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[Cthulhu]

If a man lowers his prices and improves the quality of his product to beat a competitor, is he being self-serving?  He's doing it for his own gain, but his customers benefit as well.

Like Neruz said, it's too gray to say we are or aren't self-serving.

[Leafsnail]

And he'd probably end up cutting the amount he buys said good for, harming the producer.  It's true, it's difficult to say whether most actions are "self-serving" or not...

[Virex]

If a man lowers his prices and improves the quality of his product to beat a competitor, is he being self-serving?  He's doing it for his own gain, but his customers benefit as well.

Like Neruz said, it's too gray to say we are or aren't self-serving.

That would probably be self serving (since the first and foremost goal is to help oneself). A better example would be to help out a friend who's in trouble. One could argue that you do it to earn the possibility of a return favour or increased social standing, but I seriously doubt most people have that in mind when helping someone. And there are enough people who are willing to help out complete strangers, so that disproves that assumption even further.

[Captain Hat]

Guys, Russia still has a communist party, it's not like communism withered up and died with the USSR.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Russian_Federation#History_of_the_party

[The Architect]

Communism never existed except as an idea. It was never a living reality. You can argue all you want, but no one ever implemented pure communism because whenever they tried someone took over the power vacuum. Communism is designed to create an absolute power vacuum, which results in one of two things due to human nature:

1) Anarchy, with a likely loss of progress to the degree of a backsliding of civilization. Even socialism has the same result without someone with power enforcing the law. And if someone has that power, you don't have communism.

2) If there is someone willing to take over the power vacuum, the power vacuum will be filled and communism will cease -resulting most likely in a despotic government such as those seen in all USSR-era attempts at communism.

Communism isn't a new idea. It existed centuries before the Marxists. But it always has the same result, and that isn't a communistic society. Except in rare cases which were actually theocracies, all Christian as far as I know (and even most of those were eventually ruined by despots).

[Nadaka]

Pure Communism, as exposed by Lenin and his kin, is well dead.

Pure Communism never existed outside cold war propaganda or the fox news definition of a generic term for enemy of the state. Communism is a unattainable absolute like its opposite anarchism.

Pure communism does exist, just not on a national level, and it requires strong religious indoctrination. The Shakers and Quakers are a good example.

[Lord Dakoth]

Well, communism doesn't work, but neither does "full" capitalism (without labour laws, taxes, federal control etc...).  The best setup is somewhere in between, although exactly where is anyone's guess.

True. "Full" capitalism would be called anarchy (or libertarianism, baha.) But this goes back to my point about human nature. If you don't have rules (anarchism) it all goes to hell.

I would say that the way to go is to heavily prioritize individuals' rights, including free speech, free trade, life, and property rights. This way, you don't have people being repressed by tyranny, you don't have people stealing (as much,) and you protect human life. So yeah, human rights and property and shit.

[Little]

I don't think there has ever been a implementation of communism as Marx intended, and that is a shame. Any country that attempts it at the national level gets sucked into a dictatorship. Marx actually intended there to be a dictatorship for a period between capitalism into communism sparked by a revolution, but the dictatorship would be run by someone who had the revolution at heart and use his/her powers to get rid of any internal threat to the state while uniting the people. He/She would then dissolve the dictatorship and let things be run by an elected parliament or democracy. Unfortunately, the dictator never surrenders his/her powers.

[Eidalac]

Becuase I beg to differ. Humans are NOT naturally self-serving; Even at the expense of themselves.

Kinda comes down to the idea of the monkey-sphere.  Most primates, including us, can only have social links with about 150 others.  These are the people you treat as people; everyone else may be a human, but your brain will never put them on the same level.

Bottom line is that most people to have a hard time making real sacrifices for someone who isn't a personal relation to them, and our brain can only handle a limited number of such relationships.  We are, to a degree, hard wired to care more about our immediate friends and family then for a state, nation or our race as a whole.

[cowofdoom78963]

Woah I dont even have social links with like 40 people... much less 150!

[Virex]

Becuase I beg to differ. Humans are NOT naturally self-serving; Even at the expense of themselves.

Kinda comes down to the idea of the monkey-sphere.  Most primates, including us, can only have social links with about 150 others.  These are the people you treat as people; everyone else may be a human, but your brain will never put them on the same level.

Bottom line is that most people to have a hard time making real sacrifices for someone who isn't a personal relation to them, and our brain can only handle a limited number of such relationships.  We are, to a degree, hard wired to care more about our immediate friends and family then for a state, nation or our race as a whole.

And yet there are people who spent precious hours lobying for the RSPCA, Greenpeace or human rights. They'll spend their money and time in decent amounts (no real sacrifices but sacrifices nontheless) for people faaaar outside their sphere or even for animals they don't even know the looks of.

