Your View on Pirating

[Angry Lawyer]

Thankfully, they have limited power.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[PvtRyan]

Make sure you don't drink any Vodka that's more than 20 years old though. It could still be commie Vodka!

 

[Angry Lawyer]

I'll pay money for it, turning it capitalist, and drink it to spite Solaris.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[repiV]

Of course not, no socialist would steal from the people, that is what capitalists do.

How exactly do capitalists steal from people? Capitalism is based inexorably upon the exchange of goods, services and currency. Thievery is outside the scope of that system, and you're talking completely out of your arse.

However, corporations are not the people, they are the enemy. They force children to work in sweatshops for barely enough to live on, they treat staff like shit and pay them a meagre percent of the profits they make for the company.

Do you even know what a corporation is?

These guys, for example, are a corporation - and they delivered a new motorcycle to my door the very next day after I called them after mine was written off, dealt with my claim for me in total and saved me even having to notify my insurance company at all.
I haven't paid them a penny for the outstanding service they've provided (and the hire charges for the bike are 700 quid a week).

I can feel the evil, clearly...

Corporations are not an essential backbone of the people, they rob the people of their labour, the perpetuate and are the very heartless and greedy essence of capitalism. If a socialist revolution took place, I have no doubt they corporations would do everything possible to stop it, they would fund soldiers to put it down as it would be such a threat to their capital and greed.

If a socialist revolution took place, every sane person would do everything possible to stop it. The **** is your point?

You may question my motives for being a socialist, I myself know I became one when I read "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" which is a book with a socialist character and thought that guy made a hell of a lot of sense, but if the ad hominess's make you feel better then so be it.

I'm surprised at how many of you are so quick and passionate to defend these corporations, compared to the shit they do, petty theft is a long way off the justice they deserve.

You're no better than George Bush taking a vague stab at "the terrorists" and using that to justify everything. "The corporations" do this, "the corporations" do that...
Totally vague, utterly meaningless bullshit. I bet you don't even know what a corporation is.
Also, the only way companies become big and successful is by "we the people" giving them our money. If you don't like the situation, take it up with your ****ing oppressed neighbours.

 

[Llama]

I take back anything bad I've ever said about you, repiV. That was win.

Why would I want to throw away a system where i can do virtually anything given enough effort, just so I can be as mundane, average and underachieving as ever other schmuck?

No mediocraty for me, thanks, i'll keep the EvIl cApItAlIsT way of life for now.

 

[repiV]

Cheers.

I just realised the irony of someone whose catchphrase is "we the people" taking a stab at corporations over and above any other type of business. Since corporations by definition are owned by "we the people", ie. stockholders.
Companies sacrifice power over their business in order to become publically listed.

 

[sinkoman]

What about Castro and Chavez!

Given half the chance, I'd punch a lot of you in the chops.

Absinthe, if I ever go to North Carolina, we're going to go drink some capitalist scotch and capitalist beers, and be happy that people like Solaris don't have any actual political power.

-Angry Lawyer

I agree that copyrights seem kind of stupid, but I wouldn't want to see them go away anytime soon.

Martha Stuart Voice "it's a good thing"

 

[Solaris]

How exactly do capitalists steal from people? Capitalism is based inexorably upon the exchange of goods, services and currency. Thievery is outside the scope of that system, and you're talking completely out of your arse.

I'm talking about Surplus Value, read some Marx.

I can feel the evil, clearly...

What about these?

 

[repiV]

I'm talking about Surplus Value, read some Marx.

I don't care what you're talking about - you made a stupid claim.

What about these?

So next time we have a discussion about radical Islam, can I cite 14 examples of atrocities committed by Muslims as proof that Muslims in general are evil and we should steal from them, and do everything in our power to bring them down?
A company is just a group of people brought together for a mutually beneficial business arrangement. A corporation is the same, only it is owned by and accountable to the public. You're a stupid raving idiot if you make such ridiculous generalisations.

Also, no evidence is provided for any of the claims made in that article, and you're going to have to do a lot better than that to convince me that Coca Cola murders people who try and join unions. Although that is irrelevant to the crux of the argument anyway.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

I like how this thread has become "Bash Solaris".

Continue.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Solaris]

I don't care what you're talking about - you made a stupid claim.

No I didn't, I made a claim based on an absolute shit load of Marxist theory.
Here, educate yourself.

