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It's a pretty easy trap to fall into though. At least Communism has a high-minded ideal, in contrast to Capitalism's vague (but true IMO) "We'll make everyone

It's a pretty easy trap to fall into though. At least Communism has a high-minded ideal, in contrast to Capitalism's vague (but true IMO) "We'll make everyone rich" Just look at any internet thread about Communism today, haha. It's a very compelling fantasy

kadoban 4y ago
> in contrast to Capitalism's vague (but true IMO) "We'll make everyone rich" > Just look at any internet thread about Communism today, haha. It's a very compelling fantasy Yep, everyone is rich. That's reality, that is. No doubt about it. Communism now, those guys are all living a fantasy.
- NHQ 4y ago
  Everybody has smart phones, wealthy and poor alike. Many poor people have the same exact best available model as the wealthy. That is enrichment. Communism would never have created that. Capitalism might not have gotten them manufactured as cheaply though. Thanks communism!
  - captainbland 4y ago
    A smartphone is pretty similar in wealth terms to owning sofa/couch. They're about the same price new, they each make your life a bit better but encourage some bad habits and they each rapidly devalue second hand. I wouldn't say owning a sofa makes you rich, even owning a nice one. It might mean you're a bit sloppy with personal finance but what's a grand between billionaires? And smartphones even have much more favourable financing options. I think the thing is with smartphones that they're clever but they're not that expensive. A lot of what makes them special is just derived from sand one way or the other. Compared to renting an apartment, your phone barely registers on your finances, it's usually at least an order of magnitude out even if you're in a cheap place and have an expensive phone. Yet housing is the real necessity, why hasn't capitalism made that cheap yet? It feels like a case of bad incentives. Which is not to say that communism would do any better, I'm well aware of its pitfalls. But I think the idea that capitalism makes everyone rich is also a bit absurd.
    - NHQ 4y ago
      True, but you focus on price alone. I explicitly referred to enrichment, which is more than money. Life is enriched by access to info, services, etc, which the phone offers more or less equally. Life without these now is truly 3rd world. So capitalists technology enriched poor people in ways the communism never would, via technology advancement. The smartphone comprises extreme technology infrastructure, from chips, to wireless, to software... immense industrial coordination. Right now communists want to build multi-family homes like we all live in NYC, and claim we should do this on ideological grounds (environment, etc). Housing needs notwithstanding (and exaggerated imho), communist housing would not enrich even a middle class family who has a house in the burbs. The ideology of communist housing actually plays right into capitalist factoria. What communists don't understand is that communism IS capitalism. I think this is what Marxism was trying to elucidate about capital, but then folks of a certain persuasion asked Marx to write a manifesto for communism which they spread the world over for ideological purposes. Communism and capitalism are the same coin. So communist fight the wrong fight. They fight to create conditions favorable to capitalism in the name of taking the factory they never seem to get. Crowded housing and population equals commodity labor (cheap, fungible). You can't run a giant factory without nearby workers, and they can't afford houses, so you pack them in "multi family housing". Now you need to convince them this is actually the morally right thing, so communism says its better for the environment (which is not even a core concern of communism, so that proves the ideologues are just shifty, shifty to the left as needed).
