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

Well, nothing's justifiable or unjustifiable from an amoral perspective; that's the point of the "a-" prefix. The problem isn't that the acts of crime or their impacts are "immoral", it's the fact that crime and unrest destabilise the capitalist society, burden its government and hinder the ability of capitalism - or, for that matter, any socioeconomic system - to run smoothly. The crippling levels of inequality in countries like South Africa and Brazil are partly why, despite being in the BRICS group, these countries had a lot of problems which hampered their growth. This is why inequality and the consequent social damage are things to avoid if you want an effective capitalist society. But of course, too much equality in capitalism causes problems too, except in tiny countries with ample natural resources (*cough*Norway*cough*).

 

Well a good example would be the first stages of mercantilist capitalism in America where a Mr. Belcher kept grain on ships to make money when the city he was exporting from was starving of a bread shortage. Essentially, capitalists tend to care more about making more money than doing the right thing for the commonwealth. As such, you have a rejection of morality for monetary gain. The New York mob is a good example as well. They would kill to make money, because money in itself gives people more power. In a system based on who has more money than others, morality is often rejected because it would entail giving up money for another.

My main concern with incentive is the problem that if you take out a monetary incentive, people aren't guaranteed to want to work, or treat work as leisure. Sure, you can make the assumption that people would do the right thing, but the fact remains that that is all speculation, and the only way to ensure that people will do something is to either bribe them or force them. Capitalism is basically just mass scale bribery of the population, communism/socialism is basically just hanging it all and praying people will work. If you have a system in places where the government owns the economy and trades goods and services for money earned by the people making those services, what you get is a society driven not on making more money than another, but working harder to get goods and services under the direct supervision of an authority figure so no foul play could be involved.

As for the third point, communism was attempted under the same conditions because those countries were pushed towards communism for the same reason. If you put the EU under a Marxist economy, they wouldn't necessarily fail in theory, but you cannot guarantee that they won't fail, which is the problem with doing a mass switch. Because capitalism is an easier theory to understand, you make money and use it to trade for things, and it took hold earlier, there exists a pretense that capitalism is the only economic strategy that works. Nowadays, its starting to not work, but its not working in every country equally that no one is really speaking out against it at this point; perhaps they will in the future, but it hasn't got to the point of anarchy yet.

 

This thread is a great example of right wing American ignorance being exposed to intellect and knowledge gained outside of their bubble. The fact that their ignorance is being destroyed by a 14 year old from another country is just a bonus I guess.

 

Didn't you acknowledge that neither "big government" nor free market policies are working?

Freedom for all? Tell that to the 2,6 billion people in the world without basic sanitation, the 800 million who are starving, the 1 billion children in poverty. You can't be free when you don't know when your next meal is going to be. And the reason why so many people don't know is that capitalism is utterly failing to meet their needs.

Even in the rich world, relative poverty makes many people's lives miserable, and this has been worsened by the austerity measures implemented (particularly in Europe) in recent years after too much money was spent cleaning up after capitalism's latest crisis. If someone is lucky enough to live in Europe or America and not be poor, they're likely to be having a sh!tty life, because work is too stressful and not engaging and work-related mental health issues are worryingly prevalent despite the continued refusal of Western governments to acknowledge this. On top of that, having no real say in government, having your labour exploited and being alienated from its product are essential parts of working class life under capitalism.

Not really; in most countries basic services are not provided to all, and in very few are they actually effective.

But anyway, that isn't the goal of socialism/communism. The goal is to create a sustainable mode of production which produces and allocates with efficacy and without all the contradictions of capitalism. Some positive side effects would be the end to the treatment of workers as disembodied labour-power, the merging of work and leisure, the liberation of minorities, women, LGBT+ people and other oppressed groups, the lack of legal constraints and pressurising, harmful hierarchies and so on.

True. Capitalism used to work; now it doesn't, and this is partly down to (inevitable) globalisation.

Yep.

Funnily enough, Marxists have been predicting as much for over 100 years.

I absolutely agree with your base sentiment here. The world is dynamic and ever-changing, and communists acknowledge and appreciate that - in fact, it was one of the core messages of dialectical and historical materialism. We're not reactionaries; we don't want to go back to some imaginary golden age. Instead, we see the trend of continuous globalisation and technological advancement and how this is slowly but surely compromising capitalism, and want to build a mode of production which is better suited to the material conditions of today's world. This mode of production will involve scientific planning to directly meet human needs, a system of workplace organisation which doesn't leave the majority of people too exhausted and uninspired to innovate or to enjoy life and the end of coercive institutions and class antagonisms. At last, "freedom for all" won't be an abstract concept or a political slogan, but a reality.

(Damn, I got passionate there.)

 

But by whose standards is making money not "the right thing"? Capitalists would certainly argue that their money-making is moral.

If work and the production relations involved is transformed and made less pressurising, tiresome and forced (obviously, along with a transformation of the education system etc.) people will respond. If work is no longer about money, but it gives people the chance to do what they love in a pleasant atmosphere, people are going to change how they conceptualise work, because the concept of work will be different. It's not an assumption that people will do "the right thing" (what is "the right thing?") so much as a calculation: change in social conditions => change in behaviour.

The government owning a capitalist economy (trading necessitates the law of value, i.e. some kind of capitalism) isn't really a great idea. It tends to cause bureaucracy and deter investment. Also, working under direct supervision doesn't sound like much fun.

They were attempted under the same conditions because one revolution failed due to its isolation and then decided to sponsor a bunch of other pseudo-revolutions which all made the same mistakes as it did. Failure (and success) occurs because of conditions; if conditions are conducive enough to revolution, one can almost guarantee success.

Revolutionary activity seems to run in cycles: there was an upswing in the 60s and little blips since, but right now we are deep in a period of reaction, which is why everyone appears to be apathetic about capitalism's failures.

