The basic principles of Maoism

Not in the OP, in subsequent replies.

"Do you really expect someone who has dedicated dozens of hours to studying philosophy and social theory from these people to be swayed by two sentences from someone who's never read a word of their writing, sentences in which not a single point is made?"

Modesty is a virtue in discussion.

 

You mean that voluntary interaction between citizens is oppressive, and so we need a state which will force involuntary actions on the citizens? ^_-

uh... no such oppressive bureaucracy existed under Mao? ^_-

Wait... did you just call Marxist theory dense?

just kidding.

 

I'm confused as to how you can describe the capitalist form of economic and social organization as being comprised of "voluntary interactions". To be sure there are voluntary interactions in capitalist society. There are such in a socialist form as well. But do you believe that certain citizens have the opportunity to use market manipulation to coerce economic behavior? So much of what is called voluntary in capitalist society seems quite compulsory, but because the groups of individuals creating the coercive environment are not a "state" then it doesnt count.

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I certainly agree that modesty is a virtue in discussion. But that post I read originally preceded the quoted post. Thus, I was confused. OTherwise I completely agree.

 

Hmmm....I always thought that driving home the meaning with a sledge hammer and a steel bolt into the forehead with the POINT of the conversation being wrapped around the threads of that STEEL BOLT being driven into the cranium of the individual was the ONLY METHOD capable of driving home the point!!

But hey.....a few words taken from some Professor's books which his students must pay over $3500 a semester to purchase these books directly from this Professor as these books are not deemed worthy or worthwhile enough from either a social or business standpoint of being worth carrying in stock for sale EVEN AT THE UNIVERSITY BOOKSTORE.....so besides the Library of Congress having these books names and code because Lord Knows nobody else does.....are the books used for some members to take a few words from to try to make a POINT.....well....who am I to say that THAT IS QUITE POSSIBLY TO STUPIDEST AND LEAST EDUCATED AND LEAST FUNCTIONAL ACTION TO ATTEMPT TO PRODUCE A REACTION IN ANYTHING OR ANYONE EVER!!!

Sort of like a teacher saying she as very PARSIMONIOUS!

I said.....so your saying your CHEAP?

She said..."No.....parsimonious is a word that mean's thrifty.


I said....I also means you are CHEAP!!!!

She looked it up in front of me.

par·si·mo·ni·ous
ˌpärsəˈmōnēəs/Submit
adjective
unwilling to spend money or use resources; stingy or frugal.
"parsimonious New Hampshire voters, who have a phobia about taxes"
synonyms: CHEAP, miserly, mean, (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)rdly, close-fisted, close, penny-pinching, ungenerous, Scroogelike;

Then I said....."You know the use of an obscure word to describe a meaning that is simple is not only BAD COMMUNICATION but it is also a display of ego and psychologically indicates that you hold yourself in low self esteem and thus compensate for this by using obscure words of vocabulary that are no longer commonplace and NEVER would be used in today's world unless another person was PURPOSELY trying to display a bit of their own personal knowledge that most other people are not educated in.

What is worse is you KNOW 99.9999% of the people you use the word parsimonious in a sentence to convey a thought will not understand the meaning of the word thus you do this PURPOSELY.

Even worse by doing this to STUDENTS you do not inspire the student to desire to obtain such knowledge but rather SICKEN THEM TO THEIR VERY CORE are they SWEAR TO THEMSELVES.....Please GOD.....don't EVER LET ME WIND UP LIKE HIM or HER!!!!

That was a 95 mph Split Fingered Fast Ball for a strike Jim!!

AboveAlpha

 

The basic principal of maoism is, kill who ever disagrees with you.

[video=youtube;f-woaDniFQc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-woaDniFQc[/video]

 

Well if you're confused because you think capitalism is primarily comprised of involuntary actions, especially comparatively (to socialism), then you're going to have to come up with at least one example.

 

But that isn't what I said is it? I was asking if you believe all capitalist interaction is voluntary simply because the coercive force in action came from a source other than a "state"

 

In actual capitalism? Very nearly.

Again, you should provide some examples of what you mean so we can quit dancing around your point and actually address it.

 

To this day the 45 to 55 Million Chinese People who died because of Mao are not even recognized by the Chinese Communist Party Leadership.

They refuse to admit this reality because they fear what all useless despots fear....THEIR REMOVAL FROM POWER!!!

The United States and China were WWII Allies and the United States supports the Chinese economy because without Chinese Exports sold to the U.S. the Chinese Economy would collapse within a week.

China knows this.....and China also knows that they cannot continue to purposely challenge the U.S. Military and Navy in the Pacific without consequences and this is why the Chinese PLN Leadership has SMARTLY confronted the Chinese Communist Party Leadership and persuaded them to stop all the nonsense that has been going on as the Chinese PLN would last about 12 hours against the massive U.S. Navy and Military and these one time thoughts of Invading Taiwan are now OVER!!

