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InvisibleEvolving
Resident Cynic

Registered: 10/01/02
Posts: 5,385
Loc: Apt #6, The Village
Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists
    #1000898 - 10/28/02 06:47 PM (21 years, 5 months ago)

Many people who post on this site have an impulsive hatred towards free market capitalism and those who engage in it. I thought they could help me compile some statistics that will illustrate with numerical data exactly how evil free market capitalists are. I am requesting that leftist ideologues post numbers of deaths caused by free market capitalists or their organizations, whether from malicious intent or plain old ignorance and insensitivity to the unintended consequences of their actions. Note: Please do not include any figures where government agents are allegedly acting at the behest of capitalists as this is not free market capitalism, rather it is government interference and cannot be properly termed 'free market behavior.'

Since the anti-capitalists decry the evils of a system which rewards people for their efforts and almost invariably champion government intervention as a means of ameliorating the distasteful practice of bettering one's material well being, I am also requesting that people contribute the numbers of deaths caused by various governments, government agencies or government agents, whether from malicious intent or plain old ignorance and insensitivity to the unintended consequences of their actions

Please keep it simple and list deaths only. The express purpose is to provide numerical evidence so all free thinking individuals can make reasoned judgements as to which is more deleterious to the well being of mankind, capitalism or statism. A simple tally of the totals presented should help us all get a better understanding of what is a greater threat to our fellow man.

I will start with 2 examples...

Damn Capitalists:
Official death toll is more than 5,000, caused by a gas leak at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal India on December 3, 1984

Damn Statist:
74 men, women and children died in the inferno at Waco, TX on April 19, 1993


--------------------
To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.'  Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence.  Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains.  Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.

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Offlinefoghorn
enthusiast
Registered: 12/13/01
Posts: 308
Last seen: 19 years, 5 months
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: Evolving]
    #1001661 - 10/28/02 10:34 PM (21 years, 5 months ago)

As a free thinking individual I deny your comparison, assumtions, and question the relationship between Capitalism and Statism; I do not think that the two (for lack of a better word) 'idealogies' are opposing factions; and to treat them as such with a 'death count' seems almost ridiculous.

Just my opinion

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OfflineEightball
whore consumer
Male User Gallery

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 07/21/01
Posts: 3,013
Last seen: 9 years, 8 months
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: Evolving]
    #1001670 - 10/28/02 10:38 PM (21 years, 5 months ago)

Damn Capitalists: GREAT DEPRESSSION


--------------------
If you're frightened of dying and you're holding on.you'll see devils tearing your life away.
But...if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels
Freeing you from the earth.

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Offlinefrogsheath
Stranger
Registered: 02/18/02
Posts: 915
Loc: Chicago, Illinois U.S.A.
Last seen: 8 years, 9 months
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: Evolving]
    #1001689 - 10/28/02 10:42 PM (21 years, 5 months ago)

I don't hate capitalism as much as I hate the state's fealty to it.

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Invisiblecarbonhoots
old hand

Registered: 09/11/01
Posts: 1,351
Loc: BC Canada
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: frogsheath]
    #1001855 - 10/28/02 11:12 PM (21 years, 5 months ago)

FEALTY-1. Loyalty and allegiance owed to a feudal lord.
2. Faithfulness


--------------------
  -I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me

CANADIAN CENTER FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES

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OfflineEchoVortex
(hard) member
Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 859
Last seen: 15 years, 6 months
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: Evolving]
    #1002033 - 10/28/02 11:48 PM (21 years, 5 months ago)

I think what foghorn and frogsheath are driving at is that this is a false opposition.

I don't think there's anything wrong with capitalism per se, at least not at the level of the small business owner under conditions of ideal competition. The problem arises when certain businesses become inordinately large and powerful, thereby putting themselves in position to do a number of deleterious things, i.e., wiping out small competitors before they have a chance to grow (even if the competitor has a better product--and this is VERY easy to do, just by using your capital warchest to dump on the market and undercut the competition). Once corporations become powerful enough they also have inordinate and unfair control over the state itself, through lobbying, campaign contributions, etc. Just as dangerously, a handful of media conglomerates now controls the bulk of information that gets disseminated through the mass media.

