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Literally almost everyone I meet in this country is exactly like this. Most people I have known in my life are like this. I know several people with 140+ IQ’s, and they are complete black and white thinkers, so it’s not down to intelligence.

Humans just can’t seem to handle cognitive dissonance. They can’t deal with gray areas. Gray areas make people nuts. A gray area means the good guy’s not good anymore, and the bad guy’s not bad anymore. We can’t have that.

Ever since I appeared on the Net, people have been screaming that my politics is utterly irrational and insane. That is simply because I am Left on some things and Right on others. In America, apparently that is the definition of insanity. Recently someone commented that I am “all over the place.” That’s right. If you live in a permanent gray area, you will always be all over the place.

Which brings me to my original question: Just how many Americans are not black and white thinkers? I would also like to ask if it is a human characteristic rather than an American one. Will you generally find the same black and white thinking everywhere you go in the world?

John UK asks:

It is said more people died in India than in China during Mao’s rule is this true?

Yes, between 1949-1979, there were 100 million excess deaths in India over and above the deaths in China. That is, 100 million deaths occurred in India due to not following the Chinese model. The excess deaths are continuing at a rate of 4 million/year and by now they should be about 170 million. So capitalism in India has killed 170 million over and above the deaths in China, by not following the Chinese model. We know this because China and India were at the same level in 1949 and now China has vastly surpassed India.

All this Mao was the biggest murderer of all time crap are nothing but lies. Indian capitalism killed many times more than Mao did. Instead of being the greatest murderer ever, Mao was the greatest humanitarian that ever lived. He doubled life expectancy from 32 in 1949 to 65 in 1980, setting a world record. Mao saved more lives than any human being that’s ever lived.

In only one year did the death rate exceed that of prerevolutionary China, in 1959 in the middle of Great Leap famine. Even most of the years of the Great Leap and during all of the Cultural Revolution, the death rate was below, typically far below, the rate of 1949.

Since China has headed to capitalism, schools and medical clinics have closed all over the land. Lack of health care is killing millions of Chinese people. Health care is now only available for pay, and most people can’t afford health care or medications, so when they get sick, they hope they get better, and if not, they just die.

The entire US media and both political parties have never stopped cheering for this miserable state of affairs.

the first part of the title is actually not a lie. Capitalism with vigorous or even extreme competition is quite a nice mode of development. It’s definitely great for consumers, offers great customer service, low prices and ferocious innovation and improvement of products. The attitude of a system with vigorous competition is not only the customer is always right but also adds to that I need to treat my customers better than my competitors.

So where’s the problem then? The problem is because the competition usually doesn’t last. As Marx noted and has been proven immaculately correct, capitalism tends towards monopoly over time as surely as day follows night. Vigorous competition is soon replaced by monopoly capitalism and Monopoly Capitalism is probably one of the worst modes of development known to mankind.

Every anti-monopoly business being harmed by a monopoly will turn pro-monopoly as soon as they get their own monopoly. And all businesses wish to be a monopoly. They all hate competition. There’s nothing a capitalist hates more than competition, which is part of the joke of capitalism, which sings the (granted, considerable) praises of robust competition, while all of the capitalists despise this very robust competition being crowed about.

Politicians and media outlets all claim to be pro-competition but they are all also pro-monopoly. The politicians are pro-monopoly because they are all whores for big business and are frankly taking open bribes from them. The media is pro-monopoly because the media only prints what its corporate advertisers want to hear (a pro-monopoly message) and also because most media outlets, as capitalists, of course long to be monopolies themselves. The fact that capitalists and their supporters rant and rave about how great capitalism is due to competition despite the fact that business and its paid propagandists all hate such competition is one of the worst lies of all of the capitalists.

GHung wrote:

mmasters wrote:I love it when people complain about capitalism yet they have an iPhone. That was created with capitalism.

I don't have an iPhone, don't "complain" about capitalism, and China makes more smartphones than anybody (exports more than 4 times the #2 country).

