Lol. They've said before that as long as I'm happy they'll be fine with him. He's a great guy. He's just quite a lot older than I am (12 years older). But they already knew that.
It's clearly tongue in cheek.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Lol. They've said before that as long as I'm happy they'll be fine with him. He's a great guy. He's just quite a lot older than I am (12 years older). But they already knew that.
It's clearly tongue in cheek.
OP
OP
Kulak as a term was abused to expropriate the grain from pretty much anyone who didn't want to hand it over, which was frankly not an unreasonable thing to do considering people ended up, you know, starving by handing their grain over.
I don't think the crisis in Venezuela is caused by "socialism" being that Venezuela is still a capitalist country albeit with a government proclaiming allegiance to socialism. It's essentially a failed social democracy primarily due to incredible mismanagement by the government. What do you consider reputable, telesur? We ought to be better than that.
Last edited:
User was banned (1 week) :Support for Stalinist Dekulakization
All credible accounts by historians that actually looked into the matter showed they were greedy, produced way more than they could consume, and abused the trust of the state. They had to go.
Give me something from, for instance, the New York Times. All my sources in this thread were from there.
OP
OP
Such as? I get the feeling you'll consider Grover Furr credible.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/16/world/americas/venezuela-shortages.html
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/...holas-maduro-inflation-economic-collapse.html
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/04/...zuela-faces-shortages-in-grocery-staples.html
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/06/...stores-as-hunger-stalks-crumbling-nation.html
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/world/americas/venezuela-oil-economy.html
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/14/world/americas/venezuela-collapse-analysis-interpreter.html
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/business/venezuela-bond-default.html
I found these in like 1 minute on Google.
Read "What Is History?" by E. H. Carr. It's one of the few books that brought me to tears.
Well yeah, what did you expect to happen when all those businesses pulled out "because their profits were too low"? Venezuela is recovering faster than any capitalist nation would have. I can also guarantee you that those reports are still vastly exaggerated.
The revolution Wii Be kawaii with the usual internal fights
Ok, serious now
About socialism x capitalism
Human Nature is a shit argument, you can justify anything with It, use economy, sociology, to justify why capitalism is better, otherwise you are no different than a follower of a religion with dogmas and determinisms.
About Venezuela
Venezuela is not socialist, its a social democracy at best, and there's real problems there. But i agree that the right wing in Venezuela is horrible and will do anything for Power (2001 coup), and i believe there's big interests on latin America, all the leftists leaders are being criminalized in most countries, and there's a big media support for It. So where i stand regarding Venezuela, is that while i believe there's a plan to get latin America on the right Wing plane, and Destroy the left, i dont Think that's a white card to Maduro, there's poor people suffering there, Natives etc, so while i dont agree with the criminalization of maduro and with the group "Go capriles", i dont agree that maduro shouldnt be blamed for the problems.
Last edited:
Then please, do tell me how it is at all possible to form any kind of system that involves humans that won't ultimately devolve into greed and corruption ruining it?
The revolution Wii Be kawaii with the usual internal fights
Ok, serious now
About socialism x capitalism
Human Nature is a shit argument, you can justify anything with It, use economy, sociology, to justify why capitalism is better, otherwise you are no different than a follower of a religion with dogmas and determinisms.
About Venezuela
Venezuela is not socialist, its a social democracy at best, and there's real problems there. But i agree that the right wing in Venezuela is horrible and will do anything for Power (2001 coup), and i believe there's big interests on latin America, all the leftists leaders are being criminalized in most countries, and there's a big media support for It. So where i stand regarding Venezuela, is that while i believe there's a plan to get latin America on the right Wing plane, and Destroy the left, i dont Think that's a white card to Maduro, there's poor people suffering there, Natives etc, so while i dont agree with the criminalization of maduro and with the group "Go capriles", i dont agree that maduro shouldnt be blamed for the problems.
Even those today who always complain about the "rich and powerful" "the 1%" etc. I guaran damn te will very easily turn into the same people they despise under the same circumstances. Just as those that want to complain about the "privilege of others" were they the privileged ones sure as hell would have no issue abusing it. Just look at all these older people in power now how many of them were the same people saying the exact same things as people today are in the 60s and 70s.
Last edited:
I was ridiculing for your erasure if the victims of Stalinism. Your links above have nothing to do with your first ridiculous post.
Miss me with that Tankie shit, son.