Basically, big ANYTHING pretty much sucks donkey dick, whether it be a big state or big corporations. The problem is that the only power that can exert some kind of control over big corporations is the state, and even that only when the stewards of the state are not beholden to their corporate paymasters. That is one idea of what democratic representation is supposed to be about: the people oversee and check the power of the state, the state oversees and checks the power of private organizations or bodies that could conceivably exert undue power over the people. This assumes an informed and engaged populace, which unfortunately is what we don't have.

The government abuses its power, no doubt about that. But the history of corporate malfeasance is long and detailed enough (and getting longer and thicker as we speak) that I have about as much faith in pure lassiez faire capitalism as I do in Santa Claus.

The problems facing humanity have very deep causes and no matter what the political system you have in place (yes, even Libertarianism, which sooner or later leads to feudalism) human beings will find ways to corrupt it and bring misery upon themselves. You can't build a solid house from "the crooked timber of humanity." Call me a pessimist, but this is age-old wisdom that gets borne out with every fresh call to war and every new corporate scandal.

Speaking of feudalism, here's an interesting link:
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/feudalism.html

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Offlinehongomon
old hand
Registered: 04/14/02
Posts: 910
Loc: comin' at ya
Last seen: 19 years, 11 months
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: Evolving]
    #1002061 - 10/28/02 11:54 PM (21 years, 5 months ago)

I agree with foghorn. What will persuade me to think that there isn't presently a "merger" between big business and big government, and that that isn't the natural course any attempt at "pure capitalism" will follow? What mechanism would be in place to prevent it?

That's why this:
"Note: Please do not include any figures where government agents are allegedly acting at the behest of capitalists as this is not free market capitalism, rather it is government interference and cannot be properly termed 'free market behavior.'"

--is, from where I am, an unreasonable perameter. The problem is too complex to be limited to major toxin disasters and union boss murders. And in the arena of global economic maneuvering, the big businesses and the upper-level political groups are not so separable. So how can we really ascertain which is one and which is another?

Take farm subsidies, for example. I'm pretty sure libertarians are all for doing away with them, but it is a private corporation that capitalizes on the market advantage of that subsidized product and it is another private corporation that capitalizes on the poverty that this out-competition leads to. The end result certainly has a negative effect on the well-being of those involved, but which way does it go in your survey?

And have you heard about the tobacco wars between Tobacco/USA and Japan, Taiwan, S. Korea, and Thailand? It's pretty wild, I think.
link:
http://www.idrc.ca/reports/read_article_english.cfm?article_num=939

Which way do we call it? Are private corporations using unfair trade situations, or are their governments bullying for them? It seems so close to one and the same to me.

"Please keep it simple and list deaths only."

Here again, an unreasonable demand. How does one keep this simple, especially if our goal is to "provide numerical evidence so all free thinking individuals can make reasoned judgements as to which is more deleterious to the well being of mankind, capitalism or statism"? Even if we agree that amount of death is the best measuring stick of well-being, how do we go about linking up deaths from starvation, disease, social unrest, and so on?

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Offlinehongomon
old hand
Registered: 04/14/02
Posts: 910
Loc: comin' at ya
Last seen: 19 years, 11 months
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: EchoVortex]
    #1002103 - 10/29/02 12:13 AM (21 years, 5 months ago)

"Basically, big ANYTHING pretty much sucks donkey dick, whether it be a big state or big corporations."

I completely agree. Where business is concerned, there is one other force with the potential to serve as a check to the mega-corporations: the consumer public. However, when we consider the portals through which information about our world reaches us, and the control over those portals, and the billions of dollars put toward tailoring that information just right, the consumer public may remain a sleeping giant.

I wonder if Bush goes through with his Iraq war, and it turns into a Vietnam-like fiasco, would that kick up indignance, burst enough bubbles? It'd be a shitty deal all around, but what less can do it?

