Socialism grows directly out of capitalism.Communism is a further development or "hi

[Bay Area]

I just got the impression from Possum that he wants a world where things like wealth are equal (or close to it) and by humans very nature I just don't think that is possible or even should be a noble goal.

Well I don't see anything particularly ignoble about "close to it". "Close to it" means no one is being exploited for their labor. Everyone is living well. A noble goal wouldn't you say?

 

[Perfidious]

Well I don't see anything particularly ignoble about "close to it". "Close to it" means no one is being exploited for their labor. Everyone is living well. A noble goal wouldn't you say?

Noble indeed but ideas don't pay the bills, results do.

 

[Bay Area]

Noble indeed but ideas don't pay the bills, results do.

Results come from ideas.

 

[TheGoodNews]

I can't comment on whether the Chinese truly think of Communists as equivalent to millennialists like the JW, but the most obvious reason why capitalism persisted in Germany (and the United States) is simple:

Capitalism grew wise to the social discontent it had produced.

Marx's conception of capitalism is an extremely unfettered, unregulated, completely laissez faire type of Capitalism that we tend to think of when we think of the industrial revolution in England or, for a period, in the US. The US and Germany were amongst the earliest to recognize that capitalism, if it is not to be overturned by Reds, would have to regulated by a state looking out for the common weal. Thus you see Bismarck undercut the Reds via vast social policies, and the American system moderating capitalism tremendously in the US and eventually legal recognitions of unions, some regulatory laws passed, et cetera.

In the U.S. the New Deal was implemented. And Bismark was wise to introduce pensions and universal health care in Germany.

Those countries which never saw any sort of real mitigation of the excesses of capitalism (such as in say South America) either fell into the power of military governments or of socialst revolutions.

Spain and the Free Territory of the Ukraine are great examples of the later. Though many will argue that the social revolutions there were good things:

"There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gypsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine." George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia page 6

Russia and China, because they never truly were capitalist, could not accomodate any sort of social reform that would've kept the Reds at bay. They broke Marx's theory of history by going from feudalism into socialism immediately.

Umm...more like State Capitalism (with a privatized component no less):

"The New Economic Policy was universally referred to as NEP, and the 'privateers' who flourished under it were known as 'Nepmen'. It was a form of mixed economy, with an overwhelmingly private agriculture, plus legalized private trade and small scale private manufacturing." An Economic History of the U.S.S.R. by Alec Nove

And don't forget the Stahknovites who used incentives and Taylorist organizational methods.

What's worrying now is that Marx might yet be proven correct that Capitalism will eventually succumb to Socialism, because we are increasingly moving towards such a system whereby capitalism is paired with a vicious disregard for the worker, as in Capitalism. I call this internationalist, globalist, poor-living standard capitalism Sino-Capitalist, and it seems to be the spreading trend. When capitalism will no longer support a middle class, it may well end up being replaced by the revolutionary movement. Which would, of course, be disastrous.

Come on, lighten up!

"The democratization of production fundamentally disrupts the centralized manufacturing practices of the vertically integrated Second Industrial Revolution. The radical implications of installing Fab Labs all over the world so that everyone can be a prosumer has not gone unnoticed." The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, The Collaborative Commons, And the Eclipse of Capitalism by Jeremy Rifkin

There's a developmental process at play. And BTW, the McCarthy era and Red Scare are long gone. But go ahead with the alarmism.

 

[Perfidious]

Results come from ideas.

And some ideas have been shown to work, some, not so much.

 

[James Keith]

Sigh. In the two scenarios, there is no difference at all, but the gov't would be spending less if it framed it's giveaway as a tax cut and spending more if it framed it as a payment. The categories are purely arbitrary and can't be a basis for meaningfully measuring the size of gov't.

No you just have to be honest in your accounting. Private firms get charged with crimes if they try to claim they have lots of revenues by simply handing money back and forth between them. This is called accounting fraud. I certainly agree that fraud is widespread in govt "accounting" of itself.

It refutes the whole idea that you can measure gov't size by looking at fiscal policy. Here's another example: Instead of building a bridge, the gov't can simply offer a transferable tax credit to the private contractor who builds it (transferable in case their total liability is less than the cost of the bridge). Doing it that way would show both a cut in taxes relative to GDP and in gov't spending, but, again, no difference in anything else. And that's not such a crazy example--a lot of gov't activity actually is carried out that way.

There is a clear trade of labor in this case, almost certainly at the market rate for it. You would not be accused of fraud in the private sector either if you cited the tax credits as revenues. That was a sale they made.

 

[TheGoodNews]

I guess the connection I was trying to make is that by people being different we should expect different outcomes in terms of wealth. I'm not saying that justifies the massive concentrations of wealth (which undoubtedly has been made worse with the help of the state) around the world but even in a world with no state people are going to accumulate a lot more wealth then others so where do we draw the line?

"From each according to their ability. To each according to their need."

