Dr James Manos (MD)

2010

IS SOCIALISM FEASIBLE TODAY?

 

CAPITALISM HAS FAILED!

The economic crisis showed us that capitalism has failed. But what is capitalism? In simple words, capitalism is the economic system that occurs in all western countries  and in which all the profits go to the bankers and the big economical  Trusts (banks, multinational companies, factories and manufactories), because the market is free, there are no rules on competiveness and the big fish eats the smaller.

These economical Trusts control all the governments and manipulate them. It is not a coincidence that we find economical Trusts as backers of political parties who are keen on accomplishing their interests…

Unfortunately with capitalism the state loses funds, because as mentioned above, the economical system is controlled by the big economical trusts.

Moreover, the smaller companies and shops are closing one after the other and bought by larger companies which, on their turn, are bought from international economical Trusts.

One example that the state earns nothing from capitalism is the fact that huge economical interests (including oil companies and war companies i.e. companies that manufacture military aircrafts, ships etc, and provide army with ammunition) the last decades have pushed the USA to launch wars that eventually not only had any economical profit for the state, but contrary, resulted in the loss of tax payers money and loss of many soldiers’ lives! 

The recent war in Iraq and Afghanistan showed that everything was done for nothing else, but the huge profits of the above private companies/ Trusts. Even now, the American president (who was advertized by the media as visionary and a new Martin Luther King!) decided to send more troops in Afghanistan! The only reason for the war in Iraq was to take the oil of the region. Perhaps in Afghanistan there are similar interests such as oil, natural gas and opium! After all, Afghanistan is a big country – company of opioid drugs, like Colombia. 

Other wars (such as the one in Serbia on 1988) were just launched in order to make the American war machine work (and making military factories earn millions of dollars!).

Capitalism means that the stronger beats the weaker!  It is actually a fascistic system in which the big economical Trusts (such as banks, multinational companies, factories and manufactories) earn the biggest part of the national sources profits. Consequently, neither the state, nor the small enterprises earn a lot of money.

Capitalism the last year was uncontrolled and so catastrophic that destroyed literally the environment by over exhausting the natural resources and also by polluting enormously the planet. The great polluters are off course the large economical Trusts, that do not seem to accept any kind of governmental interference in order to pollute less (e.g. by placing filters on their chimneys or by recycling their wastes or by not get rid of them by selling them to poor countries ). Today, even ecology is bought!

The only solution that the big economical Trusts (that manipulate and exploit all the governments) found is continue polluting, but to buy polluters such as carbon dioxide! It is totally ridiculous. Even our planet is played on the stock market! 

Also, great polluters are the countries that manipulated perfectly capitalism, namely China, India and other developing countries. Today, despite the international economic crisis, developing countries, such as China, don’t seem to lose their profits! These countries have adopted capitalism and especially the fact that they can manufacture everything with a very low cost.

So everything today is manufactured in these developing countries. Namely, capitalism today favors these countries, and especially, China, than other western countries. Capitalism today doesn’t seem to favor even the heart of capitalism (where it was established): the USA & the UK! Today in all western countries huge economical problems have destroyed their economies.

National and international debt rates are high and also the recovery from the economic crisis seems too slow, like a snail! The only thing that capitalism has offered to people today is unemployment (which rates are very high now) and elastic forms of employment. This elastic employment is another capitalistic product that favors the big economical Trusts’ interests.

Today people work overtime but are not paid for the extra hours of working. Many people work without insurance or a contract. Part time jobs have substituted full time hours. That is because the part time jobs are paid less by the employers! Working hours are flexible and the economic Trusts, that manipulate all the governments, ask people to work more e.g. 68 h weekly, or work other weeks full time and other weeks part time!

As mentioned above, the developing countries offer cheap working hands. So, almost all the western companies have moved or have opened departments in China and other developing countries where production cost is low. Consequently, in all western countries there are just a few jobs, because most have opened departments in developing countries where they exploit the native population to work for a few dollars weekly, often without even insurance.

Even children are exploited in developing countries. And all these occur for the maximum profit of the multinational companies, banks and factories. These are the ones that actually rule the word, manipulate the governments and actually destroy any sense of democracy.

 

 

IS SOCIALISM A SOLUTION?

Socialism is a very good solution for the economic crisis. But before we go on with socialism, we have to talk about communism! That is because socialism is the initial system of communism. Namely we start with socialism and end up, some (or many, depends when we are ready!) years later with communism! However, seems that many people that talk about socialism are unaware of this fact!

By the way, speaking theoretically, all former ‘communistic’ countries were not communistic, but actually socialistic! However, I would avoid repeating this, in order not to confuse you. I will refer to communism and socialism the way these words are used in practice. 

