Marxist thought

[zlemflolia]

also very convenient how the biggest worst example just doesn't count apparently.  the literal global vanguard of capitalism apparently isn't a representative of real capitalism, because it's corrupt and evil, despite everything about it being explained perfectly by the nature of capitalism itself.

[chenGOD]

1 minute ago, cyanobacteria said:

also very convenient how the biggest worst example just doesn't count apparently.  the literal global vanguard of capitalism apparently isn't a representative of real capitalism, because it's corrupt and evil, despite everything about it being explained perfectly by the nature of capitalism itself.

TheUS has all of the things that other OECD countries have, the only exception is the healthcare issue. Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Chile and Colombia are all white countries? Interesting.

There are other examples of well regulated capitalism, but the OECD is an easy starting point. The reality of course is that all of these governments use mixed economic policy to varying degrees.

The actual biggest worst example of capitalism is China, because they use capitalism to further their authoritarian regime.

17 minutes ago, cyanobacteria said:

so you just don't care about their externalities on colonized countries

That's a good strawman you're building there. Considering we're talking about the domestic polity, the externalities are not a consideration. But since you asked, of course I care about them. And the best way to improve their lot is to institute transparent governance structures that build trust in institutions, and promote entrepreneurship (which can be a mix of private industry and state initiatives) with a sufficient social safety net to provide for the basic needs of the people in those countries.

State allocation of resources is not an efficient means of development.

[brian trageskin]

at this point only a fool would believe zeff is an actual human being

[zlemflolia]

8 minutes ago, chenGOD said:

That's a good strawman you're building there. Considering we're talking about the domestic polity, the externalities are not a consideration.

you may be talking about that as a convenient way to ignore how capitalism forms colonial empires.  I'm sure not

and i specifically said "pretty much" not "entirely".  yes, there are some south american and asian countries completely bowing to US global hegemony

[zlemflolia]

18 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

at this point only a fool would believe zeff is an actual human being

i am an ai chat bot youve all been fooled

[Braintree]

20 minutes ago, chenGOD said:

Democracy is an essential component of some forms of socialism. The definition at the wiki portal is broad, but useful.

The problem is that basically all attempts at establish communist countries have turned into dictatorships to date.

The entire point of socialism is to democratize the workforce so that the labor owns the company they work for and has a say in its day to day operations. The idea at that point (an idea that has never fully been put into practice) would then spread to other facets of society. It's trying to spread democracy, not hinder it. It is a system that is trying to give the most amount of freedom to each individual.

We can pontificate all day as to why it's never succeeded, but suffice to say, the history is complicated. Also, we're talking about socialism, and communism is only one flavor of socialism. I'm not a communist, fyi.

22 minutes ago, chenGOD said:

I think you being so dismissive of a person's lived experience is pretty unkind.

Because it's not relevant. That is not how socialism is defined and it is not how we define things in general. My lived experience in America is very different from many others' experiences. It is tangential and not definitive of democracies or republics.

Also, socialism is an economic system. How to structure the government is an entirely different subject.

Also also, if this dipshit thinks he can just end a discussion by merely saying so then he can fuck right off. The mob doesn't rule what logic & reason is.

[zlemflolia]

16 minutes ago, Braintree said:

We can pontificate all day as to why it's never succeeded, but suffice to say, the history is complicated. Also, we're talking about socialism, and communism is only one flavor of socialism. I'm not a communist, fyi.

communism is not a flavor of socialism, socialism is worker control of the means of production. communism is the abolition of private property, the state, and money, that can only come after socialism has been achieved

[Braintree]

2 minutes ago, cyanobacteria said:

communism is not a flavor of socialism, socialism is worker control of the means of production. communism is the abolition of private property, the state, and money, that can only come after socialism has been achieved

To be specific, you're talking about anarcho-communism. I linked an article above that talks about those commonalities and differences.

[zlemflolia]

15 minutes ago, Braintree said:

To be specific, you're talking about anarcho-communism. I linked an article above that talks about those commonalities and differences.

no I'm talking about communism.  communism is a mode of production which there are various ways of theorizing how it can be reached, characterized by a stateless classless moneyless society.  anarcho-communism is one ideology aiming to achieve communism through abolishing the state as the initial step rather than a later step closer to the achievement of communism.  the variants that don't support abolishing the state initially, like marxism-leninism, do plan to abolish the state passively through its "withering away" as engels put it and which lenin supported (once the beaurocratic aspects are taken over by the proletariat entirely and once there is no more borgeousie who must be oppressed), i.e. later in the process - instead of abolishing it initially they first form a dictatorship of the proletariat.  dictatorship here does not mean the same thing as the common usage, and is merely the opposite of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which marxists believe we presently have even in the most "democratic" countries.

