Best form of government?

[kimham8a]

---> I am still going to argue right now (not my belief personally) that soviet socialism would still work as long as there is no dictator.

Communism can work, dictator or not. An example is Cuba, which is quite a successful country when you consider the other countries in its area. Unfortunately it seems that most communist leaders in history were pretty bad. Ex. Stalin killed 20-50 million people, much of them by artificial famines and mass executions of victims of paranoia. Many may have pointed at communism as the evil here, giving it a false public image.
One problem might have been that communist leaders wern't voted in. How about a communist democratic government?

[northcity4]

Actually, Cuba is far from successful. It has trading with Russia at the moment which is why it is still thriving. The US is hoping to 'deplete' it by keeping up a barricade of trade. Without Russia, they don't have the supplies to maintain themselves, but I will agree, their leader is not your typical dictator, or so we think.

Communist democratic: In Soviet socialism, the people decide. Example: cooks find out the best way to cook things. Engineers find the best way to make buildings and so on. This seems to work, but the problem is one person gets all the power. So, some countries today actually have this adopted idea: you can run your company (small business) as a capitalist style company, but once you hit 30+ employees, you must become communistic: in this sense, it's no longer: pay the employees minimum wage and the owner gets everything else, but rather, everyone gets a percentage based on their work. The owner may never have 50 or more % of the share.
--->looks good as I said. My only issues are: would a big leader really never turn democratic? Also, seems like this idea works for small scale countries.

[Xegaton]

Sounds like anarchism to me.

little bit yeah. although, communism does allow for someone who's job it is to enforce laws (and laws in general) which anarchism seems not to.

thing is, when you get to "pure" forms of political and economic systems, they tend to blur together.  pure capitalism would be indistinguishable from feudalism for example.
pure democracy would look like fascism with nothing in place to protect the rights of minorities.

I don't think you have a clear understanding of a lot of the things you talk about. Anarchy has nothing to do with lawlessness, in fact it would have to be highly organized to be effective. Pure democracy = fascism? How does that make any sense? What are you basing this information off of?

[Xegaton]

---> I am still going to argue right now (not my belief personally) that soviet socialism would still work as long as there is no dictator.

Communism can work, dictator or not. An example is Cuba, which is quite a successful country when you consider the other countries in its area. Unfortunately it seems that most communist leaders in history were pretty bad. Ex. Stalin killed 20-50 million people, much of them by artificial famines and mass executions of victims of paranoia. Many may have pointed at communism as the evil here, giving it a false public image.
One problem might have been that communist leaders wern't voted in. How about a communist democratic government?

Anarchist societies are naturally communal and democratic, without the baggage of a dictator. Also, Cuba has some serious problems when it comes to human right's issues. They are pretty cut throat and seem to really enjoy torturing people.

[russianspy1234]

Sounds like anarchism to me.

little bit yeah. although, communism does allow for someone who's job it is to enforce laws (and laws in general) which anarchism seems not to.

thing is, when you get to "pure" forms of political and economic systems, they tend to blur together.  pure capitalism would be indistinguishable from feudalism for example.
pure democracy would look like fascism with nothing in place to protect the rights of minorities.

I don't think you have a clear understanding of a lot of the things you talk about. Anarchy has nothing to do with lawlessness, in fact it would have to be highly organized to be effective. Pure democracy = fascism? How does that make any sense? What are you basing this information off of?

it seems oldtrees was right in that we are talking about two different things in regards to anarchy...
yeah i admit that last one was stretching a bit, i mostly just wanted to come up with a second example.

in any case, talking about "pure" forms of various systems is is probably counterproductive, and to get this thread back on track i would recommend moving away from putting suggestions up in forms of defined concepts (theoretical or real world examples) and instead constructing one from whole-cloth, if for no other reason than because words for systems have connotations and elicit emotional reactions that may be undeserved.

