Australia's Hard Choice Between China and the US

last time I check HK still has its freedom of speech and british type law, also majority of HK ppl is fine, there minority of HK ppl want independent, but that's 1 in few hundreds ppl

 

are you been sarcastic? we didn't treat mexico well at all in early 20th century.

 

Humanity may well burn to death ... it's the big danger we face, a serious nuclear war, perhaps supplemented with other modern technological developments in the biological field.

I won't argue about words. Socialists are ashamed, and rightly so, of the dreadful economic and political outcomes that result from the attempt to institute a Planned Economy, which is why you NEVER see arguments for full, genuine socialism -- as opposed to social-democracy -- among the many very intelligent Marxists who still exist. Back in the 30s, when capitalism was locked in the depths of the Depression, and the Soviet Union was growing, there were dozens of books 'proving' the superiority of a planned economy -- even by authors who deplored the lack of political democracy there.

Even bourgeois economists believed this -- right into the 1960s. When I took a course in Soviet Economics in the mid-60s, one of my textbooks had, as its cover illustration, a graph showing the relative performance of the Soviet and American economies: the Soviets started far below the Americans, but were growing at 7% a year, while the Americans grew at 3%. The Soviets overtook around 1990, as I recall.

But it didn't happen ... broken eggs, but no omelet , not even an economic one. So now socialists have to call a system where all the capitalists had been shot, where the market existed only for a few potatoes grown in private plots, where everything was produced according to a Plan ... 'capitalist"! Marx would have died laughing. By 'capitalist' they don't mean any analysis of the actual economic system -- they just mean 'bad'. In that sense, the Egypt of the Pharohs was 'capitalist'. (People who have this moralistic view of capitalism were called 'Utopian Socialists' by Marx and Engels, and their views were thoroughly dissected in a pamphlet called 'Socialism, Utopian and Scientific', well worth reading even today. Get it from Marxists.org for free.

A market economy, lightly regulated by a democratic state, is the only option we have. It's not a perfect one by a long shot, and 'culture' and the political superstructure interact with economics in many ways -- both Sweden and Haiti are 'capitalist' -- but no one has an alternative.

If you don't believe me, try to find somewhere where someone describes how, in a 'true' socialist society, the annual quantity of 50mm annular ring steel nails would be decided on and produced. All you'll get is some vague hand-waving about "workers' democracy".

 

so who can obliterated australia? , other than a superpower such as US or major power such as Russia/china, no medium size power can win a war with Australia, its landscape are hell for invader, and Australia has good military as long is not against a superpower

The reason they don't invade is because they can use $$$ to buy Australia resource, its win win for both. Why would they damage that? They would lost much much more if they invade Australia for very very little gain.

they have to invade from NW, or north because invading from south/east stretch logistic line too much especially they don't have any base near Australia.

 

What? We didn't? But ... but ... we're always criticizing the Russians and the Chinese for dominating, or wanting to dominate, their neighbors ... for wanting friendly governments in the countries that border them ... and ... you mean ... we ourselves have not followed our own advice to others?

I don't believe it! You mention Mexico. But Mexico loves and admires us. Just look at how they gave us half their country back in the 19th Century. What better way of proving your love to someone than to give them such a splendid present?

No, those Chinese and Russians had better sit down and study us, and try to be as good and kind and nice as we are.

 

Yeah - I'll admit my total naïveté in believing that corporations are in it for the money. Mine and the investors', pal.

 

Would seem your choice is between freedom of navigation in International waters and relinquishing that freedom to Chinese control

 

Ah, no. The heavy hand of Beijing had descended on Hong Kong. I've seen protests.

 

I think that what you know about Australia is of even less worth than your opinions on other matters. A low bar indeed. Stick to subjects you are informed about....if any such exist.

 

HK is sort of half way. It has more freedoms than China, but fewer than if it were independent. British law still has some influence, but Beijing runs the show.

 

I will gladly ignore Australia if that is your wish

 

If you want to inform yourself on Australia & then engage in discussion or commentary then have at it. If not then just ignore us. Best for everyone.

 

I have met enough aussies on this board to form an opinion about them

And my opinion is not good

 

If that is the basis for your opinion then you should just ignore us. You don't have a sound basis for an informed opinion.

 

Who can obliterate Australia today or 100 years in the future?

