# Marxism discussion thread



## will_shred

Hey all, with the talk of the recent right/left violence and increasing political polarity, I thought it would be fun to start a thread to discuss what many people view as the epitome of the "radical left" Marxism. I think that the value in Marx is in his critique of capitalism. But you don't need to look to Marx to see the internal contradictions of capitalism. Take economist Thomas Piketty, in his book Capital in the 21st Century, he demonstrates how "market capitalism" as we know it, will generate continually increasing income inequality and class division (the book is almost 1000 pages, forgive me for having only read parts of it). His basic idea can be demonstrated with this "R>G" which means that when the rate of return on capital is greater than the rate of economic growth, income inequality will rise. With income inequality come a great number of problems that I don't think I need to go into detail on. Marx's ideas laid the foundation for many different alternatives to capitalism, and I think it goes without saying that 20th century communism was a failure. But that doesn't mean we should give up the search for alternative's to market capitalism. So to start the conversation, I will talk a little about a couple modern thinkers who were heavily influenced by Marx, who propose alternatives to our current system. One is an idealist, one is more of a realist who has a very simple idea that could bring big change. I'm mostly doing this because I injured my hand and haven't been able to play guitar for over a week.

The first is Peter Joseph, who's point is very simple, and powerful. His idea is that, technologically speaking, there is nothing stopping our civilization from creating a "post scarcity" economy. The TL;DR is that with modern energy technology, and vertical farming technology, we could theoretically create a world without poverty. Its not a matter of technological limitations, its a matter of how inefficient markets are as resource distribution systems. Peter is an idealist, essentially saying that the only thing between us and a technological communist utopia (I use that world very lightly, because you can't have up without down) is a lack of political will, not technological limitation.





The next is Richard Wolff, who is more of a realist. He proposes that by introducing "democracy at work", and abolishing the employer employee relationship, we could make capitalism into a much more ethical system. Every worker at a business will be able to vote on what the business does with the profits of that business, instead of a board of directors who have a power over the business that kings had over countries. His proposal isn't a utopian vision, but one that would propel us forward into a better tomorrow.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

In before "muh human nature"


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## tedtan

"muh human nature"


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## tedtan

will_shred said:


> The next is Richard Wolff, who is more of a realist. He proposes that by introducing "democracy at work", and abolishing the employer employee relationship, we could make capitalism into a much more ethical system. Every worker at a business will be able to vote on what the business does with the profits of that business, instead of a board of directors who have a power over the business that kings had over countries. His proposal isn't a utopian vision, but one that would propel us forward into a better tomorrow.



Seriously, though, if someone risks their money and the well being of their family creating a business (and the jobs that go along with it), why would they agree to allow their employees to determine what they can do with their profits?


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## AngstRiddenDreams

Because those employees are responsible for those profits.
The idea that hundreds or thousands of workers can create value that is solely the property of one person is ridiculous.

Watch the Wolff video.


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## Drew

will_shred said:


> Take economist Thomas Piketty, in his book Capital in the 21st Century, he demonstrates how "market capitalism" as we know it, will generate continually increasing income inequality and class division (the book is almost 1000 pages, forgive me for having only read parts of it). His basic idea can be demonstrated with this "R>G" which means that when the rate of return on capital is greater than the rate of economic growth, income inequality will rise.



I haven't read Picketty's work, and while I'd like to at some point and I think from 10,000 feet his argument is sound (though, I wonder if there's any cyclicality to it and that we're just currently in a period where returns on capital are higher than the return on labor), I have read summaries of a couple pretty good critiques of his work. This one ran in The Economist about two years ago (I thought it was more recently, honestly, but sure enough, March 2015).

https://www.economist.com/news/fina...chiefly-responsible-rising-inequality-through

Pertinent passages:



> Mr Piketty argues that over the long run the rate of return on wealth exceeds economic growth. Over time, this relationship increases inequality as the share of national income going to those who own capital (the rich) rises, while the portion going to labour (everyone else) falls. He also argues that the return on capital in recent history has been remarkably stable, even as economic growth has fallen, and that this trend will continue in the future.
> 
> Mr Rognlie has three main criticisms of all this. Several commentators have pointed out that the rate of return from capital should decline in the long run, rather than remaining high as Mr Piketty maintains, owing to the law of diminishing returns. Mr Rognlie expands on this, arguing that Mr Piketty has an inflated idea of the current return. Modern forms of capital, such as software, depreciate faster in value than equipment did in the past: a giant metal press might have a working life of decades whereas a new piece of database-management software will be obsolete in a few years at most. This means that returns from wealth may not necessarily be growing in net terms, since a rising share of the gains that flow to the owners of capital must be reinvested.
> 
> Second, Mr Rognlie finds that higher returns to wealth have not been distributed equally across all investments. The return on assets other than housing has been remarkably stable since 1970. In fact, surging house prices are almost entirely responsible for growing returns on capital.
> 
> 
> Third, the idea that workers’ share of wealth can continue to decline rests on the assumption that it is easy to substitute capital (ie, robots) for workers. But if lots of the capital in question is tied up in houses, then this switch would be far harder than Mr Piketty suggests.



So, yes... But it's probably not as simple as Picketty makes it out to be, and the argument that the long-term return on capital will NOT converge to the economic growth rate as opportunities to outperform the long run growth rate are arbitraged away would seem to defy basic economic theory.

That's not to say inequality isn't a huge problem, and that lots of home-owners with lots of equity wrapped up in their houses having a higher share of wealth than non-home-owners isn't problematic in its own right... But, it's important to remember that Picketty is merely one (if an important, and currently very trendy) voice in a much larger discussion.

Personally, I'm reminded of Churchill's famous quote on democracy; "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all of the others." I think you can fairly say the same about capitalism. 



AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Because those employees are responsible for those profits.
> The idea that hundreds or thousands of workers can create value that is solely the property of one person is ridiculous.
> 
> Watch the Wolff video.



Well, again, it's a complicated subject... but, the profits aren't _solely_ the result of the workers. They're also the result of the committed capital employed. Giving the workers total credit for the profits generated and total decision making authority ignores the reality that someone else put up large sums of money to invest in property, machinery, input materials, etc, and would not do that unless they were likely to receive a decent return on their capital. 

Now, the devil, of course, is in determining the appropriate breakdown between return on capital and return on labor. But clearly it's not 100% return on labor and 0% return on capital, or you'd have to be a fool to commit capital to a business.


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## will_shred

tedtan said:


> Seriously, though, if someone risks their money and the well being of their family creating a business (and the jobs that go along with it), why would they agree to allow their employees to determine what they can do with their profits?



Because the business literally is built off the labor of the workers, there would be no business without workers, and the decisions that the employers make with the profits effect the lives of the workers. The workers should have equal say in what happens to the profits because those choices have just as much impact on the lives of the workers as they do the founders of the business. What gives the "owners" the exclusive rights to decide what happens to the profits when they have so little involvement in the day to day running of the business? at best you could say that the duty of management is itself a lot of work, which i will concede, but it isn't vastly more difficult than any other skilled labor, and in my book that does not constitute grounds for being given exclusive rights to decide how profits are distributed. 

If workers decided what happened with the profits, do you think CEO's would be making 300 times what the average worker makes? Not a chance.


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## Explorer

Is there some mechanism whch prevents workers from formng their own cooperatives to compete with owner-owned businesses? 

Is it being proposed that potential employees be forbidden by law for working for an owner-owned business? 

Is it being proposed that non-cooperatives be illegal, down to a owner-ownd and -operated single-person business which then hires one additional employee? 

I'm just curious as to when people are proposing stripping a single owner of the business, into which he put his work. What is the line he or she has to cross to suddenly be penalized for having been a good worker for his own company? 

Similarly, can an employee who is proving a detriment to the business be stripped of previous wages? If not, why not?

The more astute will understand my puzzlement on these matters.


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## Spaced Out Ace

The only thing I like about Marxism is Anthony Fantano's "Marx debunked ______ years ago!!!`111`" meme. Shit's dank.


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## marcwormjim

I always enjoyed knowing that Chico was a great pianist, but that fans assumed Harpo was better because he only knew one song; and had developed it over his lifetime to be a devastating party piece.


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## Spaced Out Ace

will_shred said:


> Because the business literally is built off the labor of the workers, there would be no business without workers, and the decisions that the employers make with the profits effect the lives of the workers. The workers should have equal say in what happens to the profits because those choices have just as much impact on the lives of the workers as they do the founders of the business. What gives the "owners" the exclusive rights to decide what happens to the profits when they have so little involvement in the day to day running of the business? at best you could say that the duty of management is itself a lot of work, which i will concede, but it isn't vastly more difficult than any other skilled labor, and in my book that does not constitute grounds for being given exclusive rights to decide how profits are distributed.
> 
> If workers decided what happened with the profits, do you think CEO's would be making 300 times what the average worker makes? Not a chance.


"The workers should have equal say in what happens to the profits because those choices have just as much impact on the lives of the workers as they do the founders of the business." That's never going to happen, and should never happen. Unless you have drones or robotic automation, you'll never get a group of people to agree on something. And if they don't agree on something, then that person whose wishes does not get acknowledged in the final decision therefore does not have any say at all, and certainly not an equal say. 

I could hear out everyone's opinion on here what guitar/gear I should spend $500 bucks on, and after the thread has died down, say fuck it and buy 8 or so fleshlights. In the same notion, an owner could listen to everyone's concerns or ideas, etc. and say fuck all of that, I'm buying myself a Porsche, now get your asses back to work, slackers.

And owners have "little involvement in the day to day running of the business"? Uhh... Only owners that wish to see their business close up due to mismanagement do not have involvement with the day to day running of their business.


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## Lemonbaby

That discussion is as old as our modern market itself. Standard question back: if the workers want to decide on what's happening with the profit of a company - are they willing to also compensate for the losses from their salaries?

Just discussing the profit situations is a massively simplified view on a complex topic. Everyone feels obliged to dish out money that's been earned, but who's responsible for decisions that might run the company bankrupt. All of a sudden. no one will be there to demonstrate his skills, I can assure you.


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## will_shred

Explorer said:


> Is there some mechanism whch prevents workers from formng their own cooperatives to compete with owner-owned businesses?
> 
> Is it being proposed that potential employees be forbidden by law for working for an owner-owned business?
> 
> Is it being proposed that non-cooperatives be illegal, down to a owner-ownd and -operated single-person business which then hires one additional employee?
> 
> I'm just curious as to when people are proposing stripping a single owner of the business, into which he put his work. What is the line he or she has to cross to suddenly be penalized for having been a good worker for his own company?
> 
> Similarly, can an employee who is proving a detriment to the business be stripped of previous wages? If not, why not?
> 
> The more astute will understand my puzzlement on these matters.



No there isn't, and worker owned co-ops have already been shown to be effective business models. That's why Richard Wolff's entire platform for change is basically advocating for more co-ops. Like I said, its far more realistic than Peter Josephs technological utopia.


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## will_shred

Spaced Out Ace said:


> "The workers should have equal say in what happens to the profits because those choices have just as much impact on the lives of the workers as they do the founders of the business." That's never going to happen, and should never happen. Unless you have drones or robotic automation, you'll never get a group of people to agree on something. And if they don't agree on something, then that person whose wishes does not get acknowledged in the final decision therefore does not have any say at all, and certainly not an equal say.
> 
> I could hear out everyone's opinion on here what guitar/gear I should spend $500 bucks on, and after the thread has died down, say fuck it and buy 8 or so fleshlights. In the same notion, an owner could listen to everyone's concerns or ideas, etc. and say fuck all of that, I'm buying myself a Porsche, now get your asses back to work, slackers.
> 
> And owners have "little involvement in the day to day running of the business"? Uhh... Only owners that wish to see their business
> close up due to mismanagement do not have involvement with the day to day running of their business.



You're still making the assumptions that the founders of the business "own" the entirety of the profits of the business in the same way you "own" your paycheck. Your paycheck is delegated from the work you do, the profits are the result of the collective efforts of everyone in the company. Like I already said, management is itself a job, obviously, but it is defined by a set of skills that anyone could theoretically learn. The management class are not uniquely qualified to make decisions for the business on behalf of the employees of the business who's livelihoods depend on that business.


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## will_shred

Drew said:


> I haven't read Picketty's work, and while I'd like to at some point and I think from 10,000 feet his argument is sound (though, I wonder if there's any cyclicality to it and that we're just currently in a period where returns on capital are higher than the return on labor), I have read summaries of a couple pretty good critiques of his work. This one ran in The Economist about two years ago (I thought it was more recently, honestly, but sure enough, March 2015).
> 
> https://www.economist.com/news/fina...chiefly-responsible-rising-inequality-through
> 
> Pertinent passages:
> 
> 
> 
> So, yes... But it's probably not as simple as Picketty makes it out to be, and the argument that the long-term return on capital will NOT converge to the economic growth rate as opportunities to outperform the long run growth rate are arbitraged away would seem to defy basic economic theory.
> 
> That's not to say inequality isn't a huge problem, and that lots of home-owners with lots of equity wrapped up in their houses having a higher share of wealth than non-home-owners isn't problematic in its own right... But, it's important to remember that Picketty is merely one (if an important, and currently very trendy) voice in a much larger discussion.
> 
> Personally, I'm reminded of Churchill's famous quote on democracy; "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all of the others." I think you can fairly say the same about capitalism.
> 
> 
> 
> Well, again, it's a complicated subject... but, the profits aren't _solely_ the result of the workers. They're also the result of the committed capital employed. Giving the workers total credit for the profits generated and total decision making authority ignores the reality that someone else put up large sums of money to invest in property, machinery, input materials, etc, and would not do that unless they were likely to receive a decent return on their capital.
> 
> Now, the devil, of course, is in determining the appropriate breakdown between return on capital and return on labor. But clearly it's not 100% return on labor and 0% return on capital, or you'd have to be a fool to commit capital to a business.




The problem with that counter argument to Piketty is that Capital is essentially a history of modern capitalism, and Piketty demonstrated pretty clearly that the only time in modern history where G>R was in the post WWII economic boom, which was due to a highly unique and complex set of circumstances that are unlikely to happen again short of another world war.


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## Adam Of Angels

It's worth noting, because it hasn't yet been explicitly noted, that Capitalism allows everything from workplace democracies to outright communistic systems.


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## Drew

will_shred said:


> The problem with that counter argument to Piketty is that Capital is essentially a history of modern capitalism, and Piketty demonstrated pretty clearly that the only time in modern history where G>R was in the post WWII economic boom, which was due to a highly unique and complex set of circumstances that are unlikely to happen again short of another world war.


You're missing most of my argument. Two main points you either didn't see or ignore. 

1) Businesses require both labor AND capital. There needs to be SOME return on capital for capital-holders to invest in a business, so the profits need to be divided between those who contribute labor and those who contribute capital. The raw materials necessary to make a product (or the factory its made in) don't pay for themselves. 

2) Critics of Pikkety have demonstrated, fairly concretely, that most of the returns on capital Pikkety has pointed to in his work can be attributed to the return on housing assets, which are assets not employed in the production of goods via labor. 

G>R alone isn't a nuanced, thorough critique of capitalism. There are PLENTY of grounds with which to critique capitalism, but at the end of the day it's a very efficient manner of distributing scarce resources to where they can create the greatest utility. Given a government and regulatory environment that ensures maximum utility remains at least reasonably well aligned with the common good, it's a pretty workable economic model, and I have yet to see one with a better track record. It isn't perfect, but it's the least worst option I've seen.


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## Drew

Adam Of Angels said:


> It's worth noting, because it hasn't yet been explicitly noted, that Capitalism allows everything from workplace democracies to outright communistic systems.


...and that lately we've seen a _premium_ paid for things in this model - farmers' markets, local artisanal crafts, locally owned businesses, businesses with sustainable and socially conscious labor practices, etc. I guess you can say capitalism is just a very good way of giving us the economy we _want_, even if we don't necessarily realize what it is we're asking for.


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## tedtan

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Because those employees are responsible for those profits.





will_shred said:


> Because the business literally is built off the labor of the workers, there would be no business without workers



No, the business owner investing his time and money, sacrificing other things he could have done, in an effort to build the business is what built the business. There would literally be no business without the founder's contributions.

As the business grew, he was able to provide opportunities for others (e.g., jobs) and those others certainly helped grow the business from that point. But they didn't create the business and they certainly haven't sacrificed their money, their relationships, time and effort to the extent that the owner has. Plus they're compensated for the time and effort they have put into growing the business in the form of their pay whereas the owner is on the hook for any liabilities or losses the business incurs along with any profit it earns.

If the owner can't expect a return on his investments of time and money, why would he put that time and money into creating the business in the first place? And without that investment from the owner, where would the employees be? Unemployed without income?




will_shred said:


> , and the decisions that the employers make with the profits effect the lives of the workers. The workers should have equal say in what happens to the profits because those choices have just as much impact on the lives of the workers as they do the founders of the business.



How many laborers do you know who know enough about corporate finance that they could make sound decisions about what to do with the corporate profits that they could keep the business in business and profitable? And why should they be able to decide what to do with someone else's money just because the person that owns the money pays them to show up and do some work? They're already paid to show up and work.

If they want to decide what to do with the profit from their efforts, their choice is simple: stop working for someone else and start their own business (but then they are owners rather than workers, and have to assume the risks and liabilities that go along with owning a business rather than just taking their check in exchange for their time).




AngstRiddenDreams said:


> The idea that hundreds or thousands of workers can create value that is solely the property of one person is ridiculous.





will_shred said:


> What gives the "owners" the exclusive rights to decide what happens to the profits when they have so little involvement in the day to day running of the business?



Well, fundamentally, the owner(s) owns that profit via owning the business. The workers, not owning the business, do not own that profit.




will_shred said:


> at best you could say that the duty of management is itself a lot of work, which i will concede, but it isn't vastly more difficult than any other skilled labor, and in my book that does not constitute grounds for being given exclusive rights to decide how profits are distributed.



No, owners of a business own the profit because they own the business that produced the profit, not because they manage the business. Management is still just workers, for the most part.




will_shred said:


> If workers decided what happened with the profits, do you think CEO's would be making 300 times what the average worker makes? Not a chance.



Most CEOs do not make anywhere near that high a multiple of what their employees make. Sure, there are a few CEOs of large, publicly traded companies that do, but you're cherry picking your facts in order to come up with that multiple.

Most CEOs probably make between $150k and $300k per year whereas their employees make between $35k and $150k per year. A multiple of between 2 and 10 would be much closer to reality than 300. And when you look at the profitability of each employee (how much they "profit" they create less what they cost in terms of wages, overtime, salary, benefits, etc.), CEOs are generally worth their pay because they bring in the big deals that generate many time the CEO's pay in revenues for the company.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

Okay. All of the employees of any large company quit. Does the owner owning the company create profit or was it the presence of workers accomplishing things?
What you're explaining is redundant, owners owning profit because they own the business. Yes, that is how things are functioning. We're opposing that.

You also seem to believe that you know what the experience of all business owners is like.

To me your argument sounds like "that can't be because that isn't how things are right now"

@ Adam and drew, capitalism is a necessary step for communism according to Marx so you're not wrong


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## Explorer

@will_shred - Why did you ignore the rest of my questions? They deal with ehat happens when a worker invests the profits of his own labors in creating a company, and what then happens starting with when he hires a single employee. 

I suspect the reason you avoided answering them is that there comes a point where your answers will reduce down to silliness, but am hoping you'll surprise me.


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## Explorer

If an employer has a worker who creates substantial capital improvements in a property, does the employee now own part of the property?

If so, that means any contractor and his crew now own part of a house on which they did work, whether drywalling, plumbing, or AC/heating repair. 

Your car? The garage crew can now file a lien on it. 

Why don't these classes of worker get a share of what they put effort into?

And... if the workers contracted and *agreed* to do the work without being invested in ownership, why are the workers being denied the right to enter into employment contracts like adults? 

This whole argument is illogical.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

Wolff is talking about profit distribution. Not product distribution.
You seemed to have missed that.
The idea is that an owner of a company doesn't deserve orders of magnitude more in percentage of total profit than a worker.


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## Explorer

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> The idea is that an owner of a company doesn't deserve orders of magnitude more in percentage of total profit than a worker.


So... a potential employee is forbidden to enter into such an employment situation? How does that work?

And, what penalty must a bad employee pay to the employer and other employees for dragging down profits?


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## AngstRiddenDreams

I don't know and I won't pretend to. Maybe look into that aspect yourself.

As far as bad employees, no one is proposing you are immune to firing in this system.

It seems that you are trying to coax a response of potential regulation. Which is something that could be talked about.


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## Explorer

No. I just think it's interesting to see a mandatory system of profit sharing being proposed (Marxism), and suspect that it hasn't been well thought out except as a way to justify seizing someone's property.

That's why I'm asking pointed questions, the same way I ask questions of those libertarians who argue that police and firefighters should only serve those who can afford them.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

As seizing the means of production is a tenant of Marx's thoughts, I can't understand why else it would be a related component.


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## oc616

I'll take a leaf from Jordan Peterson here (although I disagree vastly with his perception of the left in general). Take bonuses for sales or management companies. The psychology behind those bonuses is quite literally not the money itself or how large they are, at least not until you hit chairman/director status, but instead it is about status. "Did I earn more than this asshole next to me" is about as deep as it goes, because it reflects on your stance and influence on your company, and by extension boosts your general happiness with being able to impact your environment (humans love feedback on their actions, after all).

Now with this in mind, and to address the often cited criticism of "desire to seize someone else's property", those who see it that way and seek to achieve it only desire the idea of it and what it represents, not the literal financial gain. Its less about improving their stability as far as spending power goes, more about how it confirms their power and importance in whatever situation they may be in. Now let me apply this logic to the owner of a business instead, what conclusion could be drawn if the Marxist theory is applied? You're losing a portion of that control, that power. Its a perspective that is obvious in all the counter arguments and presentation of the individuals doing so, the defensive responses, almost like they're under attack. A lesser monkey is trying to take 3 of your 20 berries because they only have 3, this will not stand! You scavenged those berries yourself, they didn't work as hard as you otherwise they'd have the same berries being a completely different monkey with different wiring, experiences and opportunities. 

That's what it comes down to. A dehumanisation of an external factor threatening to take something from you to benefit itself. Where the flaw in this decision making presents itself is in civilisation, we are not lonely monkeys on the brink of starving. We all have smart phones or something approximating access to a wider network of people, we exist and depend on collectives such as workers regardless of however much power and wealth you acquire, any profits or products made will be affected by the abilities and comfort of those you use generating them. It is unbelievably naive to have such a selfish mentality when you accept those 3 facts of the modern world. The companies that have grown fast, regardless of how they've been run since hands changed in the tech world (Google, Amazon etc) all provided healthy shares to their workers. What happened since then is an industry becoming adapted to the old models, which is where we start to see struggles in sites like Twitter who have increased growth, but making loses. To me that looks like a previously self sustaining, almost entirely new enterprise being forced to integrate with how our IRL business is done and being worse off for it.


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## vilk

Hey what do you guys think about salary caps? Or wealth caps?

