Is there an alternative to capitalism?

[Axl Van Sixx]

If I may make a sweeping generalization, the majority of people these days don't think the system is working. In the United States, Congress has a historically low 6% approval rating. Everywhere, it seems, government is broken - imposing massively unpopular austerity policies against the will of the population, always pursuing policies that benefit only the wealthiest minority of society. I see massive frustration on almost every part of the political spectrum. But when it comes to truly radical change, people seem unwilling to jettison what I would argue is the main cause of their problems: the capitalist system itself.

Especially since the fall of the Soviet Union, it seems that the "Left" in most Western countries has become captive to the mentality pushed by the powerful and aptly summarized by Margaret Thatcher - the idea that "there is no alternative" to capitalism. We're told that this is the way the world is, that capitalism is a "natural" system and that any desired alternative would amount to disastrous social engineering. But is this true, or just propaganda pushed by the most powerful segments of society to justify a status quo that has been disastrous for everyone on the planet but the most affluent?

A little background: my politics have certainly evolved over the years. While I used to consider myself a small-l liberal or progressive, over time I became increasingly skeptical of the ability of capitalism to reform itself. I did an article in 2008, my final year of undergrad, where I posed the question of why Marxism still had such a pull on academics when it had been seemingly disproven by the experience of the Soviet Union. I came to the conclusion that until another alternative is put forth, Marxism will be the default alternative to capitalism. I had learned about the history of the Soviet Union, which I thought firmly disproved the idea of a centrally-planned economy. Basically, a small group of bureaucrats in Moscow can't decide what EVERYONE in a vast country needs at any given time, and that's why in every self-declared "communist" nation, a vast black market always develops without which the economy would not be able to function.

In the years since, I've become a Trotskyist, and while that word gets a bad wrap due to cult-like sectarians who ignore Trotsky's method and just repeat what he said in completely different historical circumstances, it still summarizes my approach. Basically, what you think of as traditional "communism" - totalitarian one-party dictatorships with secret police, gulags, censorship, etc. - is actually Stalinism, the opposite of real socialism. The political beliefs I have are basically about having the maximum possible democracy. True socialism requires workers' democracy, NOT a vast all-powerful party deciding everything. On the contrary, it's about the people running their own lives, the most anti-elitist political philosophy out there.

The problem is, the history of Stalinism and Maoism have totally distorted most people's ideas of socialism and communism to the point where they see it as utterly discredited. They ignore that these societies weren't really "communist" at all. The problem is that, by thinking that this is the only alternative to capitalism, we've basically closed ourselves off from anything other than a world in which profit rules everything in an endless cycle of poverty, war, hunger, nationalism, racism, and environmental destruction.

Workers often forget that the rights we take for granted - the right to unionize, the 8-hour work day, overtime pay, the weekend, no child labour, etc. - weren't just given to us by the capitalists out of the goodness of their hearts. People had to fight for them. But that was such a long time ago, we've started taking them for granted, and now, in the current economic crisis, all of these rights are slowly being taken away from us. In every country in the world, workers are under attack, social services are being cut, wages are being lowered...why? To quote Megadeth, because the system has failed.

But this kind of thing is endemic to capitalism. The long post-war boom allowed for a rise in living standards in the West, which many came to believe was natural and permanent. In fact, this was the exception to capitalism, not the rule. That long boom started to end in the late 60s, leading to stagflation in the 70s, but was artificially extended starting in the 80s through deregulation and the expansion of credit. The economic growth of the last 30 years - almost all of which went to the wealthiest segments of society - was based largely on debt, which only meant that when the crash eventually came, it would be much, much worse.

The problem is, we in the West - and especially in North America - were so effectively propagandized by the spectre of the Soviet bogeyman over the 20th century that we came to believe there was no real alternative to capitalism. Our grandparents in the 1930s had no such illusions - it was the agitation of radicals, socialists, communists and the like that put fear in the heart of the ruling classes and compelled leaders like FDR to introduce reforms that would save capitalism from the threat of revolution. The funny thing is, today, it seems like more and more Americans are beginning to realize the only way they're going to change their hopelessly corrupt, corporate-dominated government is through some kind of revolution. The question is what form such a revolution will take.

