Why is communism held in such a grave regard?

gbee

Permabear wrote: »

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Remember when civil servants paid no tax? Well it was along the line that you've suggested.

To generate wealth one must make a product, sell it and make a profit on it. You don't make a profit if you give your children the money to buy the product.

Therefore ALL civil servants, school teacher, ministers etc don't generate wealth either. Them paying tax is akin to the children buying their father's products, it's a non sustainable situation. Especially as one paid them more so as they could pay their tax.

In this example the father needs a neighbour to buy his products so new money comes into his house business. However, on a national scale, Ireland is too small and we all live in the same house, we need to sell abroad and the profit needs to come home.

We need to create tangible things be it hardware or intellectual property. To this end, in our current environment, supporting co-ops and worker buy-outs and reactivating industry would be putting the €trillions to better use and encourage a better form of socialism and dignity and bring a sense of actually achieving and making something.

Shea O'Meara

Permabear wrote: »

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Couple of issues here. Firstly, just because you're poor or working class does not mean your life's goal is to collect the dole. Secondly, I think you'll find going out every day to a minimum wage job, in most cases, will never create wealth of their own, generation after generation...which is kind of the point.

Permabear wrote: »

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There is a middle ground. Access to equal levels of education based on ability and not pocket for one thing.

Tell me this much. If people didn't go out and work blue collar everyday, what would the stock market/banks etc. do for play money?

alastair

Duke Leonal Felmet wrote: »

Greed and wrongdoing will subvert any economic system, but there does exist a historical oddity in that the implementation of one economic system tends itself towards totalitarianism, despotism and genocide; while the other leans towards corruption and income inequality.

But yes, both are subverted by greed and wrongdoing.

Clearly anyone propounding 'pure' capitalism or communism is a snake-oil merchant. It isn't going to happen.

Having travelled throughout the various eastern european states during the 'golden years' of the communist era ('70's & '80's), I'd have to say that they were all pretty grim, except for Yugoslavia, which seemed to get along just fine, thank you very much, albeit with a (relatively benevolent) autocrat as leader. The problem isn't with the economic basis of communism (the faulty variety that actually existed) - some of those states managed to provide a decent enough life for their citizens, but with the distorted morality of suppressing political opposition (ignoring that the same finger can be pointed at the west too).

In the end of the day, no-one has managed to do better in the economic and democratic mix than the social democratic model of soft socialism applied in Sweden etc: states operating within free markets, but not defined by them.

Duke Leonal Felmet

gbee wrote: »

Not really. Our current industrial age was started mostly by the gentry and the ruling Protestant parties worldwide.

Low wages and even slavery was a driving force in the creation of wealth.

Our current industrial age. Do you refer to Industrialisation of Western Europe in the late 18th century or the modern Industrialisation of the world post-WW2?

Anyway, let's take a look at indices for Unskilled Wages, over time.



So here we are at the point where the Industrial Revolution kicked off, and finishing with the banning of slavery in the US. The US wages are indexed, meaning that wages at 1860 are set to a number of 100 (not money) and thus every other figure is relative. It must be noted that these are 'real wages', meaning that inflation is accounted for. Oh, and these are 'unskilled wages'. More here.

So, despite the well known and documented fact that the ruling classes were abusing their workers, the real wage of unskilled workers were still rising significantly in this period. But the best was yet to come.



Following the abolition of slavery, real unskilled wages in the US grew steadily for some time before taking a significant rise around WW1 (note that this dataset comprises of three datasets put together, so I personally doubt it rose that much in a year, and is more likely a data anomaly. Nonetheless, other datasets do mirror a sharp rise in real wages for the early 20th century).

In addition, if you doubt the robustness of the data, note that it correctly picks up the post WWI recession and the Great Depression, as both dip for these years.



Post WW2, the Western World entered a second industrial revolution, and unskilled real wages soared once more, right up to 2008.


So where are the low wages? Surely we would not see these exponential growth in wages if you were correct. I would a appreciate if the predicted 'switch the goalposts' wasn't my reward for the effort I made.

Thanks.

Liam Byrne

Permabear wrote: »

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Not completely true. Many useless people who have contributed nothing to society have more wealth, including (but not limited to) speculators, vacuous "celebs" and overpaid sports stars.