 

Question: Is capitalism helping the world to progress? If so, how?

My thoughts: Yes, by and large. We are advancing rapidly technologically, and this advance has always been spearheaded by free, i.e. capitalistic, nations, especially the USA. America is a runaway success in many areas, and our problems pale in comparison to problems elsewhere, often places where corruption reigns and people are not free, and often lack basic human rights that we take for granted. Capitalism is a large and integral part of this system we enjoy and take for granted. It is national leadership from the ground up, as opposed to having a giant bureaucracy try, and fail miserably, to direct everything.

Look at how the communist nations of the world have compared historically and at present. They do not even come close to keeping pace with the free, i.e. capitalist, world. Further, their people often seek to escape such places to come here, where they can freely pursue a career and succeed unhindered. I'm sure you've heard of brain drain, and that has always been a one-way flow from communist and corrupt nations to what is aptly termed the Free World, where capitalism is at work.

Re: Didn't you acknowledge that neither "big government" nor free market policies are working?

Indeed, big government, which is akin to communism, a system involving a large bureaucracy attempting to manage everything from the top down and attempting to fit individuals into an artificially woven economic and social fabric, often fails us. This is because grand designs very often fail to pan out as hoped or planned. It's a lesson we need to learn from both history and the present, so that we can avoid this pitfall going forward. As for the free market, already we don't really have that now the way we used to thanks to the central banking and fiat currency system that is now employed globally. It's working well enough for the present, however. The systems we have in the Free World are still allowing innovation to thrive, allowing for people to live with a good amount of economic freedom, and generally keeping us happy and comfortable.

You bring up poverty. It's an interesting topic, because here in the land of capitalism, poverty doesn't mean the same as it means elsewhere. A poor American who isn't homeless (and the homeless represent a special kind of poverty) typically has heat and air conditioning, plenty of food with government programs to help with affording it, entertainment, schooling... If they are lacking something, it's down to the character of the family and the community in question, and these are problems that can hardly be blamed on capitalism! If capitalism plays a part, it's in allowing certain areas to fail economically, such as what has happened in Flint, MI. Manufacturers left and a failure on the part of local and state governments permitted the area to deteriorate. It was and is a difficult problem to overcome, I am sure, but it's not one that we would ever need communism to fix, either.

 

If nothing is justifiable or unjustifiable from an amoral perspective, then does it not follow that neither efficiency nor stability are justifiable values or unjustifiable values from an amoral perspective?

 

IMO, not anymore.

But how much are we advancing relative to our potential capacity to advance? Capitalism and its inefficient allocation of resources causes a vast amount of human potential - namely, the potential of everyone living in a poor country or in poverty, everyone with low levels of education and everyone toiling away at a meaningless, disempowering job which they hate, all of whom don't have the means to harness their potential. Capitalism is also inefficient in terms of production; innovation and investment in new machinery etc. only occurs when it is profitable, the anarchy in production wastes a vast amount of resources which could be otherwise used and there is far too much surplus labour. As Marx said:

Mmkay, but America doesn't exist in isolation. Every country in the world with private property, wage labour and commodity production - is capitalist, in other words every single country save a few tribal spots, not just the rich countries. For all the ostensible success stories of capitalism (and even these are still riddled with contradictions), there are many more failures: see much of South America, Africa and Southeast and Central Asia.

I think I addressed this before at some point, but capitalism cannot be leadership from the ground up when there is no option to vote against it, politics is dominated by money and there is barely any direct democracy. And this disregards all the undemocratic capitalist countries (again, South America, Africa, Central and Southeast Asia).

Well the USSR was at the forefront of scientific innovation for much of the 20th century, but it wasn't communist, so that's irrelevant. All the so-called communist states had private property, wage labour and commodity production, making them merely a particularly bureaucratic and inefficient type of capitalism.

In communism there is no government, let alone a big one. I've been very vocal about my opposition to big government on this site and think that redistributive policies, high spending and taxation and too much regulation is a recipe for disaster. I don't think any logical person who saw what happened to Europe in 2008-9 would support big government.

The reasons why "grand designs" have failed in the past is that material conditions went awry, for whatever reason. This happened to capitalist revolutions too: recall the events in Prussia in 1848, for example.

See the point I made earlier about America not being in isolation. I don't think poverty can always be blamed on community issues, because if it could, there would be a heck of a lot of community issues. Take a look at this: https://commissaress.wordpress.com/political-articles/free-markets-vs-freedom/

 

I'm not saying that efficiency or stability is "justifiable", I'm saying that it makes the job of the ruling class and generally everyone else's lives easier and allows for more development in production, which I think is fundamentally the purpose of a socioeconomic system (not the ultimate, set-in-stone purpose, just the purpose which I think is most accurate according to my own process of reasoning and therefore the purpose which I can assume to be "true").

Note the quotations around "true."

 

But a conservative in Europe isn't anything like a conservative in America.

In fact the only true European style conservatives there ever were in America were the Tories and their side lost in 1782. Many Tories went back to England or moved up too Beaverland aka Canada and those who remained assimilated politically becoming Americans.

 

People will never permit some ideologues to take away their personal property in order to implement a pipe dream communistic system. You're running up against fundamental human nature if you try. For all its apparent "inefficiencies," capitalism is still the best system on the whole for human beings to coexist and advance in. We're not ants; you can't try to make humans into a giant ant colony for the sake of efficiency, but that's what your proposal sounds like to me.

But do tell. What exactly does your proposed communistic alternative entail? Can it exist in one nation amongst other nations as they are now? What does it mean for the individual, the family, the community? How will people be motivated to work and succeed? What laws will be introduced and how will they be enforced? Will there even be money?

