It's Capitalism, Not Globalism

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by charleslb, Oct 23, 2016.

  1. Merwen

    Merwen Well-Known Member

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    I'll take nationalism as a temporary palliative.
     
  2. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    But that is its nature!!!


    Do you not know that the 1% have abandoned the U.S. worker? Do you think, then, that they are likely to be nice to us and do such things for us and forego some profits??? REALLY???


    How do we get that done? Elect Bernie Sanders? Beg corporations? Ask Congress to do it?

    Can you think of anything that would actually work?

    You think workers should organize, so let's work to organize them. How can we do that? Talk to our friends? Yeah, we can do that.
    Talk to our co-workers? Yeah, we can do that.
    Open local branches of MoveOn, OurRevolution, Democracy For America, and build unions? Yeah, we can do that.
     
  3. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    We've smashed unions and not replaced that with any method for advocating on the part of employees for work conditions, pay, job security, retirement, job definition, training, etc.

    We've dropped even the small amount of vocational education that high schools used to have, and haven't backed that up with training programs to get people started or to help them keep up in a rapidly changing employment world as we move toward more automation and toward competing with the world in information, high tech, innovation, etc.

    We can't expect workers to be able to keep up with the change without there being means for doing so.

    Stuff like this needs to be addressed. Clinton has pointed out a number of policies that directly address issues faced by workers.
     
  4. charleslb

    charleslb New Member

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    It doesn't address the underlying power structures and pathologies of capitalism, and is too dangerous for a host of reasons.
     
  5. Merwen

    Merwen Well-Known Member

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    Start by electing Trump.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Why, because of Hitler? Nationalism was tarred by that brush, but Hitler could just as well have been a globalist.
     
  6. PreteenCommunist

    PreteenCommunist Active Member

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    To be completely honest, it's proving quite difficult for me to navigate your posts given the ratio of moral bluster to substance, but your points are interesting when I can actually discern them, so here goes:

    1) See, this here is why people like to call communists idealistic. "Spiritual pursuit of creative self-actualisation"? What is that? I would agree that being creative and pursuing one's passions are some of the most important and rewarding things one could do in life, but there's no need to attach any wishy-washy spiritualism to it or to denounce accumulation of material goods as some kind of antithesis to creativity. People have been and are incredibly creative, innovative and boundary-pushing with the help of capitalism and of (gasp) matter. What has spirituality, denouncing material possessions and refusing to take advantage of the opportunity which capitalism has brought countless people to create and innovate ever done for us?

    I think you have a point with regards to alienation (if you mean the Marxist, materialist sense of the word and not some sort of spiritual riffraff), but what anti-capitalists have to prove is that when workers are alienated, it is due to an endemic feature of capitalism rather than a specific set of dynamics in a workplace or a consequence of when the rationalisation described by Weber is handled badly. There are plenty of people who are in creative professions or have the room to be creative in their professions, capitalism remains a dynamic system as recent exciting developments like the sharing economy show us, and simply put, not every proletarian is alienated. And then there's the fact that the petty-bourgeoisie appear to be here to stay, and harnessing the entrepreneurial spirit and all that stuff still gives people a great chance to take full control of their creative energies and be their own boss if they so wish.

    2) Again, you've got to show how this is related to an essential feature of capitalism and not to specific instances of mismanagement.

    3) I'm not sure what you mean here; it all sounds very righteous, but socialists who whinge about the "wrong" values being respected in our society are no different from reactionaries who do the same thing, and I'm afraid I have zero patience for either. Compassion is still a thing and people can still be pretty freaking lovely, and being perhaps more self-interested and out for oneself has not caused some sort of pandemic of (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)baggery. And again, when people do have issues with how they are relating to others or psychological problems, it is quite irresponsible to chalk all of it up to capitalism as a whole and not the specific and highly nuanced circumstances of the people in question.

