EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 3886
| Forum Index > General Forum |
Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
|
JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
| ||
|
Acrofales
Spain17833 Posts
On February 24 2023 05:57 GreenHorizons wrote: It would have certainly been a poll worth formalizing/improving for tracking. You think the results might have discouraged pollsters (or rather their funding) from following up on it? The non-reformist reforms was the important part to take out of that post though, so I hope that was clear? I clicked through to the wiki. I hadn't heard of the term, but I had obviously heard of quite a few of the proposals. That said, among the challenges, the main one listed seems a bit silly: classifying policy that has the opposite effect of its intention as reformist reforms. I'm not sure I'd attribute malice to such consequences, rather than it just being either bad policy or the law of unexpected consequences. It's obviously not enough to just change policy. Any government worth their salt should change something, monitor what that does, and then update policy in case it isn't having the desired effect. It seems like policy making 101, regardless of whether that is a government, a business, or a social club making new policy. But I haven't read up enough to say much more beyond that. E: I forgot to mention that a lot of the explicit examples of reformist reforms seem mainly due to the absolute horror that is the US police, justice and prison system. If you reform *that* first (through I'm guessing non-reformist reforms), then suddenly hate crimes against trans people make more sense, as does ensuring domestic violence gets treated as a violent crime. Both of those seem like policy that is obviously pointing in the right direction, but if your police are a bunch of transphobic shitheads who shoot black people on sight, and get women deported rather than help them with their wife-beater husbands, then the problem isn't that legislation specifically, it's your police and justice system. I'll try to think on this and also why the police in Spain (which is shitter than most of western Europe) is still so much better than in the US. I think a good part is going to be all the same stuff highlighted in Bowling for Columbine 20 years ago (and that has had at most halfhearted attempts to deal with since): mostly the culture of fear perpetuated by the media, and the omnipresence of guns. Regarding the poll: I'm not going to try to guess why a news agency didn't do a better analysis or do a follow-up poll. It could range from ignorance to lack of interest on their part, to lack of funding in general, to explicit pressure to not look into those scary results too deeply, to some other reason. And I don't know anywhere near enough about "Axios on HBO" to even speculate one way or another. | ||
|
ZeroByte13
744 Posts
There are: 1. Multiple examples of socialist countries (or who called themselves socialist) which mostly are/were not the best place to live. 2. Multiple examples of capitalist countries with more social-friendly policies, like Sweden, which some people consider to be socialist but this is pretty far away from truth. 3. Zero examples of really successful - in terms of people's quality of light and freedoms - socialist countries that we can dream of but which never existed and we can't be even 100% sure (so far) they can. 55% of women said they'd prefer to live in a socialist country - what do they mean? North Korea-like? USSR-like? - I doubt it, or they never tried to actually live there. Or Sweden-like? - It is a capitalist country with good welfare, not socialist. Or dreamy-never-existed-Utopia like? - Well, why would you NOT want to live in a made-up ideal place? I want to live in a "socialist country of my dreams", but I really don't want to live in any socialist country that actually existed or exists right now. This is how huge the difference between dreams and reality is. | ||
|
Mikau313
Netherlands229 Posts
North Korea is socialist the way the nazis were socialist, it was name that was more palatable than calling it what it was, fascism. | ||
|
ZeroByte13
744 Posts
"examples of socialist countries (or who called themselves socialist)" I'd say most countries who call(ed) themselves socialist were/are not socialist by standards of many/most people. And just for clarity, name a truly socialist country or a country that's really close to it? | ||
|
Mikau313
Netherlands229 Posts
On February 24 2023 17:10 ZeroByte13 wrote: And that's why I said "examples of socialist countries (or who called themselves socialist)" I'd say most countries who call(ed) themselves socialist were/are not socialist by standards of many/most people. And just for clarity, name a truly socialist country or a country that's really close to it? This is where: I name a bunch of socialist countries; You point out that those countries aren't doing well, economically; I point out that all those countries happen to have been either invaded or massively destabilized by US intervention in the past few decades. Let's just say that it isn't a coincidence that ~all the countries on the list of socialist countries also happen to show up on lists of countries the US has tried its very best to make sure they don't succeed. | ||
|
GreenHorizons
United States22673 Posts