I know it seems almost like too basic of an idea. "You can only get/have this much money, and anything else you get goes in the bucket". Where should we set it? Idk man. What about like 10 million. But that's sorta arbitrary unless you set it too high or too low.

People will be like "Then no one will bother with trying! It takes away the motivation!" Ch'yeah right. You think a person who makes 5 million lives much like someone who makes 25k? There's your motivation, right there.

Also, if we go with the "wealth cap" idea instead of the salary cap idea, it would encourage rich folks to spend their money instead of hoarding it, and then maybe the infamously errant _trickle down effect_ will no longer be a debunked myth?


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## Drew

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Okay. All of the employees of any large company quit. Does the owner owning the company create profit or was it the presence of workers accomplishing things?
> What you're explaining is redundant, owners owning profit because they own the business. Yes, that is how things are functioning. We're opposing that.
> 
> You also seem to believe that you know what the experience of all business owners is like.
> 
> To me your argument sounds like "that can't be because that isn't how things are right now"
> 
> @ Adam and drew, capitalism is a necessary step for communism according to Marx so you're not wrong



Well, let's look at the flip side of that - the owner of the large company decides he doesn't want to do it anymore, sells all his inventory and equipment to various people all over the country, breaks up his operation, and tells the workers that he's not going to need them anymore. Do the workers still create profit, or was it the presence of capital accomplishing things?

I think it's pretty clear that both capital AND labor are required as part of the "means of production," and that both need to receive a share of the profits, since both are choosing to contribute their respective part to the business. There is absolutely fair grounds to debate that the breakdown between the return on capital and the return on labor is currently out of whack, and I wouldn't even totally disagree with you (though I think that may have a lot to do with quantitative easing at the moment). However, I don't think you can argue that there should be NO return on capital and that capital is not an important part of the production process, because if you assume no return on capital and all the return accruing to labor, then you need to find another source of capital.



vilk said:


> Hey what do you guys think about salary caps? Or wealth caps?
> 
> I know it seems almost like too basic of an idea. "You can only get/have this much money, and anything else you get goes in the bucket". Where should we set it? Idk man. What about like 10 million. But that's sorta arbitrary unless you set it too high or too low.
> 
> People will be like "Then no one will bother with trying! It takes away the motivation!" Ch'yeah right. You think a person who makes 5 million lives much like someone who makes 25k? There's your motivation, right there.
> 
> Also, if we go with the "wealth cap" idea instead of the salary cap idea, it would encourage rich folks to spend their money instead of hoarding it, and then maybe the infamously errant _trickle down effect_ will no longer be a debunked myth?



I don't know if I agree with the concept of a salary cap - I don't think I like the idea of a situation where more work equates to the same reward = but I have zero problem with additional progressive tax brackets. Our current tax structure in the US has a top marginal rate of 39.6% for filers over $470k, plus the 3.8% ACA investment income surcharge. I think you could keep upping it from there - say, 45% over 1 million, 50% over 5, etc, and still leave a positive relationship between work and income, which (IMO) solves the "it takes away the motivation!" problem.


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## tedtan

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Okay. All of the employees of any large company quit. Does the owner owning the company create profit or was it the presence of workers accomplishing things?



I was planning on posting what Drew posted, but he beat me to it. I was also going to post an example of a contractor doing work on my house taking an equity position in my house, but Explorer beat me to that. And their points are quite valid.

I don't disagree that workers should be fairly compensated for their efforts, but stealing someone else's property is the wrong way to accomplish that.




AngstRiddenDreams said:


> What you're explaining is redundant, owners owning profit because they own the business. Yes, that is how things are functioning. We're opposing that.



I get that, but the question was quite basic, so I responded in kind.




AngstRiddenDreams said:


> You also seem to believe that you know what the experience of all business owners is like.



No, but I do know that there are only around 6,000 or so publicly traded companies in the US (listed in the US, there are more foreign companies present) whereas there are over 30 million small businesses in the US.

Do you really think that a successful restaraunteur pays his chefs $35k/year and then pays himself $10.5 million/year? What about a doctor who pays his nurses $85k/year - does he then proceed to pay himself $25.5 million/year? If so, where does all that money come from?

This same line of thinking hods for all the mechanics, bakers, barbers, guitar shop owners, independent luthiers and pedal builders, delis, dentists, attorneys, tour guides, translators, etc.

Your 300 times number just doesn't hold up in the VAST majority of cases.



AngstRiddenDreams said:


> To me your argument sounds like "that can't be because that isn't how things are right now"



It isn't how things work now. That doesn't mean that things can't be made to work that way in the future, but you'll have a hell of an uphill climb trying to sell that in the US (uphill climb as in summiting Everest).


----------



## Drew

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Wolff is talking about profit distribution. Not product distribution.
> You seemed to have missed that.
> *The idea is that an owner of a company doesn't deserve orders of magnitude more in percentage of total profit than a worker.*



The bolded part is, IMO, the interesting part of this discussion, as some of the other arguments being made either don't really make sense (the difference between product and profit distribution is simply what's left after you account for costs when you sell the product - they're actually fairly equivalent, since the product is definitionally something that has been made for the intent of selling for a profit), or are straight-up highway robbery (seizing the means of production - again, by extension, you're doing away with private ownership of property, which gets you back to product vs profit ownership - what good is profit, if you can't actually own the car you buy with it, since technically the car can be the meanns of production for another enterprise? Or, the bread you buy with the profit to feed your family could be the means for production for a sandwich making enterprise? You need to start making some arbitrary distinctions quickly).

So, what then IS the appropriate percentage between the two? 50-50? If a company has capital from one person and employs labor from 50, then do you divide it 51 ways? Or divide it in half, split the 50% to labor 50 ways, and the 50% to capital one way? What if it's an extremely capital-intensive and risky enterprise, though, compared to a low-risk 50-person workforce with little necessary capital provided by one person, should the people providing capital be compensated the same?

The root of that problem is you need some way to equate one unit of capital to one unit of labor, whatever those units are, so you can equate capital and labor.

The capitalist approach is, "hey, they're both what we call 'scarce resources,' meaning there's a finite supply of each to go around, so let's let the market figure out how to equate them, by letting people provide labor in the places they want and provide capital in the places they want, and let supply and demand figure out what the "price" or proportional share of the profits is, for each. Capital will then go to where it's most lucrative, labor will go to where it's most rewarded, and we're saved the trouble of coming up with an arbitrary way of equating the two."

That's the world we're in today. At the moment, as it's a world in the middle of a technical revolution and with risk appetites low in the wake of a massive recession, it appears the demand for capital is higher than the demand for labor, as a greater proportion of the profits are accruing to capital than they are to labor. However, we're finally seeing some signs of labor market tightening, so _in theory_ demand for labor should begin to exceed supply, and more of the percentage of profits will need to be allocated to labor to attract necessary labor. I don't think it's at all a coincidence that you're seeing a lot more interest in communism and socialism in the decade following a recession where demand for labor has been abnormally low.

I also think we need to include the social/governmental side of this - a greater share of profits going to capital isn't necessarily itself a problem, provided we have ample re-distributive policies (i.e - progressive taxation, social safety net programs, programs like small business loans to help get workers access to capital of their own on favorable terms, government supported training and education programs, etc) to ensure that any imbalance between the two still allows a good quality of life for those supplying labor. And I think we've largely hit that point - some of the horrors of the Industrial Revolution should tell you just how far we as a society have come.

*But, if you really want to debate this stuff, I think the bolded section is the crux of the debate - if not a marketplace, then what is the ideal mechanism for determining the split between the share of profits accruing to labor vs that accruing to capital? *


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## AngstRiddenDreams

I'm at work so I can't elaborate deeply Drew but there is a distinction between personal and private property that you are missing or unaware of.
The abolishment of private property only refers to things that are directly involved as means of production, such as a lathe at a mill. Labor is not a means of production as far as I understand. However capital necessary to facilitate manufacturing is. 
Not your house, car, or personal belongings.
It is my understanding that the mechanism is need. "*From each according to his ability*, to *each according to his* need"

@tedtan as I replied to Explorer. We're talking about distrubution of profit, not product. As it currently stands you don't sell a car, get money and keep partial ownership.
While you could have shared ownership among a car people produce, it wouldn't make sense to sell it for money under that scenario.

I understand how capitalism can be looked as a good in determining value. But the trade off as seen by Marx is that the employee/employer relationship is that of exploitation and coercion.
Like I said I'll elaborate later tonight when I have more time.
I should note that I don't believe we are at a point where we can achieve communism which is why I advocate for a transition into socialist democracy.
It's not going to happen overnight.


----------



## Drew

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> I'm at work so I can't elaborate deeply Drew but there is a distinction between personal and private property that you are missing or unaware of.
> The abolishment of private property only refers to things that are directly involved as means of production, such as a lathe at a mill.
> Not your house, car, or personal belongings.
> It is my understanding that the mechanism is need. "*From each according to his ability*, to *each according to his* need"


So, what about a cab company? A car is a personal belonging, but if the state wanted to start a state-run cab company, shouldn't it be seizing the means of production - i.e, necessary cars?



AngstRiddenDreams said:


> I understand how capitalism can be looked as a good in determining value. But the trade off as seen by Marx is that the employee/employer relationship is that of exploitation and coercion.



I think a major problem with Marx's observation here is that he was writing in the time of the Industrial Revolution, and 1840s Germany is a very different place than pretty much _any _capitalist economy today. Workers at a manufacturing factory in the 1830s might as well have been slaves - in the "company store" model, arguably they were - whereas workers at, say, a Ford factory in Kentucky or at a marketing firm in Seattle have a very different and much more equal relationship with their bosses today. This is arguably even more the case when you start to add in the degrees of separation of something like a publicly traded company, where the whole employee/employer relationship you're railing against falls apart, considering the "employer" isn't those highly paid rich CEOs you're complaining about, but the shareholders. 

Marx wrote in a very different era than the United States in 2017, and I don't know if his arguments about the exploitation of the working class really holds up so well in the developed world in the early 21st century.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

Then the state would purchase cars. It's not going to steal your car and appropriate it for profit.
I'd say that income inequality is evidence that the curren situation is applicable. This is something Marx believed would happen.
As far as rallying against shareholders goes, yeah that's kind of what Wolff is saying. Let the employees become the shareholders. 
I'll get back to the rest later.


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## Drew

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Then the state would purchase cars. It's not going to steal your car and appropriate it for profit.
> I'd say that income inequality is evidence that the curren situation is applicable. This is something Marx believed would happen.
> As far as rallying against shareholders goes, yeah that's kind of what Wolff is saying. Let the employees become the shareholders.
> I'll get back to the rest later.


But that's still problematic - where does the state get the capital to buy cars? And why not buy factories rather than seizing them?

So, would Wolff be happy if we just had more widespread ESOP plans? From a financial planning standpoint, perversely, you're actually far better off NOT having a concentrated position in your company's stock; if the company takes a turn for the worse and goes bankrupt, then not only do you lose your job, you also lose a lot of your savings. I'm not convinced that just granting company stock to employees is necessarily an improvement, since the economically rational thing to do it would be to sell it and diversify, at which point you're back to 3rd party ownership.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

Drew said:


> But that's still problematic - where does the state get the capital to buy cars? And why not buy factories rather than seizing them?
> 
> So, would Wolff be happy if we just had more widespread ESOP plans?



On the capital note, taxes? But also I'm not sure anyone is proposing the federal government becoming the owner of businesses like that.

You'll have to define ESOP plans to me.

Owning shares in your company stock doesn't have to be your only form of savings. 
Also I think you're critiques on this are still largely contingent on the idea of how it relates to paper money, which is something Marx wants abolished.


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## tedtan

Employee Stock Option/Ownership Plans


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## Drew

Oh, sorry dude.  I should have explained. You can probably tell, but I work in the financial industry and we loooove our jargon. 

It doesn't have to be your _only_ form of savings, but if you're doing away with private shareholders and distributing equity amongst the employees, then clearly it's going to be a disproportional share of their savings. You pretty much HAVE to diversify at that point, and over and above that if that equity investment isn't liquid - meaning, if you can't easily convert your shares to cash if you need to - then it's going to be worth considerably less for it (there's typically a large liquidity discount for private company valuations relative to their public peers, upwards of 20%) so you still need the presence of an efficient secondary market.

Anyway, this is all besides the point, in that employee-owned companies are still consistent with a capitalist allocation of resources. You're just advocating a specific type of company, rather than doing away with companies all together in favor of the state.

Also, taxes are levied on profits, which means two things: 1) you're now advocating a 3-way split between labor, capital, and the government for profits, and 2) you're essentially setting the return on capital bar at more than 100%. Profit is basically capital returned to the investor minus capital initially invested. If you're not generating larger profits than you are investing capital, by a pretty hefty margin, there simply won't be enough profit to create the required amount of capital to invest via taxation. It's basically a perpetual motion problem, and is ironically one of the critiques of capitalism being levied here, that you need to have access to capital to generate returns on capital, so capitalism causes profits to accrue to the existing holders of capital. 

Still - you're engaging in a much more robust conversation than will shred, so this could be a very interesting conversation.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

Yes that could be true depending on company size and amount of capital at disposal.
I suppose my argument back to that would be, if the alternative is then not having stock in the company at all then even if the stock becomes worthless they are in no different of a situation than if they had not owned any stock whatsoever.
Also, are you saying that under a private shareholder situation there isn't a need to diversify?
Unless I'm missing something obvious or you're assuming that these stocks come at the expense of the monetary compensation they received before the co-op model.
It seems strange to me that most people associate socialism/communism with governmental control of businesses, as one of Marx's thoughts was that in the utopia there is no government. 
I understand the historical perspective of how communist governments have been authoritarian and controlling, but that's on them. 

Also you never checked out my track jerk  you might dig the vocal version


----------



## Drew

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Yes that could be true depending on company size and amount of capital at disposal.
> I suppose my argument back to that would be, if the alternative is then not having stock in the company at all then even if the stock becomes worthless they are in no different of a situation than if they had not owned any stock whatsoever.
> Unless I'm missing something obvious or you're assuming that these stocks come at the expense of the monetary compensation they received before the co-op model.
> Also you never checked out my track jerk  you might dig the vocal version



1) I added an edit that you might want to go back and read, as it occured to me that providing capital for investment via taxation simply doesn't work for projects with a return of capital (pre tax) not well in advance of 100%. 

2) Oh shit, I totally didn't put the connection together.  I need to, keep reminding me. It's been a pretty crazy couple weeks here and I've got a brutal cycling event this weekend that I've been training for and working on my bike in advance of (it's a 112 mile dirt road ride with 13,000 feet of total climbing, I'm gonna die ) so I just haven't been home much. I've got to spend some time swapping tires to something wider than I normally run tonight, so I'll try to throw it on while I do that.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

I edited and updated mine too


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## Drew

Well, I question some of your economic beliefs, but your band fuckin' smokes, man.  Let's pick this up later when you have some more time.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

I think a lot of the points you bring up are indicative of why Marx says that it needs to transition into a stateless and moneyless society. 
I'll have to read what you edited a few more times before I pretend to know what youre asking  
Thanks man!


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## AngstRiddenDreams

I understand what you're saying but I'm not certain what I said that suggested a certain amount of taxation on profit that is so large that you cannot reinvest in capital needs.


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## Drew

I'm barely keeping my head round this myself, but let me work through it here.

Say an economy needs $100 million in capital to be invested. There's a chicken-and-egg problem here, as you need capital in the first place before you can start talking about reinvesting profits, but let's ignore that for now.

To be able to generate this from taxation, you need taxation on invested capital to be in excess of $100 million. If for simplicity we assume that we no longer need a return on capital as a separate component because it's going back to the state, and that gains are split evenly between labor and the government, then to generate the required $100 million in capital, you'd need $200 million of profits.

Now, this $200 million in profits, of course, is earned on a $100 million investment of capital. That's a 200% return on capital, required for taxation equal to half of profits to be self-sufficient for taxes alone to create the necessary capital to reinvest into the economy to meet required capital needs.

Does that kind of make sense? Capital investment opportunities would have to be EXTREMELY profitable, for taxes on the profits to generate enough revenue to cover the capital investment.

I suppose you could cover the temporal problem (how do you have tax revenue to invest in the economy to create profits, before the profits those taxes are paid on are realized?) through borrowing, which would slightly increase your breakeven return on capital threshold due to financing costs, and maybe you could embark on a gradual period of nationalization where tax revenue was gradually used to buy out and nationalize private industry... But, that involves getting a LOT of money into the hands of the state, and even as a liberal that makes me a little queasy. 

EDIT - there's also sort of an accounting mismatch here, whereas under current generally-accepted accounting practices, cost of labor is a tax-deductable expense, so accounting "profit" is only what's left over after workers have been paid, suppliers have been paid for input materials, overhead has been paid, and fixed assets have been depreciated for the portion of their useful lives falling in the accounting period. So, the profit that's taxed by the federal government, under current law, is a lot smaller than what we'd be talking about under a quasi-communist model like were discussing where the state provides all capital through taxes leveed on profits; this would make it even harder to generate the raw capital through taxation to cover an entire economy's capital needs. 

This is also before you start addressing questions like, how does the government decide WHERE to deploy capital? Central planning is kind of a logistical nightmare, and a lot of the famines in the Soviet Union are attributable to the fact that large governments aren't necessarily all that good at it.


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## will_shred

I don't have the energy to type a weighty response. Worker owned enterprises are cool, wealth redistribution is cool, and I would be down for a "wealth cap" but there would have to be a way to distinguish between capital to be invested and used for personal reasons.

The world is complicated.


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## Explorer

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> ...(T)here is a distinction between personal and private property that you are missing or unaware of.
> 
> The abolishment of private property only refers to things that are directly involved as means of production, such as a lathe at a mill. Labor is not a means of production as far as I understand. However capital necessary to facilitate manufacturing is. Not your house, car, or personal belongings.


You haven't yet explained what happens where the dividing line. At some point, a worker decides to open a business, using his private property to do so. At what number of added outside employees do you advocate penalizing this worker with the seizure and redistribution of his private property and private capital?


AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Then the state would purchase cars. It's not going to steal your car and appropriate it for profit.


You're already advocating that the government steal a worker's initial investments in his own business once he hires other workers. 


AngstRiddenDreams said:


> It is my understanding that the mechanism is need. "*From each according to his ability*, to *each according to his* need."


And again, at what point does an employee get penalized for not giving according to his ability?

And who does the penalization you advocate?

That platitude is a deepity, sounding profound but not really workable. 


AngstRiddenDreams said:


> I understand how capitalism can be looked as a good in determining value. But the trade off as seen by Marx is that the employee/employer relationship is that of exploitation and coercion.


Has there ever been a stable Marxist government wherein the workers actually thrived, with high standards of living?


AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Like I said I'll elaborate later tonight when I have more time.


I look forward to it. As it is, your current position is full of holes.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

Sorry to keep you on the edge of your seat explorer but I'm too drunk to elaborate right now.
All I can say is that I'm not approaching my position as something that's set in stone or absolute. I mean hell, a lot of the things you guys are asking me are nuances of other people's ideas that I don't know enough to argue back. (I don't believe this discredits their position)
I'm open to change if I encounter fatal flaws but I can't examine it right now coherently enough to contribute.
Basically don't assume I'm immune to admitting I'm wrong. I don't have a large knowledge base to debate all of these points via the lens of Marx or Wolff, so if you bring up points I can't contend it may be flaws in their proposals; but it's more likely a deficit in my own knowledge. Which again, doesn't discredit their ideas.
If you're seeking to argue their ideas it's best to read all they have to say, not relying on someone who somewhat grasps their concept.
I would imagine an intellectual like yourself would agree with this.
So cheers.
Edit: The only point I can touch on at the moment is that Socialism/Communism requires full participation globally. (E-gad globalism) so it's really not surprising that it fails when individual nations try enact it. Especially when capitalist nations enact sanctions on these countries that further the struggle. See: the beginning of the Soviet Union when the US wouldn't even accept their gold in exchange for the industrial processsing machinery of grain necessary for the goals of the leaders. Cuba is similar.

TL;DR: I'm drunk, I don't know every nuance of all of these people's ideas but just because I can't defend it all it doesn't discredit them.


----------



## AngstRiddenDreams

Okay I'm going to try to respond to your points, it won't be the best. I'll do it in order of your quotes of my posts. 
1: An important point here is that I've said I only am an advocate of democratic workplaces. The thread is supposed to be about Marxism though and I will explain this as I understand it, separate from what I believe should take place. 

So, 
As far as Marx's definitions of things go: As soon as an individual allocates his property as a means of creating profit, it becomes different than "personal property". What I believe Marx is proposing is that once property is used for the production of capital, it becomes a different entity than just something you own as an individual. And in an egalitarian sense if it is necessary to have workers to profit from this property then they share equal ownership with the person who committed it as a means of production. That is the distinction as I understand it. 
A lot of this is semantic based and to clarify going forward I should say that Marx makes a clear distinction between the proletariat and bourgeousie. 
If you have property that you can appropriate for profit then you become bourgeousie. Even if you don't, highly specialized occupations are referred to as "petite bourgeousie". Think artisans.

My point with this is that if you open a business, Marx is not looking at you with the same lens as laborers (proletariat). So by redistributing profit or the means of production you are not taking from what he considers to be "a worker". 
And again, penalizing is a term that isn't on par for the idea. Like I said, it's quite egalitarian. If you need the labor of others for your business, you distribute ownership of the means of production and profit to them. 
I'm not saying I know the ratios exactly, this is just what I interpret he means. 

2: I don't think I ever advocated that once a business requires workers that the government is entitled to an arbitrary share. If I said so explicit, I'll eat my words. If not I'll gladly expand on whatever statement I made that you interpreted as such. 
I think the problem here is I replied to Drew's question about government appropriating private property even though I don't believe I advocated it myself. 

3: I totally get your point about workers and ability. Again, the thing we are debating here is Marx's idea of a utopian society right? His ideas for this address that by the statement of each according to your ability. 
You do not need to work or labor merely to provide for your basic human needs (food,shelter) in this train of thought. 
However, unless you are completely disabled, you are required to contribute. 
Under the system of providing/laboring according to your ability there should not be issues with the labor you provide. If you are enacting the task you are most suited for, there can be no arguable deficiencies short of complete automation. 
I know the argument to this is that an individual completely refuses to contribute whatsoever and at the moment I don't have enough information to address that. 
4: As I said earlier. A component of Marxism is the abolishment of our concepts of nations. Under our current system we have resource competition across nations. This lends itself to socialist countries failing. 
5: I've elaborated to the best of my ability at this point. I look forward to the questions you have about this post.


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## Andromalia

Sorry for not taking this from the start, I waznted to answer this: 



> Is there some mechanism whch prevents workers from formng their own cooperatives to compete with owner-owned businesses?


Yes: being poor.
Founding a business requires money, money that by definition the poor don't have. People who do have that money, for the most part, didn't earn it but inherited it: their personal merit is zero.
They do not take any kind of risk either. Yes, they can lose maybe millions, but people who put 5 millions in a company usually have 20 other millions left elsewhere.

