ZOMBIE FORUMS

I allow myself to note that Clay's and apsuarawn's points of view not exactly opposite.

I agree that you can never really separate culture and government. This is not only my point - most historians and philosophers support this opinion.

This point of view doesn't contradict Clay's statement that Russia and China were never 'pure' communist. I am from Russia and I know for sure that communism for us was always like a fishbait - something really good that will come tomorrow, in a ten years... or when hell freezes over.

How comes there were no communism in Russia? I will try to make it simple, mostly because my english skill is not so good.

part 1

Famous works of Marks are split into two parts. First part is economical - how it all works - classes, capital, income, etc. This is a good model that allows it's users to predict some possible situations. When Marx and his followers analysed this model, they found out that
(1) poor will become poorer
(2) rich will become richer.
(3) there is no way to resolve this problem in bounds of classic Marks model.

What does it mean? It means that eventually capitalism will collapse, flame of revolutions will scorch entire world and new era of communism will come. Simple, see?

Now we know that this prediction is wrong. Explanations why is it wrong I better leave to people who better know western economics and politics.

part 2.

Now enter russians. Lenin (actually lots of other people before him, but I am not a historian) sees Marks model, sees an outcome - and start to reuse, expand and implement it. Leninism is not exactly Marksism, it was cnanged, adapted to russian reality of that times.
Finally russian social order became unique. It was half-political, half-religious. Yes, it was like a religion with it's dogmas and gospels... and holy inquisition too.

[book I've mentioned above is really good guide to what's happened]

I point it again - it was unique to Russia. In other countries were other social orders. Probably simular, yes - but different.

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I hope it was informative and interesting.

Thanks SwartAlf, I have read the communist manifesto as well, and your summation of it is right on

Okay, it was this point that made we want to answer this in quote form. Look, I KNOW CEO's don't handle marketing, but I was making a general sweep at big businesses in general. I stick to my stance that I could do a better job than they are. And I also know that the individual responsible has been handling it for years, yet nothings been done to her. The owner of a local franchise keeps telling me over and over that no one at corporate is accountable for advertising failures, and I'm prone to believe her, since she isn't a liar.

As for paying for free scoop night - It's not the unfairness that's the issue with me. It's the wastefulness. Again, the owner of the franchise I talked to told me that while she's required to do it by corporate, it doesn't drum up new business, doesn't bring in new regulars. But corporate insists on it, and there's no problem that it isn't really doing anything, because they don't have to pay for it.

Like I said, no accountability, no responsibility. Seriously, a corporation the size of Baskin Robbins could be run by a monkey, and it wouldn't sink. It's too big, too unstoppable.





I believe I just answered that. And I agree my sources are limited. These are the only two major corporations I have information on. But, as I said, these are the only two corporation I have information on. That "only two" is what bothers me. Still, I'm working with what I have.



First off, I admitted to being prejudiced (the remark about the Communist streak). Second, yes, you can separate "big businesses" from all other businesses, because they are different animals. Ask any small or big business owner, and they'll tell you that.

But thank you for the information about the CEO's. I never claimed to be a business student, and I appreciate the information.




I hate to admit it, but I see your point here, mostly about the salary inflation of would be CEO's and other "skilled" jobs.



I've always thought that the truly best form of government is an Enlightened Dictatorship, one of Plato's theoretical philosopher kings. The Crown wouldn't be passed down by lineage, but to a chosen heir, chosen by the king. Obviously, for this to work, the king would have to be a moral person to begin with AND be an astute judge of character. I think the closest we got this was Marcus Aurellius in Rome, and we all see how that turned out. (Gladiator was all lies!) So obviously, that's not really an option. So we're left with representational government. Which works well enough to keep us out of anarchy and defend our interests. But the two party-system often seems to limit our options far too much. But I'm still looking for a solution.

Thist was put here more for anyone who thought I was holding Communism as the ultimate form of government. Which it isn't. And if you've been reading this post from the beginning, you know I don't even hold Communism to be a form of government, but an economic system.

I'll withhold my allegience for now, but, empirically speaking, Communism has been much worse than Capitalism. The world today is much better than was before capitalism; if you want argue otherwise, go right ahead, but it's pretty much a given (even for me). In cases in which Communism has been implemented, it has inevitably failed or given way to a more capitalist model. This may be because the Communist countries were doomed to fail anyway, or because NATO destroyed them prematurely, but I have three things to say regarding this:

1. That the countries which implemented Communism were consistently weak and corrupt to begin with is telling of its place as a last resort.

2. Unless we are arguing pure theory here, the fact that Communism was always implemented badly, without fail, is also telling of its efficacy as a system of governance.

