Communism vs Capitalism does anyone actually think we'd be better off in a Communist society?

[Zorral]

usa = 1 fatality per 4,300 (confirmed); cuba = 1 fatality per 150,000. The curve in Cuba has flattened -- and it happened very quickly once the state imposed its policies, and the number of new cases are dropping quickly.

But in hypercapitalist, totalitarian USA the only policy to deal with the pandemic is the deliberate choice to harvest the elderly, the poor, the people of color, the mentally ill and otherwise challenged of every age and background, the physically challenged, and anyone who has a chronic illness or medical condition -- while forcing all these people to work in the most unsafe of conditions, for the comfort and convenience and profit of the unadulterated assholes who have taken total power over every aspect of the nation.

Show me how this deliberate choice by the so called democracy + capitalism in action isn't both autocratic and downright criminal.

Doing the same thing in the UK, the only two governments to decide this. Sweden at least insists that this result of its decisions wasn't deliberate.  They thought they could protect the elderly and vulnerable while the disease burned through the less vulnerable population.  But the US and the UK couldn't even get it up to defend itself that far.  People gonna die, but I get to be rich and potus some more shrug.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/08/care-home-residents-harvested-left-to-die-uk-government-herd-immunity

[sologdin]

States that relied on top down governance did not do well and that those that had a more democratic form did better.

that's a lesson as old as the solonian constitution in athens; democratic egalitarianism has a leveling tendency, and it is easy to see how the leninist vanguard transforms to resemble an expropriatory bourgeois via the gosplan and how the maoist defects with one-way top-down communication in 1959 contributed to the famine, negating any egalitarian gains.

this is why it is good to think of socialism as economic democracy, the logical extension of democratic principles. the bourgeois will construe that extension as tyranny, reaching into the classical period for its own inept analogy, wherein anything that allegedly infringes on private property is undemocratic; marx did not help by suggesting despotic inroads on the right to property via socialist legislation as key to the revolution. but: it is a matter of democratic legislation, so by definition not despotic or tyrannical.

deliberate choice by the so called democracy + capitalism in action isn't both autocratic

all capitalist enterprise as inherently autocratic, no? capitalist private authority is an anomic zone intentionally carved out of the democratic nomos--agamben's state of exception, reiterated as private monarchical islands throughout public space. the size of these islands is the main problem of postmodern bourgeois liberal political contests.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

42 minutes ago, sologdin said:

scot--

not more inherently subjective than anything else (am sufficiently post-structuralist to think that we have lotsa failure to communicate because of an other minds problem as applied to semiotics, though--a different discussion).  the point is more about what is the quantitative basis for an abstraction such as capitalism works but communism doesn't?  the terms works is laden with unstated qualitative assumptions. i suspect that most usages build the assumption into the conclusion and therefore beg the question through their unexamined tautology.  if all the unstated definition is looking for the fruits of capitalist exploitation, say, then those systems that have abolished the exploitation and therefore the fruits will not be consistent with the definition.

How very Wittgensteinian of you.

[Martell Spy]

30 minutes ago, sologdin said:

States that relied on top down governance did not do well and that those that had a more democratic form did better.

that's a lesson as old as the solonian constitution in athens; democratic egalitarianism has a leveling tendency, and it is easy to see how the leninist vanguard transforms to resemble an expropriatory bourgeois via the gosplan and how the maoist defects with one-way top-down communication in 1959 contributed to the famine, negating any egalitarian gains.

this is why it is good to think of socialism as economic democracy, the logical extension of democratic principles. the bourgeois will construe that extension as tyranny, reaching into the classical period for its own inept analogy, wherein anything that allegedly infringes on private property is undemocratic; marx did not help by suggesting despotic inroads on the right to property via socialist legislation as key to the revolution. but: it is a matter of democratic legislation, so by definition not despotic or tyrannical.

deliberate choice by the so called democracy + capitalism in action isn't both autocratic

all capitalist enterprise as inherently autocratic, no? capitalist private authority is an anomic zone intentionally carved out of the democratic nomos--agamben's state of exception, reiterated as private monarchical islands throughout public space. the size of these islands is the main problem of postmodern bourgeois liberal political contests.

