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Democratic Presidential Primaries & Caucuses |March OT| Last Tuesday was 1000 years ago, old news no one cares about (Discussion Guidelines in OP)
- Thread starter Poodlestrike
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Although that is obvious, it has been hilarious watching the media make a big deal about this, JUST because Bernie has brought up the popular vote often.
All fair.... but still hilarious that they say out loud that's the only reason they are mentioning it is because Bernie likes too. lol
What do you mean? Why would private industries scale better than worker-owned ones? The whole point of middle manager bloat is because one person can't run, say, Amazon, but one person can hold a seat on a board of Amazon directors and relay their orders to their lieutenants, who relay them to their lieutenants, and so on and so forth. But when you try to scale this forever you wind up creating a class of middle managers who don't do anything useful except pass authority around, but are still extensively compensated, while the people who actually keep the firm afloat fight for scraps at the bottom of the ladder. My primary goal is simply to give the workers collective power over the structure of the firm through the mechanism of democracy. If the workers see a need for a manager they should feel free to install one, but they should also be free to divest them of their authority. Presumably, the workers would compensate themselves adequately from the revenue of the firm. Modern firms are already highly democratic out of sheer necessity of organization, I just want to put workers on top of the chain of command.
Currently, authority in a publicly traded firm passes like this: shareholders -> board of directors -> CEO -> COO/CTO, etc -> however many layers of middle management -> workers
My preferred restructure: workers -> board of elected worker reps -> elected managers -> workers
I don't get this actully. Surely democratic socialism is easier to implement than municipalism?
Not how this works. For one, plenty of people are employed by small businesses, owned by people who will not be affected by any proposed wealth taxes. Second, the wealth tax is not applied to their business, its applied to personal wealth. Obviously the progressive candidates want to increase business taxes as well but that also won't depress employment.
Businesses employ people based on the required labor for the size and volume of their business. They hire as many people as they need to create products/provide services effectively/etc. The amount of tax they pay is pretty irrelevant to how much labor they require to function. No business is sitting around going "hey, we have some extra profits, let's just hire people we don't need just because". Those profits get pocketed by high ranking executives and shareholders. No one is proposing any form of taxation that would cause businesses to cease function.
Maybe they just don't like Bernie? Is that so hard to believe?
In all honesty hurting unemployment isn't necessarily a bad thing. You could use unemployment in the exact same manner as Republicans believe low unemployment works, as a way to force companies to increase wages and benefits to attract employment.
Though this of course goes against the American way right now.
You understand the economy is not just supply-side driven correct?
Btw voter turnout in SC (527,728) crushed 2016 (370,904) but was slightly less than 2008 (532,468).
Since when do 60-80 percent of people vote Republican? And when did I call anyone a piece of shit? I asked you why you vote Republican despite supposedly caring about the homeless.
Also, a lot of businesses aren't wealthy at all. Most small business owners are basically living a subsistence lifestyle. Think Bob's Burgers.
I said that I wouldn't know where to go because I don't believe Bernie or anyone else except Warren can beat Trump in the general. Why would I back Bernie when I think his nomination would ensure a Trump victory? So that's where I'm at. Obviously on policy I agree with a lot of what he's saying, even if I don't think he's really thought deeply about how to get those ideas realized as Warren does. But that's all moot if he fails to get elected.
I think I'm done participating in these election threads though. The overwhelming Bernie bias leaves no room for alternate opinions.
Turnout continues to impress, for the most part (massive side-eye at Iowa).
My first choice was Warren, but Increasingly lack confidence in her ability to win relative to many of her peers, Bernie most of all. So I am actually interested in why it is you still believe she can?
when you put it like that, maybe there's room for a candidate to run for President on an Independent ticket.
Honostly I think we saw the limit to Iowa's ability this year. If we had more than 2008 turn out there this year I think people would have gone mad.
I mean if the point is that she should continue running because it's a free country, sure I guess. It seems like she doesn't have any path to victory but people will continue to donate so she can keep going as long as there's gas in the tank.
Here's hoping that her delegates end up realigning with Bernie!
Of course not. But just be honest about it instead of posting nonsense.
I think its odd that anyone would think her to have a better chance than Biden or Bernie. And I'm not high on Biden because of his voting record, history of the type of soft corruption you expect from long serving politicians and generally speaking like my grandad.
Her political instincts so far are dreadful, she's burnt all of her bridges with a lot of non-wonky progressives by making shitty political moves, and she got baited into that whole DNA test by Trump out of all people. To this day, fucking Trump Jr gloats about how stupid she was to accept the DNA test. When you're getting dunked on by Trump Jr, you've fucked up hard.
Also, a huge portion of Nevada's turnout was the early vote, which Iowa didn't have.
End caucuses forever.
That's good vs 2016. But vs 2008 it's not as good as it looks since there's been like 10% population growth in the state since then. Of course, you have to beat 2008 numbers by quite a bit to match for population growth in a lot of states.
