Capitalism or Communism which is the right way to go

Capitalism....

citation: History and a basic understanding of economics....

Depends on situation. "Communism cant work" is bullshit and illusion you guys have in west. USSR did noy fall bechose of communism after all. Back to the topic. I perfer neighter bechose capitalism leaves poor without anything, creates globalisation and in communism living standart is litle lover than capitalism would offer & in ellections you have to choose from that one party some one (Limited freedom).

Moraly communism is defenetly the way to go
Economicly if you are ok with leaving 20% of the population poor capitalism is the way to go

I would say communism IF some criteries are met (Obiesly)

My decicion is based on my interview with former soviet citizens words.

In the end, mixed economy is the way to go

Lack of freedom is the worst part of communism.

The United Nationals Millenium fund defines poverty as living on less then 2 dollars a day, 1.7 billion people in the world live under that line (none in the industrialized world mind you). In the 1820's before the industrial revolution and the spread of capitalism, over 75% of the world lived on less then ONE dollar a day, today less then 20% do. Even Marx agreed capitalism was the most efficient economic system known to man. Marx praised capitalism on three major grounds : 1) It delivered us from feudalism (want to talk wealth inequalities? Study the Middle Ages), 2) innovation (capitalism forces industry to develop new techs and innovate), 3) It granted man dominion over nature...

Marx's basic critiques and final predictions on capitalism haven't really bared out due to the advent of the welfare state and the service based economy. Marx thought that Capitalism (in the 1870s) has outlived its usefulness. We see today that capitalism is still alive and booming. He argued that capitalism alienates workers (the laborer becomes alienated from the product, he becomes alienated from the process, he becomes alienated from his fellow workers, and he becomes alienated from his creative potential) which may have been a valid critique of workers working on an assembly line assembling one widget over and over again for their entire lives. However, with advances in tech and the movement towards advanced capitalist countries to a service based economy, those fears simply don't happen. Finally he argued capitalism had an iron logic, which would ensnare both sides (proles and bourgeois) into their social roles. Well America, as with many other advanced capitalist countries has been characterized by social mobility, and the lack of defined social roles.

Finally, he underestimated the resilience of capitalism. I think if he were alive during the great depression he would have thought that this was the time for the revolutionary sequence to take root, however, that didn't happen. The welfare state developed in the 1870's in Germany to provide a social safety net for people, and gradually working conditions both naturally and through state intervention improved for everyone. The net result of this is that in welfare state and advanced capitalist countries is that the proles will never become immeserated.

The question here assumes that we speak of pure capitalism, which doesn't exist almost anywhere. In the same light that were not talking about pure communism (no one here is talking about a stateless society without private property) It's not right to discuss capitalism in it's pure state either. It's more relevant to discuss empirical examples of capitalism or communism, and as I said before, history has borne out that capitalism economies provide the most amount of good for the most amount of people (utility).

Actualy that summs it up very well. I'm in fauvor of capitalism if: its restricted (industries like health care are not in private hands) & it includes social security. I'm sure there is some more to add to list, but in a nut shell thats prettymuch it.

And yeah no one is pure capitalist nor pure communist. So if we ask now: Would you live in USSR or in west today (if USSR would not collapse) I would say west, but if USSR and west would have been friends and traded, let people go in and out and besicaly no cold war etc. I wouldnt mind living in USSR. How would it look like is very hard to tell, but if USSR would have living standart of dont know lets say Turkey or Spain I'm all for it. This naturaly includes benefits of soviet system that not Turkey not Spain has.

I wouldnt get luxury living, but I would get house, job, medical treatment, education and food with 100% certainty. Here in west I have to strugle economicly and just in case I wont make it to be wealthy, atleast I wont fall on the ground in soviet model.

And honestly; I wouldnt care in witch I would end up. Both are great (Read requairements above)

Taking aside the question of weather or not there is a bourgeois and a prole anymore, why must one be eliminated?

If you're goal is a classless society why not eliminate the proles?

If you're goal is utility then then it doesn't follow the most utility would be to eliminate the most productive members of society. Not saying that proles have no incentive to work hard under communism, but you can't argue that rational individuals will work harder given no incentive to do so. Assuming c.p. given no incentive a rational individual will choose leisure over labor, which has it's benefits but won't create utility.

