I'm kind of back but kind of...meh, screw it

I decided to open a new thread because I made like 5 posts when I first signed up here two years ago, so I figured I'd re-introduce myself because no one will remember me. That, and I want this thread to be MINE, ALL MINE!

(Yeah, for a communist I'm very possessive.)

Anyway, hi. I'm a 14-year-old European girl who enjoys (maybe that's a stretch) posting on forums while procrastinating stuff and has opinions on almost everything. As for those opinions themselves, they actually haven't changed so much since the summer of 2014, which was when I first signed up here. I'm a Marxist now as opposed to an ancom and am less fond of trade unions than I used to be, but I'm still communist. If you want the specifics, I guess orthodox Marxist would be the best term, and I also quite like the Frankfurter Schule/Frankfurt School. Concerning philosophy and religion, I'm a strong atheist, moral nihilist and physicalist - and I made some very idealistic (in the philosophical sense) posts on here which now make me think my past self deserved the ice pick treatment.

That should be enough waffling for now. Hope I can stick around for longer this time.

 

How does a 14 year old come across such a disgusting, dehumanizing ideology such as Marxism? Parents? Friends at school? Teachers?

I made a thread about teenage socialists/communists a while back. Take a read, see if it rings true.

No disrespect intended. I honestly hope you abandon your current belief system as you grow, but I look forward to reading your posts.

 

In America I'd guess the average 14 year old knows more about government from recent classes than the average 40 year old remembers. Pretty hard to cover much history of the past 100 years without mentioning communism. Communism is idealistic in principle, as are many deep thinking teenagers.

 

Disgusting and dehumanising...interesting words to be used by a proponent of a system which depends upon forcing the vast majority of people to sell their labour-power and be paid less than its value so that a few people can make a profit which never "trickles down."

But anyway. My dad is a typical conservative and my mum is...kind of an ordoliberal, "social marketeer" type, and my school is in one of the most conservative areas of my entire country, so my beliefs can't have come from either source (except perhaps as a reaction against it). I've been a leftist of some description ever since I first became interested in politics, but I only really became communist (well, anarchist at first) when I realised that the sots-dem party in my country was just as responsible for the inefficacies and problems of society as the conservative one and that issues like imperialism, austerity and its effects and so on cannot be fixed without fundamental social change.

I'd like to address the points you made in the thread you started too, if that's ok:

Old age (I'm not suggesting that you're old, mind! ) has negative correlations when it comes to politics: namely complacency, hostility to change and outdated, sometimes bigoted opinions. An older person who happens to be conservative can be subject to the same sort of criticism as a young leftist: arguably, their age makes them more inclined to view the past through rose-tinted glasses and therefore hold conservative views. So should we write off most older conservatives as nostalgic romanticists? I don't think anyone would propose that.

Firstly, I think you're slightly misconceiving socialism. There have not been any socialist countries in existence, because socialism - as betrayed by the name - involves socialised means of production, i.e. means of production owned by the whole of society. In the USSR and its satellite states, China, the DPRK, North Korea, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Vietnam and wherever else you think of as socialist, there existed either de facto or de iure private ownership of the means of production and also wage labour, the law of value and the state. This makes all of these countries capitalist. So having lived in one of these countries does not "legitimise" a socialist's beliefs, because the only thing that existed in the countries was a slightly more bureaucratic and interventionist form of capitalism. Socialism is purely theoretical. Also, government would not exist in a socialist society, and in fact I acknowledge the ineffectiveness of "big government" as much as you do; I mean, I'm old enough to remember what happened in Europe in 2008-9 when the governments went on a spending spree. Government-managed capitalism is not what we advocate.

As for knowing how the world works...yeah, I've never had a paid job (I can't legally be employed until the age of 16) but my parents and most of the people with whom I interact are workers, and I'd say I have quite a sound knowledge of market processes and have read enough capitalist literature to be familiar with the main arguments. I'm not going to deny that I have a lot to learn, but the same could be true of anyone of any age.

If anyone's a cult, it's capitalists: those who believe in the absolute, unchanging truth of human greed and selfishness and holy law of supply and demand, and in effect attribute the millions of people starving despite the production of more than enough food for everyone as "the market working in mysterious ways." Though I do agree with you about the vapidity of some socialists' arguments - that's why there's so much splitting and infighting on the left :s

Well we might change our beliefs, of course, but so might everyone. However, it is precisely the "real world" that drives so many people to become socialists. It's seeing the very obvious failure of capitalism to produce and allocate resources efficiently in the modern day despite governments' best efforts, and the fact that the root cause of this failure is the contradictions deeply ingrained into the capitalist mode of production itself. Socialists do want to crush freedom: the freedom of the capitalist class to exploit, alienate, warmonger and perpetuate this system which is failing the majority of the human race. And that isn't such a bad thing

 

Well I'm not American, but yeah, that's true. Although I probably wouldn't be a communist if all I knew was from class. Unless I liked the sound of famine and oppression.

