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Summit of the Americas


Guest Shingen
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quote:

Greatness comes from serving humanity, not from making a quick buck.

What dream world are you in? This will never happen, Serve humanity because it is such a wonderful thing to do? oh my GOD!!! Give me a break.

Human nature, "what's in it for me" as soon as you remove this from the equation, everything else falls flat on its face.

It's a real pretty dream Menchise, but that's all it is, a DREAM. Come back to the REAL world!!! There is NO WAY, that such a system can work!! PERIOD!!!

The pilgrims tried it(pure Socialism), and it almost killed them all, thank god they realized that free enterprise was the way to go, or the US would not exist!!!

Your system has been tried with the greatest of intentions, but until you realize that it is a pipe dream and will NEVER work and has NEVER worked when tried, you are going to be a VERY unhappy man!! But as long as you're unhappy, I AM VERY HAPPY!!!

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I'm not gonna do "quotes" here (interesting, that word in quotes ... *sigh*, nevermind) because I'm too tired. I AM, however, going to enlighten some of you as to why a socialist government would NEVER work, and never HAS worked.

Point One: The basis of a socialist government is that all citizens are equal owners of EVERYTHING, and as such, all citizens are entitled to the same resources.

Why this doesn't work: Those resources must be CREATED, which requires productivity. Now, with all things being equal, each citizen MUST contribute equally. The reasoning is that if too many people did NOT contribute adequately, there would be a shortfall in resources. EVERYONE would suffer as a result - not just those who are not adequately productive. On the other side of the coin, if society was OVER productive, citizens would become complacent in their responsibilities as the paradigm of humanity has repeatedly shown. As a result, a resource shortfall would be immanent. Either way, eventually the whole of society would be essentially impoverished.

Why capitalism works: Individuals reap the benefits of their deeds. Those who do not contribute adequately, bring no one down but themselves. This is an extension of nature - survival of the fittest. Sure, there IS an amount of unfairness involved as some people suffer through no fault of their own and some people gain without adequate contribution. But, again, this is an extension of NATURE itself, as some creatures are BORN with benefits and others with disabilities. In other words, life is NOT fair. Why should it be? Nature isn't. And mankind is merely an extension of nature.

However, capitalism IS the fairest method because most people DO get what they put in. Sure, there are homeless people out there who don't deserve it just like there are rich people who don't deserve it. Yet, those examples are in the VAST minority. Most homeless persons have brought their predicaments upon themselves. Most wealthy people have worked for their wealth. That's just the way it is.

This begs the question: WHY would a person dedicate YEARS of their lives in becoming a doctor if just coasting through life would reap the SAME rewards? Sure, there would be a VERY few that would actually do such a thing, but humans by nature prefer to do the least amount of work for the most amount of gain. Human history has shown this and never otherwise.

Now, one might argue that citizens would be FORCED to contribute to society adequately, but then what? You've become a COMMUNIST state that simply offers basic needs in return for INDIVIDUAL FREEDOMS. Citizens simply become prisoners for the good of the state. Throughout history, mankind has favored FREEDOM over compensation. While there is always a detractor to ANY ideology, INCLUDING freedom, one must remember that WITHOUT freedom, ideology ITSELF would be moot.

In a socialist society, everyone must be willing to contribute equally. Mankind is an interesting beast in that it ALWAYS wants MORE. The problem is, mankind is even MORE interesting in that some people are willing to GIVE MORE to RECEIVE MORE, and some want MORE for LESS.

Capitalism gives each person a chance to decide whether or not they are willing to give more. Socialism decides FOR everyone that they are simply entitled to the same, and as such, each man suffers for the other man's actions.

Another thing that should be noted is the fact that human motivation most often relies upon the observance of human REWARD. In other words, if in a socialist government, a kid sees a doctor working 18 hour shifts and a man working 7 hours a day while playing video games during the rest of his hours, WHILE REAPING THE SAME BENEFITS, guess what that kid would be more motivated to do? Even in a social-capitalist government (all BASIC needs provided), too many people would shirk their responsibilties to themselves because they would not be REQUIRED to PROVIDE THEMSELVES ANYTHING. As such, a shortfall of the resources that create these basic needs would occur, rendering the system useless.

Personally, I think socialism would be great - IF everyone contributed highly. How wonderful would it be to be GUARANTEED a lush lifestyle. However, HUMAN NATURE does NOT work that way, and as such, socialism is a farce.

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Guest Shingen

This thread is becoming redundant.

I would like to add something...

Menchise wrote:

quote:

Poverty has everything to do with wealth because most of the new wealth that is generated ends up in the pockets of people who already have lots of wealth. That's why there is a widening gap between rich and poor.