Abolish the root of that behavior: privatization and commodity production
OP
OP
I don't think anyone seriously believes that there will never be corruption. Humans are imperfect. But capitalism is a system that doesn't simply harness but magnifies greed due to its structural requirements - the necessary eternal expansion of markets for the sake of unending capital accumulation held in the hands of those who own the means of production. If we want to ameliorate corrupting influences, it makes more sense to embrace a democratic socio-politico-economic system in which power is more widely distributed. This is socialism.
Many of the things we ascribe to "human nature" stem from material conditions, not from some intrinsic drive. We know that scarcity plays a role in fostering greed in humans. We know that because of our understanding of how many hunter-gatherer societies work, as well as early agricultural societies like the Cucutenni-Trypillian culture. When needs are met, there is little inherent need for status and wealth accumulation. When things are scarce and need to be exchanged or claimed, hierarchies develop. Societies are based on mankind's attempts at harnessing production. Change the mode of production and you begin to change how society operates.
Nobody claims that socialism will wipe out greed - at least not in the early phase, when it emerges out of capitalism. It's if, if , we are able to progress to a communistic future, where there is no longer a need for exchange at all, that we can look forward to a truly egalitarian society. Thats a pretty big if. And even if we don't make it, it's better to try to build a democratic world than not. Unfortunately the attempts in the 20th century rarely if ever even got to that point, but their technology just wasn't there yet.
Imo elimination of private property and limit on excess of personal property, and as capitalism needs culturalization to exists, so does communism, also horizontal democracy, more democracy in general where the people decides not a political elite distant from the people.
Thats what i Think
So basically, you don't think people that contribute more to society deserve more? Shouldn't those that say, invent something revolutionary or contribute some new discovery earn much more than those that don't do anything but work at McDonald's? Seems kind of like the argument people make when they say "The CEO of a company makes millions just to sit around, take some calls and lives in luxury, yet john do works all day long with sweat and tears so he should be getting the money".
I mean I would probably phrase that argument a little differently but it sounds pretty good to me? The laborer creates all the wealth and pays most of it in rent to the rentiers. Doesn't seem SUPER fair. If the laborer kept more of their wealth, or had more of it guaranteed to them, they would be able to be entrepreneurs and inventors, and we'd get that much more wealth as a society. Doesn't that sound better for everybody?
Not necessarly against some difference in wage, but yes against excess.
What matters is how much value one brings to a company. The CEO makes deals that can get companies millions, your typical laborer can't. Nor can the janitor, not to mention that kind of stuff is low-skill type work. Whereas the CEO has lots of education, training, experience etc.
I suppose you also think that a Private in the military should earn more than a General being as they are far more likely to see combat then a General is. Does it also bother you that athletes get paid millions for kicking/throwing a ball around while the likes of police, firefighters etc. that save lives and put their life on the line don't make a quarter of that?
Socialism fails. Period.
It fails when it runs out of other people's money.
It fails when it runs out of other people's children to tax. (Europe's dilemma)
It fails when it relies on money madness - as if redistribution of money brings prosperity.
If money really solved poverty, let's give everyone an equal amount of stupendous wealth in money tokens. Everyone is equally "rich" - no one 'needs' money ever again. So who's going to trade their labor and property for money that they don't need? Who is going to work, manufacture, ship, store, sell, deliver goods and services? Even the starving children are fabulously wealthy.
Capitalism is failing in front of your eyes and yet you go "no this theoretical system fails!!!" Amazing.
You have to realize a lot of these right wing people are living the dream right now
You act as if it's possible to make a system that isn't capable of failure. Hell, communism/socialism failed spectacularly yet people here are on the defense about it. Not to mention what is considered "failing" is a matter of perspective. I guarantee if any of you were in a position where you were currently living the life with everything you wanted you sure as hell would be all for it no matter what the system was.
Last edited:
Since you just throw communism and socialism together, why don't you explain your definition of those two things?
I just cannot understand why you think that we should just continue with a system that is literally murdering the planet because any alternative would not be perfect.
And i'm pretty much labor aristocracy and the system still sucks donkeyass. I realize this because i have it a lot better than people working in sweatshops in Asia producing the most embarassing shit for us to buy.
What do you think about the belief that the Incan Empire should be classified as socialist? The Chimu region and that whole aristocracy and state religion thing kinda thing they had going on kinda went against that idea but they redistributed food and labor and had public projects.
