# Capitalism v Communism



## Deleted User (Jul 2, 2021)

Since so many arguments develop over it. Let's just have a dedicated thread right here for it. Primarily anything against or for one side.
I'm just going to state this, keep your economic systems (capitalism and communism) separate from your governing ones (democracies, monarchies,totalitarian,etc). So genocides and so on, that's decided by the governing system, that is a governing choice. If you can't separate it, you need to seriously need to reconsider about debating on this thread.


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## WG481 (Jul 2, 2021)

In the real world, I have a despise against capitalism, but it seems to work better than communism until people can figure stuff out. I do think capitalism should be reformed to allow the poor to not remain poor forever. If you're rich, you can fall, but rarely any get back up from poor. I've helped by donating a lot to people less fortunate than me, and I'm still in a less fortunate circumstance because of Capitalism. I think it needs reform, but communism would be ineffective as of now.



I am not against or for either capitalism or communism in the real world. They need to be reformed from what they are now. It may go to show that some stuff is entirely ineffective to a certain point. For now, I think governments should contemplate social change and effects before moving into newer reforms.




Spoiler



Now in Minecraft, communism is effective up until a certain point because the distribution of these goods helps build up the society as a whole. Eventually, factions will form and spread into tribalism or capitalism.


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## Seliph (Jul 2, 2021)

This would be a cool thread if anyone actually knew what Communism was



Reual said:


> I'm just going to state this, keep your economic systems (capitalism and communism) separate from your governing ones (democracies, monarchies,totalitarian,etc).



It's impossible to separate Capitalism and the state (government) tho. Under Capitalism the market works to reinforce the state and the state exists to protect private property (the market). It's a self-reinforcing circle, without the market the state would collapse but without the state the market would have nothing to protect it from the dirty commies socializing everything.

It is also very hard to separate the state and Communism, though theoretically not impossible according to anarcho-communists like Kropotkin.

Capitalism and Communism exist as systems of both economics and of governing, so I don't really see making a distinction between the state and the economic system it operates within very worthwhile.


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## JonhathonBaxster (Jul 2, 2021)

Capitalism may have its downsides, which all things do, but Communism has left its mark on the world and its millions of times worse than Capitalism. Capitalism seems like the best option, but I'd be up for trying something new. What I don't want to do is to repeat history so trying Communism or Socialism again would not be an option as they are old ways to Govern that have always failed to work. We don't need to repeat the past, especially what happens when Communism takes over.


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## Seliph (Jul 2, 2021)

JonhathonBaxster said:


> but I'd be up for trying something new.



What would you propose? I find a lot of people say this but when asked what they want they either don't know or just describe Capitalism again. 

edit: ah geez I forgot this guy had me blocked someone else ask him


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## Xzi (Jul 2, 2021)

Authoritarianism/oligarchy has proven to be the downfall of both economic systems, but we've also never seen a democratic socialist or democratic communist system be given an honest try (without interference from America/the CIA anyway).  You look at Scandinavian countries which are primarily capitalist but with a sprinkling of socialist ideas and strong social welfare programs, and just that little bit of 'people over profits' mentality makes their economies that much stronger and makes their quality of life that much better.


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## Deleted User (Jul 2, 2021)

JonhathonBaxster said:


> Capitalism may have its downsides, which all things do, but Communism has left its mark on the world and its millions of times worse than Capitalism. Capitalism seems like the best option, but I'd be up for trying something new. What I don't want to do is to repeat history so trying Communism or Socialism again would not be an option as they are old ways to Govern that have always failed to work. We don't need to repeat the past, especially what happens when Communism takes over.


What would you propose? I find a lot of people say this but when asked what they want they either don't know or just describe Capitalism again. --Seliph


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## JonhathonBaxster (Jul 2, 2021)

Reual said:


> What would you propose? I find a lot of people say this but when asked what they want they either don't know or just describe Capitalism again. --Seliph



What I'd choose doesn't exist. I'd just be up for trying something new if it made sense. As for communism I really don't know a whole heck of a lot I just know it's bad mojo.


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## Deleted User (Jul 2, 2021)

Seliph said:


> This would be a cool thread if anyone actually knew what Communism was


Yeah, it's a mess, well it's more so they think they know communism, and then describe effectively something that isn't really accurate to communism.

I can't really get everything that makes communism, communism. (i've done it so many times it hurts, and I don't feel like making another essay again)
But the most major point is that "Workers own means to production"
which just basically means all resources are easily accessible, rather than corporations hording it, ready to be used be the working class. this means factories and so on, aren't owned by the CEO or some higher up, but rather all workers there individually.


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## Seliph (Jul 2, 2021)

JonhathonBaxster said:


> As for communism I really don't know a whole heck of a lot I just know it's bad mojo.


classic



Reual said:


> I can't really get everything that makes communism, communism. But the most major point is that "Workers own means to production"


Yeah, that's a good starting point for sure


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## Deleted User (Jul 2, 2021)

JonhathonBaxster said:


> What I'd choose doesn't exist. I'd just be up for trying something new if it made sense.


Okay... well. So you can't imagine a new system? But up to try something new.
I mean at least your acknowledging somewhat the current one doesn't work or isn't working, which I will agree with you there.

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JonhathonBaxster said:


> What I'd choose doesn't exist. I'd just be up for trying something new if it made sense. As for communism I really don't know a whole heck of a lot I just know it's bad mojo.


Seliph's response: "classic"
I'd advise unblocking her so I don't have to forward responses, you can re block her later if you really want to. though as I understand she has some strong points to add to the discussion here. Make my life a little easier you know? I get her point, basically, a lot of us have heard "we don't know what communism is, but I heard it's bad"
when in reality, there's a lot of misconceptions. Kinda like how everyone is like "sharks are out for your blood" when really they aren't.


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## almmiron (Jul 2, 2021)

There's no simple discussion like capitalism x socialism, because both are different in nature.

Capitalism is a posthumous finding of an *"economic" system*, from which all other areas of the human organization suffers direct influence (religion, social costumes, politics, international relations, inner comercial relations, etc). The motor of history is the class struggle (Marx). Never was a conceived ideology. Never was conceived!

Communism (the objective of Socialism) is an Ideology. It' not from Marx. Look way back in Saint Simon. Russia and the URSS were a (1st ever) try to put this (very complex) Ideology in the real world, in the form of a political system. In this ideology, all areas of the human organization is pre conceived, in theory.

Ideology is like the horizon: The more you came closer, more far it is. Does not serve as a place we will reach. It serves as a reason to walk.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 2, 2021)

Going to go long for this one, even if it means it will be skipped. Don't know if I can go short and get any kind of point across other than to say communism would likely fail in an ideal world, and this is not an ideal world.

It is hard to divorce aspects of government from the economy. If the government has no economic levers* to pull then they almost cease to have power and at that point we have anarcho capitalism at worst and laissez faire at best.
As with most things it is also a spectrum, and of many dimensions. Some might even argue communism is not even on the spectrum and is in fact its own thing but I will consider it as an extreme end of socialism for this (this going whether you are following Mao, North Korea, later Chinese efforts, Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin, Marx, heavily revised Marx or the near mythical proto communism efforts which have no texts, historical implementations or really anything to look at or contemplate, and would be made before the industrial revolution, never mind the silicon and networking ones).
As a post scarcity world does not appear to be on the horizon just yet (be it by replicator or VR), and we are also all similarly apes that, biologically speaking, are still only adapted for small tribe (let's go with Dunbar's number) living in a savannah we have to consider that too.

*whether these levers are top down, bottom up, ever even knowable (something in one place can have vastly unexpected effects in vastly different areas**) or something a government should be touching... actually I was going to say is another discussion but realistically it is this one.

**see the recent failure of Archeos 



Various companies noted in graphs in those had share prices tank as a result of that. Was it because they did anything wrong? Nope some banks which owned said shares had over extended themselves (in a rather silly manner) and had to sell off, mass sale means prices drop. But one example of unexpected changes in one area causing knock on effects in another.

Communism and economics thereof. Historically has failed everywhere it has been tried at a scale larger than a farm, and even those tend to fail. Generally tends to utterly fail to account for human psychology, how things work, advancement of science, geography (sell ice to an eskimo, sand to an arab and all that, even though amusingly enough there are examples of both -- desert sand is useless for concrete we have today and owing to international shipping codes then ice does indeed go to iceland https://grapevine.is/news/2016/10/20/imported-ice-cubes-in-iceland-cheaper-than-domestic-ice-cubes/ . Though more generally this country has better farmland, infrastructure already there and oil just waiting to be sucked out of the ground).
The idea of a centralised price model rather than model realised in the field is so utterly moronic that I struggle to even state how much it is, and it is a fundamental aspect of communism from what I can see. Amusingly enough we can happily look to some of the most hardened and ardent supporters of capitalism as the amount of waste and stupidity that happens in government projects, departments and militaries is staggering.
Even without that you have hard problems if you have limited resources. So you whip your workers hard enough (presumably by making the whip masters fat and happy -- Maslow's hierarchy and all that, so much for equality I guess) that you have produced 200 units of steel. I could state a number for demand for this example but frankly it is infinite (if there is some going then drop it in my garden (I*** have 500 acres of it because I guess land is not a scarce resource and there is always more of it), I will find a use for it one day and enjoy it in the meantime), though leaving aside that do I build railways or do I build buildings? Both will benefit but now we get to quantify it which is almost impossible, and that is just for two scenarios for a single resource.

***how one handles the free rider problem, sociopath problem and more is also up for debate. Now at some level cooperation is baked into human biology (it is a rather successful strategy) but there are also those blessed few born without such qualms or raised such that they are similarly unbothered, and being that in a society of sheep is potentially quite lucrative. Master your baser urges, and also be given some boons and all of a sudden you have the work ethic, smarts, fearlessness (checking for the lion behind the bush is useful but the one that carries on running without checking is the first to spear the gazelle, except there are no lions any more and the ability to take risks will get you ahead).
Of course free riders and sociopaths are one aspect. Price's law https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/ (50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work) kicks into play too.

At the same time I have spent a lot of time in the US. Not a shining example of things there -- only time I have ever heard a medical issue leading to bankruptcy here in the UK is a company going pop because one of their key employees lost a game of beat the bus and while everybody is replaceable at some level then some are harder than others (another thing to consider -- everybody is not equal, some are stronger, smarter, more resilient, less sickly... and that is played to by both nature and nurture and the idea of a blank slate is also ridiculous, all this before you consider the biological and psychological differences between the sexes).
The nature of fines and laws and the almost adversarial nature of things in the US... no thanks, though I can just about deal with it (me being a skilled person without any debts or responsibilities that is familiar with general legal procedure, has training to resist psychological pressures and the ability to drum up a fair bit of cash in fairly short order almost regardless of my social standing). Can do happily and far more easily in much of Europe though, especially once you get outside the capital cities (though how much said cities are dragging the rest along with them is up for debate).
The US' take on town planning, house design and more is abysmal, the strong towns series by not just bikes serving as a pretty good primer here and that is a nice centrally planned/dictated setup (what is a zoning law if not...). Not that places like Australia, Japan, the UK or much of Europe do better in every regard.
On Europe though then also a developed part of the world, nice weather... basically comparable to the US in most ways that matter for people, how smart said people are and the rest. Rather different number of tech companies (name me even 5 that are going toe to toe with any of the US efforts, and those that do rise up usually get snapped up and happily move to the US) that push things forward.

Equality of outcome is boring, and everything in psychology says humans are hierarchical and tribal. You compare yourself to your immediate peers most of the time (why those earning a lot more than you or I might still steal). Hardship is also a thing to face -- how many companies don't make a fourth generation, how many trust fund kiddies fail hard, how many people on benefits are basically sheep...

Amusingly enough for all those that might say we never had proper/true communism (something I would say is an impossibility pending without post scarcity or radical changes to biology) then I don't think pure capitalism has ever been tried (be it anarcho capitalism or laissez faire flavours) and certainly not in the modern world. The US for example has any number of things from medical care (see percentage of GDP spent on things, more than border force military, police, fire, libraries and much more besides, as well as any number of interesting incentives and caps on things).

To that end. Some flavour of mixed economy works for me. Prefer the various models of northern Europe to most places, but they are also not without problems. If you wind in politics then I would probably skew even further away from communism as historical abuses (which seem inevitable) there are far more unpleasant than having to deal with some nepotism.


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## Xalusc (Jul 2, 2021)

almmiron said:


> Communism (the objective of Socialism) is an Ideology.


This literally couldn't be any further from the truth. Marxism-Leninism, the "ideology", as you say, behind socialism and communism, has dialectical materialism as its core principle. Which means it's based on observing the *material conditions *in society, analyzing them, and making decisions based on said observations.
Seriously, this is like Communism 101. It's pretty much the first thing you learn when you decide to seriously study about marxism-leninism and communism as a whole.



FAST6191 said:


> Historically has failed everywhere it has been tried


Not really? The USSR turned from a semi-feudal country into a global superpower within two decades. Its peasantry got education, work, houses, food, and eventually even went to space. After the collapse of the USSR, poverty and unemployment skyrocketed the following years. I'm not sure what part of this can be seen as "failure", really.
The same can be said for Burkina Faso. Sankara vaccinated, educated, and fed millions of people in a country that was literally miserable before he came to power. Too bad he was killed and all that work pretty much went to waste.

Now, not to mention past socialist experiences, let's talk about the current-day ones.
There are currently *five* countries in the world that can be considered socialist, or, at least, working towards becoming socialist.

Now, you may notice I describe all of these with the word _socialist_ rather than _communist_. And there IS a reason for that.
But not to make this any longer than it already is, I'll just give a brief summary:
Socialism is a stage of transition between capitalism and communism. Communism is the final goal of socialism, and can only be achieved when a socialist country has developed its productive forces enough to do so.

Back to the matter at hand - the five currently socialist countries.
China, Cuba, (North) Korea, Laos, Vietnam.
Yes, only these five. No other country in the world is socialist or striving towards it nowadays.
Would you say socialism "failed" in these five countries?
China has literally extinguished poverty. In a country with over a billion inhabitants.
It provides food, shelter, education, work, healthcare, and leisure for all of them.
Not to mention, it is also on its way to become the largest economy in the world.

Cuba also has country-wide food, shelter, education, and healthcare. So does Vietnam and Korea.
Vietnam, a country that 40 years ago was bombed to near destruction by the US, is the one single most successful country in fighting the COVID pandemic. They kept the number of deaths at zero for well over 4 months after the virus came into there.

Which part of that can be considered a failure, exactly?


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## FAST6191 (Jul 2, 2021)

Xalusc said:


> This literally couldn't be any further from the truth. Marxism-Leninism, the "ideology", as you say, behind socialism and communism, has dialectical materialism as its core principle. Which means it's based on observing the *material conditions *in society, analyzing them, and making decisions based on said observations.
> Seriously, this is like Communism 101. It's pretty much the first thing you learn when you decide to seriously study about marxism-leninism and communism as a whole.
> 
> 
> ...


Ooh apologetics.

Many other countries industrialised during similar timeframes, if not beforehand. The body count to do it was rather lower, people tended not to starve quite as hard, human rights... nice enough for the time, be purged quite as badly, and probably came out ahead of where things ended up there given the timeframes and baseline resources. Equally what caused this collapse? I don't recall an invasion, plague, environmental catastrophe or similar wiping it out (which would be impressive given the land size, though I suppose a lot is flat, and more near Europe), pretty sure that was an economic failure that finally caused it to fall over. East-west germany and state of affairs there (largely starting with the same population and land, both had nice amount of resources pumped in) and yet to this day the east has not caught up being another nice example. 

China as communist? Hahaha. Maybe under Mao (because that worked so well, nobody starved, steel can indeed be produced by peasants) but since then... and it was only after opening markets up did they resume the position they had held a few hundred years before. Also how is that water crisis, birth rate and imminent collapse of various local and national governments when the house market goes pop. To say nothing of dubious justice system, education (is it generally world recognised or do all those nice factory owners send their kids elsewhere?), environment, roads, military, restrictions on citizens.
Extinguished poverty? What are those wages to house prices like?

North Korea. What a model to follow. Cult leaders skimming the fat of the land (what little there is), military as only advancement, usually starving, massive internal secret policing. Bonus is much like east and west germany before we also get to compare it to a place with similar land, sea access, genetic stock to start with when it comes to south Korea. I know which one I would pick.

Laos I know less of the current state for, same for Upper Volta/Burkina Faso. Will put a pin in that pending some research but as neither are particular noted tourist destinations despite their neighbours very much being that I think that says most of what I need to know.

Cuba? You mean the place where the black market is rife as anything, they have a split currency and you would fight hard for a job as a doorman even if you started out a a brain surgeon? Go people.

Vietnam is an interesting case. Still somewhat agrarian . Not seen much of them vs kung flu, though being able to crack down on your citizens is a rather effective way vs having to deal with their personal liberties.


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## SG854 (Jul 2, 2021)

Human Capital is very important

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Seliph said:


> This would be a cool thread if anyone actually knew what Communism was
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Explain to people what communism is so that they will understand your view


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## Coto (Jul 2, 2021)

Xalusc said:


> This literally couldn't be any further from the truth. Marxism-Leninism, the "ideology", as you say, behind socialism and communism, has dialectical materialism as its core principle. Which means it's based on observing the *material conditions *in society, analyzing them, and making decisions based on said observations.
> Seriously, this is like Communism 101. It's pretty much the first thing you learn when you decide to seriously study about marxism-leninism and communism as a whole.
> 
> 
> ...


Maybe the over 100 million deaths from communist countries.

Why did they die? Which ideology was exactly of those who died? I can tell: Anti Communist, having endured, lasted through, and finally  opted out instead for a more citizen sovereignty way of civilization.


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## lokomelo (Jul 2, 2021)

(Communism is unreachable by definition. The discussion should be Capitalism v Socialism.)

*My opinion*: the ideal system is a capitalist one, with progressive taxes and and lots of social assistance programs.

*The long version*:
When people get to keep the earnings of their production, it works as an incentive to make those people to produce more, and produce better, so if a given nation was a single living organism, capitalism would make this organism stronger.
BUT
A nation is made of individual people, and those who fall behind on a competitive economy can't just die and be replaced like mere cells in an organism. A person deserve a dignifying life, regardless of working hard or taking smart decisions.
Looking from a more cold perspective, people struggling to survive will react somehow, they will not die in silence, so a 100% capitalist country would have to face violence and instability a lot, and that is bad even for the rich people of this hypothetical nation.

So considering identical democracies, living in peace the same era and region, a 100% Capitalist would be a social disaster, a 100% Socialist would be more poor and less productive. That's why I'm for a capitalist nation with welfare mechanisms to keep people of getting too miserable, and tax mechanisms to prevent people to accumulate too much riches.


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## almmiron (Jul 2, 2021)

Xalusc said:


> This literally couldn't be any further from the truth. Marxism-Leninism, the "ideology", as you say, behind socialism and communism, has dialectical materialism as its core principle. Which means it's based on observing the *material conditions *in society, analyzing them, and making decisions based on said observations.
> Seriously, this is like Communism 101. It's pretty much the first thing you learn when you decide to seriously study about marxism-leninism and communism as a whole.



I'm a graduated historian.

It's semantics. I understanding the confusing, tough. It's a matter of conotation and denotation.

YES. Communism is an Ideology: A variety of ideas of popular appeal whose goal is to transform society.

Marxism, Leninism are know as methods of academic research/analysis. A more 'global' way of how society works its called a 'system' of analysis. It's very complex and should not be learned from wikipedia. Hegel - from wich Marx learned a Lot -  it's one of the first to did such a thing. For Marx, the 'system' is around, indeed, the class struggle trough the dialetic historic materialism.

Marxism became (a strong) one voice of communism, but it's not the ideology behind communism. It's a method of analysis ahead of it.

In my native language maybe I would explain better. But I recommend learn Hegel.


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## SG854 (Jul 2, 2021)

almmiron said:


> I'm a graduated historian.
> 
> It's semantics. I understanding the confusing, tough. It's a matter of conotation and denotation.
> 
> ...


I'll learn Hegal and come back in 5 years so we can discuss economics


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## chrisrlink (Jul 4, 2021)

right now we have a paralyzed (legislative wise) Government cause bipartisanship is out the freaking window communism comes with risk (such as a dictator rising to power),which is what is most associated with communism even though communism is the economic model i mean I'm all for rejoining the UK for all I care (even though Queen Elizabeth II is basicly just a figure head nothing more their parliament gets shit done yes England/UK was a dbag back 3-400 years ago but in todays time there is more freedoms in the UK than ever before


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## Foxi4 (Jul 4, 2021)

If everyone received goods and services based on the "To each according to his contribution" rule, all of you would be dead. Unsurprisingly, that's how communism usually works out in practice. I say usually because there's a hypothetical communism that could work, but nobody's observed it yet. Meanwhile, capitalism lifted the world out of poverty and fed the planet to such an extent that developed countries have more food than we can possibly eat - we destroy some 30% of it because we're picky. Bruised apple? Blergh.


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## Seliph (Jul 4, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> If everyone received goods and services based on the "To each according to his contribution"


"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is the full unabridged quote if that's what you're referring to.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 4, 2021)

Seliph said:


> "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is the full unabridged quote if that's what you're referring to.


The latter is Marx, the former is a pre-Marx concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_each_according_to_his_contribution


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## Seliph (Jul 4, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> The latter is Marx, the former is a pre-Marx concept.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_each_according_to_his_contribution


Ah, true. I'm most familiar with the Marx quote since that's the more commonly used phrase.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 4, 2021)

Seliph said:


> Ah, true. I'm most familiar with the Marx quote since that's the more commonly used phrase.


Marx wasn't that original. He was a bum who coasted off of sponsors, then died in poverty and ridden by disease. A fitting end.


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## Seliph (Jul 4, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Marx wasn't that original. He was a bum who coasted off of sponsors, then died in poverty and ridden by disease. A fitting end.


He had quite a few original ideas. Otherwise no one would've really heard of him I'd expect. Of course, no idea is truly original but Marx undeniably contributed a great amount to Communist theory along with his many contemporaries.

In addition, he certainly didn't die in poverty though his health was indeed poor. His estate at time of death was worth $250 which is equivalent to a little more than $25,000 now, not a terrible sum. He was however stateless when he died since many governments of the time didn't like him (for speaking out against them of course).

No one claims Marx or his ideas are perfect, and to pretend like either is perfect is silly. What is also silly is to act like Marx and his works did nothing or were in any way insignificant or invalid. There is a lot of undeniable truth to his work, you just have to actually read it instead of having it all filtered through political pundits who clearly dislike him.

Regardless, there is no shame in dying in poverty. Many people do die in poverty every day and it's a sad thing to see in our system of apparent abundance where we destroy "some 30 percent" of our food that could be used to prevent such deaths, both nationally and internationally. Some of the strongest people I know and have learned from are or have been at one point deeply impoverished. Poverty has nothing to do with character but is an inevitable feature of a system designed to siphon the labor from the poorest to the richest, a system that prioritizes profit over all else, even human lives.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 4, 2021)

Seliph said:


> He had quite a few original ideas. Otherwise no one would've really heard of him I'd expect. Of course, no idea is truly original but Marx undeniably contributed a great amount to Communist theory along with his many contemporaries.
> 
> In addition, he certainly didn't die in poverty though his health was indeed poor. His estate at time of death was worth $250 which is equivalent to a little more than $25,000 now, not a terrible sum. He was however stateless when he died since many governments of the time didn't like him (for speaking out against them of course). Regardless, there is no shame in dying in poverty. Many people do die in poverty every day and it's a sad thing to see in our system of apparent abundance where we destroy "some 30 percent" of our food that could be used to prevent such deaths, both nationally and internationally.


There's no shame in dying poor or sick. In the case of Marx it's simply just deserts. As for the originality versus popularity argument, you do not necessarily need to introduce new ideas to be remembered, you simply need to popularise them. We see that time and time again, actually. In the case of Communism Santa, his ideas weren't novel. They were, however, widely publicised. Regarding the destruction of food, the market is fickle and logistics are a bitch. It is far better to overproduce than to starve as far as I'm concerned.


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## Xzi (Jul 4, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Meanwhile, capitalism lifted the world out of poverty and fed the planet to such an extent that developed countries have more food than we can possibly eat - we destroy some 30% of it because we're picky.


It's not just because "we're picky," capitalists also have us destroying food to keep the homeless from receiving free meals.  The stuff at grocery stores that's one day past the 'sell by' date gets bleach dumped on it.  Which is how hundreds of people die from starvation in the US every year despite our abundance of food.

This applies to a lot of other items and commodities as well.  Unsold Jordans are burned to keep the supply limited and the value of existing pairs higher.


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## MaxToTheMax (Jul 4, 2021)

Mixed economies that lean more to individual prosperity rather than the prosperity of companies is probably the best economy we could have under capitalism. Basically a liberal version of capitalism would be pog.


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## Seliph (Jul 4, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> In the case of Marx it's simply just deserts.


Why?



Foxi4 said:


> his ideas weren't novel.


Sure they were, many academics both contemporary and past have dedicated their careers to exploring his theories and applying them to real life. Like all good science not only does it have the backing of historical precedent but the continued application and study by academics to this day. Your statement is simply blatantly wrong and reflects a lack of knowledge in regard to actual Marxist theory. 



Foxi4 said:


> It is far better to overproduce than to starve as far as I'm concerned.


I agree this is certainly correct but I find it rather troubling that in our system that rapidly overproduces so many things we still have so many people starving and dying in the streets while the abundance is reaped by the richest and most powerful people in the world.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 4, 2021)

Xzi said:


> It's not just because "we're picky," capitalists also have us destroying food to keep the homeless from receiving free meals.  The stuff at grocery stores that's one day past the 'sell by' date gets bleach dumped on it.  Which is how hundreds of people die from starvation in the US every year despite our abundance of food.
> 
> This applies to a lot of other items and commodities as well.  Unsold Jordans are burned to keep the supply limited and the value of existing pairs higher.


If you want to incentivise companies to give away stock for free, you can ask the government to purchase and distribute it, or you can give them a tax break per donation - seems like a win-win to me. You're not entitled to any company's product, regardless of how poor you are. It's a good thing we're enjoying the highest living standards in recorded history so that we can have this conversation about apparent "unfairness" based on the false assumption that corporations shouldn't destroy products that they legally own and can do whatever they want with.


Seliph said:


> Why?


He's partially responsible for popularising an inherently unfair ideology that led to the creation of large swathes of totalitarian systems of government, which in turn killed hundreds of millions of people over the course of the last century in planned executions or through systemic starvation. His grave ought to be an outhouse. The fact that he has a tombstone at all is an insult to anyone living east of Berlin, as well as in large sections of South America.


> Sure they were, many academics both contemporary and past have dedicated their careers to exploring his theories and applying them to real life. Like all good science not only does it have the backing of historical precedent but the continued application and study by academics to this day. Your statement is simply blatantly wrong and reflects a lack of knowledge in regard to actual Marxist theory.


My family lived it. I also studied philosophy extensively, including Marxism, in one of the best universities in my country. I'm simply not a fan because I'm capable of separating things that work from things that don't. Call me whatever you'd like, but uneducated on the subject is not applicable. I have experience with both the theory and the practice.


> I agree this is certainly correct but I find it rather troubling that in our system that rapidly overproduces so many things we still have so many people starving and dying in the streets while the abundance is reaped by the richest and most powerful people in the world.


I don't.

EDIT: Since you've edited your post, here's a longer response. Poverty often times has a lot to do with character. Not always, but often.


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## Xzi (Jul 4, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> If you want to incentivise companies to give away stock for free, you can ask the government to purchase and distribute it, or you can give them a tax break per donation - seems like a win-win to me. You're not entitled to any company's product, regardless of how poor you are.


Perfect example of capitalism disregarding the basic humanity of people that it put into poverty in the first place.  Very few countries are as aggressively hostile toward the poor and homeless as the US is.  Companies shouldn't need to be incentivized to give away food that they were just going to throw out and make no profit on either way.



Foxi4 said:


> It's a good thing we're enjoying the highest living standards in recorded history so that we can have this conversation about apparent "unfairness" based on the false assumption that corporations shouldn't destroy products that they legally own and can do whatever they want with.


Lol what a joke.  They can't even keep the lights on in Texas, in cold weather or hot.  Just a glimpse into the future for the rest of the US if we keep letting snake oil salesmen privatize everything.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 4, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Perfect example of capitalism disregarding the basic humanity of people that it put into poverty in the first place.  Very few countries are as aggressively hostile toward the poor and homeless as the US is.  Companies shouldn't need to be incentivized to give away food that they were just going to throw out and make no profit on either way.


Why not? It's not your food.


> Lol what a joke.  They can't even keep the lights on in Texas, in cold weather or hot.  Just a glimpse into the future for the rest of the US if we keep letting snake oil salesmen privatize everything.


This dude. My man, they *have lights*. Cubans are driving cars from the 70's, or convert them into rafts to escape all the prosperity.


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## CMDreamer (Jul 4, 2021)

Just as everything that has "two" -or more- possible sides, it all depends on what suits you the best.

Each individual has their own capabilities and habilities, so each one can or can't do something specific, so each system will work better for them or not, but it doesn't mean one is better than the other, at least not on a general basis, because there are few universal knowledge and most of it is based con agreements between the parts.

Like truth, justice, good or bad, a nice weather, the "best" color, the "best" car, and so on.

Also, like this point of view.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 4, 2021)

CMDreamer said:


> Just as everything that has "two" -or more- possible sides, it all depends on what suits you the best.
> 
> Each individual has their own capabilities and habilities, so each one can or can't do something specific, so each system will work better for them or not, but it doesn't mean one is better than the other, at least not on a general basis, because there are few universal knowledge and most of it is based con agreements between the parts.
> 
> ...


There are also people who can't do anything. We call them Communists, because that's the only system that (only theoretically) behooves them.

EDIT: What I do like is your focus on individualism, and how certain modes of living suit other people differently. If only there was a system that approved and promoted that, some kind of ideology that emphasised personal liberty and allowed everyone to live their lives however they want without government interference. We should be so lucky.


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## Xzi (Jul 4, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Why not? It's not your food.


Because it actually takes more time and effort to destroy it than it does to just throw it away?  Time and effort that employees could be spending on literally anything else?  It doesn't even make sense from the perspective of naked greed.  It only makes sense from the perspective of hatred and malice, and why the fuck would you hate people that you've never met before?



Foxi4 said:


> This dude. My man, they *have lights*. Cubans are driving cars from the 70's, or convert them into rafts to escape all the prosperity.


Americans go to Cuba for both vacations and affordable healthcare.  That's despite the fact that the US successfully isolated the country from the rest of the world for decades.  Just imagine what the country would be like if we _hadn't_ done so much to sabotage it, along with every other country that democratically elects a socialist leader.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 4, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Because it actually takes more time and effort to destroy it than it does to just throw it away?  Time and effort that employees could be spending on literally anything else?  It doesn't even make sense from the perspective of naked greed.  It only makes sense from the perspective of hatred and malice, and why the fuck would you hate people that you've never met before?


You literally imagined this scenario all by yourself. You have this idea in your head that people who make these decisions personally hate you. People who make those decisions don't know or care that you exist. If you want Jordans, you can pay for them. If you can't pay for them, to the tune of whatever the Jordans maker is asking, maybe you're not destined to have Jordans - settle for Sketchers.


> Americans go to Cuba for both vacations and affordable healthcare. That's despite the fact that the US successfully isolated the country from the rest of the world for decades.  Just imagine what the country would be like if we _hadn't_ done so much to sabotage it, along with every other country that democratically elects a socialist leader.


Cuba has some lovely views, and shopping for healthcare is a smart financial decision. I live in the UK, but I get my dental done in Poland because it's cheaper and better. Privately, mind - not using the crappy national service. Americans are dunking on Cubans even in Cuba, and the dollars they inject into their economy by doing so allow that country's continued existence.


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## CMDreamer (Jul 4, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> There are also people who can't do anything. We call them Communists, because that's the only system that (only theoretically) behooves them.
> 
> EDIT: What I do like is your focus on individualism, and how certain modes of living suit other people differently. If only there was a system that approved and promoted that, some kind of ideology that emphasised personal liberty and allowed everyone to live their lives however they want without government interference. We should be so lucky.



Yes, Capitalists can do a lot, I get your point... I prefer seeing subjects as even-handed as I can, without allowing my very own personal living conditions take part of my context. It might not be the best to do, but has proven very useful for me.

In that theoretical "lucky" life -as you describe it-, everyone would be happy, but guess what, that's not possible...


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## Foxi4 (Jul 4, 2021)

CMDreamer said:


> Yes, Capitalists can do a lot, I get your point... I prefer seeing subjects as even-handed as I can, without allowing my very own personal living conditions take part of my context. It might not be the best to do, but has proven very useful for me.
> 
> In that theoretical "lucky" life -as you describe it-, everyone would be happy, but guess what, that's not possible...


I was thinking more about libertarianism in general. If people want to live in more or less sustainable communes, I have no problem with that as long as I'm not required to participate in their hairbrained scheme. I'll even trade with their community, if they produce anything of value to me.


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## Xzi (Jul 4, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> You literally imagined this scenario all by yourself. You have this idea in your head that people who make these decisions personally hate you. People who make those decisions don't know or care that you exist.


I'm not homeless or starving, so I'm obviously not speaking on behalf of myself.  The topic is capitalism versus communism, so I'm simply pointing out the mechanisms by which capitalism causes deaths resulting from both poverty and starvation.  And of course it's worth noting that this is all by design.  These are features of capitalism, not bugs.



Foxi4 said:


> Americans are dunking on Cubans even in Cuba, and the dollars they inject into their economy by doing allow that country's continued existence.


Lol I just mentioned how we sabotaged and fucked with Cuba for decades.  It somehow continued to exist as a country even without the US's explicit approval.  Tourism never should've been restricted for so long.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 4, 2021)

Xzi said:


> I'm not homeless or starving, so I'm obviously not speaking on behalf of myself.  The topic is capitalism versus communism, so I'm simply pointing out the mechanisms by which capitalism causes deaths resulting from both poverty and starvation.  And of course it's worth noting that this is all by design.  These are features of capitalism, not bugs.


In the gross majority of cases poor personal decisions that I am not liable for cause poverty and starvation. That's a bug, and it's self-correcting - through poverty and starvation.


> Lol I just pointed out how we sabotaged and fucked with Cuba for decades.  It somehow continued to exist as a country even without the US's explicit approval.  Tourism never should've been restricted for so long.


I don't think there should be any restrictions in the free market. You're barking up the wrong tree. Capitalists don't have an issue with trading with communists, as evidenced by the fact that most things you own are made in, or contain components from, China. True capitalists will trade with the devil if the devil has something they want. Money has no moral compass or ideology, it's an abstract representation of value. We stray further and further away from this ideal, sadly.


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## Xzi (Jul 4, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> In the gross majority of cases poor personal decisions that I am not liable for cause poverty and starvation.


Nobody said you were liable for it.  But there's a reason why so many other governments outside of the US implement strong social safety nets: poverty and starvation are inevitable under capitalism, to varying extents.  If there are winners, there also have to be losers, and so without vigilance it's easy to backslide from capitalism into a caste system of haves and have-nots.



Foxi4 said:


> Capitalists don't have an issue with trading with communists, as evidenced by the fact that most things you own are made in, or contain components from, China.


So are we pretending the red scare didn't happen?  Forget just cutting off trade, most of the time the CIA staged military coups in countries where there was even a hint of communism or socialism.

And China might've been communist at one time (before I was born), but they've fully consumed the capitalist Kool-Aid by now.  Their wealth and wage gaps are very nearly as bad as our own, second worst in the world.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 4, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Nobody said you were liable for it.  But there's a reason why so many other governments outside of the US implement strong social safety nets: poverty and starvation are inevitable under capitalism, to varying extents.  If there are winners, there also have to be losers, and so without vigilance it's easy to backslide from capitalism into a caste system of haves and have-nots.


Capitalism is an apolitical system of fair exchange of goods and services, the backbone of which is private enterprise. It has nothing to do with how a country operates on a governmental level - in fact, trade can operate in the absence of government, but a modern government, particularly one with said safety nets, cannot operate without trade. We know this since China was a total write-off until they adopted some core capitalist principles which propelled the country on the road of actual societal progress. As a side note, safety is very expensive, and primarily funded by the rich.


> So are we pretending the red scare didn't happen?  Forget just cutting off trade, most of the time the CIA staged military coups in countries where there was even a hint of communism or socialism.
> 
> And China might've been communist at one time (before I was born), but they've fully consumed the capitalist Kool-Aid by now.  Their wealth and wage gaps are very nearly as bad as our own, second worst in the world.


Why are you ascribing things capitalism didn't do to capitalism? As for the red scare, there was a lot to be afraid of, but not for any specific financial reason. Political reasons, yes, but those are divorced from finance, which is the actual realm of capitalism. In fact, I would argue that the red scare is more appropriate today than it was back then, when China was struggling to split one grain of rice among an entire village - now they're a genuine adversary which does threaten the market.

Regarding "wealth gaps", there is nothing wrong with your neighbour owning more wealth than you do, whether they worked for it or inherited it. The difference between Chinese wealth gaps and western wealth gaps is that the former is usually a direct result of long-term servitude to the party whereas the latter is a result of ingenuity at some point down the family tree. In the former case that wealth is stolen, in the latter it is earned and owned, sometimes across generations. In both cases it doesn't belong to you, but only the former case is objectionable.


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## Xzi (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Capitalism is an apolitical system of fair exchange of goods and services, the backbone of which is private enterprise. It has nothing to do with how a country operates on a governmental level - in fact, trade can operate in the absence of government, but a modern government, particularly one with said safety nets, cannot operate without trade.


You look at lobbying, campaign finance, and who gets elected to office, it all traces back to capitalism and capitalist influence.  At least in the US, and doubly so since it was ruled that money = speech.



Foxi4 said:


> Why are you ascribing things capitalism didn't do to capitalism? As for the red scare, there was a lot to be afraid of, but not for any specific financial reason. Political reasons, yes, but those are divorced from finance, which is the actual realm of capitalism.


In many instances we staged military coups or started wars because a country had valuable resources or oil, and we didn't believe they'd be open to trading those things under a communist or socialist government.  Basically we only let other peoples be self-determinate throughout history when the US had nothing to gain from them.  Capitalism and most relatively recent examples of imperialism go very much hand-in-hand.



Foxi4 said:


> Regarding "wealth gaps", there is nothing wrong with your neighbour owning more wealth than you do, whether they worked for it or inherited it. The difference between Chinese wealth gaps and western wealth gaps is that the former is usually a direct result of long-term servitude to the party whereas the latter is a result of ingenuity at some point down the family tree. In the former case that wealth is stolen, in the latter it is earned and owned, sometimes across generations. In both cases it doesn't belong to you, but only the former case is objectionable.


