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 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I think now's a good time as any to say i have several co-workers that used to live in the soviet union.

Supposedly one of their sons working at my job said their dad managed to leave romania (under soviet control) before he could be taken in by the military and if they knew he would've probably been killed.

Another from Belarus said the punishment for not doing your time in the military as a soviet man during the time he served was several choices. You could take a pill that would ruin your mental capacity for life, go to a re-education or forced labor camp or something to that effect. So yeah once you reached a certain age military duty was pretty much mandatory if you were a man. They gave you other choices but they were awful. The guy from belarus also said men and women in his nation weren't allowed to be anything outside of their set roles. Supposedly women couldn't be in the military and such like. Also in the soviet union or at least belarus they didn't like gay people from what they mentioned. This is all fairly recent as far as soviet timeline goes as my co-worker from belarus talked about the chernobyl incident happening when he was doing his mandatory time in the military.

Anyway both of those co-workers are very republican. I dunno but maybe living under communism has that effect on people.

None of that has really changed with the fall of the Soviet Union though. Military service is still mandatory in Russia and Belarus. Only difference now is that rich people can bribe someone to have them declared unfit for service. Russia and Belarus are also still very traditional societies. Gay people still aren't liked, and men and women are generally expected to adhere to traditional gender roles. However, women can and do serve in the Russian military now ( I read somewhere that about 10-15% of all Russian military personnel is female now) and there is also now more women in high government and business positions, so on that point things are improving. LGBT rights not so much however, that was actually better in Soviet times.

In Spain we had obligatory military training (The "Mili") for men until 1996.
And theres no surprise about all of that. Many modern countries didn't allowed women in their armies until recently. The same about homosexuals.

I'm not saying that the "Killing you if you dont' do it" was common, of course.

"A pill that would ruin your mental capacity for life"? What would that be?

Rosebuddy wrote:
"A pill that would ruin your mental capacity for life"? What would that be?

The red one.

 Galas wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:
"A pill that would ruin your mental capacity for life"? What would that be?

The red one.

Bravo, sir. Bravo!

Rosebuddy wrote:It isn't oppression to redistribute wealth that has been gotten by plunder. It isn't oppression to make the economy more democratic. That is the opposite of oppression, that's justice. You might as well complain that kings are oppressed when people want a republic instead. Tell me, was the British Crown the target of oppression during the American revolution? Were slave owners the target of oppression during the Civil War?

Define plunder. If by plunder you mean "a person's accrued wealth", then what you describe as justice is actually thievery.

The problem was that communists say they want control of the product, but what they want is control of the profits. Even if a communist movement starts with the noble "Ivanhoe" intentions, it quickly shifts to the heads of the movement doling themselves out extra when distributing wealth to their people. The long as short of it is a gas station attendant bitter that they don't have a Bentley like the local bureacrat. So rather than work your life to a position where you can succeed (captialism) it is instead decided that bashing someone over the head with a rock or whatever colorful form of murder comes to mind and taking control of said wealth and what produces it is much more noble, or "just", as you describe it (communism). Granted, there are probably a few examples where there was a peaceful introduction of "take other people's stuff", but it's definitely an outlier. Usually people don't try to cast down their economic and political system unless they are dissatisfied or power mad. Typically both.

You're assuming that the manager hasn't kicked the social ladder down after he climbed it and that the attendant actually can work hard enough to get a Bentley.

Or, as we say on Dakka: BOOTSTRAPS.

Socialism doesn't work. Period.

Capitalism isn't great either, but I'd choose the lesser of two evils IMHO

 Dr. Mills wrote:
Socialism doesn't work. Period.

Capitalism isn't great either, but I'd choose the lesser of two evils IMHO

Define "socialism" and "doesn't work".

 Just Tony wrote:
Define plunder. If by plunder you mean "a person's accrued wealth", then what you describe as justice is actually thievery.

Plunder, as in taking advantage of lower-class workers for their own benefit. Under a capitalist system the wealthy elites accumulate vastly disproportionate wealth, wealth they can only obtain because they have people working (and, often, working much harder) for poverty-level wages providing the cheap labor that keeps their profits high. And those workers have no choice but to accept poverty-level wages, because the alternative is starving to death.

So rather than work your life to a position where you can succeed (captialism)

This is a myth. Under capitalism there are a great many people who will never succeed and reach the levels of wealth they desire, no matter how hard they work. A janitor working for minimum wage is never going to become a billionaire, because they are never going to make enough of a margin above their basic life requirements to invest in the kind of things that make people into billionaires. The best they can hope for is to work hard, make it to a slightly higher than minimum wage job, save up enough money to send a talented kid to school, and maybe get their descendants into the middle class. And it's only going to get worse as AI and automation continue to advance, leaving more and more people literally unemployable. There will simply be vastly more people than jobs available, and by necessity many people will have no hope of advancing beyond what society decides to give them.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
It is not entirely true though. A great deal of our innovation and advances in the previous century were made under fascism and communism. In fact, due to the costs that come with scientific research and little government contribution (which means scientists often can't do things for lack of money) and things like draconian copyright laws, capitalism is often more of a hassle for science than it is a boon. It is easier to be a scientist in a country where the government is really focused on scientific progress and will just pay any expenses, regardless of the political system. Although the countries in this last category often do tend to be pretty high on the authoritarian spectrum.

