Liberals and Libertarians.

There was one thread named "libertarians are a joke" with some liberals talking as though all libertarians are capitalists and libertarians pointing out that this was wrong.

Then there was another thread named "what does socialism mean" with some libertarians talking as though all liberals are communists and some liberals pointing out that this was wrong.

We should be beginning to see a pattern here.

Are we all in agreement that Marx's idea of communism and capitalism are all naive bullshit? I'm not just talking about Marx either, I'm talking about all sorts of political philosophers who knew very little about the field they discussed and viewed the world through a very narrow lense. Marx discussed socio-economics yet he did not major in mathematics which is fundamental to any subject dealing with economics. In his writings he did not prove scientifically that his theories were viable. He was a total failure. No one can take him seriously as a scientist, only as a case study in psychology investigating how people get drawn into fallacies.

So Libertarians believe communism is utter BS and claim not to be capitalists but free marketeers. Whilst liberals believe capitalism is utter BS and claim not to be communists but social democrats....

Perhaps it is time for libertarians to state clearly that capitalism is BS and for liberals to state clearly that communism is BS.

Then we can all agree that Marx and other idealists who followed suite, including national socialists, capitalists and fascists, were bullshitters and we need to do things scientifically.

As a libertarian myself I hereby clearly state that capitalism is BS.

Wuts capitalism?

i can't be bothered to cook up a reply to this, but your post proves that you lack the basic understanding of several things and fail to think things into any sort of context.  but yes, as a liberal-socialist (classical sense of the words here, read: rawls'ish stuff), i agree that capitalism and communism are ways of distribution which in their completely implemented form sucks ass.

Are we all in agreement that Marx's idea of communism and capitalism are all naive bullshit?
+1

Marx's idea of communism and capitalism

Capitalism was not Marx's idea, and it was envisioned before anything he put to paper

As a libertarian myself I hereby clearly state that capitalism is BS.

Libertarians endorse "free-market capitalism", they proper term you should use to describe yourself is fool.

Stop posting. You are a joke.

Both Capitalism and Communism are bullshit.
The reason communism doesn't work is that everyone must have slave morality, but you always have to have master morality, Stalin had master morality, became leader, and used it to HIS advantage.
I DO think that a communist revolution, worldwide, will happen, but that will throw us to a more primitive form, and we will evolve back into the master/slave morality.
Capitalism is kinda like nature, but instead of the weak getting killed off, they get exploited(mentally weak)
Thats why I like Religion, it produces alot of people who have slave morality, and thats why stupid like religion, because it makes them happy and gives them meaning to their life. The people who realize that there is no god exploit the dumb.

>>3
You lack the basic understanding of dialectics. If you leave out arguments it can only be assumed they are too weak to withstand debate. But yes, my point is that perhaps I am being paranoid about socialists being just a ruse by communists who believe it is a stepping stone to their totalitarianism inducing religion.

>>5
Capitalism was not taken seriously before Marx, given it's rightful place as a hypothetical oddity. Marx wrongly declared that capitalism was the only economic force in play, when in fact corruption between factory owners and politicians was the cause of most unfair distribution in his day and age which is defined as fascism.

Libertarians endorse free market economics, not free market capitalism. If any do then they are just another sect of marx worshippers like the communists and not libertarians.

>>7
free markets is capitalisms. you fail at semantics.
marx did not promote capitalism.
marxists are against capitalism.
capitalists are against marxism.

ITT retards.

In case it isn't already obvious, Adam Smith's version of the "free market" is not the same as "capitalism" as practiced in the majority of Western countries.

On the same token, Karl Marx's version of "Marxism" is not communism, much less socialism, and definitely not the form of "capitalism" promoted by social democrats.

Neither of these people's economic theories have ever been put in to practice in their pure form, and have only been used as the basis for planning a nation's economic structures, with many compromises in regards to upholding some of the tenets of their ideologies. While I will say that at least in my opinion, capitalism has worked far better than communism, looking at the track records of nations that have adopted both throughout history. Saying that either Adam Smith's "laissez-faire/free market" theories or Karl Marx's "utopian society/whatever you want to call it" theories have ever been put into practice in their purest forms to undergo the trials and tests of a nation/civilization/society is incorrect.

>>10
Marx isn't communism? Have you told Marx about this? I think he would be intrigued.