It's funny you should call communism fundamentally idealist, though, as the main currents of communism (or communism-esque thought, I should say) have not been idealist since, I don't know, like the mid 19th century. Marxism is at base a materialist ideology which analyses societal development in terms of concrete, actually-existing material forces and social conditions, and anarcho-communists tend to also be materialist in this regard (and if not, they're confused as heck).

 

At age 14 i already knew better to not be a communist, which country exactly are you from?

 

And who determines the true "value" of labor? You? Some other really smart person? Capitalism works because the true value of labor or any good is ascertained by the invisible hand of the market. Supply and demand inevitably reach an equilibrium price point, and the value of any such good is based on this fundamental principle. Having some mastermind in charge who determines what something *should* be worth creates an imbalance right out of the gate, and a tremendous amount of manipulation has to come after to try and address that imbalance.

So would you say your views are motivated by an angsty, teenage rebellion type sentiment? Every child goes through a period when they reject their parents and their upbringing as a way of finding themselves. Perhaps this ideology you've aligned yourself with is part of that. This furthers my belief that you will eventually change, though, as I became much like my father after years of rebelling against him. It's just part of the natural course of growing up.

Much of the current problems we face with capitalism are due to left-wing attempts to "nerf" capitalism. By paralyzing the forces of capitalism that create growth and opportunity, which are clearly evident to anyone who has studied the subject, they hope that people will buy into the argument that capitalism is ineffective and should be replaced. What we currently have in the West is not capitalism. It's a mixed market that is constantly trending more and more to the left. It's not a coincidence at all that things have been getting worse, not better, as more socialism has been added in.

Older people are less likely to be complacent politically than younger people. In election after election, older people show up more to participate in droves, while younger people are at home getting stoned and playing Xbox. It's why the push to register younger voters is so strong, because they realize that most young people aren't involved at all. "Bigoted" opinions is simply based on your own subjective definition and can differ from person to person. There's nothing wrong with being hostile to change if that change is bad. Not all change is good. Don't believe me? Replace every left-wing politician you can think of with a far-right national socialist. That's a lot of change, but would you support it? I didn't think so.

Those countries are absolutely socialist countries because the means of production were controlled by the state, not the private sector. That's the very definition of socialism. You are engaging in a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Every socialist country that has ever existed has failed, so to avoid that reality, you simply argue that they weren't socialist countries at all, but rather, capitalist ones. It's part of the utopian thinking that left-wing individuals typically engage in. When reality and history do not agree with the Academic writings of what *should* happen under their ideal system, they simply choose to believe the "theory" behind it.

But you're wrong about Government in a socialist society. You are mistaking socialism for communism. Marx and the early socialist philosophers viewed socialism as a stepping stone towards communism. A large Government would be required to enforce the redistribution until people eventually enforced it on their own. In a way, true communism at a state level is what is "theory". Socialism has been tried many times in the not distant past.

There is a huge change that takes place when you leave the nest and exist in the world on your own. You can read all about it in books, but until you actually go through it, it's all theory and no practice. Like I said in my thread, I believe many younger "socialists" are afraid of not having their food, clothes, shelter being provided to them and actually having to go out and earn them themselves. What's desirable is making the Government your new parents so that the free ride doesn't end. This isn't a reasonable expectation, and it's certainly not right for anyone to try and force that onto the entire society, at large. Many people have been able to become their own person and pay their own way. Just because some people can't, or won't, doesn't mean everyone should suffer for it.

Even U2's Bono, who is hardly anyone's right-winger, has admitted that capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system. China has become more and more capitalist over the decades and their growth is unprecedented. Global poverty levels have been dropping drastically, and much of the growth is seen in countries in South America, Africa, and elsewhere where capitalism and entrepreneurs are creating markets and generating wealth.

The best efforts of Government are what keep capitalism from being efficient at allocation. There's nothing wrong with the ideology. Like I stated earlier, most of the problems with capitalism come from the left, who like to throw monkey wrenches into the gears that drive capitalism whenever they can. They hope, like you do, that more and more people will see capitalism as ineffective and therefore worthy of abandonment. That's the motivation. Take for example the deluge of 3rd world refugees into the West. This was a left-wing move, from the very beginning. The powers that be saw how dependent on Government and amenable those people were to vote a certain way, so they changed the immigration laws and flooded the country with these people. Now we have a largely permanent underclass of people who are barely literate in their own language, and now compete with millions of low-skilled and uneducated American citizens for the jobs at the very bottom. These jobs do not pay much because, as elementary economics shows, when you have a high supply of something and a low demand, the price goes down. We have 50 million people who are only capable of working a low skilled job, and only 10 million low skilled jobs to offer. That's a problem. If those 40 million people who flooded in for welfare and citizenship benefits were not allowed to come in the first place, there'd be parity between the supply and demand, which would result in a higher wage for those workers. This is just one example I can point out. It isn't the fault of capitalism in this case, it's the fault of politicians who were trying to gain power at the expense of lesser skilled workers.

