dadmonson
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Posts posted by dadmonson
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dadmonson - I meet people like that often, they completely outrage me. They can completely confuse you by coming up with obscure random examples and words but you know something in their reasoning just isn't right. It would probably be better to study more Objectivism and History before practicing arguing with stupid Marxists.
Marty McFly, you handled yourself very well I felt in that debate and yes it is indeed frustrating. It is like arguing with a kid with a mental disability.
Airborne, I don't want him to think that he has won though and start persuading others that Socialism is the superior system just because I(a very inexperienced defender of capitalism) stopped responding. I want to give the people in the forum atleast some food for thought before I bow out.
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I posted about this in another forum but since I really want to debate this guy, I thought it more properly fit in this forum. I am debating with a Marxist, I'm new to objectivism, and I have much to learn about it but right now I just really want to call him on his bullshit. Please help me with this. The blue, is the marxist.
"Capitalism is the only economic system that completely outlaws the initiation of force."
Bullshit. Look at the turmoil in the world that is done by drove for capitalist domination: the Middle East, Afrika, and Latin America. Each one of these countries has millions of people who suffer force in the way of poverty, low wages, no health care, low living standards, and little ways of getting out of it because capitalism forces these people into the predicament that they are in.
"Socialism fails because of decision."
No. It fails because it was never implemented.
"Capitalism is the only system that protects indivdual and property rights"
The only people who have individual rights are the few people who own private property, and make money off of the millions of other people, controlling them socially, economically, and politically. Those few are the only people who have rights and make sure that they keep that privilege while everyone else suffers from poverty when they are the ones that make the money. Fuck that.
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This is a quote from a friend of Mine...
" Not in an arogant way but the US is superior, if it was not than we would be overrun. "
I agree to a certain extent but I belive that is is a matter of geography as opposed to anything that the U.S. is or does.
Speak on it !
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This is also nonsense. Even though David Ricardo, a student of Adam Smith, developed the Labor Theory of Value, Karl Marx embraced it wholeheartedly to the extent that it is commonly associated with him.
Dadmonson, I do not mind helping you. However, please start asking more direct questions. If anything, it should help increase your understanding of this material by doing some analysis yourself as opposed to just pasting a block of text and requesting a response.
If you want recommendations on where to learn more about these subjects, we will be more than happy to help.
Yes, I know. I knew one of ya'll was going to say something like that sooner or later, lol. The Marxist was just saying all kinds of lies and half truths and persuading people that capitalism was EVIL(I'm sure you deal with this quite often). A lot of people are so hell bent against capitalism that it just doesn't seem right. I wanted to tell and prove to the marxist that he was wrong about so many things, but I just didn't have the knowledge. I've been reading a site though, www.importanceofphilosophy.com, it has helped me a whole lot. I'll do more searching. But with everybody here on this site's help I did get one person that was against capitalism at first, down to, "i think a mixed economy is the best compromise u can come up with. there's no way u can have pure capitalism or socialism." and the Marxist has been keeping quiet so that's good.
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Well the marxist hasn't been back yet but yall should read this he makes some good points. This is a different guy.
All people really need to understand about political theories of government is that they are maintained by force. All people really need to understand about socioeconomic systems is that they are maintained by indoctrination. The " competitive price system" in economic theory is no more practical or idealistic than the concept of a "cooperative price system". Both systems could be implemented as long as a system of rules and regulations was created to enforce it. Please, don't believe in the myth of capitalists either, that the "price system" magically adjusts itself based on supply and demand. Outside of the basic necessities of sustenance required for the survival of the body, every demand is a want created by human desire. We create our own desires.
At the highest stages of practical capitalism there is always oligopoly not monopoly. In all reality, capitalist economists accept this fact, but they get paid to wax poetically about theoretical models. At the highest stages of the Republic, there is always oligarchy. In all reality, political scientists accept this fact, but they get paid to wax poetically about theoretical models.
