Living in a post-communist country I can say that:

*Communism provided good/average opportunities for everyone to succeed.
*Capitalism provides crap opportunities to most and great ones to very few.

*Communism encouraged development of people/society. In simple words, people were much more friendly, honest, caring, cooperative, etc.
*Capitalism promotes machinelike behaviour and egoism.

*Communism limited your actions quite a lot (a very annoying thing)

*Capitalism allows you to screw the Earth in any way you want it. As long as you can afford it, of course.


In general, capitalism looks better cause people think they have so much more chances to succeed. In reality, it's hardly fairer than communism as rich people (instead of high rank party members) dictate what has to be done. Let's take USA, top 10% of population own ~70% of wealth, bottom 40% have 0.2% of all wealth. Guess who pays the pauper.


Anyway, communism was better for us while it worked. Sadly, rich people and opportunists couldn't really use their wealth freely, so we had a revolution, and now, ~20 years later, they are fucking the rest of our country through the ass freely under the laws of capitalism. For example, we pay >18 bucks for 10 liters (~2.5 gallons) of gas. In Europe.

The end.

kickupdude, you a 2+2er? nice av...

haha monte - you are?

Skrum is correct, this is a common misconception that for some reason is prevalent among Americans.

Furthermore Marx never postulated anything about the efficacy of communism in contemporary nations, rather he suggested it was the logical outcome of capitalism. Much like the natural progression of feudalism was strong monarchies. I'd say Marx is still pretty far from being wrong. European democracies have only become more socialist and this trend is likely to continue, just as Marx predicted. That being said I am sure there will always be bastions of greed and selfishness.

What's a 2+2er?



PS. Pauper => piper in my last post.

By the way, for this I blame our capitalistic education system where I can get good grades without trying and still have to pay insane amounts of money for my studies no matter how good my grades are.

Those who say communism does not work are completely ignorant of history in that communist societies have made undeniably significant contributions to mankind. I know this response is going to get some kind of reference to Stalin and the Ukrainian famines known as the Holodomor.

First, I find it an odd symptom of capitalist societies that systems like communism or socialism CAUSE the deaths that occur within that system, whereas in capitalism there is no system so to speak. What I mean by this is, people who died in the Dust Bowl just happened to die. The millions of Indians and Bangladeshis that died during the Indian industrialization of the 1950s-'70s just happened to die. Their deaths were not (so capitalists would say) caused by the system under which they lived.
Second, in the period from 1800-1930 there were 54 years of famine and bad harvest in the Ukraine. The Holodomor was not some attempt by Stalin to genocide the Ukrainians, but an unfortunate mix of bad timing and sabotage by the kulaks (rich peasants who often had other peasants working under them), who destroyed somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the USSR's total grain supply in the period between 1930-1935.
Anyway, I'm way off track so long story short: classical Marxism had its flaws. This is inarguable. However, Marx was absolutely, 100% spot on in his criticism of capitalism and regardless of whether or not Marxism/communism is the way to go, it is absolutely imperative that we destroy the shackles of capitalism before it destroys us.

Also I thought I'd add that Stalin and Mao's big mistake was to allow the recuperation of the bourgeoisie. Stalin in his bureaucracy, and Mao in his acceptance of the capitalists in China. This revisionism would have been absolutely blasphemous to Marx or Lenin. I personally cannot in good conscience separate Stalin and Lenin, but I think Lenin would have harshly criticized some of Joseph's ideas.

no party better than a lemonparty
lemonparty.org

Those who don't miss the soviet union have no heart. Those that want to bring it back have no brain.

forumserver.twoplustwo.com

insanely entertaining forum for poker stuff whether you actually play, or just like learning/reading/laughing.

im montecarlo over there too. but ive only posted like 10 times, cus i know i suck, and would rather play craps in a casino.