Permabear wrote: »

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Absolutely true, but many of those are still poor, so the above fact actually neither proves nor disproves the point. It basically has nothing to do with the discussion.

Who do you think is more useful to society - Sean Fitzpatrick or the local binman ?

Whose skills could you simply not do without ?

And why are they paid so little ?

Duke Leonal Felmet

alastair wrote: »

Clearly anyone propounding 'pure' capitalism or communism is a snake-oil merchant.

I wasn't. I was merely pointing out the fallacy in his argument.

Permabear

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Memnoch

I take great issue with this idea of "wealth creators."

Yes, there are a few people out there who are filthy rich because they created something everyone wanted or make something everyone wants, but equally there are plenty of people who live in ludicrous luxury without having done anything to earn it.

Not to flog a dead and at this stage cliche'd horse but the banking community is a good example of this. A group of powerful and wealthy individuals who took unnecessary and crazy risks, played with financial systems in order to generate massive short term profits for personal gain (bonuses), and then (the vast majority) were able to use their position of power to escape the consequences of any ill effects while the average hard working person continues to struggle.

Now the vast majority of the Irish populace are going to be saddled with crippling taxes in order to pay for these people's actions when we didn't gain anything from those ventures (and never stood to gain anything), when we didn't take those risks and when we didn't even make the decision to make the bank guarantees.

I'm not advocating communism, it's too impractical, but representative democracy has also clearly FAILED and miserably so. It is far too corruptible and far too easy to manipulate by the wealthy and the elite.

I would rather total, transparent democracy. Make sure everyone has an internet connection and let all major national decisions be voted upon online by the entire voting population. I.E. Electronic referenda on every issue. And limit SIGNIFICANTLY the power of individuals (i.e. elected officials) to play with the fates of everyone.

We will still need representatives for the day to day running of the country but I don't see why the people can't and shouldn't be involved in all major decision making that affects them.

sarumite

Memnoch wrote: »

I
We will still need representatives for the day to day running of the country but I don't see why the people can't and shouldn't be involved in all major decision making that affects them.

So a person who hasn't read the proposed legislation or who may not understand the proposed legislation gets to vote on said proposed legislation? How long do we wait for adequate debate on the subject before voting? Again, do we force people to acquaint themselves with the arguments for and against before voting? How do we avoid corruption in the voting system? Monitor it? so many reasons why I think tis a bad idea.

Permabear

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Memnoch

sarumite wrote: »

So a person who hasn't read the proposed legislation or who may not understand the proposed legislation gets to vote on said proposed legislation? How long do we wait for adequate debate on the subject before voting? Again, do we force people to acquaint themselves with the arguments for and against before voting? How do we avoid corruption in the voting system? Monitor it? so many reasons why I think tis a bad idea.

These are minor practical issues that can easily be worked out.

Look, the whole point of democracy is that you have to trust people. How many people really understand the issues fully when they go to the ballot box anyway? I'd rather have people being ignorant of the details (which isn't any different to how it works now.) than have the process be utterly corrupted by corrupt and dynastic politicians.

Also it's clear that most of the clowns in government are utterly clueless anyway. I'd rather put my faith directly in the people. Make the material available out there.

As for corruption in the voting system, and the need for monitoring, it would be no different to any other voting system. They are all amenable to corruption. All systems are, you just have to institute safe guards.

Memnoch

Permabear wrote: »

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Let the people vote how they want to, that's the point of democracy. You can put in safeguards to prevent abuse.

Look FF got elected how many times by throwing money at people?

This would be no different.

You still elect a government, let them present a budget, let them convince people that it's a good budget and let the people yay or nay.

I don't see where this faith in elected representatives comes in. They are just kids of politicians. This idea that we need an elite to make our decisions for us is archaic.

You say people will vote for entitlements. Maybe they will vote for lower taxes? Maybe they will vote for more robust regulation of runaway corporate interests. It's much easier to buy or coerce a politcian than to buy the 500,000 people who voted for the politician.

Permabear

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southsiderosie

Memnoch wrote: »

I'm not advocating communism, it's too impractical, but representative democracy has also clearly FAILED and miserably so. It is far too corruptible and far too easy to manipulate by the wealthy and the elite.