Communism needs to change today.  As a system, in all countries where communism was adopted, it totally failed. We need a ‘modern communism’, a new communism with many changes.

As mentioned, socialism is the initial system that ends up to communism. So today, more than ever (because of the economic crisis), all countries need to follow immediately the economic model socialism. Are you afraid of socialism? You shouldn’t! I remind that modern countries such as the Scandinavian are a great example where socialism worked and it was combined excellent with democracy. Socialism has many advantages for the citizens such as free access to education and health system.

By the way, even now, the president of the USA (called by some ‘socialist’!) adopted a new socialistic health system where all will have access to medical services, contrary to the old system in the US, where the national health system was manipulated by private insurance companies and many uninsured people did not have access to any kind of medical facility (namely the one who did not have a medi- care insurance was condemned to die!). 

Socialism has all the advantages of communism. However, communism walks a step further. In communism all the production means belong to the government, namely to all! Today the production means belong to the capitalists, namely the banks, the multinational companies, factories, manufactories and generally to the economical Trusts. Contrary, in communism they belong to the state. That, consequently, means that all the profits go to the people and not to the economical Trusts.

With that profits all the goods of communism develop, such as free educational system in all the levels (I remind that higher education in most countries is private and it is paid!), free access to health facilities (today health system is manipulated by drug and insurance companies!), jobs for all people (today unemployment rates are high!), free accommodation/ apartments for all (I remind that house loans and mortgages were the reason for the economic crisis!), access to sport facilities for all (today sport is manipulated as well by the economical Trust that sponsor everything!) and even holidays for all (in communism many people had free vacations!).

Off course all these are ideal; however we mustn’t forget that many of these did occur in former communistic countries. Many of these facilities already occur in many countries that partly adopted socialism, such as the Scandinavia (e.g. in Sweden).

However, communism, as an economical system, has a great disadvantage. The disadvantage is, in simple words, that the employees are paid irrespectively their efficiency and productivity. That means that a lazy and a hard worker are paid the same money! That is the real reason why communism totally failed as an economic system and why communistic countries neither had a competitive economy, nor exported goods to other countries.

Off course, the above disadvantage needs to change and workers/ employees in ‘modern communism’ need to be paid according to their efficacy and productivity. If not, people will not have any motivation to work, they will be lazy and the productivity will fall.

Another disadvantage of communism was that all the former communistic countries actually ended up to dictatorships. Communism, as a system, didn’t adopt the ideas of democracy, so it was easy to be manipulated by a nomenclature of politicians and end up to a dictatorship. History shows that Stalin was a great manslaughter as Hitler! Tsaouseskou in Romania was a dictator as well.

By the way in Romania, all the profits seem not to go to the people, but to the dictator’s palace! After all in former communistic countries was supposed that everyone was equal, however seems that the people who were members of the communistic political party (and the called nomenclature) was more equal than the other! 

In communistic Russia the opponents were executed, or exiled and sent to gulags to Siberia or enclosed to mental illness clinics. Furthermore, citizens in all former communistic countries never had the chance to evaluate, assess and appraise the government, e.g. with polls or elections. But a government that is not elected regularly by the citizens is a dictatorship.

However, in this text we will not move further on analyzing former communistic countries. This is useless, because all the former communistic countries were dictatorships and had nothing to do with the notions that Marx and Lenin wrote in their books about communism.

Marx and Lenin created a system that applied to the endless economical national resources of Russia, that do not seem to be everywhere so fluent (such as in Cuba!). Furthermore, they did not consider the 2 severe disadvantages of communism, namely the fact that everyone was paid the same regardless his/her productivity and effectiveness, and also the fact that communism was a different system from democracy, without its ideas and notions ended up to a dictatorship.

We need to establish and create a new system: ‘modern communism’. ‘Modern communism’ is a modified form of former communism. ‘Modern communism; does not need to be a system outside democracy. If it isn’t, it will surely end up to a dictatorship and to fascism! It needs to be merged with democracy and work with all the democratically ideas and notions. An example that socialism hasn’t merged with democracy is Cuba which is a dictatorship where Castro rules everything, even though he isn’t elected regularly by anyone!

Contrary, a modern country where many ideas of socialism have adopted and merged with democracy (don’t call it social democracy, because you will confuse it with a specific German political party) is Sweden, where socialism worked perfectly.

Another problem of communism is the national economical resources. These are important for a country to depend on its self, make factories and support an economy. Many communistic countries had a few national economical resources and consequently that condemned their economy to depend on importing economical resources from other countries. This was a great problem for the economy’s development. Even today, Cuba has no national recourses (except sugar!) and it’s condemned to have a destroyed economy (and this makes its citizens to jump up on a boat and go to the USA!). However, national recourses are something that we can’t change. It is kind of inherited!