Much like economic growth in a controlled economy, scientific advancement can get some positive effects in very specific, planned areas. So when the leaders decide they want space travel as a priority, then they will fund it and progress will be made.

But that's a tiny part of the story, because most economic growth and most scientific advancement in capitalism happens without specific government direction, but from individuals and organisations pursuing what they personally think sounds like a pretty good idea. It isn't just an accident of history that personal computers, the internet and renewable energy have all come out of the post-war Western world. And that scientific innovation advantage is increased as profit seekig companies refine technology for sale to consumers. The contrast of capitalist and communist cars is an old cliche, but that's for a reason.


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 Disciple of Fate wrote:
I think my original quote is getting lost, that quote becoming detached from the whole. I was responding to a 1962 quote that states: (paraphrasing) communism by force and socialism by democracy are the same thing, difference between murder and suicide. I wasn't defending communism, I was defending the fact that socialism does not have to be bad in forms such as social democracies. So that whole part was started by defending socialism as not necessarily evil, then getting criticized by someone arguing that social democracies aren't socialist states because they have capitalism, which is where the sliding scale comes in in what we should consider socialist versus a capitalist state (which is a bit of a false scale). So in essence my argument was the same as you make, going through the whole side debate: "socialism in medium doses isn't just harmless, but essential" even up to including the social democracy part.

Ah yes, I remember reading that crazy quote, but I lost track of the conversation after that. I agree with what you said above.


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 Just Tony wrote:
So rather than work your life to a position where you can succeed (captialism) it is instead decided that bashing someone over the head with a rock or whatever colorful form of murder comes to mind and taking control of said wealth and what produces it is much more noble, or "just", as you describe it (communism).

It's certainly true that brainless aspiration is an important part of stability in capitalism, and a gas station attendant thinking he has a sensible chance of one day driving a Bentley is a great example. But that probably wasn't your point.

Granted, there are probably a few examples where there was a peaceful introduction of "take other people's stuff", but it's definitely an outlier.

What? The entire creation of progressive taxes and modern social welfare is entirely about 'take other people's stuff', and that has been rolled out in all liberal democracies, i most cases with no violence. Even the instances of violence were limited to aggressive strike action and counters.

sebster wrote:But that's a tiny part of the story, because most economic growth and most scientific advancement in capitalism happens without specific government direction, but from individuals and organisations pursuing what they personally think sounds like a pretty good idea. It isn't just an accident of history that personal computers, the internet and renewable energy have all come out of the post-war Western world. And that scientific innovation advantage is increased as profit seekig companies refine technology for sale to consumers. The contrast of capitalist and communist cars is an old cliche, but that's for a reason.

That in turn is also a tiny part of the whole story.

The internet was able to grow as a government research project because its long gestation wasn't viable in a capitalistic environment (also: cold war fears). Capitalism latched onto it once VCs could see potential for profit. We literary needed a way to cancel out capitalism for it for a while or it wouldn't have gotten traction, the same goes for the WWW and HTML (developed through public funding and given away for free without patents). Amazon and Google were able to function because they grew on top of projects whose R&D was paid for by the government and that were able to grow despite capitalism. Microsoft even wanted to slowly strangle the WWW with IE because they feared losing their quasi-monopoly in the PC space (just look at IE6, and in general how they were able to cripple Netscape).

The same goes for the iPhone (link). The whole foundation it was build on was created through public R&D. It only became a hit product with massive profits because that foundation existed. Neil deGrasse Tyson has a whole monologue about how NASA's R&D created a huge multiplier (of their comparatively tiny budget) of profit for other companies once their work got appropriated. Without all that work—that was decoupled form market forces—a lot of the fancy stuff wouldn't have been possible in a capitalistic environment. It wouldn't even had gotten the chance to die as a bad idea in the open market.

The same goes for a lot of early R&D in the PC, renewable energy, and pharmaceutical industries.

Also let's not forget European colonisation and slavery which created huge profits for capitalists (if one ignores the externalities, like taking somebody's land, slavey, and murder).

Peregrine wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Define plunder. If by plunder you mean "a person's accrued wealth", then what you describe as justice is actually thievery.

Plunder, as in taking advantage of lower-class workers for their own benefit. Under a capitalist system the wealthy elites accumulate vastly disproportionate wealth, wealth they can only obtain because they have people working (and, often, working much harder) for poverty-level wages providing the cheap labor that keeps their profits high. And those workers have no choice but to accept poverty-level wages, because the alternative is starving to death.

Oh, I see. you're mistaking "payment for services rendered" for taking advantage of lower-class workers for their own benefit. Oddly enough, the socialist and communist econonic systems do EXACTLY that.