You know, I'm rambling, but this is a very complex topic and I can further expound my views later. I just want to know - do any of you guys think there is a real alternative to capitalism, or is this the default economic system that we'll never improve upon? Although the powers-that-be try to make you think this is a natural system, in fact the imposition of capitalism after feudalism was accompanied by tremendous violence as small farmers were forced off their land. All of us are propagandized day after day by corporate media that tells us this is the only world possible. But all around the world, people are starting to rise up - in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece...and Wisconsin. It's the fact that an American worker has far more in common with a Greek or Egyptian worker than s/he does with an American CEO that should best illustrate the commonalities that bind the international working class.

Workers around the world have common interests and a common oppressor - the wealthy minority around the globe that is currently attacking our wages, social safety nets and public services. The only alternative to capitalism is socialism, but this does NOT mean a Stalinist dictatorship. Following from the experience of the 1871 Paris Commune and the writings of Lenin, it means nationalizing industries under democratic workers' control, with the workers sending their representatives to larger legislative bodies. Unlike our current fake democracy, these representatives would be paid an average worker's wage and would be subject to recall at any time. The idea is, if everyone is a bureaucrat, no one is a bureaucrat - basically, any cook should be able to be prime minister.

Defenders of the existing order will say we need "experts" to run society. This is a laughable notion. Look at all the Ivy League "experts" running our corporations and our governments. They haven't exactly done such a bang-up job, have they? The world is a ****ing mess. I'm extremely confident that the Big Three American auto companies would be better run by people who actually MAKE CARS - not Harvard business grads who don't know the first thing about cars. Those Ivy League losers did run their companies into the ground, after all - and were then set loose with million dollar golden parachutes. It's just like the bailouts - rewarding failure. All those paeans to the "free market" are total BS: when the bankers were in trouble, they went looking to the government for a handout.

We have tremendous technology and incredibly advanced productive forces at our disposal, enough to provide a decent standard of living for everyone. Instead, millions of families in the United States alone are going hungry and Social Security and Medicare are being cut, all the better to pay for endless wars and corporate welfare and tax cuts for the already obscenely wealthy. Doesn't this strike you as an insane system? Liberals will tell you that this is a relatively recent thing and we just need to have campaign finance reform or more progressive taxation. But even in the glory days of the capitalist boom - the 60s - we had the U.S. government diverting precious resources to fight a pointless war in Southeast Asia. Throughout the history of capitalism, the wealthy and the corporations have always used their influence to send the poor off to die for the noble cause of securing corporate profits - World War I, World War II, all the neo-colonial wars of the Cold War and afterwards. This won't change until we alter the basic economic system that causes all these calamities.

People think the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a scary thing because they associate the d-word with Hitler-like tyrants. In fact, the word just means power, and it makes a lot more sense if you consider that right now we live under the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie". Ever get the feeling that your vote doesn't matter? In a lot of ways, it doesn't - not if the same people are pulling the strings no matter who wins the election and guaranteeing the same policies. Both the Democrats and the Republicans right now agree the U.S. needs to continue massive military spending while cutting social services the population needs - and the debate is not whether to cut, but how much. "The world's greatest democracy" my ass. Under capitalism, there is no real choice - the wealthy and corporate interests always win out over the common good.

Does anybody agree with me on this? Post your thoughts here. We're at a critical juncture in history and the ability of people to imagine an alternative to the corrupt and decaying system we have now may determine the ultimate fate of the human race - no exaggeration.

 

[StorminNorman]

If I may make a sweeping generalization, the majority of people these days don't think the system is working. In the United States, Congress has a historically low 6% approval rating. Everywhere, it seems, government is broken - imposing massively unpopular austerity policies against the will of the population, always pursuing policies that benefit only the wealthiest minority of society. I see massive frustration on almost every part of the political spectrum. But when it comes to truly radical change, people seem unwilling to jettison what I would argue is the main cause of their problems: the capitalist system itself.

Especially since the fall of the Soviet Union, it seems that the "Left" in most Western countries has become captive to the mentality pushed by the powerful and aptly summarized by Margaret Thatcher - the idea that "there is no alternative" to capitalism. We're told that this is the way the world is, that capitalism is a "natural" system and that any desired alternative would amount to disastrous social engineering. But is this true, or just propaganda pushed by the most powerful segments of society to justify a status quo that has been disastrous for everyone on the planet but the most affluent?

