The Victory of Communism!

[geo]

It is true that workers of the industrialized nations in the late 19th century had a very hard and unfair life, and they paid a heavy price in blood for the reforms they got, such as the 8-hour workday.

I found the title of this thread, "The Victory of Communism!" humorous. I figured that someone was just being facetious.I am surprised that there is this much discussion about communism. It has failed miserably every time it has been tried.

I think it's coming back, at least some aspects of it, under different disguises, such as "Globalization", "Mondialization", which lead to uniformity and egalitarism, which is one facet of communism.

Or, according to another version, there is no such thing as communism and there never was.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

What's your point?...

My point is that laborers of the late 19th century considered their conditions horrible enough to warrant unions and strikes. My point is that folks such as Andrew Carnegie offered pittances during "negotiations", and brutally suppressed the strikes that followed.

.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

I am not surprised.

well, herein lies a fundamental difference of worldview. I would not consider the welfare state, social security or food stamps to be irrational ideas, as you put it.

"To disagree with Rand is to not understand" is such a stupendously anti-intellectual, anti-thought (and completely irrational) statement that i'm quite astounded. bk

...perhaps if you re-read Rand's "Capialism: The Unknown Ideal" your 'astoundity' (?) will change to understanding. It has been known to happen!

-dixon cannon

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Well said; Correctamundo!!...

I found the title of this thread, "The Victory of Communism!" humorous. I figured that someone was just being facetious.

I am surprised that there is this much discussion about communism. It has failed miserably every time it has been tried.

I think Ayn Rand said that; "For The New Intellectual"

-dixon cannon

 

[Baron Kurtz]

astoundedness, i think, would be correct

bk

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Your point makes my point pointedly!!!...

My point is that laborers of the late 19th century considered their conditions horrible enough to warrant unions and strikes. My point is that folks such as Andrew Carnegie offered pittances during "negotiations", and brutally suppressed the strikes that followed.

.

My company just offered it's union employees a pittance during "negotiations" - I think Northwest Airlines is suppressing a labor strike as we speak. I hope to God it does not turn violent.

And the "Robber Baron" Andrew Carnegie sold his steels mills as the market changed and then spent the rest of his life GIVING BACK to the society and economic system that made his prosperity possible. Many of the workers who couldn't afford the luxuries to which they believed they were entitled settled for educating themselves and their children in the Carnegie endowed libraries through the nation. They took up art to assuage their misery, funded by a Carnegie endowment.

Andrew Carnegie is a perfect example of a Capitalist industrialist who understood the meaning of Capitalism, the difference from Altruism and the virtue of "Selfishness". He was not alone.

-dixon cannon

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Indoubtebly !!

astoundedness, i think, would be correct bk

-dixon cannon

 

[Marc Chevalier]

A system evolves, it grows through trial and error. Mistakes get made. Bad decisions are undertaken. Pig headed leaders in management and labor push the limits. That sounds like life to me!

But you reject the "trial and error" that places limits on "greed". Without those 19th century strikes (and early 20th century legislation), there would have been no incentives for the Carnegies and Rockefellers to concede anything to labor. Evolution would have been glacial.

People flocked to this country in droves to work in Carnegie's steel mills, on Vanderbilt's railroads, on whaling ships and in garment factories SO THAT THEY COULD HAVE SOMETHING BETTER THAN WHAT THEY HAD EXPERIENCED PREVIOUSLY.

Right. The shipping companies promised immigrants "streets paved with gold"; once those immigrants arrived, they (or at least the Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian and Jewish ones) found that they didn't have better labor conditions than those they had experienced previously -- so they FOUGHT TO CHANGE U.S. CAPITALISM.

And sure enough, as things tend to evolve, new standards were set and new rules for work were implimented.

Things didn't "tend to evolve" -- workers FOUGHT, STARVED, BLED, WERE IMPRISONED, DEPORTED, OR EVEN KILLED to bring that evolution about, against the wishes of Carnegie, Rockefeller, Mellon, etc.


.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Let's face it...

I am truly a "Radical for Capitalism". I don't make any excuses.

-dixon cannon

 

[Harp]

Communism

A reply seen on Ask Andy prompted me to put this up for discussion here. The reply is:


I know that there are of course economic and social classes, but is this what people like to think, especially this part?
Is that true? Because if it is, that is communism, and people seem to be quite happy with it.

Vladimir Lenin penned his tract, 'State and Revolution' to give the
ideological blueprint stamp for Karl Marx's 'Das Kapital," which laid
the economic base for the USSR. Communism essentially provided a false
philosophy antithetical to innate human nature, and collapsed of its own
accord.