I just got the impression from Possum that he wants a world where things like wealth are equal (or close to it) and by humans very nature I just don't think that is possible or even should be a noble goal.

Are you sure about that?

"Many of the normal motives of civilized life-snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.-had simply ceased to exist." George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia paged 104

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

 

[IDL]

Aiming for the lofty goals is often viewed without factoring in the predators that run our current system.

A transition to a utopian society with them at the helm seems destined to end with a soviet union 2.0

 

[Lee978]

Well I don't see anything particularly ignoble about "close to it". "Close to it" means no one is being exploited for their labor. Everyone is living well. A noble goal wouldn't you say?

If you tell me that you can make society more equitable but it requires the use of force then I don't particularly think that is noble no matter what the end result may be.

 

[James Keith]

Aiming for the lofty goals is often viewed without factoring in the predators that run our current system.

A transition to a utopian society with them at the helm seems destined to end with a soviet union 2.0

But the real world is so corrupt while fantasyland is so pure and true.

As for the USSR, the US is becoming its old enemy.

 

[djacobox372]

the facts seem to not agree with your point as growth of governments world wide, especially in the developed world has been prodigious over the last century.

Over the world perhaps, I haven't done the research to check...

But not in the US. Here are some pesky facts:

Non military personal federal government employees by decade as percent of population:

1962 = 1.4% of population
1972 = 1.3%
1982 = 1.22%
1992 = 1.2%
2002 = 0.93%
2012 = 0.86% (just over half of what we had in 1962)

And if you look at these numbers the trend is for it to keep dropping at faster and faster rates.

 

[IDL]

But the real world is so corrupt while fantasyland is so pure and true.

As for the USSR, the US is becoming its old enemy.

I certainly agree

 

[Bay Area]

If you tell me that you can make society more equitable but it requires the use of force then I don't particularly think that is noble no matter what the end result may be.

The current wealthy have exploited the poor however. The poor are "forced" into undisireable labor in order for the wealthy to maintain their lifestyles. Can we agree that drastic changes need to be made? There has to be a happy medium somewhere.

 

[TheGoodNews]

Aiming for the lofty goals is often viewed without factoring in the predators that run our current system.

A transition to a utopian society with them at the helm seems destined to end with a soviet union 2.0

That's a bit of a strawman. How "often" is this actually "viewed" this way? And what about cases where progress is made organically or simply through innovation? Or when it results in transferring power away from previous monopolies?

"Windmills quickly spread across the plains of northern Europe. Because wind is everywhere, not bound to royal lands, and free, the power source could be erected anywhere. Towns and cities rushed headlong into the new energy regime, with a source of power at hand that allowed them to even the playing field with local lords." The Zero Marginal Cost Society by Rifkin

 

[IDL]

That's a bit of a strawman. How "often" is this actually "viewed" this way? And what about cases where progress is made organically or simply through innovation? Or when it results in transferring power away from previous monopolies?

"Windmills quickly spread across the plains of northern Europe. Because wind is everywhere, not bound to royal lands, and free, the power source could be erected anywhere. Towns and cities rushed headlong into the new energy regime, with a source of power at hand that allowed them to even the playing field with local lords." The Zero Marginal Cost Society by Rifkin

I'm speaking in terms of the last hundred years or so.

I only think it's really a realistic scenario (political communism or large scale socialism leading to the betterment of all) on a macro scale if the current ruling class is excluded from the equation.

I'm certainly in favor of power disrupting technologies, but then again that will also be met with resistance by the monopoly players. It's a game of 'acquire the power' between the citizens of the planet and the ruling globalist classes in my view. Limiting their power and gaining independence from the system IMO is the most direct way to win. So things like the windmill are precisely what is needed in the modern context. Ways of gaining independence.

So empowering the people at the grassroots level, not empowering the state or even expecting it to save the day. The state will be turned against the people.

 

[Joe_Armstrong]

Makes we wonder :

Is the society of Star Trek TNG conisdered a communistic state ?

Funny how it seemed appealing then...

 

[Gandhi]

There are lots of flaws, but one of the biggest technical flaws in Marxist economics is that they are built upon the 'labor theory of value,' which assesses economic production essentially in terms of the labor required to create it. That is because all profits, in Marxist terms, are an *appropriation of labor by somebody else*. Marx's economics leave no room for the idea that an individual can just up and create enormous profits except by taking other people's labor.

This involves a prejudice against 'non laborious' practices that, in a market economy, are valued and paid highly -- particularly coming up with innovative ideas. The labor theory of value struggles to explain why labor is not, in market terms, actually all that valuable. So it has to come up with extremely complicated and gimmicky ways to explain why labor heavy industries tend to be unprofitable relative to labor-light businesses. Why is labor exploitation so empirically unprofitable? Traditional Marxism did not have a good answer. That is because it was built on a sort of rudimentary 19th century theory of economics. For ideological reasons, Marxists have trouble jettisoning this structure and modernizing it (despite the claims to be scientific). Because that would mean losing the labor exploitation dogma.