Do you know why some (not all, not by a long shot) companies pay minimum wage/poverty wage for their production/service positions? Because someone somewhere will work for that. All it takes is for workers to either refuse to work there, pressuring the company to raise wages, or for competition for talent to move in offering better pay. I work for a large corporate entity that makes industrial equipment, to protect their identity I will simply call them Inchworm Inc. I'm a machinist, and make 50,000 a year absolute minimum. I not only have bonuses and perks that shoot that number higher, but much more room for advancement. There are places in the same town as my factory where machinists are making 1/2 to 3/5 of what I'm making. There is literally nothing stopping them from working where I work. Also, two plants are opening in my town which are already advertising wages equal to or higher than my place of employment. What do you think is going to happen when they are ready to fill production/service slots? Do you think my company will risk its talent by not stayinig competitive? The plant wide wage increase last year tells me different.

If someone in my area, or even YOUR area, works for poverty wage, it's because they choose to.

Peregrine wrote:

So rather than work your life to a position where you can succeed (captialism)

This is a myth. Under capitalism there are a great many people who will never succeed and reach the levels of wealth they desire, no matter how hard they work. A janitor working for minimum wage is never going to become a billionaire, because they are never going to make enough of a margin above their basic life requirements to invest in the kind of things that make people into billionaires. The best they can hope for is to work hard, make it to a slightly higher than minimum wage job, save up enough money to send a talented kid to school, and maybe get their descendants into the middle class. And it's only going to get worse as AI and automation continue to advance, leaving more and more people literally unemployable. There will simply be vastly more people than jobs available, and by necessity many people will have no hope of advancing beyond what society decides to give them.

Depending, I suppose, on where you live. You live here in the US, so you operate under the same system as I do. I came from a family that lived easily below poverty level, with my dad being an over the road truck driver. By your logic, he never would have made it past that, or improved. After the recession in the early 80's, Dad was able to utilize that boom in the economy from Reaganomics failing (according to some) to locate work elsewhere, working his way to a supervisory position shortly after I moved out to start on my own. I've already gone over my own situation. My little brother enlisted and used the GI Bill to pay for a degree to become an English teacher, until career fatigue set in and he himself found employment at a company in the town he moved to, recently he advanced into a position making 6 figures. By your model, we were doomed to never advance.

And even then, our own comfort level is what stops us from advancing. If someone wants a six figure job, they can find it. Move up the ranks to management? Totally a thing. Vice Presidency of one of the divisions? Absolutely plausible. Just takes ambition, effort, and a foresight into what is required to further your career.

I could have honestly done better. My stupid ass went to college for Forensics, not knowing that the market is glutted with CSI's looking for work. THAT could be the trapping where the capitalist opportunity fails. Human error. If someone decides to rack up $80,000 in student loans to get a degree in Liberal Arts or Museum Curation, is it the fault of the economic system that they had their shot and blew it on a poorly thought out career path? I don't think so. That's like blaming the gun for someone deciding to murder someone... Oh, wait. That's like a main liberal tenet. Best leave that one alone...

sebster wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
So rather than work your life to a position where you can succeed (captialism) it is instead decided that bashing someone over the head with a rock or whatever colorful form of murder comes to mind and taking control of said wealth and what produces it is much more noble, or "just", as you describe it (communism).

It's certainly true that brainless aspiration is an important part of stability in capitalism, and a gas station attendant thinking he has a sensible chance of one day driving a Bentley is a great example. But that probably wasn't your point.

Is it any better than the brainless complacency that is required to maintain stability in socialist economies?

You are right, though. That was not my point, nor was it my point to ellicit condescendingly prickish comments born from one's overinflated sense of superiority. To be frank, Seb, I expected better of you...

My point is that history is replete with examples of people pursuing dreams and dragging themselves from the bottom rung to the top, but it's better to stand on rhetoric apparently.

sebster wrote:

Granted, there are probably a few examples where there was a peaceful introduction of "take other people's stuff", but it's definitely an outlier.

What? The entire creation of progressive taxes and modern social welfare is entirely about 'take other people's stuff', and that has been rolled out in all liberal democracies, i most cases with no violence. Even the instances of violence were limited to aggressive strike action and counters.

I have myself to blame for this one. If you see me type "take other people's stuff", I'm referring to the redistribution of wealth principles behind socialism and communism, and the covetous nature that feeds those principles. I will endeavor to keep my flippant pet terms to a minimum.

 Just Tony wrote:
Oh, I see. you're mistaking "payment for services rendered" for taking advantage of lower-class workers for their own benefit. Oddly enough, the socialist and communist econonic systems do EXACTLY that.

No, socialism and communism (which are not the same) do not do that. The issue is not working for pay, it's the extreme gap in pay between the poorest and the richest workers. In a communist system you might still have to work, but you aren't living in horrible poverty so that the owner of the company can make $50 million a year instead of $40 million a year.

All it takes is for workers to either refuse to work there, pressuring the company to raise wages, or for competition for talent to move in offering better pay.

