Fidel Castro (Capitalist Democracy vs Socialism)

[Moonlapse]

Gaius Octavius I don't think it’s a good idea to fight with main moderator of the forum.

Personally, I love it when I'm pushed to back up what I believe.

Capitalism DOES NOT equal Democracy.

Well, what's your particular definition of Capitalism? I can't agree or disagree. If I base that statement on my own definition, I disagree because I believe that a truly free-market economy is a manifestation of individual liberties. Based on my own definition, which I believe is the original meaning, Capitalism has to do with economics and is separate from politics.

I don’t mind Capitalism at all. America has a decent system of government and it generally knows what its doing with the economy. I just believe that America needs to tone it down everything.

Capitalism as a system of government is a perversion of the original idea.

 

For example were always complaining we don’t have enough jobs in America. Yet that is the problem with American Capitalism, it fails to offer enough jobs to everyone. With the illiteracy of the general populace and hypnotic allure of consumerism you wonder why there is not enough money and stuff for everybody and even jobs for that matter.

No one is obligated to give anyone a job. In a free market, you find a job you want or you create work for yourself. There are actually PLENTY of jobs, but things like complacency and the fact that our nationalized school system is THE primary gateway to any decent job creates undesirable conditions, IMO.

 

You speak of illiteracy and 'hypnotic' allure of consumerism and their consequences... if you like I can show you a LOT of stuff that shows that this was the indended effect of our public school system, a system focused primarily on behavioural adjustment and not rigorous intellectual education, implemented in the late 19th/early 20th century. This was partly successful due to major funding from Rockefeller and Carnegie. That is not Capitalism, that is not a separation of economy and state, that is not democracy.

 

"In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way." - Rockefeller Education Board, 1906

[Zeke]

So are you saying there is a conspricy by the Ultra rich to keep one illterate? OR litterate so they will be eventual consumers of company products?

 

I can believe that...thats why public school classes are crammed with 25 or more kids, noboyd can learn in such a huge environment. Private schools have an advantage for their classes are smaller. Thats why the ultra rich go to private schools and get better educations.

 

Capitalism does not equal Democracy...I ment it like...Capitalism doesn't nessarasily equal Democracy. It can of coarse because of its "Free" Market princples, yet dictators often use Capitalism for their own advantages. Even the "glorious" Fidel Castro.

Look Capitalism weights on my conciousness. It makes me feel like...I am a slave to a system. Or I am abusing someone else's slavery.

 

Empires are built on slavery and even "enlightened" societies had slaves, both wage slaves and non wage slaves. So I suppose I can't complain...

[Moonlapse]

So are you saying there is a conspricy by the Ultra rich to keep one illterate? OR litterate so they will be eventual consumers of company products?

I wouldn't call it a conspiracy, per se. Many people played a part in it, not just the ultra-rich. They believed in a popular vision of utopia where people are more like perfectly cooperative ants or bees rather than individual humans seeking their own meanings in life. The intent, for the most part, was not malicious in any way - it was an attempt to guide society towards a particular ideology.

 

The goal is not to keep people completely illiterate, since some basic level of literacy is required to function in society. In fact, we even have "Advanced Placement" and "Gifted and Talented" labels for those who are able to thrive in the managed heirarchy of a school environment.

 

According to the writings of many of these activists, the scenario to be avoided is one where factory workers and coal miners become people who love literature and supposedly get spoiled by being intellectually stimulated. It supposedly creates unrealistic expectations from their lives.

 

Sort of off topic here, if you read any of Robert Cialdini's stuff on influence, you'll be amazed at how easily most people can be unknowingly manipulated by advertisements, salesmen, and especially by 'authority'. I don't have any thesis or real evidence, but I feel that much of this can be contributed to school environment - in the sense that these natural tendencies to be infuenced are fostered instead of dispelled with a truly intellectual education.

 

I think that if you dig a litle deeper into this weight of capitalism on your consciousness, it will relate much more to the contradictory non-freedoms that have now been packaged with it.

[Zeke]

Very intresting I will take note of that.

