Pro-Capitalists claim that a social revolution should not happen unless everyone agrees to it. I point out the absurdity of such a proposition.
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I was recently sucked into a conversation with Libertarians which I found after they linked to me. I know I really shouldn’t have done that but some times I can’t resist. Unfortunately I can’t really continue commenting there because the comment form they have there is slow, ugly and buggy and it generally not good for having a comfortable conversation.
As is classic, the main argument that was raised there was that the “Free Markets are the best ev4r”. Anything wrong with the world is blamed on the government and everything good on the “Free” Markets. This is based on the idea that anything that moves towards deregulation does well but anything that moves away does bad. As an example for that, the US was proposed which apparently for the last 30 years has been moving towards socialism (I kid you not, the greatest push towards neoliberalism in the history of the US and the world was actually a move toward socialism).
Other than the usual strawmen like equating communism with USSR and failing to grasp how it does not require a state another argument was put forward:
So again, you do not care what the other 10% want, you will forcefully take from them what they have earned for yourself. You are blaming them for your own failures. I have no desire or need to exploit anyone else in order to get what I want out of life. I wish to treat everyone as equals while knowing full well that we are not all equal. Some people have more desire, more ambition, more knowledge, more energy, more perseverance, and more skill than others. I know where my faults lie and I know what I am capable of doing and I know that I am not equal to everyone else and not better than them either. I am my own man, with my own desires, and I want to fulfill those desires without the need to force other people to shares them with me.
Indeed, I do not care what the 10% want because what they want can only be achieved by exploiting the other 90%. When the majority of the world wants to move to an egalitarian system where nobody is exploited, nobody had to starve and nobody has to work where they do not want, why should we care that we don’t spoil the party of those 10% who are living the good life?
Apparently for the Libertarian, having the vast majority of the people in abject poverty is fine and dandy as long as some of them have theoretically the chance to rise to the top. He assumes that the majority of the wealthy have risen to the top from the lower classes but that’s just just untrue. The majority of the people are born into their position and there’s a small minority that manages to rise above their class. The later examples have more to do with luck than it has to do with skill. Yes the people who become wealthy from poverty, have to have skill, but there’s much more hard-working, skillful people who cannot rise, not because they are worse, but because there’s simply not enough room at the top.
But for a Liberatian that’s alright. As long as those 10% of humanity have absolute freedom, he can simply assume that their position is deserved. And anyone who dares to disagree must be a lazy bum who is simply not hard-working, skilful or competitive enough to achieve it. This reminds me of the common U.S. American arrogance where they assume that their position as world power was deserved because of how hard-working and skilful as a whole they are.
So yeah, I have no qualms in taking the means of production from the 10% who owns them and forces the rest of humanity to wage-slavery. I have no qualms in wishing for a better society where everyone has a chance to happiness instead of the minority who just happened to be lucky. And yes, prosperity today has much more to do with where and from which you were born than with how hard-working or talented one is.
Making happiness and life-fulfillment a lottery is simply selling humanity short.
The thing that is telling about Libertarians is how little they understand the system they support. The “Free” market is equated with Capitalism and all together is provided as a panacea.
I answered for you because I knew you couldn’t. You proved it too. “Seizing the means of production” is that not force? You still fail to understand free markets. I do not support coercion by force of the state, that is not a free market and it is not capitalism. On the other hand you support the idea of force, workers forcefully taking over the means of production from the owners of that production.
The “Free” Markets you’re wishing for cannot work without a government force behind them. Otherwise there would be nothing to stop criminals or enforce contracts. It is this state force that the Capitalists who controls all the wealth and power will seize and increase, for their own interests. It is this state force that the Capitalist will use to bust unions who “illegally go on a strike”. The idea of Libertarianism is simply Government protection only for the rich (more than it is now that is). It is not a problem to force starving people in brutal “voluntary” contracts and then use the government to enforce them. That is the coercive force that the “Free” Markets use.
When this force is rejected by the majority of the human wage-slaves, they will revolt and attempt to seize the means of production. The “non-coercive” Libertarians will immediately claim that they are assaulted, even though what is simply happening is the majority rejecting the minority’s rules, and will send the state to intervene. This, for the Libertarian is fair game for they are only protecting their “rightful property” after all.