So next time we have a discussion about radical Islam, can I cite 14 examples of atrocities committed by Muslims as proof that Muslims in general are evil and we should steal from them, and do everything in our power to bring them down?
A company is just a group of people brought together for a mutually beneficial business arrangement. A corporation is the same, only it is owned by and accountable to the public. You're a stupid raving idiot if you make such ridiculous generalisations.

Both are the frontlines of capitalism, they all put profit before the welfare of consumers and their workforce, in the case of corporations they are legally obliged to make as much profit as possible. They rape 3rd world countries for sweatshop labour and resources devastating cultures and habitats. I believe the very act of private employment is a crime becuase it's about exploiting people for profit, capitalism makes this nessacary, it's just not a great way to live.

Also, no evidence is provided for any of the claims made in that article, and you're going to have to do a lot better than that to convince me that Coca Cola murders people who try and join unions. Although that is irrelevant to the crux of the argument anyway.

Your right, it isn't. But Companies do do alot of horrible things and it is capitalism to blame for this.


I think it would be appropriate for me to state that I intend to do extremely well under capitalism, without trying to sound arrogant, I am clever and am 95% confident I have a rich and prosperous future before me under capitalism. I am a socialist becuase I have a sense of social responsibility and believe on a global scal socialism is necessary if mankind is going to progress.

You just have to pick up a national geographic magazine and look at all the poor people in the world to know that the ways things are done just is not the right way to do things. I had that feelings, then read about socialism and here I am.

 

[The Monkey]

Capitalism has flaws, but it's definetly the best system out there, as it allows people to fulfil their wishes. Communism oppress creativity and talent of people and is therefore a threat not only to personal happiness and well-being, but also to progress of the human race.

Certain restraints must be made to capitalism, however, to ensure equal oppertuity and economic safety nets, but it must be the core of any political system.

 

[Solaris]

Capitalism has flaws, but it's definetly the best system out there, as it allows people to fulfil their wishes. Communism oppress creativity and talent of people and is therefore a threat not only to personal happiness and well-being, but also to progress of the human race.

Certain restraints must be made to capitalism, however, to ensure equal oppertuity and economic safety nets, but it must be the core of any political system.

I disagree, I think, done properly communism would allow people to pursue their dreams better than under capitalism, hell, 70% of the world live pretty shitty lives compared to our own, capitalism has already prevented them living life how they want to.


Communism would free people from the chains of poverty to pursue their artistic talents, or thirsts for knowledge whilst doing work that is not too time consuming. Again, I beg you all to read "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists", please, you will be a socialist by the end.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Well, if you plan to do well under capitalism, isn't the best plan just to get rich and try to redistribute the wealth through philantrophism? Like, create charities, and make a portion of your/your company's wealth go into it regularly. You can help the needy without simply turning everyone into the needy.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Llama]

Can i ask how the hell the thread has changed topic so much? It's supposed to be about piracy, not the differences between varying political ideals and how they should be implemented.

On topic, I think that copyright should cease when you pop your clogs.

In honesty, just because someone can get something for free, doesn't mean they're cheap. I read The War of The Worlds in its entirety on the internet. A week later, I bought the book. Once, you're dead, you won't care that people get your stuff for free, so why shouldn't they?

 

[Planetary]

And those guys in Sweden, with the Pirate Party and all...

 

[PvtRyan]

Your right, it isn't. But Companies do do alot of horrible things and it is capitalism to blame for this.

You saying capitalism is to blame for these examples of corporations doing horrible things = OK.

Me saying communism is to blame for the examples of the USSR and the People's Republic of China doing horrible things = you going "but that's not real communism!".

I see a problem with that.

I disagree, I think, done properly communism

You see, that's where it goes wrong. Communism has been attempted and utterly failed resulting in the largest humanitarian disaster of all times, but of course according to you that wasn't real communism. AKA the No True Scotsman logical fallacy. Of every failed attempt you're just going to boldly claim it's communism NOT done properly.

would allow people to pursue their dreams better than under capitalism, hell, 70% of the world live pretty shitty lives compared to our own, capitalism has already prevented them living life how they want to.

Really? Capitalism all by its big, evil, mean self did that? Amazing!

Communism would free people from the chains of poverty to pursue their artistic talents, or thirsts for knowledge whilst doing work that is not too time consuming.