On February 24 2023 16:10 Acrofales wrote: I clicked through to the wiki. I hadn't heard of the term, but I had obviously heard of quite a few of the proposals. That said, among the challenges, the main one listed seems a bit silly: classifying policy that has the opposite effect of its intention as reformist reforms. I'm not sure I'd attribute malice to such consequences, rather than it just being either bad policy or the law of unexpected consequences. It's obviously not enough to just change policy. Any government worth their salt should change something, monitor what that does, and then update policy in case it isn't having the desired effect. It seems like policy making 101, regardless of whether that is a government, a business, or a social club making new policy. But I haven't read up enough to say much more beyond that. E: I forgot to mention that a lot of the explicit examples of reformist reforms seem mainly due to the absolute horror that is the US police, justice and prison system. If you reform *that* first (through I'm guessing non-reformist reforms), then suddenly hate crimes against trans people make more sense, as does ensuring domestic violence gets treated as a violent crime. Both of those seem like policy that is obviously pointing in the right direction, but if your police are a bunch of transphobic shitheads who shoot black people on sight, and get women deported rather than help them with their wife-beater husbands, then the problem isn't that legislation specifically, it's your police and justice system. I'll try to think on this and also why the police in Spain (which is shitter than most of western Europe) is still so much better than in the US. I think a good part is going to be all the same stuff highlighted in Bowling for Columbine 20 years ago (and that has had at most halfhearted attempts to deal with since): mostly the culture of fear perpetuated by the media, and the omnipresence of guns. Regarding the poll: I'm not going to try to guess why a news agency didn't do a better analysis or do a follow-up poll. It could range from ignorance to lack of interest on their part, to lack of funding in general, to explicit pressure to not look into those scary results too deeply, to some other reason. And I don't know anywhere near enough about "Axios on HBO" to even speculate one way or another. That's the function of reformism. To empower/perpetuate the underlying capitalist structures while cutting a deal to personally enrich and promote "leaders" that encourage their "followings" to go along to get along. It provides a superficially appealing cover/plausible deniability for pernicious policy that functions to protect capitalism from the righteous ire of its victims in exchange for bribing a buffer class. One of my bigger objections to social democracy is that it's always functionally required to exploit the suffering of innocent people (ideally in other countries, but it inevitably comes home) for the profit to feed its capitalist foundation. Never mind the atrocities required when those exploited peoples have the audacity to resist (granted that the US handles a lot of the dirty work nowadays and Europe's complicity is less direct). + Show Spoiler + On the polling I'm more speaking about the entire media and polling industry. Remarkable to me none of them want to follow up to explore people's support of socialism beyond the most superficial "do you like me? check a box" polling. Really wish they would, but which capitalist party would fund it? | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28553 Posts
Part of the difference between Norway and development countries who tried the same (and where it ended up failing) is that Norway was 'allowed' to do it, without a) coup attempts b) supporting insurgents/instigating civil wars c) trade blockades. Additionally it's not considered the property of a royal family. Now, there's also an element of non-corruption making it a success, and while our oil and gas resources have been nationalized, it's not fully 'socialist' but somewhat of a hybrid model. However, this is still, fundamentally, a socialist policy. Don't get me wrong, Norway is not a truly socialist country. But socialism is not all that strictly defined - if you read the works of various political thinkers and philosophers who considered themselves and are considered socialists, you'll find a huge variety of thought. Lenin and Luxembourg will both be considered socialists, but have very different opinions on the Russian Revolution. Even if you strictly look at Marx, he himself famously said something along the lines of 'If these people are Marxists, then one thing is certain, that I myself am not one'. (From my understanding, although people are free to elaborate/correct this, he said it wanting to distance himself from the French Marxists who argued for a violent revolution while he himself thought it was possible to achieve success through political reforms). + Show Spoiler + There's also this joke, which comes in various ways - just copy pasting the first one I found: Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "The proletariat love you. Do you believe in the proletariat?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a communist or a socialist?" He said, "A communist." I said, "Me, too! Marxist-Leninist or anarchist?" He said, "Marxist-Leninist." I said, "Me, too! What kind of thought?" He said, "Trotskyist." I said, "Me, too! Intersectional Trotskyist or Classical Trotskyist?" He said, "Intersectional Trotskyist." I said, "Me, too! Socialist Action (United States), Socialist Alternative (United States), or Socialist Equality Party (United States)?" He said, "Socialist Action (United States)." I said, "Me, too! Socialist Resurgence splinter group, or Socialist Action mainline?" He said, "Socialist Resurgence splinter group." I said, "Me, too!" "Socialist Resurgence committee of 2019, or Socialist Resurgence committee of 2021?" He said, "Socialist Resurgence committee of 2021." I said, "Die, bourgeois revisionist!" And I pushed him over. Many will argue that the lack of democratic institutions and the most certainly existing hierarchical structures of some alleged socialist countries (like USSR) make them far less socialist than what democratic but mixed economies found in Scandinavian countries. (At least if you go 50 years back in time. On the socialist-capitalist spectrum, there's no question Norway has moved towards capitalism since the 70s.) Anyway, I remember a political debate between one of our most right-wing politicians (former leader of the progress party, a woman