AlphaWolf said:
Lets review some terms real quick:
Democracy (as defined by Plato): A balance of power between the upper and lower classes.
Communism: Remove the upper and lower classes, everybody is exactly the same (well, they are born different, but lets just pretend they aren't).
I'd better quote someone else to define democracy. Plato had very totalitary ways of thinking about politics. Read his
"The Republic", to see what I mean. I've read it some times ago and I dont remember the details. Basically he thinks that the power should be given to a set of wise people, and the children shouldn't be raised by their parents, but by the governement. There is some egalitarian philosophy behind it too...
Communism as defined by Marx: He sees history, and the human sufferng that resulted and results from it (wars and dominations), as a consequence of the class struggle. So, we'll get rid of that stupid struggle... If he wants to remove upper and lower classes, it's by erasing the upper one. He promotes a bloody revolution, to destroy the root of "evil". Anyone who's wealthy or powerfull in the "old society" has to be killed. Then comes a transitory governement: the state has to be lead by the party, in order to educate the people, and allow them to "unlearn" the bad habits and ways of thinking that the ugly capitalism forced them to assimilate. Then, when everybody is brainwashed, the real proletarian dictatorship (an absolutely egalitarian democracy) can take place. No more classes, end of the history.
It's oversiplified, but I think that the main ideas are there. The intention is good. The flaws are quite obvious IMO.
In the real world, all the communist revolutions stopped at the transitionnal state, then collpased (well, Cuba and North Corea's regime aren't dead yet, but they are obvious faillure, people are oppressed, economy stagnates, etc... China is progressively evolving to open economy, and capitlism in a way.)
We could imagine to remove the lower classes. Just replace the stupid hand workers with machines, and let these bastards starve. Wait... Isn't this happenning right at the moment?
I like to compare this to evolution. Capitalism tends to mimick that of evolution; good things live, bad things die, and if you don't live, tough. Democracy is the system of laws built around capitalism to try to ease the pain for those who do not survive (economicaly speaking that is).
If you like to compare things to evolution do you know what happens to the species with an exponential growth rate (species without a predator, in fact). Think of bunnies in Australia. No predators, they copulate like freaks, eat, eat, eat... Untill they've eaten everything in the area... then they massively die. A few of them survive, move, and find a new place to eat, multiply and so on. Untill myxomatosis is introduced.)
I don't like the concept of "artificial" stuff. The man is a part of the nature. Humanists tend to think that humans are different, above animals. I think that from an ecological point of view, human is just another specie. Everything we produce becomes a part of our natural environment. (What's more natural in a bird's nest or in honey, than in your home or in plastic?)
Even if the population growth stops, nothing but itself can prevent the mankind of consuming more and more ressources. Isn't the economical growth based on the fact that every year you have to produce and sell more that the year before. Raw materials aren't availlable in infinite amount...
In this case, I wish that "The man is a wolf for himself" could take a new meaning...
Communism attempts to defy evolution entirely. The goal of communism is to ensure that nothing dies, because then somebody would be unhappy. Communism just wants to create this perfect utopia where everybody is just blissfuly happy forever, but in the process they destroy their own future.
Agreed. That's one of the reasons that make me not like communism.
There have been capitalistic dictatorship, BTW. Pinochet's Chile was one. Some history: Salvatore Allende, the democratically elected socialist president wanted to nationalise some industry (I don't remember which, maybe petrol... not sure). This would have had serious consequences for the US economy. so the CIA backed up (they provided money and weappons. Maybe mens, I'm not sure...) Pinochet bloody coup (Allende was killed as well as many other people). I think that it has been officilly aknowledged by the US gvt.
I don't have anything personnal against the USA, BTW. It's just the current hegemonic nation. And it acts like any previous hegemonic nation, it tries to impose it's views to the rest of the world... Europe did exactly the same thing 100 years ago. Then both world wars took place, and Europe bbecame debitor towards the USA (before it was the opposite, IIRC). Something I find funny in the American foreign politics is the way they promote democracy at a nationnal scale, while they act in a very totalitary way on the internationnal scene (recently, think of the Irak war, or the way the refuse the internationnal penal court).
re. microsoft: They replaced their predecessors just as somebody will eventualy replace them, it's inevitable.
Your faith in capitalism is so deep that you think you can see the future? "Inevitable" is the word that comes after a faillure, to persuade yourself that you didn't do anything wrong...
They will not hold the top forever, nobody ever has, nobody ever will.
Forever doesn't exist anyway
, some day there won't be humans anymore...
Meanwhile, the society as a whole benefits from the improvements given by them, which will be passed to their successors as the cycle repeats.
And, at the same time: "Meanwhile, the society as a whole suffers from the lack of freedom caused by the de facto monopoly."
I think that history strammers more than it repeats itself... Mankind slowly evolves, it adapts itself to new environements (both natural and political)...
It's stupid to believe that a given set of ideas is the universal solution to human problems. Even more stupid when the ideas haven't been tested. Egalitarism may be good, some times, at some scale, for some people as capitalism may be too.