Menchise, have you ever noticed what happens to poor people who win vast amounts of money through lotteries or inheritance(?), if they didn't know how to handle money before the got the large increase, they almost always blow it all within a year and are broke and worst off then when they got the large sum. So, this blows your whole theory out of the water. Poverty/Wealth is almost always a mind-set, not an economic 'condition'. (at least in America anyway.) That is the reality. Sorry.

[ 04-29-2001: Message edited by: Shingen ]

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Thank you mike. You did something I have been wanting to point out for three days now.

You politely described the differences and why you think they wouldn't work. You even admitted that socialism would be great if it would work. Very fair debate in my opinion.

I enjoy debating with someone who will acknowledge my points then try to disprove them or just still have his own opinion.

Small blurb I saw on discovery. Some bald eagles won't fly unless there are winds to help them take off. Laziness is not just human nature. That statemnet doesn't do a whole lot for either argument but there it is.

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What dream world are you in? This will never happen, Serve humanity because it is such a wonderful thing to do? oh my GOD!!! Give me a break.

Human nature, "what's in it for me" as soon as you remove this from the equation, everything else falls flat on its face.

The Biological Reductionist argument about human nature is probably THE most common argument against Socialism. The Socialist counter-argument is that humans are not born as selfish beings, they are made that way by the system that they grow up in. Nature vs Nurture. I agree with the latter, but whichever argument you believe doesn't matter in my opinion, because nature always changes and evolves when the environment is just right.

I believe that all of humanity MUST evolve out of its competitive drive in order to survive the challenges of the future. Otherwise, we will end up destroying ourselves after all of our resources are gone (and they are disappearing fast).

As long as Capitalism is around, this evolution is never going to happen. So far, humanity's attempts at Socialism (which is as good an environment as any for this type of evolution) have not been successful, but I refuse to believe that it's impossible.

I look forward to a time when I can serve humanity without worrying whether it's financially profitable or not. You call it a dream. I call it the 'make or break' of civilization.

This will be my last post on the issue, because: a) I've said all that I think needs to be said, and B) I'm running out of Internet hours.

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Let's see you all chew on this little piece, and Menchise, where did you hear that we were running out of resources? There are plenty of resources out there, it would take us a few thousand years before we really started to get in trouble. Those are the environmentalists talking, not the real people that know what's going on.

I think this article is excellent, read it and you will know why I am a capitalist.

quote:

Heights Antitrade protesters push for world socialism, against freedom.

BY PETE DU PONT

Wednesday, May 2, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT

It is easy to misunderstand what was going at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City. The thousands of Protesters were not concerned citizens fighting to save the jobs of American steel workers or French farmers. They were not championing world peace and free health care (although they may be for both). And while their ebonics-sounding chants("one two three four, we don't want free trade no more!") focused on stopping world trade, their agenda is more

fundamental--they want to end markets and capitalism and establish global socialism.

They are one part 19th-century Luddites arguing that trade and global commerce (for the Luddites it was machines and the industrial revolution) will cause exploitation, unemployment and poverty. And they are one part 20th-century Marxists, justifying violence (they threw Molotov cocktails at the police) and control over markets, governments and privately owned business in the name of a greater good: a society in which everyone is equal. The

Quebec City protesters prefer a lower standard of living equally shared to growing prosperity unequally distributed.

Jos├® Bov├®, destroyer of French McDonald's restaurants, was a hero in Quebec City, for he believes that "attacking McDonald's is not violence. The free market is violence." The Freedom Rising Affinity Group clarifies the protestors' agenda: "Capitalism and the State, as systems of domination and

exploitation, are antithetical to the achievement of social freedom and must be eradicated in their entirety. . . . The

municipality--that is, the town, the village, small city, or large city neighborhood. . . . is a legitimate arena where social anarchists, libertarian socialists, and libertarian communists

can struggle to create citizens' assemblies and hence a face-to-face democracy." Lenin would be proud.

The notion that a world commune would better the lives of global citizens is proven nonsense. Seventy-five years of Soviet experience, plus that of China, Cambodia, Cuba and North Korea, has ended that argument. Communism cripples rather than enhances life and opportunity.

But the Quebec City anarchists did not argue communism or global socialism directly. That may be their vision, but international trade is their strategy to achieve it, so their

claim that trade is impoverishing peoples around the world needs to be considered too.

Naomi Klein, a feminist antitrader, claims that "opposition to free trade has grown . . . because private wealth has soared

without translating into anything that can be clearly defined as the public good." But that is proven nonsense as well. In the 1990s the level of U.S. imports grew 115% while the economy grew 23% and added 17 million new jobs. Today more than 12 million American jobs are supported by exports.

All in all, the public good in the U.S. has been considerably enhanced.