Ah yeah, Utopia. Perhaps when all labor can be taken over by machines and people are free to do whatever they want. But then again, that wouldn't have much to do with communism anymore but more so with "there isn't a fucking thing that I need to do so I can do whatever the hell I want". I approve of that ideology.

The problem with reality though, is that actual, hard work has to be done by people. Hard, demanding, mind numbing, work with sometimes high responsibilities. In your world, there would indeed be much art because everyone would avoid actual labor in a free communist society! But of course, actual work needs to be done, which would require enforcement by the state to get it actually done. Which would end in a not so free state. Capitalism, on the other hand, has no problem whatsoever filling these positions.

Again, I beg you all to read "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists", please, you will be a socialist by the end.

And I beg you to get back to reality.

 

[Asknoone]

I like how this thread has become "Bash Solaris".

Continue.

-Angry Lawyer

Endorsed. Solaris, this bullshit of yours is intoxicating. I like that you are being pasted from one end of the thread to the other. It may do you some good.

 

[sinkoman]

Capitalism has flaws, but it's definetly the best system out there, as it allows people to fulfil their wishes. Communism oppress creativity and talent of people and is therefore a threat not only to personal happiness and well-being, but also to progress of the human race.

Certain restraints must be made to capitalism, however, to ensure equal oppertuity and economic safety nets, but it must be the core of any political system.

I disagree, a socio-capitalist system would be much more effective in terms of furthering the people than a purely capitalistic system.

You saying capitalism is to blame for these examples of corporations doing horrible things = OK.

Me saying communism is to blame for the examples of the USSR and the People's Republic of China doing horrible things = you going "but that's not real communism!".

I see a problem with that.

It's true though, the Soviet Union cut nearly all its Communist ties as soon as Stalin came to power. He went completely against the Marxist theory by entitling himself to de facto ruler of the USSR. After that, the USSR slowly became a Totalitarian state.

 

[repiV]

No I didn't, I made a claim based on an absolute shit load of Marxist theory.
Here, educate yourself.

Yes, thankyou for the link. It's still bullshit.

Of course employees aren't paid 100% of the value of their work, if they were it would be impossible for companies to even exist. Why the **** would you employ someone if you gained nothing at all from their work?
In fact, my old company had 50 employees, ?12.5million turnover and ?250,000 profit, and one of my colleagues brought in around ?400,000 a year for the company.
Now first of all it would be patently absurd to pay a single employee more than the total profit of the business, secondly if he was paid ?400,000 a year then he would actually be stealing from the company - by getting free use of their facilities when they get nothing in return.
It's just an utterly absurd concept to even entertain.

Both are the frontlines of capitalism, they all put profit before the welfare of consumers and their workforce, in the case of corporations they are legally obliged to make as much profit as possible.

Going into business without the intention of making as much profit as possible is a bit like taking out a mortgage without expecting to be able to afford the repayments - a moronic waste of time and energy.
In any case, common sense should also tell you that a business which doesn't value its customers or its staff will not be a successful business.

They rape 3rd world countries for sweatshop labour and resources devastating cultures and habitats.

First of all, going back to your idiotic generalisations - how does Helphire to which I referred you earlier rape or devastate anyone?
Secondly, noone is being "raped" for sweatshop labour. They don't force you to work there, if lots of people work there it's because it's the best option available. So they're actually better off because of the sweatshops, if they weren't then they wouldn't work there.
Also, buying resources from a willing supplier does not count as "rape" in any sense of the word.

And WTF are you talking about "devastating cultures"? Their cultures are the same as they ever were. If any culture is being devastated, it's ours.

I believe the very act of private employment is a crime becuase it's about exploiting people for profit, capitalism makes this nessacary, it's just not a great way to live.

No, it's about an exchange of services for money. Naturally both parties will try to get the best deal possible, that's called negotiation believe it or not.
Who gets the raw deal depends entirely on supply and demand, in tight labour markets it's the employee exploiting the employer. Good salespeople can demand the earth, for example - and usually get it, because they can walk into another job any time they like.
If employees are being "exploited", it's because they need the company a lot more than the company needs them. That has **** all to do with capitalism and everything to do with human nature - the same principle holds true in any relationship in life.
So take your biased bullshit and shove it up your arse.

Your right, it isn't. But Companies do do alot of horrible things and it is capitalism to blame for this.

