[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'H')ere's a post for Americandream!

Global Warming and the End of Capitalism

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')ven Vladimir Lenin was surprised when the Russian Revolution began in 1917.

Is this just an interesting historical tidbit or a profound example of how fast seemingly stable political, social and economic systems can collapse?

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rollin', 'T')he verbiage from this article appears to be a derivative of the communist manifesto. Doesn't anyone have some original ideas that might actually work?

Maybe we just have to align the constitution with the meanings put forth in the Declaration of Independence and proceed to follow the grand ideas. Why communism or socialism, when true democracy has yet to be tried on a large scale? I know it scares the elitists, but true participatory government is at least worth a try.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'T')he only problem with Communism is that no society more complex than that of honey bees has made it work.

When people try to live that way, it rapidly evolves into Capitalism, as it is in the USSR and China.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'I') lose patience with those that would blame Capitalism for the evils of mankind.

Something deep in your genes tells you that to ensure your place in the tribe, you need to surround yourself with children, and ensure that they marry into other powerful families, and produce even more grandchildren. Because that is the way all ape tribes prosper.

Capitalism is a means to an end. It is not inherently good or evil, it is a formula for success with a 2 millenium record unequaled by any other system.

Communism is an example of a system that does not work at all. Even after 3 generations of total cradle-to-grave indoctrination, the USSR was a bust, fed by a system of barter from the private land plots cultivated in the rural areas, and with a huge black market economy in stolen goods.

Not even the Chinese could make Communism work. The oligarchs of Chinese manufacturing firms have actually surpassed the power of the Communist regime, they are headed for another bloody revolution that will make Mao Tse-tung look like a proverbial Sunday School Teacher.

North Korea, with millions of starving inhabitants, is an example of modern Communism, rigidly controlled and paranoid and ever ready to hurl nuclear weapons in all directions. Cuba is another, where the American cars produced in the 1950s are the most recent available, only military vehicles have been imported since then. At least with their system of private land cultivation, they can feed themselves, unlike Korea.

The modern Socialist nations of Europe are all broke. As a wise woman once noted: "The problem with Socialism is that you soon run out of other people's money."

As we are starting to in the USA. Where the People's Republic of Kalifornia has racked up a debt second only to Greece, chasing Welfare for All and Alternative Energy.

The ultimate legacy of both Communism and Socialism is that of failed theories of Economics, tried briefly, and without any success.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yellowcanoe', ' ')It isn't really capitalism when the freedom to compete in the market place isn't there.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'T')here seems to be an incorrect assumption that "Capitalism" and "Communism" are opposite approaches to running a country. Wrong. Capitalism is a system of economics, and Communism is a system of governance. Granted, there never has been a communist and capitalist country at the same time, unless you ionclude China and North Korea in that mix, but the more appropriate discussion would be between capitaliam and socialism, not capitalism and communism. Socialism generally defers to public ownership of resources, while capitalism defers to private ownership of those resources. I know there are several other distinctions between the two, as well, but when discussing the end of capitalism, any discussion of communism is going off on the wrong track. We're talking economics, not politics. They're hard to seperate, i acknowledge, but still.............

[Roger Rabbit]

The problem with this article is there is no Global Warming to begin with, besides even the commie countries need capitalist to help them survive, they just don't like to admit it..

I thought communism died in 1991..

http://library.thinkquest.org/C0112205/communismfalls.html?tql-iframe

[Lore]

The adult prodigy of capitalism, US corporations, are people too! At least according to former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney they are, but If they are, they're not like your next door neighbor. Modern capitalism has created a zombie like offspring that consumes resources without thought or consequence. It has no soul for lack of a better word. It just needs to feed off the living by scraping out every last low cost natural resource it can find. Unending and unrelenting only focusing to boost quarterly profits, it's life flesh and blood.

Once bitten people become infected too turning into consumers, no longer a person, or part of the living either, but a subset of the zombified corporations.

However, like all viruses spreading out of control nature has a cure. AGW, the result of our malady and like a fever left unattended will soon burn the infection out. Nature will always seek an equilibrium within its laws. Any deviant mutation soon becomes expunged from the system.