[tflex]

I haven't read through all this thread, but it looks like a heated debate. My view on communism is thats it's contrary to human nature, and thats precisely why it failed, it's as simple as that. Personally, I would rather be a poor person under a capitalist system, where I know if I work hard enough I can improve my living conditions, rather than have a government providing me with what they deem necessary on my behalf, and prevent me from improving my living standards and accomplishing my ambitions.

 

Communism is made for people who don't want to work hard and compete, not for poor people. Capitalism suits poor people better than communism.

[Moonlapse]

Communism is made for people who don't want to work hard and compete, not for poor people. Capitalism suits poor people better than communism.

I work with a man from the Philippines. He had lived in a rural area where constant hard work was necessary just to make a living, and being able to 'save up money' wasn't even a concept. His family moved to the U.S. on credit when he was highschool age. He has no college education and he's not fully literate, but he owns a nice home, rents out another home, invests money, owns several expensive vehicles, and run his own small business at night while working at the place I do during the day. This is the return he is able to get for working as hard as he did just to get by in a rural village. He doesn't understand the people here who complain about our economic system. In fact, the biggest obstacle for his small business is finding people who can consistently show up to work and follow very simple instuctions, despite the fact that he pays higher than average wages with a monthly percentage of total revenue on top of that.

[Zeke]

I once met a Russian man who lived in the Soviet Union he summed up Soviet Communism in one sentence:

 

"The people pretended to work, and the government pretended to pay."

lol

Edited August 21, 2006 by Zeke

[Kosmo]

Our view of capitalism was created by the strong negative propaganda that he received after the Industrial Revolution from all sides.

If Dickens, Zola etc made as feel bad about the condition of workers and urban poor we should remember that before the Industrial Revolution they will simply die from hunger or by hanging for stealing food.

If a chinese works today in conditions that are called by some slavery he does that because it's well payed for his standards. Before he had this oportunity the other options would have been far worse including starvation as it happened so many times in China until now.

I don't believe that humans are able to make a dream society by themselves as everything it's very complicated and acting it's hard. Liberal democracy has the great advantage of beeing able to adjust to changing conditions by the combined mechanisms of public opinion, democracy and free market.

It can not bring Utopia, but Utopia it's better left a dream and not forced upon real people.

 

Most Central European countries have a much serious aproach to capitalism then western Europeans and they generally support US in it's foreign policy.

They know that the political dangers of state owned economy makes democracy dependent on capitalism.

If Bush claim to free Iraq was obviously propaganda many in Central and East Europe supported it as they remember the dark times when they lived under dictature and wished for the americans to came and kick the commies out.

[Kosmo]

@ Gaius Octavianus

Of course, where and what you post it's your option, but I'll feel bad if my anwers were the motif for your current non-alignement in this thread :sadwalk:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonaligned_Movement

Last paragraph on that page:

"The 1979 meeting in Havana saw the movement discussing the merits of a "natural alliance" seen by many between the NAM and the Soviet Union. Under the leadership of Fidel Castro, the Summit discussed the concept of an anti-imperialist alliance with the Soviet Union. Prime Minister Michael Manley of Jamaica gave a well-received pro-Soviet speech. Among other things he said, "All anti-imperialists know that the balance of forces in the world shifted irrevocably in 1917 when there was a movement and a man in the October Revolution, and Lenin was the man." Manley also praised Fidel Castro as "humane" and credited him for strengthening the forces committed to the struggle against imperialism in the Western Hemisphere."

 

Edit: And guess where the next conference it's held?...

"14th Summit – Havana, 14 September 2006 – 15 September 2006"

Edited August 21, 2006 by Kosmo

[Gaius Octavius]

Kosmo, don't feel bad about anything. Gaius is paying attention. He is simply underwhelmed with the misinformation contained herein. Keep punching away!

 

O, tempora; O, mores; Senatu haec intelliget; Consul videt!

 

[tflex]

Our view of capitalism was created by the strong negative propaganda that he received after the Industrial Revolution from all sides.

If Dickens, Zola etc made as feel bad about the condition of workers and urban poor we should remember that before the Industrial Revolution they will simply die from hunger or by hanging for stealing food.

If a chinese works today in conditions that are called by some slavery he does that because it's well payed for his standards. Before he had this oportunity the other options would have been far worse including starvation as it happened so many times in China until now.