This has been the history of revolution everywhere however. The oppressed majority rising up, without force and demanding equality, and the minority using the state machine to put them into their place. First it was the slaves, then it was the peasants, and now it’s the proletariat. And in every case, the minority was, in their own minds, in the right.
But when the vast majority wants to play a new game, there is not reason to keep playing the old one, simply because the ones who were winning already don’t like it. When there is a difference on what is “right” between the vast majority of the working class and the small minority of the bourgeoisie, I do not see why the small minority must have its way.
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First, you confuse socialism and communism. They are not the same. The socialist state dissolves before moving on to Communism.
Second socialism has a state, but it is nothing like the state we have now.
Third: Even if such an action towards a socialist state is not the best course of action towards communism, we can always modify it and not do it. Marx's words are not a dogma.
You are mistaken. I AM against people being exploited, but it is the CENTRAL BANKS that exploit people by inflating currency. If Marx cared so much about the common man, then why would he put the necessity for a central bank in the Communist Manifesto? http://www.fdrs.org/communism_faults.html
It should make you concerned that Marxists and Communists were such good friends with the same central bankers that had already entrenched themselves across Europe and found their way into the US in 1914 with the establishment of the Federal Reserve.
In fact, all of the poor in the US would be much better off today without central banks. Their wages might be the same or lower in nominal terms, but in relative terms to the price of food and housing and electronics, etc. it would purchase more.
I suppose price theory is a bit to grounded for a leftist. It shatters the whole oceans of honey and "what if you didn't have to worry about costs" nonsense.
Er, I think you should actually read the Communist Manifesto yourself instead of believing nonsense like these.
What the hell are you talking about? What "price theory" are you talking about?
Read economist Raj Patel's "The Value of Nothing." It shatters price theory, a foundation on which the entire neo-classical economic system lies. The person who created the theory has already denounced it as well.
Cheers, I'll look it up
What the hell are you talking about? What "price theory"?
Wait, you're arguing about libertarianism vs. communism and you don't know anything about price theory? I think you're arguing against the wrong libertarians.
— I just read a few more of your posts on this website and your fallacies are just *mindboggling*. Here are a few questions I have for you (providing links for me to read with answers would be perfectly good too)
* In your communist utopia, what if I love to finger-paint but hate everything else. Should I be able to finger-paint for a living?
* How in your communist utopia is labor distributed– that is who decides how many people make food, how many people build roads, how many people mine for metals, etc.
* How does your communist utopia deal with freeloaders?
That's up to you to arrange with your peers. If they thought the art you created was worthwhile they would probably allow you to do it as part of your contribution to the whole. If what you did was worthless for everyone, then you would have to do something socially necessary as your contribution and keep this as a hobby.
That's up to you to arrange with your peers. If they thought the art you created was worthwhile they would probably allow you to do it as part of your contribution to the whole. If what you did was worthless for everyone, then you would have to do something socially necessary as your contribution and keep this as a hobby.
Social pressure should be enough. Ostracising in extreme cases. This is up to each community to decide how to deal with.
"5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly."
Communist Manifesto #5,
Karl Marx & Fred. Engels
"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens… while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some… who are (then) the object of hatred."
John Maynard Keynes
It's a bug with Disqus and I notified the programmers. They are working on it. Disqus is about as popular as IntenseDebate right now, but I will consider switching if they fail to help me resolve the issue.
When I have the choice of having 10% happy and 90% unhappy and exploited VS 90% happy and unexploited and 10% unhappy and unexploited then I'm thinking the correct choice is the second. Whyever would the majority be able to block what the majority wants to do simply because they're not going to keep being in charge?
Hah! Iceland wholly embraced the "Free" Markets. Fat good it did them
The last 30 years the US has been embracing the "Free" Markets. Fat good it did them.
Africa has never been socialist. Fat good it did them.
No, the highest living standards are not because of the free markets, it's because of the exploitation of the most productive societies in the third world through imperialism.
You can't please everyone all the time. I'm prepared to accept you being unhappy (while also being able to survive) in exchange of having the majority of the world happy (and able to survive). If the alternative is to have you happy while the majority of the world unhappy (and often unable to survive) then I don't really see the dilemma
No
I have explained this here
Quite a shallow view of history. I suggest you read the History of the Russian revolution before you making sweeping statements like that.