Yonnipun wrote:https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2017/07/19/lies-of-the-capitalists-capitalism-is-great-because-of-competition-and-we-love-competition

the first part of the title is actually not a lie. Capitalism with vigorous or even extreme competition is quite a nice mode of development. It’s definitely great for consumers, ...........
So where’s the problem then? The problem is because the competition usually doesn’t last. As Marx noted and has been proven immaculately correct, capitalism tends towards monopoly over time as surely as day follows night.

US rightwingers keep saying that China is a capitalist country or it is the most capitalist country on Earth.

China is one of the most Communist or socialist states on Earth today. Fully 45% of the Chinese economy is publicly owned, and it does extremely well. Much of the very high economic growth has come from the public sector. How on Earth can China be capitalist when 45% of the economy is state-owned?

But realize that all public firms in China operate on the profit model. They all compete with each other, so you have a steel mill run by one city competing with a steel mill run by another city. Many of the fastest growing industries are run at the municipality level. Also, China’s fully state-owned firms do very well. In fact, Republicans say that China’s public firms are “not fair” because American capitalist corporations can’t compete against them. The reason is that China’s firms get subsidies from the state. Poor capitalist corporations! They’re too inefficient to compete against Communist state owned firms. Poor babies.

You realize that the state owns every single inch of land in China? How is that possible in a capitalist country? Capitalism is primarily based on the private ownership of land. No private ownership of land, no capitalism. Real simple.

I would also point out that the Chinese state spends a tremendous amount of money on its people. Since 45% of the whole economy goes directly to the state, they have a lot of money to spend. And they spend it very wisely too. They mostly spend it on their own people in one way or another.

As I understand it, US capitalists believe in a minimal state, and there is nothing they hate more than state spending. Huge state spending is seen as wasteful tax and spend policies by all capitalists everywhere. Wherever you have massive state spending, you do not have a capitalist system.

But I would like to thank US rightwingers for praising China, the finest example of modern Communism.

I expect the last 45% to fade away much more aggressively in coming years.

onlooker wrote:

I expect the last 45% to fade away much more aggressively in coming years.

You mean for China to have full blown Crony Capitalism as defned as such:

an economic system characterized by close, mutually advantageous relationships between business leaders and government officials.

mmasters wrote:I love it when people complain about capitalism yet they have an iPhone. That was created with capitalism.

GHung wrote:I'm still curious about what form of capitalist system people prefer. "Capitalism" is a broad term, sort of like "Christianity".
Do people prefer Laiseez-faire capitalism, anarcho capitalism, some hybrid of capitalism infused with tax-supported social programs? It's obvious that most systems are hybrid/mixed systems, including China and the US. Are those who espouse pure capitalism, free from any government intrusions, willing to divest from anything that benefits from social programs such as SNAP ($70+ billion subsidy for Big Food), Medicaid (billions for Big Health and Big Pharma), agricultural programs and subsidies, tax credits for renewables, all that?
Are so-called social democracies, with high taxes supporting social programs, while allowing successful free enterprise, valid "capitalist" systems or socialism?
Do those who prefer pure capitalism think it's OK for tax dollars to bail out corporations during an economic downturn? If so, can we call that "situational socialism" or somesuch? Or should TBTF corporations be allowed to fail?
How many of you are really wanting a "have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too" capitalism, where people and corporations are free from regulation and any form of government interference unless those government policies, tax credits, bailouts, etc, improve their bottom lines and stock prices?

Where do you draw the line?

3.1.13 Link baiting: prohibited. Posts created with the primary intent of directing traffic to a web link are prohibited. Such posts are subject to deletion without notification to the poster. The behavior is regarded as a serious violation of the COC.

jedrider wrote:The 1970's recession.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/24/why-did-global-economic-performance-deteriorate-in-the-1970s/

Just tell me what this means. I graduated from college during that time and couldn't understand the basis of that recession

as it just seems gratuitous to me. My daughter graduated during the 2007/8 crash. She went to work abroad because of that

and is now a happy expatriate.