TBC re Squeers “far from being an advocate for any form of Communist regime”

But the alternative to capitalism always ends up as the horror of “communism” by that name or any other

As dear old Vlad Lenin commented

“The Goal of socialism is communism”

And like another politician observed

"Socialists have always spent much of their time seeking new titles for their beliefs, because the old versions so quickly become outdated and discredited."

Call it socialism or communism, we are, in the end, talking about collectivism by any name.

And that politician also accurately observed

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money”

Of course the same politician also observed

“A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.”

I guess Bill Gates does not go many places by bus

But when considering that the Gates Foundation is a charity we should also remember Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway, is known as much for his philanthropy as he is for his commercial astuteness.

And the problem with government – governments know how only to be mean (and the Collectivist ones wastefully incompetent) .... and are never ever philanthropic

"But the alternative to capitalism always ends up as the horror of “communism” by that name or any other"...

You live in fear Stern, in a bi-polar world that has gone, not seeing that what you think you believe in and love so dearly has also changed beyond Adam Smith's village ideals.

As I read Squeers he is not 'offering' an alternative, and certainly not the one you live in fear of.

Recall the wasted life of that old goat Santamaria, who just before he died admitted that now the Wall was down he could see that he had put too much energy into thwarting Communism, and too little into understanding the real threat of unbridled Capitalism.

Now, I know he longed for a fascist form of partnership between state, unions and religion-well, Christianity (probably not unlike what we actually live under) and raised up the peasant life to well beyond what was reasonable, all beyond my desire to assist happen, but he did get something riight before he died, and that was his well founded realisation that Capitalism was unleashed, unchained, and on the rampage via 'globalisation'.

I think it is that aspect that Squeers is pondering, the 'Capitalism unleashed' aspect.

There would be no solution, certainly not a final one, to simply revert to your worst fears in Stalinism-Leninism, but if we simply career along at the pace we are going, we may indeed reach the 'final solution' brought to us, by our abject disregard of our whereabouts.

Your mind is closed to 'other' ideas. You are trapped in a one-way street. You see only 'bad' in changing the model.

At what point will you be happy?

How can you measure what you seem to know so absolutely?

The planet is not Basil Fawlty's Morris 1100 estate car, to be flogged with a Birch tree when it doesn't work, it is more complex than that, strangely enough, and requires some more complex thinking than a night time bouncer might give it with a knee to the ideals.

We must have lived far more cooperatively in the past.

"Now do you have any comments or counter-arguments to make about what I or anyone else has been saying, or about the realities of our unsustainable, unethical and doomed capitalist system."

Yes.

1. You have assumed, but haven't established that capitalism's fundamental dynamic is endless growth in a closed system.
2. Since all living things including humans tend to seek life and reproduction, and since I presume you are defining the earth as a closed system, why would not that unsustainable tendency be a fundamental dynamic of human life under any system?
3. If any alternative system is to provide for the drive of human beings like other living things for vitality and reproduction, then why won't any alternative system be faced with all the same problems?
4. But if they are not to provide for human resource use for purposes of vitality, then what? The people who are now alive and healthy because of the products made by the dreaded capitalist will do what?

"yet if we don't turn the growth off, thus terminating capitalism, we will rapidly complete the job we're embarked upon"
5. Who is "we"?
6. How would we "turn off" the tendency of people to want to live and reproduce?
7. Assuming that you are not advocating that large numbers of people should die, and assuming that we were agreed to replace capitalism with another system, then what would that be? What reason is there to think it would be any more sustainable?

>"<Anti-capitalists *still* argue that capitalism makes the mass of people poorer, while *simultaneously* arguing that it makes the mass of the people too rich.>

>>Do they? Seems silly! Can you provide references?
Yes. You're arguing that it makes people too rich (unsustainably uses natural resources), while simultaneously arguing that it makes for "exploited masses living without such chimeras and luxuries".
So it makes the masses too poor and too rich at the same time, right?

<peaceful exchange based on private property> sounds lovely! How do we do that?
By not violating property rights.

Dear Peter Hume,

I don't "assume" anything. Capitalism "is" predicated on endless growth and we "do" live in a closed system, economically and ecologically: "From a strictly sustainable point of view, sustainable capitalism is an expanding capitalism", "Capitalism cannot stand still ... the system must expand or contract, grow or shrink, 'accumulate or die,' in Marx's words". This is not Marx talking mind you, it's from Patricia Allen's "Food for the Future": have a read, it gets better! http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=LDTCmMXd2V0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA125&dq=is+capitalism+sustainable&ots=aLMnNo7FMu&sig=if1uXcl1Vfbj5Q4rm1AEiQTenag#v=onepage&q=is%20capitalism%20sustainable&f=false

It amazes me that ordinarily rational, highly intelligent people, quick to poor scorn on any kind of loose thinking or pie in the sky beliefs in anyone else, are incapable of subjecting their own ingrained and typically "convenient" prejudices to the same scrutiny.
Serious and honest thinkers do not baulk at interrogating even their long-held and cherished rationales (and brainwashing), which stand-in as ideological blocks to free and fearless thought.
Since I do give you credit for being highly intelligent, I can only conclude, judging by your list of points, that your only defence, for their manifest bias and comfortably implied injustices, is cynicism.

I do in fact cover your points above btw, so don't intend to repeat myself, especially since I'm apparently talking to a closed mind.

squeers, why wouldn't any system be faced with the same problem if it is to provide for people's wanting to live, be healthy, have families, and enjoy life?

You conclude that capitalism involves endless growth on a finite base, from your premise that capitalism involves endless growth on a finite base. When this circularity is questioned, you go straight to ad hominem argument. But perhaps you should try answering the question.

Why is such an unsustainable tendency, as you have described it, not a characteristic of life itself, rather than of capitalism? If we were to produce the same amount of food, clothing, housing, transport, and communications, by some other means, why would not that other way be equally or more unsustainable?

Are you suggesting the abolition of private property?

The problem is not that I am failing to question my underlying beliefs, it is that you are failing to answer the questions that show you are wrong.

Whether you are aware of it or not, your argument is based on Marxist theory that has been refuted a thousand times over. If you practised what you preach, you would seek to understand the theories that refute you, rather than, like a religious enthusiast, fleeing, misrepresenting and ignoring them.