Case in point: a famous businessman who in his career managed to get less return on investing his heirloom money than if he had left it in the bank... is still a millionnaire... and president of the USA.

Now, I know, this is about the big companies. Small companies are different. But small companies don't matter: they're not the ones who successfully lobby for legislation. Legislation is tailored for the needs of the big dudes. A guy opening a restaurant usually isn't that different from his employees. A guy opening 20, yes. And HE gets to say his thing about legislation.


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## Drew

will_shred said:


> I don't have the energy to type a weighty response. Worker owned enterprises are cool, wealth redistribution is cool, and I would be down for a "wealth cap" but there would have to be a way to distinguish between capital to be invested and used for personal reasons.
> 
> The world is complicated.


No shit. So maybe stop trying to simplify it so far as "investment is bad" because you've picked up a cursory summary level understanding of Communism. 

AngstRiddenDreams, busy day here but I'll try to reply in depth later. For now, I'm more concerned with fighting white supremacy than with arguing the finer points of fiscal policy.


----------



## Drew

Andromalia said:


> Sorry for not taking this from the start, I waznted to answer this:
> 
> 
> Yes: being poor.
> Founding a business requires money, money that by definition the poor don't have. People who do have that money, for the most part, didn't earn it but inherited it: their personal merit is zero.
> They do not take any kind of risk either. Yes, they can lose maybe millions, but people who put 5 millions in a company usually have 20 other millions left elsewhere.
> 
> Case in point: a famous businessman who in his career managed to get less return on investing his heirloom money than if he had left it in the bank... is still a millionnaire... and president of the USA.
> 
> Now, I know, this is about the big companies. Small companies are different. But small companies don't matter: they're not the ones who successfully lobby for legislation. Legislation is tailored for the needs of the big dudes. A guy opening a restaurant usually isn't that different from his employees. A guy opening 20, yes. And HE gets to say his thing about legislation.


Yes and no. Microsoft was launched out of a garage. Amazon was once a start-up book and CD retailer. And, I think the regulatory environment in recent years hasn't - and I say this as an Obama supporter - exactly been overly big-business friendly. 

I'd love to see more small-business loan programs for one, but even then that requires more than just someone with a great idea; writing a good business plan and doing a thorough enough risk assessment and mitigation to go through a loan approval process is a skillset your typical entrepreneur who knows a ton about the industry where he wants to invest, but may not have much financial planning experience, may not have.


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## Andromalia

> Yes and no. Microsoft was launched out of a garage. Amazon was once a start-up book and CD retailer.



Apple also started in a garage, but it doesn't matter: it was by people from a rich family background who had access to higher education and bank loans to fund their venture. And, in the USA case, they were white, too.

The whole topic might warrant a long post but I'm afraid it won't be very useful as some rightwinger will come and oversimplify things in three lines afterwards.
For now I'll just sum up my opinion: Marxism is a thign of the 19th century and being a leftwing person today requires having a modern view adapted to the current world and what happened since Marx wrote his book. He is still an influential read but you can't just use pure marxist recipes today: the world has changed and evolved. I aim for state-controlled capitalism. I'll develop later, I'm shamelessly posting from work.


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## broj15

Forgive me if someone has already mentioned it (I just found this thread and will be reading it off and on during my down time at work) but I feel like most leftists as well as libertarians would benefit from doing some googling on Democratic confederalism, it's originator Abdullah Ocalan, and the current state of affairs for the Kurdish people in northern Syria. As a reformed libertarian (lol) who has now a full fledged leftist after experiencing the plight of the proletariat it's probably the political system I identify with the most, as it's combines some of the better parts of socialism (means of production owned and operated by the workers), civil liberties/equality, and libertarianism (local autonomy).


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## tedtan

will_shred said:


> Worker owned enterprises are cool,



Sure, but this can be done today.




will_shred said:


> wealth redistribution is cool,



What method(s) of wealth redistribution do you propose and/or support?




will_shred said:


> and I would be down for a "wealth cap" but there would have to be a way to distinguish between capital to be invested and used for personal reasons.



Why is there a need to distinguish between the two? If you do, why would someone accept the penalty for investing under that scenario rather than keep the money for personal use? Or simply invest it in a different country without the penalty (and I understand you will say that its not a penalty, but in practice, it is because you are taking something from someone without giving them anything of equal value in return).


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## vilk

a nice society to live in where people live around you happily and healthily above the poverty line = the thing of equal value you get in return

why do capitalists wanna say that community well-being is totally absent of value to anyone but poor people?


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## tedtan

Andromalia said:


> Yes: being poor.
> Founding a business requires money, money that by definition the poor don't have.



Today's first world economies are increasingly services oriented, and these service oriented businesses don't take anywhere near as much capital to start as a manufacturing business would. In fact, the investment of time (to learn and build the business) is more of a success factor than capital in many fields.

Given that we all have 24 hours in a day (rich, poor or otherwise), those with money shouldn't have an advantage over the poor in many fields. In fact, I would think that those with money would probably avoid industries that require physical labor (landscaping, catering, maid service, construction, etc.), leaving the advantage to the poor in thee areas.


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## tedtan

vilk said:


> a nice society to live in where people live around you happily and healthily above the poverty line = the thing of equal value you get in return
> 
> why do capitalists wanna say that community well-being is totally absent of value to anyone but poor people?



Capitalism is a better system for achieving that than communism, though. Social policies such as those in European countries are not a replacement for a capitalistic economy, they are socio-political polices that sit atop a capitalist economy.

Communism and anarchism are things that work well on paper, and can work on a small scale with only a few players, but don't scale up to real world sizes because you'll never get everyone on board. Even if it is mandated by government, you'll see the corrupt abuse the system for their own benefit as we did in the USSR, China, etc.

Go ask people who lived through that how it really was; whether or not it acheived the goal of "a nice society to live in where people live around you happily and healthily above the poverty line". I suspect you'll find the reality was pretty different from the paradise it was claimed it would be.


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## vilk

I just asked and they all said it was dope as shit so I guess you must be wrong


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## Drew

Andromalia said:


> Apple also started in a garage, but it doesn't matter: it was by people from a rich family background who had access to higher education and bank loans to fund their venture. And, in the USA case, they were white, too.
> 
> The whole topic might warrant a long post but I'm afraid it won't be very useful as some rightwinger will come and oversimplify things in three lines afterwards.
> For now I'll just sum up my opinion: Marxism is a thign of the 19th century and being a leftwing person today requires having a modern view adapted to the current world and what happened since Marx wrote his book. He is still an influential read but you can't just use pure marxist recipes today: the world has changed and evolved. I aim for state-controlled capitalism. I'll develop later, I'm shamelessly posting from work.


So, why don't we keep capitalism as a means of allocating scarce resources, but take steps to ensure that all Americans have access to higher education, and try to keep making progress breaking down racial barriers to entry in this country (because, I don't want to marginalize how much work we still have left to do, but let's not forget how much we already HAVE done). Don't get me wrong, I'm here arguing in favor of capitalism and against Marxism, but I am absolutely on the left wing of American politics. I think the state should be concerned with making sure the individual maximization of utility remains aligned with the universal maximization of utility, but I think that can be done through regulation and taxation without moving away from capitalism to something more state-run. 

I actually hadn't spent much time thinking about it before this thread, but I also came to the conclusion a bit earlier up that a lot of Marxist concepts like economic servitude made a lot more sense in the 1830s than they do in the 2010s, and that arguably that's to capitalism's credit. 

Also, I haven't seen a convincing argument yet why someone who commits necessary _labor_ to an enterprise should be rewarded for that, but someone who commits necessary _capital_ to one should not. This seems to be the breaking point of any argument in favor of capitalism, for me, since both investment capital and human capital, in some combination, are necessary for any production enterprise.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

Capitalism is great! * 
Communism only works on paper!**


*at perpetuating income inequality, poverty, and exploiting third world countries for profit 
**usually said by someone who hasn't read the manifesto or looked at the historical events of attempted communist states


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## AngstRiddenDreams

@tedtan are you seriously defending income inequality by saying poor people don't have to compete with the rich for labor jobs because the rich have the luxury to not do it? What the fuck? 

The only way you can spin that as preferable is because under capitalism the only option other than settling to be a wage slave as a laborer is starvation and homelessness.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

Drew what you said about social protections is basically what I'd like to see happen. 
As far as the capital thing goes, if you're looking at the resources of the company as shared then the capital doesn't belong to any one individual. If that person is recognizing they need employees to realize the potential of the capital then it is as much theirs as far as the say goes.


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## bostjan

I think the obvious statements are obvious:

1. No political system is perfect.
2. A world in which a variety of political systems exist in different places is ideal, as long as people are offered mobility to change from one system to the next.

As a strong believer in the fundamental concept of personal liberty, I don't think Marxism is the system that reflects my political ideals best; however, I do think that Marxism has quite a few merits and is, overall, a well thought-out scenario.

In a Marxist system, the impulses responsible for spawning innovative business ideas are not free, as they are in a capitalist system. In a capitalist system, merit is not achieved through personal accomplishments as much as it is inherited through associations with powerful people.

If I work hard on something and it succeeds, I want to earn something from that success. I think that both Marxism and capitalism are compatible with making that come true, perhaps in different ways, but, honestly, it's far from guaranteed in either system.

Of the two, I do think that capitalism is more congruent with the ideology of personal liberty, but the discussion of such is rich and nuanced, as neither model is perfect and neither model is fundamentally authoritarian.


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## tedtan

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> @tedtan are you seriously defending income inequality by saying poor people don't have to compete with the rich for labor jobs because the rich have the luxury to not do it? What the fuck?



No. What I am suggesting is that the best examples of income inequality are found in countries like Sweden, which has a capitalist economy with socially oriented political policies, not in communist countries.

Specifically regarding labor jobs, I was stating that

as our economies become increasingly services oriented, capital is less a factor in these businesses' success than it is for manufacturing firms; and
it's very possible to build a successful service business out of one's home using one's abilities and minimal capital (I've seen it happen several times); and
even "labor" jobs like landscaping can become good businesses that pay their owners upwards of $150K/year with minimal capital investment (I can see how you may not get this living in Seattle, but it would work in the southwest or south, probably in the midwest and north east, too).
No defending income inequality there, though the fact that rich people would likely choose other services to start a business rather than labor oriented ones is a fact of the competitive environment.


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## Drew

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Drew what you said about social protections is basically what I'd like to see happen.
> As far as the capital thing goes, if you're looking at the resources of the company as shared then the capital doesn't belong to any one individual. If that person is recognizing they need employees to realize the potential of the capital then it is as much theirs as far as the say goes.


But that's the problem - the resources of the company are NOT shared. From each according to their ability, etc. People contribute labor in different ways, so even all human capital isn't contributed equally. 

The flip side of that argument, is that if laborers are recognizing they need capital to realize the potential of their labor, then it's as much the capital's as it is the labor's, you know? You can't discount the contributions of one form of capital over another just because you prefer the other.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

I think Marxism is the ultimate personal liberty. What's more liberating than not needing to work solely to survive, but to work for self actualization??


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## tedtan

^ But is communism truly required for that?


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## bostjan

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> I think Marxism is the ultimate personal liberty. What's more liberating than not needing to work solely to survive, but to work for self actualization??


Nothing is liberating about having to work to support other people, nor is being forced to share all of your resources with the government.


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## Petar Bogdanov

Honest question*: Does Marxism offer any mechanisms that balance it against authoritarianism? Corruption is inevitable in any endeavor large enough, and is hard to fight, due to secrecy. It would be interesting to examine what the eastern european states and China supposedly missed. 

* - because that needs stated nowadays for some reason


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## AngstRiddenDreams

Marx states himself that a communist society has no government. 
So a society is not communist if there is a government.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

tedtan said:


> ^ But is communism truly required for that?


No, but Socialism is. 
Somewhat in line with what drew was talking about with social protection programs for citizens.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

bostjan said:


> Nothing is liberating about having to work to support other people, nor is being forced to share all of your resources with the government.


So are you of the taxation is theft mindset?


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## bostjan

Not necessarily is, but it can easily become such.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

bostjan said:


> Not necessarily is, but it can easily become such.


Are you against social programs: welfare, health care, public education, public transportation?


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## tedtan

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> No, but Socialism is.



I assume you mean Marxist socialism rather than Eurosocialsim, correct?




AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Somewhat in line with what drew was talking about with social protection programs for citizens.



What I've been saying is along those lines as well, and that's Eurosocialism: a socially focused political position with a capitalist economy. The social programs and safety nets exist atop a capitalist economy that provides the means to fund them via taxes.


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## bostjan

Everything in moderation.

Welfare - the USA prides itself on provisions for public welfare. Maybe what you and I consider "public welfare" is quite a bit different, though.
Health care - this is what I consider public welfare.
Public Education - necessary. It should be an option for children to attend public schooling to be educated to the point where they become adults.
Public transportation - gee, it sure is nice. I've never really lived anyplace in the USA that had functional public transportation, honestly. The buses in Detroit are all over the place, but never ever on schedule. The buses in Indy were better, but not much so, and VT has free buses that will take you to Montpelier, if that's where you need to go. On the other hand, Switzerland, Germany, and Russia all have phenomenal public transit.

The current debates seem to be left vs. right:

Welfare - should people receive free food and water etc., if they are unable to find jobs...indefinitely? No, I think that if you are physically able to do something, anything, really, that contributes, then you ought to be doing it. If you are able to do some sort of job, and can't find a job, I'm fine with giving some time to find a job, but I don't see why tax money should support someone who is unable to do one job, but perfectly capable to do others.
Health care - Health care is super important, from a public standpoint. If the public is unhealthy, everyone if affected. I see no problem with widening public health care, *but...* I see the current problems with US health care as internal flaws that allow some people to get very very rich off of other people's suffering. If we get publicly funded health care, this absolutely has to be stopped aggressively.
Public education - Free college sounds nice, but someone has to pay for everything - nothing is ever truly free. There are plenty of merit-based programs that allow students with the highest college aptitude to attend college for free. Allowing those who do not show such aptitude to go to college and having the public pay for it is not an effective strategy.
Public transportation - I think we could have another thread dedicated to this, but the nation I live in is upside-down on their policies for public transportation, IMO.


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## Petar Bogdanov

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Marx states himself that a communist society has no government.
> So a society is not communist if there is a government.



But there's supposed to be an interim phase, right? That's where all the communist countries got stuck, supposedly. Does that stage have any balances that were omitted?


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## AngstRiddenDreams

Petar Bogdanov said:


> But there's supposed to be an interim phase, right? That's where all the communist countries got stuck, supposedly. Does that stage have any balances that were omitted?



The idea is that the whole world joins in with it. It's globalism essentially. 
It's "workers of the world unite", not "workers of the USSR". 
The fact that they have been national movements in the past and not global steps away from Marx's idea from the very beginning. 
Because past movements have been national it requires a government to oversee interactions with the rest of the capitalist world. Which is not what Marx envisioned.


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## Andromalia

> Also, I haven't seen a convincing argument yet why someone who commits necessary _labor_ to an enterprise should be rewarded for that, but someone who commits necessary _capital_ to one should not.


I'm not saying capital shouldn't be rewarded, I'm saying the balance is off.

I'm very leftwing but not a marxist, I don't believe in collectivisation and stuff. I believe that a better balance is needed, and the main point is, it wouldn't cost anyone anything in terms of living quality. At some point, earning more money stops earning you a better quality of life, so why should society aim for it ? If you earn 1 million a year instead of 5, you're not losing anything, really.

The main reason for the failure of past marxist experiments is that they all forgot that the internationalist movements aren't internationalists just because they want a communist world. We want a world government because borders are the main issue today, most notably with tax evasion and varying legislations abuse, you know, building factories using toxic stuff in China because it's not allowed in occidental countries etc. You can't succeed when the first thing that happen if you start a socialist system is other countries central banks attacking your currency (which is what happened to France in 1982 by the way) because their companies push for the "sell shit to the poor" model.

One of the fallacies is also, that price control stifles competition and research. That's entirely false. Price doesn't have to be the only area companies compete in. If the price for a good is fixed, then all sellers of the same good will have to compete on quality instead of price. It's easily understandable why companies selling junk food would disagree, but they are a problem. Keeping people poor so they have to buy the cheapest shit available isn't a way of moving the society forward.


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## marcwormjim

Andromalia said:


> If you earn 1 million a year instead of 5, you're not losing anything, really.



You're losing four million.


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## Drew

Andromalia said:


> One of the fallacies is also, that price control stifles competition and research. That's entirely false. Price doesn't have to be the only area companies compete in. If the price for a good is fixed, then all sellers of the same good will have to compete on quality instead of price. It's easily understandable why companies selling junk food would disagree, but they are a problem. Keeping people poor so they have to buy the cheapest shit available isn't a way of moving the society forward.



No, but what it does is constrain the _supply_ of scarce goods coming to market, or encourages their economically inefficient use. It's a layup of an example, but look at rent controls in NYC. They keep pricing artificially high for non-controlled properties, and ensure turnover at controlled properties is essentially zero. Or, on the other side, American water policy - we heavily subsidize the cost of water in the American Midwest and west in this country, because hey, people should have clean drinking water... But, what that translates to is highly inefficient private citizen water usage - say, irrigating grass lawns in a desert, right up until cities physically stop their residents from doing so in drought conditions, as well as commercial farming operations growing high-water low-value crops like alfalfa in deserts that often times are _also_ supported by price controls, so the government is subsidizing it on both ends - broken record, Marc Reisler's "Cadillac Desert" is an eye-opening look at American water policy, all the more so for all the economic arguments that he only mentions in passing while focusing on more conventionally "green" themes like conservation of natural beauty and preservation of endangered species.

If you'd rather a more traditional economic argument - if a price control is above the cost of production, then the benefit of the price control accrues to consumers, if the cap is below the equilibrium market price, or producers, if it's above the equilibrium market price, so it's not as clear-cut that this actually helps consumers as you might think. And, if the price level is set below the cost of production, then no one produces the good and supply evaporates (whereas in a market without price controls, the price would rise in response to the decline in supply until we reached an equilberum where producers would be able to produce a good profitably, but not at an "economic rent-seeking" profit (or, essentially, the fair value of the time and capital contributed) such that other entrants would be attracted to the market to contribute additional supply in order to capture some of that economic rent, in turn pushing the price down.


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## Drew

marcwormjim said:


> You're losing four million.



Less so if you think about it in marginal income terms. Remember, the textbook argument against taxation from the right is that it discourages individuals and businesses from contributing more capital or labor to the markets, therefore impacting ooverall economic growth. 

If you're in a fairly high-tax environment and you're considering embarking on a new venture, contributing either your human capital in the form of labor or your economic capital, and you were expected to generate $5mm in pre-tax income by doing so, then clearly taxes are going to be part of the equation here. If the _entirety_ of the project's revenue was taken in taxes, then sure, you have no incentive not to do it. But, just as clearly, there are tax rates less than 100% where it still makes sense to go ahead with that investment of capital or of labor, because you're still receiving enough additional post-tax income to make it worth your while. Where that threshold is is subject to some debate - the Laffer curve is one of those concepts that's pretty clearly true in theory, that as rates exceed a certain threshold then tax revenue falls because the supply of labor starts to decline, but in practice it's pretty well accepted by mainstream economists (here I'll cite the CFA curriculum as a source, which is about as middle-of-the-road-yet-academically-rigorous as you can get) that the US's top tax rate is well below that hypothetical rate, and even much of Europe, while closer, is still probably below it.

But, the better way of understanding that question, is would you dedicate your time or capital to an endeavor that would generate $5 million in additional profit, if after taxes you'd only receive an additional $1 million? More likely than not, for most people and depending somewhat on their circumstances and personal utility function, the answer is "yes."


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## bostjan

Ok, say that your business plan is estimated to earn $5M before taxes. Then you have the option to start that plan in a country where regulations interfere, so that you would make only $1M before taxes, or start the plan in a country where you stand to make the entire $5M before taxes, but then pay $4M in taxes, or start the plan in another country that has a larger labour force and fewer regulations and also lower taxes, so you stand to make upwards of $5M with your business plan there, even after taxes. Which would you choose?

Sadly, the way this works is that businesses do what is best for businesses. If it screws over a bunch of workers and their families, then that's what happens. If, for example, you chose to write legislation to pick on the service industry, such that they would no longer be profitable companies, then the service industry in that legislative region would go away, by and large.

With manufacturing, we've seen it time and time again. You want to squeeze a little more tax out of the industry, and it packs its bags and moves to Mexico or Korea, where there is less red tape...and voila, you have 1980's Detroit.

I'm not saying that 1980's Detroit is what will happen to the entire nation under socialism. BUT - 1980's Detroit happened because of irresponsible taxation. Stalinism happened because of irresponsible socialist policies. A lot of awful things can happen under socialism if it's not done in a smart way. Same goes for any economic political model. The model we have now in the USA is essentially capitalism with all sorts of bits and pieces from other models kind of patched in here and there. It is far from perfect, and some would say it's broken. But it could get a lot worse before it gets better.

There are a lot of benefits to the economy under capitalism that do not exist under socialism. Maybe the best economic system is not a pure one, but a hybrid one like what we have, only with some well-thought-out reforms.


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## AngstRiddenDreams

I think his point is that the 4 million will
make a bigger impact if it could help workers rather go in the pocket of the owner. If you can boost you're employees salary by 10k/yearly when they're making 30k, their quality of life will see a greater improvement.


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## Drew

Bostjan - hate to put you on the spot, but isn't that an argument for cutting the US corporate rate? I'd rather see the corporate rate go down and the personal rate go up.

ARD - I think you're overthinking this - his point was as simple as 1 is less than 5.


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## bostjan

If such is the case that paying workers $40k/yr yields a healthier business model, then companies moving labour to countries where they can pay $0.25/day would be easily pushed out of business by companies who retain their manufacturing in the USA.

People need to keep asking for more. You have to ask for more to get more. And I agree that it's difficult to support a family by working at Starbucks, but when you start demanding what your employer cannot pay, and you get your way, it forces your employer to terminate your employment, then you get nothing.

So, from an economic standpoint, a worker adds a certain amount of value to the company. This value amount is not static, but looking at metrics over time gives the employer a good idea of what is a fair wage. If I work at McD's selling dollar menu items, maybe my position can rake in a couple hundred bucks a day in total sales. If I demand $40k/year for such a job, then I'm not making much sense...$200 coming in for two cashiers, $300 in wages = a big nope for that business model. In fact, half that much is crazy, too, since there is the whole problem of all of the overhead around producing the thing I am selling for my employer. It all has to work out so that the company can sustain itself - I think too many people have no connection to that, and don't understand that a small business doesn't make enough in profits to pay employees what people are demanding. Now, your cashier making $16k/year could demand $30k/year, maybe, or, well, for sure more than what is currently paid, but let's be honest here and point out that fast food cashier or short order cook is not really a career intended for anyone to try to support a family.

My theory, that is to say my model, for life and common sense, is that everything hangs in a balance. Absolutes and extremes are hardly ever viable over the long term. Asking for more from your employer is a great way to get a better wage, but there are limits, and those limits are within the realm of economics and common sense. If I demand more than I am bringing in to the company, then I demand too much. If I demand more than what my competitors in the job market demand to do the same thing, then I demand too much.