 

I don't disagree with your comments about the small number of elite.

I think the underlying thrust however is wrong-headed. Your argument is that what we have is better than a number of other countires - that our sights have been lowered and that's okay. My argument is that we had, relatively speaking, democracy once (I remember it well) but the way ahead is now looking stark indeed. Zbig Brzezinski, in his book the Grand Chessboard, stated (to the effect) that the democracy experiment hadn't worked and had to be replaced. It's been replaced by oligarchy. You may think that is the best possible deal, I think it awful.

Actually it wasn't my summary, but his exact words extracted from his book. Nor was it the CFR planning to restore feudalism, but rather this was the plan of the Anglo-American Establishment that operated, in part, through Chatham House and it's sister organisation, the CFR.

I agree that Quigley became a favourite of conspiracy theorists, but that's a relatively recent phenomenon (when I first read him decades ago he was barely known and T & H was very hard to get). I also agree that the actual term he used "in a feudalist fashion" is more nuanced, but I also disagree with your genteel interpretation. Quigley chose his terms with care and means what he means, not what you're trying to spin from them. His intention was to reveal that international bankers secretly planned to take control of the political system internationally and impose their control through that.

Revealing this caused his ruin, as he revealed in an interview he gave later (good luck finding that today, though) saying it was 15 pages of the book on this subject that later caused his grief. Those who gave him access to the secret archives never considered he would publish their intent. He was punished in various ways, principally never being given access again. His publisher was pressured to destroy the plates of the book so that when Quigley asked for a further print run as the book was selling quite well, it couldn't be done. After that, he (Quigley) was blackballed by the Establishment and his career was ruined (this from memory btw, so I'm being cautious. I think it was more severe than I've stated).

 

That was the caption of the newspaper article --- not my words.

Better luck next time.

 

I absolutely agree that US society, like every society in the world, could be radically improved -- not necessarily by being 'more democratic', although a lot of the improvements would mean that.

My own pet place to start with improvements would be the education system, from early childhood through to university. The worst inequality is inequality of knowledge and reasoning ability.

I don't think we're anywhere near the end of human social evolution. It's just that I see it as a process, and not a smoothly linear one either. I don't expect whole peoples to be able to jump over their own heads,so to speak. So, while I would love to read about a peaceful Gay Pride parade in Tehran, I don't think Iranian democrats should put this on their agenda right now.

What I object to is the idea that all societies are equal: that inequities in, say, Denmark mean that Denmark is the equal of Kazakhstan. It doesn't mean that the Danes are somehow intrinsically better than Kazakhs ... they were Vikings once ... but that Danish society now incorporates, perhaps imperfectly, ways of doing things that should be emulated elsewhere.

I don't know whether we're disagreeing here or not.

 

Ok, sure

I seldom post anything about austrailia and only commented here because the headline mentioned my country

 

I couldn't agree with you more about improving the education system. In the US, this became a control mechanism, as the late Prof Antony Sutton revealed in his book How the Order Controls Education (free .pdf HERE). For me it's not enough for kids to be taught things and facts, the really important thing to teach them how to think critically. Should that ever happen, then the next stage should, in my opinion, be studies aimed at a far deeper understanding of their psyche and how the Collective Unconscious and Archetypes influence all of us.

I also agree with you that different societies are at different stages of development and consciousness and that a one solution fits all approach is doomed to failure.

Ultimately, being a critic of our western civilization is a necessary requirement because so much has been attained and the danger now looms that all, or much of this, could easily sink back under the waves and be lost again. Critize to energize so as to keep moving forward rather than allowing inertia to cause regression.

 

The Soviet Union, like China and other 'communist' states, as you pretend not to know, simply a firm on the world capitalist market and had nothing whatever to do with socialism. What Marx have you read, when?

 

When Michael Harrington [ of whom you probably have not heard, unless you're over 50] stayed in my flat, before giving a talk on socialism on the educational TV channel in Houston in about 1960 or '61, I noticed that he was reading a volume of the Marx-Engels Gesamt Ausgabe, which the E Germans had started publishing. Being an impressionable high school student, I was duly impressed, and vowed to be able to do that myself some day. Never did -- my German never got good enough, and, even in English translation, Marx and Engels' entire collected works wouldn't repay reading every word they wrote. (Although it was good enough, a few years ago, for me to suggest a tiny correction to the online 'publisher' of one of Engels' writings -- however, I was tipped off by noting that something in the English translation didn't quite make sense.)

