Debunked, "Socialism has never worked"

The Dems are a party who support neoliberalism (i.e. market fundamentalism). There's nothing left wing about that. Indeed, its essentially continuation of Thatcherism. Dems will pretend otherwise (e.g. "we'll increase minimum wages slightly more than what the Repubs will"). Its largely window dressing. Bernie would have represented genuine social democracy. They ensured he lost, mind you, as such ideas are ultimately seen as terribly dangerous by the Dems.

Isn't that the ironic aspect? You rightly moan about the Repubs ignorance of socialism, but the Dems are just as ignorant when it comes to social democracy.

I'm clinging on to the correct definition.

Words don't change just because American intellect isn't up to it. Socialism and capitalism are always going to be mutually exclusive. It doesn't matter if its a McCarthyism victim or a pretend lefty twiddling their thumbs. Facts don't change.

Socialist political economy has expanded because socialism continues to be vibrant economic ideology. That just makes basic errors even more tutworthy. They really should be comparing across feasible socialist forms. Its only then that you can understand impact.

Not mine. Market socialism is a well known feasible socialist approach.

We already have large firms compensating entrepreneurial spirit through buy-outs. Things here wouldn't differ in market socialism. Of course compensation for innovation is required. Market socialism has already embedded Hayek's socialist calculation debate within its analysis (i.e.neither distributed knowledge or tacit knowledge through socialist planning are relevant)

Fast and flexible firms are SMEs. They wouldn't be directly affected (only indirectly by the impact on labour supply and reservation wages). Red herring!

I, as owner, know the value of my entrepreneurial activity. I also know that capital is built through labour endeavour. I know that I have no right to exploit that endeavour through underpayment. Why should any large enterprise be allowed to rent seek? Such rent seeking cannot be left wing, surely?

You cannot be against exploitation and be pro-capitalist. Capitalism necessarily requires exploitation as part of its capital accumulation process.

See above! If you're a social democrat, you shouldn't be a Dem. Their neoliberalism ensures that they actively work against such an outcome.

 

Try it and see.

But you don't.

 

I'm not the one pretending perfect competition, am I now?

Crikey, don't you even understand what you're saying? Let's go through it again. Supply and demand predicts underpayment. If you reject the existence of underpayment then you reject supply and demand.

Round and round you go. Naff all content mind you!

You again show how little you know. A market wage would refer to the 'law of one wage'. That is necessarily rejected as monopsonistic power is the norm.

This is a nonsense response. I've already referred to how supply and demand has labour value predicted by objective productivity measure. I've already referred to how, within a worker owned enterprise, compensation is determined by the workers.

I said a statement of fact. Any labour elasticity at firm level guarantees monopsonistic power and therefore underpayment. Arguing otherwise just shows that you're quite clueless over the nature of supply and demand. The only debate is over the source of the elasticity. Job search frictions, for example, predict both higher underpayment and higher unemployment.

Your whole post is a dodge, as you try and hide from the zero content that you can muster

Good example of how little thought you've put into this. My point destroyed the "its a voluntary exchange" bobbins and you don't have a response.

Making bobbins up now? Tut tut! There is no need for 'purity and perfection' in socialism. That viewpoint was rejected yonks ago when socialists realised the pointlessness of attempting to mimic the Walrasian Auctioneer.

Another inane dodge! Try responding to the point. You support the continuation of market power (even if you don't know it in your perfectly competitive haze). You therefore support monopsony power and coercion in the labour contract. You therefore also support theft. You just play pretend (very badly)

 

"I'm not the one pretending perfect competition, am I now?"

No. You are simply, and tediously, imposing that requirement.

"Supply and demand predicts underpayment."

No, it doesn't. Your premise is flawed. Therefore, any conclusions, that you might draw from it, are equally flawed.

"A market wage would refer to the 'law of one wage'."

No. It wouldn't.

"within a worker owned enterprise, compensation is determined by the workers."

You haven't shown this method to be the "pure" and "perfect" way of valuing labor.

"I said a statement of fact. Any labour elasticity at firm level guarantees monopsonistic power and therefore underpayment. Arguing otherwise just shows that you're quite clueless over the nature of supply and demand. The only debate is over the source of the elasticity. Job search frictions, for example, predict both higher underpayment and higher unemployment."

