Communists.

DadaKopf

Turgon, you clearly don't know anything about historical development of African countries, so stop talking rubbish.

g5fd6ow0hseima

prinz wrote: »

Flawed in practice? It is flawed in practice because it is inherently flawed and will never work like Marx hoped. The -ism that has brought more death and suffering to the world than any other.

Since when does Stalinism equal Communism?

turgon

I dont know much, but I do know that blaming Africas problems on capitalism is being extremely naive.

And I also know that an effective ideology is one that not only criticisms opposing ones (which ye are doing in huge proportions) but also offer real world solutions to these given problems, something ye have managed to dodge.

But Im not dragging us back into the spatula debate, I know all too well that ye simply dont have the answers.

Instead the best ye can do is "capitalism is bad, thus we need communism."

turgon

And you may say "why is he so insistent?" I will tell you why.

Because 90 years ago a group of Russians like your self decided to start communism. And like ye they didnt have any concrete plan on how it would work in practice, instead spouting the same "dictatorship of the proletariat" thing ye do.

So with no plan it just went to crap. And 54 million Eastern Europeans dead in 30 years later, we have educated people on Boards still wanting to go down the same route.

Ye say Russia isnt truly communist. Well how are ye any different? Have ye shown us how you theory works in real world terms? NO. You couldnt even give me an answer to how a spatula is made. That is how good your theory is that ye cant even make spatulas.

asdasd

Ye say Russia isnt truly communist.

Actually there are quite a few pro-Russian communists on here arguing that it failed because there was a famine. And a few wars. This gives the lie to "that wasnt communism" rot since all Marxists thought it clearly was Marxist at the time, and plenty do now.

There is no point pleading morality with these guys. They are not so much holocaust deniers as holocaust accepters. The pseudo-morality of being concerned about Africa while supporting a system which inevitably has to kill hundreds of millions ( the socialization of agriculture alone will do that) is apparent to any neutral. The self-righteous cant against capitalism - which all sane people agree needs regulation - is lost in their blood lust against owners of capital, or "privilege", which means - effectively - all of us in the West.

They are not just downplayers of past holocausts but champions of the next.

Joycey

asdasd wrote: »

No welfare cheques, then? I think you and DF will agree on that one.

Apologies for the ambiguity. There should have been parentheses after my sentence which said (aside from a minimum standard of living). Although it pains me to say it even, say, Rupert Murdoch is entitled to a minimum standard of living if it is ascertained that he has no alternative source of income.

And I believe that welfare was originally designed to be something like a job seekers allowance or something wasnt it? This idea is good in theory but when it comes down to it there probably will be lazy c*nts who CBA getting jobs, and then your left with the decision to just let them starve or not. On the whole Id say that I would rather live in a society which cared for the people who are honestly looking for jobs and have no other means of support then remove the blanket care which we provide to the unemployed. Im happy to be "coerced" out of my taxes (in fact we should all be taxed a lot more) for the sake of the least fortunate in society.


As for the rest of your responses, Im trying to study at the moment, will reply later on or tomorrow.

Joycey

turgon wrote: »

I am resigning from this debate.

Oh Lord I knew it was too good to be true :rolleyes:

turgon wrote:

I dont know too much

Now this I can believe

turgon wrote:

the best ye can do is "capitalism is bad, thus we need communism."

And what, exactly, is it that you are saying?

'Capitalism is just perfect, Liebniz was wrong in his day, but I can say with certainty that this is "the best of all possible worlds".'

At least we are trying to propose a hypothetical scenario where things would be better then they now are. I am more then happy, in fact I would be delighted to get into serious discussions about how to put our vision of a better society then the one we currently live in into practise, or even hear some of your criticisms of the status quo and maybe tie them in with my own, or work on ways for you to impliment changes, but all you want to do is reduce the conversation to your miniscule level of intelligence and imagination, and just snipe away at the people actually trying to propose or work through ideas of their own.

They are not just downplayers of past holocausts but champions of the next.

There are only a few geniuses of your calibre in every generation who could demonstrate the analytical prowess to manage to gleam the above gem from what ive been saying in this thread.

turgon

Joycey wrote: »

And what, exactly, is it that you are saying?