That's nice in theory, but it depends on there being a surplus of jobs such that any employer that doesn't increase pay has nobody desperate enough to work for them. When the number of workers exceeds the number of jobs the competition goes the other way around, as there will always be someone willing to take lower pay for a job when the alternative is getting nothing and starving to death. That's why we have things like minimum wage laws, to prevent employers in this situation from paying their workers China-level rates.

And, again, this problem is only going to get worse as automation and AI replace more and more human workers. If there's a 90% unemployment rate because there are only enough jobs for 10% of the potential work force then wages will crash to the absolute minimum that is legally permitted, and anyone who asks for more than that will find themselves fired and replaced with someone more desperate. There are only two possible outcomes from this situation: moving to a socialist/communist state, or violent revolution by the 90% who have nothing left to lose.

If someone in my area, or even YOUR area, works for poverty wage, it's because they choose to.

Or because they aren't qualified to do anything better. I notice that in your example you're talking about highly skilled labor, where the employer has a strong incentive to keep you because getting a replacement is difficult. Consider, instead, a McBurger employee that can be replaced immediately if they leave. They have no marketable skills outside of the fast food industry (where everyone pays poverty wages and there's a surplus of potential workers), and they don't have any money to pay for school to improve their position. The only choice they have is working for poverty wages, or not working at all.

But really, the absurdity of your argument should be obvious: do you sincerely believe that people choose to live in poverty because they like it? Of course not.

Depending, I suppose, on where you live. You live here in the US, so you operate under the same system as I do. I came from a family that lived easily below poverty level, with my dad being an over the road truck driver. By your logic, he never would have made it past that, or improved. After the recession in the early 80's, Dad was able to utilize that boom in the economy from Reaganomics failing (according to some) to locate work elsewhere, working his way to a supervisory position shortly after I moved out to start on my own. I've already gone over my own situation. My little brother enlisted and used the GI Bill to pay for a degree to become an English teacher, until career fatigue set in and he himself found employment at a company in the town he moved to, recently he advanced into a position making 6 figures. By your model, we were doomed to never advance.

You're moving the goalposts here. Your example is of your dad moving from poverty to a supervisor job, not from poverty to the wealthy elite. Obviously some people can work hard and advance into a slightly better situation, but your chances of going from poverty to wealth are virtually nonexistent. Even your chances of going from the middle class to wealth are virtually nonexistent.

My point is that history is replete with examples of people pursuing dreams and dragging themselves from the bottom rung to the top, but it's better to stand on rhetoric apparently.

Those examples are the exception to the rule, and memorable because they are rare. For every lucky person who manages that feat there are countless others who fall well short and are forgotten. It's about as realistic as dreaming that you're going to become a professional athlete and make millions. Sure, it happens, but the overwhelming majority of people who attempt it fail.

 Just Tony wrote:


If someone in my area, or even YOUR area, works for poverty wage, it's because they choose to.

I'm somewhat in awe that a person could actually think that the reason those in poverty work for minimum wage is because they've decided to.

In all seriousness, I think you just discredited yourself from any argument you could make on social or fiscal policy. Bit of an own goal there.

Got to admit though, it's been a while since someone's gone full bootstraps on Dakka.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Or, as we say on Dakka: BOOTSTRAPS.

We do? What does bootstraps mean on Dakka?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Or, as we say on Dakka: BOOTSTRAPS.

We do? What does bootstraps mean on Dakka?

Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, i.e. working hard and reaching success, especially if the argument is made in such a way as to downplay or ignore any possible difficulties in doing so, implying or outright stating that poor people being poor is entirely their own fault. It was a common enough argument a few years ago that it essentially turned into a meme, as the argument is blatantly ridiculous.

It's essentially the modern equivalent of "let them eat cake".

I always liked the way Scott Adams put it. He pointed out how most 'Success' stories of the self-made businessman boil down to 4 steps.

1. Be poor.
2. Develop an amazingly motivational attitude towards work.
3. ????
4. Buy your third porsche whilst surveying property in Barbados.

Step 3 is always some stroke of good fortune, or series of incredibly lucky breaks.

The person writing the self-help/business success story always attributes their success to Step 2 though, believing that they're the ones who were directly responsible for making it happen, and that anyone else can too if they just have the right attitude and do the right stuff. They never quite cotton on to the fact that you can do have everything right,work really hard, and still end up poor and in a ditch.

 Just Tony wrote:
My little brother enlisted and used the GI Bill to pay for a degree to become an English teacher, until career fatigue set in and he himself found employment at a company in the town he moved to, recently he advanced into a position making 6 figures. By your model, we were doomed to never advance.
(snip)
I could have honestly done better. My stupid ass went to college for Forensics, not knowing that the market is glutted with CSI's looking for work.

Did you also use the GI Bill to go to college?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Or, as we say on Dakka: BOOTSTRAPS.

We do? What does bootstraps mean on Dakka?

Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, i.e. working hard and reaching success, especially if the argument is made in such a way as to downplay or ignore any possible difficulties in doing so, implying or outright stating that poor people being poor is entirely their own fault. It was a common enough argument a few years ago that it essentially turned into a meme, as the argument is blatantly ridiculous.

It's essentially the modern equivalent of "let them eat cake".