Oligarchy is always objectionable, and nobody "earns" hundreds of dollars per minute.  It's simply given to them by a broken system.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 5, 2021)

Xzi said:


> You look at lobbying, campaign finance, and who gets elected to office, it all traces back to capitalism and capitalist influence.  At least in the US, and doubly so since it was ruled that money = speech.


Politicians are corrupt regardless of the economic system adopted by the society in question. Corruption and "lobbying" predates capitalism and existed both in feudal and communist societies.


> In many instances we staged military coups or started wars because a country had valuable resources or oil, and we didn't believe they'd be open to trading those things under a communist or socialist government.  Basically we only let other peoples be self-determinate throughout history when the US had nothing to gain from them.  Capitalism and most relatively recent examples of imperialism go very much hand-in-hand.


Coca Cola has never went to war with anyone, over oil or anything else. Neither did Nike or Nestlé. The US government went to war.


> Oligarchy is always objectionable, and nobody "earns" hundreds of dollars per minute. It's simply given to them by a broken system.


That's an opinion. Reality demonstrably shows that people do in fact earn that much if their enterprise, that they had built from the ground up, is of significant scale. Jeff Bezos is an absurdly rich man because he had a good idea, opened a website and started selling books online, allowing customers to buy direct instead of relying on book stores which are never adequately stocked, don't allow you to shop for the best deal or purchase Pre-owned copies. This idea translated broadly across many industries, and multiplied his initial investment. Bill Gates isn't a billionaire because he stole money from anyone or went to war - he's a billionaire because he cobbled computers together in his garage with a bunch of his buddies at what happened to be the perfect time in history. They were smart enough to fill in newly created gaps in the economy, and they were good at it, so they dominated them, arguably to everyone's benefit. Some would say they were blessed, I would say they worked for every penny they own - you just don't like the fact that they have more pennies than most (jealousy) or that they earn more than you think they should (envy). The systems you propose as alternatives are inherently immoral since they are all rooted in taking what doesn't belong to you and giving it to others without consent. You are the aggressor in that kind of scenario.


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## Valwinz (Jul 5, 2021)

Communism is the very definition of failure


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## Xzi (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Politicians are corrupt regardless of the economic system adopted by the society in question.


So you put rules and regulations in place to keep them in a box, same as you have to do with corporations.  If the path of least resistance in capitalism is always corruption, then that's a major flaw of the system.



Foxi4 said:


> Coca Cola has never went to war with anyone, over oil or anything else. Neither did Nike or Nestlé. The US government went to war.


A lot of stonks always go up when we start a new war.  And Nestle is not a good example to use, they steal water from people worldwide (very often indigenous people).



Foxi4 said:


> The systems you propose as alternatives are inherently immoral since they are all rooted in taking what doesn't belong to you and giving it to others without consent.


Sounds like capitalism is inherently immoral then, seeing as it takes value generated by _actual_ workers and redistributes it to white-collar layabouts and middlemen.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 5, 2021)

Xzi said:


> So you put rules and regulations in place to keep them in a box, same as you have to do with corporations.  If the path of least resistance in capitalism is always corruption, then that's a major flaw of the system.


If politicians you elect are for sale, you can tar and feather them. Capitalism didn't do that.


> A lot of stonks always go up when we start a new war.  And Nestle is not a good example to use, they steal water from people worldwide (very often indigenous people).


This is a huge misconception. The market loves stability, the only stocks that directly benefit from conflict are weapon manufacturers, and they tend to benefit when the conflict is far away from home only. The ticker going up is not a gross benefit when the currency plummets. Regarding water, "indigenous people" have no claim on resources. They don't "own" that water, it's under the purview of the state.


> Sounds like capitalism is inherently immoral then, seeing as it takes value generated by _actual_ workers and redistributes it to white-collar layabouts and middlemen.


Workers are compensated for their (fairly miniscule) contribution to the endeavour. Coincidentally, their compensation directly correlates with their level of contribution. The person who designs the next iPhone gets paid more than the worker putting it together - rightfully so, as the worker wouldn't have anything to put together without said design. The person above the designer gets paid more than the designer because it is their direct responsibility to create and maintain an environment in which such a product can be designed. Scales up and down. To throw you a bone, capitalism itself, broadly speaking, doesn't care about what is or is not moral. It's only fair, consensual and based on value and merit.


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## Xzi (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> If politicians you elect are for sale, you can tar and feather them. Capitalism didn't do that.


Corruption wasn't born entirely of capitalism, no, but capitalism does seem to have a nasty habit of making corruption the norm.  Boiling the frog, as it were.



Foxi4 said:


> To throw you a bone, capitalism itself, broadly speaking, doesn't care about what is or is not moral.


Precisely, capitalism is dehumanizing by design.  Capitalists don't view people as individuals or according to their needs, only as commodities to be bought, sold, and traded.  FDR managed to extend America's shelf life by probably fifty years with the New Deal, but without a second bill of worker's rights, I seriously doubt this country survives to three hundred years (2076).  Either fascism takes control, a populist revolution happens, or climate change causes a breakdown of society and borders.


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## Deleted User (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Workers are compensated for their (fairly miniscule) contribution to the endeavour. Coincidentally, their compensation directly correlates with their level of contribution.


False. Contribution does not equal your pay. Your not paid your full value.

If you were paid your full value, the company would go even. simple as that. the money they get comes from taking parts of your value, your time and labor and what you provide. and extracting that.


Walmart front end would be a large example of that. All those workers there? paid 12.50 at least at the Walmart here. That is completely and utterly bullshit. The amount of value they add is far more than that 12.50 an hour. I'm not just talking cashiers. Self checkout hosts as walmart calls them. Who both work as a cashier, and the self checkout machines. Which have a multitude of ludicrous responsibilities, such as trying to keep an eye out for people stealing shit with multiple blind spots because of poor design layout. Multiple times has someone tried stealing a full cart worth of shit 200 dollars and more.

Multiple angry customers who scream and yell at their face, or even better. (since I worked as a Walmart employee) at my Walmart, there was a man who got so pissed, he punched the screen of the machine, breaking through the touch layer entirely, so you have to react to scenario's you wouldn't even have EXPECTED to see..
that Walmart likes to place you everywhere. Your treated like rubbish by the managers, archaic rules that doesn't make any sense other than to be obtuse.
For example, I had already cleaned my station. I already refilled my bags, I was for the time, put onto the register.
There was few customers as it was getting close to closing time here. where 11pm no more customers are really allowed so about say. 10:30. So, given that I had already did everything in my area. I zoned, I cleaned, off not just my belt but also the bag rack. So, I got on my phone, I think it's reasonable that if there is nothing, absolutely NOTHING going on, which where I was, there was little to no customers, I heard from a co-worker that there was about 10 customers in the store. So I believe you should be able to have a little break, and not just stand around and well, I guess imagine some sort of movie in your head idk or stare into blank space like a robot.


Team lead comes in, screams at my face, getting pissed that I was on my phone, which to be clear of what I was doing, I was reading a comic, not even playing a game or something stupidly intensive, and then told me that I wasn't even supposed to have my phone ON MY PERSON. but put it into one of the lockers, which not a single person in management has ever TOLD me that. Another situation, I'm on self checkout GM side. it's around 9. at my store at 10, the gm selfcheck out closes. The floor is brutal, no amount of gel cushion on your feet is going to fix it.  And given that again, no one was around. I sat down. Is it lazy for me to want to sit down when NOTHING IS HAPPENING? Same thing happened, got screamed and yelled at.
So Instead of sitting down, I stand on the balls of my feet, and crouch in a somewhat awkward sitting position so I don't count as "sitting" which, I never got a complaint for that. However I'm not going to tell you it's even remotely comfortable.

And I highly doubt Walmart is the "only one" who does this kind of archaic rules or make employees fit multiple tasks, even if it wasn't part of their job description. I don't remember signing up for cart pushing, and I definitely don't remember signing up for being the garbage man, taking out every single registers garbage.

Edit: as a sidenote encase someone tries to say "but your lazy, just stand more often. you must be out of shape" I walk from and to work, 26 minutes everytime I go to work, I also don't have a car, so all my options is walking. and that's me speedwalking over there. If I was walking a normal speed (according to google) be about roughly a 40 minute walk. I have no problems with walking long distances or being up right for extended periods of time. I've never felt sore. Walmart's floors? that was the first time in a long time where I actually got pain stepping around for extend periods of time.





Also I have to ask what is the point of the capitalist system? Like WE MADE this system. And when I say, I mean other human beings right?
So... Why do we have a system that intrinsically devalues work? Like no really. Take cleaning. Some may say "we'll it's just a starter job, so it should pay less" but that's extremely dumb for a multitude of reasons. The first is that at least in the united states climate, and the lack of proper minimum wage. Those wages are not exactly livable. Yes, I know that barely surviving pay check to pay check is "livable" but it really isn't. livable should provide at least decent comfort. Because otherwise, well, financial stress, along with not being able to pay surprise issues they may come up. Such as needing to call a plumber, or maybe needing someone to fix your roof, or some other reason.
Second problem. By inherently having a hierarchy.  Those who generally enjoy their job, such as cleaning. Don't stick with it. Because it doesn't pay enough. Which means they move to other jobs, jobs they likely will not like. Because it pays more. Creating essentially a vacuum where people don't get the jobs they want
because effectively money said so.
So essentially humanity is in this endless cycle over a made up concept. That essentially chooses who lives or who dies. Or, who gets to do better, in life, and the other suffer. And the capitalist system, invertible reaches it's end game, where we are now. Where there are very VERY few winners. and the rest, is just loosers by start. Until very few hold most of the worlds wealth, and the rest suffers. I don't see a point in that kind of system. Getting money, isn't intrinsically valuable. It's only valuable because your life depends on it, and the amount of propaganda spewed out about money. About how money will make you happy, or how those people who make a lot of money donate to charities and are somewhat decent people, despite the fact it's a drop in the ocean, and also often into companies and business they made to look good.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

And then some say "well you should be responsible for you" and have a rugged hyper individualist mindset. which I say bull to that as well. Humans have by default are a social species. This economic system plays completely against that. Human life is mostly co-op. It is not meant to be survival of the fittest between members. And capitalism doesn't reflect that, and it doesn't follow our natural desires. I can prove that with the internet. The internet, if there wasn't worry about paying for a sever every month. Is inherently socialist or even I would argue communist. People provide what they can, take what they need. If someone in some niche community asked for a specific image or file. 9/10 out of 10.  Another person just provides it.


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## Viri (Jul 5, 2021)

Xalusc said:


> After the collapse of the USSR, poverty and unemployment skyrocketed the following years. I'm not sure what part of this can be seen as "failure", really.


They lost their empire. There's a reason why most of the former Warsaw Pact countries would never want to re-join.


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## SG854 (Jul 5, 2021)

Reual said:


> False. Contribution does not equal your pay. Your not paid your full value.
> 
> If you were paid your full value, the company would go even. simple as that. the money they get comes from taking parts of your value, your time and labor and what you provide. and extracting that.
> 
> ...


It's supply and demand economics.

Everyone (hyperbolic) trys to get a job at Walmart. It's a low skill job requires no higher learning education that's easy to get into. They can afford to pay you as little as possible, and if you leave its no sweat to them because they can easily replace you with someone else. The job at Walmart is easier compared other jobs that are harder. So people would rather flock to Walmart or McDonald's. Too much supply of people and little demand for them.

The harder the job the higher it pays, normally. They usually offer higher pay because no one wants to work them, so they need workers and need some way to incentives people to work there so they offer higher wages to attract more people. Little supply of people and high demand.

This really helps balance the economy and job distribution. Because some jobs are just horrible hardly anyone would want to work them. But we need people to work them or our society won't function correctly. They are essential work that needs to be done, someone has to do it, for our society. Like who the fuck wants to be a garbage man and has to smell shit all day and say i'm doing what I love. No one ever.

If all jobs had high pay, no one (hyperbolic once again) would work as garbage man, and we would have trash pilled up on the streets. The very principles of supply and demand in a free market economy helps allocate limited resources to where's its most needed. People are a limited resource and are allocated to jobs that are most needed not what people love to do for a living.


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## Xzi (Jul 5, 2021)

SG854 said:


> If all jobs had high pay, no one (hyperbolic once again) would work as garbage man, and we would have trash pilled up on the streets. The very principles of supply and demand in a free market economy helps allocate limited resources to where's its most needed. People are a limited resource and are allocated to jobs that are most needed not what people love to do for a living.


I suppose that depends on your definition of "high pay."  $15 an hour is not high.  $21 an hour should be the minimum wage accounting for inflation and nothing else.  That'd still be just above the poverty line on the East or West coast.  And yes, garbage men should be paid even more than that because, as you said, the work they do is essential.  But I'd rank fast food work as even more difficult/stressful overall, and the smell you come home with isn't much better either.  Not to mention that it's one of the only options in food deserts, sadly making it essential for a lot of Americans.


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## SG854 (Jul 5, 2021)

Xzi said:


> I suppose that depends on your definition of "high pay."  $15 an hour is not high.  $21 an hour should be the minimum wage accounting for inflation and nothing else.  That'd still be just above the poverty line on the East or West coast.  And yes, garbage men should be paid even more than that because, as you said, the work they do is essential.  But I'd rank fast food work as even more difficult/stressful overall, and the smell you come home with isn't much better either.  Not to mention that it's one of the only options in food deserts, sadly making it essential for a lot of Americans.


Not all garbage men are paid the same. Different areas pay different wages. U.S. average is 44k. About 3.2k a month after taxes. Of course wages can range from 10k to 230k. Depending on area and other factors like hours worked.

On the west cost in the California area they are decently paid. San Francisco it's about 66k.


If you were to make a survey where would you rather work, McDonald's or Garbage man, vast majority will vote McDonald's.


Also I wouldn't say McDonald's is more stressful. Alot of times people throw crap in the garbage that they aren't suppose to when there are proper ways to dispose of them. And stuff leaks and ripped through the bags. A garbage man can have battery acid spill all over their face. Or toxic waste that wasn't suppose to be in the garbage bag, but people don't care about giving the garbage man a harder time in life and do whatever they please. Being around shit smell isn't pleasant either.

Alot of the crap garbage men go through hardly ever gets talked about because no one cares about the garbage man. No one has stopped to have a conversation with them.


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## XDel (Jul 5, 2021)

Obviously a system based upon free will, free trade, de-regulation, as governed by a humane, wise, and just constitution, upheld by elected officials has always had far more success than a system governed by a self appointed few, unchallenged by a constitution or the voice of the proverbial people, and which suffocates true diversity and the bringing together of ideas that were brought to the table by people who had the drive to do so and the ability to pull things together and make them happen. 

Of course though if you narrow it all down, it is in some ways a question of materialism vs materialism, or at least that is what it has become, for the market place has gone untamed for too long, and just like Communism, has robbed us of our spirit, our autonomy, and of metaphysical priorities, and eternal Truths. There were once restraints on it in order to protect mind, heart, soul, culture, and so on, but those were gradually unshackled long ago and wickedness has been normalized, from greed, to self pity, vanity, envy, uncontrolled lusts, deceit, and so on, thus enabling the system to be converted into a mass production machine that churns out temptations to lure us in and become acolyte zombies unto it's cause... ...never ending growth of power, wealth, influence, and control. AKA Communism and we are but passive pawns in their game, imitating what ever they give us to imitate, thinking and dreaming only what they put before us to think and dream, and our world views and values are alas conformed to that of EVERY MAJOR CORPORATION! Now that's punk rock!!!


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## Xzi (Jul 5, 2021)

SG854 said:


> If you were to make a survey where would you rather work, McDonald's or Garbage man, vast majority will vote McDonald's.


I'm not so sure about that.  Garbage men get paid better, they don't have to deal with any customers/Karens or power-tripping middle managers, and the smell of stale fast food is hardly any better than garbage, as I mentioned before.  Not to mention garbage men don't have to stand in the same place all day, they get to move around and work outside.

It's a moot point though, as any and all jobs must pay a living wage.  If they don't, then we're just subsidizing those corporations with our tax dollars because their employees all end up on welfare/food stamps.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 5, 2021)

Reual said:


> False. Contribution does not equal your pay. Your not paid your full value.
> 
> If you were paid your full value, the company would go even. simple as that. the money they get comes from taking parts of your value, your time and labor and what you provide. and extracting that.
> 
> ...


You are paid precisely how much your work is worth - you don't decide that, the market does via supply and demand. Of course this arrangement has to be beneficial to both sides, otherwise the employer wouldn't be employing you - why hire someone at a personal loss? The great thing about capitalism is that it provides a benefit for both sides of the contract.


Xzi said:


> Corruption wasn't born entirely of capitalism, no, but capitalism does seem to have a nasty habit of making corruption the norm.  Boiling the frog, as it were.
> 
> Precisely, capitalism is dehumanizing by design.  Capitalists don't view people as individuals or according to their needs, only as commodities to be bought, sold, and traded.  FDR managed to extend America's shelf life by probably fifty years with the New Deal, but without a second bill of worker's rights, I seriously doubt this country survives to three hundred years (2076).  Either fascism takes control, a populist revolution happens, or climate change causes a breakdown of society and borders.


Communist countries are significantly more corrupt by any objective metric, primarily due to scarcity, but also due to a larger degree of concentration of power in the hands of few select individuals. The economy of a communist country is (on paper) literally centralised - one or two guys at the top decide who are the haves and who are the have nots.

People are people after work - at work they have contractual obligations that they fulfil for a mutually agreed upon compensation. I don't care about your fee fees - if I pay you to do X during the day, I expect X to be done by the end of said day, otherwise I wouldn't be paying you.


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## SG854 (Jul 5, 2021)

Xzi said:


> I'm not so sure about that.  Garbage men get paid better, they don't have to deal with any customers/Karens or power-tripping middle managers, and the smell of stale fast food is hardly any better than garbage, as I mentioned before.  Not to mention garbage men don't have to stand in the same place all day, they get to move around and work outside.
> 
> It's a moot point though, as any and all jobs must pay a living wage.  If they don't, then we're just subsidizing those corporations with our tax dollars because their employees all end up on welfare/food stamps.


Stale food is in the garbage lol. It gets thrown in there. Tons and tons of stale rotten food that has been sitting for days in the garbage bags that garbage men have to pick up. 

Garbage men have to smell stale food all day, while McDonald's employees only have to deal with it when they throw out the trash.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 5, 2021)

Xzi said:


> I'm not so sure about that.  *Garbage men get paid better (...)*


Have you ever wondered why this low-skill job that requires almost zero experience and minimal training pays this well? Because there are no takers. There's a large demand for garbage men, but few people want to rummage through garbage for a living at odd hours of the day which, naturally, comes at a risk of contracting various diseases, encountering vermin or injuring yourself, not just with the garbage you pick up (you'd be surprised what people throw out in unmarked garbage bags - think sharps) but also the equipment (trash compactors do what it says on the tin, and you can fall off the truck). You know for a fact that having to choose between the two, most will pick a clean kitchen over dirty rubbish bins, hence the difference in wage.


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## chrisrlink (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Have you ever wondered why this low-skill job that requires almost zero experience and minimal training pays this well? Because there are no takers. There's a large demand for garbage men, but few people want to rummage through garbage for a living at odd hours of the day which, naturally, comes at a risk of contracting various diseases, encountering vermin or injuring yourself, not just with the garbage you pick up (you'd be surprised what people throw out in unmarked garbage bags - think sharps) but also the equipment (trash compactors do what it says on the tin, and you can fall off the truck). You know for a fact that having to choose between the two, most will pick a clean kitchen over dirty rubbish bins, hence the difference in wage.


not only that the high payment could be considered "Hazard pay" due to the very fact garbage harbors some of the most vile diseases  not only that improperly disposed needles could stick someone and they could contract HIV as an example


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## SG854 (Jul 5, 2021)

chrisrlink said:


> not only that the high payment could be considered "Hazard pay" due to the very fact garbage harbors some of the most vile diseases  not only that improperly disposed needles could stick someone and they could contract HIV as an example


The more risk, the more hazardous, the higher pay usually. 

That's why Emergency Medicine gets paid higher then Family Medicine. Even though they are both similar jobs.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 5, 2021)

chrisrlink said:


> not only that the high payment could be considered "Hazard pay" due to the very fact garbage harbors some of the most vile diseases  not only that improperly disposed needles could stick someone and they could contract HIV as an example


It's always funny when people on the other side unravel the mystery of why certain jobs pay higher than others despite requiring the same or similar skill set. But yes, I believe I've covered that under "injury and disease risk".


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## Deleted User (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> You are paid precisely how much your work is worth - you don't decide that, the market does via supply and demand.


Bullshit. First off they don't have to pay you what your worth, and again, I highly doubt that a walmart employee is worth 12.50 an hour for front end. It would be significantly more. Also you have a gun to your head because if you don't have money, you don't eat, you don't have a home.

"Of course this arrangement has to be beneficial to both sides, otherwise the employer wouldn't be employing you - why hire someone at a personal loss?"
Also false, it is often greatly skewed to the employers favor. The employer chooses your wage, not the market, the employer chooses your times.  Not you.  And if you believe workers can negotiate wages, that's what unions are for, and the unites states lacks them, IMMENSELY.  The goal of capitalism is to gain more money, labor has the highest cost. Which leads to a contradiction that many socialists have pointed out. The worker wants to be paid what they are worth. The Owner/capitalist, wants the most money possible. Meaning they want to pay you the least they possibly can or under staff. Which also means, no, your not being paid your worth.


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## kevin corms (Jul 5, 2021)

Well if we want communism, maybe we should just avoid Marxism and try again. Marxism defeats the purpose of having communism in the first place. Marxism adds all kinds of disgusting theories which make communism work more like having a King/Queen or at the very least a elite ruling class.


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## Deleted User (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Communist countries are significantly more corrupt by any *objective metric*, primarily due to scarcity,


Umm, excuse me sir. WHAT METRIC? Did you just pull it out of your ass?
Also what do you mean by scarcity? Because if your talking about famine, that's a environmental issue. Can't fix nature. But this is been fixed by efficiency and interdependence in the modern day.


Foxi4 said:


> the economy of a communist country is (on paper) literally centralised - one or two guys at the top decide who are the haves and who are the have nots.


By "centralized communism" I'll assume you're talking about the USSR here. Yes, they had a centralized economy, and the inflexibilities of it led to their eventual downfall. However, you have to consider their conditions and why they originally had a centrally planned economy. This was a country that went from a rural agrarian society to a world superpower in less than a century. Also, "centralization" is not exclusive to communism. If you really wanted to, you could have centralized versions of other economic systems like capitalism. Statism, "centralization", etc. are all separate from economic systems. They are modifiers, not inherent.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



kevin corms said:


> Well if we want communism, maybe we should just avoid Marxism and try again. Marxism defeats the purpose of having communism in the first place. Marxism adds all kinds of disgusting theories which make communism work more like having a King/Queen or at the very least a elite ruling class.


yeah... and anarchist communists exist.

I believe you would enjoy this person.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 5, 2021)

Reual said:


> Umm, excuse me sir. WHAT METRIC? Did you just pull it out of your ass?
> Also what do you mean by scarcity? Because if your talking about famine, that's a environmental issue. Can't fix nature. But this is been fixed by efficiency and interdependence in the modern day.


Corruption is, and always has been, a huge problem in communist and post-communist societies. Communist administrations are objectively some of the most corrupt, by any metric, for the reasons listed above and more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Cuba
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_North_Korea

All of these countries score very poorly in the CPI, or the Corruption Perceptions Index. Sorting out any administrative issues more often than not requires greasing multiple hands - the more communist the country is, the worse it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

You will notice that nearly all of Europe and North America score very well on the CPI. Post-communist and communist countries not so much.




I was also unaware of environmental issues that crop up suddenly, prompted solely by regime change. Funny how that works.


> By "centralized communism" I'll assume you're talking about the USSR here. Yes, they had a centralized economy, and the inflexibilities of it led to their eventual downfall. However, you have to consider their conditions and why they originally had a centrally planned economy. This was a country that went from a rural agrarian society to a world superpower in less than a century. Also, "centralization" is not exclusive to communism. If you really wanted to, you could have centralized versions of other economic systems like capitalism. Statism, "centralization", etc. are all separate from economic systems. They are modifiers, not inherent.


I am familiar with how the U.S.S.R. grew to be a superpower in such a short time frame - by way of annexation and exploitation of its immediate neighbours, including Poland, my home. It's also fairly easy to feed a growing population if you systematically murder large swathes of it, as was the case in Ukraine.


> yeah... and anarchist communists exist.
> 
> I believe you would enjoy this person.


...person?  And a communist? That's an oxymoron.

Jokes aside, me not being a huge fan of the government does not make me an anarchist, and I do not feel kinship towards anarchists. Government is necessary and has very specific, limited functions. What I oppose is the government overstepping the boundaries of its authority and intruding on the private lives of the citizens. There's a big difference.


Reual said:


> Bullshit. First off they don't have to pay you what your worth, and again, I highly doubt that a walmart employee is worth 12.50 an hour for front end.


You're right - they're worth _less_. Amazon has even made huge strides in operating stores with *no* front of house staff, only warehouse workers, which too can be replaced by machinery in many cases. Their contribution is just not that valuable, and there's an ample amount of people looking for jobs in retail. If you feel unsatisfied with your wage, there are 10 other people with the same skill set available. The pandemic is a special circumstance because the government is actively disincentivising returning to work, so there's a bit of a labour crunch. For now.


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## SG854 (Jul 5, 2021)

Reual said:


> Bullshit. First off they don't have to pay you what your worth, and again, I highly doubt that a walmart employee is worth 12.50 an hour for front end. It would be significantly more. Also you have a gun to your head because if you don't have money, you don't eat, you don't have a home.
> 
> "Of course this arrangement has to be beneficial to both sides, otherwise the employer wouldn't be employing you - why hire someone at a personal loss?"
> Also false, it is often greatly skewed to the employers favor. The employer chooses your wage, not the market, the employer chooses your times.  Not you.  And if you believe workers can negotiate wages, that's what unions are for, and the unites states lacks them, IMMENSELY.  The goal of capitalism is to gain more money, labor has the highest cost. Which leads to a contradiction that many socialists have pointed out. The worker wants to be paid what they are worth. The Owner/capitalist, wants the most money possible. Meaning they want to pay you the least they possibly can or under staff. Which also means, no, your not being paid your worth.


Exactly the owner wants more money and the worker wants more money.

Employers are looking for discounts. They are shopping for labor similar to how people shop for video games or deals on consumer goods. People pay what they feel is worth for video games and want the cheapest price they can get it at. If they don't think a game is worth it they refuse to buy it. If there's two video game competitors they go for the overall better deal. 

Consumers want to give corporations as little at possible when they shop for products. And Empolyers want to give as little as possible when they purchase a workers time and work to help out at the company. Capitalism should be called Consumerism. The consumers set the market. And there is consumers on both sides. 


The market sets wages based on basic supply and demand economics. If there's not enough supply of workers but high demand for them then employers need to raise wages to attract more workers. It's not an arbitrary number out of nowhere. Supply and demand doesn't work that way.


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## Deleted User (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> All of these countries score very poorly in the CPI, or the Corruption Perceptions Index. Sorting out any administrative issue mire often than not requires greasing multiple hands - the more communist the country is, the worse it is.


You do realize that capitalist country's are also corrupt. That's not exactly exclusive to communism.

Also... the CPI is uh... not really reliable when it comes to who is backing them.


Exon mobil, and more, definitely don't have some stake in idk, preferring capitalism over eastern countries more socialist skew?


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## Foxi4 (Jul 5, 2021)

Reual said:


> You do realize that capitalist country's are also corrupt. That's not exactly exclusive to communism.
> 
> Also... the CPI is uh... not really reliable when it comes to who is backing them.View attachment 269190
> Exon mobil, and more, definitely don't have some stake in idk, preferring capitalism?


You wanted a metric, I gave you a metric. If you think that Cuba, North Korea and China don't have a corruption problem then we can stop the conversation right here - you're from another planet. That kind of claim is ridiculous, ask any Chinese immigrant how things work back at home.


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## Deleted User (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> You wanted a metric, I gave you a metric. If you think that Cuba, North Korea and China don't have a corruption problem then we can stop the conversation right here - you're from another planet. That kind of claim is ridiculous, ask any Chinese immigrant how things work back at home.


I'm not saying that, that those countries are not corrupt, they definitely are. 
I believe we live on the same planet, however I'm saying corruption is not EXCLUSIVE to communism. And the CPI will inevitably have a negative skew towards non capitalist countries given it's backing. There's a conflict of interest in having the chance of disproving capitalism.
You do realize that the United States invaded the USSR while establishing themselves. And you do realize too that we invaded the middle east over oil. I count that as pretty damn corrupt. And that's just two out OF MANY instances we we got involved either because money, or because another country was going socialist.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Foxi4 said:


> by any objective metric





Foxi4 said:


> You wanted a metric, I gave you a metric


as for the metric, you claimed it as objective. I'd argue it's subjective given the skewed backing. If exon and other companies were not involved, my stance on this would be different.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 5, 2021)

Reual said:


> I'm not saying that, I believe we live on the same planet, however I'm saying corruption is not EXCLUSIVE to communism. You do realize that the United States invaded the USSR while establishing themselves. And you do realize too that we invaded the middle east over oil. I count that as pretty damn corrupt.


Define the term "corruption". For the record, Transparency International's ranking is a widely-quoted resource in terms of measuring the levels of corruption globally - if it's good enough for the media, it's good enough for me.


> as for the metric, you claimed it as objective. I'd argue it's subjective given the skewed backing. If exon and other companies were not involved, my stance on this would be different.


It is a widely-used, mainstream, accepted source, and an objective metric. Even Wikipedia considers it accurate. Your opinion in this case isn't really a major concern to me, you not liking a mainstream source is immaterial. If you have an objection, provide evidence that disproves my statement. I already backed up mine with numbers, you just don't like the numbers.

From the link already provided:


> A study published in 2012 found a "*very strong significant correlation*" between the Corruption Perceptions Index and two other proxies for corruption: black market activity and an overabundance of regulation.
> 
> All three metrics also had a *highly significant correlation* with real gross domestic product per capita (RGDP/Cap); the Corruption Perceptions Index correlation with RGDP/Cap was the strongest, *explaining over three fourths of the variance*. (Note that a *lower on this scale reflects greater corruption*, so that *countries with higher RGDPs generally had less corruption*.)
> 
> Research papers published in 2007 and 2008 examined the economic consequences of corruption perception, as defined by the CPI. The researchers *found a correlation between a higher CPI and higher long-term economic growth*, as well as an increase in GDP growth of 1.7% for every unit increase in a country's CPI score. Also shown was a power-law dependence linking higher CPI score to higher rates of foreign investment in a country.


Strong correlation, according to science. Go argue with scientists, not me.

It's also worth noting that the United States invaded the U.S.S.R. in 1918 as part of an Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. This was a set of very small-scale interventions that were aimed at stabilising the region which ended shortly, in 1920. This had very little to no impact on the collapse of the U.S.S.R. nearly 70 years later, in 1989. The U.S.S.R. collapsed because it was a mismanaged mess that the West out spent into oblivion during the Cold War, which wasn't an actual military conflict, if you were under the impression that it was. Hence the name - Cold War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War

The United States military have not set foot on Russian soil again between that time and the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., so I'm not sure what kind of invasion you're talking about. If I'm forgetting about some kind of large-scale military conflict that would've occurred next door from me, please elucidate.


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## Deleted User (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Define the term "corruption". For the record, Transparency International's ranking is a widely-quoted resource in terms of measuring the levels of corruption globally - if it's good enough for the media, it's good enough for me.


So... your going to assume the media is perfectly fine? That's... odd. Also further more, i already explained why it isn't good enough. It's a conflict of interest. A capitalist media is just as much going to be focused on keeping the interest of capitalism.



Foxi4 said:


> It's also worth noting that the United States invaded the U.S.S.R. in 1918 as part of an Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. This was a set of very small-scale interventions that were aimed at stabilising the region which ended shortly, in 1920.


Which... one side was bolshevik in favor of communism... and the other was in favor of capitalism (amongst a few different government systems)
No I don't see any personal interest here. Nope. not all.




Foxi4 said:


> This had very little to no impact on the collapse of the U.S.S.R. nearly 70 years later, in 1989.


Yeah and? I'm not  faulting the USSR collapse on the United States. That isn't what I'm getting at. 
let's apply this to other countries the United States has gone into. There are multiple countries where the united states intervened in conflicts to preserve capitalism. That is corruption. And the CPI does not acknowledge that, and cannot acknowledge since it's backed those who seek to profit off of a capitalist system and have it maintained.


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## Flame (Jul 5, 2021)

Words are important. 

the title is just wrong. saying communism and socialism is the same thing is like saying capitalism and fascism is the same.

if you say communism vs capitalism. capitalism wins obversely.

so what's better socialism vs fascism?


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## Foxi4 (Jul 5, 2021)

Reual said:


> So... your going to assume the media is perfectly fine? That's... odd. Also further more, i already explained why it isn't good enough. It's a conflict of interest. A capitalist media is just as much going to be focused on keeping the interest of capitalism.


I've answered the question of index validity above. University researchers have no conflict of interests here, the entire index is commissioned. It's also extensively peer-reviewed and strongly correlates with other corruption indicators. It is a reliable source, whether you like it or not.


> Which... one side was bolshevik in favor of communism... and the other was in favor of capitalism (amongst a few different government systems)
> No I don't see any personal interest here. Nope. not all.


You said that the U.S. invaded the U.S.S.R. - that's not accurate. It was an allied effort. The U.S. was primarily interested in protecting the Trans-siberian railway from sabotage by insurgents. Those were not large-scale "regime change" operations. You're trying to slip in an "Iraq War-style" invasion where there wasn't one.


> Yeah and? I'm not  faulting the USSR collapse on the United States. That isn't what I'm getting at.
> 
> let's apply this to other countries the United States has gone into. There are multiple countries where the united states intervened in conflicts to preserve capitalism. That is corruption. And the CPI does not acknowledge that, and cannot acknowledge since it's backed those who seek to profit off of a capitalist system and have it maintained.


You actually might be from another planet. Here's the definition of the word "corruption", so we can talk about the same thing without hippie dippie hyperbolic terminology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption


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## Xzi (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> You are paid precisely how much your work is worth - you don't decide that, the market does via supply and demand.


Almost nobody in America is paid even half of the value that their work generates for the company.  That's how corporations continue to post record profits year over year, they're eating into employees' wages by lobbying to keep them stagnant.  $7.25 an hour was a poverty wage in most parts of the country ten years ago, let alone today.



Foxi4 said:


> Communist countries are significantly more corrupt by any objective metric, primarily due to scarcity, but also due to a larger degree of concentration of power in the hands of few select individuals.


Are there any _real_ communist countries left?  We already talked about China adopting capitalism, and how America fucked with every country that democratically elected a socialist or communist leader in the last century or so.  The only conclusion a critical mind can reach is that the US government doesn't want us seeing what it looks like when they operate without interference.  Some people might start catching on to the fact that a trickle-up economy is a total scam.



Foxi4 said:


> I don't care about your fee fees - if I pay you to do X during the day, I expect X to be done by the end of said day, otherwise I wouldn't be paying you.


Odds are you aren't gonna find any employees for less than $15 an hour these days regardless, as evidenced by the fast food worker "shortage."  Why bother working forty hours a week if it's still not enough to buy the necessities and you're just gonna end up on food stamps anyway?  The "market" failed us as Americans before, during, and after the pandemic.  By flexing our labor muscles we can bend it to our will.



Foxi4 said:


> Have you ever wondered why this low-skill job that requires almost zero experience and minimal training pays this well? Because there are no takers. There's a large demand for garbage men, but few people want to rummage through garbage for a living at odd hours of the day which, naturally, comes at a risk of contracting various diseases, encountering vermin or injuring yourself, not just with the garbage you pick up (you'd be surprised what people throw out in unmarked garbage bags - think sharps) but also the equipment (trash compactors do what it says on the tin, and you can fall off the truck). You know for a fact that having to choose between the two, most will pick a clean kitchen over dirty rubbish bins, hence the difference in wage.


To each their own I suppose.  Anecdotally I've seen dozens of fast food places short on staff, and no openings for garbage men in my area.  Safety-wise it doesn't sound much worse than when I worked at Lowe's, so a good pair of thick work gloves will take care of you.  And as I said before, I think the pace of the work is a lot more attractive.  Any fast food/retail job will have you doing ten things at once while also dealing with (often disgruntled) customers.  In waste disposal you've got one guy driving and one guy that throws shit in the back of the truck.  Very singular in its focus.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 5, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Almost nobody in America is paid even half of the value that their work generates for the company.  That's how corporations continue to post record profits year over year, they're eating into employees' wages by lobbying to keep them stagnant.  $7.25 an hour was a poverty wage in most parts of the country ten years ago, let alone today.


Only 2% of all Americans earn minimum wage, out of that subset around 50% are under-25's with no experience, teens or part-timers working on the side as they study. Regarding how much they should be earning, in many cases they are overpaid, not underpaid, for their contribution.


> Are there any _real_ communist countries left?  We already talked about China adopting capitalism, and how America fucked with every country that democratically elected a socialist or communist leader in the last century or so.  The only conclusion a critical mind can reach is that the US government doesn't want us seeing what it looks like when they operate without interference.  Some people might start catching on to the fact that a trickle-up economy is a total scam.


I've never seen a Reverse No True Scotsman before. Normally you guys say that real communism hasn't been tried yet, now you're telling me that it was tried, but doesn't exist anymore. I'm confused.


> Odds are you aren't gonna find any employees for less than $15 an hour these days regardless, as evidenced by the fast food worker "shortage."  Why bother working forty hours a week if it's still not enough to buy the necessities and you're just gonna end up on food stamps anyway?  The "market" failed us as Americans before, during, and after the pandemic.  By flexing our labor muscles we can bend it to our will.


That sounds like the market self-correcting. If you can't find workers at a certain level of remuneration, you raise the level of renumeration until you do, or look for alternatives. Sounds like you just accidentally discovered supply and demand, and then complained about it.


> To each their own I suppose.  Anecdotally I've seen dozens of fast food places short on staff, and no openings for garbage men in my area.  Safety-wise it doesn't sound much worse than when I worked at Lowe's, so a good pair of thick work gloves will take care of you.  And as I said before, I think the pace of the work is a lot more attractive.  Any fast food/retail job will have you doing ten things at once while also dealing with (often disgruntled) customers.  In waste disposal you've got one guy driving and one guy that throws shit in the back of the truck.  Very singular in its focus.


Anecdotally. A quick Google search indicates that there are plenty of openings, should any of you decide on a career change.