If you LISTEN to the protesters in Iceland they are specifically pissed at their GOVERNMENT and the FINANCE MINISTERS that used CENTRAL PLANNING of the monetary system through CENTRAL BANKING. During protests they were calling for specific members of the government to resign that were part of the central banking scam. Expensive social programs cannot be funded through taxation alone and politicians turn to central banking as a quick and easy way to print the money out of thin air to sustain the system. Any temporary gains are to be expected but are synthetic and cannot become permanent because there is no additional wealth for society being created.
In regards to Africa. The countries that avoid the grasp of the World Bank, UN and IMF should be expected to succeed in generating wealth for their populations faster than those which have intervention by these agencies. I would recommend they trade freely and have low tax rates, but they are free to use other systems if they wish.
The world is not a zero-sum game. If I become better off I'm not necessarily making someone else worse off. A hug is a great example. So is sharing. So is trade.
I don't think numbers are on your side if that's the game you want to play. It's apparent that you don't care about the morality – it's just ends justifies the means, but think about it. Many developed countries have seen their populations stabilize and have eliminated absolute poverty. Other nations are still growing while third world countries are growing very quickly. All this unable to survive stuff doesn't make sense when you consider populations are expanding in the third world and collapsing in the first world.
What the third world needs is more productive workers and more capital: (http://riseuprochester.org/2008/12/05/why-are-wag…
If people in the third world were as highly educated and had as much capital per capita at their disposal it would quickly follow that they could be wealthy too. We don't need to destroy the first world to build up the third world so we can all be second world. I repeat, the world is NOT a zero-sum game.
I read some of the debate which you recently participated in on riseuprochester.org. I’m coming from a position somewhere in the middle, where I feel the communist and libertarian perspectives are working toward ideals that present real issues when implemented.
On one hand, I see injustice in the world all around me. I see the U.S. government exploiting the rest of the world under the pretenses of the free-market. I see the World Bank and IMF forcing African countries into policies that only perpetuate neo-colonialism. I see the same corporations in bed with government controlling our lives and forcing us to consume. As a student of history I am aware that real government policies have barred groups such as African Americans (to name one example) from being anything more than free on paper. In addition, oppressed groups are expected to adhere to the path that the majority deems appropriate for achieving success (i.e. play by the “white American” rules of the game and go to school, get good grades, move up the ladder).
At the same time, I think personal liberty is important and I don’t think that every person being exactly equal is something to strive for. Isn’t the kind of equality you are hoping for somewhat of a frightening 1984/Brave New World-esque utopia?
I wish that every person would work to improve his/her situation and help those around them as much as possible. But what about people who are better at sports, or singing, or writing? Everyone should be able to use, without apology, his or her talents and skills. I know you’ve heard this before, but we can never have the type of equality which you seek, nor do I think that is a moral goal to strive for.
Finally, you say “prosperity today has much more to do with where and from which you were born than with how hard-working or talented one is.”
I am an exception to your rule and see countless individuals around me who don’t fit this example. My family had nothing, my father died at a young age, and no one else in my family has gone to college. Other young people in the U.S. certainly have more complete families, have had the opportunity to work with private tutors and have music lessons and play on sports teams. Do I resent them for that? No. I can ‘t spend my life contemplating how they were born with better opportunities.
I decided myself that I valued education and that I was the happiest when I was reading, writing, and learning. My current prosperity has everything to do with how hard I’ve worked. No one has ever handed anything to me–I’ve taken the initiative to be happy and succeed using my talents. I don’t know that it is anyone else’s responsibility but my own to do that. I can see why Libertarians value the individual so much, and contrary to what you say, I don’t think they are happy with only 10% being “successful.” I think that they see true freedom as a means for the other 90% to live well.
I look forward to reading more on your site and how you propose your ideal can be achieved.
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.
In case you didn't notice, they have had Capitalism for decades now. Where's the progress? If the world is not a zero sum game, they should surely be getting ahead.
But of course, the world IS a zero-sum game, as long as we are based on scarce resources.
Saying first that I agree with your most fundamental assertions, I do have to ask what mechanism you would suggest, in a post – market system, would be an individual's impetus for innovation and excellence? I'm afraid that the simple desire to do one's best or to serve the whole is, in practice, simply not enough.