[Cthulhu]

In before ten pages of people restating the same points over and over again, like all threads of a similar nature on the internet.

[The Architect]

Well, hard-wired is a strong word. But you are just referencing human nature after all. Government is all about human nature. Anything that relies on the premise that people will be benign and serve others (which by the way is not the same thing as just being unselfish) is going to fail at some point. That is why the founding fathers created the system of "checks and balances", which has since been somewhat circumvented. It was a measure for controlling human selfishness and ignorance, a system meant to bring out the most security and freedom with the least government intervention into daily affairs. For that reason the citizens of the US enjoy the most freedom and success of any nation of the earth. Freedom is slowly decreasing, but the proof of the system is its long-term success. It will only be broken when the government finally, truly controls the people. It doesn't seem to be far off, sadly.

As much as we call it a "Democracy", it's still a republic in reality, it still maintains its core premises (though many have been trying to change them lately) and thus we still enjoy its success. Whether you like the US or not, it's the most advanced and successful government in the world (for now). Thank God that Obama doesn't have the power to do what he says! The Presidents really don't have a lot of power nowdays, which is why Bush was such a joke by the end. They're puppets and scapegoats. But the intent of the founding fathers was to balance the power between that of individuals and the masses. Less successful governments (insofar as their purpose is to provide for the people) are those which fail to create and maintain this sort of balance, examples being dictatorships and mob governments (pure democracies, communism, and socialism, which all usually end up just circling back into dictatorships or oligarchies as they fail).

By religious indoctrination, you mean actually educating people to believe something? It doesn't need to be religious in nature, though that is the only thing that sticks because we have a natural need for God. Not trying to drag us into a religious debate, just asking for clarification.

[Virex]

Well, hard-wired is a strong word. But you are just referencing human nature after all. Government is all about human nature. Anything that relies on the premise that people will be benign and serve others (which by the way is not the same thing as just being unselfish) is going to fail at some point.

The main reason for that is that human behaviour is rather unpredictable. The willingness of people to be unselfish fluctuates and tends to go down at just the wrong moments. You'd need something to leverage that, which for monetary aid is possible, but not for most other kinds of unselfish behaviour.

That is why the founding fathers created the system of "checks and balances", which has since been somewhat circumvented. It was a measure for controlling human selfishness and ignorance, a system meant to bring out the most security and freedom with the least government intervention into daily affairs. For that reason the citizens of the US enjoy the most freedom and success of any nation of the earth. Freedom is slowly decreasing, but the proof of the system is its long-term success. It will only be broken when the government finally, truly controls the people. It doesn't seem to be far off, sadly.

This highly dwepends on your definition of succes and where you put most value in. Remember for example that the amount of working porr has always been high in the US and it'll always remain high. In a lot of cultures and countries, the balance of values differs, hence the US's model might be best for the US, but if you'd try to apply it in finland it'd fail spectaculary, because human behaviour and the distribution of ideals is just plainly different in Finland.

As much as we call it a "Democracy", it's still a republic in reality, it still maintains its core premises (though many have been trying to change them lately) and thus we still enjoy its success. Whether you like the US or not, it's the most advanced and successful government in the world (for now). Thank God that Obama doesn't have the power to do what he says! The Presidents really don't have a lot of power nowdays, which is why Bush was such a joke by the end. They're puppets and scapegoats. But the intent of the founding fathers was to balance the power between that of individuals and the masses. Less successful governments (insofar as their purpose is to provide for the people) are those which fail to create and maintain this sort of balance, examples being dictatorships and mob governments (pure democracies, communism, and socialism, which all usually end up just circling back into dictatorships or oligarchies as they fail).

Again, the ideal balance is not universal, due to local variances in values and culture. Just pointing that out in case someone thought differently.

By religious indoctrination, you mean actually educating people to believe something? It doesn't need to be religious in nature, though that is the only thing that sticks because we have a natural need for God. Not trying to drag us into a religious debate, just asking for clarification.

Well, "right" communism is bordering on religion

[Lord Dakoth]

Bottom line is that most people to have a hard time making real sacrifices for someone who isn't a personal relation to them, and our brain can only handle a limited number of such relationships.  We are, to a degree, hard wired to care more about our immediate friends and family then for a state, nation or our race as a whole.

And yet there are people who spent precious hours lobying for the RSPCA, Greenpeace or human rights. They'll spend their money and time in decent amounts (no real sacrifices but sacrifices nontheless) for people faaaar outside their sphere or even for animals they don't even know the looks of.

read:

most people

I would also argue that some (not all) of these sacrifices are made for the sake of abstract ideals, such as "Going Green," rather than to better mankind.