Da Goddess

Marxism,from your words you haven't a clue.
But this,

"I am ready to serve a communist society as I have served a capitalist society",

A kind of a class traitor.wherever the wind blows eh?

"as a skilled reliable worker."

That was the question, what are you good at,from each according to his abilities,what are yours?
Perhaps society should judge.

Aww. that's OK Da Goddess. As you can see with the latest post by the last person claiming to come from a "communist" state, clearly we are winding down.

Hungary. Look it up.

And EVERY state that is communist deserves "" by the description. Because communism is a failure. It has failed because of the people who implement it, because of the people who will not accept it, and because it is the dumbest idea often spewed by ignorant people.

Did you know many capitalist countries have better social services than communist countries?

If communism can't even compete on it's strengths, why the HELL would you want it?

Peter,

(???)

If you understand Marxian theory as you claim, you would know that there is no contradiction in working in a capitalist system as a worker.

Yogi,

Is that this rhetorical question?

Carl,
As somebody has already pointed out, our debate is pretty useless because you base your arguments purely on theory, claiming that every practical implementation has failed for whatever reason, while I base my arguments on my practical experience, the one you claim has failed. Also, someone has already pointed out that if every time a theory has been tried in practice and failed, maybe it is time to re-examine the theory. That is certainly what I would do, as an engineer. But if you want to stay in realm of theories, read some classics:
http://www.d-holliday.com/tmore/utopia.htm
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/citysun.html
I know that I am not going to change your mind based on my personal experience or on these classic books. So, go get your own personal experience. Should you decide to claim political asylum in Cuba, I'll be happy to contribute to your one-way tickets.
Eric.

Carl, I don't see how this is winding down. Maybe you are, but we're not.

No, it is a valid question. What is the selling point of communism? For YOU?

Social services? -We got it beat.

Equality? -Just means you can't excel. And do you REALLY believe there is no human chaff floating in communist countries?

Law and order? -It's called "Opression"

No slavery? -Work or you disappear. Don't meet your quota, you starve. Or your family suffers. It's slavery on a grand scale.

So tell me carl... if you want to sell me on communism... WHY should I try it? Cmon.. I'm willing to consider drinking the kool-aid. But you need to meet me half way.

Actually, communism works quite well in some societies:
Ant hills.
Termite mounds.
Bee hives.
That's about it. The reason communism fails is because it's a bad theory. It's human nature to work for the common good, but only after one has taken care of oneself/one's own. The farmer grows crops for all, but he sure as hell doesn't sell himself short when it comes time to keep some for his own family.

Communism's greatest weakness is it doesn't take *all* of human wants/desires/needs into account.

well, maybe Carl just needs to start a nice commune somwhere in the US. Or join one. Since communism is supposed to spread.

Communism has had a long time to take hold here in the US. So far, it has not. It isn't going to. It has failed elsewhere. The "whys" of its failing don't really matter, just that it has failed everywhere it's been implemented. Even in China, the Party recruits entrepeneurs to give itself more credibility. Because The System has failed. To be rich is glorious.

In Cuba, they say everyone is literate and can read. Neato. They can read what the government deems worthy. Everyone has healthcare, if they are willing to wait in line for their allotment of it.

The Capitalist system has its failures and bumps, and America's government has participated in some questionable and downright ugly schemes, but teh fact that you can sit around and espouse communism here, and can't do the reverse in, say, Cuba, i think says a lot.

To be a communist is to begrudge the success of people who work hard. It's to smilingly take the earnings of someone who has more and give it to someone who is maybe not willing to work so hard.

There are no labor unions in China or Cuba.

Eric,

Where you claim communism has failed, I have shown that which you claim is unique to communism is, in fact, not. You claimed government corruption, I showed where corruption exists here. You claim a lower standard of living, I have shown where a whole section of our society lives in abject poverty. You claim political repression, I showed where political repression exists in this society.

In the realm of practical application, I showed how capitalism has failed (read: exploited) whole sections of the population, domestically and internationally.

I believe the basis of your misunderstanding of communism is rooted in the propaganda put forth by capitalism: "Communism proposes a utopia..." when in fact the debate of utopia vs communism has taken place some 80 years ago. No where in Marxian theory do you find a proposition of a "perfect society".

You claim that communism has failed where ever it has been applied, I wrote that the entirety of human history was communistic in nature until the rending of society into class society. To repeat, all of society was communistic in nature until the advent of class society. A cursory read of Marx would reveal that this is the basis of communist theory. If you feel the whole history of humankind is a failure until the advent of class society then I can see why you feel communism is a failure.

The goal of communism is not to create an utopian society.

One of the first goals is to end exploitation of the working class by the ruling class. In the case, of Cuba, this meant ending the exploitation by the imperialist neighbor to the north. That in fact has happened. Another goal of communism is educating the masses of poor people. That in fact has happened.

Ending exploitation in this country means producing for human need not for private profits and putting an end to wage slavery.

If you truly want to get an understanding of how imperialism has laid siege to communist countries (and even non-communist countries), I would suggest starting with William Blum's "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II".

The end of exploitation of the working class by the ruling class?

Describe this to me. Because the opportune words are "By the ruling class".

Of course the ruling class gets deposed. And then replaced. BECAUSE IT IS WHAT HUMANS DO. 90% of humans are followers, 10% are leaders. The leaders have their own faults, one of which is ALWAYS exploitation.

EVERY failed communism was advertised the way you advertise it. North Korea? Cuba? Eastern europe? Any bells ringing?

Yogi,

To answer your question:

What is the (ahem) selling point of communism?

The end of working class exploitation, for one.

But it does not end the exploitation of the working class. In fact, it increases the exploitation.

Carl,
Please define "working class".
Eric.