 

 

CONCLUSION

Capitalism has literally destroyed the word. The last years it was totally uncontrolled and resulted in the international economic crisis that destroyed the countries’ economy. Capitalism has also destroyed the planet. It is weird why we support capitalism, the time it doesn’t favors our interests, but favors only the interests of the multinational economical Trusts (banks, multinational companies, factories and manufactories) and also it favors developing countries, such as china, that exploit the need for cheap working hands.

Today the only thing that capitalism offers is unemployment to the citizens and the small companies, because, as mentioned above, everything today is produced in developing countries (such as China and India, perhaps Africa follows) where the production means (and the labor hands) are cheap. Off course all the profits go to the multinational economical Trusts. Not even the governments! After all, all governments are exploited and manipulated by the economical Trusts who are the real governments!

Capitalism is favored by right wing political parties and socialism by left wing political parties. However, it is kind of weird why poor workers vote right wing political parties that are against their interests!

Contrary, socialism is the only system that favors the government and the citizens, and not the economical Trusts, as capitalism does. As a system it has been applied with very good results in Scandinavia countries (such as Sweden), where it merged perfectly with democracy. Theoretically, socialism is the initial system that eventually ends up to communism.

However, the way that communism applied as a system previously has totally failed. All the former communistic countries ended up to dictatorships where communism failed, even as an economic system, to offer prosperity and competiveness. Their economy exported nothing. Former communistic countries didn’t even exploit the national economical resources! The only thing that former communistic countries offer to their citizens was poverty! 

‘Modern communism’ is a modified form of communism. ‘Modern communism’ needs to follow all the advantages of communism: free access to educational and health system, jobs for all, accommodation (apartments) for all, frees access to sports, and even free holidays on summer! However, ‘modern communism’ needs to get rid of two short comes (disadvantages) of former communism.

‘Modern communism’ needs to follow all the ideas and notions of democracy. If not, it will end up to a dictatorship. After all, communism is an economical model and not a political system. So as an economical model, ‘modern communism’ needs to be developed in a democratic political system. 

Also, ‘modern communism’, as an economical system, needs to follow a different pattern on wages: the employees/ workers need to be paid according to their affectivity and productivity. Otherwise, paying a lazy and a hard worker the same is not only ridiculous, but will result to the fall of productivity and eventually the economy will be destroyed (after all, the system will spend funds to pay lazy people!).

Today it is difficult for modern countries to adopt ‘modern communism’. It is easier to adopt a more ‘light’ system, such as socialism.  Then, when we are ready (after a few or many years, it depends!), we will follow ‘modern communism’.

However, we mustn’t stay at the ‘American dream’ (of buying our own car and house), because this was a capitalistic delusion that resulted to the recent economic crisis, because people bankrupted when they took loans and mortgages (or credit cards) that couldn’t pay, in order to accomplish the ‘American dream’ of buying their own house and car! 

Capitalism lured people (with the help of the commercials of the manipulated mass media) plasmatic (fake) needs that made everyone work like a slave (and like a machine as well) during his/her lifespan, in order to accomplish these plasmatic needs (e.g. we fell fulfilled if we buy the new plasma TV, or the new blue ray or the new i – phone!). This chasing of goods and the need to earn more and more money made people greedy, selfish and egocentric. Remember the song that says that money rules the word. Money is capital. Remember the origin of the word ‘capitalism’!

Contrary, socialism means that we have to share the goods with the less rich people. In communism there are not rich and poor at all! Everyone is equal. After all, democracy intones the notion of equality. We don’t need any kind of ranks to separate people... Today, modern multinational – multiracial societies have eliminated the racial differences that all these ages stupidly separated and discriminated the people (even though we all share the same DNA!). In communism, goods are common and belong to everyone (remember the root of the word ‘communism’ from ‘common’).

So we have to consider which is our own interest, and if this interest is the same with our state’s interest. With socialism/ communism these interests coincide! With capitalism, the only interests that are fulfilled are the economical Trusts’ interests! 

 

NOTE

The writer in order to support his notions in many issues over exaggerates. This text is subjective and contains the personal opinions of the author which the viewers aren’t obligated to accept. Much information mentioned is taken from media reports, and their reliability cannot be completely assessed. The viewers of this article are requested not accept a priory any information and opinion written in this text if first they don’t ascertain it from reliable recourses such as newspaper articles, books, TV and web reports etc.

For the reason that is mentioned above, the writer has published the text ‘STEREOTYPES, BIAS AND GENERALIZATION’ (you can find on the same site) in order to show that things aren’t black or white.