Venezuela is doing pretty poorly. What about Carr's book that made you cry?
Never really understood the "enlarge the state to as large as it can possibly get to eventually abolish it" strategy. Realistically though, most socialists seem believe in enlarging the state as an end to itself.
Venezuela is doing pretty poorly. What about Carr's book that made you cry?
Never really understood the "enlarge the state to as large as it can possibly get to eventually abolish it" strategy. Realistically though, most socialists seem believe in enlarging the state as an end to itself.
I am not saying that our current system is perfect, but looking at Capitalism it has offered the most freedom for the pursuit of happyness more so than any other system ever has. That doesn't mean we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We should work towards improving the system we have, not completely replacing it.
I like this article: https://economics21.org/html/our-fatal-attraction-marxism-socialism-2704.html
This part sums it up well:
While I don't share any of the politics of the stalinist that was posting in here earlier. On the topic of Venezuala I might have some agreement with him over some of the others in this thread, while it's certainly not a utopia and the country is fraught with serious economic problems for which the goverment does bear a good deal of responsibility for I think the left-wing goverment has genuinely made some progressive gains such as increased public housing and social provisions, the inclusion of workers coops and communes that I think should be defended by all socialists, and the right-wing opposition currently trying to overthrow the goverment offers no alternative and is kind of fucked, despite the fact Maduro is certainly not really pushing things forward either.
One of the best writers on Venezuala in my opinion is George Ciccariello Maher who I think does a fantastic job of illustrating some of the social gains of the Boliva Revolution in a number of his book. And honestly the argument put forward earlier that all the news sites linked about Venezuala probably aren't necessarily that reliable or accurate I agree with, and I'd make the case that people should prioritize the voices of left-wing activists who actually live in Venezuala for a clearer political perspective on what's actually going on there - and for all it's problems Telesur is more in touch with the grassroots of Venezuala than the mainstream media.
One of the best writers on Venezuala in my opinion is George Ciccariello Maher who I think does a fantastic job of illustrating some of the social gains of the Boliva Revolution in a number of his book. And honestly the argument put forward earlier that all the news sites linked about Venezuala probably aren't necessarily that reliable or accurate I agree with, and I'd make the case that people should prioritize the voices of left-wing activists who actually live in Venezuala for a clearer political perspective on what's actually going on there - and for all it's problems Telesur is more in touch with the grassroots of Venezuala than the mainstream media.
Redistribution of wealth is proven to bring prosperity. Notably countries with more wealth distribution see greater upwards economic social mobility.
No, this is Sartre.
And it was a terrible bastardization of what is class. Class isn't "this person has a nicer house than me", which was essentially the justification for murdering kulaks. Class is and is only your relationship to capital.
No, because no one contributes to society inside a vacuum and because the only method of ensuring someone's "contributions" stay private and the value created by those contributions stays private is via the authoritarian State.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1961/janitzio.htm
Welfarism by the barrel of a gun is a seductive idea. The Stalinist revenge fantasy is an alluring idea.
That's not Socialism and shouldn't be confused to be Socialism.
Also, exchange value is completely and utterly subjective. If it were not we wouldn't need markets.
And ultimately, the State's monopoly on power is what guarantees that subject value to be accumulated privately. If your position is that the existence of the State and it's monopoly on violence is a legitimate entity, then you run the risk of the Stalinist State Capitalism machine privatizing all surplus value on the national level.
And ultimately, the State's monopoly on power is what guarantees that subject value to be accumulated privately. If your position is that the existence of the State and it's monopoly on violence is a legitimate entity, then you run the risk of the Stalinist State Capitalism machine privatizing all surplus value on the national level.
Last edited:
OP
OP
I don't know how class conflict would be based on zero-sum thinking. You could make that argument about Marx's beliefs about the LTV but even outside the LTV it's very apparent that those who own capital and those who don't are locked in a constant struggle with each other. If that wasnt the case, socialism wouldn't have even needed to be developed as a theory, unions would never have popped up, etc.
Its kinda normal on internet the usual war of Trots vs Tankies, with the same old icepick memes
So i dont think its a joke
So i dont think its a joke
Know how I know when some one is just an identarian liberal fake socialist? They use memes.
Edit. I think I misunderstood the above conversation.
Edit. I think I misunderstood the above conversation.
