Well, how would you relate slavery to the economic system of capitalism?

Im thinking of a number of things that would discredit such a relation, so im curious to what you think.

Damn, I was hoping this was a real OP.

I want einbert's story.

As KGB Colonel Stok says to 'I' in Funeral in Berlin (the novel, not the movie, so it's 'I' rather than 'Harry Palmer'):

Curiously, that one got attributed to J K Galbraith, but it's actually Len Deighton.

Can't find that photo of Kim Jong Un with his stock portfolio on screen in the background. Einbert was like the biggest spam artist that hit the forums for a while.

+1

This is also a good point.

I assume billions of poor people refers to China, which of course was poor in 1948. Ignores India which was ruled by a joint-stock company for a couple centuries. And that includes what is now a bunch of countries.

What ideology is to blame for the Mongol hordes? The crusades?

Maybe it's not "communism" and it's just Russia and China in the 20th Century.

Name a single state that has thrived under Communism. Its pretty simple.

If you're going to say the problem is with China and not communism, I can use Taiwan and Hong Kong as a counterexample. You can't name a communist country that has done well.

It's not really that simple. And I'm not a communist. I said before that the developmental stage is relevant. Communism/socialism has worked relatively well for Cuba or Nicaragua when compared to peers like The Dominican Republic, Haiti, or Honduras. The USSR did industrialize and develop a much higher typical standard of living in a relatively short time. Capitalism not long before had reached the guilded age where a great deal of wealth was created, but masses still lived as sharecroppers (not much different than slaves) or urban factory workers (not much different than indentured servants). The countries that have advanced beyond either place have sythesized the two, whether from one direction like us and the new deal or from the other like China since Deng.

Given where China was in 1948 how rich do you think you could have made it by 2017? The central planning of Mao was fubar during the Cultural Revolution, but the massive state planning and intervention since the 70s has done pretty well. It has not been pure communism, but it's a long long way from Milton Friedman.

Off-topic a little but some advice for the communists and socialists: drink Modern Times beer! (the first employee-owned brewery in California) (and as a bonus the beer they make is really good)

mebbe. dunno. bc the soviets sure did a lot to take down the nazis. and the nazis seemed pretty hellbent on bringing on a lot of human suffering. besides the straight up murder of millions more "undesirables", their ultimate plan was to starve the rest of the russians to death and use a select few ukranians and eastern euros as slaves.

point is, sometimes stopping human suffering is coincidental.

Anarcho-syndicalism ftw.

I'm trying to get an employee owned venture going.

Communism has been proven to be both dishonest and horriby flawed.

A hierarchical, capitalist enterprise would have known better than to choose a name so close to the swill they sell at Trader Joe's.

There's a lot of good stuff at TJ's, and not that I'm a huge beer guy, but they have some of the worst beer.

trader joe's is the best place to get cheap wine from all over the world, and wouldn't exist in a communist nation

checkmate

I'm not a big wine guy either, but that's where we get it and it seems fine. Good Chilean wine, right?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...=.11cf4c203396

I have no idea how rich alternative history China would be in 2017 but I have a fairly good idea that it would have reached 2017 levels of relative world wealth 15 or 20 years early.

While the centrally planned economy has done well relative to its prior Maoist incarnation, there is plenty of evidence from HK and Taiwan that had a market based economy had developed in 1950, China would be better off than they are currently.

I think its a huge mistake to assume that the post Deng system from 1980 onwards is the most ideal of economic systems.

I didn't claim most ideal. It has done relatively well. Taiwan had quite a protectionist economy for a long time. HK is hardly useful for comparison. And Taiwan barely is either. China had hundreds of millions of peasants and very little industry in 1948. And the wealthy countries isolated it until 1972. And of course Taiwan and Hong Kong were where a lot of the wealth China had fled to in 1946-1949.

But anyway, it's generally true that China has done well from the 70s until now and Taiwan has done well from I guess the mid-60s until now, with different policies, but also different starting points.

And I think it's a mistake to assume that the best system for one country in one state of development is the best system for all countries regardless of state of development. And I think the same is really true within a given country and a mixed economy is best because not all populations, regions or industries are the same.

Of course you can't use HK or Taiwan as a direct comparison. However, you cant just cite the challenges that China faces relative to Taiwan or HK without citing the advantages. Protectionism is not indicative of communism or capitalism so I am not sure why you brought that up.

If you dont think Taiwan and HK are good examples, China's own reforms towards a market based economy is evidence enough.

You keep citing how poor China was in 1948 but China was also pretty poor in 1980, whereas all other market based Asian countries were not.

we mainly get cheap stuff from france, spain, and argentina

You're right about the protectionism. I meant to go back and edit that out. And China is definitely not the best example. The Cultural Revolution was a huge upheaval and regressive. It was not a necessary consequence of communism. I should had kept this in the Caribbean and Central America and even the USSR, though of course it was a terrible ruthless oppressive murderous government.

I mean i think its pretty important to define what Communism means first. From my standpoint, a central tenet is a state driven command economy. I dont think any system based around a lack of competition is feasible.

I am not an anarcho capitalist as I am skeptical of the amount of fair competition achievable in an equilibrium state under that system.