Capitalism is just perfect, Liebniz was wrong in his day, but I can say with certainty that this is "the best of all possible worlds".

No thats not what Im saying. What Im saying is that the majority of arguments on this thread have been against capitalism rather than for communism. So yeer criticizing without offering a solution. Its like Simmons giving a list of whats wrong with the other candidates without offering any new solution.

Joycey wrote: »

At least we are trying to propose a hypothetical scenario where things would be better then they now are.

Would they? You havent even told me how things would be made. I like things such as food and medicine. Now if ye cant come up with a plan for how these products would be made, then I think I like the current setup just fine.

Joycey wrote: »

I am more then happy, in fact I would be delighted to get into serious discussions about how to put our vision of a better society then the one we currently live in into practise

Grand. I tried to start this 3 days ago but that never worked, which is why I left , but talking with ye is just too much of a temptation

The question proposed was: "How are things made in communism; bearing in mind that three of the principle criticisms of capitalism are excess produce, that people are "alienated" from their work and that different people profit disproportionately from the chain of production."

If you want you can also explain how things are thought up of. Like planes. Because it seems to me that communism ties people down in their innovation. If Im working in a car factory and I suddenly think up of a new type of engine, what do I do?

As I said, I asked this question in relation to kitchen utensils and musical instruments and the best I got in 3 days was "in a factory."

brianthebard

turgon wrote: »

And the boer war? And the zulu war? Funded by the big government back home. Big government you want.

This is just too funny, these wars happened during the 19th century, which DF already marked out as free market. And even if he hadn't, anyone who'd studied Imperialist history would know this period was the exact opposite of big government. Like Dadakopf said, you know nothing about this period of history.

brianthebard

turgon wrote: »

No thats not what Im saying. What Im saying is that the majority of arguments on this thread have been against capitalism rather than for communism. So yeer criticizing without offering a solution. Its like Simmons giving a list of whats wrong with the other candidates without offering any new solution.

Ironic then that this is what you and your cohorts have done for the last 14 pages.

turgon

brianthebard wrote: »

Ironic then that this is what you and your cohorts have done for the last 14 pages.

So just out of curiosity, what exactly did that post contribute to the debate?

At least Joycey is contributing somewhat. Im trying to get a debate going on the practicality of communism and your just coming out with uber-smart comments.

brianthebard

I contributed to the debate on the previous page when I examined imperial history, and you ignored it cause you knew you were wrong. Want to change that position and reply on the topic of Zimbabwe and Congo and the effect capitalism had? considering you've been complaining at length about genocide by "communist" societies, I thought you'd be very interested to know about capitalists societies that laid waste to a continent and killed half the population of Congo, just as a few instance.

turgon

So you blame Africas problems solely on capitalism?

But arent you just lumping those kind of capitalists into the same league as all capitalists?

I have given you the benefit of the doubt by not lumping you in with Lenin. If we were to depend fully on past history in this regard as a guiding point for future economic development, how do you think communism measures up?

turgon

An obviously my comments about big government off the mark, but would you not contend that the government at home was a lot to blame in capatilist expansion in places. Like india.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Joycey

turgon wrote: »

The question proposed was: "How are things made in communism; bearing in mind that three of the principle criticisms of capitalism are excess produce, that people are "alienated" from their work and that different people profit disproportionately from the chain of production."

The thing is, for some reason everyone in this thread on the opposing side of the discussion, shall we say, has been inferring from what ive said that I am a "communist", or that I am somehow tied to some form of socialist doctrine. While this may be the case, I dont know, the only time ive actually used the word communism in this thread (to my knowledge) was in my very first post, where I said that from what id read, BtB's idea of things sounded pretty good to me. The only time ive mentioned Marx was when I said that pretty much the only thing ive taken out of his work (from the very limited amount ive read of him) and would definitely say that I am a proponent of, is his theory of alienation, which has absolutely nothing to do with any particular vision of any concrete future society, but serves as the best critique of the dehumanising influence of capitalism on the people who live in a capitalist economy/society that I know of. I deliberately mentioned my rejection of his economic predictions (although they may just have been deferred by expansion into new "markets", much the same as Malthus' predictions were deferred), and his authoritarian leanings (which I have absolutely no tolerance for). I believe that any movement which employs violence in the realisation of its vision of how society should be except in self defence will be doomed to relive the failure of the various purportedly socialist states that have materialised thus far.