Like I pointed out, global poverty levels and worldwide hunger have fallen drastically around the world. Seems capitalism is doing a decent job of helping humanity. The countries that have embraced the ideology you support have all failed, so you are left to fantasize about the "theory" behind it. The problem is, it will always fail. It's the ideology of failure. That is all it is capable of.

 

According to whom? And by what authority do they render such a judgment?

 

England, but I'm a second-generation immigrant (and I generally define myself as "European" anyway).

 

That's precisely why capitalism doesn't work. If value was determined by supply and demand, prices (which are of course expressions of value on the market) would fluctuate wildly depending on individual desires and business decisions. But outside of capitalists' abstract models, that doesn't happen. Prices fluctuate around a certain level: a level based on socially necessary labour-time. I'm just going to plagiarise one of my previous articles here to argue why this is a problem for capitalism, because obviously I haven't been properly incentivised to work harder (and it's 11pm):

Meh, not really. I've always been on ok terms with my parents and right-wing peers, and most of the time we just agree to disagree. I don't really feel any desire to rebel against them. But I do see flaws in capitalism, and I think communism would correct them pretty well. If that counts as rebelling, then yeah, that's what I'm doing.

I would agree with much of this. Leftist/social democratic governments are generally (*)(*)(*)(*)ty at managing economies; with the exception of the governments of the immediate post-war era and of a few small, resource-rich Scandinavian countries, such administrations have never failed to cause debt, bureaucracy and economic crisis, as exemplified perfectly by much of Latin America. But these governments do ease inequality, improve public services and generally help most people more than right-wing governments tend to (see Brazil, South Africa, the UK etc. etc.). One of capitalism's problems is that you can either have a strong economy with bad public services, inequality and the consequent social ills, or you can have equality and good public services but have to deal with the often disastrous consequences of overspending and capital flight. It's impossible to have both.

Also, a mixed economy is still capitalism since it still involves private enterprise, wage labour and markets, and I highly doubt that proponents of such an economy want people to see capitalism as ineffective. That isn't what Keynes et al. wanted, and most people who advocate more governmental economic intervention are inspired to some degree by Keynesianism.

Because old people still believe, uncritically, that voting is going to change something, whereas young people - the ones who do care about politics and don't just sit at home getting stoned and playing Xbox - see through that. Sometimes people do have undeniable prejudice against certain groups (racial minorities, women, LGBT+ people and so on), and these people are generally older. And sure, some change can be bad, but hostility to change on principle is not a good idea.

Ah, the no true Scotsman. For one thing, that's an informal fallacy, and for another, words have meanings. I'm sure you'd object if Freedom House or one of those organisations started labelling North Korea as democratic because that's what it calls itself, and quite rightly, since North Korea is not truly democratic as it doesn't fit the definition of the term. Similarly, you can't go calling countries socialist just because they called themselves that when said countries don't meet the criteria in the definition. That wouldn't make any sense.

Actually, Marx and Engels used the two terms "socialism" and "communism" interchangeably when applied to a society. They both referred to the stateless, classless society corresponding to a mode of production in which the means of production are socialised. The differentiation of the terms originated in the Second International (I believe it was Kautsky who differentiated them first?) and became commonplace after Lenin adopted it. I tend to use the terms interchangeably because that makes more sense, given that the "stepping stone" phase retains some features of capitalism rather than being a totally new mode of production, as Lenin himself acknowledged in State and Revolution.

But even if I was using "socialism" to refer to the transition phase, it wouldn't make sense to say that young people are socialist because they want some kind of paternalistic government, since obviously the transition phase won't last forever and when it ends the government will be gone. And the transitional government would not be nice to anyone with a desire to freeload; as Lenin said (paraphrased), in this phase, the principle of "he who does not work, shall not eat," shall be applied.

Socialism has nothing to do with freeloading, but I've addressed that. Doesn't this imply an emotional approach to politics? I think basing one's politics on objective, external reasoning, theoretical knowledge and the experiences of others can often be more reliable than basing it on one's own experiences, simply because there is thus a lower chance of being blighted by emotions.

Of course capitalism is better than other systems, but that's because socialism has never existed and everything else is even more outdated than capitalism. Historical materialism 101. Given how much we have produced, it's amazing that anyone is still in poverty - but they are, and a lot of them too. Inequality is forecast to keep on increasing, with no end in sight. That is a heck of a lot of lost potential right there.

