OMG, look what I done--with a note of thanks to Friday night DUers.

On Friday night I made a post asking for people to help respond to a conservative meme:

Please help me respond to some conservative dribble
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024872887


I aggregated the responses into a reply on Saturday night as follows:

[font color=green]Well Marcus,

I find it amusing that you posted a picture of Hong Kong, a city in the People’s Republic of China (where communism is in effect) to support your notions. There are other countries that favor socialism and have economies that are as strong and as vibrant as the United States such as Canada, Germany, Denmark and Norway.

By the way, socialism doesn’t mean taking wealth from people who work hard and giving it to people who don’t—you’re thinking of capitalism! Capitalism redistributes wealth; however, it allows for fewer people to have wealth so that only a few control everything. Capitalism relies on people being uneducated and working against their personal needs. It needs people to believe that they can all be super rich if they work hard enough and spend their whole lives slaving away. So yes capitalism works—for a few. How long do you think you would survive if you were not employed?

Capitalism has not been around since 4,000 B.C. Capitalism started in the Middle Ages in Europe. Before that, people in the ancient world didn't have banks and didn't invest capital in business. The banks they did have were involved in collecting taxes and religious tithes, not in investment capital. In some instances they were privately owned by the monarchy. The only form of capitalism that predated European capitalism is merchant capitalism in the 9th century by those evil terrorist Muslims.

By the way, how are you enjoying the weekend--provided to you courtesy of the evil slavery-pushing labor movement?[/font]


I awoke to this response from Marcus:

[font color=blue]You may recall that Hong Kong only became part of the Peoples Republic of China 1997. To quote Wikipedia, "On 1 July 1997, Hong Kong became the first Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, under the principle of "one country, two systems" (the other, Macau, attained that status in December 1999). It has a different political system from mainland China.(21) ". So while Hong Kong is part of the Chinese Empire, it is not a communist economy.

While I respect your comments and chose to publish them, you may want to dial down the arrogance a tad and get your facts straight.

You might also want to enlighten us all as to where you think the money that governments spend (all governments) comes from.

Marcus Lockard [/font]


Well, of course I had to continue our friendly discourse:

[font color=green]I am merely pointing out the error in the meme that you posted. Capitalism has not funded all other -isms since 4,000 B.C. because capitalism didn't exist at that time--unless you are trying to equate capitalism with slavery.

Was feudalism funded by capitalism? Feudalistic societies were structured around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour, and were sometimes tantamount to slavery.[/font]


To which Marcus responded:

[font color=blue]You are right the term capitalism evolved in the 18th and 19th centuries and
Feudalistic societies were structured as you say above. Neither were "technically" capitalism because the term had not been coined. But the concepts of capitalism, exchanging service (working the land) for a "payment' a place for your family to live and food for them, is the essence of capitalism in its purist form.

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work, while being held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation.

The fact that some Europeans, Africans and early Americans owned slaves was wrong but slavery is not a tenant of capitalism, it is simply a horrible system that should be stopped around the world.

All that said, I am happy to continue this dialog/debate/discussion but not unless you identify yourself, as I have done. I will no longer publish anonymous comments on this blog. [/font]


Well Marcus has already done a great job disavowing the meme that he posted.

I haven't decided whether to compose another response; however, I also know that there are other great minds on DU that would be happy to assist so I plea for you to indulge me once more. BTW, his Website allows for comments to be posted as "anonymous" so if he doesn't want comments from those who choose anonymity, then he should remove that option.

kthxbai!