Socialism 101

So stay there, plz! Btw, do you know the history of Ames and the Notables?

 

Doesn't ring any bells, but I'm afraid I'll have to continue this conversation at another time - should have gone to sleep hours ago.

 

Actually they belong to the government which has -- as of yet -- not decided to screw the people over them. But considering the nature of government, that could happen at any time. Then there is the recent revelation that only three in four citizens are now willing to work for a living. One quarter of them now get so many subsides that they have decided to do nothing in life; an outcome that was long ago predicted by conservatives.

Finally we return again to the fact that you do not maintain a standing army and would expect another nation (probably Great Britain) to come to your defense at their own expense and expenditure of lives. Sweet!

 

Yes this is it "surplus value".
Neoliberals have jumped into banking adventures that make labor obsolete and they think that they can get away with that.
Yes there still need to make profit in socialism but first of all is to cover the needs of the society , this is why their commodities were made to last .

Permanent revolution and war communism have no place in modern world in my opinion .
As Marx wrote the better capitalism gets the sooner it's downfall will come and right now we are experiencing just this.
Unfortunately the memories of the reactionaries and their deeds have not faded so apart from some uneducated fools nobody else expects them to have answers .... which of course brings us to the industry of fool making the media ... but i guess this is for a different thread.

 

Did he predict communism would fall apart decades earlier?

 

Thats not what I am reffrring to, so don't try playing mind games, having fantasy trips, and trying to manipulate the true intention of my words. Don't do it!! YOU ARE WRONG!! GO BACK!! Try again.

Difference between gov & corporations. To many to count. ie. disasters. I clearly stated I am not advocating using taking, possessing, using, stealing, private oil on private property owned by private business or citizens. You need to understand that clearly. There is absolutely noone advocating stopping free enterprise to continue on private lands, except off government lands. They can buy & sell all they want, I don't care what they do with it, that is not National Oil. Nothing wrong with them doing whatever they want. As to federal land having an interest, it all has an interest whether idle or not. You don't know what people want, neither do I, and I don't pretend to know until I see some data. Don't assume. I don't care what Texas calls its oil, if it is on federal lands, it is federal oil.

 

WRONG. Exactly today as it was, and the court clarified it (United States v. Butler), so why don't you get it?

“ [T]he [General Welfare] clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated, is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate, limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. … It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution."

http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/html/art1frag29_user.html

 

Marx died in 1883. Towards the end of his life he was a wee bit disappointed about how the international was operating. In a letter to his son-in-law he declared, ":I am not a Marxist", referring to the contemporary interpretation of the theories that he and Engels developed.

Marx wasn't a soothsayer, he was a social analyst in the broad sense. He didn't make "predictions" as much as theorise about what would happen. He used an Hegelian approach to the analysis of human history based on the dialectical process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis as put forward by Hegel.

Neither Marx nor Engels (who outlived him) could foresee capitalism protecting itself by changing so that it could ameliorate the more excessive aspects. It may owe a debt to Bismarck who introduced ideas about the modern welfare state to ensure that the state wasn't in such a condition as to promote revolution. But remember Marx never criticised capitalism on a moral basis, it was always very grounded in reality. Marx did suggest that capitalism would destroy itself (not sure where that leaves his ideas about revolution to get rid of capitalism) and we are seeing that happening now. The GFC is a very good example of modern hyper-capitalism beginning the destructive phase. Marx was also wrong about the ability of the working class to act to overthrow capitalism. In Britain in the 19th Century Disraeli, with his two nations idea, went a long way to ensuring that Britain's working class would not morph into a revolutionary class. In the United States, despite early indications that the working class may be radicalised, the influence of Samuel Gompers in the AFL ensured that capitalism was safe from any working class uprising. The change is complete now, where in the US the working class no longer exists, everyone except the poor is now "middle class" or better.

Communism hasn't fallen apart. It has, in some places, failed. There are identifiable reasons for that. Marxism became Marxism-Leninism in the Soviet Union and Lenin's ideas of the primacy of the Party rather than the proletariat paved the way for Stalinism and the end of Soviet-style socialism. It hasn't fallen apart in Cuba. There is has improved the living conditions of the poorest and is changing as its government and the Party in Cuba understand that to progress socially means to leave the old dogmas behind.