Last edited:
Fullcommunism is a weird place. But I can't say I wouldn't be on board for some fully automated luxury gay space communism
OP
OP
OP
OP
Not exactly a surprise but nice to have it declassified.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.news...rcraft-jfk-docs-cover-operations-717460?amp=1
Title and first line are a bit sensationalist since the government didn't "want" to do it, just considered it, but interesting nonetheless.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.news...rcraft-jfk-docs-cover-operations-717460?amp=1
Title and first line are a bit sensationalist since the government didn't "want" to do it, just considered it, but interesting nonetheless.
There has being a disturbing rise in Stalinists on the internet, but they usually aren't involved in anything beyond existing in their large echo chambers on the internet and super-exclusive insular facebook groups!
Yeah they annoy me but as of right now they don't seem to represent a political...problem, so much
OP
OP
I think it's largely through same thing that allows the alt right to portray Hitler as just "fighting for European values" or whatever - distance in time plus a cult of personality creates a larger than life historical figure. Once you get far away enough from something it stops feeling evil. Like, none of us ever talk about the Roman emperors in a genuinely negative sense.
Theres also an appeal to the "secret knowledge that the bourgeoisie doesn't want you to know!" When you first understand that capitalism is bad and what you've been raided with is wrong, sometimes that can make people assume the opposite of what they were taught must be correct.
And then sometimes people just legitimately agree with his policies like Socialism in One Country.
Theres also an appeal to the "secret knowledge that the bourgeoisie doesn't want you to know!" When you first understand that capitalism is bad and what you've been raided with is wrong, sometimes that can make people assume the opposite of what they were taught must be correct.
And then sometimes people just legitimately agree with his policies like Socialism in One Country.
The left as a whole really doesn't humor crypto-tankies the way the right humors crypto-Nazis. Although i'd argue it's because the left's platform is more logically consistent so it's easy to dismiss Stalinism as illiberal, destructive nonsense, whereas Nazism is one of two end-states of conservative thinking (the other being Ancap Objectivism), because the logic of conservatism collapses if you regard both Objectivism and Nazism (or a Nazi equivalent for other racial or religious groups) as monstrous.
Edit: I tend to stand with capitalism insofar as its proven to be the most efficient allocation of resources that we've come up with, particularly when it comes to meeting the needs of a luxury consumer economy. Exploitation is inherent in a profit-driven system, but only if that system is left alone. State intervention for fair treatment for workers, along with state intervention to prevent excess wealth accumulation (and redistribute it), tames the badness of capitalism.
Edit: I tend to stand with capitalism insofar as its proven to be the most efficient allocation of resources that we've come up with, particularly when it comes to meeting the needs of a luxury consumer economy. Exploitation is inherent in a profit-driven system, but only if that system is left alone. State intervention for fair treatment for workers, along with state intervention to prevent excess wealth accumulation (and redistribute it), tames the badness of capitalism.
Well and this is sort of the thing, isn't it? What the future economy looks like, and how people develop motivation to move from A to B, whatever B may be, is the age old problem. We are seeing that it is possible to motivate people when the circumstances of their healthcare become truly unbearable. I am still...concerned about how we then get people to "and also the cheap and ready access to all literally any consumer good you might desire is the product of exploitative labor conditions"
Last edited:
Information is hard, and this is where markets excel, more so than the ownership of capital. I highly recommend this episode of Planet Money.
The badness of capitalism cannot be tamed in the long term. It can sometimes be reigned in a bit (like when the USSR existed), but as soon as that threat is gone capitalism will start going in overdrive to remove everything that lowers it profits, like workers rights. Hell, look at what is happening right now: most regulations that were put into place after the 2008 financial crisis are already being removed because they ''disturb the markets''. That is why capitalism needs to go.
You cant look at the metropole without looking at the colony. The exploitation of work and environment can be made in another country, the difference between a social democracy and a full liberal state, its that one wants better condition to its own people, while they explore other countries, and liberals dont care to explore even then workers of their own country.
About allocation the world produces more food than its needed in the world, yet people die of starvation, so its not that efficient in allocation. Its a capitalist genocide in favor of economy.
About allocation the world produces more food than its needed in the world, yet people die of starvation, so its not that efficient in allocation. Its a capitalist genocide in favor of economy.
I mean, I think about it, but I don't really talk about it with anyone. At least yet. Oh well. No time like the present!
When they say "When in Rome, do as the Romans do", does that mean I'm supposed to start murdering all the men, raping and enslaving all the women and children, raze the city, and salt the soil so that they'll never prosper again?