I touched upon this shortly here
<quote>"How can you be professing equal treatment and equal happiness while at the same time choosing to disregard 10% of the population. It is hypocritical."</quote>
It's hardly hypocritical when the 10% is already disregarding the happiness of, and exploiting for profit and personal gain, the other 90%.
So again, you do not care about the happiness of the vast majority. Tyranny of the minority is tyranny nonetheless (and basically the norm).
What I propose is not tyranny however. You would still have the same freedom as everyone else, barring the freedom to exploit.
Yes, of course. It's the govimmit's fault.
Look, 3 years ago, Iceland was shown as the star of Neoliberalism, as the example of what those amazing "Free" Markets can achieve. Now that they have gone down the shitter, you point to the Central Banks? Why didn't you mention that before? Why didn't the tools that followed Friedman's plan disband them?
All you're doing is, once again, trying to divert the blame when the shit hits the fan.
Thaks Chimp. PS. Use "blockquote", not "quote"
I didn't blame the free market. I blame Capitalism (which is not compatible with the "Free" Market). Marx has predicted these kinds of crises and explained the reasons why they happen. I do not have to blame either socialistic policies or free market. As long as we have Capitalism, these will happen.
Deregulation however allows the Capitalists to play their game much more openly and aggressively which is what increases and exaggerates the crises, as is what happened now.
What you say now about the Banks failing because they did not do well, happened back in the '30s. The reason they did not allow it to happen now, is because they did not want another Great Depression.
Ths is simply another way to say overproduction. Only this time we have an overproduction of futures, credit and other financial products. Another crisis because every capitalist humped in the same game and now there's no more profit to be made.
But it is another crisis of Capitalism which just managed to break the ultrabubble which started in the 18th century.
Ahahahaa. Really? And how do you make profit if nobody consumes what you make? The truth is that the unexpected high standard of living of the US Americans is because of overconsumption financed by credit. It was bound to end at some point of course when you couldn't buy or borrow anymore but for someone who's sight does not go farther than 5 years, this could not have been foreseen. You simply saw the present and assumed that you're doing everything right (especially the neoliberals who were pointing at the success of their tactics) and failed to see the chasm ahead of you.
This crisis has been the tombstone of Neoliberalism whether you like it or not. Nobody buys the Libertarian myths anymore. And this is nothing compared to how many people are going to be disillusioned in 1-2 years when the big effects start.
It does, but as I said, You can't please everyone all the time. Certainly the person who is only happy when murdering puppies is not going to be happy and the person who is only happy when he can have a harem and 20 cars (and screw everyone else) is not going to be happy anymore.
Convince them that it's in their benefit if they do their part of the societal chores along with everyone else, so that nobody has to do it alone. Seems like a perfectly good proposition to me.
Read the link
If you're going to comment on the article, please comment in it's own comments. Lets try to keep things organized
Aahahahahaha!
I need to quote this as a joke somewhere…
Capitalism is a system of competition and it involves forcing others to do stuff they do not want through economic pressure (i.e. work or starve)
But your quote was brilliant!
This is a reply to a comment left by Alicia in the wordpress comment form and then caught as spam due to lack of Javascript. I reply here
When people talk about egalitarianism, we do not mean identical humans, we simply mean social equality. Equal in power in relation to each other if you wish. I have written a bit on this topic before
But you see, you're not the exception to that. You are still lucky to have been born a country where such education could be achieved and especially as a girl you could utilize your talents. Do you think you would be in the same position had you been born in Congo or Iran? Your place of birth itself is a matter of luck, along with who your parents are.
And even we are to take the place of birth out of the picture, you are still lucky in that you had the break required to get ahead through personal will. There are also a lot of people who are as educated and hard-working as you but have to work at macdonalds. It is luck that among the hundreds of thousands of hard-working people, you ended up being better off. It's not that it has absolutely nothing to do with your talents but that it has more to do with luck. And overwhelmingly, the social status of someone, has all to do with luck and almost nothing to do with talents. Who you were born from, where and what opportunities you had.
Sure, grab and chair and a subsription and stick around. Even bette rif you enable javascript and then be able to participate in the rest of the comments
I care a lot about morality actually but I just explained why I would make such a choice (if it was in my hand, which it isn't). Explain to me the moral basis on why 10% should live the good life while 90% suffer if it's possible to avoid it and 100% have a chance to enjoy life.
