Bernie Sanders nails the Republican Party

[Rigby5]

Some experts disagree with you.

Friedman is entirely wrong.
Greed is not normally a significant human motivation.
Inherently empathy, respect, pride, gratitude, sympathy, etc., are vastly more important.
Even the birds desperately looking for worms to bring back to the nest full of screeching baby birds show that greed is no a normal animal instinct.
Greed is an artificial value that is taught and conditioned into us, and is totally abnormal, evil, and destructive.
It leads to huge tombs and monuments left by the greedy after they die, that benefit no one.
Dicken's "Christmas Carol" was not just for entertaining children.
It was a deep evaluation over how absurd we have allowed our society to become twisted.
You will not find greed in nature, but cooperation and sharing instead.

The problems of greed did not even exist until about 5000 years ago and the invention of agriculture allowed for surplus production and the invention of currency. It is only then that mercenary classes started to develop, and that an artificial materialism was even possible.

 

[Rigby5]

I guess if we decide to go back to the hunter/gatherer thing, we should give communism a try!

The human mechanism that developed over hundreds of millions of years of evolution as hunter/gatherer, can not change, ever.

And families will always remain the hunter/gatherer model.
The only difference is that instead of the male hunters taking weapons, they dress in their work clothes and used the weapons provided by their employer.

Hunter/gatherers don't have crime, because you inherently do not commit crimes against your neighbors.
So what we should be questioning whether we should be living in such large population concentrations at all, since crime is an obvious negative result.

But an even more important question is why we let people like bankers to gain the majority of our the fruits of our labor, by the unproductive manipulation of a monopoly on excess capital?

 

[MarcATL]

We are all socialists.

Especially Republicans.

 

[dblack]

But an even more important question is why we let people like bankers to gain the majority of our the fruits of our labor, by the unproductive manipulation of a monopoly on excess capital?

Because it beats hunting and gathering.

 

[bripat9643]

You obviously have no idea what Marx's 'Communist Manifesto' says beyond a few cherry picked catch phrases.

The communist manifesto defines 'Communism' as what we call 'Utopian Communism'. Utopian Communism means NO GOVERNMENT at all.

None of the countries that you listed fit Marx's description. They were all Bolshevik dictatorships.

Only Catalonia during the Spanish Civil war was anything close to a communist society as defined in the Communist manifesto.

Yeah, and you can't draw a triangle with four sides. That's what communism is: a logical contradiction. It's not supposed to have a government, but the first thing communist learn when they take over is that no one cares about their schemes unless they are forced on them.

 

[bripat9643]

Especially Republicans.

Especially Democrats.

 

[bripat9643]

I guess if we decide to go back to the hunter/gatherer thing, we should give communism a try!

That's the only place it works.

 

[bripat9643]

So weren't your parents communists as they provided you with food as a child, without being motivated by profit?

Would you provide me with food, housing and clothing without being motivated by profit?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Friedman is entirely wrong.
Greed is not normally a significant human motivation.
Inherently empathy, respect, pride, gratitude, sympathy, etc., are vastly more important.
Even the birds desperately looking for worms to bring back to the nest full of screeching baby birds show that greed is no a normal animal instinct.
Greed is an artificial value that is taught and conditioned into us, and is totally abnormal, evil, and destructive.
It leads to huge tombs and monuments left by the greedy after they die, that benefit no one.
Dicken's "Christmas Carol" was not just for entertaining children.
It was a deep evaluation over how absurd we have allowed our society to become twisted.
You will not find greed in nature, but cooperation and sharing instead.

greed​

[ greed ]
See synonyms for greed on Thesaurus.com

---

noun
excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions.

Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words

The world's leading online dictionary: English definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more. A trusted authority for 25+ years!

www.dictionary.com

If you really look at it, greed is as common among man as eating or scratching your back. Why do you go to work, just to survive? Why do you play the lottery or go to casinos, or bet on horses. Why do people invest their money? It's all greed. We always want more even if we have enough to get us by today and tomorrow.

You need some major work done with plumbing or your car. We always get several estimates, and very seldom does anybody choose the highest one. It's greed. You want to give less of your money as possible to somebody in exchange for their labor. You think you are worth more than your employer is paying you, so your greed is what drives you to his or her office to demand a raise. Where do we get many our products from today? When you buy that Chinese product, you put an American out of work because of your greed.