But I highly recommend, first of all, The Communist Manifesto. It's not just an agitational pamphlet, but incorporates the Marxist world-view in a nice succinct way. And it's amazing prescient about globalization, and how it [ie global capitalism] will transform shithole societies into modern ones, although not, sadly, painlessly.

Next on my list would be Engels' Socialism - Utopian and Scientific, followed by Marx's concrete analyses of several great historic episodes: The Class Struggles in France (about 1848, and the outcome of which, I believe, gave birth to his phrase about the necessity of a 'dictatorship of the proletariat'.); then The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, which anticipates 20th Century fascism; and The Civil War in France (about the Paris Commune).

However, I also recall when I first tried to read these essays -- nearly sixty years ago -- I was utterly bewildered. Nothing in the brief 'World History' course I had taken in the Houston public schools had really taught me anything about 19th Century European history, and all of these essays assume some basic knowledge of it. I had to come back to these works years later, when I knew what '1848' meant and who Louis Bonaparte was. Even then, they also make a lot of classical allusions, so you need a good gloss to really appreciate their stuff. At one time or another I probably led two or three 'study groups' on each of these volumes, and that made me actually get the translations of their classical references, etc.

I also recommend to anyone interested that they read through the volumes of Marx's (and sometimes Engels') journalism: Marx/Engels wrote for the New York Tribune -- their articles on British imperialism are especially interesting: they're not apologists for it, but are not PC snowflakes either. And a lot of their private correspondence has nuggets of wisdom. I don't pretend to be an expert on all these things however ... I'm just recounting my random reading over the years.

Here's what I haven't read, not really (I've dipped in and out, but just that): Capital; Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts; Wage-Labor and Capital; Value Price and Profit. I long ago decided that Marx-Engels writings on economic issues -- how capitalism works -- were not of interest to me, for various reasons. (By the way, I've known probably hundreds of people, over the years, who called themselves 'Marxists', but only one out of that number who had actually really read Capital.) I think individual Marxists today are pretty good at analyzing the shortcomings of capitalism -- their analyses are usually much deeper than the usual liberal/social-democratic criticisms - but I have no opinion on whether they're correct or not. Is the rate of profit falling? Beats me. I hope it's not, or we may all end up living in a North Korean style economy.

It's very strange to me that socialists think that a centrally-planned state economy, where there was no market to speak of, where there was great social equality, is an example of ... capitalism. I know why they do it ... these societies were and are pretty terrible, so I can see the motivation to say,"'Nothing to do with me, guv'nor". But by the criterion 'bad = capitalism' then Pharoh's Egypt was 'capitalist'. If you think that, then you really know absolutely zero about Marx.

Really, you should do what the Trotskyists used to do: acknowledge, and deplore, their lack of any sort of democracy, but give credit to the (bureaucratically-mismanaged, for sure) planned economy. The apparent rapid economic growth of the USSR in the 1930s gave this argument a lot of credence, even among bourgeois economists.

Of course you stopped hearing about the splendid Soviet economy some time in the 1970s.

 

Anyway, so far as I can see, the vision of genuine socialists today, including the 'state-cap' variety, is to have an economy like the USSR's -- no private ownership of any significant means of production -- but to have democracy.

What they never explain -- never even try to explain, so far as I know -- is how 'democracy' (however they mean it) would solve the economic quandary that a non-market economy has, which I won't go into here, but which anyone can research by Googling 'the Socialist Calculation Question', sometimes called 'the Economic Calculation Question'.

But ... since you're a socialist, perhaps you can direct me, and others reading this, to some source that will explain how, in a state-owned economy, even a workers-democratic-state, we will decide how many 50mm annular nails we will produce per year.

I've recommended them before, but I'll do it again: Marx-Engels works can be found, along with the writings of many, many other ostensible Marxists -- at Marxists.org, and for a deep, human insight into the problems of a Planned Economy, read the novel Red Plenty, by Francis Spufford.

 

problem with marx is that his vision doesn't account for the corruption that is human nature,

 

Why chose?

Australia First.
Non Alignment.
Be a Switzerland.