Edited May 7, 2021 by cyanobacteria

[Braintree]

Zeff is my problem with leftists.

[zlemflolia]

1 minute ago, Braintree said:

Zeff is my problem with leftists.

lol care to elaborate, i merely pointed out your incorrect statement on what communism is

[chenGOD]

34 minutes ago, Braintree said:

Because it's not relevant. That is not how socialism is defined

My man, would you dismiss the BLM movement in the same way? Policing is not defined by systemic racism, but it exists and that’s their (POC) lived experience with it. 
Also, I don’t agree there is one consistent definition of socialism. I’m not saying that dictatorship equals socialism (unless you want to discuss the dictatorship of the proletariat), but I don’t think democracy is a necessary component of many definitions of socialism. 

[Braintree]

No one can hear the virtues of the working class over the sound of you splitting hairs.

Just now, chenGOD said:

My man, would you dismiss the BLM movement in the same way? Policing is not defined by systemic racism, but it exists and that’s their (POC) lived experience with it. 
Also, I don’t agree there is one consistent definition of socialism. I’m not saying that dictatorship equals socialism (unless you want to discuss the dictatorship of the proletariat), but I don’t think democracy is a necessary component of many definitions of socialism. 

BLM is not relevant to this conversation either, so yes.

It is frightening how fast you guys lose focus on the topic at hand.

[Zephyr_Nova]

 

[chenGOD]

2 minutes ago, Braintree said:

BLM is not relevant to this conversation either, so yes.

It is frightening how fast you guys lose focus on the topic at hand.

BLM is an analogy for lived experience.
Again do you think your definition of socialism is the only correct one? The various theories and the voluminous literature would kind of indicate otherwise you know?

[Braintree]

Just now, chenGOD said:

BLM is an analogy for lived experience.
Again do you think your definition of socialism is the only correct one? The various theories and the voluminous literature would kind of indicate otherwise you know?

Did you read those articles I linked?

[chenGOD]

6 minutes ago, Braintree said:

Did you read those articles I linked?

I read the investopedia one, which mentions democracy almost not at all? 
 

As an aside, it mentions Vietnam as a socialist country, but billionaires in Vietnam certainly play an important role in the country’s socio-economic affairs. 

[Braintree]

1 minute ago, chenGOD said:

I read the investopedia one, which mentions democracy almost not at all? 
 

As an aside, it mentions Vietnam as a socialist country, but billionaires in Vietnam certainly play an important role in the country’s socio-economic affairs. 

Yeah, it says at the beginning:

Quote

In truth, with communism and socialism, where the distinction between a laboring class and owner class is dissolved, freedom and democracy can flourish; however, there would also be a massive redistribution of wealth.

They're eluding to unions and cooperatives as far as socialism goes.

Not sure why they called those states communist, since they're not. You can refer to the first linked article as to why.

[Alcofribas]

35 minutes ago, chenGOD said:

My man, would you dismiss the BLM movement in the same way? Policing is not defined by systemic racism, but it exists and that’s their (POC) lived experience

haha dude this is so loaded. why do you post stuff like this?

some dude on here posted that Marxism is for babies who only see black and white and don’t understand scholarship or whatever. this was not a serious contribution to the topic in any way, whatever experiences may have informed it. 

this has absolutely no relationship to BLM, a social movement formed to combat racist policing and discriminatory punishment. 

anything is “lived experience,” this is not a useful phrase. weaving “lived experience” with “what about blm” or something is weird shit dude come on. 

[zlemflolia]

carrying on with the theme of "marxism is for teenagers" the tag somehow added to this thread of "relive your undergrad years" is excellent projection and reduction of marxism to nothing more than something that is studied in school then forgotten as you yourself gain financial security and satisfaction with capitalism, rather than the majority school of political economic thought rivaling the dominant powers of the world today, the center of numerous geopolitical events of world historical importance, and presumably a school of thought that will continue being relevant until capitalism is either transcended in some way or we go extinct

[chenGOD]

Yeah freedom and democracy can flourish, not that it’s an essential part. 
 

im reading that first linked article:

Quote

The genuine tradition of socialism, however, starts from a different conception of what socialism is: Workers' control over production and a democratic say by the producers of society's wealth about how to allocate resources in pursuit of social goals.

A democratic say in how to allocate resources, to which I have to ask, does the average person have an idea of how commodity supply chains work? Take any craft product you enjoy: beer, coffee, bicycles, local publishing, what have you...think about all the components that go into the manufacture and sale of that product. 
Do you understand that complete process and can you conduct cost analysis on all those discrete components? I don’t.