Again, workers are free to reject any job offer. That they accept the compensation package, is proof that they aren't underpaid.

"My point destroyed the "its a voluntary exchange""

No. It didn't.

"There is no need for 'purity and perfection' in socialism."

That's hilarious!

 

I really don't care to hear more of his confusion on this. The historical facts are all that matters.

So? They constantly spout all manner of twisted, false propaganda against anyone who doesn't measure up to their disinformation.

LOL! If I were shouting I WOULD HAVE MAKE IT OBVIOUS!!! ...like that. If simpler boldface type would be more soothing for you, I can do that if I remember to.

[/QUOTE] direct your communication to republicans[/QUOTE]
That's a ridiculous thing to say. "THEY MADE ME DO IT!!!" (whine). I address the poster because I'm not insane.

You sound like you're quite young and need a bit more experience. As I explained, when we talk about historical attempts to establish a socialist system, we are talking specifically about Marx and Marxism. Add to that the fact that every country produces their own propaganda and no country on this earth is an exception to that, and that our USA brand of propaganda includes 80 years of anti-communist, anti-Marxist falsehoods, and that as you pointed out, dictionaries and Wikipedia and encyclopedias published in any capitalist country will define terms as they are popularly used in many cases, we can be sure that they diverge from the definition of "socialism" as used by all modern Marxists and their attempts to create socialist countries. And they are the ones who should know. So your plea for the definitions of "socialism" as given in capitalist propaganda by capitalist countries is not worthy of serious consideration.

 

During the Russian Revolution, no one was suggesting it either.

It is quaint watching the Rich Wolff luddites proposing a "new kind of socialism" and that's been sold on the proposition that "well do it differently this time". Alas, authoritarian is authoritarian. It doesn't matter what progressive is proposing it.

 

I merely understand supply and demand. I merely understand that your argument is based on perfect competition. That you don't know that is no skin off my nose. I assume right wingers don't understand economics.

Round and round you do, saying nothing! Again, and this isn't under debate, I've merely applied supply and demand correctly. It predicts underpayment as the firm always operates under labour supply elasticity. Any elasticity is monopsonistic power, by definition.

That you're arguing against supply and demand does have a certain level of comedy value mind you.

Hahaha, you can't even pretend you know supply and demand. We have intersection at one point, the so-called market wage. That is the law of one wage. It just assumes that perfect competition holds. If it doesn't then we know that a wage distribution independent of human capital (and compensating differentials) will exist.

There's no pure or perfect. That's your bobbins world of perfect competition. We know that supply and demand shows that labour value is objective. Now you might want to critique that approach (which you have amusingly tried). However, even then, its irrelevant. Its the workers who decide their wage within worker ownership. Nothing to do with me.

Look at you attacking supply and demand Any labour supply elasticity, by definition, creates underpayment. There's no debate in it.

That you can't come out with a counter merely confirms that you don't understand the economics.

Do you actually ever come out with an argument?

I know its unfair talking economics to right wingers, so my apologies!

 

I don't know what you're talking, but it sure isn't economics. You make stuff up and attribute it to me. You contradict yourself, from one paragraph to the next. Then, when you can't refute my points, you hide behind personal insults.

I am done here.

 

Its all Econ 101. Why don't you know that? No need to reply. We both know the answer

Hahahaha! Look at you pretending that I'm making stuff up. Your supply and demand stance is indeed reliant on perfect competition. That you didn't know that did tickle my fancy.

You haven't provided one counter argument. You have deliberately dodged as you haven't got the economic understanding to respond. We both know that

Hahahaha! Another right winger that doesn't understand basic economics? What a shocker!

 

1) Or, you could exploit the hell out of that minimum wage by living wisely .. then buy your way out of that rent slavery. The harder you make those dollars work, the more freedom from that onerous relationship you will have. Choices.

2) The poorest societies on earth live in family groups and care for each other, even if home is under a bridge. You are talking about something entirely different. You're talking about failed collectives, failed individuals. Choices.

 

So let me get this straight. You want to eliminate non-profits. Then “we” directly support people doing activities “we” like? Who’s we?

So? How does that negate my point that unrestricted lobbying could result in theocracy as well?