    4) Nothing that can't be fixed with a good bit of awareness-raising. There's still no shortage of activism, and when people's passions are awoken, the results can prove amazing. The independence referenda in Quebec and Scotland, the umbrella movement in Hong Kong and the admirable recent protests in Venezuela against a tyrannical government are just a few examples of this, and that's because everything (what was happening and what was being proposed) was made very clear in these cases. If we stepped away from "metapolitical", moral language and preconceived divisions - including class - this sort of clarity could be achieved in many more situations.

    5) Yeah, war happens, but conflicts of interest are essentially inevitable and wars aren't nice for anyone. Peace and stability have been successfully established and conflicts successfully resolved in the past, and they will be as long as foreign policy decisions are made intelligently and practically by all parties

    6) 2007-9 was the worst one in a long time, and it was mostly due to bad policy: overspending in Europe and a confusing mixture of under- and overregulation in the global financial services sector.

    7) And yet renewable energy is becoming cheaper and more widely-used than ever and companies are rushing to demonstrate their ecological commitment.

    8) What false consciousness, exactly? I can't tell if you're using the term in the same way as Engels did or not, because your language is often rather un-Marxist - which is totally fine, it just makes what you want to convey a bit unclear when you do use a Marxist term.

    I can't find much in the second post which is relevant to my objection; I'd like to think that being an ex-communist has made me understand how terrible the arguments relating to the USSR and human nature are. But I wanted to touch on this:

    Of course there is a stratum which takes a leading and coordinating role in capitalism, but this does not have to mean that their interests are fundamentally opposed to those of the people whom they lead or that their leadership is actively harming everyone else. On the contrary, I would say that this stratum (I would prefer to say sphere) forms one part of a fluid, cohesive whole, and that all spheres of society (when things go to plan) work together and for each other’s benefit, with each sphere being important in a different way. There is no fundamental conflict of interest and you have not demonstrated one.Then there’s the whole Occupy thing with the 99% and 1%, which…I mean, how do you know concretely that this demonised 1% is oppressing the rest of society, in what way are they doing so and what are the specifics of the economic and/or social dynamics at play here? At least when Marxists say that the bourgeoisie are oppressing the proletariat, they have some kind of materialist and concrete basis for doing so, albeit one based on a faulty Ricardian principle. This Occupy rhetoric is utterly meaningless and baseless.

    I agree that this "our society isn't Truly Capitalist" stuff is nonsense, but I'd like some, again, concrete (sorry for my word overuse, but it does need to be emphasised) elaboration on how capitalism will inevitably yield monopolies as an inherent feature rather than a specific fault.
     
  7. xwsmithx

    xwsmithx Well-Known Member

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    Ah, but capitalism's greatest success is in rewarding individual merit when individuals work together. Bill Gates didn't build Microsoft single-handedly, but with a team of people who are now all billionaires in their own right. As the organizer and leader, he profited the most. And he didn't oppress a single worker, not a single person had to work in a sweatshop to produce the software, and not a single poor person on earth had to contribute to his riches. Capitalism works because everyone working for his own benefit benefits others as well. As Adam Smith said, the baker bakes bread, not to eat, but to sell. The weaver weaves cloth, not to wear, but to sell. The farmer grows acres and acres of food, not to eat, but to sell. And we're all better off for it, because we don't have to grow our own food, bake our own bread, or weave our own clothes. Capitalism doesn't punish working together, it rewards it. We're not atomistic individuals in capitalism, but we are free to change "teams" (companies) when we wish.