Hey, is this still open? I just wondered across your site and thought I'd post as I had a talk with a communist the other day that got me all riled up. Above all, I am pro-human life and pro democracy. I think sometimes that people in our country confuse democracy and capitalism and cherish the wrong thing. In my opinion, democracy is the thing to cherish. If everyone has a voice, I think many different types of financial systems can work. I prefer some kind of capitalism, socialism mix. Capitalism with safeguards and a dollop of kindness. However, my passion is democracy. The thing that bothered me about this communist promoting woman I was talking to was that she said democracy was evil and the only way to achieve equality was to overthrow democracy and have communism. I said maybe she was confusing capitalism and democracy and the scary thing was, I don't she was confusing them. In our unfortunate hour long conversation, it came out that she thought communist leaders should rule by force and enforce communism. I told her that although I have no problem pooling resources (I would probably come out ahead.) I don't want to MAKE other people pool resources, that is the anti-thesis to all I hold dear. I don't know if all communists are in favor of violent overthrow, but I'm in favor of letting people live and letting everyone have a voice. That said, I think there are many economic systems that could work. Capitalism should not be sacred, but democracy, beautiful democracy, should be.

Carl, your points are all academic, and poor academics at that. You continue to prove how little you are willing to learn by refusing to hear what people who have REAL EXPERIENCE have to say about communism.

And, the entire rant about how America and capitalism are evil evil evil is getting old. If you really feel that way, get the hell outta Dodge.

global internet government is livejournal.com/users/charlesbaer

Braidwood,

Great comments.

Yogi,

I disagree. As I have shown, the exploitation of the Cuba by the imperialist ended with the revolution. I know that Sr. Prieto claims that they are now being exploited by the Castro gov't but according to the numerous Cubans I have talked with, this is not the case.

I believe our differing positions are a matter of perspective. From the Cubans and American who both live and travel there (respectively) I am given the perspective that only the "gusanos" (a gusano (worm) is a Cuban who supports and/or is funded by the U.S. to actively oppose the Cuban gov't.) feel they are being exploited and that most others freely support the revolution.

Eric,

The working class are those who work for wages. Those who sell their labor power to produce wealth for private individuals.

Da Goddess,

Actually I have given tangibles. You have simply dismissed them.

Carl,
That definition of the "working class" was given to me back in high school. I thought it was ridiculous then, and I still think it is ridiculous now.
So, I, as an engineer working for a salary, fit your definition of a worker, right? What if I quit my job and start consulting business, essentially doing the same thing as I do now? Do I then become a "capitalist"? What if, while consulting, I need help on some project and ask a friend to help me in exchange for some money? Do I then "exploit" my friend?
Carl, you will not impress me with any references to Marx, Engels or Lenin: I was force-fed their "works" both in high school and college. I had to copy excerpts of their articles into my notebook and present it to my teacher. I even had to pass a state exam on "Scientific Communism". I managed to get a "B". So, while it's been 18 years since I graduated from college and 15 years since I emigrated to the US, I still remember some of that stuff. For the record, in my opinion it did not make sense then, and it does not make sense now. The theory is flawed.
But I have to go back to work. We'll discuss more of it later.
Eric.

Eric,

Trying to figure the purpose of posting links to these websites:

http://www.d-holliday.com/tmore/utopia.htm
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/citysun.html

Since they are very long and time is of the essence, I was wondering if you could summarize.

Thanks

Socrates: Which is more just—an equal division of goods or an unequal one?
Leveler: Obviously an equal division.
Socrates: No matter who produced the goods or how much was produced?
Leveler: Under all circumstances an equal division would be clearly more just than an unequal division.
Socrates: Let us see. Suppose in a poor isolated village of a hundred people, each were allotted a small bowl of rice a day, while in another isolated village with 100 people; ten people got only one bowl of rice a day, ten others two bowls, seventy others three bowls of rice a day, while the top tenth of the group lived very well indeed, with a rich varied diet. Which village would be better off—the first or the second?
Leveler: The second, of course. But—
Socrates: But according to your own definition, there would be less “justice” in the second village.
Leveler: But you are simply changing the terms of the problem. Obviously if the greater supply of goods produced in the second village were evenly divided, the second village would be better off than before, because the division would be more just.
Socrates: But suppose it was precisely because of the coercive equal division that the first village had been reduced to a production of only one bowl of rice per person per day? Suppose the production and distribution in the first village would be the same as that in the second if , as in the second, each person were allowed to keep his own contribution to production? For I have not really been talking about two different villages at all; but about what might happen in the same village under two different systems of “distribution”—one , a forced equal distribution of the total production, and the othe5r a system in which each person was paid for what he produced, or was allowed to keep or exchange what he produce and protected in his right to do so.
Leveler: But isn’t equal division under all circumstances more just than unequal division?
Socrates: Under certain circumstances it might be, as in the food allotment to an army, or to the people of a city under siege. But it is never more just when its result is substantially to diminish the output or product to be divided.

Henry Hazlitt “The Foundations of Morality”

From Pilgrim times (Grim Times indeed)
Written by Governor Bradford
After the colonists experienced terrible want within their commune

[The Colonists] …begane to thinke how they might raise as much corne as they could, and obtaine a beter crope than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in mierie. At length [in 1623] after much debate of things, the Gov. (with the advise of the cheefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corne every man for his owne perticuler, and in that regard trus so them selves… And so assigned to every family a parcel of land…
This had ver good success; for ti made all hands very industrious, so as much more conre was planted than other wais would have bene by any means the Gov. or any ohte could use, and saved hm a great deall of trouble, and gave farr better contente.

The women now wente willingly into the field, and tooke their little-ons with them to set corne, which before would aledg weakness, and inabilitie; whom to have compelled would have bene thought great tiranie and opprssion.

The experience that was had in the commone course and condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanitie of the conceite of Platos and other ancients, applauded by some of later times;--that the taking away of propertie, and bringing in communitie into a comone wealth, would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this comunitie (so farr as it was) was found to bree much confusion and discontent, and retard much imployment that would have been to their bnefite and comforte.

