So this is the Socialist Argument In A Nutshell - Page 5 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#14949632
Hindsite wrote:
What point I haven't missed is that in our capitalist system, a poor person can become rich and a rich person can become poor. In a socialist system, eventually, only the government leaders will remain rich by taking from those that are now been made poor. The most recent example of what socialism does to a rich country is how it has made Venezuela a poor country.



Socialism was never meant to be Stalin's 'Socialism-in-one-country', so it's really not too surprising that *any* movement constrained to just one nation-state -- and not part of a broader, *international* push for socialism -- would get stuck in a *nationalist* identity. It's too bad about Venezuela, but the U.S. is greatly fueling the economic aspects there, which is imperialism.


Freedom Rider: The United States Destroys Venezuela’s Economy

https://www.blackagendareport.com/freed ... as-economy



Boliburguesía (English: Bolibourgeoisie, a portmanteau of the words Bolivarian and bourgeoisie) or Bolichicos (English: Boliboys) are terms describing the new bourgeois created by the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez and Chavism, made up of people who became rich under the Chavez administration.[1][2][3] The term was coined by journalist Juan Carlos Zapata to "define the oligarchy that has developed under the protection of the Chavez government".[4][5]

Corruption among the Boliburguesía and Chavez-administration sympathizers has moved millions of dollars with the complicity of public officials, with some becoming rich under the guise of socialism.[6][7] Henry Ramos Allup, general secretary of opposition party Democratic Action, has said corruption in the financial industry and other sectors of Venezuela is tied to government officials of the Chávez administration.[7][8] Following the death of Chavez, the Boliburguesía became more powerful and held more influence over Venezuela during the presidency of Nicolás Maduro.[9]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boliburgues%C3%ADa



Political Spectrum, Simplified

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#14949668
ckaihatsu wrote:It's too bad about Venezuela, but the U.S. is greatly fueling the economic aspects there, which is imperialism.

No, that's just absurd garbage with no basis in fact.
Freedom Rider: The United States Destroys Venezuela’s Economy

https://www.blackagendareport.com/freed ... as-economy

It's simply dishonest for the uninformed writer of this ridiculous article to claim that US sanctions are responsible for destroying Venezuela's economy when Venezuela's own policies -- free gasoline, hyperinflation, absurd price controls, no public safety, etc. -- are self-evidently to blame.
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More silliness.
#14949821
Truth To Power wrote:
No, that's just absurd garbage with no basis in fact.



I'll add the *following* to my previous link of referred-to information (which *is* valid), and the second excerpt here runs *in parallel* to that previous link, since the two both reference U.S.-Venezuela international relations.



A socioeconomic and political crisis has been taking place in Venezuela since 2010 under the presidency of Hugo Chávez and has continued into the current presidency of Nicolás Maduro. The current situation is the worst economic crisis in Venezuela's history[7] and among one of the worst crises experienced in the Americas.[8][9] The crisis was the result of populist policies that began under the Chávez administration's Bolivarian Revolution.[10][11][12][13][14][15] On 2 June 2010, President Chávez declared an "economic war" due to the increasing shortages in Venezuela.[1] The crisis intensified under the Maduro government, growing more severe as a result of low oil prices in early 2015.[10][16][17] The Venezuelan government, including President Maduro, has denied that there is a crisis within the country.[18][19]

The contraction of national and per capita GDPs between 2013 and 2017 was more severe than that of the United States during the Great Depression, or of Russia, Cuba, and Albania following the collapse of the Soviet Union.[20][21] In recent years, the annual inflation rate for consumer prices rose hundreds and thousands of percentage points, while the economy contracted by nearly 20% annually.[22] Hunger escalated to the point that the Venezuela's Living Conditions Survey (ENCOVI) found nearly 75% of the population had lost an average of at least 8.7 kg (19.4 lb) in weight due to a lack of proper nutrition.[23] According to a study published in 2018 by three main Venezuelan universities, almost 90% of the Venezuelan population now lives in poverty.[24] In fact, for the first time, extreme poverty is higher than non-extreme poverty; more than half of the country’s population does not have enough income to meet their basic food needs.[25]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_in_Venezuela




Presidency of Nicolás Maduro

On October 1, 2013, the US ordered three Venezuelan diplomats out of the country in response to the Venezuelan government's decision to expel three US officials from Venezuela.[70]

On February 16, 2014, President Maduro announced he had ordered another three US consular officials to leave the country, accusing them of conspiring against the government and aiding opposition protests. Maduro described the US statements that claimed to be concerned with rising tensions and protests and warned against Venezuela's possible arrest of the country's opposition leader as "unacceptable" and "insolent." He said, "I don't take orders from anyone in the world."[71] On February 25, 2014, the United States responded by expelling three additional Venezuelan diplomats from the country.[72]

