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On October 24 2022 22:46 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2022 15:49 Mikau313 wrote:On October 24 2022 13:18 JimmiC wrote:On October 24 2022 12:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 24 2022 09:34 Slydie wrote:On October 24 2022 05:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2022 23:19 EnDeR_ wrote:
It still baffles me that conservatives hold on so tightly to trickle-down economics. It has never worked, all it does is increase inequality... This is a feature, not a bug of capitalism. They're just advocating capitalism. It is much more to it than that. To me, the main features of capitalism is to let the market decide the value of goods and services, then there is large spectrum of what and how this needs regulations and intervention. Some consider that when the rich get too rich, it can be a threat to the principle of free markets: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Capitalism_from_the_Capitalists I'm aware of reformists. I find this and most reformist arguments silly. Capital accumulation is a central characteristic of capitalism. A foundational issue the "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists" crowd are trying to navigate is that the problem is capitalism functioning as designed. Rather than confront that, capitalists across the political spectrum are trying to redirect the responsibility onto individuals aka the "bad apple" capitalists and their enablers. The composition of these "bad apples" varies with political tendencies and personal affinities. Another problem they face is that capitalists already "won", it's silly to aspire to replacing capitalism's winners with new capitalists for the sake of saving capitalism. As such, the solutions they arrive at lack the systemic foundations needed to be of any functional value as viable solutions and instead function (sometimes unabashedly) to temporally (and frequently cynically) ameliorate rather than rectify the externalities of capitalism in order to hopelessly perpetuate it. How is your preferred communist country doing it better? I would ask how you would change it but given you are against incremental change the only question to pose to you it what system should it be. In the past it seemed to be China but given that all of China's growth under Xi has been him opening private markets to have have owners make massive profits on the backs the unpaid rightless workers, non existent environmental rules the same way that the west once did. And he is far more effective at consolidating power as well as getting rid of any remotely effective workers rights groups or unions. The problem with asking "How is your preferred communist country doing it better" is that the US has spent an awful lot of time and resources trying to destabilize those communist countries. Don't get me wrong, I don't think communism is the answer (even if I do think our current crop of Capitalism is a massive problem), but you can't exactly look at communist countries where the US has done everything short of an actual invasion to make sure it didn't work as proof Communism doesn't work. Sure just as every one of America's rivals has tried to destabilize anywhere with American ties, they all only care about themselves and not others. I'm not saying communism does not work, that is not the discussion I'm looking to have. I'm just super bored by the comparison of utopian communism vs actual democracies with capitalism. Zero nuance where everything wrong everywhere is either the capitalism they employ or "capitalist propaganda". It would be equally boring and pointless if someone popped in say that all the issues in America are caused by communism and communist propaganda. It is pretty clear that all capitalist countries are not equal or ran the same, and some do a much better job than others, those are actually interesting discussions. What the communist countries actually are doing well would also be interesting. But pretending that countries like China or Venezuela are even communist to begin with is a hard sell, then that they treat there people better is pointless because it is obviously untrue. Show nested quote +On October 24 2022 17:22 plasmidghost wrote:On October 24 2022 13:18 JimmiC wrote:On October 24 2022 12:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 24 2022 09:34 Slydie wrote:On October 24 2022 05:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2022 23:19 EnDeR_ wrote:
It still baffles me that conservatives hold on so tightly to trickle-down economics. It has never worked, all it does is increase inequality... This is a feature, not a bug of capitalism. They're just advocating capitalism. It is much more to it than that. To me, the main features of capitalism is to let the market decide the value of goods and services, then there is large spectrum of what and how this needs regulations and intervention. Some consider that when the rich get too rich, it can be a threat to the principle of free markets: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Capitalism_from_the_Capitalists I'm aware of reformists. I find this and most reformist arguments silly. Capital accumulation is a central characteristic of capitalism. A foundational issue the "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists" crowd are trying to navigate is that the problem is capitalism functioning as designed. Rather than confront that, capitalists across the political spectrum are trying to redirect the responsibility onto individuals aka the "bad apple" capitalists and their enablers. The composition of these "bad apples" varies with political tendencies and personal affinities. Another problem they face is that capitalists already "won", it's silly to aspire to replacing capitalism's winners with new capitalists for the sake of saving capitalism. As such, the solutions they arrive at lack the systemic foundations needed to be of any functional value as viable solutions and instead function (sometimes unabashedly) to temporally (and frequently cynically) ameliorate rather than rectify the externalities of capitalism in order to hopelessly perpetuate it. How is your preferred communist country doing it better? I would ask how you would change it but given you are against incremental change the only question to pose to you it what system should it be. In the past it seemed to be China but given that all of China's growth under Xi has been him opening private markets to have have owners make massive profits on the backs the unpaid rightless workers, non existent environmental rules the same way that the west once did. And he is far more effective at consolidating power as well as getting rid of any remotely effective workers rights groups or unions. Not to get too off-topic but Vietnam is the closest country to my ideal of socialism and I believe they're doing a good job of it There you go, I do not know a ton about Vietnam. What is it that you like about how they are governed? How do they compare to countries of similar size/situation and what is it that the communism does better?