The Cato Center for Trade Policy Studies calculates that "the value of U.S. agricultural exports worldwide climbed 26

percent" from 1992 to 1998. Feeding people in other countries and increasing incomes for domestic farmers are surely public

goods too, and as history has taught, a collectivized agricultural system is unable to feed domestic mouths let alone international ones.

Ah, the global socialists say, but that is America. The people free trade is really hurting are in the depressed nations of

the Third World. But that is not true either. Third World nations need trade even more than large-market economies. They need the higher wages foreign manufacturers pay. They need the jobs foreign investment provides and the fringe benefits and work rules that are usually better than local pay

and regulations. And they desperately need the export markets the advanced nations provide for the goods produced in the Third World.

As columnist Thomas Friedman recently wrote in the New York Times, with last year's passage of the free-trade African

Growth and Opportunity Act, "Madagascar's textile exports to the U.S. are up 120 percent. Malawi's are up 1000 percent,

Nigeria's are up 1000 percent and South Africa's are up 47 percent." Without free trade the jobs and income these exports bring would not exist.

Another annoying inconvenience to global socialists is the success of the North American Free Trade Agreement. A

recent Heritage Foundation study estimates that "total U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico has risen more than 86 percent" in the six years since Nafta took effect. Ross Perot's prediction of a "giant sucking sound" of jobs leaving the U. S. for Mexico was flat wrong. The quality of life--the "public good"--in both nations has risen with more trade. Nafta has been such a resounding success that global socialists must make sure it is never repeated; hence their violence and rhetoric against a Free Trade Area of the Americas.

The truth is that trade helps people while protectionism hurts them. With trade, people have a wider choice of goods at lower prices, and the existence of the imports both improves the quality and holds down the cost of domestically produced products. Protectionism, on the other hand, helps a narrow interest at the expense of the broad economic and social prosperity of a nation. The nations most vigorously opposing free trade are by and large the world's dictatorships, such as the former Soviet Union, Sudan, Zimbabwe and even China. For in statist nations with controlled economies the liberty and individual prosperity free trade brings is a danger to the ruling government. Yet it is such nations the Quebec City protesters want the rest of the world to emulate.

The state socialism advocated by the left in Quebec City is a dead letter, for as Michael Novak writes in "The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism," "Real differences in talent, aspiration,and application inexorably individuate humans. Given the diversity and liberty of human life no fair and free system can possibly guarantee equal outcomes." Equal opportunity, Mr.Novak adds, "can be realized only under conditions of economic growth. Liberty requires expanse and openness."

And thus free trade.

So one might reasonably conclude that opponents of global trade are in reality hurting the very people they pretend to be

supporting. As they violently promote the fatal virus of state controlled economies, Quebec City's global socialists are, in

Thomas Friedman's phrase, "The Coalition to Keep Poor People Poor."

But if one is seizing the commanding heights of a brave new world, perhaps that doesn't really matter.

Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is policy chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis.

There, I think that pretty much explains it, Don't you?

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Socialism and Communism will never work, why? Man is a fallen being. He was created perfect, but he lost this perfection when he sinned. If you discout this then man is simply a product of his surroundings, no better than an intelligent animal that can be trained. Were this the case, yes the system would work. But because of Man's sin nature and his imperfect state it will never work.

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Socialism and Communism will never work, why? Man is a fallen being. He was created perfect, but he lost this perfection when he sinned. If you discout this then man is simply a product of his surroundings, no better than an intelligent animal that can be trained. Were this the case, yes the system would work. But because of Man's sin nature and his imperfect state it will never work.

Yes, man is not perfect but in my humble opinion, that doesn't mean we have to stop trying to build a better system. Yes, mankind has failed on socialism a couple of times but that doesn't mean it can't work. Remember, capitalist systems has been around for far longer than socialist ones so they have more "experience". Just because something fails the first time doesn't mean it's all bad.

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Guest Shingen

I think I already said that...

aramike, you'd have an easier time trying to convince a christian that Jesus Christ was never born! Liberals/socialist/communist worship government not god. They revere the state not individuality. That's why they're all screwed in my opinion.

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And what exactly is changing due to this?

In Enterprise Bargaining, the employee and the employer "negotiate" the terms of a binding employment contract. Sounds nice on the surface (diplomacy replacing strikes), but it's not what it seems, because the employers have ALL of the bargaining power.

In reality, there is very little real negotiation in Enterprise Bargaining, because the employer can afford to completely ignore the demands of the other side, the job applicant cannot. The result is that the employment contracts are always biased toward the interests of the employer.

In conclusion, Enterprise Bargaining is a method of bullying used by corporations to take away the benefits that the unions spent years fighting for.

quote:

Therein lies another problem. Capitalism is what anyone makes of it. Socialism doesn't even know HOW to work - no two people have the same idea of what it really would be.

