Author: Db0

Debating the theory of profit

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After a bitter flamewar on the theory of profit, I’ve decided to challenge my opponent to a formal debate to keep things civil. Go and check it out!

http://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/fi/0000...
Image via Wikipedia

My recent spat with a proponent of Austrian Economics had started from his attempts to explain profit by ignoring the productive process. Eventually this progressed to the point where he was arguing from the superiority of capitalist intellect and further from there to plain insults. The dicussion was not going nowhere fast.

So I decided to do something new (for me at least). I challenged him to a formal debate. At least this way, by trying to convince an audience instead of each other, we can avoid personal insults and stick to arguing the arguments. The audience instead can be the one that judges.

This is actually one of the main problems of arguing on deep reddit comments or on any other semi-obscure location. The only ones who judge the arguments is the opposing side and as both sides are obviously quite strong in their opinion (or they would not be debating). As such, they end up seeing the opponent as being stupid for not seeing “the truth”. A debate might be the solution.

Unfortunately, reddit does not provide the best functionality for debates, as it may have voting buttons for each comment, but they are built mostly for hiding trolls and spammers, not for agreeing/disagreeing, not only that, but it’s difficult to see debates and separate the debaters from the commentators. It’s also difficult for people to follow the debate.

So I discovered an another site that has been built explicitly for debates and invited my opponent to argue his point there. The Debate on the Theory of Profit begins. Go over, check the arguments and leave some critical comments.

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You know why Capitalists are rich? Because they're smarter than you!

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A vulgar apologist of Capitalism makes the argument that the rich deserve their place and their status because of their superior intellect. I show this for the bunch on nonsense it is.

elitism
Image by Vaughan via Flickr

I didn’t think I would have to mention this, but really, Capitalists are not wealthier than the rest of us due to their superior intellect. And yet, of course there would be an apologist of Capitalism which would make this exact argument. Ah silly apologists…

It’s an quite a novel reasoning really, albeit egregiously stupid on so many levels. It’s the kind of argument that is simply irrefutable as it is based on very solid circular reasoning. Basically it goes like this: “The capitalist are in their position because they are smarter than everyone else and thus the most capable of doing the necessary intellectual labour. And they’re obviously the smarter and most capable ones for this for otherwise they wouldn’t be capitalists.”

But of course, for someone to claim anything like this, they would have to prove the intellect of the Capitalists compared to the working class with some other means than a self-proving economic result. You would actually have to do some research on the intellect of the Capitalist class and see the degree to which they exceed us unwashed masses in intelligence. Such an research would be funny to follow, just for the laughs of course.

For there are two important sticking points on this subject

  • Most capitalist do not in fact rise up the ranks through their own “intellectual superiority”. Rather, they are born or married into wealth and find it very easy to maintain.
  • While intelligence may be one factor for some capitalist’s success, there may be others as well, such as greed, crass disregard for other humans or the environment, cunning etc. All of these combined might make the best capitalist but it’s not at all clear that they should be rewarded.

But even if we were to accept that it is somehow intelligence that allows the Capitalist class to remain at the top, would this make this situation right? This is the sticking point really since a random genetic event which happened to endow some people with more intelligence than other, shouldn’t be the basis of reward in life. For me, the intelligent person needs the emotional person who needs the strong person who needs the fast person. All of human talents are interrelated as as such, one shouldn’t be given power over the others.

The argument that our apologist drone makes would be more funny if it wasn’t so insidiously insulting of course. It implies that if you’re not a Capitalist, you’re obviously too stupid for it. And if you’re not smart enough, then you deserve to be poor. This is further clarified by the following gem:

The truth is that we become more human when we become more intelligent

You read that? Not only are you not smart enough to be a capitalist, but you’re less of a human than they are!Ā  You really can’t get a truer picture of the capitalist psyche than what our apologists says. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that among the vulgar liberals and other assorted proponents of the system, this kind of elitist mentality is quite widespread. For what better way to sleep at night to consider all those suffering below you are worthy of their predicament while your immense wealth is a result of your skills and amazing smart.

It’s disgusting really. Of course, I doubt that apologists who make such an argument realize that they’re basically claiming that they’re less human as well. Unless of course they’re part of the capitalist class already in which case it simply becomes an insult to injury.

But this kind of argument really shows the gap in perspective between these two camps. The liberal elitists will claim that it’s our fault for being too stupid and lazy, ignoring in the meantime the very considerable violence and threat of violence that sustains the system rather than any kind of natural law.They see the current system with all its suppression of human creativity, individuality and effort and use this as proof that only the rich can be creative and individual. It’s like the apologists of slavery pointing out that slaves can’t survive being free.

On the other hand The Anarchists will point out the immense capability of humans, when set free to perform the same if not better than any capitalist. We will point out examples of cooperatives, takeovers, communes and revolutions and the feats of productivity and freedom achieved within. We call on each human to demand the ability to express themselves instead of accepting their fate as mere cogs in the machine.

But of course, there’s always the positive side. Whereas liberal elitists like KatPoop10 who will tell the poor and downtrodden that they deserve their place and they shouldn’t question the validity of their position, the Anarchists will ask them to challenge everything, that all power lies within their hands to get a better life and they’re no worse or better than anyone else, only more repressed.

And as working and living conditions worsen, it’s not hard to imagine who the exploited will believe.

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Ask an Anarcho-Communist

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Do you have a question for an Anarcho-Communist? If so, here’s your chance to ask.