    - Firmwarrior 4y ago
      > housing is the real necessity, why hasn't capitalism made that cheap yet? It has, but only in Japan where they actually have a free market: https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/ https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-e...
      - captainbland 4y ago
        It's more complicated than that. They have regulations but they work differently. The Basic Law for Land regulates against speculation and profiteering off of rises in land values (which are arguably the most capitalist bits of western housing markets!) and specifically privileges public use over private interests as well as other "keeping with the surroundings" style provisions which are familiar in the UK/Europe as well. So I'd argue it's more of a social market than a free market as such. Although I can see how you'd consider it more of a free market than in the US with its zealous zoning rules.
- Firmwarrior 4y ago
  Look at the history of every communist nation. In the USA our main problem is that poor people get too many calories without enough vegetables.
  - kadoban 4y ago
    Or the lack of effective healthcare, lack of affordable housing, lack of jobs that pay enough to live or any way to escape these destructive cycles. But if you ignore that, then obesity is a problem I guess.
    - Firmwarrior 4y ago
      Look at any communist country in history, dude. They've all been flaming hellholes at best, even compared to their peer nations at the time. And yeah, I get it, "no true Scotsman". The problem is that Real Communism™ requires perfect dictatorial control and we don't have a perfect dictator to run it. edit: this sibling comment explains things a lot more eloquently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34523261 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34523261
      - kadoban 4y ago
        I'm not particularly defending Communism. I'm just pointing out that "Capitalism has made everyone rich" is batshit insanity.
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  > Yep, everyone is rich. They are when compared to alternative paths. The differences in financial fortitude may be large but the "poor" in most capitalist nations are far richer than the true poor elsewhere. Life expectancy is higher as well which is not surprising given the relation between having access to basic needs - which most people in capitalist (and pseudo- or state-capitalist like China) societies are - and life expectancy. The number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide declined by 80 percent from 1970 to 2006 either under capitalism or Chinese state-capitalism under Deng Xiaoping. Poverty worldwide included 94 percent of the world’s population in 1820. In 2011, it was 17 percent. Mortality rates for children under the age of five declined by 49 percent from 1990 to 2013 (WHO). The other side of the coin is just as clear, Communism pulls down everyone but the anointed party members down into poverty. Taking Venezuela as a recent example Chavez and his cronies managed to turn the richest country in south America into a basket case in a measly 15 years. So, is capitalism pure good and communism pure evil? It depends on the scale at which they are applied. In my family we live like communists where everyone gets according to their needs while partaking in the upkeep of our facilities according to their abilities. Most families work like this I think? Yay, communism works... at this scale. At a national scale it does not as has been shown countless times. Capitalism is the other way around, at the smallest scale - family, extended family, neighbourhood - it tends to lead to unappealing results while it shines at a larger scale - at least when the excesses are kept in check. Just like communism it lends itself to concentrations of power in the hands of a few but unlike communism it can be kept in check without falling apart at the seams.

