What's the difference between democratic socialism and plain old socialism? Or is it just the same thing but with "democratic" placed in front to make it sound better like the DPRK?
Democratic Socialism is like Denamark and Sweden, and plain old socialism (Leninist/Marxist Socialism) would be like the USSR. Just because the word socialism is in both, doesn't mean they're the same, in the same way that just because the word salad is in both Caeser Salad & Afghan Salad doesn't mean they are the same thing.
Democratic Socialism is socialism by way of Democracy. The workers own the means of production and decided democratically together how to allocate resources. Socialism is just workers ownership of the means of production. Bernie really is a Social Democrat, i.e. Scandinavian "socialist."
>>69765777
What happens when my government decides to use my generations of pension money to pay for brown people to shit up my borders?
What is Sweden doing if they're allowing this to happen without the voice of the people beyond their shitty, cucked representatives in parliament?
>>69763835
The end goal is Communism as written by Marx and practiced by Lenin. Social Democrat, Democratic Socialist don't be fooled by names, read Marx and Engels along with Mein Kampf to get an idea what exactly these things are, an ever changing tentacle of destruction.
>>69763835
What's the difference between blacks and niggers?
>>69765998
>BBC in ID
Well that's neat.
>>69765777
>The workers own the means of production
wtf does this even mean?
In Bernies case, actually nothing
Otherwise, Marxist socialist is redistributive, or affirmative action in newspeak, and focuses on class hierarchy, or privilege in newspeak, and has such catch phrases like "we only have our chains to lose" or "smash the <conspiratorial group here>".
Democratic socialism is just populism for NEETs. Lots of gibs me dat policies.
>>69763835
>>69764401
>>69765777
>>69765902
>>69765944
Well planned reddit but no cigare.
>>69766172
A leaf calling people reddit, new shill tactic?
>>69763835
Socialism: an economic system in which the workers own the means of production.
Democratic socialism: socialism achieved through democratic means (as opposed to a revolution of the proletariat).
Social democracy: capitalism with a strong social safety net. See also: Scandinavia.
>>69763835
>>69766137
Outside of cooperatively owned companies on the scale of a nation or larger?
I don't think even the most hardcore socialist even know beyond their empty rhetoric
>>69766137
It means that if you work for a company, you're also an owner of the company and have a say in the operation and direction of it. There's no owner/boss you have to be unquestioningly obedient towards at the risk of losing your job.
>>69766529
>And on the scale of a nation or larger*
It means they will try to implement it democratically first.
If they fail they'll try again, if they feel again then it will be a full commie rebolution.
>>69763835
It's the same as plain old socialism but with an additional word in its name so dumb burgers won't get suspicious.
>>69766546
how are the owners not workers?
>>69763835
One is through revolution the other through votes, in the end its the same failed policies.
Ask the head of the DNC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBYUINS7Vi4
>>69766593
Did I say they weren't? In capitalism, the owners can also be the workers, but the reverse is rarely true. In socialism, they are one and the same.
>>69763835
Socialism to some is full marxism, workers own means of production, completely reformed economy where nobody is oppressed and everyone shits money wrapped in rainbows.
Democractic socialism is anywhere from democracy with policies that redistribute wealth to a planned economy (that is selected and occasionally put to the test by the democratic process,
>>69763835
It's just the term than the Labour party used to show it's commitment to standing for elected office, technically speaking it's a tautology (contradiction in terms) since socialism has to be democratic otherwise it's not socialism. (socialism being, at the most basic level, the democratisation of the economy so that it includes the whole of society, rather than just the capital owning class)
>>69766137
It means instead of it being owned by a boss, a shareholder, an owner or some sort, the people who actually go in to do the work on a daily basis also own it.
Instead of being paid a wage in exchange for your labour, you get a share of whatever turnover the firm makes.
This in short destroys the Boss > Worker class system that exists under capitalism, creating a different type of ism - socialism.
>>69766732
What I'm asking is how owning a company isn't considered work? Can you give an example of a socialist company?
>>69766593
Because they employ the labour, rather than sell their own labour to a boss.
Do the shareholders of a company get an income based on how many hours work they did? No, they draw their income from property ownership, backed up by private property rights.
same difference between socialism and communism
there is none
>>69763835
Also, Bernie is effectively a social democrat, per >>69766417, whatever his personal ideologies might be. The policies he argues for are squarely on the social democracy side of things, rather than socialism. Practically, true socialism is a non-starter in the west (especially in the US).
>>69766930
>What I'm asking is how owning a company isn't considered work?
It might be work, in the more general sense of the term, but it's not paid wage labour, which is principally what socialists object to and wish to change.
"democratic socialism" is what people too cowardly to say socialism call socialism.
>>69767007
owning a company isn't labor?
>>69766930
Um, you can easily be a shareholder in a company without ever lifting a finger for the company.
>Can you give an example of a socialist company?
Mondragon. Also food co-ops.
>>69766593
because muh class warfare, haven't you read the Communist Manifesto you bourgeoisie swine?
>>69766732
>the reverse is rarely true
There are tons of co-op based businesses in the US, at least a few thousand credit unions, for example. There's nothing inherently anti-capitalist about it either, unless you're retarded enough to buy Marx's class warfare bullshit.
>>69767067
the payment is operating a good company and profiting
It's Socialism that says "we wont have a bloody revolution, we promise:')"
you get to feel like you chose it when the dick of the state fucks you.
Democratic socialism is just socialism but voted in via "Democracy"
>>69767353
but America isn't a democracy
>>69767101
Only in the sense of it being difficult, it doesn't involve selling your labour as a commodity to an employer for an agreed period of time, no.
Bosses might work in a non-economic sense, but they draw their income based on owning the productive resources and having private property rights over it. A worker sells his or her labour to someone who owns a business and productive resources (the "means of production") in exchange for a wage. However, because all the things that worker needs to stay alive (food, shelter etc) are also things he has to buy on the market, what he earns from his work he has to spend rather than invest, thus creating a perpetual cycle of work-spend-work-spend. Bosses aren't in that position, as under capitalism they are expected to reinvest a portion of their profit to expand and grow their business.
>>69767407
Yeah, why do you think I put democracy in quotation marks?
>>69767173
It's a "payment" tho is it? They aren't being paid by someone. They own it, they employ labour as a resources, and the money they get in turnover is theirs by virtue of private property rights, and not linked to the amount of labour they sell per-hour like it is for those who don't own any productive assetts.
>>69767160
>There are tons of co-op based businesses in the US, at least a few thousand credit unions, for example.
I don't disagree, but the total number of people those organizations employ relative to capitalist companies has to a small fraction, hence why I used "rarely."
>>69767432
it seems like capitalism is just a more efficient method were money represents labor.
>>69767497
they are being paid by the consumers of their service or product
The scandinavian model is what Bernie admires the most i guess
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model
>>69767783
You know why the nordic model works?
Because their people are homogeneous. The nordic model won't work in a mixed society. Just look at Sweden.
>>69767627
Which is turn is being paid by the employer of the person who pays the worker who consumes the product (ad infinitum)
Bosses aren't "paid" not do they "earn" these are terms that we use for workers they're not unviersal. The terms you're looking for are "accumulate" "profit" and "turnover" not earn or get paid, since no-one buys their labour-time (which is the technical term for "work" in an economic context) in the way that - even a consumer does not pay for a product in relation to how much labour-time the owner does,since to owner isn't selling his or her labour in the first place.
I mean an owner can work, there's blurred lines here, some high ranking managers have stock options for instance, and some owners and shareholders are willing to be put on the payroll and do a shift for god knows what reason, but the whole point about owning lots of stuff is that you can accumulate money without having to engage in the drudgery of wage-labour.
same as the difference between sex and rape: you're getting fucked whether you like it or not.
>>69767863
>their people are homogeneous
Not for long.
>>69767863
>You know why the nordic model works?
Nothing to do with socialism then?
>>69767906
Yes. Just look at sweden.
>>69767912
Yes. It has nothing to do with socialism.
>>69767963
North Korea is the most ethnically homogenous state on earth. Why haven't they got a "nordic model?"
>>69767906
SWEDEN YES!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ4zhEfjXqA
>>69768052
Because they have a dictator. Are you stupid or retarded?
>>69763835
Socialism is a slow creep to communism. Social democracy or direct democracy are best. Democratic socialism is simply democracy that focusses more on a mixed, economy. When if you look into its numbers tended to work very well. When we used to do it but killed it in a shower. That the focus is not on look at my Christmas tree it is look what we did today :)
>>69767067
>No, they draw their income from property ownership, backed up by private property rights
Private property which was almost certainly obtained at some point in exchange for labor performed. Unlike the world you imagine, most of these people came by their wealth fairly, unless your definition of "fair" doesn't include someone using their pay as they see fit if it ends with them or their children owning a business.
>>69767432
Blatantly false dichotomy. Workers in a free market can and do sell their labor for more than they need to subsist on, and in a capitalist system they can even join the ranks of the evil property-owning bosses as long as they can convince a bank loan officer that they can turn a profit with it.
>>69767542
>capitalist companies
you still seem to be suffering from the delusion that co-ops are anti-capitalist.
>>69768061
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHgxOXEQaFU
>>69763835
>>69768111
I am playing with you.
I like how you think that the success of the Nordic model (highest human standard of living consistently for 30+ years) had nothind to do with the socialistm, communist and workers movements that created it, that's pretty impressive self-delusion.
>>69768217
It works because it is a homogeneous society you dumbfuck. If you think every system can be fitted into every society, you are the one who is delusional. Any system would have worked when everyone is one large community and has a vested interest in improving their country instead of screaming for gibmedats or trying to implement sharia law.
![george-santayana-quote-those-who-do-not-learn-from-history-are-doomed[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/hjT8Oxm.jpg "george-santayana-quote-those-who-do-not-learn-from-history-are-doomed[1].jpg")
Democratic People's Republic of North Korea
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
Democratic Kampuchea
People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
German Democratic Republic
Somali Democratic Republic
Democratic Republic of Vietnam
People's Democratic Republic of Yemen
Democratic Republic of the Sudan
These are all examples of Democratic Socialism
Socialists like to use the words Democratic and Republic for their dictatorships, it's an homage to Orwell.
>>69764401
Sweden and Denmark are Capitalist countries. Denamark is not a country.
>>69768212
Damn that's catchy.
>>69767863
>You know why the nordic model works?
It doesn't work. This is more Marxist, objectively false horseshit that's peddled by "right-wing" socialists.
Welfare statism and government control over education (to the point that the state is basically raising children) has been annihilating Swedish society since the 1960's. They had massive increases in single motherhood, stagnation of increases in new businesses and capital accumulation, markedly lowered wok-ethic and positive opinions on self-reliance, huge amounts of (completely unsustainable) debt taken on to finance their huge welfare state, and yes, eventually all of this causing their country to be flooded with shitskins because they created a magnet for them.
Gee, it's so surprising that when you emasculate your males in a society by replacing their role and responsibility with society with welfare, that the society will eventually become such r-selected leftist vermin that they feel no problem with flooding their society with members of a hostile tribe (who themselves only come there because of welfare).
You people need to be chucked out of helicopters every bit as much as Hernie voters.
Socialism. Does. Not. Fucking. Work.
>>69768211
>you still seem to be suffering from the delusion that co-ops are anti-capitalist
Can you expand on that? If they are exclusively worker-owner, then they are by definition socialist, and therefore non-capitalist (not "anti-" per se). That said, some co-ops may well be partly capitalist-owned - I don't know tbqh.
