
I'm thinking in terms of this communist ideal which we are yet to see, 'stateless' and democratic in its policy-making.
Heads should roll
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I don't buy this 'capitalism is natural so it's good' guff even if it were true. Firstly, you can't just describe nature or natural things as good. Nature can be cruel and savage. Animals eat each other alive every day, rip each other apart hideously. Lifespans are short, old and young often dying horrible deaths, left behind, eaten by their own parents.... Death, disease and disasters are all 'natural'
Marx also thought that capitalism was natural, and that communism would ultimately replace capitalism 'naturally' once the inherent flaws in the system made it untenable.
On the original topic, its hardly surprising that the British labour party is likely to face defeat by the Tories. They've been in power since 1996 or thereabouts and everyone sick to death of them. That and the fact that Gordon Brown has the personality of a wardrobe.
it is perfectly possible to live in a society with both free market elements and government or nationalised institutions and still be an effective, thriving economy. Singapore is one such example.
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Quote:Indeed I am. I've been logged off until today. Allow me to gather some thoughts and I'll respond.
Originally posted by SignyM:
So Bluesun- are you interested in a discussion?
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Quote:Again, WHAT are they "competing" for? Markets? Jobs? Money? Land? Fruitflies?
But would their industries be competitive on a global scale
Quote:If you have sufficient resources, a peaceful society, a population which generates its own demand as well as it's own labor, and you're willing to use labor-time without the benefit of IMMEDIATE production (ie. research, technological development) why do you need to attract business?
would they be able to attract businesses and so on
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Quote:
Originally posted by JKiddo:Quote:Again, WHAT are they "competing" for? Markets? Jobs? Money? Land? Fruitflies?
But would their industries be competitive on a global scaleQuote:If you have sufficient resources, a peaceful society, a population which generates its own demand as well as it's own labor, and you're willing to use labor-time without the benefit of IMMEDIATE production (ie. research, technological development) why do you need to attract business?
would they be able to attract businesses and so on
Okay signy, so you take over one of these developing countries and install a marxist economy. You make the country self-sufficient, producing everything the populace needs and wants. These products are vastly more expensive than what can be imported (your industries are uncompetitive, for numerous reasons) - so you put restrictions on imports. Most of your population are poor, but straight away you are denying them cheap food etc.?
Heads should roll
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Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Okay, you two are disagreeing with each other, but it seems to me signy is closer to the mark - this from wiki:
"Communism in the Marxian sense refers to a classless, stateless, and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life."
It depends who you listen to actually. Communism was supposed to reach an end stage which was a classless stateless system, through a state run by a vanguard party. Communists call that stage the "socialist state", most everyone else calls it the "communist state". I prefer communist state because socialism is a much much bigger subject than just communism.
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If they're producing everything they need and want, how are locally-produced goods expensive? Conversely, if imports are "cheaper" than locally-produced goods, doesn't it mean that the exporting country is either employing a lot of automation (in which people are unemployed) or paying substandard wages (in which people don't enjoy a decent standard of living)?
I'm not trying to be abstruse, I've reached a point of confusion. I've thought about our previous discussion.
I said that unemployment is a product of capitalism. On second thought, that may not be the case. The Roman Empire had a big problem with unemployment. So did monarch France. So did some of the Chinese dynasties, and industrializing Britain. What did they have in common? Well, they had over-towering differences in wealth and power. The question is, did the vast difference in wealth CAUSE unemployment, or were both caused by a third factor? In industrializing England, problem was an introduction of more efficient production technologies, tossing people out of work. But if that's the case, why doesn't the work just uniformly spread out? Why are SOME people worked to death, while others starve to death because of LACK of work? Needs more thought.
Also, I tried to imagine a system that you propose, of capitalist production and social distribution. The problem is, I reach the same conundrum as before: as long as competition for markets is the the main driver, that approach (capitalism with a friendly face) will be out-competed by "pure" capitalism all the time, every time. Some other factor has to come into play, either political (trade agreements), unionization, immigration (people move for better wages) or some other factor that I'm not seeing.
Anyway, I expect I'll be very busy today, so hope to ttul.
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