After the Vietnam war, their economy was struggling for a long time as they tried traditional communist economic models of collective ownership and employment that failed due to many external factors like severe climate events that ruined their agriculture and a prevention of aid that didn't come from the communist bloc, but major reforms happened under the Đổi Mới acts of 1986 that essentially blended capitalist, socialist, and communist practices into an economic model that prioritized industrialization and education of the population. Currently, they're market socialist, with private businesses allowed, but there's a ton of state intervention in the economy to manage employment, profit distribution, etc.
Vietnam shifting from communist to market socialist economics is in line with Marxist theory, as Marx states that for socialism and, later, communism to take place requires industrialization at a level that currently only really happens under capitalist condition. Without industry, Vietnam would've never succeeded in becoming one of the countries with the biggest growth potentials in the world while providing healthcare, free exercise, rights to food, direct management of land to prevent inequities in use, and similar.
If I had to compare them to another country at the moment, I would look to the economic potential of other countries in the SEA region like Cambodia. They currently are seeing development rates in line with, if I had to estimate, America post-WWII. Their unemployment rate is significantly lower than the US's (I think less than 2% pre-Covid) and due to the directed redistribution of resources, rich people are not really a thing there, and the government plays an active role in making sure every citizen has all basic needs met while also ensuring freedom of religion, petition, speech, etc.
For as much as currently applying the communist term can be debated, I see Vietnam as the hallmark model for how a society should progress to communism and I hope that they can achieve that goal
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On October 24 2022 21:51 Artisreal wrote:
The logic applied to capitalism being without alternative (for the person arguing the point) is rather similar to someone (passively or actively) profiting from systemic racism saying changes should be made incrementally.
From the perspective of a white man, the plight of anti racist activist looks similar to those grassroots climate change activists.
Everyone knows the status quo is bad (except popular denialists) and when it comes to civil disobedience as a means to force action, (as years upon years upon years of) quiet protests were fruitless, activists are faced with their legitimate protests being deemed too intrusive to everyday life of people who (sometimes falsely) consider themselves not to be affected by the crisis.
Much akin to that capitalism is what some consider the best there ever was.
It's still horseshit. And it's still destroying our planet. That is enough reason to rethink work and the attached growth paradigm.
Unless you're willing to do that on a global scale, we're (with virtual certainty) just fucked in the long run.
There is no alternative to facing and tackling the destructiveness of the current economic system.
Oh there's an alternative, I've seen it done here and elsewhere countless times. Admittedly it isn't an appealing alternative given the whole head in the sand whataboutisming themselves into paralysis in favor of near certain doom. But alas, it is an alternative and a popular one at that for capitalists.
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On October 25 2022 00:41 plasmidghost wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2022 22:46 JimmiC wrote:On October 24 2022 15:49 Mikau313 wrote:On October 24 2022 13:18 JimmiC wrote:On October 24 2022 12:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 24 2022 09:34 Slydie wrote:On October 24 2022 05:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2022 23:19 EnDeR_ wrote:
It still baffles me that conservatives hold on so tightly to trickle-down economics. It has never worked, all it does is increase inequality... This is a feature, not a bug of capitalism. They're just advocating capitalism. It is much more to it than that. To me, the main features of capitalism is to let the market decide the value of goods and services, then there is large spectrum of what and how this needs regulations and intervention. Some consider that when the rich get too rich, it can be a threat to the principle of free markets: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Capitalism_from_the_Capitalists I'm aware of reformists. I find this and most reformist arguments silly. Capital accumulation is a central characteristic of capitalism. A foundational issue the "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists" crowd are trying to navigate is that the problem is capitalism functioning as designed. Rather than confront that, capitalists across the political spectrum are trying to redirect the responsibility onto individuals aka the "bad apple" capitalists and their enablers. The composition of these "bad apples" varies with political tendencies and personal affinities. Another problem they face is that capitalists already "won", it's silly to aspire to replacing capitalism's winners with new capitalists for the sake of saving capitalism. As such, the solutions they arrive at lack the systemic foundations needed to be of any functional value as viable solutions and instead function (sometimes unabashedly) to temporally (and frequently cynically) ameliorate rather than rectify the externalities of capitalism in order to hopelessly perpetuate it. How is your preferred communist country doing it better? I would ask how you would change it but given you are against incremental change the only question to pose to you it what system should it be. In the past it seemed to be China but given that all of China's growth under Xi has been him opening private markets to have have owners make massive profits on the backs the unpaid rightless workers, non existent environmental rules the same way that the west once did. And he is far more effective at consolidating power as well as getting rid of any remotely effective workers rights groups or unions. The problem with asking "How is your preferred communist country doing it better" is that the US has spent an awful lot of time and resources trying to destabilize those communist countries. Don't get me wrong, I don't think communism is the answer (even if I do think our