Additionally, the saying "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" as it existed previously meant specifically something that was impossible. It is, after all, not physically doable to lift yourself up out of a hole by grabbing on to your shoes and pulling.

The only reason we don't see the worst part of capitalism in our countries is because India, Bangladesh and China exist.

Ketara wrote:The person writing the self-help/business success story always attributes their success to Step 2 though, believing that they're the ones who were directly responsible for making it happen, and that anyone else can too if they just have the right attitude and do the right stuff. They never quite cotton on to the fact that you can do have everything right,work really hard, and still end up poor and in a ditch.

That's survivorship bias at work, self-help/business books or stories are the astrology of "business leaders" (also: over the years Scott Adams himself has drifted into crazy person territory).

Mario wrote:
[That in turn is also a tiny part of the whole story.

Excellent point, really well substantiated with loads of examples. You are absolutely right, government research is essential to technological development, as the early stages of research where applications are unclear do not attract much private sector interest.


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 Just Tony wrote:
Dad was able to utilize that boom in the economy from Reaganomics failing (according to some)

You've gotten your economics confused by injecting your partisan politics.

Anyhow, to understand Reaganomics, you have to understand what Reaganonimics was, how Reagan sold it, and what actually happened. Reagan's policy was self-funding tax cuts as theorised in the Laffer Curve, famously called 'voodoo economics', and it was a straight up dismal failure. The cuts didn't self fund and instead the deficit blew out, and Reagan ended up reversing course and passed at least one bill increasing taxes every year from '82 to '87, starting with a 1982 bill that immediately reversed about a third of the impact of the original 1981 bill's cuts. At the same time, over the course of Reagan's time in office he managed GDP growth of 3.4%, compared to postwar average of 3.1%, so for all that extra spending the impact on growth was either non-existent or extremely small.

That legacy, a deficit blow out that produced average growth is not the kind of thing conservatives can admit to while they're trying to repeat it, still claiming they'll pay for themselves. So instead Republicans play a game, looking at a specific period, 1983 & 1984. Because early in Reagan's first term there was a sharp recession. It was due to Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker brought in tight monetary policy to bring inflation under control. People can argue all day about whether Volcker's actions were necessary, but whatever conclusion is reached there it's clear the recession nothing to do with Reagan in either a positive or negative sense. But Reagan boosters still like to claim credit for the recovery, pretending the normal process of 'snapping back' to long term trends after a supply shock recession should be ignored, and instead the high growth of 1983 and 1984 should credited to Reagan's tax cuts. It's not an honest analysis.

And even then, our own comfort level is what stops us from advancing. If someone wants a six figure job, they can find it. Move up the ranks to management? Totally a thing. Vice Presidency of one of the divisions? Absolutely plausible. Just takes ambition, effort, and a foresight into what is required to further your career.

You are actually trying to argue the only difference between the janitor and a divisional vice president is ambition and effort.

Is it any better than the brainless complacency that is required to maintain stability in socialist economies?

No, defending either is brainless. And when I say either, I mean extreme USSR style socialism, and extreme libertarian style capitalism.

You are right, though. That was not my point, nor was it my point to ellicit condescendingly prickish comments born from one's overinflated sense of superiority. To be frank, Seb, I expected better of you...

Dude, you volunteered the actual literal example of a gas station attendant dreaming of one day owning a Bentley. I described that as brainless aspiration, precisely because it is, and then pointed out how that blind hope is an important part of social stability in capitalist systems.

My point is that history is replete with examples of people pursuing dreams and dragging themselves from the bottom rung to the top, but it's better to stand on rhetoric apparently.

People who reach greatness make for wonderful stories, and they should be told often and celebrated, but we shouldn't pretend such stories are more common than the alternative. Reality is most people are born in to mediocrity and stay there, and not because of any personal failings but because that's just how stuff works out. So once we accept that it becomes clear the focus should be on making sure mediocre lives are not full of needless material suffering, while also making sure support given doesn't hurt the number of people who rise up, and ideally increases that number.

I have myself to blame for this one. If you see me type "take other people's stuff", I'm referring to the redistribution of wealth principles behind socialism and communism, and the covetous nature that feeds those principles. I will endeavor to keep my flippant pet terms to a minimum.

If you mean socialism in the USSR sense, and not the Sweden/UK/US progressive tax and distribute sense, then I agree.


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Mario wrote:
That's survivorship bias at work, self-help/business books or stories are the astrology of "business leaders"

I think the world would benefit a lot if for every story of made capitalist success, we had 20 stories of people who followed a dream, it failed, and they went back to teaching or carpentry or whatever and went on with their lives while slowly paying off the debt from the bankruptcy deal that let them keep their house. Or the story of the single mum who struggled to raise 2 kids, who had a killer idea for a gadget... that turned out to be not commercially viable at the prototype stage so she kept on struggling.

I think it would lead to a culture where a lot more people find a balance between 'do nothing more than accept life will always be a financial struggle' and 'chase wildly impractical dream'.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Or, as we say on Dakka: BOOTSTRAPS.