>>8
It would be semantics to think free market is capitalism, not to think free markets and capitalism are different things. You are mixin them up because it suits your non-logical hatred of the fre market. You see economic freedom as an impedement in the way of creating the communist totalitarianism that you believe will lead to a super duper happy utopia. You attack the straw man capitalism and claim you are attacking the free market when in fact they are completely different things, capitalism is just an invention by marx and just as ridiculous as communism.

What's the difference between capitalism and free market?

>>6

They don't call it "Social Darwinism" for nothing.

And yes, communism failed because of basic human nature. Everybody wants more power, not matter what. Competition is instinctual amongst humans. It's practically impossible to get a small group of people together to work solely towards a common communal benefit. Just imagine getting an entire country to do it. Stalin's USSR is what you get.

Not to say that people, much less entire countries, aren't constantly being exploited through capitalism (or in the name of free market). One of the most prominent aspects of a truly civilized society is their ability and willingness to protect those who can't fend for themselves. This value often gets lost in capitalist societies as people chase the almighty dollar (or euro/yen/krone/franc/whatever suits you from where you're reading from).

At least (as far as I know) people aren't getting shipped off to "labor camps" in capitalist societies... yet.

>>11

Marxism is a philosophy that can be applied to many fields, while communism is solely an economic and societal/governmental ideology.

So assuming he was still alive today, if I told him that Marxism and communism weren't the same thing, I'm sure he'd aknowledge. Then he'd probably rant about how people keep confusing the two. Then he'd probably tell me how ashamed he is about how his ideas have been put into practice and perverted.

There's a reason why they have different names.

Marc came up with the term capitalism to describe what was going on with the society. The politics in most of europe were largely Laissez-faire, which had led to a productive but very split up society, with a group of people being capital owners and a much larger group being workers. This was part of his work theory of an economic way of understanding history (Marx's largest contributions have been to the field of history). In this theory there were some different stages of societal development depending on the class system.
The Antique system was made up of masters and slaves, like the roman society. Then the Feudal system made up of farm owners and copyholders. Then the capitalist system made up of owners of capital and workers. Marx then visioned the next step being a class/stateless society, and he wrote alot of stuff about communism and we all know what that led to.
My point with this is that capitalism is what marx called the system which consists of some owners of capital who control all the productive forces of the society, and then alot of workers who are being more or less exploited by the capital owners. People who want a system like this are thus capitalists in the marx sense of the word. People who want a laissez-faire economy are therefore not necessarily capitalists, but when laissez-faire economy was implemented before, it led to capitalism.
I'm not focusing on teh communists because true communists are unlikely to exist and easy to prove wrong in alot of ways whenever they open their mouthes and spout out whatever gibberish tehy're reciting this time.
The libertarians on the other hand advocate a 'free market' but when asked most of them say 'ohh, but it's going to be regulated so it can't exploit people fo' sho''. Which is all fine, i agree with them on that, economic theory tells us that places with free markets flourish, at least economically. So with the set regulations to prevent abuse we should of course try to optimize the conditions for our companies.
The dangerous kind of libertarians however are, as the op said, the ones that go "COMPLETELY FREE MARKET NO REGULATIONS PEOPLE ARE SMART THEY CAN DO THINGS THEMSELVES!!!!". Because as history tells us, a situation like this leads to a capitalist society which leads to, if not oppression in the traditional sense, a sort of oppression in an economical and social sense for a lot of people.
Another argument for this situation happening are put forth by people when argueing against communism, "basic human nature".
to quote >>14  "Everybody wants more power, not matter what.". In a completely unregulated market this would lead to people with power getting more power, then they have more resources to acquire more power, spiral etc. And since you can't get power without others loosing it (you can get power without others loosing it but if we see it in an exponential sense like this, with some people acquiring more and more power, alot of people are bound to loose some), we will end up with large segregation between classes again.

anyway, if seen this way, people who claim to be free marketeers can easily be thought of as being capitalists, even if it is involuntarily, because a free market is seen as leading to a capitalist state of society. On the other hand, since liberals (you americans and your weird definitions) want to constrict the free market more, drive in more taxes to presumably give them to people without alot fo money (this is just an assumption, taxes could be raised in order to go to war or fill teh pockets of president, but we'll assume for the group of people coined liberals, they want to give the money to people with no money). this reduces the amount of people with alot of money, and the people with no money, thus closening the "class" gap, leading you closer to a class-less society, which is what communsim want.

this is most likely the reason for peoples notions of libertarians being capitalist and liberals being communists. Even if it's unlikely america would be communist if everbody voted for the liberal party, the liberals => higher taxes => communism is a pretty simple and straightforward conclusion.

