User talk:Mond

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"::you are right: the logic is not the same. stalin abused the ideas of communism and killed people. communism does not want people starving. so theses matters are not a feature of the communist idea. while on the other side: if you do not have money for food or health care then capitalism does not care if you die or not. capitalism happily invests in cosmetic research and not in curing deseases that you only find in the third world..etc..etc... so while on the one hand you have an abuse of the system the fact that people are dieing and nobody cares is an immanent feature of the system... this makes the case worse for capitalism..."

Couldn't pass up a chance to comment on this.

First, you might want to study the problem of universals. Abstract labels that end with "ism" don't "want" anything, nor can they ever be blamed for wanting or not wanting starvation. Neither communism nor capitalism "wants" because only flesh-and-blood people can be said to want.

Second, but similarly, "capitalism" doesn't invest in cosmetic research or anything else. Investors do. Capitalism is, one might better say, the belief that no one is entitled to use force to keep them from investing in such research, or to bail them out of their losses or deprive them of their profits from it.

You are implicitly assuming, of course, that such capitalist actions are the "default" state of things, and that extracting a profit from other people's labor (as those investors do) is perfectly good and fine. Through your first assumption, you utterly ignore the fact that capitalism itself (and especially private property) was instituted through the use of sheer brute force. So why shouldn't the people be allowed to use force to dismantle something that was established through force in the first place?

This brings us to the point about which "case is worse." Once we understand what capitalism is, than we see that any contrary "ism" involves the belief that somebody IS entitled to use force for that purpose.

Yes, just like someone IS entitled to use force to prevent injustice in the form of slavery (for example) from happening, we are equally justified to using force to prevent injustice in the form of capitalism from happening. Both capitalism and slavery rely on the same principles of exploitation, which you know very well already.

The question as to which "case is worse" is the question of whether that sort of force is justified, or is only theft and thuggery. As for starvation, you might look at the statist structures that have produced that. Those structures aren't capitalism, but are very often infringements upon it.

First of all, let me use the slavery analogy again: Let's assume a law is passed to free the slaves in a certain country. And let's assume the slave owners complain that such a law is only "theft and thuggery", because it deprives them of their property. Would you take their side, o righteous capitalist? Or perhaps you would agree that human life must be put above private property? Keep in mind that slavery is just one form of property, very similar to all others. Of course it was established through the use of force, but any kind of property is established through the use of force. You make a slave your property by using force to prevent him from using his body in ways that you do not approve of (in other words, you establish exclusive rights over the use of his body). Similarly, you make a piece of land your property by using force to prevent anyone else from using that piece of land in ways that you do not approve of (in other words, you establish exclusive rights over the use of that land).

Second of all, you must have been living under a particularly large rock for the past 300 years if you blame "statist structures" for starvation. Both theory and practice have clearly shown that more capitalism always leads to greater social inequality, coupled with misery, poverty and starvation for the working class. Hell, the entire history of the 19th century (and especially that of the Victorian Age, which is the closest to pure capitalism we ever got) is one of immense opulence for the rich and horrendous suffering for the poor. What happens in your perfect capitalist society if someone doesn't have the money to buy food? He starves to death. There is no way around this fact, unless you want to introduce "statist structures" and socialist principles to give that hungry man some food. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 20:31, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Opus Dei RFC

After lots of NPOV problems, I have recently done a major rewrite on the Opus Dei article and am requesting comments on its talk page. I know you're very knowledgable on the subject and have commented on the page before. Could you look over the page and comment on whether the rewrite is an improvment and maybe help out in the ensuing discussion? --Alecmconroy 08:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)