[artimies7]

Communist democratic: In Soviet socialism, the people decide. Example: cooks find out the best way to cook things. Engineers find the best way to make buildings and so on. This seems to work, but the problem is one person gets all the power. So, some countries today actually have this adopted idea: you can run your company (small business) as a capitalist style company, but once you hit 30+ employees, you must become communistic: in this sense, it's no longer: pay the employees minimum wage and the owner gets everything else, but rather, everyone gets a percentage based on their work. The owner may never have 50 or more % of the share.
--->looks good as I said. My only issues are: would a big leader really never turn democratic? Also, seems like this idea works for small scale countries.

mostly seconded until I get any better ideas.

EDIT:

-snip-

What if you agreed to pay your life if you didn't pay back a very large loan after a certain time? The person might have been very rash in signing such a contract, but does he deserve to die?
Extreme example, but just showing that absolute rules often contradict and require more and more exceptions. After writing out many of these exceptions, you have something as complicated as law is today, which defeats the purpose of these simple rules.

Except these rules aren't absolute. The 'plus or minus what you believe to be right' does involve a minus. You make exceptions due to the circumstances.

That, and I assume you have the common sense not to sign away your life on a loan.

[kimham8a]

Actually, Cuba is far from successful. It has trading with Russia at the moment which is why it is still thriving. The US is hoping to 'deplete' it by keeping up a barricade of trade. Without Russia, they don't have the supplies to maintain themselves, but I will agree, their leader is not your typical dictator, or so we think.

Communist democratic: In Soviet socialism, the people decide. Example: cooks find out the best way to cook things. Engineers find the best way to make buildings and so on. This seems to work, but the problem is one person gets all the power. So, some countries today actually have this adopted idea: you can run your company (small business) as a capitalist style company, but once you hit 30+ employees, you must become communistic: in this sense, it's no longer: pay the employees minimum wage and the owner gets everything else, but rather, everyone gets a percentage based on their work. The owner may never have 50 or more % of the share.
--->looks good as I said. My only issues are: would a big leader really never turn democratic? Also, seems like this idea works for small scale countries.

---> I am still going to argue right now (not my belief personally) that soviet socialism would still work as long as there is no dictator.

Communism can work, dictator or not. An example is Cuba, which is quite a successful country when you consider the other countries in its area. Unfortunately it seems that most communist leaders in history were pretty bad. Ex. Stalin killed 20-50 million people, much of them by artificial famines and mass executions of victims of paranoia. Many may have pointed at communism as the evil here, giving it a false public image.
One problem might have been that communist leaders wern't voted in. How about a communist democratic government?

Also, Cuba has some serious problems when it comes to human right's issues. They are pretty cut throat and seem to really enjoy torturing people.

All true. What is missing is that most countries in the same area, which have capitalist systems, are in even worse condition.

Compare their PPP. Cuba has 10x more GDP/capita than Haiti, 3x times more than Gonduras, and I haven't checked others but I think they would be similarly poor.
Human rights issues are similarly horrible... I remember seeing a documentary on slave plantation workers in the Dominican Republic.
Cuba also has the 6th highest literacy rate in the world.

To the fact they only prosper with Russia:
Of course they have to trade. What country doesn't trade? Many countries would immediately be in an emergency if they stopped trading. If they were not suffering from the trade embargo from the USA I'd argue they would be doing even better.

Therefore I say that communism is a viable system, and with a nicer leader (one that would be elected unlike Fidel Castro), maybe even a good one.

[northcity4]

Well remember, not every country has to trade. Cuba has to trade to get oil: foundation of an industrial economy and military. Also, Fidel Castro has had to take some drastic measures since America is doing to Cuba as they did to Russia. I doubt America would actually invade Cuba, assuming they have no nuclear weapons, but you never know.
--->Not praising Castro, but he did eliminate the capitalist people in Cuba when he became leader. Why is this good? The leader (In charge by America) was diverting the money to America. He simply re diverted the $ back to Cuba. I could get my notes out and give specific names and dates to all this, but my point is, I don't feel Cuba is a good example of a soviet socialist country that lacks a dictator. Opposition: Can't survive on its own and it is debatable if Castro is not a dictator. I would argue he is doing what he must since he feels threatened by America (although his brother runs things now), although he could be doing as he wishes for his self interest.