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## Flame (Jul 5, 2021)

I'm not socialism or capitalism.

but all i know is who ever i met. who has lived in communism hates it with a passion.

a question to @Reual and @Xzi do you both play war games?


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## smf (Jul 5, 2021)

SG854 said:


> The more risk, the more hazardous, the higher pay usually.
> 
> That's why Emergency Medicine gets paid higher then Family Medicine. Even though they are both similar jobs.



It's mostly based on desperation, if you think capitalism is great because you can watch all the desperate people running around trying to find a job that pays enough money to support their family while having to do things that you aren't prepared to do for less money than you get. Then you're the piece of shit wrong with capitalism.

There are some jobs that are better which are locked off to some people based on their background, which ironically is that rich people want to live under socialism that benefits them but not the poor.

A system where you can apply for someone elses job and get it if you demand a lower pay than them would be proper capitalism.


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## Xzi (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Only 2% of all Americans earn minimum wage, out of that subset around 50% are under-25's with no experience, teens or part-timers working on the side as they study.


I'm not talking strictly about minimum wage, I'm saying nearly everybody is underpaid relative to the value they're generating for the company.  Save for the few people on top who do no work at all, anyway.



Foxi4 said:


> Regarding how much they should be earning, in many cases they are overpaid, not underpaid, for their contribution.


Which means you're a part of the problem because you believe taxpayers should have to subsidize corporate wages to an even greater extent than they already are.



Foxi4 said:


> I've never seen a Reverse No True Scotsman before. Normally you guys say that real communism hasn't been tried yet, now you're telling me that it was tried, but doesn't exist anymore. I'm confused.


It's a little bit of both.  Communism has undeniably existed in certain forms throughout history, though never in the form I would've preferred.  And being tried out for a month before a military coup is staged by the CIA is just about as good as never having been tried at all.



Foxi4 said:


> That sounds like the market self-correcting. If you can't find workers at a certain level of remuneration, you raise the level of renumeration until you do, or look for alternatives. Sounds like you just accidentally discovered supply and demand, and then complained about it.


The market did not self-correct, fast food workers walked out on the job en masse and forced it to correct with external pressure.  At least in some places.  In others they're still stuck with a worker shortage because boomers refuse to budge on the slave wages.



Flame said:


> a question to @Reual and @Xzi do you both play war games?


If by that you mean strategy games, then yeah I dabble.  Was way more into RTS during Blizzard's prime though.


----------



## Flame (Jul 5, 2021)

Xzi said:


> If by that you mean strategy games, then yeah I dabble.  Was way more into RTS during Blizzard's prime though.



so would you go to real war?

the point I'm trying to make is in TV, books and video games it may make seem cool. once you try real communism, and you live it. its not.

capitalism may have its problems. socialism may or may not be better, but communism is not the answer.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 5, 2021)

Xzi said:


> I'm not talking strictly about minimum wage, I'm saying nearly everybody is underpaid relative to the value they're generating for the company.  Save for the few people on top who do no work at all, anyway.


You know this one anecdotally also, or do you have some experience at the top? Either way, there's no shame in delegating things to other people if your time is more valuable then the cost benefit from doing the job yourself. The reason why one hires a cleaner is not because they can't clean themselves, but because the few hours they would've spent cleaning would be a net loss compared to what they could be earning by doing their usual job. This applies across all strata of society, from the bottom to the top. Your mom didn't tell you to wash the dishes after dinner because she was lazy, she did that because she was resting after finishing her real job that puts food on the table. There's also no shame in enjoying wealth that is inherited - our ancestors worked for it so that future generations could keep it and enjoy the fruits of their labour. That's their money, not yours - if investing said wealth provides proceeds and dividends then that's great.


> Which means you're a part of the problem because you believe taxpayers should have to subsidize corporate wages to an even greater extent than they already are.


I'm part of the solution - I'm the "taxation is theft" guy. You're the guys offering stimulus packages, subsidies and "safety nets" that others have to pay for. Don't blame me for the wastefulness, I didn't start it.


> It's a little bit of both.  Communism has undeniably existed in certain forms throughout history, though never in the form I would've preferred.  And being tried out for a month before a military coup is staged by the CIA is just about as good as never having been tried at all.


Them glow in the darks just ruining our freedom 24/7, dang it.


> The market did not self-correct, fast food workers walked out on the job en masse and forced it to correct with external pressure.  At least in some places.  In others they're still stuck with a worker shortage because boomers refuse to budge on the slave wages.


That's literally a self-correction by the market. You just described the mechanism.


----------



## Xzi (Jul 5, 2021)

Flame said:


> the point I'm trying to make is in TV, books and video games it may seems cool. once you try real communism, and you live it. its not.
> 
> capitalism may have its problems. socialism may or may not be better, but communism is not the answer.


The grass is always greener, sure.  I'm a democratic socialist, so I'm not even advocating for full-on communism here, but the amount of resistance you run into when trying to make things even slightly better for the working class in America is quite telling.  Even fully abolishing slavery (13th amendment) seems a step too far for capitalists.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 5, 2021)

Xzi said:


> The grass is always greener, sure.  I'm a democratic socialist, so I'm not even advocating for full-on communism here, but the amount of resistance you run into when trying to make things even slightly better for the working class in America is quite telling.  Even fully abolishing slavery (13th amendment) seems a step too far for capitalists.


If I can't have an army of indentured child servants manufacturing cigars for me in a cramped space with no windows or ventilation then am I really free? No. No, I am not.


----------



## smf (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> If I can't have an army of indentured child servants manufacturing cigars for me in a cramped space with no windows or ventilation then am I really free? No. No, I am not.



Yes you are really free.

Are we really free if we can't murder you painfully and slowly for wanting child servants?


----------



## Xzi (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> That's their money, not yours - if investing said wealth provides proceeds and dividends then that's great.


We're simply not gonna agree on that, you're taking money away from those who generate revenue and redistributing it to useless leeches on society who rarely leave their luxury hotel rooms.  Oligarchy is oligarchy, and it's no more moral or ethical in capitalism than it is in communism.



Foxi4 said:


> I'm part of the solution - I'm the "taxation is theft" guy. You're the guys offering stimulus packages, subsidies and "safety nets" that others have to pay for. Don't blame me for the wastefulness, I didn't start it.


But you're advocating for continuing it, which means you're still part of the problem.  Take away corporate welfare and we could provide social welfare without raising taxes at all.  Hell we'd still have money left over for other things as well.



Foxi4 said:


> That's literally a self-correction by the market. You just described the mechanism.


Somebody once told me the market likes stability, but now apparently a general strike every couple years is just a necessary component to keeping employers honest with their wages.  Since this sounds just like dealing with Comcast's shitty customer service, I vote them for the official mascot of capitalism.


----------



## _abysswalker_ (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Poverty often times has a lot to do with character. Not always, but often.


You have no idea whether that's often or not and what kind of character fits the bill really. What's the point of this statement anyway? Cause I can only re-construct it as "if you are poor you probably got what you deserved" - hope I misunderstood.


----------



## smf (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I'm part of the solution - I'm the "taxation is theft" guy.



No, you're the problem, not the solution.

Taxation isn't theft. Taxation should be better implemented, but you need it for the common good.


----------



## SG854 (Jul 5, 2021)

smf said:


> It's mostly based on desperation, if you think capitalism is great because you can watch all the desperate people running around trying to find a job that pays enough money to support their family while having to do things that you aren't prepared to do for less money than you get. Then you're the piece of shit wrong with capitalism.
> 
> There are some jobs that are better which are locked off to some people based on their background, which ironically is that rich people want to live under socialism that benefits them but not the poor.
> 
> A system where you can apply for someone elses job and get it if you demand a lower pay than them would be proper capitalism.


That's just how life is. We were living in desperation for most of human history. When running around as hunter gatheres, worrying everyday whether or not we'll be attacked by animals. It wasn't until recently especially nowadays where we are living in a much safer time overall that doesn't have to deal with stuff like that. TV's, video game cosnoles, taking vacations to different countries wasn't possible in the past.

Desperate is the only way we'll get people to work jobs that otherwise no one will work. People live a more comfortable life because someone out there is doing all the uncomfortable stuff that other people won't do. Digging ditches to build roads, collecting garbage, working late night shifts for when you need an item or food at night, working in shipping factories at night to make sure packages gets delivered on time, working the high risk emergency medicine.

Unless you think these people shouldn't do these jobs. Because these are jobs only desperate people go to. Should these jobs exist or not?


----------



## smf (Jul 5, 2021)

splymb said:


> You have no idea whether that's often or not and what kind of character fits the bill really. What's the point of this statement anyway? Cause I can only re-construct it as "if you are poor you probably got what you deserved" - hope I misunderstood.



No, I don't think you misunderstood.

Foxi4 is one of those people who got lucky and then looks down on people who aren't lucky.

If poverty is deserved, then he deserves to be homeless. The universe doesn't work like that though.


----------



## FAST6191 (Jul 5, 2021)

On wages, particularly minimum ones, then I do need to inject a favourite phrase at this point. That being the real minimum wage is zero -- if I am paying through the nose then I want something for my money. No olds, single parents, disabled people, dumb people, students with odd schedules, sick people... of course I will not say that when you don't get a call back (if I can't find a gap in your job history, grades I care about, someone else in the pile that was better... then my HR person is being fired too) but we all know the real reason.

Though more generally do learn game theory enough to negotiate your salary and basic accounting too.
That being how much do you cost (more than your wages if they also have to do pensions, any food, liability insurance and so on), how much do you bring in (would accounting say you are a cost/expense or a producer, can vary between companies as well -- my mechanic maintaining my fleet of lorries is a cost, my mechanic I sell the services of to those walking through the door is a different matter even if they do the same job), some idea of your efficiency (back to the mechanic thing then maintaining one of my limited number of bays/lifts when I could have someone that does twice as much* in the same time represents a loss according to most accountants). Similarly know the cost of acquiring new staff even if you are the one looking to be staff (or stay being staff, or negotiating a raise) -- how rare are they, how quickly will they be up to speed, how easy is it to find a replacement (which also factors back into the whether you are an expense or an earner for the company). There are other factors too -- whizz kid that leaves after 3 months leaves me in the lurch if it is a skilled job so I might take the proven one with kids and a mortgage even if they are not as hot as I know the crushing demands of debt and kids will keep them coming back, though the interview and job posting will use phrases like this company will treat you like family and want someone committed to the future of the company. Also why anybody with poisonous frog coloured hair and a likelihood to speak to HR** on occasions other than being hired or fired will be ignored as well.

*if you can't walk into a job and size everybody up as far as who works hardest, who has the most skills, who can sort the bastard legacy things and so forth then gain that as well. Any manager vaguely competent, and any technically proficient person will likely be able to watch for half an hour and give you a very good guess as to who is who there.

**in case it was not obvious then HR is not your friend. They are paid by the company (in economics this is known as an incentive) and there to mean you cause as little grief to the company as possible, you can go rot for all they care as long as it does not come back on them. Or more generally there is a reason the resources are humans for them.

Take all that to heart and the world of work gets a lot less mysterious, also will be able to see why "what they are/you are worth" is a reassuring platitude at best (usually offered by a politician that wants something from you) and utter drivel if you are being realistic. Yes it sucks that the gravy train that saw your possibly great grant parents on up do enough that high school can plausibly pass them and then own a house by 25 solely from a factory job, don't know that there is much that can be done about that though just yet if we are going to continue to value personal freedoms.



Foxi4 said:


> That kind of claim is ridiculous, ask any Chinese immigrant how things work back at home.



I'll take that bet. Guy that runs the local Confucius Institute says things run like a dream.


----------



## smf (Jul 5, 2021)

SG854 said:


> Unless you think these people shouldn't do these jobs. Because these are jobs only desperate people go to. Should these jobs exist or not?



A rota system might be fairer. 

Or some system where the more money you make, the more toilets you have to clean. Like community service but enforced by the IRS.


----------



## chrisrlink (Jul 5, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Corruption is, and always has been, a huge problem in communist and post-communist societies. Communist administrations are objectively some of the most corrupt, by any metric, for the reasons listed above and more.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_China
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Cuba
> ...


I honestly feel the US's CPI is outdated since 2016 (coincidence?), to at most orange Corruption in the US has grown mor rampant even since Trumps Departure not saying it wasn't bad with him but anti voter bills anti LBGTQ bills are being pushed or have passed in droves within the past few weeks to months and who's passing that crap? Why the same racist corrupt party who gave trump power


----------



## SG854 (Jul 5, 2021)

smf said:


> A rota system might be fairer.
> 
> Or some system where the more money you make, the more toilets you have to clean. Like community service but enforced by the IRS.


So punished for making too much money?

I don't know how popular that system will be. Especially if they are a garbage man that makes more then minimum wage, dealing with toxic waste and at risk for contracting diseases, for then to be having to be punished for making more then average minimum wage and forced into labor by cleaning toilets.

Usually higher risk shitier jobs are getting payed more so you'll be punishing those people. Who are already going through lots of crap to provide for their families. 

How many people will actually would want that? And I mean normal people not the rich.


----------



## smf (Jul 5, 2021)

FAST6191 said:


> Though more generally do learn game theory enough to negotiate your salary and basic accounting too.



They should teach game theory in schools and offer a free wage negotiation service, to make it a real zero sum game.
That would solve a lot of the inequality.

Something that stops CEO's creaming so much money off the top would be good too.



SG854 said:


> So punished for making too much money?



Punished for abusing your luck and manipulating your position, right.

It would require some other changes as well, because the people who would normally do those jobs would still need paying despite their work being done by jeff bezos.

I think most people would be perfectly happy to find out that they won the lottery and some rich person was covering their shifts. So they could have time to enroll in a college course etc

You'd need to come up with an algorithm for it, but say once you'd earned over a certain amount more than your lowest paid employees you could be forced to do their job. Which would ultimately mean that people at the top wouldn't want to get paid far more than their lowest paid employees.


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## SG854 (Jul 5, 2021)

smf said:


> They should teach game theory in schools and offer a free wage negotiation service, to make it a real zero sum game.
> That would solve a lot of the inequality.
> 
> Something that stops CEO's creaming so much money off the top would be good too.
> ...


The economy is not a zero sum game. Both sides benifit. You pay them money and you get goods and services in return. You both benefit.

Your life is much better off because of it. You have a refrigerator, electricity, a TV. You are living a more comfortable life because of it. Again would you rather live in a cave 20,000 years ago or today? Or even live 200 years ago or today which is better?



smf said:


> They should teach game theory in schools and offer a free wage negotiation service, to make it a real zero sum game.
> That would solve a lot of the inequality.
> 
> Something that stops CEO's creaming so much money off the top would be good too.
> ...


That I can get behind. If a corporation is abusing their position and doing things especially illegal to restrict a free market then the market is no longer free.

I do not agree with luck though. Some are lucky and some are not. That's just life. We shouldn't punish people for hitting the lottery.


----------



## smf (Jul 5, 2021)

SG854 said:


> I do not agree with luck though. Some are lucky and some are not. That's just life. We shouldn't punish people for hitting the lottery.



Yes we definitely should be punishing people who are far luckier than the unluckiest.
Otherwise it causes too many social problems.

What about you can pay yourself how much you want, but if an employee is paid less than 1/4 what you are paid then they are legally allowed to kill you. That would put luck back into it and even out skills, because some people are better at murder than others but society puts limits on what they are allowed to do with that luck.

I actually think that communism within a company is not a bad idea, if you have 20 employees working 8 hours a day then you require all those employees to make money. So why should 1 of them get paid 100 times more than the others? They all have to eat, they all have to put in effort.


----------



## Deleted User (Jul 5, 2021)

SG854 said:


> The economy is not a zero sum game. Both sides benifit. You pay them money and you get goods and services in return. You both benefit


One benefits more than the other. And it's not employees. Money is power. Who has more money? The owner. Why do you think amazon could get away with making workers piss in bottles? Why do you think crunch culture is still acceptable in the video game industry and keeps happening? That's just two examples out of many. I don't see many people on the top who feels like they are about to drop from work exhaustion, or worry about the lack of overtime, or the lack of any control over job. Where a lot of places here in the united states the employer can just fire you for no reason at all.
That hasn't happened by chance. That wasn't consented by the working class. That's capitalists on the top pushing law and the government over. There's a reason wages aren't updated yearly anymore. And that's those ontop.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Foxi4 said:


> I've answered the question of index validity above. University researchers have no conflict of interests here, the entire index is commissioned


Again and your not listening to the problem with it. Financial backing. From ExxonMobil and other western countries. At this point if you want to keep ignoring this point we can end this strand of discussion here.


Foxi4 said:


> You actually might be from another planet. Here's the definition of the word "corruption", so we can talk about the same thing without hippie dippie hyperbolic terminology.


So... you don't see any problem with exxon backing a person who matches their views, giving large political contributions. Which happens to add to the person's ability to say, put advertisements up? No? You don't see that as a problem? Even though that would be bribery, doesn't have to be text book corruption. I guess we live on two different earths then.


----------



## SG854 (Jul 5, 2021)

smf said:


> Yes we definitely should be punishing people who are far luckier than the unluckiest.
> Otherwise it causes too many social problems.
> 
> What about you can pay yourself how much you want, but if an employee is paid less than 1/4 what you are paid then they are legally allowed to kill you. That would put luck back into it and even out skills, because some people are better at murder than others but society puts limits on what they are allowed to do with that luck.
> ...


Not everyone who is lucky abuses their luck. Some are grateful and even give back.



Reual said:


> One benefits more than the other. And it's not employees. Money is power. Who has more money? The owner. Why do you think amazon could get away with making workers piss in bottles? Why do you think crunch culture is still acceptable in the video game industry and keeps happening? That's just two examples out of many. I don't see many people on the top who feels like they are about to drop from work exhaustion, or worry about the lack of overtime, or the lack of any control over job. Where a lot of places here in the united states the employer can just fire you for no reason at all.
> That hasn't happened by chance. That wasn't consented by the working class. That's capitalists on the top pushing law and the government over. There's a reason wages aren't updated yearly anymore. And that's those ontop.


The workers are payed before the owner even sees a pay check.

In the case of the ultra rich like Amazon. The pee in the bottle thing is not unerversially true. There is many warehouse throughout the country. That was only true in some location. But not all locations.

There's some places like Burger King that treats their workers like crap. But some BK locations where the manger is cool. Usually the top head guy can't manage all locations by themselves so they employ managers at individual locations to help run the buisneses. It's really the individual and not the company as a whole if the manager is crap. And will get fired if things get out of hand.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Reual said:


> One benefits more than the other. And it's not employees. Money is power. Who has more money? The owner. Why do you think amazon could get away with making workers piss in bottles? Why do you think crunch culture is still acceptable in the video game industry and keeps happening? That's just two examples out of many. I don't see many people on the top who feels like they are about to drop from work exhaustion, or worry about the lack of overtime, or the lack of any control over job. Where a lot of places here in the united states the employer can just fire you for no reason at all.
> That hasn't happened by chance. That wasn't consented by the working class. That's capitalists on the top pushing law and the government over. There's a reason wages aren't updated yearly anymore. And that's those ontop.
> 
> --------------------- MERGED ---------------------------
> ...


Also the top managers work way more hours then me. I always told my friends that I can't work the hours they work. They work for hours and hours. It's crazy how little free time they have.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> We're simply not gonna agree on that, you're taking money away from those who generate revenue and redistributing it to useless leeches on society who rarely leave their luxury hotel rooms.  Oligarchy is oligarchy, and it's no more moral or ethical in capitalism than it is in communism.


There's nothing to agree or disagree about here. They pay employees to do job X which generates a product Y. They sell that product and use the revenue to pay the workers and keep the business going. Whatever is left at the end of that transaction belongs to them, since they created the enterprise that generates said revenue. Nobody is being robbed - you guys are the ones trying to rob people.


> But you're advocating for continuing it, which means you're still part of the problem.  Take away corporate welfare and we could provide social welfare without raising taxes at all.  Hell we'd still have money left over for other things as well.


I advocate against you. That's a very specific thing.


> Somebody once told me the market likes stability, but now apparently a general strike every couple years is just a necessary component to keeping employers honest with their wages.  Since this sounds just like dealing with Comcast's shitty customer service, I vote them for the official mascot of capitalism.


The market does like stability, and also self-corrects when needed. Those statements do not cancel each other out.


smf said:


> No, you're the problem, not the solution.
> 
> Taxation isn't theft. Taxation should be better implemented, but you need it for the common good.


Joke flew over your head, as most things tend to, which is why I normally don't respond to you anymore.


Reual said:


> Again and your not listening to the problem with it. Financial backing. From ExxonMobil and other western countries. At this point if you want to keep ignoring this point we can end this strand of discussion here.
> 
> So... you don't see any problem with exxon backing a person who matches their views, giving large political contributions. Which happens to add to the person's ability to say, put advertisements up? No? You don't see that as a problem? Even though that would be bribery, doesn't have to be text book corruption. I guess we live on two different earths then.


I don't have a problem with it because I know how commissioning a study works. You on the other hand engage in conspiracy theories - if you want to question the validity of a peer-reviewed source, you must support that claim. The CPI index was constructed by independent researchers who were merely commissioned by the association in question (Transparency International), a nonprofit, non-governmental association that is sponsored by a wide variety of donors. They're even partnered with the United Nations, are they unreliable too? I'm sorry that I didn't ask the Chinese or the Cuban government if they're corrupt or not - I have a feeling they would say "of course not", but that had no backing of research behind it. Until you can provide a study that disproves these findings, it's 1 to nil.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 6, 2021)

This railing against company owners and higher paid employees still seems bizarre to me. Even leaving aside the expense vs income generation thing then I am not sure why employees should be mandated to, or expect to, earn proportional to their income generation for a company.

If someone risks the time, money and effort in starting a business and it takes off then seems reasonable that they extract what they can from it, or at least can live handsomely if that is how it rolls.

If someone wants to trade some earning potential for some security and presumably less hassle than managing a business (which is tedious and distracts from getting stuff done) then their risk assessment to make and path to take.

If someone has a rare skill then provided said skill is in demand it will tend to drive up price of said skill until it becomes easier to train yourself up at it, train someone else, build a robot to handle it or do without. This seems obvious.
The reverse (a readily replaceable worker with a line out the door ready to take their place) will tend to see the price others willing to do it go down so they can get at least something, at least until it hits a floor there.

If someone has kids they can't afford (230000 USD to raise a kid to adulthood, possibly more if you are conned into a pointless degree https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/01/13/cost-raising-child . Abortions are cheap, condoms are cheaper/free, tubal ligations and vasectomies amortised over instances used/trauma saved probably cheaper still), lives beyond their means (too large a house/expensive a place to live, luxuries consumed, were stupid enough to get married/divorced...) then sucks to be them but beyond maybe ensuring they don't starve then resources better allocated on other things and why a company gets to fund that lifestyle when there are others balancing a book. Maybe teach their kids better risk management.

On companies doing record returns. This would be the technology/communications revolution -- my factory might make 10000 widgets (which is far better than skilled labourer/knitting circle doing local crafts) but it needs a proportional number of people, 10000 downloads or 10000000 needs about the amount of people to handle and is often quite lucrative (especially if those downloads are tied to people that still price things according to their basic senses of money and money they care to lose vs cost of running the service). Even those still shipping physical products have better/cheaper robots, better logistics, concepts like just in time manufacturing... to make it better than it was before and drop those overheads down further.
https://spendmenot.com/blog/best-performing-stocks/
https://compoundadvisors.com/2020/the-top-30-stocks-over-the-last-30-years
There is a reason most of those are tech companies, and why companies want to appear as tech companies (see the wework fiasco), and what few aren't tend to be healthcare which is not much better in a lot of ways.




SG854 said:


> The economy is not a zero sum game. Both sides benifit. You pay them money and you get goods and services in return. You both benefit.


While value added manufacturing is indeed good stuff I do have to play the hippie card and note that there is quite often a cost, and that cost is often the environment. Of course the answer there is usually more science so eh.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

splymb said:


> You have no idea whether that's often or not and what kind of character fits the bill really. What's the point of this statement anyway? Cause I can only re-construct it as "if you are poor you probably got what you deserved" - hope I misunderstood.


Poverty is very sad and nobody "deserves" to be poor. That being said, it is often a direct result of poor life choices. The Brookings Institute published three relatively simple rules that allow one to prosper in society - this was done after years of research, and Brookings is not a right-wing institution by any stretch.

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/...teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/

Graduate from High School, don't have children before the age of 21 and out of wedlock (or a very stable relationship, at least), find a full-time job (or equivalent). Do this, and you will not be poor.

How much poverty is caused by alimony? 25% of American children are raised in single-parent households, be it because "things didn't work out" or due to divorce. Do you think living on a single parent's wage has something to do with poverty too? Are you aware of the percentage of the homeless addicted to alcohol or illicit substances? According to SAMHSA, 64% of the homeless had drug-related issues within the last 30 days, 38% had alcohol abuse issues - some of that is a consequence of poverty, but in many cases it is the cause. Did you know that the prevalence of gambling among the homeless is 16 times that of gen pop, sitting at 11.3%? Do you think betting your life's savings on the horsies might have something to do with poverty? I could go on and on.

Not sure what you "understood" or "misunderstood", what I actually said was that poverty is often times a consequence of poor life choices. It can also be bad luck, it can be unmanageable medical debt, sure. It can also be gambling, substance abuse, poor spending decisions, credit card debt and a variety of other things that the person in question had control over and made a poor choice that affected the rest of their life. I didn't do that, capitalism didn't do that, they did that. It is very unfortunate, and we should help them however we can, but they can't all be helped.


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## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Whatever is left at the end of that transaction belongs to them, since they created the enterprise that generates said revenue. Nobody is being robbed - you guys are the ones trying to rob people.


Gaslighting at its finest.  A higher and higher percentage of income goes to the upper class every year.  Any major corporation in America could afford to pay its low-level workers $30 an hour and still rake in record profits.  The problem is greed, pure and simple.



Foxi4 said:


> I advocate against you. That's a very specific thing.


You advocate for keeping minimum wage below the poverty line.  So you're advocating for taxpayers to continue making up the difference.


----------



## _abysswalker_ (Jul 6, 2021)

SG854 said:


> Your life is much better off because of it. You have a refrigerator, electricity, a TV. You are living a more comfortable life because of it. Again would you rather live in a cave 20,000 years ago or today? Or even live 200 years ago or today which is better?


It's a known fallacy to reflect on the past anachronistically and thus overestimate where we at today. We tend to confuse technological advancement with progress - if that's all it takes then things can only get better so we might as well sit back and enjoy the effortless ride to betterment. 



SG854 said:


> Again would you rather live in a cave 20,000 years ago or today? Or even live 200 years ago or today which is better?


Have you even seen interviews of Aboriginal people? In comparison, the average modern man is monkey with grenade. We definitely lost something along the way.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Gaslighting at its finest.  A higher and higher percentage of income goes to the upper class every year.  Any major corporation in America could afford to pay its low-level workers $30 an hour and still rake in record profits.  The problem is greed, pure and simple.
> 
> You advocate for keeping minimum wage below the poverty line.  So you're advocating for taxpayers to continue making up the difference.


More specifically, I advocate for eliminating the minimum wage entirely - get it straight.


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## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> More specifically, I advocate for eliminating the minimum wage entirely - get it straight.


And the only people who advocate for that are those that were dealt a winning hand from the beginning, people who know they won't be the ones working for five cents an hour.  "I got mine jack" is a shitty philosophy to operate on, even more so when you try to apply it to the entire country's economy.


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## _abysswalker_ (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Not sure what you "understood" or "misunderstood", what I actually said was that poverty is often times a consequence of poor life choices. It can also be bad luck, it can be unmanageable medical debt, sure. It can also be gambling, substance abuse, poor spending decisions, credit card debt and a variety of other things that the person in question had control over and made a poor choice that affected the rest of their life. I didn't do that, capitalism didn't do that, they did that. It is very unfortunate, and we should help them however we can, but they can't all be helped.


.. it can be that you were born in Burkina Faso. It's more about equal opportunities, not choices.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> And the only people who advocate for that are those that were dealt a winning hand from the beginning, people who know they won't be the ones working for five cents an hour.  "I got mine jack" is a shitty philosophy to operate on, even more so when you try to apply it to the entire country's economy.


I came into this country with £500 in my hand and a stiff neck. I worked hard for a couple of years and now own property, stocks, I have a nice, growing retirement nest egg and pay my taxes like any good citizen would. I'm not rich by any means, but I consider myself well-off, and it didn't come easy to me - nobody served me success on a platter, I worked for every penny. Please don't give me sermons on who was dealt what kind of cards - I worked some pretty interesting jobs before I got to where I am, not all of them were glamorous.


splymb said:


> .. it can be that you were born in Burkina Faso. It's more about equal opportunities, not choices.


That's a nice, if naive way to think about things. Yes, not everyone has the same opportunities. Everyone has the option to not do smack in their spare time. As I said, this isn't *always* the case, simply often - often enough to be statistically significant. I didn't make those numbers, numbers are numbers.


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## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I came into this country with £500 in my hand and a stiff neck. I worked hard for a couple of years and now own property, stocks, I have a nice, growing retirement nest egg and pay my taxes like any good citizen would. I'm not rich by any means, but I consider myself well-off, and it didn't come easy to me - nobody served me success on a platter, I worked for every penny. Please don't give me sermons on who was dealt what kind of cards - I worked some pretty interesting jobs before I got to where I am, not all of them were glamorous.


Okay, and would you have ever gotten to where you are now at five cents an hour?  Hypothetical question obviously, the answer is no.  If you spend every cent you make on food, clothing, shelter, and medicine, there is no opportunity to save money and get ahead.  None.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Okay, and would you have ever gotten to where you are now at five cents an hour?  Hypothetical question obviously, the answer is no.  If you spend every cent you make on food, clothing, shelter, and medicine, there is no opportunity to save money and get ahead.  None.


The worst-paying job I ever partook in paid the equivalent of £1 an hour, although admittedly that was well over a decade ago and in Poland, where wages are lower in general. I was also still in school, so hey. In regards to your other question, when I needed more earnings, I *worked more*. I have a little saying - "I like money more than I like myself". Imagine Uncle Pennybags, also known as the Monopoly Man. That's me. I was willing to grind hard in the present to have a little luxury in the future, and it paid off. Good for me, none of that belongs to anyone but myself. I'm sorry that my investment into my own future is so odd to you.


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## _abysswalker_ (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I
> That's a nice, if naive way to think about things. Yes, not everyone has the same opportunities. Everyone has the option to not do smack in their spare time. As I said, this isn't *always* the case, simply often - often enough to be statistically significant. I didn't make those numbers, numbers are numbers.


I could definitely be naive. But at this moment I believe you're too self-consumed to admit any error in your statements. I'll let others pick up.


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## SG854 (Jul 6, 2021)

splymb said:


> It's a known fallacy to reflect on the past anachronistically and thus overestimate where we at today. We tend to confuse technological advancement with progress - if that's all it takes then things can only get better so we might as well sit back and enjoy the effortless ride to betterment.
> 
> 
> Have you even seen interviews of Aboriginal people? In comparison, the average modern man is monkey with grenade. We definitely lost something along the way.


Not really because new innovations aren't going to invent themselves. We can't just sit back. Advancement happens because of all the contributions people do and continue to do. This can't stop.

Factually we are better off today and it is not a fallacy to compare the progress over the years. Especially to analyze what systems works best. And so to see how we can improve. There is always room for improvement.


Not all people are crazy. Not all people in the modern world is a crazy grenade person. We are relatively safer then in the past. Crime overall has gone down. We are making progress and continue to do so.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

splymb said:


> I could definitely be naive. But at this moment I believe you're too self-consumed to admit any error in your statements. I'll let others pick up.


I look at statistics, I draw a conclusion. The data is what it is, I didn't research it, social scientists did. I'm just presenting the data to support my point - people who are poor are often times not poor because "the system screwed them over", they're poor because they do things that make them poor, and continue doing them up to the point of homelessness. I feel for them, but I'm not responsible for them.


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## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> The worst-paying job I ever partook in paid the equivalent of £1 an hour, although admittedly that was well over a decade ago and in Poland, where wages are lower in general.


So roughly 20x the amount provided in my hypothetical, and at a time when the dollar/pound/Euro had more buying power.  Not that you should've been made to work at that low of a wage regardless.



Foxi4 said:


> In regards to your other question, when I needed more earnings, I *worked more*. I have a little saying - "I like money more than I like myself".


So you worked probably more than 40 hours in some weeks and probably didn't even get paid overtime for it.  You got exploited, that's not something to be proud of, it's something to be angry about.  But Stockholm syndrome sets in easier for some of us than others I guess.  All I'm suggesting is that anyone working a full-time job be paid enough to live on, which is probably already the case in Poland.  It's definitely the case in a lot of other developed countries.  For some reason too much to ask for in America, though.


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## BitMasterPlus (Jul 6, 2021)

I'm not gonna get into long winded arguments here  considering how many here have their heads up their behinds despite being shown how communism doesn't work, instead I'll take this opportunity to plug this very interesting docu-mini-series related to this that's posted on youtube.



Take out two hours of your time or take breaks in between watching parts, but I highly suggest watching it. And if you don't wanna, your choice. I won't force you to watch like a communist dictator would


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## _abysswalker_ (Jul 6, 2021)

SG854 said:


> Not all people are crazy. Not all people in the modern world is a crazy grenade person. We are relatively safer then in the past. Crime overall has gone down. We are making progress and continue to do so.


Our perception of progress is quite different. It's a Brave New World - I'm just a savage.




Foxi4 said:


> I look at statistics, I draw a conclusion. The data is what it is, I didn't research it, social scientists did.


What statistics man the article you linked only refers to US. One can only wonder how the numbers will change if we include Latin America or Africa.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> So roughly 20x the amount provided in my hypothetical, and at a time when the dollar/pound/Euro had more buying power.  Not that you should've been made to work at that low of a wage regardless.


Your hypothetical is not realistic, nobody is paying anybody in pennies. I also wasn't "forced" to do anything - I happily agreed, and enjoyed it. It's always nice to have pocket money, the job was easy and had some other benefits. Working at a brewery? 10/10, especially when the big man isn't home. Liquid gold straight from the tap? Yes, please.


> So you worked probably more than 40 hours in some weeks and probably didn't even get paid overtime for it.  You got exploited, that's not something to be proud of, it's something to be angry about.  But Stockholm syndrome sets in easier for some of us than others I guess.  All I'm suggesting is that anyone working a full-time job be paid enough to live on, which is probably already the case in Poland.  It's definitely the case in a lot of other developed countries.  For some reason too much to ask for in America, though.


Is this a counselling session now? I assure you, I was not exploited - I was happy to do it, job was a lot of fun. It also wasn't out of line compared to other jobs in the sector, and the wage wasn't unusual for someone in my age group. It's simply funny to think about when compared to my current earnings which are obviously many orders of magnitude higher. Different economy, different standards. Poland is still recovering from all the "communist prosperity", even today - the UK doesn't have that problem. It's good to remember where you came from - it's humbling, and it lets you enjoy the finer things in life so much more. I was also always paid handsomely for overtime, which I was very keen on. Thanks, but I don't need any "help" - I know how to read a contract. 40 hour work weeks, oh boy, you underestimate what a greedy Polish man can achieve when they have a goal in mind.  I'm very proud of all the work I've done throughout my life - there's no shame in it, no matter what the job is. Productivity is a virtue.


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## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Your hypothetical is not realistic, nobody is paying anybody in pennies.


That's what a lot of corporations pay for overseas labor, and it's what a lot of them wish they could pay here.  But yeah, realistically even undocumented immigrants get about half of minimum wage under the table.  Far too little to live on when even minimum wage isn't enough.  So abolishing the minimum wage would quickly turn the US into a third-world country.  Maybe that's something you'd like to see?  IDK.



Foxi4 said:


> I was also always paid handsomely for overtime


Well that's good at least, and it sounds like you had more than enough money to live well on.  But one shouldn't have to be young and fit, and go well beyond a standard week's worth of work to achieve the same.  Corporations seize more and more control over the job market every year, they can afford to pay above the poverty line in every part of the country.  Not to mention pay their fair share in taxes.  Nobody's gonna feel sorry for Jeff Bezos if/when he can't afford his third leisure trip to space.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Well that's good at least, and it sounds like you had more than enough money to live well on.  But one shouldn't have to be young and fit, and go well beyond a standard week's worth of work to achieve the same.  Corporations seize more and more control over the job market every year, they can afford to pay above the poverty line in every part of the country.  Nobody's gonna feel sorry for Jeff Bezos if/when he can't afford his third leisure trip to space.


I'm not envious of Jeff's fortune, that's his money. I applaud his ingenuity and commend his entrepreneurship. I'd like him a little bit more if AWS wasn't picky about hosting on the basis of the customer's political alignment, but ultimately it's his company. Amazon as a corporation is getting dangerously close to monopolising certain sectors of the market and perhaps should be broken up into smaller chunks in the foreseeable future, but that's Amazon, not Jeff Bezos the guy. It's also a state of affairs that, in large part, was directly caused by the government putting unnecessary road blocks in the way of smaller companies, preventing them from being able to compete with the big boys. Nothing new under the sun, really.


> That's what a lot of corporations pay for overseas labor, and it's what a lot of them wish they could pay here. But yeah, realistically even undocumented immigrants get about half of minimum wage under the table. Far too little to live on when even minimum wage isn't enough. So abolishing the minimum wage would quickly turn the US into a third-world country. Maybe that's something you'd like to see? IDK.


I don't base my policy prescriptions on what illegal aliens do - they're illegal aliens, they shouldn't be in the country in the first place. I suspect that the market would normalise wages across the board to whatever it can bear, just like in any other industry that does not pay minimum wage. Perhaps it would put an end to 0-hour contracts and other assorted nonsense employers have to resort to in order to afford a workforce. I would much rather see a company employ one person full-time than two part-time. I also suspect it would cause significant growth, which opens more job opportunities. In regards to earnings in third-world countries, again, supply and demand. Different economy, different expectations in regards to wages.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Gaslighting at its finest.  A higher and higher percentage of income goes to the upper class every year.  Any major corporation in America could afford to pay its low-level workers $30 an hour and still rake in record profits.  The problem is greed, pure and simple.
> 
> 
> You advocate for keeping minimum wage below the poverty line.  So you're advocating for taxpayers to continue making up the difference.



Can't bothered to go check that claim, though even assuming it is true it is not a bad thing from where I sit. Good for them.

Something is worth what someone is willing to pay.

If someone is going to keep giving me a 9 to 5, 5 days a week (or whatever) of useful labour for my offered wage (presumably as low as I can get it) then why would I argue if I am out to keep my costs low?