Welcome to Zombieland folks!

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . americandream

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t's modern capitalism. If markets were to compete openly, there would eventually just be one of everything at prices the sole providers would dictate.

[kiwichick]

meanwhile..... November 2013 Hottest on record Globally

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kiwichick', 'm')eanwhile..... November 2013 Hottest on record Globally

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kiwichick', 'm')eanwhile..... November 2013 Hottest on record Globally

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kiwichick', 'm')eanwhile..... November 2013 Hottest on record Globally

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')You can find dozens of sites where you will find data indicating that 2013 is the coldest in the 35+ years since we started directly observing Earth surface temperatures from satellites.

[Graeme]

It was tempting to post this as a new thread but the main topic fits this one although there are other issues added on (if you're interested, read entire article).

Whole new crystal ball game: What does 2014 hold for rabble rousers?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')��Save the Planet” becomes just another way to say “Join my socialist revolution”

Certain figures on the right have expressed the suspicion that the climate change movement is a Trojan horse that contains within it the sort of left-wing ideals that haven’t been cool and cutting edge since Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee destroyed the careers of anyone with sentimental thoughts towards socialism and communism.

Their counterparts on the left maintain that this is a crazy idea. Climate change strategy and ideology is couched in very capitalist terms like: it’s bad business to invest in companies that continue exploring for oil and gas when they already have more than they’ll be able to use, and it’s bad business to keep subsidizing development in areas that are going to get hammered by climate change.

Yet some continue to suspect that all this moneytalk is actually a beard for some good ol’ fashioned socialism. The two most significant youth movements of the last few years have been the climate change movement and Occupy Wall Street. It isn’t surprising that both groups would be talking with each other. Strike Debt, one of the most effective organizations to rise out of the ashes of Occupy, is publishing its new edition of The Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual this year. The manual will include a chapter on climate change this time around.

The lightning rod for this whole debate is likely to be the new book from Naomi Klein, which is expected to be released this year along with a documentary made by Klein and her husband Avi Lewis. Klein is the author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine – two books which have some harsh things to say about corporations and their current role in world government. Today, she also sits on the board of 350.org. The experience seems to have left her with similar criticisms of the mainstream environmental movement.

This fall, Klein told The Earth Island Journal that when major environmental organizations threw their money and resources in the direction of goals like the Kyoto Protocol and emissions trading, they just created entities which were nominally environmental in nature, but were easily manipulated by the political forces involved in their creation into becoming a windfall for corporations. In the end, they were so easily corrupted that they just gave the right wing more ammunition against environmentalists. “The Big Green groups are becoming deeply irrelevant,” she said. “Some get a lot of money from corporations and rich donors and foundations, but their whole model is in crisis.”

What would be the alternative? In a long article for the Nation in 2011, she wrote:

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'I')t was tempting to post this as a new thread but the main topic fits this one although there are other issues added on (if you're interested, read entire article).

[KaiserJeep]

Somehow, all prospective tyrants get around to some version of "Communism and Socialism are not bad ideas, it is just that the right people have not been in charge yet."

The really laughable part of the present situation, is that recent events have in fact established that these philosophies are unworkable in the real world. The only people who still believe them to be valid and workable reside in the academic world, and have never had to compete for a job or make a payroll or comply with a burdensome and meddling government agency. Reality is not in the world view of such people. China, the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, etc. are not "anomalies" of any kind.

The effects of peak oil are about to teach us all another lesson. Those countries with the most invested in infrastructure, the people with the most disposable income, and those citizens with the most personal freedom, are those best positioned to survive in the new world of "not enough of everything to go around".

A few decades from now, the world will still be dominated by the same countries, less those like China which are already imploding. The Western Democracies will still be the wealthiest nations on the Earth. Those that feel the worst of the coming PO-induced resource shortages will be the same second and third world countries that lately had huge population increases.