And who is it working for? Is it working for the workers in U.S. meat packing plants?

[Rippounet]

33 minutes ago, sologdin said:

this is why it is good to think of socialism as economic democracy, the logical extension of democratic principles.

Indeed. Socialism is, essentially, the tendency inherent in an industrial civilization to transcend the self-regulating market by consciously subordinating it to democratic society (Karl Polanyi).

 

[sologdin]

How very Wittgensteinian of you. 

no doubt i am influenced by the tradition after wittgenstein--through quine to will sellars, reichenbach, rorty even, but also the husserlian tradition through heidegger/derrida. marx in  the eleventh thesis is annoyed that the phisilophers have only interpreted the world, rather than changed it; the lesson from both the anglo-american and continental philosophy traditions is that we need to describe it before we can interpret it and change it. 

is there a slick refutation of wittgenstein that i missed?

 

Is it working for the workers in U.S. meat packing plants?

is private capitalist anomie working for them or despotic socialist legislation? i don't disagree with zorr's point, incidentally; my contribution was a speculative addendum, rather than a cross examination.

[Zorral]

Additionally in this hypercapitalist totalitarian state that is the USA the other significant choice is to lie about the pandemic, the deaths, and numbers -- to prohibit anyone to talk about it, report on it, to even acknowledge it exists and is happening.

Isn't that what people always call stalinist? Or Chinese?

Whereas in Cuba the state is sharing all information about this disease, its progress, the state's policies and actions.

Just frackin' give me a break about this communism  --which doesn't even exist in any country and hasn't for at least an era and half -- and capitalism -- which definitely exists, so much so it is determined that it is better for itself (profits) that a huge number of people die, who, with decent actions and policies would not.

[Martell Spy]

36 minutes ago, sologdin said:

How very Wittgensteinian of you. 

no doubt i am influenced by the tradition after wittgenstein--through quine to will sellars, reichenbach, rorty even, but also the husserlian tradition through heidegger/derrida. marx in  the eleventh thesis is annoyed that the phisilophers have only interpreted the world, rather than changed it; the lesson from both the anglo-american and continental philosophy traditions is that we need to describe it before we can interpret it and change it. 

is there a slick refutation of wittgenstein that i missed?

 

Is it working for the workers in U.S. meat packing plants?

is private capitalist anomie working for them or despotic socialist legislation? i don't disagree with zorr's point, incidentally; my contribution was a speculative addendum, rather than a cross examination.

Both, the entire system. Just wanted to introduce to the discussion that in the U.S. at least the entire system is heavily supported with something approaching slave labor. (And of non-convicts, it's a given that convicts will be used as slave labor in some cases) This is one of the things propping it up.

Brought up the meat-pack workers as they are literally being killed by the capitalists in order to try to prevent meat shortages during the pandemic. The capitalists are not actually eating the flesh of these workers, but it's pretty damn close.

[sologdin]

Isn't that what people always call stalinist?

this recalls mark fisher's arguments in capitalist realism (definitely a text for everyone to assimilate):

Quote

What late capitalism repeats from Stalinism is just this valuing of symbols of achievement over actual achievement [...] It would be a mistake to regard this market Stalinism as some deviation from the 'true spirit' of capitalism. On the contrary, it would be better to say that an essential dimension of Stalinism was inhibited by its association with a social project like socialism and can only emerge in a late capitalist culture in which images acquire an autonomous force. (loc. cit. at 42-44)

the corporate call center, laden with 'bureaucratic libido,' is the best emblem of market stalinism:

Quote

The call center experience distills the political phenomenology of late capitalism: the boredom and frustration punctuated by cheerily piped PR, the repeating of the same dreary details many times to different poorly trained and badly informed operatives, the building rage that must remain impotent because it can have no legitimate object, since - as is very quickly clear to the caller - there is no-one who knows, and no-one who could do anything even if they did. [...] Kafka is poorly understood as exclusively a writer on totalitarianism; a decentralized, market Stalinist bureaucracy is far more Kafkaesque than one in which there is a central authority. (64)

 

Both, the entire system. 

agreed, no doubt. even bracketing away notions such as 'wage slavery,' which are fine in my perspective but not so much with others, it is difficult to deny that the capitalist carceral system is only distinguishable from the soviet one by means of which acts, beliefs, and statuses are criminalized. both carceral systems produce forced labor and both have inhumane mortality.