Companies are money-making organizations, and therefore, behave as if they are greedy. The best way to harness that and control it is to start your own company. Once you've operated your own business and struggled to make ends meet that way, whilst trying to pay employees a fair wage, along with acceptable benefits, I think you get a much clearer picture of how that balance hangs.

@Drew - Yeah, but the same applies to both. If I live in a certain country, though, I get benefits from the public services paid by tax revenue. It's like a benefits package. Public Health Care, for example, is a really nice benefit to have, economically speaking, so it keeps residents happy, on average. Free college for everyone has a much less widespread impact. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the corporate tax combined with the payroll tax (typically covered by employers) account for about the same revenue as personal income tax? If so, they would be on more or less equal importance in the discussion. It's been a while since I've looked at the numbers, though, so I might be way out of date.


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## Drew

bostjan said:


> @Drew - Yeah, but the same applies to both. If I live in a certain country, though, I get benefits from the public services paid by tax revenue. It's like a benefits package. Public Health Care, for example, is a really nice benefit to have, economically speaking, so it keeps residents happy, on average. Free college for everyone has a much less widespread impact. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the corporate tax combined with the payroll tax (typically covered by employers) account for about the same revenue as personal income tax? If so, they would be on more or less equal importance in the discussion. It's been a while since I've looked at the numbers, though, so I might be way out of date.



Oh, I wasn't even going as far as that - simply observing that if there was no tax rate difference between the US and, say, Ireland, then we wouldn't see companies engaging in tax inversions or reincorporating overseas to reduce their tax bills.


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## Andromalia

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> I think his point is that the 4 million will
> make a bigger impact if it could help workers rather go in the pocket of the owner. If you can boost you're employees salary by 10k/yearly when they're making 30k, their quality of life will see a greater improvement.



My point was, past a certain level of income, having more money doesn't bring anything to your life. To take a might hearted exemple, if you're a normal male human being, you should be out after three to five hookers. Being able to purchase the services of 50 a day isn't going to change anything for you.

That point is however moot, as I stated earlier, as long as borders are still there, the problems can't be solved short of using violence.


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## bostjan

Andromalia said:


> My point was, past a certain level of income, having more money doesn't bring anything to your life. To take a might hearted exemple, if you're a normal male human being, you should be out after three to five hookers. Being able to purchase the services of 50 a day isn't going to change anything for you.
> 
> That point is however moot, as I stated earlier, as long as borders are still there, the problems can't be solved short of using violence.


 9/10 billionaires disagree with your post.


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## GuitarBizarre

bostjan said:


> but let's be honest here and point out that fast food cashier or short order cook is not really a career intended for anyone to try to support a family.



Something that throws a spanner in the works of this idea though is the encroaching automation of the job market.

It's easy at the moment to say that there are jobs to do if people look hard enough, but that's becoming less true.

We're at a point in history where something is happening that has never happened before - New technology is increasing productivity, but is NOT creating new jobs in order to support that new technology. What I mean by that is, lets say you replace the horse with a combustion engine.

The horse could be fed, watered, maintained and kept healthy by one person. It did less work than the combustion engine, but it required very little expertise or training to keep it running. In comparison, the combustion engine requires an operator/owner, a mechanic, an engineer to design it/refine it, and a regulatory body for the mechanics so that unqualified people don't fix the engines badly and hurt people in accidents. For the one farmhand the engine obsoleted by removing the horse, it created several more jobs that people can now fill.

Fast forward to today however, and the opposite is happening - Modular parts made by machines and assembled by humans are making it possible for any idiot with 20 minutes of training, to replace, for example, computer parts that are infinitely more complex and harder to understand than a combustion engine is. There are, for example, macbook problems that can be fixed with $2 in parts, a skilled worker and the appropriate professional tools, but where Apple fix the problem by replacing the entire motherboard instead because it's cheaper to buy an entire board and fit it in 20 minutes for minimum wage, than it is to train up a professional, pay them the right amount, and buy them the tools.

In other words, modular repairs make more material waste, but that cost is made back in not having to train staff to a high level.

It also means one person can fix many laptops quickly, meaning not only a lower wage bill, but FEWER wage bills - technological advance in this manner is directly driving unemployment, and while there ARE jobs that can't be automated at present, there aren't as many of those jobs as we're going to need, in order to employ everyone.

This threatens the idea of "Don't work don't eat" that our society is based on. If the jobs are being taken out of the system and not replaced by additional jobs, then eventually our productivity will reach a state where several things are true:

1 - Our productive capacity is enough to provide for everyone.
2 - People that don't work will not be provided for.
3 - There isn't enough work for everyone to be doing something useful on a full-time basis.
4 - Therefore those people won't be provided for, even though we have the means to provide for them.
5 - We will justify this by pointing out they are not working to earn their share.
6 - They will point out that there is nothing for them to do.

I daresay we are ALREADY at this point, but it's being hidden from us by a particular tendency among people - People in this circumstance will make up a job for themselves to do, and they will ask others to pay them for it. If they can convince others that what they do is necessary, then they satisfy their obligations under "don't work don't eat", and they get provided for.

A few generations down the line and we simply end up in a circumstance where the majority of jobs are useless wastes of time that benefit nobody, with a society that works itself to death for the sake of satisfying an ideal that should have been abandoned long ago.

And of course, you'll say "there are plenty of jobs", however I counter with this - how many of those jobs are things like "Social Media Influencer" or marketing jobs that serve no actual, practical productive purpose? How many more of those jobs are there today compared to 30 years ago? How many of those jobs do you think exist because someone, consciously or unconsciously, simply needed a way to justify getting paid for something, anything they could convince someone else was useful?


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## bostjan

GuitarBizarre said:


> A few generations down the line and we simply end up in a circumstance where the majority of jobs are useless wastes of time that benefit nobody, with a society that works itself to death for the sake of satisfying an ideal that should have been abandoned long ago.
> 
> And of course, you'll say "there are plenty of jobs", however I counter with this - how many of those jobs are things like "Social Media Influencer" or marketing jobs that serve no actual, practical productive purpose? How many more of those jobs are there today compared to 30 years ago? How many of those jobs do you think exist because someone, consciously or unconsciously, simply needed a way to justify getting paid for something, anything they could convince someone else was useful?



What?

Okay, what is your argument here? I'm reading this and not really seeing a clear thread, but it sounds more like you are arguing that the human race as a whole is becoming obsolete, which I think is a pretty far stretch.

And who is to say that jobs with high level goals, like "Social Media Influencer" or "marketing" lol: btw) serve no actual practical purpose?

Maybe I am totally misunderstanding you, or else either you or I is wrong on a fundamental basis.

The way I see it, everyone needs to be a part of some purpose in order to feel fulfilled, emotionally and psychologically. If the idea is that robots take over every single task for us, and the only jobs left are upper management telling robots what to do, then there won't be any utilitarian purpose for anyone to exist in the lower classes. But that's where I disagree. Even if we have super maintenance-free robots harvesting our crops, making our food, and producing manufactured goods, people will still find productive stuff to do, and people with money will trade that money for those productive things. Just like how horse trainers and barnhands didn't all go extinct when the internal combustion engine became widespread, there are tons of jobs today that will wane in obsolescence after new technologies are created, but jobs as a whole will never go extinct.


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## GuitarBizarre

Jobs as a whole won't go extinct, no, but people will eventually question why soulless drudgery under a capitalist system is the only way to justify their existence in a world where the amenities humankind requires to live, are available in such abundance.

The problem with retaining a "don't work don't eat" job economy in the situation I describe is that eventually, the job economy devolves into "What can I convince the ultra-rich to pay me to do on a daily basis so that I don't starve". 

The ultra rich hoard money and concentrate it upwards. Their fortunes are entirely dependent on how much productive capacity they can extract from a worker, while paying that worker as little as possible, then they sell the product back to the worker in order to further consolidate the wealth. In a society where productive work cannot be found, and where the job market becomes "inventing jobs to justify a paycheck", then eventually the job market will transition into a race to the bottom. 

Also, as for your point about marketing - I consider the entire exercise of marketing to be a "Dollar Auction". You could halve the budgets of every marketing department on earth tomorrow, and the only people it would hurt would be marketing departments or extremely small businesses. For everyone else, their marketshare would remain the same, because all marketing is, is bidding on mindshare. 

Consumers cannot be convinced. All you can do is put your product in front of them more often and that is what increases your sales. Once you exceed the point where what you're doing is building awareness, and transition into the point where you're fighting for mindshare vs the competition? That's analogous to placing the $1 bid in a dollar auction. Everyone loses except the marketers, whose job is being done no better or worse than ever, it's simply costing more to have them do it.


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## bostjan

The amenities humankind requires to live are available in such abundance, but there are so many other factors than just the existence of something. 

If a farm could be built in outer space that could grow enough food to keep 10 billion people healthy, it doesn't mean anything if you cannot distribute that food to where it needs to go.
You consider marketing to be an obtuse waste of company money. You also consider the ultra-rich to be extremely stingy and not wanting to hand out money. The existence of marketing departments in companies operated by the ultra-rich kind of disproves either one assertion or the other.
I really think you a little off your chump with your assessment of how marketing works, especially as we are moving toward an economy where consumers are ordering a large portion of goods off of the internet. Without product familiarity, no one will search for your products. With no one searching for your products, you won't come up in generic searches - the end result is that without public product familiarity, you can't sell your product. Marketing solves that problem.
I'd ask you to clarify how marketing is simply a dollar auction (I know what a dollar auction is, I just fail to see how you make that connection), but really, I don't think that matters, since it was a red herring you threw into the discussion and then expounded upon simply because I chuckled at the notion a little.

I still don't really see what your main point is. For me, that's much more important than a discussion where I try to understand why you hate marketing so much. Is the connection you intend to make that capitalism is obsolete?


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I still don't really see what your main point is. For me, that's much more important than a discussion where I try to understand why you hate marketing so much. Is the connection you intend to make that capitalism is obsolete?


Well, I'm not sure how far I follow or agree with this (I'll confess I'm only skimming here), but he's at least thinking in parallel to something I've been wondering, that given the increasing automation of the workforce it's possible that we're reaching a point where the supply of available labor is beginning to approach/become larger than the demand for labor. This is why you're starting to see crazy-sounding schemes like countries considering leveeing payroll taxes on robots - not only does it eliminate a double tax preference for capital expenditure vs labor expenditure (technology doesn't pay payroll taxes, and the costs of technological investment can be amortized over time), it also moves the tax from human capital to productivity in general. 

I also worry about how this plays into the minimum wage discussion - "If you can't make a profit while paying a living wage, then you shouldn't be in business" is a popular - and, IMO fair - critique of low minimum wages. But, I also wonder if the problem may be as simple is there simply aren't enough jobs that can be done profitably at $15/hr with benefits to employ the entire pool of minimum-wage workers so what you're doing is reshuffling the benefits and improving the quality of life for those lucky enough to find work while hurting it for those not. I haven't seen a TON of evidence for or against this (though, the second round in minimum wage increases in Seattle - though not the first - did result in an aggregate decline in hours worked enough to fully offset, plus some, the benefits of higher wage, averaged across the labor pool) but it's a question that I think we need to ask, and as a liberal, it's one liberals have largely wanted to dust under the rug. If that WERE the case, then that's a bit of a dilemma - wage hikes would help most, but at the sharp detriment of some.

tl;dr - economics are _complicated_ and any simple-sounding solutions should make you nervous about what you're _not_ thinking about.


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## bostjan

Another thing is that the number of careers does not increase 1:1 with population. As more people live in a city, the infrastructure takes more abuse, but, doubling the number of people doesn't mean double the number of jobs, necessarily. For example, a school with twice as many students as a smaller school rarely, if ever, has twice as many teachers, all else being equal. So, if the population increases 100%, you might only find 80% more jobs, so there is a job deficit with respect to population increase.

Honestly, if some government starts putting payroll tax on robots, then they had better hope everyone else does as well. Some of the reasons that companies might not mind paying higher taxes to be in a nicer area for their workers doesn't translate as well if they are using mostly robots.

Generally speaking, though, if people are making economic predictions of the future, even with a Ph.D. in economics, they typically end up wrong, for just the reason you stated in your summary. I can type out a thousand reasons why I should be right about whatever, and neglect the 1001st reason that blows them all out of the water.

But...in the short term, it's much more precise, as fewer variables have time to act. People who say that the economic sky is falling are sometimes right, but I typically don't pay much attention to them unless I hear a compelling argument. I am pretty certain that my position won't be automated before the end of the decade. If it is, it'd be a huge surprise. Much more likely, though, would be that my position moves to another country with lower taxes. Going out 100 years from now, you could say my job will be much more likely to be automated, but by then, it won't affect me.

So, my long-winded point is that you can worry about automatons stealing your jobs, but it's really not productive in the day and age when the trend is to move job opportunities to developing countries, where the people are working harder for much less pay, and many of the overhead costs are also significantly reduced for a business.


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## marcwormjim

One day, Jesus will return to take everybody's jobs.


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## bostjan

EDIT: I shouldn't try to be funny in a serious thread


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## Drew

bostjan said:


> So, my long-winded point is that you can worry about automatons stealing your jobs, but it's really not productive in the day and age when the trend is to move job opportunities to developing countries, where the people are working harder for much less pay, and many of the overhead costs are also significantly reduced for a business.



Actually, the reverse is true - there's a lot of blame directed at outsourcing for American manufacturing jobs, but the actuality is declining employment _has_ primarily been driven by automation. 

http://fortune.com/2016/11/08/china-automation-jobs/ 

Automaton allows keeping production costs down while still keeping supply chains short - important when you're talking about large, hard to ship goods, such as cars.


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## bostjan

@Drew:

Check out this site: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS

It has some of the official statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on manufacturing output. Note the gradual increase since the last recession in the graph.

And then: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP

Manufacturing jobs have been going up gradually since the last recession.

The big boom in automation happened a while ago in manufacturing, safe to say.


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## Explorer

It's interesting to read so many utopian claims.

"If only everyone agreed to 'X,' things would be wonderful!"

This whole topic is a Gish Gallop of claims regarding the theoretical good outcomes of Marxism, all of which ignore the historical facts, and the outcomes, of when Marxism has been put into action. 

The framers of the US Constitution knew that people can be corrupt, and put in safeguards against such corruption. The disingenuous claim in this topic from @AngstRiddenDreams, as one example, that there is no "government" authority enforcing the transfer of ownership capital to the workers is just silly, given that point being a big one in the conversation. 

What safeguards are being proposed to protect liberty in the ways Marxism has failed to historically?

Or, is more hand waving to come?


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## AngstRiddenDreams

Explorer said:


> It's interesting to read so many utopian claims.
> 
> "If only everyone agreed to 'X,' things would be wonderful!"
> 
> This whole topic is a Gish Gallop of claims regarding the theoretical good outcomes of Marxism, all of which ignore the historical facts, and the outcomes, of when Marxism has been put into action.
> 
> The framers of the US Constitution knew that people can be corrupt, and put in safeguards against such corruption. The disingenuous claim in this topic from @AngstRiddenDreams, as one example, that there is no "government" authority enforcing the transfer of ownership capital to the workers is just silly, given that point being a big one in the conversation.
> 
> What safeguards are being proposed to protect liberty in the ways Marxism has failed to historically?
> 
> Or, is more hand waving to come?



I understanding what you're saying entirely. I have comments on a few points.

First, this is the Marxism thread. It's to discuss Marxism, which in many ways is completely theoretical as he never oversaw it's attempts to be enacted. Talking about historical governments that have drawn ideas from him is separate from talking about "Marxism". However, this thread has so much going on from Marxism to Social Democracies so it's fair to bring history up. I suppose I could have done a better job at separating my statements from his view versus what I actually find feasible.

On that point though, please quote what you think I said that was disingenuous. I don't believe anything I said was such.

When I talk about no government I'm referring to what Marx calls Full Communism. The arbiter of government still exists in Socialism, which is a step to reaching that. Hell Marx even says Capitalism is a step there. I think the idea is that Socialism instills the framework of order at the local level (workplace) and once that is functioning it steps out. So yes, it is "big government" in a sense but the goal is for it to cease involvement over time. Of course this is wishful thinking and history tells us otherwise which is exactly why I understand what you're saying!
I honestly don't know exactly if Marx addresses safe guards to corruption, but I'm certain that it's not something he would overlook as it seems glaring.

Also, it should be noted I think past Communist societies were destined to fail. Not because of flaws in Communism, but because of how they attempted to reach it. Society was not and still is not capable of full automation today. Therefore it can't happen at this time. Marx even says Capitalism is necessary to help create the things to reach that point. Until then the only thing I believe is feasible is Socialism, transitioning over time from a semi socialist/capitalist society.
Historical societies weren't ready to transition to Communism but the opportunity to grab power by telling people it is leads to people like Stalin.

Safeguards certainly need to be put into place, I don't know exactly what they are. I'm not advocating too that if Marx has outlined what safeguards should exist that we follow those exactly either.

It should be something that is discussed thoroughly and democratically. The way I see it, Capitalism is failing us. I don't believe at all in the mindset that a purely free market will solve our problems. Looking at what caused past Socialist/Communist societies is incredibly important if it is to be attempted, as well as the general public being educated on it so they can participate in the discussion. Please don't think that everything I say I am advocating for, I enjoy discussion/playing the devils advocate and think I have more background with Marx than most.


Asides from this and to the point I'm making though, are there any aspects of Socialism that you yourself agree with @Explorer? 
I would love to discuss those, if there are any, as well as what myself and others believe are practical changes to things as they are today. Like I talked about democratizing the workplace and through discussion it has made me question that deeper but reach common ground with others.

So cheers, look forward to your reply man


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## GuitarBizarre

Explorer said:


> The framers of the US Constitution knew that people can be corrupt, and put in safeguards against such corruption.?



Which, of course, hasn't stopped a corrupt businessman from becoming president, nor has it stopped there from being 27 amendments to that constitution.

For that matter, wasn't the electoral college supposed to be a safeguard against electing a known corrupt individual to the presidency, or someone who hadn't won the popular vote? Yet Trump is both and the college failed to stop him.

I think it's misguided to pretend that the US Constitution is an ideal model. It certainly isn't flawless (And in fact, it isn't even followed - try and invoke the 7th Amendment sometime and tell me how that goes for you).


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## bostjan

There are safeguards against corruption, but nothing is entirely corruption-proof. Once corruption takes hold, it will take over quickly if you don't shake it out. We never shook it out here. 

A communist or socialist society where everyone agrees to behave as equals needs the same sorts of safeguards, otherwise, like we saw in the USSR and other nations, one individual will assert that he is more equal than anyone else, and then things start to unravel pretty quickly. 

But there is nothing within Marxism, as I understand it, that forbids such safeguards. Just don't get naive or cocky, and keep in mind that no safeguard is 100% effective.


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## Randy

I know the OPs original intent was to post this 'tongue in cheek' but it is kinda silly and hypocritical for the far right to dust off long dead and debunked ideologies and the left to crow about them (rightly) but then respond "well you know, socialism/communism/marxism isn't all bad!"

And I know there's substantive differences between all those things but, idk, it's the 21st century and there's better ways forward. I don't think we should be giving audience to any of those old world philosophies by name. Waters down the message.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> @Drew:
> 
> Check out this site: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS
> 
> It has some of the official statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on manufacturing output. Note the gradual increase since the last recession in the graph.
> 
> And then: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP
> 
> Manufacturing jobs have been going up gradually since the last recession.
> 
> The big boom in automation happened a while ago in manufacturing, safe to say.



Late to the party, but lets' look at the numbers.

Manufacturing employment looks like it bottomed out at 11,453 in Feb 2010, and has risen to 12,425 in July 2017, an increase of 8.5% in those ~7 years. Output started recovering after 2Q2009, but if we ignore the increase in production while headcount was falling, in 1Q2010 was 105.000 and in 2Q17 was 129.710, a 23.5% increase. In other words, since the head count low, output increased 15 percentage points faster than employment. Going a step further, when _output_ bottomed out in 2Q2009, in June 2009 employment was 11,726, meaning employment has increased 6% since the trough in output, while output has increased from 97.556, an increase of just shy of 33%.

So, since the output started recovering, there was nearly a year where output was increasing while employment was _decreasing_, and since that low point for output, output has increased by 1/3, while employment has increased by slightly more than 1/20th. This is absolutely a recovery in output driven by automation and further investment in technology, rather than by hiring.


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## GuitarBizarre

Randy said:


> I know the OPs original intent was to post this 'tongue in cheek' but it is kinda silly and hypocritical for the far right to dust off long dead and debunked ideologies and the left to crow about them (rightly) but then respond "well you know, socialism/communism/marxism isn't all bad!"
> 
> And I know there's substantive differences between all those things but, idk, it's the 21st century and there's better ways forward. I don't think we should be giving audience to any of those old world philosophies by name. Waters down the message.


The difference is that the old ideology being revived on the right is entirely the same as it's always been. Most of the left are putting across either dramatically modified, modernised versions of the old paradigm, or they're pointing out that the present-day march of automation as a mechanism that permanently kills jobs, allows the old ideologies to work in a different way.


----------



## Explorer

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Marx states himself that a communist society has no government.
> So a society is not communist if there is a government.





Explorer said:


> The disingenuous claim in this topic from @AngstRiddenDreams, as one example, that there is no "government" authority enforcing the transfer of ownership capital to the workers is just silly, given that point being a big one in the conversation.





AngstRiddenDreams said:


> On that point though, please quote what you think I said that was disingenuous. I don't believe anything I said was such.
> 
> When I talk about no government I'm referring to what Marx calls Full Communism.


As long as there is an authority to enforce the transfer of property, that authority is government. It seems to be Marx attempting to be disingenuous in redefining things, rather than you directly, but there is clearly that governmental power in play, and quoting Marx doesn't change that.

Regarding my opinions on socialism, I don't see my views as relevant to a discussion of Marxism.


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## Explorer

GuitarBizarre said:


> Which, of course, hasn't stopped a corrupt businessman from becoming president, nor has it stopped there from being 27 amendments to that constitution.
> 
> For that matter, wasn't the electoral college supposed to be a safeguard against electing a known corrupt individual to the presidency, or someone who hadn't won the popular vote? Yet Trump is both and the college failed to stop him.


You seem to be unaware of this, but there is currently an investigation of potential crimes and of potential attempts to interfere in the election. 

You also seem unaware that on this side of the pond, evidence is collected before proceeding with trials. Is that no longer done in the UK? Things have apparently changed since I was last there.


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## GuitarBizarre

And you seem unaware of Trump's extensive and well documented history of corruption, racism, sexism, etc.

The current investigations are a drop in the bucket. He has been corrupt for a very long time.


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## marcwormjim

If you ask me, at 71, he's starting to go a little thin on top.