    Um, obviously not since I can deny it. True happiness comes from a happy home life, a comforting religion, rewarding work, and a sense of meaning and purpose to life. Note that communism attempts to do away with ALL of those in exchange for making the state god and the whole earth one's family. Doesn't work, and it sure doesn't lead to happiness.

    http://asibug.freehostia.com/index....:i-see-i-hear-i-learn-i-figure-out-&Itemid=68
     
  8. charleslb

    charleslb New Member

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    I would like to thank you for an extremely substantive and constructive reply. It's quite refreshing, since Marxists on internet political forums are usually inundated with knee-jerk polemical and ad hominem responses. I note that you take me to task for using the word "spiritual", and other "un-Marxist" language. Well, as someone who seems to be well educated about Marxism I would think that you would appreciate that Marxism is actually a quite rich and diverse intellectual tradition, not a rigid dogmatism whose classic tenets and vocabulary are hewed to and reproduced sequaciously by free-thinking adherents of Marxism. In fact it's nothing new for Marxists to integrate Marxism with insights and values derived other sources, from psychology and humanism, as Erich Fromm did quite brilliantly; from theology, as liberation theologians do; from existentialism, as Sartre and others have done; and from open Marxism. I'm simply in this tradition of free-thinking Marxists who take creative liberty with the Marxist critique of capitalism and vision of an alternative form of life. As for my use of the word "spiritual", I certainly don't use it with any supernaturalistic connotations. And my moralism? Well, a humanistic, self-realizationist morality is actually fundamental to Marxism. As for the rest of your post, well, I of course take issue with most of your criticisms and points, however I respect the intelligence that produced them and will refrain from going polemical or responding hastily.
     
  9. charleslb

    charleslb New Member

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    One of the beautiful aspects of a communist society and culture is that it would make possible and promote experiencing creativity as its own reward. The axiological focus would be on creative self-actualization, as an end in itself, not as a means to a monetary payoff or a higher social status. In short, humanistic values would replace egoistic individualism and materialism.
     
  10. xwsmithx

    xwsmithx Well-Known Member

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    By the way, I can point to two things that I think made me the way I am, but then I'll knock down my own theory afterwards. One, I was the oldest sibling in my family, and I thought it unjust and unfair that I had to give up MY toys and MY space and MY time just because my siblings EXISTED. I didn't ask for them to exist, I didn't contribute to their existence, so why should I have to suffer for their existence? Same goes for the rest of society... I didn't ask for you to be here, so why should YOUR existence create any claim on ME? I'm poor, but I don't ask YOU to pay for ME. Two, I was the smartest one in my class in almost every class I was ever in, including the teachers and/or professors. I was often forced to defend an answer to my teachers/professors and/or classmates when my answer disagreed with theirs, but since I was RIGHT, I did defend them, nearly always successfully. So that made me willing and able to defend my position, even when I'm the only one in the room who thinks I'm right.

    Now to knock down my own theory: Isn't it the case that with a different temperament, having siblings to share with would have been a joy instead of a pain? Isn't it the case that with a lower ego setting, I would have gone along with the crowd even when I knew I was right? So aren't those outcomes determined in some other way than I have pointed to? But without having something else to point to, I have to stick to that theory for now.
     
  11. xwsmithx

    xwsmithx Well-Known Member

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    Indeed. That's why so much great art came out of the Soviet Union and nothing out of capitalist Europe and the US.
     
  12. charleslb

    charleslb New Member

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    Again, the Soviet Union wasn't a paragon of authentic communism. Also, the Russian people certainly did not cease to be an extremely cultured people under the rule of the "communist" party.
     
  13. charleslb

    charleslb New Member

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    You're still thinking in an ontologically individualistic fashion. This, of course, is your fundamental error.
     
  14. charleslb

    charleslb New Member

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    Btw, our commercialized culture in which all that matters is what sells to the lowest common denominator, not values such as quality and excellence, i.e. a society whose axiological sensibilities have been seriously debased by the crass materialism of the capitalist ethos, has in fact produced a lot of trash that's all too generously called art.
     
  15. xwsmithx

    xwsmithx Well-Known Member

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    Perhaps because I don't have multiple personality disorder. But then you don't THINK at all, which is YOUR fundamental error. All you do is FEEL, and then come up with irrational denials of reality in order to justify your feelings. Fortunately, communism as a theory is as dead as the proverbial doornail and no one of substance takes it seriously anymore. Instead, we're left fighting socialism (communism-lite), environmentalism (liberal power-grabbing disguised as love of the planet), and political correctness (intolerance of dissent disguised as tolerance of weirdness).
     