So if you freely admit you posted a bullshit link full of unproven claims, why did you do it?
Newsflash: people do a lot of horrible things. It has absolutely sweet ****ety **** all to do with capitalism and everything to do with human nature. Capitalism is so completely irrelevant to companies doing "horrible things" (you know, because only companies do horrible things, and all companies clearly do this...) it's unreal.

I think it would be appropriate for me to state that I intend to do extremely well under capitalism, without trying to sound arrogant, I am clever and am 95% confident I have a rich and prosperous future before me under capitalism. I am a socialist becuase I have a sense of social responsibility and believe on a global scal socialism is necessary if mankind is going to progress.

You just have to pick up a national geographic magazine and look at all the poor people in the world to know that the ways things are done just is not the right way to do things. I had that feelings, then read about socialism and here I am.

So you're a total hypocrite basically. And you base your opinions off emotions rather than logic.

 

[repiV]

I disagree, a socio-capitalist system would be much more effective in terms of furthering the people than a purely capitalistic system.



It's true though, the Soviet Union cut nearly all its Communist ties as soon as Stalin came to power. He went completely against the Marxist theory by entitling himself to de facto ruler of the USSR. After that, the USSR slowly became a Totalitarian state.

Communism is unavoidably totalitarian. It requires the total suspension of basic freedoms - like it or not, people want to trade and own things, and any system which needs to suppress human nature in order to succeed will inevitably require large amounts of enforcement.
Capitalism allows people to do what they want - it's not even so much an economic system as just the natural way of things. Capitalism cannot be separated from freedom, it is an absolute requirement.
Nor can communism be separated from totalitarianism.

 

[The Monkey]

I disagree, a socio-capitalist system would be much more effective in terms of furthering the people than a purely capitalistic system.

That was what I was trying to say. Pure capitalism, AKA Libertarianism, tends to create huge gaps between classes. That's why I, for example, support free healthcare and education.

Nevertheless, capitalism needs to be the basis of a society. The whole west's success is based on capitalism. And as repiv said, communism and totaliarism are inseparable. Capitalism is a requirement for democracy.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Just for the record, I support free healthcare, too.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Sulkdodds]

And I thought this thread was about piracy.

 

[lePobz]

I think there's two sides to piracy...

1) Downloading for wealth - i.e. downloading and selling for profit.

2) Downloading and keeping, not distributing

The first being an outright crime, the second being tolerable (not endorsed, but not a real threat to anyone).

 

[HunterSeeker]

Communism is unavoidably totalitarian. It requires the total suspension of basic freedoms - like it or not, people want to trade and own things, and any system which needs to suppress human nature in order to succeed will inevitably require large amounts of enforcement.
Capitalism allows people to do what they want - it's not even so much an economic system as just the natural way of things. Capitalism cannot be separated from freedom, it is an absolute requirement.
Nor can communism be separated from totalitarianism.

Capitalism is not the natural way of doing things, if it was medieval europe would not consisted mostly of feudal societies (and feudalism and capitalism is not compitable).

I think pure any ideology is doomed to fail becouse its weaknesses overexposes. I support progressive taxes, universal healthcare, public (high quality) education and wellfare.

 

[Kyorisu]

Everyone should do the same thing, so we all get a "fair go"; a kind of 'American-dream' in reverse.

 

[repiV]

Capitalism is not the natural way of doing things, if it was medieval europe would not consisted mostly of feudal societies (and feudalism and capitalism is not compitable).

I think pure any ideology is doomed to fail becouse its weaknesses overexposes. I support progressive taxes, universal healthcare, public (high quality) education and wellfare.

Feudal societies were still run based on capitalist principles - business and trade.

 

[Asknoone]

Solaris got so owned he hasn't been able to come back.

 

[brink's]

I think there's two sides to piracy...

1) Downloading for wealth - i.e. downloading and selling for profit.

2) Downloading and keeping, not distributing

The first being an outright crime, the second being tolerable (not endorsed, but not a real threat to anyone).

The second just means that someone is distributing, but not charging for their services...which is worse in my books.

And the first one is a threat if everyone is dling and nobody is buying.

 

[Solaris]

Solaris got so owned he hasn't been able to come back.

Oh I will be replying, en mass.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Feudal societies were still run based on capitalist principles - business and trade.

Not really.

We are constantly aware that the society in which people lived centuries ago was very different from our own society of today. We expect that the future will be new and different. But in a period when the population was growing very slowly, even level or falling in places - and when technological progress seemed minimal - the past was thought to have been very similar to the dull present, the future entirely predictable.