>>69768485
>worker-owner
Should read "worker-owned"
>>69768211
>Private property which was almost certainly obtained at some point in exchange for labor performed.
This is conjecture at best, hilariously naive at worst.
Don't shoot the messenger - these are basic concepts and terms that in economics a freshman undergraduate would learn, not some hotly contest ideological point.
>>69768211
>Unlike the world you imagine, most of these people came by their wealth fairly
They have their wealth as a result of the state guarenteeing their private property rights with violence and threatening those who trangress against their property rights with prison. It rests upon force. Read some classical liberalism.
>>69768211
>Workers in a free market can and do sell their labor for more than they need to subsist on
True, although the bulk of what they earn has to be spent on what they need to survive, whereas capitalism is based on growth and reinvesting of a surplus to expand. That's what the word capital means - you get your capital, you invest it, you get your original investment + a profit, you keep a chunk of the profit for yourself and then reinvest to start the whole cycle off again. It's known in economics as the capitalist cycle of accumulation, it's why market based systems tend to go in cycles, and why you hear people talk about things like "the business cycle" etc on Bloomberg.
>>69768211
>and in a capitalist system they can even join the ranks of the evil property-owning bosses as long as they can convince a bank loan officer that they can turn a profit with it.
The thing about this is though that there are only a finite amount of investment opportunities at any given time, and a finite amount of profitable sectors to invest in. If you gave everyone ten million dollars to start their own software company you'd still end up with only two or three successful ones and hundreds of thousands of failed ones, no matter how many loans you give out.
>>69763835
Under a democratic form of socialism, the population would be free to elect a disheveled shitbag and life-long NEET, in place of the former dictator's nephew or whomever the nations elite would choose to rule over their comrades.
>>69768211
>you still seem to be suffering from the delusion that co-ops are anti-capitalist.
Well funnily the first recorded usage of the word "socialist" in it's modern English context actually derives from the description Robert Owen gave to the Co-operative movement back in the early 19th Century, so although you can in theory have co-operatives that function as part of a capitalist market economy they have been on a self-consciously socialist basis since they first began in the West.
They do two things - firstly they elimate the concept of wage-labour for an employer, which is one of the distinguishing features of the capitalist method of production, and also the fact that there's no incentive to re-invest profit for the sake of competetive growth since there's no capitalist or shareholder who would benefit from such a move. If the workers at the co-op want to expand, and see an opening in the market to do so, they can do so, if they feel it'd be better to shrink in size, they can do that too. They're a bit more flexible than traditional businesses, whch have built into their DNA an almost pathological desire to have short-term quarterly profits.
You can have co-ops in a market economy though, and you can invest capital into them, so they're not totally incompatable with a capitalist economy. There's a big difference however between "markets" and "capitalism" cos the latter implies a capital-owner, whereas a co-op the capital owner is also the worker.
>>69768804
Right on. And I for one would quite like to see more such co-ops give it a shot and maybe figure out how to make it work.
The neat part is that freedom allows for such things. There's no need to give anything up just because you might have a different idea of how to go about it.
>>69768418
>stagnation of increases in new businesses and capital accumulation
From a socialist perspective this is a positive thing, and probably exactly what the people who introduced the Nordic model wanted - to reduce the scale of the opportunities for capital accumulation that the Swedish capitalists have.
I would be very happy with a similar state of affairs in my country too
>>69768418
>markedly lowered work-ethic
That's not a bad thing either - working is a means to an end, not an end in itself. I'd rather spend less time working and more time enjoying life, spending time with my family etc.
>and positive opinions on self-reliance
Working for a capitalist is the absolutely opposite of self-reliance.
>>69768418
>eventually all of this causing their country to be flooded with shitskins
This isn't a problem if you're not the sort of person who hates those of different coloured skin.
>>69768418
>of a hostile tribe
this made me laugh. Don't employers count as a hostile tribe? How bout landlords?
King of the Hill taught me that co-ops will sell out for profit even thought they're hippies
>>69768962
>Right on. And I for one would quite like to see more such co-ops give it a shot and maybe figure out how to make it work.
Yup. The USA has a very strong tradition of this sort of DIY socialism.
This sort of thing is actually closer to the spirit and the theory of socialism than state ownership of industry, which was something that came in much later (post-WW2) and has it's own sort of history. But that's a long story.
The biggest problem is though that you'd have to take certain sectors of the economy (energy? transport? food? agriculture? etc) out of the hands of the private sector in order to run them co-operatively, and let's be honest those guys who are very rich and who have the private property rights giving them the control of these resources aren't going to give them up without a fight.
>>69766417
This is correct. Democratic Socialism is just choosing to advance towards socialism by the ballot box rather than a violent revolution.
>>69769176
>out of the hands of the private sector
So-called "public-private partnerships" are a fucking curse. But that's how they keep selling the total global corporate control structure to destroy the nation-state and undo close to 1000 years of Western development.
More people should understand this in order to grasp what's really going on with these "free trade" deals. Or maybe if they're in an urban environment go down to the local corporate UN "community development" office or whatever they call it, find out which people who got "elected" to run the city are bought and paid for by the UN, etc.
Democratic Socialists in America are just undercover commies and misguided millennials.
>>69765998
Will Smith is black. Lil Wayne is a nigger. Hope that helped
>>69769559
>global corporate control structure to destroy the nation-state and undo close to 1000 years of Western development.
It's part of the same process of western development. Nations are fairly recent things, it's only since the 19th century that nation-states based on broadly linguistic grounds became the norm, prior to that it was a mixture of empires and city-states, depending on your time on place. And just as the city state, or tribal petty kingdom, was replaced by the nation-state as capitalism emerges, the nation-state will be replaced by larger, civilisational structures. So the EU for example, you'll be loyal to your European-ness and your nation (Polish, English, Italian etc) will be replaced. But that's normal, it's just another page in the development of the west. Capitalism has no need for the nation-state now, it holds capitalism back, and culturally there's little reason to think that people who's main cultural influences are taken online and through mass-produced consumer culture, will have any reason to be tied to a nation-state system from a previous historical era.
>>69768485
By merry webyy
Full Definition of capitalism: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
How does a bunch of people owning a co-op and participating together in the market to acquire and accumulate wealth and capital not capitalist?
>>69768485
Because the way you're using socialist and capitalist at an individual rather than at a systemic level is just Marxist wordplay to give socialism undue credit for the activities of free individuals that approximate socialist organizations. The whole argument against socialism isn't that things like co-ops and collective ownership are not economically viable, it's that abolishing private property is completely retarded.
>>69768541
Even without the state using force to guarantee private property rights, the individual should still have the right to do so. The false line drawn between individual rights and property rights is nothing but Marx's class warfare bullshit.
>>69768994
Oh my god nevermind. It amazes me you're even literate.
They kill innocent people and call it a means to an end. They cause a massacre and call it a revolution. They betrayed the law!
>>69769963
>Full Definition of capitalism: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
The free market is a poor choice of words - capitalism can function with a free or an un-free market.
It's not a bad definition of capitalism, but it's very basic. There's no menion of divisions of labour, competitive imperatives, production on scale, mass production, incentive for automation and a ton of other things which makes capitalism distinctive.
>>69769963
>How does a bunch of people owning a co-op and participating together in the market
Because the definition of capitalism is more in-depth than simply participating in market relations.
>to acquire and accumulate wealth and capital
Says who? co-ops can be to simply provide a service at-cost for no profit, simply to provide an source of income to it's members and a service to it's community.
Also it's not under any pressure to re-invest the capital it starts with like a normal business would, which means the entire capital accumulation cycle is disrupted.
You can have co-ops within capitalism, but you'd call them an example of socialism (because of the workers owning the means of production bit) operating within otherwise capitalist social relations. You get this all the time, you get things like the NHS (a highly socialist form of public healthcare we have in Britain) which functions alongside the world's oldest and most well established capialist economy, and in fact helps subsidise the cost of keeping the labour force healty much more efficently than the American market-based system.
I'm sure that even in a socialist society there'll be pockets of capitalism that persist for quite some time, as long as they are forced to exist within socialist social relations.
>>69769955
Analysis is one thing. Solutions are another, especially ones that are hostile takeovers that pretty much never worked outside of outright genocide and complete and total destruction -- that is how to "win" a war, even though we've had to make up things like the "Moral Equivalent of War" to try to force more bullshit down the throats of helpless children in what really is a war unto itself.
But it is quite nice that we have things like an internet and a mongolian vodka-swilling listserv to discusss these high-minded topics.
>>69763835
Democratic socialism is regular socialism, but they pretend that the people consent with it
>>69770055
>Even without the state using force to guarantee private property rights, the individual should still have the right to do so
It's not just gaurenteeing them, it's deciding what is and is not private property in the first instance. You can't just claim "all the air in the world belongs to me and I'll shoot anyone who breathes it" after all. You need to have some form of social acceptance and legitimacy to back up your claim, which is what the state does have, and what "me and my AR-15" on your lonesome don't. See Max Weber's discourses on power and domination for more on this. It's really the best place to start.
Power is a social activity - one cannot exercise power as a solitary individual, it has to involve others recognising it and abiding by it. An individual cannot have power on his or her own he has to have power by operating in unison with others, you can also find this in Weber but Hannah Arendt does some interesting work on this stuff.
>>69770055
>Oh my god nevermind. It amazes me you're even literate.
One day you'll be literate too, but keep trying to read the recomendations I give you and improving your knowledge level.
>>69770303
This is basically a semantics discussion.
I don't care what things are called, as long as they are not coerced, i'm ok with it. Socialism demands big government and that never works out in the long run.
>>69765902
yes it means you have to pay for brown people
also means that should you get involved in some horrible catastrophe your rich neighbors will be footing your bill so you don't go like any other american man in your situation and put a gun to your head because you lost everything.
which is a nice idea, but the odds that you will end up in horrible catastrophe vs. the odds that some brown family will need ongoing financial support are pretty uneven so i can see why anyone middle class and above would be reluctant to join in
it's complicated
democratic socialism as a tendency is one that people ascribe to when they believe the capture of state power and the abolition of private property can be achieved with the liberal democratic apparatus
however, many people refer to themselves as democratic socialists in the sense that they are for the strengthening of social welfare, perhaps the nationalization of certain sectors like health care, and not actually for the abolition of private property or the market economy. basically social democrats, or new deal style democrats
sanders isn't for the abolition of private property, he's for strengthening social welfare and working class institutions as a whole
also, another thing: actual socialists or communists who are ultimately for the communization of private property may or may not favor reform when the chance for it comes along. most do in practice, but there are some internet tankies here and there that are loud. most socialists are a quiet bunch, acting politically in the interest of the working class when the opportunity presents itself
>>69770303
capitalism is a system of value production. value is produced for the sake of value, for the sake of exchange rather than for use
even in coops the worker coop which owns the business are subordinate to capital. wage labor, exploitation, all there in a coop.
>>69771037
You're absolutely right but the only thing I'd add is that the term "democratic socialism" was termed specfically for the Labour party in the UK, because Labour was keen to show it's utter commitment to liberal democratic politics, and in particular it's opposition to extra-parliamentary direct action.
