friends today

[ScottMcR]

i have ust spent an interesting evening with some friends trying to discuss the pro's of marxism with them but i feel i let the side down a little =( obviously one of them has a degree in politics and that made it kinda hard becuase he kept spouting facts and figures that i was ignorant too and all i could do was harp back to the basics without much founding or relevance in today =( i was just wondering if any of you had experienced this. i will say that i never backed down and the arguments and discussions where not fully won by either side as i did manage to hole my own but i do feel that i wish i could have explained or educated further. i know its a failing in myself and my study and i am trying to rectify it by reading more as we speak. the basic arguments where the usual ones about how we would motivate the people to actually work under socialism and communism and what the  benefits would be for more highly trained jobs and the usual about how people are inherently greedy.

i tried my best to answer them but wondered what you guys would say.

a main point was how we could get the london underground working efficiently enought for people to reconsider using public transport and not private transport.

admittedly i have had a few beers =) but it could be worse so excuse my spelling.

what do ya think??

comradely

scott

[turnoviseous]

Motivate people to work under socialism? Wage labour, as in capitalism.

BTW, Ive had experience with similar people. There used to be one "comrade" in our group who questioned everything that can be questioned. He was always insisting how we should not use word communism, because it sounds bad, etc..Once we came to discussion about state and its origins. He just couldnt accept marxist concept of state and walked away saying "we are not historians". I bet the polititian guy had no idea of history, maybe you could make him say that. :D

[the_sociallist]

Capitalism is about theft: the expropriation of the land and labor of others. Its engine is greed, and its brake is unemployment. For capitalism to "work," it has to be accepted as a concomitant that some of the people the system is supposed to serve will be degraded by it. It must also be accepted that the planet itself is endangered, through both over-exploitation of its resources, as well as pollution of the environment. In my view, these negatives outweigh any positives that may be claimed for capitalism. Laws cannot change the fundamental nature of the system. Nor can you neatly separate the moral issues posed by capitalism from the economic issues which, qua system, it seeks to resolve, namely who makes what goods and services, and who gets what (and how much) goods and services.