I would rather total, transparent democracy. Make sure everyone has an internet connection and let all major national decisions be voted upon online by the entire voting population. I.E. Electronic referenda on every issue. And limit SIGNIFICANTLY the power of individuals (i.e. elected officials) to play with the fates of everyone.

We will still need representatives for the day to day running of the country but I don't see why the people can't and shouldn't be involved in all major decision making that affects them.

This is such an unspeakably bad idea, I don't even know where to start.

First, there is an inherent contradiction in these two statements in bold. Do you really thing a direct voting process won't be shaped significantly by special groups with money? Not all special interests are rich bankers.

Second, allowing the people to directly vote on everything is a recipe for fiscal disaster. California is a perfect example: they voted to fix property taxes at a low rate, but yet consistently vote for more expensive regulation and entitlements. Actually I cannot think of one state in the US where direct ballot initiatives are both frequently used and not totally hijacked by special interest groups.

Finally, for a democracy to flourish, it needs an active and engaged citizenry. Direct citizen voting for every major decision would do little to change apathy and/or the uninformed state that many voters are in. Not to mention the fact that Ireland requires ballot initiatives for constitutional matters.

Representative democracy has not failed in Ireland. The country is in its current state because the elected leaders continue to make horrible decisions and are rarely punished by voters for doing so. Fool the public once, shame on you; fool the public multiple times over the course of the 20th century, shame on the public.

Permabear

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Memnoch

southsiderosie wrote: »

First, there is an inherent contradiction in these two statements in bold. Do you really thing a direct voting process won't be shaped significantly by special groups with money? Not all special interests are rich bankers.

I have little doubt that special interest groups won't try to influence they democratic process. However, they already do that. Fox and Sky news are two good examples. But not only do they do their best to influence voting to get desired candidates into office, these candidates then regularly shaft the public in response to lobbying (legalised bribery). This is most evident in the way that governments allow corporations to run amok. So yes, they will still continue to try and do that, but like I said, it's a lot harder to bribe 500,000 people than it is to bribe 1.

Second, allowing the people to directly vote on everything is a recipe for fiscal disaster. California is a perfect example: they voted to fix property taxes at a low rate, but yet consistently vote for more expensive regulation and entitlements. Actually I cannot think of one state in the US where direct ballot initiatives are both frequently used and not totally hijacked by special interest groups.

Yet the entire republican party/conservative movement want low taxes. I'm not saying that budget balancing etc. is an easy process but I'm sure you can put in safeguards to prevent the thing collapsing. It's not fair to take isolated examples and say the system can't/won't work. You need to build the system entirely for this purpose and if you do it you are less likely to see abuses rather than just patching in things as they are in a system that isn't designed to fascilitate the process.

It's not like the government spends money responsibly. The Irish government is stealing everyone's money to pay back debts that people never agreed to undertake. All legal and all done through the power and abuse of representative democracy. The U.S. government spends 700 billion tax payer dollars on military spending. They might still spend a lot with proper voting, but would they spend as much?

The more you concentrate power the easier it is for special interest groups to wield influence. No system is completely immune but the current system is totally perforated.

Finally, for a democracy to flourish, it needs an active and engaged citizenry. Direct citizen voting for every major decision would do little to change apathy and/or the uninformed state that many voters are in. Not to mention the fact that Ireland requires ballot initiatives for constitutional matters.

The issue of active citizenry remains true regardless of the democratic process employed and that's not going to change.

Representative democracy has not failed in Ireland. The country is in its current state because the elected leaders continue to make horrible decisions and are rarely punished by voters for doing so. Fool the public once, shame on you; fool the public multiple times over the course of the 20th century, shame on the public.

Representative democracy has failed everywhere. It is totally corrupt and corrupted and serves the needs of oligarchy rather than of the people and it is time we cast it aside and sought something better.

southsiderosie

Memnoch wrote: »

I have little doubt that special interest groups won't try to influence they democratic process. However, they already do that. Fox and Sky news are two good examples. But not only do they do their best to influence voting to get desired candidates into office, these candidates then regularly shaft the public in response to lobbying (legalised bribery). This is most evident in the way that governments allow corporations to run amok. So yes, they will still continue to try and do that, but like I said, it's a lot harder to bribe 500,000 people than it is to bribe 1.