You're going to see a lot of this progress reverting very very quickly now. The stabilization has already started evaporating since the start of October.
As the third world nations grow, the power and wealth the 1st world nations enjoyed, through the exploitation of the workers of those nations, will disappear. We were at the ultraboom of capitalism and this is why everyone seemed to prosper. Now the bubble has burst and the slump is going to be catastrophic.
"Let's take me for instance, for me to be happy I want to provide for myself the things that I desire without relying on anyone or having anyone rely on me."
Ahh – well good luck with that mate. Just remember to throw away all the goods and items you didn't make or grow yourself, and do your own dentistry and doctoring while you're at it. Ahh not so easy is it, getting work done without any of the machinery or technology or goods that somebody else made. Human beings are not only social animals, they have combined their talents – and worked together – to rise above nature and get to where we are now. Individualism and selfishness and the rejection of working together is a losing strategy.
Seriously, what do you think you go to work for? To make yourself rich in isolation? Why do you think you pay taxes? Oh you think you shouldn't? Well who pays for the roads? Whether you pay government tax or private tolls the result is the same – it's collective (ooh nasty word!) spending on facilities shared (ouch!) by all. Everyone works to support the society they live in – personal wealth and comfort are just the side-effects and the 'carrot' that keeps you working until you die. If you manage to climb upon others and exploit them for your own gains, well good luck to you, but that just demonstrates that you are even more dependent on others.
"Why should I get up everyday to work if the society will provide for my needs?"
Who argues that?
You should consider switching anyway. IDC blows it out of the water in functionality and beauty
And base this assertion on nothing.
Hah! You should tell that to Tesla. But you're wrong here as well. It's not the inventors and the scientists who benefit. These are most usually exploited like any other worker. Those who benefit are the innovators. The ones who do not create but only know how to sell a creation or manufacture a need for it.
I really think you need to study some history. Russia and China and Cuba were wealthy before the revolution? Really?! Are from this planet?! Russia & China were agrarian and the poverty of their population was incredible! Cuba was a fucking slave country with rich white people controlling all the plantations.
The US became prosperous because it was libertarian? Really? Do you consider that the US was not really that powerful until the 1st and 2nd world war where they barely took part but were selling guns and products to both sides of the front? Did you consider any other factors instead of your assertion that "USA" was "libertarian" which is also plainly false?
You are fast leaving the point of ignorance and are getting intellectually dishonest. And this is seriously pissing me off. Either start arguing with correct historical facts or GTFO. I don't care to play hide and seek with your blatant lies.
So you base this assertion on another assertion which is blatantly false from a historical record. All pre-civilization societies were based on mutual cooperation without "adequate compensation" simply because people knew that their compensation lay in the future help for any of their needs.
Yes, I do believe people will keep working when their needs are met because people want to work. They want to contribute and they like to help others. This is plainly obvious to everyone but libertarians it seems. Just look at the red cross or the free software movements.
Simply because you cannot accept that people may work for a reason other than profit does not make it so.
So I know that people will continue working even if they do not have to, because boredom is a strong incentive, especially when one knows that the surplus value of his work will not be skimmed by the capitalist but will benefit himself and his fellow humans.
You assume that people would renege on their deals. But why would they when that would spell the destruction of their own life? That is simply absurd.
i don't have to convince people to do something in this way, already many people want to do something in this way, without worrying about money or starvation, but they can't because Capitalism does not work on the basis of human need. Only on human greed.
No, you'd better read Karl Marx's explanation of the Capitalist cycle.
Also, since these esteemed economists could foresee it, and since the economists leading the Fed and the economic policies of most developed nations were of the same mentality (ie. Greenspan) why didn't they take measures to prevent it? Obviously because they can't, because what you call as the benefit of Capitalism, the invisible hand, is also its biggest enemy. When you need a centralized place to control the misbehaving deregulated market, you can't because you're deregulated it.
PS: The vast majority of those people who "understand economics" come out and say they had predicted it only now, after the fact. Look at how many people invested accordingly to see who's lying and who's not. Hint: The ones who predicted it, are very very few.