But really, it all only makes sense if you think marx's way of understanding history is correct...

i lost track of what i'm saying, good night 4chon /pol/ :3 we should all have our different opinions and reach compromises for optimal powerups ^__^/

>>16
>Because as history tells us, a situation like this leads to a capitalist society which leads to, if not oppression in the traditional sense, a sort of oppression in an economical and social sense for a lot of people.

History doesn't show that, you made it up.
You complain about how people argue but yet you're doing it wrong yourself.
Interpreting history is a fine art exclusively for historians.
I'm pretty sure that you confuse laissez fair with anarcho-capitalism.
It means no import quotas, no toll etc. and NOT that you have to give up all your rights.
Companies want to protect themselves from unfair practices as much as you do.
Ever heard of copyright law?
The average entrepreneur isn't an evil mastermind with the goal of world domination.

^__^/

GAY

>>5
"Libertarians endorse "free-market capitalism", they proper term you should use to describe yourself is fool."

There are plenty of moderate libertarians. 

>>17
Props.  Post moar often.

>>18
There are plenty of moderate libertarians.

How does a dumbass like you even manage to breathe?
ONCE AGAIN:
Capitalism is economic science, under which the free market is defined.

>>6
Communism is the opium of the masses.

>>13
>>14
In a capitalism the government plays an extremely minimal role, just there to maintain public order and the army. Capitalism has never existed beyond criminal organisations within nations because it is much more natural for fascism or some other unification of state and big business to exist in it's place as a system of national government.

In a free market the government intervenes to preserve justice and liberty. Marx attempted to mix up free markets and fascist economic systems by pointing out that they used money as a method of assessing value and calling them capitalist, which is the equivalent of calling the nationalised education system the equivalent of the totalitarian soviet regime just because they were both organised by the state. They are both "statist", but such an abstract term is too broad to label an entire organisation.

>>15
Communism was however based on a large sum of his fallacies. Marx never accepted criticism, he went down his line of thought and believed anything that contradicted it was either a foolish aspect of culture developped by the bourgoisie to preserve their ignorance or an evil plot by capitalists to fool the proletariat into bein subservient and dismissed it with ease.

Critic: Grass is green.
Marx: Green is grassroots bourgeoisie fantasy. The bourgeoisie mentality is such that all that is green is grass, when he looks into a field and sees a field of green he does not question the fact that his eyes are out of focus he assumes it is grass and goes on with his business of ignoring his exploitation of the proletariat. They do not walk on all fours to ensure that evey green that enters their eyeballs is reflected from grass.

>>16
*yawn*

>>17, >>19
same person, www.proxymyass.com

^__^!

>>20
Capitalism is an abstract broad concept that any economist should know is irresponsible for use in defining an economic system. You might aswell point out something exists in the same universe as us.

>>21
free market economics is capitalism, grow an brains

>>22
Stop posting, you have lost this argument and only continue to make a fool of your self

>>23
>>24
They have a cave troll!

Can someone explain how capitalism differs from laissez-faire?

>>26
laissez faire takes into account reality

>>27
Elaborate. Specific differences between capitalism and laissez-faire that demonstrates the claim would be much appreciated.

Not that I disagree with you, but "takes into account reality" is so broad it's meaningless.

>>17

laissez-faire translates directly to soemthign like "let what happens happen" so a laissez-faire economy is one where the government lets what happens happen, and does not interfere in forms of regulations and rules. This, not only for historical reasons, but also because of the human psychology leads to abuse and extortion.
I'm not saying corporations and companies are all led by evil masterminds and dun dun duuuun i'm the batman who's come to save us all by implementing communism (which i already stated i thought was a bad idea), but if you leave people in an unregulated situation, the master/slave mentality takes over in 99% of the cases - and companies are made up of people.

"It means no import quotas, no toll etc. and NOT that you have to give up all your rights."

No, i don't have to give up my rights, but the company does not have to treat me properly because demanding certain level of say, minimum wages or health insurance or protection offered in high-risk jobs, etc. is a tax imposed on the company. And we certainly can't have that. 