 

True, but European conservatives are still pretty capitalist. They're comparable to American libertarian-leaning moderates, I guess.

 

Some may think me creepy freaky for saying you are interesting. But that only applies if you are really 14. Now you and other members can accuse me of being creepy for saying that, lol. You do come across as much older 'intellectually', but some of your material comes across as fabricated. I am not insulting you but I guess some of my replies sounds like I am. If that is the case I apologize. Lastly I dont remember you were a male the first time I debated you.
reva

 

We're not going to expropriate people's personal property just like that; that's ridiculous. We are, however, going to expropriate the privately-owned means of production, and we won't need permission. Did the French revolutionaries ask nicely before booting out the nobility? I think not.

And no, communism is not "making everyone into an ant colony." Its efficiency is accomplished through proletarian liberation, as Engels described at the beginning of The Principles of Communism.

Those are some pretty big questions you've got there! This is probably going to get a little long, but I'll try to be concise. I'd also just like to preface this by saying that obviously, this isn't some sort of inflexible blueprint, and trying to predict every aspect of a potential future society is decidedly utopian - which is why Marx and Engels were quite vague about how exactly communism would look. But there are certain things one can deduce about the communist society, and I'm going to attempt to illustrate these.

(1) In one sentence, communism entails the ownership of the means of production by the whole of society. This means that there are no "employers" and "employees" as such: work and leisure will merge, and although some people will be appointed to management roles every now and again for short periods of time for the sake of efficiency, they will be recallable, won't have absolute power and certainly won't accumulate profit from workers' exploited labour. Productive units will be largely collectively managed. If someone is really interested in medicine, but also likes to paint, hike and act, they will be able to do all of these things, perhaps all in one day, at their leisure. The law of value will be entirely replaced by the law of planning, so economic plans drawn up by whoever wants to draw them up with the help of ample input from workers in relevant productive units and ample use of technology will co-ordinate all production and allocation to make sure that human need is met at a minimal cost to the environment, labourers and so on. By allocation, I don't mean that the economic plans will dictate to people exactly what they can have, but that the plans will send goods to certain distribution centres (the closest thing we'll have to shops in communism) and productive units according to demand, which people can then use as they please.

Before this phase of "full communism" can exist, there will be a transitional phase, which will have production relations somewhere between capitalist and communist ones. This phase will have economic planning, means of production owned by the workers' state (which is controlled by the proletariat, i.e. the majority of the population) rather than private owners and no M-C-M' cycle, therefore no exploitation of labour, but it will still have something similar to money (except which can't be accumulated) and a state, whereas full communism is stateless and moneyless (more on that later).

(2) A workers' state can indeed exist in one nation, but if the revolution remains isolated for too long, it'll wind up looking like the USSR: a bureaucratic state-capitalist autocracy, made state-capitalist because, among other things, it had to compete on capitalist terms for too long. And no one wants that. Communism will eventually need to spread worldwide, but capitalism didn't have much of an issue spreading worldwide and displacing feudalism and other modes of production across the globe, so neither will communism.

(3) "Individual" is a bit of an annoying term. What does it mean? Does it refer to the "essence" (ugh) of a person, abstract from society and social conditions? I'd argue that this concept is incoherent anyway. As for the family, different ways of living one's personal life appear with every different mode of production. In tribal and slave society, polygamy was common and the "nuclear family" was virtually non-existent. In feudalism, the Christian ideals of one man married to one woman living with (probably several) became the norm. In capitalism, we're seeing this structure become less predominant as people marry later, couples divorced more, parents have fewer children, women work more, lesbian and gay couples gain more legal recognition, the state plays a greater role in schooling et cetera. Correspondingly, in communism living will probably be more communal (pardon the pun) than familial, and schooling and child-rearing will be fully integrated with other community activities like festivals, production and so on. Though the community won't be a permanent matter at all; if one night I suddenly felt sick of everyone I lived with and decided to go and live in Brazil and study botany, I would just jump on the next flight. The nuclear family will all but disappear unless a couple wants to have a heterosexual monogamous relationship for life and cut their children off from society, which they'd be perfectly welcome to do, but I imagine not many people would want to do the same given the new social conditions. Marriage will not be a legal matter anymore - if some people want to throw a big party to celebrate their relationship they'll be able to, but people will be able to pursue whatever relationship they want to without the government sticking its nose in, whether it be heterosexual, homosexual, monogamous, polygamous, for life, for one night, whatever. To be honest, it'll probably be a conservative's worst nightmare: the replacement of the family by the community, the end of legally-sanctioned marriage, gay orgies in the streets...

(4) In the transition period, people will work for many of the same reasons as under capitalism: they'll want to earn the labour vouchers (see (6)) to get what they want. Work will be less of a chore and more enjoyable due to greater autonomy and democracy and self-management in the work place, it'll still feel like wage labour minus the exploitation.

However, in full communism - which is a global or near-global society quite far in the post-capitalist future - work will be indistinguishable from leisure. The education system will have undergone a complete transformation and become not an exam factory churning out mechanical children who can serve the ruling class (or be the ruling class) well, but an open, free space integrated into communal life for the sole purpose of helping anyone, not just youth, to acquire knowledge and find what they love doing. If someone has had enough of education, they will leave and pursue whatever it is they love doing. To give a personal example, if I lived in full communism right now, as someone with a profound interest in linguistics, philosophy, writing and Slavic culture, I would move to a Slavic part of the world, get involved in researching philosophy and publishing articles and books and take evening language & linguistics classes. And I'd probably do a bit of dance or photography or whatever I wanted on the side.

So in short: people will "work" because they love to, and because the radically different organisation of the workplace makes it much freer and less of a chore.

