tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7272525777827091486.post9170763539753401398..comments2024-03-27T05:10:01.541-07:00Comments on legalienate: An Epidemic of Capitalismfrank scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06210560169236136762noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7272525777827091486.post-73059156536144072622022-06-17T10:45:29.451-07:002022-06-17T10:45:29.451-07:00I like it when people come together and share many...I like it when people come together and share many thoughts. Great website, continue the Excellent work!buy cialis onlinehttps://www.healthcareshopy.com/buy-cialis-online/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7272525777827091486.post-76769330664439846402020-05-28T13:27:04.604-07:002020-05-28T13:27:04.604-07:00And furthermore, the "lower" living stan...And furthermore, the "lower" living standards of the USSR, for example, were based on having been the "service area" for capitalist exploitation prior to the 1917 revolution. So the USSR started from a much lower point than the Western European countries whose elite groups exploited Russia and Eastern Europe before the Bolsheviks removed it as an area for exploitation. Then the West's counterrevolution invaded and occupied the USSR using every conceivable barbarity to strangle the revolution in its crib. This went on for the entire life of the USSR, and in spite of that the USSR lifted its population from backbreaking labor on the land to a modern standard of living in a single generation, which no Western country had ever managed. And Communist China's record of development was even faster. So the assumption that capitalism has the better record on standard of living is just a point of dogma. If the elimination of poverty and rapid development are values, the West is backward compared even to "totalitarian" socialist states.And none of the West's capitalist states have been invaded, plundered, blockaded by socialist enemies. . . . . . . . . . . The late William Blum summed it up best: "The boys of Capital, they also chortle in their martinis about the death of socialism. The word has been banned from polite conversation. And they hope no one will notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the twentieth century - without exception - was either overthrown, invaded, corrupted, perverted, subverted, destabilized or otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States and its allies. Not one socialist government or movement - from the Russian Revolution to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to the FMLN in El Salvador - not one was permitted to rise or fall solely on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home. It's as if the Wright brothers' first experiments with flying machines all failed because the automobile interests sabotaged each test flight. And then the good and god-fearing folk of the world looked upon these catastrophes, nodded their heads wisely, and intoned solemnly: Humankind shall never fly."<br /><br />-----William Blum, "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II."Michael Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17631483577908372312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7272525777827091486.post-68190199709870576342010-02-13T17:49:46.141-08:002010-02-13T17:49:46.141-08:00Mine is not an arbitrary definition. All through ...Mine is not an arbitrary definition. All through the 19th century the goal of socialist movements was to put the workers into power. Capitalism has been unrelentingly hostile to this objective, even as it declares itself the victor over a socialist system it has refused to allow to exist. That truly IS a game of heads they win, tails we lose.<br /><br />"Middle class" people have to rent themselves to the private owners of the capitalist economy just like everyone else. <br /><br />I haven't spoken of a worker's "paradise." I've spoken of the workers holding power, quite another matter. In principle there should be no "ruling class." If democracy is a value, management should be accountable to workers, not to private owners.<br /><br />But this has nothing to do with the article I wrote. Living standards were rising under the slaveocracy of the American South, too, but that hardly justified such arrangements and the system was thankfully destroyed. <br /><br />Why is it that capitalism in the U.S. puts the poor into prisons instead of decent jobs? Why are so many people without enough food to eat? Why is labor a commodity and workers almost completely without rights and security? Why is capitalism's pro-unemployment policy allowed to ruin millions of lives?<br /><br />From starvation alone, capitalism has killed far more people than Communism. According to Nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen, India killed more people with its capitalist social policy between 1949 and 1979 than all the Communist states did put together going back to 1917.Michael Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17631483577908372312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7272525777827091486.post-11328577130095746182010-02-13T06:14:49.665-08:002010-02-13T06:14:49.665-08:00It looks as if it's a case of heads you win, t...It looks as if it's a case of <i>heads you win, tails I lose</i>. You resemble the Western communists who absolved themselves from the failures and crimes of Stalinism by claiming that Soviet communism had been only an regrettable example of state capitalism. <br /><br />But to continue your game of defining terms - how can we identify these working classes? How are they different from the middle classes, for instance? Is there to be any managerial or ruling class in your putative worker's paradise?Mickeynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7272525777827091486.post-18584608016890430492010-02-13T03:20:36.927-08:002010-02-13T03:20:36.927-08:00There were/are no socialist countries, at least if...There were/are no socialist countries, at least if socialism is taken to mean countries in the hands of the working class, which is the only definition of socialism that makes any sense.<br /><br />But what is the relevance of the question? My article points out the appalling inability of capitalism to distribute wealth in any kind of decent manner. Are you saying that if "socialism" can be demonstrated to be even worse, then starvation amidst abundance is therefore acceptable?Michael Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17631483577908372312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7272525777827091486.post-82197047496149452462010-02-12T18:48:56.379-08:002010-02-12T18:48:56.379-08:00So why were/are capitalist countries so much riche...So why were/are capitalist countries so much richer than socialist ones? Why did the last 2 centuries witness incredible rises in living standards for the large majority of the populations of these capitalist countries?Mickeynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7272525777827091486.post-69425135525588330252010-02-12T06:14:00.562-08:002010-02-12T06:14:00.562-08:00I found this article interesting and informative i...I found this article interesting and informative if not a little scary. I also find it interesting that the later blog about David Irving and the Holocaust provoked debate yet, the fact that in the richest country in the world, today, people go hungry and people die because of the economic system goes uncommented on.<br /><br />SteveAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com