  16. Mackerni

    Mackerni New Member

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    [video=youtube;S9f3UfNzrcg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9f3UfNzrcg[/video]
     
  17. xwsmithx

    xwsmithx Well-Known Member

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    You forget that all the "extremely cultured people" of the Soviet Union were exterminated by Stalin during the 1920s and 30s.
     
  18. charleslb

    charleslb New Member

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    I don't have any difficulty admitting that Stalin was a dreadful, mass-murderous character, since I don't identify with his ilk of authoritarian and faux communist.

    - - - Updated - - -

    What a benighted and bleak alternate reality your mind resides in. I'm sure that you won't accept it graciously, but you nevertheless genuinely have my pity.
     
  19. charleslb

    charleslb New Member

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    Well, it's hardly surprising that he would express such a crude mentality, as it's the only kind of mentality that I've ever heard him express. Until he has something more enlightened to share he should follow the example of his partner and go silent. At any rate, nothing against his profession, but a stage magician sharing your point of view doesn't exactly lend it oodles of validation. And I might point out that the stock-in-trade of magicians being illusion and deception, they tend to be vulgar skeptics and cynics, which inclines them to the kind of vulgar belief in self-interest expressed here.
     
  20. charleslb

    charleslb New Member

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    Adam Smith, the original absent-minded professor, who would wander about talking to himself, was a hypochondriac, and lived with his mother, etc.
     
  21. xwsmithx

    xwsmithx Well-Known Member

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    Never attack the person, only his ideas. I thought you were better than that. Consider Howard Hughes, the ultimate weirdo. Did that mean his planes didn't fly? Nope! Or Isaac Newton, who was a virtual recluse and spent most of his later life looking for a way to turn lead into gold. Did that mean the theory of gravity was flawed? Nope!
     
  22. charleslb

    charleslb New Member

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    As I said in my previous reply, given your level of familiarity with Marxism you should be well aware that the Marxist and communist tradition is quite rich in intellectual diversity. No, we’re not all “vulgar Marxists”, mentally locked into repeating the ideological mantras of old-left, Soviet-supporting Marxists. And actually, Marxism all along (from its very inception, recall Marx’s famous statement to the effect that he wasn’t a Marxist, because even in his own lifetime Marxism had begun to take new divergent forms that its founder didn’t identify with) has incorporated and enriched itself with contributions from other traditions. There was Sartre’s existentialist revision of Marxism; the integration of Marxism with theology achieved by liberation theologians; the synthesis of Marxism with process philosophy that we find in the work of Anne Fairchild Pomeroy and Steven Shaviro; Erich Fromm’s augmentation of Marxism with insight derived from the field of psychology, etc. Well, it’s free-thinking Marxists who complement Marxist enlightenment with insights derived from other sources, not the “vulgar Marxist” straw men of the right, with whom I identify, hence my proclivity for using language that isn’t stereotypical Marxist-Leninist jargon.









    Firstly, I don’t use the word “spiritual” with any supernaturalistic connotations. You’re obviously a smart and educated individual, therefore you should be aware that the word is by no means locked into being used with ethereal connotations. And your trouble with it being a romantic word, well, this simply betrays what I’ll term your tough-minded bias against romanticism. If you wish to explore it and gain more self-understanding I would recommend The Science Delusion, by Curtis White. Here’s a link that you can use to download it for free in a Kindle-compatible format, https://ufile.io/b9a8 (and yes, it's a perfectly safe download). As for materialism being innocuous and a motive for creative pursuits that we should embrace, sure it can motivate creativity, but it’s not the best motive. It certainly doesn’t promote the valuing and pursuit of creativity per se, rather creativity becomes merely a means to the ulterior economic end of making money. Also, practicing materialism, orienting one’s life toward the attainment of material affluence often works to distract from and lead one astray from the cultivation of creativity. And, I should point out that what I mean by creative self-actualization isn’t merely trying one’s hand at art, or writing, or music; rather I mean our creation of ourselves, our actualization of the best self-creative human possibilities, which includes a good deal more than the creativity involved in artistic endeavors. It includes cultivating character and ethical traits, mental abilities, and relationships with other human beings as well, all of which enriches that ultimate creative product, an individual human being. Economic materialism, alas for economic materialists, doesn’t promote the actualization of the highest ethical traits or altruistic and loving connections with other human beings. It often works, quite grievously, against our ability to develop good qualities of character and fulfilling relationships (ask anyone who’s made the mistake of being more committed to attaining affluence than to being a good spouse and parent). So no, materialism is not really compatible with the kind of creative self-realizationism and humanism that I advocate.