This was necessary because Labour isn't a Social Democratic party on the German model, but a Workers party founded by the trade unions that has a small number of marxists, liberals, social democrats, methodist christians, co-ops and so on making up it's activists. As such, it defined itself to the left of Social Democracy (ie still theoretically in favour of the abolition of private property, but via parliamentary means) even though in practice the Labour party was always Workerist (ie to the right of Social Democracy, pro-union but socially conservative, interested in workers wages and winning strikes more than the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism)
The term democratic socialism basically just means socialism, but for various complex historical reasons to do with the formation of the Labour party in Britain, the people who wrote Clause IV and defined socialism (this is where we get the definition "The common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange" btw in the same period) went to extra-special lengths to show how committed they were to parliamentary politics despite not being social democrats.
>>69771447
>even in coops the worker coop which owns the business are subordinate to capital
Well you don't really get wage-labour since the renumeration is a portion of turnover rather than an overhead to be paid based on labour-time's value in the labour market. This is a very different set of social relations at work.
>>69770559
>You can't just claim "all the air in the world belongs to me and I'll shoot anyone who breathes it" after all.
You're exactly right, you can't. Now stop pulling complete nonsense and shitty suggested out of your ass and try to make a valid point, because nobody in a capitalist system could get away with that, and if they tried I'd be fully in my rights to shoot him to defend myself. You know why he didn't have any legitimacy to the claim? Because he didn't put any labor into it.
Likewise, yes there are more than a few people out there who have claim to land or other resources that they might not have earned through their own labor, with the state using violence to guarantee it, but guess what? Not a shitting tiny bit of that is "capitalism" except by the twisted definition Marx cooked up to demonize it. If you agree that a person has a right to the product of his labor, and the right to do with it as he sees fit, then you're a capitalist, it's as simple as that.
If you want to talk about disentangling a few centuries of state-sanctioned theft, nepotism, and corruption that have given a handful of people significantly more wealth and power than they are due, that's one thing. But it's a completely separate issue from capitalism vs. socialism.
>>69771952
should have been "shitty suggested readings" since clearly you and I have roughly the same level of understanding about the concepts of power and legitimacy.
>>69771952
>You know why he didn't have any legitimacy to the claim? Because he didn't put any labor into it.
You think the Royal Family is the largest private landowner in Britain because they put the most labour into it?
Most land that's owned by someone hasn't been created by anyone's labour. Likewise I have to pay for water from a private company but they didn't invent the water, nor even the infrastructure used to deliver it, it was here long before the current owners got the chance to profit from it.
>>69771952
>Not a shitting tiny bit of that is "capitalism" except by the twisted definition Marx cooked up to demonize it.
Well firstly we need to deal with your factual errors. Marx didn't use the term capitalism so I find it hard to be believe he demonized it - you can search through MEGA and Marx and Engels collected works (sadly no longer available online) but nearly always he uses the term Kapital, or more appropriately the Bourgeosis. If you look for Kapitalismus, the German word for capitalism, and then an appropriate definition of it in Marx, you'll be looking for a long long time.
Secondly Marx directly took his understanding of capitalism from Adam Smith and David Ricardo, directly using all their assumptions, their terminology, their jargon and so on as part of his critique. So for example the "Labour theory of Value" is often associated with Marx but has a pedigree that goes back much longer into classical liberalism and really hits it's zenith with the works of David Ricardo.
Finally if you consider a man's labour to be his own property then selling it to a capitalist employer, out of dire need because the means of life (food, clothing, shelther etc) are only available via the market is out of the question, and you should therefore be a Marxist, a belief system which totally agrees that workers should own the the fruits of their own labour and not have to sell it on the market in order to survive. When can I expect you at the meeting, comrade?
>>69765944
If you'd read Marx you'd know Marx predicted communism would happen after socialism. He reproached socialism for not being about the proletariat but allied with socialists.
>>69765944
The end goal for communism is to have 1. no markets and 2. no currency. Everyone knows that actually implementing these two things is borderline impossible in real world.
>>69763835
>socialism
Refers to who owns the means of production. Socialism means the means of production are owned publicly. This may be by the people who work in the factories/whatever, or by the state, municipality etc, depending on the exact arrangement.
>Democratic
This refers to how politics is conducted.
Ideologically, Democratic Socialists will usually strive for a society in which laws and policies are democratically determined and companies are run with similar democratic processes. So elect bosses to enact policy, etc. Profits go to workers and so on.
>>69766137
In small scale, think a small business. They are by definition socialist. Large scale, Mondragon Corporation.
>>69772894
>1. no markets and 2. no currency
That is some Marxists. Socialism is far older than Marx. The problem really comes with capital markets, and socialists have discussed it:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/12/the-red-and-the-black/
>>69772353
Seriously, stop wasting two paragraphs to make some idiotic non-point, I can feel myself getting stupider for having read it. Marx never mentioning capitalism by name doesn't matter one whit. The salient point is that through some misunderstanding either on the part of Marx or you and his other fanboys, capitalism is falsely conflated with statism.
And I do firmly believe that a person should have to leverage the fruits of their own labor to survive. whether or not it's utilized to directly provide for his needs or traded in kind doesn't particularly matter, so the only way you'll see me at your meeting is if you and yours try to take my private property from me, in which case I'll be arriving gun in hand.
>>69772894
eliminating market's isn't even on the borderline, unless you count destroying our entire species or evolving into a single hivemind within the realm of possibility. As long as we
>>69772894
>The end goal for communism is to have 1. no markets
This is totally untrue btw. You can have markets in socialism, the idea is that with abundance over centuries using markets to distribute scarce resources would become un-necessary, just as the complex systems of debt and barter that existed pre-currency became redundant once coinage was created.
>>69772353
>You think the Royal Family is the largest private landowner in Britain because they put the most labour into it?
Are you claiming the Royal Family got that land through capitalism?
>Most land that's owned by someone hasn't been created by anyone's labour.
The overwhelming majority of it was, at least in the US. And it's spelled labor.
>Marx didn't use the term capitalism so I find it hard to be believe he demonized it ...he uses the term Kapital, or more appropriately the Bourgeosis
Wikipedia says Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie translates to Capital: Critique of Political Economy
>Finally if you consider a man's labour to be his own property then selling it to a capitalist employer, out of dire need because the means of life (food, clothing, shelther etc) are only available via the market is out of the question, and you should therefore be a Marxist, a belief system which totally agrees that workers should own the the fruits of their own labour and not have to sell it on the market in order to survive.
What? Are you saying that marxists don't have to work (in which case everyone will be equally poor and die of starvation) or that the division of labor - which is literally what defines civilization - is a bad thing and we should all be subsistence farmers?
>>69773247
>>69772894
As long as we exist as individual, social creatures with the ability to specialize, markets will exist.
>>69773312
communism and socialism are different things, one could say that the 'communist message' is about a world without money.
>>69773247
>statism
>In political science, statism is the belief that the state should control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree. Statism is effectively the opposite of libertarianism; an individual who supports extensive intervention by the state is a statist.
So when are you going to start opposing government interventions into economy? Like the biggest one, property rights. That would make you some sort of anarchist socialist.
He literally says he wants a socialist revolution.
>>69773247
>Marx never mentioning capitalism by name doesn't matter one whit
It matters quite a lot because he didn't do an analysis of "capitalism" as an abstract system of government or economics as you're suggesting, he did an analysis of the power of the bourgeoisie in a class society (in which he claimed their power was at root due to capital ownership) to Marx himself the term capitalism would've been stupid, it's simply the term subsequently given to a class society where the industrial bourgeoisie (who own the capital) is the dominant class. >>69773247
>And I do firmly believe that a person should have to leverage the fruits of their own labor to survive. whether or not it's utilized to directly provide for his needs or traded in kind doesn't particularly matter, so the only way you'll see me at your meeting is if you and yours try to take my private property from me, in which case I'll be arriving gun in hand.
I really enjoying seeing all these references to shooting people to protect muh property, there's something very deep in the American psyche at work there and I find it enjoyable to see.
>>69764401
Denmark is not a democratic socialist country. Do some research
>>69773360
>Are you claiming the Royal Family got that land through capitalism?
No, but they own it right now and the landed aristocracy played a crucial role in the development of the first functioning capitalist market-economy.
I'm disputing the notion that the legitimacy of property ownership rests on the amount of labour you put into something, or that the owners of property got what they currently have do to them working really hard and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.
>>69773360
>The overwhelming majority of it was
No the physical land itself was created by geological processes totally unrelated to human labour of any kind. Claiming ownership of land and resources they had no part in creating is a different story, and takes into the world of "Primitive accumulation" which you'll already be familiar with, right?
>>69773360
>Wikipedia says Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie translates to Capital: Critique of Political Economy
That's right, Das Kapital. Not Kapitalismus. For Marx he simply called it "the bourgeois society" or "a society dominated by the bourgeoisie" since for him class struggle was what mattered, and the current dominant class is industrial bourgeosie, who engage in cycles of capital accumulation based on private property ownership, as the source of their power. Capitalism is simply the name that's been given post-humously to a society dominated by the Bourgeosie although it's a term Marx never used himself, let alone demonised. I'm simply correcting your basic factual errors, not trying to get into a long-winded ideological discussion because as the rest of your post shows you're struggling to understand many of these concepts and you're not really bright enough to have that sort of a conversation with. Sorry.
Does socialism inherently come with a planned economy?
>>69765777
So, any other issue that involves commerce you gather the whole nation to vote for it? Isn't the kinda impossible?
>>69773762
>No, but they own it right now and the landed aristocracy played a crucial role in the development of the first functioning capitalist market-economy.
Capitalism came from the Calvinists in the Netherlands.
>I'm disputing the notion that the legitimacy of property ownership rests on the amount of labour you put into something, or that the owners of property got what they currently have do to them working really hard and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.
Most of them did. They saved money and used it wisely. Where do you think capital comes from? Originally, where did the capitalists get the money to build a factory? It all comes from savings. Or theft, I suppose, if you want to include your Royals, but that isn't a typical case.
>That's right, Das Kapital. Not Kapitalismus.
That's like saying he used the word "industrial" but not "Industrialist". The root word and the implied concept are the same.
>>69774077
No, in a democracy the amount of planning is decided democratically.
Capitalism does inherently come with a planned economy. The centralized power of capital tends to use its economic and political power to destroy competition and create monopolies. That is why classical economists like Smith considered "free market" to be market free of unearned income. The existence of functional markets requires state interference.
>>69766546
So what happens when you have to fire someone? And does that mean that ever business decision is up too majority vote? What prevents clerks from taking wages from accountants?
>>69773400
>property rights are a creation of the state
kek
>>69773455
>it's simply the term subsequently given to a class society where the industrial bourgeoisie (who own the capital) is the dominant class
Sorry, that's only the operational definition you word-mincing mongs use to try and preach the Gospel of Marx. For those of us who live in reality rather than between the pages of Das Kapital, it refers to an economic system based on free markets and the individual right to property.
All you're really doing by pointing out that Marx didn't really talk about capitalism as a system of economics, which was precisely what everyone else was talking about until you interjected with your preachy bullshit, is that you and your fellow fanboys are exactly as dumb as one would expect for someone who can claim in the same thought that you shouldn't have property but somehow the product of your labor is okay, as if there's any material difference.
>>69774077
Not in a broad sense.
Is money going to the military "planned economy" in the US?
It's not a spectrum. You democratically decide where money is allocated. The idea is to have free market where it is beneficial and regulation where it is not.
