Communism II

[Sixchan]

But a rich flat owner will have a much nicer, better furnished flat than a McDonalds worker will.

Size doesn't determine quality.

um...that is very untrue, many people work solely to provide for their families

AND WHAT IS THIS DOCTOR THING?????!!!!!!!!!!!

Does it not occur to all you capatilists that maybe, just maybe, doctors do their job because they care about people asides from themselves?

I want to add that David Schwimmer is to quit Friends and work as a teacher. What pays better, hmm?

 

[Sixchan]

Hey, how did my post get stuck in the middle instead of going to the end?

 

[knowltok]

Teachers are not that horribly paid. Keep in mind summers off and tenure. I know plenty of teachers making 40-50,000 per year in a totally secure job with summers off, winter and spring breaks, and other time off. It can also be a relatively low stress job in many cases. Take an algebra teacher. It's not like the lesson plan needs revised every year. Need a little extra time, just give the students something to do to keep them busy in class and then grade papers.

I know that you can't slide like that and be a "good" teacher, but you can do it, get raises with the rest of the staff, and get tenure protecting your job.

All that said, I think teachers could use some more money, but I think we are buying propaganda if we see them as "horribly" underpaid.

 

[ComradeDavo]

Teachers are not that horribly paid

well they are in countries such as Uganda!!
Remember: communism is about everybody and when judging a question such as the one rmsharpe has posted you must consider it on a global scale.

note: Teachers are a good example of people who do their job for reasons other than the incentive of money.

 

[Flatlander Fox]

I'll believe it when Dave is off the show and getting shot at in the Bronx Public School System.


Helping people is great. I do it all of the time. I DO get a certain satisfaction out of helping other people.

But not enough that I would accept the pay that everybody else is making, regardless of their station in life.

Do you honestly think that Dave doesn't have enough money to volunteer for the rest of his life at the local soup kitchen???

Puh-leeze.


No offense to anyone, but I find that most idealists are those who have not had too much adversity in their lives.

 

[amadeus]

And most (liberal) idealists are those that CAN be liberal idealists -- kids in high school where they don't have to worry about real problems

 

[Maj]

People are drawn to power. Power corrupts. People are drawn to wealth. Wealth is power. Authority is power. Governments are authority.

In capitalism, there are two powers. The government and the wealthy capitalists.

In communism, there is only one power, the government.

At least in capitalism, the government and the capitalists struggle for power, leaving us, the "little guys", with the "benefit" of being stuck in the middle. We are needed to vote them to power and to buy their goods. Some of us make the jump to wealth or power.

That's the way I view it. But the truth has many faces and what I may be seeing may be just a distortion of one of those faces. Anyhow, what's your take on this gross generalisation?

-Maj

 

[scorch]

OK, firstly, whats to say that a Doctor works harder than a shoe seller? A doctor walks around, analyses stuff, to find a cure. A shoe seller fits shoes, walks around trying to find the right shoe.

Communism would work idealisticaly. Because the government owns everything anyprofits would be go back to the government, then back to the people. Earnings made by the country would not be kept by one individual, but be evenly distributed.

 

[jacques]

Originally posted by Flatlander Fox
Jacques:
Take 1000 doctors, ask them if they would be a doctor for 6 bucks an hour and see if ANY of them would reply "yes"....

Not a one would probably agree.

Yeah sure! nowadays in america, no one would agree. That's not the point at all.

I think you are a bit too optimistic on human nature.

Yes I am optimistic.

And after all of that training, I wouldn't work so cheap either. People are not robots, therefore you can't expect them to just agree to equality straight down the line. Unless you have a Stasi or a KGB looking over your shoulder.
When we are all genetically altered to accept everything that the government feeds us, THEN communism will work.

Of course yes. It appears to me that from the beginning you don't like communism, so you say that you have to be brainwashed to accept it. Stasi, KGB or maybe NSA huh?

 

[jacques]

Originally posted by rmsharpe
And most (liberal) idealists are those that CAN be liberal idealists -- kids in high school where they don't have to worry about real problems

My god! You're 16 and you're already that cynical!
I really pity you.
I'm not in high school, and I think I'm some kind of idealist.

 

[jacques]

Originally posted by Grey Fox
The best system is a Capitalistic Socialism, like we have here in Sweden. The market is free and there is enough competition for the prices to be fair. The only monopoly that is justified is the liquor business, The State controlles all heavy liquor and that's good I think.