current crop of Capitalism is a massive problem), but you can't exactly look at communist countries where the US has done everything short of an actual invasion to make sure it didn't work as proof Communism doesn't work. Sure just as every one of America's rivals has tried to destabilize anywhere with American ties, they all only care about themselves and not others. I'm not saying communism does not work, that is not the discussion I'm looking to have. I'm just super bored by the comparison of utopian communism vs actual democracies with capitalism. Zero nuance where everything wrong everywhere is either the capitalism they employ or "capitalist propaganda". It would be equally boring and pointless if someone popped in say that all the issues in America are caused by communism and communist propaganda. It is pretty clear that all capitalist countries are not equal or ran the same, and some do a much better job than others, those are actually interesting discussions. What the communist countries actually are doing well would also be interesting. But pretending that countries like China or Venezuela are even communist to begin with is a hard sell, then that they treat there people better is pointless because it is obviously untrue. On October 24 2022 17:22 plasmidghost wrote:On October 24 2022 13:18 JimmiC wrote:On October 24 2022 12:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 24 2022 09:34 Slydie wrote:On October 24 2022 05:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2022 23:19 EnDeR_ wrote:
It still baffles me that conservatives hold on so tightly to trickle-down economics. It has never worked, all it does is increase inequality... This is a feature, not a bug of capitalism. They're just advocating capitalism. It is much more to it than that. To me, the main features of capitalism is to let the market decide the value of goods and services, then there is large spectrum of what and how this needs regulations and intervention. Some consider that when the rich get too rich, it can be a threat to the principle of free markets: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Capitalism_from_the_Capitalists I'm aware of reformists. I find this and most reformist arguments silly. Capital accumulation is a central characteristic of capitalism. A foundational issue the "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists" crowd are trying to navigate is that the problem is capitalism functioning as designed. Rather than confront that, capitalists across the political spectrum are trying to redirect the responsibility onto individuals aka the "bad apple" capitalists and their enablers. The composition of these "bad apples" varies with political tendencies and personal affinities. Another problem they face is that capitalists already "won", it's silly to aspire to replacing capitalism's winners with new capitalists for the sake of saving capitalism. As such, the solutions they arrive at lack the systemic foundations needed to be of any functional value as viable solutions and instead function (sometimes unabashedly) to temporally (and frequently cynically) ameliorate rather than rectify the externalities of capitalism in order to hopelessly perpetuate it. How is your preferred communist country doing it better? I would ask how you would change it but given you are against incremental change the only question to pose to you it what system should it be. In the past it seemed to be China but given that all of China's growth under Xi has been him opening private markets to have have owners make massive profits on the backs the unpaid rightless workers, non existent environmental rules the same way that the west once did. And he is far more effective at consolidating power as well as getting rid of any remotely effective workers rights groups or unions. Not to get too off-topic but Vietnam is the closest country to my ideal of socialism and I believe they're doing a good job of it There you go, I do not know a ton about Vietnam. What is it that you like about how they are governed? How do they compare to countries of similar size/situation and what is it that the communism does better? After the Vietnam war, their economy was struggling for a long time as they tried traditional communist economic models of collective ownership and employment that failed due to many external factors like severe climate events that ruined their agriculture and a prevention of aid that didn't come from the communist bloc, but major reforms happened under the Đổi Mới acts of 1986 that essentially blended capitalist, socialist, and communist practices into an economic model that prioritized industrialization and education of the population. Currently, they're market socialist, with private businesses allowed, but there's a ton of state intervention in the economy to manage employment, profit distribution, etc. Vietnam shifting from communist to market socialist economics is in line with Marxist theory, as Marx states that for socialism and, later, communism to take place requires industrialization at a level that currently only really happens under capitalist condition. Without industry, Vietnam would've never succeeded in becoming one of the countries with the biggest growth potentials in the world while providing healthcare, free exercise, rights to food, direct management of land to prevent inequities in use, and similar. If I had to compare them to another country at the moment, I would look to the economic potential of other countries in the SEA region like Cambodia. They currently are seeing development rates in line with, if I had to estimate, America post-WWII. Their unemployment rate is significantly lower than the US's (I think less than 2% pre-Covid) and due to the directed redistribution of resources, rich people are not really a thing there, and the government plays an active role in making sure every citizen has all basic needs met while also ensuring freedom of religion, petition, speech, etc. For as much as currently applying the communist term can be debated, I see Vietnam as the hallmark model for how a society should progress to communism and I hope that they can achieve that goal
Even in your prime example where "rich people are not really a thing" it took 1 minute to find multiple billionaires in USD:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/ampe.vnexpress.net/news/business/data-speaks/seven-vietnamese-billionaires-among-world-s-richest-forbes-4447921.html
Also, Thailand absolutely dwarfs Vietnam's GDP per capita, and Vietnam is lower than the Philippines in that regard.