5) Once again, in the transitional period, there will be laws against murder, rape etc. and also laws against anything which will destabilise the revolution. This is just for the sake of protecting the gains made during the revolution, and GULAGs and a secret police won't be necessary to enforce these laws, though there will be something like a bourgeois police, except structured in a more democratic, workers'-militia-style manner. However, in the transitional period there will be no laws against most recreational drug use (I hope), euthanasia, abortion or any type of relationship. People will be allowed the utmost control over their own bodies. Concerning the age of consent, I would personally like to see laws regarding effective consent rather than an age of consent during the transition period, but that's just me.

In full communism the situation will be rather different. Since the revolution will have spread across the world or almost across it, productive forces will have developed to the extent that an allocative mechanism analogous to money is unnecessary due to overabudance of goods, there will be no threat of counterrevolution (just as there is no threat today of the nobility rising up and overthrowing a capitalist government, since they barely exist) and all the institutions present in communism will have been formed, and people will have grown accustomed to them. So there will be no need for a coercive state, and the state will therefore, in Lenin's words, wither away. There will still be planning bodies (though not permanent, specialised ones) responsible for the administration of society and the economy, but no police, army or government setting coercive laws, because they will simply be unnecessary.

Why are laws unnecessary in full communism, you ask? People commit crimes for a reason: because they're poor, disconnected, segregated and oppressed by society, have a (perhaps misplaced) sense of victimhood, had a property-related or financial dispute, bear a grudge against someone who wronged them for one of the aforementioned reasons etc. etc.. Every human action has a cause, and blaming crime on some abstraction is highly irresponsible and evasive. Since full communism will eliminate the factors I listed above by being classless, moneyless and managed by everyone, crime will dramatically, dramatically decrease. There may still of course be disputes between people, but if these get violent people will be more inclined to stop them there and then in the absence of a police and with more of a co-operative sense of ethics. If this is really needed, a temporary committee of articulate and unbiased people could be elected to adjudiciate the dispute, but permanent bodies really won't be necessary. In any case, punishment is hopelessly primitive and not an obvious deterrent - we're best off without it.

(6) There is again a difference between the transitional period and full communism in this regard. In both stages, money is not accumulated as profit because the means of production are held in common and there is no market. But for the purposes of allocative efficiency in a not-yet-post-scarcity economy and further provision of incentive to work, in the transition period, there exists what I termed earlier "labour vouchers." These are given to workers after they've performed their job for a certain period of time. Like money, different amounts (but not ridiculously different) are paid depending on the career of the recipient, and the vouchers can be used to pay for goods or services. But unlike money, they do not circulate. After a payment has been made, they will disappear (they will be electronic) and the only way to obtain them is by working. As in rich-world capitalism, people unable to work will be provided for.

Like the state, these labour vouchers will become unnecessary. The one particular factor rendering them unnecessary is the overabundance, or the end of scarcity, caused by rapid development of productive forces both during and after capitalism. In full communism, the oft-quoted line "from each according to ability, to each according to need" will become reality. People will contribute what they want, and proceed to take what they want when they want it from the relevant place in the distribution centre or distribution quarter nearest to them. If what they want doesn't happen to be there...well, we'll still have something like the internet in communism. Due to overabundance and the lack of a monetary, class or competitive system, there won't be consumerism or social pressure to have "more" - people will find happiness through production, not consumption. "Infinite wants" is an entirely capitalist invention, made up to fill the gaping hole left by the drainage of all enjoyment from most productive activities under capitalism.

 

Thanks, I guess. I assure you, nothing here is fabricated apart from the explicitly quoted sections. It's just my writing style. You can see here: http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/authors/commissaress and http://commissaress.wordpress.com that my writing tends to sound kinda...distinctive? I don't know. I've probably read too much Marx for my own good.

I'm a cis female - where have I said otherwise?

 

In the modern day, it is capitalism (particularly democratic capitalism) that is rapidly becoming a pipe dream. How can capitalism continue to work in the face of global warming, advances in generic engineering that will make class inequality a heritable trait, rapidly diminishing resources, and rising fundamentalism and inequality? Now capitalism itself is "running up against fundamental human nature". After all, who wants to participate in an economy that doesn't work for the majority of people? That is the future we are rapidly approaching. Your appeal to realism is fundamentally deceptive it is beholdened to illusory ideology. Democratic capitalism is rapidly failing, in its current form, to function as the "best system". So, radically, it is actually YOU who must answer the questions.

How can democratic capitalism effectively deal with climate change and the increasing scarcity of resources around the globe? How can democratic capitalism answer both the religious fundamentalism it has created in the Middle East and the neo-fascist fundamentalism that is re-surging in the West? How can democratic capitalism combat rising inequality? How can democratic capitalism control advancements in (particularly genetic) technology so as not to entrench inequality so deeply that society no longer functions?

If democratic capitalism cannot provide answers to these questions (an it has not been able to as yet) then there exist major problems that cannot be solved by the current system. This leaves us with a choice: either reject democracy and accept "capitalism with Asian values" (essentially, oligarchy) or look for a political alternative (namely, communism.)

 

The only threat I see to democracy and capitalism is people like you - ideologues who think they know what's best for the world and would try to impose some new form of dictatorship in a bid to make their ideas reality. These people cause massive wars and losses of life in their misguided efforts to 'fix' the world.

Thanks for pointing out what a danger this doomsday preaching about global warming actually is, though. Obviously it's the sort of fear-mongering tactic that could bring about the next bloody revolution and dictatorship that claims to have some higher good in mind as it destroys civilisation and causes misery in an effort to erect its own New Order. Hitler used the Jews, Lenin the evil capitalists. Your kind will similarly use evil capitalists, but they will also use the fictive threat of global warming, in order to gain power if they can.