Xzi said:


> Okay, and would you have ever gotten to where you are now at five cents an hour?  Hypothetical question obviously, the answer is no.  If you spend every cent you make on food, clothing, shelter, and medicine, there is no opportunity to save money and get ahead.  None.


Would someone take that job that pays the hypothetical 5 cents an hour and expect to live on it*? If the pay and conditions are not for you then don't go do it. People do have agency after all.
*there are plenty of things people did for some extra spending money, for something to do when retired, because they liked the field (met plenty of trust fund types that did art, archaeology, non profit stuff, weird aspects of law, for the travel, for the experience, hobbies into not quite vanity businesses but almost and so on).

There comes a point where intangible things and incentives other than money (the and conditions part is important there, or more generally why incentives is the term generally picked by those playing in the field rather than just money) which makes the calculation of minimums a non trivial task, even not withstanding unique conditions of the individual and psychology in general (even if I think this "company doing right ought to pay its employs a proportional amount of the earnings" is nonsense it is apparently a thing some think and thus gets to be factored into calculations somewhere).


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## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I'm not envious of Jeff's fortune, that's his money.


Nor am I.  Doesn't change the fact that he should treat and pay his employees better, or the fact that he's a colossal wanker like every billionaire.  You lose perspective on things with that much money and tend to start developing narcissistic and sociopathic viewpoints.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Nor am I.  Doesn't change the fact that he should treat and pay his employees better, or the fact that he's a colossal wanker like every billionaire.  You lose perspective on things with that much money and tend to start developing narcissistic and sociopathic viewpoints.


Dude just wanted to sell books to people. He built it and they came. He has a machine that's working, and probably doesn't actually oversee the majority of the decisions made. If you think Jeff sits at his desk, opens up a little UI, clicks on the wages slider and slides them all the way to the bottom, you're being a bit silly. It's a publicly traded company with a board of directors, those directors have other managers below them, and those managers have even lower managers under them. Jeff Bezos has a very considerably sized head that reflects a lot of the sun's rays, but it is not big enough to directly micromanage all that.

I will say that some middle managers in the company are quite hilarious, and I'm not sure what they do, exactly. The AmaZEN suicide booth gave me a hearty chuckle in recent memory - they were so proud of it. Hilarious.



Someone was paid to design that, and they were praised for it. I have to revise my previous statement - there's no shame in working hard, no matter the job, *except* this one. This department shouldn't exist.


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## PityOnU (Jul 6, 2021)

To sum things up in a couple of sentences:

Sadly, your average human has limited knowledge/understanding of the wants/needs of anyone other than themselves, and will always value themselves, their family, and close friends over complete strangers. Combined with a reality in which there will always be scarcity, the result is that an truly community-minded economic system would never work in practice at a large scale.

Again, this doesn't say as much about the underlying system as it does the limitations of our fleshy monkey body and brain.


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## Hanafuda (Jul 6, 2021)

Reual said:


> I'm just going to state this, keep your economic systems (capitalism and communism) separate from your governing ones (democracies, monarchies,totalitarian,etc). So genocides and so on, that's decided by the governing system, that is a governing choice. If you can't separate it, you need to seriously need to reconsider about debating on this thread.




How 'bout  .... *NO*. 

I get that correlation doesn't prove causation, but hey Occam's Razor. 100 years is a very short period of time for Communism to rack up such a track record for autocratic mass-murdering regimes. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes


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## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

PityOnU said:


> To sum things up in a couple of sentences:
> 
> Sadly, your average human has limited knowledge/understanding of the wants/needs of anyone other than themselves, and will always value themselves, their family, and close friends over complete strangers. Combined with a reality in which there will always be scarcity, the result is that an truly community-minded economic system would never work in practice at a large scale.
> 
> Again, this doesn't say as much about the underlying system as it does the limitations of our fleshy monkey body and brain.


That's a very simple explanation of why communism is incompatible with human nature, but I always found it inadequate in explaining the superiority of the capitalist model. It neglects the benefits of the profit motive or the benefits of competition, both of which incentivise innovation and progress.


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## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I will say that some middle managers in the company are quite hilarious, and I'm not sure what they do, exactly. The AmaZEN suicide booth gave me a hearty chuckle in recent memory - they were so proud of it. Hilarious.


That's almost certainly an idea that was spawned at the top, and it is appropriate that Futurama's suicide booths would get their start at Amazon.  Both hilarious and grim at the same time.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> That's almost certainly an idea that was spawned at the top, and it is appropriate that Futurama's suicide booths would get their start at Amazon.  Both hilarious and grim at the same time.


I believe it was actually an idea proposed by one of the warehouse workers that was then iterated upon until it became sufficiently stupid to publicise, much to my amusement. As the saying goes, "a camel is a horse designed by committe".


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## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I believe it was actually an idea proposed by one of the warehouse workers that was then iterated upon until it became sufficiently stupid to publicise, much to my amusement. As the saying goes, "the camel is a horse designed by committe".


That also wouldn't be surprising, since they want to pretend to give employees a certain level of input while simultaneously not allowing them to make any major changes.  It's not like more frequent/longer breaks were ever on the table, after all.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was initially proposed as a joke and Amazon ran with it anyway.


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## stanleyopar2000 (Jul 6, 2021)

I'm going to agree with @Hanafuda on this one. From what I've seen, Communism always devolves into dictatorship to some degree or some form of oppressive regime that drifts away from its initial promises once demigods are empowered and can revoke their promises.

The initial idea is that "the people / workers" run the market and the rich contribute more so everyone is equal....but "the people" slowly devolves into "the government", ruling party and the corrupt elite who aren't contributing that eventually hold positions of power to ensure it stays that way. Democratic viewpoints start to be viewed as "unpatriotic" and unwavering loyalty to the party becomes the enforced standard. Two examples are the most common in history: China and Russia.

With that said though, I would not mind more....socalistic practices being implemented here in the USA like healthcare and education. Also taking away every loophole that is being used like shell company shit to avoid paying taxes...in a perfect world I suppose. The rich that don't pay taxes will always have money to convince bribe the government they can keep their tax shelters

Democracy in America has lasted so long because we are always in a balancing act between communism (far left) and facism (far right.)  One side being the dominant and sole power would be the end of our democratic identity. We need both sides to survive as either end of the spectrum turns into unelected leader.


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## PityOnU (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> That's a very simple explanation of why communism is incompatible with human nature, but I always found it inadequate in explaining the superiority of the capitalist model. It neglects the benefits of the profit motive or the benefits of competition, both of which incentive innovation and progress.



Eh, this is an oversimplification that people rely on. I spent a long time in academia - trust me when I say that research and innovation would continue even without any money on the table. Most people who are truly pushing technology, innovation, and competition are not doing it for capital gain. Same with most things in the arts or entertainment. This should be even easier to understand today with the entire idea of influencers on YouTube/social media.

What capitalism DOES give you is a clear and direct incentive for people to do shitty jobs that they hate. Which is also something that will always have to happen, and thus necessary. But that's not quite as sexy an argument as "innovation and competition," so you don't hear it much.


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## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

stanleyopar2000 said:


> Communism always devolves into dictatorship to some degree or some form of oppressive regime that drifts away from its initial promises once demigods are empowered and can revoke their promises.


Neither communism nor capitalism is immune to downfall by oligarchy and authoritarianism.  We might be living through that downfall in the US right now, as nearly half of all voters endorse dictatorship.



stanleyopar2000 said:


> Democracy in America has lasted so long because we are always in a balancing act between communism (far left) and facism (far right.) One side being the dominant and sole power would be the end of our democratic identity. We need both sides to survive as either end of the spectrum turns into unelected leader.


Whoever told you that lied to you.  We have no communist or leftist party in the US.  The Democratic party is a capitalist, center-right party.  The Republican party has always been further right than that, but only in recent years have they been tilting toward outright fascism.


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## wolffangalchemist (Jul 6, 2021)

personally i think we should just have a purge, but living in the south that may be a bit unfair. I'm just gonna sit here and be chaotic neural.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

PityOnU said:


> Eh, this is an oversimplification that people rely on. I spent a long time in academia - trust me when I say that research and innovation would continue even without any money on the table. Most people who are truly pushing technology, innovation, and competition are not doing it for capital gain. Same with most things in the arts or entertainment. This should be even easier to understand today with the entire idea of influencers on YouTube/social media.
> 
> What capitalism DOES give you is a clear and direct incentive for people to do shitty jobs that they hate. Which is also something that will always have to happen, and thus necessary. But that's not quite as sexy an argument as "innovation and competition," so you don't hear it much.


I'll answer with another saying - "given enough money and time anyone can do anything, the question is whether that's worth it". The trick isn't just in achieving something, but rather in getting there down the most efficient, cost-effective path that yields the best results. Few things can incentivise that more than fierce competition, and while we're all competing, it's generally nice to have a prize and the end of the rat race. Of course there are people who will do such things regardless, even pro bono, simply due to their personal passion, or the satisfaction discovery brings. With that being said, one must ask if we'd have as many doctors if a doctor's wage wasn't what it is right now, given the degree of dedication it requires to become one, just to name one example. If you give to each according to their needs, as the "ideal" suggests, I don't see a whole lot of incentives to go down such an arduous career path besides deeply rooted interest. That's not to say that capitalism is the de facto ideal system for organising a social structure - it's all relative. You wouldn't run your family like that, you don't expect your mother or father to pay you for each and every task, and in turn, you don't expect young children to pay rent. It's specifically suited for organising larger groups that are subdivided into smaller units with (often competing) interests of their own, particularly if said groups far surpass Dunbar's Number in size. As you say, we are wired to only care about so many relationships in life - anything beyond +/- 150 becomes a blur.


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## Deleted User (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Few things can incentivise that more than fierce competition, and while we're all competing, it's generally nice to have a prize and the end of the rat race


Except capitalism doesn't really do that. You can't have competition when you just buy everyone out or put them out of business by undercutting the other businesses by just leaning back on your immense wealth and profits. There's a reason very few places can contest with the likes of walmart, target, and so on. It's because the moment their is competition, Walmart will undercut them by giving insanely lower prices the competition cannot contest. Eventually run the competition out of business, and then re raise the price the moment said competition is gone, or even increase it further than the original price.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

essentially speaking, trying to even compete will result in a financial bloodbath.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Reual said:


> Except capitalism doesn't really do that. You can't have competition when you just buy everyone out or put them out of business by undercutting the other businesses by just leaning back on your immense wealth and profits. There's a reason very few places can contest with the likes of walmart, target, and so on. It's because the moment their is competition, Walmart will undercut them by giving insanely lower prices the competition cannot contest. Eventually run the competition out of business, and then re raise the price the moment said competition is gone, or even increase it further than the original price.


Ah, you're one of those "too big to fail" guys. Blockbuster called, they want their late VHS return fees. While you're at it, please return all the Betamax tapes and Laserdiscs you've borrowed, the keys for the Oldsmobile are on the Magnavox TV in the living room. The nearest Blockbuster is right next to Sears, America's biggest retailer (in the 80's, now down to some 223 stores in total after going through Chapter 11). The market is a wild place, you can be at the top and tumble right back down in the span of a couple years. Any roadblocks in the free market are set up by well-meaning government pencil pushers, no corporation is immune to being beaten in their own game, particularly if their business model isn't flexible enough to adjust to a rapidly changing business landscape. If they *are* flexible enough and they do compete in the realm of price and quality then the beneficiary of that conflict is the customer - there will always be new challengers.


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## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Ah, you're one of those "too big to fail" guys. Blockbuster called, they want their late VHS return fees. While you're at it, please return all the Betamax tapes and Laserdiscs you've borrowed, the keys for the Oldsmobile are on the Magnavox TV in the living room. The nearest Blockbuster is right next to Sears, America's biggest retailer (in the 80's, now down to some 450 stores in total after going through Chapter 11). The market is a wild place, you can be at the top and tumble right back down in the span of a couple years. Any roadblocks in the free market are set up by well-meaning government pencil pushers, no corporation is immune to being beat in their own game, particularly if their business model isn't flexible enough to adjust to a rapidly changing business landscape. If they *are* flexible enough and they do compete in the realm of price and quality then the beneficiary of that conflict is the customer - there will always be new challengers.


Let's all point and laugh at the guy who thinks this is the reality of modern-day capitalism, and not just the idealized version of it found only in libertarian wet dreams.  Cronyism runs rampant, the market is fixed (rigged) in several ways, and no corporation has been tried on anti-trust violations since Microsoft, the one and only time it has happened in my lifetime.  Certain people love to brag about all the "innovation" and "variation" that capitalism brings with it, but the truth is that one or two megacorps own all fifteen brands of any given product you can buy at the grocery store.  We only get the illusion of choice, just as we often only get the illusion of freedom.


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## Deleted User (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Ah, you're one of those "too big to fail" guys. Blockbuster called, they want their late VHS return fees.


Now that's just a bad argument. What killed blockbuster was failure to catch up with the times. They didn't really follow up when things started changing to streaming only ,and rentals were not much of  a thing. And you want to know what killed them? Amazon, Netflix, etc. And they were extremely wrong.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Let's all point and laugh at the guy who thinks this is the reality of modern-day capitalism, and not just the idealized version of it found only in libertarian wet dreams.  Cronyism runs rampant, the market is fixed (rigged) in several ways, and no corporation has been tried on anti-trust violations since Microsoft, the one and only time it has happened in my lifetime.  Certain people love to brag about all the "innovation" and "variation" that capitalism brings with it, but the truth is that one or two megacorps own all fifteen brands of any given product you can buy at the grocery store.  We only get the illusion of choice, just as we often only get the illusion of freedom.


I hope you realise that brands under the same umbrella *also* compete with each other. Heck, individual departments compete with each other.

For the record, the communist solution to the supposed problem of having too little choice (in the presence of an absolute abundance of choice) is to remove choice. Rather than have corporations competing with each other for the customer's favour, the communist solution is to remove competition altogether. I don't know how communism fanboys imagine actual communism looks like, but I've seen how it *actually* looks like - it's a bit like this:

You go into a store, you stand in a queue (since of course there's rationing, rationing always sets in eventually), you go to the dairy counter and you buy yoghurt made by the yoghurt brand, endorsed by the Party. That's it. This is on the proviso that there's anything on the shelf at all - in the final death throes of the system all that was available were matches and vinegar. That's the actual, real life result of the system. For God's sake, my elder sisters remember clear as day standing in the queue early in the morning with a string around their necks to buy toilet paper for the rest of the week - "grab as much as you can while you can, who knows when it'll be back in stock". This wasn't 200 years ago, merely 30-odd, we're not goldfish, our memory does go that far back.

Spare me the nonsense about lack of choice on the free market - if you want to create a competing brand, go do it. Make some cereal, put it in a non-gmo gluten-free cruelty-free biodegradable organic cardboard box and some hippy dippy dummy will buy it, it's not *that* hard. There are plenty of anti-corpo suckers ready for you to cater to them in a way a corporation cannot.


Reual said:


> Now that's just a bad argument. What killed blockbuster was failure to catch up with the times. They didn't really follow up when things started changing to streaming only ,and rentals were not much of  a thing. And you want to know what killed them? Amazon, Netflix, etc. And they were extremely wrong.


Netflix, the wee baby startup, which began as a rental service, killed Blockbuster, an industry giant that chose not to innovate. Thank you for reinforcing my point.


----------



## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Reual said:


> Now that's just a bad argument. What killed blockbuster was failure to catch up with the times. They didn't really follow up when things started changing to streaming only ,and rentals were not much of  a thing. And you want to know what killed them? Amazon, Netflix, etc. And they were extremely wrong.


I think he was saying it's an outdated argument, as if 2008 was *so* long ago.  Don't worry, all the corporations and big banks are *totally* playing by the rules now *wink* *wink*.


----------



## Deleted User (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> I think he was saying it's an outdated argument, as if 2008 was *so* long ago.  Don't worry, all the corporations and big banks are *totally* playing by the rules now *wink* *wink*.


oh yeah, the big banks will totally fail... totally.... *2008 nosies*


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Just as a fun aside, I present to you... the gallery of communist produce.


 
Sugar - white, crystal

 
Flour - from Wroclaw (evolved into a brand after the system fell apart)

 
Tea - what kind? Oh, it's popular tea. The only kind.

 
Last but not least, the beloved, the one and only, the iconic... String of TP. Toilet paper-brand toilet paper. About as good as sand paper, but it had to do.

Y'all commies are crazy, you don't know what we know. Our asses remember!


----------



## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I hope you realise that brands under the same umbrella *also* compete with each other.


Ah the sugary sweet lies we tell ourselves...



Foxi4 said:


> since of course there's rationing, rationing always sets in eventually


Are we talking about communism or 2020 America?


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Reual said:


> oh yeah, the big banks will totally fail... totally.... *2008 nosies*


It's not my fault your dumbass politicians bailed them out. If it was up to me, there would be no bailout. Sorry kids, you effed up, time to shut the doors. The protectionism needs to go, but that's not something that's coming from my side of the aisle - it's the left that's all about "stabilising" things that don't need stabilising.


----------



## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> The protectionism needs to go, but that's not something that's coming from my side of the aisle - it's the left that's all about "stabilising" things that don't need stabilising.


So basically, you know there's a problem, but neither you nor the people you affiliate with politically have any intention of ever doing anything about it.  Sounds about right.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Ah the sugary sweet lies we tell ourselves...


Anyone who has ever worked in any corporate structure of any appreciable size is familiar with the idea of a target, those exist not just on the level of an employee, but also on the level of the entire location, cluster, region all the way up to subsidiary. Claiming otherwise is uninformed.


> Are we talking about communism or 2020 America?


Weird things happen when you trigger artificial recessions.


Xzi said:


> So basically, you know there's a problem, but neither you nor the people you affiliate with politically have any intention of ever doing anything about it.  Sounds about right.


You don't know who I affiliate with politically.


----------



## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Anyone who has ever worked in any corporate structure of any appreciable size is familiar with the idea of a target, those exist not just on the level of an employee, but also on the level of the entire location, cluster, region all the way up to subsidiary. Claiming otherwise is uninformed.


And?  Targets don't indicate that a brand is competing with other brands under the same umbrella, just that a company knows what their customer base typically looks like in terms of volume, so they set expectations accordingly.  Oftentimes their expectations are unrealistic and they end up punishing low-level employees for high-level incompetence.



Foxi4 said:


> Weird things happen when you trigger artificial recessions.


In other words, weird things happen when you mismanage a pandemic and keep the entire country in a perpetual state of confusion.



Foxi4 said:


> You don't know who I affiliate with politically.


Libertarians.  Republicans that like to smoke weed.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> And?  Targets don't indicate that a brand is competing with other brands under the same umbrella, just that a company knows what their customer base typically looks like in terms of volume, so they set expectations accordingly.  Oftentimes their expectations are unrealistic and they end up punishing low-level employees for high-level incompetence.


I'm not going to explain to you how a score board works or how PNL influences a given location's budget - I'm not a tuition-free business school. Underperforming locations and brands are dissolved, *of course* there's inter-department and inter-subsidiary competition, that's why they have those targets in the first place. It measures and stimulates performance, and the parent company makes decisions based on that data.


> In other words, weird things happen when you mismanage a pandemic and keep the entire country in a perpetual state of confusion.


The exact same thing happened across the entire globe, so I'm not sure why you're trying to use an anomalous data point to describe a trend. Whatever motivation you might have, it is erroneous by definition.


> Libertarians.  Republicans that like to smoke weed.


Libertarians are not Republicans who like to smoke weed. We're simply extremely liberal, to such an extent that even liberals are having a tough time understanding some of the concepts. In all fairness, I describe myself as a "lolbertarian" since mainstream libertarians (if you could call them that) are pretty cringe and poorly represent the mindset (among other reasons). On the flip side, it's hard to find a universal representative of a philosophy strongly focused on individualism. We have some things in common, one of those things is that we often disagree, so we agree to keep to ourselves and not tread on each other, pun intended.


----------



## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I'm not going to explain to you how a score board works or how PNL influences a given location's budget


Good because it doesn't matter.  It's more about competing with the other megacorp that owns 8+ brands and keeping a baseline consistency with sales numbers.  Competing with other brands under the same umbrella is an afterthought, if it's taken into consideration at all.



Foxi4 said:


> The exact same thing happened across the entire globe, so I'm not sure why you're trying to use an anomalous data point to describe a trend.


The same thing did *not* happen across the entire globe, some countries definitely handled everything much worse than others.



Foxi4 said:


> Libertarians are not Republicans who like to smoke weed. We're simply extremely liberal, to such an extent that even liberals are having a tough time understanding some of the concepts.


It's pretty easy to tell which of you actually believe in a high degree of personal freedom from those of you who only selectively believe in it to the detriment of certain "out" groups.



Foxi4 said:


> I describe myself as a "lolbertarian" since mainstream libertarians (if you could call them that) are pretty cringe and poorly represent the mindset (among other reasons)


You can say that again.  A lot of pedophilia, racism, and bigotry has found a welcoming home in libertarian ideology.


----------



## wolffangalchemist (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> one of those things is that we often disagree, so we agree to keep to ourselves and not tread on each other, pun intended.


pun may be intended but it is still true, often people would rather argue then agree to disagree. but as the saying goes, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" that line being key, we all might not agree here but blood shed or  rather in this case down talking, slander, or insults are unnecessary.  some have trouble with that.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Good because it doesn't matter.  It's more about competing with the other megacorp that owns 8+ brands and keeping a baseline consistency with sales numbers.  Competing with other brands under the same umbrella is an afterthought, if it's taken into consideration at all.


Sure, you can carry on being ignorant of the intricacies of business.


> The same thing did *not* happen across the entire globe, some countries definitely handled everything much worse than others.


If statistics from John Hopkins are anything to go by (hint, they are), the U.S. "handled it" exceptionally well compared to most.


> It's pretty easy to tell which of you actually believe in a high degree of personal freedom from those of you who only selectively believe in it to the detriment of certain "out" groups.


Not especially. More freedom is always better than less, the cost of freedom however is often times some safety and security. All things that are great are born out of risk.


> You can say that again.  A lot of pedophilia, racism, and bigotry has found a welcoming home in libertarian ideology.


Character assassination? You can do better. Remind me, how many Democrats took frequent flights on the Lolita Express? I definitely remember Bill Clinton being on that list, I don't remember any mention of Ron Paul.


----------



## erikas (Jul 6, 2021)

If communism is so good, why are people in communist countries not allowed to leave?


----------



## BitMasterPlus (Jul 6, 2021)

erikas said:


> If communism is so good, why are people in communist countries not allowed to leave?


Because those who want to leave fail to appreciate the glory of communism so they have to be forced to stay in their country until they do or else suffer the consequences lol


----------



## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Sure, you can carry on being ignorant of the intricacies of buisiness.


I've been a part of setting and adhering to far more sales targets than I would've preferred.  There's nothing "intricate" about it, more money = good, less money = bad.  Upper management is always a bunch of chimps in suits.



Foxi4 said:


> If statistics from John Hopkins are anything to go by (hint, they are), the U.S. "handled it" exceptionally well compared to most.


We were by far the worst in the world in terms of both infections and deaths throughout most of the pandemic, until Brazil very recently started catching up to us.  No coincidence there, Bolsonaro is just as incompetent and oafish as Trump.



Foxi4 said:


> Character assassination?


Not at all, it's objectively a growing problem throughout most modern right-wing ideologies.  Y'all forgot to apply the lessons learned from the paradox of tolerance, and so intolerance quickly became the norm and a guiding principle.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> I've been a part of setting and adhering to far more sales targets than I would've preferred.  There's nothing "intricate" about it, more money = good, less money = bad.  Upper management is always a bunch of chimps in suits.


You do you.


> We were by far the worst in the world in terms of both infections and deaths throughout most of the pandemic, until Brazil very recently started catching up to us.  No coincidence there, Bolsonaro is just as incompetent and oafish as Trump.


By what metric? Deaths per million? Infections per million? Recoveries versus deaths? Or just absolute totals, which are meaningless when comparing countries of vastly different size? The numbers don't seem to align with what you're saying - things were far worse in the UK or Italy, the USA isn't even in the top 10. Is it a great result? Not by any stretch, but when you make a claim, make it specific. "We were the worst" says nothing.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/


> Not at all, it's objectively a growing problem throughout most modern right-wing ideologies.  Y'all forgot to apply the lessons learned from the paradox of tolerance, and so intolerance quickly became the norm and a guiding principle.


The paradox of tolerance is a cope intolerant people use to excuse their own prejudice as somehow more righteous than any other. Popper was an idiot. As for the "right-wing" moniker, that's the wrong axis. Libertarians occupy the lower end of the compass, they're not specifically left or right - more specific alignment depends on the person.


----------



## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> By what metric?


By the metric that roughly two-thirds of our deaths were completely preventable, along with an even greater percentage of infections.  Even BoJo the clown thought twice about the way he was handling the pandemic after he caught COVID.  But not our plague rat in chief, he just tripled down on the stupidity, which is a big part of what lost him the election.



Foxi4 said:


> The paradox of tolerance is a cope intolerant people use to excuse their own prejudice as somehow more righteous than any other.


Prejudice toward neo-nazis and religious fundamentalists/extremists who would strip us of all our rights in a heartbeat *is *more righteous than prejudice toward groups simply trying to live their lives.  That's just the way it is.  If you choose live your life every day according to hateful and exclusionary ideology, nobody owes you anything, least of all tolerance.



Foxi4 said:


> As for the "right-wing" moniker, that's the wrong axis. Libertarians occupy the lower end of the compass, they're not specifically left or right - more specific alignment depends on the person.


Yeah I'm aware there are leftist libertarians, though many are embarrassed to identify as such for the same reasons you are.  Easier to just call yourself an anarchist and explain things through that framing.


----------



## Lacius (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> You do you.
> By what metric? Deaths per million? Infections per million? Recoveries versus deaths? Or just absolute totals, which are meaningless when comparing countries of vastly different size? The numbers don't seem to align with what you're saying - things were far worse in the UK or Italy, the USA isn't even in the top 10. Is it a great result? Not by any stretch, but when you make a claim, make it specific. "We were the worst" says nothing.
> 
> https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
> The paradox of tolerance is a cope intolerant people use to excuse their own prejudice as somehow more righteous than any other. Popper was an idiot. As for the "right-wing" moniker, that's the wrong axis. Libertarians occupy the lower end of the compass, they're not specifically left or right - more specific alignment depends on the person.


It's not good when the United States makes up about 4% of the world's population, but it makes up 19% of the world's COVID-19 cases and 16% of the world's COVID-19 deaths. Some time before the former president left office, the United States made up closer to 25% of the world's COVID-19 deaths.

You talk about some numbers being "meaningless when comparing countries of vastly different size," but you are ignoring that most of these numbers of meaningless when comparing countries of vastly different population densities. Bahrain, Maldives, and Gibraltar are some of the world's most densely populated areas (#6, #9, and #5 respectively), so it makes sense that they are among the top 10 countries with regard to COVID-19 cases per million. The United States is #15 on the list of COVID-19 cases per million, but it's #185 on the list of countries by population density.

You can have some fun with these resources on how the United States, and the former administration, utterly failed in its response to COVID-19. The United States, with a population that is 4% of the world's population, should have made up less than 4% of the world's COVID-19 cases, not significantly more than 4% of the world's COVID-19 cases.

https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/
https://coronavirus.house.gov/news/...-administration-s-failed-coronavirus-response
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html

We know there are very specific things the former president could have done to mitigate the effects of COVID-19, but he didn't do them, and we know there are things he did that exacerbated the problem. China and India both have the United States beat when it comes to population and population density, but the United States beats both countries significantly when it comes to COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 cases per million. I'm not sure how it could be more objective than that.


----------



## SG854 (Jul 6, 2021)

When you mention the word covid it summons Lacius. Keep the topic on Capitalsim v Comunism. Don't wanna see this thread diverge like all the others.


----------



## Lacius (Jul 6, 2021)

SG854 said:


> When you mention the word covid it summons Lacius. Keep the topic on Capitalsim v Comunism. Don't wanna see this thread diverge like all the others.


It isn't my fault. It's a side-effect of my vaccine.


----------



## pustal (Jul 6, 2021)

Question: y'all realise there is a whole spectrum - or rather multi-dimensional spectrum of ideology in between those two, right? From democratic socialism to social democracy and even to some forms of libertarianism.

The world isn't black and white and political ideology isn't binary, even though American media and some others like to portray it.


----------



## Lacius (Jul 6, 2021)

pustal said:


> Question: y'all realise there is a whole spectrum - or rather multi-dimensional spectrum of ideology in between those two, right? From democratic socialism to social democracy and even to some forms of libertarianism.
> 
> The world isn't black and white and political ideology isn't binary, even though American media and some others like to portray it.


Our two-party system also contributes to the false dichotomy.


----------



## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

pustal said:


> Question: y'all realise there is a whole spectrum - or rather multi-dimensional spectrum of ideology in between those two, right? From democratic socialism to social democracy and even to some forms of libertarianism.
> 
> The world isn't black and white and political ideology isn't binary, even though American media and some others like to portray it.


Indeed, I'm a democratic socialist myself.  The role I've been playing here has less been to show the superiority of communism, and more been to show that capitalism has roughly the same amount of flaws, and even some of the exact same flaws as communism.  Capitalism's needless/preventable death count is about the same too, even putting just the British and US empires together.


----------



## KingVamp (Jul 6, 2021)

Leftist liberalism just seems like stepping stones towards social democracy.


----------



## pustal (Jul 6, 2021)

Lacius said:


> Our two-party system also contributes to the false dichotomy.



I have to agree with that. A choice between two options is hardly ever a real choice. And the thing is they are mainly two capitalist parties. Well, they used to be until one of them just became a party without platform.



Xzi said:


> Indeed, I'm a democratic socialist myself.  The role I've been playing here has less been to show the superiority of communism, and more been to show that capitalism has roughly the same amount of flaws, and even some of the exact same flaws as communism.  Capitalism's needless/preventable death count is about the same too, even putting just the British and US empires together.



Yeah, the problem is that both systems concentrate power too much. While pure capitalism concentrates power on who has the most resources, communism has a clear hierarchy and although it is supposed to put the collective above the self, the problem is, the person that reaches the top is usually the one who puts himself in front of the collective, and uses this same idea against the collective.

I consider myself a social democrat and I though I voted nationally always on social democratic parties (not on our Social Democratic party, mind you, that went neoliberal on the last decades, mind you), but have always voted on the communist party on our local town elections. Because Communism seems a wonderful idea on the small scale, inserted in a democratic context where it has to answer to higher powers. And they've done wonderful work for the community.



KingVamp said:


> Leftist liberalism just seems like stepping stones towards social democracy.



They are close sometimes. I think they are ideals that had different origins but converged to the same thought: a clear need of a social state to serve as the basis for society and take care of things like health, education and other basic needs, that supports a free market to lead the country into innovation and progress. I'd say the biggest difference is that social democrats believe in a tighter regulation of that market in order to keep it free and prevent monopolies and oligarchies or powers capable of undermining the State.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> By the metric that roughly two-thirds of our deaths were completely preventable, along with an even greater percentage of infections.  Even BoJo the clown thought twice about the way he was handling the pandemic after he caught COVID.  But not our plague rat in chief, he just tripled down on the stupidity, which is a big part of what lost him the election.


But alas, ended up with a worse result per capita.


> Prejudice toward neo-nazis and religious fundamentalists/extremists who would strip us of all our rights in a heartbeat *is *more righteous than prejudice toward groups simply trying to live their lives.  That's just the way it is.  If you choose live your life every day according to hateful and exclusionary ideology, nobody owes you anything, least of all tolerance.


If their ideas truly are so repugnant, you should have no trouble at all refuting them in public debate. If the ideas are detrimental, they would not take root in an otherwise perfectly tolerant society. The paradox of tolerance does not pass even the most basic sniff test, it's internally inconsistent and the end result is not a logical consequence of the premise. It's not the dumbest thing Popper ever proposed, but it's up there.


> Yeah I'm aware there are leftist libertarians, though many are embarrassed to identify as such for the same reasons you are.  Easier to just call yourself an anarchist and explain things through that framing.


I'm not embarrassed to describe myself as a libertarian, I simply have some disagreements with the mainstream libertarian movement. Lolbertarian seems to be a more appropriate label for a cynical absurdist.


Lacius said:


> It's not good when the United States makes up about 4% of the world's population, but it makes up 19% of the world's COVID-19 cases and 16% of the world's COVID-19 deaths. Some time before the former president left office, the United States made up closer to 25% of the world's COVID-19 deaths.
> 
> You talk about some numbers being "meaningless when comparing countries of vastly different size," but you are ignoring that most of these numbers of meaningless when comparing countries of vastly different population densities. Bahrain, Maldives, and Gibraltar are some of the world's most densely populated areas (#6, #9, and #5 respectively), so it makes sense that they are among the top 10 countries with regard to COVID-19 cases per million. The United States is #15 on the list of COVID-19 cases per million, but it's #185 on the list of countries by population density.
> 
> ...


This shouldn't be news to a biologists, but that's not how diseases spread. The virus didn't magically teleport to every single country on the planet simultaneously - different areas were affected to a different extent at different times. There's around 14 countries that, so far, have reported *zero* cases of COVID19 because no carriers of the virus traveled to them before air travel was shut down. If your logic held any water, that'd mean those countries had an excellent COVID response. In reality, they're either sparsely populated or just not a popular destination. That's neither here nor there - as far as the death rate is concerned, the U.S. isn't doing too poorly, which was my point. Not great, but far from "the worst".


KingVamp said:


> Leftist liberalism just seems like stepping stones towards social democracy.


Strongly disagree. Social democracy is all about the rule of a majority, libertarianism, be it on the left or on the right, is more about self-determination with minimal rule from on high. They converge in some areas of policy, but have completely different ideas on how it should be implemented.


----------



## Lacius (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> as far as the death rate is concerned, the U.S. isn't doing too poorly, which was my point. Not great, but far from "the worst".


That's thanks in large part to the vaccination program of the current administration.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Lacius said:


> That's thanks in large part to the vaccination program of the current administration.


You mean the vaccination program of the previous administration that the current administration is continuing. That's not really a subject for this thread, unless you'd like to spin the vaccination discussion in the direction of private pharma versus national programs.


----------



## Lacius (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> You mean the vaccination program of the previous administration that the current administration is continuing. That's not really a subject for this thread, unless you'd like to spin the vaccination discussion in the direction of private pharma versus national programs.


We don't have to continue this topic, but you should read up on the former administration's lack of a vaccination plan detailed in the GAO report I referenced in one of my previous posts.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Lacius said:


> We don't have to continue this topic, but you should read up on the former administration's lack of a vaccination plan detailed in the GAO report I referenced in one of my previous posts.


I believe we had the same exchange in a different thread in the past, there's no need to derail a thread about capitalism and communism to retread the same waters.


----------



## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> If their ideas truly are so repugnant, you should have no trouble at all refuting them in public debate.


Yes, genocide is universally repugnant.  That doesn't mean I should have to waste my time or breath "debating" its "merits."



Foxi4 said:


> If the ideas are detrimental, they would not take root in an otherwise perfectly tolerant society.


That's horse shit and you know it.  Some people are always going to be quick to embrace ideas that seem beneficial to themselves and maybe the group they identify with, but detrimental to everybody else.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Yes, genocide is universally repugnant.  That doesn't mean I should have to waste my time or breath "debating" its "merits."


If all you have to offer in terms of a rebuttal is matching the force of an argument with the argument of force then your ideology is weak. The very idea behind tolerance is allowing others to think or believe in things that you might potentially find repugnant or otherwise objectionable. You don't have to associate with people you fundamentally disagree with (although if you want to spread your ideology, you probably should), but that doesn't give you a carte blanche to intervene in their private life. According to Popper, it absolutely does, which is the antithesis of tolerance.

Popper operates on the unproven assumption that intolerance will spread, as opposed to diminish in the presence of overwhelming tolerance. He provides no evidence for that, he merely presents it as a given. That's a serious flaw in his thought process. I find communism repugnant, but I don't go around punching communists. The forbidden fruit is often the sweetest - if certain thoughts or ideas are considered prohibited, they're automatically more attractive, particularly to people who are not satisfied with the status quo. You're doing your enemies a favour.

Not that it makes a difference since Popper's thought experiment operates on a faulty premise - a perfectly tolerant society wouldn't have an intolerant faction, so deliberating on this swiss cheese of an idea is a waste of time anyway.


> That's horse shit and you know it.  Some people are always going to be quick to embrace ideas that seem beneficial to themselves and maybe the group they identify with, but detrimental to everybody else.


People will always be quick to embrace ideas that are beneficial to themselves and the group they identify with, period. You don't have to tack malice on top of that statement, as it isn't necessarily intended. If you tell me that you're going to give me $200, I will be quick to embrace that as a great idea. I won't necessarily ask you where that $200 came from, I don't need to know that you robbed someone earlier to get it. If I thought that far ahead, I might have some moral objections, but $200 is $200, good for me.


----------



## Xzi (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Not that it makes a difference since Popper's thought exercise is contradictory just in the premise alone - a perfectly tolerant society wouldn't have an intolerant faction, so deliberating on this swiss cheese of an idea is a waste of time anyway.


The only way to ever achieve a "perfectly tolerant society" would be to tolerate everything EXCEPT intolerance.  That is indeed a given, and I'm not sure how to explain it any clearer than that.



Foxi4 said:


> You don't have to tack malice on top of that statement, as it isn't necessarily intended.


The path to hell yada yada.  You know the saying.



Foxi4 said:


> If you tell me that you're going to give me $200, I will be quick to embrace that as a great idea. I won't necessarily ask you where that $200 came from, I don't need to know that you robbed someone earlier to get it. Had I thought that far ahead, I might have some moral objections, but $200 is $200, good for me.


I would definitely have some questions.  Nothing's free under capitalism, and scammers/con men are more prevalent than ever.


----------



## KingVamp (Jul 6, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Strongly disagree. Social democracy is all about the rule of a majority, libertarianism, be it on the left or on the right, is more about self-determination with minimal rule from on high. They converge in some areas of policy, but have completely different ideas on how it should be implemented.


Not sure how it is about the rule of a majority, when it is about giving more social services to everyone. In practice, this specific ideal of libertarianism only creates a new high with corporations on top or, in other words, the rule from a minority.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 6, 2021)

Xzi said:


> The only way to ever achieve a "perfectly tolerant society" would be to tolerate everything EXCEPT intolerance.  That is indeed a given, and I'm not sure how to explain it any clearer than that.