Keep in mind that you have to consider the country's specific situation. Perhaps alcohol monopoly is justifeid in sweden, because the common alcohol is vodka eller brändvin. In some countries like in the south of europe (spain, france, italy or greece), the common alcohol is wine which does not hurt the body as much.
In Sweden the state control liquors + wine + bier.
Actually swedish people think of french people as alcoholics, but who has to be controlled? ah!ah!

On the other hand, I think that many other monopolies are a lot more justified than alcohol. For exemple electricity. I don't want to know what would happen if some company would own for example a few nuclear plants and cut funds to have a bigger benefits margin, which they all are after...

 

[Gruntboy]

The doctor argument:

I can make my own shoes or burn my own garbage. I can't give myself a heart transplant. That's why doctors get paid more.


Regarding chance:

Everyone has the chance of being born *somehwere*, that's just fate, design, whatever. It is *not* an argument. At least in a capitalist country you gt a chance, theoretically, to be rich. become president etc.

In a communist country you either all (in utopia) stay the same, or (in reality) the party apparatus rapes you, your dog, family and whole people for everything you've got to line their pockets.

 

[jacques]

Originally posted by Gruntboy
The doctor argument:
I can make my own shoes or burn my own garbage. I can't give myself a heart transplant. That's why doctors get paid more.

Can you cut your hair?

 

[Maj]

Supply and demand.

There are fewer doctors because to become a certified physician, a person requires at least eight years of med school. That right there factors in the costs most people would have difficulty affording. If you want to specialized, that would be another 4 years. Those are very rough numbers, so if there are any med students or doctors out there, maybe you could smooth the edges. The point is, doctors are in shorter supply because their profession is one difficult to pursue in both the financial and academic senses. As for demand, there will always be a demand for humans who are capable of healing the sick and injured. Always. For a lot of people, unfortunately, the question lies not in need but in affordability and availability.

In terms of the shoe maker, attaining enough skill and knowledge in the field of shoe making requires a far smaller input of time, education and money than a doctor-in-training would need. Although shoes are in demand, they are hardly as necessary as medical treatment. Also, with large populations of poorly educated people in an economy with high unemployment, many of these people would grab at the chance to become a shoemaker, simply if it meant not having to starve. This leaves employers with the leverage since there is high demand to get the job.

 

[amadeus]

Originally posted by scorch
OK, firstly, whats to say that a Doctor works harder than a shoe seller? A doctor walks around, analyses stuff, to find a cure. A shoe seller fits shoes, walks around trying to find the right shoe.

Communism would work idealisticaly. Because the government owns everything anyprofits would be go back to the government, then back to the people. Earnings made by the country would not be kept by one individual, but be evenly distributed.

Arrgh! It's not about how hard you work.

A doctor goes to school for years learning to be a doctor. A shoe salesmen takes a five-hour course.

 

[Gruntboy]

jacques: yes!!! Har har! My hair is extremely short. OK, so I couldn't make electric clippers but I bet I could make a razor blade, having mined the metal and built the furnace.

Even if I couldn't I could grow my hair long, or learn to cut my hair.

No way could I learn to give myself or others a heart transplant.

 

[jacques]

Originally posted by Gruntboy
jacques: yes!!! Har har! My hair is extremely short. OK, so I couldn't make electric clippers but I bet I could make a razor blade, having mined the metal and built the furnace.

Even if I couldn't I could grow my hair long, or learn to cut my hair.

No way could I learn to give myself or others a heart transplant.

I think that you do a lower quality job when you cut your own hair.

But anyway, you could learn to give others a heart transplant. Everybody can learn to do that (of course it might be difficult for blind people but still...), provided you want to.

I still think that every job on earth as 'almost' equal importance. Do you think that an actor as a much more important function than a hairdresser?

 

[Sixchan]

I'd say farmers are more important than doctors, so should they get payed more? If we had no-one to grow food, all those oh-so-important doctors would all be dead.

 

[Gruntboy]

As it stands, I think I do a very good job of cutting my hair, thank you.

I disagree. I do not have the ability to learn to become a surgeon. It is beyond me. We are not all born equal - we are born with different aptitudes. Sure, we may learn skills later in life but some are always going to be beyond us.

Hairdresser and actor - no. But you can go at that all day, pick some extreme examples. The outliers are always the ones that test the theory.

Why should I sweat my @$$ off learning program code when I can be paid the same as Vaclav to clean toilets and go home early?

 

[Gruntboy]

Sixchan - a doctor can grow his own food in an allotment. A farmer still can't perform heart surgery.

Now we're just getting into silly examples.