3. Capitalism's triumph over Communism is telling of the superiority of the capitalist system.

Purely empirical data, but....there ya go.

Communism is an economic structure, not a social structure, and it's never been put into practice as Marx intended.

Let's keep at it! Maybe another hundred ten million dead and we'll get it right!

To address the point of CEOs making too much money, read the recent article by umm...that economist guy in newsweek. If I had it at my dad's house I'd tell you the name. Basically, it shows how CEO salaries are not based on any competitive market, so they are almost always artificially inflated.

To address the concept of CEOs making too much money, and why, go to your local library and find a copy of the book Corporate Messiahs by . . . I forget. But either way, that explains pretty damn well why companies want to pay CEOs so much money.

CEO's are just dressing to impress shareholders and give an impression that the company is strong. Only 15% to 20% of poeple realize they are overcompensated, and those are not the investors they want anyway. They are looking for the ignorant stock purchaser, and those with a portfolio manager telling them about total returns on investment. Those managers use the same company with the overpaid CEO to adjust the risk factors of the portofio when said company starts to tank due to false earning data and the like. It is nothing more than a shuffle of the cards in the game of investment. Grab a few economics or finacial managment classes in school to see the basics, you'll see.
By the way, getting back to the original thread title.... May 5th should have rang a bell forr the so-called commy group we have here, what happened? Hell, I was trained to hate, hunt, and kill communists, and I know what May 5 is... What about you pretenders?

just throwing in a brief thought here. Communism, as it was originally intended, by Karl Marx, is a great idea in theory. In theory, it is quite possibly the best system of governing available. Democracy could kiss its ass. I'm being very general here, as I am pressed for time, but on face, Marx's communism is ideal.

Therein lies the problem that in order to confirm Marx's dream, humans would have to maintain the stasis of communism as it was originally intended, which, as we can see by the Soviets, is impossible. The face of communism was shit upon during the Soviet era, and it was distorted into something it was not. Kind of like Islam being distorted by al-Qaeda.

Unfortunately, no matter how many times the system of communism is tried or implemented, it will always have the same end result, because the system is just too tempting to take advantage of. Communism, while in theory is a great idea, has no pragmatic value. It could never exist successfully in the a real society, and when I say successfully I mean without corruption. Corruption is inevitable because of the nature of human beings.

Maybe Johnathon Swift and Karl Marx should have gotten together, coupled their theories. Horses are most likely superior anyway, could have tried communism with them.

and as a side note, most of you need to shh. I'm not going to point elbows or anything, there are a few of you, and you know who you are, that understand what you are talking about. The rest of you, you need to go read The Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, Grudrisse, Wealth of Nations, Capitalism and Freedom, and I'd say Principles of Political Economy and Chapters on Socialism, cause John Stuart Mill is just a God himself. This will not only shut most of you up, but maybe make you a little informed about the bogus things you are saying.

Feel free to flame or retort, but in all likelihood, I won't respond again, unless something worthwhile is brought up, which, as thus far, seems to be a rare happening.

8) adios.

But Soviet communism, or Marxism-Leninism, was corrupt from the very beginning. They were openly advocating the establishment of a dictatorship from day 1. All other forms of communism tried in the twentieth century fell under two categories: A) the ones following the Soviet paradigm (e.g. China, Cuba), which were never intended to be democratic and doomed from the very beginning, and B) The democratic ones (e.g. Chile under Salvador Allende, Nicuragua under the Sandinistas), which began forming well after the Cold War was underway and were destroyed and/or forced to become less democratic by the CIA before they could really get going, since America at the time was afraid of ALL communism, even the good kind.

Okay, since I seem to be less informed than I'd like to be--my only experience with a Sandinistan viewpoint is Rage Against the Machine, and I have to say that the lead singer of that band was a moron--is there any informative source on what the Sandinistas were, besides a Communist group in Nicaragua?

MiB, Icy, AoC, anyone?

That's all they were. Members of a left-wing Nicaraguan political party. The party was actually named for Augusto Cesar Sandino, died just before WWII after some vicious guerilla campaigns against US marines, who was a former revolutionary/insurgent leader, and was formed in the early 1960s against Somoza Debayle. The full party name is Sandinist National Liberation Front (FSLN). Their original ideology wasn't Marxist-Leninst, that really didn't come around until 1979, though, when they started launching offensives from Costa Rica and Honduras against Somoza's government. Ortega Saavedra was their first leader elected from the Sandinista party, I think that was either 1980 or 1984 election. Mid 1990s they had their little Sandinista Renovation Movement, but by then they were the major opposition party, and only pulled one seat.

They didn't really have much of an outlying outside of Nicaragua. The Sandinista Revolution is their staple; very controversial, very powerful in the midst of the Cold War.