Society as a collective is not necessarily a reflection of individuals, rather it's a sum of prominent parts. There obviously has to be a transitional period where the level of intolerance is non-zero. If you are intolerant of that intolerance, you yourself are intolerant. The actual solution is dialogue and debate - engaging with people who don't agree with you to sell them on your ideas, as opposed to persecuting against them. By being intolerant of the intolerant, you are not eliminating the problem - you're reinforcing their beliefs. They believe that they are, in some fashion, persecuted against, and you prove that they are correct by persecuting against them. I don't know how much clearer that can be. It is significantly more effective to demonstrate that the intolerant person in the village is foolish than it is to proclaim yourself to be tolerant while holding a pike with someone's head on top of it - the latter makes you look foolish.


> The path to hell yada yada.  You know the saying.


Hell is other people.


> I would definitely have some questions.  Nothing's free under capitalism, and *scammers/con men are more prevalent than ever.*


False, as demonstrated earlier in the thread.


KingVamp said:


> Not sure how it is about the rule of a majority, when it is about giving more social services to everyone. In practice, this specific ideal of libertarianism only creates a new high with corporations on top or, in other words, the rule from a minority.


Another statement with no supporting evidence. Corporations don't legislate, the government legislates. Libertarians enjoy personal liberty and de facto believe that the size and scope of the government should be minimal so that it cannot legislate to the detriment of their personal lives. They're not replacing the rule of the government with the rule of corporations, they are minimising the ability of third parties to impose their rule upon them.


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## Xzi (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> By being intolerant of the intolerant, you are not eliminating the problem - you're reinforcing their beliefs.


Intolerance and ignorance go hand-in-hand, anything you bother saying to them will reinforce their beliefs because they were never really listening in the first place.  Fascists have never and will never debate in good faith.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Intolerance and ignorance go hand-in-hand, anything you bother saying to them will reinforce their beliefs because they were never really listening in the first place.  Fascists have never and will never debate in good faith.


Do Communists debate in good faith?


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> By being intolerant of the intolerant, you are not eliminating the problem - you're reinforcing their beliefs


Then you must not be aware of the paradox of intolerance. I've gone through this before in the past.
Basically, tolerating people who are intolerant often leads to those who tolerate to be harmed. See Nazi Germany.


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## Xzi (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Do Communists debate in good faith?


Yes.  Some like to try to gloss over atrocities committed by authoritarian communist leaders/dictators, but if you approach the conversation from the right angle you can get them to own up to the fact that there's definitely a better way.  Fascists won't be straight with anyone except for other fascists.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> Then you must not be aware of the paradox of intolerance. I've gone through this before in the past.
> Basically, tolerating people who are intolerant often leads to those who tolerate to be harmed. See Nazi Germany.


Yes, I'm completely unaware of it, we've only been discussing it for the last few pages.


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Do Communists debate in good faith?


first, xzi isn't a communist. democratic socialist, and a actual socialist/communist is a bit different. More so higher regulation rather than throwing out the entire system with some socialist ideas like healthcare and UBI thrown in. But still nonetheless a capitalist system. Meanwhile communists and socialists rather just throw out the entire system since we believe it doesn't work, that it's flaws are inherit to it's economic system and cannot be corrected.

As for do we debate in good faith. Yes. Otherwise I wouldn't be spending countless hours here. If something can convince me that communism doesn't work, I'll happily listen. However I have seen multiple bullet holes in so many arguments against it.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> first, xzi isn't a communist. democratic socialist (...)


I know @Xzi very well, I know he's not a dummy.


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I know @Xzi very well, I know he's not a dummy.


then why are you asking such a question such as if communists debate in good faith to xzi specifically? I'll let him do the talking, and perhaps maybe I'm wrong and remembering someone else. But I'm fairly certain on either another thread or here he stated he was democratic socialist and not in favor of full communism.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

and even then that's not the correct opposite. the opposite of fascism is anarchism, not communism if that was the intent.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> then why are you asking such a question such as if communists debate in good faith to xzi specifically? I'll let him do the talking, and perhaps maybe I'm wrong and remembering someone else. But I'm fairly certain on either another thread or here he stated he was democratic socialist and not in favor of full communism.


Because I'm interested in his opinion.


Reual said:


> and even then that's not the correct opposite. the opposite of fascism is anarchism, not communism if that was the intent.


Not according to Eysenck, but that's not relevant.


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## KingVamp (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Libertarians enjoy personal liberty


Tell that to the people that can't get healthcare right now.



Foxi4 said:


> Corporations don't legislate, the government legislates. Libertarians enjoy personal liberty and de facto believe that the size and scope of the government should be minimal so that it cannot legislate to the detriment of their personal lives. They're not replacing the rule of the government with the rule of corporations, they are minimising the ability of third parties to impose their rule upon them.


No. They just buy and prop up the legislators they want instead. They are ultimately just changing the third parties. Yet too small of a government, they wouldn't be able to enforce laws. The trick is, to actually vote in the people that actually care about people and not just corporations.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

KingVamp said:


> Tell that to the people that can't get healthcare right now.


Why am I always put in the position of defending the American healthcare system? I don't like it either. Your system is not free market, it's a hodgepodge of incompatible ideas that doesn't work and cannot work. With that being said, name one law that prohibits anyone from "getting healthcare". Say it how it is - people can't afford it. You do not have an access problem, you have an affordability problem. In that realm my response is that you are not entitled to anyone's services, claiming otherwise is an endorsement of indentured servitude. You do not have the right to another person's labour. The actual problem that needs to be addressed is the cost, and there's a lot of things one can do to reduce it, none of which are ever proposed or discussed. All efforts are focused on finding a more ample supply of virgins to feed the dragon, as opposed to slaying the dragon. That's not my fault, libertarians didn't do that.


> No. They just buy and prop up the legislators they want instead. They are ultimately just changing the third parties. Yet too small of a government, they wouldn't be able to enforce laws. *The trick is, to actually vote in the people that actually care about people and not just corporations*.


Sounds like you have the numbers advantage. Good.


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Corporations don't legislate, the government legislates. L


That's inherently false. On paper yes, the government and business sector would be separate. However it most definitely is not in the real world. Literately follow the money.


Foxi4 said:


> Libertarians enjoy personal liberty and de facto believe that the size and scope of the government should be minimal so that it cannot legislate to the detriment of their personal lives. They're not replacing the rule of the government with the rule of corporations,


Also false. Money is power in this system. corporations at this point, have more money most of the poor combined. They've also effected legislature pretty much all the time. Multiple studies have shown when corporations get involved, your vote doesn't matter.




Foxi4 said:


> The actual problem that needs to be addressed is the cost, and there's a lot of things one can do to reduce it, none of which are ever proposed or discussed. All efforts are focused on finding a more ample supply of virgins to feed the dragon, as opposed to slaying the dragon. That's not my fault, libertarians didn't do that.


excuse me...  "free" (taxpayer) healthcare should be a right. Period. Every other 1st world country has that. Saying that it's a matter of reducing cost is ludicrous. You know why it's expensive? It's because this is capitalism at what it does best.  This is EXACTLY what happens when it is unregulated, which is exactly what you want to do.

If something is a need, something that is REQUIRED to live. That is a inflexible need. And capitalists have done well at squeezing every single dollar possible on inflexible needs. Morality is out of the question.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> That's inherently false. On paper yes, the government and business sector would be separate. However it most definitely is not in the real world. Literately follow the money.


There have been zero laws passed by a corporation. You have a corrupt government problem, deal with that.


> Also false. Money is power in this system. corporations at this point, have more money most of the poor combined. They've also effected legislature pretty much all the time. Multiple studies have shown when corporations get involved, your vote doesn't matter.


See above.


> excuse me...  "free" (taxpayer) healthcare should be a right. Period. Every other 1st world country has that. Saying that it's a matter of reducing cost is ludicrous. You know why it's expensive? It's because this is capitalism at what it does best.  This is EXACTLY what happens when it is unregulated, which is exactly what you want to do.


Firstly, I reject the notion of positive rights. You are not entitled to coerce another person to do anything, be it directly or using the long arm of the government. Rights are inherently negative - you have the right *not* to be subjected to certain things. Your speech cannot be abridged, your freedom cannot be restricted without fair trial, your property cannot be unlawfully searched or seized etc. - your rights relate directly to you as a person.

Secondly, there are large swathes of first-world countries with entirely privatised healthcare systems - Switzerland immediately comes to mind. They have no free healthcare provided by the state whatsoever - everyone is required to purchase a private insurance policy and it's the insurance company, or yourself, who coughs up the bill, as it should be. The Swiss system also happens to be one of the best in the world, ranking far ahead of the United States.


> If something is a need, something that is REQUIRED to live. That is a inflexible need. And capitalists have done well at squeezing every single dollar possible on inflexible needs. Morality is out of the question.


Going by that train of logic, I need food to live, therefore I am entitled to walk into Micky D's and get a free Big Mac. Uhm, no - it is inherently amoral to coerce anyone to do anything without their consent. If someone offers to give you something for free, that is their choice and their prerogative. If the state steps in and *forces* them to provide you with goods and services, that's coercion, especially if they are forced to do so for free (indentured servitude) or well below fair market rates (price fixing). You most definitely do not have the "right" to demand anything of another person.


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

further more


Foxi4 said:


> There have been zero laws passed by a corporation. You have a corrupt government problem, deal with that.


do you not know proxy politics at all? The corrupt government comes from politicians being paid off from businesses. Which then enriches said businesses.
Either getting backing from a large cooperation, in which they will loose funding. Then again, I guess you also forget Ajit pai who was a Verizon lawyer. And there's no damn way there wasn't some money thrown around for him to push through the majority of the public consensus that net neutrality should of be kept

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Foxi4 said:


> . If the state steps in and *forces* them to provide you with goods and services


 So the united states postal service? paved roads. I guess those are services not caring about. No one is really forcing anyone at this point, the majority wants free healthcare. Plan and simple. over 80% of Americans want it.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> further more
> 
> do you not know proxy politics at all? The corrupt government comes from politicians being paid off from businesses. Which then enriches said businesses.
> Either getting backing from a large cooperation, in which they will loose funding. Then again, I guess you also forget Ajit pai who was a Verizon lawyer. And there's no damn way there wasn't some money thrown around for him to push through the majority of the public consensus that net neutrality should of be kept


Can you name one law that was passed by a corporation, or can you not? I accept that certain politicians are corrupt and do not contest that claim, I contest the claim that corporations are responsible. When someone shoots another person in the head for giggles, I don't blame his mom for not raising them right - I blame the person. The party responsible for legislating is the government, therefore it is the government that is ultimately at fault and must be held accountable.


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## KingVamp (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Why am I always put in the position of defending the American healthcare system? I don't like it either. Your system is not free market, it's a hodgepodge of incompatible ideas that doesn't work and cannot work. With that being said, name one law that prohibits anyone from "getting healthcare". Say it how it is - people can't afford it. You do not have an access problem, you have an affordability problem. In that realm my response is that you are not entitled to anyone's services, claiming otherwise is an endorsement of indentured servitude. You do not have the right to another person's labour. The actual problem that needs to be addressed is the cost, and there's a lot of things one can do to reduce it, none of which are ever proposed or discussed. All efforts are focused on finding a more ample supply of virgins to feed the dragon, as opposed to slaying the dragon. That's not my fault, libertarians didn't do that.


Who do you think is at fault for this hodgepodge and not a sensible healthcare system, like what everyone else has? (Hint: Corp) Off the top of my head, people trying to put laws in that would have allowed excluding people with pre-existing conditions.

Universal Healthcare makes healthcare both more accessible and affordable, and some countries still give you the liberty to get a private company. Either way, you aren't completely locked out just because you aren't rich enough. You are basically just saying, "Liberty for everyone! (except the poor)." Well, it is a good thing that I'm talking about services that just happen to serve everyone.



Foxi4 said:


> Sounds like you have the numbers advantage. Good.


Not sure what you mean.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> So the united states postal service? paved roads. I guess those are services not caring about. No one is really forcing anyone at this point, the majority wants free healthcare. Plan and simple. over 80% of Americans want it.


The United States Postal Service only exists because it is enumerated as necessary in the Postal Clause of the constitution, empowering Congress to make laws that are necessary and proper to execute the task of distributing mail. If I were to make the call, I'd either shut it down or privatise it, but that's a constitutional conundrum - what is necessary and proper, but not ran by the government? On the flip side, if it works for federal banks, it could work for the post.

Roads are paved by private companies, not by the government. The government simply pays them to do so, because one of the (very few) responsibilities of the government is ensuring that citizens are empowered to exercise their rights. Roads are a necessary pre-requisite to commerce, they also enable freedom of movement, among other things.

It's always funny when people claim that in Libertaria we don't have roads. Again, you confuse libertarians with anarchists. We're not against *all* government services or *all* taxation, we simply limit its scope to the absolute bare minimum and let people fill in the cracks with private enterprise.



KingVamp said:


> Who do you think is at fault for this hodgepodge and not a sensible healthcare system, like what everyone else has? (Hint: Corp) Off the top of my head, people trying to put laws in that would have allowed excluding people with pre-existing conditions.
> 
> Universal Healthcare makes healthcare both more accessible and affordable, and some countries still give you the liberty to get a private company. Either way, you aren't completely locked out just because you aren't rich enough. You are basically just saying, "Liberty for everyone! (except the poor)." Well, it is a good thing that I'm talking about services that just happen to serve everyone.


It's a hodgepodge of nonsense specifically because of government involvement in what should be a private and consensual arrangement between a customer and a service provider. If any specific industry could be blamed for lobbying in order to reach this state of affairs, it's insurance companies, not healthcare providers. The reason why they became so big and so unaccountable is, among many things, employer-based insurance. The government did that, not healthcare providers.


> Not sure what you mean.


You'll have to read it again and figure it out then, I did bold the relevant part.


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## KingVamp (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> The United States Postal Service only exists because it is enumerated as necessary in the Postal Clause of the constitution, empowering Congress to make laws that are necessary and proper to execute the task of distributing mail. If I were to make the call, I'd either shut it down or privatise it.


lol Everything aside, why? It is working just fine.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

KingVamp said:


> lol Everything aside, why? It is working just fine.


The USPS is a money pit. It was initially thought of as a source of revenue for the young United States, but that hasn't been the case for years. Private mail and courier services are cheaper, faster, better-organised and more efficient. The USPS on the other hand comes at an annual *loss* of $9 billion dollars. Somehow, the U.S. Government manages to lose money in a business where UPS, FedEx and other companies are *making* money while providing a better service. I wouldn't send a package via USPS unless I intended to lose it in transit.


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Can you name one law that was passed by a corporation, or can you not?


alright. copyright term extension act. of 1998. Which was near when Micky mouse was about to enter public domain. I don't think I have to tell you that lawmakers got political donations from Disney for that to pass.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> alright. copyright term extension act. of 1998. Which was near when Micky mouse was about to enter public domain. I don't think I have to tell you that *lawmakers* got political donations from Disney for that to pass.


I bolded the culprit for you. Go hang them.


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I bolded the culprit for you. Go hang them.





Reual said:


> alright. copyright term extension act. of 1998. Which was near when Micky mouse was about to enter public domain. I don't think I have to tell you that lawmakers got* political donations from Disney *for that to pass.


I bolded the part you missed. Money is power. I've told you that multiple times.



Disney gave them an offer they could not refuse. Most politicians want power, but to stay in power, they need money(power) to stay in office. Companies provide that power through political donations.
If they refuse, another person will just show up, who will get Disney's funding( or corporation here) and they'll beat them. And we stay in the same place. changing faces but no change in policy.



coperations have the power to influence entire elections through political donations. Which get's the level of who we get to pick in elections. Who get's the most eye sight. And more ads in general determines who we know and who we elect.


This is corruption bleeding from the economic system into the governing one. Bribery can take multiple shapes and forms.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> I bolded the part you missed. Money is power. I've told you that multiple times.


This is getting super circular, so I'll just end it here with an analogy. If I give you $5 bucks to jump out of the window and you jump out of the window, you're an idiot. I take no responsibility for your injuries, you should've recognised my offer as inherently malicious.

Lawmakers make laws. If they take dirty money and legislate based on that, they are the culprits here. Corporations, in and out of themselves, have no control over what a lawmaker does. They can shower a congressman with money in the hopes that they will vote the way they want them to vote, but the person doing the voting is still the lawmaker. Disney doesn't answer to you, your congressman/woman does. You have certain interests, Disney has certain interests, and you both donate to those same politicians. At the end of the day the lawmaker picks a side, and if they pick the side that gives them more money over the side that is right, you picked your congressman poorly. Sorry, no refunds.

It most certainly is not "an offer they can't refuse", you've watched the Godfather one too many times. They just like money. We all like money. Some of us just have spines, while others do not. You can have all the money in the world and still lose miserably - don't look any further than Mini Mike Bloomberg for evidence. You can only go against the wishes of your electorate for so long before they catch on, at that point no amount of money will save you.

Tl;dr Disney didn't do that, Congress did that.


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> This is getting super circular, so I'll just end it here with an analogy. If I give you $5 bucks to jump out of the window and you jump out of the window, you're an idiot. I take no responsibility for your injuries, you should've recognised my offer as inherently malicious.


That's a really false analogy. And also, really? calling it circular?

Maybe it's not clear enough
politician:"I want to be in the government for x reason"
_can't do it because they need money for ads._
Company: "we'll back you, your beliefs align with us"
politician:"alright"
_get's the money needed for ads_
Once he's in office, he doesn't need to worry for a while. however now, he can't do anything to piss off that company.  while in office, otherwise he risks not getting relected.
if he chooses to vote for the people:
Politican:"Alright I know this isn't exactly favorable to you, but it's for the people"
Company:_ angry hang up
politician realizes he fucked up. As contributions from the company disappear. Elections roll around, and he cannot find funding required. looses election_
Different politician:"I want to be in office"
Company:"we'll support you"
Different politician gets elected.
Or we get what is more common, the politician avoids pissing off their cooperate donners, or even further, sucks up to more companies to increase odds of a win.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> That's a really false analogy. And also, really? calling it circular?
> 
> Maybe it's not clear enough
> politician:"I want to be in the government for x reason"
> ...


Of course it's circular. There's a point of diminishing returns when it comes to the relationship between a campaign's budget and its performance. Candidates lose hundreds of millions of dollars because they just don't appeal to people, they're the ones who ultimately cast the vote. You could be every corporation's best friend, that doesn't buy you approval. Certain faces could be on every street corner and you still wouldn't vote for them, specifically because they support certain policies you do not. Unless you accept that as a relevant factor, there's really no point in continuing the discussion.

You seem to have trouble with the analogy, so I will explain more plainly. I am offering you money and expecting you to do something detrimental, in this case to your health. You know this at the point of receiving the money and make a conscious decision to do so anyway because you want $5. At that point, as far as I'm concerned, it's on you. If you didn't realise that you might get crippled by the fall, or in terms of politics, cripple your career by accepting the money and legislating against the interest of the public, that's really not my problem - you're culpable regardless. You're in control of your decisions, not me.


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Of course it's circular. There's a point of diminishing returns when it comes to the relationship between a campaign's budget and its performance.


Really? Then explain the countless millions to even billions of dollars coming through if it isn't that important.





Foxi4 said:


> Candidates lose hundreds of millions of dollars because they just don't appeal to people, who ultimately cast the vote


this is flawed for two reasons.
A. Problem you can just lie you know.
B. The power of marketing can change the entire way you see a person or item. The larger the budget


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> Really? Then explain the countless millions to even billions of dollars coming through if it isn't that important.


There's nothing to explain, there are studies on this very subject that you can look up. To give you an extreme example, there isn't an amount of money Donald Trump could spend on his campaign that could sway you to vote for him solely because he's Donald Trump. Anything short of just giving you a million dollars to hand would be ineffective because you find him to be a morally objectionable candidate. You know this, yet you argue like that isn't the case.


Reual said:


> this is flawed for two reasons.
> A. Problem you can just lie you know.
> B. The power of marketing can change the entire way you see a person or item. The larger the budget


See above. There is only so much you can achieve with marketing and careful wordsmithing. Again, getting circular.


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> There's nothing to explain, there are studies on this very subject that you can look up. To give you an extreme example, there isn't an amount of money Donald Trump could spend on his campaign that could sway you to vote for him solely because he's Donald Trump. Anything short of just giving you a million dollars to hand would be ineffective because you find him to be a morally objectionable candidate. You know this, yet you argue like that isn't the case.


Except why the fuck would they spend so much money on marketing if it didn't work? I don't think businesses are pumping thousands of dollars into their products with marketing if it didn't work.
And really all your doing here with politicians is trying to sell people to elect them.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Another point I should make about marketing I should add. Marketing influences what you know. If all you hear on the air or ads is someone named Jo billy smith or whatever. And his campaign smears another person through it, say, James Roy. Your likely going to choose Jo billy smith rather than James Roy. Especially if James Roy doesn't have financial support to fight back against the political smear.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> Except why the fuck would they spend so much money on marketing if it didn't work? I don't think businesses are pumping thousands of dollars into their products with marketing if it didn't work.
> And really all your doing here with politicians is trying to sell people to elect them.


I don't know if you're reading what I'm typing or just throwing word salad at me. I didn't say that marketing doesn't work, I said that at a certain point the returns are diminishing. Every dollar spent does not provide equal return, this is marketing 101.


> The *law of diminishing returns* is an economic principle stating that as an investment in a particular area increase, the rate of profit from that investment, after a certain point, cannot continue to increase if other variables remain at a constant


A shitty politician can only be so recognisable. At a certain point spending more and more money on the campaign no longer provides a measurable benefit, what you're actually doing is advertising that a shitty politician is shitty. It's hard to argue about this when you're not familiar with these concepts. At one point or another the candidate also needs to construct an appealing program that can stand the scrutiny of the press and the candidate's peers. If a candidate consistently votes to pollute the ocean and suddenly runs as the green candidate, changing that public image is going to be difficult, if at all possible.


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

And even then by the way, I should add, AGAIN. A smaller candidate who may be closer to your views gets drowned out in the process. Because odds are, companies aren't backing them.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Foxi4 said:


> I didn't say that marketing doesn't work, I said that at a certain point the returns are diminishing.


I argue it doesn't matter if it does. Clearly businesses are more than willing, and you market something hard enough and I guarantee you for those who aren't in the know (like most Americans) they're going to change their opinion. And keep in mind, that marketing isn't just ads on air or whatever the hell your seeing it. that's the candidate being able to fly over to places as well. And go to individual states, hold rallies and so on.





Foxi4 said:


> A shitty politician can only be so recognisable.


You may not be able to market Trump Anymore. But you can certainly market someone who hold the exact same views as Trump.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> And even then by the way, I should add, AGAIN. A smaller candidate who may be closer to your views gets drowned out in the process. Because odds are, companies aren't backing them.
> 
> I argue it doesn't matter if it does. Clearly businesses are more than willing, and you market something hard enough and I guarantee you for those who aren't in the know (like most Americans) they're going to change their opinion. And keep in mind, that marketing isn't just ads on air or whatever the hell your seeing it. that's the candidate being able to fly over to places as well. And go to individual states, hold rallies and so on.
> 
> You may not be able to market Trump Anymore. But you can certainly market someone who hold the exact same views as Trump.


You're welcome to have an opinion. What I said still remains true, however. Corporations do not have the power to legislate, only the legislature does. If you have problems with how campaigns are funded, we can have a whole separate discussion about campaign finance. I personally think that prospective candidates should run campaigns out of pocket, but the moment I say that an army of useful dummies will tell me that "this disenfranchises smaller candidates" or some such nonsense, so we'll skip past that part and back to the actual substance of the thread - communism versus capitalism. I expect to hear that the communist solution to this problem is the elimination of money, to which I will swiftly respond that in practice communism eliminates choice, so perhaps we'll go past that hump too.

It's not like I haven't had this chat before, we're just going through the motions here.


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I expect to hear that the communist solution to this problem is the elimination of money, to which I will swiftly respond that in practice communism eliminates choice, so perhaps we'll go past that hump too.


Isn't open source technically communist? I mean again, I'll argue the internet is communist. Provide what you can, take what you need. And I don't see a lack in choice in that regard.


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## Julie_Pilgrim (Jul 7, 2021)

rip op's notifs


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## DarkCoffe64 (Jul 7, 2021)

I'll throw my two cents here.
Capitalism, communism, it's all the same for as long as rotten assholes with way too much money that they'll never need to continue to reign over everything and make the laws.
As long as human greed exists, nothing will work, nothing will get better, we'll slowly just work ourselves into all those dystopian futures we've seen in books, movies and games.


Maybe I speak in very broad terms, but this be what I think.


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## KingVamp (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> It's a hodgepodge of nonsense specifically because of government involvement in what should be a private and consensual arrangement between a customer and a service provider. If any specific industry could be blamed for lobbying on order to reach this state of affairs, it's insurance companies, not healthcare providers. The reason why they became so big and so unaccountable is, among many things, employer-based insurance. The government did that, not healthcare providers,


Probably made sense at the time, but the same government would have moved on to a better system, if wasn't for people making it so hard to get to even a public healthcare option. In fact, ACA is still better than leaving it like it was. Getting the healthcare system off the back of businesses, would help the private and public companies. 



Foxi4 said:


> You'll have to read it again and figure it out then, I did bold the relevant part.


I seen that and read it more than once, still not getting it.




Foxi4 said:


> The USPS is a money pit. It was initially thought of as a source of revenue for the young United States, but that hasn't been the case for years. Private mail and courier services are cheaper, faster, better-organised and more efficient. The USPS on the other hand comes at an annual *loss* of $9 billion dollars. Somehow, the U.S. Government manages to lose money in a business where UPS, FedEx and other companies are *making* money while providing a better service. I wouldn't send a package via USPS unless I intended to lose it in transit.


I wonder if prices would stay around the same or skyrocket once more people would have to relay on those private services. Eventually just pricing people out of getting mail.

Actually, at a quick google search, the notion of cheaper and faster than USPS, doesn't seem to be correct when you look at package prices and delivery times. Actually (again), seems to come down to the size of the package.

I mean, it also doesn't help that you got people form mostly one party actively trying to make the government not work. Like with the Postal Accountability Act. Luckily there are people trying to reform it, rather than just getting rid of it.


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## Deleted User (Jul 7, 2021)

Scott_pilgrim said:


> rip op's notifs


Nah no worry. I have the power of plot armor on my side to prevent me from going insane. (rofl)


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## SG854 (Jul 7, 2021)

KingVamp said:


> Probably made sense at the time, but the same government would have moved on to a better system, if wasn't for people making it so hard to get to even a public healthcare option. In fact, ACA is still better than leaving it like it was. Getting the healthcare system off the back of businesses, would help the private and public companies.
> 
> 
> I seen that and read it more than once, still not getting it.
> ...


Amazon Prime delivery has 1 day shipping probably the fastest mailing service out there for cheap. They do sometimes use outlets like the UPS or USPS.


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## KingVamp (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I personally think that prospective candidates should run campaigns out of pocket, but the moment I say that an army of useful dummies will tell me that "this disenfranchises smaller candidates" or some such nonsense.


Take most of the money out of politics and public fund all campaigns to level the playing field.



Foxi4 said:


> so we'll skip past that part and back to the actual substance of the thread - communism versus capitalism. I expect to hear that the communist solution to this problem is the elimination of money, to which I will swiftly respond that in practice communism eliminates choice, so perhaps we'll go past that hump too.
> 
> It's not like I haven't had this chat before, we're just going through the motions here.


If communism worked as attended, wouldn't it be up to the public on how many choices of "a thing" they want?


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

Reual said:


> Isn't open source technically communist? I mean again, I'll argue the internet is communist. Provide what you can, take what you need. And I don't see a lack in choice in that regard.


No, it's not. Neither is the Internet. I don't know where you're getting that idea. Open source is communal, which doesn't make it "communist" automatically - the license does not strip the creator of ownership of their code, it merely allows third-parties to access it. It's still, for all intents and purposes, their protected intellectual property. You don't get to grab a snippet and just say that it's yours - you have to appropriately credit it and include the original license in your own files. As far as the Internet as a whole goes, it's distinctly capitalist. It's literally a giant library with ads that you pay a fee to use.

A Slate article on this very subject. Open Source doesn't equal free lunch, and can be effectively monetised. It's a license.

https://slate.com/technology/2005/11/the-open-source-movement-isn-t-communism.html

Contrast that with the communist model in which the creator of Tetris, who should be a multibillionaire, was screwed over by the government. In the Soviet Union there was no such thing as "intellectual property", Teris "belonged to the people". This led to a massive intellectual property rights debacle that, for some reason, required the government's input. Alexey Pajitnov didn't make a dime on Tetris until this whole mess was resolved in the 90's. Truly a model we should all follow.

https://www.cnbc.com/2014/06/10/10-things-you-didnt-know.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris


KingVamp said:


> Probably made sense at the time, but the same government would have moved on to a better system, if wasn't for people making it so hard to get to even a public healthcare option. In fact, ACA is still better than leaving it like it was. Getting the healthcare system off the back of businesses, would help the private and public companies.


The problems with U.S. healthcare predate ACA.


> I seen that and read it more than once, still not getting it.


Citizens have more voting power than corporations by virtue of head count.


> I wonder if prices would stay around the same or skyrocket once more people would have to relay on those private services. Eventually just pricing people out of getting mail.


We live in the information age. I don't remember when was the last time I've sent a letter, I do remember sending packages by courier as recently as last week. I also send electronic correspondence on a daily basis. If the government truly cared about fulfilling its obligation to the people in regards to the postal clause, it would offer guaranteed e-mail, Internet hosting and the bare minimum access to each citizen, access that cannot be refused on a whim, or due to political alignment. Not free, of course - the post isn't free either, but this is a far more important thing than being able to send pieces of paper around the country.


> Actually, at a quick google search, the notion of cheaper and faster than USPS, doesn't seem to be correct when you look at package prices and delivery times. Actually (again), seems to come down to the size of the package.


I have a huge package. Jokes aside, if we're going to argue that the USPS *might* be cheaper in some circumstances depending on class of mail, I can always say "hey, you know what? E-mail is literally free" - that's how you conduct the gross majority of your official correspondence these days, we're arguing about dinosaurs. It's an economy of scale thing - most people send paper mail via USPS, so other carriers don't have to compete in that sector. If large swathes of people switched, rates would go down - supply and demand. There's no reason why UPS can ship one big package cheaply, but not a hundred small envelopes.


> I mean, it also doesn't help that you got people form mostly one party actively trying to make the government not work. Like with the Postal Accountability Act. Luckily there are people trying to reform it, rather than just getting rid of it.


There's no active need for a national postal service - Congress can simply make appropriate laws and regulations that guarantee access to postage via private entities. As for people mostly from one party actively trying to make the government not work - I agree. It's a shame that the Democrats are undermining American institutions. Thankfully Republican obstructionism can prevent a lot of that from happening.


KingVamp said:


> Take most of the money out of politics and public fund all campaigns to level the playing field.


That sounds like a brand-new commission of pencil pushers, I can't wait!


> If communism worked as attended, wouldn't it be up to the public on how many choices of "a thing" they want?


That number is almost never "1" and society has to have the option of expanding that number. That's not a thing under communist rule.


SG854 said:


> Amazon Prime delivery has 1 day shipping probably the fastest mailing service out there for cheap. They do sometimes use outlets like the UPS or USPS.


Amazon is also the only reason why USPS isn't bankrupt - they use these mailing services extensively, and from what I recall, USPS cut them a pretty good deal. Not sure why, but they did. As of right now, the USPS serves Amazon more so than citizens - your tax money is subsidising Amazon sending people butt plugs in the mail.


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## KingVamp (Jul 7, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Citizens have more voting power than corporations by virtue of head count.


 They have less power in promoting ideals and the people that they actually want than corporations by virtue of money.



Foxi4 said:


> We live in the information age. I don't remember when was the last time I've sent a letter, I do remember sending packages by courier as recently as last week. I also send electronic correspondence on a daily basis.


I send letters sometimes and get letters. Either way, we don't speak for everyone.



Foxi4 said:


> If the government truly cared about fulfilling its obligation to the people in regards to the postal clause, it would offer guaranteed e-mail, Internet hosting and the bare minimum access to each citizen, access that cannot be refused on a whim, or due to political alignment. Not free, of course - the post isn't free either, but this is a far more important thing than being able to send pieces of paper around the country.


That's where we are heading anyway with municipal broadband. If they want to work out a government email on top of that, that a lot of people would probably just use for mostly government related stuff, why not? 



Foxi4 said:


> I have a huge package. Jokes aside,


*Snicker



Foxi4 said:


> I have a huge package. Jokes aside, if we're going to argue that the USPS *might* be cheaper in some circumstances depending on class of mail, I can always say "hey, you know what? E-mail is literally free" - that's how you conduct the gross majority of your official correspondence these days, we're arguing about dinosaurs.


Some people still like to use those dinosaurs. 



Foxi4 said:


> As for people mostly from one party actively trying to make the government not work - I agree. It's a shame that the Democrats are undermining American institutions. Thankfully Republican obstructionism can prevent a lot of that from happening.


Obstructionism, like trying to get rid of the ACA and stop improvements on it, that saved a lot of people's lives, with no actual plan to replace it.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 7, 2021)

KingVamp said:


> They have less power in promoting ideals and the people that they actually want than corporations by virtue of money.
> 
> I send letters sometimes and get letters. Either way, we don't speak for everyone.
> 
> ...


In all fairness, the ideal plan would be to replace it with nothing. With that being said, my approach is extreme, with my reasoning being that if I push too far, I might meet someone half-way and get what I actually wanted from the start. Everyone walks away happy, and unaware of the ruse. Good negotiation technique that's worth learning, while I have your attention.


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## Valwinz (Jul 12, 2021)

Some stuff happening in Cuba right now i wonder if we gonna get another communism collapse fail


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## Deleted User (Jul 12, 2021)

Valwinz said:


> Some stuff happening in Cuba right now i wonder if we gonna get another communism collapse fail


Well considering that the United States has a heavy trade embargo on cuba. And the United States is generally known well for trading medicine. It doesn't take much to put two and two together for the reason they are having a crises.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

course that isn't everything since cuba is a one party state /appears to be authoritarian. So that's another part.


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## Deleted User (Jul 12, 2021)

though looking further into it's history. unsurprisingly. The united states had it's own dictatorship setup, known as the bastia dictatorship. Where Fulgencio Batista got direct funding from the United States goverment.
Which was then overthrown during the cuban revolt. And after that the United states imposed sanctions... go figure.


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## Valwinz (Jul 12, 2021)

Reual said:


> Well considering that the United States has a heavy trade embargo on cuba. And the United States is generally known well for trading medicine. It doesn't take much to put two and two together for the reason they are having a crises.
> 
> --------------------- MERGED ---------------------------
> 
> course that isn't everything since cuba is a one party state /appears to be authoritarian. So that's another part.


imao yes blame the embargo on communism failing again


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## smf (Jul 12, 2021)

SG854 said:


> Not everyone who is lucky abuses their luck. Some are grateful and even give back.



Most people don't realise just how lucky they are though, so aren't aware they should be giving back.

Look at how the US reacts to free health care.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Reual said:


> Another point I should make about marketing I should add. Marketing influences what you know. If all you hear on the air or ads is someone named Jo billy smith or whatever. And his campaign smears another person through it, say, James Roy. Your likely going to choose Jo billy smith rather than James Roy. Especially if James Roy doesn't have financial support to fight back against the political smear.



Well that is the problem with dumb people, they let themselves be manipulated and then when you try to point out that something is wrong they accuse you of trying to manipulate them.


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## Valwinz (Jul 12, 2021)

Communisim 
#Cuba Esa criminal y asesina Dictadura se mantiene hace 62 años solo en el poder a la fuerza, asesinando, reprimiendo e intimidando al pueblo y robando su libertad, que no se enfríen las calles pueblo de Cuba!, es la hora de la #Libertad ! #PatriaYVida !!! https://t.co/bmzHiRKNg0— Richard Schirrmann (@SchirrmannR) July 12, 2021


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## smf (Jul 12, 2021)

Valwinz said:


> imao yes blame the embargo on communism failing again



First time I'd seen "in my arrogant opinion"

I'm not a huge fan of any communist system that has ever been implemented, but then that goes for capitalism too.

I think some people get too caught up in the ideology compared to what the effects are.

Both are flawed, IMO a mix of capitalism with socialism is probably the best system we can implement right now. So you use taxation from those who benefit from capitalism and use it to help those who aren't able to benefit. It's just a pity that there are enough assholes who benefit that they try to stop it.



Valwinz said:


> Communisim
> https://twitter.com/SchirrmannR/status/1414567616975446018



Capitalism


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## Foxi4 (Jul 12, 2021)

smf said:


> I'm not a huge fan of any communist system that has ever been implemented, but then that goes for capitalism too.
> 
> I think some people get too caught up in the ideology compared to what the effects are.
> 
> Both are flawed, IMO a mix of capitalism with socialism is probably the best system we can implement right now. So you use taxation from those who benefit from capitalism and use it to help those who aren't able to benefit. It's just a pity that there are enough assholes who benefit that they try to stop it.


The problem I have with this notion is the fact that, by and large, everyone benefits from capitalism. The point of contention on the left is that some benefit more than others since capital, much like a magnet, tends to attract more capital - not a rule, but it happens often enough. The main complaint is the wage gap, which neglects to mention that the overall standard of living has improved across the board. We're in the single most prosperous moment in history - the rates of poverty are minimal, income mobility is high and there are plenty of opportunities to both ascend and descend the income ladder. Whether a cold-blooded capitalist like myself likes it or not, some people will be outpriced out of the market or their jobs will simply become obsolete in the coming decades, so I'm not necessarily opposed to investment in reskilling as well as a modicum of a safety net - the left calls it UBI, I much prefer Friedman's Negative Income Tax, which seems like a more worthwhile implementation of the same basic idea. I don't see a reason to tax low income earners at all, and those who are actively searching employment should definitely be helped along the way, as long as they're actually trying instead of sitting on their hands. As far as January 6th is concerned, I don't see the relation between the population being miffed that the rules of the election game were changed mid-way through the second half, in 2019, and capitalism as an economic system. The difference between those protestors and the ones in Cuba or Venezuela is the fact that ours have something to eat, which is a pretty relevant factor. Whether their grievances were valid or not is not for me to judge - it's regrettable that they stormed the Capitol, that's illegal, and I hope they're prosecuted to whatever extent of the law seems appropriate to the prosecutors. That's immaterial to the subject matter though - Capitalism didn't do that.


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## Deleted User (Jul 12, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> The problem I have with this notion is the fact that, by and large, everyone benefits from capitalism. The point of contention on the left is that some benefit more than others since capital, much like a magnet, tends to attract more capital


So you admit that as true. Again, I've talked about this multiple times. Companies, large amounts of money, politicians, can't get into office without money. Companies fund politicians that match their ideology. You also can't have everyone benefit in capitalism. It's called dialectics. Workers want to be paid their worth. The ceo or owner of the business, wants to make the most money possible. It IS IMPOSSIBLE for both to benefit because capitalism inherently creates a hierarchy. Only one can actually benefit



Foxi4 said:


> . The main complaint is the wage gap, which neglects to mention that the overall standard of living has improved across the board.