Similarly, I believe that, in an exactly analgous way to violence; all existing and future heirarchies need to be shown to be justified, whereby the only criteria for justification is to prevent some future heirarchy, or act of violence, from coming into existence. Therefore if we have a heirarchically structured movement, we will be left with a society (should the movement gain power) which will be similarly heirarchically structured, and then you end up with some similar scenario to all the failed socialist states which have given humane ideals a bad name.

So what I actually believe couldnt be farther from what you are all attempting to portray it as. It is also a radical departure from mainstream Marxist doctrine. It situates me more in terms of traditional and contemporary anarchist theory. Something which should appeal to DF.

Now Im not sure how I reconcile these beliefs with the practicalities of running a society, not so much with the basics of production, which are the things you are all bringing up, but more with things like the collection of taxes from people in order to care for others; how is this achievable with a horizontally structured society as opposed to a heirarchy? I dont claim to be an economist, and I have no experience with running a factory, so all I can do in answer to your questions about the basics of production is point to the many instances of the type of workplaces which I am talking about in Venezuela and Argentina.

Twenty minutes googling around produced these links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_self-management
http://www.geonewsletter.org/node/357 (Read this one anyway, I couldnt find a more in depth article id read about Italy before but this will give ye a taster)
http://www.ldscooperative.com/node/53 (good stuff)
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2393 (most likely completely partisan, but at least its an alternative to being told that Chavez is an evil dictator, which, while I may disagree with certain of his policies, he certainly isnt)
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/aug/21/business/fi-coops21 (LA Times article, bear in mind they are bound up in an American ideological framework in whose interest it is to portray Venezuela as the devils country)

The answers to these questions are something which would be better worked through in practise then being theorised about by non-interested parties with no practical experience, on the internet . What I am open to is abstract ideological battles by right wing libertarians like DF, and in response to you I will link to a Chomsky interview I posted in another thread (hes also a libertarian, just with more humane leanings then "every man for himself"):
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199704--.htm

Let me know what ye think of the links, esp the Chomsky one.



Edit: the wikipedia article above is actually pretty informative even if it is a bit short, heres another related one with a bit more info and I think it weighs up the advantages and disadvanages:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_democracy

And BTW im happy for everyone to critique what ive written above, just do it constructively and not with bitty little questions that make the discussion degenerate into name calling again

brianthebard

turgon wrote: »

So you blame Africas problems solely on capitalism?

But arent you just lumping those kind of capitalists into the same league as all capitalists?

I have given you the benefit of the doubt by not lumping you in with Lenin. If we were to depend fully on past history in this regard as a guiding point for future economic development, how do you think communism measures up?

You and DF have done nothing other than equate my views with Lenin and Stalin's genocide, don't pretend otherwise. What capitalists would you exclude from nineteenth century rape of Africa? there was no one speaking out. Leopold's Congo Free state existed for 23 years before Casement spoke up, and he wasn't a businessman.

Good post Joycey.

brianthebard

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Well I do indeed have some grounding in African and British imperial history, and I can tell you that people as like Louis, Robinson and Gallagher, Cain and Hopkins would agree with me. As we already covered capitalism is a mode of production and a social relation, so if both of these things existed in colonial Africa, how could it be anything other than capitalism? Free market liberalism saw huge expansion into Africa for the exploitation of the continent for the benefit of British and European businesses, and continues today. Liberalism is what caused this.

Pablo Sanchez

turgon wrote: »

Gees, how is Africa a "capitalist failure" when the whole continent is under totalitarianism (which your system need to work, like it or not)?

Think about the biggest dump in Africa - Zimbabwe. I suppose the socialist red star on their national flag missed you a bit?




Actually the star in the flag 'represents the countries international outlook'.

Now i think it is fair to say that Angolas flag has a socialist bent,

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Joycey

By the way, I think it should be an absolute prerequisite that before you post in this thread that you have looked at these 5 minute lectures or that you are in possession of equivalent information:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

Starts off slowish, explaining exponential growth etc, moves on and gives a really clear but accurate, absolutely non-ideological, matter of fact account of exactly why our current behaviour as a society is going to run into a brick wall in terms of the very real, and very near limits of the physical system which we are all dependent on for our existence.

