There are no more Communists

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by squirell nutkin

Yeah, I am always skeptical about a country that is so awesome that the government will kill anyone who tries to leave.

North Korea?

[squirell nutkin]

North Korea, East Germany, Soviet Russia, Canada.

[HungLikeJesus]

You left out New Jersey.

[squirell nutkin]

:headsmack:

[Cloud]

something I read recently (I'm pretty sure it was a Time article comparing East and West Germany) regarding communist (or former) communist countries stuck with me: they did not value beauty. So many of these countries appear (appear, because I'm relying on photos) to be dingy, dismal, utilitarian--with no support for natural or manmade beauty. Now they are stuck with ugly cities and ugly lives.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Cloud

something I read recently (I'm pretty sure it was a Time article comparing East and West Germany) regarding communist (or former) communist countries stuck with me: they did not value beauty. So many of these countries appear (appear, because I'm relying on photos) to be dingy, dismal, utilitarian--with no support for natural or manmade beauty. Now they are stuck with ugly cities and ugly lives.

Beauty is a costly upgrade. That's one of the things that concerns me about the teabaggers. They won't want to pay for beauty.

[squirell nutkin]

Also, ironically, or perhaps not, some of the most powerful art came out of the most repressive regimes. Perhaps if making art = death then the posers won't step to the plate.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Since the genuinely hateful and genuinely reactionary combination is less than one tenth of one percent of the population, I don't see an enormous problem here.

[ZenGum]

I think you're shifting from communism to socialism to easily. Here are some terms and systems as I understand them.

Marxism: means of production of each workplace controlled by the workers in that workplace - kind of cooperative capitalism. Almost unknown in the world today outside of a kibbutz.

Lenin/stalinist communism: means of production controlled by central government - kind of state-owned capitalism. Vestiges of this remain in china, Vietnam, and a lot in North Korea.

Socialism - means of production generally privately owned, but subject to extra taxation to fund social welfare programs - most significantly, the welfare of all people is considered to be (at least partly) a state/collective responsibility. Found in varying degrees in many countries today.

Free-market capitalism - means of production privately owned, state takes no responsibility for the welfare of individuals (private charity is often involved).

Corporate socialism - means of production privately controlled, corporations take responsibility for the welfare of their workers (Japanese system, see also benevolent capitalists like Owen, Cadbury, Ford).

All have their strengths and weaknesses. All systems will have cheats and crooks. We're human. Communism will have its slackers and bullies, capitalism will have it's Madoffs and Leheman Bros.

I think it is pretty clear that you get more economic growth with private ownership of means of production, even when you allow for the regular booms and crashes of a market system.

We might asks ourselves, though, how much more economic growth do we need? Adam Smith's goal of growth and wealth made excellent sense 200 years ago, but it might be argued that - for modern OECD nations - human well-being is better advanced by things other than economic growth.

[HungLikeJesus]

I recently read an article about Bhutan, where the king has declared that gross national happiness is more important than gross national product.