Love to spend insane amounts of resources on creating a phone that has the same tech and capabilities as all the other phones, but I can’t just get access to their research and they can’t just get access to mine.
Love to spend insane amount of time working up a cure to covid, but I can’t share my research with others and they can’t share it with me, yay this is awesome.
Love to spend insane amount of resources working out how to make people want to buy a sugary drink and then spend even more to make them want to buy my drink specifically.
Love to build empty houses and love to create 1.21 times more food than we need.
Love to do all this as the world is burning and people are starving.
Capitalism is the most efficient distribution of resources
You didn’t engage with their argument, but good try nonetheless. It’s nice to see you cling to a fallacy rather than engage in good-faith discussion of an argument clearly illustrated for you to relate to.
There is no point in engaging with someone playing such games. They’re not going to be convinced when they’re already putting words in the opposition’s mouth.
A good faith discussion is not about convincing another, but instead about having an open exchange of information.
They’re not going to be convinced when they’re already putting words in the opposition’s mouth.
They’re illustrating a point which you failed to engage with. In no way did it put words in your mouth. The fact that you choose to be insulted by the way they decided to illustrate that point rather than engage with them in good faith says a lot more about you.
To reiterate: You didn’t engage with their argument, but good try nonetheless. It’s nice to see you cling to a fallacy rather than engage in good-faith discussion of an argument clearly illustrated for you to relate to.
Do better.
Damn this third person never heard about the reserve army of labor, the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, and like all of American history showing the hollowing out of working class power. JUST INVEST YOUR NON-EXISTENT SAVINGS INTO NEW COMPANIES ITS SO EASY. And please how will your worker coop survive in this hellscape with a bourgeois state over it? It will be outcompeted and swallowed immediately by corporations who have no qualms over worker or environmental rights. This isn’t china, Huawei (a worker coop) is villified and attacked at every turn here. You know maybe you have a point, let’s be more like China.
Does the third person argue that it is easy or does the third person only argue that it is easier than the alternatives? How easy would it be to run a revolution or just to establish a socialist party?
What is the third person missing about the reserve army of labor? To me, it seems that reducing the reserve army of labor is their main argument.
What the third person doesn’t mention is that there is a tendency to spend all possible income. The housing market shows that most people use reduced interest rates to increase their offer to outcompete somebody instead of sticking to their limits.
Are skilled workers willing to share their increased income with the poor? San Francisco has huge social problems even though many workers have a huge income.
This worked (to some extent, in the small cohort of industrialized capitalist countries as a sort of class collaborationist regime mediated by unions and a relatively activist government) for around 20-30 years after WWII but that’s exactly what it is - something that will only work temporarily and for as long as it’s tolerable to capitalists, because the political system is built by and for capitalists, and as soon as they see an opening they will use the state to beat back and discipline labor (in this case the neoliberal reaction that’s continued since the 80s). Reformism is a circular dead end because politics and economics are inseparable, and political power just like economic power under capitalism is always (in the long term) gonna be stacked in favor of the people with capital - and those people aren’t gonna give up their power without a fight.
That analysis is also looking at the whole labor market as a closed system within rich capitalist countries when the reality is that most of the breathing room that the middle class / unionized labor had during that period was built on top of capitalist super exploitation of labor in Africa, South America and Asia, and that sort of exported exploitation is always gonna be the case under a capitalist political system built around nation states.
If the capitalists expanded their workforce to Africa, South America and Asia, and the middle class was temporary happy with consuming slightly increased wages instead of seeding competition in those countries, then they hadn’t cared about markets.
The middle class always has the breathing room down to consuming as little as the poor. If they don’t use it to control markets, how are they going to maintain a socialist or communist system?
Markets have brought more people out of poverty than anything.
Yes, just like the Irish people who were “helped” by the free market in the 1840s. Or the Indian people who were “helped” by the free market in the late 1800s. You might be interested in this book by the late, great Mike Davis which completely refutes your ideas with hard evidence that the free market can be used (and has been used) as a tool of genocide: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7859
The maoist uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry
I think it is important to take a critical look at past tragedies and mistakes, and work hard to avoid them in the future. Unfortunately I fear that many people would repeat them if given the opportunity and it served their idealogical and/or selfish interests, unless it was more convenient to do the right thing.
Yeah I also think we should look at the past and the present in order to create a better future, which is why I say one famine once is better than constant famines like we have now. How many millions die of hunger each year? How many have died at the hands of capitalism? How many are dying? While we have food available. This isn’t even to count for the famines that were enacted on purpose like those the british did in Ireland and in India.