Actually it is not that expensive to mislead 500,000 people, and once you factor in the risk of bribery, it is relatively cheap.

And, again, you act as if corporations are the only entities that throw money around during elections. Or that "corporations" or "business" are unitary interests and have a common political agenda. This is simply not the case; a Florida t-shirt importer and a Texan cotton producer are likely to have wildly divergent political views on tariffs and trade, for example.

Memnoch wrote: »

Yet the entire republican party/conservative movement want low taxes. I'm not saying that budget balancing etc. is an easy process but I'm sure you can put in safeguards to prevent the thing collapsing. It's not fair to take isolated examples and say the system can't/won't work. You need to build the system entirely for this purpose and if you do it you are less likely to see abuses rather than just patching in things as they are in a system that isn't designed to fascilitate the process.

Californian politics are dominated by Democrats; the executive has very little power. You can't link a desire for lower property taxes to an explicitly Republican/conservative agenda. The biggest advocates of lower property taxes tend to be pensioners, who have essentially voted themselves out of the property tax system, even though they often sit on some of the biggest houses in the most desirable areas.

Actually, come to think of it, pensioners generally vote themselves very low taxes and high levels of benefits, regardless of party affiliation or country. And since they vote in large numbers, politicians cave in to most of their demands.

Memnoch wrote: »

It's not like the government spends money responsibly. The Irish government is stealing everyone's money to pay back debts that people never agreed to undertake. All legal and all done through the power and abuse of representative democracy. The U.S. government spends 700 billion tax payer dollars on military spending. They might still spend a lot with proper voting, but would they spend as much?

The US voting public re-elected Bush, who presided over an expansionist military while cutting taxes. The Irish government was re-elected in 2007 despite the fact that it was obvious public spending was completely out of control. In both cases, the "tyranny of the majority" under a representative democratic system led to disastrous fiscal outcomes, but can any of us really say we are surprised? Yet what you are proposing is many times worse.

Memnoch wrote: »

The more you concentrate power the easier it is for special interest groups to wield influence. No system is completely immune but the current system is totally perforated.

No, the easier it is for special interest groups to wield power, the more they do so. In countries with limitations on campaign donations, transparency in donor rolls, and activist voters who punish corrupt parties and politicians, this is less of a problem.

Memnoch wrote: »

Representative democracy has failed everywhere. It is totally corrupt and corrupted and serves the needs of oligarchy rather than of the people and it is time we cast it aside and sought something better.

Failed everywhere? By what measures has it failed?

Fianna Fail were re-elected in 2007 despite the fact that the Galway tents were no mystery, despite the stench of corruption hanging over Bertie Ahern, and despite the weakening fiscal position of the government. In my view, the voters failed, not representative democracy as a form of government.

But let's step away from Fianna Fail for a moment. If any Irish political party in 2007 was thinking of the greater good rather than what voters wanted they would not have actively campaigned for more entitlements. Yet that is what they did. Part of the problem with Irish politics is that representatives are too sensitive to what the public wants - and yet you essentially want to institutionalize this very expensive form of populism? Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.

Permabear

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pavcro10

I think it works in theory but not in practice. Inevitably greed ruins it

Anonymous1987

Permabear wrote: »

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I disagree, speculation was not enabled by government policy, it was exacerbated by it. The financial industry, particularly the institutional investors are driven by short term targets coupled with mass psychological factors such as the herd effect make it prone to poor long term decision making, not to mention, speculation is by definition the undertaking of a highly risky venture in itself.

Duke Leonal Felmet

pavcro10 wrote: »

I think it works in theory but not in practice. Inevitably greed ruins it

It doesn't even work in theory, I'm afraid. Unless you introduce some fantastical means of distributing resources efficiently without a price mechanism (do we need 100 tractors or 100 toasters this week?). Telepathy?

sarumite

Memnoch wrote: »

These are minor practical issues that can easily be worked out.

Making sure people who decide on legislation at least have read the legislation is not a minor practical issue, its pretty major. Yes, it can be easily sorted out, but it would require draconian measures that would become totally impractical.

Look, the whole point of democracy is that you have to trust people. How many people really understand the issues fully when they go to the ballot box anyway? I'd rather have people being ignorant of the details (which isn't any different to how it works now.) than have the process be utterly corrupted by corrupt and dynastic politicians.