A little background: my politics have certainly evolved over the years. While I used to consider myself a small-l liberal or progressive, over time I became increasingly skeptical of the ability of capitalism to reform itself. I did an article in 2008, my final year of undergrad, where I posed the question of why Marxism still had such a pull on academics when it had been seemingly disproven by the experience of the Soviet Union. I came to the conclusion that until another alternative is put forth, Marxism will be the default alternative to capitalism. I had learned about the history of the Soviet Union, which I thought firmly disproved the idea of a centrally-planned economy. Basically, a small group of bureaucrats in Moscow can't decide what EVERYONE in a vast country needs at any given time, and that's why in every self-declared "communist" nation, a vast black market always develops without which the economy would not be able to function.

In the years since, I've become a Trotskyist, and while that word gets a bad wrap due to cult-like sectarians who ignore Trotsky's method and just repeat what he said in completely different historical circumstances, it still summarizes my approach. Basically, what you think of as traditional "communism" - totalitarian one-party dictatorships with secret police, gulags, censorship, etc. - is actually Stalinism, the opposite of real socialism. The political beliefs I have are basically about having the maximum possible democracy. True socialism requires workers' democracy, NOT a vast all-powerful party deciding everything. On the contrary, it's about the people running their own lives, the most anti-elitist political philosophy out there.

The problem is, the history of Stalinism and Maoism have totally distorted most people's ideas of socialism and communism to the point where they see it as utterly discredited. They ignore that these societies weren't really "communist" at all. The problem is that, by thinking that this is the only alternative to capitalism, we've basically closed ourselves off from anything other than a world in which profit rules everything in an endless cycle of poverty, war, hunger, nationalism, racism, and environmental destruction.

Workers often forget that the rights we take for granted - the right to unionize, the 8-hour work day, overtime pay, the weekend, no child labour, etc. - weren't just given to us by the capitalists out of the goodness of their hearts. People had to fight for them. But that was such a long time ago, we've started taking them for granted, and now, in the current economic crisis, all of these rights are slowly being taken away from us. In every country in the world, workers are under attack, social services are being cut, wages are being lowered...why? To quote Megadeth, because the system has failed.

But this kind of thing is endemic to capitalism. The long post-war boom allowed for a rise in living standards in the West, which many came to believe was natural and permanent. In fact, this was the exception to capitalism, not the rule. That long boom started to end in the late 60s, leading to stagflation in the 70s, but was artificially extended starting in the 80s through deregulation and the expansion of credit. The economic growth of the last 30 years - almost all of which went to the wealthiest segments of society - was based largely on debt, which only meant that when the crash eventually came, it would be much, much worse.

The problem is, we in the West - and especially in North America - were so effectively propagandized by the spectre of the Soviet bogeyman over the 20th century that we came to believe there was no real alternative to capitalism. Our grandparents in the 1930s had no such illusions - it was the agitation of radicals, socialists, communists and the like that put fear in the heart of the ruling classes and compelled leaders like FDR to introduce reforms that would save capitalism from the threat of revolution. The funny thing is, today, it seems like more and more Americans are beginning to realize the only way they're going to change their hopelessly corrupt, corporate-dominated government is through some kind of revolution. The question is what form such a revolution will take.

You know, I'm rambling, but this is a very complex topic and I can further expound my views later. I just want to know - do any of you guys think there is a real alternative to capitalism, or is this the default economic system that we'll never improve upon? Although the powers-that-be try to make you think this is a natural system, in fact the imposition of capitalism after feudalism was accompanied by tremendous violence as small farmers were forced off their land. All of us are propagandized day after day by corporate media that tells us this is the only world possible. But all around the world, people are starting to rise up - in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece...and Wisconsin. It's the fact that an American worker has far more in common with a Greek or Egyptian worker than s/he does with an American CEO that should best illustrate the commonalities that bind the international working class.

Workers around the world have common interests and a common oppressor - the wealthy minority around the globe that is currently attacking our wages, social safety nets and public services. The only alternative to capitalism is socialism, but this does NOT mean a Stalinist dictatorship. Following from the experience of the 1871 Paris Commune and the writings of Lenin, it means nationalizing industries under democratic workers' control, with the workers sending their representatives to larger legislative bodies. Unlike our current fake democracy, these representatives would be paid an average worker's wage and would be subject to recall at any time. The idea is, if everyone is a bureaucrat, no one is a bureaucrat - basically, any cook should be able to be prime minister.

