DA 08: Capitalism vs. Communism

This is the eighth Devil's Advocate thread.

In these threads, all posters have to take exactly the opposite stance to the ones they usually take. Thus, for example, I will defend Shariah law and defend the legal "rights" of Muslims to take four wives if they want. And I'll do it sincerely, not satirically.



Note that things used here cannot be used against you in normal forum debates except in other DA debates.

The other rules and list of topics are given here: Let's play Devil's Advocate!.

Please be sure to read the rules - they're the distilled wisdom collected over all the DA threads till now.



Given the backdrop of the current financial crisis, I thought it would be interesting to see this debate in DA form. It's certainly one of the longest-running ones around here.

Note that Capitalism includes all fiscally right-leaning views, and communism includes all fiscally left-leaning ones, including socialism. You have to argue for the coherent opposite of what you believe.

No getting back to your original position by using double negations.

capitalism will lead even the most barbaric nation into civilization!

wait, am i doing it wrong?

holy king said:

capitalism will lead even the most barbaric nation into civilization!

wait, am i doing it wrong?

Click to expand...

Well, if you're a socialist, you're doing it pretty decently.

Just try to be a little more believable. People should actually believe, when they read your post, that you're a free-marketer capitalist pigdog.

aneeshm said:

Well, if you're a socialist, you're doing it pretty decently.

Just try to be a little more believable. People should actually believe, when they read your post, that you're a free-marketer capitalist pigdog.

Click to expand...

but i just quoted the communist manifesto...

I'll try

Those dirty capitalists just want to starve children and start wars! Why won't stupid, nast, and cruel people like WickLC1 just die and leave nice people alone!

Kommunism is the korrect way for Amerika.

Uhhhh.....I tried Communism in a single Civ 3 game once, and it worked.

I'm afraid that's the best I can do.

Greed isn't good.


Greed is GOD!

If you think about it really hard, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a fundamentally good idea.

Total state control of the economy is vital in a national crisis, and in the lack of a functional market it is the first step to economic development.

Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution plays this devil's advocate game every so often with his alter ego Tyrone. I like this excerpt from his minimum wage post.

We know the empirical evidence on minimum wages is mixed. I am familiar with the Card-Krueger smackdowns but at the end of the day you have to work hard to get a big effect on employment.
...
Tyler, what is really your problem with the minimum wage? Free market economists love to bash it because they can posture as friends of the poor. They can pretend that basic economics has great relevance. They can claim to know something useful, rather than facing the fact that opposition to big government really means opposition to massive income transfers. Since the American public is not willing to go this route, free market economists have to focus their yapping on the minimum wage and the (actually quite small) benefits of free trade.

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Also, I must add that the state property civic in civ4 is amazing. Corporations are terrible compared to the all-mighty power of the waterwheel economy with almost zero maintenance.