I don't believe that humans are able to make a dream society by themselves as everything it's very complicated and acting it's hard. Liberal democracy has the great advantage of beeing able to adjust to changing conditions by the combined mechanisms of public opinion, democracy and free market.

It can not bring Utopia, but Utopia it's better left a dream and not forced upon real people.

 

Most Central European countries have a much serious aproach to capitalism then western Europeans and they generally support US in it's foreign policy.

They know that the political dangers of state owned economy makes democracy dependent on capitalism.

If Bush claim to free Iraq was obviously propaganda many in Central and East Europe supported it as they remember the dark times when they lived under dictature and wished for the americans to came and kick the commies out.

 

Western European countries have recently started to privatize traditional government controlled businesses like transportation to fight inefficiency and bad service, which is a good thing.

 

Also, the point about capitalism is that it's up to the individual to make himself feel like he's living in a Utopia.

[Zeke]

Perhaps people exagerate how bad off everyone was before the Industiral Revolution. Ancient Societies too my understanding were healthy and long lived. Its only the onset of the Middle Ages do we start to see the severe starvation cases that Capitalists point out to.

 

I am not saying there wasn't cases of starvation in the Roman Empire. Yet we make a big deal out of it. Gods..if the Ancient Peoples were that sick and starving then they wouldn't have had time to build such wonders.

 

So...I do admit the pre-industiral societes might have not as been as high in living standards as our modern day. Yet we put them down to much. I believe these socities were more advanced then the starving villagers in current day Ethiopia.

 

I know most of you won't agree with me....but I admire the Ancient World for all its accomplishments if it were so pitful and starving then I wouldn't admire it.

[L. Quintus Sertorius]

Perhaps people exagerate how bad off everyone was before the Industiral Revolution. Ancient Societies too my understanding were healthy and long lived.

 

Where are you drawing this assumption from? Ancient civilizations were subject to the same injuries and infirmities we are today, but without the means to cure or combat it. Perhaps your understanding is drawn from the general condition of the upper class - in which case you would be correct. But what of the slaves gouging the soil of Attica to make new drachmae for Athens, or the Gauls tilling the soil of Sicily to feed the urbs Romae? Not quite as pretty a picture there.

 

Its only the onset of the Middle Ages do we start to see the severe starvation cases that Capitalists point out to.

 

Again, I am baffled as to your reasoning behind this. The states of the Middle Ages ante Mortem Nigrum were exceedingly prosperous, especially in the vicinities of Italy, Egypt, the Low Countries, Asia Minor, and Southern Spain (Granada). As for the effects of the Black Death and resultant famines - a plague of comparable size with comparable results occurred at the end of the reign of Marcus Aurelius. So much for your "men of Gold" being healthier and longer lived.

 

I am not saying there wasn't cases of starvation in the Roman Empire. Yet we make a big deal out of it. Gods..if the Ancient Peoples were that sick and starving then they wouldn't have had time to build such wonders.

 

So then explain to me how the "pitiful and starving" people of the Middle Ages managed to construct Chartres Cathedral, Il Duomo della Firenza, the Alhambra palace in Granada, and Krak de Chevaliers. They were pitiful and starving after all, right?

 

So...I do admit the pre-industiral societes might have not as been as high in living standards as our modern day. Yet we put them down to much. I believe these socities were more advanced then the starving villagers in current day Ethiopia.

.

 

Of course they were. On the other hand, Ethiopia hasn't changed much since the ancient days, European colonization or no. Except now they have access to better weapons.

[Favonius Cornelius]

Yep, capitalism is the way to go.

 

I just hate it when the ultra-capitalists think that the system requires no adjustments from time to time, and want to make every last function of government a business. What's next, corporate armies? There is nothing wrong with infrastructure being run by the government. Look what has happened with the privatization of telcom and energy. Now you have shitty quality service monopolies like Time Warner who do nothing to improve since they don't have too, brownouts and gouging with power.

 

The capitalist will tell you of all the benefits of this, but I for one don't see it happening. You just give a business, which is always fundamentally greedy, control of something too important to everyone.

 

Ever hear that sound clip of the energy executive joking about robbing old ladies of their money? Priceless.

[Gaius Octavius]

F.C., agreed. A better word might be monopolists. This is addressed jokingly in the "Renaming Brooklyn" poll's results.