Those societies believed that the entire universe was static, organised from the top down by God in a "Great Chain of Being", a succession of perfect domains, each one ruled by its own king: God and the Angels, Kings and their Men, Women(!), the Eagle and Birds, the Lion and his Beasts.

Such domains within the greater heirarchy meant that the structure of each class of being reflected the structure of creation as a whole. The Catholic Church was organised in a parallel heirarchy, and belief in its authority was widespread. Even parts of the human body were said to correspond to other elements in society - the head King, the arms warriors, the hands workers. To disobey authority, then, was to defy the divine plan. This plan, this structure, was divinely ordained, fixed and eternal. It was not only impossible but immoral to attempt to move within it.

The economy was based on agriculture at a subsistence level, so most people grew what they needed rather than extra to trade with. Society was held together not by money but by bonds of fealty - loyalty - between individuals. The nobles owed fealty to the King, and were in turn owed alleigance by their knights, who were supported by their yeomen who were lords of the peasants. Identity was, by and large, defined in terms of these bonds of loyalty, rather than occupation, gender, politics, aspirations.

The concept of fealty tied in very closely to the concept of ruler as warrior, because the ruling authorities had come to power by martial prowess. The values of the warrior were taken very seriously by rulers, and so the chief virtues for a powerful man were loyalty and skill in battle. These two concepts together became what we know as chivalry. It was partly these webs of conflicting loyalties that contributed to the common warring during between medieval barons.

So, strangely enough, the feudals too believed their own ideology to be the 'natural' and inevitable state. It was capitalism, an ideology based on change, that helped banish it into the past.

In cities like London, where a new merchant class began to make its way in society by wealth and power, the rise of individuals through business undermined the theory that a person must remain where they are born. At the same time, Copernicus was showing that the universe was not perfect and ordered, for the orbit of the planets was eliptical and they revolved around the Sun; Galileo and Francis Bacon showed that observation and experiment could explain the world in new ways. With this came a growth in radical thinking, eg Montaigne, and Puritans believed that a rich man's reading of the Bible was no better than a poor man's. The great chain of being was being undermined by the socio-economic facts of a society where merchants and industrialists could and would make their own power.

At the same time the absolutist Tudor monarchy, with is centralising tendencies, succeeded in doing away with the private armies of individual lords and succeeded in concentrating traxation and legal powers in a government bureaucracy based in London. These monarchsrelied on the law and an emerging civil service to see that their will was carried out all over the country

Professional infantrymen - pikemen and musketeers in combination, with cannon too - were beginning to make the heavily armoured noble knight obsolete on the battlefield; it became clear that a large, well organised and well-equipped force was best produced by the new order, under a big government, and this helped break the power of nobles, diminish the importance of martial prowess in the ideology of the monarch and seriously threatened the idea of fealties, which were based in the hard realities of the power struggles between nobles and between kings. It also helped destroy 'chivalry'; the industrialisation and organisation of war contradicted the ideal of fealty and individual martial prowess; watch Shakespeare's Antony challenge Caesar, the modern politician who rules through image and diplomacy and money, to an old-fashioned duel - and is refused.

Explorers opened up a world beyond the old maps of the Greeks and Romans. The world was huge, new, different, changing. The idea of history as we know it now blossomed. Science helped drive capitalism helped drive technological progress helped shift the emphasis of power from the religious, the 'faith', the 'fealty' - that is, the intangible - to the material, the quantifiable, the monetary, the piece of paper in a civil servant's hand. What you now call capitalism, whose chief virtue is social mobility and the accomodation of the 'natural' competetiveness of the human being, stands in direct antithesis to the way feudal Britain was organised.

They too believed their system reflected the unity of creation; they too thought that it fit perfectly the natural constitution of the human being; they too invented the most vicious lies to justify the society they had built, just as Calvinism (if you're poor, it's probably because you deserve it) arose among the merchants of Shakespeare's London.

I don't seek to suggest as Marx did that a new order is inevitable, that capitalism will be overthrown by communism as it overthrew feudalism. That's the same bullshit, telling us the triumph of the workers is natural and inevitable (hey, I guess everyone thinks that!).

