The Profit Motive

[Demolition Squid]

The Cold War is often characterized as a struggle between two great ideas: Communism and Capitalism. The accepted narrative is that Capitalism - with its love of freedom, apple pie and Mom - was inevitably going to triumph, and now we live in the best of all possible worlds.

Isn't that depressing? That THIS is the best we can muster?

The triumph of Capitalism has definitely been reaffirmed time and time again over the past thirty years or so. The Left has become a withered husk, horrified at the thought of being labelled 'Socialist'. The Right has become eager to become ever more extreme, so long as 'extreme' means slashing all barriers to the accumulation of wealth.

Societies are defined by what they stand for. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the credit was given to those hard-working industrial capitalists whose Free Market Spirit crushed the Reds and their authoritarian regime. In the aftermath of that, it became downright irresponsible to stop these paragons of virtue from doing whatever they wanted with their hard-won capital.

The main virtue in our world isn't freedom; it is profit.

In some parts of the world, profit is pursued under democracies. In other parts of the world, dictatorships. If you're on the international stage, though, you're really on the international marketplace. We've allowed them to convince us that, in the post-war world, politics is really economics. We've even allowed them to get away with the claim that this is somehow indicative of human nature; that greed is what motivates us all.

Do you believe that? Really?

Most people know that money isn't everything; that the accumulation of wealth isn't a good enough reason to live your life. Most people know that the value of a life has nothing at all to do with how much stuff that person managed to get hold of.

Profit is what drives us to feel helpless in the face of environmental catastrophes (it isn't 'realistic' to expect companies to become environmentally friendly; think of their profit margins!) and it is profit that sees us stand silent in the face of brutal dictatorships and religious extremism (seriously - Saudi Arabia has far more to do with the spread of islamic fundamentalism than any of the countries we've bombed since 9/11).

Our drive for profit is selling the human race down the river.

Shouldn't we pick a better reason to live?

Can I Big Words this whole thing?

Go for it! 

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Well, instead of comparing Russia during communism to Russia before and after communism to determine the effect of communism on russia's quality of life they instead compare Russia under  communism to a completely unrelated country, ie. the USA

Thanks, that clears up what the propositions are.
Now, who are the persons?

I'm still not clear if you are commenting on Demolition Squid vs. the Capitalism/Communism debate or on Capitalism vs Communism.
Or maybe you mean Common sense vs Capitalism? I just can't tell.

I'm commenting on capitalism vs. communism itself, and specifically how it is portrayed in western propaganda.

There are also elements of cherrypicking and post hoc ergo propter hoc to the standard narrative which essentially states that "Russia was a terrible place to live during communism therefore communism was responsible for everything that was bad about Russia was due to communism" but this narrative is wrong because  Russia was a very bad place to live prior to communism and continues to be a very bad place to live decades after communism, therefore communism only accounts for the relatively difference between bad and terrible. (and furthermore, all of this is ignoring the fact that the USSR (all communist countries in fact) was communist in name only; they were neither classless nor stateless)

EDIT:
While I'm on the topic of strawman arguments and stateless communist societies, I just thought of a great argument to troll neocons with; simply tell them that their opposition to big goverment means they are in favor of a stateless society and therefore a communist.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

and it is profit that sees us stand silent in the face of brutal dictatorships and religious extremism (seriously - Saudi Arabia has far more to do with the spread of islamic fundamentalism than any of the countries we've bombed since 9/11).

To be fair, rampant anti-imperialism in combination with anti-government sentiment, historically unsusal levels of compassion, and the Russians and the Chinese are also partly at fault, as it is the combination of these factors that forces us to negotiate with Saudi Arabia instead using our Nuclear Arsenal (Send ye prayers on him, and salute him with all respect) to intimidate them into giving us whatever we want.

[Junkenstein]

What?

Are you suggesting use of nukes on Saudi arabia because they totally don't have them? Or is it Russia and China you think we should be intimidating?

Are you actually insane?

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

What I'm saying is that we could simply get all of Saudi Arabia's oil via extortion if it were not for two things:

1.) Unlike in most former periods of history people today are actually inclined to care about gow immoral that would be

and

2.) It could cascade into a WWI style clusterfuck that might ultimately result in China or Russia nuking us. We would have to secure the permission of these other major powers before trying to extort anything from anyone with the threat of Nuclear annihilation.