Not that any of those countries have much in common with the west anyway, so I struggle to find them relevant as a comparison to how leftwing policies should be carried out. How is Venezuela doing?
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Asking how Venezuela is doing is about as bullshit as asking how Iraq is doing would be.
You don't get to completely destabilize a country and then smugly ask people how well the country is doing.
Funny how whenever a country doing well is brought up the response is always to point at GDP, rather than stuff like wealth inequality (Vietnam scores better than the US) or poverty rates (Vietnam's are 3 times lower than the US). Almost like GDP is a great measure for finding out for how strong a country's economy is, but says fuck all about how well its people are doing.
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On October 25 2022 02:01 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2022 21:51 Artisreal wrote:
The logic applied to capitalism being without alternative (for the person arguing the point) is rather similar to someone (passively or actively) profiting from systemic racism saying changes should be made incrementally.
From the perspective of a white man, the plight of anti racist activist looks similar to those grassroots climate change activists.
Everyone knows the status quo is bad (except popular denialists) and when it comes to civil disobedience as a means to force action, (as years upon years upon years of) quiet protests were fruitless, activists are faced with their legitimate protests being deemed too intrusive to everyday life of people who (sometimes falsely) consider themselves not to be affected by the crisis.
Much akin to that capitalism is what some consider the best there ever was.
It's still horseshit. And it's still destroying our planet. That is enough reason to rethink work and the attached growth paradigm.
Unless you're willing to do that on a global scale, we're (with virtual certainty) just fucked in the long run.
There is no alternative to facing and tackling the destructiveness of the current economic system. Oh there's an alternative, I've seen it done here and elsewhere countless times. Admittedly it isn't an appealing alternative given the whole head in the sand whataboutisming themselves into paralysis in favor of near certain doom. But alas, it is an alternative and a popular one at that for capitalists.
I was trying to be a bit tongue in cheek with the tina remark as capitalism is often framed as such but yeah, just chugging along like always is the most practiced alternative (for people like me who more often than not weild the bigger stick solely due to place of birth and such)
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On October 25 2022 04:04 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2022 00:41 plasmidghost wrote:On October 24 2022 22:46 JimmiC wrote:On October 24 2022 15:49 Mikau313 wrote:On October 24 2022 13:18 JimmiC wrote:On October 24 2022 12:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 24 2022 09:34 Slydie wrote:On October 24 2022 05:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2022 23:19 EnDeR_ wrote:
It still baffles me that conservatives hold on so tightly to trickle-down economics. It has never worked, all it does is increase inequality... This is a feature, not a bug of capitalism. They're just advocating capitalism. It is much more to it than that. To me, the main features of capitalism is to let the market decide the value of goods and services, then there is large spectrum of what and how this needs regulations and intervention. Some consider that when the rich get too rich, it can be a threat to the principle of free markets: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Capitalism_from_the_Capitalists I'm aware of reformists. I find this and most reformist arguments silly. Capital accumulation is a central characteristic of capitalism. A foundational issue the "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists" crowd are trying to navigate is that the problem is capitalism functioning as designed. Rather than confront that, capitalists across the political spectrum are trying to redirect the responsibility onto individuals aka the "bad apple" capitalists and their enablers. The composition of these "bad apples" varies with political tendencies and personal affinities. Another problem they face is that capitalists already "won", it's silly to aspire to replacing capitalism's winners with new capitalists for the sake of saving capitalism. As such, the solutions they arrive at lack the systemic foundations needed to be of any functional value as viable solutions and instead function (sometimes unabashedly) to temporally (and frequently cynically) ameliorate rather than rectify the externalities of capitalism in order to hopelessly perpetuate it. How is your preferred communist country doing it better? I would ask how you would change it but given you are against incremental change the only question to pose to you it what system should it be. In the past it seemed to be China but given that all of China's growth under Xi has been him opening private markets to have have owners make massive profits on the backs the unpaid rightless workers, non existent environmental rules the same way that the west once did. And he is far more effective at consolidating power as well as getting rid of any remotely effective workers rights groups or unions. The problem with asking "How is your preferred communist country doing it better" is that the US has spent an awful lot of time and resources trying to destabilize those communist countries. Don't get me wrong, I don't think communism is the answer (even if I do think our current crop of Capitalism is a massive problem), but you can't exactly look at communist countries where the US has done everything short of an actual invasion to make sure it didn't work as proof Communism doesn't work. Sure just as every one of America's rivals has tried to destabilize anywhere with American ties, they all only care about themselves and not others. I'm not saying communism does not work, that is not the discussion I'm looking to have. I'm just super bored by the comparison of utopian