Karl Marx made a real contribution to history, economics, and political theory. That contribution was the essence of his critique of the primitive capitalist means of production, which was during his day the early extensions of the feudal society with the landed gentry and peasant farmers. He made a comparative analysis. He also forced mainstream proponents of the free market system to abandon the labor theory of value and embrace the "theory of marginal utility" abstracting away from the fact that any income producing activity requires labor at some point and will resort in "surplus value" or profits that are not equally distributed.
He simply demonstrated that under capitalism there will always be excess waste, and inequal access. There is not a single economist worth his salt that disagreed with Marxist critique of the capitalist system, most cronies of capitalism simply disagree with his solution. Why wouldn't they? By the way I am not a Marxist or a Capitalist, I simply studied Political and Economic science.
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Here is a marxist vs. capitalism argument on a forum. The blue is the marxist and the text in the middle is not me but somebody else who is trying to support capitalism but doesn't really know their stuff. How would you respond to this marxist?
Tons of corn is dumped in the sea every year to make remaining stocks more valuable. Food is deliebratly underproduced for the same reason. Whilst millions starve. That doesn't sound very efficient to me.
i dont think any free market advocate supports that. those farm programs intended to keep farmers wealthy. they were mostly introduced during the new deal when this country was closest to a socialist or a fascist takeover
Had you studied history you'd know that the US was never ever anywhere near a socialist or fascist takeover, especially with the existence of the Soviet Union. First of all, very few capitalists support a completely laissez-faire system; that would be foolish, most half-intelligent capitalists at least support some governmental regulation, per Keynes. Secondly, the dumping of the corn is a direct result of the greed-based nature of capitalism in conjunction with the supply-v-demand nature of the free market.
Under capitalism, production and trade is most cost-effective where there is scarcity; thus it is more in the interests of the owners of the means of production to produce less than is enough for everyone. So not only is the free market inefficient in this regard, it is downright incapable of taking care of society as a whole.
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The Links are Fixed...
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Someone posted this on another forum thought I'd share it with yall, it was posted by a christian...
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/robert-knight...jungle-blackout
The first link is to give you background on how this movement has started with the passing of SB-777 by the Governor of California. The homosexual agenda being pushed down our childrens throats, has now spread to other cities in the U.S.
What is this world coming to? This is pure MADNESS! This is INSANITY!
How would you like it if your daughter was using a public restroom at the local pool and some guy strolls in the womens bathroom to use it because he "feels" and "thinks" he's a woman?
This is absolutely disgusting!
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Is it possible for vastly different dog breeds, like a chiuaua and a Saint Bernard, to reproduce? How is it possible for a poodle and a pitbull to belong to the same sub-species (canis lupus familiaris), let alone the same species (canis lupus)? Could homo sapiens ever be 'bred' to the point where we differ so drasticly from each other yet still belong to the same species?
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Hi dadmonson,
First off, I think you could attack the thesis statement: "Marxism failed because of the conditions it started in." The idea that the progression of societies largely depends on their economic and geographic starting point is (as you said) a Marxist theory and it is very wrong. The fundamental driving force that determines whether different civilizations flourish or fail is their underlying philosophy. The best way, although it is not simple, way to see this is to examine many examples from history.
For example, what caused the first nation to be founded on ideas of individual rights and a limited government whose solve purpose was to protect those rights? In other words, why did an American revolution-like event not occur sooner? I think it is because many of the founding fathers was enthusiasts of the philosophy of Locke, who emphasized natural arguments for individual rights. Why did France, whose revolution was essentially at the same time period, veer off in a significantly more socialist direction? I think it is because the French intellectuals at the time took the social contractist ideas of Rousseau very seriously.
I imagine that after some research, you can identify how European intellectuals have influenced the course of European history, how Russian intellectuals have influenced the course of Russian history, how Chinese intellectuals have influenced the course of Chinese history and so forth.
Ideas have incredible power in shaping the course of an individual's life as well as human history.
