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On May 31 2019 01:59 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2019 01:55 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 31 2019 01:42 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 31 2019 01:42 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 30 2019 16:29 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 30 2019 16:06 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 30 2019 16:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 30 2019 15:59 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 30 2019 15:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 30 2019 14:53 Cricketer12 wrote:
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In what way? Also I fail to see how Bernie, a man who refuses to abide by his principles and save every last cent from his tax returns as possible isn't. A variety but mostly that he's using "UBI" to undermine social programs. I also simply don't trust what he says. The tax thing doesn't compute for me so I can't help you there. How is it undermining social programs? You either take or you keep the welfare bonuses you are currently on. It's opt-in. You answered your own question. "opt-in" isn't a real UBI but it is really reducing the social safety net. 🤦 If you'd like a better reason why I as a radical anti-capitalist don't support Yang this part of his description of UBI is a deal killer. fits so seamlessly into capitalism and UBI is necessary for the continuation of capitalism If you are anti-capitalism, what would you truly prefer? Socialism leading into communism. If the word Communism doesn't disgust you as much as the word Nazi, you have been failed by the education system I have like a 6 hour spiel with powerpoint, clips, texts, etc... to demonstrate you've got that bass aackwards if you really want to get into it? The bottom line though is I'd say: Show nested quote +If the word Capitalism doesn't disgust you as much as the word Nazi, you have been failed by the education system is more accurate.
What's the best-case scenario for US communism? What example would it follow?
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On May 31 2019 05:47 CatharsisUT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2019 01:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 31 2019 01:55 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 31 2019 01:42 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 31 2019 01:42 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 30 2019 16:29 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 30 2019 16:06 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 30 2019 16:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 30 2019 15:59 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 30 2019 15:00 GreenHorizons wrote:
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A variety but mostly that he's using "UBI" to undermine social programs. I also simply don't trust what he says.
The tax thing doesn't compute for me so I can't help you there. How is it undermining social programs? You either take or you keep the welfare bonuses you are currently on. It's opt-in. You answered your own question. "opt-in" isn't a real UBI but it is really reducing the social safety net. 🤦 If you'd like a better reason why I as a radical anti-capitalist don't support Yang this part of his description of UBI is a deal killer. fits so seamlessly into capitalism and UBI is necessary for the continuation of capitalism If you are anti-capitalism, what would you truly prefer? Socialism leading into communism. If the word Communism doesn't disgust you as much as the word Nazi, you have been failed by the education system I have like a 6 hour spiel with powerpoint, clips, texts, etc... to demonstrate you've got that bass aackwards if you really want to get into it? The bottom line though is I'd say: If the word Capitalism doesn't disgust you as much as the word Nazi, you have been failed by the education system is more accurate. What's the best-case scenario for US communism? What example would it follow?
A combination of the best parts of all governments/examples/attempts and human organization collaborated by and derived from rigorous scientific investigation.
It would be stupid to pick a single example and follow it imo
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So by communism, you don't actually mean communism you mean an imaginary system that includes only the good parts of every system that somehow leaves out all the bad parts. An imaginary system that also somehow is agile and resilient enough to withstand constant change as it adapts itself to whatever is assumed as best at the time. Beacuse gee having a stable government would be stupid.
Do you know how just insane what you just said was?
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On May 31 2019 07:01 Sermokala wrote:
So by communism, you don't actually mean communism you mean an imaginary system that includes only the good parts of every system that somehow leaves out all the bad parts. An imaginary system that also somehow is agile and resilient enough to withstand constant change as it adapts itself to whatever is assumed as best at the time. Beacuse gee having a stable government would be stupid.
Do you know how just insane what you just said was?
Before reading communist theory I probably would be right there with you. After, it's clear that what I described is communism and fully within the realm of human capabilities.
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On May 31 2019 07:10 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2019 07:01 Sermokala wrote:
So by communism, you don't actually mean communism you mean an imaginary system that includes only the good parts of every system that somehow leaves out all the bad parts. An imaginary system that also somehow is agile and resilient enough to withstand constant change as it adapts itself to whatever is assumed as best at the time. Beacuse gee having a stable government would be stupid.
Do you know how just insane what you just said was? Before reading communist theory I probably would be right there with you. After, it's clear that what I described is communism and fully within the realm of human capabilities.