Meanwhile both the USSR and China managed to eliminate famine in regions that had been plagued by it since history could account for it. Were the countries perfect? Far from it. Pretending that they are somehow worse for eliminating famine while people are starving in countries with food on the shelves is ridiculous.
They eliminated famine in their own borders … after causing famine in their own borders. Congratulations, I guess?
International efforts to deliver food aid to those most in need are typically hampered by war, not by a lack of food. Real supply & demand issues caused by poor yields, conflicts & other supply chain disruptions often drive up prices which hits the poor the hardest, but we haven’t had a global food shortage in a long time.
Both imperial Russia and Qing China were plagued by frequent famines, I don’t see how it is damnng that the PRC and the USSR had a famine in their early years of existence (after they’d fought long and drawn out wars), when they then never had famines again.
There a millions of people starving in the us today, in Europe, in africa, in south America, in the middle east, in India. There is more than enough food, but somehow these capitalist countries have millions starving. The us has kids missing lunch in school, despite food being available in cafeterias.
If one famine once in a region that used to be plagued by famines is too much for you, what does this ever-present famine then mean to you? What system do you suppose we make use of? Surely you cannot be a capitalist, since you are so staunchly against people starving
There are A LOT of problems out there, I agree. There is, however, a difference between destroying a country/regions ability to produce essential and strategic goods (like food, which has very immediate effect) through reckless decisions by authoritarian regimes (then throw in the Holodomor for fun), and inequality & a lack of social safety nets.
Right now, the whole world has, through various efforts, has solved the global food production issue. That the soviets and china managed to solve this aspect of it too is not a win for socialism, especially given the mass starvation that accompanied their efforts, but I see (and correct me if I have misunderstood) you and others holding this up as some kind of tenuous proof of superiority.
Social inequality and the denial of what I believe are basic human rights (food, housing, safety, access to healthcare, and freedom of expression), OTOH, are a continuing problem world-wide. I am much more interested in efforts here - both local, regional, and global.
Why should they? You do not engage with any of the responses of substance. When you choose not to engage in good-faith discussion, why you believe you deserve anything other than ridicule?
I engage with an upvote. If there’s something more to be said, I’ll say it. An unfortunate side effect is that those good comments get drowned out by nonsense initiated by … hexbears, and then further upvoted by hexbears. It doesn’t seem like an effective strategy to me, but if that is what y’all want to do, you can. It will probably lead to more of the same, along with more complaints, instances defederating, and personal user & instance blocks.
You are already engaged in a discussion, which you engaged by posting and then responding to posts. Your responses are then show. To be in bad faith, since you are not willing to interact with the argumens other users present in good faith. This is typical of you libs, but it is an unfortunate side effect that good and educating discussion gets drowned out by you uneducated idiots that think a link to Wikipedia means anything… Good education is drowned out by you smuglords that fail to realise civility is a two-way street. These snide comments you make are then further expounded by other snide idiots, which further muddies the waters and ruins discussion, it doesn’t seem like an effective strategy to me, because you get called out on it, that is what you all want to do and sadly the only thing that can be done in response is to not take you seriously until you either get too hurt that your idiotic comments results in similarly asinine responses or you get too hurt from the people calling you on your bullshit and you defederate
And now you turn to name calling and making further assumptions about me? Sigh.
There are threads that end with good comments or arguments, either because they are solid (eg. class struggle is never ending) or funny. They don’t need me to pat them on the head.
If we were talking amongst ourselves you’d be right but here we’re responding to a liberal OP who doesn’t know what words mean and purposefully worded their intent to avoid the word “capitalism”
Obviously it is a counterfactual but no serious leftist would say that China without market reforms wouldn’t have eradicated poverty, and moreover done it faster and more completely. The seeds of poverty alleviation were planted during the Maoist era; improvement in health, education improvement, and industrialization.
To corroborate your point you can just look at life expectancy in rural communities to see that it rose steadily throughout the Maoist period and then froze during the Dengist reforms
Did you know that China is responsible for 75% of the global poverty reduction over the last 40 years?
Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below $1.90 per day – the International Poverty Line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty– has fallen by close to 800 million. With this, China has contributed close to three-quarters of the global reduction in the number of people living in extreme poverty. At China’s current national poverty line, the number of poor fell by 770 million over the same period.
Do you know how China got such a huge poverty by the 1980s? Do you know how China got the wealth to start impacting it’s poverty?
Hint: the CCP took power in 1949. The Maoist era ended 30 years later, and massive economic liberalisation reforms started.