Second of all, the Marxist argument you have provided seems to argue that Socialism is better than Capitalism, but Socialism can only work after Capitalism has helped built up society.
I would agree that a society is much more capable of surviving with Socialist policies, but they would still be heading towards destruction. An individual could certainly accumulate a large amount of savings for a good thirty years, and then continue to survive while unemployed for another ten to twenty years while dipping into his savings accounts for financial support. Analogously, a society could flourish while under free market capitalism and then manage to coast for a while despite the increased economic controls on the state. However, this does not mean that the economic controls are advancing the lives of the individual citizens even though society would not collapse. I would argue that the controls are gradually destroying society. The rate of destruction will be a function of how restrictive the controls are and how much wealth already existed before the economic reforms.
Furthermore, regarding:
I would look at all of the hardships that economically growing countries such as the United States, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Israel, Ireland and the like have routinely faced during their ascent. Circumstantial factors did not bring about the failure of the Soviet Union.
Lastly, I noticed that the argument you cited implicitly refers to the United States as a "capitalist nation." This seems to be a common misperception that many of my friends from China who were subjected to a Communist education have held. The United States, many nations of Europe, India and most other countries are mixed economies. They have a collection of socialist laws as well as capitalist laws.
I hope that this helps!
You know you're the man right?
Thanks, a bunch DarkWaters.
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Trtosky said in his history of the Revolution the Russian landscape favored an agrarian, non-industrial society. The infinite bounty of Mother Russia discouraged industrialisation whereas the finite and harsher environments of Egnland, France, and Germany demanded it. For Marxism to have existed at all it needed to be done in the West, not in Russia so saying it failed there, or the other preindustrial societies it started in is nonsense.
So you're for Marxism? I'm curious to what some of you objectivist think.
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Well, Marx said that capitalism was needed to bring about a highly industrialized nation, which would be made up of a large working class population. He believed that it would be a natural process for this working class population to gain a class consciousness and therefore overthrow the oppressive capitalist regime. So barring propaganda, a nation would proceed into socialism after it becomes highly industrialized. Obviously, nation like Russia and China jumped the gun there, which is partly why they were not able to institute a true socialist society. And many European Nations and the USA have used propaganda in such an effective manner as to convince the people that socialism is bad. Additionally, those nations have done a great job infiltrating trade unions and such to quell the development of class consciousness.
The reasons behind their ultimate destruction lie in many places - dogmatism (I'd definitely say is one), invasions from capitalist nations (e.g. Bay of Pigs, Russia got invaded, too), isolation - via trade, transport, etc, and the material conditions surrounding these revolutions.
Indeed, look at Russia's economic state before the revolution! For anything to succeed there without many hiccups and problems would have to be a fucking miracle!
You need to understand that there are two types of Communism. Libertarian Communistm and Authorotarian communism.
As a Libertarian communist, I would argue the model for revolution utalised by communists over the last 90 years, or more specifically the existance of a vanguard party as a key feature of that model, is inherantly flawed.
Communist revolutions have failed to destroy capitalism due to inherant ideological and practical flaws within Authorotarian communism.
The failures of authorotarian communist revolutions were actually prediced decades before the Russian revolution when Communist/Anarchist thinker Bakunin said "Even if you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power. Within a year he would be as murderous as the Tzar himself" - this statement has of course been absolved.
And if humans inherantly want stuff, and capitalism is a system that sees the concerntration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, surely capitalism is against human nature?
Tons of corn is dumped in the sea every year to make remaining stocks more valuable. Food is deliebratly underproduced for the same reason. Whilst millions starve. That doesn't sound very efficient to me.
This isn't what I think. It is what marxist think but they do make good points
How come teachers don't make more money?
in Miscellaneous Topics
Posted · Edited by dadmonson
Just like the topic title said, how come teachers don't make more money? What is the reason for this. With the amount of education some of them have they should be making a shitload. Anybody know?