Defenders of the existing order will say we need "experts" to run society. This is a laughable notion. Look at all the Ivy League "experts" running our corporations and our governments. They haven't exactly done such a bang-up job, have they? The world is a ****ing mess. I'm extremely confident that the Big Three American auto companies would be better run by people who actually MAKE CARS - not Harvard business grads who don't know the first thing about cars. Those Ivy League losers did run their companies into the ground, after all - and were then set loose with million dollar golden parachutes. It's just like the bailouts - rewarding failure. All those paeans to the "free market" are total BS: when the bankers were in trouble, they went looking to the government for a handout.

We have tremendous technology and incredibly advanced productive forces at our disposal, enough to provide a decent standard of living for everyone. Instead, millions of families in the United States alone are going hungry and Social Security and Medicare are being cut, all the better to pay for endless wars and corporate welfare and tax cuts for the already obscenely wealthy. Doesn't this strike you as an insane system? Liberals will tell you that this is a relatively recent thing and we just need to have campaign finance reform or more progressive taxation. But even in the glory days of the capitalist boom - the 60s - we had the U.S. government diverting precious resources to fight a pointless war in Southeast Asia. Throughout the history of capitalism, the wealthy and the corporations have always used their influence to send the poor off to die for the noble cause of securing corporate profits - World War I, World War II, all the neo-colonial wars of the Cold War and afterwards. This won't change until we alter the basic economic system that causes all these calamities.

People think the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a scary thing because they associate the d-word with Hitler-like tyrants. In fact, the word just means power, and it makes a lot more sense if you consider that right now we live under the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie". Ever get the feeling that your vote doesn't matter? In a lot of ways, it doesn't - not if the same people are pulling the strings no matter who wins the election and guaranteeing the same policies. Both the Democrats and the Republicans right now agree the U.S. needs to continue massive military spending while cutting social services the population needs - and the debate is not whether to cut, but how much. "The world's greatest democracy" my ass. Under capitalism, there is no real choice - the wealthy and corporate interests always win out over the common good.

Does anybody agree with me on this? Post your thoughts here. We're at a critical juncture in history and the ability of people to imagine an alternative to the corrupt and decaying system we have now may determine the ultimate fate of the human race - no exaggeration.

I can go into greater detail on Monday when I have a computer to type from (on a Blackberry now), but the fundamental problem with your understanding is the fact that the "staus quo" IS NOT CAPITALISM, America is not a capitalist country - there is no Western country that practices lassiez-faire.

What we have today is corporatism, a modified form of mercantilism. This is inevitable in any company regulated by a democratic government. When politicians make the rules by which we can trade, the richer and more powerful companies have the ability to manipulate the system for their own ends.

You also are mistaken about issues such as child labor and the weekend, for these were the wonderful results of the wealth generated by free enterprise. It was the prosperity of capitalism that allowed a family to not rely upon the production of their children. Now arbitrary restrictions on the ability of children to make money was a progressive reform, but it is not a good one. If children, whose families cannot survive without child labor, are barred from legal employment, they are forced into black market labor.

Centrally planned economies can't work. They are incompatible with economic science - Ludwig von Mises proved this in the 1920's. What we need is the restoration of true, pure, lassiez-faire capitalism.

 

[Paradoxium]

* lights self on fire, jumps off cliff and drowns in a sea of piss and **** *

 

[hippie_hunter]

You see the problem is that anything close to the ideals of Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky is hampered by the reality that is the human condition. It's far too idealistic to take in the fact that humans overall are too motivated for their own personal benefit for the so called "greater good" that Communism originally envisioned.

Also on a side note, Medicare and Social Security as they are, are unsustainable. Even if you took away the wars and corporate welfare, those programs would still not have enough funding because they were designed with the mentalities of the 30's and 60's and politicians refused to reform them for the 21st Century.

And the World Wars, those were fought due to piss poor foreign policies (World War I), and fighting genuine evil (World War II). Not for the corporations.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Capitalism is human nature. That's why no matter what system you implement, it always goes back to capitalism.

 

[Quetzal]

And the World Wars, those were fought due to piss poor foreign policies (World War I), and fighting genuine evil (World War II). Not for the corporations.

The World Wars were fought not for the corporations in the slightest.

