From: Josjoha@market.socialism.nl   
      
   On 2023-06-14, davidp  wrote:   
   > QUORA: Why did communism fail as an ideology but capitalism didn’t   
   > (yet)? What was wrong with communism and what is right about capitalism?   
   > answered by Kitten, June 3   
      
   Capitalism already failed. It was no accident that an enormous amount of   
   people have historically fought against Capitalism. They lived wretched   
   and exploited lives in the Capitalist system, which is why they grew to   
   hate it. They hated it to such an extend, they where even willing to   
   throw their whole lives to the dictates of an obscurantist book written   
   by Marx "Das Capital". Eventually the German Imperial Army (notoriously   
   pro-Capitalist and also home to a certain feeble minded fanatic called   
   Hitler) financed Lenin to stoke Revolution in Russia, and these   
   obscurantist ideas coupled with the chaos of the time, the desparation   
   of the people, led to the whole mess in Russia called Communism (where   
   even some good things also happened, it seems).   
      
   > Because capitalism is not ideology at all. It is not really even real   
   > thing, if you are specific. “Capitalism” is a slur Marx invented to   
   > describe free market economic systems.   
   [...]   
      
   Capitalism is not precisely the same as a trade economy. Traditionally   
   "Capitalism" means the rule of those who own the Capital goods, which   
   are the owners of vast amount of land and sprawling factory complexes.   
   For this reason, Stalinist Communism has also been called a form of   
   Capitalism, because the tyrannical State owned the Capital goods,   
   through which control they ruled the Empire: State Capitalism.   
      
   The basic problem is that people do not seem to want to understand that   
   the natural resources (land) do not belong in a market. If you add them   
   to a market and couple this with a culture who uses land in a fixed way   
   (farming and beyond), the power will centralize and people will become   
   powerless. The mistake people make is that they think everything needs   
   to be traded. In an extreme example: the sun is aunctioned off to the   
   highest bidder. From then on, nobody is allowed to use the light of the   
   sun without paying the price to the human owner.   
      
   The key in trade is: you trade the effort you put into the service /   
   product. It is the effort which created the value. It takes a little   
   thinking to see this, that's why almost nobody seems to know this (?).   
   Land, natural resources, are not made by humans. Humans didn't make the   
   Earth, or even a single atom. Everything is a given. We only work on it,   
   changing stuff around. The work done is essentially why people buy it,   
   because then they don't have to do that work themselves, or pay yet   
   someone else to do it.   
      
   With that understanding: land will have to be distributed to all as a   
   right for free. This makes the market free and open. On top of that, you   
   can have a market economy. Notice how there can still be a lively swap   
   and rent market in land, so even there you bring back the market   
   element, but in a different way, without the dangers of centralization,   
   with the benefits of economic efficiency and the spreading of power to   
   all, which then translates into new small and free businesses,   
   education, support for a business, high resilience against bankruptcy   
   (low or zero fixed cost of the Capital goods of your business).   
      
   With that understanding, you can see how Capitalism is a menace within a   
   properly structured trade economy. It is a cancer within a trade system.   
   Communism (Marxist / Leninist / Stalinist) seems to basically be the   
   final form of a trade economy infested by Capitalism (limitless power   
   centralization and markets in natural resources until all is owned by   
   one Oligarchy). The final stage of Capitalism, is Communism. The   
   difference is that Communism tried to achieve this total centralization   
   through a Revolutionary political process, whereas the Capitalist   
   infestation of a trade economy works slowly as a disease or a rot, and   
   may at times be beaten back or even permanently kept at bay from a   
   complete takeover.   
      
   This seems to be more or less the current uneasy truce between Capitalism   
   and Socialism in the European Nations. The Capitalist disease in the   
   trade economy (limitless centralization and markets in natural   
   resources themselves) is being held at a certain level of pain it causes   
   by mostly Socialist / Labor oriented organizations (Labor unions and the   
   vote in politics).   
      
   Americans are uniquely hard headed in this regards, despite having a   
   history of free land for all (taken from the native Indians). One   
   possible explanation for why specifically Americans understand so little   
   about Capitalism and economics in general or how absolutely essential it   
   is to everything (witness American political diversions such as gay   
   rights and abortion), is that they have avoided the great oppression of   
   the Capitalists during the Industrialization of Europe. They where over   
   there, free on their land. They don't have this suffering in their   
   bones. Many of them may not have much of any comprehension about what we   
   are talking about with the word "Capitalism" (in Europe).   
      
   The Americans however messed up their whole experiment. They did not   
   implement the right of the next generation to also have free land by   
   right. This is why America has always been a trade economy infested with   
   the Capitalist disease. Slowly but surely, the Americans are starting to   
   feel the reality of "Capitalism" on a larger scale.   
      
   While there are undoubtedly many exceptions, this reading of events   
   seems to explain the blindness of specifically Americans to the issues   
   of Capitalism. Americans are uniquely economically naive as a group.   
   While other Nations may have their own fervent Capitalists, in America   
   this takes on a whole new power of ignorance.   
      
   The consequences for America of all this may very well be a nuclear   
   holocaust, because war and Capitalism are intrigately linked. Yet   
   something else many Americans will likely wish to deny. War creates   
   obedience and a distraction for outrages labor masses, and it is also a   
   tool for top Capitalists who have exhausted their power grabbing against   
   their own people to start plundering other countries. If you don't allow   
   extreme centralization of wealth, it is less likely the people will   
   start rebelling, therefore less likely you "need" war to control them,   
   and those people who would want to plunder the world aren't as much on   
   top of society yet to make their plans effective.   
      
   --   
   Economic & political ideology, worked out into Constitutional models,   
   with a multi-facetted implementation plan. http://market.socialism.nl   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)