>>69774374
>It's not a spectrum.
Oops, it IS a spectrum, not a binary.
>>69767912
They were already wealthy before socialism. When they adopted socialism, the economy actually became worse, and then they tried to fix this by being more free market.
>>69774275
>Capitalism does inherently come with a planned economy
I need to save this thread. You fags keep coming up with so many gems of absolutely idiotic fuckery, it's amazing.
>>69774077
All economies are planned, it's just a matter of who does the planning and to what end.
Capitalism has planned economics inherent to it - big companies plan their investments, they plan to correspond with the growth cycle, they plan to deal with externalities and disruptions, they plan constantly. This type of planning is generally highly centralised but (and this is v. important) centralised within firms, which are competitive and autonomous, although a lot of times you get monopolies emerging (which are good for capital accumulation) and you get cartels and mergers and a whole process called consolidation.
Socialists from Marx onwards have been big fans of planning, because in the first Volume Das Kapital Marx spends a huge amount of time analysing the benefits that the centralisation of production that took place in the Industrial Revolution, and the creation of the modern factory system to replace dispersed cottage industry, gave. He also put this benefit of centralised planning alongside other innovations (which he was a big fan of btw) such as divisions of labour, the use of machinery to increase labour productivity, the need to create wage-labour as a measurable unit that could be bought and sold for money, all these things. As such, socialists always advocating central planning since they always (from Marx himself onwards) attributed much of captialism's efficiency to this centralisation that took place.
The big different though is - to what end are they planning? Firms plan to create a profit for the owners, to expand market share, to beat the competition. We're all familiar with planning done to meet those ends, but under socialism economic activity would be planned to meet the needs of the general population (who, of course, would be the owners) rather than a small number of capitalists. In both instances the assumption is that people are rational, self-interested, utility-maximizing and act in accordance to those interests.
>>69774275
>The existence of functional markets requires state interference.
I have chickens. My neighbor shoots a deer. I give him a chicken in exchange for a chunk of deer meat.
Oh shit, we have a functioning market without any state interference.
>>69767007
I guess managing an entire company isn't considered work. Heck even ceo's are beholden to their shareholders, the ceo works for them. The share holders are often a collection of a thousands of middle to high class individuals who owns shares
>>69763835
The Bolsheviks who took over the Soviet Union by force were also "democratic."
>>69763835
the former leads to the latter, which in turn leads to communism.
they're not necesarily different, they're just different stages of the cancer know as communism
>>69763835
In Bernies case, he's not a democratic socialist.
He's a social democrat: He wants to keep capitalism, put up taxes, and spend the money on welfare.
The British Labour party does the same thing, claims to be 'socialist' for historical reasons (Labour were once socialists) but is in practical reality social-democratic.
The difference between democratic socialism and regular socialism is that it's achieved by non-revolutionary means (and also, in implementation, democratic socialism tends to be an end in itself while revolutionary socialism tends to be en route to communism [soon (tm)])
>>69764401
No, they're social democracies too. They were just barely socialist before the 90s when they privatized a lot of their state-owned industry.
>>69774474
You have chickens. You're the only one with chickens. You sell eggs to ridiculous prices, but people need to eat.
Someone has had enough. He has scraped enough dosh to import a chicken. He starts selling eggs.
You undercut his prices to the point where you're selling at a loss. He makes no profit and has to sell his chicken to you to get by.
You raise prices again.
>>69774251
>Capitalism came from the Calvinists in the Netherlands.
This is incorrect, although protestantism played an important role, the world's first functioning capitalist economy was England not the Netherlands and it's roots are in the shift from serfdom to capitalist tenant farmers employing labourers that took place in the aftermath of the English civil war from about 1660 onwards. This is the first, functioning, pre-industrial agrarian capitalist market economy. It happened almost by accident, and it happened because Britain was a very weak war-torn country where the aristocracy had to employ tenant farmers because serfdom had totally broken down in the civil war.
The netherlands was more mercantilist than capitalist, but it's probably a good shout for 2nd place after England (owing to the fact in the 1690's the King of the Netherlands William of Orange became King of Great Britain too)
>>69774251
>Most of them did
This is horseshit.
>>69774251
>Where do you think capital comes from?
It comes from Mr and Mrs Capitalist putting 5 cents into a big jar at the end of the working week, saving up for 40 years, then creating a multi-national corporation with an annual turnover bigger than the GDP of most nation-states.
GTFO with this horatio alger bullshit, it's pathetic.
>Or theft, I suppose, if you want to include your Royals, but that isn't a typical case.
It's absolutely typical and far more common than people saving up their earnings to create big companies. Holy shit
>>69774251
>The root word and the implied concept are the same.
Nah they're very different, Marx didn't even recognise the concept of capitalism.
Read this and get back to me:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n07/john-lanchester/marx-at-193
>>69774448
>under socialism economic activity would be planned to meet the needs of the general population
You do understand that businesses expand by satisfying the needs of a greater number of people?
>democratic socialism
It's neither democratic, nor socialism. It's just a stupid populist phrase Bernie is using to lure the people who are dissatisfied with the economy.
>>69774736
1. And then someone imports another chicken. How long can I continue selling at a loss?
2. I need things, also, which I have to trade for, and I'm not the only one producing food.
>>69764401
>Democratic Socialism is like Denamark and Sweden
No, those are just plain welfare states.
>>69774361
>property rights are a creation of the state
>kek
This is bog standard classical liberalism. Read some John Locke and divest yourself from your childish libertarian platitudes.
>>69774361
>Sorry, that's only the operational definition you word-mincing mongs use to try and preach the Gospel of Marx.
This is pretty funny, I presume you're getting angered by the fact I'm writing in full sentences and not making my points with unsourced jpegs as evidence?
>>69774361
>it refers to an economic system based on free markets
Most capitalist systems (in fact more or less all of them) have had regulated markets maintained and regulated by a state.
>and the individual right to property.
Capitalism saw a huge decline in the numbers of people who owned property though, through violent enclosure (where peasants were forcibly removed from their lands so they could be used as a workforce in towns) and primitive accumulation (seizing a territory by force and declaring that everything there is yours by right)
>>69774361
>All you're really doing by pointing out that Marx didn't really talk about capitalism as a system of economics
He talks about capital, the bourgeosie, class conflict, all sorts of things. He makes a coherent critique of classical political economy in Das Kapital, using the ideas of Smith and Ricardo to critque capital accumulation.
Look you're getting really deep into this - all I as trying to do was refute your original claim that Marx had created a definition of captialism than was "demonised" by pointing out that Marx rarely, if ever, used the word capitalism let alone tried to demonise it!
Marx was in many ways a big admirer of capitalism (or rather a big fan of the bourgeosie) again if you'd read the Communist Manifesto (which is a really important book and very short, very easy to read) you'd already know this and you'd saved me the trouble of having to point it all out to you.
>>69774433
he's right.
>>69774867
>1. And then someone imports another chicken. How long can I continue selling at a loss?
For the sake of my argument we assume you can do it indefinitely because importing a chicken is such a massive undertaking and the fact that you can operate at a loss for a while deters others from wanting to import chickens.
>2. I need things, also, which I have to trade for, and I'm not the only one producing food.
For the sake of the argument we're assuming your the only one.
It's not unrealistic. This is called predatory pricing.
>>69774736
>commies think this is how markets actually work
When we tell you tools to go read an economics textbook, we don't mean take the examples in chapter one about Bill and Jane who live on an island with coconuts and fish to eat literally.
>>69774764
>This is horseshit.
>GTFO with this horatio alger bullshit, it's pathetic.
Seriously, take your petty anger at people who have more than you and go. Maybe once you hit 18 in 5 more years and can legally access 4chan, you'll have matured a little.
>>69774474
>I have chickens. My neighbor shoots a deer. I give him a chicken in exchange for a chunk of deer meat.
It's always some analogy involving shooting things for Americans.
And a really really stupid one too - like the sort of thing I'd expect a 6 year old to laugh at.
>>69775121
Was it so funny when we shot you until you went away?
>>69768994
Self reliance? Who's gonna give you your stipen to enjoy life if you won't work for it
>>69774770
>You do understand that businesses expand by satisfying the needs of a greater number of people?
Businesses expand by making more profit - If you can make money providing a shitter service to a smaller number of people that's exactly what you'll do under capitalism.
Satisfying the public good has nothing to do with it.
>>69774764
>This is incorrect, although protestantism played an important role, the world's first functioning capitalist economy was England not the Netherlands and it's roots are in the shift from serfdom to capitalist tenant farmers employing labourers that took place in the aftermath of the English civil war from about 1660 onwards. This is the first, functioning, pre-industrial agrarian capitalist market economy. It happened almost by accident, and it happened because Britain was a very weak war-torn country where the aristocracy had to employ tenant farmers because serfdom had totally broken down in the civil war.
>The netherlands was more mercantilist than capitalist, but it's probably a good shout for 2nd place after England (owing to the fact in the 1690's the King of the Netherlands William of Orange became King of Great Britain too)
The Netherlands actually has England beat by a few decades, although it doesn't seem to be commonly known.
>It comes from Mr and Mrs Capitalist putting 5 cents into a big jar at the end of the working week, saving up for 40 years, then creating a multi-national corporation with an annual turnover bigger than the GDP of most nation-states.
>>Or theft, I suppose, if you want to include your Royals, but that isn't a typical case.
>It's absolutely typical and far more common than people saving up their earnings to create big companies. Holy shit
It all comes from savings. Mr. Jones saves his pennies and starts a small business. Maybe he takes out a loan from a bank. That bank issues the loan from the savings deposit of Mr. Jones' neighbor, Mr. Smith. Over the years, Mr. Jones' company grows. He decides he wants to go national. He gives up a part of his ownership by issuing stock in exchange for the savings of other people. That's capitalism.
Even in the case of theft, the theft is stealing people's savings.
>Nah they're very different, Marx didn't even recognise the concept of capitalism.
Wikipedia says you're wrong.
>>69774077
Market Socialism is a thing.
Just let supply and demand flow normally instead of attempting a managed economy, while giving the factories over to autonomous control and reserving state interference for failing enterprises.
Soviet Socialism was caught up in a time where many believed you could have a planned economy, even in capitalism (some of the misuse of Keynesian economics was an attempt to engineer higher growth, instead of just manage depressions.), and in truth you can have a planned economy during wartime (because people will accept less consumer goods for the reassurance it means more fighter planes and less German bombs on their house.) and possibly during situations like the rapid industrialization of the USSR, you just can't reliably plan anything at a consumer level (i.e. a peacetime economy.)
Since the USSR was the most prominent example, and one of the longest lasting, people tend to conflate means and ends and assume that in their imaginary socialist economy planning will somehow work, instead of accepting that it won't and planning market socialism.
(note: I am not a market socialist, I just have a vague idea of how it works in theory.)
>>69771037
Nationalizes the entire Healthcare industry and entire post secondary education.
>isn't against private property
Democratic Socialism is literally social democracy, AKA reformed capitalism. It's not real socialism.
>>69766922
What if the company has a chance to grow by taking the excess profits and investing it in another location to hire more workers? Would any group of workers decide not to pay themselves that money and reinvest it out of altruism to create jobs for other people?
This is where the big hole comes into it all for me. What if there needs to be some reinvestment into the infrastructure of the company or new machines purchased at a production facility... do you think the majority of workers which are the low level assembly line guys... do you think they are going to objectively look at those things from a pragmatic viewpoint and decide to take the profits of the company and invest them back into it?
