ColdBlooded said:
http://www.lrna.org/flash/otherworld.swf
education is free. you can pursue whatever career you want. look at Cuba. They have too many doctors than they can use, and they get paid less than bellhops and waiters. go figure.
They're also sub-par doctors, learning on sub-par equipment, in a sub-par economy (and the US has alot to do with this).
What people in this thread are missing is a common misconception among Americans: Communism means helping the poor(you know, those lazy, uneducated welfare abusing drug addicts you see on TV) at the expense of the rest of society. That is incorrect; well, it's correct if you're referring to the relatively poor, which includes the lumpens, workers, lower middle class, middle class, and lower upper middle class. Your misconceptions about income distribution seem to make you assume that if tommorrow we said, "ok we'll divide up all the money in America among every citizen equally" you'd be poorer than you are now. In reality you'd probably be much better off.
ex:
If America had 100 citizens, and a total wealth of $100, it'd look like this:
1 man would have $40
4 would have about $5.50 (each)
5 would have $2.40
10 would have $1.20
40 would have $0.40
and the other 40 would have $.01
(source:
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/fa...&wealth.htm)
So 80% of the population have less than a dollar, and another 10% have a little over a dollar, while one asshole got $40 all to himself.
If we split it up equally, everyone has exactly $1.
The problem is, if we split it all up equally, guess who leaves America? The CEOs, the stock brokers, big business interests, etc. America is as rich as it is because if 1. Its big business incentives and 2. its economic system.
Whole sections of the infrastructure will crumble under this "equal wealth distribution" system. You ever wonder why many people are bums? It's not just racism, classism, or poor opportunities. Many homeless people are mentally ill, lazy, etc. Not all of them, but many.
I live in San Francisco, a city that is extremely tolerant toward the homeless. They are offered/given:
1. Health care
2. Clothes for job interviews
3. Mailing addresses for job interviews
4. Food, SHelter, and Showers
Many refuse it. Many people do not want to be helped. Many simply refuse to live in shelters and return to the street to beg for change, mumble, and talk to the sidewalk. This is the sad reality of the world. There are resources in place, such as student loans, medicaire, medical, racial quota systems, systems in place to help minorities, AFDC, etc., that can offset the effects of poverty or the diminishing effects of racism. What remains is the final grasp by the receptor, and in many cases this is the weak link in the chain.
80% of the population are better off!
and another 10% are not noticeably worse off!
that's 90% of the population.
So dead that sh1t about "people want stuff. I want stuff." cuz unless you're in the upper 10% wealth bracket you're going to be better off than you are now. And if you're in the majority, the bottom 80%, you'll be astronomically better off.
Hardly. Collapsing all corporate incentive and big business infrastructure will destroy the American economy. The top are not just the top because they are racist white men, or because they are an exclusive club. There is also such a thing as business savvy and education. In the US we have this notion that anyone can do anything. An actor can be a governor, a spoiled brat mamas boy can be a president, a person can use all the wealth, but in reality, there is more to the people at the top than just the "evil white man"ness they posess. There is also a reason they are there. Johnny the Bum would not exactly do well at the head of a marketing firm. The incentives the US govt. has always given to business are one of the main reasons our economy has so thrived.
It looks and sounds great, to make a big moneypile, like some raked leaves, that we can all jump in, but anyone who does care about their money, which is most of the people in the U.S., will jump ship, and head to Europe or some shit. We will have our people's revolution, and we will possibly singlehandedly collapse the world economy, which is heavily reliant on U.S. spending. Communism in its pure form will never, ever work or be implemented, especially in America, because it works against everything we know. And in the end, it makes absolutely little or no business sense.
Yes, people would all have more money. If we collapsed a skyscraper and gave everyone a piece so that they could have real estate holdings downtown, it's all nice and dandy, but the skyscraper is now collapsed. That is the reality of Communism in the US, or anywhere with a steady/reliable market.
Now I know what you're going to say, that sure we've got all this money now, but under communism the economy will stagnate and we'll turn into Cuba. Well let me try and break this down like this: Right now we work at least 40 hours a week, most people more than that thru either overtime or second jobs. But if we cut away all the useless industries in this country, all the pointless jobs and bureacracies, we could acheive the same standard of living by working about 15-20 hours a week by pooling our labor and employing the unemployed.
Many unemployed do not want to work. Many unemployed are too stupid to work. Many unemployed can't hold a job, because they do dumb shit like put hands on their supervisor when they get in an argument. I'm not saying 100%, or even 50 percent of the unemployed labor force has a fundamental problem, but at least 10 or 20 percent do. We can employ everyone who is unemployed. We can put a snaggle-tooh rock smoker in charge of the power grid, and Sam the schizophrenic in control of Public Broadcasting, but we all know the effects it would bring. This is what you are suggesting; the fact that everyone unemployed is unemployed because of a poor labor distribution.
Many of our "useless bearacracies" are not that useless. They are there to protect our economic interests. Yes, you say, the economic interests of the top 1 percent, but the spill off in our economy beats that of the total input and output of most other economies. Yes, they hold the reisnt o the fruit cart, but we still get to pick up the surplus. And our surplus beats the total incentive to live in France, or Germany.
Our wealth is largely held by a select few, but those select few have an interest in keeping the US Economy afloat; namely, so their own profits can increase. So what if me and my family only hold .000001% of the national monetary share? It still beats, in total, the .001 percent share held in France, or Germany. We sit on the fattest moneypile in the world. Even if we don't have a direct grab at it from the start, the incentives and resources we have access to allow us to make a better living than someone in a country where the wealth is shared. The US is on the edge of technology, medicine, etc., because of our capitalism, not in spite of it.
And why would innovation be stifled, when every innovation would make life for everyone involved better?
Because there is no incentive other than some fariy ass common good to work for. I'm doing OK. You're most likely doing OK. Most of the people on this board are doing OK.
If you can't even reach a small level of success in America economically, you aren't trying hard enough, plain and simple.
1. Get a student loan.
2. Attend community college.
3. Transfer to a 4-year.
4. Budget your money.
could world capitalism work if truly applied? no. is the hybrid capitalism that we have now working? no.
i'd like to give world communism a shot before dismissing it. [/B]
What is the measure of the success of the world economic system? poverty? disease? per capita wages? No matter what the yardstick, America is still the best place to become successful. Studies of global cultures and environments found that, contrary to popular belief, America is the best and most likely place to transcend social class. Anyone who says otherwise is pushing an agenda.