"Companies want to protect themselves from unfair practices as much as you do.
Ever heard of copyright law?"

A copyright law is the protection of a specific piece of work from being replicated thus lowering it's value (maybe). What are these other unfair practices you talk of? taxes? regulations? quotas?  well i'm terribly sorry, but companies exist in states, these states like to run around financially, and since the companies generate a profit (at least traditionally) based on the resources of that state, it doesn't seem that unfair that they pay taxes.


"Interpreting history is a fine art exclusively for historians."

which marx was, and i was generally referring the arguments for/agaisnt the implications/causes of capitalism and communism in a marx'ian sense.
This of course is outdated, but it's still the root of how and why we understand capitalism/communism since they were ultimately defined by marx for use in marx' political/economic historical theory which as history tells us (lol durrrr i'm not a history professor but i can say things about history anyway durr durr durr) influenced europe greatly during the 19th and 20th century.

>>29

"laissez-faire translates directly to soemthign like "let what happens happen" so a laissez-faire economy is one where the government lets what happens happen, and does not interfere in "forms of regulations and rules. This, not only for historical reasons, but also because of the human psychology leads to abuse and extortion.
I'm not saying corporations and companies are all led by evil masterminds and dun dun duuuun i'm the batman who's come to save us all by implementing communism (which i already stated i thought was a bad idea), but if you leave people in an unregulated situation, the master/slave mentality takes over in 99% of the cases - and companies are made up of people."

Do you have anything to back this up?
Didn't think so.
If you want to argue with stuff that you pulled out of your ass then I quit.

"No, i don't have to give up my rights, but the company does not have to treat me properly because demanding certain level of say, minimum wages or health insurance or protection offered in high-risk jobs, etc. is a tax imposed on the company. And we certainly can't have that."

Your wage is determined by many factors like the required level of education and the amount of people who are willing to do that work.
The idea that workers don't work for their own profit is complete bullshit.
As your view on human psychology is made of ass and poo so is anything you build up on it.

"A copyright law is the protection of a specific piece of work from being replicated thus lowering it's value (maybe). What are these other unfair practices you talk of? taxes? regulations? quotas?  well i'm terribly sorry, but companies exist in states, these states like to run around financially, and since the companies generate a profit (at least traditionally) based on the resources of that state, it doesn't seem that unfair that they pay taxes."

How the fuck didn't you understand that?
Copying software and selling it for low price is unfair or selling bad quality stuff under your trademark is unfair, too.
The point here is: entrepreneurs don't want to exploit anybody because it would also be possible to exploit them.
Anyways, to your second point: So why bother giving those resources to companies when the government can use them for themselves? Since resources generate profit just from being there and all.. whoops, no, it doesn't work that way.

"which marx was, and i was generally referring the arguments for/agaisnt the implications/causes of capitalism and communism in a marx'ian sense.
This of course is outdated, but it's still the root of how and why we understand capitalism/communism since they were ultimately defined by marx for use in marx' political/economic historical theory which as history tells us (lol durrrr i'm not a history professor but i can say things about history anyway durr durr durr) influenced europe greatly during the 19th and 20th century."

BS
gb2/Cuba/

>>26
>What's the difference between a pocket calculator and a TI 30 XIIS?

fix'd

Excuse me, let me begin by pointing out that you are a complete moron and utterly miss the point.  The consequences of your allegations are exceedingly apparent even to the most casual observer of moderate intelligence.  The fact of the matter is that you are arguing with imprecise definitions and faulty logic.  You in turn create a man of straw out of your opposition, that is, falsely identify your opponents primary position and proceed to burn it to the ground.  This is most likely a result of an extreme inferiority complex on the one side and an duplicit superiority complex on the other.  Dawgs, let's just get along.  I mean, come on...