However, World War 1 was not piss poor foreign policy for some nations. Europe is used to a diplomacy style of balance of power (best described by Kissinger in the classic Diplomacy), and England was able to avert a potential powerhouse in Europe by using its allies like puppets.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was dying, and would have most likely done so if they didnt deal with a rebellion anyways, so it was a gamble for them.

For a few nations it was stupid policy, but for quite a few far from it.

Churchill once said something to the affect of if the French were threatening Europe again, we would have had no problem being Anti-French and Pro-German.

Now this was World War 2 yes, but the English have for most of their history played a great balance of power style. They may have been fighting against "evil", but evil only became a threat to the European System with power.

 

[hippie_hunter]

The World Wars were fought not for the corporations in the slightest.

However, World War 1 was not piss poor foreign policy for some nations. Europe is used to a diplomacy style of balance of power (best described by Kissinger in the classic Diplomacy), and England was able to avert a potential powerhouse in Europe by using its allies like puppets.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was dying, and would have most likely done so if they didnt deal with a rebellion anyways, so it was a gamble for them.

For a few nations it was stupid policy, but for quite a few far from it.

Churchill once said something to the affect of if the French were threatening Europe again, we would have had no problem being Anti-French and Pro-German.

Now this was World War 2 yes, but the English have for most of their history played a great balance of power style. They may have been fighting against "evil", but evil only became a threat to the European System with power.

If it weren't for the system of alliances, World War I would have probably been a simple war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia which would have resulted in a massive Serbian beatdown.

Also, I would like to consider almost everything that Hitler stood for that the Allies fought against to be evil. Now the Allies certainly weren't perfect, but Hiter, Mussolini, and Tojo are pretty clear cut evil people.

 

[Excel]

LOL omg. Talk about overthinking it.

At the end of the day, it's the economic cycle. 10-15 years from now when we have a "roaring 20s" part deux, this talk will be forgotten.

 

[chaseter]

Socialism is probably one of the most idiotic forms of an economic system that man has ever created. It's laughably hilarious that people actually believe in it. Utopia will never, can never exist. When people get that fantasy out of their head then Socialism would no longer exist. The only reason Socialism still has any relevance is because the people with hardly anything dream to have more. Despots come in and promise to give them that. Look at all the Socialistic countries in the world from the past and the present.

 

[StorminNorman]

If it weren't for the system of alliances, World War I would have probably been a simple war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia which would have resulted in a massive Serbian beatdown.

Also, I would like to consider almost everything that Hitler stood for that the Allies fought against to be evil. Now the Allies certainly weren't perfect, but Hiter, Mussolini, and Tojo are pretty clear cut evil people.

Nothing Mussolini, Tojo or even Hitler advocated were too far removed from what American Progressives were advocating. Eugenics was of high interest to early 20th Century Progressives, (which is really where the Holocaust came from). While America (nor Mussolini) never had a eugenics program, the great FDR did lock up Americans in concentration camps due to ethnicity. While Mussolini was willing to slaughter Ethiopians in the name of national greatness, FDR allegedly allowed those serving at Pearl Harbor to die for a similar reason.

In terms of Totalitarianism, Woodrow Wilson arrested a filmmaker for making an anti-British film due to our alliance in WWI (the movie was about the American Revolution). Wilson and FDR both encourage domestic espionage and the reporting of anti-government activities.

America's soldiers may have gone overseas to fight Nazism and Fascism, but FDR gave us such a government here.

LOL omg. Talk about overthinking it.

At the end of the day, it's the economic cycle. 10-15 years from now when we have a "roaring 20s" part deux, this talk will be forgotten.

The business cycle is dependent upon manipulation of credit. There is a real, and preventable, explanation.

 

[Quetzal]

If it weren't for the system of alliances, World War I would have probably been a simple war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia which would have resulted in a massive Serbian beatdown.

Also, I would like to consider almost everything that Hitler stood for that the Allies fought against to be evil. Now the Allies certainly weren't perfect, but Hiter, Mussolini, and Tojo are pretty clear cut evil people.

Hippie, I think you dont get though that Europe had been like that (the alliance balance power system) for over 500 years.

The Russians had claimed to protect the Serbs for over 100 years and fought several wars actually prior to this to defend that right at their protector.