We do? What does bootstraps mean on Dakka?

Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, i.e. working hard and reaching success, especially if the argument is made in such a way as to downplay or ignore any possible difficulties in doing so, implying or outright stating that poor people being poor is entirely their own fault. It was a common enough argument a few years ago that it essentially turned into a meme, as the argument is blatantly ridiculous.

It's essentially the modern equivalent of "let them eat cake".

Ah ok, I know the saying pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, never knew it became memenized to a single word.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


Yes, and in the real world a government murdering its own citizens is terrible. It does make a significant difference if its a private or state actor that deprives people of food, because circumstances are entirely different. States are on an entirely different level of responsibility, because a state is in control of the lives of its own citizens. What CEO's contribute in lack of food or destruction of environment is terrible, but you can't point the finger at them and directly blame them for famines because the food is still being sold (granted its extremely troubling and should be tackled) to them, you can at a state if you look at policies.

So if we imagine that Stalin was CEO of USSR Corp. you would be fine with him starving people by raising prices on food to the level that millions wouldn't be able to afford it? In a capitalist society/world the private sector is responsible for making and distributing food, so it would be ridicoulus to claim they have no responsibility for how that distribution affects people. Is the private sector in the same regard not responsible for the enviromental damage they cause? Or work related deaths/injuries?

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


No joke, if your academic setting does not or cannot distinguish between imperialism and capitalism that's not a very good setting. Even Lenin distinguished between imperialism and capitalism, looking at imperialism as a way to maintain capitalism and not an inherent part of. That doesn't mean that you have to dump responsibility for suffering on one or the other, imperialism and capitalism both cause and caused suffering (such as famines). Sadly for you just as neither capitalism or imperialism escapes criticism, neither does communism escape for being 'specific', because second world communism clearly stated they wanted to move to the end goal of Marxian communism. Unless the crimes of capitalism are forgiven for not being 'pure' capitalism we can't forgive the crimes of communism for not being 'pure' communism.

Lenin saw imperialism as a stage of capitalism, not as something that was distinct or outside of it, which most acdemic settings I have been in usually agree with. Seperating imperialism from capitalism is like saying "I dont own a dog, I own a bulldog".

And I'm the one willing to blame both capitalism and communism equally when people do horrible thing in its name, you are one trying to deflect capitalism flaws by blaming it on "imperialism", just like when a naive communist argues it wasn't "true communism".

About the Church of Blood, built on the spot where Ekatenburg Massacre took place 100 years ago. What are the inscriptions regarding to the incident written there? What did the Russian Orthodox church called the Bolshevicks (and also Lenin and Stalin) ? do they called Bolshevicks Satanists and do they also call Lenin 'Antichristo'?

The Church and the Bolshevicks (And later the Soviets) are sworn enemies.

 ulgurstasta wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


Yes, and in the real world a government murdering its own citizens is terrible. It does make a significant difference if its a private or state actor that deprives people of food, because circumstances are entirely different. States are on an entirely different level of responsibility, because a state is in control of the lives of its own citizens. What CEO's contribute in lack of food or destruction of environment is terrible, but you can't point the finger at them and directly blame them for famines because the food is still being sold (granted its extremely troubling and should be tackled) to them, you can at a state if you look at policies.

So if we imagine that Stalin was CEO of USSR Corp. you would be fine with him starving people by raising prices on food to the level that millions wouldn't be able to afford it? In a capitalist society/world the private sector is responsible for making and distributing food, so it would be ridicoulus to claim they have no responsibility for how that distribution affects people. Is the private sector in the same regard not responsible for the enviromental damage they cause? Or work related deaths/injuries?

Bit of a false equivalence, most famines occur in region of subsistence farming that suffer from crop failure and not richer areas in the world. Famines in that sense are not the fault of CEO's are they? The only failure CEO commit is not volunteering food aid, which btw is not a crime. CEO's aren't directly implementing policies and ensuring people starve to death. While the food industry and the abysmal waste in it is terrible, it is still on an entirely different level from a government swooping in to take all the peoples food to export and leaving them to die. You can claim capitalist society all you want, which is fine, but then the key is that its the private sector apparently 'doing' the starving, while in a communist world its the government? How does that make it sound any better? They are on two completely different levels of responsibility.

The problem I have with your entire comparison is thus that the food sector does not go in with paramilitary groups to squeeze every drop of food from the farmers, which the PRC and SU did. But yes, they are responsible for environmental damage and workplace injuries, which is pretty clear by law, if governments implement them. So while the business sector does a lot of things wrong, its countries that also allow them to do so. While I admit that there is an element of coercion in that, there is no element of coercion in the PRC or SU as they as states hold the ultimate responsibility of what happens and what they do to their citizens.