 

Improved lives in Cuba? Lol.

 

Definitely. On all measures, Cubans are far better off since the 1959 Revolution than at any time before.

 

Exactly. That's their utopian definition of equality. Getting paid the same as someone else for doing a fraction of the work. And these poor people bull(*)(*)(*)(*) themselves so much that they actually believe that flipping burgers is as difficult as running a (*)(*)(*)(*)ing company. Mostly because they have never run anything in their entire lives and so they have no clue how difficult it is to actually be in charge of something. They think a CEO just sits around smoking cigars all day with his feet up on his desk and gets paid for doing nothing. They honestly believe this. It's ridiculous. You can't reason with people like that. They're like children who don't understand why parents are in charge.

 

Yes, which of course contradicts the founding fathers intent for the term "general welfare". And basically makes our social contract null and void.
You agree with EVERY decision the Supreme Court comes up with don't you? Or just those that allow the government to steal from others and hand to you?

 

WRONG, it doesn't contradict anything. It was put there to be used in that manner, the founders discussed it, and it was added to the Constitution.

Why do you assume the government hands me anything? You are the Moocher here that government is subsidizing your wages. As a matter of fact I do agree with every decision the SC makes, because that is the law, and only con scum bags hate the laws of the land. Are you a con?

 

CEO pay for flipping burgers? Are you nuts? LMAO!!! It appears you would agree with any fool walking down the street with a tin foil hat on!! LMAO!!! The pumpkin wagon will be here shortly!!

 

FLAME BAIT!!!!!

 

Is there a difference between a communist state run economy compared to a republic/democratic state run economy. Vaguely, I believe, there's a difference just based on the fact that they are different terms(communist vs. democratic).

 

socialism is nothing but communism light

 

Actually it's a phase that has to be gone through before communism is achieved.

 

Cooperatives sort of, but there is nothing socialist about small businesses.

Cooperatives are only half way there really. For socialism to exist all parts of an economy must be socialized. Marx noted that under capitalism labour has already been socialized - we work in close cooperation with other workers, as opposed to producing a whole item individually as a craftsman does. Instead of running a market stool individually we work in shops collectively with our fellow workers.

A cooperative has both socialized management and socialized labour, but the final element is distributing items in a social way - production for use.

 

Interesting video on the real Karl Marx, highlights numerous examples of him being sponge, exploiting labour or simply stealing from workers. As Stefan puts it, listening to Marx's work is like taking advice from Jabba the Hutt on how to lose weight.

[video=youtube;yA2lCBJu2Gg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA2lCBJu2Gg[/video]

 

I am not interested in watching a 40 minute video that probably comes from a perspective I do not find engaging, but I would not be surprised if he exploited labour. His co-theorist Engels owned factories at several periods of his life and Marx used the money Engels gave him to produce theories. I am not an idealist and I do not hold Marx up as some kind of socialist Jesus whatever some of you guys might assume. I like Marx's theories because I think they are useful for understanding the world, not because I think Marx was a particularly morally upright person. I know either Marx or Engels, I can't remember which one, cheated on their wife. I have no interest in defending any theorist's actions.

I would have done the same thing as Engels in his position though. I would have become a capitalist in a heartbeat if I had the option. Conditions for the average worker were hell in those days.

 

Please stay on topic, folks!

 

Yes mam!

 

I wonder if you can give me an example of monopoly or an excessively rich person who didn't make use of at least one government-issued privilege? Those privileges include land titles, patent and copyrights, debt/money creation by banks, corporate charters, no bid contracts, occupational licenses, and regulations which create or contribute to scarcity. I would also remind you that land titles greatly contributed to the profits of factory owners, because those land titles removed other natural opportunities from the masses, and forced them to work for what the factory owners would offer.

There are of course some stock or commodity traders which have become excessively rich without directly using privileges, but it seems to me that the bulk of their earnings has come from accurately predicting the market instability cause primarily by the privileges of others. It seems to me that if privilege was abolished, the markets would stabilize and become so boring that few would engage in such speculation, and those who remained would work for far less money.

 

I don't see why I should need to? I do not think business and government have an antagonistic relationship and I do not think capitalist social relations can exist without the government. Modern secular states arose from Capitalist anti-aristocratic revolutions.