Us econmy in dire straits ?

[allix]

Well, first of all, I don't advocate state socialism at all, although I would contend that the USSR was never in fact socialist anyway. The USSR was really just state capitalism in socialist clothes, as seems to be the case with just about any form of supposed communism or socialism. I think any socialism worthy of the name requires authentic, genuine democratic control of the means of production by the working class, and I have yet to see a "communist" state ever actually provide that. Let's not forget the cardinal truth of communism: a classless society without a state power or authority. Does that sound like any communist state you've ever heard of?

USSR and the eastern bloc states were Stalinism , a bureaucratized degenerated workers' state that is, a non-capitalist state in which exploitation is controlled by a ruling caste which, although not owning the means of production and not constituting a social class in its own right, accrued benefits and privileges at the expense of the working class.

Some say Stalinism was state capitalism like you mentioned.

[Brian]

...but the bottom line is not everyone can become rich and wealthy.

So? Not everyone grows up to be tall and handsome or beautiful. Some people are smart, some are not. Some are more resistant to disease and illness. Some become rich, some don't. There are plenty of smart people who are not rich and plenty of dumb people who are filthy rich. There are plenty of people who eat right and exercise who always get sick ar develop maladies and plenty of people who abuse their bodies to no end (Keith Richards) and keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny.

I don't understand the desire to neutralize everything and prevent people from becoming rich, be it via luck, hard work, intelligence, or inheritance. Give me a society where opportunity is equal and outcome is variable over a society where outcome is equal and opportunity is variable any day. Any attempt to make outcomes equal does nothing except to suppress the smart, intelligent, and hard working people of that society to the point where you end up with a Brave New World.

Life is not fair. Boo hoo. Deal with it.

[allix]

...but the bottom line is not everyone can become rich and wealthy.

So? Not everyone grows up to be tall and handsome or beautiful. Some people are smart, some are not. Some are more resistant to disease and illness. Some become rich, some don't. There are plenty of smart people who are not rich and plenty of dumb people who are filthy rich. There are plenty of people who eat right and exercise who always get sick ar develop maladies and plenty of people who abuse their bodies to no end (Keith Richards) and keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny.

I don't understand the desire to neutralize everything and prevent people from becoming rich, be it via luck, hard work, intelligence, or inheritance. Give me a society where opportunity is equal and outcome is variable over a society where outcome is equal and opportunity is variable any day. Any attempt to make outcomes equal does nothing except to suppress the smart, intelligent, and hard working people of that society to the point where you end up with a Brave New World.

Life is not fair. Boo hoo. Deal with it.

Being apathetic is not helping at all, as you rightly say life is not fair, that should not mean nobody wants it to be ? I personally think all the objections on this forum against equality comes down to fear of change.

[Wally Balljacker]

...but the bottom line is not everyone can become rich and wealthy.

So? Not everyone grows up to be tall and handsome or beautiful. Some people are smart, some are not. Some are more resistant to disease and illness. Some become rich, some don't. There are plenty of smart people who are not rich and plenty of dumb people who are filthy rich. There are plenty of people who eat right and exercise who always get sick ar develop maladies and plenty of people who abuse their bodies to no end (Keith Richards) and keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny.

I don't understand the desire to neutralize everything and prevent people from becoming rich, be it via luck, hard work, intelligence, or inheritance. Give me a society where opportunity is equal and outcome is variable over a society where outcome is equal and opportunity is variable any day. Any attempt to make outcomes equal does nothing except to suppress the smart, intelligent, and hard working people of that society to the point where you end up with a Brave New World.

Life is not fair. Boo hoo. Deal with it.

I think that whole sentiment is misguided. My issue is not so much with people making more money than others, that is inevitable under any economic system that uses wages; it's capitalists exploiting workers for huge profits and not paying people what they truly deserve. I think that the producers of labor should be entitled to the full fruits of their labor, and not exploited for the financial gain of a small few. I'm of the opinion that the workers in factories should run the factories, the workers in steel mills should run the steel mills, the workers on farms should run them, and so on. I think the concept of a "boss", someone who holds some type of authority over another worker is illegitimate. If you think this notion is a fantasy and will never happen, I suggest reading up on present-day Argentina or watching the 2004 documentary, The Take.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... present.29

[snarkout]

not paying people what they truly deserve

How do you conclude what someone truly deserves? I think if you follow that logic, you end up with sports celebrities - most of these cock knockers do one thing well - throw or run or catch, or whatever. None of these people "deserve" millions of dollars for this for any other reason than the industry makes so much goddamned money that they are seeing their cut of it. On the other hand, Bill Gates certainly "earned" his place in society, even if he has been somewhat ruthless, and Microsoft pays lots and lots of people extremely well to develop code. Yet Gates is shit on daily on these fora.

Until the factory worker can provide himself and others with the means of production, all they "provide" is labor. This is one of the points some of the communist/socialist ethos propaganda seems to overlook.

[allix]

I suggest reading up on present-day Argentina or watching the 2004 documentary, The Take.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... present.29

I saw the take a few months ago, i spoke to a friend from Argentina about it and he was saddened, the workers controlling the factories are pretty much over now. He told me there is a lot of naivety in the country over it, and that its not that simple as perhaps the documentary showed.

[Wally Balljacker]

How do you conclude what someone truly deserves?

Well, ideally, under a democratically self-managed workplace, the workers would decide on a fair wage, and distribute whatever profits they made evenly amongst themselves, depending on however much time a person committed to a particular project.

[Vogateer]

I can understand representation in government, but not in the workplace, where you see something much like the open source movement, where a benevolent dictator seems to be the best system. I can't say I understand why you want to put the workers in charge of decisions regarding wages, since we've seen the unions practically choke their companies to death with their demands, which are way out of line with what non-union workers make.

Also, what everyone else seems to be talking about is trying to bring about some sort of cosmic justice, or trying to implement some sort of karma-based system, which brings out the worst in people, because those who have had the worst deal get a leg up on the competition. Therefore, everyone rushes to the bottom, in their rhetoric at least, to prove how badly they've had it, so they can either gain opportunity somewhere, or worse, sympathy for bad acts. Rule of man arguments, basically. We, as humans, should by now have come to realize our limitations, and understand how the rule of law is the best we can manage. We can only decide justice as it relates to a specific act, any attempt to go beyond that and we enter a horrible mess that we couldn't possibly hope to figure out.