    Well, it might help our analysis of alienation and our existential lot under capitalism to define our terms. Capitalism is precisely and literally that, capital-ism, the domination and assimilation of life by capital, by its inherent drive for its accumulation. The transvaluation of our reality, of human relations and values, by the iron law of accumulation and commodity fetishism. The three Cs, capital accumulation, commodity fetishism, and the cash nexus are the name of the capitalist game. That is, capitalism isn’t merely a quaint economic system, isn’t merely a society of entrepreneurs and shopkeepers benignly creating goods and jobs, buying and selling, with no wider adverse sociocultural repercussions; rather, capitalism is a totalizing existential proposition, co-opting our entire life-world. Yes, at the risk of anthropomorphizing, one can say that capital has its designs on Dasein, it certainly gets its hooks deep into Dasein. In short, capitalism is human being oriented by the dehumanizing capitalist mode of production; the human cosmos firmly in the grip of the inhuman power of capital; existence conducted and experienced in terms of, by and through the relations of commodities; the tragic replacement of authentic human relations with the cash nexus.

    Well, the capitalist, possessed as s/he is by the monomania for the accumulation of profits and capital, of course becomes unabashedly all about dollars and commodities, s/he deals in commodities not merely as a job description but as a way of being in the world, they’re his/her existential stock-in-trade, s/he comes to live life by and large in a commodifying mode, relating to everything under the sun as commodities. And his/her fellow human beings are certainly no exception. Actually, the commodification of their labor is a sine qua non of the capitalist mode of production. Thus and so, the labor, i.e. the creative activity and nature of workingpeople is commodified, reified, and then bought away from, and thereby alienated from them in a system in which they have no choice but to sell it if they wish to eat and pay the rent. Mm-hmm, the capitalist imperative to accumulate, mode of production, and status quo ensures the objectification and alienation of the majority of human beings living under it.

    Let me clarify, commodity fetishism of course accounts for a good deal of human unhappiness both by causing our self-alienation, and our alienation from one another as well. To nutshell it, reification and commodity fetishism is an objectifying misperception and misrepresentation of reality as featuring objects, fixed and separate objects with an intrinsic value, rather than creative relationships and processes determining value. This false understanding is of course applied to commodities, economic production, and economics in toto. And, alas, to human beings themselves, and to their social relations. This way of misexperiencing social relations replaces the full-fledged interpersonal relationships, the creative sharing of our lives that constitutes genuine human relations and that creates and enriches human beings. That is, robbed of the experience of real human relations, alienated from each other, denied creative interrelationality with each other, as we are, we’re no longer able to attain the highest levels of creative self-actualization and satisfaction with life. Instead we go through life suffering from a quite desperation for self-actualization that often takes our lives in painful and self-destructive directions.