Lolwut? It's not like refugees are listening to what politicians say before entering Europe or the States. Nor is it just leftists who are letting in refugees - Angela Merkel has been the most pro-refugee leader in Europe, and she's a centre-rightist. Refugees come because they are desperate. And why are they desperate? Because their homes have been torn apart by imperialism, because purchasing-power disparities mean that their demand doesn't matter, because their countries are still reeling from the impacts of colonialism, because their national resources have been plundered by foreigners. If labour and the division of labour didn't exist and the education system was drastically different from the archaic, exclusive Prussian-style model we have today, the "permanent underclass" issue would not exist either. So literally all of these problems can be traced back to capitalism, and the fact that it no longer works.

- - - Updated - - -

According to the necessity of profit-making under capitalism (see my quotation of myself in the previous post).

 

Necessity is not a person or persons and neither does it have any authority.

Now if you and I are to converse on this subject, young lady, you're going to need to disregard everything you've read about economic theory by Marx, Milton Friedman and everyone in between, and tap into your intuitive side so we can discuss the idea of a free market in terms of its most elementary variables: money/valuable resources, willing buyers and willing sellers. With that in mind, if I'm willing to sell my labor for $1/hour and an employer is willing to buy it at that price, why should either of us find objections from third parties compelling?

 

Not necessarily, it depends on how elastic or inelastic the price of a particular good is. But what's wrong with prices fluctuating? The same television that cost $2,000 10 years ago can probably be bought for $400 now as more innovative products have taken over, which benefits the consumer with better quality items. And what's wrong with with people having difference preferences? Dial-up internet is rarely seen these days because people prefer high speed cable. Having choice is a good thing.

Your plagiarized article did not answer my question. Who gets to determine what someone's labor value is? You? Some other smart person?

So many glaring problems with your logic. First, profit is not the taking away of money from a worker, it is the extra on top of what that worker has already been paid, as well as every other cost. If I offered you $100 dollars to cut my lawn, and you agreed to it, I'd pay you the money upon completion of the task. Now let's say the next week I rent out my lawn to a wedding party and they pay me $300 dollars. That's $200 net profit to me. Is that me exploiting you? Was that $200 dollars yours? No, it isn't. You had no idea what I was planning on using the lawn for or why I wanted it cut. You agreed to cut the lawn for $100 dollars. We both made money on the deal, and no exploitation took place.

Perhaps once you work for a living you'll see how different it is from actual "slavery". You cheapen the word slavery by making this connection, by the way. There are people being truly victimized today in parts of the world.

And wages are not necessarily "kept low". There are some jobs in existence where wages have skyrocketed. Professional sports players, actors, and CEOs have all gotten a huge raise over the last 40 or so years, as their skills and talents command more money than in the past. Many other jobs fall into the same category. You seem to be focusing more on low-skill labor that any person can do. That's a function of how many people exist in the society at the bottom level, which increases constantly thanks to left-wing policies that encourage more and more immigration from parts of the world where education and skilled trades are in short supply.

Ok.

There is nothing wrong with inequality. People are not equally capable of success, so it's not a bad thing to see varying levels of success in society. Some are smarter, some are more talented, some have better social skills, some have a better work ethic, etc. These are all factors that can determine someone's level of success. It should be everyone's job to make the most out of their own unique situation, and the best way for them to do that is to have many opportunities for advancement in society. Capitalism offers that opportunity. Over 80% of millionaires are first generation rich. That is, they did not come from a wealthy background. They did not inherit their wealth. The overwhelming majority worked hard and invested throughout their lives. Some had a unique talent that made them wealthy. Some had an idea or invention. The point is, they had the opportunity. Everyone does. If you woke up tomorrow with a million dollar idea for an invention, then you'd have the ability to pursue that goal. You can write a book on how evil capitalism is and use the capitalist system to become wealthy. Lots of left-wingers have embraced that hypocrisy already (hello Michael Moore).

No, a mixed economy is a mixture of capitalism and socialism, by definition. Wealth redistribution programs are not capitalist, yet they exist in almost every capitalist system to some degree.

Voting does change things. If it didn't, the left-wing wouldn't be trying to expand voting rights to illegal aliens and convicted felons. Do you think the US will be run the same way if Donald Trump is elected over Hillary Clinton? I don't.

But they do meet the criteria. The Government manages and controls the economy. Corporations are owned by the Government. How is that not an example of socialism?

Marx didn't use them interchangeably, he had a reason for differentiating the two. Even the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition references it:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

So under Lenin's scenario, you're essentially back under that same "slave" status that you decried earlier on. Marxists complain about having to work in order to have food and shelter under a capitalist system, yet that same dilemma would exist under a Marxist system. And it would be naive to believe that a socialist state would eventually morph into a communist society with no Government. Communism doesn't work because it runs against human nature. People are self-interested creatures by nature. Communism can work on a small scale, as long as everyone voluntarily chooses it for themselves, but it would never work in a country with many millions of people, especially if they don't have a choice. You would need a Government to run the reeducation centers, the gulags, and the death camps for those who won't get with the program by choice.