[kimham8a]

Well remember, not every country has to trade.

I don't agree with this at all. All countries, including super secret countries like North Korea (which mainly trades with China to survive), need to trade, unless by "has to" you mean that if countries were given forewarning that they couldn't trade and had time to get ready by building things in all areas, which would be inefficient.

Also, Fidel Castro has had to take some drastic measures since America is doing to Cuba as they did to Russia. I doubt America would actually invade Cuba, assuming they have no nuclear weapons, but you never know.
--->Not praising Castro, but he did eliminate the capitalist people in Cuba when he became leader. Why is this good? The leader (In charge by America) was diverting the money to America. He simply re diverted the $ back to Cuba. I could get my notes out and give specific names and dates to all this, but my point is, I don't feel Cuba is a good example of a soviet socialist country that lacks a dictator. Opposition: Can't survive on its own and it is debatable if Castro is not a dictator. I would argue he is doing what he must since he feels threatened by America (although his brother runs things now), although he could be doing as he wishes for his self interest.

I do not say that Cuba lacks a dictator; instead I use the example of Cuba to show that a modified communism CAN work well by electing their leaders (the ones who choose how to equally distribute wealth as per the idea of communism).

[northcity4]

True, but Cuba is not really it's own country. To some extent other countries have a 'share' in it. And this is your only example you have brought up as well. This is shaky then. I want to believe that communism with an elected leader would work, but if Cuba is the only example, as well as an example that doesn't fully fit what we are looking for, I feel like this is an ideal government that wouldn't work.

--->countries don't have to trade to maintain themselves. Yes, trade is more effecient and better for the economy, but some countries can exist without. Look at Mayan culture: they didn't trade, but used the resources within their reach.

All countries are land areas with resources.
Some countries that can live without trade are countries that have lands with resources.
Some countries are countries that can live without trade.
(AII-2)

I would like to keep the trade issue as a separate topic under the posts if u want to continue it as a side argument.

[kimham8a]

True, but Cuba is not really it's own country. To some extent other countries have a 'share' in it. And this is your only example you have brought up as well. This is shaky then. I want to believe that communism with an elected leader would work, but if Cuba is the only example, as well as an example that doesn't fully fit what we are looking for, I feel like this is an ideal government that wouldn't work.

--->countries don't have to trade to maintain themselves. Yes, trade is more effecient and better for the economy, but some countries can exist without. Look at Mayan culture: they didn't trade, but used the resources within their reach.

All countries are land areas with resources.
Some countries that can live without trade are countries that have lands with resources.
Some countries are countries that can live without trade.
(AII-2)

I would like to keep the trade issue as a separate topic under the posts if u want to continue it as a side argument.

To use the same meaning of having a 'share' in it would that mean Canada is not its own country and is fact controlled by the USA (because they trade so much for mutual advantage)? I think not. And if trade was not the meaning you held for having a 'share' in a country please explain.
Point taken about Cuba being its only example. Though if there's one half-decent Communist country that sprang out of the capitalist countries around it, surely if more countries had started with Communism some better examples could have formed.

Countries can exist without trade, but again that goes against the way to have a strong and stable country these days. More GDP therefore usually means a better economy, which ties back to the original point that Cuba has a better economy than its peer capitalist countries (which now seems like a null point since it seems that we've already agreed that Cuba is an example of an okay Communist country).

[northcity4]

Well, Canada is different. In the Cuba example: Cuba must trade in order to compete for independence. Canada on the other hand could stop trading and be fine. The reason they trade is to improve, but they would be fine to be honest is they stopped.
--->Yes: if communist countries popped up: others would get 'infected.' BUT, we see historically capitalist society does not want this to happen and will shut it down right away. I feel this is the reason we don't see any good examples (Cuba being the best right now) of a communist country, elected leader.



True. Trade=better economy, but not absolutely necessary, unless you want to overcome opposition of course.