For the yong-men that were most able and fitte for labour and service did repine that they should spend their time and streingth to worke for other mens wives and children, with out any recomvictails and cloaths, than he that was weake and not able to doe a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice…

And for men’s wives to be commanded to doe service for other men, as dressing their meate, washing their cloaths, etc., they demmd it a kind of slaverie, neither could many husbands well brooke it…

By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things wsa changed, to the rejoysing of the harts of many, for which they blessed God. And the effecto of their particular [private] planting was well seene, for all had, one way and other, pretty well to bring the year aboute, and some of the abler sorte and more industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any generall wante or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day.

So, I, as an engineer working for a salary, fit your definition of a worker, right?

Right

What if I quit my job and start consulting business, essentially doing the same thing as I do now? Do I then become a "capitalist"?

You are still "working" for subsistence; you're still a worker. The capitalist class doesn't work; they use the wealth produced by surplus labor to pay others to work for them.

What if, while consulting, I need help on some project and ask a friend to help me in exchange for some money? Do I then "exploit" my friend?

Only if you don't pay him for the full value of his work

Carl, you will not impress me with any references to Marx, Engels or Lenin:

Oops!

I was force-fed their "works" both in high school and college. I had to copy excerpts of their articles into my notebook and present it to my teacher. I even had to pass a state exam on "Scientific Communism". I managed to get a "B".

I can relate to that. Here, we were force fed the idea that Europeans "discovered" a land that already had people on it, and that black people's contribution to modern society is 300 uses for the peanut. Among other things.

For the record, in my opinion it did not make sense then, and it does not make sense now. The theory is flawed.

I can appreciate your opinion. Can you tell me, specifically, which part doesn't make sense and which part of the theory do you find to be flawed? Thanks in advance.

Carl,
I posted those links only to inform you of those books, in case you haven't heard of them before. If you find time to read them, you'll find that the system described in them inevitably leads to totalitarian government.
As for what exactly is flawed in the theory, the theory of added value is flawed, as well as not taking human nature into account. In order to save myself from re-typing, I'll place here a couple of my posts on PW forum from my discussion with a guy who signs "Communist".

It never ceases to amaze me how people who might have only visited a Communist country as tourists at best, spent their entire lives in the West and probably never met anybody from one of those countries keep defending the Communist system. And when obvious failures of the old Soviet Union pointed out to them, they usually say that USSR was not really a Communist country, blaming Stalin for deviating from the "true path". The truth, however, is that wherever the system of wealth re-distribution was tried, it was inevitably corrupted. The corruption in Russia started when Lenin was still alive. That's why he wrote a bunch of articles about "supervision committee" within the party. But then of course the question is, who would supervise the committee members?
The problem with the communist system is that the common good is detached, and often at odds, with individual good. Capitalism, on the other hand has a self-correcting mechanism for that. For example, if you produce bad products, you might make money in the short term, but in the long term you will lose money.
As for Lenin not killing people, he actually was responsible for killing a lot of people, although less than Stalin. But then, Hitler killed less Germans than Stalin killed Soviet citizens. Does it make him a good guy (for Germans, not for everybody else)?
And on final note, a bit of explanation of my views for those who like to theorize about the benefits of Communism after reading some books about it. For me and my family it was not just some theory: we lived there. So, I know about life under Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev not from some books, but from my own parents and grandparents, as well as from my own experience. There was nothing good about that system.

OK, I'll try to make it a short one. First of all, as I stated before, under Communism a personal good of an individual is completely detached from the common good, and often even at odds with the common good. Capitalism, on the other hand, has a self-correcting mechanism.
Second. Marx's theory was based on 3 legs: economics theory of Adam Smith (theory of added value); philosophy of Feierbagh's materialism and Gegel's dialectics; socialism theory of socialist-utopians like Owen, Saint-Simon etc. Please forgive my misspellings of the names: I only remember them in Russian, from my high school. The utopian socialism was ultimately described much earlier, first in Thomas Moore's "Utopia" and then in Campanella's "Sun City". In both of those books the attempt at communist society led to totalitarian states. In "Utopia" the special police was instituted in order to make sure that everybody was working. In "Sun City" every worker had to watch everybody else.
Finally. If a theory cannot be implemented in practice, could it be that the theory is flawed? You know, just a wild guess.
Anyway, I did not succeed in making this post a short one. I am now going to issue a personal challenge to the guy signing as Communist and others like him in a separate thread.