On May 28, 2014, the United States House of Representatives passed the Venezuelan Human Rights and Democracy Protection Act (H.R. 4587; 113th Congress), a bill that would apply economic sanctions against Venezuelan officials who were involved in the mistreatment of protestors during the 2014 Venezuelan protests.[73]

In December 2014, the US Congress passed Senate 2142 (the “Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014”).[74]

On March 9, 2015, the United States President, Barack Obama, signed and issued a presidential order declaring Venezuela a "threat to its national security" and ordered sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro denounced the sanctions as an attempt to topple his socialist government. Washington said that the sanctions targeted individuals who were involved in the violation of Venezuelans' human rights, saying that "we are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government's efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents".[75]

The move was denounced by other Latin American countries. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States issued a statement criticizing Washington’s “unilateral coercive measures against International Law.”[76] The Secretary-General of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), Ernesto Samper, said that the body rejects “any attempt at internal or external interference that attempts to disrupt the democratic process in Venezuela.”[77]

Following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, Citgo, a US-based oil company owned by the Venezuelan government, gifted $500,000 toward Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017.[78]

On April 20, 2017, the Venezuelan Government seized the General Motors Plant in the Venezuelan state of Zulia, causing the plant to close operations.[79]

On August 11, 2017, President Trump said that he is “not going to rule out a military option” to confront the autocratic government of Nicolás Maduro and the deepening crisis in Venezuela.[80] Venezuela’s Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino López, immediately criticized Trump for his statement, calling it “an act of supreme extremism” and “an act of madness”. The Venezuelan Communications Minister, Ernesto Villegas, said Trump’s words amounted to “an unprecedented threat to national sovereignty”.[81] President Maduro's son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, stated during the 5th Constituent Assembly of Venezuela session that if the United States were to attack Venezuela, "the rifles would arrive in New York, Mr. Trump, we would arrive and take the White House".[82]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... A1s_Maduro



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Truth To Power wrote:
It's simply dishonest for the uninformed writer of this ridiculous article to claim that US sanctions are responsible for destroying Venezuela's economy when Venezuela's own policies -- free gasoline, hyperinflation, absurd price controls, no public safety, etc. -- are self-evidently to blame.



If you continue *further* with this line of yours you'll effectively be politically siding with Venezuela's *opposition*, which is politically problematic. (It's one thing to point out empirical factors, but it's another to make arguments for a coup-type camp.)


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Political Spectrum, Simplified

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Truth To Power wrote:
More silliness.



You're being *vague* -- I think the second axis is valid, since it introduces the dimension of *scale*, which is lacking from the standard, 1-dimensional 'political spectrum', though I have *that* kind as well:


[3] Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals [CORRECTED, 170602]

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#14950025
Rich wrote:A typical Marxist lie. About 10% of secondary school pupils go to independent schools. Grammar Schools were brilliant they allowed smart working and Middle class kids to get a good education without grovelling to rich people for a scholarship. The trouble is that Marxist hypocrites like Dianne Abbot, who came from a Grammar school herself insist on shutting down the Grammar schools while sending their kids to private schools.


Are you now an American or something? :lol: I said "public schools", they are places like Eton, Harrow or Winchester, I didn't say independent schools or grammar schools did I? Do you struggle with reading? Argue with what I actually wrote not what you imagine I wrote, perhaps you need to see a doctor?

Btw, when have I ever made anti grammar school statements ever in my whole time on Pofo? :?: Again you are arguing with a phantom from your own imagination not with me you absolute tool. In actual fact I consider the switch to almost total comprehensive education to be one of the worst defeats the working class ever suffered in Britain, it is a system where education quality is stratified entirely by where a kids parents can afford to buy a house. It is an enormously right wing system.

I still don't see what this has to do with public schools though? Maybe you could try reading my posts before you reply or not replying at all?
#14950261
ckaihatsu wrote:I'll add the *following* to my previous link of referred-to information (which *is* valid),

It just doesn't support your claims.
and the second excerpt here runs *in parallel* to that previous link, since the two both reference U.S.-Venezuela international relations.

Irrelevantly.
If you continue *further* with this line of yours you'll effectively be politically siding with Venezuela's *opposition*, which is politically problematic.

No, that's just more fallacious and disingenuous filth from you. Being against Hitler doesn't mean you favor Stalin, sorry.
(It's one thing to point out empirical factors, but it's another to make arguments for a coup-type camp.)

Which you now seem to be falsely accusing me of.
You're being *vague* --

No, I'm being *civil*, and it is a bit of a strain.
I think the second axis is valid, since it introduces the dimension of *scale*, which is lacking from the standard, 1-dimensional 'political spectrum', though I have *that* kind as well:

The clearest and most informative political continuum is two-dimensional: left-right (i.e., egalitarian-elitist) on the horizontal axis, anarchist-totalitarian on the vertical axis.
#14950368
ckaihatsu wrote:
I'll add the *following* to my previous link of referred-to information (which *is* valid),



Truth To Power wrote:
It just doesn't support your claims.



