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Which is the best ? Capitalism or Communism

From the time of Cold war the Capitalist's and communist's were contravene each-other.But whose Ideology and main motto of work is good.

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Permalink Reply by Madhukar Kulkarni on March 24, 2013 at 12:42pm

Tom Sarbeck is right, but nothing is totally best for any one. Many years before, when he was US ambassador to India, Charles Bowls had said that 'domesticated capitalism' can be good to India. We are actually experiencing it presently. Communism did not prove to be totally good for the communist countries and likewise, uncontrolled Capitalism too will be proved to be not totally good for America.

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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on March 8, 2013 at 10:45am

Good thoughtful question - I think for me to answer I would have to research more and think about it. I like it that you get us to thinking.

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Permalink Reply by G on March 8, 2013 at 8:16pm

Yes.you are right

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Permalink Reply by Alexandros on March 8, 2013 at 6:06pm

Well, a pure communist society would probably be the best place to live in, however our awfully selfish human nature will not allow such a society to survive or even exist in the near future. I really hope that this will change in the following years to come, although I highly doubt it.

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Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on March 9, 2013 at 4:37am

I have done some research in communist countries and observed some troubling things. For example, many people were on building projects and many of the workers stood around idle. Too many workers for the job, yet there were jobs for those who did not participate in labor. That created harsh tensions among workers. Looking at store shelves, there were very limited varieties or not many items. In fact, the shelves looked quite bare. I observed lines of people standing, waiting to go into food stores for bread, vegetables and meats.

Countries I observed that showed low levels of poverty, who had high employment, and the people seemed most satisfied by their own descriptions were the Scandinavian countries and northern European. I did not go to S. America. I did go to SE Asia, China and eastern and western Europe.

There are dozens of charts naming the happiest and healthiest countries and I see no communist country on them.

Table: The World's Happiest Countries

Denmark, Constitutional monarchy

Finland, Republic

Norway, Constitutional monarchy

Sweden, Constitutional monarchy

Netherlands, Constitutional monarchy

New Zealands, Constitutional monarch

Costa Rica, Republic

Canada, Constitutional monarchy

Israel, Republic

Switzerland, Republic

Australia, Constitutional monarchy

Brazil, Republic

Panama, Republic

Austria, Republic

USA, Republic (… turned oligarchy)

You can use many different criteria to know which is best for the general population. And having a political label doesn't tell the whole story. A perfect example of that is the USA; it no longer has a Republic, in my opinion; money rules the country and those who labor for wages are becoming serfs to a wealthy class.

Misery Index

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Permalink Reply by SteveInCO on March 9, 2013 at 11:44am

For example, many people were on building projects and many of the workers stood around idle. Too many workers for the job, yet there were jobs for those who did not participate in labor. That created harsh tensions among workers. Looking at store shelves, there were very limited varieties or not many items. In fact, the shelves looked quite bare.

Another joke they used to tell in the Soviet Union:

This is the worker's paradise. We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.

Now strictly speaking, they did get paid. They were handed a sheaf of colorful paper and a handful of coins of zero intrinsic value. But there was nothing to actually buy with that money, and since money is at base simply a way of denoting you've earned some goods you are going to to swap it for, then in fact you haven't been paid, you haven't received value for your work.

But honestly, a second's worth of thought should tell you the two situations you describe imply each other. Nothing to buy in the stores... in large part because nothing is being produced; and Joan saw an awful lot of nothing being produced.

I feel genuinely sorry for anyone trapped in such a system who actually did bust their asses out of some sense of idealism only to get the same reward as everyone else; he or she got pretend pay also and got to engage in the same life-wasting challenge of actually finding something to spend it on (I am told savings rates were high in countries like that; go figure), and their contribution was in essence divvied out among everyone in the country and they got some microscopic share of it back.