The Austro-Hungarians had also been screwed for most of the 400 years prior to it, and theirs was a gamble that they lost.

The English despite suffering casualties technically played the European Theater to perfection in WW1, watching the Germans and Russians both implode (to a degree).

Just a few decades before the English helped support the slaughter of serbs and christians in the decay of the ottoman empire (via troops supplies etc) so they could have a counter balance. To be fair, the European leaders didnt care about the "degree of evil". However it was an added benefit that the evil was there to get more troops to enlist.

 

[WildcatNC]

Of course there are alternatives. I'm not sure that any are better though.

I do not believe in total lassiez-faire though. I think its a Utopian concept as much as communism and would be about as good for regular people in the end.

 

[Quetzal]

Nothing Mussolini, Tojo or even Hitler advocated were too far removed from what American Progressives were advocating. Eugenics was of high interest to early 20th Century Progressives, (which is really where the Holocaust came from). While America (nor Mussolini) never had a eugenics program, the great FDR did lock up Americans in concentration camps due to ethnicity. While Mussolini was willing to slaughter Ethiopians in the name of national greatness, FDR allegedly allowed those serving at Pearl Harbor to die for a similar reason.

In terms of Totalitarianism, Woodrow Wilson arrested a filmmaker for making an anti-British film due to our alliance in WWI (the movie was about the American Revolution). Wilson and FDR both encourage domestic espionage and the reporting of anti-government activities.

America's soldiers may have gone overseas to fight Nazism and Fascism, but FDR gave us such a government here.



The business cycle is dependent upon manipulation of credit. There is a real, and preventable, explanation.

The bold has been proven to be historically inaccurate, there had been encrypted messages that an attack would happen (which were intercepted) but never specifically pearl harbor. In fact there was another message deciphered of a supposed other location for an attack, which the US did prepare for.

They had also deciphered other potential attack plans prior, none of which had panned out.
===
As for Wilson and FDR being propaganda masters in their Wars, your right and they struck up deals with Hollywood and other institutes to maintain it. Not totalitarian... but they were strong iron rulers, which actually fit well for their times. Wilsonianism propagated throughout America due to his successes and every president since has had some degree of influence from the original Wilsonian principles

And to be fair Eugenics here was always considered farfetched even in those times. Progressives that you were speaking of were already of the old sort, the sort from the prior to the Guilded age epoch. The kind that no one at that time took seriously in the Democratic party other than part of the coalition to be mostly ignored.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Hippie, I think you dont get though that Europe had been like that (the alliance balance power system) for over 500 years.

The Russians had claimed to protect the Serbs for over 100 years and fought several wars actually prior to this to defend that right at their protector.

The Austro-Hungarians had also been screwed for most of the 400 years prior to it, and theirs was a gamble that they lost.

The English despite suffering casualties technically played the European Theater to perfection in WW1, watching the Germans and Russians both implode (to a degree).

Just a few decades before the English helped support the slaughter of serbs and christians in the decay of the ottoman empire (via troops supplies etc) so they could have a counter balance. To be fair, the European leaders didnt care about the "degree of evil". However it was an added benefit that the evil was there to get more troops to enlist.

I do get that, but it doesn't change the fact that Europe had an unstable foreign policy. It's exactly as they said, it was a powder keg waiting to explode and the assassination of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary that set it off.

 

[Quetzal]

Balance is unstable. I do agree some countries took unwise policies, such as Germany and France in particular.

I mean I see what you mean that the alliances led to a huge decline in Europe in general... but what I am trying to say is that not all of Europe took bad foreign policy stances.

England got a wipeout of both Russia and Germany to quite an extent without suffering as much in turn. The US I believe played it fairly well. However I feel like you cant blame all of Europe's power system at that time on mistakes by the Kaiser.

If Bismarck hadnt been dismissed and lived to see the assasination of the Archduke, he would have never made the stupidities of going into the lowlands/Russia/or even the massive arms buildup which Germany had done in the last couple of decades as soon as Bismarck was dismissed. Germany could have dumped Austria-Hungary as historians have looked back on the treaties, and turned the alliance vs Russia in a resoi' Grand Alliance look alike.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Balance is unstable. I do agree some countries took unwise policies, such as Germany and France in particular.

I mean I see what you mean that the alliances led to a huge decline in Europe in general... but what I am trying to say is that not all of Europe took bad foreign policy stances.