China today is a world trade powerhouse governed by an elite class (The CCP) with the proles given just enough to keep them where they are. It’s lifted them out of poverty, but it is the shining example of a totalitarian capitist state. If anybody thinks the proletariat have power in China, and it is therefore a socialist state…or that it’s classless with no elite and a communist state… well… You need to talk to some Chinese people.
Yes, even those ones. I’ve met a few and the stories they tell send shivers down my spine. They think they’re telling me good thing about their country, and I listen respectfully. However, it sounds like being caged in a zoo. The keepers provide your essentials, but you have no freedom.
Funny, that’s how I feel whenever I hear yanks talk about life in the us. Sounds like a hellscape.
I’ve only ever met Chinese people that seemed happy about the place.
AHAHAHAHAHHAAHA HAHAHAHHA AHHHH HAHAH.
Oh wait you’re serious? That’s even funnier.
Tell me where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?
The recent decades trend of people being lifted out of poverty is solely due to China. America has more and more starving people, homeless and working sick.
Well that’s just bullshit. Markets have brought more people out of poverty than anything.
Capitalism literally requires poverty to even function.
Lib - “Markets make everything cheaper, which is good.”
Leftist - “But if there is a labor market, won’t that make labor cheaper?”
Lib - “Yes, and that is good.”
Leftist - “How is that good?”
Lib - “It leads to more profits.”
Leftist - “But why is it good to have more profits?”
Lib - “Because a good country is when corporations make profits, and the more profits the corporations make, the gooder the country is.”
Love to spend insane amounts of resources on creating a phone that has the same tech and capabilities as all the other phones, but I can’t just get access to their research and they can’t just get access to mine.
Love to spend insane amount of time working up a cure to covid, but I can’t share my research with others and they can’t share it with me, yay this is awesome.
Love to spend insane amount of resources working out how to make people want to buy a sugary drink and then spend even more to make them want to buy my drink specifically.
Love to build empty houses and love to create 1.21 times more food than we need.
Love to do all this as the world is burning and people are starving.
Capitalism is the most efficient distribution of resources
Kid: “Mommy, what’s a strawman?”
Mother: “Take a look a this post here. See how they speak for both sides of the argument?”
Kid: “Yes, they’re arguing with themselves.”
Mother: “Exactly, and they can make their opponent say what they want.”
Kid: “That seems like an easy way to make your argument look good”
Mother: "Yes. It’s like fighting someone who can’t put up any resistance. They could be made of straw. A strawman. "
Kid: “Oh, I see.”
You didn’t engage with their argument, but good try nonetheless. It’s nice to see you cling to a fallacy rather than engage in good-faith discussion of an argument clearly illustrated for you to relate to.
There is no point in engaging with someone playing such games. They’re not going to be convinced when they’re already putting words in the opposition’s mouth.
A good faith discussion is not about convincing another, but instead about having an open exchange of information.
They’re illustrating a point which you failed to engage with. In no way did it put words in your mouth. The fact that you choose to be insulted by the way they decided to illustrate that point rather than engage with them in good faith says a lot more about you.
To reiterate: You didn’t engage with their argument, but good try nonetheless. It’s nice to see you cling to a fallacy rather than engage in good-faith discussion of an argument clearly illustrated for you to relate to.
Do better.
A third person - "Not necessarily. If the demand for labor is bigger than the supply then markets make labor more expensive.
Leftist - " How is that possible? "
A third person - " There are various ways. Workers could start more cooperatives or invest their savings in new companies"
Leftist - “But why should I care about markets when it is easier to change the political system?”
A third person - “Is it easier?”
Damn this third person never heard about the reserve army of labor, the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, and like all of American history showing the hollowing out of working class power. JUST INVEST YOUR NON-EXISTENT SAVINGS INTO NEW COMPANIES ITS SO EASY. And please how will your worker coop survive in this hellscape with a bourgeois state over it? It will be outcompeted and swallowed immediately by corporations who have no qualms over worker or environmental rights. This isn’t china, Huawei (a worker coop) is villified and attacked at every turn here.
You know maybe you have a point, let’s be more like China.
Does the third person argue that it is easy or does the third person only argue that it is easier than the alternatives? How easy would it be to run a revolution or just to establish a socialist party?
What is the third person missing about the reserve army of labor? To me, it seems that reducing the reserve army of labor is their main argument.
What the third person doesn’t mention is that there is a tendency to spend all possible income. The housing market shows that most people use reduced interest rates to increase their offer to outcompete somebody instead of sticking to their limits.