Agreed on the labor theory, the idea that labor has an intrinsic objective value that is extracted by the capitalist, rather than a subjective value that is created by the capitalist finding a use for said labor, is a primary flaw. It sits as a week foundation for the claim that socialism can create a scientific basis for extracting and distributing value that is superior to a market based system.

In reality, labor is only one possible factor of production that includes technology and natural resources. And then there is the obv point that these factors of production, including labor are not inherently valuable . Value by definition of the word is subjective and in the eye of the beholder. So the process of matching and also mixing these factors (ie using technology in education) to create subjective value becomes very critical and complex. That is of course where the importance of innovation, competition, and choice come in.

Although I still think the labor theory of value does touch on something. While it is true that labor extraction is not the right way to measure value creation, from a political perspective, labor is not just some resource that can be replaced with another factor. That purely economic argument (although largely correct) needs some fence posts for society to function.

In addition, I think most agree that a market based economy will always outperform a centrally planned one (the worlds biggest supercomputer would not do better at allocating resources to diverse needs than a market system). However there are some macro level decisions and functions that govt can perform to advance economic prosperity.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Over the world perhaps, I haven't done the research to check...

But not in the US. Here are some pesky facts:

Non military personal federal government employees by decade as percent of population:

1962 = 1.4% of population
1972 = 1.3%
1982 = 1.22%
1992 = 1.2%
2002 = 0.93%
2012 = 0.86% (just over half of what we had in 1962)

And if you look at these numbers the trend is for it to keep dropping at faster and faster rates.

Did you check to see how much of this is the result of outsourcing to independent contractors? Take for example my mail delivery. Independent contractor. I don't know that was the case in 1962.

 

[Gandhi]

There's no doubt that capitalism has proved vastly more sophisticated and adaptable then Marx envisioned. It has also brilliantly seized on and exploited broader social phenomena like the breakdown of traditional structures of human society, traditional identities.

One of the most characteristic failures of Marxism was to underappreciate how the collapse of traditional structures of reactionary identity *has aided capitalism*. Marxism, and leftism generally, is premised on the belief that *traditional structures of social engagement and identity based on reactionary sentiment* will be replaced by *rationalized structures of social engagement and identity based on common human nature and economic class*. And that capitalism is a sort of middle-stage development that embodies such traditional structures.

For the classic Marxist, as traditional forms of identity -- religious, family, ethnic, national, racial, tribal -- are replaced with rational perception of your identity in terms of the economic structure of human society -- primarily class -- you will naturally turn towards socialism. After all, that kid who is not your biological child, who is of a different religion, who is from a different country, who is a different race: That kid *will be just as dear to you as your own kid, once you see your position rightly*. All traditional forms of identity shall be replaced with a glorious community that thus recognizes and loves common humanity above all else. Honor to labor!

This, in its exaggerated Marxist form, represents a characteristic delusion of much Leftist thought, the assumption that deletion of traditional forms of identity and sentiment will surely lead to replacement by *equal* social sentiment on purely rational class-based grounds. The actual empirical result is rather different: You end up with individualist worker drones ripe for exploitation by global capitalism, and fundamentally incapable of any serious collective action. That central irony illuminates not only Marxism's failures but also much of modern politics. And it's why capitalism keeps winning. It understands human nature better.

If you are really interested in the philosophy, this ideological conflict was developed in great detail during the conflict between the Left Hegelians (which Marx was one of) and the Right Hegelians (now almost unknown, sadly).

The easiest example of this is marx's description of fascism. Not a real ideology but an appeal to race, reinvested history / tradition / nationalism employed by the upper and middle class to divide the working class (with special appeal to the lumpen).

While it is a useful and relevant analysis in many historical situations, it certainly does not fit with the idea of the modern successful international capitalist and the opposition to it from sources of tradition.

 

[Jack V Savage]

No you just have to be honest in your accounting. Private firms get charged with crimes if they try to claim they have lots of revenues by simply handing money back and forth between them. This is called accounting fraud. I certainly agree that fraud is widespread in govt "accounting" of itself.

What makes something accounting fraud isn't that it violates some universal ideal of "correct" accounting, but rather that it violates laws about it. In the two scenarios, there is no actual difference *and* no principle under which you declare one framing to be more right than another. It's just not a solid category, and you don't get around that by changing the subject to accounting fraud.

There is a clear trade of labor in this case, almost certainly at the market rate for it. You would not be accused of fraud in the private sector either if you cited the tax credits as revenues. That was a sale they made.

Yes, I'm not denying that the gov't is making the bridge happen, silly. I'm saying that the gov't has the power to make things happen without resorting to taxation or spending, and that measuring the gov't's power or "presence" isn't helped by looking at fiscal policy. In the example I gave, the gov't cut taxation and spending and yet still executed on a project. A gov't that builds bridges can be said to be one that is "bigger" than one that doesn't, but spending and taxation have nothing to do with that.