"Capitalism is the absolute ENEMY of the free market" (David Korten)

I agree with his comment that capitalism and democracy are incompatible.

Quote:

I grew up very conservative, even fairly right-wing. The reason I pursued a career in international development was my concern about a communist takeover of the world, and how that threatened our American way of life. I am most definitely not a Marxist.

The Sovs were never a threat. They were not interested in world dominance. The USSR was basically a group of developing countries trying to exist within a capitalist world. The TNCs worked with fascist governments to effect decades long embargoes and sanctions. Shortages of all kinds combined with western propaganda made people living in those countries believe that Soviet communism was a miserable system. They understood that everyone living here in the west were millionaires. In short, people were lied to constantly during the cold war era. Things were not as they seemed to be. And it's still true today.

Adolf Hitler was the biggest liar of the last century. Fascism central moved from Western Europe to North America where its practitioners  became the biggest liars of the second half of the last century through today.

Brian White wrote:

  Communism was extinct last time I looked. 

Communism is alive and well and living on the Canadian and American prairies. See the Hutterites (They go to considerable lengths to avoid large scale and bureaucratic organization).

The Federation of Egalitarian Communities is surviving in the U.S. too, see

http://www.twinoaks.org  for example.

Marxist-Lenist state socialism is in bad shape. But just because the Marxist-Leninists, and Marx before them, appropriated the name of "communism" doesn't mean that we have to accept them at their own valuation.

Not that I think that pure communism is a the best way to organize a complete economy, especially an industrial one. However I agree with Confucius who said that the first step to correct thought was the accurate use of words.

Doug Woodard, St. Catharines, Ontario

Brian White wrote:

Anyway, I see this thread floating away into strange irrelevant places.  So be it, I guess.  Communism was extinct last time I looked. Lets forget about it and try make corporate capitalism extinct too.

I think I know what you're saying. But let's remember that communism is a relatively new idea compared to how long capitalism has been around and failing in experiments around the world since 14th century Italy.

The main difference is that one idea tends to collapse all on its own, while the other has become extinct because it is the will of the state increasingly controlled by capitalists.

If we were to describe the two ideas in general, we would have to conclude that one of them exists only because of the full force of the state and even the military while the other came into being in Asia after it was the will of the people to overthrow corrupt imperialist regimes friendly to capitalists at the time. One system is very artificial and unnatural while the other continues to be an idealism in the minds of millions of people. Capitalists and their hirelings in government have tried to murder this idea at various times through the last century. It still remains to be seen whether an idea may be killed. I think they've come close. But imho,  communism will never die a natural death the way capitalism tends toward and yet is continually propped up by full force of the state controlled by a relatively small handful of capitalists as always.

Far too many people are far too trusting when listening to capitalists and their well-trained propagandists. They assume the capitalists-etc use words the same way we do. When we say 'free market', we kind of assume a certain set of rules that ensures everyone plays nicely, children. The capitalist however means no such thing - when the capitalist says 'free market', they mean an absence of rules - 'freedom!!' - in which the strong and ruthless are allowed to dominate the weak or otherwise unable-to-stand-up-to-a-serious-predator types. The only 'rules' the capitalist wants are rules that they can use to justify their keeping of whatever they manage to acquire through their freedom to dominate others. Too many people allow them to get away with this - that is, they create rules to justify their theft, and the weak-minded 'liberals' accept the laws of capitalist-controlled governments, and the following  judgements of "impartial" courts that justify their theft. And etc.

To paraphrase some old phrase - there is a time to follow democratic laws, and a time to oppose unjust laws - and the main thing we need is the wisdom to understand the difference. The capitalists have been playing us for suckers for far too long - it's time to stand up and say NO MORE!

As Marx might have said about it, all Microsoft employees will someday work for themselves and for the good all when workers takeover the factories... and software giants like MS. As long as they exist, they are there to be taken possession of by the working class.

So let them expand and even expand globally. Let them invest in new ideas and technologies. One day workers of the world will rise up and seize capitalist assets and the means of production. And then we will work to create the common good economy of the future.

Make a square viewing aperture with your thumbs and index fingers, hold it up to the world outside and look through it. Now imagine everything you see is freely accessible to all. That's the future.

Yeah maybe you're right. I don't think it will do workers much good to takeover some hedge funds and real estate at over-inflated values in future.

We need real infrastructure of the future. Dilapidated bridges, roads, old buildings and water works aren't much good to us if they are falling apart. We have to demand that they invest in people and the things that are sustainable.