We are all greedy according to the definition of the word. There are very few people in this world that would ever say they have enough. We always want more because it's plain nature; plain greed. Greed is why you do have an employer that pays you for your work. Without greed, he would have never opened up his company and provide people with jobs. Without greed, banks wouldn't lend you money so you can buy a home long before you'd have the cash for one. Without greed, there wouldn't be any 7-11s or any store for that matter. Greed is why people are trying to migrate here by the millions because greed in their country will never provide them with anything more than they have.

Greed is not a bad thing at all. It's a very good thing in fact.

 

[bripat9643]

Historically humans were always living with communism until about 5000 years ago and we invented agriculture and currency.
Before then we lived in family or tribal units that always had to communal and communist.

Imagine a tribe.
All the males go out hunting.
Only a few are going to come back successful.
Does that mean the successful gore on meat until it rots, while everyone else starves?
Of course not.
With hunter/gatherer societies, they always share.
That obviously shows communism not only works, but is the only way humans could have have evolved over the hundreds of millions of years.

Name one hunter gatherer society that had cell phones and flat screen televisions.

 

[bripat9643]

The others are wrong because they insist the economic systems, socialism and communism, vs capitalism, means authoritarian vs democratic political systems. And obviously that is wrong. Socialism and communism imply collaboration, cooperation, and communal ownership of some resources, so then MUST be democratic in order to work at all. While capitalism is just an expression of personal greed, which obviously implies authoritarianism as its desired goal. Historically humans always implement socialism and communism, such as in family or tribal units, while capitalism has always resulted in slavery, feudalism, etc. The history is there as proof.

Obviously it's not wrong. Socialism and communism can't function without government compulsion. In fact, they can't function even with government compulsion.

 

[Rigby5]

That the Communist Manifesto is full of propaganda doesn't contradict that it defines Communism, Speed Racer

Well actually the "Communist Manifesto" is a lot of abstract hand waving.
It does not have a lot of detail.
That is because it is not clear how you scale up the natura, small family, tribal, village, etc. communism to large scales of hundreds of millions of people?

But clearly those who claim the Communist Manifesto is about centralization or authoritarianism, are totally wrong.
It is closer to Libertarianism than anything else, because it describes a non-coercive state.

 

[kaz]

Well actually the "Communist Manifesto" is a lot of abstract hand waving.
It does not have a lot of detail.
That is because it is not clear how you scale up the natura, small family, tribal, village, etc. communism to large scales of hundreds of millions of people?

But clearly those who claim the Communist Manifesto is about centralization or authoritarianism, are totally wrong.
It is closer to Libertarianism than anything else, because it describes a non-coercive state.

That's pretty inaccurate.

The communist manifesto advocates a government that controls life in every way imaginable. Then after setting up the levers of how society operates in that utopian paradigm dissolves itself leaving no government.

There are pieces of that in what you said, but how you said it is wrong. There is clear authoritarianism in it.

And obviously no one with that much power would ever give it up

 

[bripat9643]

Well actually the "Communist Manifesto" is a lot of abstract hand waving.
It does not have a lot of detail.
That is because it is not clear how you scale up the natura, small family, tribal, village, etc. communism to large scales of hundreds of millions of people?

But clearly those who claim the Communist Manifesto is about centralization or authoritarianism, are totally wrong.
It is closer to Libertarianism than anything else, because it describes a non-coercive state.

Communism doesn't allow for the division of labor to work. Therefore it's only fit for societies where everyone does the same thing.

 

[Rigby5]

Name one hunter gatherer society that had cell phones and flat screen televisions.

While you have a point that we are a lot more crowded and high tech, you need to make your point more clear?
Are you saying we should have cell phones and flat screen TVs, and that capitalism is the only way to have them?
If so, maybe I can see a point in that capitalism is more innovative and allows faster adoption of high tech?
But it also can be very inefficient, in that its more of a "winner take all", with a lot of bankrupt, failed competition.
For example, capitalism saddled us with Microsoft, when Borland, and other companies were a gazillion times better.
Microsoft won by cheating, like buying up shelf space.