What has, historically, led to the gap between communist theory and communist reality? How would we avoid those pitfalls here?
Saying it's "fully within the realm of human capabilities" seems very different from "probable" or anywhere close.
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On May 31 2019 07:33 CatharsisUT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2019 07:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 31 2019 07:01 Sermokala wrote:
So by communism, you don't actually mean communism you mean an imaginary system that includes only the good parts of every system that somehow leaves out all the bad parts. An imaginary system that also somehow is agile and resilient enough to withstand constant change as it adapts itself to whatever is assumed as best at the time. Beacuse gee having a stable government would be stupid.
Do you know how just insane what you just said was? Before reading communist theory I probably would be right there with you. After, it's clear that what I described is communism and fully within the realm of human capabilities. What has, historically, led to the gap between communist theory and communist reality? How would we avoid those pitfalls here? Saying it's "fully within the realm of human capabilities" seems very different from "probable" or anywhere close.
Part of the problem is that literally everything we've tried up until this point (when viewed in totality) has led us to the precipice of extinction.
This means that whatever our solution it must be something we haven't been able to do (at least at scale) thus far, so the premise I should find a historical example is fundamentally flawed.
What we do have is the assurance capitalism, as it exists and within any articulated (by candidates or posters) framework of reforms, leads us to total catastrophe.
My basic premise is I reject accepting that fate for myself or humanity so I am working on solutions. One I arrived at (thanks in no small part from this forum) was that attempts to fix it by voting for Democrats hoping they change the corruption they are dependent on were futile and foolish. Same for a third party.
If you convince me that Revolution fails too all we're left with is me taking Kwarks position and making sure I'm not first to suffer until or an unless someone presents an alternative we can examine.
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We're heading for bad so surely the thing to do is to forget everything we've done up to now and throw all our hopes into something that ignores every lesson in civilization we've learned before this in the mad gambit that this time we'll random guess chaos our way into the perfect method of governing.
You're advocating for mass death and the fundamental restructuring of our race and you don't think you need to justify what you want to get from that because you have doubts with the current situation.
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On May 31 2019 07:53 Sermokala wrote:
You're advocating for mass death and the fundamental restructuring of our race and you don't think you need to justify what you want to get from that because you have doubts with the current situation.
You've got it backwards, that's what happens with the status quo. I'm advocating we stop accepting that fate.
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Canada11450 Posts
Know of any Gulags in the US in the modern era that I'm not aware of?
Even if you look at the death count during the Great Depression compared to the Holdomor in the Ukraine, there's no comparison. And the Great Depression was the lowest mark in American capitalism- still can't touch the 'Great' Leaps forward that we've seen.
Hell, the Grapes of Wrath, which was a devastating critique on the plight of the migrant workers that the book was often banned... the film version was thought to be propaganda in the USSR because it seemed to fantastical that even the poorest Americans were driving around in cars. Capitalism at its worst is seen as too good be true? I'll take the beautiful disaster that is capitalism over tearing down every check and balance that holds back the evil in humans.
It took centuries to reign in the power of the state. Every attempt at communism throws that all away and creates a giant super state that grinds up the true believers and leaves the most conniving, backstabbing people in charge... parade the female prisoners in naked to take your pick of the lot and send the rest on to hard labour... until the connivers too are ground up into the machine. The worst tendencies in humans manifest when you throw out everything that would hold it back. No thanks.
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On May 31 2019 09:33 Falling wrote:
Know of any Gulags in the US in the modern era that I'm not aware of?
Even if you look at the death count during the Great Depression compared to the Holdomor in the Ukraine, there's no comparison. And the Great Depression was the lowest mark in American capitalism- still can't touch the 'Great' Leaps forward that we've seen.
Hell, the Grapes of Wrath, which was a devastating critique on the plight of the migrant workers that the book was often banned... the film version was thought to be propaganda in the USSR because it seemed to fantastical that even the poorest Americans were driving around in cars. Capitalism at its worst is seen as too good be true? I'll take that beautiful disaster over tearing down every check and balance that holds back the evil in humans.
It took centuries to reign in the power of the state. Every attempt at communism throws that all away and creates a giant super state that grinds up the true believers and leaves the most conniving, backstabbing people in charge... parade the female prisoners in naked to take your pick of the lot and send the rest on to hard labour... until the connivers too are ground up into the machine. The worst tendencies in humans manifest when you throw out everything that would hold it back. No thanks.