Doesn't mean that the debate can't be resolved. After all, there are different interpretations of Capitalism too, including Laissez Faire and Keynesian economics.

quote:

The primary fault - the government would be the deciding factor in what is necessary. Suddenly, a shortage of workers in one field is created. What happens then? People would have to be FORCED into working in such fields. Called slavery. Mankind is robust. One cannot predict any man's desires. As such, to assume that it would all "balance out" would be a fatal flaw.

There is a difference between slavery and cooperative production. If an individual wants an item, then that person should assist in the item's production. Besides, a man's desires would be more satisfied if he helped in the development of what he wanted. Don't you value something more when you have made it yourself?

quote:

In capitalism, however, the rewards are different, therefore, it CAN balance itself out. For instance, why would ANYONE want to labor in a car factory and receive the same compensation as, say, a lifeguard? So then, how does one get those dirtier jobs filled in a socialist system? It FORCES people.

A lot of people place too much emphasis on their careers. A job is a role you play in serving the people, it is not part of your identity.

Having different rewards for different jobs is a bad thing because it implies that some jobs are better than others, which makes the people who have lower paid jobs feel inferior.

EVERY job is equally important, from the president to the street sweeper. The day you start making distinctions about the value of each job is the day that you start alienating people.

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Guest Shingen

Menchise,

I hate to say it again, and again, again, but you're arguments only prove that socialist really believe that people are too stupid to care for themselves, and should be governed by replacing their individuality with a sort of 'machine-mentality' geared to service the state. Wrap it up in a pretty little bow and you know what? You still come out a communist and a tyranical despot. THIS is why your socialism will never work.

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Geez Kush, sounds like a copout to me, and Aramike and Shingen are chewing him up and spitting him out. He needs all the help he can get, and I'd love to chew on some of yours for a bit. Come on Kush, Let's go!!

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quote:

Who are YOU to make THIS judgement? My career is KEY on who I AM, because it is what I WANT to do.

People are individuals. As such, they have a RIGHT to place as much emphasis on their careers as they want. To say that it is "too much" is quite disturbing. It seems to indicate that you believe that YOU know something most everyone else does not. Further, the fact that people DO place emphasis on their careers should show you reason why socialism doesn't work - people are INDIVIDUALS. Who are YOU to tell them what is right and what is wrong?

Individuality does not come from your job because a job is just a task that the economy requires someone to complete.

Individuality comes from the freedom to express yourself. That's why humanity invented the arts. This debate we are having right now is an exercise in individuality: the art of Philosophy.

Every economic system has a pseudo-mechanical structure, including Capitalism, even though its parts are constantly rearranging themselves. Therefore, every economy has a machine mentality. Here is a basic blueprint of the Capitalist machine:

It consists of injectors and leakages interconnected by sectors.

1. Private Sector

Injector #1, Production, connects through the goods and services wire to

Leakage #1, Consumption, which connects back through the money wire.

2. Financial Sector

Injector #2, Investment, connects to

Leakage #2, Savings.

3. Public Sector

Injector #3, Government Expenditure, connects to

Leakage #3, Taxation.

4. External Sector

Injector #4, Exportation, connects to

Leakage #4, Importation.

The important thing to consider is how the machinery of the economy affects individuals.

Capitalism damages individuality because it teaches all people that their thoughts, feelings, and personal identity are only worth the money they make. This mentality turns human beings into cheap robots under the watchful eye of Big Dollar. The only significant freedom of expression in Capitalism is the ability to choose which type of robot you want to be.

Socialism nurtures individuality because the freedom of all people to express themselves is not limited by economic factors. The thoughts and feelings of all human beings are equally important, no matter what job they have. That is freedom.

quote:

Yeah, uhm, this isn't factual in the least.

1: The employees have bargaining power - the company NEEDS them.

2: If the company serves only their interests and not that of their employees, they will not get needed labor. Further, existing employees will develop a tendency to leave.

1: The employee needs the company much more than the company needs the employee. Companies take advantage of that.

2: Labour will have no choice because Enterprise Bargaining encourages ALL companies to behave that way. It's like sitting down to a game of poker with $100 when the guy on the other side of the table has $500. That guy will win every hand because he can out-raise you every time.

[ 05-06-2001: Message edited by: Menchise ]

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Yep,

I thought so, it's a religion to you. There is no way it would work, but you have that hard core FAITH that is just not gonna be shaken.

You are a dreamer, as long as humans are human, Socialism in any form is not going to work, EVER!!! It is an impossible dream, Capitalism, due to its going with Human nature will always be the strongest and fastest growing there is. This has been PROVEN time and time again.

Dream your dream Menchise, but it will NEVER happen, not on this plain of existence anyway.

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