If you're goal is to create a leveling of society, then empirical data points otherwise. Marx predicted that wealth would be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands until the few were very rich and the many were very poor (Jack London wrote a great book about this, and most dystopian literature follows from this vein). This just hasn't happened in advanced capitalist countries. Far from growing poorer and more miserable, workers have become better off. Wages naturally rise and workers can afford better housing, better food, and more amenities. Bernstein's 1899 classis "evolutionary socialism" argues far more convincingly then I...

So why then must the bourgeois be eliminated?

When and how, capitalism has shown a willingness and resistance to the kind of wide scale poverty and immeseration Marx had argued would be a prerequisite towards revolutionary class consciousness. You can agree with Lenin and call it trade union consciousness, but the fact is its a consciousness nonetheless that capitalism has obtained, and without a totalitarian regime they won't revolt on their own. Totalitarian regimes have historically lead to authoritative ones, so the idea that the state would wither away and lead to communism seems absurd (as noted by Lassale, Bernstein, Luxembourg and many others).

That's the developing stage of capitalism, and the compare conditions of the poor now to conditions of the poor from before capitalism. They are unequivocally better off and making more money and having a better standard of living then when they were living in an agrarian or caste based system... Further, you're ignoring the point I and others have made about "mixed economy", vs pure capitalism. What do you define mixed economy as? Is there private property that is at least in some way protected? If that's the case, then you're talking about capitalism. As was stated before, there isn't a place where pure capitalism or pure communism is still being practiced, so it goes without saying that there will be some worker oriented reforms (which in no was is inconsistent with capitalism).

But removing the natural aristocracy or the hardest working class isn't? Even Lenin had contempt for the proles, so I don't see how you can justify only eliminating one class. Further that doesn't address any of my other critiques (it's easy to pick out my most outlandish statement, but even that one was built on the same logical reasoning as you're statements)

Eh he spends most of his time postulating how a military revolution would pan out, and spends a few lines (even though there is significant academic and philosophical debate to draw on) about a non violent option. He still doesn't answer the fundamental question about how a revolution would start, but rather presupposes that it already has.

Also most of his QA doesn't really seek to address questions, but rather reassert his positions, for instance in attempting to answer if the criticisms of Marxism still apply, he retorts:

That's it, no explanation on how they haven't changed, no explanation of why the economic crisis proves that. Just a bassist assertion that hey "private property exists" so it has to have remain unchanged in 150 years of development thus it has to be evil still. It also takes a very Russian approach to the questions. Forgetting that the vast majority of intellectual work on Marxism and communism came from Germany and France. He doesn't talk at all about how Engels changed Marx's theories, the opinions of Marx's intellectual rival during the period (Lassale), Revisionists like Bernstein, Fabians (he touches on their ideas during his discussion of a peaceful revolution, but doesn't mention them), anarcho communists (other then Kautsky, who wasn't as big of an influence as he noted), Sparticists, or any of the more contemporary thinkers. All in all, a very well written high school paper, but not a great piece of academia.

So I pose this question then, what kind of crisis would be necessary if not the great depression or the 08 recession to spur a revolution? With the amount of state interference into the mechanisms of the economy now, is it even possible for a state to let itself collapse to the point where the conditions would be ripe for a Marxian revolution?

I think you're here confusing the terms... Communism is what happens after the state withers away. Marx did little to define it because he was wary of Fourrier like scientific communities that didn't make sense for anyone. He did think it would be an open and democratic society, in which people took "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

He best defines communism in "The German ideology" as such:

Why isn't there?

Which hasn't happened in an advanced capitalist country. The record for highest inflation is actually held by a then Communist Hungary. The next highest example would be in Zimbabwe after the president tried to redistribute lands formerly held by wealth whites. There hasn't been a case of hyperinflation leading to a Marxist style revolution, and while that doesn't mean it never will, you certainly could assume that this style revolution would have occurred while the movement was much more widespread as opposed to now when it is relegated to fringe status throughout the world.