I mean if you ignore the mass exploitation and death around the world at the hands of the US and our capitalist interests and only focus on a domestic population surrounded by obscene levels of natural/stolen resources and potential (and an enslaved population) while also neglecting the attempted genocide of native inhabitants, prison industry and the military industrial complex etc.. sure gulags sound like the worst thing ever. But all that other stuff happened too so I would hardly call your depiction "capitalism at it's worst". Granted the US came of age when capitalism was in it's infancy so some of that is heavily influenced by imperialism/colonialism hangovers rather than "capitalism" which is a sort of "matured" colonialism or "neocolonialism" today imo.
On the state point Neb makes a good argument why it then makes sense to focus on worker ownership rather than centralized state ownership and I agree just fyi.
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On May 31 2019 09:48 JimmiC wrote:
No one is ignoring it, the point you are arguing that capitalism has faults is not one anyone is arguing back at you with. They are saying swapping out the ism doesn't fix everything and perhaps not anything AND how do you even plan on making that switch.
I count 7 people who have asked you these questions or varieties of them in the last couple of days. None of us are any closer to knowing your answers.
I'm going to return to our mutual non-existence agreement (whether you do or not) after this post.
Falling specifically was describing "lowest mark in American capitalism" which clearly did overlook a lot, if not all of that stuff. It's how you so frequently do this that makes me of the position there's nothing to be gained from direct engagement with you. I'm sure you have low opinions of my engagement as well.
I may from time to time reference something you also referenced but I find attempting to dialogue with you entirely undesirable for the foreseeable future and you can presume that I've installed the feature zlefin discovered that allows you to block forum users (from your view not the site to be clear) and suggest you consider the same.
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Canada11450 Posts
@GH
Slavery has been pretty normative of human experience for all of recorded history. Same as other ills like infanticide and human sacrifice. Worldwide you see these phenomenons in pretty much every region. From a macro perspective, it's actually weird when we don't have slavery.
I don't think you can peg slavery on capitalism. It was a hold over from the mercantilist days, but the countries that switched to capitalism first, heavily industrialized and ended slavery first. (See Britain.) Certainly there have always been moral arguments against slavery, but it's also interesting that the moral arguments really took hold when slavery was no longer needed because industrialization was far more efficient at producing goods than forced labour.
Forced labour in no way can be described as a voluntary exchange of goods or services, which is rather fundamental to the entire idea of capitalism. The South may have engaged with capitalism in the sense that they sold their goods to external markets, but I don't know that their economy was capitalist in nature. (In the same way, Stalin's regime could also sell goods to capitalist countries and thus is engaging in capitalism, but that doesn't, then, make the Stalinist collectivized economy a capitalist one.)
Regardless of you one might characterize the South, I would contend the more capitalist a country becomes, the more likely slavery will end and not the opposite.
Granted the US came of age when capitalism was in it's infancy so some of that is heavily influenced by imperialism/colonialism hangovers rather than "capitalism"
I would put it all on imperialism. It's only capitalist in the sense that humans are by nature self-interested and greedy. But we humans have hardly needed much pretext to kill each other. I don't think there's anything in capitalism that exacerbates this (in other words, we'd likely see the same push take land if we ran the scenario again with a feudal economy, or an ancient Middle East empire)
which is a sort of "matured" colonialism or "neocolonialism" today imo.
I don't accept this definition/ assertion of capitalism and would need to see actual argumentation before I would.
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On May 31 2019 13:26 Falling wrote:
@GH
Slavery has been pretty normative of human experience for all of recorded history. Same as other ills like infanticide. Worldwide you see these phenomenons. From a macro perspective, it's actually weird when we don't have slavery.
This is a common refrain but chattel slavery as it existed in the US (the Caribbean and such too)was both largely unique in the history of slavery and recognized as a horrific practice by much of the world at the time.
I don't think you can peg slavery on capitalism. It was a hold over from the mercantilist days, but the countries that switched to capitalism first, heavily industrialized and ended slavery first. (See Britain.) Certainly there have always been moral arguments against slavery, but it's also interesting that the moral arguments really took hold when slavery was no longer needed because industrialization was far more efficient at producing goods than forced labour
As it wasn't the only point and it was definitely one that was heavily influenced by colonialism/imperialism I'm not interested in arguing this point.