The Social Democracy we used to have in Sweden actually has elements of National Socialism in it, which I would argue are integral in order for the system to function as intended.
There's a thinking that a homogenous nation state is key to achieving the unity and trust in the state that is necessary for the welfare state to function.
But Olof Palme changed all that, introducing the idea of multiculturalism, while simultaneously favoring what effectively amounted to a plan to get ownership of businesses in the hands of the unions, making Swedish Social Democracy much more like Communism. They've been declining ever since.
>>69763835
>>69764401
>>69765777
Thanks for the explanation, reddit.
>>69767542
They are also private and not owned by the government. I know a completely communist group of Christian guys that do general contracting and all live in a big compound up on a mountain top here in Washington State. The reason it all works is it is VOLUNTARY and they can leave whenever they want.
> TLDR; Communism works great when its private and people want to do it and it is not forced.
>>69775078
>For the sake argument I'm going to ignore economic reality
There was a famous case sort of like what you're describing many years ago. An American chemical company found a way to make a chemical cheaper than the major world supplier at the time, which was German. The German company decided to put the American company out of business by flooding the American market with the chemical at a price even lower than what the upstart American company could produce it for. The American company simply took out a massive loan, bought up everything that the German company was selling, and resold it at a higher price in Europe, which effectively destroyed the German company.
The American company was Dow Chemical. The German company was Bromkonvention.
Guess who won the battle?
I've always viewed democracy as an ideological superposition. As soon as you are Democratic you can not subscribe to any other political doctrine fully because you are in flux between these doctrines as the people decide them.
>>69775121
Catch a fish, if you would prefer.
How is my example not a market exchange?
>>69775241
>The Netherlands actually has England beat by a few decades, although it doesn't seem to be commonly known.
Source?
I'm basing my theories on the work done by Bob Brenner and Maurcine Dobbs in the 1970's and then Ellen Meiksens Wood in the 2000's. The Origins of Capialism: A Longer View is the defnitive study of the topic.
>It all comes from savings. Mr. Jones saves his pennies and starts a small business.
Why is it that Americans can only support and defend captialism in "childish fairytale" form? Is actual history too difficult for them?
Most of the capital that came to starting up the industrial revolution was hereditary money that was provided by the landed aristocracy - the remainder was straightfoward theft and enclosure.
It certainly isn't a matter of putting aside all your savings to start a little business of your own, that's rags to riches fairytale shit that you believe cos it helps you sustain the illusion that capitalism is a system that rewards initiative and thrift when in actual fact it's a system that was based on violent expropriation, enclosure, colonial conquest, aristocratic support and primitive accumulation.
>>69775225
>Businesses expand by making more profit - If you can make money providing a shitter service to a smaller number of people that's exactly what you'll do under capitalism.
>Satisfying the public good has nothing to do with it.
WTF? Who is going to pay more money for a shittier service? You idiots literally don't understand the world around you.
Businesses can only make money by satisfying a demand. That's how they get paid. If they want to expand, they have to satisfy a greater demand.
>>69775033
>Most capitalist systems (in fact more or less all of them) have had regulated markets maintained and regulated by a state.
And those are what make them mixed economies, rather than purely capitalist economies.
>Capitalism saw a huge decline in the numbers of people who owned property though
And yet you list examples of things that have nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with individual or state violence.
>Look you're getting really deep into this - all I as trying to do was refute your original claim that Marx had created a definition of captialism than was "demonised" by pointing out that Marx rarely, if ever, used the word capitalism let alone tried to demonise it!
No, you're trying to play semantics rather than addressing the actual point, being that you and people like you wrongly believe that capitalism is to blame for the sins of statism, and think it's okay to shit all over individual liberty because of it.
>>69775056
He's right in the sense that absolutely every sapient human on the planet plans how he's going to survive to see tomorrow, maybe. But this is you fags playing with definitions again, where he was almost certainly referring to the sort of central planning that failed so miserably to salvage Russia's economy during its little experiment with communism.
>>69775225
>If you can make money providing a shitter service to a smaller number of people that's exactly what you'll do under capitalism
You can stop any time with the examples of "capitalism" that blatantly ignore the whole "free market competiton" aspect, really.
>>69775344
Because at war time, there was no creation of wealth, you have to remember that ww2 was met with extreme austerity and rationing, while mine churned out metals to ma weaponry the was sent to foreign soil to be destroyed rather than to have something returned for it's production. Most of the industries were refitted to meet consumer demands again and that took considerable deficits to achieve. In essence, you've used factories that could have churned out goods for trade for goods that brought back no equitable resource for it rather it was lost, destroyed, or if survived, return to the the same value it had before or maybe even less.
>>69767101
You never heard of Rent seeking
>>69775241
>>69775241
>Wikipedia says you're wrong.
Oh no! not wikipedia! The final authority! Lmao mate I'm not trying to be obnoxious (although it is fun) you're talking to someone who knows this inside out.
For Marx the central point of world history, the fulcrum upon which it all balances, is class conflict. In Marx's view the industrial method of capital-accumulation (what me, you and wikipedia would call capitalism in shorthand) was associated with a class of people called the Bourgeosie. Therefore, if you read the Communist Manifesto you'll find Marx not talking about overthrowing "capitalism" but talking about overthrowing "the bourgeosie" or "bourgeisie society" do you understand? Marx was a materialist, the word capitalism is an abstract. He believed in a struggle between concrete, actually exsting, classes not abstract belief systems. At this moment in time, and when Marx was writing, the bourgeosie was in the ascendent, and as per his predictions then eventually it will be replaced by the proletariat - which might or might not lead to socialism. Both of these things are not abstract systems, competing against one another, but concrete, actually existing classes locked in a life or death struggle for supremacy. Does it makes more sense now? He uses the word socialism here and there, but he prefers "a proletarian society" or "a dictatorship of the proletariat" or "the proletariat as the dominant class" and other such phrases rather than socialism, which was too abtsract for his liking. Marx called his method "historical materialism" and he had a disliking for abstraction which is obvious to anyone who's spent any period of time (decades, in my case) studying his works.
If you read Das Kapital you won't find any reference to Capitalism (unless mistranslated from German) but you'll find hundreds of references to Bourgeois Political Economy, which was the subject of the book.
>>69775693
Yeah, I used to think that way too, until I realized it's completely untrue, because the people in charge are going to use the means at their disposal to suppress political dissidents regardless.
They'll just find some way to claim that the people they're suppressing are somehow different and do not deserve the same democratic rights as everyone else. Such as them being anti-democratic, or having a set of values that is incompatible with democracy.
In reality, democracy is an impossible utopia. It sounds great to everyone until people actually start expressing opinions you don't like.
>>69775914
Yeah, it's what people from all walks of life do to game any system they can without having to work for it.
Ever hear of arbitrage?
>>69775693
Democracy is exactly like communism. It sounds all "everybody gets along" fantastic on paper, but it really just amounts to tyrrany of the masses rather than the few.
>>69775490
>National Socialism
Was resolute pro-business whilst in power. They made strikes illegal, dismantled the welfare state, handed over huge state-run companies to the private sector and had all the socialists, trade unionists and left-wingers executed. See pic.
>>69763835
democratic socialism is what you hear bernie talking about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
>Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production;
As you can see, they have quite literally nothing to do with each other. Bernie has not suggested that the extreme hierarchies in corporations should be changed in favor of democratic control of said corporations which is what socialism would imply.
>>69775964
>blah blah class conflict blah blah bourgeoise
Marx was the original emo kid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XgdtHewGR0
>>69776072
I said elements of. Perhaps I should have just said nationalism, but the point stands.
>>69776037
No, it's the tyranny of the few who control the basis on which the masses base their opinions.
>>69775831
If you can make more profit selling a really low quality product to a smaller number of people then that's exactly what will happen - the savings will be in the reduction in cost of the commodity you're trying to sell.
You might lose $40,000 per year due to the reduction in customers, but if you save $400,000 from the reduction in overheads then you're up $360,000 (to be really crude)
Now of course long-term that's a bad idea, cos you lose market share and so on, but guess what? capitalism is based on short term competitive pressures, not long-term planning for the sake of the social good. Shareholders want the best returns on their capital, and they want it fast not quick, and furthermore market systems often create perverse incentives to compete very aggressive in the short term then collapse in the long-term. That's one (of many) reasons why capitalism (and any market based system) has a tendency to have booms and busts, recessions and stuff.
>>69775781
>I'm basing my theories on the work done by Bob Brenner and Maurcine Dobbs in the 1970's and then Ellen Meiksens Wood in the 2000's. The Origins of Capialism: A Longer View is the defnitive study of the topic.
Deirdre McCloskey via an article written by Gary North.
>Why is it that Americans can only support and defend captialism in "childish fairytale" form? Is actual history too difficult for them?
>Most of the capital that came to starting up the industrial revolution was hereditary money that was provided by the landed aristocracy - the remainder was straightfoward theft and enclosure.
>It certainly isn't a matter of putting aside all your savings to start a little business of your own, that's rags to riches fairytale shit that you believe cos it helps you sustain the illusion that capitalism is a system that rewards initiative and thrift when in actual fact it's a system that was based on violent expropriation, enclosure, colonial conquest, aristocratic support and primitive accumulation.
I take it you don't know anyone that has started their own business? I do. And some of them have become millionaires. I'm telling you how it's done in the real world. The fantasy is this crap your spewing about evil capitalists enslaving entire villages, confiscating all of their possessions, and forcing them to work at wages which barely keep them alive.
Only 20% of millionaires in the US inherited their money. The other 80% are first generation millionaires.
>>69775831
>He doesn't know about the monopoly of the telecommunication industry
>>69776002
Rent seeking is how capitalists earn money without 'laboring'
>>69775890
>And those are what make them mixed economies, rather than purely capitalist economies.
Yeah but then when you take that principle and look at it honestly, there's never been any such thing as "pure capitalism" except in theory and Actually Existing Capitalism has always involved a mixed economy.
>>69775890
>And yet you list examples of things that have nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with individual or state violence.
Capitalism owes it's existence to massive state violence, not to mention the state violence that happens to people who dare challenge private property rights of capitalists today!
To give you an example a small town near where I live, Burton, had it's entire population removed in the 1760's so that a nearby textiles manufacturer could get access to skilled labour. All the land they owned was razed, all the property they own as taken, because it as necessary to create an underclass of propertyless starving desperate people who would be willing to sell their labour (which prior to the 18th century was not a common thing) to an employer in exchange for payment. People would not do it willingly, so brutal violent force was brought in to do it on the capitalist's behalf. This was repeated up and down Britain and other parts of Europe too, and then continued on with the colonies and slavery (which is in some ways an extention of these principles on a global level) look for north lincolnshire local history society online or your local acamedic library for sources (but desu you can just pick any town, any country, find similar stories)
It's only some weird American thing where people seem to dis-associate capitalism from the state that serves it. It's probably something to do with some mythical, living-off-the-land cultural hangover a lot of Americans seem to be afflicted by.
>>69776537
Everybody does it, mongoloid.
>>69776260
Disney famously has had a rolling 100 year plan for generations. Most large corporations plan 5 - 20 years ahead. You are living in a fantasy world if you think businesses don't plan further ahead than a quarter or two.
>>69776476
I don't know about Singapore's telecom monopoly, but in the US it was enforced by the government. No competition was allowed. People were forced to pay for a shitty service.
