A sample essay:

Communism vs. Capitalism

This article is my take on the communism vs capitalism debate. It will talk about the major points of difference between communism and capitalism.

Communism vs capitalism debate is a battle between two extreme socioeconomic theories. They are theories that represent two inherently opposite ways of thinking. One is extremely individualistic (Capitalism), while the other one (Communism) believes in putting the society before self. The communism vs capitalism clash polarized the world during the cold war. This article explores all dimensions of communism vs capitalism debate and explores the two ideologies while comparing their points of difference.

Communism vs Capitalism Comparison
Here is a straight comparison between communism and capitalism, which discusses the pros and cons of both the ideologies.

Communism vs Capitalism: Ownership of Means of Production

The primary point of difference between capitalism and communism is regarding the ownership of 'means of production' or resources in general. Communism shuns private/individual ownership of land or any vital resources. Instead, all the 'means of production' like land and other resources should be owned by the state. By state here, I mean the whole community of people. All land and resources which enable the production of goods and services will be owned by one and all. Everything will be shared! All decisions about production will be made by the whole community by democratic means. There will be equal wages for all. All the decisions taken will be according to what is good for all.

On the other hand, capitalism believes in private ownership of land and means of production. Every man will have to earn his worth. The major share of the profits earned from a business will go to the person who owns the means of production, while the workers who are responsible for running the business will get a small share. Every man will get his wages according to his merit and according to the thinking of the man who owns the means of production. Naturally the people who own the means of production, the capitalists, call the shots when it comes to decision making!

This is the major bone of contention between the two ideologies, ownership of means of production! Both are extreme ideas. While communism can kill the idea of individual enterprise, which has led to most of the technological innovations we see today, capitalism has the seeds of exploitation, where too much wealth and therefore power, is concentrated in the hands of a few people.

Communism vs Capitalism: Individual Freedom

As I said before, communism and capitalism are two extreme points of view, which have contrasting views about individual freedom. Communism asks one to put the society before the individual, while capitalism puts individual freedom, before society.

So, the polarity between two ideologies is 'Individualism vs Social welfare'. Capitalism gives more importance to individual aspirations and appeals to the inherent selfish nature, which is inherent in all human beings. This inherent selfishness, is a result of the instinct of self preservation.

Communism appeals to our more saintly side, wherein we think about others before ourselves. It is a noble thought, which goes against the inherent selfish nature of people, though it is appealing to their generous natures.

Both again are two extreme points of view, which have their advantages and disadvantages. Some of the greatest advances in human history have happened due to individual creativity and enterprise, which were self serving, though they ultimately benefited the society. Communism can kill that individual creative streak, by making a person do what he is told. In short, it has the danger of killing creativity and original thinking.

Capitalism, on the other hand, feeding selfish desires can create capitalist autocrats who can have control of life and death over thousands of people, leading to exploitation. Read more on, 'Pros and Cons of capitalism'.

Communism vs Capitalism: Society

Communism advocates a classless, egalitarian society, where all men and women are placed on the same footing. There will be no differences of class, race, religion or even nationality! This way, there will be nothing to fight for. This is nice as an idea, but trying to implement this idea is tough and asking people to give up all the things that make them different, is unfair! Every person is special and different in his own way.

Capitalism promotes class distinction. In fact creates the major class distinction of haves and have-nots, the rich and the poor. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer under pure capitalism. The rich class controls the means of production and wields power, thereby imposing their own class distinction and whims on the society.

Communism vs Capitalism: Anatomy of Power

Communism appeals to the higher ideal of altruism, while capitalism promotes selfishness. Let us consider what will happen to power distribution in both these ideologies! Capitalism naturally concentrates wealth and therefore, power in the hands of the people who own the means of production. So, it creates the rich elite who control wealth, resources and power. So, naturally they decide the distribution of power.

In communism, ideally, if all of mankind was of saintly nature, altruistic and selfless, the distribution of power would be equal. All decisions would be made by democratic means and there would be no unjust rules favoring a few!

However, that is not the case here, people are inherently selfish and the nature of power is such that it corrupts minds and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have the example of how communism can concentrate absolute power over a whole nation, in the hands of a single man, in Stalinist Russia! So, both the ideologies can fail and create an unjust society!

Ultimately what we need, is a balanced approach, which is a combination of good points in both the ideologies. A mixed economy where the state has control over all the vital resources of a nation, provides welfare for the needy, while also promoting free entrepreneurship!

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A Sample Persuasive Essay

Without a doubt, you’ve probably heard about communism. And, also without a doubt, you’ve probably heard all sorts of horror stories about it — from your teachers, from the media, from politicians, even from your church pastor or preacher.

They tried to scare you. They want to keep you from finding out for yourself. If you asked one authority figure for a second opinion, they usually told you to ask another authority figure. And if that didn't satisfy you, then they told you to read the history books they wrote for you.