A small part of me also holds to that suspicion that this is pretty much the way of things. Just as you can't reinvent the lightbulb, you can't get a highly materialistic, possession-oriented society to revert en masse back to the kind of sustainance living observed in Samoa, or the interior of Venezuela. It's even disappearing there.

Maybe the Pheonix story has to play out.

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Offlinehongomon
old hand
Registered: 04/14/02
Posts: 910
Loc: comin' at ya
Last seen: 19 years, 11 months
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: hongomon]
    #1002531 - 10/29/02 05:07 AM (21 years, 5 months ago)

To criticize my earlier post: I don't actually believe that going back to sustainance living is what is needed, even if it were a possibility. There are certain fundamental differences between how those cultures view property and profit and how we do in the West, and that's what made me mention it.

Science and technology are not bad, though we can all see examples of where we've let our use of them get us into trouble. Take nuclear power, for example, or a whole slew of disastrous pesticides. But there are plenty of examples to show the other side of that coin, how there is so much potential for good with science and technology.

I can't remember who said it, some smart wise dude, he said that we can't afford to march forward as we have in the aquisition of knowlege and technology, while wisdom and prudence are dragged so far behind, struggling to keep up.

I butchered that paraphrase, I know. Anyway this is just an addendum.

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InvisibleXlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: EchoVortex]
    #1002843 - 10/29/02 09:49 AM (21 years, 5 months ago)

I think what foghorn and frogsheath are driving at is that this is a false opposition.

Of course it is. The initial "question" was ill thought out, illogical and moronic. It really isn't worth time replying to.


--------------------
Don't worry, B. Caapi

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InvisibleEvolving
Resident Cynic

Registered: 10/01/02
Posts: 5,385
Loc: Apt #6, The Village
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: foghorn]
    #1002862 - 10/29/02 09:55 AM (21 years, 5 months ago)

In reply to:

As a free thinking individual I deny your comparison, assumtions, and question the relationship between Capitalism and Statism; I do not think that the two (for lack of a better word) 'idealogies' are opposing factions; and to treat them as such with a 'death count' seems almost ridiculous.



Capitalism is really not an ideology, it the natural consequence of people being free to keep the product of their labors and attempting to better their material existence. I stated, "Since the anti-capitalists... almost invariably champion government intervention as a means of ameliorating the distasteful practice of bettering one's material well being." If we ask government to be the answer to our problems, we most certainly must be aware of the dangers inherent in letting it control our lives. It is ridiculous to not examine the track record of the state when we ask it to take more and more of our freedoms in the name of security.

Damn Statists:
The worst famine in human history was caused entirely, though not deliberately, by politicians, approximately 27,000,000 people starved to death in China due to Mao's mismanagement of Chinese agriculture in the early 1960s.


--------------------
To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.'  Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence.  Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains.  Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.

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InvisibleInnvertigo
Vote Libertarian!!
Male

Registered: 02/08/01
Posts: 16,296
Loc: Crackerville, Michigan U...
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: Evolving]
    #1002942 - 10/29/02 10:28 AM (21 years, 5 months ago)

****The worst famine in human history was caused entirely, though not deliberately, by politicians, approximately 27,000,000 people starved to death in China due to Mao's mismanagement of Chinese agriculture in the early 1960s. ****

you're mistaken...it was americas fault for the famine..we didn't send enough money :smirk:


--------------------

America....FUCK YEAH!!!

Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

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Invisiblecarbonhoots
old hand

Registered: 09/11/01
Posts: 1,351
Loc: BC Canada
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: Evolving]
    #1003966 - 10/29/02 06:15 PM (21 years, 5 months ago)

"capitalism is really not an ideology, it the natural consequence of people being free to keep the product of their labors and attempting to better their material existence."

I can't agree with this. Under capitalism, the product of labour is not kept by those who labour. It is kept by those who own.

And in capitalist USA, an estimated 100000 people die every year due to lack of access to health services. Capitalist medical insurance has left USA with the highest infant mortality rate in the western world. I could go on...

