<p>The problem isn’t striving to make better horses though. Individual rights to be super rich isn’t really important when the world is in *<strong><em>ing turmoil. You certainly have a right to buy a solid gold Hummer, but you’re also a *</em></strong> for doing it.</p>
<p>no, your not a jerk for doing so. Altruism is not a moral trait. Selfishness is.</p>
<p>“Ughh, I couldn’t bear to live in a society where my hard work meant nothing for me. And, who is going to figure out how to end scarcity if they don’t get any compensation for it?”
You got it all wrong, It’s not about no more work if that’s what you want. It just free you up to do what you want. If you your interested in making furniture you can make furniture because it is something you love to do. </p>
<p>“no, your not a jerk for doing so. Altruism is not a moral trait. Selfishness is.”
It annoys me so much when I hear folks say stuff like selfishness is inherent or it’s a moral trait.
It’s not. We are not innately selfish. We are a product of our environment and the material world and that’s it.</p>
<p>Im not saying that selfishness is inherent. What I am saying is that selfishness is good.</p>
<p>I’d agree with you buddy. Selfishness is good for capitalism, it is also a condition of capitalism. But everything ends and selfishness cannot and will not reign forever.</p>
<p>when selfishness ends, we’ll all be eloi (I hope you get that reference)</p>
<p>Buying a solid gold hummer does make you a jerk.</p>
<p>That’s part of the problem with capitalism- people not only take it as individual freedom, they take it as “**** responsibility and other people”.</p>
<p>What you’re saying, “selfishness is good” is SORT of true. We do all act in our own interests, and no one should define themselves with other people (marriage, children, etc) or by the things they do for other people. Self mediation, an inward journey, is essential, and people should think of themselves and their feelings and how THEY interpret things.</p>
<p>That being said, decadence and extravagance isn’t freedom. Ever heard of “He with the most toys wins”? Hackneyed phrase, but it’s where the greatness of capitalism always ends- at the same place communism and every other system does. A small percentage of wealthy people run everything. Real freedom, free thinking, has nothing to do with a fake money system, so just don’t trump it up more than it is.</p>
<p>Marxism is unachievable without human planning, and human planning will always go wrong horribly on such a large scale. 1 small error could cause the whole system to go down, not including huge ideological mistakes like Lenin’s or widespread corruption.</p>
<p>And I disagree with you guys. Selfishness is inherent, we’ve evolved (or been created) that way. That’s why capitalism works or is even in the question.</p>
<p>“It’s not. We are not innately selfish. We are a product of our environment and the material world and that’s it”</p>
<p>If you put a baby who let’s say somehow can survive on its own into the wild, it would not be selfish? Give me a break. If it’s a creation of our material world, farming etc. would never have been created in the first place. Selfishness drives nearly everything somebody does. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Hell, Marxism is based on the idea that peasants are selfish enough to care.</p>
<p>“If you put a baby who let’s say somehow can survive on its own into the wild, it would not be selfish? Give me a break. If it’s a creation of our material world, farming etc. would never have been created in the first place. Selfishness drives nearly everything somebody does. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing.”</p>
<p>No, you missed the idea of material conditions. If that baby had no need to compete with others for scarce resources (in the wild) it would change the baby’s mentality about everything and thus not be selfish.
The reason for that baby to grow up only looking out for itself is because THE ENVIRONMENT wouldn’t permit anything else. Thanks for proving my point. </p>
<p>“Hell, Marxism is based on the idea that peasants are selfish enough to care.”
What? Do you know anything about Marxism? </p>
<p>“Marxism is unachievable without human planning, and human planning will always go wrong horribly on such a large scale. 1 small error could cause the whole system to go down, not including huge ideological mistakes like Lenin’s or widespread corruption.”
Wrong. This does not reflect Marxism or Communism.</p>
<p>Why are we squabbiling about which system is better for a government to control us with anyway? **** Marxism, Communism, Capitialism, Feminism, Individualism, Buddhism, Racism.</p>
<p>Communism Is NOT government control it is the antithesis of government.</p>
<p>Math+Sci=Asian: The first line of your post describes Consumerism. Capitalism works until somebody gets a monopoly. Then it breaks. Marxism works until somebody realises that they still get paid whether they work or not. Then it breaks. Both systems lead to survival of the unethical. Ah well, anyone have any better ideas?</p>
<p>Technically speaking, when you talk about capitalism vs. marxism, you are talking about a state of nature versus a state of un-nature. Pure capitalism is, quite frankly, the way that humanity would behave in the wild; pure survival-of-the-fittest competition, and utter freedom. Marxism, on the other hand, attempts to subjugate everything to the cold calculation of human control, ignoring personal circumstances to obtain purely ‘equal’ results. Neither one is very good (though I’d say that Marxism is definitely more dangerous, due to that whole ‘dictator of the proletariat’ clause), so I’d say that the best possible system is a healthy middle ground. Controlled capitalism, in other words.</p>
<p>If selfishness is inherent, why are the most primitive societies egalitarian? Hunter gatherer societies and societies that practice horticulture (pre-agriculture societies) share. Everyone participates in the gathering and if someone comes up short, they share with that person. Even if someone refuses to work, the people who actually worked for resources will share with him. When agriculture is introduced into a society you begin to see selfishness. If we’re inherently selfish, why did we form family units and why do we live together? Our development depended on living in groups and cooperating. </p>
<p>Capitalism created the corporation. Corporations are inherently monstrous because they put people who may or may not be good and force them to make the highest profits possible. This results in environmental devastation, sweatshops, the privatization of basic resources like water, etc. Capitalism has created a want within us to have more and more luxury items and the best. It takes advantage of poor countries. It fails during economic recessions like now.</p>
<p>“echnically speaking, when you talk about capitalism vs. marxism, you are talking about a state of nature versus a state of un-nature. Pure capitalism is, quite frankly, the way that humanity would behave in the wild; pure survival-of-the-fittest competition, and utter freedom. Marxism, on the other hand, attempts to subjugate everything to the cold calculation of human control, ignoring personal circumstances to obtain purely ‘equal’ results.”</p>
<p>You’re setting Communism in a capitalist context. That is not communism.</p>
<p>So how many here are actually educated in economics/politics/philosophy? Just curious.</p>
<p>everyone took philosophy 101!</p>
<p>I’m now a grad student for sociology</p>
<p>“you’re setting communism in a capitalistic context” </p>
<p>cobmojo please elaborate</p>
<p>“echnically speaking, when you talk about capitalism vs. Marxism, you are talking about a state of nature versus a state of un-nature. Pure capitalism is, quite frankly, the way that humanity would behave in the wild; pure survival-of-the-fittest competition, and utter freedom.”
Here they describe capitalism by showing the scarcity of resources. People fight for resources and that builds classes and competition. </p>
<p>“Marxism, on the other hand, attempts to subjugate everything to the cold calculation of human control, ignoring personal circumstances to obtain purely ‘equal’ results.”</p>
<p>Here they use the same paradigm. What people don’t understand (and neither did Lenin) was that the abolition of scarcity is the precondition for Communism. In Communism there will be no control over the means of production and that means more freedom not less. Yet, in the above paragraph they set communism in a capitalist context making it seem controlling (like the soviet union) when that is the antithesis of Marxism.</p>