 

That's not a condition of society. That's a condition of life. Before you can consume something it first must be produced. That production requires labor. Whether or not you produce the thing itself or not, you still have to expend energy to maintain the system. Otherwise, you're just depleting the energy of the thing responsible for production until there is none left.

You don't need a society for this to be a problem. It'll happen if you're all alone on a deserted island too. You have to climb the tree to get the coconut. You have to open the coconut. You have to plant some coconuts so that you can have more in the future.



Do you think it's right to demand others trade their labor to you for nothing in return?

 

At this juncture I'm definitely looking forward to it, that sweet moment where Joe and Jane Voter finally catch on how worthless the party they vote for truly is.

There is no separation of church and state, in law. Our Founders although many were deists still were Christians, and it is a fact that the U.S. did not follow Britain's example with a national church which actively suppressed Catholics. Half our Supreme Court are Catholic, as I understand it. And yet abortion is not outlawed, nor Islam, nor so many things the left accuses the right of wanting shut down.

The Party of the Donkey has cheapened education to a point where patriotism is almost impossible to find unless it is also heavily tampered with by school authorities eager to parade homosexuals in dresses but never an army recruiter or a servant of God explaining organized religion.

 

Agree. I’m seriously considering what can be done to accelerate that process.

Agree again. That’s a construct of leftists. But it can be used to demonstrate the lack of logic and critical thought behind their position.

It’s training, not education.

 

No, just their tax-exempt status.

Whoever wants to do it, including government if that's what people vote for.

If they were not tax-exempt, where would they get the money for such unrestricted lobbying?

 

IOW, if you have the constitution for it, you could train hard enough, and get into good enough shape, that you could run the treadmill even with the parasites riding on your back.

But... you still haven't explained how it is people's own choice that the parasites burden them down, or why the parasites should rightly get to ride on others' backs.

Except the choice not to have to carry the parasites. That, they do not get a choice on.

No, I'm talking about the effects on individuals and collectives of massive, systematic, institutionalized, and wholly gratuitous INJUSTICE.

Yes, we already know: in what you are no doubt pleased to call your, "mind," the small business owner victimized by a protection racketeer is simply making "choices."

 

Correct. They don't recommend or suggest authoritarianism.

They do, however, practice it.

 

LOL. Tax exempt status is what makes them non profits.

Democratic theocracy by majority mandate?

Where do other lobbyists get their money?

 

I loved this use of vocab. The Luddites were highly skilled and weren't against technology; they were merely adopting direct action as a reaction to macroeconomic problems twinned with microeconomic exploitation. We see how labour direct action is deliberately misinterpreted in order to maintain coercion in the labour contract.

 

Great post! Thank you.

 

Went through some toll roads over the last month - our socialist interstate system works just fine by me, I prefer them to toll roads

can you imagine if all the roads were toll roads, none free to the public

 

1) All of us but the young, the old, and the sick, have the constitution to say no to spending. If you choose to spend your money on things you can't afford, it's because you want to. It's because you prefer immediate gratification to the daily grind of frugality. And what parasites? In a socialist system parasites can't exist. Those who don't work, don't eat.

2) If people vote for a welfare state, then they'll get parasites. The best any us can do outside of voting, is to ensure we never become parasites ourselves.

3) No one has to carry parasites. If you do, then blame your own family dynamics and history for creating parasites in the first place. Then blame yourself for accepting such an outrageous burden.

4) The things that cause people to end up homeless, are PERSONAL/SOCIAL. It's a result of family breakdown, dysfunction, failure, etc. Nothing to do with institutions.

 

You'll need to back that up with evidence.
However, I'll give you some evidence of Trump's authoritarianism.

He just commuted the sentence of a guy who lied in court to protect him.

And,
Yeah, I got one word for you: "Helsinki"

Never seen an American president fawn over a dictator like Trump.

 

LOL. No it isn't. You are just objectively wrong. You'll find that happening a lot, as long as you presume to dispute with me.

Oxymoron.

The majority may not be very bright, but they are the majority, and they have a right to get what they want from their government, good and hard.

Typically from rich, greedy, privileged parasites, and the for-profit corporations they own.

 

Is it that you're not paying attention, or is it something else?

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/brons...ike-the-wrong-things-on-social-media-n2572319