England got a wipeout of both Russia and Germany to quite an extent without suffering as much in turn. The US I believe played it fairly well. However I feel like you cant blame all of Europe's power system at that time on mistakes by the Kaiser.

If Bismarck hadnt been dismissed and lived to see the assasination of the Archduke, he would have never made the stupidities of going into the lowlands/Russia/or even the massive arms buildup which Germany had done in the last couple of decades as soon as Bismarck was dismissed. Germany could have dumped Austria-Hungary as historians have looked back on the treaties, and turned the alliance vs Russia in a resoi' Grand Alliance look alike.

You certainly can't blame just the Kaiser. Never said that. All of the major European powers as a whole created the instability within Europe.

 

[Frankyh]

I do not believe everything weary-making itself. I think this is a utopian concept, much as communism and is about as good for ordinary people at the end. Tera Gold

 

[hippie_hunter]

Nothing Mussolini, Tojo or even Hitler advocated were too far removed from what American Progressives were advocating. Eugenics was of high interest to early 20th Century Progressives, (which is really where the Holocaust came from). While America (nor Mussolini) never had a eugenics program, the great FDR did lock up Americans in concentration camps due to ethnicity. While Mussolini was willing to slaughter Ethiopians in the name of national greatness, FDR allegedly allowed those serving at Pearl Harbor to die for a similar reason.

I'm not saying the Allies were perfect. They had Stalin, Churchill was a crazy drunk, and FDR had people locked up in camps.

But while Stalin is certainly comparable, Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo make FDR and Churchill look like saints. The Axis Powers were just pure evil.

In terms of Totalitarianism, Woodrow Wilson arrested a filmmaker for making an anti-British film due to our alliance in WWI (the movie was about the American Revolution). Wilson and FDR both encourage domestic espionage and the reporting of anti-government activities.

Well I firmly believe that there was no good or evil side in World War I. The Allied Powers weren't exactly fighting a definitive evil like Hitler then.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

Young People More Likely to Favor Socialism Than Capitalism: Pew

Young people -- the collegiate and post-college crowd, who have served as the most visible face of the Occupy Wall Street movement -- might be getting more comfortable with socialism. That's the surprising result from a Pew Research Center poll that aims to measure American sentiments toward different political labels.

The poll, published Wednesday, found that while Americans overall tend to oppose socialism by a strong margin -- 60 percent say they have a negative view of it, versus just 31 percent who say they have a positive view -- socialism has more fans than opponents among the 18-29 crowd. Forty-nine percent of people in that age bracket say they have a positive view of socialism; only 43 percent say they have a negative view.

And while those numbers aren't very far apart, it's noteworthy that they were reversed just 20 months ago, when Pew conducted a similar poll. In that survey, published May 2010, 43 percent of people age 18-29 said they had a positive view of socialism, and 49 percent said their opinion was negative.

It's not clear why young people have evidently begun to change their thinking on socialism. In the past several years, the poor economy has had any number of effects on young adults -- keeping them at home with their parents, making it difficult for them to get jobs, and likely depressing their earning potential for years to come -- that might have dampened enthusiasm for the free market among this crowd.

Indeed, the Pew poll also found that just 46 percent of people age 18-29 have positive views of capitalism, and 47 percent have negative views -- making this the only age group where support for socialism outweighs support for capitalism.

Young people have also been among the most involved in the nationwide Occupy movement, whose members have leveled pointed criticism at the capitalist ethos and often called for a more equal distribution of American wealth.

In general, income inequality -- which a Congressional Budget Office report recently pointed out is at historic levels -- has received more and more attention in politics and the media since the Occupy movement launched in mid-September. Usage of the term rose dramatically in news coverage following the start of the protests, and politicians from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to President Barack Obama have used the movement's language to describe divisions in the American public.

Still, the nationwide Occupy demonstrations notwithstanding, socialism doesn't score very well in other age groups in the Pew poll, or across other demographic categories.

Pew broke down its results by age, race, income and political affiliation, as well as support for the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements.

There were only two other groups among whom socialism's positives outweighed its negatives -- blacks, who say they favor socialism 55 to 36 percent, and liberal Democrats, who say they favor socialism 59 to 39 percent. These were also the only two groups to show net favor for socialism in the 2010 poll.