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## GuitarBizarre

And since for some reason I can't edit the previous post - here. More than enough evidence (Including his own statements) to show that Trump is a bag of shit human being, even if the current allegations are something he somehow gets away from.

http://quantum-displacement.tumblr.com/post/146015554444/anti-trump-masterpost

https://web.archive.org/web/20161112153627/Https://justpaste.it/tq1d


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## bostjan

Drew said:


> Late to the party, but lets' look at the numbers.
> 
> Manufacturing employment looks like it bottomed out at 11,453 in Feb 2010, and has risen to 12,425 in July 2017, an increase of 8.5% in those ~7 years. Output started recovering after 2Q2009, but if we ignore the increase in production while headcount was falling, in 1Q2010 was 105.000 and in 2Q17 was 129.710, a 23.5% increase. In other words, since the head count low, output increased 15 percentage points faster than employment. Going a step further, when _output_ bottomed out in 2Q2009, in June 2009 employment was 11,726, meaning employment has increased 6% since the trough in output, while output has increased from 97.556, an increase of just shy of 33%.
> 
> So, since the output started recovering, there was nearly a year where output was increasing while employment was _decreasing_, and since that low point for output, output has increased by 1/3, while employment has increased by slightly more than 1/20th. This is absolutely a recovery in output driven by automation and further investment in technology, rather than by hiring.



There is a wide margin of error with picking specific dates for start and stop points. For example, choosing Q1 2012 and Q1 2016, both after the recession, as mentioned, the manufacturing output growth is +3.7% and the manufacturing jobs growth is +4.6%.

Going out before the start of the recession, both output and jobs were at higher levels before the recession than have ever been since. With output dropping 7% since 2008Q1 and 2016Q1 and job dropping off about 10% over the same time span. 

I'm not sure how a year of increasing output during decreasing employment is much of a smoking gun, since the more gradual trending is a slow manufacturing recovery in both output and in jobs. Job growth is indeed slightly lower, but within expected margins for a slow recovery.

Back in the mid-2000's there were lots of articles predicting huge boosts in automation by the mid 2010's. I believe I recalled seeing numbers like 400% and 500% increases in automation. While it is difficult to translate that into lost jobs, I really don;t see the evidence of that.

One anecdotal example is the factory where I work. Most of our automation happened here in the early 1990's, and departments went from a dozen employees per shift to one or two, and then they had to add an extra maintenance guy for the new automated machine. So 12 to 3 is a -75% change in employment. Since then, every new machine we've bought has either added a job or kept the number of jobs the same, although we have been getting rid of support jobs, like accounting and IT, as those employees have been leaving and not being replaced with new ones. We now only have one IT guy on campus, where there used to be six of them in 2010. 6 to 1 is an 80% decrease. But it's not seen that way by the company, because we still have a bunch of off-campus IT guys overseas. I believe a lot of companies are doing the same thing. You can't really get down to the point where you have zero people on the clock at a manufacturing site while it's operating. Most processes have already been down to one or two employees for nearly 20 years now. Just to back up my anecdote with some corresponding statistics from the source I mentioned:

Q1 1996: 17208 jobs 89.662 AQO
Q1 2006: 14210 jobs 117.412 AQO
Change: -17.4% jobs +30.9% AQO
That's what the influence of automation looks like
Q1 2016: 12387 jobs 128.108 AQO
Change 2006-2016: -12.8% jobs +9.1% AQO
Less of the effect, but still shows evidence of automation.

It has not been ten years since the recession, so we cannot compare on the same time scale what's happened since the recession, but let's take the past 5 years and just keep in mind that there should be half as much activity:

Q2 2017: 12397 jobs 129.71 AQO
Q2 2012: 11927 jobs 124.148 AQO
Change: +3.9% jobs +4.5% AQO
That's what a slowly recovering manufacturing economy should look like.  It doesn't look like automation is a factor that offers any explanation as to what is happening since the recession.
You could say the trend is slowing down, but the counter argument is that both trends appear on the graph to be slowing down at roughly the same rate.

TL;DR - No evidence of automation playing a major role here since the recovery from the recession, as shown on the graph, if you play with the numbers a particular way, you can muddle that fact a little bit one way or the other, but it all averages out.



GuitarBizarre said:


> ...Trump's extensive and well documented history of corruption, racism, sexism, etc.
> 
> The current investigations are a drop in the bucket. He has been corrupt for a very long time.



Yet he still won the nomination of the political party that supposedly upholds the higher moral standard, and then won the election. It just goes to show how incredibly inconsistent and confused people get when it comes to politics. All of the debates with family and coworkers about his corruption, his unapologetic sexism, his staunch racism, etc., and the rebuttal was always, "well, at least he's not Hilary." ... I was no HRC fan, and I found her lack of honesty highly annoying and moderately troubling. I found her unwillingness to take responsibility for her own words after being caught out in a lie much more troubling, but I still could never follow the logic of voting for the guy who flat out tells you he's going to fuck things up rather than vote for his opponent who lies all of the time.

...but we already have a thread for Trump-bashing, and this is not it.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> There is a wide margin of error with picking specific dates for start and stop points. For example, choosing Q1 2012 and Q1 2016, both after the recession, as mentioned, the manufacturing output growth is +3.7% and the manufacturing jobs growth is +4.6%.



Only quoting in part for brevity - double check your numbers. [email protected] manufacturing output is 123.576, 1Q16 output is 127.816, so +3.4%, Employment in March '12 is 11,898 while March '16 is 12,355, +3.8%. Now, yes, 3.8% is 0.4% higher than 3.4% so we saw a slightly larger increase in employment than output in that four-year window... But, if you look at the trend, that was also during a period of flat to _declining_ output for several quarters prior, and exceptionally weak GDP growth. More to the point, this period is NOT the norm. Bigger picture, we're at an all-time peak in american manufacturing output, on the index scale 129.710 in 2Q. The previous high point before the last two quarters' all time highs was 129.022 in 2Q2008. During this period manufacturing in this country has increased 0.53%, while total employment has declined from 13,504 in June 2008 to 12,409 in June 2017, -8.1%. Since we're looking at this from peak output to peak output factors such as factory underutilization are not likely to impact comparability, so it's pretty safe to say that the primary source of output increases from peak to peak were due to technology, automation, and utilization of capital, and not utilization of labor.

Of course, even THAT isn't the full picture. Manufacturing employment in this country peaked in 2Q79, at 19,553. In 2Q17, employment has declined to 12,409. a fall of -36.5%. During that time, manufacturing output has increased from, well, the index only goes back as far as 1Q87, at 69.79 to today's 129.71, an increase of 85.9%. I suppose it isn't technically fair not compare labor change directly in this period, so 1Q87 employment was 17,507, 10.5% below peak. It then proceeded to fall 29.1%, while output increased 85.9%.

If the decline in manufacturing jobs was due to outsourcing, then we'd expect to see output fall in sync as employment declined. It didn't. Employment dropped by almost a third, while output nearly doubled. If we're producing almost twice the output with a third less employees, then yeah, I think you can attribute it to automation.

This isn't some nonconsensus call, either, in economics circles - while in pop culture it's popular to argue that globalization is costing American jobs, the academic opinion is that the vast majority of sector job losses can be attributed to automation. It's hard to come to any other conclusion when you have two charts, employment trending from top right to lower left, and output trending from lower right to upper left. For the first time in 30 years we've seen _some_ recovery in employment from around 2010 onwards, but it has trailed far behind the recovery in output.


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## bostjan

Drew said:


> This isn't some nonconsensus call, either, in economics circles - while in pop culture it's popular to argue that globalization is costing American jobs, the academic opinion is that the vast majority of sector job losses can be attributed to automation. It's hard to come to any other conclusion when you have two charts, employment trending from top right to lower left, and output trending from lower right to upper left. For the first time in 30 years we've seen _some_ recovery in employment from around 2010 onwards, but it has trailed far behind the recovery in output.



But that's not what the graph shows at all since the recession ended. 

As far as my maths, I posted all appropriate numbers, if I was a month or two off pulling the numbers, I don't think it'd make any substantial difference. If you pulled a different month than I did from the same quarter and got a half a percent different result, it just reinforces my point that these numbers are going to fluctuate a little one way or the other anyway.

I mean, you can say that academics say that the job losses since the last recession are attributed to automation, but that's just not accurate, since there has been job growth in manufacturing over that time period, not job loss. 12.4k >11.4k jobs.

Did automated processes take jobs away from Americans over that time period? Sure, but the numbers simply say that it's not that big of a factor.

And it's not going to take an economist to make a statement as obvious as "making less stuff in the USA and making more stuff overseas will mean fewer manufacturing jobs in the USA." The question is whether we are making less stuff here or not. While we are making more stuff, relative to the rest of the world, we are not making as much more stuff as everyone else is. As we make less stuff per capita, we earn less per capita income from manufacturing. That's fine if another sector takes up the slack, but that's not really the case, is it?


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I mean, you can say that academics say that the job losses since the last recession are attributed to automation, but that's just not accurate, since there has been job growth in manufacturing over that time period, not job loss. 12.4k >11.4k jobs.



...but that's not the argument I'm making at all:



bostjan said:


> Another thing is that the number of careers does not increase 1:1 with population. As more people live in a city, the infrastructure takes more abuse, but, doubling the number of people doesn't mean double the number of jobs, necessarily. For example, a school with twice as many students as a smaller school rarely, if ever, has twice as many teachers, all else being equal. So, if the population increases 100%, you might only find 80% more jobs, so there is a job deficit with respect to population increase.
> 
> Honestly, if some government starts putting payroll tax on robots, then they had better hope everyone else does as well. Some of the reasons that companies might not mind paying higher taxes to be in a nicer area for their workers doesn't translate as well if they are using mostly robots.
> 
> Generally speaking, though, if people are making economic predictions of the future, even with a Ph.D. in economics, they typically end up wrong, for just the reason you stated in your summary. I can type out a thousand reasons why I should be right about whatever, and neglect the 1001st reason that blows them all out of the water.
> 
> But...in the short term, it's much more precise, as fewer variables have time to act. People who say that the economic sky is falling are sometimes right, but I typically don't pay much attention to them unless I hear a compelling argument. I am pretty certain that my position won't be automated before the end of the decade. If it is, it'd be a huge surprise. Much more likely, though, would be that my position moves to another country with lower taxes. Going out 100 years from now, you could say my job will be much more likely to be automated, but by then, it won't affect me.
> 
> So, my long-winded point is that you can worry about automatons stealing your jobs, but it's really not productive in the day and age when the trend is to move job opportunities to developing countries, where the people are working harder for much less pay, and many of the overhead costs are also significantly reduced for a business.





Drew said:


> Actually, the reverse is true - there's a lot of blame directed at outsourcing for American manufacturing jobs, but the actuality is declining employment _has_ primarily been driven by automation.
> 
> http://fortune.com/2016/11/08/china-automation-jobs/
> 
> Automaton allows keeping production costs down while still keeping supply chains short - important when you're talking about large, hard to ship goods, such as cars.



I don't know how we've gotten this far afield, but while we're quibbling over the changes in manufacturing sector employment over the past ten years - and I still say you're wrong, if employment is up ~6% since it's all time low when production is up 33%, then there's a pretty compelling case to be made that most of the output gains are attributable to the utilization of automation, but whatever - if you scale back and look at the big picture, even YOU admit automation has had a massive impact on employment in manufacturing sectors.

I mean, yes, manufacturing headcount is up. When you think about it, that's a pretty compelling argument that prior losses had nothing to do with globalization, or those increases wouldn't be happening here. But, more to the point, _output_ is up significantly more than employment, by a factor of 5. 

And, the bigger point of all of this, is worrying about job losses from automation isn't the pipe dream you imply it is, since _it's already happened._


----------



## bostjan

Well, yeah, "whatever" is right. The point is that businesses respond to taxation as one would expect them to respond. 

Capitalism generally provides a higher incentive for businesses, which attracts more business activity. The idea that more business activity, when there is no incentive for businesses to pass their material wealth down to commoners, provides a higher average quality of life, it probably technically true. The issue is that an big gain at the top boosts the average without making any gain for the median.

Socialism generally provides a higher incentive for private individuals by providing more for them. It does have a cost, though, because it doesn't improve the average quality of life, but instead just spreads it around.

They are certainly very different systems, but I think that the sweet spot is not 100% one or the other, but some sort of combination of those that provides businesses with enough incentive to remain highly productive whilst still providing for the general welfare of the common people.

...but that's really what we already have in the USA. 

So, we have become this weird polarized bifracted culture of red versus blue. It's pushing our country right out of the butthole of history, and we will soon be splashing down in the toilet, unless people (like me) stop bickering about all of this shit and get back to any more constructive tasks.


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## Drew

bostjan said:


> Well, yeah, "whatever" is right. The point is that businesses respond to taxation as one would expect them to respond.
> 
> Capitalism generally provides a higher incentive for businesses, which attracts more business activity. The idea that more business activity, when there is no incentive for businesses to pass their material wealth down to commoners, provides a higher average quality of life, it probably technically true. The issue is that an big gain at the top boosts the average without making any gain for the median.
> 
> Socialism generally provides a higher incentive for private individuals by providing more for them. It does have a cost, though, because it doesn't improve the average quality of life, but instead just spreads it around.
> 
> They are certainly very different systems, but I think that the sweet spot is not 100% one or the other, but some sort of combination of those that provides businesses with enough incentive to remain highly productive whilst still providing for the general welfare of the common people.
> 
> ...but that's really what we already have in the USA.
> 
> So, we have become this weird polarized bifracted culture of red versus blue. It's pushing our country right out of the butthole of history, and we will soon be splashing down in the toilet, unless people (like me) stop bickering about all of this shit and get back to any more constructive tasks.



We're far closer to being in agreement here, I think, though with one very major caveat: 

Tax code concerns doesn't prompt companies to move _jobs_. A company has zero interest in trying to game the tax code to minimize the tax rate their _employees_ pay, they're not going to move jobs overseas to lower that rate. They _will_, however, do what they can to manage what jurisdictions they declare _corporate earnings_ in. So, we're not seeing them move jobs overseas to lower their corporate tax rate - instead, we're seeing them increasingly declare earnings as attributable to overseas subsidiaries and then take advantage of the repatriation clause to declare they intend to reinvest these earnings overseas, thereby avoiding the need to pay income taxes on these "overseas" earnings. 

I mean, look at the flip side - Toyota isn't an American company, is incorporated in Japan, and taxed by the Japanese government. Yet, they employ more than 30 thousand Americans. The rate those American workers pay income taxes at is totally immaterial to Toyota's tax management. 

Unless I'm _totally _misunderstanding what you're saying.


----------



## bostjan

Several companies left Detroit after Detroit began levying additional income taxes. As it turned out, employees started leaving the city and started taking jobs outside of the city where they could earn less before-tax income and end up with more in their pockets. Without the talent necessary to compete with other businesses, the dynamics shifted geographically away from the city.

Tax code very much does have effects on where businesses situate their workers, on multiple levels with varying amounts of subtlety involved.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Several companies left Detroit after Detroit began levying additional income taxes. As it turned out, employees started leaving the city and started taking jobs outside of the city where they could earn less before-tax income and end up with more in their pockets. Without the talent necessary to compete with other businesses, the dynamics shifted geographically away from the city.
> 
> Tax code very much does have effects on where businesses situate their workers, on multiple levels with varying amounts of subtlety involved.


Companies - which pay _corporate_ income tax - left Detroit because of increases in _personal_ income tax?

Detroit's decline was due to suburban sprawl and the automobile-driven nature of the city's design encouraging workers who had the means to leave downtown and move out to the suburbs, gutting the tax base. This resulted in a decline in city personal income tax revenue, badly stressing city finances and further contributing to the population migration. The result was urban decay. Importantly, this had everything to do with personal income taxes, and nothing to do with business decisions; companies didn't care where an employee's taxable residency was, they simply cared that they could get to work on time.


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## bostjan

Your history is correct. But my point was that once enough of the people making something function abandon it, it will either have to relocate to resolve the issue or go under, leaving room for a new one to open up shop where it makes more sense, geographically.

Corporate taxes directly affect corporations, but personal taxes indirectly affect corporations. One certainly matters less than the other, but they do both matter.


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## GuitarBizarre

bostjan said:


> ...but that's really what we already have in the USA.



I really don't think it is. America is the MOST capitalist country on earth and inequality within it, the biggest problem. Scandinavia has a much higher average wage per person than the US does, and also much, much more wage equality. 

As a result, scandinavian countries, with their quasi-socialist model, top happiness indexes every year.


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## GuitarBizarre

bostjan said:


> ...but that's really what we already have in the USA.



I really don't think it is. America is the MOST capitalist country on earth and inequality within it, the biggest problem. Scandinavia has a much higher average wage per person than the US does, and also much, much more wage equality. 

As a result, scandinavian countries, with their quasi-socialist model, top happiness indexes every year.


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## GuitarBizarre

Good article here about how quickly jobs can be replaced by tech - https://www.hardocp.com/news/2017/0...ke_as_many_shirts_per_hour_17_factory_workers


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## Adam Of Angels

GuitarBizarre said:


> I really don't think it is. America is the MOST capitalist country on earth and inequality within it, the biggest problem. Scandinavia has a much higher average wage per person than the US does, and also much, much more wage equality.
> 
> As a result, scandinavian countries, with their quasi-socialist model, top happiness indexes every year.



The population sizes aren't in any way comparable, and that makes a huge difference. Not to mention that there's no guarantee of longetivity in the Scandinavian model.


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## GuitarBizarre

Adam Of Angels said:


> The population sizes aren't in any way comparable, and that makes a huge difference. Not to mention that there's no guarantee of longetivity in the Scandinavian model.


There's no guarantee of longevity in any model. That's a fundamental truth of world politics.

As for population sizes not being comparable, you're right, they aren't, but that fact on it's own does not an argument make. Would you like to articulate one, or are you expecting me to fill in the blanks for you?


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## bostjan

The nation with the highest happiness index is Norway.
Norway is a monarchy with an official state religion. The legislative branch is voted on democratically, but the executive branch is not. The socialist government in Norway lost it's majority in the legislature in 2013. It was never a "socialist nation" per se, it just happened to lean that direction for a while, but those days are over now.
So...
Okay, maybe that's cherry picking, since I arbitrarily chose the #1 ranked nation out of the metric you cited.

Second on the list is Denmark, which is actually also a monarchy. The monarch has a little less power in Denmark, delegating most executive power to a cabinet team and appointing the Prime minister to lead the legislature. Prior to 2015, the Social Democrats controlled legislature, but since then the Liberal Party has managed it. I guess you could argue that since the nation has socialist programs, it's a socialist government, but it's more accurately a mixture of Monarchy and Social Democracy.

Next on the list is Iceland - not a monarchy, but a Democratic Republic much like the USA. The Socialist party is the sixth or seventh most powerful party in the nation, trailing far behind the two most powerful parties, much like the USA. They elect a president, much like the USA...so why are they so much happier than the USA? Because they are not assholes.

So yeah, the Nordic model of socialism takes its name from socialism and from the nordic region, but the model works well not just because of those two attributes. Having a monarch with absolute power to keep the legislature in check is not something that young adults arguing for socialism ever bring up. When China had pretty much the same kind of model, it didn't work, but it's not comparable - China's leadership in the 50's and 60's didn't have multiple generations of authoritarian power experience. 

As to the point of size - I mean, come on, China and the USSR are, by far, the two largest nations to try out socialism. Denmark and Norway are two of the smallest countries to lean so much that direction. It's a fair comparison.


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## GuitarBizarre

Bostjan - But exactly what point is being made when you compare sizes of countries here? Exactly what are you saying is the relevant thing that size brings to this debate? 

I'm not saying I have no idea, what I'm saying is that people like to cite "Well amurikuh's a bigger country!" in this discussion without ever expanding on why they're bringing that fact up, or how it relates to the specific situation.

As for monarchy - I think our danish or norwegian posters could probably expand on how much power their monarchs actually have. Here in the UK we have a monarch too - in theory, one with absolute power to appoint or dismiss anyone within the government at her exclusive discretion. In practice, the parliamentary democracy operates with absolutely no sense of "oversight" save for it's own.


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## bostjan

The USA is more comparable in size to the USSR and China (poor examples of socialism) than it is to Denmark (being the oft-used example).

How is that difficult to relate?


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## GuitarBizarre

OK, so you're making the argument that large countries will inherently implement socialism badly. 

Exactly what about a country being large causes this effect? Anything concrete, or are you just completely failing to account for the fact correlation is not causation?


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## bostjan

How in depth do you want to go with this one?

The shortest version is that there are no good examples of nations of similar size to the USA functioning under a socialist form of government, yet there are bad examples of such, therefore empirical evidence suggests there is a low success rate for larger nations..

....

The long-winded version is that, because socialism is concerned with providing a context where people within a society are responsible for the basic functions of society and social ownership of businesses. I will first say that the Nordic model completely throws away the second tenant of socialism, yet it's the main focus of some groups, like the "occupy" movements and is a popular model to support amongst millennials who are politically most vocal. But anyway, the best way to provide social welfare programs is often at the local level. When health care worked best in the USA was when it was covered by local employers. The strongest socially-operated businesses are the ones that service their own local areas. One source of grief in China and in the USSR was the disconnect between the urban government and the rural communities, because of the diversity between those social groups and the fact that one group of society ruled over the other. As an organization gets smaller, it is easier to homogenize representation to be fair to those groups. Nordic countries are far less diverse, so they have a much smaller list of problems at any given time. The USA has very different communities scattered throughout - the culture of New Orleans is very distinct from the culture of Minneapolis, and both of those are very distinct from the culture of rural Nebraska. You cannot convince me that there is the same amount of cultural diversity present in Denmark. China and the USSR are much more diverse than any particular Nordic country, yet, I believe, still less diverse than the USA.

Looking at the USA anyway, we already have many social programs in place, and much of our social program infrastructure is already broken. Social Security works for many people and does not work for many others. Our first stab at socialized medicine ended up not being nearly as nifty as promised, and our interstate highways are falling apart in many places. While I'm not suggesting we get rid of those systems, I think cultural and economic diversity is much to blame for the shortcomings. The weather in New England treats the roads much more harshly than the weather in California. People living in Los Angeles have a totally different cost of living than people in Indianapolis. People who smoke, drink and eat TV dinner every day have more health problems than a person who can afford to shop at Whole Foods and pay for gym membership. What's more is that if you took half of yuppie-guy's money and gave it to the trailer guy, most likely, yuppie guy would have to cancel his gym membership and find new less expensive foods to eat, while trailer guy would, statistically, be likely to just buy more beer and cigarettes with his newfound wealth, and, ultimately, nothing would change for the better.

One could argue that none of this has to do specifically with socialism, but I say it does. Socialism hinges on society. When you have a diverse society, you need a diversified solution to social problems. I don't think that just capitalism or just socialism offers that. Any hybrid system that incorporates doctrines from multiples sources of philosophy tends to offer a more textured and diverse approach to societal problems than does a pure ideological approach.

