Employment is exploitation

[Nast]

and get over this "us against them" mentality.

Why?

CAN'T U SEE?

CUZ DEN WE CAN LIVE IN A MAGICAL UTOPIAN VEGAN FOREST WITH UNICORNS THAT CRAP ORGANIC LENTILS AND WE CAN ALL LIVE OFF OF HUGS AND STARLIGHT!!!!

[Messier Undertree]

and get over this "us against them" mentality.

Why?

CAN'T U SEE?

CUZ DEN WE CAN LIVE IN A MAGICAL UTOPIAN VEGAN FOREST WITH UNICORNS THAT CRAP ORGANIC LENTILS AND WE CAN ALL LIVE OFF OF HUGS AND STARLIGHT!!!!

FINALLY SOMEONE IN THIS THREAD UNDERSTANDS ME

[The Good Reverend Roger]

and get over this "us against them" mentality.

Why?

CAN'T U SEE?

CUZ DEN WE CAN LIVE IN A MAGICAL UTOPIAN VEGAN FOREST WITH UNICORNS THAT CRAP ORGANIC LENTILS AND WE CAN ALL LIVE OFF OF HUGS AND STARLIGHT!!!!

But I hate people and naturally want to oppose them.   

[The Good Reverend Roger]

FINALLY SOMEONE IN THIS THREAD UNDERSTANDS ME

This is bullshit.

I'm gonna go shit on the neighbor's car.

[Messier Undertree]

FINALLY SOMEONE IN THIS THREAD UNDERSTANDS ME

This is bullshit.

I'm gonna go shit on the neighbor's car.

[Nast]

and get over this "us against them" mentality.

Why?

CAN'T U SEE?

CUZ DEN WE CAN LIVE IN A MAGICAL UTOPIAN VEGAN FOREST WITH UNICORNS THAT CRAP ORGANIC LENTILS AND WE CAN ALL LIVE OFF OF HUGS AND STARLIGHT!!!!

FINALLY SOMEONE IN THIS THREAD UNDERSTANDS ME

GODDESS BLESS, MOON-BROTHER!!11

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

No, actually I didn't propose any solutions in that essay, I just outlined what I perceived to be a problem.

What, that companies have to make a profit to survive?

No, that's not the problem. The problem is AFTER the explanation that companies need to make a profit from employee labor.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

No, actually I didn't propose any solutions in that essay, I just outlined what I perceived to be a problem.

What, that companies have to make a profit to survive?

No, that's not the problem. The problem is AFTER the explanation that companies need to make a profit from employee labor.

Sorry.  Not getting it.  Please spell it out for the toofless old bastids in the peanut gallery.

[Cain]

The REALLY REAL reason the USSR failed is because selling your one useful resource worth hard currency to your allies at sub-market prices is FUCKING STUPID.

What's really amusing is all the NeoCons are now whining because Russia, now being a free market paradise, no longer subsidies its oil sales to Ukraine etc...as well as buying up shares in European companies.

Is it just me or did we swap flags at the end of the Cold War and are now having a go at it from the opposite sides?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

No, actually I didn't propose any solutions in that essay, I just outlined what I perceived to be a problem.

What, that companies have to make a profit to survive?

No, that's not the problem. The problem is AFTER the explanation that companies need to make a profit from employee labor.

Sorry.  Not getting it.  Please spell it out for the toofless old bastids in the peanut gallery.

I don't think it's you that's the toothless old bastard here. I am, basically, too old to care about that essay anymore, and just posted it with a bunch of other old crap that nobody should pay any attention to.

I think the gist of where I was going before my attention span ran out and I hastily threw on that last sentence (did you notice that? It's like I went "fuck this, I'm done writing, how can I end it now?") is that lower-level employees lack the market leverage to insist on a wage that is commensurate to the profit they bring their employer. Just getting a new job isn't an easy option for many people, and like I mentioned before, if you are a lower-functioning person for any reason (say you had the misfortune of being born with less intelligence,  or you have a chronic illness) you really get screwed in the bargaining-chip department. I'm neither a Communist nor a Libertarian (I hate that Ayn Rand Manifest-Destiny bullshit) but I do believe that the proper function of a society is to do two things: create a system in which people have the opportunity to excel and benefit from their excellence, and at the same time a system which affords its weakest members the opportunity to survive and thrive. As the old saw goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link...

Anyway, the essay is only a fragment of a line of thought, and a partially-developed fragment, at that.

[Adios]

Communism failed because it was the perfect pen for mindless sheep. When they finally all nodded off to sleep no one cared and the fence fell down. It gave the primates the perfect excuse to become perfectly apathetic, and then their apathy swallowed them whole.  Oh, and the rest of us aren't much different.

[Iron Sulfide]

Communism failed because it was the perfect pen for mindless sheep. When they finally all nodded off to sleep no one cared and the fence fell down. It gave the primates the perfect excuse to become perfectly apathetic, and then their apathy swallowed them whole.  Oh, and the rest of us aren't much different.

i find that this is correct, and should be consumed with a tall glass of water.

[Cain]

I disagree.

It failed because after 80 odd years of wading around in blood up to their knees, the various armies of the Warsaw Pact realized if their system was so great, why did they have to keep on killing people who disagreed?  They decided to not do it anymore (a very courageous decision by Gorbachev) and when the protests, which had been a fairly regular occurence under Communism, eventually erupted again, there was no-one especially willing to slaughter everyone.  There was also the little issue of several countries being up to their eyeballs in debt to Germany, Canada and the USA, who used some sweet trade deals as a carrot.  With no Soviet armies at their backs, most people said "what the heck" and the whole edifice came crumbling down.

Some people will have you believe its because Communism was based on a faulty view of human nature and worked from that to try and become a total system, but that's bullshit.  My evidence?  Neoliberalism is exactly the same, yet isn't being seriously challenged anywhere in the Western world.  As soon as the countries in question fail to back up their economic policies with military might, it will crumble like the rest of them.