Are skilled workers willing to share their increased income with the poor? San Francisco has huge social problems even though many workers have a huge income.
This worked (to some extent, in the small cohort of industrialized capitalist countries as a sort of class collaborationist regime mediated by unions and a relatively activist government) for around 20-30 years after WWII but that’s exactly what it is - something that will only work temporarily and for as long as it’s tolerable to capitalists, because the political system is built by and for capitalists, and as soon as they see an opening they will use the state to beat back and discipline labor (in this case the neoliberal reaction that’s continued since the 80s). Reformism is a circular dead end because politics and economics are inseparable, and political power just like economic power under capitalism is always (in the long term) gonna be stacked in favor of the people with capital - and those people aren’t gonna give up their power without a fight.
That analysis is also looking at the whole labor market as a closed system within rich capitalist countries when the reality is that most of the breathing room that the middle class / unionized labor had during that period was built on top of capitalist super exploitation of labor in Africa, South America and Asia, and that sort of exported exploitation is always gonna be the case under a capitalist political system built around nation states.
If the capitalists expanded their workforce to Africa, South America and Asia, and the middle class was temporary happy with consuming slightly increased wages instead of seeding competition in those countries, then they hadn’t cared about markets.
The middle class always has the breathing room down to consuming as little as the poor. If they don’t use it to control markets, how are they going to maintain a socialist or communist system?
Yes, just like the Irish people who were “helped” by the free market in the 1840s. Or the Indian people who were “helped” by the free market in the late 1800s. You might be interested in this book by the late, great Mike Davis which completely refutes your ideas with hard evidence that the free market can be used (and has been used) as a tool of genocide: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7859
Capitalism has killed millions more than its apologists could ever hope to claim communism has.
liberals DESTROYED by FACTS and LOGIC
The maoist uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry
In that case, it was totally worth the deadliest famine in history. :-P
One famine one time is definitely preferable to the constant famines that exist under capitalism
If only the dead could argue their case…
I think it is important to take a critical look at past tragedies and mistakes, and work hard to avoid them in the future. Unfortunately I fear that many people would repeat them if given the opportunity and it served their idealogical and/or selfish interests, unless it was more convenient to do the right thing.
Yeah I also think we should look at the past and the present in order to create a better future, which is why I say one famine once is better than constant famines like we have now. How many millions die of hunger each year? How many have died at the hands of capitalism? How many are dying? While we have food available. This isn’t even to count for the famines that were enacted on purpose like those the british did in Ireland and in India.
Meanwhile both the USSR and China managed to eliminate famine in regions that had been plagued by it since history could account for it. Were the countries perfect? Far from it. Pretending that they are somehow worse for eliminating famine while people are starving in countries with food on the shelves is ridiculous.
They eliminated famine in their own borders … after causing famine in their own borders. Congratulations, I guess?
International efforts to deliver food aid to those most in need are typically hampered by war, not by a lack of food. Real supply & demand issues caused by poor yields, conflicts & other supply chain disruptions often drive up prices which hits the poor the hardest, but we haven’t had a global food shortage in a long time.
Both imperial Russia and Qing China were plagued by frequent famines, I don’t see how it is damnng that the PRC and the USSR had a famine in their early years of existence (after they’d fought long and drawn out wars), when they then never had famines again.
There a millions of people starving in the us today, in Europe, in africa, in south America, in the middle east, in India. There is more than enough food, but somehow these capitalist countries have millions starving. The us has kids missing lunch in school, despite food being available in cafeterias.
If one famine once in a region that used to be plagued by famines is too much for you, what does this ever-present famine then mean to you? What system do you suppose we make use of? Surely you cannot be a capitalist, since you are so staunchly against people starving
There are A LOT of problems out there, I agree. There is, however, a difference between destroying a country/regions ability to produce essential and strategic goods (like food, which has very immediate effect) through reckless decisions by authoritarian regimes (then throw in the Holodomor for fun), and inequality & a lack of social safety nets.
Right now, the whole world has, through various efforts, has solved the global food production issue. That the soviets and china managed to solve this aspect of it too is not a win for socialism, especially given the mass starvation that accompanied their efforts, but I see (and correct me if I have misunderstood) you and others holding this up as some kind of tenuous proof of superiority.
Social inequality and the denial of what I believe are basic human rights (food, housing, safety, access to healthcare, and freedom of expression), OTOH, are a continuing problem world-wide. I am much more interested in efforts here - both local, regional, and global.
Those who care more about past tragedies than current tragedies don’t care at all. They’re just looking for some excuse to feel self-righteous.