I really should follow my own advice and stop arguing with Communist. But I'll try to make it my last post on the subject.
He gave us a definition of a term "worker" as those who produce some products, but don't own the means of production, i. e. tools. This definition is, indeed, consistent with the definition given to me back in the Soviet Union by my teachers on this subject. Yet, his particular understanding appears to be too broad. According to him, a newly hired CEO of a public company would be a "worker": since he/she is newly hired, he/she does not own any company stock yet. Yet, a company janitor who's been with the company for a while probably owns some company stock through his 401K, and, thus, a "capitalist". Even more so, if he brings his own broom to work. Same goes for an assembler, especially if he/she uses his/her own wire-cutters and soldering iron at work. Probably because the Soviets recognized the absurdity of this, they narrowed the definition of a "worker" down to those who actually physically produce the goods, but don't own the means of production. By such definition an assembler would still be a "worker", but a CEO would not. And if that assembler owns a company stock, then he is still a "worker", but "being bought off by evil capitalists". This definition, however, appeared too narrow, so all the blue color factory employees were included. Thus, a technician testing and troubleshooting the final product was also a "worker". Still, the Soviets recognized that there was some movement between classes: a peasant, at least before Stalin's passport system, could move to a city and get a job at a factory, thus becoming a "worker". Furthermore, a "worker" or a "peasant" could go to college and become an engineer or a teacher, thus leaving either group. So, "an intermediate layer of intelligentsia and service sector employees" was defined, including engineers, scientists, teachers and sales clerks. So, the further you go in trying to define people as members of groups, the more absurd it becomes.
So, where is the flaw? There are two that I can see.
1. The groups cannot be defined. Classes are not fixed, never were and never will be. People move between classes all the time. The other group definitions that were ever attempted were ethnic (proponents of affirmative action etc.) or combination of both ethnic and classes (National Socialists, i. e. Nazis). While the ethnic definitions do not change for people, they are largely irrelevant for people's every day lives, especially in such non-ethnic based society as USA.
2. The whole economic theory of Marxism based on so called Added Value Theory. The simplified theory is as follows:
A worker is given some raw material at a certain cost. He produces some final product, thus creating some value in addition to the initial cost of raw material - Added Value. Because of this added value this final product can be sold at a price higher than the cost of raw material. Once the product is sold, part of the product price-raw material difference is paid to the worker and part is "pocketed" by the owner of a factory as a profit. This is simplified, but this is essentially the basis on which the claim of capitalism's injustice is based: somebody other than a "worker" takes part of the profit. So, where is the flaw in this? Simple: everybody who gets the money deserves it. First of all, the product has to be designed. I, as an engineer, was classified as a "worker" by Communist. In reality, I never physically produced anything. Although no product would exist without an engineer like myself, after the design is done, my work is not needed for production (never works that way, but this is the theory). Still, I have to be paid for the initial design. I get paid from profit resulting from the sale of the final product. Furthermore, the technology is moving forward, so I better be working on some new design, or the company I work for will go out of business, and we'll be out of work. Now that we are done with the design and production, the final product has to be marketed and sold, or our work is useless. Why make something that nobody wants? So, somebody to do the marketing and sell the product is needed. The factory owners usually actively participate in these activities. They also often secure initial funding for Research and Development (R&D), as well as for production. Thus, they perform a valuable function. The money they get after the product is sold are not "pocketed unjustly", but in fact their wages for the job well done. So, the bottom line, there is no injustice. The profit gets re-invested into the company (you need to upgrade your computers once in a while), as well as distributed among all participants in the process. The distribution is uneven, because the contributions and skills of all the participants are not equal.
In the end, everybody and society as a whole benefit. The company with all its employees and owners makes money, and members of society get some product they want. That's the beauty of capitalism: individuals profit if they work for the common good.
In a socialist/communist society individuals profit if they steal from the common good. But that's a whole different topic. I gave examples before, but now I am tired of this discussion, so I am done. Besides, I have a bad cold, so I am sneezing all over my keyboard.

I hope I am not over-burdening anybody with this. Carl, there is a reason why people tend to decide which system is better by voting with their feet.
Eric.

Eric,
Excellent job pointing out the value and cost justification of the "Capitalist".
Capital is a resource and has costs just like labor. There is also no reason that a laborer isn't considered an independant business unit that alos makes a profit.
Certainly Carl's definition of rich Capitalists living a life of ease and luxury off the backs of the poor sounds quited decadent. The reality in the US is that a rich capitalist has to work quite hard quiding and growing his capital or it will disappear on him. He must constantly work at it. Old money families constantly disappear and new money families constantly rise up.
The fact is, we all benefit when Capitalists succeed. We get better jobs and better goods and of course we can afford more social programs. That's why our poor are better off than the middle class of most Socialist countries.

[Carl] Where you claim communism has failed, I have shown that which you claim is unique to communism is, in fact, not.

Communism has failed all over the World while the West has adapted grown and added most of South America, Central America, and the Asian Pacific to it’s roles. Where is communism succeeding exactly?

[Carl] You claimed government corruption, I showed where corruption exists here.

Yes, we have corruption, we also have murder, but that doesn’t mean we are worse than Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Russia.

[Carl] You claim a lower standard of living, I have shown where a whole section of our society lives in abject poverty.
You have not shown a case where any section (undefined size) of our population lives in greater poverty than they would in Cuba or any other workers paradise.

[Carl] You claim political repression, I showed where political repression exists in this society.

I suppose there is some repression in the West but I haven’t seen your serious argument that it is greater under 2nd Amendment laws than it is in say, Cuba.

[Carl] In the realm of practical application, I showed how capitalism has failed (read: exploited) whole sections of the population, domestically and internationally.

I suppose it’s a matter of how you define exploited and the degree of exploitation. It seems hard to argue in a nation of individual freedom and liberty how you can get away with making use of unjustly using an individual for one's own advantage. Not that it’s impossible or hasn’t happened but that such cases have increasingly been found to be illegal and to have been prevented by societies just laws. As opposed to gulag’s, Berlin walls, starvation, and collapse in the socialist world.

[Carl] I believe the basis of your misunderstanding of communism is rooted in the propaganda put forth by capitalism: "Communism proposes a utopia..." when in fact the debate of utopia vs communism has taken place some 80 years ago. No where in Marxian theory do you find a proposition of a "perfect society".

Maybe communism didn’t promise the “perfect society”, but I submit that it inherently promises a better society and in fact delivers a worse society as recent history has clearly shown. The fact that the West defeated it somehow also seems improbably since it was supposed to be a superior system and would “bury” the west because according to it’s own theory, it was the next step in social evolution.

[Carl] You claim that communism has failed where ever it has been applied, I wrote that the entirety of human history was communistic in nature until the rending of society into class society. To repeat, all of society was communistic in nature until the advent of class society. A cursory read of Marx would reveal that this is the basis of communist theory. If you feel the whole history of humankind is a failure until the advent of class society then I can see why you feel communism is a failure.