Do you see a pattern here? The one person they will never tell you to talk to, however, is a communist. Why? Because a communist might go off script and tell you something they don't want you to hear.

So, what is communism? Well, there is communism, the theory, and communism, the society. Let's first deal with communism, the society.

To begin with, communism is a society without bosses or servants, without superiors or subordinates, without masters or slaves. In short, communism is a society without classes and the stress, conflict and antagonisms that go with the existence of classes. Contrary to the history they teach you, classes are a relatively new thing in the human experience, having been around for only about 25,000 of the last 50 million years of human existence.

“But,” someone might say, “there are a lot more people alive today than there were back then.” That’s true. What’s also true is that we are smarter, more conscious of our world and more technologically advanced than our ancestors. We really don’t need someone standing over us, telling us what to do and when to do it. If necessary, we can work that out together, in common.

Because it is a society without classes, communism is also a society where all aspects of society are developed and administered in common. That means not only the political system, but the economy, culture and social (not personal) relations too. Can you imagine, having an equal voice, along with your co-workers, in deciding how conditions at your job would be determined? Or, having a say, along with your neighbors, in shaping how the city’s budget will be spent?

Democracy is a key element in the development of communism — but not the stale, formal “democracy” we are taught about in school; we are talking about democracy as a practice, a real-world tool that works for those who work.

As well, communism is a society without a state. Now, when we talk about a “state,” we are not talking about councils and assemblies that debate issues and adopt policy. When we say “state,” we mean the armed organizations that enforce “order” (the rulers’ “order,” that is), like the police and military.

“No police?!” Yes, no police. What are the police really for? Well, when you live in a society where goods and services are restricted to a few, you end up with the many in need. When you have so many in need, you need to maintain order. However, if you live in a society where the needs of everyone in society are met, what need is there for police? If everyone’s basic needs — good food, decent housing, worthwhile education, etc. — are met, what basis is there for most of the crime in society?

Sure, there may be times here and there that may require some kind of investigation or enforcement unit, but those times would be relatively few and far between, and could easily be handled as they come up.

It is also the case that communism is a society without money. “Without money?!” Yes, without money. Why does money exist? Basically, it was invented so that one group of owners wouldn’t get screwed by another set of owners. But, if you have a society where the factories and workplaces are owned in common, and we can sit down and plan out three months, six months or even a year in advance what we have to produce to provide all that we need, what point is there to having money?

Also, if we’re all working together to produce what we need and administer our own affairs, we can cut out a lot of things we don’t need. For example, we don’t need all those layers of managers and officials that we pay (through our labor and the profits it creates) to tell us to work harder. Similarly, we don’t need all of those professional politicians and bureaucrats in the government who do everything they can to convince us that our future should be in the hands of “professionals” who have no clue what we deal with on a daily basis. For that matter, we don’t need all those worthless professions that exist only because we live in a profit-driven society, like advertising, marketing, business management, etc. The resources poured into those jobs can be put to better use.

And we can do all of this while working less and enjoying life more. Because a communist society produces for our needs and well-being, and not for creating more profits for the bosses, we can reduce the amount of working time each of us has to do. For that matter, depending on how well we can use technology to our advantage, we have the ability to calculate how much working time each of us will have to do in our lives in order to provide for all our needs throughout our lives.

Think of it! Retiring at age 40 and not having to worry about where your next meal is coming from, because you’ve already put in your share for society! Think of what you can do with all that time! If you wanted, you could go back to school and become a doctor, or learn how to paint or sculpt, or see the world. For that matter, you could spend your summers in moderate weather and your winters in warm areas. Why should the birds be the only ones with the sense to migrate when the weather changes?

Finally, we should point out that communism is a world system and society. We live in a world that is more and more unified by economics, culture and our own common interests. Communism looks to bring all of those who work for their living together in a common struggle to liberate ourselves from this rotten system. But, unlike those who call themselves “boss” and want to control the world, communism looks to join the people of the world together as brothers and sisters to build a better future for ourselves and our children.

So, does this sound like something you’d like to see? Well, that brings us to communism, the theory ... and the movement. Communism doesn’t come about without the help of all of you. Because we have to sweep away a lot of garbage from this sick society, we need the help of millions to make it happen. “I get all of that,” you might say, “but no one else will go for it.” Really? Ask your friends, your neighbors and your co-workers what they think about what we say above. Chances are they would like to see this kind of new society, too.

How you choose to get involved is up to you, of course. There are all sorts of ways to help bring this society about. If you’re not sure of what you can do, ask one of us. We can sit down and talk about what’s possible. The important thing is that you get involved somehow. That’s what communism is about: being an active part of creating your own future. Represent yourself! Join the fight for a communist future!

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"Just answer me. Do you?"

"What?" Rahel said in the smalles voice she had.

"Realize what you've just done?"

Frightened eyes and a fountain looked back at Ammu.