If I made the USA a socialist government today, and snapped my fingers, hypothetically, and somehow, all of the US-owned businesses were government owned, honestly, what do you think would happen? It would be a total fucking disaster. The rich folks running those businesses would say, "Gee, I suddenly feel like I should take all of my cash and move to someplace that doesn't have this pesky socialism nonsense," and then the people left behind would have no idea how to operate those businesses with any continuity with the past. Not to mention that >80% of the nations wealth would potentially be gone. People work hard to get ahead in order to, and wow this is a stretch...get ahead. With the top few percent of wealthy americans gone, and 80%+ of the wealth gone, it'd be like stray dogs fighting over a chicken bone. This is essentially what happened in the USSR, and there is no reason to expect the USA to face an entirely different situation.

You could go with the Nordic model instead of the Marxist model of socialism, but ...what was this thread about?

There are a thousand reasons why socialism might be a great idea in the USA and ten thousand reasons why not. Having a factual answer addressing a question might have to suffice, rather than get into what could easily be a novel explaining the nuances behind the reasoning of that, which is why a discussion best works when one person makes a point and then the counterpoints volley back and forth, not just a general "Explain the concrete details of why empirical data can be used to link these two ideas in this extremely complex scenario."


----------



## diagrammatiks

how can the most capitalistic country be in which the largest corporations are essentially being propped up by government subsidies and legal protection.


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## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> how can the most capitalistic country be in which the largest corporations are essentially being propped up by government subsidies and legal protection.


Capitalism is defined as "private ownership of the means of production for profit." In the USA, the federal government is a participant as both a consumer and an employer.
The basic idea of it all is that I buy a factory (or farm) and supply the big machines, and then I hire people to come and operate those machines and that factory for me, then I make some money just for the fact that I took the burden of the risk of owning and overseeing all of the stuff there. Typically, I would hire overseers to behave as middle men in the employment aspect. If I insure my factory and my machines, then I'm essentially reduced to a middle-man between middle-men.

As opposed to socialism, in which the factory (or farm) and the machines belong collectively to society, rather than to some rich dude.

That's the bare core of each idea. So now, when you boil it down to what it is at it's hardened pit, the workers aren't guaranteed anything in either case. I think we attach all of these softer, more flexible and more ethereal ideas to those cores to get to the point where capitalism and socialism start looking like the caricatures we see of them in popular culture.

Actually, if you want to take things to the philosophical level, socialism is simply capitalism in which whoever is deemed "the head of society" becomes a monopoly. That's what happened in the Stalinist USSR - Stalin was their version of Rockafeller, but even more powerful and far more ruthless. Either way, the manual laborers have just as little economic power, seeing as how they perform unskilled labour. It's the political engine that assigns people with equal amounts of social power or not.

I think I mentioned before, many of the "Nordic Model" nations are actually constitutional monarchies or democratic monarchies. It's through the assignment of appropriate amounts of political power to the people who live there that the population can be happier and feel more involved, not through their economic model alone, although the economy is, of course, based heavily off of the political system's tendencies at the time.


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## vilk

bostjan said:


> As opposed to socialism, in which the factory (or farm) and the machines belong collectively to society, rather than to some rich dude.



... but I thought that is what defines Communism as separate from Socialism? At least, Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto describes this system you're describing where the means of production are collectively owned by everyone.

And then in Socialism you have privately owned means of production, just the same as in capitalism, only with a high level of government involvement in redistribution of wealth, social safety nets, etc, and they offer services that compete with private industry... so really, I was under the impression that this line between "capitalism" (which isn't truly capitalism) and socialism is basically arbitrary and dependent only on public perception.

I mean, don't we call certain nations, famously Denmark, socialist? But the government doesn't own the means of production there. And USSR and China and North Korea are "Communist", since the government owned literally everything.

Just curious since I don't know the answer: Who owned the means of production in Nazi Germany? Presumably they were privately owned, since Hitler had to contract Volkswagen to build his cars?


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## bostjan

vilk said:


> ... but I thought that is what defines Communism as separate from Socialism? At least, Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto describes this system you're describing where the means of production are collectively owned by everyone.
> 
> And then in Socialism you have privately owned means of production, just the same as in capitalism, only with a high level of government involvement in redistribution of wealth, social safety nets, etc, and they offer services that compete with private industry... so really, I was under the impression that this line between "capitalism" (which isn't truly capitalism) and socialism is basically arbitrary and dependent only on public perception.
> 
> I mean, don't we call certain nations, famously Denmark, socialist? But the government doesn't own the means of production there. And USSR and China and North Korea are "Communist", since the government owned literally everything.
> 
> Just curious since I don't know the answer: Who owned the means of production in Nazi Germany? Presumably they were privately owned, since Hitler had to contract Volkswagen to build his cars?



Just going off the dictionary definition of socialism as "characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production." In my mind, anything that is "capitalism, but..." is a deviation from capitalism, and anything that is "socialism, but..." is a deviation from socialism. Communism is a more complex thing, starting with socialism, but then also removing the authority of the government and the valuation of things, such that all property (not just the means of farming and production) is not owned, but open to be used by anyone within the commune.

Communism is was more cerebral than socialism. It breaks down very easily - all it takes is one uncooperative individual, and the whole system implodes. For example, if I join a communist society, where there is no government authority, no ownership of things, and no social hierarchy in place, then I simply take some of the public stuff and tuck it away for myself, then what happens? With no government authority in power, there is no executive means to restore order. It's helpless.

I feel like I've addressed this Nordic Socialism thing a couple times now. Again, Denmark is a monarchy, not really a proper agar plate for a socialistic society. Denmark doesn't fit the definition of socialism in any way, actually, so how do we go calling it socialist? Communist and the government owning everything are different concepts.

China is in an odd sort of place now. It operates as if it were a typical capitalist nation. Manufacturers there run factories, employ workers, market their stuff, etc., just like in the good ol' USA. The USSR was the same way, otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to buy Sovtek amps, only USSR amps. No country on earth has ever operated as a communist country for more than a few weeks. No country on Earth that has a GDP has operated without some capitalistic principles at some point. And just about every nation on earth has social programs that are publicly funded. It's a continuum or a spectrum, not a binary thing.


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## vilk

lol yeah sorry after I went back and re-read your post before I can see it actually covered a lot of what I asked better than I realized the first time

and I'm glad that someone besides myself can see that the nomenclature here is _practically_ besides the point. I got into a good-natured argument with my friend over the weekend (while we were drunk obviously) about how the way we usually apply these names has more to do with perception than actual practice. And that this perception mostly has to do with the manner in which tax money is spent--at least, that's my theory.


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## dreamchaser

Max Stirner, one of the prominent critics of socialism and communism:


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## wat

Being alive, breathing and having human DNA doesn't make someone entitled to someone else's money.


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## Andrew Lloyd Webber

Do they entitle anything?


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## vilk

wat said:


> Being alive, breathing and having human DNA doesn't make someone entitled to someone else's money.



I think the idea is less what you've written and more that an individual alone cannot make money by himself, or if he did start writing 100$ Vilk-Buck Notes, he'd still need the society that he is part of to provide those goods and services. Otherwise you've just got a dude sitting in a room full of paper. (and as we know the value of the paper is totally fabricated, based on the equivalent of weather divination, for what that's worth)

Rich people do not/cannot exist without the comparatively poor people who make them rich, both pragmatically and also conceptually as a matter of contrast/relativity. It's a really simple, basic, almost abstract idea, but it's undeniably true. How much do they owe the poor who allow/make/cause them to be rich? That's a very subjective matter.


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## wat

vilk said:


> How much do they owe the poor who allow/make/cause them to be rich?



The amount they agreed to work for


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## bostjan

As abstract as the idea of paper money is, wealth is the opposite.

It's all about having resources or not. Back during pre-history in the age of patriarchs, people took what resources they wanted by means of exploration or force. Whoever was first to the well got the most water, but whoever was mightiest threatened to take it away. In early human history, wealth meant protection. If one wanted to be wealthy, one simply had to convince people to build a fortress. Now the mightiest were no match for stone walls, so they needed to trade their might in exchange for essentials like food and water. That's how the most influential leaders became kings and how the mightiest warriors swore fiefdom to those kings. The Europeans who left for the "New World" in the 17th and 18th centuries were looking for their own way to lay claim to resources. I'm not sure what communication breakdown occurred, but there were already several cultures of people living here who lived under a different economic system entirely. Where, in Europe, all of the animals belonged to the king, and all of the weapons belonged to the king, and if you went to war, you fought for the king - in America, if you were hungry, you hunted, and if you were thirsty, you drank from the spring, and if you went to war, you fought for your people with weapons you made yourself. So, the Europeans wanted to control the resources that the native peoples had been sharing for who knows how long. I don't think that the idea of "taking land" was clearly communicated.

Anyway, up to that point in history, wealth was "land." When the industrial revolution hit full swing, that all changed, because, instead of having stuff come from the land and the value added by manufacture being a rather personal thing attributed to a craftsman, the raw materials were cheap, and the value added by manufacture became the heart of business. People went from eating barley porridge to eating Quaker Oats™ and went from going to the butcher and the cheesemaker to eating Oscar Mayer Hot Dogs™ and Kraft Cheese™ - over the course of a couple generations, everything changed entirely, including how the concept of wealth was implemented. Wealth was no longer strictly tied to how much land a person owned, but was diversified - a wealthy person might own a large plantation, but whoever owned the steel foundry was likely much more wealthy. In the middle class, a wealthier person might simply own more stuff than a less wealthy person, rather than owning a bigger plot of land.

Today, wealth is even more diverse than ever before. Home equity, job equity, credit lines, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, private business, college education, etc. etc., are all forms of wealth in their own way. Those are all resources, and they can all be used as leverage to obtain other resources, but young people who do not own a home, have no job experience, used their general credit for student loans to obtain degrees that don't precipitate into lucrative careers, etc., are stuck in a rut of little opportunity to obtain wealth. The system of capitalism seems to have failed them, because they worked hard to get through college, like their parents told them to do, and the jobs their parents prepared them to have all went overseas or are no longer relevant. The housing market is a log-jam, creditors are dubious of young people, bonds are paying shit compared to what they paid in the past, and a college degree in communication or whatever the largest percentage of millenials have chosen as a major isn't worth the paper it's printed on to an employer.

But the fault is not solely with capitalism. The fault is within the culture we've accepted. Just like how forced collectivization during Stalin's time in the USSR led to so many people starving, and it wasn't the fault of Socialism so much as it was the fault of Stalin himself. In that case, there already was a famine - just a general lack of resource availability when it came to food. It was pretty much worldwide, but the USSR handled it in such a way that many people firmly believe those people were starved deliberately. You could say that Stalin's USSR was not an example of socialism, but an example of a dictatorship under the banner of socialism, and you'd have a good case to say that. But also look at Pol Pot's Cambodia! Same shit, but Cambodians, in general, had no idea who their leader was. Reading about Pol Pot, he seemed like he might have genuinely had some twisted form of good intentions, rather than simply being a bloodthirsty asshole. I don't know, though, because it's more complex.

Anyway, the paper money is just a symbol, and it's honestly not fair to have some people work harder with no chance of reward.


----------



## vilk

bostjan said:


> As abstract as the idea of paper money is, wealth is the opposite.
> 
> It's all about having resources or not. Back during pre-history in the age of patriarchs, people took what resources they wanted by means of exploration or force. Whoever was first to the well got the most water, but whoever was mightiest threatened to take it away. In early human history, wealth meant protection. If one wanted to be wealthy, one simply had to convince people to build a fortress. Now the mightiest were no match for stone walls, so they needed to trade their might in exchange for essentials like food and water. That's how the most influential leaders became kings and how the mightiest warriors swore fiefdom to those kings. The Europeans who left for the "New World" in the 17th and 18th centuries were looking for their own way to lay claim to resources. I'm not sure what communication breakdown occurred, but there were already several cultures of people living here who lived under a different economic system entirely. Where, in Europe, all of the animals belonged to the king, and all of the weapons belonged to the king, and if you went to war, you fought for the king - in America, if you were hungry, you hunted, and if you were thirsty, you drank from the spring, and if you went to war, you fought for your people with weapons you made yourself. So, the Europeans wanted to control the resources that the native peoples had been sharing for who knows how long. I don't think that the idea of "taking land" was clearly communicated.
> 
> Anyway, up to that point in history, wealth was "land." When the industrial revolution hit full swing, that all changed, because, instead of having stuff come from the land and the value added by manufacture being a rather personal thing attributed to a craftsman, the raw materials were cheap, and the value added by manufacture became the heart of business. People went from eating barley porridge to eating Quaker Oats™ and went from going to the butcher and the cheesemaker to eating Oscar Mayer Hot Dogs™ and Kraft Cheese™ - over the course of a couple generations, everything changed entirely, including how the concept of wealth was implemented. Wealth was no longer strictly tied to how much land a person owned, but was diversified - a wealthy person might own a large plantation, but whoever owned the steel foundry was likely much more wealthy. In the middle class, a wealthier person might simply own more stuff than a less wealthy person, rather than owning a bigger plot of land.
> 
> Today, wealth is even more diverse than ever before. Home equity, job equity, credit lines, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, private business, college education, etc. etc., are all forms of wealth in their own way. Those are all resources, and they can all be used as leverage to obtain other resources, but young people who do not own a home, have no job experience, used their general credit for student loans to obtain degrees that don't precipitate into lucrative careers, etc., are stuck in a rut of little opportunity to obtain wealth. The system of capitalism seems to have failed them, because they worked hard to get through college, like their parents told them to do, and the jobs their parents prepared them to have all went overseas or are no longer relevant. The housing market is a log-jam, creditors are dubious of young people, bonds are paying shit compared to what they paid in the past, and a college degree in communication or whatever the largest percentage of millenials have chosen as a major isn't worth the paper it's printed on to an employer.
> 
> But the fault is not solely with capitalism. The fault is within the culture we've accepted. Just like how forced collectivization during Stalin's time in the USSR led to so many people starving, and it wasn't the fault of Socialism so much as it was the fault of Stalin himself. In that case, there already was a famine - just a general lack of resource availability when it came to food. It was pretty much worldwide, but the USSR handled it in such a way that many people firmly believe those people were starved deliberately. You could say that Stalin's USSR was not an example of socialism, but an example of a dictatorship under the banner of socialism, and you'd have a good case to say that. But also look at Pol Pot's Cambodia! Same shit, but Cambodians, in general, had no idea who their leader was. Reading about Pol Pot, he seemed like he might have genuinely had some twisted form of good intentions, rather than simply being a bloodthirsty asshole. I don't know, though, because it's more complex.
> 
> Anyway, the paper money is just a symbol, and it's honestly not fair to have some people work harder with no chance of reward.



That's all true, but consider this:

If a Mighty King has water and walls, what good are they if there's no one thirsty or seeking protection? I mean, they're good enough to protect and nourish the king... but also I mean like it turns into a chicken-egg situation: where'd the walls come from? Did the king build them himself? 

If _everyone _were rich, who will dust your mantle? Another rich guy? What's his incentive to dust your mantle if he's already rich? 

I know I know, it's such a dumb, basic idea that it hardly warrants writing it. But the rich _need _poor people _in order for "rich" to have meaning_ and also more pragmatically to live the lifestyle that they do. 

I'll tell you what though, poor people are fucked if we start making really, really good robots. Or maybe, in an opposite way, we _can_ all be rich? But not the robots, obviously.


----------



## tedtan

vilk said:


> the rich _need _poor people _in order for "rich" to have meaning_ and also more pragmatically to live the lifestyle that they do.



Being rich is just having an abundance of resources, so I would disagree that there is a need for the poor in order for the rich to exist. Though the more and more people that are being born the fewer the resources there are to go around.

As for the rich people who have servants on staff, there are plenty of people who will do what others want in order to fit in with them. This is psychological, so I can see a situation in which everyone is rich and one rich diva type gets their mantle dusted by an equally rich person with a psychological need to please others in order to fit in. Resources, and the lack thereof, are not the only means of motivation/coercion/control.


----------



## Drew

wat said:


> Being alive, breathing and having human DNA doesn't make someone entitled to someone else's money.


Is that an attack on communism or capitalism? I honestly can't tell.


----------



## bostjan

vilk said:


> That's all true, but consider this:
> 
> If a Mighty King has water and walls, what good are they if there's no one thirsty or seeking protection? I mean, they're good enough to protect and nourish the king... but also I mean like it turns into a chicken-egg situation: where'd the walls come from? Did the king build them himself?



That was my point, though. At the time, people were abundantly thirsty and needing protection. If you built a castle in modern New Jersey, you'd be wasting your time, obviously.

There's no paradox here. It's clear: the king was the guy who held control of the land, and he held control of the stone and the wood used by his subjects to build the castle.



vilk said:


> If _everyone _were rich, who will dust your mantle? Another rich guy? What's his incentive to dust your mantle if he's already rich?



This is the biggest fallacy going around these days. The rich are equated as people who need other people to do everything for them. No. Rich people are the people who hold control over resources. People do things for the rich people in exchange for resources that the hired people find scarce and the rich people find abundant.



vilk said:


> I know I know, it's such a dumb, basic idea that it hardly warrants writing it. But the rich _need _poor people _in order for "rich" to have meaning_ and also more pragmatically to live the lifestyle that they do.
> 
> I'll tell you what though, poor people are fucked if we start making really, really good robots. Or maybe, in an opposite way, we _can_ all be rich? But not the robots, obviously.



Rich and poor are opposites, just like you need to have the Joker in order to have Batman, or whatever pop culture reference you wish to insert here.

The idea of collective ownership is often misconstrued as everything belongs to everyone, but that won't work that way and it's not even how the idea was ever intended by intellectuals. It's an idea that everyone pool resources and then people take what they _need._ If I'm a carpenter, then I take the hammer and nails and sawblades. If I'm a baker, then I need the ovens and mixers and sacks of flour. If I'm the carpenter, and I take the sacks of flour, then something went wrong with the system.

In real life, how socialism has generally worked, is that instead of the servant going to work for the wealthy guy in order to get the food and clothing and shelter needed to survive, the same guy would go to the government. And...in times of famine, that government has told that poor guy that he's going to starve, because they already allocated all of the food resources to comfortably feed the government bureaucrats, the military, the factory workers making weapons for the military, ..., all the way down to the guy licking Stalin's boots clean every evening. Because there were not enough resources to give out to everyone, and the poor guy was deemed less necessary to keep around than all of those other people. It happened in the USSR during Golodomor in 1932-1933, and in Cambodia during 1975-1979, and presently in North Korea. The government had limited resources, and too many mouths to feed, so it rewarded it's favourite people with enough food to remain comfortable whilst the people the government deemed "unnecessary" got nothing to eat until they starved or until the famine was over.

In capitalistic societies, the wealthy were in control of the resources, so there were simply more distribution points, meaning each starving individual had more opportunities to make an appeal. That's why there was less starvation in the West than in the East in the 1930's. We still had famine, but people were not being collectively punished for political reasons. If you were able to swing a hammer, you could barter that resource of labour in exchange for food. Your socialist comrade at that time was expected to swing his glorious hammer or sickle whether the government wanted to feed him or not.

You see, there is no advantage for the commoner in having the political and economic powers combined into one entity. It just makes it so that those who are rewarded political also get rewarded financially and the converse statement is also true.

So what can the commoner do to get the resources he or she needs to function in society? I mean, there's no one answer for that. It just depends on where that person finds meaning and what that person hopes to accomplish.


----------



## Andromalia

You have to take into account that, somehow, socialist doctrines have evolved, shockingly, since the writing ot The Capital. Sure, you will always find someone telling you it must be the book, just the book and only the book, but then you can put them with the various religious nuts and get to serious things.

Most current european socialists nowadays want a state-controlled market economy where the role of the state is to ensure a fair market, which "free market" has a notable tendency not to do.
One notable need for a fair market is customer information, which capitalistic companies dislike immensely (see OGM companies lobbying for *not* having to specify there are OGMs on products packaging) as a lot of them do their business by fooling their customers about the value or benefits of their goods. (Yes, including Apple. Thoses prices, dudes, they're a tax on ignorance )

About the only thing that stays true for "pure" old marxism is that, borders have to be abolished for a simple reason: so that the hoiders of wealth can't just refuse to participate by leaving for another country. In american-understandable terms, it means Apple and Microsoft paying their taxes in the US, not in the caiman islands.
Some kind of worldwide tax system is needed at this point. Tax evasion by companies in France only is estimated at 80 billions € per year. That's about 250 times as much as what the french rightists spend their time crying about: the poor "exploiting the welfare system". 
Of course, as we currently have a right wing governement, the latter is way more important and advertised than the former.


----------



## bostjan

Andromalia said:


> You have to take into account that, somehow, socialist doctrines have evolved, shockingly, since the writing ot The Capital. Sure, you will always find someone telling you it must be the book, just the book and only the book, but then you can put them with the various religious nuts and get to serious things.
> 
> Most current european socialists nowadays want a state-controlled market economy where the role of the state is to ensure a fair market, which "free market" has a notable tendency not to do.
> One notable need for a fair market is customer information, which capitalistic companies dislike immensely (see OGM companies lobbying for *not* having to specify there are OGMs on products packaging) as a lot of them do their business by fooling their customers about the value or benefits of their goods. (Yes, including Apple. Thoses prices, dudes, they're a tax on ignorance )
> 
> About the only thing that stays true for "pure" old marxism is that, borders have to be abolished for a simple reason: so that the hoiders of wealth can't just refuse to participate by leaving for another country. In american-understandable terms, it means Apple and Microsoft paying their taxes in the US, not in the caiman islands.
> Some kind of worldwide tax system is needed at this point. Tax evasion by companies in France only is estimated at 80 billions € per year. That's about 250 times as much as what the french rightists spend their time crying about: the poor "exploiting the welfare system".
> Of course, as we currently have a right wing governement, the latter is way more important and advertised than the former.



The US has the Caiman Islands, but the EU has Ireland. Rich people will always find a way to get out of paying their taxes, will always horde their money, and will always be richer than people like us who don't do those things.


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## Andromalia

The tax evasion and fiscal heavens thing are, paradoxically, a byproduct of (more or less) world peace. If Luxembourg had the same legislation in the 17th century, they'd have been invaded long ago.
Besides, I don't really get the point of Ireland, specifically: I lived there gor 3 years, when you look at education, equipment and infrzstructures, it's the closest thing to a third world country I've seen. They legalised abortion *two months ago*.There's nothing in it for the irish people.
I don't want the rich to become poor, I want the money to be used efficiently for the good of the greatest number of people possible. Ironically, the rich wouldn't even notice a dent in their lifestyle: you can't wear two pairs of shoes at the same time or eat 18 times per day.


----------



## bostjan

Andromalia said:


> The tax evasion and fiscal heavens thing are, paradoxically, a byproduct of (more or less) world peace. If Luxembourg had the same legislation in the 17th century, they'd have been invaded long ago.
> Besides, I don't really get the point of Ireland, specifically: I lived there gor 3 years, when you look at education, equipment and infrzstructures, it's the closest thing to a third world country I've seen. They legalised abortion *two months ago*.There's nothing in it for the irish people.
> I don't want the rich to become poor, I want the money to be used efficiently for the good of the greatest number of people possible. Ironically, the rich wouldn't even notice a dent in their lifestyle: you can't wear two pairs of shoes at the same time or eat 18 times per day.


You're not totally wrong, but 10 out of 10 rich people disagree.