There is class consciousness here in America and throughout the West,
but such reflects Rousseau's observation on the basic inequality of all
human beings. Constitutional doctrine can salve this blistering fact to
some extent by allowing individual freedom to pursue happiness and wealth.
However, no document can, nor will, ever guarantee human happiness.

 

[Pilgrim]

I think Dixon made the same point I was trying to get at above....

There were great excesses in the 19th century, but much of the excess was corrected in the 20th Century. Perhaps this is indeed a normal developmental aspect of a Capitalistic society, as we seem to be seeing the same sequence at work in developing nations.

A shift from agrarian to manufacturing or production economy seems to carry with it a tendency to neglect and exploit the environment; but this doesn't go on forever. When conditions (for workers and the environment) get bad, people call for improvements.

Much of the work going on right now in third world countries with developing Capitalistic economies is aimed at making environmental consideration and decent conditions for workers. Hopefully they can learn from the 100-year cycle the US and Great Britain went through, and minimize the negative impacts of moving to a manufacturing economy.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Coming a bit late to this party, but I just wanted to add my two cents -- which is that if you're an American born poor, as I was, you tend to be *exceedingly* aware of class distinctions. And rather resentful of them too. Which can lead to all sorts of unpleasant things.

 

[Haversack]

To answer the initial query about why the US pretence about the existence of social classes:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal..." As part of the Declaration of Independence, this ideal has been a part of the US mythos since the nation's inception. It may not have been true initially or for many decades following, but it has remained an ideal to be striven for.

It was also an extremely radical idea when it was written in the 18th C. To deny the inherent superiority of the aristocracy was unthinkable in most of Western Civilization at the time. Consider why _The Marriage of Figaro_ was banned and or controversial in France and Austria. It made fun of an aristocrat. Similarly, _Les Liaisons Dangereuse_ was initially published anonymously because it portrayed aristocrats acting callously. Both of these books were considered dangerous to the status quo because they held members of the aristocracy up to scorn and derision. To go even further and politically espouse founding a government on the principle of "all men are created equal" was almost inconceivable. (But not quite. Peasant rebellions stretching back to the 14th C. had used the doggerel of "When Adam delved and Eve Span, who was then the Gentleman?" as a rallying cry.)

Into the 19th C., the concept of a republic as a form of government continued to be seen as controversial in most of Europe. Even in Britain into the 1880s & 90s Gilbert was making fun of republics where "all shall equal be" and having fun with opening up the House of Peers to competitive examination. (Cue Tony Blair).

After the American Revolution, the French Revolution continued this idea to often extreme ends. (In the US, Baron Baltimore at least kept his head.) As the Bolsheviks were quite consciously using the US and French Revolutions as a template for their own, they also abolished the aristocracy both legally and literally. It also fit in with the economic theory they were trying to shoe-horn into a means of running an empire.

Initially, the US could have gone the other way and kept its imported aristocracy. There were people in this county who had titles, birth, and arms. However, George Washington turned down the title of King and set the US on its present course.

In spite of the national ideal of "all men are created equal", there are in fact, classes within the US. These classes are based on a combination of economics, age of wealth in the family, up-bringing and schooling, ethnic background, region, religion, and employment. These differences in class are often subtle and unspoken but exist none-the-less. Because the existence of these social classes is informal and because they grate on our national mythos, people in the US largely pretend that they do not exist.

Haversack.

 

[Pilgrim]

In spite of the national ideal of "all men are created equal", there are in fact, classes within the US. These classes are based on a combination of economics, age of wealth in the family, up-bringing and schooling, ethnic background, region, religion, and employment. These differences in class are often subtle and unspoken but exist none-the-less. Because the existence of these social classes is informal and because they grate on our national mythos, people in the US largely pretend that they do not exist.

You said this much more eloquently than I did - but that sums it up.

 

[jamespowers]

Haversack has the story in a nutshell. All people in the US are equally important. There is no such thing as ignoring someone simply because they are poor or have some other encumberance. The individual counts. That is what is equal.
To say that we are all equally intelligent or physically capable is clearly wrong. That is why capitalism works in America. We take advantage of each of our strengths and it works out very well. :eusa_clap

Regards to all,

J

 

[Dixon Cannon]

But you reject the "trial and error" that places limits on "greed". Without those 19th century strikes (and early 20th century legislation), there would have been no incentives for the Carnegies and Rockefellers to concede anything to labor. Evolution would have been glacial.
Right. The shipping companies promised immigrants "streets paved with gold"; once those immigrants arrived, they (or at least the Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian and Jewish ones) found that they didn't have better labor conditions than those they had experienced previously -- so they FOUGHT TO CHANGE U.S. CAPITALISM.
Things didn't "tend to evolve" -- workers FOUGHT, STARVED, BLED, WERE IMPRISONED, DEPORTED, OR EVEN KILLED to bring that evolution about, against the wishes of Carnegie, Rockefeller, Mellon, etc.
.