But telling us the current order is natural is deeply suspect, and meaningless. We should never accept "it is the way things are" as a justification, not half because it's usually bullshit intended to justify the system-de-jour, to pretend to people that change can never happen and should never happen.

It's a non-answer. It's asking why and getting "because".

If anything is 'natural' to societies it is the insistence that each one is by God's will, whatever form God takes - Catholic creator, historical providence, 'human nature'.

And I thought this thread was about piracy.

 

[repiV]

Not really.

We are constantly aware that the society in which people lived centuries ago was very different from our own society of today. We expect that the future will be new and different. But in a period when the population was growing very slowly, even level or falling in places - and when technological progress seemed minimal - the past was thought to have been very similar to the dull present, the future entirely predictable.

Those societies believed that the entire universe was static, organised from the top down by God in a "Great Chain of Being", a succession of perfect domains, each one ruled by its own king: God and the Angels, Kings and their Men, Women(!), the Eagle and Birds, the Lion and his Beasts.

Such domains within the greater heirarchy meant that the structure of each class of being reflected the structure of creation as a whole. The Catholic Church was organised in a parallel heirarchy, and belief in its authority was widespread. Even parts of the human body were said to correspond to other elements in society - the head King, the arms warriors, the hands workers. To disobey authority, then, was to defy the divine plan. This plan, this structure, was divinely ordained, fixed and eternal. It was not only impossible but immoral to attempt to move within it.

The economy was based on agriculture at a subsistence level, so most people grew what they needed rather than extra to trade with. Society was held together not by money but by bonds of fealty - loyalty - between individuals. The nobles owed fealty to the King, and were in turn owed alleigance by their knights, who were supported by their yeomen who were lords of the peasants. Identity was, by and large, defined in terms of these bonds of loyalty, rather than occupation, gender, politics, aspirations.

The concept of fealty tied in very closely to the concept of ruler as warrior, because the ruling authorities had come to power by martial prowess. The values of the warrior were taken very seriously by rulers, and so the chief virtues for a powerful man were loyalty and skill in battle. These two concepts together became what we know as chivalry. It was partly these webs of conflicting loyalties that contributed to the common warring during between medieval barons.

So, strangely enough, the feudals too believed their own ideology to be the 'natural' and inevitable state. It was capitalism, an ideology based on change, that helped banish it into the past.

In cities like London, where a new merchant class began to make its way in society by wealth and power, the rise of individuals through business undermined the theory that a person must remain where they are born. At the same time, Copernicus was showing that the universe was not perfect and ordered, for the orbit of the planets was eliptical and they revolved around the Sun; Galileo and Francis Bacon showed that observation and experiment could explain the world in new ways. With this came a growth in radical thinking, eg Montaigne, and Puritans believed that a rich man's reading of the Bible was no better than a poor man's. The great chain of being was being undermined by the socio-economic facts of a society where merchants and industrialists could and would make their own power.

At the same time the absolutist Tudor monarchy, with is centralising tendencies, succeeded in doing away with the private armies of individual lords and succeeded in concentrating traxation and legal powers in a government bureaucracy based in London. These monarchsrelied on the law and an emerging civil service to see that their will was carried out all over the country

Professional infantrymen - pikemen and musketeers in combination, with cannon too - were beginning to make the heavily armoured noble knight obsolete on the battlefield; it became clear that a large, well organised and well-equipped force was best produced by the new order, under a big government, and this helped break the power of nobles, diminish the importance of martial prowess in the ideology of the monarch and seriously threatened the idea of fealties, which were based in the hard realities of the power struggles between nobles and between kings. It also helped destroy 'chivalry'; the industrialisation and organisation of war contradicted the ideal of fealty and individual martial prowess; watch Shakespeare's Antony challenge Caesar, the modern politician who rules through image and diplomacy and money, to an old-fashioned duel - and is refused.

Explorers opened up a world beyond the old maps of the Greeks and Romans. The world was huge, new, different, changing. The idea of history as we know it now blossomed. Science helped drive capitalism helped drive technological progress helped shift the emphasis of power from the religious, the 'faith', the 'fealty' - that is, the intangible - to the material, the quantifiable, the monetary, the piece of paper in a civil servant's hand. What you now call capitalism, whose chief virtue is social mobility and the accomodation of the 'natural' competetiveness of the human being, stands in direct antithesis to the way feudal Britain was organised.