kadoban 4y ago

> in contrast to Capitalism's vague (but true IMO) "We'll make everyone rich" > Just look at any internet thread about Communism today, haha. It's a very compelling fantasy Yep, everyone is rich. That's reality, that is. No doubt about it. Communism now, those guys are all living a fantasy.

NHQ 4y ago
Everybody has smart phones, wealthy and poor alike. Many poor people have the same exact best available model as the wealthy. That is enrichment. Communism would never have created that. Capitalism might not have gotten them manufactured as cheaply though. Thanks communism!
- captainbland 4y ago
  A smartphone is pretty similar in wealth terms to owning sofa/couch. They're about the same price new, they each make your life a bit better but encourage some bad habits and they each rapidly devalue second hand. I wouldn't say owning a sofa makes you rich, even owning a nice one. It might mean you're a bit sloppy with personal finance but what's a grand between billionaires? And smartphones even have much more favourable financing options. I think the thing is with smartphones that they're clever but they're not that expensive. A lot of what makes them special is just derived from sand one way or the other. Compared to renting an apartment, your phone barely registers on your finances, it's usually at least an order of magnitude out even if you're in a cheap place and have an expensive phone. Yet housing is the real necessity, why hasn't capitalism made that cheap yet? It feels like a case of bad incentives. Which is not to say that communism would do any better, I'm well aware of its pitfalls. But I think the idea that capitalism makes everyone rich is also a bit absurd.
  - NHQ 4y ago
    True, but you focus on price alone. I explicitly referred to enrichment, which is more than money. Life is enriched by access to info, services, etc, which the phone offers more or less equally. Life without these now is truly 3rd world. So capitalists technology enriched poor people in ways the communism never would, via technology advancement. The smartphone comprises extreme technology infrastructure, from chips, to wireless, to software... immense industrial coordination. Right now communists want to build multi-family homes like we all live in NYC, and claim we should do this on ideological grounds (environment, etc). Housing needs notwithstanding (and exaggerated imho), communist housing would not enrich even a middle class family who has a house in the burbs. The ideology of communist housing actually plays right into capitalist factoria. What communists don't understand is that communism IS capitalism. I think this is what Marxism was trying to elucidate about capital, but then folks of a certain persuasion asked Marx to write a manifesto for communism which they spread the world over for ideological purposes. Communism and capitalism are the same coin. So communist fight the wrong fight. They fight to create conditions favorable to capitalism in the name of taking the factory they never seem to get. Crowded housing and population equals commodity labor (cheap, fungible). You can't run a giant factory without nearby workers, and they can't afford houses, so you pack them in "multi family housing". Now you need to convince them this is actually the morally right thing, so communism says its better for the environment (which is not even a core concern of communism, so that proves the ideologues are just shifty, shifty to the left as needed).
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    > housing is the real necessity, why hasn't capitalism made that cheap yet? It has, but only in Japan where they actually have a free market: https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/ https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-e...
    - captainbland 4y ago
      It's more complicated than that. They have regulations but they work differently. The Basic Law for Land regulates against speculation and profiteering off of rises in land values (which are arguably the most capitalist bits of western housing markets!) and specifically privileges public use over private interests as well as other "keeping with the surroundings" style provisions which are familiar in the UK/Europe as well. So I'd argue it's more of a social market than a free market as such. Although I can see how you'd consider it more of a free market than in the US with its zealous zoning rules.
Firmwarrior 4y ago
Look at the history of every communist nation. In the USA our main problem is that poor people get too many calories without enough vegetables.
- kadoban 4y ago
  Or the lack of effective healthcare, lack of affordable housing, lack of jobs that pay enough to live or any way to escape these destructive cycles. But if you ignore that, then obesity is a problem I guess.
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    Look at any communist country in history, dude. They've all been flaming hellholes at best, even compared to their peer nations at the time. And yeah, I get it, "no true Scotsman". The problem is that Real Communism™ requires perfect dictatorial control and we don't have a perfect dictator to run it. edit: this sibling comment explains things a lot more eloquently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34523261 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34523261
    - kadoban 4y ago
      I'm not particularly defending Communism. I'm just pointing out that "Capitalism has made everyone rich" is batshit insanity.
the_third_wave 4y ago
> Yep, everyone is rich. They are when compared to alternative paths. The differences in financial fortitude may be large but the "poor" in most capitalist nations are far richer than the true poor elsewhere. Life expectancy is higher as well which is not surprising given the relation between having access to basic needs - which most people in capitalist (and pseudo- or state-capitalist like China) societies are - and life expectancy. The number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide declined by 80 percent from 1970 to 2006 either under capitalism or Chinese state-capitalism under Deng Xiaoping. Poverty worldwide included 94 percent of the world’s population in 1820. In 2011, it was 17 percent. Mortality rates for children under the age of five declined by 49 percent from 1990 to 2013 (WHO). The other side of the coin is just as clear, Communism pulls down everyone but the anointed party members down into poverty. Taking Venezuela as a recent example Chavez and his cronies managed to turn the richest country in south America into a basket case in a measly 15 years. So, is capitalism pure good and communism pure evil? It depends on the scale at which they are applied. In my family we live like communists where everyone gets according to their needs while partaking in the upkeep of our facilities according to their abilities. Most families work like this I think? Yay, communism works... at this scale. At a national scale it does not as has been shown countless times. Capitalism is the other way around, at the smallest scale - family, extended family, neighbourhood - it tends to lead to unappealing results while it shines at a larger scale - at least when the excesses are kept in check. Just like communism it lends itself to concentrations of power in the hands of a few but unlike communism it can be kept in check without falling apart at the seams.