communism vs actual democracies with capitalism. Zero nuance where everything wrong everywhere is either the capitalism they employ or "capitalist propaganda". It would be equally boring and pointless if someone popped in say that all the issues in America are caused by communism and communist propaganda. It is pretty clear that all capitalist countries are not equal or ran the same, and some do a much better job than others, those are actually interesting discussions. What the communist countries actually are doing well would also be interesting. But pretending that countries like China or Venezuela are even communist to begin with is a hard sell, then that they treat there people better is pointless because it is obviously untrue. On October 24 2022 17:22 plasmidghost wrote:On October 24 2022 13:18 JimmiC wrote:On October 24 2022 12:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 24 2022 09:34 Slydie wrote:On October 24 2022 05:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2022 23:19 EnDeR_ wrote:
It still baffles me that conservatives hold on so tightly to trickle-down economics. It has never worked, all it does is increase inequality... This is a feature, not a bug of capitalism. They're just advocating capitalism. It is much more to it than that. To me, the main features of capitalism is to let the market decide the value of goods and services, then there is large spectrum of what and how this needs regulations and intervention. Some consider that when the rich get too rich, it can be a threat to the principle of free markets: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Capitalism_from_the_Capitalists I'm aware of reformists. I find this and most reformist arguments silly. Capital accumulation is a central characteristic of capitalism. A foundational issue the "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists" crowd are trying to navigate is that the problem is capitalism functioning as designed. Rather than confront that, capitalists across the political spectrum are trying to redirect the responsibility onto individuals aka the "bad apple" capitalists and their enablers. The composition of these "bad apples" varies with political tendencies and personal affinities. Another problem they face is that capitalists already "won", it's silly to aspire to replacing capitalism's winners with new capitalists for the sake of saving capitalism. As such, the solutions they arrive at lack the systemic foundations needed to be of any functional value as viable solutions and instead function (sometimes unabashedly) to temporally (and frequently cynically) ameliorate rather than rectify the externalities of capitalism in order to hopelessly perpetuate it. How is your preferred communist country doing it better? I would ask how you would change it but given you are against incremental change the only question to pose to you it what system should it be. In the past it seemed to be China but given that all of China's growth under Xi has been him opening private markets to have have owners make massive profits on the backs the unpaid rightless workers, non existent environmental rules the same way that the west once did. And he is far more effective at consolidating power as well as getting rid of any remotely effective workers rights groups or unions. Not to get too off-topic but Vietnam is the closest country to my ideal of socialism and I believe they're doing a good job of it There you go, I do not know a ton about Vietnam. What is it that you like about how they are governed? How do they compare to countries of similar size/situation and what is it that the communism does better? After the Vietnam war, their economy was struggling for a long time as they tried traditional communist economic models of collective ownership and employment that failed due to many external factors like severe climate events that ruined their agriculture and a prevention of aid that didn't come from the communist bloc, but major reforms happened under the Đổi Mới acts of 1986 that essentially blended capitalist, socialist, and communist practices into an economic model that prioritized industrialization and education of the population. Currently, they're market socialist, with private businesses allowed, but there's a ton of state intervention in the economy to manage employment, profit distribution, etc. Vietnam shifting from communist to market socialist economics is in line with Marxist theory, as Marx states that for socialism and, later, communism to take place requires industrialization at a level that currently only really happens under capitalist condition. Without industry, Vietnam would've never succeeded in becoming one of the countries with the biggest growth potentials in the world while providing healthcare, free exercise, rights to food, direct management of land to prevent inequities in use, and similar. If I had to compare them to another country at the moment, I would look to the economic potential of other countries in the SEA region like Cambodia. They currently are seeing development rates in line with, if I had to estimate, America post-WWII. Their unemployment rate is significantly lower than the US's (I think less than 2% pre-Covid) and due to the directed redistribution of resources, rich people are not really a thing there, and the government plays an active role in making sure every citizen has all basic needs met while also ensuring freedom of religion, petition, speech, etc. For as much as currently applying the communist term can be debated, I see Vietnam as the hallmark model for how a society should progress to communism and I hope that they can achieve that goal Even in your prime example where "rich people are not really a thing" it took 1 minute to find multiple billionaires in USD: https://www.google.com/amp/s/ampe.vnexpress.net/news/business/data-speaks/seven-vietnamese-billionaires-among-world-s-richest-forbes-4447921.htmlAlso, Thailand absolutely dwarfs Vietnam's GDP per capita, and Vietnam is lower than the Philippines in that regard. Not that any of those countries have much in common with the west anyway, so I struggle to find them relevant as a comparison to how leftwing policies should be carried out. How is Venezuela doing?