Why would they be unable to meet their own needs? They would have food and shelter so after than, anything else is up to them. They would only be unable to meet their needs if their needs were based on exploiting others. Once again you keep asserting that people would act like selfish assholes when that is simply not true from a historical record.
Errr, no. It has nothing to do with the needs of others. The only needs the Capitalist cares is the ones who make the most profit. If there is no profit to be made from a need, no matter how large, it will not be fulfilled. If there is more profit to be made by manufacturing needs, to the detriment of the real needs of humanity, then this manufacturing will be pursued, as it obviously has.
No, you would have benefited both of us if you told me the method to make the shoe. Now you're simply hoarding the knowledge in order to create a bottleneck and benefit. If I need to have a shoe but I do not have enough money to pay for 1 hour's worth, I will not get it , even though it costs you only 10 minutes. If I need the shoe but someone with a 1000 shoes can pay you 10 times as much as me, my need will not be fulfilled, even though the other person does not need it.
Sure, and now that all these techniques and factories have been created, there will be much more benefit to move to Communism and be able to fulfil our needs. Arguing that we should stay in Capitalism because it created the basis of what we have is like arguing to stay in Feudalism in the 17th or 18th century because it created the basis where Capitalism stood to take society to the next step.
Yes, Capitalism was required to reach the stage we are now, similar to how slavery was required to reach the stage of civilization but by holding on it when it becomes a detriment will have the same result the slavery had to the Romans.
And it fails because as long as economic inequality exists. people will be interfering with other's rights to do the same through passive coercion.
Nope, it wasn't
Whoah? You really read the Communist Manifesto? A propagandistic piece with no detail? And you now know all about Communism eh? Brilliant. And Keynesian socialist economic eh? The ones what saves your ass from depression and now Nobel price economists are proposing once again to save your ass from the mess neoliberal economic bullshit of the likes of Friedman have put you in?
As for the history of Russia, I outright call you a liar for you wouldn't have made comments like "Russia was rich before socialism" if you had.
For some reason you expect socialism to work miracles on countries with no industrial infrastructure which were of third world status before the revolution and were about 300 years behind the rest of the industrialized nation, while being imperialistically assaulted economically and militarily or else communism is a failure…
I see Capitalism is a failure when after 400 years it still has the same problems of crises and huge amounts of human population expiring because there's no profit. What evidence do you have to show that communism is a failure except the argument that you just basically countered yourself?
Except if you're rich and control all the food and land. Then you get to tell everyone what to do.
Nobody has to pluck rocks from a field. If it is something necessary and nobody wants to do it, people can share the duty as a societal chore. They simply arrange it between them in a fair way for everyone so that nobody is stuck with it.
If everyone could work 4 hours and spend the rest with their families, everyone would do so. I don't see the problem.
One would develop a way to make things faster because it would mean he had to work less.
There you go.
That is a classic prisoner's dilemma which only affect individualists like yourself. Most humans know how to cooperate. Just because you can't wrap yourself around the concept does not mean it does not happen.
Nope. You conflate Capitalism with the "Free" Markets. They are not compatible.
Because everyone has agreed to it, and people want to cooperate because it's in their best interest.
Of course not. That does not mean that Capitalism is the end of the line of human societies. That's just like arguing that because Feudalism provided the serfdom and the superstructure to base Capitalism on, we should have stayed in Feudalism. But that's just as absurd as claiming that we should stay with Capitalism because it produced what we have now.
The time for Capitalism is over. It took us far enough but to proceed more, we need Communism. Of course we could never achieve Communism without Capitalism but that's not an argument to stay stagnant, or even more backwards.
Another assertion on your part. Simply untrue.
A false dichotomy. Not having rich people does not mean that everyone will be poor. You work for everyone else's gain because everyone else works for your gain as well.
And this is why Capitalism is flawed. Because it is based on ROI, not on need. And the world situation obviously shows that it does not work.
Of course I can imagine my theory. I work all day making what I make for other everyone (including me) and all of those people give me something in return when I ask it. If course, I do not need what everyone makes, I need, let's say 0.01% of what everyone else makes. But each person's 0.01% is different and thus we're all happy because even if there's nobody making out 0.01% that I need, I can always make it my work, even if under Capitalism it would not be economicaly feasible, and fulfil that niche for me and anyone else who wishes it.