Totalitarian communisim is a worse system than American style capitalism, but using the power of a democratic government (social democracy) to make the economy make sense is far superior to American style capitalism.





--------------------
  -I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me

CANADIAN CENTER FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES

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Offlineakjakj
newbie
Registered: 10/20/02
Posts: 30
Last seen: 21 years, 30 days
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: carbonhoots]
    #1005656 - 10/30/02 09:39 AM (21 years, 5 months ago)

Big business bankrolled Hitler causing the second world war

Damn Capitalists: 61 million

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InvisibleInnvertigo
Vote Libertarian!!
Male

Registered: 02/08/01
Posts: 16,296
Loc: Crackerville, Michigan U...
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: akjakj]
    #1005676 - 10/30/02 09:44 AM (21 years, 5 months ago)

Hitler wasn't a capitalist....being a puppet i wouldn't expect you to know the difference


--------------------

America....FUCK YEAH!!!

Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

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InvisibleXlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: hongomon]
    #1006132 - 10/30/02 11:36 AM (21 years, 5 months ago)

DAMN CAPITALISTS:

Capitalists seeking cheap black slave labour - 100-200 million dead.

Big buisness destroying native americans for profit - 50 million dead.



--------------------
Don't worry, B. Caapi

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InvisibleInnvertigo
Vote Libertarian!!
Male

Registered: 02/08/01
Posts: 16,296
Loc: Crackerville, Michigan U...
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: Xlea321]
    #1006668 - 10/30/02 01:54 PM (21 years, 4 months ago)

you're silly, libbie


--------------------

America....FUCK YEAH!!!

Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

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InvisibleEvolving
Resident Cynic

Registered: 10/01/02
Posts: 5,385
Loc: Apt #6, The Village
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: Xlea321]
    #1006720 - 10/30/02 02:13 PM (21 years, 4 months ago)

Alex, where the hell do you get those figures? Pulling shit out of your ass does little for your crediblity.

Just for the sake of comparison, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 10/30/2002 at 4:09:23 PM EST is 288,395,261

Damn Statists: From 1932-1933, five million (5,000,000) Ukrainian peasants died in forced starvation. The Soviet government stationed troops to actively prevent anyone from escaping the famine. Doctors and relief supplies were kept out by force. The famine was a long, deliberate plan to make people dead by creating and maintaining conditions in which they could not obtain food. The Ukrainians did not want their farms collectivized. (Other estimates put the figure higher at 7 to 10 million, but I'll side with the statists on this one and accept the lower estimate)


--------------------
To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.'  Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence.  Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains.  Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.

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InvisibleEvolving
Resident Cynic

Registered: 10/01/02
Posts: 5,385
Loc: Apt #6, The Village
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: carbonhoots]
    #1006780 - 10/30/02 02:32 PM (21 years, 4 months ago)

In reply to:

And in capitalist USA, an estimated 100000 people die every year due to lack of access to health services.



How is it the fault of for profit medical services that someone doesn't get medical care? Are you going to blame farmers for starvation? Why do Canadians and others come to the U.S. for surgery instead of waiting for their socialist systems to provide it?

In reply to:

Capitalist medical insurance has left USA with the highest infant mortality rate in the western world.



To suggests that medical insurance is the cause of high infant mortality is illogical. Don't the pregnant mothers assume any responsiblity? The lifestyle of the mother is probably the greatest controllable factor.

Speaking of socialized prenatal care and family planning policies... damn statists:
In China, the number of deaths resulting from coerced abortions and infanticide since 1971 is estimated at over 110 million.


--------------------
To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.'  Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence.  Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains.  Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.

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InvisibleXlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
Re: Evil Capitalists vs. Enlightened Statists [Re: carbonhoots]
    #1006967 - 10/30/02 03:23 PM (21 years, 4 months ago)

Damn Capitalists

Capitalist business interests were behind the first world war. That's another 38 million.

Throw in another million or two for Vietnam.

Total so far thanks to the damn capitalists: 300 million.



--------------------
Don't worry, B. Caapi

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