AboveAlpha

 

My question didn't dance around anything.
Let's take a simple example: Everyone in modern capitalist society needs to buy gas for their cars. You get no option to influence what you pay for gas because the industry is controlled by several large corporations that can implicitly collude by offering the same general price and thus they artifically spread the control of the market to just a few hands and preclude outside influence. Sure, you could just not drive. But lets be real, you have to get places to properly function in modern life. You are coerced into accepting often exorbitant prices simply because you dont have any other realistic options.

You can pretend thats all "voluntary" but the consumers voluntary role is only that of choosing whether or not to accept the extortion or to revolt by not driving at all. Its just two options. Socialism does the same thing. Its just two different options.

 

Without any examples, it was basically dancing around a point, because obviously there is some involuntary action in a capitalist society, because we need to pay some taxes in order to have a government which minimizes coercive actions, but this is all relative - for the Maoist to criticize capitalism because it is inherently coercive and then become far more coercive is just silly.

1. You mention that they can collude, but not that they do. Of course, this is for two reasons: first, that isn't to their benefit, because such an action would immediately open opportunities for a comeptitor to get in and cut out their business.
2. We have laws against monopolistic practices in capitalism anyways, but I wanted to go with you on theory on 1 rather than quibble and just dismiss your point outright.
3.a.) You absolutely do have control. No, you can't just choose how much you're going to pay for gas - would it be fair if someone just walked up to you and said, "hey, you do [insert whatever you do for work], I want you to do this for me for 10 cents an hour, it'll only take you about 5000 hours"? Of course not - it doesn't make sense that the buyer could mandate a price.
b) to be clear, the buyer's influence over the price does not make the transaction coercive. And, this is the key point here, how would price fixing, by the buyer or government, be any less coercive? The key here, because of how the original statement (of the OP) was phrased, is relatively.
c.) as a bit of a sidenote, the reason why oil is controlled by large corporations is not so that they can collude, but simply because larger companies are better able to streamline their business, thereby lowering the cost to the consumer. All other things the same, wouldn't you want products and services delivered to the consumer at the lowest price?

Also, side note: now is a really bad time to talk about oil companies hypothetically colluding to fix prices artificially high. And I'd also really dispute that a consumer needs to buy gas, as there are sooo many different options, but I wanted to take your point on theory for the sake of argument, but I think it should be made clear that what you brought up was a really bad example. IF you think capitalism is inherently coercive (esp. relative to Communism), then you should be able to come up with a better example easily.

This is simply not true. Gas companies are not charging exorbitant prices - if they were, then other companies would undercut them and they would lose.

There are products with variance and products with little variance. Gas is one product with little variance - what is the difference between regular unleaded gas from ExxonMobil vs. Shell? There's really no difference, it's the same thing. Art is something different, where I can draw a painting of a tallship and it's not the same as a tallship painting done by a master artist. When you have products with little variance, the prices will naturally come to be verhy nearly the same, because a seller has a very hard time justifying the price difference, as a master artist could do. If you went to a master artist and wanted his painting of a tallship for $10, because my crappy one sells for $10, he'd blow you off.

That's just how pricing works in a free market. But as far as exorbitant, the prices are absolutely not exorbitant. Apple regularly posts a profit margin of about 40%. Microsoft's profit margin generally hovers around 30%, with some significant variance. ExxonMobil's profit margin generally hovers around 7%, with little variance. When you pay at the pump, you pay far more in taxes than you contribute to the company's profit. Oh, and then that profit is taxed.

http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/gasoline/margins/index.php

Not really. It isn't extortion - that you don't like the prices doesn't make it extortion nor exorbitant.

 

Well thanks for being so patient I suppose.

Look, I can come up with a lot of more complex examples and some equally simple ones etc. But its pretty obvious from your response that you don't believe in implicit collusion as a real thing. Further you don't believe that markets coerce certain behavior thus making "voluntary action" meaningless.

Believe that I can back my argument or not. That's up to you, but I find when one has bought the illusory notion that the consumer is actually in control of their economic fate that such people wouldn't entertain any argument to the contrary.

 

So... you're essentially taking it on faith, and can't prove, that markets coerce certain behavior?

And I assume, from your response, that you agree that capitalism is at least relatively less coercive than socialism?

 

Well, Im glad you know so much about what I can and can't prove. I think we both know that you will reject any and all evidence I provide because you will interpret it differently. That's just post-modernity 101. You have presupposed your view as much as I have.(Deny it or not) Mine is based in a moral committment. Yours is based on whatever it is that you base it on.