 

[Rigby5]

Obviously it's not wrong. Socialism and communism can't function without government compulsion. In fact, they can't function even with government compulsion.

An obvious example of socialism and communism in our current USA society is public education.
While it is true that can't work unless everyone pays their taxes, at the same time, I doubt there is anyone who thinks public education is a bad idea.
So is compulsion really necessary in order to have public education?

 

[kaz]

Communism doesn't allow for the division of labor to work. Therefore it's only fit for societies where everyone does the same thing.

I have a leftist Jewish friend who lived a bunch of his life in a kubutz.

We and I had a pretty interesting conversation. He said that is Communism and it works.

I replied that it ONLY works because everyone wants to be there, everyone buys into the model, and the community is small enough that everyone is personally answerable to everyone else. There are no layers of unaccountable bureaucracy. It would never work on a government scale because none of those three reasons would apply.

He agreed that was right. Then we had a beer!

 

[Rigby5]

That's pretty inaccurate.

The communist manifesto advocates a government that controls life in every way imaginable. Then after setting up the levers of how society operates in that utopian paradigm dissolves itself leaving no government.

There are pieces of that in what you said, but how you said it is wrong. There is clear authoritarianism in it.

And obviously no one with that much power would ever give it up

The Communist Manifesto NOT advocate government control, it says the goal is to eliminate government completely.

{...
Socialists from Marx and Engels onwards ha’ve always held that with the establishment of Socialism, the State will disappear. The State, which exists where society is divided into an owning class and a propertyless class, and is a coercive institution through control of which the dominant class imposes its will on the subject class, would lose its function when society ceases to be divided into classes. The Marxian view was put by F. Engels in his Socialism, Utopian and Scientific:–

“The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not ‘abolished.’ It dies out.” – Sonnenschein edition, 1892, p. 76 (The phrase “dies out” has sometimes been translated “withers away.”)
...}

The Withering Away of the State – From Marx to Stalin

www.marxists.org

What you are confusing is that the current feudalism would prevent communism, so then a temporary government power would have to be created in order to fight against the powerful capitalists.

Personally I think the only way to achieve anything remotely related to human nature, as communism claims to be, is by decentralizing as much as possible. Since anything large will always tend toward impersonal corruption.

 

[bripat9643]

Friedman is entirely wrong.
Greed is not normally a significant human motivation.
Inherently empathy, respect, pride, gratitude, sympathy, etc., are vastly more important.
Even the birds desperately looking for worms to bring back to the nest full of screeching baby birds show that greed is no a normal animal instinct.
Greed is an artificial value that is taught and conditioned into us, and is totally abnormal, evil, and destructive.
It leads to huge tombs and monuments left by the greedy after they die, that benefit no one.
Dicken's "Christmas Carol" was not just for entertaining children.
It was a deep evaluation over how absurd we have allowed our society to become twisted.
You will not find greed in nature, but cooperation and sharing instead.

The problems of greed did not even exist until about 5000 years ago and the invention of agriculture allowed for surplus production and the invention of currency. It is only then that mercenary classes started to develop, and that an artificial materialism was even possible.

"Greed is not normally a significant human motivation."​

Wrong. People kill each other over money all the time.

 

[bripat9643]

The Communist Manifesto NOT advocate government control, it says the goal is to eliminate government completely.

{...
Socialists from Marx and Engels onwards ha’ve always held that with the establishment of Socialism, the State will disappear. The State, which exists where society is divided into an owning class and a propertyless class, and is a coercive institution through control of which the dominant class imposes its will on the subject class, would lose its function when society ceases to be divided into classes. The Marxian view was put by F. Engels in his Socialism, Utopian and Scientific:–

“The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not ‘abolished.’ It dies out.” – Sonnenschein edition, 1892, p. 76 (The phrase “dies out” has sometimes been translated “withers away.”)
...}

The Withering Away of the State – From Marx to Stalin

www.marxists.org

What you are confusing is that the current feudalism would prevent communism, so then a temporary government power would have to be created in order to fight against the powerful capitalists.

Personally I think the only way to achieve anything remotely related to human nature, as communism claims to be, is by decentralizing as much as possible. Since anything large will always tend toward impersonal corruption.

That's a fantasy. Why would anyone turn over their property to the socialist collective unless they were forced to?