To clarify on saying rich people weren't really a thing, I mean in the American sense of how pervasive the rich are and income inequality. I say they're not a thing because on average, the highest 20% income bracket in Vietnam only earned about 10x the lowest 20% pre-Covid and about 8x as of 2020. If you compare that to the US's insane disparity between the highest and lowest 20% of earners, the difference is 17.5x and worsening. And as for percentage of wealth, the Gini coefficient used by the World Bank to measure inequality puts Vietnam significantly less than the US. That's what I mean by rich people aren't really a thing, although there are very concerning trends regarding people in Vietnam getting stupid amounts of wealth.
As for GDP per capita, that's ultimately meaningless as a statistic. Trying to apply that to different countries with different economic models doesn't work because you can have $10,000 in Vietnam and $15,000 in Thailand but if things in Thailand are on average 2x more than in Vietnam, your effective purchasing power is less.
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On October 25 2022 07:06 plasmidghost wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2022 04:04 Slydie wrote:On October 25 2022 00:41 plasmidghost wrote:On October 24 2022 22:46 JimmiC wrote:On October 24 2022 15:49 Mikau313 wrote:On October 24 2022 13:18 JimmiC wrote:On October 24 2022 12:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 24 2022 09:34 Slydie wrote:On October 24 2022 05:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2022 23:19 EnDeR_ wrote:
It still baffles me that conservatives hold on so tightly to trickle-down economics. It has never worked, all it does is increase inequality... This is a feature, not a bug of capitalism. They're just advocating capitalism. It is much more to it than that. To me, the main features of capitalism is to let the market decide the value of goods and services, then there is large spectrum of what and how this needs regulations and intervention. Some consider that when the rich get too rich, it can be a threat to the principle of free markets: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Capitalism_from_the_Capitalists I'm aware of reformists. I find this and most reformist arguments silly. Capital accumulation is a central characteristic of capitalism. A foundational issue the "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists" crowd are trying to navigate is that the problem is capitalism functioning as designed. Rather than confront that, capitalists across the political spectrum are trying to redirect the responsibility onto individuals aka the "bad apple" capitalists and their enablers. The composition of these "bad apples" varies with political tendencies and personal affinities. Another problem they face is that capitalists already "won", it's silly to aspire to replacing capitalism's winners with new capitalists for the sake of saving capitalism. As such, the solutions they arrive at lack the systemic foundations needed to be of any functional value as viable solutions and instead function (sometimes unabashedly) to temporally (and frequently cynically) ameliorate rather than rectify the externalities of capitalism in order to hopelessly perpetuate it. How is your preferred communist country doing it better? I would ask how you would change it but given you are against incremental change the only question to pose to you it what system should it be. In the past it seemed to be China but given that all of China's growth under Xi has been him opening private markets to have have owners make massive profits on the backs the unpaid rightless workers, non existent environmental rules the same way that the west once did. And he is far more effective at consolidating power as well as getting rid of any remotely effective workers rights groups or unions. The problem with asking "How is your preferred communist country doing it better" is that the US has spent an awful lot of time and resources trying to destabilize those communist countries. Don't get me wrong, I don't think communism is the answer (even if I do think our current crop of Capitalism is a massive problem), but you can't exactly look at communist countries where the US has done everything short of an actual invasion to make sure it didn't work as proof Communism doesn't work. Sure just as every one of America's rivals has tried to destabilize anywhere with American ties, they all only care about themselves and not others. I'm not saying communism does not work, that is not the discussion I'm looking to have. I'm just super bored by the comparison of utopian communism vs actual democracies with capitalism. Zero nuance where everything wrong everywhere is either the capitalism they employ or "capitalist propaganda". It would be equally boring and pointless if someone popped in say that all the issues in America are caused by communism and communist propaganda. It is pretty clear that all capitalist countries are not equal or ran the same, and some do a much better job than others, those are actually interesting discussions. What the communist countries actually are doing well would also be interesting. But pretending that countries like China or Venezuela are even communist to begin with is a hard sell, then that they treat there people better is pointless because it is obviously untrue. On October 24 2022 17:22 plasmidghost wrote:On October 24 2022 13:18 JimmiC wrote:On October 24 2022 12:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 24 2022 09:34 Slydie wrote:On October 24 2022 05:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2022 23:19 EnDeR_ wrote:
It still baffles me that conservatives hold on so tightly to trickle-down economics. It has never worked, all it does is increase inequality... This is a feature, not a bug of capitalism. They're just advocating capitalism. It is much more to it than that. To me, the main features of capitalism is to let the market decide the value of goods and services, then there is large spectrum of what and how this needs regulations and intervention. Some consider that when the rich get too rich, it can be a threat to the principle of free markets: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Capitalism_from_the_Capitalists I'm aware of reformists. I find this and most reformist arguments silly. Capital accumulation is a central characteristic of capitalism. A foundational issue the "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists" crowd are trying to navigate is that the problem is capitalism functioning as designed. Rather than confront that, capitalists across the political spectrum are trying to redirect the responsibility onto individuals aka the "bad apple" capitalists and their enablers. The composition of these "bad apples" varies with political tendencies and personal affinities. Another problem they face is that capitalists already "won", it's silly to aspire to replacing capitalism's winners with new capitalists for the sake of saving capitalism. As such, the solutions they arrive at lack the systemic foundations needed to be of any functional value as viable solutions and instead function (sometimes unabashedly) to temporally (and frequently cynically) ameliorate rather than rectify the externalities of capitalism in order to hopelessly perpetuate it. How is your preferred communist country doing it better? I would ask how you would change it but given you are against incremental change the only question to pose to you it what system should it be. In the past it seemed to be China but given that all of China's growth under Xi has been him opening private markets to have have owners make massive profits on the backs the unpaid rightless workers, non existent environmental rules the same way that the west once did. And he is far more effective at consolidating power as well as getting rid of any remotely effective workers rights groups or unions. Not to get too off-topic but Vietnam is the closest country to my ideal of socialism and I believe they're doing a good job of it There you go, I do not know a ton about Vietnam. What is it that you like about how they are governed? How do they compare to countries of similar size/situation and what is it that the communism does better? After the Vietnam war, their economy was struggling for a long time as they tried traditional communist economic models of collective ownership and employment that failed due to many external factors like severe climate events that ruined their agriculture and a prevention of aid that didn't come from the communist bloc, but major reforms happened under the Đổi Mới acts of 1986 that essentially blended capitalist, socialist, and communist practices into an economic model that prioritized industrialization and education of the population. Currently, they're market socialist, with private businesses allowed, but there's a ton of state intervention in the economy to manage employment, profit distribution, etc. Vietnam shifting from communist to market socialist economics is in line with Marxist theory, as Marx states that for socialism and, later, communism to take place requires industrialization at a level that currently only really happens under capitalist condition. Without industry, Vietnam would've never succeeded in becoming one of the countries with the biggest growth potentials in the world while providing healthcare, free exercise, rights to food, direct management of land to prevent inequities in use, and similar. If I had to compare them to another country at the moment, I would look to the economic potential of other countries in the SEA region like Cambodia. They currently are seeing development rates in line with, if I had to estimate, America post-WWII. Their unemployment rate is significantly lower than the US's (I think less than 2% pre-Covid) and due to the directed redistribution of resources, rich people are not really a thing there, and the government plays an active role in making sure every citizen has all basic needs met while also ensuring freedom of religion, petition, speech, etc. For as much as currently applying the communist term can be debated, I see Vietnam as the hallmark model for how a society should progress to communism and I hope that they can achieve that goal Even in your prime example where "rich people are not really a thing" it took 1 minute to find multiple billionaires in USD: https://www.google.com/amp/s/ampe.vnexpress.net/news/business/data-speaks/seven-vietnamese-billionaires-among-world-s-richest-forbes-4447921.htmlAlso, Thailand absolutely dwarfs Vietnam's GDP per capita, and Vietnam is lower than the Philippines in that regard. Not that any of those countries have much in common with the west anyway, so I struggle to find them relevant as a comparison to how leftwing policies should be carried out. How is Venezuela doing? To clarify on saying rich people weren't really a thing, I mean in the American sense of how pervasive the rich are and income inequality. I say they're not a thing because on average, the highest 20% income bracket in Vietnam only earned about 10x the lowest 20% pre-Covid and about 8x as of 2020. If you compare that to the US's insane disparity between the highest and lowest 20% of earners, the difference is 17.5x and worsening. And as for percentage of wealth, the Gini coefficient used by the World Bank to measure inequality puts Vietnam significantly less than the US. That's what I mean by rich people aren't really a thing, although there are very concerning trends regarding people in Vietnam getting stupid amounts of wealth. As for GDP per capita, that's ultimately meaningless as a statistic. Trying to apply that to different countries with different economic models doesn't work because you can have $10,000 in Vietnam and $15,000 in Thailand but if things in Thailand are on average 2x more than in Vietnam, your effective purchasing power is less.
This is why people use GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power, when trying to compare living standards across countries.
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Corporate tax rates need to go up, but there should be tax rebates for payroll costs. For example the US corporate tax rate is 21%. It could go to 30% for example, but then payroll expenditures could for example offset corporate tax at a certain ratio. That way companies would be incentivised to increase wages since they wouldn't be worse off. And the additional income going to the workers would be captured by income tax anyway, so the government doesn't lose either.
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On October 25 2022 11:44 gobbledydook wrote:
Corporate tax rates need to go up, but there should be tax rebates for payroll costs. For example the US corporate tax rate is 21%. It could go to 30% for example, but then payroll expenditures could for example offset corporate tax at a certain ratio. That way companies would be incentivised to increase wages since they wouldn't be worse off. And the additional income going to the workers would be captured by income tax anyway, so the government doesn't lose either.
