[CBA]Capitalism, Communism, Socialism and the NBA(and a rebuttal for Hart)

["Noah P. Evans" <ishbak@conknet.com>]

After thinking about the political affiliation of the NBA and it's owners,
One must come to the --amusing-- conclusion that the NBA is socialist.
 	While the current NBA CBA allows for a vaguely free market(with restraints
on the market value of rookies, minimum salaries and so forth) the NBA
owners wish to remold the League into a socialist entity. They would
severely curtail the freedom of the players to acheive their value in the
market for player contracts by instituting the 5-6 year rookie contract and
a hard cap. The rookie contracts would increase the players time under an
unneccesarily small contract forcing the player to forestall his acheiving
his value on the market until the twilight of the player's career(assuming
that the average player has a 10 year career). The hard cap would then limit
whatever compensation the player could acheive even when the player reached
free agent status. Hardly the actions of capitalist free marketeers.




Jim Hill wrote:
> I am not aware of any "collective" that is non-religious in it
> founding's, that has ever been successful.  Nor do I believe that unions
> are a benefit to society at this stage of societal evolution.

I was referring to the "collectives" in the soviet union. While communal
farms were hardly efficent, they weren't dedicated to turning a profit.
	As for unions why aren't they a benefit to society? Isn't it the natural
inclination of a business, in the pursuit of profit, to pay it's workers the
least amount of money for the greatest amount of work? And don't unions
provide a viable check to that inclination? That's the societal value of a
union as I see it.


> I believe that communism has been proven to be a failure.

It has? The Soviet Union was *totalititarion* not communist. The last real
communist government I know of were some of Northern Native American
peoples. And they lasted a few thousand years.

Now to respond to Hart:

> Why are you wasting your time trying to have a legitimate discussion
> with a socialist, I am sure you probably know that you will not change
> his mind no matter how logical you make it.

Hmmm? If you read my posts carefully you will notice that on many occasions
I amend my viewpoints when I am corrected. As for my logical abilities would
you care to point out my fallacies rather than making ad hominem attacks?

> Logic never made sense to a
> socialist, since all they know is to put their grubby little hands out
> and say "gimme, gimme, and gimme some more.

I agree with you on this one. Read the earlier section of this post.

>Their track record around
> the world in running countries is just phenomenal.

Did you know that Germany is socialist? Did you know also that in addition
to claiming to be socialist the Soviet Union claimed to be democratic? You
don't see their democratic track record being trumpeted as an example of the
failure of world democracy.

> Did you ever wonder;
> if the business community in the U.S. was so bad why they(socialists)
> stick around to be a party to it.

The business community in the US is *socialist*. While a free market is
trumpeted by the media, the massive subsidies given to business are hardly
evidence of a "free market". Especially when a business collapses. Are IMF
bailouts part of a "free market"?

>If it was up to them all businesse
> would be owned by gov't and most of us know that the gov't can't run
> anything properly let alone a profit making business.

Would you rather have it the other way around as it is today? With the
businesses running the government(with special interest money)?


Noah

P.S. I request that any more thoughts regarding me or my political
affiliation be addressed to me personally rather than the list in
general(unless they relate to the celtics).