----------



## Andromalia

Probably, but utlimately it dosn't matter since they are the minority. All that remains is making the majority vote for itself instead of voting for the rich to their own detriment. That, unfortunately, takes more time and money to build than to destroy. (which is why right wing governements slash education budgets: they need gullible voters, not educated ones)

One of my requisites for democracy being the enlightened vote: that you know what you vote for, and that you get what you voted for. I don't know a lot of countries where that is the case. Probably Iceland and a few Nordic countries. In most other places a majority of the politicians are just simply lying 100% about the benefits of their programs.


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## bostjan

There will always be more stupid people than we would like.

...and that will always be one of the two main problems with democracy.

Every and any state system that tries to make everyone forcibly equal always ends up with one person much more equal than everyone else.

As for me, I just go on trying to survive. While the rich people get the other less fortunate people involved in doing their fighting for them, I just try to stay out of it. Dying for oil, dying for freedom, dying for democracy, dying for food on the table, dying for a place to call home - none of that matters to the dead, who have no need for food, energy, freedom, nor housing. For the rich, it pays double duty in bringing in more resources and having fewer people needing some of those resources. As the Khmer Rouge said, "To destroy you is no loss. To preserve you is no gain."


----------



## zappatton2

I tend to be pretty centre-left on most things, a Marxist by no means, but one thing that gets to me is the complete lack of nuance that comes with discussing progressive political options. On the one hand, ensuring quality public services and a higher baseline in the standard of living for the lower end of the income demographic is not equality of outcome, nor is it absolute, communistic State Control, yet it always seems to be portrayed that way.

On the other hand is the idea that the wealthy do not in some way benefit from a progressive taxation system. Yet, a well funded civil society, with infrastructure and strong social programs, sees a direct benefit in terms of lower crime rates, a better educated population, and a safer and better equipped environment within which to invest.

I know it's beside the point to someone who regards taxes as little more than theft on their wealth, but all the countries I'd be inclined to actually live in would all be the ones to take a pretty huge chunk of my paycheque to invest back into civil society and infrastructure. And I'd be loathe to call them "Marxist" in the absolutist way that term tends to get used.


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## Andromalia

The first benefit the rich get from society is they can stay rich longer than until the next bullet. Rome went through five emperors in a single year, when the state is corrupt or non existent nobody is safe, and especially not the rich.
Even private armies of bodyguards don't help: you have to pay them more than what they would get by killing you and taking everything.


----------



## narad

vilk said:


> I'll tell you what though, poor people are fucked if we start making really, really good robots. Or maybe, in an opposite way, we _can_ all be rich? But not the robots, obviously.



You think the rich people aren't going to own all the robots?


----------



## Andrew Lloyd Webber

I propose eating the poor.


----------



## Randy

vilk said:


> But not the robots, obviously.



Not so obviously


----------



## bostjan

narad said:


> You think the rich people aren't going to own all the robots?


Not all of the robots. There will be good robots and shitty robots, and the poor people in developed countries will undoubtedly get all of the shittiest robots. Best to start learning now how to assemble good robots out of spare parts, because, unless you're rich, your best shot at getting a good robot will be to build one out of the parts dropped by rich people's robots whilst they pick up rich people's prescriptions or walk their dogs.


----------



## Drew

Andrew Lloyd Webber said:


> I propose eating the poor.


A modest proposal!


----------



## Randy

Read multiple times as 'I propose eating the poop.'


----------



## Drew

That's a way less modest proposal.


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## bostjan

Randy said:


> Read multiple times as 'I propose eating the poop.'


Someone named Mitsuyuki Ikeda proposed what you misread in a more serious way back around 8-10 years ago. And if you value your sanity, you won't google that.


----------



## MFB

bostjan said:


> Someone named Mitsuyuki Ikeda proposed what you misread in a more serious way back around 8-10 years ago. And if you value your sanity, you won't google that.



Supposedly in China, people are now just taking craps in public trash bins, and it's become a social norm; if they start eating it, then there'd be free buffets all over town!


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## Randy

MFB said:


> Supposedly in China, people are now just taking craps in public trash bins, and it's become a social norm; if they start eating it, then there'd be free buffets all over town!



So what you're saying is Einstein was ahead of his time on things other than physics?


----------



## Andrew Lloyd Webber

bostjan said:


> Someone named Mitsuyuki Ikeda proposed what you misread in a more serious way back around 8-10 years ago. And if you value your sanity, you won't google that.



Ah, yes: Dr. Shitburger, himself.


----------



## bostjan

Randy said:


> So what you're saying is Einstein was ahead of his time on things other than physics?


First I have heard about an Einstein feces thing. 


Andrew Lloyd Webber said:


> Ah, yes: Dr. Shitburger, himself.


Hey, those burgers have tons of protein, iron, pot_ass_ium, Bmvitamins, vitamin hepatitis A, and other nutrients and stuff, (after being mixed with soy and vegetable proteins) and are cheap as shit to make.


----------



## lurè

I'd rather eat insects then having a cheesburger made with a round disc of feces and a slice of toilet paper on top.


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## Andromalia

You guys have a problem. XD


----------



## bostjan

lurè said:


> I'd rather eat insects then having a cheesburger made with a round disc of feces and a slice of toilet paper on top.



Be careful with your use of "then" and "than"


----------



## dark_vader

GuitarBizarre said:


> I really don't think it is. America is the MOST capitalist country on earth and inequality within it, the biggest problem. Scandinavia has a much higher average wage per person than the US does, and also much, much more wage equality.
> 
> As a result, scandinavian countries, with their quasi-socialist model, top happiness indexes every year.



Let's imagine a world where the United States doesn't exist (and as a result, neither do any of the world changing scientific / medical / technological advances it has been the source of) and instead we have to depend on the innovation and exceptionalism of those super happy Scandinavian countries.

Yeah, I laughed my ass off too. I mean, the Viking boats we'd all be be transporting ourselves around in would be cool and all, but I much prefer the car I drive courtesy of Mr. Henry Ford, American capitalist.


----------



## Demiurge

^Do you drive a Ford or do you believe that Henry Ford invented the automobile?


----------



## dark_vader

Demiurge said:


> ^Do you drive a Ford or do you believe that Henry Ford invented the automobile?



Neither, but his contribution to the mass manufacturing and ubiquity of the automobile is irrefutable.


----------



## diagrammatiks

You mean courtesy of Karl Benz. Actually you know what I’m not even going to bother with you.


----------



## dark_vader

diagrammatiks said:


> You mean courtesy of Karl Benz. Actually you know what I’m not even going to bother with you.



I addressed that in my comment right above yours. I'm well aware Ford didn't invent the automobile. My actual point was that capitalism is the least shitty system, far superior to Socialism or (lol) Communism. I don't care about "happiness indexes". Not sure what you're so upset about.


----------



## bostjan

Since you brought up the Happiness Index:

In 2018, the happiest country is Finland. A Scandinavian country, right? Nope, check your geography. A socialist country, right? Nope, check your civics books.

Finland is a parliamentary republic with a representative democracy, almost exactly like the USA. 

But the party in power there is the socialist party, right? Not at all. Actually, it's the Centre Party, the party that stands for moderation and for freedom and liberty, much like the founding fathers of the USA.

So, bringing up the happiness index, at least in the year 2018, is counter-productive to the pro-marxism side of the debate.


----------



## vilk

_nvm_


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> Since you brought up the Happiness Index:
> 
> In 2018, the happiest country is Finland. A Scandinavian country, right? Nope, check your geography. A socialist country, right? Nope, check your civics books.
> 
> Finland is a parliamentary republic with a representative democracy, almost exactly like the USA.
> 
> But the party in power there is the socialist party, right? Not at all. Actually, it's the Centre Party, the party that stands for moderation and for freedom and liberty, much like the founding fathers of the USA.
> 
> So, bringing up the happiness index, at least in the year 2018, is counter-productive to the pro-marxism side of the debate.



I don't care what you call it, if they offer a form of universal healthcare, strong unions and common sense gun control, count me in. 

The United States isn't shitty because it's capitalist, it's shitty because we, Americans, are awful people.


----------



## bostjan

MaxOfMetal said:


> I don't care what you call it, if they offer a form of universal healthcare, strong unions and common sense gun control, count me in.
> 
> The United States isn't shitty because it's capitalist, it's shitty because we, Americans, are awful people.



Well, Finland is also one of the most sparsely populated nations in Europe. Northern Michigan has a lot of Finnish people, or, at least it did a generation ago. Most now are probably second generation. I remember stopping to ask for directions once and the guy kept saying vasee-maleh to me, and I only found out later that he was telling me to go left, in Finnish, assuming that I must have known how to understand Finnish. But I digress.

I think here in the USA, we have two groups, the right and the left, and that's where most of the movers and shakers fit in, and those two groups have little overlap. The right sees any social program as socialism, like it might as well be Stalinism. Often times, the left will come forward with a proposal like, "maybe we should look into these bump stocks," and the far right takes that as "they're going to take away all of our guns!"

IDK, I think you're 100% right on point, though. We have too many assholes here and those assholes have too much freedom to shit all over everyone. In a nation that prides itself on allowing people the freedom to be an asshole all they want so long as they don't shit all over someone else, it makes every situation a little difficult to control.

Meanwhile, I'm living out here in northeastern Vermont. The population density here is such that I might as well live on the moon. And I love it. Everyone knows everyone else, so it makes stuff like road rage practically disappear. If Mr. Haney cuts me off on the way to work, I know I'll see him at bowling Tuesday night and he can apologize.


----------



## lurè

Finland is also ranked 35th on the list of countries by suicide rate.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> Well, Finland is also one of the most sparsely populated nations in Europe. Northern Michigan has a lot of Finnish people, or, at least it did a generation ago. Most now are probably second generation. I remember stopping to ask for directions once and the guy kept saying vasee-maleh to me, and I only found out later that he was telling me to go left, in Finnish, assuming that I must have known how to understand Finnish. But I digress.
> 
> I think here in the USA, we have two groups, the right and the left, and that's where most of the movers and shakers fit in, and those two groups have little overlap. The right sees any social program as socialism, like it might as well be Stalinism. Often times, the left will come forward with a proposal like, "maybe we should look into these bump stocks," and the far right takes that as "they're going to take away all of our guns!"
> 
> IDK, I think you're 100% right on point, though. We have too many assholes here and those assholes have too much freedom to shit all over everyone. In a nation that prides itself on allowing people the freedom to be an asshole all they want so long as they don't shit all over someone else, it makes every situation a little difficult to control.
> 
> Meanwhile, I'm living out here in northeastern Vermont. The population density here is such that I might as well live on the moon. And I love it. Everyone knows everyone else, so it makes stuff like road rage practically disappear. If Mr. Haney cuts me off on the way to work, I know I'll see him at bowling Tuesday night and he can apologize.



I don't think it's a freedom thing. 

It's an attitude thing. 

People in America are assholes by choice. We choose to spite those who are different, and kick those who are down. 

We have just as much freedom to be good neighbors as we do being pricks, we just consistently choose to be awful. 

It's not even like we do it purely for self interest either. We will vote against the safety, health and happiness of ourselves and our progeny just to fuck the other guy. 

Look at present day political discourse in this country. Folks rather kick shins than actually have productive conversation.


----------



## bostjan

People given the freedom to choose between being an asshole or not, will chose what they feel will get them the furthest. I think that's how the attitude gets a foothold.

Being an asshole is seen in American media and, mostly, in the american workplace, as being a way to get ahead. When you see the guy at the office who interrupts his or her coworkers, asserts undue authority, takes credit for other people's ideas, etc., it's not just about getting the upper hand in that situation, it's about establishing who has the upper hand. Our society has a track record of rewarding people for that sort of behaviour and rarely ever calling people out for it. I think that may likely change in the future, given the climate of things at the moment, or else it'll just be reinforced for the next generation.

But yeah, the meek person in American society gets passed over for promotion at work, doesn't get the girl, doesn't get the raise, and generally gets shit on. It's an overarching thing permeating all life in America, and it's about people who assert dominance in an asshole way versus those who have a credible reason for people to get behind them.

Trump is the kind of guy who had everything handed to him. His dad was wealthy and that gave him his start. As a business man, he just bullied his way around New York City, asserting dominance over other businesses, and over his own employees, to the point where he was 100% ingrained into that idiom. He showed the world how much of an asshole he could be with his reality TV show, and somehow, in a weird turn of events, it made people fall in love with the idea of him being PotUSA. He's just continued being that stock character throughout his presidency - like if he says that's the way it is, everyone is just supposed to follow that. That will either a) come back to be his downfall, or b) stand, and reinforce that Americans are not only assholes, but really good at being assholes in their own eyes.

Like, when you see the kid with the long red hair and stonewash jeans in the Disney cartoon stomping on ants, it's not just to tell you that the kid doesn't like ants, it's to establish the character traits that go along with the kid being a bully. Same for being an asshole in the USA, our culture has chosen to define that as the trait of being a "winner." Since this country is so big and so isolated, there aren't a lot of external forces to correct that line of thinking.


----------



## Randy

MaxOfMetal said:


> It's not even like we do it purely for self interest either. We will vote against the safety, health and happiness of ourselves and our progeny just to fuck the other guy.



I'm speaking well outside of my expertise, but methinks that "progeny to fuck the other guy" still boils down to self interest. There's the narrative of poor people in this country constantly envisioning themselves as "down-on-their-luck millionaires" as opposed to accepting their societal position. That boils down to the famous 'Joe The Plumber' fallacy, where you have people agitating toward policies that "will help them when they become rich" rather than policies that will help them where they are now (and likely will remain) in life.

I've seen it a lot of places, even outside of the US. I have relatives in Trinidad and Tobago, and that country is mostly a mix of black and brown people, and I'd hear people there talking down about other groups of people for being a darker shade of black than them. I've heard the same happens here in the US, I just haven't had first hand experience with it.

Similarly, you have people living in trailers or tenement-esque apartments complaining about "welfare queens driving around in new Cadillacs with iPhones", while they themselves are frequently on social security disability, medicare/medicaid, etc etc. And even if they're not someone on direct financial assistance, you'll see it in people working jobs earning <$40,000 a year, and agitating against programs that could/would/do benefit them because their ego is so fragile that they have to constantly reference some other class that's beneath them, because they can't handle the notion that their life sucks or that they're on the bottom tier.

That's where the self interest comes in. It's not that people vote against themselves because they like fucking people over more than helping themselves, it's that a mental/emotional win is more valuable to them than a practical win.


----------



## bostjan

Randy said:


> I'm speaking well outside of my expertise, but methinks that "progeny to fuck the other guy" still boils down to self interest. There's the narrative of poor people in this country constantly envisioning themselves as "down-on-their-luck millionaires" as opposed to accepting their societal position. That boils down to the famous 'Joe The Plumber' fallacy, where you have people agitating toward policies that "will help them when they become rich" rather than policies that will help them where they are now (and likely will remain) in life.
> 
> I've seen it a lot of places, even outside of the US. I have relatives in Trinidad and Tobago, and that country is mostly a mix of black and brown people, and I'd hear people there talking down about other groups of people for being a darker shade of black than them. I've heard the same happens here in the US, I just haven't had first hand experience with it.
> 
> Similarly, you have people living in trailers or tenement-esque apartments complaining about "welfare queens driving around in new Cadillacs with iPhones", while they themselves are frequently on social security disability, medicare/medicaid, etc etc. And even if they're not someone on direct financial assistance, you'll see it in people working jobs earning <$40,000 a year, and agitating against programs that could/would/do benefit them because their ego is so fragile that they have to constantly reference some other class that's beneath them, because they can't handle the notion that their life sucks or that they're on the bottom tier.
> 
> That's where the self interest comes in. It's not that people vote against themselves because they like fucking people over more than helping themselves, it's that a mental/emotional win is more valuable to them than a practical win.



Growing up, I heard a lot of people getting ribbed over the colour of their skin. "So black she's blue," or "So dark, it's like the lights went off when he came in the room." Usually the target of such comments was someone who never did anything to wrong anyone else around, and the person making these sorts of cracks was doing so as a way to try to get accepted by peers. In 10 out of 10 cases, these people were of similar social class and genetic makeup. It's that same thing I mentioned in my last post, how we have this culture of bringing our peers down thinking that it somehow makes us look more in control.


----------



## diagrammatiks

bostjan said:


> Since you brought up the Happiness Index:
> 
> In 2018, the happiest country is Finland. A Scandinavian country, right? Nope, check your geography. A socialist country, right? Nope, check your civics books.
> 
> Finland is a parliamentary republic with a representative democracy, almost exactly like the USA.
> 
> But the party in power there is the socialist party, right? Not at all. Actually, it's the Centre Party, the party that stands for moderation and for freedom and liberty, much like the founding fathers of the USA.
> 
> So, bringing up the happiness index, at least in the year 2018, is counter-productive to the pro-marxism side of the debate.



Finland is also the home of supercell, rovio, a bunch of other gaming companies, and a ton of fintech. Their tech industry is rich as hell for a country that size.


----------



## StevenC

lurè said:


> Finland is also ranked 35th on the list of countries by suicide rate.


There's a strong link between depression and lack of sunlight.


----------



## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> Finland is also the home of supercell, rovio, a bunch of other gaming companies, and a ton of fintech. Their tech industry is rich as hell for a country that size.



Not to mention, the most meme-friendly cell phone company:







Wonder if Angry Birds could knock down that wall?


----------



## dark_vader

MaxOfMetal said:


> The United States isn't shitty because it's capitalist, it's shitty because we, Americans, are awful people.



Do you truly believe that? I mean, in a country of 320 million people there are bound to be a lot of assholes. Are you sure you aren't taking your tiny sphere of personal experience and using that to paint an entire country full of people with the same asshole brush?


----------



## bostjan

dark_vader said:


> Do you truly believe that? I mean, in a country of 320 million people there are bound to be a lot of assholes. Are you sure you aren't taking your tiny sphere of personal experience and using that to paint an entire country full of people with the same asshole brush?



"asshole brush" - that's a weird mental picture... 

Anyway. 

Obviously, not every American is an asshole. I think that the point of contention is how we glorify the assholes within our culture. Or perhaps by this point in time, it's more of a counter-culture. I really don't know, since everything is constantly in flux, and the rate of social change within the USA right now is high but is facing a great deal of resistance.

I think that to say that we, Americans, are generally awful people, is perhaps one of those statements that "feels" obvious enough to state as fact without a heap of statistics.

1. Our military has acted as the world's police for decades.
2. We keep starting shit in the middle east through our political process, and then bombing these nations and leaving the survivors there to sort out the rubble.
3. Since 2001, we've imposed some of the strictest checks on travelers since WWII. These invasive measures have since been shown by several undercover reporters to be completely ineffective as security measures and extremely effective as subjugation measures.
4. We are, I believe the only nation in the first world to have "border patrol checkpoints" situated 50-100 miles away from actual borders, nominally enacted to catch "illegal aliens." These checkpoints have been shown to mostly be ineffective at catching illegal aliens who are not trafficking drugs, and have been shown to be extremely effective at busting kids who have a little bit of cannabis shake in their floorboards.
5. We've been making a lot of news lately, mostly because our leaders in this nation keep saying assholish things. Sure, other nations do that, too, but we seem to be doing our best to top them.
6. My post above. Our corporations spent decades exuding glorification of asshole traits. Machismo in our culture is not only more asshole-y than most other developed countries, but we are far less subtle about it than most.

There's another side to this. We tend to send a lot of resources to other nations to support them, but keep in mind that in spite of our best intentions, this can still be perceived by people in those countries as an asshole thing, as we put them into our debt or whatever.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

dark_vader said:


> Do you truly believe that? I mean, in a country of 320 million people there are bound to be a lot of assholes. Are you sure you aren't taking your tiny sphere of personal experience and using that to paint an entire country full of people with the same asshole brush?



I rest my case.


----------



## dark_vader

Not that long ago people could disagree (even vehemently) with each other about political issues, but at the end of the day they both loved their country. It seems we don't even have that anymore. It just dawned on me, because I'm new here, that I'm talking to a bunch of people who despise America and everything it stands for.

I respect your right to have whatever opinions you want, not attacking you, it's just disheartening. I think I'll go play my guitar now.


----------



## bostjan

dark_vader said:


> I think I'll go play my guitar now.



I mean, that's what this board is all about.


----------



## JSanta

dark_vader said:


> Not that long ago people could disagree (even vehemently) with each other about political issues, but at the end of the day they both loved their country. It seems we don't even have that anymore. It just dawned on me, because I'm new here, that I'm talking to a bunch of people who despise America and everything it stands for.
> 
> I respect your right to have whatever opinions you want, not attacking you, it's just disheartening. I think I'll go play my guitar now.



I don't think that's it at all. There are plenty of Vets on this board (myself included), and while I can't speak for anyone but myself, my experience and perspective is pretty darn similar to Max and bostjan. I don't think where this country is going, but you bet your ass I wore a uniform in defense of our ingrained principles. Being a patriot does NOT mean you have to agree/support everything that the government chooses to do. It means using your voice to protect those that need it and realizing that our country and the people in it are imperfect, but what we stood for for over 200 years is worth protecting, and heck, making better.


----------



## vilk

dark_vader said:


> Not that long ago people could disagree (even vehemently) with each other about political issues, but at the end of the day they both loved their country. It seems we don't even have that anymore. It just dawned on me, because I'm new here, that I'm talking to a bunch of people who despise America and everything it stands for.
> 
> I respect your right to have whatever opinions you want, not attacking you, it's just disheartening. I think I'll go play my guitar now.



Consider this: from a progressive point of view, people who want America to continue to suck (or worse yet, retrograde into the past when it sucked even more) are the ones who hate it. We who want to improve our nation and help it catch up with the rest of the first world are in fact the ones who love it more.


----------



## Drew

dark_vader said:


> Not that long ago people could disagree (even vehemently) with each other about political issues, but at the end of the day they both loved their country. It seems we don't even have that anymore. It just dawned on me, because I'm new here, that I'm talking to a bunch of people who despise America and everything it stands for.
> 
> I respect your right to have whatever opinions you want, not attacking you, it's just disheartening. I think I'll go play my guitar now.


I don't know how much I can add over and above what's already been said, but speaking for myself at least, I don't "despise America." I certainly despise Trump and think a lot of the policies he's pushing for are _badly_ mistaken, and in many cases I'd go so far as to say are wildly unamerican. But I don't despise America. I rather like this country, which is why I despise Trump for what he's doing to the reputation and quality of life of a country I'm pretty proud to be a citizen of. 

I'm with vilk. To _me_, being a progressive means believing that America can be better tomorrow than it is today, and that the course of American history has been a path forward. "Make America Great Again" stands in sharp opposition to that, the desire to make this country regressive, not progressive.


----------



## jaxadam

dark_vader said:


> It just dawned on me, because I'm new here, that I'm talking to a bunch of people who despise America and everything it stands for.



If you wanna see some real hate, head on over to the Trump thread, where you can get front row seats to the next Civil War.