You lost half the us at "tax rates need to go up". The other half is quietly trying to figure out how to lobby congress to put in loopholes that allow them to make managerial pay and shareholder dividends to also count to offset corporate tax so they can pocket the money instead of giving anything to filthy minimum wage workers.
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On October 25 2022 13:51 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2022 11:44 gobbledydook wrote:
Corporate tax rates need to go up, but there should be tax rebates for payroll costs. For example the US corporate tax rate is 21%. It could go to 30% for example, but then payroll expenditures could for example offset corporate tax at a certain ratio. That way companies would be incentivised to increase wages since they wouldn't be worse off. And the additional income going to the workers would be captured by income tax anyway, so the government doesn't lose either. You lost half the us at "tax rates need to go up". The other half is quietly trying to figure out how to lobby congress to put in loopholes that allow them to make managerial pay and shareholder dividends to also count to offset corporate tax so they can pocket the money instead of giving anything to filthy minimum wage workers.
1) Managerial pay is a small portion of the overall payroll. In any case the offsets could be, for example, limited to those employees earning below a set amount, or the percentages of offset decreases with increasing income, or so on, if this is an issue.
2) There is no point talking about a policy if you always assume it will be watered down or mutated into something not like the original.
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Before you increase corporate tax rates, in itself not a bad thing imo, you need to actually make companies pay the existing tax rate first.
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Some news from my former hometown. The Houston prison system has become even more of a sociopathic nightmare. So many GOP attack ads are saying that their DA is soft on crime when she's actually working with the police to illegally funnel money via cash bail systems and arresting those that can't pay it. 22 people have died in Houston jails this year so far, and no one really knows what happened to them.
Years of unconstitutional abuse at New York City’s jail on Rikers Island have generated national outcry and broad agreement that the facility must be shut down. A plan for this, albeit far from satisfactory, is now formally underway. But at Houston’s Harris County Jail, more deaths and arguably even worse conditions than at Rikers have barely registered nationally. There currently exists neither plans nor sufficient political pressure to put a stop to the systematic violence Houston’s most vulnerable residents are reportedly experiencing in the jail.
Today, the Harris County Jail detains more than 10,000 people––the highest number of people in more than a decade, presenting a stark contrast to an approximately 10 percent reduction since 2008 in the number of people incarcerated nationally. More than 80 percent of those inside the jail are detained pretrial. Nearly 80 percent of people admitted to the jail are recorded as likely to be suffering from a mental illness, according to the jail’s own data. Nearly 30 percent are on psychiatric medications. And over the last two years as the Covid-19 pandemic has torn through Texas’ most marginalized communities, the jail’s average daily population has increased by 24 percent.
As the population has surged, so too have the reported incidents of violence, medical neglect, abuse, and in-custody deaths. Between the summer months of 2019 and 2022, the number of officially recorded assaults in the jail has more than doubled and events involving use of force resulting in bodily injury have more than quadrupled.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/in-custody-deaths-surging-houston-harris-county-jail.html
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@plasmidghost
So the People in charge are doing something you think is illegal and bad, But the other people you dislike who aren't making any of the decisions are against it. Yet you thought it was reasonable to conflate both of them, even though the issue you really have is with the person(The DA) in this instance.
Besides the alleged accusations of illegal issue's, Did you have a solution for this or should I just feel down about it?
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Yeah, solve the American criminal justice system for us. We’re waiting!
/s
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On October 27 2022 21:28 Taelshin wrote:
@plasmidghost
So the People in charge are doing something you think is illegal and bad, But the other people you dislike who aren't making any of the decisions are against it. Yet you thought it was reasonable to conflate both of them, even though the issue you really have is with the person(The DA) in this instance.
Besides the alleged accusations of illegal issue's, Did you have a solution for this or should I just feel down about it?
I mean, you could just listen, and not be a defensive ass for no reason.
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I think ill wait for plasmid to respond, Don't need a couple of Knights to ride in, there is no damsel in distress here boys. It's just a push back to a post on a forum.
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On October 28 2022 01:24 Taelshin wrote:
I think ill wait for plasmid to respond, Don't need a couple of Knights to ride in, there is no damsel in distress here boys. It's just a push back to a post on a forum.
Maybe stop posting right wing memes?
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On October 28 2022 01:24 Taelshin wrote:
I think ill wait for plasmid to respond, Don't need a couple of Knights to ride in, there is no damsel in distress here boys. It's just a push back to a post on a forum.
Someone shares news from their hometown, pushing back with shit like "are you really really sure tho?" when you didn't grow up there, and so it doesn't even matter to you, is what makes you a defensive ass. Posting a passive aggressive "so do you have a solution ready or do I just need to feel bad?" is what makes you a defensive ass. But sure, if you're inclined to feel bad when someone shares bad news, you're absolutely welcome to. It would be novel to see someone on the right have some empathy about something.
You are correct that there's no damsel in distress. Doesn't mean I can't call you out for being an asshole.
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EPT