    At any rate, it’s of course the case that the motives, MO, and commodity fetishism of capitalists infects and permeates the consciousness of the rest of us. We all, to some degree, come to understand economics, social relations, and life in general to consist of the relations of commodities, of traded objects and that commodity called money. We all, to some extent, find ourselves relating to other human beings in an impersonal fashion, not as persons but rather as their roles in economic relationships and transactions. Life is deprived of its full multidimensionality, impoverished, and yes, dehumanized. This dehumanizing scenario of capitalism is after all the genetic nature of the beast, so to speak, it inevitably plays out. That is, it produces a population of spiritually sick victims, human beings whose objectification and alienation from their fundamental creative nature leaves them disappointed and disgruntled with life itself. Being trapped by the control that capitalists exercise over their livelihood in jobs in which they don’t experience creative self-actualization and fulfillment, they never discover the true joy of existence. Rather, they suffer from what many describe as a “void”. And, not understanding the nature of this void, and how to properly go about filling it, they seek to assuage or escape it in a multitude of unhealthy ways, alcohol, drugs, food, sex, entertainment, consumerism, work, etc. And of course all of these forms of escapism in turn support the capitalist system. Well, they help to medicate the discontent of its victims; become sources of profits for capitalists; and, of course without consumerism and plenty of individuals whose lives are completely taken up with work capitalism wouldn’t be sustainable at all.

    But of course all of these forms of escape take their toll on individual human beings, and on society, and ultimately render capitalism a materially prosperous but humanly unsuccessful and unsustainable system. Sociological pathologies such as crime mount, anomie becomes epidemic, social and moral decay becomes rampant, way too many human beings become clinically depressed, drug dependent, or otherwise dysfunctional and troublesome. And so because of these endemic existential contradictions, as well as the contradictions that it suffers from purely as a socioeconomic system, and its inbuilt proneness to produce economic crises, capitalism finds itself in the stage of late capitalism, in a phase of decline, which will either lead to a catastrophic outcome, or to the evolution of a radically alternative form of life. Such is the unhappy reality of capitalism that we all need to begin to come to terms with. Thinkers such as Marx realized all of this way back in the early days of modern industrial capitalism, but here we are in the Information Age and many of us still haven’t caught up with them, still haven’t embraced their insightful and spot-on critique of the anti-human, anti-life, and unsustainable nature of the capitalist system. Of course there’s an obvious reason for this, the ideology and false consciousness generated by the capitalist system gets in the way, obscures and disguises the harsh and moribund reality of capitalist society. We all urgently need to begin cutting through this false worldview and consciousness that we’ve all been raised in, and finally begin to see that what the writing on the wall for capitalism says is that the end is nigh.

    (By the way, it’s an unfortunate misconception, of course promoted by the conservative shills of the capitalist ruling class, that class consciousness is divisive and discontenting. In actuality, class consciousness aims at healing workingpeople of alienation by abolishing the capitalist status quo that’s responsible for it. And even before achieving this objective it begins the healing process by raising awareness among workers that being dispossessed of the means of production isn’t merely an economic injustice, but rather has a social and human dimension to it as well. And, of course, it promotes a sense of togetherness in a common revolutionary struggle against alienation and all of capitalism’s inherent injustices. And a sense of sharing the same class identity and interests.)







    See my above analysis of alienation.







    So, simplistically lump and dismiss us all together? That’s not terribly sophisticated. And, of course, either consciously or unconsciously, putting me in the same category with folks with whom I profoundly disagree is even a bit spiteful. At any rate, you ignore that the values we tout usually differ, and when we do share the same values our interpretation of them often differs significantly; and, what’s more, our axiological and moral concerns come from very different psychological places, and lead to quite different practical outcomes.






    Hmm, do you honestly not see how the egoistic individualism promoted by capitalism militates against social compassion? Are you really unaware of all of the sociological ill effect that it’s having? Playing uninformed isn’t really arguing in good faith.







    Did I actually attribute every bit of the unhappiness of every human being to the capitalist system? Nope, you’re merely trying here to turn my critique of capitalism into something too extreme to sign onto, into an overly-simplistic straw man that can be easily dismissed.






