Marxism 101: Socialism and Communism

[Shiranu]

Honest answer is that it feels like a lot of words to say a lot of nothing. There is nothing tangible, nothing I can use to really enact change, because it's trying to rationalise and intellectualize human behaviour when our behaviour is, at it's core, irrational and emotional.

Since it cant be used to make any real change, it just seems like a way to rationalise dividing people up into "us"s and "them"s when really our actions are ultimately almost universally based around, "Does this benefit me and my kin" rather than, "If I take specific step x and input step y, then result b will lead to a change in cause l which hampers his step t and k making my step w more effective at enacting step k...".

And I don't know, I don't mean that to put your position down, I think it's great people look at issues more in depth, but I just have a hard time seeing how much good it is. It seems like wasted effort; no amount of rational thought is going to make people say, "Well, shit... yeah, socialism/capitalism or liberalism/conservatism does make more sense!". Rather the useful act is to convince people emotionally to change, and that just seems like a better direction to focus one's efforts.

[The Skeletal Atheist]

...you're not a tankie are you?

[etienne]

Honest answer is that it feels like a lot of words to say a lot of nothing. There is nothing tangible, nothing I can use to really enact change, because it's trying to rationalise and intellectualize human behaviour when our behaviour is, at it's core, irrational and emotional.

Since it cant be used to make any real change, it just seems like a way to rationalise dividing people up into "us"s and "them"s when really our actions are ultimately almost universally based around, "Does this benefit me and my kin" rather than, "If I take specific step x and input step y, then result b will lead to a change in cause l which hampers his step t and k making my step w more effective at enacting step k...".

And I don't know, I don't mean that to put your position down, I think it's great people look at issues more in depth, but I just have a hard time seeing how much good it is. It seems like wasted effort; no amount of rational thought is going to make people say, "Well, shit... yeah, socialism/capitalism or liberalism/conservatism does make more sense!". Rather the useful act is to convince people emotionally to change, and that just seems like a better direction to focus one's efforts.

Well, I disagree with everything you said, pretty much to the letter.  Why?  Because none of what you said is true.  I could break down each point, but I've already done that, and it's in the vids.  We live in a material world, it is real and so-comm and capitalism are real.  One just has you decide which side of the fence one is on.

Watch the vids, maybe you will learn something.

[Hydra009]

Libertarianism is essentially fascism.

He'd argue that it's all about maximal freedom, apparently implying that other positions are somehow less free.  I sell my goods and services, you sell your goods and services, and everyone gets what they want without the state ordering people around.

Also, we can get rid of violent crime by just mandating gun ownership for all non-criminals.

Don't compare those two statements too much or your head might explode.

[Hydra009]

Watch the vids, maybe you will learn something.

Please, please don't say stuff like that.  We have a had a couple people in the past who essentially just push propaganda vids at us and expect us to listen and believe.  Please, use videos sparingly and summarize most of the time.  It feels more like a real conversation that way.

[etienne]

Please, please don't say stuff like that.  We have a had a couple people in the past who essentially just push propaganda vids at us and expect us to listen and believe.  Please, use videos sparingly and summarize most of the time.  It feels more like a real conversation that way.

I put them there so people can actually learn something, because, no, they dont know about so-comm and they dont even understand capitalism--they cant define either.  Hence, they just usually have their uninformed opinion.  It's rather like debating religionists.

[Baruch]

Well, I disagree with everything you said, pretty much to the letter.  Why?  Because none of what you said is true.  I could break down each point, but I've already done that, and it's in the vids.  We live in a material world, it is real and so-comm and capitalism are real.  One just has you decide which side of the fence one is on.

Watch the vids, maybe you will learn something.

To summarize ... but private capitalism and state capitalism (See US vs China) are just capitalism.  The problem, beyond Marx, is that humans are criminogenic, and that capitalism of any kind, is an extinction event.

[Baruch]

Bolded:  logical fallacy, not possible.  Please study "class warfare" under capitalism.

Per Warren Buffett .. I know there is class warfare, and my class is winning.  But I like a friendly game of checkers ... I don't like how the game of Monopoly plays out in the end ;-(  But Monopoly is realistic, meant to be, it is a Depression era game, hopefully to un-program all the petite capitalists.  The ideal of a final state of society (other than extinction) is a bug-bear for both kinds of capitalism.  Humans aren't stable, neither are our societies ... they are chaotic, they are not evolving toward something peaceful, other than the cemetery.

[Baruch]

He'd argue that it's all about maximal freedom, apparently implying that other positions are somehow less free.  I sell my goods and services, you sell your goods and services, and everyone gets what they want without the state ordering people around.

Also, we can get rid of violent crime by just mandating gun ownership for all non-criminals.

Don't compare those two statements too much or your head might explode.

You are idealizing as much as he is.  You can't get rid of the violent crime of the state.  And anarchism of capitalism (unregulated corporate crime) isn't the abolition of crime either.  The problem, per socialism, is that you are using money, which is invalid, and buying and selling, for which you have no social authorization (see police shutting down kid's lemonade stands), and dealing with property that you don't own (stolen goods, all the say down ... we are all thieves and fences).

[Baruch]

I put them there so people can actually learn something, because, no, they dont know about so-comm and they dont even understand capitalism--they cant define either.  Hence, they just usually have their uninformed opinion.  It's rather like debating religionists.

