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Congrats on defining the vast majority of good people as "communists" while simultaneously virtue signaling "communism bad".

by antifa 5y ago

cscurmudgeon 5y ago
Congrats on not following one iota of my argument. I personally think communism caused mass starvations that killed millions are bad. If that makes me an evil capitalist, so be it. (As someone who has lived through one such micro famine in a socialist country, I feel I am entitled to that opinion.)
- antifa 5y ago
  Your "argument" was a low quality, bad faith, thinly veiled "You know who else enacted policy? Stalin!".
- Frost1x 5y ago
  You know you don't have to go all the way to communism to fix the problems we're seeing. You simply need to take a step back from extreme capitalism were currently experiencing with a little bit of revamping. It worked fairly well, let's just fix some minor things that seem to be systemic problems with capitalism unless we want to be the poster child of how horrible capitalism is when it fails just as the Soviet Union is the poster child of failures of extreme communism.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    > You simply need to take a step back from extreme capitalism were currently experiencing In what universe are the western democracies experiencing "extreme capitalism"? This is a mind-boggling statement. Just in the U.S.: Government consumes 15% of GDP FIRE is 20% of GDP Healthcare is 20% of GDP Education is 5% of GDP None of the above industries can be considered "free market", yet they are 60% of the economy. The "free market" is thrashing around somewhere in the remaining 40%. But not really, because on the income side, Government spending is 44% of GDP (the difference between government spending and consumption is all the checks being mailed out). Private spending is basically only half. Thus half of all economic spending is being directed by politicians. Extreme free market? Moreover in the labor markets, we have an extremely regulated economy, in which 23% of US workers need a government license to legally do their job. Extreme free market?
- imtringued 5y ago
  I don't know why communism is so popular as a counterexample on HN when communism doesn't even remotely look similar to whatever we have and to whatever economy people actually want. It's like comparing birds and mammals. You're telling us how producing milk for offspring will somehow make us lay eggs because they are both animal protein. No, most people just want to fix some distortions. Just charge taxes on harmful behavior and you can fix a lot of issues without much government involvement.

Congrats on defining the vast majority of good people as "communists" while simultaneously virtue signaling "communism bad".

by antifa 5y ago

Congrats on defining the vast majority of good people as "communists" while simultaneously virtue signaling "communism bad".

cscurmudgeon 5y ago

Congrats on not following one iota of my argument. I personally think communism caused mass starvations that killed millions are bad. If that makes me an evil capitalist, so be it. (As someone who has lived through one such micro famine in a socialist country, I feel I am entitled to that opinion.)

antifa 5y ago
Your "argument" was a low quality, bad faith, thinly veiled "You know who else enacted policy? Stalin!".
Frost1x 5y ago
You know you don't have to go all the way to communism to fix the problems we're seeing. You simply need to take a step back from extreme capitalism were currently experiencing with a little bit of revamping. It worked fairly well, let's just fix some minor things that seem to be systemic problems with capitalism unless we want to be the poster child of how horrible capitalism is when it fails just as the Soviet Union is the poster child of failures of extreme communism.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > You simply need to take a step back from extreme capitalism were currently experiencing In what universe are the western democracies experiencing "extreme capitalism"? This is a mind-boggling statement. Just in the U.S.: Government consumes 15% of GDP FIRE is 20% of GDP Healthcare is 20% of GDP Education is 5% of GDP None of the above industries can be considered "free market", yet they are 60% of the economy. The "free market" is thrashing around somewhere in the remaining 40%. But not really, because on the income side, Government spending is 44% of GDP (the difference between government spending and consumption is all the checks being mailed out). Private spending is basically only half. Thus half of all economic spending is being directed by politicians. Extreme free market? Moreover in the labor markets, we have an extremely regulated economy, in which 23% of US workers need a government license to legally do their job. Extreme free market?
imtringued 5y ago
I don't know why communism is so popular as a counterexample on HN when communism doesn't even remotely look similar to whatever we have and to whatever economy people actually want. It's like comparing birds and mammals. You're telling us how producing milk for offspring will somehow make us lay eggs because they are both animal protein. No, most people just want to fix some distortions. Just charge taxes on harmful behavior and you can fix a lot of issues without much government involvement.