>>69776462
>I take it you don't know anyone that has started their own business?
Not as many people as who have to work for a living.
That's not an accident nor is it a lack of initiative....
>>69776462
>e fantasy is this crap your spewing about evil capitalists enslaving entire villages, confiscating all of their possessions, and forcing them to work at wages which barely keep them alive.
Is historically very well documented and uncontroversial.
>>69775964
I read the Communist Manifesto maybe a decade ago. It's not worth re-reading.
I have never read Das Kapital. But look at it from my perspective: I can choose between wikipedia or an anonymous idiot on a message board who actually thinks communism is a good idea.
You can understand why I choose wikipedia.
>>69776764
And now we live in one of the most prosperous periods we've ever had.
A lot of progress and expansion happens at the expense of other people, deal with it. If you had your utopia, a lot of people would suffer just as well.
>>69776643
Somes companies might - the problem is you might have a really good 100 year plan but your share price is gonna tank and you're going to lose your job as CEO if your shareholders think they can get a better return elsewhere in a shorter period of time.
And the point is - if you can make more money selling a cheaper, but inferior, product to a smaller number of people then that's what you'll do. What are you gonna tell the shareholders "oh yeah well I was gonna introduce this new product that woud've made you all rich but I'm cancelling it cos I have a 100 year plan, so that someone else much later after you're all dead can get rich" get the fuck outta here companies are always cutting their costs and making these sorts of short-term decisions, it's hardly some Marxist conspiracy theory they teach this sort of shit at harvard business school.
>>69776925
>I read the Communist Manifesto maybe a decade ago.
Then why is it necessary for me to have to explain some of the most basic concepts contained with in it to you at incredible length?
I don't think you've read it at all. You show literally no prior knowledge, not even a skim-read of the wikipedia article, of Marx or socialism whatsoever. You also use words like "statist" which I find very funny. Serious people, people who aren't libertarians, don't use that word.
>>69776941
>A lot of progress and expansion happens at the expense of other people
Like kulaks in the former USSR, to pick a random example?
>>69763835
You're stupid
>>69776740
There is a choice involved, of course. Some people choose to smoke or drink alcohol - both very expensive habits that limit their ability to save. Some people buy $400 rims for their car or $200 sneakers. Others blow their money on 3 dogs, 4 kids, and 2 cats. Choices.
>>69776764
What's well documented and uncontroversial is the astronomical gains in health, wellness, and overall standards of living since capitalism began to spread in the early 1800's.
>>69764401
>>69777019
I haven't used the word "statist" anywhere in this thread. You're confusing me with another anon.
>>69777054
It is an example, yes. However, I'd argue that forcing a radical system on someone, focus on radical, leads to much more pain and much less overall progress than something which, while volatile and filled with hypocrisies, keeps a much larger number of humans happy and doesn't tell them what to do in every aspect of their life.
Supporting something like communism is always amusing to me, because you people on one hand pretend to care about others, but usually are the most prone to violence and persecution to create your dreamland.
>>69776225
That's the current state of things yes, but a "true" democracy would still be no better.
>>69776260
Wrong. Idiot business owners base their strategy on short-term competitive pressures. Most of the bigger companies got where they were today by looking at the long term- serving the "social good" indirectly by providing a quality product to their consumers, thus increasing the welfare of all involved, from consumer up through to the shareholders.
>>69776566
>Actually Existing Capitalism has always involved a mixed economy.
Yes thank you for reiterating what I said for no reason. Unless it was to point out that we agree that statism is the actual problem and not capitalism?
>Capitalism owes it's existence to massive state violence
Still won't become true, no matter how many times you say it. State violence is not capitalist, will never be capitalist. You fags literally just made up your own definition of "capitalism" that fits your world view so you can claim its evil. Go by the definition people with an IQ over 50 use for once: an economic system based on the tenets of private ownership and free markets. Now tell me what violent coercion, from the state or otherwise, has to do with either of those.
>>69777297
Yeah he's talking about me. As if a Marxist has any right to criticize a libertarian for being divorced from reality.
>>69776566
>Burton, had it's entire population removed in the 1760's so that a nearby textiles manufacturer could get access to skilled labour. All the land they owned was razed, all the property they own as taken, because it as necessary to create an underclass of propertyless starving desperate people who would be willing to sell their labour (which prior to the 18th century was not a common thing) to an employer in exchange for payment. People would not do it willingly, so brutal violent force was brought in to do it on the capitalist's behalf.
Wow, I I'm starting to understand the capitalism owes it's existence to state violence rhetoric.
If if means anything to you, I'm glad you're on /pol/. It's nice to read about socialism from someone who studied the subject rather than from having learned through memesearch. I hope you continue to post on /pol/ despite the vehement opposition you have.
>>69776943
>Businesses expand by making more profit - If you can make money providing a shitter service to a smaller number of people that's exactly what you'll do under capitalism.
I think you've forgotten the point that I responded to.
Businesses do not EXPAND by providing a shittier service to a smaller number of people. Servicing a smaller number of people is the exact opposite of expanding.
A company can *sometimes* make more profit by servicing a smaller number of people, but that would leave a number of people with an unfulfilled demand that could then be grabbed by another company that actually is EXPANDING.
>>69763835
That video in the thread that may or may not be archived by now explained it well, in all honesty. Not going to bother directing because I'm getting fatigue from reading the SAME FUCKING FEW THREADS ALL THE TIME!
>>69777345
>I'd argue that forcing a radical system on someone, focus on radical, leads to much more pain and much less overall progress than something which, while volatile and filled with hypocrisies, keeps a much larger number of humans happy and doesn't tell them what to do in every aspect of their life.
capitalism was the most radical change in human social relations. far more radical in that sense than communism was. And it also had a much more aggressive impact on the level of personal life, involving changes from rural to urban, from extended family to nuclear family, changes to what sort of food you eat, what role religion plays in your life, really was much more invasive than the changes the soviet union introduced.
>>69777345
>because you people on one hand pretend to care about others, but usually are the most prone to violence and persecution to create your dreamland.
There's no "dreamland" and I'm not in favour of violence apart from in cases of self-defense.
>>69777297
apologies
>>69777495
Yet again, absolutely nothing in that anecdote had anything to do with capitalism, except that it involved some asshole that owned a business, and everything to do with assholes using violence and abusing the state to further their own ends.
>>69777387
>Wrong. Idiot business owners base their strategy on short-term competitive pressures. Most of the bigger companies got where they were today by looking at the long term- serving the "social good" indirectly by providing a quality product to their consumers, thus increasing the welfare of all involved, from consumer up through to the shareholders.
This sounds very stirring and emotionally appealing to a certain type of American but if I were a shareholder I wouldn't want you as my CEO! The social good? fuck that, you're walking away from money! I pay you to increase my return on my investment not be a fucking charity worker, why aren't you cuttings costs to increase my share value? What sort of capitalist are you?
>>69777387
>an economic system based on the tenets of private ownership and free markets
Private ownership is backed up by the state's violence.
Free markets is open to argument - a more unbiased definition would simply say "markets" since a truly free market as you admit yourself is historically none-existant.
The state is the institution which governs the affairs of the ruling class - which in our moment in history is industrial and financial capital-owners. They employed violence historically defend the interests of their class, and if you want I can link to you a very deep and boring list of academic research on the subject (although I doubt you'll read it if you couldn't even manage Marx) and they continue to employ violence to protect the private property rights.
That's a sentence long definition, personally I wouldnt like to try defining captialism in under 2,000 words (and you'd need a similar number to trace the historical development of capitalism let alone define it)
It was also necessary for the state to engage in enclosure of common lands and hand it over to businesses and the landed gentry for the market system to exist. They did this extremely brutally, but without it there could've been no capitalist development.
>>69777522
Ok well "become more profitable" since reducing the quality of the product very often leads to a loss of market share. Does that make you feel better?
>>69777792
>except that it involved some asshole that owned a business
Who was a capitalist...
>>69777629
>and everything to do with assholes using violence
No, not assholes, capitalist. A capitalist using state violence to provide him with a workforce.
My country was built on this kind of violent state expropriation - I suppose it would be native americans over your part of the world, not sure sure desu don't know enough about the history, I stick to things I know in depth (you should too btw, it's not hard to tell when you're out of your depth)
>>69777618
But it worked out fine, though. Also, I should have specified that I used radical in the context of our current time period. Your system has pretty much always failed regardless. Ask most people who lived in the eastern block how "unradical" communism was. In some countries it literally destroyed agriculture because peasants actually cared about their land, but it was bullied away from them and never given back, not to this day. Before you say it's because of capitalists taking advantage, it's actually more to do with half of the people in the governing parties being former members of the communist party.
Communism effectively destroyed a whole "worker" class of people. Drink that in
>>69778016
>This sounds very stirring and emotionally appealing to a certain type of American but if I were a shareholder I wouldn't want you as my CEO! The social good? fuck that, you're walking away from money! I pay you to increase my return on my investment not be a fucking charity worker, why aren't you cuttings costs to increase my share value? What sort of capitalist are you?
PR means a lot in highly competitive markets. Businesses give away hundreds of billions of dollars in charity every year to earn good will.
But I don't think that's what that anon meant by "social good." I think he meant satisfying the demand for a product.
>>69772894
I agree with point 1 and 2.
In Norway, if a neighbor paints another neighbor's house for 4000 NOK, you need to pay the state 30% of that, which leaves 2800 in actual pay.
Then if the neibor who painted the house wants his own house painted and gets his neighbor to paint it for the 2800 NOK that he earned from painting the house, 30% has to be payed to the state which leaves 1960 in actual pay.
This will just keep going and going, and is one of the reasons why it's fucking painfully hard to start a business in Norway without total bank dependence.
My thought is that social democracy = shekel factory
>>69777230
>>What's well documented and uncontroversial is the astronomical gains in health, wellness, and overall standards of living since capitalism began to spread in the early 1800
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
(For what it's worth I do partially credit capitalism, but large segments of living-standard increases can also be credited to state intervention as seen in the UK. Capitalism provided the technology and the money, and the state regulated and redistributed it while allowing capitalism to continue functioning, ultimately the ideal system leading into modern social democracy.)
>>69777522
Thank you, seriously. It's amazing to me how people view their world the way they want it. Fuck facts... this isn't sarcasm either. You've been on point.
>>69778148
>But it worked out fine, though
No it didn't.
>>69778148
>Your system has pretty much always failed regardless
No it hasn't.
>>69778148
>In some countries it literally destroyed agriculture because peasants actually cared about their land
Capitalism destroyed the English peasantry 250 years before the advent of the soviet union. Pick up a history book.
>>69778148
>it's actually more to do with half of the people in the governing parties being former members of the communist party.
I've been hearing this from Polish people on and off for years - despite the fact that the ex-communists Socialist party over there hasn't been in power over a decade and there's been nothing but right-wing government shitting up the country for years. Poland won't be able to keep blaming the Commies for the fact it's a de facto German colony with a dying population forever y'know. Sooner or later they'll have to move on to the Jews. It's the only way they'll stay sane and be able to keep up their nationalism.
>>69767101
No, why would it?
Ownership isn't automatically management.
>>69778343
>capitalism was radical
>capitalism is literally fascist economy, the only true monetary system
>>69764401
>plain old socialism (Leninist/Marxist Socialism)
That's called Communism, you dumb faggot commie.