Also it's clear that most of the clowns in government are utterly clueless anyway. I'd rather put my faith directly in the people. Make the material available out there.

There is a difference between broad political platforms and specific legislation with technical informatio. Understanding and debating specific legislation is a full time job. As for the clowns in government and the corrupt and dynastic politicians in power, well its the same people who vote these in that would be voting on legislation they in all honesty won't even have read, so I really don't see why you think anything would change?

As for corruption in the voting system, and the need for monitoring, it would be no different to any other voting system. They are all amenable to corruption. All systems are, you just have to institute safe guards.

There is a big difference between turning up at a polling booth, presenting yourself to another person and voting compared to an anonymous person behind a computer screen who's identification is purely a digital signature.

southsiderosie

sarumite wrote: »

As for the clowns in government and the corrupt and dynastic politicians in power, well its the same people who vote these in that would be voting on legislation they in all honesty won't even have read, so I really don't see why you think anything would change?

This. The folks in office did not magically appear there.

ei.sdraob

Duke Leonal Felmet wrote: »

It doesn't even work in theory, I'm afraid. Unless you introduce some fantastical means of distributing resources efficiently without a price mechanism (do we need 100 tractors or 100 toasters this week?). Telepathy?

Aside: modern communication technology could aid more centralised communist experiments and somewhat solve the issues of communications and planning that arise in planned communist states,
large transnational corporations would be an example of organisations making use of new tech.

who knows in the far future we could endup being ruled by a ai/robotic/networked "party" who take over the running of the human race "for our own good" and "to bring more equality to workers"

ok ok i should stop reading/watching sci-fi :P

Duke Leonal Felmet

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Aside: modern communication technology could aid more centralised communist experiments and somewhat solve the issues of communications and planning that arise in planned communist states,
large transnational corporations would be an example of organisations making use of new tech.

who knows in the far future we could endup being ruled by a ai/robotic/networked "party" who take over the running of the human race "for our own good" and "to bring more equality to workers"

ok ok i should stop reading/watching sci-fi :P

I agree that technology would help aid many of communisms problems, but I'm not so sure whether it could reach the effective simplicity of the price mechanism. The price mechanism is as close to the 'hive mind' as you can get.

professore

Most of you are missing the point.

There are people out there who want to get in power and rule as absolutely as possible by any means possible - generally small men with some physical abnormalities for some strange reason. Using an 'ism' or some sort of religion or belief system makes it easier to control and manipulate people's heads. Democracy and a free press makes it harder, but not impossible. Communism sounds great in theory but disastrous in practice.

Once you become the leader you are there for life and can pass it on to your kids or someone from your inner circle. You also have a big bunch of deluded followers who think you're a great guy. A bit like Bertie / FF in this country. Or the catholic church until recently.

Look at present day Russia. The way it's ruled is pretty much identical to the way it worked under communism, with Putin de facto ruler for life.

mewso

ISAW wrote: »

Atheistic communism devoid of moral values in the sense of natural law are the ones that have slaughtered hundreds of millions.

I thought it was Non-Stamp Collecting Atheistic Communist regimes that did this but I'm no expert.

CerebralCortex

ISAW wrote: »

communism, fascism, democracy all don't work when human beings worship the material ( actually one can contend a breaking of the first commandment).

Worship the material what are you on about? If you mean that we need things that exist in physical reality to exist then why call it worship? It's called living in reality.

Permabear

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RandomName2

Liam Byrne wrote: »

So explain to me how failed developers, failed bankers and the worst governments and regulators in history have more money than me ?

In a capitalist society the biggest chancers and con-artists with the least ethics have more money.

I guess it depends on your definition of success.

I deliberately included the words 'it has its flaws' to highlight the obvious aberration whereby developers went broke, but did not have their assets seized as collateral because they singed it away to their spouses.

They themselves now possess NO money - but equally the method that capitalism has for dealing with this sort of thing (acquisition of assets) has not occurred.

If anything you are displaying how true capitalism is great and loopholes which prevent true capitalism from emerging are bad.

Edit: actually your statement is broader than this, but I won't really consider your position that TD's should only have their wages paid retrospectively, and after having had their performances rated by the public, etc. At the moment we already have a solution to this. We sack TDs during things called 'elections'.