The whole of human history was by rule of force in the form of totalitarian government where might made right. It was in the west that a gradual evolution to republican democracy and capitalism changed life. I contend that even primitive tribes had private property though they hadn’t figured out how to be successful enough to accumulate capital. They existed predominantly in a bare subsistence world. The noble savage did not live the good life and a return to their methods of organization does not win an argument simply because they occurred earlier in social evolution.

[Carl] The goal of communism is not to create an utopian society.

Where did the phrase worker’s paradise arise?

[Carl] One of the first goals is to end exploitation of the working class by the ruling class. In the case, of Cuba, this meant ending the exploitation by the imperialist neighbor to the north. That in fact has happened. Another goal of communism is educating the masses of poor people. That in fact has happened.

Carl, never responded to my previous post where I identified myself as a military officer who dealt with the Cuban refugees in operation Sea Signal in 1994. I dealt with tens of thousands of Cubans. None of them appeared to be “worms”. It was a huge cross section of their society. I met numerous doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, tradesman, and laborers. They did not appear from their stories to have been singled out for discrimination by the Castro government or to have been particularly dispossessed. They were simply voting their choice with their feet and risking there lives for the chance of a better life in the US. It’s odd that we don’t see the reverse happening in any case where a wonderful and enlightened communist government takes root. Quite the contrary, in every case they are restrained with brutal force. I believe this firmly contrasts with your argument that exploitation has ceased and that education has happened.

[Carl] Ending exploitation in this country means producing for human need not for private profits and putting an end to wage slavery.

Carl’s problem here is that he divorces profit from human need. The idea that profit accrues when products/services have merit and are efficiently managed seems to be ignored. Profit is simply a feedback mechanism letting you know you are doing the right thing the right way. Without it, you are rudderless in attempting to provide others with the material they desperately need and want and on which there survival depends.

[Carl] If you truly want to get an understanding of how imperialism has laid siege to communist countries (and even non-communist countries), I would suggest starting with William Blum's "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II".

If you really want to understand which nation was the most imperialist in the 20th century you really only need see which country snatched up all of Eastern Europe and subjugated them by force. Which world leader said, “We will bury you!” Which ideology advocated spreading itself by force of armed revolution? The fact that the US actively fought against a dangerous, philosophically infeasible, evil system with clearly stated and demonstrated expansionist goals is hardly damning of our society.

Where to start?

A general statement: I am immediately struck by your attempt to explain capitalism by uses theoretical examples, when you so adamantly opposed me theorizing communism. As you have tried to with communism, I would also like to show you where the theory of capitalism does even began to approach the reality of it.

A question about the provided links: Are those books fictional?

In relation to Lenin killing people: I am assuming that when you say Lenin killed people you are saying he murdered them, meaning he unjustly killed them. Surely, you are not opposed to killing people. You are, after all, in support of killing Iraqis in order to force capitalist “democracy” in the so-called middle-east, are you not?

Anywho, do you care to post how Lenin unjustly killed people? Thanx in advance.

I also though it was pretty slick of you to give a brief history of the origins of Marxian theory citing utopians, but make no mention of Marx’s and Engel’s harsh critique of utopian socialism, separating the scientific theory from utopianism.

In the definition by the person you were debating with (owning the means of production) you added i.e. tools. I believe this is where some of your misunderstanding lies. The means of the production doesn’t mean just tools, but also capital, raw materials and human resources.

Also the stratas of class, as defined by Marx are poor, working class, petty bourgeois, bourgeois, and ruling class. While workers are able to traverse the classes from poor to worker to petty bourgeois to even in some cases to bourgeois, they will NEVER enter into the exclusive club that is the ruling class. NEVER. The ruling class is that 1% of the worlds population that owns a huge portion of the worlds resources. In the U.S. the ruling class is represented by such families as the Du Ponts and the Morgans.

In your second reason for finding flaw in Marxism, you state Marx theory (Added Value) as explaining how value is calculated. However, in Marx’s monumental work “Capital”, he traces the beginning of profits (value) back to its crudest forms: capitalist buy commodities and then sell them for more money. The excess money is called surplus-value. Marx explains that this surplus-value comes from labor-power:

Labour power exists in the shape of the living worker who needs a definite amount of mean of subsistence for himself and for his family…

Marx continues: The capitalist pays him weekly and thereby purchases the use of one week’s labour of the worker…In a certain time the worker will have delivered as much labour as was represented by his weekly wage. Supposing that the weekly wage of a worker represents three labour days, then, if the worker begins on Monday he has by Wednesday evening REPLACED for the capitalist the FULL VALUE OF THE WAGE PAID. But does he then stop working? By no means. The capitalist has bought his WEEK’S labour and the worker must go on working during the last three days of the week too. This surplus-labour of the worker, over and above the time necessary to replace his wage, is the source of surplus-value, of profit, of the continually growing accumulation of capital.

Marx goes on the say that the point is that the surplus-labour is the source of all profit and how many hours of surplus-labour one actual works is not the point.

To summarize, the source of all value and profit is surplus-labour. There is a quote from someone I read. It says: Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. If that is true (and it is) then in the example you gave in which you claim the distribution is uneven because the skill level is different, then it is the laborer who should be rewarded the most because skill level doesn’t produce value, surplus-labour does. You can have the greatest invention in the world, but if you don’t have people physically laboring to bring it to fruition it is remains valueless.

With the above analogy you can see how the super surplus-labor of slavery coupled with the theft of land from Native people enabled the U.S. to become the superpower she is. This is the very root of American capitalist democracy.