There are plenty of independents that vote consistently Republican or Democrat though they just don't register.
End cauci forever.
Ok, here is my question for you, as someone for whom Warren is also my first choice, but Bernie is a close second: why are you so certain that Bernie would lose to Trump, and Warren would win...when Warren flat-out cannot win in the primaries? What's the basis for this argument?
Then be honest, too and and stop spreading bullshit like "she's not as trustworthy as Bernie!" (see above) How does that sound?
I can second Florida, along with Mississippi and Texas from my friend struggling in poverty. That user you quoted has no idea what he's talking about.
I've been reading up on Stephen Skowronek's theory of political time and how it relates to this race.
This the nation article from 2016 right after trump won explains it well
This the nation article from 2016 right after trump won explains it well
Back in 2016 it would be simple to assume that Trump was a disjunctive president even more so now with Bernie being the front runner for the dem nomination. Trump definitely signaled the end of the Reagan era and Bernie screams a Reconstructive president but i can't shake the fact of how the republican party has rallied around trump. If trump wins in november, i suspect the next 50 years of american politics would be influenced by him with dems becoming more moderate and republicans doubling down on insane trumpian conservatism (Typing this made me realise how likely a Don Jr run eventually is, ugh). In a way it feels like either trump or sanders could be Reconstructive presidents or one of the moderate dem wins and then I guess trump is just an anomaly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Donald trump JR v AOC 2024
I'm comparatively a neophyte. My impression is M-Ls don't like electoral politics but I also know that Marxism-Leninism isn't the only extant wing of socialism and that they tend towards a more revolutionary outlook.
Worker-controlled industries, as I elaborated to Addie.
I started with personal critiques of capitalism/imperialism and went looking for alternatives, eventually settling on democratic socialism. I've read some Marx and Engels but in no sense have I consumed the entire corpus of work related to socialism. Seems a bit of a waste of time really, just judging by the historical efficacy of scholarship, it looks like you can dedicate your whole life to study of socialism and never make an impact on the material world, at best you become a voice on the periphery like Chomsky or Zizek.
Yes we know, we've been trying to explain that to him for like 10 pages now.
Why would Warren be better? I mean she hasn't won any states or even come close really and her campaign has been mismanaged. I like Warren but she's done nothing to suggest that she wouldn't get steamrolled by Trump.
Just think about 2016, Ben Carson got more delegates than Jeb...politics are weird.
I've been reading, slowly. Sometimes hard to catch up. Living back in New York, there are far more opportunities for those in poverty than I could ever imagine back in Florida. No way in hell I'd imagine California is worse than Texas. He's living in a fantasy. You have my sympathies. I've lived with Republicans for 14 years living in Florida and the South. They live in a different universe.
I have never once posted that. You are welcome to find any example where I did, and I'll admit my error. I prefer Bernie (obviously), but I don't think ill of Warren at all.
As an experienced middle manager frustrated with other middle managers, I acknowledge the bloat in that system, and I understand and share the desire with empowering workers with sufficient bargaining power. Please note that I'm not relegating a worker-owned enterprises to the space of neighborhood co-ops -- I throw Costco in there with them, and now that I'm realizing that Costco exists (a fact which I overlooked 10 minutes ago), I appreciate your point more.
This is a case where more proof of concepts, especially in different sectors, would be helpful for illustration's sake.
I could see the Costco analogy replicated in other service industries dealing solely with commoditized commercial items, but I admit that I'm struggling to see how that'd work for the creation of highly specialized items, such as a nuclear-powered submarine. Mostly, I'm not talking about being beholden to shareholders, but rather being beholden to strict manufacturing requirements.
I probably got the term wrong. I was thinking more along the line of "municipal broadband," but I'm guessing you might've been referring to the ideas of Murray Bookchin. Either way, I'm keen on the idea of -- where there isn't value in taking advantage of economies of scale, such as spreading risk pools -- devolving some decision-making back to cities and encouraging community-based initiatives based on shared responsibility (and that's where we can reintroduce the co-op idea for agreed-upon economic development).
Trust me, I feel you. I grew up in the South and Midwest, half my family are Republicans. Some of it is living in a different reality, some is just a lack of empathy.
That's where I am largely at with her.
She has come to crossroads a bunch of times and in a bunch of ways and mostly I think she has chosen poorly.
And frankly, I think her entire approach has come off inauthentic. She was the ideas woman, and she should have stuck with that. The double selfie/beer/long-winded personal political folksy speak came off forced. Bernie has sustained so long because he makes his cult of personality about his ideas, not himself. And because he is a great orator and his ideas largely have broad appeal, the sort of character assasination that works on politicians trained to make it about their faux personal relationship with the voters doesn't work as well.
My family is Black and Spanish, so most of us are are Democrats. Although many of my older cousins and aunts/uncles are to the right on the Democratic side. I remember talking to my friend's neighbor in Alabama, and he was angry that abortion wasn't banned. Dude literally believe that if we banned abortions, the Black community would have enough kids to lift themselves out of poverty through hard work and low taxes. And people wonder why I shake my head at trying to build infrastructure down here and "miraculously" expect results. Some places are too far gone for help.