They too believed their system reflected the unity of creation; they too thought that it fit perfectly the natural constitution of the human being; they too invented the most vicious lies to justify the society they had built, just as Calvinism (if you're poor, it's probably because you deserve it) arose among the merchants of Shakespeare's London.

I don't seek to suggest as Marx did that a new order is inevitable, that capitalism will be overthrown by communism as it overthrew feudalism. That's the same bullshit, telling us the triumph of the workers is natural and inevitable (hey, I guess everyone thinks that!).

But telling us the current order is natural is deeply suspect, and meaningless. We should never accept "it is the way things are" as a justification, not half because it's usually bullshit intended to justify the system-de-jour, to pretend to people that change can never happen and should never happen.

It's a non-answer. It's asking why and getting "because".

If anything is 'natural' to societies it is the insistence that each one is by God's will, whatever form God takes - Catholic creator, historical providence, 'human nature'.

My point is that trade and ownership are natural. People have always owned property, and people have always traded their individual possessions. Currency has been invented by every noteworthy civilisation in history.
Capitalism is merely an extension of this.

 

[Sui]

Jeez Sulk, you must have been bored. You could have simply said "on the contrary, feudalism enforced a fixed hierarchy whilst capitalism encourages the personal pursuit of happiness".

Mind you, I'm not complaining, as your post made for an interesting read.

Steering the thread back on topic, I believe that currently piracy can't be considered a major crime seeing as governments have no interest in attempting to "police" the internet. However, when our generation inherits the world, the profit made from the distribution of digital products (including CDs and DVDs, which can be stored digitally) will be seriously hindered by piracy, and it will be necessary to punish those who illegally obtain such products. I think many people don't see piracy as a major crime simply because they can't really get caught for doing it, but when that changes, so will people's attitudes.

 

[Solaris]

My point is that trade and ownership are natural. People have always owned property, and people have always traded their individual possessions. Currency has been invented by every noteworthy civilisation in history.
Capitalism is merely an extension of this.

Wrong, in the first epoch of civilization people lived in a system Marx described as Primitive Communism. With sharing and co-operation the key factors.

Except a Sulkdodds like post soon.

Edit: and thansk for that Sulkdodds, a very interesting post indeed.

 

[Ravioli]

I only pirate games that i dont think deserve my money. If the company making the game didnt do a good job on the game, didnt put enough time and effort in it, and just wanted it to hit the market as fast as possible and make money out of it, then the company doesnt deserve my money. However, if a company gives time and effort into a game, then they deserve my money, and il buy it.

If companies want my money, they better damn do a good job on their product, why else would i want it? Then you say "well if you dont want it, why did you pirate it?". I pirate some games that doesnt deserve my money because its still entertaining for the 15-30 minutes of gameplay it gives me till it becomes a total booring poor made game, then i delete it, instead of paying 40-50 euros on it and never using it again :/


I often go to the movie theater, watch movies on TV, and rent DVDs. However, i sometimes download movies and i go by the same thing here.

Music i never buy, but i almost never download either, not that much of a music person. I have only downloaded about 5 albums in my life, the rest of the music i find in streaming-leagall ways.

 

[repiV]

Wrong, in the first epoch of civilization people lived in a system Marx described as Primitive Communism. With sharing and co-operation the key factors.

Erm, yeah. And civilisation consisted of a few dozen people. People had little if anything to own or trade, and their very survival depended on cooperation.

Your point?

 

[Solaris]

Erm, yeah. And civilisation consisted of a few dozen people. People had little if anything to own or trade, and their very survival depended on cooperation.

Your point?

That it is our natural ability to co-operate that made us become what we are, we evolved to co-operate, and any system built upon competition and greed will never allow mankind to work to it's full potential.

 

[Absinthe]

Because there is no such thing as cooperation in capitalist societies.

...

Seriously.

 

[repiV]

That it is our natural ability to co-operate that made us become what we are, we evolved to co-operate, and any system built upon competition and greed will never allow mankind to work to it's full potential.

You're a lost cause if you believe that. And you're bordering on insanity to use an example of primitive tribal societies that more closely resemble a bunch of people lost on a desert island than anything we generally understand as civilisation in order to demonstrate "how we became what we are". Looney.

Also, guess what? We do cooperate. We help each other out every damn day, noone would get anywhere without cooperation. TEH EVILZ CORPORATIONZ!!!1111 need cooperation on a scale of Leninite proportions to achieve what they do.