Now... As to how the reality of global warming is to be addressed, it IS. It's a long-term threat, not an immediate one (ignore goofy hype about storms and other weather - that stuff is not caused by anthropogenic global warming), and we are still developing the next generation of energy and other technologies that will make the difference that needs to be made in our environment. We have time and we're already on track.

 

Those means of production are not yours to take, or "appropriate" as you so euphemistically phrase it. Have you read George Orwell's Animal Farm yet? If not, I definitely suggest that you do. Make sure you read 1984 as well.

I think you'd better try this on a small scale before you attempt to transform any nations, eh. For example: In one sentence, communism entails the ownership of the means of production by the whole of society. This means that there are no "employers" and "employees" as such: work and leisure will merge, and although some people will be appointed to management roles every now and again for short periods of time for the sake of efficiency, they will be recallable, won't have absolute power and certainly won't accumulate profit from workers' exploited labour.

Organisation is important for work to get done. We need labourers and foremen, and there needs to be a real separation in "power" and control, or else the labourer will have no incentive to perform. This is where capitalism can appear to be unfree, where the people you and Marx call the proletariat can appear to be enslaved. Yet they are not! No labourer is forced to remain a labourer, and no labourer is bound to any one job or any one employer. It is a free market of employment, and all are free to move up vertically. I certainly have, and it was the rather unpleasant conditions of factory labour that incentivised me to do so! I wanted to be able to sit at a desk and use my brain to earn money, and now I do! I didn't need some goofballs to come along and 'liberate' me from unskilled labour, nor does anyone else in a democratic capitalist country...

 

1. My entire point is that I DON'T know what, exactly, is best for the world. All I know is that democratic capitalism is under major threat from problems it itself created. You characterize the democratic capitalist position in describing "ideologues who think they know what's best for the world" who "cause massive wars and losses of life in their misguided efforts to 'fix' the world." (the Iraq War is a perfect example). So, essentially, you critique your own position more than you do mine (Where did I advocate for war and dictatorship?)

2. Your comparison between Hitler and Lenin is odd. One was a fundamentalist created by the failures of post WWI capitalism who created an oligarchic capitalist death state. The other was a Communist who overthrew a corrupt, dysfunctional government and who, though certainly not perfect, firmly believed in civilization and modernity (and did his best to begin the modernization of the USSR.) Perhaps this is the common conservative tactic of comparing fascists to communists at play. It's problematic for you to use that logic, particularly because it can just as easily be used to prove all capitalists are secretly fascist. Words mean something. They just can't have whatever meaning you decide to assign for the purposes of your argument, sorry.

3. I'm confused. Is global warming a "fictive threat", or isn't it? Moreover, the claim that global warming is being addressed is laughable. The U.N. warned only recently that the effects of climate change were "irreversible." Neither party in the U.S. has an acceptable response to climate change, because both recognize that it requires massive restrictions on the corporate industries that got them into office. Republicans, for the most part, don't even believe in climate change, and happen to control both the House and the Senate. Democrats advocate for more "green" technologies and increased regulation of oil and gas industries, which, though preferable to the insanity of the GOP, is not a real long-term solution, especially when they remain unwilling to regulate the international corporations, operating in third-world countries, that produce much of the pollution. Moreover, it's becoming apparent that Republicans have a real ideological advantage over Democrats and might even "win" in their battle against climate change (by delaying action so much that it becomes too late). This is principally because the Republicans enjoy engaging in the "doomsday preaching" and "fear-mongering" you mention, and so are more appealing to average people disgruntled with the system than the optimistic Democrats (they also happen to be massively funded by oil and gas corporations because of our corrupt political system). So if your critique of my position is that I am apocalyptic, then I can only respond that I am apocalyptic because our capitalist society is fundamentally apocalyptic. Moreover, conservatives are apocalyptic in a much more dangerous way than I am.

4. I never claimed global warming was necessarily an immediate threat and not a long-term one. In fact, global warming is such a huge problem precisely because it IS a long-term problem. You also failed to even attempt to answer any of the other questions I posed, all of which pose major issue for capitalism going forward. In other words, you should at least try to answer those questions, otherwise your view of capitalism remains as much as a fantasy as the utopian communism you seem to despise so much.

5. Your ideology about the "next generation of energy and other technologies" saving our environment is just as much of a fantasy as Marx's formulation of a communist society (the difference is the latter is more honest). The problem is that we are entering an era where technology is actively part of our problem, as advancements in technology will likely entrench inequality. Moreover, there's little technology can do to save our society from its fundamental ideological problem. After the 2008 financial crisis and the rise of global inequality, most people no longer even believe they believe in capitalism anymore, hence the rise of fundamentalism world-wide. People are looking for political alternatives in a way they haven't since the 1930s. That disturbs me, and it should disturb you.

6. You trust that capitalism will resolve the climate change crisis (hence your reference to the next generation technology and energy sources). This assumes capitalism in its modern form is based on enlightened self-interest. It's not. The productive forces (essentially, the means of production), like a political meme, seek only to reproduce and expand, regardless of our needs and desires. So far, the reproduction of the productive forces has satisfied our increasing needs of desires, but that is increasingly becoming untrue. For example, the 2008 financial crisis was created by supposed economic "experts" acted in a deeply irrational manner, creating a economic system that was doomed to failure. Krugman captured the deep irrationality of the system when he stated that, had someone gone back in time and warned everyone of what was about to happen, most would have still "followed the herd" and made the risky decisions that precipitated the crisis. The issue of climate change presents such a point of irrationality. Many companies actually welcome the effects of climate change because it allows them to make more profits in the short term (cleaning up ecological disasters, etc.) or at the very least want to continue with the status quo because it also them to make profits in the short term (oil and gas companies). It's these companies that held fund the GOP and their climate change-denialism. What's interesting here is that they are not acting in their own enlightened self-interest by doing so. Climate change clearly hurts capitalism, but they nevertheless keep on going down the road to self-destruction. Perhaps communism (a third way, different than capitalism and fundamentalism) is needed to save capitalism from itself.