It is, plain and simple, slavery. Some bureaucrat, hundreds if not thousands of miles away is responsible for deciding what you shall be assigned to do and what you shall be paid for it. It has already been pointed out that someone decides these things, and that someone is very powerful. (In the Soviet Union they often had very low nominal salaries--Brezhnev's was not much more than a factory worker's--but tremendous perks.)

The people with the most ability and drive were expected to work entirely for the benefit of others ("From each according to their ability, to each according to their need"), and what I find puzzling is why anyone would hold this up as a moral ideal. I don't find puzzling in the least that workers would pretend to work in a system like that, nor why it would fail.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on March 10, 2013 at 1:07am

SteveInCO, you're exaggerating so much that you destroy your own case.

Soon after the Soviet Union crashed, my kid sister spent two weeks in Moscow and two weeks in Warsaw.

She said people waited in lines outside the store and negotiated: one would buy bread for two families and the other would buy milk for two families. Outside the store they would share.

They were learning the skills necessary for democracy better than we Americans.

C'mon, SteveInCO, tell us your agenda; your words are those of a Chamber of Commerce propagandist.

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Permalink Reply by Mathew T. on March 9, 2013 at 8:01pm

Completely right. The Scandinavian nations all have one thing in common as well: high tax rates and subsidizations for citizens.

Maybe that festering old windbag Bill O'Reilly was wrong when he said that higher taxes will somehow make people stop wanting to work? Haha

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Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on March 10, 2013 at 2:32am

Mathew, the US of A has from 1787 subsidized business.

First, by redeeming Revolutionary War veterans paper at face value, not its lower market value.

Second, in the 1790s Yazoo land claims. (Check Wikipedia; follow up in Congressional history).

The list is too long to include here. It includes:

1) early and still-continuing taxpayer bailouts during many recessions and depressions,

2) massive grants of land to railroads,

3) a long history of opposition to the employees of business allies, and recently,

4) the US Supreme Court's granting of the rights of natural persons to paper persons (corporations).

In general, European capitalism is far kinder to people than American capitalism is.

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Permalink Reply by SteveInCO on March 10, 2013 at 2:58am

So here is a semantic question.

Are these sorts of subsidies and favors to business (which you are right to complain about) a part and parcel of free enterprise, or a corruption thereof? The "ideal" or "laissez faire"capitalism is where government keeps its hands off the economy (except in cases of murder, negligent homicide, fraud and theft), but subsidizing business is not a "hands off" policy by any means. Libertarian types and others who believe in a laissez faire system abhor corporate welfare as much as they abhor the other kinds.

Other ways that government interferes in favor of (some) businesses are by erecting regulatory structures that favor existing companies over startups, sometimes blatantly so (via permits to operate). But this can be as subtle as simply enacting regulations you have to hire a lawyer to untangle. Technically all businesses in an industry are subject to those regulations, but the big established ones are the only ones who can readily afford that lawyer.

It has reached the point that a businessman wanting to simply compete without using the government has to play the game anyway or go out of business, because his competitors will. When the government assumes lots of power over businesses, the businesses will make it their policy to lobby the government, either out of self-defense or out of a desire to use this new method of getting ahead. This suggests that the true source of corruption in politics is politicians assuming too much power.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on March 10, 2013 at 4:46am

Steve, thanks for your quick reply.

You identified a few more of the many subsidies, some of them well-hidden, that American-owned businesses, and probably foreign-owned businesses in America as well, enjoy.

I do not share your belief that the true source of corruption in politics is politicians assuming too much power.

The true source?

Our blue-green algae ancestors eating each other--the stronger eating the weaker, of course.

In other words, corruption is built in.

The weak have a long history of devising means to avoid being eaten; democracy being one of them.

Libertarianism isn't a remedy; it merely restores some of jungle law.

Stop wishing for the impossible.

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Permalink Reply by Mathew T. on March 10, 2013 at 5:22pm

Totally agree. It confuses me at times that people can be so willing to forgive Obama's bailouts to corporations (not agreeing or disagreeing with them), but those same people would have wanted Bush (et al) strung up for bailing out the same companies and banking institutions.