Thanks for the quotable quote, but I didn’t say nor imply that.
gottem
Is that another circle-jerk response? Say something useful (ie. that has significance outside of your circle), please.
Why should they? You do not engage with any of the responses of substance. When you choose not to engage in good-faith discussion, why you believe you deserve anything other than ridicule?
I engage with an upvote. If there’s something more to be said, I’ll say it. An unfortunate side effect is that those good comments get drowned out by nonsense initiated by … hexbears, and then further upvoted by hexbears. It doesn’t seem like an effective strategy to me, but if that is what y’all want to do, you can. It will probably lead to more of the same, along with more complaints, instances defederating, and personal user & instance blocks.
You are already engaged in a discussion, which you engaged by posting and then responding to posts. Your responses are then show. To be in bad faith, since you are not willing to interact with the argumens other users present in good faith. This is typical of you libs, but it is an unfortunate side effect that good and educating discussion gets drowned out by you uneducated idiots that think a link to Wikipedia means anything… Good education is drowned out by you smuglords that fail to realise civility is a two-way street. These snide comments you make are then further expounded by other snide idiots, which further muddies the waters and ruins discussion, it doesn’t seem like an effective strategy to me, because you get called out on it, that is what you all want to do and sadly the only thing that can be done in response is to not take you seriously until you either get too hurt that your idiotic comments results in similarly asinine responses or you get too hurt from the people calling you on your bullshit and you defederate
And now you turn to name calling and making further assumptions about me? Sigh.
There are threads that end with good comments or arguments, either because they are solid (eg. class struggle is never ending) or funny. They don’t need me to pat them on the head.
Wrong, that would be China, under the direction of the CPC
Deng literally introduced market reforms to do so. This is not the own you think it is
If we were talking amongst ourselves you’d be right but here we’re responding to a liberal OP who doesn’t know what words mean and purposefully worded their intent to avoid the word “capitalism”
Fair point
For the sake of simplicity, please enjoy the following meme:
Obviously it is a counterfactual but no serious leftist would say that China without market reforms wouldn’t have eradicated poverty, and moreover done it faster and more completely. The seeds of poverty alleviation were planted during the Maoist era; improvement in health, education improvement, and industrialization.
To corroborate your point you can just look at life expectancy in rural communities to see that it rose steadily throughout the Maoist period and then froze during the Dengist reforms
Gotta develop the industrial capacity before you can seize it
Did you know that China is responsible for 75% of the global poverty reduction over the last 40 years?
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/e9a5bc3c-718d-57d8-9558-ce325407f737/content
This is the correct response. Practically all of global poverty reduction is being done by central planning, right now.
Do you know how China got such a huge poverty by the 1980s? Do you know how China got the wealth to start impacting it’s poverty?
Hint: the CCP took power in 1949. The Maoist era ended 30 years later, and massive economic liberalisation reforms started.
China today is a world trade powerhouse governed by an elite class (The CCP) with the proles given just enough to keep them where they are. It’s lifted them out of poverty, but it is the shining example of a totalitarian capitist state. If anybody thinks the proletariat have power in China, and it is therefore a socialist state…or that it’s classless with no elite and a communist state… well… You need to talk to some Chinese people.
Glad to see Liberals busting out the good old “it’s not real socialism!!111!!” to cope with China’s success :’)
You mean the Chinese people that overwhelmingly.support the CPC and their government? Ok
Yes, even those ones. I’ve met a few and the stories they tell send shivers down my spine. They think they’re telling me good thing about their country, and I listen respectfully. However, it sounds like being caged in a zoo. The keepers provide your essentials, but you have no freedom.
Funny, that’s how I feel whenever I hear yanks talk about life in the us. Sounds like a hellscape.
I’ve only ever met Chinese people that seemed happy about the place.
“Chinese people mostly like being animals”
…being treated like animals by their government, rather than the humans they are.
“Chinese people mostly like being treated like animals by their government”
Anything?
Yeah, but please don’t say that too much, we don’t want to carry water for the CCP
*CPC
I don’t think you got the joke
Yeah it completely wooshed over my head, I thought you were serious
No it hasn’t, socialist agitation in the teeth of capitalist opposition did that
Without it westerners would still be working 16 hour days seven days a week without any safety nets while dying of lead poisoning
AHAHAHAHAHHAAHA HAHAHAHHA AHHHH HAHAH.
Oh wait you’re serious? That’s even funnier.
Tell me where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?
The recent decades trend of people being lifted out of poverty is solely due to China. America has more and more starving people, homeless and working sick.