Forced labour in no way can be described as a voluntary exchange of goods or services, which is rather fundamental to the entire idea of capitalism.
What do you consider prison labor?
The South may have engaged with capitalism in the sense that they sold their goods to external markets, but I don't know that their economy was capitalist in nature. (In the same way, Stalin's regime could also sell goods to capitalist countries and thus is engaging in capitalism, but that doesn't, then, make the Stalinist collectivized economy a capitalist one.)
I've noticed the argument of "not true capitalism" has been gaining traction so I presume you allow the same for Stalin representing communism?
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Canada11450 Posts
I've noticed the argument of "not true capitalism" has been gaining traction so I presume you allow the same for Stalin representing communism?
No, because it's not the same thing. You can't take an economy that is just barely converting out of imperialism and mercantilism and then peg all the old ills on what is just beginning.
All we need to is just run the clock forward. What happens when capitalism enters a system? The more entrenched it becomes, eventually slavery ends.
By contrast, what happens whenever someone tries to implement Communism? Some sort of one party, super state that suppresses opposition. Every time. Lenin had actually temporarily backed off on his efforts to convert Russia over to Communism (New Economic Policy and the rise of the Kulaks). A limited form of capitalism was reintroduced to make sure people didn't starve.
When Stalin came to power, he started collectivizing. Why? Because the communist system was supposed to have no private property. The workers needed to own the means of production. It wasn't happening naturally, so Stalin forced it. The motivation is to create a communist system through and through. So then we also run the clock forward again. The more entrenched a system tries to adopt Communism, they more they must resort to cohersion because most people won't give up on their private property voluntarily. So you kill or enslave them. There's a very obvious causal through line from motivation, to implementation, to result.
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On May 31 2019 13:35 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2019 13:26 Falling wrote:
@GH
Slavery has been pretty normative of human experience for all of recorded history. Same as other ills like infanticide. Worldwide you see these phenomenons. From a macro perspective, it's actually weird when we don't have slavery. I've noticed the argument of "not true capitalism" has been gaining traction so I presume you allow the same for Stalin representing communism?
I mean sure, that's where I started this. I suppose I'm trying to determine why a failure in capitalism is an indictment of the entire system, while failures of communism are to be excused and the assumption made that we'd fix them if we tried it.
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Canada11450 Posts
This is a common refrain but chattel slavery as it existed in the US (the Caribbean and such too)was both largely unique in the history of slavery and recognized as a horrific practice by much of the world at the time.
It's uniqueness had little to do with capitalism. (Or if it was, I'd like to see specifically how.)
Rather the uniqueness was due to the racial component. Aside from debt slavery, historically slaves have usually been considered property (where a society has such distinctions due to formal law.) But very often there was some sort of manumission- a possibility of freedom. As I understand it, early on some slaves in the South could be freed. But due to the racial component, freed slaves were often mistaken as slaves, leading to capture. Race-based slavery ends up becoming a very nasty, but efficient way of identifying slave from free, which I suspect there was some sort of twisted logic that led to permanent slavery for all. It was just too easy to divide society (especially when combined with the racial hierarchy ideas of the day.)
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On May 31 2019 14:05 CatharsisUT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2019 13:35 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 31 2019 13:26 Falling wrote:
@GH
Slavery has been pretty normative of human experience for all of recorded history. Same as other ills like infanticide. Worldwide you see these phenomenons. From a macro perspective, it's actually weird when we don't have slavery. I've noticed the argument of "not true capitalism" has been gaining traction so I presume you allow the same for Stalin representing communism? I mean sure, that's where I started this. I suppose I'm trying to determine why a failure in capitalism is an indictment of the entire system, while failures of communism are to be excused and the assumption made that we'd fix them if we tried it.
Which way would you prefer it?
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I have sadly not much time to discuss this, as this has become my favorite thing to red about lately, but in short:
If you want to "oppose communism", shouting "commies bad", "it's like nazi" and "look at how it never worked" is misinformed bullshit and whoever does that should be at least ashamed of themselves, if not banned from civilized discussion. Sitgmatizing a viewpoint with simplistic catchphrases isn't a proper way to discuss. If you are willing to look past that, I urge you to at least read something on Marx - Capital isn't the easiest read of all, but do read something about it. It is pretty obvious the guy was a genius, he has actually foreseen a lot of things we are only beginning to think en mass about now - however a lot of his thinking was also heavily influenced by his era and is, in my opinion, pretty outdated - which is also one of the big flaws of some people advocating for communism nowadays, that they can't free themselves of the framework which is actually ultimately still built on 19th century phillosphy.