Capitalism's relative coercion isn't material. It is less coercive to be sure. I believe socialism is very coercive because morality is always somewhat coercive if a moral code is actually believed. I simply try to point out the coercion where it exists in capitalist society because lots of silly folks think they're completely free. They should know they aren't. They're free in a designed framework from which they can't vary, just as in any system.

 

I am going to prove to you that your ideology will not work, and hear me out, I am not one of those far-rightys that are just like, oh it hasn't worked in the past, so it wont work in the future. Ok. So, capitalism is the idea that one material can be used as a universal median of trade, but on crack. So, the idea of "capital" is being able to invest in something, the idea that, if I put my money in this endeavor, I may get more in the future, which is essentially what capitalism is. It is the idea that businesses require people to pool their money together and invest in something, and, if it by chance does not work, they lose very little money, but if it does, it makes them richer. However, capitalism operates on this standard median of exchange, money, if you will, which is the key. Communism, or Marxism, does not operate on this. You believe that everyone should own everything communally, that my stuff is your stuff, and your stuff is my stuff. So, theoretically, it doesn't matter how much money I have, everyone has everyones stuff. However, the problem with this ideology is not corruption, corruption can be avoided, but the fact that you lose this median of exchange, money. In the past, way back when we were hunter gatherers, we basically operated on a communist economy. People did stuff "for the good of the order", not for their own personal gain. But you cant have real product unless you invest in a business. You may be able to very easily employ Marxism, but what it would do would lock you in your time. Innovation would cease, because science does not operate on production, but rather, innovation. There may be occasional eureka moments, but not the level of innovation we have today in capitalist economies. Capitalism's main forte is the idea that you can invest in something, and hope it ends up working out in the future. Entrepreneurs and innovators flourish, and receive funding, keeping development running. You could very easily have Marxism, but you'd be stuck in the same time period, with very little innovation. I am not saying that capitalism is without its flaws. If you sort of mix the two, but not do socialism, you get something rather different, a fascist economy. If everyone is employed by the State, you can keep investment, kind of how science works today, rather than a stock investment, you have a government grant, and also supply equal opportunity to everyone who deserves it. that's a very simplified explanation, but just some food for thought.

 

Also I don't take it on faith and you know it. The only way in which capitalist social organization can avoid all coercion and manipulation is if you assume small markets and perfect competition. That's every bit the "utopian nonsense" that capitalists say socialist success is.

 

That's why you implement processes that work against corruption. Social engineering can achieve many things. A populace that are wary of the state and a state with no opportunity for monetary gain can drastically cut down on corruption.

I was using the term in the classical Marxist sense of "Something that completely ignores the context of society"

Human beings will resort to all kinds of nasty behaviour if they think they must. But in a vacuum, our nature is to cooperate for mutual benefit. We only turn to backstabbing to save our own hide

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I really ought to just copy and paste the same post over and over again every time I hear this argument, but I'm honestly so tired of it that I won't even put that much effort into responding.

Congratulations, you prompted an exasperated sigh.

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jesus christ do you know literally anything about china

do you even know who deng xiaoping was

Instead, we have an unimaginable amount of death and poverty and cities so choked with smog that years are taken off of your life for stepping foot him them.

Congratulations Capitalism, this is hell you created. You ruin everything and people thank you for it. If only people had such a reaction to half of my mistakes.

""""""""""save""""""""""

Citation needed.

Also, when you type words, do you just roll a die every word or so and capitalize the entire word if it comes up on six?

 

What you should be asking is how Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew was able to show Deng Xiaoping the way to prosperity using American Capitalistic Models.

What you have now done is step off the Continental Shelf and now you are in deep water way over your head.

I know more about such topics specific to South East Asia....Maoism, how Deng Xiaoping had NO CLUE and it was Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's influence that helped shape and develop and is considered THE FATHER OF MODERN CHINA as we know it today.

You don't understand how Kissinger and Nixon developed a VERY LONG TERM PLAN that is still running today that allowed unfettered and many times unfair access by China to the U.S. Market for the sole purpose of changing China from the INSIDE OUT!!

You are better off debating other members because believe me....you are not ready for me.

AboveAlpha

 

I assume you can't prove it because you haven't attempted to. If you require someone to say "I will accept your words as gospel without any questions or dispute" before you'll give your evidence/reasoning, then you really don't have any.

So why the dispute to begin with? My entire point, to begin with, was that capitalism is far less coercive, and the OP's criticism of capitalism was exactly that it is coercive. It's like, "oh, you don't want to drive a car that didn't get top safety rating, so go for the one that got the worst", it makes no sense.

Maybe you missed it, but I never said that capitalism is free of coercion, but simply that it is more free of it.

well this is a bit of a straw man you're making here. I never said capitalism was free of coercion. Capitalism requires coercion, but the minimal coercion that a society can have.

I suggested that you take it on faith because you stated it as if you couldn't prove it.