who cited Ayn Rand as her favorite author) and some social democrat, where the Ayn Rander said 'I mean, we're all debating degrees of mixed economy here'. Socialism in its 'pure' form has never existed in any country, and it's not even something that really has a strict definition, however, there are certain elements that have come to be associated with it. When people say they are 'positive towards socialism', they most likely mean that they are positive towards these elements - not that they support totalitarian regimes that describe themselves as socialist. For the record, I can think of three countries with 'Democratic' in its name: North Korea, former East Germany, and The Democratic Republic of Congo. Suffice to say, I have a hard time seeing how either qualifies, and in a similar fashion, I'd be skeptical towards accepting that a country is something just because it describes itself as it. Anyway - what I suppose a socialist 'must support': For one: Public ownership of national resources/worker ownership of the means of production. Two: Publicly funded education. Three: Publicly funded health care. These elements are both present in the ideological foundation, and in most real life examples. However, to what degree one supports a revolution or reform is much less defined, to what degree one thinks the end goal justify the mean varies greatly, and no socialist thinker has supported socialist leaders making emperors of themselves. The latter three are where you find the 'disasters' of socialism - but those are not elements one must support to support socialism. + Show Spoiler + Some of the more interesting comparisons between socialism and capitalism come from post-colonial countries with similar points of departure, where some went the capitalist route and others went the socialist route, and particularly looking at African and Latin American countries. While the countries describing themselves as socialist have all been flawed in various ways, they generally saw greater initial success than the ones that went for capitalism in two ways: Their populations became literate faster, and they did a good job providing basic health care for all citizens. They would however invariably perform worse economically, and, for reasons that can probably be attributed just as much to the cold war as to any ideology, end up struggling with either civil war or oppression aimed at quenching possible civil war.This is very shortened and simplified and I'm not excusing any of the countries here, just a bit too busy to elaborate properly. | ||
|
RvB
Netherlands6190 Posts
On February 24 2023 00:10 JimmiC wrote: I think we are getting very close, not just the chat stuff you are seeing but the ability for AI to create pictures or even brand new faces is pretty amazing. I do think you are right though that what they will be able to come up with will be something different than the options that we have now. + Show Spoiler + To add to the discussion that Acro and CS are having is the main problem with central planning up to this point is there has been a person controlling it, who either because of self interest, lack of expertise, bias and so on has not made the optimal choice for people. There also needs to be a huge bureaucratic arm to relay all the information that is required in both directions, rules that need to be made and enforced, and then a mechanism for change. All of that part has been super slow, inefficient and ineffective. The socialism is for the people, capitalism is profit, being for the people is better, part I get. It is the how's, whys, and the functionality of the system on the large scale that I do not get and has yet to be run in a way that is actually better for the people. Blaming all the faults of the current past communist countries on the nebulas group of "capitalists" and capitalism amounts to scapegoating and you will never get rid of them all to have the utopia. It will always be their fault, nothing that is actually wrong will get fixed and the people will be stuck in the same awful loop of no way to change an oppressive broken system again and again. The how's, whys and functionality of how a socialist system could actually function is a really interesting topic. Hearing it will work and will be perfect, and that capitalism is evil over and over is boring. I get that we could all go do reading, but the problem is that is all theoretical, there is not a successful model to look at. And being as though GH has put in way more time and effort than I likely ever will and cannot even begin to answer, let alone theorize on the basic concepts of how it would function I do not have a lot of hope that it is actual viable solution. I do not think we are close at all. Technological change has been the hope of supporters of a planned economy for decades but it never works out. Like computers in general, AIs are incredibly good at very specific things but stop working properly when something unexpected happens that they are not trained to do. When talking about planned economies Hayeks 'The use of knowledge in society' is as relevant as ever. What markets do well is that, with the price system, it aggregates the information of all market participants, both knowledge that you can read about in the newspapers but also knowledge that people hold but never explicitely write down. For an AI to be able to be an economic planner it will have to find a substitute for the price system but I doubt it ever will. | ||
|
JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
| ||
|
Dan HH
Romania9009 Posts