Carl,
The books by Thomas Moore and Campanella are, of course, fictions, or sci-fi. They were written in 17th Century (or is it 16th for Thomas Moore? - I don't remember). The term "utopia", as applied to society, in fact comes from Thomas Moore's "Utopia".
When I talk about Lenin killing people, I of course talk about murdering innocent people for no good reason. Now the question comes up, whether it was justified or not. I think it was not. One example would be the execution of tsar's Nicolas family. While you might make an argument that the tsar himself should have been put on trial, murder of his 3 daughters and young son certainly does not seem justified. And they were murdered on Lenin's orders. Another example would be rounding up everybody deemed not belonging to "working class" and sending them to concentration camps. By the way, the camps themselves, as well as the term "concentration camp", were not invented in Germany by Heinrich Himmler. They were invented in Soviet Russia by Lenin. Although, I don't remember whether he was the one who first coined the term. It might have been Trotsky or Dzerzhinsky. For further reading I would recommend a rather sympathetic book by Dmitry Volkogonov, a Russian military historian and former Colonel-General of the Soviet Army. The title is "LENIN : A NEW BIOGRAPHY". Here is a link to it on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0029334357/qid=1104477952/sr=2-2/ref=pd_ka_b_2_2/102-6753148-4303333
I read it in the original Russian.
Thank you for clarifying the English term for me: surplus value. I am of course more familiar with the Russian "pribavochnaya stoimost'", which I translated as "added value". Anyway, I am not trying to use theoretical examples, but merely trying, for the sake of the debate, to apply some of the theory I learned in college to my everyday life. And I believe my argument still holds.
As for your example "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration", the perspiration does not have to come from physical labor, it can be brain labor. When you say that unskilled labor should be rewarded more than skilled, that is exactly what was done in the Soviet Union. In fact it went into the realm of absurd: my salary was less than that of a technician just because my job title was "engineer" and I had a college degree. When you say that any invention would not be worth much without a contribution of unskilled laborers, you are wrong. In fact, the opposite is true, and I'll tell you why. You see, whatever circuit I design, I can also assemble it, test it and debug it without any help from assemblers or technicians. Granted, it might not be very productive approach, and that's why I usually use some help (although I would debug first prototype myself anyway). Still, I don't really need any help in order to implement my design. But unskilled laborers would not have a circuit to work on without me designing it first. Furthermore, unskilled laborer can be easily replaced, sometimes by a machine, in case of an assembler. A skilled laborer is much harder to replace, thus it costs more to hire one. The higher the skill, the higher the price of the labor.
Anyway, this whole discussion is academic. The experiment was set up and done already. The results have proven that the theory is either bad or unimplementable in practice, whichever you prefer. Wherever more economic freedoms and private enterprise was allowed, the standard of living was greater. That applies to Eastern Bloc countries too. For example, the highest standard of living among those was in Hungary and Yugoslavia, closely followed by Czechoslovakia and East Germany. Soviet Union was way below. Bulgaria was close to the Soviet Union. Romania was much worse off, and Albania had the lowest standard of living because it was the most Stalinist of them all. But the most glaring example is, of course, two Koreas.
Also, as a "worker", I don't feel "exploited". Never did, not when I was making $7/hour at my 1st job in this country 15 years ago, not now as an engineer. I lived in both systems and know which one works better.
As for the "ruling class" being Du Ponts and Morgans, I kind of feel sorry for good old Bill Gates. What, is he not good enough to join the "ruling class"? How about the rest of the "nerds"? And, by the way, Du Ponts and Morgans were not always the "ruling class". They were not royalty, so they started somewhere. There was some "ruling class" before them. In fact, at some point the "ruling class" in this country was King George.
Finally, CJ compared profits to feedback here. I actually like it a lot. I don't know what you do for a living, but since I am an electronics engineer, this analogy makes a lot of sense to me. Let me give you an example. If you need to create a power supply producing some constant voltage, you have to have a feedback to regulate the voltage. If you open the feedback loop, whatever hooked up to the output will blow up. However, with the feedback loop the output voltage will remain the same regardless of the input voltage or the load current. It is also possible to design an unregulated power supply that does not require a feedback loop. It will produce a desired output voltage under certain conditions (kind of, like command economy of the Soviet Union). However, should some condition change, like input voltage or load current, the output voltage will change also, causing all kinds of trouble.
Anyway, it's late. As I said before, I don't feel "exploited". If you do, just go try another system. I'll contribute to your tickets.
Eric.

[Carl]In relation to Lenin killing people: I am assuming that when you say Lenin killed people you are saying he murdered them, meaning he unjustly killed them. Surely, you are not opposed to killing people. You are, after all, in support of killing Iraqis in order to force capitalist “democracy” in the so-called middle-east, are you not?

[Carl]Anywho, do you care to post how Lenin unjustly killed people? Thanx in advance.

A series of strokes after the Civil War, and his early death in 1924, gave him a mere five years to reign. The brevity of his tenure led many to assume that subsequent human rights abuses in the Soviet Union were not Lenin's fault.

Lenin repeatedly indicated that large-scale killing would be necessary to bring in his utopia, and did not shrink from this realization. His speeches and writings overflow with calls for blood: "Merciless war against these kulaks! Death to them." "We'll ask the man, where do you stand on the question of the revolution? Are you for it or against it? If he's against it, we'll stand him up against a wall." As Pipes sums up, "Lenin hated what he perceived to be the 'bourgeoisie' with a destructive passion that fully equaled Hitler's hatred of the Jews: nothing short of physical annihilation would satisfy him." Moreover, "The term 'bourgeoisie' the Bolsheviks applied loosely to two groups: those who by virtue of their background or position in the economy functioned as 'exploiters,' be they a millionaire industrialist or a peasant with an extra acre of land, and those who, regardless of their economic or social status, opposed Bolshevik policies." (Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime) Lenin used all three of the tools of mass murder that his successors and imitators would later perfect.