How do I said nothing in seven sentences

>>30
I don't study psychology, so i don't have a wide array of studies, and since they involve people being mean to eachother, such experiments are no longer being made. But you should look up a classic like the stanford prison experiment and the milgram experiment. In recent days there was the abu ghraib incident, but especially in poorer more unregulated situations where it is unclear who is in charge, we see abuse being much more likely to happen.
Other than that there are the mass of philosophers etc. that have dealt with the master/slave relationship.
In general i don't give much for it, but the reason i'm bringing it up as an argument is that other people here are using it as an argument for what the world will come to if it was communist.



yes, my wage is determined by many things, but in a situation with a strictly free market, governments and their influence are likely to be very minimal. So what if i don't have any qualifications, there are only few jobs for people with no qualifications and there are alot of people withou qualifications? Then the wages will drop because more people are willing to work, the companies will then higher more unqualified people for less money. great, the people have jobs now! But since the wages are low, and we live in a very minimal government which most likely doesn't offer some sort of higher education that can be attended by the average joe without paying a lot of money, i'm unlikely to get further educated. so are my kids, and then my kids will most like get a low-wage job as well.
As we can see from, say, africa, a good way to make sure you have someone to take care of you when you're older is to get alot of children. So we have alot of children with no qualifications getting low-wage jobs, and the more there are the lower the wages get. Of course for the people who started out with money and education, it's somewhat different. they can afford an education, they get higher wages, they can use these on say investing to furtheir increase their wealth, or use it   on increasing the wealth of their children, or use it on further qualifying themselves to increase their wages.  
Thus we end up with two opposite spirals, in theory anyway.


in a few situations with unique products, replicas will increase the value of the original product as more people get to know of it and thus wish to acquire the orignal rather than the replica. That's why i added the maybe.

And i was trying to come up with an argument for companies to pay tax to which you people don't go "OMG THEY'RE STEALING FROM US", but it obviously didn't work. It could be seen as land or rights to run a business sold from the state to the private person running the business, and then the business pays taxes pay taxes for physical protection, an educated workforce, a judicial system which protects the rights of the company in case of say, copyright infringements.

and you can call BS all you want, marx's thoughts DID influence europe greatly during the 19th and 20th century :3

Since you insist in pulling BS out of your ass I'm out.
Arguing like this outside of a pub is retarded.

>>35

TRANSLATION: "I lost the debate, so I'll try to fool people into thinking I won."

Despite your condescending elitism, calling people "retarded" over the internet under your anonymous handle, most people see through your intellectual put-on facade.

For those of you who really think he/she is gone for good, and you wanted to get in your rebuttal, don't worry. They'll be back in a couple days pretending to be someone else supporting their own previous posts, this time changing their typing style a bit, so people can't easily point them out as the same person.

Wut is this faggotry?
I said I'm out of this 'debate' and not that I'm going to leave 4chan.
Oh, and since you perceive what I said as elitism gives the impression that you've never been in an university.
If someone tries the argue with BS he can't back up then the lecturer will rape his ass.

>>37
yes, but a) this is not a lecture, this is a 4chan discussion board. b) what we're discussing is by large ideologies, which are mostly a matter of belief.

>>37

With your rationale, leaving the lecture hall when you're losing a debate is a perfectly reasonable form of rebuttal.

And I'm sure using words like "faggotry" really impresses the professors. They must be amazed at your eclectic vocabulary.

You claim that I've never been in an university before? Prove it. For all I know, you haven't attended one; and your arguments are at least testament to this. Usually when someone attempts to attack one's character with false or baseless claims, as you have, by mocking what you claim to be my assumed lack of a higher education, it shows that you have nothing else worthwhile to back up your arguments, and are either losing, or don't actually understand proper debate procedure. It may work when Wally George or Rush Limbaugh or even politicians on both sides of the political spectrum do it, but it doesn't cut it in an academic environment. And assuming you've ever been in an academic debate, you'd know that attacking an opponent's character with baseless slander is considered a fallacy; an "ad hominem argument," and useless easily refutable in a debate that you seem to believe is up to academic standards.

I'm not arguing either side of the debate. Common ground hasn't even been established yet, mostly due to people who insist on believing that Marxism as a philosophy is the same as communism as an economic structure, and Social Darwinism as a philosophy or even free market as an ideology is the same as capitalism. I'm arguing against people who choose to abandon arguments they are losing and claiming that they won by insulting their peers' intelligence with false claims.

If you have to leave, then just go, nobody expects you to stick around if you have work/school/etc. priorities, as do I, as well as everybody else here. But insulting people on the way out as a last ditch effort to save face in the wake of a losing argument is laughable.

>>39

Nice trolling.
Proclaiming false victory, accusing me of of ad hominem, generalisations etc.
Say, did you read Art of Controversy from the source I posted in another thread on /newpol/ and this is your first try or is that Usenet experience?