[Martell Spy]

15 minutes ago, sologdin said:

Isn't that what people always call stalinist?

this recalls mark fisher's arguments in capitalist realism (definitely a text for everyone to assimilate):

the corporate call center, laden with 'bureaucratic libido,' is the best emblem of market stalinism:

 

Both, the entire system. 

agreed, no doubt. even bracketing away notions such as 'wage slavery,' which are fine in my perspective but not so much with others, it is difficult to deny that the capitalist carceral system is only distinguishable from the soviet one by means of which acts, beliefs, and statuses are criminalized. both carceral systems produce forced labor and both have inhumane mortality.

I purposely bracketed off prison labor. One reason I did that is I'm not familiar with how much it props up our system in the U.S. Where as I'm confident of immigrant workers and overseas sweat-shops propping up our economy in a big way.

The other reason I did that is there is a recognition that people in prison did something to deserve the conditions they are in. That's putting aside the fact that some of them may be innocent or were found guilty of ridiculous things like possessing recreational drugs. And I don't really want to derail this thread with a discussion of prisoners. Suffice it to say I don't believe the meat-packing workers did anything I consider wrong. Yet they are being used to prop up the system to the benefit of others.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, sologdin said:

How very Wittgensteinian of you. 

no doubt i am influenced by the tradition after wittgenstein--through quine to will sellars, reichenbach, rorty even, but also the husserlian tradition through heidegger/derrida. marx in  the eleventh thesis is annoyed that the phisilophers have only interpreted the world, rather than changed it; the lesson from both the anglo-american and continental philosophy traditions is that we need to describe it before we can interpret it and change it. 

is there a slick refutation of wittgenstein that i missed?

 

Is it working for the workers in U.S. meat packing plants?

is private capitalist anomie working for them or despotic socialist legislation? i don't disagree with zorr's point, incidentally; my contribution was a speculative addendum, rather than a cross examination.

Nope.  

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, sologdin said:

'bureaucratic libido,'

Is that from Paul-Michel Foucault? 

BTW, in the day after the Iowa meatpacking plant reopened, those working tested positive went from 500 to 1000.

This is no different from sugar slave labor plantations.  One died if one worked and one died if one did not.

 

[felice]

10 hours ago, JoannaL said:

Socialsm and communism means the social ownership of the means of production. It is possible to keep private ownership of the means of production and have a social system (purely capitalistic, if you will ) just by having a fair way of taxation and redistribution.

Fair taxation and redistribution would make private ownership unprofitable, which would make the entire system fail. Under taxation levels that allow capitalism to function, the more money capitalists have, the more they can earn, so inequality keeps growing until the system fails anyway. The best that can be done is to slow the process, and even that gets harder over time due to opposition from increasingly wealthy and powerful capitalists. Capitalism simply isn't viable in the long term, and it's pretty unpleasant for a great many people while it's running. You can't consider the standard of living in any one country in isolation; the higher standard of living in the west is dependant on imports from low wage, low regulation countries, and the real value of those imports is grossly underestimated. The balance of trade would look quite different if the value of imports was measured based on the replacement cost of local production with citizens paid for their labour at market rates!

[sologdin]

the more money capitalists have, the more they can earn, so inequality keeps growing until the system fails anyway.

i love the thought experiment in harman's economics of the madhouse, regarding the marxist argument about organic composition of capital--suppose industry is totally robotic. who earns the wages to buy all the crap that the robots make? buhbye capitalism--or does everyone need to get a phoney baloney instagig job on the intertubes?

[OldGimletEye]

On 5/7/2020 at 1:13 AM, Darzin said:

So given the discussion in the US politics thread with the discussion about death tolls and such. Putting that aside does anyone actually believe that we'd be better off with Communism and opposed to Capitalism*? The Marxist-Leninist societies which have existed strike me as fundamentally illiberal and not places I would want to live, and the more anarchic mostly untested versions strike me as prone to mob rule, innefiecient and not ready to meet the challenges of a globalized economy.