>>69769952
But Will Smith is also a nigger nowadays.
>>69778268
Let me explain this realy clearly, you seem brighter than him:
You can sometimes make money by reducing the cost of your product - even if it means losing customers and market share.
Shareholders want to make money. This is a way of doing it, very quickly. No, it's not a good long-term business plan, but so what? If you're plan is to spend 2 years running a company, and if you've got stock options, and if you get a bonus, who gives a fuck what happens to the company when you've left? Let some other sucker take the hit.
Same with the shareholders. Your CEO says to you "I have a plan that will increase the value of your stock by X amount - but the downside is 15 or 20 years from now we'll get forced out the market cos of low quality product" what do you think those shareholders are gonna say?
Then let's say you're the good CEO. Guess what happens if you turn down that opportunity to make some quick money? Your competition takes up the chance, and all of a sudden they're getting investment and they're getting huge profits and your shareholders are pissed off cos you're not the one bringing in the profit. All the emotionally stirring rhetoric about Responsible Captialism doesn't mean shit when you're dealing with absentee shareholders who only care about making as much money as possible in the shortest possible period of time.
This is a system where the competetive pressure and imperatives are incredibly short term, especially in plc's, family owned firms tend to be a bit more long-term, but in many instances entire industries will lobby the government to regulate markets which, if left unregulated, will end up imploding due to the specific short-term pressures they're under.
And btw this is just one tiny example, one I stole from a GCSE business studies class my nephew is studying, for perverse incentives within a capitalist style economy. You could write tomes about this.
>>69778715
Are you retarded?
Your post is just drivel about possible scenarios that might happen in capitalism. Capitalism is just a tool, it can be abused in any way any tool can be abused.
What you don't like is probably corporatism, but what I find is that commies never understand that concept.
>>69777230
>What's well documented and uncontroversial is the astronomical gains in health, wellness, and overall standards of living since capitalism began to spread in the early 1800's.
I agree. So does Karl Marx btw. Like I said, read the Communist Manifesto sometimes - Marx describes the bourgeosie as "having created accomplishments that exceed anything that the Romans or Greeks of classical antiquity could accomplish" and I'm not disputing for a second that capitalism is the most efficent wealth-generating mechanism in the history of humanity. You sould familiarise yourself with the socialist and Marxist critique of capitalism if you want to attack it, cos that there is something Marx himself would've been proud to boast about.
The purpose, of socialism, is to take this astonishing system of production and put it to work on behalf of the whole of humanity and not just a tiny minority of property-owning oligarchs and billionaires, whose right to own that is backed up by nothing more than pure state violence. We could abolish poverty any time we want to, we produce enough already to end it, the problem is that it's production for private profit not for social needs, the problem is it's distributed horribly so you can have immense wealth alongside massive suffering, and finally (perhaps most importantly) it's terribly unstable politically, with all these recessions and busts, which destroy the lives of millions of people through no fault of their own and which can lead to social breakdown and global warfare.
That's where the socialist case comes in, it begins by not only accepting this argument but basing itself on it's assumptions! That's why it's absolutely vital for Marx that socialism comes AFTER capitalism, and why states that don't have a developed capitalism will never have a functioning socialism (Russia, China etc) but instead get some weird dysfunctional semi-socialism instead.
>>69778715
I bought my first stocks 15 years ago. So I know a little bit about corporate structures and short term vs long term planning.
The short term only focused stuff really only shows up with the financial guys. If you're talking about a company that actually builds things, or has to have a physical store to sell things... those are, of necessity, planned years in advance. And if the CEO isn't planning years in advance, that's when the shares will take a hit - specifically because there is no long term plan.
But even if the shares are hit in the short term ... that's not the end of the world for most companies, unless they need a new round of financing that's too large to be provided by banks.
>>69778715
>>69779041
I'm occasionally trying to read your posts because it seems that at least you've done enough reading to spout off about things, but I just can't make it past "cos" when you're trying to sound intelligent.
I mean, it's literally worse than trying to contort my mind around to what you're saying just in case you might be more correct than I give you credit for.
>>69763835
>Or is it just the same thing but with "democratic" placed in front to make it sound better like the DPRK?
You got it. Every communist regime puts "Democratic" or "People's" at the beginning of their names so they can sound populist and conceal their totalitarian fundamentals.
>>69778016
>What sort of capitalist are you?
The kind that's a real person who thinks about the realities of the market, not some Marxist boogyeman. And the "social good" is improved simply by dint everyone involved in the transaction coming out of it at a net gain. It's not some mythical ideal that can only be achieved through destroying the bourgeoisie and creating a communist utopia, it's just a simple byproduct of free-market interaction, which you can't really have without capitalism.
>Private ownership is backed up by the state's violence.
You could have just said you can't argue your point without relying on your bullshit tautological definition "capitalism is state violence because I define capitalism as state violence"
Let's try an example. You and I end up stranded on an island. I make a fishing pole out of bamboo.
As the product of my labor, do I have a right to it or, since it is a means of "producing" fish, do I have no right to it?
Am I wrong if I refuse to give it or my fish to you without compensation? If you attempt to take the pole from me and I threaten to use force if you don't stop, am I an evil, violent capitalist?
>>69778131
>This A is also B
>All A are B
Getting to tired to futz with logical fallicies, but you couldn't be more blatant with this one.
>>69779160
It's a dialect thing.
Please try to remember too I'm responding to 3 or 4 different people, some of whom aren't very bright.
>>69778615
It was "communism" because they wanted to achieve communism, not because it had achieved it. They stalled during socialism.
What they achieved, and what they wanted were two very different things. Bernie's stated goal is socialism (and his stated method social-democracy) which makes his socialist credentials dubious and his communist credentials almost non-existent.
>>69779353
If you're going to break out the whom then don't say cos, you pretentious fuck.
This post >>69779182 begins to ring even more true.
>>69779041
There is a distribution problem, but that isn't caused by capitalism. It primarily shows up in countries which are the least capitalistic (not necessarily socialistic. They're often just run by gangs of thugs.)
I don't agree that transitioning to socialism will more rapidly reduce absolute poverty than continuing with capitalism (hopefully less tainted by cronyism in the future.)
And with that, I'm out.
>>69779392
You're getting way too worked out about spelling and grammar. shame, you missed out on an opportunity to learn something.
I know a guy who calls himself a democratic socialist, The other day he was arguing people shouldn't be able to own private property...
He also likes to brag about how much he hates himself because he's white.
>>69779359
>It was "communism" because they wanted to achieve communism, not because it had achieved it. They stalled during socialism.
Is this the new technique adopted by the left? Rewriting history?
Nice try, commie. That Communist fuck face honeymooned in the USSR and actually praised USSR breadlines.
>>69779676
The USSR itself recognized it did not achieve communism (but would do so soon [tm]), it was merely working towards it.
Because I think they're pretty funny, I'm going to illustrate this with some Russian political jokes - now tell me, would they talk about Communism like that if it was already achieved, instead of a work in progress?
>The principle of the **socialist economy** of the period of **transition** to communism: the authorities pretend they are paying wages, workers pretend they are working. Alternatively, "So long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work."
>One old bolshevik says to another: "No, my friend, we will not live long enough to see communism, but our children... our poor children!"
>Q: Will there be KGB in communism?
>A: As you know, under communism, the state will be abolished, together with its means of suppression. People will know how to self-arrest themselves.
>>69775401
Do you realize what country you live in?
>>69768994
>t-that's okay guys, we WANTED our economy to fail
Socialists are pathetic.
>>69779963
>The USSR itself recognized it did not achieve communism (but would do so soon [tm]), it was merely working towards it.
Yeah some commie shit hole that imploded upon itself blamed its failure on "not true Communism". What a surprise. Maybe next time it will work!
I did get a chuckle out of that joke though. Probably because I read it with a thick Russian accent.
>>69779041
And see, almost all of this? You're right that it's where Marxist and Libertarian thought converge- right up until we get to the issue of identifying the central problem and the solution. We all agree that the powerful elite are at the heart of everything that's wrong with the proper economic function of society. But Marxists throw the blame at "capitalism" and the concept of private property ownership, rather than letting it remain squarely on the shoulders of those who abused the system by, as per your own example, circumventing the free market and disregarding the private property rights of others. In other words, acting completely against the standard definition of capitalism.
As for the goal of socialism, it's just as untenable as it is noble. If nothing else, the assumption that centralizing economic power with the state will protect the masses from the privations of a greedy few is the single most naive position I've ever seen put forth, but the whole idea of smoothing out the economy ignores the fact that things like competition and failure are extremely important not just as signalling mechanisms for the economy, but for facilitating our continued growth and development as a society.
And I still haven't figured out how "own private property" is somehow different from "own the product of your labor"
>>69780404
>blamed its failure on "not true Communism".
No it didn't, it failed because it was a badly managed (is there any other kind during peacetime?) centrally planned economy, or if you're conspiratorial, imperialist sabotage. (there are a billion other problems with it, but none of them are 'not true communism')
>Maybe next time it will work!
Doubtful, especially if one wants to force it (i.e. any type of government implementation) instead of taking a "wait and see" approach to the fall of capitalism. (it's still got no chance of happening, but it's probably the most effective way.)
(I'm of the view the entire thing is unimplementable, and that communism as described is really more of a dreamworld for the 19th century factory worker than the 21st century service-sector consumer.)
Ultimately convincing anyone to implement even market socialism in a country developed enough to give it a fair chance is far outside the spectrum of political views that will get the time of day. Social democracy (tweaking the current economy around the edges.) is the best left-wing option available, and it's ultimately what Bernie wants to do (while sticking to "Socialist" as a title because it's what he used to be and where he probably got his inspiration from.)
He can still be an idiot (anyone who expects election as a "socialist" in the US definitely isn't thinking straight.), but he's not a socialist in terms of the policies he's put forward, let alone a communist. (I mean technically you can believe in socialist policies and still put forward social democratic ones because your hands are tied, and then you're both a socialist AND a social democrat, but the English language isn't good at covering such situations.)
>>69780936
>No it didn't, it failed because it was a badly managed (is there any other kind during peacetime?) centrally planned economy, or if you're conspiratorial, imperialist sabotage. (there are a billion other problems with it, but none of them are 'not true communism')
Right. The 'not true Communism' meme. All the ones throughout history that all imploded in upon themselves weren't "true Communism" and they just messed up.
>but he's not a socialist in terms of the policies he's put forward, let alone a communist.
Outline the differences between socialism, socialist democracy, and Communism.
>>69780850
>And I still haven't figured out how "own private property" is somehow different from "own the product of your labor"
Private property (libertarian, not socialist/communist definition) would include things 'earned' by controlling the labour of others.
i.e. i own a factory, i pay them pennies, they make cars. i own the cars even though i did not put in any appreciable labour (i furnished capital), and the workers do not own the product of their labour themselves (the car)
whereas in communism, each worker runs the factory collectively, builds the cars using their labour and the cars are their property.
that's the distinction summarized, i ain't saying a collectively managed car factory is a good idea.
>>69781328
>Right. The 'not true Communism' meme
You seem to have missed the point of the jokes I furnished earlier:
They were trying to get to Communism, they talked about Communism as though it was something that was coming in the future.
The CPSU were Communists - they Communism was coming - but they oversaw a marxist-leninist socialist state that was heading to Communism (in theory, in practice it was travelling to breakup.)