Socialism is a parasite in the West, so I describe it accordingly. The people with money are the ones targeted because it is only by confiscating their wealth and incomes that redistribution-for-voting schemes can take place. If nobody had money, then there would be no redistribution occurring.

False, for reasons already cited. Socialism has existed, and has failed many times.

Compare the average "poor" person in the US and Europe with the average poor person in Africa, the Middle East, or even Latin America. It's no contest. http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/06/01/astonishing-numbers-americas-poor-still-live-better-than-most-of-the-rest-of-humanity/

But I agree there is too much poverty. A huge cause of it is the wage-lowering effect of illegal immigration into the West, as well as immigration from low-skilled uneducated countries in general. Again, caused by the left-wing seeking new voting blocs. Roofers, painters, and brick masons once commanded a middle class salary in this country, and now those skilled tradesman have to compete with illegal labor who are willing to work for pennies on the dollar. Combine that with the left-wing wars on blue collar jobs, which have closed coal mines, shut down oil drilling, forced companies overseas in order to stay competitive, etc and it isn't hard to see where the poverty is coming from. We used to make a lot of things here in the US, and it created a huge middle class. Now, thanks in large part to the environmental movement and union membership, those jobs are no longer price competitive within our borders. The people at the bottom pay the largest price for this, but at least rich white liberals can feel good about their clean air in their gated white suburbs.

That's not why they come. We had a largely unprotected border with Mexico for most of this country's existence, and it wasn't until we developed a welfare state that people in that country decided it was worth sneaking across the border at 9 months pregnant. Most people in the world live in dysfunctional impoverished countries. Sucks for them. We should help them if possible. However, I don't want them here. I want the best, most educated, hardest working people in the West. We should be taking only those people from around the world. People who have something to offer society and make it better. Displaced refugees do not offer that. Illegal aliens do not offer that.

 

It's not a bad thing. My point was that this fluctuation is always around a certain level rather than being completely wild, and the determinant of this level is the labour-time socially necessary to produce the commodity in question.

Value isn't determined by anyone, it's objective. You're conflating value with price. Neither of these phenomena would exist in communism.

(The excerpt wasn't actually plagiarised - you can find it here: https://commissaress.wordpress.com/political-articles/free-markets-vs-freedom/ )

But where does that "extra" come from? Commodities don't magically gain some sort of value upon being exchanged which then goes into profit. This surplus value comes from the value created by de facto unpaid labour. A labourer produces a service with a value of X', receives money equivalent to X in return, and the remaining labour/the value it creates goes to the employer as profit. This is the only way for new value to be generated.

I'm not saying that chattel slavery-like situations are of the same severity as wage labour - that's ridiculous. But they do have a shared feature: unpaid labour.

I'm not focusing on low-skill labour, but on jobs performed by ordinary people, whose real wages have been falling for years and have only recently started to inch up (and even that is only happening in the developed world). That's quite remarkable given that the last big recession started almost 8 years ago and growth has been steady in many Western economies for a few years now.

I don't object to inequality on moral grounds - in fact, I don't believe in morality. But inequality is correlated with popular disconnect and social ills; see here: http://www.theworldin.com/article/1...ustbusiness?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/justbusiness

Redistribution is not a feature of socialism, though, because in socialism there is no money to be redistributed since there are no markets and money is merely a medium for commodity exchange on the market. Rather, it's a way to manage capitalism and stop the social ills caused by inequality from getting out of hand. It has repercussions, though, namely capital flight and loss of incentive.

Similarly, every capitalist economy in existence today is a mixed economy (except perhaps the economies of some tiny states, but I think even Luxembourg etc. have some governmental intervention) and since these mixed economies also have the essential features of capitalism - that is, wage labour, commodity production and exchange for profit and some sort of private enterprise - I think it is fair to call them capitalist.

The non-socialist left, i.e. sots-dems and American liberals, do not want to change anything in any meaningful sense. There would be different details in how the country would be managed by Clinton versus by Trump, but ultimately the working class would be screwed over either way. Which is why any socialist who looks for electoral solutions is ridiculously optimistic and, dare I say it, utopian.