Now I personally think that having "true communism" would be cool - to trace back to Marx again, he actually believed that this would be the ultimate way to make any person free to do whatever the hell they want, as it will end any kind of scarcity. Sadly, we have never seen that in practice, because everyone got stuck in implementing the "socialism" step of the progress, as the people implementing the step never failed to notice how nice for them it is to do keep it that way. And this is kinda enough for me to acknowledge that this is probably not worth trying all over again in the same form.
I am no big thinker and I am willing to admit it, I am also lazy to read a lot of philosophy, so I am pretty sure my thought have been fleshed out much better by much smarter people already, but to me it seems almost surprisingly clear what we should do and even more surprising that it's not happening:
Firstly, People need to seize the means of communication. Yeah, it's a shitty pun, but it's true - we (as in "we in the western countries") live in a supposed democracy, but a lot of things are not beneficial for the majority people (especially so in the US) - how the fuck is that possible? How come the people don't just outvote the corporations? Because they constatntly fail to organize themselves! It's absolutely stunning, again especially in the US, and even more in the age of instant worldwide communication. Even the craziest sounding policies I will talk about below can be implemented completely within the current democratic system, it literally require people to stand up and do it.
My primary philosophy for a social system would be for people to be as free to do things as possible. I have talked about it earlier that I consider human labor the most outrageous thing of our age. Honestly, I can't help but evaluate that human time is the most valuable thing in the world - how the hell are some people so concerned about well-being of chicken while being completely OK with almost everyone wasting their lives away doing some boring job? I know this is still a fringe opinion, but it is interesting to me that this actually was the original point of communism, already in the 19th century people understood that in a different social system, people should work much less, eventually even only as much as they really want to and this could be enough to maintain everything running.
The thing where I don't agree is that we need to do a hard revolution and start seizing the means of production. Why don't we just use the existing state to that help further this goal? In my opinion, we should not seize anything, we should have the state to gradually purchase the means of production and eventually provide all basic goods, leaving a "leftover free market" which would be expected to provide luxuries, stuff for fun, thus still driving innovation by competition (which I believe is somewhat neccessary and ignoring that is a super big flaw of many communists). The state production should be a strongly political issue, constantly checked by the people, in their own benefit, to steer it towards not being a "capitalism light with more corruption" but to invest money into automation and efficiency for the consumer, in the absence of an owner to profit from it.
Yeah, you say, the state is corrupt and is in the pockets of the rich, who would very much not like this to happen, but again, we are the fucking legion, we outvote the rich by 99:1, how the hell is the system so skewed for the rich still? The literally only thing people need to do is to realize that they aren't on the side of the barricade they think they are ...
In this sense, UBI is for example somewhat silly, because it does the absolute opposite - by giving people extra money, you allow them to just funnel those back to the owners of the means of production. It is nice in that it allows people more freedom from wage slavery, but it sortof fails in the main goal, because it doesn't change the incentive from making money. I still like it at least because it is a first glimmer of hope and I have definitely started watching politicians by their stance of this.
Anyway, I digressed a bit off topic - however it was a bit needed as a buildup to what I wanted to summarize, as expressing these opinions without context only always leads to confusion and shouting contests. So let me try to somewhat more coherently say, what I wanted to say:
Communism as a philosophy is not equivalent gulags and hlodomor, that is, actually, just post-carist imperialism, however ironic that is. It's one of the most humane philosophies we ever invented, however it is marred with historical baggage, misunderstanding and is also being sticked as a label on various things that are not quite related to its key principle. I think it needs to be adopted for the 21st century into some smarter, more thought out version of my current head-canon opisskaism and implemented as gradual change within capitalism. It surely will need a large transfer of wealth and resources from the top 1% towards the state, but hell yeah, that's why we invented taxes and if even the bloody US could have had a 90% bracket, the others can do that as well now (and the US can go back to that). A good way to start the needed societal shifts is for people to remove their heads out of their asses and to realize that capitalism, as we have it now and especially as it is in the US is terribly flawed and stop, for fuck sake, downplaying all its faults for a vague fear that not doing that will open the floodgates of bad, bad commies.
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