*That's not to say Capitalism now is perfect, I consider myself on the left and would like to move towards the Nordic model, but that is a capitalist model and I have a hard time seeing a communist or socialist society achieving better results then that.

Just a few of observations.

1. I think we should be beyond capitalism versus communism. I'm not aware of any communist system working. But, there seems to be many ways to do capitalism. Capitalism can coexist with a strong social safety net and worker protections. This is the sort of capitalism I think we should have. I'm not convinced by the Ayn Rand version. In fact, Ayn Rand mainly just talked out of her ass.

2. I don't think communism or Marxism can get rid of class. It seems to me under communism or a state where all the means of production are owned by the state you're still going to have a technocratic elite class and worker class basically. Just like the capitalist class, the technocratic elite class, will likely over reach if their isn't protection for ordinary workers. I don't think we will ever completely get rid of class stratification in society. That doesn't mean that elites should be able to do whatever in the hell they please, nor does it mean we shouldn't ever worry about inequality.

3. Honestly our understanding of economic systems isn't as robust as we would like. But, the evidence we have, which is admittedly limited, seems to suggest that decentralize systems do better than a centralized system. I'm not a huge fan of Hayek, but he made decent contribution on this point, suggesting how the price system transmits knowledge in the economy.

4. Of course the price system is not perfect. There are plenty of standard cases where prices don't produce optimal results and government regulation is justified. Standard cases include things like monopolies, informational asymmetries, etc.. And of course, I've said this many times, but I'll say it again, the partial equilibrium competitive model of labor is the dumbest model in economics and needs to make its exit from text books. It simply doesn't represent the real world. Anyone that has searched for a job knows that. Also the economics of knowledge doesn't work like the economics of commodities. That means the government probably should invest in research. Right now, in the United States, we fund a lot of research through the patent system, which you can think of as a kind of inefficient tax system to fund innovation. And of course knowledge production is the real driver behind economic growth. From theory and evidence, neither growth in capital nor labor can explain economic growth.

6. I think by now we know that aggregate demand can and does often fall short putting the economy into recession. In these cases government action through monetary and fiscal policy are justified.

7. Finally, if you don't have a good political system, one that is transparent and limits corruption and rent seeking,whatever economic system you have will likely will turn to crap.

[Targknight]

Communism is worse off. Capitalism is necessary. Their won’t be enough money,and we will lots of products. Especially lose a lot of things would be banned like The Witcher,Lord Of The Rings,etc... 

[sologdin]

BJR--

am having a difficult time imagining a commie policy priority that calls for state bans on classics of trashy fantasy?

[Jace, Extat]

10 minutes ago, sologdin said:

BJR--

am having a difficult time imagining a commie policy priority that calls for state bans on classics of trashy fantasy?

And that, Comrade, is why you go to gulag now.

[Martell Spy]

A friend sent me an idea that kind of blew my mind. The federal government getting in to automation. It kind of taught me that I am sort of a capitalist because I was shocked. And I'm very friendly to leftist economic policies and UBI. I just assumed, perhaps wrongly, that it would be private companies still doing the automation, even as UBI was implemented.

Anyway, this wouldn't necessarily mean the federal government taking over all automation at once. Could go sector by sector, for example. Combined with UBI, a high minimum wage, universal healthcare, a lower workweek, and you start to have a system that might technically have capitalist parts to it, but it's really resembling something quite different.

[Targknight]

5 hours ago, sologdin said:

BJR--

am having a difficult time imagining a commie policy priority that calls for state bans on classics of trashy fantasy?

A lot of things where banned. Stalin would have anyone arrested for watching Cowboy Films. Yet Stalin watched Cowboy films. Giving government more power is ludicrous. No one actually will be equal.

You couldn’t buy Tolkien Works, and Michael Moorcock in the Soviet Union. My parents are from Soviet Union.

 

You Are Not Allowed To Buy Lord Of Rings In Soviet Russia