Actually, they do.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
and the second excerpt here runs *in parallel* to that previous link, since the two both reference U.S.-Venezuela international relations.



Truth To Power wrote:
Irrelevantly.



Your own opinion doesn't matter much here -- you may want to find something that *backs up* your claim, otherwise you're just mouthing-off and being dismissive of whatever it is that you happen to not like.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
If you continue *further* with this line of yours you'll effectively be politically siding with Venezuela's *opposition*, which is politically problematic.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, that's just more fallacious and disingenuous filth from you. Being against Hitler doesn't mean you favor Stalin, sorry.



'Filth' -- ? That's unwarranted.

In Stalin vs. Hitler -- which *did* happen historically -- I'd be on the side of Stalin.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
(It's one thing to point out empirical factors, but it's another to make arguments for a coup-type camp.)



Truth To Power wrote:
Which you now seem to be falsely accusing me of.



Well, look at what you *said*:


Truth To Power wrote:
It's simply dishonest for the uninformed writer of this ridiculous article to claim that US sanctions are responsible for destroying Venezuela's economy when Venezuela's own policies -- free gasoline, hyperinflation, absurd price controls, no public safety, etc. -- are self-evidently to blame.



So by simply *dismissing* U.S. involvement and the lack of spreading Venezuela's revolution to the rest of the world, you're content to just blame the victim. Why should Venezuelan people suffer for the class-retaining system of Chavez and Maduro? The way *you're* addressing the situation is *military*-like -- if anyone, like the leader, fucks things up, then *everyone* has to pay the damages for it even though they had no hand in actual policy-making.

How did you even get around politics in the first place when you can't even get past your own ego -- ? -- !


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Political Spectrum, Simplified

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Truth To Power wrote:
More silliness.



ckaihatsu wrote:
You're being *vague* --



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I'm being *civil*, and it is a bit of a strain.



I'm saying that spouting *insults* doesn't do anything for anyone -- if you're going to be so *dismissive* you should explain your *position* underlying it so that people know where you're coming from.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
I think the second axis is valid, since it introduces the dimension of *scale*, which is lacking from the standard, 1-dimensional 'political spectrum', though I have *that* kind as well:


[3] Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals [CORRECTED, 170602]

Spoiler: show
Image



Truth To Power wrote:
The clearest and most informative political continuum is two-dimensional: left-right (i.e., egalitarian-elitist) on the horizontal axis, anarchist-totalitarian on the vertical axis.



If you do that, though, you're leaving out the dimension of *scale*.

Also, the *one*-dimension axis, 'egalitarian-elitist', if you like, itself implies *method* -- the 'anarchist-totalitarian' axis -- because the harder *left-wing* or right-wing one gets, the more *centralization* there's going to be, such as a workers state (left), or a Nazi state (right), both of which *imply* 'authoritarian', but in diametrically opposite directions since fascism is *for* the bourgeois state while a workers state is *against* it.

Here's a past treatment of this dynamic:


Ideologies & Operations -- Left Centrifugalism

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#14950471
ckaihatsu wrote:Actually, they do.

Then maybe you could explain how, without resorting to more Marxist irrelevancy and obscurantism.
Your own opinion doesn't matter much here --

The truth -- which I am identifying -- does. Dismissing contrary facts as mere opinion while claiming Marxist fantasies are facts is a classic Marxist propaganda tactic.
you may want to find something that *backs up* your claim,

I've backed it up just fine. What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
otherwise you're just mouthing-off and being dismissive of whatever it is that you happen to not like.

I've explained why it is wrong. Implying that my opposition to falsehood and dishonesty is merely personal distaste is disingenuous.
'Filth' -- ? That's unwarranted.

No it's not. False and disingenuous claims advanced to evade inconvenient facts are rightly characterized as filth.
In Stalin vs. Hitler -- which *did* happen historically

That was my point.
-- I'd be on the side of Stalin.

I know: he killed more people, and did it in the name of Marxism. That was also my point.
Well, look at what you *said*:

I know what I said. You still haven't explained how it makes me a supporter of the reactionary Venezuelan right, nor will you ever be doing so.
So by simply *dismissing* U.S. involvement

Unlike the case of Cuba, where there was an effective blockade, I see no evidence that US involvement has been a significant factor in Venezuela's collapse.
and the lack of spreading Venezuela's revolution to the rest of the world, you're content to just blame the victim.

:roll: No, YOU are now trying to blame the rest of the world for declining to march off the cliff of socialism just to keep Venezuela company.
Why should Venezuelan people suffer for the class-retaining system of Chavez and Maduro?