I’ve recently discovered the IAmA part of reddit which is basically a place for people to declare some kind of expertise or classification and allow people to ask whatever is on their mind on this particular concept. I’ve decided to see what kind of questions people might have for an Anarcho-Communist so I’ve made up a new thread.

There’s quite a few interesting questions already and people seem to have less initial hostility than I imagined. This is good. It shows that Anarcho-Communism (as opposed to simply ‘Communism’ which is basically the same thing anyway, even though most people misunderstand it) is not a slandered in the mind of the people yet.

So if you’ve got a question that’s been burning your mind and you’d like to ask to an Anarcho-Communist about it, head over to the thread and fire your lazers ask away!

Alternatively, feel free to ask in the comments of this post if you prefer it šŸ˜‰

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Quote of the Day: Red Terror VS Stalinist Totalitarianism

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A quote from Slavoj Zizek about the difference between the terror of Leninism to Stalinism.

Quoth Slavoj Zizek:

Even in the most violent phases of the Leninist dictatorship, when those who opposed the revolution were brutally deprived of their right to (public free) speech, they were not deprived of their right to silence: they were allowed to withdraw into inner exile. […]For Stalinism, however, even such silence resonated too much. Not only were masses of people required to show their support by attending big public rallies, artists and scientists also had to compromise themselves by participating in active measures such as signing official proclamations, or paying lip-service to Stalin and the official Marxism. If, in the Leninist dictatorship, one could be shot for what one said, in Stalinism one could be shot for what one did not say. This was followed through to the very end: suicide itself, the ultimate desperate withdrawal into silence, was condemned by Stalin as the last and highest act of treason against the Party. This distinction between Leninism and Stalinism reflects their general attitude towards society: for the former, society is a field of merciless struggle for power, a struggle which is openly admitted; for the latter, the conflict is, sometimes almost imperceptibly, redefined as that of a healthy society against what is excluded from itā€”vermin, insects, traitors who are less than human.

Amirably shows the brutal increase of mind control required to maintain control of the system. It admirably shows that Lenin was no saint either.

(h/t Plagal)

Deliberate Obtusity

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Often people get the concept of communism wrong, and then people like me try to set things straight. Occasionally we’ll bump into a person so thick where comprehension is just not an option.

Secodontosaurus obtusidens head
Image Unrelated via Wikipedia

I’ve recently started monitoring the twitter stream for keywords relating to Anarchism, Communism and Libertarian Socialism, just so that I might see what others are saying about it and perhaps intervene and clarify a thing or two. I expected of course rampart hatred on Communism by ignorant US Americans but I didn’t expect it on this scale. Not a minute passes that someone won’t make a snide remark on it while talking about anything. From complaining about China (I honestly can’t believe that people still consider the PRC communist at this point), to whining about the US Gov and Barack, to urging Iran not to become communist, to simple ranting.

It’s insane really. It’s reached the point for some people that anything not Neoconservative can simply be labelled Communist. I mean, of course I can imagine that people like this exist, but I expected, dunno, less of a magnitude.

In any case, I replied here and there and I was pleasantly surprised that some people at least were willing to listen when I basically explained that they have it wrong. Those at least are open to the possibility that they may have things wrong. However there are others…

Looking back at it, I should have known that someone who puts Communism and Fascism in the same context can’t be very intelligent, or honest for that matter, but I didn’t expect GlenBradley to not only stand by his statement when corrected but to insist that he made no mistake. And thus, this clusterfuck of a conversation began.

Needless to say, it didn’t end well. For all my attempts to explain what Communism really is about, it felt like talking to a brick wall. Not only that, but the discussionĀ  kept going in a random ad-hominem direction where eventually I ended up having to prove “I’m not an Elephant”.Whatever argument I made, was either ignored and was called “rhetoric” just so that Glen wouldn’t have to acknowledge it.

In retrospect, I should have known what to expect when I noticed that this guy is running for office. However the idiocy here is the interesting part. I mean, at some point, when you say to someone “You’re misunderstanding the theory” you expect them at least to pause and see why you are saying this. Can it be possible that yes, you are misunderstanding it? Apparently not.

I mean, I’m not asking people to suddenly be convinced, throw away their previous allegiances and become comrades, but I at least expect them to be capable of comprehension. This is not just to humor me, it’s in order to be able to have a rational conversation about the subject. When I discuss about Communism as a stateless, classless society and the other person means a totalitarian bureaucracy, then we’re obviously going to be talking past each other.

But when after all attempts to get on the same level, the other person refuses to budge, then I can only call this either Egregious Stupidity, or Deliberate Obtusity. In the case of our wannabe politician, I can only surmise that it’s the second, especially once he started calling me a “sophist without integrity” because he refused to understand a sentence, no matter how much I explained it.

But this obtusity is not only dishonest, but it really hold people back. Even if I am wrong about Communism, how do you expect to convince me if you simply refuse to understand what I’m saying? How can people decide on anything more than their current bias if both opponents act like this? It just becomesĀ  a shouting match.

And unfortunately this is the sad state of politics everywhere. It seems much more beneficial for Politicians to misrepresent their opponent’s position and attack a strawman instead of actually discussing the subject. I guess this helps to retain their voting block as people who are content to vote once per 4 years (and call this farce “democracy”) don’t really want politicians who *gasp* actually change their minds.

And so, a kind of natural selection happens, where politicians act like this because people expect them to, and people start copying the debating style of politicians, because it seems “successful” (As in: you can say the last word in a debate). And this deliberate obtusity leads only to intellectual stagnation.

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