You should tell this to Carnegie himself. He was one of those immigrants. He worked under those conditions. He had the same experiences and the same hard knocks. Yet... yet... he prospered and succeeded, and like Gates today, made a lot of other people properous, wealthy and successful. There were probably thousands of other immigrants who had similar experiences and who succeeded too - nameless, faceless, uncelebrated - who through their efforts, skill and determination prospered under Capitalism (however brutish one wants to paint it) and allowed others to prosper along with them.

Never mind those home grown successes like Vanderbilt and Rockefeller who made something out of nothing and allowed others to participate and prosper along with them. We haven't even gotten to the 20th Century giants like Ford and his contemporaries!

Your argument seems to suggest that everyone must rise equally and enjoy the same success and the same results - that everyone who has a JOB must obtain the remuneration of an owner/investor/executive. Just like today, anyone at anytime is free to quit and undertake a new endeavor.

Reversing the idea here; does a guy in the mail room at Microsoft deserve the same remuneration and status as the chief engineer or Paul G. Allen himself! Of course not!

I really needn't say more about this, as the reading of an Andrew Carnegie biography tells the story perfectly - he was bootstrap raised, hard-working, shrewd, perservereing, and probably most importantly, he didn't cry and moan about his 'miserable conditions' in beerhalls and union offices, he WORKED and changed his own conditions. In doing so he improved the lives on countless millions - he and his willing workers turned dirt into steel, and steel into rails, and rails into transportation.

I would rather live a hundred lives working for Carnegie sweeping up coke and embers than one moment slaving for Stalin, Mao, or Castro. I think most rational American's would feel the same. Thank goodness, we no longer have to - as things have "evolved" considerably. Care to work in a steel mill today???... many American's would rather collect a welfare check!

-dixon cannon

 

[jamespowers]

You should tell this to Carnegie himself. He was one of those immigrants. He worked under those conditions. He had the same experiences and the same hard knocks. Yet... yet... he prospered and succeeded, and like Gates today, made a lot of other people properous, wealthy and successful. There were probably thousands of other immigrants who had similar experiences and who succeeded too - nameless, faceless, uncelebrated - who through their efforts, skill and determination prospered under Capitalism (however brutish one wants to paint it) and allowed others to prosper along with them.-dixon cannon

Don't forget Charles Knox of Knox Hat Company fame. Came here with nothing---left this world with plenty and left us some cool hats too. He treated his workers very well. Ice cream on hot days in the 1800s. Considering how much it cost to buy that much ice cream then. What a brute!
I could go on with tons of success stories---even my great grandparents who spoke no English at all when they got here. They made it. "Hard work never killed anybody" as my grandmother used to say---and do.

Regards,

J

 

[Marc Chevalier]

All people in the US are equally important. There is no such thing as ignoring someone simply because they are poor or have some other encumberance.

We certainly saw this in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward about a year ago.

.

 

[Harp]

Class Distinctions and Societal Resentment

Coming a bit late to this party, but I just wanted to add my two cents -- which is that if you're an American born poor, as I was, you tend to be *exceedingly* aware of class distinctions. And rather resentful of them too. Which can lead to all sorts of unpleasant things.

Point taken; witness the horror of the French Revolution; Russia 1917-18;
and the Balkan proscenium once Tito passed. Macedonia's holocaust had
deeper ethnic issues that dated past World War II to the Ottoman Era;
however, class distinctions between Croats, Serbs, and Muslims undoubtedly
fueled innate hatered. 'A man thinks through his stomach,' and had FDR
not been able to convince the US Supreme Court to uphold WPA programs,
the USA might have seen a more difficult Great Depression.

 

[carebear]

We certainly saw this in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward about a year ago.

.

I'm not sure how Katrina shows unequal treatment.

The people in the 9th Ward had all kinds of choices they didn't make correctly. They chose to live in N.O. where they knew hurricanes hit. They chose to live below sea level. They chose (against sanity and common sense and the weight of history) to believe that manmade structures could successfully protect them against force of nature. They chose not to stock up on supplies, they chose not to evacuate, they chose to trust idiot local and state leaders (who they chose to elect). Every person of every age, income, race and creed who made those same poor choices got the same treatment in the end.


It is important to not mistake (as is common) equality under the law with a false egalitarianism. All people should be treated the same by government but beyond that they're on their own with what they've got from birth.