--Deaths due to extreme hardship conditions in slave labor camps
Lenin's secret police, the Cheka, pioneered the development of the modern slave labor (or "concentration") camp. Inmates were generally frankly treated as government-owned slaves, and used for the most demanding work - such as digging arctic canals - while receiving pitifully small rations. As Pipes explains, "Soviet concentration camps, as instituted in 1919, were meant to be a place of confinement for all kinds of undesirables, whether sentenced by courts or by administrative organs. Liable to confinement in them were not only individuals but also 'categories of individuals' - that is, entire classes: Dzerzhinskii at one point proposed that special concentration camps be erected for the 'bourgeoisie.' Living in forced isolation, the inmates formed a pool of slave labor on which Soviet administrative and economic institutions could draw at no cost." (The Russian Revolution) The number of people in these camps according to Pipes was about 50,000 prisoners in 1920 and 70,000 in 1923; many of these did not survive the inhuman conditions. The inmates might be bourgeoisie, or peasants, or members of other socialist factors such as the Mensheviks or the Social Revolutionaries, or members of ethnicities thought to be hostile to the Bolsheviks, such as the Don Cossacks. The death rates in these camps appear to have been in the extreme hardship range of 10-30%. While the number thus killed was only a small percentage of the total exterminated under Lenin's regime, it laid the foundation for Stalin's slave labor empire.

--Deaths due to man-made famine
By far the largest number of unnatural deaths for which Lenin and his cohorts were responsible resulted from famine. Lenin and his regime tried to depict the famine as simply bad luck, but the truth is rather different. To feed his troops and keep the cities producing munitions, Lenin needed food. He got it by "requisitioning" it from the peasantry - demanding delivery of large sums of food for little or nothing in exchange. This led peasants to drastically reduce their crop production. In retaliation, Lenin often ordered the seizure of the food peasants had grown for their own subsistence, sometimes ordering the confiscation of their seed grain as a further sanction. The Cheka and the army began by shooting hostages, and ended by waging a second full-scale civil war against the recalcitrant peasantry.

The ultimate results of this war against the peasantry were devastating. Official Soviet reports admitted that fully 30 million Soviet citizens were in danger of death by starvation. The White forces shared little of the blame: as Pipes notes, the Civil War was essentially over by the beginning of 1920, but Lenin continued his harsh exploitation of the peasantry for yet another year. Moreover, the areas under White control had actually built up a food surplus. The horrific famine of 1921 was thus much less severe in 1920, because after the reconquest of the Ukraine and other White territories, the Reds shipped the Whites' grain reserves to Petrograd, Moscow, and other cities with less hunger but more political clout. Low estimates on the deaths from this famine are about 3 million; high estimates go up to 10 million - which would probably have been much higher if not for foreign relief efforts which Lenin had the good sense to permit. For perspective, the last severe famine in Russia hit in 1891-92, and cost about 400,000 lives.

The famine ended soon after Lenin relaxed his choke-hold on the peasantry, but he showed no sign of remorse for what his policies had done. Other Bolsheviks were shaken by the events, but Lenin's successor, Joseph Stalin, learned only to husband his strength until the peasantry could be utterly broken.

--Executions
Under Lenin's rule - unlike that of his successors - executions played a far more important role than deaths in forced labor camps. The primary function of Lenin's secret police, the Cheka, was carrying out summary executions of "class enemies" in what came to be known as the Red Terror. The exact number murdered is usually estimated at between 100,000 and 500,000, but the chaotic wartime conditions make the accounting especially difficult. Large-scale executions of hostages began after a failed effort of the Social Revolutionaries to seize power in mid-1918. (The hundreds of hostages shot in "retaliation," however, not only did not participate in the failed coup, but almost invariably had no affiliation of any kind with the SRs). From then on the Red Terror turned in every conceivable direction: execution of the bourgeoisie and Czarist sympathizers; execution of White POWs and friendly civilian populations; and finally execution of Lenin's socialist opponents.

Also, as to your comment of forcing Democracy on the Iraqi’s it is absurd. How do you force people to vote and be democratic. They are lining up in droves, as did the Afghanis, to both vote and be a part of the government. The only FORCE in evidence is islamo-fascists dragging election workers out of cars and shooting them, or intimidation by blowing up police stations, or proclamations by Osama bin Laden that anyone who votes is an infidel and will be liable to death. Your view is absurd on every level. Forcing Democracy my ass.

[CARL}To summarize, the source of all value and profit is surplus-labour. There is a quote from someone I read. It says: Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. If that is true (and it is) then in the example you gave in which you claim the distribution is uneven because the skill level is different, then it is the laborer who should be rewarded the most because skill level doesn’t produce value, surplus-labour does. You can have the greatest invention in the world, but if you don’t have people physically laboring to bring it to fruition it is remains valueless.

What a bogus concept it is to believe that surplus labor determines value and profit. You can clearly disprove it to yourself theoretically or through experiment equally well.
I challenge you to spend lot’s of labor coming up with a tasty recipe for dog excrement. No matter how much labor you exert there will be no profit, because there is no demand!
Genius is worthless unless it is followed with action that either taps into a need(demand) or allows you to make something more efficiently. That is what is meant by the perspiration part.
Skill is certainly not the determiner of value. Try becoming very skilled at playing X-box. You’ll find there is no demand.
Become very skilled at writing software, and more importantly managing the process of making software, called Windows and you will become one of the richest men on earth.
Capitalism ascribes value where value is voluntarily recognized. Thinking that there is no value in managing business or capital is absurd. Failure to recognize this validity as was done in every communist experiment has resulted in ruin. The Communists themselves have recognized this and made repeated concessions to capitalism to try and make there system work. In the end FAILURE.

[CARL]With the above analogy you can see how the super surplus-labor of slavery coupled with the theft of land from Native people enabled the U.S. to become the superpower she is. This is the very root of American capitalist democracy.

Slavery was of questionable economic value and was doomed to failure because of the diminishing value of forced labor. Any wealth that was created by slavery was destroyed in the Civil War. The true wealth was in the industrial North and after the Civil War this course of events is clearly demonstrated.
The land, whether it was stolen or not, hardly explains the wealth. If it did then the Indians would have been fabulously wealthy. You can easily say the Soviets stole their land, yet it only gave them ruin and poverty. Neither of these factors explain American success(superpower). Nor, do you make a case for how these two things are the “root” of American capitalism nor democracy.

