DarkMatter has over simplified the issues:
> Capitalism lets people simply die if they don't have money to buy the
> things they need. It is very exploitative. There are many jobs where
> people work hard but are paid too little to be able to buy the things
> they need in life.
Capitalism is the rule of the few over the many. This has always been
so and always will be.
In a planet where resources (and wealth) is finite relying on
perpetual economic growth is physically impossible. This explains why
regular periodic economic collapses overseen by the plutocracy have to
happen. Moreover capitalism, specially the form we observe today is
very entropic. This means that our so called democratic governments
have lost control over the economy a long time ago. Corruption (in the
form of manipulating elected bodies, and the electorate itself) is
rampant.
When things get too chaotic for comfort for even the most hardened
plutocrats rightwing fascism is the only way out. We have seen that in
the 1930s and at the present we are not too far off from that
situation yet again.
In each and every turn of the political cycles the losers are the
little people, those who are actually doing the hard work.
> Communism also had its flaws.
Correct.
Its underlying philosophy, although it is superior to the capitalism,
is becoming increasingly dated in view of the technological/scientific
advances of the past several decades and the emerging economical and
demographical problems we all have to face in a quite serious manner.
Marx knew nothing of "global warming" or "peak oil".
The biggest flaw of communism to date is that it has never been fully
implemented anywhere on this planet.
What we have seen so far were insufficient, feeble and often thwarted
or perverted attempts to implement it. The actual outcomes were
disasters on a grand scale: personal cult, state capitalism, loss of
personal freedoms and personal initiative and in many instances deep
poverty.
That is what has happened in the old "Communist Block".
> Communism failed to reward those who
> worked harder or contributed more to society.
Not quite so. There are more ways to motivate people than juts the
prospect of monetary gain.
What true is though that in a "dictator****p" there is precious little
that could motivate people apart from the prospect of freedom.
And this fact alone has enabled the capitalist West to undermine and
destroy the the "Communist Block".
> For example if doctors
> are paid the same as bussboys this is not just. A doctor should be
> paid more than a bussboy because he invested much more effort and his
> work is much more difficult.
Hmmm. Actually not. Being a bus driver makes you responsible for the
safety of a huge number of passengers over the years of a working
life. It is also a hard and to be honest a very boring and not very
challenging existence. Yet someone has to do it.
A doctor can have his/her rewards at an intellectual level by
restoring peoples' health and saving their lives using the tools of
the modern medical science.
Your provided analogy fails in the capitalist system too:
A small business owner who has never spent time on studying anything
in particular or let's say a plummer can earn up to a multitude of the
wage of an average medical scientist. Yet a scientist has to go
through many years of study and a long period of training before
becoming employable at all. On top of that, scientists usually do not
have secure jobs, work extremely long hours and are employed on short
term contracts only. They have to obtain their rewards during their
working lives in other ways than just the monetary gain or leave their
profession for good (as many actually do).
> Communists tried to enforce equality but
> it's impossible to enforce equality because then you are no longer
> equal.
I am not quite sure what are you getting at here.
The facts is that we are all equal except for those biological
differences which can be explained by the genetic diversity among the
individuals of our species.
Equality should not need to be enforced, yet due to the socially
aggressive dominant behavior of some individuals indeed it has to be.
We live in such a complex social environment on this planet that the
excessive asocial behavior of a few at the cost of the rest of the
society must be curbed or in the end we all face dire consequences as
a species.
=D6rd=F6g
Either the neocons go or civilisation does!
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