Socialism does not have corporations or a government. Socialism is the socialisation of all means of production, which means that the class system (when Marxists talk about classes we are referring to groups of people in a certain society with different relationships to the means of production, and not different income groups) and therefore the state will no longer exist, and nor will corporations because they can only exist in a market system and not in a centrally planned economy. Fromm summarised it pretty well here: http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=https...vC_URw&usg=AFQjCNFLmzQ9qBA0GpDqm0ytWexn34H0Qg

I never said that the terms were used interchangeably in all Marxist theory; the Second International certainly contributed to Marxist theory, and they were the ones who began to differentiate the terms "socialism" and "communism." But Marx and Engels themselves, and everyone else in the First International, used the terms interchangeably. Socialism to them was not a phase preceding communism - instead, there was a transition period (called the dictatorship of the proletariat) followed by a lower and higher phase of communism, which meant socialised means of production: the same meaning as "socialism." This is laid out most clearly in Critique of the Gotha Programme, here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm. Engels explains why he and Marx generally used the term "communism" as opposed to "socialism" here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm. For comparison, see Lenin's citation of Critique of the Gotha Programme in State and Revolution, in which he pulls the differentiation of "socialism" and "communism" out of nowhere: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm.

It's a transitional phase, so it is a means rather than an end and therefore does not represent the goals of Marxism in their entirety. Also, this transitional phase will be an improvement on capitalism in that capital accumulation will not exist thanks to the implementation of planning and abolition of private property and therefore exploitation of labour (i.e. workers not receiving the full value of the product of their labour due to the necessity of making a profit) will no longer exist. It won't be the ultimate goal, but it will be an improvement. Actually, in the very chapter by Lenin which I cited, there is a thorough explanation of how this transition phase will work and why it is preferable to capitalism but not exactly what we want, and he explains it all there much better than I can.

Indeed it would. That's what anarchists propose, not Marxists. The purpose of the transition period - which does have a government - is to bridge the gap between a revolution and a fully communist/socialist society.

I knew it was only a matter of time before someone brought this up. Here we go again, I guess.

1) Behaviour does not exist in a vacuum. People appear to be selfish under capitalism because selfishness is encouraged and rewarded by capitalism, seeing as it's based on competition and individualism. In a different sort of society where competition is replaced by association, people's behaviour and attitudes will change, as they have been doing throughout history.

2) Even if people were somehow inherently selfish, communism is very much in people's self-interest. A revolution - overthrowing a ruling class because it doesn't do things in a way which benefits you and your class and replacing it with a system which does benefit you - is one of the most selfish acts I can think of. And after the revolution, co-operative behaviour will be the way to live the most fulfilling life, have the best interpersonal relationships and do what you love doing - thus it is in people's interests and people will do it.

By the time full communism becomes a possibility, the revolution will have spread worldwide and barely anyone will want capitalism back, just as barely anyone wants feudalism back today. In the meantime, one of the purposes of the transitional state will be to protect the revolution from potential ex-bourgeois saboteurs. Large-scale re-education centres and GULAGs won't be needed unless the revolution is isolated and consequently degenerates as it did last time round (and if that happens, communists have no business supporting the actions of the government) but we'll do what we have to do.

Yeah, I think redistribution is stupid too, but it isn't socialism. Socialism is a mode of production involving the absolute negation of every single aspect of the capitalist system - it's not something that can be mixed into capitalism.

I never denied that.

This highlights one of capitalism's biggest problems: in a capitalist system, you have to choose between a healthy economy with lots of competition and protecting people's wages and the environment. Union lobbying and leftist policies have caused industry to shut down, labour costs to rise and firms to move overseas, but the alternative would have been for companies to be allowed to destroy the environment and real wages to steadily decrease in order to compete with countries like China. Neither option is good.

Well firstly, I think you're underestimating how beneficial immigrants can be to a society - in the UK, for example, immigrants from the European Union make a net contribution of £20bn (~$30bn) to public finances, while native Britons cost the country more than non-EU immigrants do. In fact, my own parents were immigrants, and although they used the welfare state when they got here and were still looking for jobs, they now both work full-time as professionals.

But even if immigrants were nothing but a hindrance to a capitalist country, capitalism and its failings are the reason why so many immigrants are coming into the West. Most of the world is dysfunctional and impoverished because of the impacts of colonialism, foreign plundering of resources and purchasing-power disparities which result in the market failing to meet the demands of people in poorer countries for basic goods. Europe and North America are attractive to these people in poorer countries because they have none of these issues - they have stable governments, provision of basic goods and opportunities to make money. Recently the conflicts in the Middle East - conflicts between capitalist powers over resources and power, which have been exacerbated by Western intervention and the disconnect of Western Muslims - have caused an unprecedented surge in immigrant numbers. Without capitalism, there would be no need for mass immigration or emigration]

 

I was using "according to" in a different sense there (as in "in accordance with") because the notion that value can accord to someone's subjective judgement is absurd.

Transactions don't exist in the abstract, so it doesn't make sense to judge them based on "intuition." My point in that comment about people being paid less than the value of the product of their labour - a bit of a throwaway comment, actually - was to highlight that capitalism is based on exploited labour, i.e. the profit derived from the unpaid part of a workers' labour, the part which generates surplus-value. I was arguing that this, being unpaid labour, is "disgusting and dehumanising." But as someone who doesn't believe in morality, I don't see any value (heh) in making arguments like "X is dehumanising" or "Y is unfair." So "dehumanising" is not actually how I would characterise capitalism at all. I was essentially just arguing in capitalist terms.

