Trump by name......

Well, a guy trying to start a worldwide Communist revolution would say that, wouldn't he?

That's an opinion, not a fact.

 

Oly Soviet saying "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us"

 

So Lenin was wrong about communism? Yea im done.

 

Those are very limited analyses. They presume that the Communist regimes set up from the Bolshevik revolution onward represent Marx's predictions of global proletariat revolution. The time scale is too short. Do you deny that capital is becoming ever more concentrated amongst fewer people?

You said yourself that automation is going to lead to decreased wealth. What's going to happen to those poorer nations when automation becomes cheaper than their labour?

 

Socialism is older than Lenin. It's modern form goes back to Protestant radicals of the 17th Century.

Like I said, socialism and Communism are not synonymous.

 

"The time scale is too short."

Its been 134 years, how long is it going to take?

 

How long is a piece of string?

Europe has had 400 years of the end of monarchies, and that still isn't over. History takes time.

 

One of my main problems is the removal of incentive and the part of human nature that lets power corrupt people, then we end up in a real life animal farm.

 

Nice Stalker quote btw

 

And unregulated markets lead to monopolies and corruption. That's why every major economy finds its own balance between freedom of markets, market regulation, and public welfare.

Marx and Engel's predictions were that capitalism would eventually destroy itself. While far from proven they certainly do give some food for thought and strike a chord with how things are going now that the post war boom is over. Honestly, Marxist theories on alienation and praxis are really interesting, you should read up on them. I promise you won't stop bathing and grow dreadlocks as a result!

[Cheers for the Stalker props ]

 

I thought this analysis was particularly poor - concurrent with the rise in the wealth of these nations was the institution of social services such as public education, healthcare, nationalized police forces, government regulation of industry, etc., etc. The truth is it's damned hard to find a country that isn't some admixture of socialism and capitalism, unless you start looking at extremes, neither of which starts to look good. The debate in America has been framed as an all or nothing game, when in truth it's a a question of details.

I think about the plan for free college a lot (I'd add publicly funded trade school and tech school to that list). Students are increasingly jaded about the virtues of formal schooling because in its current incarnation it offers no hope. Why should a poor kid try to get good grade in high school, knowing that he won't be able to attend college? How does it help our nation to enslave our best and brightest to staggering student debt? What would it do to the average person's productivity to guarantee them the ability to pursue a career that can make more than $7 an hour?

The debate has been framed as a question of socialism vs capitalism, but if we take a different look at it, it's a question of investment in our populace.

 

I have a .. legally acquired collected works of marx knocking around somewhere when i wrote something on effects of automation on labour.

But then you have the issue of further diluting the value of a degree, i am more for introducing more working apprentice scheme, better than the one we have in the UK now because its terrible.

 

I agree we do need to invest, I think neither capitalism or socialism helps out in the you are worker number 2452 here is your task, do it till you get to go home.

 

Yeah, that's true.

 

Opinion | Why Women Had Better Sex Under Socialism

So this seems on topic............

Whit, what do you reckon?

 

Where do you think workers rights come from?

There's a reason unions are mostly socialists.

 

Correlation doesn't equal causation.

 

They also felt what it was like knowing the stasi could disappear you at any point.

 

Does the phrase extraordinary rendition not mean anything to you?

Extraordinary rendition - Wikipedia

 

@Whit: Did you ever consider writing two sentences in one post instead of double posting one-liners all the time?