>All the ones throughout history that all imploded in upon themselves weren't "true Communism" and they just messed up.
They may well have been true communists (wanted to get communism) but none of them got it. Unlike the meme, Communism HAS been tried and every large-scale attempt has been a failure.
"Not true communism" implies they implemented the wrong kind of communism, which isn't what I'm stating. I'm stating that for all it matters there is only one communism, but a million different roads marked "to communism" all of which are fake signs leading to dead ends.
There's no evidence so far that one of the roads is legitimate either, and a smart person would probably give up and take the single clearly marked road, with traffic in both directions, labelled "social democracy."
>Outline the differences between socialism, socialist democracy, and Communism.
Social (not socialist, it retains capitalism) Democracy - Most European nations. Primarily capitalist, mostly free market economy. State may own hospitals and railways, maybe a national resource monopoly like Oil, but most revenue comes from taxation of private enterprise. "Kind capitalism"
Socialism - Workers control the means of production (usually state owns on their behalf) with many varieties (centrally planned like USSR, almost social democracy like the UK ~1945-1970 with limited free enterprise, market socialism, etc.), money, social stratification, etc, still exist.
Communism - There is no state, no money, no social stratification and everyone owns the means of production.
>>69781863
>They may well have been true communists (wanted to get communism) but none of them got it.
Then they weren't Communists. Mere pretenders.
>Social (not socialist, it retains capitalism) Democracy -
>Socialism -
I guess you can kid yourself into whatever labels you want. That's Socialism and Communism, respectively. Where does Capitalism fall in your spectrum of definitions?
>>69781863
Character limit doesn't suck. It just means you have to be able to distill your wall of text so people will read it.
Go publish a book and make money that way instead. I can assure you that being too long won't work even in ivory tower academia. They put limits on the number of pages you're allowed to use up, and sometimes allow a few more if you pay for them.
>>69778615
>I don't even know what Communism is
>>69782810
Great post, Paco. Now build the fucking wall.
>>69782378
>Then they weren't Communists. Mere pretenders.
Well now you're saying they weren't true communists.
The English language is just terrible for this sort of thing. They weren't communists in that they never implemented Communism, but they were in the sense that they believed in it and tried to implement it.
>Where does Capitalism fall in your spectrum of definitions?
It covers everything from ancaps to the dividing line between Social Democracy and Britain circa 1970s. (Where some major industries were private and others were state owned, and a lot of smaller businesses were private.), rather than being a flat thing in itself. There is no "true capitalism" or "true socialism" because it's a broad tent.
Defining Communism as the example I gave for socialism has two key flaws.
1. It ignores everything actual communists say about communism, and basically tells Marx he knows nothing about the ideology he wrote the manifesto on.
2. It ignores the large number of socialist parties that don't believe in Communism - to use the UK circa 1945 example, the Labour party nationalized huge amounts of industry, but it had no intention of reaching communism. Socialism was good an end in itself.
Most communists are temporary socialists (they intend to travel via socialism to communism because it allows for making an immediate change to society and because some say it's a necessary step), however most socialists aren't communists (because many only want socialism, with no interest in communism), and many people who started as socialists gravitate towards social democracy as they retain their sympathy for the poor but realize what a clusterfuck socialism is (see: Tony Blair), which is why the whole thing is such a clusterfuck.
A similar problem of distinction comes up with people like Thatcher. She'd probably balk at the term social-democrat (she privatised most of the UK's state owned industry), but she did keep the health service and welfare system making it arguable.
>>69782756
Nah, fuck that. I'll just bastardise my posts (or if really pushed, make 2 posts.)
No interest in writing a book, nor in academia. Just wasting all day on imageboards.
>>69783261
>Socialism was good an end in itself.
should say "was good enough as an end in itself"
good enough for the Labour party, obviously, It's not my preferred method of doing things.
>>69783549
Spoken like a true do-nothing cuck.
If you want to do something, you have to do it.
>>69783261
>The English language is just terrible for this sort of thing.
What do you prefer? Arabic? English is the most descriptive language there is.
>There is no "true capitalism" or "true socialism" because it's a broad tent.
Capitalism: fuck off
Socialism: please help these people... But we really aren't asking, we have men with rifles to force you to
>1. It ignores everything actual communists say about communism, and basically tells Marx he knows nothing about the ideology he wrote the manifesto on.
What made Marx the god king of Communism?
>the UK circa 1945 example, the Labour party nationalized huge amounts of industry, but it had no intention of reaching communism.
Are you actually trying to imply this? That they wouldn't go full commie?
>Socialism was good an end in itself.
I'm sure that's what they told themselves. Meanwhile Europe is imploding under socialist policies and open borders. RIP Sweden.
>>69765777
except the workers don't own the means of production in scandinavia
>>69784397
>English is the most descriptive language there is.
That may be the case, I was just expressing the general difficulty of making my point clear.
>Socialism: please help these people... But we really aren't asking, we have men with rifles to force you to
By that definition, any "capitalist" society using taxation to extract money from citizens to fund a defensive war is surely socialist? That sounds very dubious.
>What made Marx the god king of Communism?
He wrote a little manifesto that makes him pretty popular among that crowd.
>Are you actually trying to imply this? That they wouldn't go full commie?
Well, considering that we didn't and that every subsequent Labour government has either been socialist or social-democratic, yes.
>Meanwhile Europe is imploding under socialist policies and open borders. RIP Sweden.
Open borders in 1945 was a laughable notion and most of the policies causing problems are multicultural/globalist, not social democratic.
>>69763835
just another loophole for marxists to fall back on
"i-its different this time i swear they didn't do it right"
>>69764401
>Democratic Socialism is like Denmark and Sweden,
So having America spend money it doesn't have on protecting their asses so they can afford "free shit" and a dying population is Democratic Socialism? And people want this in the US?
>>69784605
>By that definition, any "capitalist" society using taxation to extract money from citizens to fund a defensive war is surely socialist?
Libertarians pull this card all of the time. They say that progressive taxation, any taxation for that matter, is effectively socialism tax revenue is used to effectively redistribute wealth by means of social welfare. It doesn't matter that the means of production is not in the hands of the people. It's because the government has the effectively have the final say in how capital is used via regulation and taxation. How do you get through with these people?
>>69784605
>By that definition, any "capitalist" society using taxation to extract money from citizens to fund a defensive war is surely socialist? That sounds very dubious.
No, it extracts taxes for the common good such as national defense, infrastructure such as roads and basic education, etc. Not funding dumb faggots and retarded niggers to not work. You don't work, you starve. Simple as that. Survival of the fittest.
>He wrote a little manifesto that makes him pretty popular among that crowd.
But he's not the fucking god king of Communism. He's the god king of Marxism, named after him. Not Communism.
>Well, considering that we didn't and that every subsequent Labour government has either been socialist or social-democratic, yes.
Again, meeting your own shitty definitions of the Labour party.
>Open borders in 1945 was a laughable notion and most of the policies causing problems are multicultural/globalist, not social democratic.
How deluded are you to not make that connection?
>>69785142
>Not funding dumb faggots and retarded niggers to not work.
Right, so any state with any type of welfare is no longer capitalist, and any state with a national health service is no longer capitalist?
>But he's not the fucking god king of Communism.
He was an illustrative example. Furthermore the CPSU was officially "marxist-leninist" so there's that.
>Again, meeting your own shitty definitions of the Labour party.
I didn't define the Labour party, they did that themselves.
>How deluded are you to not make that connection?
They don't need to be connected, you can have globalism without social democracy and social democracy without globalism. They are connected more by timing than anything else. (As socialists finally gave up and technology improved in the 90s, globalism accelerated leading to a leader like Blair who was both social democratic and globalist.)
>>69765998
>>69768343
Spotted the literalist idiot.
>>69763835
Why does this old fuck have crazy eyes in every picture?
Shillary shares the same condition.
>>69785327
>Right, so any state with any type of welfare is no longer capitalist, and any state with a national health service is no longer capitalist?
Yeah I agree, the things you are implying about my nation are fucking disgusting and need to be abolished.
>He was an illustrative example.
Stop getting so hung up on that faggot. Communism as a theory existed way before he didn't have any job his entire life and mooched off his friend's parents for decades. He was a fucking retard who wrote some shitty books on socioeconomic policies while having zero experience in the matters while assuming we are all just worker ants and not individual human beings.
>I didn't define the Labour party, they did that themselves.
Fair enough, I don't really give a shit about the Labour party, I just felt I had to chime in on them since you brought them up.
>you can have globalism without social democracy and social democracy without globalism.
Come on, friend. You really think your comfortable life will still be maintained if globalism takes over and borders evaporate? The takers will outnumber the givers by an insane amount. It just isn't sustainable. Not only can we not save the world, we are not accountable to. I make my own wage. Why should I give any of that to dumb niggers who can't even get some basic shitty job?
>>69785814
>the things you are implying about my nation are fucking disgusting and need to be abolished.
I'm sorry, what am I implying?
>I just felt I had to chime in on them since you brought them up.
Oh don't get me wrong, they're fucking useless.
>You really think your comfortable life will still be maintained if globalism takes over and borders evaporate?
Nope. I'm a social-democrat, but I'm definitely not a globalist. The fact the two are so closely linked is the greatest victory of the right-wing yet. (The comfortable living standards of those who're already rich are likely to be maintained with wages dilated and welfare systems unaffordable and eventually abandoned, but for everyone else it's shit.)
>Why should I give any of that to dumb niggers who can't even get some basic shitty job?
Because (and I'm defending national welfare here, not globalistic welfare. Globalism throws the whole social-democratic equation out of whack) if you lose your job or struck by illness or injury you're entitled to the same.
Furthermore with a ratio of ~3 unemployed to 1 job opening, it's pretty understandable he can't find a job even if he is looking (this is largely down to globalism, though.)
>>69763835
>asking /pol/ actual political questions, expecting good answers
YOU DUN FUCKED UP BURGER
>>69786126
Are these actual political discussion?
If so, I'll save them. Or will that paint me out as an exploiter?
>>69772697
predicted? no he said it was INEVITABLE
>>69771037
Imagine that you buy a house (private property), and it gets taken away (because I say so). How would socialism eventually lead to the right of people to no longer own their land?
>>69786121
>I'm sorry, what am I implying?
Welfare.
>Oh don't get me wrong, they're fucking useless.
Agreed. Plus, they rape little girls.
>Nope. I'm a social-democrat, but I'm definitely not a globalist.
Okay, we might find a common ground here. If we have closed borders and homogeneous societies, something like socialism or social democracy or whatever you want to call it, might very well work. But only if everyone gets along and has similar beliefs.
>Because (...) if you lose your job or struck by illness or injury you're entitled to the same.
I wouldn't say "the same", but yes, if the above is met and we all look out for each other, I would be okay with helping my neighbor if he got injured, fell ill, or whatever else. Some people genuinely need some help and I'm okay with helping them. I just don't feel obligated to help useless niggers who don't even try to help themselves.
>Furthermore with a ratio of ~3 unemployed to 1 job opening, it's pretty understandable he can't find a job even if he is looking (this is largely down to globalism, though.)
I'll agree with that globalism bit. We need to bring back jobs to our own nations and look out for ourselves. Outsourcing jobs in both our situations is just a globalist's wet dream and we need to take a stand and stop that. We have plenty of poor impoverished people to take up the undesirable jobs, there is no need to outsource that shit to places like China and India.