[Cain]

[The Wizard Joseph]

Daaamn!!!

And I thought I knew how to pull a worldview out of MY ass... clearly I am yet but a tadpole in a vast pool of bullshit beyond my ken.

[The Johnny]

What I'm saying is that we could simply get all of Saudi Arabia's oil via extortion if it were not for two things:

1.) Unlike in most former periods of history people today are actually inclined to care about gow immoral that would be

and

2.) It could cascade into a WWI style clusterfuck that might ultimately result in China or Russia nuking us. We would have to secure the permission of these other major powers before trying to extort anything from anyone with the threat of Nuclear annihilation.

The USA could threaten to nuke itself because its ashamed its not anti-homo like Russia and force Saudi Arabia to give up all of its oil for free, because reasons and geo-politics.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I kind of envy Shandor, because I haven't been wrong on such a widescale and consistent level in a long time.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

If there weren't any other major Nuclear powers we'd have unrestricted power to do whatever we wanted to. Who could stop us?

Remember the Star Trek episode with the evil alternate universe version of the federation threatening to wipe out the Halkans unless handed over all their dilithium crystals, we could be them if there were no other Nuclear powers.

[The Johnny]

I'm by no means an expert on warfare, but, regardless if the argument of "WWII was won by nukes" is true or false, it doesnt have a direct translation to present day tactics and strategy.

1. Nowadays theres are dozens of countermeasures to nullify nuclear weapons, reducing their efficiency.

2. Tactics and Strategy doesnt seem to revolve around large concentrations of units and resources on a clearly defined battlefront, but rather large ammounts of small separated groups that are highly communicated and coordinated.

Theres tons of other reasons im sure, but why bother researching them if you force analogies and examples comparing ficticious scenarios to real life.

[Demolition Squid]

Option 1: The United States makes good on its threat and obliterates all who oppose it. They then have to move in and secure the (surviving) resources with their conventional military, against a surviving population which views them as horrific monsters on a scale unrealized in human history. How has that worked out for them in comparable situations today?

Option 2: The United States doesn't make good on its threat and looks weak on the international stage. It is forced to come to the bargaining table, humiliated, to secure the resources it needs to continue running its economy. At best, it gets a less favourable deal than it would if it didn't threaten to murder millions of people and alienates its allies for even contemplating it out loud. At worst, no deal is reached and a long, protracted and brutal guerilla campaign to take those resources by force without the use of nuclear weapons is launched, resulting in a situation much like option 1 but with less radiation (and thus, more usable resources)

Option 3: The United States doesn't act like a complete fucking idiot and realizes it needs the cooperation of the people on the ground - or at the least, the elites who rule them - in order to sustain itself in the long term. Negotiations are made which put the interests of the elites of all sides at the forefront - that is, the profit motive - and we wind up in a situation much like we have today anyway.

Which one of these three options seems most likely to you?

[Cain]

Option 4: every other threshold and actual nuclear power, outraged at an unprovoked attack and occupation of a sovereign nation, immediately sets about economically, diplomatically and military isolating the USA and building nuclear arms to counter American aggression.

[Cain]

Option 5: surviving elements of the House of Saud utilise their links with the Pakistani military and Islamist militants to arm groups like Jabhat al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda in Yemen for revenge attacks.

Option 6: the bottom falls out of the London economy as Middle Eastern oil revenues disappear.  The Eurozone goes into an economic crisis and several major NATO governments fall to either left-wing anti-American parties or right wing anti-Euro nationalists.

Option 7: Elements within the American military and intelligence community, appalled at such a decision, mount a coup in order to prevent it.  America descends into civil war.

Option 8: the collapse of the Saudi government leads to a power vacuum in the Middle East which is filled by an Iran.  Declaring a need for nuclear weapons to defend against American aggression, Iran converts its nuclear power program into a weapon program, and quickly establishes itself as the major military power in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.  Egypt and Turkey declare war on Iran and its allies.

Option 9: Shandor is a moron.

[Freeky]

Option 9 sounds legit.