On February 24 2023 18:59 Liquid`Drone wrote: Anyway - what I suppose a socialist 'must support': For one: Public ownership of national resources/worker ownership of the means of production. Two: Publicly funded education. Three: Publicly funded health care. These elements are both present in the ideological foundation, and in most real life examples. However, to what degree one supports a revolution or reform is much less defined, to what degree one thinks the end goal justify the mean varies greatly, and no socialist thinker has supported socialist leaders making emperors of themselves. The latter three are where you find the 'disasters' of socialism - but those are not elements one must support to support socialism. This somewhat mirrors a previous discusssion here about the requirements of capitalism. Sure, socialism doesn't require authoritarianism on paper. But in a real life scenario, like say present day US, how do you get the quarter+ of the country that's heavily immersed in Republican culture to cooperate with de-privatization without resorting to the stick? As for the endless talk about Nordic countries successfully taming capitalism, I think that if every country switched to socialism the results would be relatively similar. The select few countries that presently enjoy a high level of trust in institutions, the press and their fellow citizens would excel at it while everyone else would greatly fuck it up to various degrees. In general I find that governments are pretty accurate reflections of culture. The average Romanian will talk your ear off about how corrupt and self-interested politicians are, and in the next breath will brag about how clever they themselves are for bending this or that rule to get ahead, without ever connecting the dots. | ||
|
Salazarz
Korea (South)2590 Posts
| ||
|
nojok
France15845 Posts
On February 25 2023 13:46 Salazarz wrote: Why is everybody so convinced that free markets are 'efficient' and actually work well compared to some form of a planned or hybrid economic system, anyway? Even the most advanced and egalitarian societies of today are immensely wasteful and have serious issues with wealth distribution, and all of the successful Western democracies are built on the back of hundreds of years of colonialism and are to this day subsidized by cheap labor and resource extraction from poorer nations. It's convenient to ignore the workers we're relying on who are making 2$ a day on the other side of the planet to claim we're advanced. And imo it's the biggest taboo in our societies, we're pretending they don't exist or that they're just here to make money for company owners when every single one of us is heavily benefitting from this abuse of power. | ||
|
Gorsameth
Netherlands21340 Posts
On February 25 2023 13:46 Salazarz wrote: Is this a trick question?Why is everybody so convinced that free markets are 'efficient' and actually work well compared to some form of a planned or hybrid economic system, anyway? Even the most advanced and egalitarian societies of today are immensely wasteful and have serious issues with wealth distribution, and all of the successful Western democracies are built on the back of hundreds of years of colonialism and are to this day subsidized by cheap labor and resource extraction from poorer nations. Because everything else has failed. No one is saying the free market is perfect, it absolutely isn't. It's just better than everything else we've tried. | ||
|
Artisreal
Germany9234 Posts
See East Palestine, see American labour laws (it's absolutely ridiculous to have no PTO), see slavery, see child labour (us, like the majority of cocoa producers, mining) see migrant worker exploitation (Spain, UK, Germany), see climate inaction. It's still baffling to me that "it's better than what was before" is an argument for the continuation of no more than mediocrity. How's that not failing? How can you be ok with that? How dare you determine what's the best we've got if you're standing at the top of everything? | ||
|
Gorsameth
Netherlands21340 Posts
On February 25 2023 18:04 Artisreal wrote: And every other system we have ever tried suffered from the same issues throughout the entirety of human history. The problem isn't the economic system of the day, its humanity.If you're taking a long term view you can easily see that without the strictest of regulation the free market sucks a lot for most people. See East Palestine, see American labour laws (it's absolutely ridiculous to have no PTO), see slavery, see child labour (us, like the majority of cocoa producers, mining) see migrant worker exploitation (Spain, UK, Germany), see climate inaction. It's still baffling to me that "it's better than what was before" is an argument for the continuation of no more than mediocrity. How's that not failing? How can you be ok with that? How dare you determine what's the best we've got if you're standing at the top of everything? | ||
|
Artisreal
Germany9234 Posts
| ||
|
Gorsameth
Netherlands21340 Posts
The stuff we tried in the past was worse, things we might try in the future can be better but they will still be crap because they will be run by people. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve what we have. | ||
|
Liquid`Drone
Norway28553 Posts
| ||
|
Artisreal
Germany9234 Posts
On February 25 2023 18:57 Gorsameth wrote: Where do I say we should never do anything to improve? The stuff we tried in the past was worse, things we might try in the future can be better but they will still be crap because they will be run by people. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve what we have. I don't think that assumption is far off, judging from your previous post, no? Moreover, if we're looking at the posts in this thread over the last days, we see a lot of people happy enough with the status quo to question the need for radical reform and instead of thinking what and how things can be changed, it's mostly "this won't work". Which in and of itself can only be said from a rather privileged position, as the need of change is questioned. Basically "it can't be helped", which is rather similar to what you wrote. I'm very happy to be corrected. On February 25 2023 18:14 Gorsameth wrote: And every other system we have ever tried suffered from the same issues throughout the entirety of human history. The problem isn't the economic system of the day, its humanity. | ||
| ||
