US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1699

On July 21 2019 09:27 KwarK wrote:
Joking aside do y’all really not read GH as someone far more interested in fairness than pragmatism? That’s my read on him. He’s Boxer on Animal Farm, not Napoleon. He’s not going to be robosigning death warrants, he’s going to be agonizing over them. The lack of pragmatism that makes him refuse to accept incremental change is the lack of pragmatism that’ll stop any revolution led by him from getting off the ground.

On July 21 2019 09:34 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:

Should I take it that you're his Sarah Sanders? Because he can speak for himself and when he does, he gives off the understanding that he will commit whatever atrocities must be committed, to reach his goal.

On July 21 2019 09:34 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:

Should I take it that you're his Sarah Sanders? Because he can speak for himself and when he does, he gives off the understanding that he will commit whatever atrocities must be committed, to reach his goal.

On July 21 2019 09:38 KwarK wrote:

I’m just trying to get on the list of people spared from his purges.

On July 21 2019 09:27 KwarK wrote:
Joking aside do y’all really not read GH as someone far more interested in fairness than pragmatism? That’s my read on him. He’s Boxer on Animal Farm, not Napoleon. He’s not going to be robosigning death warrants, he’s going to be agonizing over them. The lack of pragmatism that makes him refuse to accept incremental change is the lack of pragmatism that’ll stop any revolution led by him from getting off the ground.

On July 21 2019 06:47 Nebuchad wrote:
I don't know if I'm buying this. It was always about profits, you're objecting to the "maximization" part...

On July 21 2019 06:47 Nebuchad wrote:
But a capitalist who maximizes profits always got superior results under capitalism to a capitalist who doesn't, so the incentive was always present regardless of what the theory said or didn't say.

On July 21 2019 06:47 Nebuchad wrote:
Like, even today with predominantly neoliberal theories, you will still find bosses who care about sub-optimal ideas like "the well-being of their workers", that hasn't disappeared.

On July 21 2019 06:47 Nebuchad wrote:
If at some point you feel comfortable giving your own vision I'd unironically love to read that btw

On July 21 2019 06:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Then I think it is much preferable for the company to democratically decide on its future path, even in the event that 49.9% of them are unhappy with it, than that the decision for the future path is made by a significantly smaller group of people. I maintain that it is much more probable that the goals and desires of as many workers as possible are taken into consideration if the board is democratically elected and answers to the workers rather than if it answers to external shareholders who have profit as the ultimate goal.

I dunno if you read the thread some pages back, but worker owned enterprises aren't theory. There are many successful examples of them - perhaps not in the US, but definitely in Europe. My brother works in one, and while I'm not arguing that everything that makes their company thrive is possible to transfer to other companies, my overall impression is extremely positive - and my further impression is that many of the elements that makes his work place such a fantastic place to work is specifically related to it being a worker owned enterprise.

On July 21 2019 06:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
This doesn't mean there are no problems (there will certainly be pitfalls in trying to implement this) and I don't know how to deal with companies employing 2 million people, and I don't know if a worker owned grocery chain could compete with walmart on prices (as walmart's low prices are connected with their workers being underpaid). But it is absolutely something I think governments should incentivize. It's more fair on a fundamental level.

On July 21 2019 06:49 GreenHorizons wrote:
"naturally" is a bit of a loaded term we should probably look closer at.

On July 21 2019 06:49 GreenHorizons wrote:
What we mean when we say "baseline socialism" matters as well. For me my baseline is (North, Central ,& South) American-based Black and Brown theories and a handful of guys like Freire. But I think there's definitely a line of theory that leads to the kind of stuff you're talking about I described as being captured in essence by the "stupidpol" brand of socialism.

On July 21 2019 06:49 GreenHorizons wrote:
If I'm seeking a scientific socialism as a goal, how would you describe the argument you're making regarding society's future?

On July 21 2019 09:52 CosmicSpiral wrote:


I'm largely in favor of stakeholder theory: shareholder theory is too financially myopic and incentivizes leadership to make selfish decisions to the long-term detriment of its employees and the company's sustainability. Yet I'm skeptical that worker-owned enterprises will not fall to balkanization over time without extremely strict conditions to act as a countervailing force.