I don't have to convince 1 mil people before we get it to work. We're not talking about Libertarianism here where they simply wish Libertopia to manifest itself if only everyone was convinced at the same time. Communism will come about because the majority of that city, country, nation and the world is already convinced that this will work.
You keep asserting again and again the same stuff. Nobody will be convinced, nobody will work, nobody will..blah blah blah.
I already explained why these things do not need to happen but if you insist I have nothing more to argue.
No, you see, this is my blog and as long as I'm participating in the discussion, I can decide where I wish a discussion to continue in order to retain some measure of order. If we start pulling quotes from my other articles around, nobody will be able to follow. So if you want to comment on the points of another article, do so there.
You haven't read anything about Communism, you come here with preconceptions of Soviet Russia and then complain that I have to explain a lot?
If you wish to discuss without a lot of explanation, educate yourself on what Communism really does and then come and bring up valid points. Not only that but you keep bringing the same arguments over and over again. I have already explained why Human nature is closer to Communism than to Capitalism but you simply ignored it.
Under Communism, they do not hope they get something in return. They know it.
Also your point does not change the fact that Capitalism is based on competition and economic pressure.
No, the 100% should simply cooperate. There's no exploitation going on (and yet you insist). I have already explained how and why people work in the articles I linked.
I doubt it. Keynesian economics was discredited in the '70s and neoliberal economics and politics took over. From Friedman to Greenspan to Thatcher, the path was the same. Deregulate.
Karl Marx predicted the how and why Capitalism suffers from crises and his theories seem current everytime the system fails
In 1880, Marx's collaborator Frederick Engels described capitalism's periodic crises in words that could have been written last week:
You're exactly right. Greenspan and Bernanke are price-fixers. They fix the price of money which wrecks havoc on savings and investment. Capitalism is supposed to be based on capital – companies expand through investment. Instead, we have a system where expansion is done through inflation and borrowing. This is exactly what needs to be done in a centrally-planned system to overcome deficits. That's why Marx advocated for central banking.
Finally you admit that the value of a product is dependent on whether people want to buy it. Now can you see why Marx's economic theories were incorrect when he asserted that the amount of labor put into a product dictated its value? It is not just the labor, but the capital used, any technology, marketing talent, patents, capital and many other factors that influence the value of something, but ultimately it comes down to the value that consumers place on a product. I don't know how anyone could put much stock in Marx's theories of economics when he can't even understand basic price theory.
It does but it doesn't, don't you get it! People are equal but their not! They're going to be happy or they're not, but that doesn't matter. As long as the disenfranchised become enfranchised and the other way around, we will have made a perfect society.
Er, no? Marx economic theories are correct because he explained how value is created. Labour is what creates surplus value which is defined by the market.
I've heard all about Alica's life and I can attest that she's not successful because she's lucky. She's successful because she busted her ass to overcome some tough shit. Plenty of people that were in the same situation as her (more or less) have not done a fraction of what she has done with her life.
Even if your egalitarian society means that people are only socially equal I don't understand why that's fair. You don't have the moral highground on this one and I really have to disagree with you. Her friends from other points in her life (including relatives) had every opportunity (or lack of) to be someone with their lives and they choose not to. It's not "fair" to penalize Alicia for her achievements and reward them for slacking off. In fact, I doubt Alicia would have tried so hard to break out of her situation if she knew she'd just wind up in the same place as her friends.
That said, she's still a great person with a great heart. Just because she's going to earn more than some of her friends and family doesn't mean she's greedy. Envy is a dirty vice and it's all to easy to initiate class warfare by pointing the lower-middle class at the upper-middle class and saying "get-em! they're exploiting you!" She does want to help people with her life and I'd say she deserves whatever resources come her way to do so. If she's going to give back much of the money to the community anyway and lead a modest life, I'm not sure how that's greed.
She's lucky because of all the hard-working and ass-busting people who pass through tough shit, she's the one that's managed to be where she is. That's not saying that she's not hard-working but that it has to do more with luck than that.