 

What the Bolsheviks created was no better than what the Nazis created in Germany, and they did so through similar means - fear-mongering and scapegoating of certain groups. That is what I see happening here and now WRT capitalists and capitalism, with communism being proposed as an alternative.

The system we have now gives you, me and everyone else a voice, at least potentially. USE IT. Don't blame the entire FREE system we have for failures and then propose to replace it all with something WORSE. Instead, get together with those who share your concerns and ADDRESS YOUR PUBLIC REPRESENTATIVES. Just don't attempt some kind of overthrow because you don't like how things are going.

And of course I disagree with your pessimism in general, and especially concerning present and future developments in clean, green, environmentally friendly energy. Hell, we already have good technology in the form of nuclear energy. It has its risks, but at least it's not a GW contributor, or at least not a major one. Automobiles are continuing to move away from fossil fuels, and really this is an area that's just getting started. Manufacturing is pretty damned clean in the first world, too, which leaves the problem of places like China needing to catch up. Considering their problems so far, I have no doubt that their people are as anxious as any of us to see that happen.

You and PreteenCommunist speak as though the sky were falling. Calm down, yo. It isn't.

 

1. Your claim that "What the Bolsheviks created was no better than what the Nazis created in Germany" is completely and utterly incorrect. I'll repeat myself. Nazis created an oligarchic capitalist death state that was firmly anti-modern. Women and minorities were second-class citizens (if not worse). Insane violence was a daily occurrence. The economy was literally based on theft from the poorest people in the society, and social mobility was nonexistent, so it's little surprise that the Nazi state lasted for little more than a decade. The Bolsheviks created a modern country. People had basic economic rights. Women and minorities could succeed and attain an education in a way they could not do in any other capitalist nation in the world at the time. Roads and schools were built, and everyone was encouraged to become educated. The USSR ended up lasting for nine decades. Now, I'm no Stalinist, but it's clear that the Bolsheviks were a force for modernity, and the USSR reflected that. The Nazis were a force for fundamentalism (like Islamic extremists today and their slightly-less-radical Christian counterparts in the West; namely, the GOP and the neo-fascist parties of Europe). Again, you really can't mobilize logic like that. Using it, I can easily prove that all capitalists are secretly fascists. Capitalists use scapegoating and fear-mongering of Islamic people, for example, to hide the failures of the system (i.e.it encourages fear of the very fundamentalists it creates). This can be seen in that Islamic terrorists really don't kill very many people, especially compared to how many die of basic health problems like diabetes, heart disease, etc. Capitalism encourages those under its thrall to be deeply afraid of the scapegoated Islamic "Other" precisely because it wants to conceal from people that they live in a bad economic system, their are no jobs, inequality is systematic, they are slowly dying from health problems related to the processed food they can barely afford, etc. Fascists also used scapegoating and fear-mongering of Jewish people in a similar manner. Ergo, all capitalists are fascists! (or basically the same as them, anyway)

2. Your claim that "The system we have now gives you, me and everyone else a voice, at least potentially. USE IT. Don't blame the entire FREE system we have for failures and then propose to replace it all with something WORSE. Instead, get together with those who share your concerns and ADDRESS YOUR PUBLIC REPRESENTATIVES. Just don't attempt some kind of overthrow because you don't like how things are going." fundamentally misses my point. The current system is rapidly failing to give ordinary people a voice, and is in this respect becoming completely "un-free". Just look at the state of the U.S. electoral system, and you can clearly see that we are approaching the kind of oligarchic capitalism that exists in China today. Moreover, my proposal is that the system is destroying itself. I don't have a magic replacement system (I'm not a traditional utopian communist), I just think that the current system is ceasing to function, so people are going to have to decide between oligarchy, fundamentalism, and the third option, communism, which is fundamentally defined by mass movements of people who radically redefine what was previously thought possible. Moreover, I'm plenty political. In fact, I'm using my "voice" right now on a political website to argue with you, so your argument doesn't make much sense. I just understand that my political voice (and politics in general) means less and less. I'll always support liberals over conservatives, given the choice, but I fully recognize that I am being presented with a false dichotomy, because neither group can solve the fundamental problems I am concerned with. Additionally, it's not me you should be worried about overthrowing the system (not that I accept your straw man characterization of me wanting violent revolution and a Stalinist state; I don't). The system is overthrowing itself.

3. I've already explained why your optimism is misguided, and why the use of "green" energy (no matter what kind) won't change anything:
"You trust that capitalism will resolve the climate change crisis (hence your reference to the next generation technology and energy sources). This assumes capitalism in its modern form is based on enlightened self-interest. It's not. The productive forces (essentially, the means of production), like a political meme, seek only to reproduce and expand, regardless of our needs and desires. So far, the reproduction of the productive forces has satisfied our increasing needs of desires, but that is increasingly becoming untrue. For example, the 2008 financial crisis was created by supposed economic "experts" acted in a deeply irrational manner, creating a economic system that was doomed to failure. Krugman captured the deep irrationality of the system when he stated that, had someone gone back in time and warned everyone of what was about to happen, most would have still "followed the herd" and made the risky decisions that precipitated the crisis. The issue of climate change presents such a point of irrationality. Many companies actually welcome the effects of climate change because it allows them to make more profits in the short term (cleaning up ecological disasters, etc.) or at the very least want to continue with the status quo because it also them to make profits in the short term (oil and gas companies). It's these companies that held fund the GOP and their climate change-denialism. What's interesting here is that they are not acting in their own enlightened self-interest by doing so. Climate change clearly hurts capitalism, but they nevertheless keep on going down the road to self-destruction. Perhaps communism (a third way, different than capitalism and fundamentalism) is needed to save capitalism from itself."