    Oh my, so you’re another non-appreciator of the true meaning of class consciousness. FYI, class consciousness is simply a matter of workingpeople being awake to the socioeconomic and other existential realities, many of them quite harsh and unjust, that characterize their condition under capitalism. It’s indeed tautological to assert that it’s crucial for the activation of the right moral passions for the right social changes. Alas, without class consciousness, without a deep critique of, understanding of the endemic evils of the capitalist world system, activism usually at best aims at remedying mere symptoms, and often just targets innocent scapegoats (which is of course what Trump supporters are doing with their xenophobic focus on immigrants and Muslims; arguably, an insightful critical focus on the capitalist system and its elites would have steered them clear of anti-immigrantism and Islamophobia, and prevented them from falling for the populist schtick of a self-aggrandizing capitalist elite like Mr. Trump).




    Hmm, so because war existed before capitalism therefore we can discount the fact that the interests of capitalist elites often play a significant part in motivating our modern unjust aggressions?! We can dismiss what we know about how the intrinsic dynamics and power structure of the capitalist system manifest the often aggressive expansion of capital’s field of play; and the globalization, by force of arms when necessary, of the hegemony of capitalist elites?! Oh dear.




    continued below
     
  23. charleslb

    charleslb New Member

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    Read Capital, and study history a bit, and it becomes quite obvious that capitalism is inherently and incorrigibly crisis-prone. Mm-hmm, the insatiable drive for accumulation drives it into one recession, depression, or other form of crisis after another.







    Lol! So under capitalism capitalist elites readily and honestly take on board the inconvenient truth of climate change, and jump on board with the movement to minimize its coming catastrophic ill effects, even though doing so runs counter to their economic interests? That’s a nice alternate reality that you’re spending time in.






    By false consciousness (falsches Bewusstsein) I mean, essentially, the opposite of class consciousness; a disingenuous and delusive understanding of reality suffered by all too many working people which obscures, dissembles, and rationalizes the realities of their socioeconomic situation that would have them calling for revolution if they had a clear and heightened awareness of them. The Oxford definition: a way of thinking that prevents a person from perceiving the true nature of their social or economic situation.






    The system of the former Soviet Union was certainly not exemplary of authentic communism; rather, it was more a product and extension of Russian history, of the authoritarianism and bereftness of a consciousness of human rights that Czarist Russia suffered from. It was also in good measure a product of the state of siege that the Soviet Union was in from its very inception. Well, being threatened by enemies foreign and domestic motivated its swift devolution into a police state and a military power (whose military establishment consume considerably too much of its resources). And (for those who wish to find the origin of the faults of the Soviet system in Marxism), unfortunately the specific brand of Marxist philosophy that its leaders subscribed to was not exactly the humanistic variety. But of course the ideology of the Soviet Union was by no means representative of all variants of Marxist thought. In short, there’s nothing endemic in the set of insights, values, and ideals that comprise the core of communism that predetermines the degeneration of communist societies into repressive states. To take the trite and unfair tack of smearing communism with Stalinism, is, well, quite lame. People don’t recognize this simply because its so commonly done, and because we’ve been thoroughly socioculturally conditioned to uncritically equate communism with Stalinism.

    As for the human nature argument of anti-communists, well, to state the obvious, it entails an essentialist and substantialist belief that human beings have a substantial, fixed essence into which is hardwired certain unmodifiable traits. However, such a substantial core is a fiction, and practicing a deep empiricism reveals rather that our fundamental existentially, like the fundamental nature of existence in general, is in fact creative-social-processive. Like everything else in the universe, we consist of events of creativity, processes of creative interrelationality and integrativity, self-creative choices, and the concrescence of actualized creative possibilities. We therefore can in fact choose other self-creative options, enact different values, and embody different and better human potentialities. We needn’t continue to repeat the actualization of the traits of human beings living under capitalism, we need’t resign ourselves to being egoistically individualistic, crassly self-interested and profit-motivated specimens. And, as our self-creativity is interrelational, not a private affair, our society, the form of society that we reside in, can and does make a significant contribution to our self-creative choices. A form of society that features and is geared to promote more pro-social, communitarian values would therefore help to bring into existence more social and community-spirited individuals, who would not yearn to be selfish and exploitative capitalists. As for the Soviet Union failing to produce such human beings, well, its failure in this regard is quite understandable, given the fact that it wasn’t an authentically communist form of society. Much of its population being well aware of this, well aware that they actually lived under a form of state capitalism, in which a ruling class of private capitalists was replaced by the party and the nomenklatura, they were never really inclined to get fully into the spirit of communism. No, the true spirit of communism never actually infused and suffused their consciousness and culture, and thus failed woefully to produce the novy sovetsky chelovek, the new Soviet man.