We have quite a few in the U.S.!



Solidarity within the group will be difficult to maintain as the employee pool expands. It's probably putting the cart before the horse to ponder how an ownership strategy will compete with the dominant retail corporation. Companies have to deal with issues of scale as they expand on a case-by-case basis.



Human beings are social animals. It's wired into our psyches to identify and band with others into communities, preferably ones that share common goals and perspective. How we ought to conceptualize those distinctions, prioritize them and define responsibilities to the group(s) is one of the most fraught questions underlying political/social theory in general.

My objection is as time progresses, the previously harmonious group of workers will eventually transform into "worker + x" as the pure democratic method proves insufficient to address all their values and needs. The label of "worker with ownership stake" is interconnected with friends within the company, family, local community, ideological allies, etc. To combat this, you need everyone to buy into a certain set of norms or have a grandiose identity to define themselves against (i.e. the elite, the patriarchy, whatever). One of the primary reasons socialist policies have succeeded in Europe so far is the countries have millennia of tradition and national identity uniting their citizens.



The notion multiple institutions work in concert to keep the oppressed down, and therefore must be neutralized or eliminated, pervades the history of socialism. For example, Marx championed the eradication of the nuclear family: he saw it as an institution that preempted revolution via passing down generational wealth, conspicuous consumption, and inculcating capitalist dogma. Engels subsequently identified the nuclear family as the byproduct of industrial capitalism in the 18th century (not exactly true upon centuries of additional investigation). Subsequent critics point out that capitalism's mere existence distorts the social and cultural milieu it accompanies, creating new institutions. Identity politics has another set of oppressive institutions in mind merely due to a different focus.

What I'm describing for Drone's scenario is mundane. Worker X is distraught that his opinion is a blip of data in the great sea. Worker Y becomes the head of a group of guys that all hang out together; eventually they subconsciously band together as an interest group. Worker Z fumes over what he perceives to be ramshackle group-think in the majority vote - he allies with others who share his disgruntlement.



Well, which one? I've mostly offered minor assessments on other people's arguments.

I could give you a list of broad solutions to address modern problems piecemeal.

On July 21 2019 09:41 JimmiC wrote:


So it is that I am the only one that takes him at his word on why I get frustrated him with him when the rest of you don't. That makes a lot of sense. Because when you even start to do the calculations on the amount of deaths that would happen in killing all the capital class, armies and supporters it gets very disturbing. And that does not even take into account the amount of environmental destruction that would occur.

Kind of odd how you can constantly post about murdering the "capitalist class" and there is no consequence, where as if you were talking about wiping out any other group of people we wouldn't allow it on this website. I guess that is not true, we have also allowed him to talk about wiping out Israel. But I guess as long as no one is taking anything he says at face value it is no more dangerous than a guy standing on a corner yelling about the end of the world if we don't stop the jews.

On July 21 2019 10:24 KwarK wrote:

Ownership is what separates the capitalist class from the proletariat and those are just sacred pieces of paper. You don’t need to kill the Walton family to turn Walmart into a worker cooperative, you simply need to stop paying dividends to their shares.

On July 21 2019 10:52 JimmiC wrote:

Well then perfect we can stop the whole bloody revolution posting at every turn. GH do realize that in the last month you have wrote the word revolution is 30 separate posts? Enough, stop being a edgelord. If you don't mean that you need to take up arms and kill the "capital class" stop saying it, it takes away from your actual point, which might actually be worth while with out all the bullshit added so you can be "out there" or "woke" or what ever it is you are after.

On July 21 2019 11:33 JimmiC wrote:
I posting about the topic most frequently brought up in this thread, by a long shot. If you are sick of the topic stop bringing it up.

On July 21 2019 10:52 JimmiC wrote:

Well then perfect we can stop the whole bloody revolution posting at every turn. GH do realize that in the last month you have wrote the word revolution is 30 separate posts? Enough, stop being a edgelord. If you don't mean that you need to take up arms and kill the "capital class" stop saying it, it takes away from your actual point, which might actually be worth while with out all the bullshit added so you can be "out there" or "woke" or what ever it is you are after.