"D'you know what happens when you hurt people?" Ammu said. "When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That's what careless words do They make people love you a little less."

The God of Small Things

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Telepathy Caught on Camera?
by Guy Lyon Playfair

On January 10th 2003, 8-year-old Richard Powles sat in a soundproof room in a London television studio in front of a table on which there was a cardboard box and a plastic bucket filled with ice-cold water. On command, he rolled up his sleeve and plunged his arm into the near-freezing water, giving a gasp as he did so. In another studio well out of sight or earshot, his identical twin brother Damien was wired up to a four-channel polygraph (lie-detector) which, under the expert supervision of polygrapher Jeremy Barrett, was monitoring his respiration, abdominal muscles, pulse and galvanic skin response (sweat on the hands).

Neither he nor Barrett had any idea what was going on in the other room, although both knew they were taking part in a telepathy experiment to be shown later that day on Channel 4's Richard and Judy chat show. All Damien had to do was sit quietly and "tune in" to his brother, while Barrett's job was to watch the four pens as they woibbled along the paper chart and look out for something that shouldn't be there.

He soon found it. At the exact moment of Richard's sharp intake of breath caused by the freezing water, there was a sudden blip on the line monitoring Damien's respiration rate. It was as though he too had gasped - which he hadn't. The effect was so obvious that Barrett pointed to it with his thumb to indicate that he knew something had happened to Richard.

In another experiment, Richard was asked to open a cardboard box, which he did, hoping to find something nice - preferably eatable - in it. Instead, a huge rubber snake shot out of it at him, giving him a fright. This, too, was instantly picked up by his twin as the pulse line on the chart clearly indicated.

Was this visible proof of telepathy? Although this was not a rigidly controlled scientific experiment, it looked very much like it.

It was not the first time that an ostensibly telepathic signal had been recorded at the moment it was received. In 1997, the same polygraph expert supevised an experiment held in front of a live audience for a programme in Carlton TV's Paranormal World of Paul McKenna series shown on 24th June. The subjects on this occasion were two very lively teenagers, Elaine and Evelyn Dove.

Elaine sat in the studio in front of a large pyramid put together by the special effects wizards, while Evelyn and Jeremy Barrett were in a separate room. When Elaine was nicely relaxed after some skilful light hypnosis from Paul McKenna, the pyramid exploded in a burst of sparks, flashes and coloured smoke, giving her a considerable shock. This showed up on Evelyn's polygraph as a huge deflection - one pen running off the top of the paper, causing Barrett to comment over the intercom that "Evelyn certainly picked up something from somewhere."

"There certainly was something coming," he added, "and it looks to me like shock or surprise". Interestingly, neither Evelyn Dove nor Richard Powles had any conscious awareness of the shocks their twins were being given although they were both unmistakably aware of them unconsciously.

Although the evidence for telepathy has been coming in regularly since the founding in 1882 of the Society for Psychical Research -overall probability of chance in all of the published controlled experiments being of the order of one in billions - many remain unconvinced. Some refuse to admit even the possibility of telepathy, while more reasonable sceptics prefer to suspend judgment until there is not only unmistakable evidence for it and a theory explaining how it works. We may now have both.

We have had the statistical evidence for some time, and we now have the visible evidence, produced by an easily repeatable experiment. As for the theory, this too has been around for nearly a hundred years though many are still unaware of it. It's called quantum theory, and while nobody seems to understand it, there is general agreement in the scientific community that it works and can be put to practical use.

One feature of it is "nonlocality", whereby two particles - such as photons - that form a simultaneously generated or "entangled" pair act as if they remain in contact even when separated. Science writers often compare such particles to identical twins, who begin their lives literally entangled.

"Non-local behaviour has been proved to occur by real experiments," writes John Gribbin in his book Schrodinger's Kittens (1995). It is as if the two quantum entities "remain tangled up with one another for ever, so that when one is prodded the other twitches, instantaneously, no matter how far apart they are."

Another scientist-author, Danah Zohar, actually uses a hypothetical pair of identical twins in her book The Quantum Self (1990) to illustrate the principle of nonlocality in action. In her imaginary experiment, a man is pushed downstairs in London and breaks a leg, while his twin thousands of miles away also falls and breaks a leg although nobody has pushed him.

This is just what they actually do. I have collected several examples of twins who did break limbs at exactly the same time, some of them hundreds of miles apart. Non-local behaviour has been proved to occur by not only real experiments, as Gribbin noted, but also by real people - specifically identical twins.

It was also, I believe, proved to occur by both the Powles and Dove twins. This was not a controlled scientific experiment, to be sure, but it should at the very least be considered a very promising pilot experiment, of a kind anybody who can get hold of a polygraph operator and a pair of twins can easily repeat.

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The God of Small Things Chapters 3 and 4

A sample essay:

Communism vs. Capitalism