All this talk about bootstraps and how "min wage jobs aren't supposed to be lived on" and "your only poor because you're lazy" while I sit here having applied to over 40 min wage entry level retail jobs in the past few months trying to get a 2nd job, (because my main job has only been able to give me 117 hours combined over the last 17 weeks), most of them rejecting me outright, while I live on my own, earning below the poverty level and only not homeless because of "handouts". Would love to where this supposed great economy is and how I'm not bootstrapping enough. 🙄
But please do complain about your union taking some of your 90k a year money when that's more money in a year then I earned in the last 7 years COMBINED.
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Warren is my #1 and she'll get my support as long as she's in. A Bernie/Biden being the top 2 in polling is probably the best case scenario outside of Warren. As bleh as Biden is I like him a heck of a lot more then Pete or Bloomberg, he's the best of the Moderate group for me even if I much prefer the 2 progressive candidates first and foremost. A worst case scenario of Biden being the nom is much better then the other alternative worst case scenarios for me.
But please do complain about your union taking some of your 90k a year money when that's more money in a year then I earned in the last 7 years COMBINED.
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Warren is my #1 and she'll get my support as long as she's in. A Bernie/Biden being the top 2 in polling is probably the best case scenario outside of Warren. As bleh as Biden is I like him a heck of a lot more then Pete or Bloomberg, he's the best of the Moderate group for me even if I much prefer the 2 progressive candidates first and foremost. A worst case scenario of Biden being the nom is much better then the other alternative worst case scenarios for me.
I acknowledge this, which is why I personally draw the line at democratic socialism instead of going full anarcho-communism. I recognize the need for mass organization (especially with regards to climate change) and the state is the best apparatus to organize the populace so I'm not enthusiastic about about dissolving the state like some other leftists can be.
Like you, I referred to anyone. That quote can be found above from a different poster, should have been more specific.
I don't like Bernie because I think socialism removes human incentive. That's what redistribution does. It take the incentive away from poor people. Since poor people will be the main benefactors to redistribution. Then it makes middle class upset because they won't benefit much from redistribution. It makes the upper class want to make less so their wealth won't be taken.
The more you make, the more they take is the age old saying. But how far can you push it?
Addressing the union stuff. I don't worry too much about which candidate supports unions the most. I have a skilled trade. I specialize in commercial hvac so if my union disasolved I wouldn't suddenly make less. I'm not dependent on the union. I am state and federally certified I can go anywhere in the country and do my job.
That the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is repeated unironically, by the very people it was created to criticize, I think speaks volumes about the sheer idiocy of that mindset.
Personally i propose we make the poorest fight to the death in a coliseum. That way we give people incentive to not be poor, as they will die
Hudson I admire you for continuing to respond in these threads but I have to say your understanding of just basic things like income taxes and the redistribution of wealth is incredibly poor. I'm not sure where you're getting your information from but I'd advise you to look elsewhere. You are not informed on these topics and you continue to make statements that are simply not true.
Edit: You are also not illustrating any sort of empathy for poor people, which considering your background is interesting, thinking that making just enough to live will de-incentivize them. You demonstrate more empathy towards rich people, who you think won't work as hard because they'll make less money, when the difference between making 1 billion in a year for someone like Bezos and 750 million is only being able to launch two rockets a year instead of three. These are not people that deserve your empathy. Not to mention, how hard could Bezos possibly work when he has his worker drones walking over 20 miles a day in the warehouses to make sure people get their 2 day shipping on time.
Edit: You are also not illustrating any sort of empathy for poor people, which considering your background is interesting, thinking that making just enough to live will de-incentivize them. You demonstrate more empathy towards rich people, who you think won't work as hard because they'll make less money, when the difference between making 1 billion in a year for someone like Bezos and 750 million is only being able to launch two rockets a year instead of three. These are not people that deserve your empathy. Not to mention, how hard could Bezos possibly work when he has his worker drones walking over 20 miles a day in the warehouses to make sure people get their 2 day shipping on time.
This is what 40 years of "incentive" has given us under Reaganomics:
You've been sold a lie.
No I ment that if tou view half the population is evil.(Republicans) and on top of that some people are inherently just evil(so let's say 20% of dems) that would mean 70% of the country are evil.
Er...takes the incentive away from poor people to do what, exactly? Because right now poor people in this country struggle to survive. What incentive are you worried about them losing?
The idea that you think the wealthy will want to 'make less' because of taxes just betrays your complete lack of fundamental economic knowledge. Even if you are taxed at a higher rate, more money is still more money. We have a progressive tax system, you only get taxed on the money past a certain point. It's impossible to be taxed in such a way that making more money actually makes you less money.
Your union is what helps to secure your high wages and benefits. Whether or not you can go to another state to work is irrelevant to the role your union plays in securing high wages and benefits for you.
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