The information in there is just as much something I, or anybody proposing an alternative to capitalism as it exists now, has to deal with, as it is for mainstream capitalists. Please watch it

Edit: just listened to the intro which I linked to above and it sounds really cheesy and sensationalist which actually couldnt be farther from the truth. Dont judge it from that, just listen to the first one
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-1-three-beliefs

brianthebard

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Two points; Smith and Cobden never say that colonies should be given independence, unless they use some disclaimer like until the civilising mission is complete. And Smith and Cobden weren't carrying out the practical political governance of 19th century "free market Britain".

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

dreamlogic

asdasd wrote: »

... all Marxists thought it clearly was Marxist at the time, and plenty do now.

Just as capitalists in the 19th century thought capitalism was okay back then.. Is this an argument for returning to a ninteenth century way of life?

owners of capital, or "privilege", which means - effectively - all of us in the West.

All of us? Most of us? A small fraction of us?

Also @asdasd you maintained earlier that a state will go to war regardless of what its population thinks about it. I asked you who is the state representing... I'm still waiting for an answer...

turgon wrote: »

Because it seems to me that communism ties people down in their innovation. If Im working in a car factory and I suddenly think up of a new type of engine, what do I do?

Well what do you do under a capitalist owner? Does the capitalist boss want his workers to be "innovative" or would he not rather they keep their heads down to keep up with targets. If bosses under a capitalist system were to encourage people on their assembley line to be innovative, their profit margins would fall. Which would be bad for competition; bad for "the market".
Under an alternative system there is no such profit-motive. So it is easy to see how people would be freer to innovate under an alternative system.

turgon

dreamlogic wrote: »

Well what do you do under a capitalist owner?

You dont do anything. You put in work perfecting the idea, patenting it and then licensing it on to manufacturers. Thus being rewarded for your ingenuity.

dreamlogic wrote: »

Under an alternative system there is no such profit-motive. So it is easy to see how people would be freer to innovate under an alternative system.

So what motive is there.

Joycey - I will address your post when I get the time to read all those links first.

Joycey

To go back a bit in the thread, in answer to Turgon and DF and others disagreed with my reservations about how worthwhile it is (to put it mildly) to be creating/consuming massive excesses of essentially non-productive paraphenalia as cars and second homes.

While I dont want to rehash the same ideological ground we already covered, I want to give a reason why, even within the current capitalist and monetary system, it is extremely unhealthy to be creating these excesses.

The reason is that, while not always the case, for a good proportion of the cars and houses that are sold, the individuals who buy them, are going into bigger or smaller levels of personal debt.

A distinction needs to be made between two types of debt:
1. self liquidating debt.
2. non-self liquidating debt.

Things like college loans, loans for new farm machinery, a new, larger car if you are a taxi driver, and the like, are self liquidating, because what is being purchased is an investment. From the bankers point of view, these loans will pay for themselves over time.

"Wasteful" purchases, such as second homes, or even bigger homes, or new cars or excessive clothing, or anything else which requires going into debt in order to pay for (very easy to go unnoticed what with credit cards etc), are non-self liquidating, because the value of the loan is unredeemable from what it has been spent on purchasing.

What an ever-increasing number of non-self liquidating loans being taken out leads to, are events like the current financial crisis, or even just ruined lives for individuals on a smaller scale.

Now, the obvious response is to say that its these peoples own fault, they wasted money which wasnt theres, and which they had no realistic hope of repaying. But I would argue that in the era of credit cards, and free and easy loans, the psychological weight of getting into debt has been vastly reduced. I have come across studies which showed that volunteers are far more likely to spend/waste money which is "virtual" or non-concrete for them, then they are real money in their hand. Also, (although this will be contested from the capitalist side I would imagine), people are conditioned by the industries' advertising branches whos survival is based on these non-liquidating loans, to consume more and more goods which are entirely non-essential.

