I'm not happy with Helen!

**_Gina_** · 26th March 2007, 14:54

Or I should just fuck off to the LOTPIHGAD??

**_Gina_** · 26th March 2007, 14:55

Originally Posted by idleidolidyll

ha!ha!

OK: clarify, explain, explicate, expound, spell out, interpret

I choose explicate. Sounds good. Thanks.

**jrandom** · 26th March 2007, 15:00

Originally Posted by girlygirl

Not only that, but some new words to pronounce in my head.

III - Elucidate

You tend to use this alot

Out of 32 times that the word 'elucidate' has ever been used in KB posts, including that one of yours, there, idleidolidyll has used it thrice, and Ixion once.

That makes idleidolidyll responsible for 9.375% of KB's obvious over-use of the word.

I move that we take him out back and shoot him.

Communist style.

**idleidolidyll** · 26th March 2007, 15:01

Originally Posted by Fish

To be perfectly honest, I don't think most arguers on the subject know what they're going on about.

I give you, for example, the illiterate ranters in this thread blithering about their taxes being used to support bludgers.

The main economic question is whether to redistribute wealth or not. People tend to be selfish on that issue - folk with good earning potential, or plenty of assets laying around, hate giving it away, whereas folk who would typically end up on the middling-to-low end of the socioeconomic scale quite like the idea of a levelling-out, thank you very much. Taxation, regulation, social welfare, public utility ownership - it's all a simple question of whether or not to redistribute.

The main social question, as opposed to economic, is one of the acceptance or rejection of an overarching objective morality - the question of whether behaviour that is not immediately and obviously harmful should be legally regulated.

There's no easy answer to anything, and either way, there will always be a halfwit somewhere, bitching and moaning.

And here we are, arguing about the definitions of socialism and communism. Whether or not socialism is Communism Lite, or something different, isms are generally no more than an excuse for strawman arguments. Issues and ideas should always be debated on their own merits.

thatnks fish

part of the problem is that capitalism has always relied on a large pool of unemployed to help employers keep wages down. However, that creates a real problem in that those unemployed cannot just be left to rot, that's political suicide as a large numner of disaffected citizens is what starts revolutions.

therefore they are given a security blanket and the extent of that security blanket becomes a perpetual political football with one side saying it's not enough and the other saying it's too much.

Wise men have noted that when a system is weighted too much in favour of the capitalists, revolution will inevitably follow.

regarding word meanings and 'isms'

i agree to some extent but you should note my comments on word manipulation being propaganda. That comes from both sides.

The best way to start a political debate would be to agree on specific word meanings and as I have already said, I prefer the original meanings of the three here as defineed by Marx not as manipulated by subsequant generations of politicians.

**idleidolidyll** · 26th March 2007, 15:02

Originally Posted by Fish

Out of 32 times that the word 'elucidate' has ever been used in KB posts, including that one of yours, there, idleidolidyll has used it thrice, and Ixion once.

That makes idleidolidyll responsible for 9.375% of KB's obvious over-use of the word.

I move that we take him out back and shoot him.

Communist style.

Oh my god, soon i'll be shot for being too 'intellectual'

sorry guys, i refuse to dumb down. think of it as a learning experience

**jrandom** · 26th March 2007, 15:03

Sorry, I have to do this.

In Soviet Russia, 'elucidate' over-use you!

**idleidolidyll** · 26th March 2007, 15:08

Well deserved bling to all for not getting personal and abusive while discussing one of the most inflammatory subjects outside religion.

thanks y'all

gotta take a rest now, my ovaries hurt................or is that my brain, i dunno

**idleidolidyll** · 26th March 2007, 15:15

Originally Posted by MisterD

probably as reliable as those new-age-psychobabble personality tests some of those corporations you despise so much run on prospective employees.

I've just done it, and it

ahh, Myers Briggs tests

was taught how to fuck them up in those tests doing my communication degree

when you break it down, the MB test only works when people really are totally honest and even then not too well. If you understand the basis of it all, it's not hard to 'cheat'

Of course the notion of 'total honesty' when speaking to prospective employers is a stretch: most people tend toward inflation.............

**_Gina_** · 26th March 2007, 15:37

Originally Posted by Fish

Out of 32 times that the word 'elucidate' has ever been used in KB posts, including that one of yours, there, idleidolidyll has used it thrice, and Ixion once.

That makes idleidolidyll responsible for 9.375% of KB's obvious over-use of the word.

I move that we take him out back and shoot him.

Communist style.

Rack the gauge!
Lock 'n' load!
Fire in the hole!!!

My bad, I was just looking to distract from the fact that I didn't like the way it sounded in my head.

**Ixion** · 26th March 2007, 17:41

Originally Posted by idleidolidyll

With respect Ixion, the descriptions and determinators of communism, capitalism and socialism have been set and set by a man voted the greatest philosopher of the 20th century: Karl Marx

YOUR idea of what they are is merely a political manipulation and can be described along the propaganda axis I desribed earlier. The manipulation of word meanings is a propaganda tactic from start to finish.

I prefer discussion based on real definitions (not wikipedia), the following is Marx paraphrased:

Capitalism: An economic system where the means of production is controlled by capitalists (the wealthy)

Communism: An economic system where the means of production is controlled by the people through the State.

Socialism: A state existing between the two extremes combining elements of both. A transitional state.

With respect, your definitions are incorrect. An economic system where the means of production is controlled by the State is Socialism (the dictatorship of the proletariat) not Communism

And while it is correct that socialism was viewed by Marx as a transitional step on the way to Communism, it is not correct to view this in economic terms. the transitional nature was related to the governance of the state.

I assume that ytou will be willing to accept "The Communist Manifesto" as being a correct statement of Marx's position (after all, he wrote it!)

(¶2.72) These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
(¶2.73) Nevertheless, in the most advanced countries the following will be pretty generally applicable:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of child factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.
(¶2.74) When in the course of development class distinctions have disappeared and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled by the force of circumstances to organise itself as a class; if by means of a revolution it makes itself the ruling class and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
(¶2.75) In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

Socialism is the journey, Communism the destination .

That the nationalisation of the means of production transport and exchange was a basic principle of the original Labour party is incontestable - if they had not believed in this they would not have nationalised all the industries that they did. They were Socialists. They were not Communists .

BTW I do not know who voted Marx as the greatest philosopher of the century. (You say 20th but I assume you mean 19th since he died in 1883). I think that must have been a partial electorate.

**Delerium** · 26th March 2007, 18:00

Thats part of the problem though isnt it. You have such a large welfare base, so many people relying on it that whenever a mention of stopping the free handouts is spread that party wont get in. Their voting power is so large. The more people that form the handout demographic the less people there is to pay and support it. The so called 'middle class' is the most difficult demographic to be in, because they receive a large tax rate and minimal help. therefore it is coming to the point that your better off earning less.

The hardest way to get ahead is to work hard. NZ is now a low wage economy and the most unaffordable places to buy a home (comparing average wage to house price, on average I beleive it is 7.2 times the average wage to buy a home.

Next point, why do critical services such as fire, and ambulance staff get less than some beneficiaries? why have some of them been reported on 70 odd thousand a year? I dont understand the logic behind it.

**NighthawkNZ:Me** · 26th March 2007, 18:26

Originally Posted by Delerium

NZ is now a low wage economy and the most unaffordable places to buy a home (comparing average wage to house price, on average I beleive it is 7.2 times the average wage to buy a home.

tell me about it... sigh.