Having said that, I'm very much pro stronger international regulations and enforcment of decent standards in industry and a more comprehensive and fast way to provide relief in famine regions. Sadly the international community is slow or even broken at times.

 ulgurstasta wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


No joke, if your academic setting does not or cannot distinguish between imperialism and capitalism that's not a very good setting. Even Lenin distinguished between imperialism and capitalism, looking at imperialism as a way to maintain capitalism and not an inherent part of. That doesn't mean that you have to dump responsibility for suffering on one or the other, imperialism and capitalism both cause and caused suffering (such as famines). Sadly for you just as neither capitalism or imperialism escapes criticism, neither does communism escape for being 'specific', because second world communism clearly stated they wanted to move to the end goal of Marxian communism. Unless the crimes of capitalism are forgiven for not being 'pure' capitalism we can't forgive the crimes of communism for not being 'pure' communism.

Lenin saw imperialism as a stage of capitalism, not as something that was distinct or outside of it, which most acdemic settings I have been in usually agree with. Seperating imperialism from capitalism is like saying "I dont own a dog, I own a bulldog".

And I'm the one willing to blame both capitalism and communism equally when people do horrible thing in its name, you are one trying to deflect capitalism flaws by blaming it on "imperialism", just like when a naive communist argues it wasn't "true communism".

Yes the key is that Lenin included imperialism as late state capitalism, as he needed to explain the hunt for colonial territories. Why? Because he thought it was capitalism conquering and fencing off individual markets before its untimely death, because he had to explain it through an economic lens. Yet here we are, without imperialism in the 19th century sense and capitalism alive and well. Lenin did not account for the simple idea that imperialism was also prestige, it wasn't just plain capitalism, it was about national ego too. But if 19th century imperialism is gone now, how is it an inherent part of capitalism? As you say you made little distinction between the two, but if that's true then why is traditional imperialism gone and not capitalism. Lenin was just wrong about many things.

I really want to know which academic settings agree with you on not making a distinction between imperialism and capitalism and seeing it as an inherent part? Capitalism is mostly an economic theory at heart, while imperialism included a significant amount of political and cultural theories behind it. Separating capitalism and imperialism is just good academic sense, certainly as the time frame in origins doesn't even overlap, plus you have the problem of imperialism versus colonialism. Saying they are the same is more like "humans and chimpanzees are gorillas, because gorillas are apes." Yeah there are interactions, but they aren't the same thing.

I'm not deflecting, both imperialism and capitalism have plenty of blood on their hands. I distinguish because it is an important one. While I don't always distinguish between Stalinism or Maoism, because they both espoused working towards the final goal of socialist utopia. Imperialism and capitalism weren't in it for the same goal. Communism in practice, imperialism and capitalism have been responsible for countless crimes against humanity or people. Yet capitalism and socialism don't have to be evil at heart (imperialism totally is), its just that both have had absolutely terrible and uncaring people in charge. There are good capitalist businesses who truly try to help and there are and were great socialists who gave us great social democracies and policies. The problem with communism in practice is that the people in charge either were or turned into absolute power hungry monsters (not that its exclusive to communism) that became obsessed with control or people inheriting police states. Sadly most people suck.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
It does make a significant difference if its a private or state actor that deprives people of food, because circumstances are entirely different. States are on an entirely different level of responsibility, because a state is in control of the lives of its own citizens. What CEO's contribute in lack of food or destruction of environment is terrible, but you can't point the finger at them and directly blame them for famines because the food is still being sold (granted its extremely troubling and should be tackled) to them, you can at a state if you look at policies.

Leaving food production in the hands of private actors for the sake of generating profit is inherently depriving people of food because if they can't buy it they aren't supposed to eat it. Organising most food production so that people farm whatever is most profitable instead of what is locally sustainable will unavoidably create food shortages.


That you keep repeating that communists always intentionally starve people and capitalists never do is getting annoying because, well, it's what Britain did to India and Russia was stricken with incessant droughts and famines for a thousand years before 1917 due to having at best mediocre soil for large-scale agriculture, after 1917 they had a period of civil war and existential war and then once they had finished industrialisation and collectivisation and were no longer the direct target for immediate extermination, suddenly famines weren't a problem anymore. Additionally a lot of the problems communist countries have had are because of the US targetting them for sabotage and destruction.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Yes the key is that Lenin included imperialism as late state capitalism, as he needed to explain the hunt for colonial territories. Why? Because he thought it was capitalism conquering and fencing off individual markets before its untimely death, because he had to explain it through an economic lens. Yet here we are, without imperialism in the 19th century sense and capitalism alive and well. Lenin did not account for the simple idea that imperialism was also prestige, it wasn't just plain capitalism, it was about national ego too. But if 19th century imperialism is gone now, how is it an inherent part of capitalism? As you say you made little distinction between the two, but if that's true then why is traditional imperialism gone and not capitalism. Lenin was just wrong about many things.

Imperialism isn't gone, it has simply moved away from being strictly enforced by soldiers into being enforced by economic institutions and the threat of soldiers. It's what the IMF has been doing. If you can deprive a country of money to buy things it needs because it's reliant on imports since its infrastructure is mostly about exporting raw materials through private entities then you don't need soldiers there. That's aside from that the US does back coups in countries that displease it and even bombs them directly. What did you think US foreign policy history was about?