What do people think of that?

apologies if this is rediculously introductory economics BTW

dreamlogic

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

For communism to thrive it would have to be international in character. To speak of a communist Russia or a communist Africa etc. is kind of pointless. If you want to discuss the possibilities of communism you have to imagine it as a philosophy that is unconcerned with arbitrary political borders.

turgon wrote: »

You dont do anything. You put in work perfecting the idea, patenting it and then licensing it on to manufacturers. Thus being rewarded for your ingenuity.

Well you're the one who formulated the question as "what do you do if you work in a factory". So I answered with a rhetorical question to begin my answer. Please don't try to set it up like I was the one who formulated the question that way! And then change your original question :rolleyes:

So what motive is there.

To answer your second question about motive:
Well again it wouldn't be vastly different from current human motives if you think about it. Except that the element of greed is deincentivized. So people would be motivated to excel for reasons other than accumulating as much wealth as possible.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

silverharp

Joycey wrote: »

The reason is that, while not always the case, for a good proportion of the cars and houses that are sold, the individuals who buy them, are going into bigger or smaller levels of personal debt.

A distinction needs to be made between two types of debt:
1. self liquidating debt.
2. non-self liquidating debt.

Things like college loans, loans for new farm machinery, a new, larger car if you are a taxi driver, and the like, are self liquidating, because what is being purchased is an investment. From the bankers point of view, these loans will pay for themselves over time.

"Wasteful" purchases, such as second homes, or even bigger homes, or new cars or excessive clothing, or anything else which requires going into debt in order to pay for (very easy to go unnoticed what with credit cards etc), are non-self liquidating, because the value of the loan is unredeemable from what it has been spent on purchasing.

What an ever-increasing number of non-self liquidating loans being taken out leads to, are events like the current financial crisis, or even just ruined lives for individuals on a smaller scale.

You have an Austrian perspective , good for you. What you are critical of here is fractional reserve banking and central banking. Introduce a gold backed currency on an international basis and overnight you would make the currency and bond market largely redundant, and you would limit the ability of gov. to manipulate the economy. people would save more and borrow less and house prices etc would be less liable to bubbles.

turgon

So Ive looked over the links you've shown, and seen places where this has worked. And I see why people would want this.

But I think that the onus is on the workers to co-operate together, rather than some state coercing the factory to give control away. So for example in a factory of 100 they could all get together, plot to save/borrow €10,000 within the year, and use this combined €1 million to invest in the factory. Ideally they would gain control and be able to - say - pay themselves better.

But I think it is utterly unfair if say one ambitious baker sets up a big bakery, only for one the day the government to say "its not yours anymore, tough luck." I am totally against state coercion at any level, but if poeple want to voluntarily get together all good.

So when DF was proposing his completely anarchist state he made the valid point that a group could voluntarily get together and set up a communist state. Rather than forcing us all to join against our will.

Joycey wrote: »

creating/consuming massive excesses of essentially non-productive paraphenalia as cars and second homes.

Fair enough if you can define "non-productive" as anything that doesn't make something else. But I would consider a second home productive as it endows a certain amount of happiness on its owner when he gets a break from the "big smoke."

Joycey wrote: »

Now, the obvious response is to say that its these peoples own fault, they wasted money which wasnt theres, and which they had no realistic hope of repaying. But I would argue that in the era of credit cards, and free and easy loans, the psychological weight of getting into debt has been vastly reduced.

I see where your coming from Joycey. But this would involve the state prohibiting individuals from doing something they want. At the end of the day, why should the government be looking over everyones shoulders to make sure their being sensible? Personal responsibility has seemingly gone out the window.

And Im saying this as someone who, in my opinion, is very disciplined with money. When I started part-time-ish working this spring I was determined to save up €2000 to go traveling in August. At the same time my Visa Debit card also came through from Halifax so the endless amount of cheap books and cd's on the net came within my grasp.

But rather on relying on someone to financially manage my self, I took the responsibilities I had undertaken. I very strictly put between 1/2 to 2/5 of my wages in the Credit Union, and the rest in Halifax. Then when on the net I exercised restraint in not buying every shiny gimmick I saw.


I know thats a bit long winded but the point is that people should be able, and should be responsible enough, to manage themselves. So I am totally against state interference in any matters. Be it stopping me from taking out a loan which I believe I can pay off, or institutionalizing a system that restricts my freedom to set up and enterprise.