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denverdoc
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They had a collective farm in Los Angeles--and this is what became of it:
http://www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1892.html
http://www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1892.html
Do we? Does that make Bill Gates and Warren Buffet zillions of times more evil than say, Ted Kaczynski?X-43D said:We all know that the love of money is the root of all evil.
Gokul43201 said:Do we? Does that make Bill Gates and Warren Buffet zillions of times more evil than say, Ted Kaczynski?
'for the love of money is a route to all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.'
Gokul43201 said:Do we? Does that make Bill Gates and Warren Buffet zillions of times more evil than say, Ted Kaczynski?
I had that coming, didn't I?denverdoc said:Are you kidding? The suffering Gates has visited upon billions will warrant a final place for him that even Dante couldn't conceive, even if he gives away all his $$
Gokul43201 said:I think the disdain for self (which is taught by most mainstream religions) and disrespect for the rights of others are more frequented routes that lead to evil...
Gokul43201 said:I think the disdain for self (which is taught by most mainstream religions) and disrespect for the rights of others are more frequented routes that lead to evil.
I had that coming, didn't I?
But think of the number of people that took to praying each time they booted up their computer. Surely, that must count for some brownie points from above.
Schrodinger's Dog said:I'd be careful about using the c word around here, it's akin to sticking your hand in the Queens undies
I think capitalism is fine as a system but it seems there's just too much greed these days and not so much social responsibility. Communism tried and failed to redress the balance, not because it wasn't a good system but because humanity isn't ready for it.
We're too greedy, too acquisitive and too competitive to work for the greater good, it's often what do I get, what can I do to make my life better, it's their fault they're poor, maybe if they weren't so lazy, why should I feel guilty for the poor, they should get a job, etc, etc, which makes you laugh.
Next time you say this think about scraping by with enough money to buy food and clothes and send your kids to school, relying on handouts. Or think about your education. Think about whether it was tough to make ends meet or to be able to afford to buy books, or to have to work two part time jobs to put yourself through college; if it was good on you, but for those who had an easy ride, think about other people and how difficult it can be to drag yourself up out of poverty, and the next time someone calls and asks you to give to the red cross or whatever, give em a few bucks, it means nothing to you, but it helps.
No in fact what am I saying if people actually gave a damn about others in general we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Capitalism without responsibility is as bad as communism if not worse, at least with communism the idea was sound if not the means to achieve it, with capitalism the idea is dubious but the means to achieve it is simple, cater to the lowest common denominator.
A sense of social justice should be inherent in a system, if it isn't then it's no system I want any part of. I'm a liberal sort of person. neither left nor right, sort of border line communist to an American and I feel the healthiest balance a country can have is between social welfare and economics, if you can fine tune both then your population is happy, your business is happy and the rest is easier. That's the rub though. How do you do this?
eaboujaoudeh said:just a world about communism: It can be a good system when its edited a little, take China for example they are a communist country with some liberty in their production market, they are on the right track. another succesfull social country is Sweden,they have a socialist economy but they are doing great. i think whether its communism or democracy a balance had to be found to make them succesfull, the balance in democracy was easier and was established succesfully in many countries. As for poverty i think itself inflicted by ppl of a country. Poor countries are countries that don't have collective thinking or acting. like american or europeans will act as a group, all american work for their country as well as for themselves. the poor countries u see a thinking method of the ppl that hurts their own well being, they think that its ok to hurt the government as long as they get rich, not knowing that by doing that they will hurt themselves eventually. another reason for poverty in 3rd world countries are wars, those guys don';t have money to buy food, but find plenty of money to kill other ppl. I live in a 3rd world country,Lebanon, we are relatively a rich country compared to other 3rd world countries, but years of wars, and now years of thieving governments and idiots who stand next to the thieves in government just because they are getting a small piece of the cake thos ppl create poverty in my country, and soon this poverty will create a civil uprising, cause u can't push ppl above their limits,and again in a civil uprising u get more poverty and depression...but if in Lebanon we have the collective thinking of americans/europeans/jap/chinesse, we would be a very rich country by now. imagine 15years of war, and 40billiong dollars debts, and ppl are still investing here! imagine how strong the economy should be to handle such pressures
denverdoc said:but perhaps implied is the role of the world bank/IMF who more often than not insist on privatization and usurious interest rates for capital relief. THis has been a bad deal for the most part.