First rule of political-economics (and they can't be separated, I agree with Marx on that) is ... what the hell is money, and what is it good for?  Not one person in a hundred, have any reasonable answer, even though they deal with money every day.  People won't open their eyes, if opening them is a threat to their livelihood.  This is to the max with the plutocracy, and their insane materialism.  Economics isn't a science, it is a ritual, designed to cover the tracks of the criminals (like me).  For most people, religion is a crime too, and atheists have opened their eyes to that (but only because their livelihood doesn't depend on it).

There is a profound difference between knowledge and understanding.  Most people don't have knowledge, and fewer still have understanding.

[Baruch]

Etienne - "Churches should pay taxes, I don't want to fund them" .. taxation should wither away, just like the state ;-))  Marx and Engels at least tried to come up with a non-partisan economics ... rather than just numerical propaganda buttressing the British Empire.  What is the purpose of taxation?  Do you even understand the nature of liquidity, and its flow?  In an era of digital money, that can be created at will (unlike gold coin) .. there is no reason for taxation at all ... other than to tyrannize the people.  Of course, that was part of its purpose, when we did have a gold standard.  Governments create money, not private parties (sorry bit-coin).  Money has values because ... armies and policemen.  To provide liquidity for the criminal class and the wanna-bees (see City of God by Augustine) ... the government has to provide a carrot and a stick.  The carrot is military expenses and public works ... the stick is taxes ... and punishment for any kind of disobedience.  Ancient Rome works the same today as yesterday, except electronic denarii.  One can have as much liquidity as one wants ... but liquidity isn't wealth, it is the grease that helps the gears in the transmission turn.  People who think that money is wealth ... are ape men.

[Baruch]

  The 1st World owes it's material existence to the resources of the 3rd World, primarily, including the slave labor.  It is false to say that the US, thru political process, could change from capitalistic to socialistic--they are antithetic.  The US political bourgeois politics support the capitalists, that is it's function.  The US is an oligarchy, a plutocracy.

The USSR went from a backward, Czarist ruled feudalistic society to an industrialized socialistic country that became the #2 super power in roughly 20-30 years.  Maoist China did the same thing.  There was essentially no unemployment, homelessness or hunger in either country after the inititial transitions.  If you favor capitalism because you benefit from the exploitation of the working classes, especially in the 3rd World, it is your prerogative to think that way--since you materially benefit from it and apparently dont give a damn about the working class, which is consistent with capitalists. 

Embargos are real, economic warfare, and people die(just ask Iraq), and the US has blocked nearly all other countries from trading with Cuba, it is fact, it is an undebatable point.  And Cuba's main export in SUGAR.

Yes, the 1st World (tm) is a criminal enterprise.  We have been winning for 500 years now.  We will continue to win (what is now the N/S war, not the E/W war) until the pillaging is complete.  Life isn't fair, so might as well be an asshole.  The new stooge in Venezuela is quietly moving all of Venezuela's gold, that the previous patriot got back, to Switzerland, where the Rothschilds can transfer it to China.  All gold goes to China, except what goes to India.  Because in the new Feudalism (yes we are going backward, inevitably ... Marx was wrong on that) India and China will be #1, just as they were 500 years ago.  The Establishment, which is international (and only partly Jewish) has decided to end Western Civilization ... a reboot of Eastern Civilization is in the offing.  Get rid of your ancient Tandy computer, get the shiny new iCrap.  Statecraft is played on a very high level, and pawns are routinely sacrificed to protect the Queen (far more important than the King).

[Baruch]

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.

Mao only said that, because he failed as a Confucian scholar and gentleman.  He should have had his feet bound, and put in a Qipao Cheongsam:
http://www.idreammart.com/elegant-red-brocade-full-length-traditional-chinese-dress-qipao-cheongsam-21529007.html?gclid=CL3R9ui0ztICFUKSfgodRf0Cmg

He would have made honorable husband, very happy ;-))

[Baruch]

So-comm societies make mistakes, no doubt.  It's a heavy heavy lift to transform to a socialistic society.  AND the capitalists attack in every way and at every turn.  That is factual.   Just look at the constant US anti-commie propaganda for decades.

Reality also is, as long as you have an owning class with all the wealth and a wage slave working class, the latter will always seek to overthrow the former, doesnt matter what the former thinks about it.

We are going to replace all the slaves with robots, just like Marx imagined.  Only the Establishment is going to genocide 90% of the useless eaters ... not something that Marx imagined.  Marx was too nice.

[Baruch]

Ok, my fee is $10k, line 'er up!

I don't know why this is so difficult for people(well I do, brainwashing).  It's all really quite simple, and so-comm is actually a scientific analysis of socio-economic phenomena, material relationships between humans.  So the science should have appeal to atheists, who tend to like science.

US or Austrian(Mises) Libertarianism is unfettered, or highly deregulated capitalism.  Wall St. is already there.  Communism is unfettered, well, socialism, so they are polar opposites.  Libertarianism is essentially fascism.

Marxism is 19th century radical criticism (empirical and rational).  It is essentially anti-Anglo-American (who were the dominant capitalists of his day).  If I weren't Anglo-American imperialist ... I would be Marxist myself (as part of the N/S struggle for fairness (actually domination by) the S (China + India).  The Chinese are now screwing Africa just like the Europeans did 100 years ago.  India of course, can't find its collective ass ... not real competition to China.  See "The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers" and "Guns, Germs and Steel".  That is modern anthropology, drop the quaint 19th century versions.