    This is a ludicrous statement. A class of people, a 1% who are all about the accumulation of capital and economic riches, who control the means of producing economic prosperity, and most of the economic wealth prosperity produced, i.e. who have most of the economic power, and translate it into political influence and power, which they insidiously use to make a lie of our democracy; i.e. a class of people who get rich by depriving the rest of us of a just share of economic wealth and well-being, by expropriating most of the value created by the labor of workingmen and women, by practicing exploitation, imperfect competition, and the rigging of the game, and who politically disenfranchise the majority of us, most certainly can be said to be actively exercising leadership in ways that harm everyone else. Or are you going to deny all of this by embracing some idealized image of free markets and then attributing all of actually-existing capitalism’s evils to the fact that it doesn’t conform to an angelic archetype of capitalist society that will never exist in the real world.






    Hmm, you really don’t perceive that the interests of the class of people who expropriate, accumulate, and control most of our society’s economic wealth conflict with those who are expropriated and exploited by them, who don’t receive their just share, who instead slave for an inadequate wage and few or no benefits?!




    We know this empirically, we known this because it’s the case and is quite obvious. Ask an obtuse question, get an answer that sounds insulting to your intelligence. First of all, expropriating and accumulating most of your society’s net worth, and depriving the rest of its population of a just share of economic wealth and well-being, inflicting an inadequate and stagnant wage, poverty, joblessness, homelessness, etc. is perpetrating injustice and oppression. When the 1%’s economic power is used to corrupt and co-opt our political system, to overempower itself and thereby effectively disenfranchise the little guy/gal, well, it’s certainly not behaving in a fashion that liberates the rest of us.
    When the special interests and will to hegemony of our capitalist ruling class motivates unjust and mass-murderous wars and occupations, it’s indeed earning its “demonized” image.



    Well, unfortunately a great many commonsense anti-capitalists, which is what the Occupy movement was mostly comprised of, haven’t studied Marx’s critique of capitalism deeply if at all and are consequently indeed lacking in insight.




    Well, of course one of the serious contradictions of capitalism is that inter-capitalist competition, putting in force, as it does, the imperative to accumulate capital by any means necessary, drives capitalists and capitals to engage in imperfect competition, in conduct and practices that make for a system thoroughly characterized by imperfect competition, rather than anything resembling the ivory-tower vision of free-marketarians.



    Once again, thank you for a substantive and intelligent, if just about entirely wrongheaded, contribution to the thread.

    (Sorry that it took me a bit to reply, I've been up against an illness, and other adverse conditions)
     
  24. charleslb

    charleslb New Member

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    You’re right, of course. A momentary lapse, a fleeting descent to the level of anti-communists who like to polemicize against Marxism with petty ad hominems about its founder’s poor personal hygiene and lack of bona fides as a workingman. (Btw, if you care to you’re certainly welcome to take part in my above conversation with PreteenCommunist)
     
  25. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    So I want to sue a corporation with tens of thousands of owners, how exactly do I go about suing everyone of them and getting a settlement out of everyone of them?

    You start a dry cleaning business as an LLC, if someones shirt gets ruined they sue the Dry Cleaning business you think they should be able to sue your family?

    And if you want to go down that route why not be able to sue all the employees of the company too?
     

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