Communism Or Free Enterprise?

Question

State your arguments defending either communism(socialism) or the free enterprise system. Tell me your thoughts about these two subjects. Person with best answer will receive ten points.

Answer 1

Show me where communism has worked! It has failed everywhere it has been tried. USSR, East Germany, Poland, Romania, Cuba, etc. Communism has succeded at keeping the regular Joes poor and enriching those in power. The population is kept under control by the threat of personal harm. Communism has killed millions of people and still it has collapsed because it ignores human nature. Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a meal, teach him to fish and you have fed him for a lifetieme. Socialism falls somewhere in the middle of Free Enterprise and Communism, however it does not use the threat of violence to keep the population under control. The trend historically has been toward Communism not Free Enterprise. Socialism is what France, Canada, England among others, are under today. Typically the government foots the bill for many social programs and services. The Regular Joes are taxed enormously and the wealth is redistributed through government programs, i.e. health care, food stamps, welfare type programs. Under socialism the government owns private industries and sells the products to the population. For example in Mexico the government owns all the gas stations and the price is the same everywhere.
Capitalism has worked everywhere it has been tried. How did the United States get to be the richest country in the world? You guessed it Capitalism. Capitalism has enriched more individuals than any other economic system. This type of system places the burden of providing for ones own needs by hard work and utilizing the talents that God has placed in us. Also the unique thing about capitalism is that competition reigns supreme. If there is a need for a product or service and an individual has the motivation and is willing to take the risk, he can succeed at great personal fortune. The greater the risk the higher the reward if you succeed. If there is a niche that can be filled with an ambitous talented person, he can succeed instead of waiting for a government bureacrat to send him a check to provide for his needs. Once his company becomes too big or fat or lazy, and service suffers enough the he is vulnerable to being undercut by better performing companies, or a competitor that has a better way of filling that niche will steal his business. Sadly the U.S. has drifted a long way toward the socialisic side of the economic scale. Politicians offer the lazy a promise of a better tomorrow with government handouts. He tells them I will stand up for you and do X, Y, and Z for you, oh, and by the way I will raise taxes on the rich to pay for it. It is not fair that those rich people have so much and you do not. I will fix that if you elect me! That type of mentality is a direct assault on the free enterprise system but hey it keeps a politician and many bureaucrats in a job. Taxing the rich is really a tax on those who are on their way to becoming rich. There is no tax on your wealth once you accumulate it (like many politicians already have), but if you work hard, create your own way in this world and provide jobs for others to fill their needs as they grow your business you are punished by higher taxes that make it more difficult to reach higher levels of wealth. Yet in spite of that this country is still the richest, most powerful country in the history of civilization. Imagine if the tax burden and regulatory burden were severely curtailed how we would economically perform as a country.

Answer 2

Neither and Both. If you allow Socialism to run all the way you end up with a dictatorship and a terrible economy due to market inefficiency that will doubtlessly occur because of the inherent flaws in command economies. If you allow complete free enterprise you end up with the GIlded age. Gilded ages are eras like the industrial revolution, specifically in the US, and Modern day China. Although you have a stable market and a healthy economy, capital ends up concentrated in the hands of a small few at the top, leading to wide spread poverty and social stagnation. Free markets also cannot cope with Extranalities, like building roads or dams. In the end you need to balance both, as suggested by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations. This is why most nations now turn to a mix of the two ends of the economic spectrum, although mixes are debatable. PS- I don't consider Communism as a legitimate economic theory since it will never happen and is just all around flawed in multiple ways.

Answer 3

Communism collapsed because of free enterprise and free enterprise is on the verge of collapse because of the power of large enterprises which will control States.The formers acts will take away free enterprise and lead to monopoly.Its a vicious circle.Take the "military industrial complex" as an example, they run governments.

Answer 4

Free enterprise or capitalism is better because it refers to an economic system in which the means of production are mostly privately owned and operated for profit, and in which investments, distribution, income, production and pricing of goods and services are determined through the operation of a free market. It is usually considered to involve the right of individuals and groups of individuals acting as "legal persons" or corporations to trade capital goods, labor, land and money.

Answer 5

Free Enterprise = successful for over 200 years.
Communism = Has failed humanity every where it has been FORCED on people.

Answer 6

I defend neither.

They're both flawed due to human nature and greed.

Both systems end with a small number of people with all the true power and wealth and the majority fighting for crumbs.

At any rate for those that credit communism with death; that's not accurate. People kill people. Period. Place the blame where it belongs, with power hungry tyrants who abused the concept to serve their own interest.

Answer 7

Communism is an ideal, that can't work due to one factor, people.
Free Enterprise is an ideal that also has a problem, people

Answer 8

I can only quote Churchill on this because nobody can say it better:
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery."

Answer 9

USA has 3 economical systems currently working: capitalism, socialism (government/municipal workers with all their benefits), communism (i.e. welfare system).

Guess which one works better?

Answer 10

Free enterprise

Communism is evil. 100 million people murdered, enough said.