got it. sensless statement, just to be controversial. I do so love those.

What 'works'? Show me pure capitalism. The US certainly isn't (pure capitalism is privatised everything).

Show me pure communism. China isn't, Cuba isn't.

If the US is proof that 'capitalism works', then Cuba is proof that 'communism works' (they'd be doing quite well if it weren't for US economic sanctions, but from what I hear, European and Canadian travellers love it... because there are no Americans).

China's problem is less to do with its economic idealogy and more to do with it's authoritarian ideology (which would be quite similar if the US didn't have its checks and balances with a president like Bush, who ascribes to the belief that he should force his morals on the rest of the country). Libertarianism > Authoritarianism in my book (note, I AM a former anarchist of sorts ).

Every form of government has its flaws, since people are flawed.

In a nutshell I think pure communism isn't enforceable without getting rid of the freedom of speach and freedom to slack off part, which then makes it that much easier for people to be corrupt. Just my thoughts anyway.

It's a fun discussion, just in the wrong forum.

Free market capitalism is mathematically the best currently known method of allocating resources. It works pretty well in practice as well. Saying that the US is a pure capitalism society is true, but not helpful - you have to look at markets. Any sufficiently complex system, such as a 1st world superpower, is going to be too complex to describe properly as a 'pure' anything. Individual markets, however, work very well. Investments are allocated via the stock market, and resources by the market. The motivation for being right is very high. Any misteps are quickly punished through loss of profits.

In communism, there is no motivation to make proper choices or indication when improper choices have been made. With no mechamism for correction inevitable mistakes stack up and lead to further errors in attempts to correct for the first one.

I wrote a comment to someone personally, that I think is worth repeating.

The economic policies of a country, I believe reflect the ideals that the country feels would be the best way to fit its economy into its politics.

Its not that China woke up one day, looked at economic options and said, ooh communism looks good, lets build our government around that. I feel like they woke up one day and said, lets have politics where everybody is the same, and pick economics that fit that.

Ironically, Adam Smith's most famous work was written in 1776.

This post WAS a hijack... isnt anymore...

Your only problem in this post is that you are discussing the philosophy behind communism, and not using what meagre examples we have of its use thus far (why has Cuba not collapsed if communism is thusly flawed?)



I don't believe it was such a conscious decision. China readily adapted to an authoritarian regime independently of its economic decisions of the past (although it's leaders were obviously corrupt).

Correction to my earlier statement: China banned Paradox Interactive games because in Hearts of Iron (a game you play from 1936-1948), they told the truth about China (there being 4 factions, instead of 2), and that Communist China usually loses against Nationalist China. (So they banned it).

According to my east history class, China becoming communisit, both economiclly and sociallly was a very concious decision based on the long march. It was an attempt at removing foreign influence from China, after a long post opium war 'debate.' Ofcourse, now adays, China is becoming more and more Capitlialistic where it can.

Most countries that have large amounts of starving people eating dirt are not in any shape or form free markets or political structures.
India, since it has opened itself up, has drasitcally reduced its poverty level.

As for Cuba, I don't know much about it, but Florida sure gets a large amount of people swimming to shore from there for one reason or another. But I supspect thier economy works a bit like the Kibbutz in Israel did. As long as you have tourists comming to visit you to see how cute and quaint you live your lives, you can live off of thier money, but when people stop comming, or your members start leaving, you need to change the way you do business.

I'm also curious if you can "hack" into IRE games from china. Use a wierd backdoor or something and "play from Tawain"

I didn't say that communism would instantly collapse, I said that it is an inferior way of distributing scarce resources. Which it is. As someone else noted Cuba has a large enough income source to surive these inefficiencies. A large-scale communist economy which goes head-to-head with a large-scale capitalism economy is doomed to fail, like the USSR did in the 80s.

Also, China is not a pure statist economy. Despite some large state-owned industries and some socialist policies (like the pegged currancy), China's economy is very much a free market economy. That's why it has had such success in the global economy.

PS: This is what part of the alphabet would look like if they got rid of Q and R

Seriously though you can play Lusternia through an off-site proxy not blocked by the Great Firewall. Latency will be a big issue, however, and reliability may be as well.

The only thing I'm trying to get at, is 'capitalism good, communism bad', is quite a foolish way to look at the world. There are infinite possibilities of economic situations, and to go into Cold War mentality is a somewhat childish way of looking at the huge array (we're capitalistic, so of course that's the best way of doing things).

And just for the record, I can't stand the ideology of pure communism .

If you can prove, using mathematical models, pure logic, -or- history, that something is true why try to 'avoid the mindset'? The 'we are amerikkka and do things wrong' mindset is the incorrect one here.

The problem is, no-one has proven with a purely logical argument that communism is flawed - it requires logic jumps and assumptions, appeals to common sense, etc. Show me a purely logical argument, and maybe I'll listen to it. As of now, I won't knock the economic feasibility of the ideology based on one flawed example (Soviet Union).

Surprising how was this topic hijacked without a slightest intervention of the badgerperson. You know who I mean.

Yes. Maedhros says I have been good lately. *nod me*

Ban China! Take away thier rice!

The argument I hear most often is, "People are not good enough for Communism to work. They are too flawed."

I prefer to say that people are too good for Communism. Not that I, child that I am, can put up any sort of sensible argument against it without sounding like an idiot.

Like more of an idiot. Anyway, long story short... even if a lot of the world is still poor and filled with poverty and disease, far less of it is than in the past. Smallpox, anyone? How about a nice bit of plague? Capitalism have been shown to work, to some extent. Communism has nothing to show in its favour.