If you read my post above you will see your supposition is patently untrue.eaboujaoudeh said:But don't u think that the USA has found a kind of balance that is unlikely to lead to civil unrest? cause frankly i think the american or swedish method should be used all around the world. Even though they are different methods, 1 is democratic, the swedish is a socialist government, but i think both deal with the effect of wealth distribution in effective methods.
eaboujaoudeh said:i read it..but what i said was that even the difference is telling in the riches distribution in the USA, but as long as people are getting fair shares of food, healthcare, and education, i don't think uprisings may occur. But a grinchy few may go to looting and theft or civil disobedience, but i don't think the US is going to civil unrest on a large scale even though the differences in riches are major.
There are a lot of interesting stats there (seriously*), but stats are only good as their analysis. It seems to me that the main assertion (that the US is headed for rebellion) is not supported by an argument there. No attempt, other than the empty quote above, was made to connect the statistics to the original assertion.Art said:Experts believe that a coefficient of 0.5 likely precipitates social unrest.
Unless you can provide an example of a capitalist system failing for this reason or, at least, a logical argument connecting your statistics to your assertion, that really doesn't follow at all. Indeed, if your hypothesis were correct, the data would imply that the US should already be seeing the seeds of this predicted unrest. But the reality is that the social unrest you are suggesting just plain isn't there.And so I wonder how much longer the current capitalist system in the US and elsewhere will survive as history suggests it is an unstable system in it's present form in the long term.
Isn't that just another way of saying that most Americans don't share your dissatisfaction?denverdoc said:I think if it came down to it, I would support a revolt...
...the average man too uninformed...
Having said that, americans are for the most part too fat and stuporous with their daily dose of mind numbing TV and facination with distraction to do much.
This, of course, is contrary to the liberal/socialist mantra that suggests a few wealthy elite are doing well in the US and everyone else is doing poorly. If that were true, that would suggest social unrest, but clearly it is not.
I see it in slightly different terms. Socialism tends to pull the ends of the spectrum together by pulling a small minority up and a large majority down (because of what I discussed in my previous post).Milo Hobgoblin said:the ironly of the liberal/socialist mantra is their schemes for improving things generally worsen them.. leading to greater numbers of people having less and an even smaller number of wealthy elite at the top.
Revolution means rapid social change and although it can include coup d'etats or armed rebellion more often than not is achieved through peaceful protest and I doubt anyone would seriously disagree that economic injustice has triggered many such revolutions.I wonder where capitalism will eventually lead to? Revolutions in the past have been driven by economic injustices where the many with little resented the few with it all.
Art said:It seems a couple of clarifications are needed here -
I prefaced my earlier post with this statement Revolution means rapid social change and although it can include coup d'etats or armed rebellion more often than not is achieved through peaceful protest and I doubt anyone would seriously disagree that economic injustice has triggered many such revolutions.
I then listed some data which I personally found to be quite intriguing and surprising.
The full data set is available here in a report which sets out to answer the question 'Is the U.S. a Good Model for Reducing Social Exclusion in Europe?'
http://www.cepr.net/publications/social_exclusion_2006_08.pdf
Given the current data and trends it seems to me that in the long term such a system has to be unsustainable not only in the US but in all countries which are on the same curve as unchecked eventually the Gina coefficient reaches 1 whilst the intergenerational income coefficients also reaches 1 which clearly cannot happen. A bit like the Highlander series - 'In the end there can be only one'
I am not advocating socialism as a superior socio-economic model, which I get the impression some here think I am, or promoting any other socio-economic model for that matter. In fact my opinion of capitalism mirrors Churchill's quote re democracy "Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
Russ made the point that even Americans living in poverty in the US are relatively better off than the poor of other countries. However as Irish mothers who used to admonish their children (correctly) 'Finish your dinner there are children starving in Africa who would love to eat that' found, it failed to achieve their desired goal as the wants and desires of a citizen from another continent seemed (also correctly) totally irrelevant to the child. Equally irrelevant I suspect is the relative poverty of a poverty stricken citizen of a 3rd world country to the average 'poor' American or 'poor' European who rightly or wrongly measure their economic status against their peers.
I am interested to see if others agree that at some point things will have to change or popular social unrest will inevitably occur in highly capitalist countries and what they think of the idea that the longer the current system continues without voluntary modification the greater the forced eventual modifications will be.
.your fantasy socialist Utopias etc..