Markets are not anathema to socialist economies, and yet I see very little understanding of how markets work from many people (so called free marketeers and marxists alike). 
One of the arguments I often hear against capitalism is that managers create inefficiencies. This can be true, certainly I’ve worked with bad managers. 
But doesn’t the idea that there should be a democratic decision-making process to resource allocation essentially turn everyone into a manager? After all, a managers job is to manage resources in order to complete a project. Do we really want everyone to be a manager?
 

That article goes on to say:

Quote

We are constantly told that the free market is the best way to carry out this allocation of resources, depending as it does on a myriad of decisions of consumers sending signals to producers based on what they purchase.

But the truth is that the big banks and large capitalist enterprises have all sorts of ways to bend markets to their will.

Which is not an argument against markets, but more of an argument for good regulation of markets with actual enforcement. As we have seen in so called “communist” countries, government actors and state-owned enterprises also have the ability to bend markets, even more than corporations, as it the government who writes regulation and legislation. 
 

At the end of the day, I’m not saying that there doesn’t need to be strong protection for workers, universal healthcare, etc. 
Based on my education, work experience, and general life experience in different countries around the world, I do not think that at a large scale, the type of production the article refers to is the best way to achieve those goals.  

[chenGOD]

12 minutes ago, Alcofribas said:

haha dude this is so loaded. why do you post stuff like this?

some dude on here posted that Marxism is for babies who only see black and white and don’t understand scholarship or whatever. this was not a serious contribution to the topic in any way, whatever experiences may have informed it. 

this has absolutely no relationship to BLM, a social movement formed to combat racist policing and discriminatory punishment. 

anything is “lived experience,” this is not a useful phrase. weaving “lived experience” with “what about blm” or something is weird shit dude come on. 

The Marxism is for babies thing yeah was a LOL. 
I’m talking about dismissing lived experiences as a valid form of criticism. You often see “just follow the law and you won’t have any problems”, but that is clearly not the lived experience of POC. 
Similarly, “don’t equate socialism with dictatorship”. But the lived experience of many people under socialism is under a dictatorship. 
 

It’s like how so many older Koreans who emigrated to the US are hardcore conservatives that believe in capitalist democracy, because their lived experience with communism is North Korea. 
 

I don’t understand why using an analogy is such a controversial explanatory tool. 

[zlemflolia]

20 minutes ago, chenGOD said:

Yeah freedom and democracy can flourish, not that it’s an essential part. 
 

im reading that first linked article:

A democratic say in how to allocate resources, to which I have to ask, does the average person have an idea of how commodity supply chains work? Take any craft product you enjoy: beer, coffee, bicycles, local publishing, what have you...think about all the components that go into the manufacture and sale of that product. 
Do you understand that complete process and can you conduct cost analysis on all those discrete components? I don’t.

Markets are not anathema to socialist economies, and yet I see very little understanding of how markets work from many people (so called free marketeers and marxists alike). 
One of the arguments I often hear against capitalism is that managers create inefficiencies. This can be true, certainly I’ve worked with bad managers. 
But doesn’t the idea that there should be a democratic decision-making process to resource allocation essentially turn everyone into a manager? After all, a managers job is to manage resources in order to complete a project. Do we really want everyone to be a manager?
 

That article goes on to say:

Which is not an argument against markets, but more of an argument for good regulation of markets with actual enforcement. As we have seen in so called “communist” countries, government actors and state-owned enterprises also have the ability to bend markets, even more than corporations, as it the government who writes regulation and legislation. 
 

At the end of the day, I’m not saying that there doesn’t need to be strong protection for workers, universal healthcare, etc. 
Based on my education, work experience, and general life experience in different countries around the world, I do not think that at a large scale, the type of production the article refers to is the best way to achieve those goals.  

supply chains are complex and often opaque due to their private nature.  what does this have to do with worker control of the means of production? it's possible to know everything that's produced and where it's going, computer systems can centrally plan everything, right now all the supercomputers are being used for fucking facebook ad targeting

it's not democratic control over the flow of bolts and truck axles.  it's democratic control over WHAT is produced and over the workers' process of production, their workplace.   youre massively misrepresenting this topic.  what are your issues with central planning?  what are your issues with democratic control over consumer products and the focus of technological progress? this has nothing to do with people voting in how many Size A54 Bolts and how many Version 643 Nuts to produce.

Edited May 7, 2021 by cyanobacteria

[zlemflolia]

and how on earth is the lived experience of south koreans, north korea? they've never been there and they live in a state with heavy censorship of information about north korea as well as paid CIA sponsored defectors.  that is not their lived experience.  ask some north koreans about communism and you get a different picture

https://i.imgur.com/xBTWlGF.mp4

https://youtu.be/BkUMZS-ZegM

[Silent Member]

jfc why do I keep reading.