False, the United States Health expectancy has dropped. Even before the pandemic.
The United states is the only country that doesn't have healthcare paid.  FFS, a poor as fuck country like cuba, can provide their citizens better healthcare in most areas, THAN WE DO.


Foxi4 said:


> the rates of poverty are minimal, income mobility is high and there are plenty of opportunities to both ascend and descend the income ladder.


Also false, this is a known prageru talking point.https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6336/382.full
Mobility has been rapidly declining.
Just because people can buy phones or a small tv, doesn't mean that the rest of their life, like idk. HOUSING? Is better than the past? No, it's significantly worse. If my generation is aware they won't be able to own a home until the age of possibly even 40? That's ludicrous. And you know it.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Also unemployment measures are heavily manipulated right now, because of how many people have lost their jobs. It's about 50%
Most people that are "low income" are technically in poverty. They make less than 30,000 dollars in a year that barely. Which is essentially the new poverty line.
Also, do you think the United States doesn't make propaganda to make itself look good?


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## Foxi4 (Jul 12, 2021)

Reual said:


> So you admit that as true. Again, I've talked about this multiple times. Companies, large amounts of money, politicians, can't get into office without money. Companies fund politicians that match their ideology. You also can't have everyone benefit in capitalism. It's called dialectics. Workers want to be paid their worth. The ceo or owner of the business, wants to make the most money possible. It IS IMPOSSIBLE for both to benefit because capitalism inherently creates a hierarchy. Only one can actually benefit


I don't know how you've gathered that from what I said, but I've stopped questioning socialist logic a long time ago. What I actually said, and maintain, is that capital likes capital - having more means that you can invest more, and while that bears a higher risk of loss, it's also associated with greater potential reward. If I buy a stock at $100 and by the end of the year it jumps to $150 due to post-COVID recovery, I'll make 50%, or $50 at the end of that transaction. If I invest $10 in a fractional instead I'll make $5. With that said, if the company doesn't survive, I'm liable to lose $100, or $10, in each respective scenario. It's risk/reward - those who have more can risk more, and by risking more they have the chance to gain more, or lose more. It's not a difficult concept.


> False, the United States Health expectancy has dropped. Even before the pandemic.


Because the United States, for some inexplicable reason, factors in homicides (as well as fatal accidents) into their life expectancy calculator, unlike most (if not all) other countries which (as far as I know) only account for natural causes of death. These are factors outside of the healthcare system's control.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2011/11/23/the-myth-of-americans-poor-life-expectancy/


> The United states is the only country that doesn't have healthcare paid.  FFS, a poor as fuck country like cuba, can provide their citizens better healthcare in most areas, THAN WE DO.


Total nonsense, as explored earlier. Repeating a lie doesn't turn it into truth - Switzerland has an entirely private system, Germany (universal multi-payer), Israel (mandatory insurance via Kupat Holim), Lichtenstein (mandatory health insurance) and the Netherlands (mandatory basic insurance via a Dutch provider of choice, possible to be supplemented further) have private systems with subsidised insurance for low-income earners, the list goes on. The term "universal" refers to accessibility, not the government picking up your bill. The United States are in fairly good company in keeping that sector private. Some of the best healthcare systems with the best outcomes are either private or a mixture of public-private coverage.


> Also false, this is a known prageru talking point.https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6336/382.full
> Mobility has been rapidly declining.
> Just because people can buy phones or a small tv, doesn't mean that the rest of their life, like idk. HOUSING? Is better than the past? No, it's significantly worse. If my generation is aware they won't be able to own a home until the age of possibly even 40? That's ludicrous. And you know it.


Never had that problem - purchased a home 4 years after I started my job. Not a bad result given where I started. The housing market bubble was caused by handing away unsecured mortgages to customers who had no chance paying them off anyway, all subsidised by the government under Obama (and to a certain extent under Bush, to throw you a bone) - don't blame capitalism for what a socialist policy did. What you're seeing now is a natural and expected rebound. Regarding income mobility, in the USA it nearly matches OECD's suggested values and places the US in the middle of the stack, on about the same level as the UK, which is *a good sign*.




> Also unemployment measures are heavily manipulated right now, because of how many people have lost their jobs. It's about 50%


Oh, it's most certainly manipulated - by disincentivising a return to work. It should be 1/10th of that.


> Most people that are "low income" are technically in poverty. They make less than 30,000 dollars in a year that barely. Which is essentially the new poverty line.
> Also, do you think the United States doesn't make propaganda to make itself look good?


That's not the poverty line, you just made that up.


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## Deleted User (Jul 12, 2021)

snipped for now


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## SG854 (Jul 12, 2021)

That is true statistics are taken differently from country to country so unless you compare apples to apples then you can't really compare numbers that each country provided. U.S. has a really high homicide rate which can affect life expectancy numbers. And I think they also have high car crash rates.


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## Deleted User (Jul 13, 2021)

Valwinz said:


> imao yes blame the embargo on communism failing again


Hmm... Well let's see here. Cuba was dependent on the United States for food and Medical supplies. 70% to be exact for food. But due to the embargo, which you know, when your "lovely leader" was president, they decided to further put sanctions on cuba. And then later on, claimed it as a international terrorist along with three other countries, which as far as I am aware. They haven't really done anything to the united states to merit this.
The United States is merely adding unnecessary suffering. To only then look like the good guy later on when the United States probably helps overthrown the government. I don't agree with Cuba's government. However at the sametime, I'd imagine that it's goverment wouldn't have been so fucked to begin with if the states didn't meddle with them. If you establish a authoritarian government in the past, it's really difficult due to the power vacuum to create a democratic system. Which the United States more than had a hand in creating said authoritarian government.


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## notimp (Jul 13, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> The problem I have with this notion is the fact that, by and large, everyone benefits from capitalism. The point of contention on the left is that some benefit more than others since capital, much like a magnet, tends to attract more capital - not a rule, but it happens often enough. The main complaint is the wage gap, which neglects to mention that the overall standard of living has improved across the board. We're in the single most prosperous moment in history - the rates of poverty are minimal, income mobility is high and there are plenty of opportunities to both ascend and descend the income ladder. Whether a cold-blooded capitalist like myself likes it or not, some people will be outpriced out of the market or their jobs will simply become obsolete in the coming decades, so I'm not necessarily opposed to investment in reskilling as well as a modicum of a safety net - the left calls it UBI, I much prefer Friedman's Negative Income Tax, which seems like a more worthwhile implementation of the same basic idea. I don't see a reason to tax low income earners at all, and those who are actively searching employment should definitely be helped along the way, as long as they're actually trying instead of sitting on their hands. As far as January 6th is concerned, I don't see the relation between the population being miffed that the rules of the election game were changed mid-way through the second half, in 2019, and capitalism as an economic system. The difference between those protestors and the ones in Cuba or Venezuela is the fact that ours have something to eat, which is a pretty relevant factor. Whether their grievances were valid or not is not for me to judge - it's regrettable that they stormed the Capitol, that's illegal, and I hope they're prosecuted to whatever extent of the law seems appropriate to the prosecutors. That's immaterial to the subject matter though - Capitalism didn't do that.


Gini coefficient 1980-2005 in UK, Canada and Sweden:
https://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2007/11/gini-coefficien.html

With the highest impact arguably being free market liberalism, implemented in the Thatcher era, and globalization being an accelerator.

Social mobility in the US since the 1940s:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-decline-of-upward-mobility-in-one-chart/

US embargo against Cuba:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba
US embargo against Venezuela:
https://www.dw.com/en/the-human-cost-of-the-us-sanctions-on-venezuela/a-50647399

The origins of the US love for guano islands:
https://world101.cfr.org/historical-context/world-war/how-did-united-states-become-global-power
(I.e. The main reason for making sure Cuba suffers was to promote free market capitalism, that was the main ideology of an entire thing called the cold war..  )

And as a short breakdown, the theoretical foundation of free market capitalism is basically debunked by now. While Marxism is probably the only theoretical framework, that actually changed the course of economic thinking at a very fundamental level, also employed by western economists to this day.

At the same time, communism was a movement that didnt represent marxist thinking - at all - towards the middle and end.  And then it failed catastrophically.

Marxism was not a 'societal model' that ever was show to work, in the end it was just a theory, that taught many people a few fundamentials (in thinking about societies), that are seen as valid to this day. But the first part is nothing special. No political ideology ever is a 'good or just' representation of society (or societal model for 'the future').

And capitalism is still around.

But - at the same time, both the head of Blackrock, and the speaking hole of the World Economic Forum are openly talking about corporations having to do more to bridge the social devide, and reduce long term risks. Because that was never part of capitalism, and has lead to some pretty serious issues over time. Or because that allows them to keep more people calm during their lifetimes.. One or the other.. 
-
So in essence - neither political ideology is a fully fledged societal system or representation, or even model of how society works, they are just political ideologies. That usually adapt quite a bit over time.

If you dont only want to look at the dichotomy - but also at historical representations of 'in between' and 'what might have been'.

Why Christopher Hitchens Called Himself a Trotskyist
is a good entry point:


Round table by the Hoover institute -- which is a very, very conservative thinktank. 

Oh, and we also have to talk about this in the context of the rise of China. But there we'll have to wait another 20 years or so until we can tell, if we can just laugh at them, or...  (Their version of 'free market capitalism' is, that party provides financing. Party sets ruleset. But a market system is employed to find 'best way' to get to a goal. Once this is done, party keeps a very close relationship with the 'winners'. Foreign investments in the end turned out to be relatively irrelevant in the political development of the country (not in the economic development), because of that system of management. Which is also something that goes against the capitalism playbook. But then, its just an ideological system, its not a full representation of societal processes.  )



Foxi4 said:


> Never had that problem - purchased a home 4 years after I started my job. Not a bad result given where I started. The housing market bubble was caused by handing away unsecured mortgages to customers who had no chance paying them off anyway, all subsidised by the government under Obama (and to a certain extent under Bush, to throw you a bone) - don't blame capitalism for what a socialist policy did.


Well, the policy was sound. Capitalism wasnt. 

Policy basically stated one of the only ways to get the lower classes to participate in a sharing of economic gains, thats still available is via the housing market. So if people buy their own houses they can use them as securities when they are old, or sick - or... without the state having to jump in and front the costs.

So far so sound.

Here is what happened next. Because the state granted laws that basically made long term loans viable for lower income people (by reducing the tax load on said properties in the first few years), the sharks jumped in and destroyed everything ending with the worlds economy. 

First they sold financing contracts to people who still couldnt afford it (remember state just relaxed taxation), then they upsold them services they didnt need, then everything was argued away - to be stable, to the customer, fraudulently, by pointing at value increases in the property over time (Remember that should have been the benefit reaped at the end of life, or in case of illness -- but it was used as part of the financing model by banks). Then - seeing the ship was about to go down, creative financial mathematics were employed to segment loans, cut them up and spread them around to "reduce risk", but instead it just did hide riskfactors. Then the junk was spread all over the world. And then when that all came falling down, because at the heart of it were so many loans people couldnt repay, simply because of their base conditions. US made sure to bail out all perpetrators, and spread the bill around the world, and in the EU had the tax payer pay it. Remember all banks in the EU did, was to believe US capital firms, on their risk assessment. Which was fraudulent.

But Obama? And in the end financial crisis, problem of economic gains not reaching the middle classes and the poor still not solved, but damn you Obama, and capitalism prevailed?

Also - the housing bubble still is caused by too much investment money seeking "stable return of investment". So to this day - it, and you yourself are investing in the housing market believing, that prices will go up. And usually they do. That there was a loan bubble that burst is a little bit different, than that that was caused by people taking out the loans. No - cant blame a burst bubble on the people who are taking out, and getting loans.

If you believe in the free market principal working of course.. 

edit:

Oh, and before you all go out an buy houses. That stuff is changing with the boomers dying out. In the US less so, because their houses are usually not build to last, and they have not as much of a decline in population, as other countries around the world - but if you are making the same bet in Europe today, you are betting on the generational population difference being filled up by migrants, or by migration pressures into cities.


Also: Something about Foxi4s story on paying off his house in four years is fishy, considering this:
https://careers.workopolis.com/advi...-to-buy-a-house-in-every-major-canadian-city/
So - if you are living in any major city, with projected economic growth in the next 10 years or so, the average family, cant afford a loan for a house anymore, without making it a very long term investment (at which point you probably arent getting the loan cleared).
And that was 2016. The situation this year looks like this:


> On a national level, homes in Canada sold for an average of $688,208 this May, a 39% year-over-year increase and down from March's all-time high of $716,828.


https://wowa.ca/reports/canada-housing-market

edit: Most upvoted post on Quora from 3 years ago (More detailed than my description):


> It had nothing to do with Obama, and everything to do with the greed and recklessness of the big banks. The roots go back to Ronald Reagan’s administration. In the 1980s there was more money tied up in mortgages than in the stock market, and Wall Street wanted a piece of it. Lewis Ranieri of Wall Street firm Salomon Bothers devised a way, by creating the Collateralized Mortgage Obligation (CMO) in 1983 to package mortgages into bonds that could be sold to institutional investors and sovereign funds. This could only be done through Freddie Mac at the time, but in 1984 Congress passed the Secondary Mortgage Market Enhancement Act (SMMEA) which allowed private banks to buy and sell mortgage backed securities without a government guarantee.
> 
> This picked up big time after the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act in 1999, allowing the free mixing of commercial and investment banking. Investment bank policies took over most banks because it was more profitable, and very little was more profitable than mortgage bonds. So banks gave every encouragement to people to take out mortgages, providing lavish funding to mortgage originators. Once the mortgages were signed they were immediately sold to an investment bank, incorporated into mortgage bonds and sold to outside investors. With that sale, went the risk. In case of default it wasn’t the bank on the hook for the loss, but the unsuspecting pension fund that held the bond.
> 
> ...


src: https://www.quora.com/How-did-Barack-Obama-cause-the-sub-prime-housing-crisis

Most upvoted posting on Quora that isn't pure BS, that is.  (As in the 140 likes posting of 'Obama owns all his houses himself, and..')


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## Foxi4 (Jul 14, 2021)

Nice wall of text, as usual. I won't be having a debate with you for reasons that should be abundantly obvious to you, but since you're posting graphs, they're worth explaining to people who might enact the effort of going through this laboured, but incorrect interpretation of events.

The Gini Coefficient is a worthless metric of no particular interest, "income inequality" translates to "I'm upset that some people have more wealth than me instead of focusing on the fact that we're all getting more wealthy over time, just at different rates". Not that it matters anyway since it's not exactly a bleak picture either, depending on the grouping you look at. Families are doing perfectly fine.



It's almost as if having two adult income earners in the house was superior to having one. Who knew?

Wages have consistently increased over the last 50+ years, the problem (if it's a problem at all) is that at the same time purchasing power has remained stagnant, lagging behind that growth. Thanks, inflation (among other factors).

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/09/10/are-wages-rising-falling-or-stagnating/

Social mobility in the 1940's was predictably higher because 407,316 U.S. soldiers in their prime productive years have died on the front of WWII and another 671,278 were wounded, often grievously, removing large swathes of people from the labour force and creating a worker shortage as a result, driving wages up. I could've predicted that curve without clicking on the link just by the time frame. Not that it even matters since mobility is doing fairly well contemporarily, with 57% of earners likely moving upward, contrasted with only 7% moving downward, according to Pew Trusts. Not bad. The majority of Americans will accumulate wealth over their lifetime, with some accumulating enough to ascend the economic ladder.

I don't live in Canada, I don't know why you'd bring that up. I had no issues securing funding either. I don't know what you're expecting me to say, give you tips on how to improve your credit? I'm not a financial advisor, figure it out. It actually worked out cheaper than paying rent for a similar-sized property. I won't be posting the deed to my property online, so it's a silly argument anyway - I don't seek approval of strangers on the Internet, whether you believe me or not is immaterial. It's my personal anecdote anyway, not everyone will be so "lucky" (luck is a miniscule component here, but I'll be agreeable), it was merely related to the subject we were discussing.

As for sanctions against Cuba and other communist countries, they're a tried and true method of dismantling them without military intervention that I wholeheartedly approve of.

An admirable attempt at "deboonking" that further supports my original points.


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## Deleted User (Jul 15, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> As for sanctions against Cuba and other communist countries, they're a tried and true method of dismantling them without military intervention that I wholeheartedly approve of.


So in other words... you approve the slow suffering of thousands. Letting them die to covid and other diseases and a lack of food for political gain.

Well, thanks for showing your colors there.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 15, 2021)

Reual said:


> So in other words... you approve the slow suffering of thousands. Letting them die to covid and other diseases and a lack of food for political gain.
> 
> Well, thanks for showing your colors there.


I approve of ending their suffering by dismantling the system that actively persecutes them, ideally without the use of force. In any case, Cuba is not entitled to U.S. money - choosing not to do business with them is a perfectly acceptable strategy. If that causes Cuba to fall apart then its government was pretty shitty in the first place.


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## Jokey_Carrot (Jul 15, 2021)

Aspects from both ideologies should be used to create a better society.


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## Deleted User (Jul 15, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I approve of ending their suffering by dismantling the system that actively persecutes them


False. You said and I'll quote


Foxi4 said:


> As for sanctions against Cuba and other *communist *countries, they're a tried and true method of dismantling them without military intervention that I wholeheartedly approve of.


You are accepting it primarily because it's not capitalist. You did not state authoritarian, you did not state oppressive. You stated a economic system, something that we've gone over at this point is two different systems. Your allowing it because it's not capitalist. Entirely political gain.





Foxi4 said:


> If that causes Cuba to fall apart then its government was pretty shitty in the first place.


And you think the United States would fair the same if they lost all their imports?
Last time I checked about about 30% of the united states is desert. And last time I checked there's quite a few things we can't grow here reasonably without other countries assistance.
My point being, it's damn near impossible to be 100% self sufficient country wise. The united states would probably do fine regarding food. But I don't know about imports such as oil which we are still heavily reliant on. We'd also loose access to a lot of foods people would like to eat, that is primarily grown in other countries.
My point being
Also I'd like to add they also got hit by a hurricane recently, which may or may not impact their food supply

Edit:
As a sidenote I've done more research into cuba.
It seems that they had a china situation themselves as well. Tl;dr overtime closer and closer to a capitalist system while retaining the poor governing structure (authoritarian)
When I say "china situation" if  you know the idea of  The ship of Theseus. That's what I mean essentially. At some point there's enough changes to another system that it cannot reasonably be called the same system it once started. Now, that's a interesting common theme now that I'm looking at it. Communist states that are authoritarian, turning into capitalist states with poorer and poorer conditions.


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## smf (Jul 15, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> The problem I have with this notion is the fact that, by and large, everyone benefits from capitalism. The point of contention on the left is that some benefit more than others since capital, much like a magnet, tends to attract more capital - not a rule, but it happens often enough.



So if it works for 60% of people then the 40% of the people it doesn't work for should be left to starve?



Foxi4 said:


> I approve of ending their suffering by dismantling the system that actively persecutes them, ideally without the use of force. In any case, Cuba is not entitled to U.S. money - choosing not to do business with them is a perfectly acceptable strategy. If that causes Cuba to fall apart then its government was pretty shitty in the first place.



If everyone put sanctions on the US then their economy would implode.

You've basically re-invented the drowning of women to test whether they are witches.

In any event, you don't seem to be a good arbiter of what is perfectly acceptable & any argument you make based on that is circular reasoning.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 15, 2021)

Reual said:


> False. You said and I'll quote
> 
> You are accepting it primarily because it's not capitalist. You did not state authoritarian, you did not state oppressive. You stated a economic system, something that we've gone over at this point is two different systems. Your allowing it because it's not capitalist. Entirely political gain.
> 
> ...


You're not in a position to moralise. Che was a well-known butcher, as was Fidel Castro. You're eagerly defending a system created by monsters guilty of genocide, innumerable human rights violations, overt racism, putting homosexuals in forced labour camps, executing prisoners of war without trial, rape, torture and other atrocities - ones that didn't happen in a dark vacuum somewhere out of sight, but out in the open, in plain view. Che is proud of many of them, and mentions them in his diary. If I were an asshole, I could say that by extension, you _must_ also support racism, homophobia, rape, torture and murder - after all, if I approve of sanctions against an oppressive, totalitarian government specifically built in the mold of Stalinism, I _must_ approve of the citizens suffering. I won't, _because that's a stupid assumption to make_, but if you want to look foolish yourself and accuse me of bizarre things, you're more than welcome to.


smf said:


> So if it works for 60% of people then the 40% of the people it doesn't work for should be left to starve?
> 
> If everyone put sanctions on the US then their economy would implode.
> 
> ...


We should adopt systems that work for the gross majority of citizens and help out those whom it "doesn't work for", although I don't know who you mean by that, what "not working" constitutes or where you get the 60% figure. On the bright side, even if that ratio were true (it's not), capitalism would still pull ahead in this race since it works for "most people" whereas communism _doesn't work. *Snicker*_ Wonderful audience, I'll be here all night.


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## Deleted User (Jul 15, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Besides, you're not in a position to moralise. Che was a well-known butcher, as was Fidel Castro. You're eagerly defending a system created by monsters guilty of genocide, innumerable human rights violations, overt racism, putting homosexuals in forced labour camps, executing prisoners of war without trial, rape, torture and other atrocities - ones that didn't happen in a dark vacuum somewhere out of sight, but out in the open, in plain view.


Am I defending it? Or I'm I criticizing your word choice. Not once at all, have I supported them. Ever. I am anarcho communist. I do not like state. And your not in the position to moralize either.
Should I tell you that the United States was buddy buddy with Nazi germany for a period of time? Have you checked what the rhetoric was like in the states back then? If you didn't, it sounded a lot like germany's at the time. The difference? Propaganda once the United States joined the allies. How about the fact we are still in the middle east, for no good reason, outside of again, Oil. How about all those people previous presidents  that have bombed foreign countries  in the United States? How many people die or kill themselves from  either lack of proper healthcare, and if they get it, then medical bills. How about Texas,trying to passing laws that requires a transperson to wear a godamn fucking sticker for the bathroom. You know, NOT TOO DIFFERENT FROM FUCKING NAZI GERMANY AND JEWS. This is also all happening in plain sight, in the United States. But the United States is special, because of the amount of deregulation, which has pointed out what happens when capitalism is unrestrained. If unrestrained it will pull back worker protections, if unrestrained it will not care for people, but money. And if left unrestrained, businesses can do whatever, and those at the bottom don't have the power to fight back within the system created. The United States government is becoming increasingly more authoritarian. Leaning into companies and the wealthiness  hands, and not the people.

Edit: My point being, the United States, is not clean either.

Edit2: And the reason I dislike capitalism. 
As it now dawned on me. Is the inherit power structure capitalism inevitably creates as it slowly erodes the governing hand. 


However I must point out cuba's problem is likely developed by the United States.
It was the United States who decided to place a authoritarian government in Cuba. Not Cubans choice. And they choose to overthrow it.

And getting rid of a authoritarian government is historically difficult. It often will always lead to another authoritarian government in it's place. If the United States had left them be, what would we have?


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## Foxi4 (Jul 15, 2021)

Reual said:


> Am I defending it? Or I'm I criticizing your word choice. Not once at all, have I supported them. Ever. I am anarcho communist. I do not like state. And your not in the position to moralize either.
> Should I tell you that the United States was buddy buddy with Nazi germany for a period of time? Have you checked what the rhetoric was like in the states back then? If you didn't, it sounded a lot like germany's at the time. The difference? Propaganda. How about the fact we are still in the middle east, for no good reason, outside of again, Oil. How about all those people previous presidents  that have bombed foreign countries  in the United States? How many people die or kill themselves from  either lack of proper healthcare, and if they get it, then medical bills. How about Texas,trying to passing laws that requires a transperson to wear a godamn fucking sticker for the bathroom. You know, NOT TOO DIFFERENT FROM FUCKING NAZI GERMANY AND JEWS. This is also all happening in plain sight, in the United States. But the United States is special, because of the amount of degregulation, which has pointed out what happens when capitalism is unrestrained. If unrestrained it will pull back worker protections, if unrestrained it will not care for people, but money. And if left unrestrained, businesses can do whatever, and those at the bottom don't have the power to fight back within the system created.


Capitalism didn't do that, Hitler was a widely popular figure, to the point of being on the cover of The Time Magazine. Most of his atrocities weren't widely known until the war fully broke out, so you're conflating an entire decade into a singular point in history. The rest of your post isn't worth discussing - people committing suicide in a low point in their lives (as a side note, the suicide rate in the U.S.S.R. was 17.1 per 100000 in 1965 and grew to 29.6 by 1984, no doubt from all the prosperity. In the USA it's 13.4) is not equivalent to state sponsored massacres or mass rapes. I won't indulge your thirst for some Godwin's Law much here - if your only response is "yes, but Hitler" then you don't have a point and you're just deflecting.

Lord almighty, I just read your edit and I'm just shaking my head. You don't understand the Ship of Theseus thought experiment (also referred to as Grandfather's Axe), it's a question in the realm of metaphysics. Let me explain, since this is apparently a difficult concept to grasp for some. The experiment presents you with a conundrum - you have a meticulously maintained ship and, over time, each part of the ship subject to wear and tear was replaced with new parts. The question is whether this ship, belonging to Theseus, is still the same ship as the one he embarked on his journey on initially. The answer is, unequivocally, yes - the metaphysical concept of the ship extends in the fourth dimension, which is time. It is _the same ship_, its _identity_ is the same, but it has _changed over time_. This is consistent with Sider's solution which assumes continuity over time, as well as Chomsky's solution, which criticises externalism and focuses on the ship as an organisational structure consisting of numerous parts that, when put together, constitute a ship, and even Aristotle's solution which underlines that the ship's formal cause remains the same, thus it is the same ship. As long as the continuity of time and space exist, it is in fact Theseus's ship. It's always frustrating to me when someone presents an introductory class-level philosophical question to me as if it's something novel - it's not, it's a Baby's First Philosophy Book concept. To put it in more relatable terms, your body dies and decays over time. In the course of your life your cells will be destroyed and replaced with new cells - dead skin will flake off, replaced with fresh, new skin, for instance. Every 7 to 10 years, piece by piece, your body is "replaced" with a "new one" nearly completely. That does not mean that you lose your identity - your identity _extends in time_ and You, as an entity, are a _sum of your parts. _Those parts are not required to stay the same to maintain _your_ continuity - _You_ exist regardless.

Not that it matters anyway since it doesn't work in your analogy. The standard of living in China has increased, not decreased, upon introducing capitalist concepts into their economy. It literally saved the country from total financial and societal collapse - the Great Leap Forward was a massive failure that led to death in the millions and widespread poverty.


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## JonhathonBaxster (Jul 16, 2021)

*Biden calls Cuba a 'failed' state, considers US tech option to send internet services*

_Biden says 'communism is a universally failed system'_

"Communism is a failed system, a universally failed system, and I don’t see socialism as a very useful substitute," the president said. 

"Cuba is, unfortunately, a failed state and repressing their citizens," he continued. "There are a number of things that we are considering doing to help the people of Cuba, but they would require…a guarantee that they would not be taken advantage of by the government."
_
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bi...ders-us-tech-option-to-send-internet-services_


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## WG481 (Jul 16, 2021)

I would like to say, both suck really bad. Capitalism has benefitted the rich and done nothing for the poor as unemployment soars while Jeff Bezos gets loaded. Communism would cause a huge imbalance. 



Please note that the following is a roughly drafted part of what I may be doing work on. This idealism is shared through countless others, and I will probably essay the crap out of it until I can publish it or lock it away forever, never to be found again. Keep in mind that this new form of government is roughly named by me as Assistive Country Sustainmentism. Read the following with that in consideration.


*What America needs is a new system built around the following principles:
1. Non-negotiable 10%-20% tax. That way, everybody pays what is fair based on their wealth. Removing charitable bonuses would be an improvement because the rich couldn't use the Charitable Bonus loophole to reduce their taxes to zero. This way, the government has a stable source of revenue to allow for the passing of the following improvements.

2. Assisting the poor. I'm not saying we drop everything for those of us here in the middle and lower class (Hi). I'm saying the government passes new relief bills with those taxes to help those who are stuck at rock bottom get back on their feet. If you don't have an address, you can't get a job. Thus, help the homeless into jobs and housing until they land on their feet. Provide therapy for those in need of it, provide medicine for the sick, and once they are ok, you can slowly decrease governmental support until that person/family is self-sustaining.

3. Free healthcare. Come on America. Every other country is doing it. It's more efficient and would help make less people turn poor if they break a leg or have a terminal illness. If the government pays the wages of doctors, surgeons, medical technicians, dentists, nurses, and the like, we don't lose hundreds of dollars to a simple bruise.

4. A living wage. Right now, you need to work 2 jobs alone or have your husband/wife/gender neutral partner do another job to sustain each other and a family. By paying a living wage, maybe people won't be so stressed and broke and poor.

This is equally better than capitalism and communism. Wouldn't y'all agree? Being able to help each other sustain a country while maintaining a value of private property nobody can take from you (obvious reasons for why they would excluded) and keeping public, government owned land for everyone to use would be infinitely more secure than fully private/fully public.*


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## wolffangalchemist (Jul 16, 2021)

WG481 said:


> I would like to say, both suck really bad. Capitalism has benefitted the rich and done nothing for the poor as unemployment soars while Jeff Bezos gets loaded. Communism would cause a huge imbalance.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


in the US ( particularly the southern part from personal experience, it can be very contradictory in many ways) most don't have a viable concept of this, and the idea is sound and could work well, but a huge ratification of "who" is in charge( or " what two" parties are ) would have to happen and the right people would have to be able to  take or be given responsibility to see it's fulfillment.  the way things are now money, media, influence, and fame have to large a role in our politics( it's basically the outline of it, god or what ever deity.. erm entity forbid we listen to logic) . though i completely agree something like this would benefit all in the long run of things. regrettably it would be more a matter of getting to that point of execution of the plan than laying it out.


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## osaka35 (Jul 16, 2021)

Yeah, you've got to start at what you want a system to accomplish before you discuss what's best to achieve your goals.

So, what kind of society do you want to live in? Most folks would probably say one where you have control over your own actions, no one has to worry about money (rent, healthcare, travel, food, etc), and are free to pursue passions and personal interest. Also one that has long-term goals in mind, such as ecological and technological sustainability. 

Ya'll agree on that point at least? or have different goals?


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## WG481 (Jul 16, 2021)

wolffangalchemist said:


> in the US ( particularly the southern part from personal experience, it can be very contradictory in many ways) most don't have a viable concept of this, and the idea is sound and could work well, but a huge ratification of "who" is in charge( or " what two" parties are ) would have to happen and the right people would have to be able to  take or be given responsibility to see it's fulfillment.  the way things are now money, media, influence, and fame have to large a role in our politics( it's basically the outline of it, god or what ever deity.. erm entity forbid we listen to logic) . though i completely agree something like this would benefit all in the long run of things. regrettably it would be more a matter of getting to that point of execution of the plan than laying it out.


That's the government's problem not mine. But you have a fair point. Deciding the right people to execute this plan would be crucial. Another thing would be removing the people getting paid off to keep these sorts of ideas out (big companies, oil guys)


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## wolffangalchemist (Jul 16, 2021)

osaka35 said:


> Yeah, you've got to start at what you want a system to accomplish before you discuss what's best to achieve your goals.
> 
> So, what kind of society do you want to live in? Most folks would probably say one where you have control over your own actions, no one has to worry about money (rent, healthcare, travel, food, etc), and are free to pursue passions and personal interest. Also one that has long-term goals in mind, such as ecological and technological sustainability.
> 
> Ya'll agree on that point at least? or have different goals?


yeah, this is how i would theorize most societies start, it becomes give and take to a point. i would replace not worrying about money with the lesser form of "not worrying about a viable means to make money or obtain necessites" early US was heavily barter system and tax less.  a good example of things going awry early on would be this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion it is a good read for anyone if for nothing else the attitude early us citizens had about being overtaxed or taxed in general.


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## jimbo13 (Jul 16, 2021)

Dearest Saint Ron Paul...  the fact this is even a conversation still is why I teach my children to curse and boo anytime we drive by a public school as I point out the bad parents who don't care enough to make sure their children get a decent education.


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## WG481 (Jul 16, 2021)

jimbo13 said:


> Dearest Saint Ron Paul...  the fact this is even a conversation still is why I teach my children to curse and boo anytime we drive by a public school as I point out the bad parents who don't care enough to make sure their children get a decent education.



The heck? Public education is a good thing. I gained a huge amount of education (near-college) in my school program in fifth grade. Yes, I am an accelerated learning student. But lemme guess, you were a private school kid?


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## jimbo13 (Jul 16, 2021)

WG481 said:


> The heck? Public education is a good thing. I gained a huge amount of education (near-college) in my school program in fifth grade. Yes, I am an accelerated learning student. But lemme guess, you were a private school kid?



Yeah no thanks.


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## WG481 (Jul 16, 2021)

jimbo13 said:


> Yeah no thanks.


Yes, because one instance of teachers being high on a drug screws over the entirety of public education. Thank you for reminding me that just because one person did something stupid means all teachers are stupid. The odds against of your child ending up with a bad teacher are currently around 2,400,000:1,000. I would take those odds in a heartbeat to not have to pay for my children's education. Public school has educated more people 10:1 than private school. My facts? Oh, here. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372


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## jimbo13 (Jul 16, 2021)

WG481 said:


> Yes, because one instance of teachers being high on a drug screws over the entirety of public education. Thank you for reminding me that just because one person did something stupid means all teachers are stupid. The odds against of your child ending up with a bad teacher are currently around 2,400,000:1,000. I would take those odds in a heartbeat to not have to pay for my children's education. Public school has educated more people 10:1 than private school. My facts? Oh, here. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372



I have no interest in claims from the public school system they are doing an adequate job,  I go outside routinely.   Outside and observing > their claims.   And that is not an isolated instance, drag queen story time is adopted policy in numerous districts.  If they stuck to stem fine, ideological indoctrination not fine.


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## WG481 (Jul 16, 2021)

jimbo13 said:


> I have no interest in claims from the public school system they are doing an adequate job,  I go outside routinely.   Outside and observing > their claims.   And that is not an isolated instance, drag queen story time is adopted policy in numerous districts.  If they stuck to stem fine, ideological indoctrination not fine.


Is your colon wired incorrectly? All I hear is crap.

Firstly, this is the government you're talking about. .GOV is used for official government websites and nothing else. It's legally reserved that way. If you're saying your own basic judgement is larger than federally regulated government protocol, why don't you become President? Find some way to prove it to me. You are dragging this further off-topic mate.


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## SG854 (Jul 16, 2021)

osaka35 said:


> no one has to worry about money (rent, healthcare, travel, food, etc),


You talking about going back to the old bartering system?


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## jimbo13 (Jul 16, 2021)

WG481 said:


> Is your colon wired incorrectly? All I hear is crap.
> 
> Firstly, this is the government you're talking about. .GOV is used for official government websites and nothing else. It's legally reserved that way. If you're saying your own basic judgement is larger than federally regulated government protocol, why don't you become President? Find some way to prove it to me. You are dragging this further off-topic mate.



Trusting government LMAO...


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## WG481 (Jul 16, 2021)

jimbo13 said:


> Trusting government LMAO...


You have to be *pissing within my own trousers.
*
Of course I trust the government. Who else would govern the country? Anarchy is literally the dumbest thing ever and everyone here can agree as we will fall into factions. (Which have leaders, thus, a government.)

Either you're satirical, or you're an actual idiot.


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## jimbo13 (Jul 16, 2021)

WG481 said:


> You have to be *pissing within my own trousers.
> *
> Of course I trust the government. Who else would govern the country? Anarchy is literally the dumbest thing ever and everyone here can agree as we will fall into factions. (Which have leaders, thus, a government.)
> 
> Either you're satirical, or you're an actual idiot.



Well atleast the government school was effective at teaching you they are to be trusted LMAAAAAAAAAAAAO.

In closing I'll leave you all with this.

*Government education has failed anyone still arguing the merits of communism.    Communist apologists are dumber than flat earthers. At least the flat earther is capable of questioning authority. *

*“It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.”*

*And many of you have my deepest sympathies for being robbed of coherent thought by the government education system.*


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## WG481 (Jul 16, 2021)

jimbo13 said:


> Well atleast the government school was effective at teaching you they are to be trusted LMAAAAAAAAAAAAO.
> 
> In closing I'll leave you all with this.
> 
> ...


*The government, education, and American society is not communist. Suck it. I have more coherent thought than you do, and I am slowly accelerated towards my degree at 14 thanks to public education. You are an idiot. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.*


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## osaka35 (Jul 16, 2021)

SG854 said:


> You talking about going back to the old bartering system?


nah, then you're just worried about having a resource, and hoping other people are willing to trade for it. barter system has more opportunities for failure than a money system. 

i meant no worries of being broke and poor; without the resources to trade, either money or goods


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## Deleted User (Jul 16, 2021)




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## Foxi4 (Jul 16, 2021)

Reual said:


>


From the hit YouTube channel that brought you all-time hits like "How much would it cost to build the Death Star?", "Could we survive a zombie apocalypse?" and other fact-based and worthwhile analyses.


> There seems to be *political leanings* on Second Thought such as being *more liberal* (...) *there are retweets of Democrats and dislikes the gun and religion culture* in the United States which is seen on his Twitter account. (...) He is currently making political content on a *Leftist's point of view* and is a *self-described "Socialist"*.
> https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/Second_Thought


Amazin. The guy's LinkedIn is pretty funny too. I'm sure he's well-versed in what he's talking about given his career trajectory, from liberal arts major through sales assistant at Best Buy to effectively telemarketing to being self-employed. Good source.


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## KingVamp (Jul 16, 2021)

smf said:


> Both are flawed, IMO a mix of capitalism with socialism is probably the best system we can implement right now. So you use taxation from those who benefit from capitalism and use it to help those who aren't able to benefit. It's just a pity that there are enough assholes who benefit that they try to stop it.





osaka35 said:


> nah, then you're just worried about having a resource, and hoping other people are willing to trade for it. barter system has more opportunities for failure than a money system.
> 
> i meant no worries of being broke and poor; without the resources to trade, either money or goods


I think improving on social democracy is the best we got, until we somehow discover virtually unlimited and easily accessible resources.


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## Deleted User (Jul 16, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> From the hit YouTube channel that brought you all-time hits like "How much would it cost to build the Death Star?", "Could we survive a zombie apocalypse?" and other fact-based and worthwhile analyses.