----------



## zappatton2

bostjan said:


> People given the freedom to choose between being an asshole or not, will chose what they feel will get them the furthest. I think that's how the attitude gets a foothold.
> 
> Being an asshole is seen in American media and, mostly, in the american workplace, as being a way to get ahead. When you see the guy at the office who interrupts his or her coworkers, asserts undue authority, takes credit for other people's ideas, etc., it's not just about getting the upper hand in that situation, it's about establishing who has the upper hand. Our society has a track record of rewarding people for that sort of behaviour and rarely ever calling people out for it. I think that may likely change in the future, given the climate of things at the moment, or else it'll just be reinforced for the next generation.
> 
> But yeah, the meek person in American society gets passed over for promotion at work, doesn't get the girl, doesn't get the raise, and generally gets shit on. It's an overarching thing permeating all life in America, and it's about people who assert dominance in an asshole way versus those who have a credible reason for people to get behind them.
> 
> Trump is the kind of guy who had everything handed to him. His dad was wealthy and that gave him his start. As a business man, he just bullied his way around New York City, asserting dominance over other businesses, and over his own employees, to the point where he was 100% ingrained into that idiom. He showed the world how much of an asshole he could be with his reality TV show, and somehow, in a weird turn of events, it made people fall in love with the idea of him being PotUSA. He's just continued being that stock character throughout his presidency - like if he says that's the way it is, everyone is just supposed to follow that. That will either a) come back to be his downfall, or b) stand, and reinforce that Americans are not only assholes, but really good at being assholes in their own eyes.
> 
> Like, when you see the kid with the long red hair and stonewash jeans in the Disney cartoon stomping on ants, it's not just to tell you that the kid doesn't like ants, it's to establish the character traits that go along with the kid being a bully. Same for being an asshole in the USA, our culture has chosen to define that as the trait of being a "winner." Since this country is so big and so isolated, there aren't a lot of external forces to correct that line of thinking.


To me, this is the perfect assessment. I think it's an issue in Canada as well, but at least in my professional experience, it's been on the wane over the last decade. Anyone behaving like Trump in my office would be looking at a short career.


----------



## zappatton2

dark_vader said:


> Not that long ago people could disagree (even vehemently) with each other about political issues, but at the end of the day they both loved their country. It seems we don't even have that anymore. It just dawned on me, because I'm new here, that I'm talking to a bunch of people who despise America and everything it stands for.
> 
> I respect your right to have whatever opinions you want, not attacking you, it's just disheartening. I think I'll go play my guitar now.


How could any of what's been written here be perceived as despising America? Love of nation isn't mindless jingoism, it's always working to improve it, and realizing that hard-fought human rights are never a guarantee. That it is precisely mindless jingoism that poses the greatest threats to those very rights.


----------



## dark_vader

zappatton2 said:


> How could any of what's been written here be perceived as despising America?





MaxOfMetal said:


> The United States isn't shitty because it's capitalist, it's shitty because we, Americans, are awful people.



I mean, the thread is about Marxism. How much more anti-American can you get?


----------



## Randy

dark_vader said:


> I mean, the thread is about Marxism. How much more anti-American can you get?



Nazism would be a good start. Can you point me in the direction of anyone sympathizing with them in this era and what party they align themselves with?


----------



## narad

dark_vader said:


> Not that long ago people could disagree (even vehemently) with each other about political issues, but at the end of the day they both loved their country. It seems we don't even have that anymore. It just dawned on me, because I'm new here, that I'm talking to a bunch of people who despise America and everything it stands for.



What America stands for changes. Just to call something out in particular, the US used to lead the world in scientific discovery. The early NASA days are legendary. Now we have a government that's pulling funding on scientific programs left and right, whose policies reflect a total head-in-the-sand reaction to science advisors, and whose general education of its citizens in such things lags behind the rest of the civilized world. I would like to see America stay great and stay competitive in technology, but how can it when the only scientific advance the American administration is pushing now seems to be the time machine they somehow invented to take our understanding of the world back to the 1970s/80s.

Basically, on this one attribute, America has lost this spirit of invention and ingenuity, while other countries in the world became what America used to be. Does that sound like I despise America? Sounds to me like I despise the direction America is headed, and its failure to stand true to its legacy.

I'm sure every has their similar issues they care about.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

dark_vader said:


> Not that long ago people could disagree (even vehemently) with each other about political issues, but at the end of the day they both loved their country. It seems we don't even have that anymore. It just dawned on me, because I'm new here, that I'm talking to a bunch of people who despise America and everything it stands for.
> 
> I respect your right to have whatever opinions you want, not attacking you, it's just disheartening. I think I'll go play my guitar now.



You don't love America and you certainly don't love it's people.

You love a fairy tale interpretation of what you think America should be. If America was a song, you'd buy the dubstep remix. Your love affair is with the "based on a true story" of the United States of America. 

If you actually loved this country you'd seek to improve it, which often means seeing faults, not use patriotism as a holier-than-thou cudgel in which to pick apart and admonish petty minutiae with people who you don't even know. 

I want to live in a country where things like healthcare and a living wage aren't reserved for the ruling class. I'm sick to death of endless war, and I'm even more sick of mass shootings. Why? Because I love America, but more importantly I love the people who live here, even though they're assholes. 

Except you.


----------



## GuitarBizarre

dark_vader said:


> There's no way you're this dumb. Nice troll sir. Well played.


You are a miraculously stupid individual.

Since your position on things seems to be that "loving America" is only possible if you laud America as having only ever done good in the world, let me ask you whether you're proud of a few things.

1 - Are you proud of the US government for instituting MK Ultra?

2 - Are you proud of the fact that the USA, per 100,000 people, imprisons more of those people than any other nation on earth? (655 people per 100,000 are in prison in America. El Salvador imprisons 610. The UAE? 104. Saudi Arabia? 197.)

3 - Are you proud of the US Government and the NRA for failing to stop 57 school shootings this year alone?

4 - Are you proud that the US police force is disproportionately more likely to shoot unarmed black people than unarmed white people?


Now please note - I'm not asking you if you're proud to be an American despite these facts. I am asking you whether these facts *make* you proud to be American?

Let's be clear about this - if you say yes, you are a psychopath. If you say "No, these things are shameful", then perhaps you might consider that wanting to *change these things* (Which is what "progressives" want to do), is *a form of patriotism.
*
Also, let's just ask one more question while we're at it - Do you see the irony in the fact that "the land of the free" imprisons more of their people than anywhere else in the world? 

Seems something of a betrayal of the idea of freedom, no?


----------



## GuitarBizarre

bostjan said:


> I'd like to apply for a new phrase "_Meme non sequitor_" to refer to a meme that does not follow the current conversation.
> 
> Anyone keeping track of how many pages since anyone discussed Marxism in this thread?
> 
> Marx theorized that all social conflict is due to an underlying class struggle. How are the last three pages of discussion here related to class struggles?






MaxOfMetal said:


> I want to live in a country where things like healthcare and a living wage aren't reserved for the ruling class. I'm sick to death of endless war, and I'm even more sick of mass shootings. Why? Because I love America, but more importantly I love the people who live here, even though they're assholes.
> 
> Except you.



Apparently you missed this post. 

Someone also mentioned the idea that in America people will vote against their own interests as poor people on the presumption they will benefit from those policies when they are rich later, without recognising that these policies are why they are not rich and never will be.


----------



## bostjan

"No one who loves America would embrace Marxism."
"But I love America, and I think Marxism might be a good idea."
"Ok. No one who _truly_ loves America would embrace Marxism, so you don't _truly _love America."

https://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#NoTrueScotsman


----------



## GuitarBizarre

diagrammatiks said:


> I feel like you guys are just keeping him around for funsies at this point.
> 
> oh I guess I should contribute as well.
> 
> I just want to spell out that this guy's entire logic is that if you criticize America you hate American. Unless you specifically tell him that you are a vet first. Then it's ok and you can't hate America. Sounds good to me.


America is the least worst option compared to China, the Saudis, the UAE or Russia. 

That said, if those are the people you're beating out to be a "good country", then what does that really say about you?


----------



## diagrammatiks

My quality of life is about the same in America as in China.

The secret is to ignore politics and just make money.

Paying 2 countries worth of taxes isn’t fun but thems the breaks.

Edit. Actually now that I think about it some more quality should really be judged on how things are if you are on the lower end of the economic scale. In that respect from what I know I’d put America belong China. Can’t comment on Saudi Arabia or Russia.


----------



## bostjan

Never been to China, but I've seen and read enough to know that you do not want to be poor and live there.

I've been to Russia, and you don't want to be poor there, either.

These are the sorts of places where poor people have no real life expectancy. The middle class makes very little money, but the cost of living is so much lower that you don't see it in ways you might expect, coming from the West. Like, in a place where a smartphone is under $15, you might see a person with a smartphone who makes ~$5000/year in salary. Since public transit is much more affordable, that person probably won't own their own automobile, or, if they do, it's 35 years old and barely runs. Since housing is relatively expensive, they likely live with extended family in a single family flat or apartment. It's not at all a bad existence, but there is really no mobility. A poor person panhandling in the USA might make three times what a worker in Russia makes. But, most likely, that person is sleeping in a cardboard box under an overpass and possibly eating at least five meals a week out of the trash. A person in that sort of situation has a terrible lifestyle, but might only be a few weeks savings away from getting a used car and drastically improving their options to have a much better lifestyle, where the worker in Russia is pretty much locked into that lifestyle, since there is not really any way to move up, socially or economically. But that's a poor person with a job and a family. Same person without a family, won't have a place to live, and would likely freeze to death the following winter.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> Never been to China, but I've seen and read enough to know that you do not want to be poor and live there.
> 
> I've been to Russia, and you don't want to be poor there, either.
> 
> These are the sorts of places where poor people have no real life expectancy. The middle class makes very little money, but the cost of living is so much lower that you don't see it in ways you might expect, coming from the West. Like, in a place where a smartphone is under $15, you might see a person with a smartphone who makes ~$5000/year in salary. Since public transit is much more affordable, that person probably won't own their own automobile, or, if they do, it's 35 years old and barely runs. Since housing is relatively expensive, they likely live with extended family in a single family flat or apartment. It's not at all a bad existence, but there is really no mobility. A poor person panhandling in the USA might make three times what a worker in Russia makes. But, most likely, that person is sleeping in a cardboard box under an overpass and possibly eating at least five meals a week out of the trash. A person in that sort of situation has a terrible lifestyle, but might only be a few weeks savings away from getting a used car and drastically improving their options to have a much better lifestyle, where the worker in Russia is pretty much locked into that lifestyle, since there is not really any way to move up, socially or economically. But that's a poor person with a job and a family. Same person without a family, won't have a place to live, and would likely freeze to death the following winter.



Kind of off topic, but I was reading an article about how much more expensive beater cars are becoming, and especially maintaining, as cars get more advanced and more expensive and more middle class folks are buying used vehicles.

I'll have to find it, it was on a wrenching blog I check in on occasionally.

It went something like: in the early 00's you could get a reliable, easy to maintain 10 year old car for something like $1200. Now, in 2018, getting something with similar reliability and economy is something like $6000.

I'm really going to try and find it. It was focused on how the barrier into being self sufficient with travel is getting higher and higher for the working poor.


----------



## Drew

dark_vader said:


> I mean, the thread is about Marxism. How much more anti-American can you get?


McCarthyism comes to mind, actually. 

I'm honestly perplexed why you think people in this thread hate America. We want to see this country become better than it is, and we think Donald Trump is doing extreme harm to the nation, but that's a pretty weak definition of hate, you know? Trump isn't America. Thank god.


----------



## bostjan

MaxOfMetal said:


> Kind of off topic, but I was reading an article about how much more expensive beater cars are becoming, and especially maintaining, as cars get more advanced and more expensive and more middle class folks are buying used vehicles.
> 
> I'll have to find it, it was on a wrenching blog I check in on occasionally.
> 
> It went something like: in the early 00's you could get a reliable, easy to maintain 10 year old car for something like $1200. Now, in 2018, getting something with similar reliability and economy is something like $6000.
> 
> I'm really going to try and find it. It was focused on how the barrier into being self sufficient with travel is getting higher and higher for the working poor.



There's a lot to that, I think:

There are obvious things like car parts becoming more expensive (but why are they, since they are being made in larger bulk and to lower quality standards?).

There's also a subtler thing in that car dealers and manufacturers in the USA are keen on suppressing budget models. Like, visit Chevy's, Ford's, or Toyota's website and you can find a new compact car with a manual transmission for around $12-13k. Call any dealers and they'll explain to you that you need to pay a couple thousand in delivery fees and special fees tacked onto that, and you might as well buy a $20k car and not pay the fees. If you go back and forth long enough, some of these dealers will flat out refuse to sell you a cheap car. By advertising that it's available, they get to say that a cheap alternative exists, but by carefully controlling access to the cheap alternative, they can make it so that, to the buyer, the cheap alternative does not exist.

You used to be able to buy a brand new 1100 cc 4 speed Yugo GV for under $4000. Yeah, it's a speck of a car, but, if you think about it, it's not that much different than the 1200 cc 4 speed Toyota Yaris that now sells for $16000. I tried to track down one of the base model Yarises and I'm convinced that they don't really exist.


----------



## bostjan




----------



## Explorer

For me, when someone defends Nazi-ism against the claim it is more anti-American than Marxism, there's no reason to expect that person to suddenly get intelligent.

----

I thought the Marxism-versus-capitalism discussion foundered on the point that no one could explain the dividing line between a worker who built up a successful business, and that same worker hiring employees and then having his business seized and given away.


----------



## Drew

Explorer said:


> I thought the Marxism-versus-capitalism discussion foundered on the point that no one could explain the dividing line between a worker who built up a successful business, and that same worker hiring employees and then having his business seized and given away.


I mean, I guess for _me _the bigger critique I have with capitalism (and I say this not as a defense of communism, but as a flaw in the capitalist model that we need to take seriously if we want too have a market economy that offers a fair and equal _opportunity_ for all Americans) is that when you start talking about utility maximization as a price-setting mechanism with the price being set by the person ascribing highest utility to a thing, etc, then one of the presuppositions you're implicitly making is that all participants have an equal amount of capital, either human capital ("labor") or economic capital, to use to maximize their utility. And that's not really the case. 

I think the thing that made this glaringly obvious to me was reading an account of surging prices of bottled water after the Houston hurricane, and seeing some economist in the WSJ, I think, defend profiteering on the grounds that given that there was a finite source of bottled water, setting a high price for the water would ensure it would go to the people who valued it the most, and that "price gouging" was actually an economically sensible way to distribute a scarce and in-demand resource. 

In _theory_... Sure. But, for that to be true in theory, you, I, and the dude down the street need to have an equivalent ability to buy a single $10 bottle of water, and to have that represent an equivalent portion of our total potential utility. That's not really the case in a capitalist economy. If I have a net wealth of $250,000 and you have a net wealth of $2,500, then the "cost" to me in terms of total resources available for utility maximization is 1/100th of it is for you, and in fact I can essentially corner the market by bidding the price of a bottle up to $2,501 - 1% of my potential utility - and bringing it to a price where you physically cannot match it. That doesn't mean that the bottle is "worth" more to me than it is you, necessarily (it very well may be, but that's beside the point), just that I have to make far fewer other sacrifices to obtain that bottle than you do. 

This is something that mainstream economics recognizes, that as wealth increases the marginal utility of each additional unit of wealth declines, but it's something that I think needs to be formally addressed in a market economy for market price setting to be an equitable means of resource allocation. Otherwise what we have _isn't _a textbook-defined efficient marketplace (something even Adam Smith recognized in Wealth of Nations, pointing to monopolies as an impediment to a free market and that accordingly a free market required some sort of regulation with monopoly-busting powers, for instance; this is a closely related problem, though its veering more towards monopsony than monopoly). 

Anyway, pretending this is still on topic here, lol.


----------



## wat

How does living in America make an individual a bad person?


----------



## Andrew Lloyd Webber

wat said:


> How does living in America make an individual a bad person?



For starters, they chose to be born there.


----------



## Drew

Andrew Lloyd Webber said:


> For starters, they chose to be born there.


Lucky Sperm Club 4 LYFE. \m/


----------



## wat

dark_vader said:


> Do you truly believe that? I mean, in a country of 320 million people there are bound to be a lot of assholes. Are you sure you aren't taking your tiny sphere of personal experience and using that to paint an entire country full of people with the same asshole brush?




Seeing people advocate for straight up wholesale theft from business owners of their assets is disheartening.

Seeing them advocate for this while calling it "patriotism" is downright terrifying.


----------



## narad

wat said:


> Seeing people advocate for straight up wholesale theft from business owners of their assets is disheartening.
> 
> Seeing them advocate for this while calling it "patriotism" is downright terrifying.



Who was advocating it in the first place?


----------



## wat

narad said:


> Who was advocating it in the first place?



Marxists.


----------



## vilk

wat said:


> Marxists.


Did you know that it's actually not a random coincidence that Marx's political theory was called _*commun*_ism?


----------



## wat

vilk said:


> Did you know that it's actually not a random coincidence that Marx's political theory was called _*commun*_ism?



Neither the first or the last time someone came up with a nice-sounding name for straight up theft.


----------



## narad

wat said:


> Neither the first or the last time someone came up with a nice-sounding name for straight up theft.



This all hinges on a very in-the-box view of ownership from a capitalistic viewpoint. You think of theft as taking something from someone who earned it, but that basically assumes that society has a fair system of assessing that value/earn-ership. There are plenty of people who earn more based on their position than on the value of their actions (some may even be President!). So taking from these people, eh, hard for me to consider it stealing if someone's making $3,000 an hour to oversee some trust or carry on a family business. I'm not super pro-communism, but there's obviously a lot of wealth accumulating into increasingly fewer hands, and I think there are very few humans that do things that are of super high value (in terms of creating good in the world) compared to others.

One thing I like about Japan is that there's a lot more balance in employee salary. In the USA your CEO will make like 5000x an average worker, while in Japan that figure is often a bit closer to 5-10x. Just a bit better for the society overall if people are treated a more fair with respect to one another.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> Just a bit better for the society overall if people are treated a more fair with respect to one another.



Get the fuck out of here with that un-American bullshit.


----------



## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> Get the fuck out of here with that un-American bullshit.



Apologies #alwaysbeclosing


----------



## wat

There are two kinds of people.

1. Those who believe people are entitled to their own money and should have the freedom to use it as they wish

2. Marxists


----------



## AngstRiddenDreams

wat said:


> There are two kinds of people.
> 
> 1. Those who believe people are entitled to their own money and should have the freedom to use it as they wish
> 
> 2. Marxists


There are two types of people in this world. 
1.) People who understand the nuance of ideas in topics like this.

2.) Those who make sweeping generalizations.


----------



## narad

wat said:


> There are two kinds of people.
> 
> 1. Those who believe people are entitled to their own money and should have the freedom to use it as they wish
> 
> 2. Marxists



The problem lies in that definition of "their own money". But yea, I like views of the world simple enough to print on t-shirts also. In theory.


----------



## Adam Of Angels

There simply is no way to objectively determine how wealth should be distributed, and what each must do to in order to get their fair share. But, we value nothing more than individual freedom, and so agreement between individuals is maybe the fairest means possible.


----------



## Drew

wat said:


> There are two kinds of people.
> 
> 1. Those who believe people are entitled to their own money and should have the freedom to use it as they wish
> 
> 2. Marxists


There are two types of people. 1) People who can extrapolate from incomplete datasets.


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> There are two types of people. 1) People who can extrapolate from incomplete datasets.


I thought there were 10 kinds of people.

Those who understand binary and those who don't.


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> I thought there were 10 kinds of people.
> 
> Those who understand binary and those who don't.



What about the other 1000 people?


----------



## StevenC

narad said:


> What about the other 1000 people?


The other four thousand and ninety six people aren't my problem.


----------



## Drew

This thread has taken a turn for the better.


----------



## zappatton2

Drew said:


> This thread has taken a turn for the better.


As a statistician by trade, I wholeheartedly agree!!


----------



## wat

You either believe in freedom or you dont

If you don't, you're probably a Marxist


----------



## kamello

can't speak on behalf of the US standart of living, but here in Chile we are one of the most liberal economies in the world, and one of the strongest economies in America ...

...and it's fucking shit.
we have the highest GDP Per capita in latin america, yet we are the second most inequal country in the OECD, with of the lowest minimum wages,


Our healthcare? GREAT! if you can pay it
Our education? decent if you can pay it, terrible if you can't. We have the second highest prices in education, just behind the US, but with the low wages, it feels even worse (for example, one month of my career is about 2.5 times what I can make working 45 hours a week ) 


so yeah, I believe in freedom, but freedom without equality, is just privilege


----------



## AngstRiddenDreams

wat said:


> You either believe in freedom or you dont
> 
> If you don't, you're probably a Marxist


Of course, the crux of Marxism: the elimination of freedom. Because a man who does not have to worry about health care, housing, food, or wages proportional to his labor is not a free man.


----------



## GuitarBizarre

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Of course, the crux of Marxism: the elimination of freedom. Because a man who does not have to worry about health care, housing, food, or wages proportional to his labor is not a free man.


Don't forget that the Marxist definition of socialism/communism ultimately requires the dissolution of the machinery of state, which is clearly a totally anti-freedom idea.


----------



## kamello

now, adding a bit more to the topic, instead of just rambling from my guts; I think marxism should be re-thinked in the XXI Century context. Now we don't see exploitation in an absolute way as Marx did see around the XIX Century, by absolute; Marx defines it as impoverishment, or imposibility of enrichment of the working class. Marx also predicted that this dynamic wouldn't stay for too long and described the idea of relative exploitation (what we currently see) Workers nowdays definitely have it way, waaaay better than what it was around just mere decades ago, but also the levels of concentration of wealthness was something that just wasn't possible with the market and production dynamics of the XIX century, so now; instead of having a poor and exploited working class without much access to the goods that himself helped to produce; now we have an exploited middle class, with access to the market (thanks to credit) and a far, far more wealthy bourgeoisie. 

What's the problem with this? that the modernization in production techniques and the abundance of wealth haven't traslated into more justice in the distribution of wealth

Last year I attended to some Marxism classes by a renowed Chilean profesor, and his proposition of a Hegelian-Marxism was the best answer I got for this question of "how can we understand and implement marxism in the XXI century" 

If anyone is interested, here are some papers that tackles that question (point 4 being the most relevant)
https://www.cperezs.org/en/proposal-of-a-hegelian-marxism/text.html#4._The_communist_horizon


spoiler: it doesn't involve "stealing" the property, but reducing it's importance little by little. A concept that was devoloped -curiously- by a liberal; J.M. Keynes


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## Drew

wat said:


> You either believe in freedom or you dont
> 
> If you don't, you're probably a Marxist


I'm sorry, but we were doing so good here until you decided to ruin our fun. 

There are two types of people in this world, those with functional senses of humor, and @wat


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## MaxOfMetal

Drew said:


> I'm sorry, but we were doing so good here until you decided to ruin our fun.
> 
> There are two types of people in this world, those with functional senses of humor, and @wat



I for one have found his posts quite hilarious.


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## Cabinet

I see you implied Taiwan is an independent country. I also like to live dangerously.


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