I'm obviously a proponent of "slow crash" rather than "fast crash". But I think it safe to say that the impact of all of the PO-induced changes will not be as dramatic as most believe.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'S')omehow, all prospective tyrants get around to some version of "Communism and Socialism are not bad ideas, it is just that the right people have not been in charge yet."

The really laughable part of the present situation, is that recent events have in fact established that these philosophies are unworkable in the real world. The only people who still believe them to be valid and workable reside in the academic world, and have never had to compete for a job or make a payroll or comply with a burdensome and meddling government agency. Reality is not in the world view of such people. China, the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, etc. are not "anomalies" of any kind.

The effects of peak oil are about to teach us all another lesson. Those countries with the most invested in infrastructure, the people with the most disposable income, and those citizens with the most personal freedom, are those best positioned to survive in the new world of "not enough of everything to go around".

A few decades from now, the world will still be dominated by the same countries, less those like China which are already imploding. The Western Democracies will still be the wealthiest nations on the Earth. Those that feel the worst of the coming PO-induced resource shortages will be the same second and third world countries that lately had huge population increases.

I'm obviously a proponent of "slow crash" rather than "fast crash". But I think it safe to say that the impact of all of the PO-induced changes will not be as dramatic as most believe.

[KaiserJeep]

We ARE talking about history. The history of the real world.

Recall that the USSR fell apart because it could not compete with the Capitalist Democracies. By the time the 3rd generation after the October Revolution was born, the USSR was riddled with corruption, and only surviving because of a thriving black market economy based on private production of food and goods. Nobody could have tried harder to make Communism work than the Soviets, who failed miserably.

China didn't even last two generations after Mao Zedong's revolution, and now is busily attempting to find some middle ground between Communism and Capitalism. They are headed for another bloody coup when the real leaders of their country - the Oligarch's who own the new manufacturing cities - clash with the obsolete Communists.

Cuba is now feeding itself from privately cultivated plots of land, controlled by those who occupied them. Sugar became uneconomical to cultivate when oil went above $40/barrel, and the country then declined from 3rd ranking to 12th ranking in the Latin American economies, in terms of GDP per capita. Meanwhile famine was widespread and there was not enough food until private food cultivation for consumption and profit was authorized.

North Korea now enters the 3rd decade of not enough food. In the absence of subsidies from other wealthier Communist countries, it cannot feed itself. South Korea, by contrast is one of the wealthiest countries in Asia.

I repeat, the real history of Communism is all failure, no success. The real history of Capitalism is prosperity. Even during the recent economic recession, the standard of living by all measures was higher in the Western Democracies than any Communist country.

Marx's philosophy has failed. As I said before, the prospective despots always want you to believe the wrong people were in charge. The truth is, that revolutionary fervor always spawns greed and selfishness, and the only economic system that then works is Capitalism. If you still disagree, point at any Communist country of 100+ million people, and make a case that Communism is actually working. I do not think you can.

Reality, what a concept.

[americandream]

Like I said, the fact that you comment as you do suggests that you haven't a clue what Marx wrote. I would suggest you read Capital. All 3 volumes.

There's a reason why the US and world capitalists favours the Maoists (China) over the Stalinists (Russia) and it has everything to do with how Lenin (on whom Stalin based his approach) and Mao variously interpreted/misinterpreted Marx and why the Chinese tripped over themselves embracing American style infinite growth in a country of over a billion.

Finally, if you think that global capital will be intact and not decoupling by mid century, I would highly recommend Capital.

edit: So as you get some inkling s to what I am on about: (you rant on at me as if I or any political movement will cause capitalism's demise (clearly you haven't understood a thing of what I have written on dialecticism.), Marx's Capital is probably one of the best books for understanding the mechanics of capitalism.

Why do you think I day trade for a living incidentally? I probably understand the markets a whole lot better than you do and I use it to my advantage. I know the beast, the Chinese communists probably do as well. Only thing is, I am one man. They on the other hand, have taken over a billion into American style consumerism BUT, they do not have the global territorial network (from imperial conquests) that the Anglo-Saxons do. It's all there in Capital.

Read it. You'll probably come out a lot smarter, smart enough to make the system work for you even.