So your criticizing the guy based on past content?
Well if that's the case then. I guess him stating the the UN climate report of 2019  wasn't important or fact based.
Or "how America was almost overrun by hippos" which is historically correct.
His channel back around 2 years ago was primarily focused on scientific what if scenarios. For example, the death star one you brought up was made over 2 years, 3 and a half roughly speaking. (march 16 2018) he didn't make his own research up (creating shit out of thin air is what I mean), his source there was from the students economics blog  at Lehigh University. Who did the research about the estimated amount it would cost to build a death star.
My point being, it's rather silly that your criticizing the guy over having silly videos over 2 years ago.And or different content from what he makes now.



Foxi4 said:


> Amazin. The guy's LinkedIn is pretty funny too. I'm sure he's well-versed in what he's talking about given his career trajectory, from liberal arts major through sales assistant at Sony and Best Buy to being self-employed. Good source.


And? I guess you don't look at the description for his sources
for example the video I just linked. the descriptions sources:
Capitalism and markets: https://www.rdwolff.com/capitalism_is... Capitalist perspective on dangers of short-term thinking: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/21/op...
Marx on class structure under capitalism: http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/s28f99.htm Imperialism: https://www.marxists.org/archive/leni... Amazon destroying products: https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-21/a... Dunkin Donuts worker fired: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/dunkin-e... Dairy farmers dumping milk: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/perspe... Potato farmers abandoning crops: https://www.businessinsider.com/potat... Grocery store waste: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/fi... Texas electrical grid problems: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/21/us... https://www.utilitydive.com/news/the-... Champlain Towers collapse: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/us... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/06/us... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seZHb... https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/08/us/mia...

Saying it's not at least researched, is kinda misleading don't you think?



I should also point out that if your unable to criticize the actual content stated in the video, unable to refusing any of the talking points but rather through essentially a low ad hominium (talking about work history. and pretty much low key stating he is bad or inferior.) Then you don't really have a argument to stand on do you?


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## Deleted User (Jul 16, 2021)

as an additional note. I took a look at his patreon, clearly he is self employed because of that. at 2,299 people contributing to him. if we just took the lowest tier, (2 dollars) and assumed that's what he is making from every single backer. that's 4,458 dollars per month.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 16, 2021)

Reual said:


> So your criticizing the guy based on past content?
> Well if that's the case then. I guess him stating the the UN climate report of 2019  wasn't important or fact based.
> Or "how America was almost overrun by hippos" which is historically correct.
> His channel back around 2 years ago was primarily focused on scientific what if scenarios. For example, the death star one you brought up was made over 2 years, 3 and a half roughly speaking. (march 16 2018) he didn't make his own research up (creating shit out of thin air is what I mean), his source there was from the students economics blog  at Lehigh University. Who did the research about the estimated amount it would cost to build a death star.
> ...


He's entitled to have an opinion - it's just an unqualified opinion. I watched the video - his entire premise hinges on redefining what efficiency is to suit his narrative and misrepresenting certain facts, like why a portion of food produced is destroyed (it's primarily a logistics problem) or how it's the profit motive that leads to construction disasters (it's actually negligence). Under a capitalist system a provider has a very specific incentive to provide good quality goods and services at an attractive price without excessive spending - the profit motive. If I hire  someone to build a fence and that fence is crooked, I have legal recourse to recover my costs *and* I can hire somebody else while the bad contractor gains infamy over time. This drives quality rather than decreasing it. The quality of construction in communist countries is significantly lower than in capitalist countries, this can be observed in any post-soviet state where the now 40+ year-old high rises are often crooked and require constant maintenance because they were constructed quickly to meet demand with little concern for worker safety or building regulations. You don't have to look far to find stories of buildings collapsing.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...osion-soviet-housing-state-ussr-a8720686.html

In the case above a natural gas explosion, presumably caused by a leaking installation, took half the building with it, killing 39 residents. Oops.

Here's China - three buildings swallowed into a sinkhole, just like that. Big oops, I guess the foundation wasn't that great. Or maybe it's the fact that the government started building a subway *right underneath a residential area* with no regard for safety of the residents until they realised they made a booboo and had to rush to evacuate the neighbourhood.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-china-21242812

I know for a fact that the high rises I used to live right next to in Poland as a child had hidden bags of sand in the walls to fill the "gaps". I know this because they were built by forced prison labourers who traded cement and other building materials for tea and cigarettes on the side, whatever was missing was filled in with sand. Heck, I specifically know this because that's the only way my father could *get* cement to construct his garage back in the day - he exchanged his tea stamps for tea, then exchanged tea for building materials. Smart man. Do you think that is a safe or an unsafe practice? In any case, it's not uncommon to drill a hole in the wall for a shelf or a picture and have sand seeping into the apartment all of a sudden in one of those, that's a fact.

If you create content based on a false premise, your conclusion is de facto false. He's entitled to believe it, it's a free country (unlike socialist countries), but that doesn't make his opinion any less unqualified. He's as big of an authority on the subject as you and me are, so you're not bringing an expert opinion to the table, you're parroting "a guy" on the Internet. If you're looking for tips on economic policy, they don't sell that at Best Buy. He's indeed self-employed *now*, and that's great. I commend him for his Bachelor's in Journalism, he sure knows how to put an attractive video together and how to organise his sources, but that doesn't make the product any less tripe. Good on him for making that amount of money - that's great, and an inherent advantage of private enterprise in a capitalist system. I hope he will continue to create edutainment for his viewers, they clearly enjoy it enough to make it profitable for him. He earned every dollar producing content his viewers like consuming.


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## smf (Jul 17, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> He's entitled to have an opinion - it's just an unqualified opinion. I watched the video - his entire premise hinges on redefining what efficiency is to suit his narrative and misrepresenting certain facts, like why a portion of food produced is destroyed (it's primarily a logistics problem) or how it's the profit motive that leads to construction disasters (it's actually negligence).



You are overlooking obvious points there.

Disposing of food rather than distributing it to the poor is cheaper & protects the cost of food. Taxing food destruction would be an interesting experiment.

Negligence and cutting corners is cheaper & as it's the rich and powerful are the ones doing it they don't want punishments to be introduced (which is why the right wing are against regulations).


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## jimbo13 (Jul 17, 2021)

smf said:


> You are overlooking obvious points there.Negligence and cutting corners is cheaper & as it's the rich and powerful are the ones doing it they don't want punishments to be introduced (which is why the right wing are against regulations).



We oppose regulations for a variety of reasons, none of which you claim are accurate.

1) Regulations protect large corporations, they eliminate small and medium competition that can't afford compliance.  You can easily find recent examples from Facebook & Amazon calling for regulation, because they are already established.  Crippling regulation stymies upstarts that can't afford it.   It is most evident in the Auto industry, small boutique builders that get exempted from regulation are limited to I think it's 3 cars a year?  Might be more or less.

However there are thousands of small and medium motorcycle companies because the regulations are nil.  You can't start a car company without billions in capital because of regulation.

2) Limited government should be limited on what it can impose.


Food is a horrible example to work from in this context,  We subsidize Food to the tune of billions from Seed, to store, to table at every point.  There is no semblance of a free market system at any point in industrialized food.   We subsidize the production, the insurance on crop failures, the safety monitoring and regulation, the grocery stores, their low wage employees and the store itself so they will maintain a presence in low income areas. Every aspect is heavily subsidized and regulated.  Then 25% or so of the public is on Food stamps to purchase that subsidized food and we haven't even gotten to free meals in Public school yet.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 17, 2021)

smf said:


> You are overlooking obvious points there.
> 
> Disposing of food rather than distributing it to the poor is cheaper & protects the cost of food. Taxing food destruction would be an interesting experiment.
> 
> Negligence and cutting corners is cheaper & as it's the rich and powerful are the ones doing it they don't want punishments to be introduced (which is why the right wing are against regulations).


Regarding food, it's not something I'm overlooking, it's something that's priced into the equation that occurs in both systems, but for different reasons. Corporations are incentivided to reduce food waste in a number of ways already. There is no benefit in purchasing excess stock, disposing of unsold stock is an expensive endeavour and not disposing of it bears liability. If a company distributes their "old" food items to the poor, ones that are near to or at their expiration date, they are automatically liable for any resulting health issues that may develop as a result of eating it. They also don't want to undercut their own product's suggested retail price by discounting it or giving it away for free - that's counter-intuitive from a business perspective. Capitalism in the food industry, as in all industries, pushes efficiency - retailers go out of their way *not* to order excess stock, but there will always be fluctuations in the market and some of it will always go to waste. From a customer's perspective waste is preferable to a shortage - when I go to a store to buy apples, I expect them to have apples, which is why a good retail store manager will order exactly the amount of apples they project to sell *plus* some to cover for fluctuations. The waste is not intentional, and in countries like the UK it's also recycled into other products. Corporations in the food industry even choose to self-regulate - The Courtauld Commitment 2025 comes to mind. Wasting food is *not* a sign of capitalism, or a sound business practice - corporations do not intentionally waste capital. Some waste is simply the cost of doing business, it will always be there, we can only endeavour to minimise it. On the flip side, farm subsidies, which are socialist in nature, cause farmers to produce *too much* unwanted product which then has to be price-controlled, it's often purchased by the government and subsequently destroyed because we're not suffering from famine, and we're not going to anytime soon. Farm subsidies are one of the primary culprits behind inflated food prices and enormous food waste. In terms of your other comment, saving costs is one thing, cutting corners is another. The quantity over quality model of communist states which I've already touched upon creates objectively worse products and lesser quality housing - the residential buildings in communist states are atrocious and nobody in their right mind would build like that in the west, or even be allowed to build like that at all.


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## smf (Jul 17, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> There is no benefit in purchasing excess stock, disposing of unsold stock is an expensive endeavour and not disposing of it bears liability. If a company distributes their "old" food items to the poor, ones that are near to or at their expiration date, they are automatically liable for any resulting health issues that may develop as a result of eating it.



The date on most food is for stock control purposes. They will sell food close to expiration at a discount, they could give it away.

There is a benefit in purchasing excess stock, if you're buying something for $1 and selling it at $5 then you want to er on ordering too much rather than not enough. Ordering too much loses you $1 per item, ordering too little loses $4 per item.



Foxi4 said:


> They also don't want to undercut their own product's suggested retail price by discounting it or giving it away for free - that's counter-intuitive from a business perspective.



It's counter-intuitive from a profit above all perspective, which I thought was the discussion.



Foxi4 said:


> Wasting food is *not* a sign of capitalism



Waste is a consequence of capitalism

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-21...ouses-every-year-itv-news-investigation-finds



Foxi4 said:


> On the flip side, farm subsidies, which are socialist in nature, cause farmers to produce *too much* unwanted product which then has to be price-controlled, it's often purchased by the government and subsequently destroyed because we're not suffering from famine, and we're not going to anytime soon.



Farm subsidies are complex, you don't want your farms to decide to close and leave you at the mercy of food imports. I don't know why we haven't seen more technology being used to bring everyone together to figure out what crops should be produced. It seems like random people just choose what crops they are going to grow and sit back and complain about the price they get.



Foxi4 said:


> The quantity over quality model of communist states which I've already touched upon creates objectively worse products and lesser quality housing - the residential buildings in communist states are atrocious and nobody in their right mind would build like that in the west, or even be allowed to build like that at all.



That isn't a particularly good argument, because that isn't communism that causes it but the lack of money. Russia didn't improve just because they stopped practicing communism.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 17, 2021)

smf said:


> The date on most food is for stock control purposes. They will sell food close to expiration at a discount, they could give it away.


Why?


> There is a benefit in purchasing excess stock, if you're buying something for $1 and selling it at $5 then you want to er on ordering too much rather than not enough. Ordering too much loses you $1 per item, ordering too little loses $4 per item.


Already covered above - order enough to cover demand plus some. Anything past that point is a waste unless there are bulk discounts at play, in which case you order whatever is best price for volume and distribute to other locations.


> It's counter-intuitive from a profit above all perspective, which I thought was the discussion.


It's almost as if that was the point of retail.


> Waste is a consequence of capitalism
> 
> https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-21...ouses-every-year-itv-news-investigation-finds


False. Tell your labour representatives to stop subsidising farming so that the market can stabilise instead of operating on price fixing.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...te-the-farming-subsidies-destroying-the-world


> Farm subsidies are complex, you don't want your farms to decide to close and leave you at the mercy of food imports. I don't know why we haven't seen more technology being used to bring everyone together to figure out what crops should be produced. It seems like random people just choose what crops they are going to grow and sit back and complain about the price they get.


Why don't you want excess farms to close? They should close, especially if the only thing keeping them afloat are subsidies. It's unwanted product that is destined to be recycled into feed, plastics (excess meat) and other products created from biodegradables. 75% of tomatoes sold or processed in Britain are imports from Italy, this boat has already sailed.


> That isn't a particularly good argument, because that isn't communism that causes it but the lack of money. Russia didn't improve just because they stopped practicing communism.


The rapid social and technological progress across all post-Soviet states after 1989 says otherwise, and you can't convince me otherwise because I'm *from one*.


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## SG854 (Jul 17, 2021)

smf said:


> The date on most food is for stock control purposes. They will sell food close to expiration at a discount, they could give it away.
> 
> There is a benefit in purchasing excess stock, if you're buying something for $1 and selling it at $5 then you want to er on ordering too much rather than not enough. Ordering too much loses you $1 per item, ordering too little loses $4 per item.
> 
> ...


If you believe they are for stock control purposes then I'm sure you have no problem eating expired food


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## Foxi4 (Jul 17, 2021)

SG854 said:


> If you believe they are for stock control purposes then I'm sure you have no problem eating expired food


In all fairness, expiration dates and best before dates are, for the most part, total guesswork. They're not really supported by much scientific research, it's a statistical guessing game with huge variability depending on storage conditions. In order to determine if food is expired or not, you have to inspect it - the date is just a bunch of numbers someone pulled out of a hat.

https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/19/...cate freshness,t necessarily make people sick.


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## smf (Jul 17, 2021)

SG854 said:


> If you believe they are for stock control purposes then I'm sure you have no problem eating expired food



I don't. I won't eat anything that looks or smells bad though, no matter what date they printed on it.



Foxi4 said:


> In all fairness, expiration dates and best before dates are, for the most part, total guesswork.



Right, but they know that people will throw it out and buy it again if they put a shorter date on it and therefore increase their profits. So it pays to guess low & they do.

For tinned/dehydrated/etc food then the dates are essentially "when do we want them to throw this away" dates.

For fresh food I'd rather see a "when this was picked" date, but they aren't going to do that as it would make people question what "fresh" meant.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 17, 2021)

smf said:


> Right, but they know that people will throw it out and buy it again if they put a shorter date on it and therefore increase their profits. So it pays to guess low & they do.
> 
> For tinned/dehydrated/etc food then the dates are essentially "when do we want them to throw this away" dates.
> 
> For fresh food I'd rather see a "when this was picked" date, but they aren't going to do that as it would make people question what "fresh" meant.


Products past their expiration date are are not given "new" expiration dates, if that's what you're implying. They get gradually discounted (yellow sticker) just like damaged goods until they sell, and if they don't sell anyway, they're disposed of like other biodegradables. Supermarkets will go as low as 1p for food items, but they won't give them away for free because that changes the nature of the transaction from a purchase to a donation. There's too much red tape and too much liability to deal with at that stage - if the government wants to give that food to the poor, it's up to them to make reasonable arrangements with food stores around the country. Private enterprise is not responsible for welfare, the government is. They don't even have to pay them for the goods per se - a tax break would be a very reasonable arrangement. If they don't want to meet retailers half-way then it is what it is.

Edit: I've re-read your post and I think I may have gotten you wrong. In either case, no - supermarkets do not put "shorter dates" on products they sell, that's counter to their business model which operates on selling goods at the most profitable price the market can bear. Discounts are not the default mode of operation, they're a way of selling stock that they would otherwise have to dispose of, incurring cost. The food industry invented preservatives *for a reason* and they shove them into everything, including food that doesn't need any, like chutney (which is already vinegar-based, but many brands add sulphates anyway).


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## smf (Jul 18, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Products past their expiration date are are not given "new" expiration dates, if that's what you're implying.



I don't know why you'd think I was implying that, but that does of course happen.

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...pplier-food-safety-dates-2-sisters-food-group

And that is not an isolated incident. There are even cases where supermarkets take packed chicken off the shelves, washed it and repackage it with a new date. 

Chlorine is used in america to freshen the chicken up perfectly legally.



Foxi4 said:


> Edit: I've re-read your post and I think I may have gotten you wrong. In either case, no - supermarkets do not put "shorter dates" on products they sell, that's counter to their business model which operates on selling goods at the most profitable price the market can bear.



How is it counter to their business model? If they know they sell 1000 of an item a week, then it doesn't matter to them what date goes on there as long as it's out of the store in time. But if someone takes it out of the cupboard and decides that the date is now past and throw it out & buy a new one then they've increased their sales.

Tinned tomatoes would normally have quite long dates, after the panic buying cleared shelves there were suddenly new tins with only a couple of months on them. I believe this was to put off people from panic buying too many.


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## BlazeMasterBM (Jul 18, 2021)

communism does not work


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## Foxi4 (Jul 18, 2021)

smf said:


> I don't know why you'd think I was implying that, but that does of course happen.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/busines...pplier-food-safety-dates-2-sisters-food-group
> 
> And that is not an isolated incident. There are even cases where supermarkets take packed chicken off the shelves, washed it and repackage it with a new date.


I'm not surprised that the chains stopped buying from the plant considering the fact that date manipulation being illegal.


> Chlorine is used in america to freshen the chicken up perfectly legally.


In America and many other countries, it's perfectly suitable for that purpose. It's also added to pool water, along with acid, in case you didn't know. It's also in your tap water, because why wouldn't it be?


> How is it counter to their business model? If they know they sell 1000 of an item a week, then it doesn't matter to them what date goes on there as long as it's out of the store in time. But if someone takes it out of the cupboard and decides that the date is now past and throw it out & buy a new one then they've increased their sales.


It's in the retailer's interest to have food items with the longest possible shelf life in order to avoid disposal costs, that's why they go out of their way to extend it in a variety of ways, including chemically. If the customer doesn't eat their food in time, that's on them, not the retailer.


> Tinned tomatoes would normally have quite long dates, after the panic buying cleared shelves there were suddenly new tins with only a couple of months on them. I believe this was to put off people from panic buying too many.


You can believe whatever you want - stock was low with no news on when new stock will arrive due to the government's inability to secure a new trade deal with the EU, hence it was rationed. That's what *actually* happened, but you're welcome to your weird conjecture.


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## smf (Jul 19, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> In America and many other countries, it's perfectly suitable for that purpose.



Suitable for making dodgy chicken look fresh?

I can see why we are ideologically going to disagree.



Foxi4 said:


> You can believe whatever you want - stock was low with no news on when new stock will arrive due to the government's inability to secure a new trade deal with the EU, hence it was rationed. That's what *actually* happened, but you're welcome to your weird conjecture.



Weird conjecture? You're delusional if you think that tins of tomatoes randomly appeared that were now only safe to eat for the next two months. If the pandemic hadn't happened then you really think they would have just thrown them away? From your argument of capitalism these tins would have made it out to market, they wouldn't be selling the tins with dates further in advance and then when they run out sell the ones with dates about to expire.

You just don't want to admit you're wrong, which you repeat regularly. On some products the dates are used for controlling consumers. It's a widely accepted practice, the US were even forced to introduce legislation to try to end the practice https://hawleytroxell.com/2018/02/food-date-labels-hunger-america/ although capitalism resists being controlled when profits are to be made.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 19, 2021)

smf said:


> Suitable for making dodgy chicken look fresh? I can see why we are ideologically going to disagree.


Chlorine-dipping is a perfectly acceptable method of anti-microbial rinsing and reduces the risk of spreading salmonella, among other diseases. It's been thoroughly tested and does not have any adverse effects - the amount of chicken you'd have to eat before experiencing any far surpasses what any normal person would be capable of eating. Chlorate tolerance is ridiculously high - something like 15% of body mass, and moreover, chlorine evaporates rather quickly when exposed to heat. If you're making chicken soup, whatever chlorine might be in it is gone within 6-8 minutes. Americans have been eating chicken treated with chlorine dioxide for years and we're yet to record any mass death by chicken - saying otherwise is silly. European measures against the practice are thinly-veiled protectionism of the market from cheaper imports that are contrary to the idea of a global marketplace.


> Weird conjecture? You're delusional if you think that tins of tomatoes randomly appeared that were now only safe to eat for the next two months. If the pandemic hadn't happened then you really think they would have just thrown them away? From your argument of capitalism these tins would have made it out to market, they wouldn't be selling the tins with dates further in advance and then when they run out sell the ones with dates about to expire.


A retailer is not going to flog off the entirety of their supply in one go - if it's a large chain, they will ration their stock so as to supply more locations and reach more customers in a larger area, as opposed to filling the shelves to the brim and reciting one final hail Mary. They want to maintain the appearance of having ample supply and cover a larger area with it - their customers will have a better experience buying one tin of tomatoes in their store of choice instead of having to hunt for them around the area just to get two.


> You just don't want to admit you're wrong, which you repeat regularly. On some products the dates are used for controlling consumers. It's a widely accepted practice, the US were even forced to introduce legislation to try to end the practice https://hawleytroxell.com/2018/02/food-date-labels-hunger-america/ although capitalism resists being controlled when profits are to be made.


*Reads the link*


> _Millions of Americans go hungry, while 40% of the food in the United States is wasted. Research has shown that *43% of the waste occurs in homes* and that consumers are making decisions about purchasing and throwing away food *without understanding the meaning of the food date labels.*_


Right - so it's uneducated consumers that are the problem. Exactly as I said. Sounds like I don't have to admit that I'm wrong, considering the fact that I'm not wrong. "Best Before" does not mean "Expired", it refers explicitly to product quality. A pack of cookies that is well past the Best Before date might be a bit stale, but they're still perfectly edible since they're dry foods unlikely to expire in a short period of time. I'm sorry that some consumers don't understand that, but that's not the manufacturer's fault. It's the consumer's fault for not reading the damned label, not opening the pack of cookies and not immediately realising that they're completely safe to eat. It's also the consumer's fault if they purchase food products with no intention of actually eating them in the ridiculous amount of time they have to do so (a pack of cookies often lasts for *years*, they had plenty of time to indulge their sweet tooth).

If you want to further discuss food-related regulations, you can make a thread about it. We're straying further and further away from the actual "meat" of the thread, pun intended.


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## smf (Jul 19, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Chlorine-dipping is a perfectly acceptable method of anti-microbial rinsing and reduces the risk of spreading salmonella, among other diseases.



And makes dodgy chicken look fresh.

It's used so they can keep the chickens in bad conditions (because it's cheap) and then clean up the mess and make it look fresh afterwards. That is capitalism at work.

Europe doesn't do it. We aren't all dying from food poisoning.



Foxi4 said:


> Right - so it's uneducated consumers that are the problem. Exactly as I said. Sounds like I don't have to admit that I'm wrong, considering the fact that I'm not wrong.



You're wrong, you just like to twist and turn to avoid it. We all know you do this, you are a meme.

They don't want consumers to be educated, they want to mislead at every turn to increase profits. But I predict you will distort reality to make your precious capitalism perfect and it's everyone elses fault.

When you're right about something, we'll all have a party to celebrate.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 19, 2021)

smf said:


> And makes dodgy chicken look fresh.
> 
> It's used so they can keep the chickens in bad conditions (because it's cheap) and then clean up the mess and make it look fresh afterwards. That is capitalism at work.
> 
> ...


Sure, let's neglect to mention this year's salmonella outbreak.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...lla-outbreak-in-uk-linked-to-chicken-products

Again, not a thread about food safety.


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## smf (Jul 19, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Sure, let's neglect to mention this year's salmonella outbreak.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/society...lla-outbreak-in-uk-linked-to-chicken-products
> 
> Again, not a thread about food safety.



And the chlorine doesn't seem to help the US either.

_CDC estimates Salmonella bacteria cause about 1.35 million infections, 26,500 hospitalizations, and *420 deaths* in the United States every year._

It's not about food safety, but about how capitalism can reduce food safety and increases wastage.

Socialist Europe seems to work better. Could one of the types of communism work better? Possibly/possibly not. Certainly not right now.

Populism has taken over as capitalists lie about what is possible. It's going to end badly.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 19, 2021)

smf said:


> And the chlorine doesn't seem to help the US either.
> 
> _CDC estimates Salmonella bacteria cause about 1.35 million infections, 26,500 hospitalizations, and *420 deaths* in the United States every year._
> 
> ...


We can't be sure how many *deaths* are due to foodborne illnesses directly and how many are due to other factors like access to healthcare. What we *can* measure is the prevalence of salmonella in tested samples. Now, how people prepare that chicken and consume it is out of the manufacturer's hands.

EDIT: Since you keep adding to your post, I'll do the same. Your contention was that chlorinating chicken doesn't work and you've presented a statistic to support that, but with no controls. The way you'd actually test that is that you'd take two batches of chicken, chlorinate one and leave the other one alone. One of those two batches will have a higher prevalence of salmonella - can you guess which? You're missing at least 5 controls - prevalence in local stock, food handling, storage, transport, and preparation methods, that's why your number doesn't translate into what you think it does. What you're comparing is prevalence of salmonella, *not* the effectiveness of chlorination, as you claim.

As a side note, I have now goaded you into arguing two internally inconsistent, mutually exclusive and contradictory points - that the American food industry *simultaneously* artificially decreases expiry dates on food in order to make it seem expired sooner *and* artificially increases them using chemicals to make it seem fresher. Someone's definitely a meme here, but it's not me. Your mental gymnastics explanation for this is that they re-stamp products en masse and nobody's noticed so far, aside from a handful of isolated incidents (not surprising since date tampering is illegal). I was waiting for you to pick up on that, but you never did, which was a great source of amusement. If we're actually talking about comparing capitalism to communism, the rate of salmonella in the staunchly conservative Japan is extremely low - you can eat Japanese chicken raw fairly safely, and it's not unusual there. Seems to me that their rampant capitalism didn't lead to an increase in salmonella cases, so again, you're missing a bunch of controls here.


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## Julie_Pilgrim (Jul 22, 2021)

you're all wrong


----------



## BitMasterPlus (Jul 22, 2021)

Scott_pilgrim said:


> you're all wrong


no u


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## Deleted User (Jul 23, 2021)

United States invading other countries


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## WG481 (Jul 24, 2021)

This thread is cursed


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Reual said:


> United States invading other countries


I especially liked the part about Chile escaping the iron grasp of socialism, with support of the U.S. - good for them. After the removal of Allende and the dissolution of the subsequent junta the country adopted the principles of free market capitalism and by 2017 it became the richest country in South America, according to World Bank:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_American_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

Allende's government and the "Chilean path to Socialism" caused massive inflation and widespread poverty.


 
Nicely done, Allende. This is what we call a "nosedive".

The "Miracle of Chile" shows that proper economic policy is a prerequisite to a functioning society - comparing average salaries in Chile and Venezuela is comical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile

Viva Chile! I hope its neighbours were taking notes.


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## Chris_Dai_Gyakuten_Saiban (Jul 24, 2021)

Some problems about communism are as follows: strong government control, little motivation for individuals to improve themselves, limited freedom for the individual, and protection of inefficient people or producers. Communism is an economic system in which every member of society receives an equal share of the benefits that come from labor. That's what I have to say about communism regarding this discussion


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## Deleted User (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I especially liked the part about Chile escaping the iron grasp of socialism, with support of the U.S. - good for them. After the removal of Allende and the dissolution of the subsequent junta the country adopted the principles of free market capitalism and by 2017 it became the richest country in South America, according to World Bank:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_American_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
> 
> ...


And you realize the United States invaded them during 1973?
Which goes with that drop? Did you even watch the video fully?
Are you okay foxi4?
Because most of the people in chile, wanted that goverment, and the united states overthrew it. There's no justifying that.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Chris_Dai_Gyakuten_Saiban said:


> ome problems about communism are as follows: strong government control,


Again false, We've talked about this before in this thread.
Communism does not mean authortian. the form of economic system is separate from the government system. Most communists of today don't want another USSR, they want anarcho communism, which is effectively, very little goverment power as a democracy, and nothing else. No leaders, no dictators.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Reual said:


> And you realize the United States invaded them during 1973?
> Which goes with that drop? Did you even watch the video fully?
> Are you okay foxi4?
> Because most of the people in chile, wanted that goverment, and the united states overthrew it. There's no justifying that.


The military coup in Chile was immediately preceded by 2 years of civil unrest caused by Allende's disastrous policies. Chile's downfall didn't begin in '73 - it stared in '71 - pretty much as soon as the country entered its "path to socialism" phase. By '73 the country was well and truly primed for a civil war after a wave of demonstrations and clashes between the left and the right following Allende's nationalisation efforts. We're not even talking about one singular coup - there were multiple coup attempts, especially after Allende started breaking the Chilean constitution. He was officially charged by the Chamber of Deputies on August 22nd, and his response was "nah, I didn't do that, business as usual". The Chilean people, especially the middle class which used to be well-off when their private businesses were allowed to function, quickly realised that they've made a massive mistake, and the Chilean military was all too happy to remove him from office. Saying that the majority of voters wanted Allende is an outright lie - he won by plurality of 36%, not by majority. It was a run-off, and National Congress had to certify based on tradition alone, despite being urged not to do so. This support quickly dwindled as the country's economic output went down the drain. Chileans by and large are *infinitely* better off, especially compared to their neighbours. You, on the other hand, have trouble with reading a pretty basic graph. The country was paralysed by strikes, it could not function any longer - of course Allende had to be removed.

EDIT: As a side note, no - the U.S. did not invade Chile in 1973. They provided support to the Chilean Armed Forces indirectly via the "economic war" policy under Nixon. The U.S. created conditions in which a successful coup could take place, but did not "invade" Chile. There was some involvement of the CIA and American intelligence had their agents in contact with Chilean military officers, but they did not actively instigate the coup - they merely condoned it. The phone transcripts between Nixon and Kissinger prove as much. There was no magical U.S. military intervention in Chile that crippled the economy that year - the economy was already crippled, hence the civil unrest. I don't know where you're getting these alternative facts from - I assume they're from Best Buy.


> The report stated that the CIA *"actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende but did not assist Pinochet to assume the Presidency."* After a review of recordings of telephone conversations between Nixon and Henry Kissinger, Robert Dallek concluded that both of them *used the CIA to actively destabilize the Allende government*. In one particular conversation about the news of Allende's overthrow, Kissinger complained about the lack of recognition of the American role in the overthrow of a "communist" government, upon which Nixon remarked, *"Well, we didn't – as you know – our hand doesn't show on this one."* A later CIA report contended that *US agents maintained close ties with the Chilean military to collect intelligence* but *no effort was made to assist them* and *"under no circumstances attempted to influence them."*


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d'état


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## anhminh (Jul 24, 2021)

Every ideology crumble when it factor in people's greed. Everybody want to be richer than their neighbors, nobody want to pay tax. And people with a lots of money won't just hand out their money to other either. A world where everyone sharing breads, holding hand and singing Kumbaya just aren't realistic even though both capitalism and communism promised the same thing.


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## Deleted User (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> The military coup in Chile was immediately preceded by 2 years of civil unrest caused by Allende's disastrous policies. Chile's downfall didn't begin in '73 - it stared in '71 - pretty much as soon as the country entered its "path to socialism" phase. By '73 the country was well and truly primed for a civil war after a wave of demonstrations and clashes between the left and the right following Allende's nationalisation efforts. We're not even talking about one singular coup - there were multiple coup attempts, especially after Allende started breaking the Chilean constitution. He was officially charged by the Chamber of Deputies on August 22nd, and his response was "nah, I didn't do that, business as usual". The Chilean people, especially the middle class which used to be well-off when their private businesses were allowed to function, quickly realised that they've made a massive mistake, and the Chilean military was all too happy to remove him from office. Saying that the majority of voters wanted Allende is an outright lie - he won by plurality of 36%, not by majority. It was a run-off, and National Congress had to certify based on tradition alone, despite being urged not to do so. This support quickly dwindled as the country's economic output went down the drain. Chileans by and large are *infinitely* better off, especially compared to their neighbours. You, on the other hand, have trouble with reading a pretty basic graph. The country was paralysed by strikes, it could not function any longer - of course Allende had to be removed.
> 
> EDIT: As a side note, no - the U.S. did not invade Chile in 1973. They provided support to the Chilean Armed Forces indirectly via the "economic war" policy under Nixon. The U.S. created conditions in which a successful coup could take place, but did not "invade" Chile. There was some involvement of the CIA and American intelligence had their agents in contact with Chilean military officers, but they did not actively instigate the coup - they merely condoned it. The phone transcripts between Nixon and Kissinger prove as much. There was no magical U.S. military intervention in Chile that crippled the economy that year - the economy was already crippled, hence the civil unrest. I don't know where you're getting these alternative facts from - I assume they're from Best Buy.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d'état


Also meanwhile in 1962
https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1152&context=honors_theses
The opposition parties because the left wing party was growing strong in chilla. Got funding from the United states directly

....Nearly immediately the CIA began “serious preparations to forestall such an  eventuality” and approved immediate monetary support to the two opposition
parties to the FRAP, the Christian Democrats and the Radical Party"

after they failed to prevent FRAP:

"In 1962, the mid term parliamentary elections resulted in a substantial
victory for the FRAP and a decisive loss for the Chilean conservatives11. At this
point, the American government began to seriously reconsider their actions (or lack
of action) in Chile in terms of fighting the spread of leftist politics. In addition,
during this time, many policymakers and, perhaps more importantly, the American
public, was unaware of the involvement of the American government in the Chilean
political system... tthroughout the course of the election period, roughly
$4 million dollars had been spent by the American government in order to support
various parties that competed against the FRAP and perform “some fifteen covert
action programs” to undermine the FRAP’s own political objectives"


"The election in 1964, which eventually tilted in favor of the Christian
Democrats under the leadership of Eduardo Frei, was seen as an affirmation for the
CIA that their plan had worked. "

So they succeeded in interfering with that election.
But the United States was loosing ground in chille, as the next election was going further and further leftist.
So they amped up their  program
"in addition
to this program, Washington carried out a two-‐pronged attack on The Unidad
Popular party and Salvador Allende that was strikingly similar to the tactics used in
the 1964 election. Again, the CIA implemented a “scare campaign” while massive
amounts of U.S. funding flowed into the political campaigns of Allende’s
opponents"

" Along with his national security advisor Henry Kissinger, Nixon
believed that the American government must do everything it could to keep Allende
from being inaugurated"
Ah yes, the most democratic nation, saying that they don't like another nation having an election, NOT in their favor.

"
 In one particularly secretive meeting, Nixon met with
Attorney General John Mitchell and Director of the CIA Richard Helms and these
three men discussed plans to conduct covert operations in Chile to destabilize
Allende. Years later, Helms’ notes of the meeting revealed one of Nixon’s eventual
goals of the operation: to “make the economy scream.”49
As efforts to destabilize Allende began to come apart, Nixon’s economic
program started to come to life. From American corporations with vested interest in
Chile to business owners and economic elites within Chile itself, many groups and
individuals became prime targets for Nixon’s economic destabilization program. In
theory, his program would encourage businesses within Chile to promote economic
instability on a domestic level while massive cuts in aid and economic assistance
would cripple Chile’s economy on an international level. To this point, American
foreign aid to Chile decreased from over $260 million in 1967 to under $4 million by
1973"

So in other words, no, it's not communism that dropped their economy. It was the United States directly interfering over, and over and over again.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

"By securing a high level of influence and access to the Chilean political
system, and more importantly Allende’s own political coalition, the CIA was able to
more effectively implement devastating covert economic action against the Allende
regime. One of the most economically crippling events within the Allende era was a
45 day long strike held by the Chilean truckers union. Years later, it would be
revealed that the CIA had helped finance this strike by using laundered money
through various backchannels and third parties, including Christian Democratic
parties in Europe"

 funded by the United States. Destabling a goverment, by the United States, for the United States.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Reual said:


> *Sudden jump 10 years into the past*


I am well-aware of economic sanctions against Chile as well as intelligence operations in the region - I mentioned as much. Your claim was that "the U.S. invaded Chile in 1973" and that was the cause of the country's economic collapse - are you now making a concession or are you deflecting and back-pedalling by restating what was already said?

As a side note, no government is obligated to provide foreign aid or to trade with another, particularly not if they're opposed to the ruling party and in support of the opposition party. If that causes the economy of said country to collapse then it wasn't a sustainable economy anyway.

Now, let's make this a simple yes or no question - did the U.S. invade Chile in 1973, yes or no? If you can't answer that question then there's no point in discussing this with you, I'm not interested in your alternative facts.


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## BitMasterPlus (Jul 24, 2021)

WG481 said:


> This thread is pro-commie bullshit


ftfy


----------



## Deleted User (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I mentioned as much. Your claim was that the U.S. invaded Chile in 1973


Well considering multiple CIA agents came to the country, No. I'm not going to make a concession. Or backdown. Engaging in economic warfare and sending federal agents by my books is still invasion, it doesn't have to mean military war
And also
"Allende's government and the "Chilean path to Socialism" caused massive inflation and widespread poverty."
This is the part I should of quoted specifically. Since you said it caused massive inflation and was chilles fault.
That's false, the United States caused that massive inflation.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Foxi4 said:


> As a side note, no government is obligated to provide foreign aid or to trade with another, particularly not if they're opposed to the ruling party and in support of the opposition party.


Great, but you also shouldn't fund opposition parties  in a country you are not apart of as a means to overthrow a democratic election

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Foxi4 said:


> Now, let's make this a simple yes or no question - did the U.S. invade Chile in 1973, yes or no?


Simple yes. not necessarily directly 1973. I'll concede there. as it begun a bit earlier.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Reual said:


> Well considering multiple CIA agents came to the country, No. I'm not going to make a concession. Or backdown. Engaging in economic warfare and sending federal agents by my books is still invasion, it doesn't have to mean war
> And also
> "Allende's government and the "Chilean path to Socialism" caused massive inflation and widespread poverty."
> This is the part I should of quoted specifically. Since you said it caused massive inflation and was chilles fault.
> That's false, the United States caused that massive inflation.


That's a lot of words instead of a yes or a no. Did they invade Chile or not? You're unnecessarily extending your own agony, there's no shame in making a mistake if you can take it on the chin. Doubling down on a mistake makes you look foolish, and a poor interlocutor. If you're refusing to ingest facts then no actual debate is taking place, you're just proclaiming your beliefs on a soap box. History is what it is - you can't have an opinion on it, things either happened or they did not.

Edit: Nevermind, you're doubling down on stupid. That's that then, have a nice thread, I suppose.

Side note to actual readers - the U.S. did not invade Chile, by definition.