 

If you really are 14, which I doubt, you are quite precocious. That said, you will discover when you become an adult that "the workers" is a hopelessly vague term, and so you cannot expect them to seize and maintain effective control of "the means of production," an over broad term. There are many workers who own stock, and many capitalists who perform labor. Except for rich heirs of billionaires, who tend to lose all their wealth if they don't learn how to work (google the Vanderbilt family), rich people got rich by working and accepting responsibility for their businesses. Ordering, buying, selling, marketing, supply chain management ... not easy stuff. In a way you are expecting too much from the workers, many of whom just want to put in their 8 hours and go home to watch TV and play poker or dominoes. In other words, they don't want to seize the means of production from the eee-vil capitalists. If that's okay with you. If it's not okay with you, then you are a tyrant.

 

Evidently you've never witnessed an auction.

You're not getting my drift, perhaps because you misunderstand the term. You're enraptured with this huge knowledge base you have access to, but I cannot have an intelligent conversation with a knowledge base, only a person, who can look at things intuitively.

But that's not what it is. You've merely decided (or let some theoretician decide for you), on no logical basis, that the worker is entitled to more compensation than he or she agreed to.

The only people who actually disbelieve in morality are psychopaths and sociopaths. For anyone else such a declaration is born of self-deception.

 

Yay for condescension.

Yeah, I should clarify a little more. By "workers" I mean people who don't own the physical means of producing economic value (this doesn't include shares) and therefore must sell their labour to someone who does in order to generate an income. This class to which I'm referring as "the workers" is more commonly known in Marxist theory as the proletariat, and the capitalists as the bourgeoisie, but I've learnt that the world of the internet doesn't like these terms so I try not to use them so as not to change the topic of the debate. The capitalists who do put labour into the production of the good or service which is to make them a profit (so mainly artisans and small-business owners) is known as the petit-bourgeoisie, so socialist theory does account for these people. However, in most large businesses the tasks you mentioned are outsourced to people who are still workers, just slightly richer ones, rather than being performed by the owners of the businesses.

Loving the dramatic ending. Historically, the workers have been prepared to seize the means of production, during periods in which there have been upswings in revolutionary activity. See Paris in 1871, Russia in 1917 and Catalonia in 1936, to name a few instances. Right now this isn't the case, but that's partly the fault of the left, which has been mired in nostalgia, self-pity and even laziness for decades now and is doing nothing but supporting social democrats. If we got our act together, we could rebuild class consciousness.

 

Price =/= value.

Well enlighten me, then. What am I misunderstanding?

Oh dear, you really didn't read what I wrote, did you? I'm not saying that anyone is entitled to anything because I do not believe in abstract "entitlement." I made it quite clear that that was just something of a throwaway comment and no indication of my actual opinion on value.

And as for "letting some theoretician decide for me", I was unaware that at some point I was tied up (probably by those filthy European socialists) and forced to swear on Marx's beard that I would uphold the theory of the class struggle and the liberation of the proletariat until the day I die. I have read Smith and Friedman and Hayek and Menger and Keynes and several more proponents of various sorts of capitalism, and decided that I thought Marxism offered the most logical explanation and critique of capitalism, despite the glaringly obvious fact that you and others in this thread presume that anyone my age is physically incapable of making an informed judgement.

Er, no. Ethical non-cognitivism is a well-established school of thought in philosophy. You're welcome to tell me why you think it's self-deception.

 

Welcome back.

 

Thanks, I liked it too.

Some workers, yes. Not most. Most were just caught up in the frenzy and knew which way the wind was blowing. The starters of the frenzy had visions of bloodbaths, comfortable apartments in Paris and Moscow, and dachas by the sea for relaxation after a hard week writing up execution lists. And in this, they succeeded.

I apologize for that, but you seem too resigned, cynical and well read in the commie canon and Revleft's talking points no to mention analytical philosophy, for a 14-year-old. If, on the other hand, you really are 14, then you must know that you have at least a few things left to discover about how the world works, not how commie theoreticians wanted it to work.

But just out of curiosity, how is it that the degradation of "the workers' state" in Cuba, the USSR, the PRC, and on and on and on, even putting aside the famines and gulags, not give you even a little pause?

 

Welcome back, your posts and the responses should be interesting.

 

Get off my lawn!!!

Just kidding. I do hope you continue engaging with us old fogies, as I have a lot more questions, starting with this: do you support at least the idea of a stateless society? Does that seem feasible, other than in a very small, agrarian setting?