 

This last post was laughable. First, I brought up that evidence was irrelevant because you have presupposed your position and so have I based on our fundamental philosophical underpinnings. Clearly your philosophical understanding is not what your economic understanding is. Which makes sense for a capitalist. You guys know how to make a few powerful men really rich. Creation of a morally balanced society? not as much.

<Mod Edit> Sure, socialism is coercive. My point is that capitalism isnt free of coercion. (yes there are people who believe that it is. So I had to make the point.) Further, your point about relative coercion makes no difference to me. I base my argument on relative adherence to human moral standard. Coercion used for good is good. coercion used for evil is evil.

If you think my point creates a two pole system that demonizes capitalism, then youre getting it. Economics can be about what works. (though for whom is a question capitalists avoid) or it can be about what's good.

less successful and morally right always trumps what works better and is morally wrong. Capitalist societies make better world powers and better world demons. You can't beat me in a debate and I cant beat you. Because success and victory mean different things to us. Your mind was formed in a microeconomics class, mine in a philosophical theory class.

 

Social engineering? You mean like "conditioning"?
And monetary gain is not the only cause or motivation for corruption. Power over others is far more corrupting.

And Marx would have been wrong, since he had no clue about our biological based motivations, since the science hadn't begun in his time. Human nature does not completely ignore the context of society. It is an integral part of all human societies.

Or to acquire things, or to manifest one's hatred of others for whatever reason, or at time to save somebody else's hide.
I do agree that our social nature is to cooperate for mutual benefit which generally satisfies our basic human nature.

 

Prosperity for who?

Nobody thinks that. I have never heard a single person articulate that viewpoint before.

A change that benefits US imperialist interests and absolutely nobody else.

Why should I be afraid to debate anybody? The point of debate is to get closer to the truth, and how could that be regrettable?

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Social engineering is the art and science of structuring things to cause or avoid certain behaviours. I'm arguing that advances in the fields of sociology and psychology can be used to squash corruption.

Yes, power corrupts. I recognize this. That's why I don't think that power should be in the hands of capitalists openly operating for the sake of their own profit with no social obligations, because they've been shown to abuse that power at the expense of the unfortunate time and time again.

I'm arguing that we need to hold power accountable and force it into a position of responsible use, and that we can't do such a thing with a privately owned economy. That is the thesis statement of my grand manifesto. Every thing I've ever written on politics since discovering socialism has revolved around that idea.

Then explain the primitive communist societies of hunters and gatherers, where all was shared according to needs and things like racism had not yet been developed. People cooperated because of the inherent empathy in all mentally functional humans. We evolved empathy for a reason. It's the group instinct of mankind.

Then why should we continue using a social structure that amplifies the worst in us?

 

The hunters and gatherers turned into shepherds when the figured out it was better to "hunt" sheep. They learned to ride horses and cooperated admirably the maintain the flocks. It was a nomadic lifestyle and in there wanderings came across the farmers who figured that planting crops was easier than gathering. The shepherds then discovered that their organized horsemanship was well suited to raiding and pillaging the villages of the farmers.

This was not only profitable, but it was fun and easy.



Mongol General: Hao! Dai ye! We won again! This is good, but what is best in life?

Mongol: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?

Conan: Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.

Mongol General: That is good! That is good.
"

 

I'd say the points raised in the OP are not exclusively Maoist, by any means; I'm an orthodox Marxist and considered to be on the left of the communist spectrum (yes, conmunism also has a spectrum within it) but as a Marxist, I completely agree with the OP.

My problems with MLMism are basically historical and tactical. MLMism makes a point of supporting China, Albania and the Soviet Union to a point as "socialist states" (as if that term weren't an oxymoron) and being very generous about other states which attempted socialism, often describing them as revisionist and thus implying that ideas caused them to become capitalist. However, every single ostensibly socialist state in history had property relations similar to capitalist ones, as well as wage labour and commodity production, and on top of that were remarkably oppressive - and not just to the bourgeoisie. Socialists cannot afford to defend these states simply because of their rhetoric.

Additionally, MLMism seems to advocate the very reasons for the failure of these past socialist states. The vanguard model, the ideas of New Democracy, the People's War, focoism and other guerrilla tactics, socialism in one country, stageism...all of this caused the working class not to mobilise and the revolutionary state from being eroded, because it was conducive to the emergence of one "higher" section of the proletariat which would merely replace the bourgeois, whether by causing political or economic stratification. A truly proletarian revolution and state requires mass organisation and action as soon as possible, which then spreads and gives the bourgeois and the reactionary elements of the lower classes no time to retaliate.

Not to start a tendency war or anything, but these are just some thoughts I had.

 

This is a perfect example of a behavioural change being brought about by the development of productive forces: a base-superstructure relationship, if you will. When the hunter-gatherers became shepherds, productive forces developed and their attitudes and ways of life changed accordingly.