I’m waiting for you to make one single valid argument vice empty assertions from the communist manifesto.

CJ,
Thank you for making all those points for me. Unfortunately, you'll soon find out that Carl either considers atrocities committed by Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution justified, or he will blame them on the victims. That's why I thought that if he would read a book that is generally sympathetic to Lenin, it will carry more weight for him.
One clarification. The famine of 1920 in Povolzhie region is often considered a goal of Bolsheviks' policy, just like the later one in the Ukraine. And just like with the one in the Ukraine, that is not true. The famine was rather a result of certain policy decisions, and this particular consequence of those policies simply did not matter for the policy makers. In the case of 1920 famine, it was a result of so called Military Communism. Under this policy special Red Army units called "prod-otryad" (food task force - look it up, Carl) were conducting "prod-razverstka" (again, look it up, Carl): they were forcefully taking ALL THE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS from the peasants and sending it to the cities. I repeat again: they were taking EVERYTHING, 100%. Their goal was to fulfill the government quota by any means necessary. Those who attempted to save some food for their families were shot, and, no, there were no trials, not even show trials. So, Carl, people who died as a result of these policies I consider murdered. And no, they are not "collateral damage", as they were murdered deliberately.
Anyway, Happy New Year to everybody.
Eric.

I appreciate your revision of history however the fact that Europeans indiscriminately murdered Native Americans from coast to coast is disputed by no one but yourself.
It’s facts Carl. Not a revision of history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_American_Indigenous_peoples#Disease
Disease
All historians agree that disease killed many millions of indigenous Americans. Most historians accept that this is something for which the invading Europeans cannot reasonably be blamed. It was an artifact of the long separation between the populations of the New and Old worlds.
Before the European arrival, the Americas had been isolated from the Eurasian-African landmass. They had their own indigenous, chronic diseases unknown in Eurasia, just as Eurasians had their own panoply of disease. The new contact between the two populations introduced new diseases to both.
Most epidemiologists believe, for instance, that syphilis was a mutation of the New World yaws bacterium, soon rampant in the Old World after Columbus' voyages. But syphilis, as bad as it was, was nothing compared to the plagues that decimated the American population.
The reasons for this are still debated. The Americas lacked many animals that have long been prime disease vectors in the Old World, such as pigs. The Americas were also far less unified than Eurasia. Plagues could easily spread from China to Europe and vice-versa over the network of trade routes, but there was no similar trade network that linked the Americas from north to south.
All the plagues of the Old World swept through the Americas, killing off large numbers of people. No sooner had a group survived one epidemic than another would arrive. Eurasians had had thousands of years to accommodate to their common diseases; Americans faced them all at once.
The most deadly disease was smallpox that devastated the populations of Caribbean islands soon after they contacted Europeans. In the early sixteenth century this disease hit Mesoamerica and soon outpaced European advances. Populations plummeted. Soon conquistadors were finding societies already devastated by disease, making conquest relatively easy. The plagues also shook faith in local leaders and gods making the populations amenable to the rule of the foreigners.
The epidemics had very different effects in different parts of the Americas. The most vulnerable populations were those with a relatively small population. Most island based groups were utterly annihilated. The Caribs and Arawaks of the Caribbean ceased to exist as did the Beothuks of Newfoundland. While disease range swiftly through the densely populated empires of Mesoamerica, the more scattered populations of North America saw a slower spread.
Not my history.. Facts. You get your communist propaganda from Cuba and believe it wholesomely without over historians
Europeans also brought diseases against which the Native Americans had no immunity. Ailments such as chicken pox and measles, though common and rarely fatal among Europeans, often proved fatal to Native Americans. More deadly diseases such as smallpox were especially deadly to Native American populations. It is difficult to estimate the percentage of the total Native American population killed by these diseases, since waves of disease oftentimes preceded European exploration, sometimes destroying entire villages. Some historians estimate that up to 80% of some Native populations may have died due to European diseases. For more information, see population history of American indigenous peoples
I can name off the top my head half dozen well documented cases of the wholesale slaughter of men women and children Natives.
Start Naming them. You’re not even coming close to winning this argument on the history of the Destruction of the Native American Culture.
In my own history, the Natives of the Nipmuc Nation have kept impeccable records of our own encounters with the Euros since our first contact with them in 1642. At that time, our tribe alone, which was one of the smaller tribes, numbered 5000-6000. We are now less than 200.
http://www.grafton.k12.ma.us/VirtualHistoryTour/Background/GroupBreAngela/Nipmucks.cfm Again my point still stands with diseases.
You are correct that disease ravaged huge portions of the Native population (no where close to the numbers you cite) but what you’ve purposely omitted is the fact that Natives lived for at least 12,000 years on this land (yes I know European accounts tells you that we were only here for a few thousand years; perhaps another discussion for another time?) virtually disease-free until the landing of the European.
I did not omit anything. You have no proof of me omitting evidence. The fact stands the Native American and the Eastern World were separated for over 10,000 years makes each other weak to each other. However one had more contact with diseases because they’ve ventured the world whereas Native Americans were isolated.
You forgot to mention that Gen. Amherst targeted the Native population for extermination by putting small-pox in blankets and sending them to Native “reservations”.
There is no evidence that it succeeded. It was an attempt by British Soldiers
Although British General Jeffrey Amherst’s name is usually associated with this incident, by the time he suggested trying to spread the disease to the Indians, the commander at Fort Pitt had already made the attempt, apparently on his own initiative. It is certain that these British soldiers attempted to intentionally infect Indians with smallpox; it is uncertain if they suceeded.

I would appreciate it if you could fix my post.. I forgot one /