 

[chamber-music]

Socialism is probably one of the most idiotic forms of an economic system that man has ever created. It's laughably hilarious that people actually believe in it. Utopia will never, can never exist. When people get that fantasy out of their head then Socialism would no longer exist. The only reason Socialism still has any relevance is because the people with hardly anything dream to have more. Despots come in and promise to give them that. Look at all the Socialistic countries in the world from the past and the present.

I agree. There will never be a utopia society or not anytime soon anyway. There has always been people on top, people in the middle and people on the bottom. Its always existed in human history the only difference is that in the modern democratic capitalist system we are supposed to be able to move up the social ladder. If you are born poor you may be able to become rich if you work hard, or come up with a great idea ect.

Everyone will exploit others for personal gain we do it everyday when we go fill our cars with gas that was obatined by doing deals with shady goverments who we claim stand against everything we believe yet the first moment the oil barrell prices go up and it starts to hurt our economies we all don't care.

It happens when we buy clothing in stores made by poor third world people in terrible conditioned sweat shops just because we want something cheaper.

We are happy to turn a blind eye to stuff going on in China and Saudi arabia when they have something we want. Everything has a price and when things get difficult our morals principles are are not so strong anymore.

 

[Hotwire]

Just throwing this out there, but I live in Amish Country. They seem to be making a religious form of communism/socialism work just fine. Albeit, on a much smaller scale.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

I agree. There will never be a utopia society or not anytime soon anyway. There has always been people on top, people in the middle and people on the bottom. Its always existed in human history the only difference is that in the modern democratic capitalist system we are supposed to be able to move up the social ladder. If you are born poor you may be able to become rich if you work hard, or come up with a great idea ect.

They key phrase there is "supposed to". As George Carlin once said, they call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Everyone will exploit others for personal gain we do it everyday when we go fill our cars with gas that was obatined by doing deals with shady goverments who we claim stand against everything we believe yet the first moment the oil barrell prices go up and it starts to hurt our economies we all don't care.

It happens when we buy clothing in stores made by poor third world people in terrible conditioned sweat shops just because we want something cheaper.

We are happy to turn a blind eye to stuff going on in China and Saudi arabia when they have something we want. Everything has a price and when things get difficult our morals principles are are not so strong anymore.

Right. And you don't you see a problem with any of this? You're content to stick with that system?

Karl Marx was not a utopian. He never tried to predict exactly what the future would look like, but merely thought socialism or barbarism were inevitable after capitalism self-destructs from its own internal contradictions. Marx was never under the illusion that his opponents could be won over by argument, but recognized that material interests would be the decisive factor.

The writer Terry Eagleton said that "the point for Marx is not to dream of an ideal future, but to resolve the contradictions in the present which prevent a better future from coming about." If merely recognizing problems in the hope of finding a better solution makes one a utopian, then all the great reformers throughout history have been nothing but utopian dreamers: Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King - you know, all the "safe" icons that the dominant culture deems worthy of our respect.

(John Lennon - "you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.")

The real utopians are the free market proponents who claim that capitalism left to its own devices will solve all our problems. Look at the world around you. Look at the poverty, hunger, inequality, wars and environmental degradation. Nobody can seriously argue that there is no alternative to this.

Just throwing this out there, but I live in Amish Country. They seem to be making a religious form of communism/socialism work just fine. Albeit, on a much smaller scale.

There have been lots of small-scale experiments in socialism throughout human history. The need is to apply that on a mass scale using the most modern methods of production and distribution; that is, to take all the gains we made under capitalism and apply them in a socialist context.

 

[spider_rob]

Thanks for this topic. I learned a lot.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

As good a note as any to end the year on. From the CBC, Canada's national broadcaster:

The year capitalism became a dirty word in the U.S.

 

[Pagan]

Sure there are alternatives. There's even different types (or degrees) of capitalism.
Ranging from a hybrid social-capitalist system to a full blown fascist system where corporations control the govt. and write the laws.

There's an idyllic free market capitalism. Where competition (the invisible hand of the market) decides who rises to the top and stays there. and there's the reality of those at the top rigging they system to favor them and quashing small or competitive businesses. I.E. the biggest among them pay no taxes,are heavily subsidized and too big to fail.

Then there's predatory capitalism. The vampire squid leeching from all not powerful enough to resist.

The truth about capitalism

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