I also mentioned that your ideology about green energy has the structure of a fantasy:
"Your ideology about the "next generation of energy and other technologies" saving our environment is just as much of a fantasy as Marx's formulation of a communist society (the difference is the latter is more honest). The problem is that we are entering an era where technology is actively part of our problem, as advancements in technology will likely entrench inequality. Moreover, there's little technology can do to save our society from its fundamental ideological problem. After the 2008 financial crisis and the rise of global inequality, most people no longer even believe they believe in capitalism anymore, hence the rise of fundamentalism world-wide. People are looking for political alternatives in a way they haven't since the 1930s. That disturbs me, and it should disturb you."

You mention China's problem with pollution. The problem is that a place like China will always have to exist for global capitalism to function. In fact, as China becomes more middle class, other countries (such as India) end up "picked up the slack" in terms of pollution as they take over China's cheap manufacturing industry. In other words, China's pollution will just be shifted elsewhere.

4. You seem unable to answer any of the other questions I originally posed (climate change is only one problem among the many democratic capitalism faces.) Your silence on the matter has continually proved the point I originally raised. That's a problem for your ideology.

To reiterate:

How can democratic capitalism effectively deal with climate change and the increasing scarcity of resources around the globe? How can democratic capitalism answer both the religious fundamentalism it has created in the Middle East and the neo-fascist fundamentalism that is re-surging in the West? How can democratic capitalism combat rising inequality? How can democratic capitalism control advancements in (particularly genetic) technology so as not to entrench inequality so deeply that society no longer functions?

5. You conclude by claiming that I act as though the "sky were falling" when it actually is not. I've already explained why I am pessimistic/apocalyptic, but I'll do so again. Our society is deeply apocalyptic subconsciously. This can be clearly demonstrated by the rise of survivalist/doomsday preppers groups, our cultural obsession and glorification of the apocalypse in movies and films in recent years (the zombie apocalypse genre is a good example), and the rise of religious fundamentalism and extremism (both Christian and Muslim). For example, Donald Trump, the leader of the Republican field in the United States, is deeply pessimistic (indeed, almost apocalyptic) about the future of America. He said that "America is out of control" and that "The country is going to hell, we have people who don't know what they're doing in Washington." This, combined with his slogan ("Make America Great Again") clear identifies his position as that of a fundamentalist, who wants to return of the "good old days" of earlier American capitalism to escape the apocalyptic nightmare he sees looming ahead (this, of course, is a Romantic fantasy; the "good old days (a) never existed as they as idealized and (b) were, in reality, what got us into this mess in the first place). In other words, our current capitalist ideology cannot sustain itself because most do not even believe they believe in it anymore; instead, they live in fantasies assume the magical end of the current system. Those who do not maintain these fantasies are strangely obsessed with those who do (the Western obsession with radical fundamentalist Muslims that I mentioned earlier is a good example). You seem to be advocating for a liberal (anti-apocalyptic) position. The problem is that this position cannot effectively overcome the apocalyptic-ism of the fundamentalists. The only way to save the good aspects of liberalism (Enlightenment rights), is for communism to step in as apocalyptic ideology that is not fundamentalist. To summarize: I (as well as other communists) are apocalyptic for the same reason we became communists. We recognize that our society is increasing apocalyptic ideologically and failing to function for the majority of people. Apocalyptic communism is needed to provide a "third way": a political alternative that is not fundamentalist but rejects capitalism, that preserves the legacy of Enlightenment rights but also represents the will of the people and their economic rights.

 

The only way to save the good aspects of liberalism (Enlightenment rights), is for communism to step in as apocalyptic ideology that is not fundamentalist.

You would blindly repeat history. Your good intentions will not work out if you attempt this.

We recognize that our society is increasing apocalyptic ideologically and failing to function for the majority of people. Apocalyptic communism is needed to provide a "third way": a political alternative that is not fundamentalist but rejects capitalism, that preserves the legacy of Enlightenment rights but also represents the will of the people and their economic rights.

It's not clear what you would actually try to institute in place of what we have now. We're already equal under the law, so we don't need your communistic idea of equality, which would simply mean having a communistic oligarchy seize assets by force. Your movement would invariably end up like the USSR, a giant thug operation that would undoubtedly lead to a whole lot of Stalinist liquidation of dissidents. Your New Order would, as I've said, lead to bloody wars and loss of life. Human history is wrought with such foolishness, with bloody revolutions led by ideologues who have no proper idea of what their actions will lead to. You WILL be condemning millions, if not billions, to death and suffering for the sake of your lofty ideas.

 

Funnily enough, George Orwell was a socialist - he fought with the POUM, a Marxist militia, during the Spanish Civil War, and it was his writing that got me interested in radical socialism in the first place.

And we don't care about what's "ours" to take. If the bourgeoisie decide that something belongs to them, more power to them, but we want to overthrow them so their decisions are irrelevant to us. Refer again to my French Revolution example. The monarchy thought they had a divine right to the throne, and the revolutionaries couldn't have cared less about this "right."

Well if we tried it on a small scale, as I said, we'd end up with a reincarnation of the Soviet Union and it would fucк over the workers just as it did last time round.

I'm pretty sure I addressed almost all of that. I most certainly discussed incentive. See point (4).

It's not unskilled labour that we want to bring to an end, it's wage-labour in general, which causes disparities and all the consequent allocative issues (I've discussed that before) and causes the capitalist system to be built upon the reliance of a capitalist class on appropriated, exploited, collective labour, making it against the class interests of the class on which it depends and therefore an unsustainable system. And as I've mentioned, if you move up under capitalism, you're one of the lucky ones. Of which there aren't too many.