Invasion, _noun_ - an instance of invading a country or region *with an armed force*.


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## Deleted User (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Side note to actual readers - the U.S. did not invade Chile, by definition.


I explained my definition, as saying invasion doesn't really work in the modern era of cold wars. Where rather than using direct force, you use other means. 
"Well considering multiple CIA agents came to the country, No. I'm not going to make a concession. Or backdown. Engaging in economic warfare and sending federal agents by my books is still invasion, it doesn't have to mean military war"


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Reual said:


> I explained my definition, as saying invasion doesn't really work in the modern era of cold wars. Where rather than using direct force, you use other means.
> "Well considering multiple CIA agents came to the country, No. I'm not going to make a concession. Or backdown. Engaging in economic warfare and sending federal agents by my books is still invasion, it doesn't have to mean military war"


I don't care what your definition is. This is a common trick - redefining words to exaggerate claims and make them all fit neatly into the narrative you're trying to sell. No, there was no invasion of Chile in 1973, or the years preceding 1973. Iraq - that's an invasion. Boots and tank treads on the ground, missiles and planes in the skies. An armed military force entering a foreign country for a specific combat purpose. In order to be considered an invader, one must be a belligerent in the armed conflict. The U.S. most definitely had a hand in overthrowing Allende's regime (a man who might I add was being chastised by his own Chamber of Deputies for attempting to establish a totalitarian system of government and steamrolled over the constitution as he pleased), the government definitely funded the opposition party (which is a 100% election interference), it definitely engaged in a trade war with Chile and it definitely ran intelligence operations in the country, it did not invade Chile. If we can't agree on that basic historical fact and you instead choose to make ridiculous claims "because you have your own definition" then the discussion is silly and not worth having. I also vehemently disagree with the notion that the economy explicitly took a nosedive because of "U.S. interference" - that played a part, but by your own admission, the government has been involved in Chile a decade prior to Allende's government being installed. It took a *sharp* nosedive as a direct result of boneheaded economic policy which provided quick benefits in the short term that dissipated over the following years until the economy spiralled out of control.


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## WG481 (Jul 24, 2021)

BitMasterPlus said:


> ftfy


I love how GBATemp claims that was a quote of my real post lmao.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

WG481 said:


> I love GBATemp.


Fixed that for you.


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## Deleted User (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I don't care what your definition is. This is a common trick - redefining words to exaggerate claims and make them all fit neatly into the narrative you're trying to sell. No, there was no invasion of Chile in 1973, or the years preceding 1973. Iraq - that's an invasion. Boots and tank treads on the ground, missiles and planes in the skies. An armed military force entering a foreign country for a specific combat purpose. In order to be considered an invader, one must be a belligerent in the armed conflict. The U.S. most definitely had a hand in overthrowing Allende's regime (a man who might I add was being chastised by his own Chamber of Deputies for attempting to establish a totalitarian system of government and steamrolled over the constitution as he pleased), the government definitely funded the opposition party (which is a 100% election interference), it definitely engaged in a trade war with Chile and it definitely ran intelligence operations in the country, it did not invade Chile. If we can't agree on that basic historical fact and you instead choose to make ridiculous claims "because you have your own definition" then the discussion is silly and not worth having. I also vehemently disagree with the notion that the economy explicitly took a nosedive because of "U.S. interference" - that played a part, but by your own admission, the government has been involved in Chile a decade prior to Allende's government being installed. It took a *sharp* nosedive as a direct result of boneheaded economic policy which provided quick benefits in the short term that dissipated over the following years until the economy spiralled out of control.


if your down to nickpick word choice than I'm taking it that you have no other arguments left.
Further more
"I also vehemently disagree with the notion that the economy explicitly took a nosedive because of "U.S. interference" - that played a part, but by your own admission, the government has been involved in Chile a decade prior to Allende's government being installed"
Yes,they were involved previously, infact, the United States succeeded in getting their candidate in. Then the second one was constantly interfered, but they, United states, lost.
Second, I have to repeat this.

"In one particularly secretive meeting, Nixon met with
Attorney General John Mitchell and Director of the CIA Richard Helms and these
three men discussed plans to conduct covert operations in Chile to destabilize
Allende. Years later, Helms’ notes of the meeting revealed one of Nixon’s eventual
goals of the operation: to “make the economy scream.”
Nixon's goal was to literately tank the economy. No buts.

"

"By securing a high level of influence and access to the Chilean political
system, and more importantly Allende’s own political coalition, the CIA was able to
more effectively implement devastating covert economic action against the Allende
regime."
This doesn't get any more damning, it wasn't Chile's bonehead decisions. this was the United States actively interfering.

Edit:

Re read what I stated before responding, I had to make adjustments for clarity sake


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Reual said:


> if your down to nickpick word choice than I'm taking it that you have no other arguments left.


You're literally claiming that something that never happened did in fact happen. That's not "word choice", that's "factual error". I would be nitpicking if I started correcting your spelling, but I'm enacting the mental effort of going through your posts because I'm interested in where this goes, and mildly entertained.

The economy collapsed because of Allende, his economic policy and last-minute austerity measures. The country was heavily reliant on copper exports, it was its primary export commodity, accounting for as much as 50% of receipts. In the same time frame the price of copper plummeted by 1/3rd - if you put all of your eggs in one basket, you only need to trip up once to go hungry. Moreover, agrarian reform and nationalisation of industries didn't quite work out as planned and hyperinflation set in - at that point the snowball is pushed down the hill and only grows in time.


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## Deleted User (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> You're literally claiming that something that never happened did in fact happen.


I have not stated ANYTHING that implies they went to war. I stated invasion, invasion, does not have to mean military.
I could say coach roaches are invading my house right now, and it would make sense. The CIA, right, invaded chille, which is by extension, the united states. The United States, DIRECTLY interfered, they effectively invaded. 
Do I have to make myself anymore clear than that?


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Reual said:


> I have not stated ANYTHING that implies they went to war. I stated invasion, invasion, does not have to mean military.
> I could say coach roaches are invading my house right now, and it would make sense. The CIA, right, invaded chille, which is by extension, the united states. The United States, DIRECTLY interfered, they effectively invaded.
> Do I have to make myself anymore clear than that?


Oh, you made yourself very clear. You made it clear that you don't know what an invasion is, but you insist on using the term regardless.


 
Viva Chile - skyrocketing into prosperity as soon as they removed the socialist regime and dissolved the junta, at an unprecedented trajectory not seen in the years before. Friedman was right, you're wrong.


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## Nincompoopdo (Jul 24, 2021)

Microsoft is capitalism/democracy - with their goal of a computer on every desktop. Sun MicroSytem is communism/socialist where the users are only given a screen and a keyboard, the processing is done in the centralized mainframe computer. Now the world is moving to Sun MicroSystem way of computing - which is similar in concept to cloud computing where the processing is not local. 

Democracy is giving power to the individuals, where every node matters - which is where Blockchain is heading, and this relies on having processing done locally. Cloud computing is the opposite, it's taking power away from the individuals and having a centralized processing system.


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## Deleted User (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Viva Chile - skyrocketing into prosperity as soon as they removed the socialist regime and dissolved the junta, at an unprecedented trajectory not seen in the years before. Friedman was right, you're wrong.


Holy shit you seriously can't read. If Nixon, alright. We already established this. Stated they want Chille's government to bleed, why the fuck do you think they weren't doing so well?



Are you seriously telling me, the richest most powerful nation at that time (USA), could not fuck with another country to such an extreme that it would make another economic model look bad (chille)
Are you that dense.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Reual said:


> Holy shit you seriously can't read. If Nixon, alright. We already established this. Stated they want Chille's government to bleed, why the fuck do you think they weren't doing so well?


Why would I accept a definition that is incorrect? Nixon said a lot of things, none of them authorised or otherwise ordered an invasion of Chile, which is explicitly a term that refers to a military incursion with armed forces.


Reual said:


> Are you seriously telling me, the richest most powerful nation at that time (USA), could not fuck with another country to such an extreme that it would make another economic model look bad (chille)
> Are you that dense.


The density of this thread is definitely increasing.


----------



## Deleted User (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Oh, you made yourself very clear. You made it clear that you don't know what an invasion is, but you insist on using the term regardless.


Cockroaches *invaded *my house. A burglar *invaded  *my home.
These are correct, most people would agree. If your seriously going to continue to play the word game.And continue to ingnore that my usage of invade or invaded is correct, then I can say meddled. Does it change anything I stated? No.
You're being obtuse.




Foxi4 said:


> "Holy shit you seriously can't read. If Nixon, alright. We already established this. Stated they want Chille's government to bleed, why the fuck do you think they weren't doing so well?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


First off, that has nothing to respond against what I stated. I've put my message there for context. Second, your failing to address that United States is a economic super power, who can absolutely mess with another country to a degree that whatever economic system they have.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

And to make clear how your failing to address that, it's primarily by waging an entirely different argument about a single word. Despite the fact that my usage of the word, does make sense, and it does not always mean war. I find it really stupid if cockroaches started pointing guns in someones kitchen, it makes no sense.

If you want a closer definition to the modern usage of invasion. It generally follows a unwanted outside source (CIA cockroach, bugler ) , coming into another area, and messing with it. cockroaches are pests, they lay eggs and well, do other unwanted actions. A bugler steals shit. The CIA is known for overthrowing governments.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/invasion
In matter of fact, I am CORRECT


I'm a little peveed that I had to waste this much energy over a single word choice you're bickering about.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Reual said:


> Cockroaches *invaded *my house. A burglar *invaded  *my home.
> These are correct, most people would agree. If your seriously going to continue to play the word game.


Pretending to be unable to understand context is another trick. We're having a conversation about geopolitics. In geopolitics an invasion is a very specific thing. Espionage is not an invasion - it is *assumed* that foreign powers have their agents operating around the world, that's the whole point of an intelligence service. Next you'll be claiming that Russia invaded the U.S. in 2016 and nobody noticed.


> First off, that has nothing to respond against what I stated. I've put my message there for context.


I doubt that you know what context *is*, see above.


> Second, your failing to address that United States is a economic super power, who can absolutely mess with another country to a degree that whatever economic system they have.


I'm sure that they can outspend a country into oblivion (U.S.S.R.) or simply refuse to do business with another country (Cuba), but that has no bearing on whether Chile was invaded or not.


> Third your being continuously obtuse.


I'm not obtuse. I understand what you're saying, it's just that what you're saying is stupid, and untrue. You're basing your analysis on a false premise, so I'm not surprised your conclusion is also false. Chile would've collapsed regardless, or turned into a communist black hole like Cuba - the U.S. government accelerated that process, that I'll freely admit, but they did not *cause* it. Chilean economy was middling long before the U.S. got involved, as seen on the attached graph which starts in the 40's.

Viva Chile.


----------



## Deleted User (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Pretending to be unable to understand context is another trick. We're having a conversation about geopolitics. In geopolitics an invasion is a very specific thing. Espionage is not an invasion - it is *assumed* that foreign powers have their agents operating around the world, that's the whole point of an intelligence service. Next you'll be claiming that Russia invaded the U.S. in 2016 and nobody noticed.
> I doubt that you know what context is due to what I said above.
> I'm sure that they can outspend a country into oblivion (U.S.S.R.) or simply refuse to do business with another country (Cuba), but that has no bearing on whether Chile was invaded or not.
> I'm not obtuse. I understand what you're saying, it's just that what you're saying is stupid, and untrue. You're basing your analysis on a false premise, so I'm not surprised your conclusion is also false. Chile would've collapsed regardless, or turned into a communist black hole like Cuba - the U.S. government accelerated that process, that I'll freely admit, but they did not *cause* it. Chilean economy was middling long before the U.S. got involved, as seen on the attached graph which starts in the 40's.
> ...


Go reread what I stated.
We're done here.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Foxi4 said:


> I'm sure that they can outspend a country into oblivion (U.S.S.R.) or simply refuse to do business with another country (Cuba), but that has no bearing on whether Chile was invaded or not.


 
2. the incoming spread of something usually hurtful
If cia agents, who come from the united states, come into chille, and they destabilize their economy. that 100% matches with what I've been stating this entire time.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Reual said:


> Go reread what I stated.
> We're done here.


Posting a broader definition isn't going to save you here - context matters, and the context is geopolitics. You know very well what an "invasion" is in the context of one country invading another - it's explicitly a military conflict. You're most definitely "done" here, since you're unwilling to admit error. If there was a 1973 invasion of Chile by the U.S., no doubt you will be able to provide us with a document, like a newspaper clipping, saying that it occurred. It shouldn't be a big deal - an invasion of a foreign country is a big news item. Can you provide one, or are you just clowning around?

 

I raise you to Oxford and fold my arms, giggling.


----------



## SG854 (Jul 24, 2021)

You're invading my privacy. Get your own room.


----------



## Deleted User (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Posting a broader definition isn't going to save you here - context matters, and the context is geopolitics. You know very well what an "invasion" is in the context of one country invading another - it's explicitly a military conflict. You're most definitely "done" here, since you're unwilling to admit error. If there was a 1973 invasion of Chile by the U.S., no doubt you will be able to provide us with a document, like a newspaper clipping, saying that it occurred. It shouldn't be a big deal - an invasion of a foreign country is a big news item. Can you provide one, or are you just clowning around?
> 
> View attachment 270904
> 
> I raise you to Oxford and fold my arms, giggling.


hmm, that's odd. where's the other definitions foxi4. You wouldn't intentionally try misleading an argument...
_would you


 _
powered by Oxford. Perhaps a fluke



here's  Oxford dictionary, you know, THE SAME ONE YOU JUST LINKED.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/invasion
foxi4, engaging in dishonest discussion here aren't you?


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

SG854 said:


> You're invading my privacy. Get your own room.


I'm very invasive - I come into threads and spread the giggles, like a chuckle-cancer.


Reual said:


> Foxi4, engaging in dishonest discussion here aren't you?





> Context matters


How seething are you, on a scale of 36 degrees Celsius to 100 degrees Celsius?

The U.S. did not invade Chile. The government had active intelligence agents in the country, as it most likely does in any other country of interest. That's not an "invasion". I don't know why you keep defending this like a point of honour. It makes you look extremely childish.


----------



## Deleted User (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> The U.S. did not invade Chile.


CIA agents went to chille, with the direct intent of destabilizing their government, or using their government for the united States, against what the majority wanted.

That is definition number 2  of invasion.
Invasion is a very broad term. And as you stated, context matters, in my messages in the past, there is literately nothing implying a military conflict. So you should of understand that it is the second definition. ESPECIALLY since I had already stated, invasion doesn't have to mean military conflict.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Foxi4 said:


> How seething are you, on a scale of 36 degrees Celsius to 100 degrees Celsius?


Seething wouldn't be accurate as I lack anger.
more like intensely annoyed/irritated. 60C is where I am.


----------



## Coto (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I especially liked the part about Chile escaping the iron grasp of socialism, with support of the U.S. - good for them. After the removal of Allende and the dissolution of the subsequent junta the country adopted the principles of free market capitalism and by 2017 it became the richest country in South America, according to World Bank:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_American_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
> 
> ...


Thank you Foxi4

You're stating the truth of our Country. Sadly chilean people were tricked into falling into socialism again. Thankfully our armed forces have been getting along better with citizens since Cuban G-2 guerrilla planned the communist coup that took place in Chile back 18th Oct. of 2019.
At first it'd look like the government wanted to oppose our militia against citizen, but we figured it out quickly, and instead decided to restore Chile's Faith in Christianity, as you may know, our armed forces strongly believe in family, God and citizenship resembling exactly Poland.

Well, turns out thousand of Cuban G-2 guerrillas attacked out churches, incinerated animals (baby cats), and of course are trying to cause war in Araucanía. They've killed a lot of  chileans opposing their Communist regime (disguised as Mapuches, trying to revive an older cause Realists did back then in the seventies, of which eventually would lead up to the Military Coup, back then in 1973).

Our military is against Communism. And United Nations (through S N U Chile) is trying to frame the fake war in Araucanía, to bring in United Nations military. (Communists in disguise, self proclaimed globalists).



BTW, Cuba after 62 years said enough, this is it. That's exactly what socialism brings to a country.


Edit: Both Presidents killed in Africa and Haiti, are related to United Nations, since they've deployed their military and trained them here in Chile back in the 2010s (our military was against it of course).


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## WG481 (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I hath repaired thine mistake according to mine own joking manner en which I believed your message should have been composed, good sir. Enjoy the rest of thine nightly Earth sequence.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Reual said:


> CIA agents went to chille, with the direct intent of destabilizing their government for the united States against what the majority wanted.
> 
> That is definition number 2  of invasion.


I don't think I can treat you seriously after this, just so you know. 

No, that's not an invasion. You're misusing the word by applying a definition that is incorrect in context. It's hard for me to explain this any better to you, if you want to live in a reality in which the United States invaded Chile, that's fine, but you're the only one. There's a very good reason why you won't find any references to a "U.S. invasion of Chile" - it's because there wasn't one. The definition you're using is applicable in different contexts, but not this one.

With that being said, I am very amused by the metal image of cockroaches invading your house, sneaking out of U.S.S. Couch wearing little uniforms. That part I liked, it brightened up the evening.

I'll say this one more time for posterity and leave you be, as funny as this exchange is. If you ever go on a camping trip with a friend, spend the night together in a tent and then have a little photoshoot in the wilderness, I ask you to do one thing. When you recount that story to your other friends, please don't tell them that you took your friend into the woods, slept with them and then shot them. If you do, they're going to call the police and you'll immediately get arrested under suspicion of kidnapping, rape and murder.

I fully understand that words have multiple definitions - I'm a linguist, it is my trade. What I'm telling you, and what you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge, is that the *choice* of definition isn't up to you - it's context-dependent. You explaining what you originally meant doesn't make the statement any less silly - the right course of action was to correct yourself, which would've been accepted and it would've ended the exchange there. You instead chose to double down, which I consider clowning around. You're free to do so, just be aware of how that looks. The U.S. still didn't invade Chile, that is a historical fact, but we're all a little bit dumber after going through this exercise.


Coto said:


> Thank you Foxi4
> 
> You're stating the truth of our Country. Sadly chilean people were tricked into falling into socialism again. Thankfully our armed forces have been getting along better with citizens since Cuban G-2 guerrilla planned the communist coup that took place in Chile back 18th Oct. of 2019.
> At first it'd look like the government wanted to oppose our militia against citizen, but we figured it out quickly, and instead decided to restore Chile's Faith in Christianity, as you may know, our armed forces strongly believe in family, God and citizenship resembling exactly Poland.
> ...


Viva Chile!


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## jimbo13 (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I'm very invasive - I come into threads and spread the giggles, like a chuckle-cancer.
> 
> 
> How seething are you, on a scale of 36 degrees Celsius to 100 degrees Celsius?
> ...




The carrot is a raid-tier troll or on _"the spectrum" _whose entire world philosophy is U.S. Bad, Marxism good lacking any context or historical knowledge.


----------



## Coto (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I don't think I can treat you seriously after this, just so you know.
> 
> No, that's not an invasion. You're misusing the word by applying a definition that is incorrect in context. It's hard for me to explain this any better to you, if you want to live in a reality in which the United States invaded Chile, that's fine, but you're the only one. There's a very good reason why you won't find any references to a U.S. invasion of Chile - it's because there wasn't one. The definition you're using is applicable in different contexts, but not this one.
> 
> ...



It means a lot to me! Poland was always right rejecting Communism.

Viva Poland!


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Coto said:


> It means a lot to me! Poland was always right rejecting Communism.
> 
> Viva Poland!


The only sad part about the transformation of Chile was how long the junta lasted. Pinochet was a right bastard, a bastard Chile needed for one or two afternoons to "clean up shop", not for years of repression and murder of civilians. I'm glad that it all ended in a peaceful transition of power, much like it has in my own country. Chile's on the up and up, has been ever since, which cannot be said about some its neighbours. Hold on to that - freedom can be easily taken away, but very hard to regain.


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## Coto (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> The only sad part about the transformation of Chile was how long the junta lasted. Pinochet was a right bastard, a bastard Chile needed for one or two afternoons to "clean up shop", not for years of repression and murder of civilians. I'm glad that it all ended in a peaceful transition of power, much like it has in my own country. Chile's on the up and up, has been ever since, which cannot be said about some its neighbours. Hold on to that - freedom can be easily taken away, but very hard to regain.



I respect Pinochet, but he's by no means an assassin or the likes. Instead, he took every communist terrorist popping up and killed them one by one. He was even acknowledged as "Futa Lonco", the highest rank by chilean ancestors, the Araucanos. Something never achieved before by anybody outside chilean ancestors. And that was because they were being raped and killed by communists, and Pinochet as promised gave them back their lands, belongings, and such.

Here's a picture of one of them:

el ultimo Futa Lonco de la Araucanìa | Patagonia Rebelde es "Orgulloso de ser Magallánico"


Trivia:
"unnamed.jpg" shows Pinochet and Elisa Loncon (Communist, acting now in the fake new constitution as a leader of chilean ancestors, trying to refund Chile's flag, History, and of course, militia). What you see here is Pinochet giving her a scholarship so she could improve her studies overseas.

And that lady now claims Pinochet was a terrorist.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Coto said:


> I respect Pinochet, but he's by no means an assassin or the likes. Instead, he took every communist terrorist popping up and killed them one by one. He was even acknowledged as "Futa Lonco", the highest rank by chilean ancestors, the Araucanos. Something never achieved before by anybody outside chilean ancestors. And that was because they were being raped and killed by communists, and Pinochet as promised gave them back the lands, animals, and such.
> 
> Here's a picture of one of them:
> 
> ...


I'm certain that the initial goals were noble, or as noble as they can be in a temporary military dictatorship, but ultimate power ultimately corrupts. A lot of innocent people got caught up in that mess, so it's not entirely black and white like that. Pinochet's methods were very extreme, I don't think the country would be where it is now, socially or economically, if the junta continued to operate. Pinochet was a result of the pendulum swinging back from one extreme to the other, and while he played a crucial role in transforming Chile, it's the restoration of democracy and the free market that propelled it ahead of the rest of South America. This is why I characterise him as "a right bastard that was needed at the time" - he prevented a lot of turmoil and saved Chile from total collapse, but he introduced a lot of turmoil of his own into the equation. We should all be happy that the days of the Cold War are over and such shadow plays are left in the past, at least in the majority of the civilised world. Hopefully we won't have to revisit them in our lifetimes. I can say similar things about Polish anti-communist heroes - Lech Wałęsa did negotiate the dissolution of the People's Republic in '89, but he *was* an informant himself, and who knows what damage he's done while simultaneously "freeing" Poland. People have many faces, even if they only show you one at a time.


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## Coto (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Hopefully we won't have to revisit them in our lifetimes.



Well, current Cuba situation and current 2030 United Nations agenda, (and some confidential docs) shows communists are back and they're taking over Latin America (that includes Russia and China). You'll hear more about it as time goes.


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## Xzi (Jul 24, 2021)

Coto said:


> Well, current Cuba situation and current 2030 United Nations agenda, (and some confidential docs) shows communists are back and they're taking over Latin America (that includes Russia and China). You'll hear more about it as time goes.


Lol in what world does Latin America include Russia and China?  I don't think China is going back to actual communism any time soon now that the Chinese government rakes in profit from every business that operates there.  Modern China is set up like a pyramid scheme, very similar to America.  And Russia will have Putin as a dictator until he dies of old age.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Lol in what world does Latin America include Russia and China?  I don't think China is going back to actual communism any time soon now that the Chinese government rakes in profit from every business that operates there.  Modern China is set up like a pyramid scheme, very similar to America.  And Russia will have Putin as a dictator until he dies of old age.


I fully suspect that Putin will be embalmed like Lenin, unless Russia invents a Golden Throne, in which case he'll sit there forever WH40K-style. That man shows no signs of wear and tear - the devil doesn't take his own.


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## Xzi (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> I fully suspect that Putin will be embalmed like Lenin, unless Russia invents a Golden Throne, in which case he'll sit there forever WH40K-style. That man shows no signs of wear and tear - the devil doesn't take his own.


He does show plenty of hair loss so that's not entirely true, but at the very least he knows a strongman-style dictator has to continue looking strong in his public image; a lesson Trump apparently never picked up on from his Sith master.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Xzi said:


> He does show plenty of hair loss so that's not entirely true, but at the very least he knows a strongman-style dictator has to continue looking strong in his public image; a lesson Trump apparently never picked up on from his Sith master.


Have you not seen President Daddy golf? He thicc.


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## Xzi (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> Have you not seen President Daddy golf? He thicc.


Yeah he looks like he ate two Putins.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Yeah he looks like he ate two Putins.


He was putin on some weight - if you want to beef up, you have to bulk up. Body building 101.


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## Coto (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> People have many faces, even if they only show you one at a time.


BTW, Our armed forces didn't behave the way you project it. Basically the coup was begged on by millions of chilean people and they decided to act. This to move on from Socialism. 

Sadly in Venezuela, or Cuba their armed forces have gone full Communist. So it's kind of insulting to name chilean coup acts to be in the same group as earlier armed forces. Anyway, chileans are realizing this the hard way.... Yet once again, as same chilean decisions led the country, back in the sixties, to go into Socialism. It's both a curse and an endless- loop. Besides, If Pinochet was some sort of double agent, there's no way our Militia would have followed his orders.


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## Xzi (Jul 24, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> He was putin on some weight - if you want to beef up, you have to bulk up. Body building 101.


By his own admission, Trump has never exercised a day in his life, weightlifting or cardio.  It drains his "human battery" and makes him die sooner.  Yes I wish I could go back to a more innocent time before I knew humans this stupid existed, thanks for asking.


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## Foxi4 (Jul 24, 2021)

Coto said:


> BTW, Our armed forces didn't behave the way you project it. Basically the coup was begged on by millions of chilean people and they decided to act. This to move on from Socialism.
> 
> Sadly in Venezuela, or Cuba their armed forces have gone full Communist. So it's kind of insulting to name chilean coup acts to be in the same group as earlier armed forces. Anyway, chileans are realizing this the hard way.... Yet once again, as same chilean decisions led the country, back in the sixties, to go into Socialism. It's both a curse and an endless- loop. Besides, If Pinochet was some sort of double agent, there's no way our Militia would have followed his orders.


Oh, I'm fully aware that the coup had fairly broad support of the population. It wasn't even the first coup, there were multiple within the span of a few years, which is very telling. This one just happened to be the one that succeeded. I'm not calling Pinochet a double-agent, I'm just calling him extreme because his measures were extreme. There's a reason why "free helicopter rides" entered the realm of dark humour.


Xzi said:


> By his own admission, Trump has never exercised a day in his life, weightlifting or cardio. It drains his "human battery" and makes him die sooner. Yes I wish I could go back to a more innocent time before I knew humans this stupid existed, thanks for asking.


Donald is far too active to squeeze in additional exercise - he's already the perfect masculine form, you can't improve on that.

Okay, no more shitposting, we've had fun.


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## Coto (Jul 24, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Lol in what world does Latin America include Russia and China?  I don't think China is going back to actual communism any time soon now that the Chinese government rakes in profit from every business that operates there.  Modern China is set up like a pyramid scheme, very similar to America.  And Russia will have Putin as a dictator until he dies of old age.


Wow, what a shitty response. But what can I expect, if it comes from trolls.

1) Tell that to Tencent and CCP Business.  (it may give you a hint how China works)

2) Learn some Latin America history and how every country here has, as of 2021, gone Communist. (Socialist Constitution, Communist President), and how China CCP interacts with each of them. (Although United Nations has "outsourced" that task now)


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## RandomUser (Jul 24, 2021)

FAST6191 said:


> On wages, particularly minimum ones, then I do need to inject a favourite phrase at this point. That being the real minimum wage is zero -- if I am paying through the nose then I want something for my money. No olds, single parents, *disabled people*, dumb people, students with odd schedules, sick people... of course I will not say that when you don't get a call back (if I can't find a gap in your job history, grades I care about, someone else in the pile that was better... then my HR person is being fired too) but we all know the real reason.


This is probably why disabled people are always in perpetual poverty. Some employers are finding out that they perform just as well as their able bodied counterpart if not better.
https://guardianhelmets.com/employees-disabilities-incredibly-high-performing-workers/
Society don't give a rat's a** about the disabled, and they too face some of the things that falls under what is known as systemic racism. This basically excludes disabled people, and disability does not discriminate. I guess that is the reason why they are called "the orphaned minority".
I think I would support a system that will keep the disabled people out of perpetual poverty.


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## Xzi (Jul 24, 2021)

Coto said:


> Wow, what a shitty response. But what can I expect, if it comes from trolls.


I was not trolling.



Coto said:


> 1) Tell that to Tencent and CCP Business. (it may give you a hint how China works)


Great example of a capitalist business which benefits oligarchs.



Coto said:


> 2) Learn some Latin America history and how every country here has been, as of 2021, gone Communist. (Socialist Constitution, Communist President), and how China CCP interacts with each of them. (Although United Nations has "outsourced" that task now)


So capitalist China is buying up a bunch of houses and land in Latin America, and the capitalist governments down there are just letting it happen, right?  I know because the exact same thing is happening in the US.  If there was a hint of communism involved in those transactions, we'd be all over them like flies on shit, but China's currency converts to USD just fine.


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## WiiMiiSwitch (Jul 25, 2021)

If we had communism
We wouldn't have polls!


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## Deleted User (Jul 26, 2021)

WiiMiiSwitch said:


> If we had communism
> We wouldn't have polls!


for what reason? I don't see why polls wouldn't exist under communism. Is it because you're unaware that communism does not mean authoritarian?


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## WiiMiiSwitch (Jul 26, 2021)

Reual said:


> for what reason? I don't see why polls wouldn't exist under communism. Is it because you're unaware that communism does not mean authoritarian?


No, I mean polls for our Democracy 
I remember in 2020 every day on THE NEWS I'D SEE POLLS ON TRUMP OR BIDEN


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## Deleted User (Jul 26, 2021)

WiiMiiSwitch said:


> No, I mean polls for our Democracy
> I remember in 2020 every day on THE NEWS I'D SEE POLLS ON TRUMP OR BIDEN


Umm... I hate to break it to you, but I'm pretty sure that would still happen under Communism. News stations who are covering the election (since I favor anarcho communism, weak government, is democratic)  would still probably do polls. (rather than a CEO ontop. odds are 

The only significant change I would imagine is the total amount of candidates. Since it would no longer be constrained to a two party system, but rather multiparty, if even parties at all.
Since if you own the means to production, it also means you already own the means to campaign.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Since in a Capitalist system, you don't own means, at least for 90% of the majority.  Which also means you have to obtain the means through spending, which generally means 
A. Your a wealthy business owner, which in that case, money isn't a problem
B. You suck up to a company for funds, or political party. 
C. you attempt to raise money yourself and ignore (or don't have) access to the options above, this route often fails, since your going to easily be outspent.


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## ClancyDaEnlightened (Jul 26, 2021)




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## Deleted User (Jul 26, 2021)

aadz93 said:


>



That's pretty garbage. I don't like authoritarian governments. If you flee from one country, you should just be allowed to go to another. 
However I don't get what bearing this has on the conversation. Modern China and Modern North Korea are both capitalist countries, and are still authoritarian to this day.


----------



## WiiMiiSwitch (Jul 26, 2021)

Reual said:


> Umm... I hate to break it to you, but I'm pretty sure that would still happen under Communism. News stations who are covering the election (since I favor anarcho communism, weak government, is democratic)  would still probably do polls. (rather than a CEO ontop. odds are
> 
> The only significant change I would imagine is the total amount of candidates. Since it would no longer be constrained to a two party system, but rather multiparty, if even parties at all.
> Since if you own the means to production, it also means you already own the means to campaign.
> ...


n o r t h k o r e a


----------



## Deleted User (Jul 26, 2021)

WiiMiiSwitch said:


> n o r t h k o r e a


Okay, North Korea is authoritarian/dictatorship, it's also capitalist. More specifically since  i am calling them (china and north korea) it's more specifically state capitalist. Which essentially means the government pulls the strings heavily regarding the economy

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Rather than CEO's handling the company themselves with their digression for the most part (exuding regulations), China and Korea can effectively say, fuck all, do what we want since we said so.


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## ClancyDaEnlightened (Jul 26, 2021)




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## Foxi4 (Jul 26, 2021)

He's trolling you, @Reual. I thought that was pretty obvious, @WiiMiiSwitch is the poll meister. Shitposting outside of EOF, as funny as it is, should be kept to a minimum WiiMii - just thought I should point this out before it develops into multiple pages of flailing again.


----------



## Deleted User (Jul 26, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> He's trolling you, @Reual. I thought that was pretty obvious, @WiiMiiSwitch is the poll meister. Shitposting outside of EOF, as funny as it is, should be kept to a minimum WiiMii - just thought I should point this out before it develops into multiple pages of flailing again.


Sadly, I've seen so much shit on this website that I honestly cannot tell the difference between trolling and a genuine post, keep in mind on other threads, I'm dealing with anti vaxxers, or some other conspiratorial bull crap.


----------



## Foxi4 (Jul 26, 2021)

Reual said:


> Sadly, I've seen so much shit on this website that *I honestly cannot tell the difference between trolling and a genuine post*, keep in mind on other threads, I'm dealing with anti vaxxers, or some other conspiratorial bull crap.


I realise that, which is why I'm pointing it out to you. Know thy lord's mercy, as they say.


----------



## WiiMiiSwitch (Jul 26, 2021)

Foxi4 said:


> He's trolling you, @Reual. I thought that was pretty obvious, @WiiMiiSwitch is the poll meister. Shitposting outside of EOF, as funny as it is, should be kept to a minimum WiiMii - just thought I should point this out before it develops into multiple pages of flailing again.


I am not a shitposter


----------



## ToMattBan (Jul 26, 2021)

Xzi said:


> So capitalist China is buying up a bunch of houses and land in Latin America, and the capitalist governments down there are just letting it happen, right?



Here in Latin America, we don't have a capitalist govern, nor a cummunist one. What we havehere is a fight between the powerfull countries. For example: USA literraly told us if we accept the Russian vaccine, they will break all the economic deals. In the another hand, China is buying a lot of land here, most energic enteprises are Chinese now, so, we are hostages of them, 'cause they can simply turn off everything.

Brazil, in the books, always are capitalist, but this isn't really true. Between 2002 - 2018 a socialist party was in the charge for here, they made a lot of "public" policies, just for remain in power. A lot of poor people who really need this acistancy was denied. In the last presidencial election, a capitalist win but all the others parts of the govern still comunist. This is just a mess, because there is a fight of interests, the president can't do nothing because all the other polliticans are against him and the other pollicts can't do anything because the president didn't sign their laws. In the final, the people is who are fu**ed.


----------



## Xzi (Jul 26, 2021)

ToMattBan said:


> Here in Latin America, we don't have a capitalist govern, nor a cummunist one. What we havehere is a fight between the powerfull countries. For example: USA literraly told us if we accept the Russian vaccine, they will break all the economic deals. In the another hand, China is buying a lot of land here, most energic enteprises are Chinese now, so, we are hostages of them, 'cause they can simply turn off everything.
> 
> Brazil, in the books, always are capitalist, but this isn't really true. Between 2002 - 2018 a socialist party was in the charge for here, they made a lot of "public" policies, just for remain in power. A lot of poor people who really need this acistancy was denied. In the last presidencial election, a capitalist win but all the others parts of the govern still comunist. This is just a mess, because there is a fight of interests, the president can't do nothing because all the other polliticans are against him and the other pollicts can't do anything because the president didn't sign their laws. In the final, the people is who are fu**ed.


The CIA has been making damn sure that Central and South America remain friendly and receptive to US interests for roughly a hundred years now.  That's why any socialists that remain aren't really allowed to wield any power.  Frankly I wouldn't even be surprised if it turns out they birthed Bolsonaro in a test tube and raised him in a vat of nutrients as a partial Trump clone.


----------



## notimp (Sep 18, 2021)

aadz93 said:


>



"I get a lot of crap for saying that china only has about 70 years of history, but the truth of the matter ist that..."

jimbo13 likes this.

I didnt even make it to the core argument, before closing my browser tab.



virrginiawallker said:


> Thank you very much for clarifying this.


Google: Was brazil ever communist?

>No. Brazil is not, has never been, and has never even been close to being a Communist country.
https://www.quora.com/Was-Brazil-a-Communist-country

Why say thank you to BS?

Brasil has been a liberalist utopia for some europeans liberal inteligencia in the 1960s - but thats about it...


> Having said that, we must bear in mind that, in the last years of his exile, Zweig looked for other places, besides fin-de-siècle Vienna, to locate both his ethical commitment and his utopia. While Europe, engaged in a suicidal war, did not offer many possibilities or future hopes, South America, and especially Brazil, were something else. From his very first visit to the country in 1936, Zweig was enthralled by the beauty and potentialities of the land, and so in a way he started projecting all his hopes and dreams onto this, for him, «new found land». The result of this fascination was to be one of his last and most polemic works, Brazil. A Land of the Future (Brasilien. Ein Land der Zukunft), published in 1941 simultaneously in four languages (Portuguese, French, German and English). As we will see later, it was met both with the highest praise and the harshest of criticisms, either as a tribute to Brazil from one of the most prominent European authors of the time or as a work of propaganda financed by the government of the dictator Getúlio Vargas.


https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/Abriu/article/download/abriu2019.8.10/29516

Historic US Brazil relations:
https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-brazil/

Current US foreign policy towards brazil:
https://www.cfr.org/report/global-brazil-and-us-brazil-relations

Never trust a rightwing temper. You guys make me sick.

Do you think just because the US ultra right fringe is unable to differenciate between socialism and communism, you can simply post lies and get away with it?

Here is a gbatemp argument.

"Me country very shit, because we had socialists, currently we have ultra conservative market liberalists, but, country still shit, because too many communists still in government".
"Thank you for your insights."

Please wear your baseball hats sideways from now on - for it to adequately represent your "deliberating capacity".

edit: History of the socialist movement in Brazil:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_socialist_movement_in_Brazil

edit2: Brazil is the large thing south of you. What do you learn in school these days? How to crack beer bottles with your teeth and 10 hillbilly survival tips, that will make the south americans jelly?

"My father tells me, that the problem with my country is, that there are still too damn many communists in the gouverment" - might be an excuse, but please - would you mind checking stuff like this, before spreading it around?


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## AlanGreen (Sep 25, 2021)

aadz93 said:


> As part of the discussion about communism and capitalism, its comparison, contradictions and so on, it seems to me that it is very important to talk about one of the biggest problems of modern capitalism and society as a whole. This is human trafficking. On the site https://studyhippo.com/essay-examples/human-trafficking/ I have read a lot of useful information about human trafficking and I understand how global and serious it is for the entire population of our world.



It's a nice video.


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