 

It most certainly does, when the sellers and bidders are acting in good faith; but presumably one who disavows the existence of morality won't understand good faith either.

In my first two responses here I asked you essentially the same question, and you've danced all around it; so if indeed it's enlightenment you desire, your first step will be to answer it straight up.

If you disbelieve in entitlement, "abstract" or otherwise, your observation is hopelessly incoherent; otherwise mine is accurate.

You either believed what you said or not, and if not it's time to say so.

You are very much mistaken. What I note is that in your case, a blizzard of information has served no greater purpose than to cloud your insight.

Yes.

Just offhand I'd venture to say astrology is quite a bit more well-established.

Because I know as well as you do that if someone were to hack your arm off just for the hell of it, you'd feel a sense of injustice that is qualitatively distinct from that which you would feel upon being caught being unjust yourself.

 

Thanks for all the welcomes, gu- ahem, comrades

That's a huge assumption to make; I don't think we can know much at all about the actual feelings of the workers during these revolts. Although it does seem reasonable given the numbers of politically active workers (particularly in syndicalist Spain) and how fed up everyone was with the previous governments during these revolutionary periods to assume that there were many, many genuinely radical workers. At least enough for the wind to blow in our favour, so to speak. It's also unlikely that the "professional revolutionaries" who started and organised the revolts just wanted to live it up - they spent so long fighting and agitating that it's unlikely that they were just doing it for the nice apartments and more vodka/champagne/whatever the Catalan beverage of choice is.

Hey, it's cool, thanks for not being a jerk. You're totally right about the cynicism; people tell me I act like a grouchy, menopausal lady sometimes :s

I'm not sitting here claiming to have all the answers, absolutely not, and I'll readily acknowledge that I sometimes comment on things about which I don't know all that much. I'm just arguing for what makes sense to me at this moment in time to the best of my abilities.

It did use to, definitely. But I feel that there is an adequate explanation for the failings of communism in all of these countries. For one thing, the only so-called "socialist state" (an oxymoron if ever there was one) which had a fully proletarian-led revolution which was not backed by a non-proletarian overseas government or orchestrated by a tiny, undemocratic party with questionable politics was Soviet Russia. So all of the other countries were bound to fail from the get-go, since the revolutionary leadership 1) wasn't even revolutionary and 2) had already made a ton of mistakes before even getting into power. As for why Soviet Russia didn't turn out right...well, I would in fact defend the Soviet government until 1921-ish, but the Bolsheviki made many errors which exacerbated an already pretty bad situation. Right from the outset the Russian revolution was in very difficult circumstances since it occurred in a backward, pre-industrial country, and then when the revolution was isolated in one country (after the failure of the Spartacist revolt in Germany and the British general strike) it became inevitable that the revolution would degenerate and leave behind a particularly bureaucratic country with capitalist production relations. The disastrous NEP, plus erroneous organisation and detachment from the working class (as demonstrated by the suppression of the workers' uprising in Kronstadt in 1921) were the final nails in the coffin. All that added to the havoc caused by the civil war and...well.

Sorry for the essay; I just thought I should answer that question as fully as possible since it's quite a common one.

Never! Collectivise all lawns!

I do support a stateless society as an ultimate goal, but not in the same way as anarchists do. I think the state is absolutely necessary during the civil war period and while the revolution is spreading, for the purposes of protecting the revolution, organising the transitional economy and bridging the gap between capitalism and communism. But once the revolution has spread worldwide (as capitalism spread worldwide in the 19th century), we have overabundance of goods (so no need for a labour credit/rationing system) and people have just generally gotten used to living outside of capitalism, the state - that is, a centralised instrument of coercion including a government, police and military - becomes unnecessary. And as such, to use Lenin's aptly chosen phrase, it withers away. This "full communism" will be precisely the opposite of a small, agrarian society: it will be global, centralised (i.e. administrated at the level of the entire society) and technologically advanced enough to yield overabundance of goods.

 

I'm getting very tired of debating with someone who can't be bothered to learn basic economics. Price is the monetary expression of value on the market. It may be equal to value and it may not be - the point is that the definitions are different and therefore conflating the two can cause misrepresentation. "Good faith" is utterly irrelevant to economics, for the most part.

What, "in whose judgement are people being paid less than the value of the product of their labour?" I'm not going to answer a bogus question, and I've explained why I think it's a bogus question.

Care to tell me why?

I didn't exactly, because as I said, I was arguing in capitalist terms. I do oppose exploitation of labour, just not for moral reasons.

That most certainly implies an accusation of a lack of independent thought, not just a case of TMI. I also find it hilarious that Mr. Intuition is accusing me of not having a logical basis.

Oh, how sweet, everything you're unaware of is automatically not well-established. Here you go, let's see how nonsensically and pedantically you can interpret this: http://www.iep.utm.edu/non-cogn/

What is injustice and what is unjust?