May I suggest "Gold, Peace and Prosperity: the Birth of a New Currency" by Ron Paul – 1981
Or perhaps "The Case for Gold: A Minority Report of the U.S. Gold Commission" by Ron Paul – 1982,3
Marx' interpretation of the Capitalist cycle is bunk. The Austrian School believes that the cycle actually barly exists naturally (or is very much less pronounced). It's actually the central banking that causes the boom and bust cycle. Want to know where the next boom is going to be taking place? Look where the new dollars are being spent first. Hint: government spending and "investment".
I've finished my Economics degree at the University of Rochester and I can most confidently assure you that most economists are indeed Keynesian. Regulation isn't the main arm of Keynes' ideas: it was the idea that government could fix any problem so long as they pass the right laws and spend money in the right way. Marx and Keynes are rotting in hell together and I'm sure they're great friends as their ideas are very compatible.
Ah, yes. The withering away of the state. People with great power rarely are willing to give it all up and live a life where they must be socially equal to those they used to rule (and those they removed from power).
There's not going to be people who have to give up the power.
Obviously you need to actually read Marx before you say anything to that extent
I'd say that it's more accurate than ever. It's the Neoclassical that have proven horribly flawed.
Read "The Capital"
No, as long as nobody is disenfranchised we will have a perfect society. I don't know what the fuck you on about before that but I guess your brain has finally reached its intellectual limit.
Are you not exploiting the 10%? Even if their unfair resource is inherited wealth, neither the born rich nor those with great drive and ambition will try anymore. More people will be content to watch tv and play xbox 360 and the world will suffer for it. Right now, everyone in America still has a chance to be a self-built person if they're willing to bust their ass to get ahead. We don't need to force everyone to be equal in wealth, but instead make the playing field more level. We need to encourage better behavior, but not by the state. We need people to vote with their dollars by constantly staying on top of the practices of our business and by having better transparency and reporting. We should be able to put bad business out of existence in days by watching their every move and how much influence they're buying in Washington. People are only unexploited when they're free to purchase what they want and to not have their money forced away from them. We just need a better balance than what we have now.
No. That was the basic premise of the comment you are replying to
This doesn't have to be the case
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That is very far from the truth. If anything else, recent events in America have shown that all those people that busted their ass to get ahead summarily got their ass handed to them when things got bad for the poor.
People decide upon themselves. First people choose what is necessary to be done in the society (grow food, build houses, generate power etc). People who like to do that can then pick positions in these areas. If there are necessary jobs that nobody prefers to do, people can either assign then via shift of cooperative work (ie 1 hour working in the power plant per person) or find ways to replace them or reduce the workload (so that each person only has to do 30 mins for example)
So, as a fingerpainter, I really don't have any positive freedom. I basically just have to do whatever the majority of society wants me to do.
Again, this is just majority rule. And besides, it is impossible for society to "communally" distribute labor on the scale of any modern economy. That kind of distribution of labor can only happen spontaneously through market forces.
Wether that is impossible is one thing. Wether it's necessary to distribute labour on such a scale is another. Do not forget that labour was distributed so much not because of necessity but because of cost savings (cheaper to have chinese make microchips than Americans). Economies managed to work in the past in a smaller and more local scale just fine. A future newly fledged Anarchist/Communist society might need to go back on a teechnological step until it figures out how to deal with distribution but that's less important than dealing with starvation and poverty, something that I will point out, Capitalism still hasn't managed to eradicate even after 400 years, and has actually made much worse.
Societies change. Some societies would sympathize with freeloaders. Your argument relies heavily on circumstances.
Also, "social pressure" really isn't an argument. The same "social pressure" could be used as capitalist defender talking about charity.
Not really. Capitalism breeds alienation due to the crass individualism it promotes. Further to that, due to the inequality, you cannot feel social pressure from different social classes (ie a rich person doesn't care what the poor feel of him as he gets to hang out with his rich buddies)
Of course you do. Even if your finger painting is horrible you can still practice it as a hobby on your (considerable) leisure time. This is more than you can say for capitalism where you may not have time to even practice it as a hobby or evem while a brilliant finger painter, might never manage to make a living out of it and will have to work a normal job on top of it.
So yes, you have the positive freedom to practice finger painting. You may have to contribute your part to the community who provides you with the means to fulfil this positive freedom (food, shelter, tools) but I don't see why this is a bad thing.
I can honestly not imagine a society which sympathises with freeloaders and doesn't summarily implode from the majority of members becoming freeloaders.