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
It does make a significant difference if its a private or state actor that deprives people of food, because circumstances are entirely different. States are on an entirely different level of responsibility, because a state is in control of the lives of its own citizens. What CEO's contribute in lack of food or destruction of environment is terrible, but you can't point the finger at them and directly blame them for famines because the food is still being sold (granted its extremely troubling and should be tackled) to them, you can at a state if you look at policies.

Leaving food production in the hands of private actors for the sake of generating profit is inherently depriving people of food because if they can't buy it they aren't supposed to eat it. Organising most food production so that people farm whatever is most profitable instead of what is locally sustainable will unavoidably create food shortages.


That you keep repeating that communists always intentionally starve people and capitalists never do is getting annoying because, well, it's what Britain did to India and Russia was stricken with incessant droughts and famines for a thousand years before 1917 due to having at best mediocre soil for large-scale agriculture, after 1917 they had a period of civil war and existential war and then once they had finished industrialisation and collectivisation and were no longer the direct target for immediate extermination, suddenly famines weren't a problem anymore.

No, this is another false equivalence. Famines we talk about in a capitalist system are frequently caused by crop failure or situations like war, not a problem of profitability. Because at the end of the day, supply and demand step in, combined with the fact that just the highest profitability doesn't always allow for singular exploitation. Because there is a limit to how much you can sell in one nation. Even 'poorer' nations get products from multinationals because a lot of profit plus a little profit is still better than only a lot of profit. If the food industry causes famines by buying up food you would see famines year after year in the same poor regions they buy food from. Not to mention the fact that farmers with modern methods can produce more food than required. Famine is much more of a threat to a subsistence economy, yes people might go hungry in capitalist systems, but large scale famines because of buying up food leaves nothing is just out there. Who would enforce that?

Sigh, either you're not getting the point or just ignoring what I write. I don't keep hammering on communists while letting capitalists off the hook. This is a thread on celebrating 100 years of communism, which is why I write more about it. Note that I did call out imperialism and the UK for causing the Bengal famine. Two communist states, the PRC and the SU, deliberately engineered some of the largest 20th century famines. So I'm neither bashing on all communism or neglecting capitalism, I'm specifically talking about two communist governments creating famine. Existential threats or civil war had nothing to do with either the 1930's famine in the SU or the Great Famine in the PRC. These famines were caused because the two states that had control over production and distribution of food, forcibly removed food from starving areas. Famines never had to be a problem in either case, famines were a problem caused by criminal mismanagement and unwillingness to face reality of what was happening or simply not caring about it. There is no but, there is nothing that counts as extenuating circumstances for either the PRC or the SU. The famines stopped because they never had to have occurred in the first place, its easy to make a problem stop when you yourself are the cause of it.

Rosebuddy wrote:
Additionally a lot of the problems communist countries have had are because of the US targetting them for sabotage and destruction.

Just no, while the US messed up a lot of countries, it had nothing to do with the brutality of the police states or the creation of famines in countries such as Cambodia, North Korea, the SU and the PRC. Those were murderous leaders taking those decisions and holding final responsibility. The US has done plenty of wrong in this world, but you can't blame it for the violent police states some communist countries were or the famines they willingly created.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Yes the key is that Lenin included imperialism as late state capitalism, as he needed to explain the hunt for colonial territories. Why? Because he thought it was capitalism conquering and fencing off individual markets before its untimely death, because he had to explain it through an economic lens. Yet here we are, without imperialism in the 19th century sense and capitalism alive and well. Lenin did not account for the simple idea that imperialism was also prestige, it wasn't just plain capitalism, it was about national ego too. But if 19th century imperialism is gone now, how is it an inherent part of capitalism? As you say you made little distinction between the two, but if that's true then why is traditional imperialism gone and not capitalism. Lenin was just wrong about many things.

Imperialism isn't gone, it has simply moved away from being strictly enforced by soldiers into being enforced by economic institutions and the threat of soldiers. It's what the IMF has been doing. If you can deprive a country of money to buy things it needs because it's reliant on imports since its infrastructure is mostly about exporting raw materials through private entities then you don't need soldiers there. That's aside from that the US does back coups in countries that displease it and even bombs them directly. What did you think US foreign policy history was about?

I have repeatedly said 19th century imperialism or traditional imperialism. That is very much gone. We have concepts and make distinctions for important reasons, as similar concepts can still differ wildly. What we have now is a new version of economic neo-imperialism. Imperialism at its core was different from neo-imperialism. The issues with neo-imperialism and forcing through of the Washington Consensus through organisations such as the IMF is a whole other can of worms. Going beyond what just the US did, securing resources goes beyond simple capitalism. every form of political government has been focused on securing them. Even know the PRC is doing it in Africa, not caring which murderous regime provides what China's economy needs. Backing coups and disposing governments has been done by many states in history, including the SU, Russia, the PRC and a host of others. Its nothing unique to the US, although its problematic nonetheless. US foreign policy history during the Cold War was certainly about stopping the formation of communist governments, outside of the 1950's-1991 its been for a whole host of reasons such as economics, politics and normative goals.