Current state of the International Proletarian Revolution

[Cuchulainn]

Originally Posted by salamander21

My point is that in capitalism, there is no specific "priority", but every person can pursue whatever individual goal they want. So if a person wants to go off and join a commune, then they can do it, but they can't drag other people who don't want to along with them. The reason why communism doesn't work is as I explained before; only lazy people like the man who does nothing but stay at home and watch TV would enjoy and encourage that system, while any other person would immediately leave upon realizing what the system is like. The lazy people can try to keep the productive ones from leaving by force, and the result is nothing other than slavery.

[...]

You have good points. Communism is still not practicable because of the attitude and thinking of the people; some people would be too lazy etc..

But Capitalism has its problems too.

If we continue to waste ressources like in the past - and in the capitalism we will most likely do it because our consumption is very important for for the capitalism - then this will lead to serious ressource problems in few decades. Its very likely that we will be short on oil, plastics, food, water... This will lead to more wars and high spendings on military.

Other issues of the capitalism:
- very inequal distribution of wealth (1% of the woldwide richest people have about 40% of the wealth, in Germany 10% of the richest people have 61.1% of its wealth, in the US its probably even more unequal distributed)
- concerns have much more impact on political issues than the people
- war is common to help the economy
- education is far less important than then the economy
- with our bank-, interest system its likely that there is a hyperinflation every few decades (a few people believe that a hyperinflation of euro, dollar, yen, maybe pound and other currencies will likely happen in the next few years); such a hyperinflation could increase the inequality of wealth

Then the idea arises to distribute the money, or products, according to who has done how much work to produce it,therefore eliminating the problem. But then this question arises: "How is that to be determined?"

The answer is difficult to find, and I think that the best way to determine how much a person's labor is worth is to simply let market forces do their work. Because many people see the words "market forces" as a sort of voodoo or catch-all used by capitalists, I will explain. Labor, or work is a commodity like any other. People get paid a certain amount based on how much their work is worth.
[...]

"How is that to be deteremined" is a good question.

A possibility is that the workers of a nationalized concern vote for several experts of their concern, who determine realistic prices of their products and determine how much to produce, what to produce, earnings of their workers etc..

Im curious to see how much longer we will live in our capitalism; Maybe the end of the capitalism is not very far away.

[Vythica]

salamander21

I don't know what else to say other than I disagree with pretty much everything you said.

You are right, this is how things work in a capitalistic society, but that doesn't make it morally right.

Is it right to offer someone 50 cents for a widget that is worth $1? No.

Is it right to right to be forced to accept wages that are lower than what your labour is worth? No.

On that topic btw, everyone is entitled to a living wage. Everyone, regardless of the type of work they do. The one area I think you don't even understand capitalism in is when you said that your boss will try to pay you as much of that $1 wage as he can to keep you working for him. You are dead wrong on that. Your boss wants to pay you as little of that dollar as he can, without you going to a competitor. Why? Simple; more profit for him. That's a basic tenet of capitalism.

[DragoonEnNoir]

Originally Posted by Vythica

I don't know what else to say other than I disagree with pretty much everything you said.

You are right, this is how things work in a capitalistic society, but that doesn't make it morally right.

Is it right to offer someone 50 cents for a widget that is worth $1? No.

Is it right to right to be forced to accept wages that are lower than what your labour is worth? No.

On that topic btw, everyone is entitled to a living wage. Everyone, regardless of the type of work they do. The one area I think you don't even understand capitalism in is when you said that your boss will try to pay you as much of that $1 wage as he can to keep you working for him. You are dead wrong on that. Your boss wants to pay you as little of that dollar as he can, without you going to a competitor. Why? Simple; more profit for him. That's a basic tenet of capitalism.

I think part of the problem is that people confuse the Capitalist economic system with the political and socio-cultural elements that are dominant in Capitalist countries.

I don't think systemic change of any type will really create any lasting paradigm shift in thinking/action though. The issue is not merely one of economic structure, but more one of human nature.

So long as WE are unjust, possessive, acquisitive, and unloving in our hearts, then what is in our hearts will continue to flow out into our actions. Even if there were an end to classes, if our hearts are not changed, then we will simply create new classes. It makes me think of private schools where standard uniforms were established to create 'equality'. The students simply began to class students by the things that were not standard; their shoes! No matter what economic or political system we have, what is within us will still find a way out.

The only 'real' change will occur when our hearts change.



If our hearts change, then regardless of whether we live in freedom or servitude, there will be peace.