Um, I'm pretty sure I wrote a dirty great post last night detailing what communism would involve and how it would differ from and be better than capitalism, and I have probably explained the particular material conditions which led to the failure of the Soviet Union about twenty times in this thread. I've done my bit of clarification. Now why don't you explain how capitalism would solve the problems which Ramboz brought up in xir first post?

 

1. I'll repeat once again that I'm not a Stalinist, nor really a utopian communist. Your straw man argument about me being one doesn't function. I just believe that democratic capitalism is approaching a crisis point and an alternative (besides fundamentalism) is desperately needed. I stated before that I am not sure what that communist alternative will necessarily entail. But you characterize your own position in describing how my "good intentions" would not work out. The "good intentions" of capitalism (Enlightenment rights, the ideal of freedom) are rapidly failing (as can be seen by the rise of fundamentalism and inequality worldwide), and it's you who must deal with them "not working out".

2. You're quite right when you state that it's "not clear what you would actually try to institute in place of what we have now". My point is that inflexible ideology is exactly the problem. The task of communists today is to attempt to identify the problems under our current system, most of which have been so obscured by capitalist ideology that we lack the ideological language necessary to even discuss them. I don't offer an easy solution because that solution can only be found once we have radically identified the problems. I will argue, however, that the ultimate solution originates in a emancipatory Event that will "transverse the fantasy" that is modern capitalism and allow for a readjustment of what is perceived as possible. To simplify from philosophical terms: my stance is that communism will emerge from the exposure of the inherent contradictions that exist in our capitalist system today.

3.My problem is that we are increasingly NOT equal under the law as you claim, due to a legal system that rewards wealth (you can have much better lawyers, etc.) and a political order that is increasingly oligarchic. Just look at the many cases in which millionaires or billionaires (like Kobe Bryant or Larry Ellison) who avoided rape convictions by essentially forcing an-out-of-court settlement and then paid off google so that you can't even use the internet to find out about it (in the latter case). Or look at the example of the 2008 financial crisis: the criminal millionaires who instigated the crisis were actually rewarded for what they had done. That why it's particularly ironic that you claim "we don't need your communistic ideal of equality", then followed by the allegation that such an ideal would "simply mean having a communistic oligarchy seize assets by force." We need "my communistic ideal of equality" precisely because an oligarchy IS currently seizing assets by force: the assets of the U.S. government are increasingly being seized by the shadow class of millionaires and billionaires who control our government through lobbying and campaign contributions. Did you know that the median net worth of U.S. Congress members is over a million dollars? And that the poorest member in 2015 had a net worth of $700,000? I don't know about you, but the fact that every single member of Congress is upper middle class or wealthy disturbs me. It's almost like we don't have system where average or poorer people can succeed or hold any real power.

4. You keep trying to make this about me and my beliefs. The problem is that my beliefs are fundamentally focused on how your belief in capitalism is painfully idealistic when compared to the realities of the modern world. Radically, it's you who has to defend capitalism and your belief in it, not me. So, I reiterate again:

How can democratic capitalism effectively deal with climate change and the increasing scarcity of resources around the globe? How can democratic capitalism answer both the religious fundamentalism it has created in the Middle East and the neo-fascist fundamentalism that is re-surging in the West? How can democratic capitalism combat rising inequality? How can democratic capitalism control advancements in (particularly genetic) technology so as not to entrench inequality so deeply that society no longer functions?

As I mentioned previously, your continued silence on the matter of these questions doesn't bode well for your ideology. You seem to be unable to answer.

5. You describe the USSR as a "giant thug operation" that liquefies dissents. Again, you are merely projecting your own fears about the nature of capitalism unto my position. I've consistently held that the future of our capitalist system is "capitalism with Asian values" (Chinese capitalism), which certainly is a "giant thug operation" that liquefies dissents. In fact, capitalism already operates that way on a global stage, from international corporations funding civil war and warlords in the Congo and brutally suppressing anyone who speaks out to American capital funding the slave state of Saudi Arabia. So you again critique aspects of your own system as my own. This, of course, seems to make your point about the "bloody wars and loss of life" somewhat ironic. Capitalism appears to be even better than the USSR at "bloody revolutions led by ideologues who have no proper idea of what their actions will lead to" (which perfectly describes all the reactionary interventions capitalist states like the U.S. funded in place like the Middle East and South America; Iraq is a especially good example). As to your claim that I'll condemn "millions, if not billions, to death and suffering for the sake of your lofty ideas" I can only respond that you and the capitalist order ARE condemning "millions, if not billions, to death and suffering for the sake of your lofty ideas" RIGHT NOW. We need only to consider the cases of the third-world countries kept continually impoverished by capitalism to verify this statement as fact.

6. In summary, you (a) fundamentally characterize my position as Stalinist as an attempt to distract from the critiques I leveled against your ideology, (b) claim that I would commit the horrors that capitalism is currently committing, (c) claim that I am an idealist when I have consistently shown that your ideology operates on the level of fantasy, and (d) create a series of straw man arguments in order to conceal the fact that my ideology is fundamentally focused on critiquing the very structures of ideologies themselves and has leveled several unanswered critiques of your ideology.

 

Where do you draw the line between "bourgeoisie" and yourself? What is all this us vs them nonsense you're spouting? It's nonsense, as unreflective of reality, especially today, as the idea of race. Stop vilifying your fellow human beings and plotting to take their assets just because you're unhappy with your present position in life and don't want to work to improve that responsibly and legally. You and Ramboz have a twisted, unrealistic world-view, and what you're advocating is destructive and downright disgusting.

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I do not agree with your assessment of the world situation today. I doubt you have any real world experience to back this up, either.