Because they voted for them. And Chavez and Maduro have not retained the capitalist class structure, they have substituted their own privileged class of Marxist loyalists for the capitalist privileged class of landowners.
The way *you're* addressing the situation is *military*-like -- if anyone, like the leader, fucks things up, then *everyone* has to pay the damages for it even though they had no hand in actual policy-making.

That's the only way government can work, or has ever worked.
How did you even get around politics in the first place when you can't even get past your own ego -- ? -- !

<yawn> Please stop leaving vast empty spaces in your responses.
I'm saying that spouting *insults* doesn't do anything for anyone -

There is a difference between insults and identification of unsavory facts.
- if you're going to be so *dismissive* you should explain your *position* underlying it so that people know where you're coming from.

I have, very clearly and patiently, multiple times.
If you do that, though, you're leaving out the dimension of *scale*.

Scale is not a significant factor. Government is force, and force is fully identified by magnitude (anarchist to totalitarian) and direction (left to right).
Also, the *one*-dimension axis, 'egalitarian-elitist', if you like, itself implies *method* -- the 'anarchist-totalitarian' axis

No, because any left-right posture can range from anarchist to totalitarian.
-- because the harder *left-wing* or right-wing one gets, the more *centralization* there's going to be, such as a workers state (left) or a Nazi state (right),

No, that's not necessary at all. The extreme right can have a minimal state (feudalism) and so can the extreme left (primitive anarchism).
both of which *imply* 'authoritarian', but in diametrically opposite directions since fascism is *for* the bourgeois state while a workers state is *against* it.

For or against the "bourgeois state" (which is merely a Marxist contrivance) is not the basic choice. The basic choice is egalitarian or elitist.
#14950620
Truth To Power wrote:
Then maybe you could explain how, without resorting to more Marxist irrelevancy and obscurantism.



No, given your hostile attitude, it would be a waste of my time. You can always go back and re-read the article and figure it all out yourself.


Truth To Power wrote:
The truth -- which I am identifying -- does. Dismissing contrary facts as mere opinion while claiming Marxist fantasies are facts is a classic Marxist propaganda tactic.



So even though we're on a thread about socialism, in the socialism section of this PoFo discussion board, you're making *blanket* dismissals / generalizations of 'Marxist' politics. I don't think you're really here for discussion, since *you're* the one who's being obscurantist regarding the subject matter.


Truth To Power wrote:
I've backed it up just fine. What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.



No, not for the purposes of discussion -- it's like you're in an echo chamber of your own, and you're fine with that.


Truth To Power wrote:
I've explained why it is wrong. Implying that my opposition to falsehood and dishonesty is merely personal distaste is disingenuous.



I'm not going to be providing any more in-depth, topical-type responses if you're just going to lord your own subjective *opinion* over such. There's no two-way street here.


Truth To Power wrote:
No it's not. False and disingenuous claims advanced to evade inconvenient facts are rightly characterized as filth.



Your blanket stereotyping here doesn't help things either.


Truth To Power wrote:
That was my point.


Truth To Power wrote:
I know: [Stalin] killed more people, and did it in the name of Marxism. That was also my point.



The difference, though, was that the Nazis were *genocidal*, on the basis of bullshit about racial "differences" -- that's worth *defeating*, so Stalin was certainly politically in-the-right in WWII.


Truth To Power wrote:
I know what I said. You still haven't explained how it makes me a supporter of the reactionary Venezuelan right, nor will you ever be doing so.



Now you're being *evasive* about political matters. This isn't *discussion*.


Truth To Power wrote:
Unlike the case of Cuba, where there was an effective blockade, I see no evidence that US involvement has been a significant factor in Venezuela's collapse.



Now you're defending U.S. sanctions, which puts you *very close* to being pro-coup. You're at *least* pro-imperialism here.


Truth To Power wrote:
:roll: No, YOU are now trying to blame the rest of the world for declining to march off the cliff of socialism just to keep Venezuela company.



You're failing to notice that capitalism just doesn't suffice for most people in the world -- that's why a proletarian revolution is *objectively* needed, so that Trump isn't allowed to become *even more* of a dictator, etc.


Truth To Power wrote:
Because they voted for them. And Chavez and Maduro have not retained the capitalist class structure, they have substituted their own privileged class of Marxist loyalists for the capitalist privileged class of landowners.



That's too *vindictive* -- for the current situation the point is to see how to make things *better*.


Truth To Power wrote:
That's the only way government can work, or has ever worked.



Well, (substitutionist bourgeois) 'government' is antiquated and obsolete. We now have the technological means to aggregate inputs from *every individual*, worldwide, to *explicitly* find out what unmet demand for human needs is at any given moment. We no longer empirically require exchange values or commodity production when the workers can certainly collectively handle issues of production for actual human needs.


Truth To Power wrote:
There is a difference between insults and identification of unsavory facts.



You're getting too abstract -- you're merely opinionating on the way these exchanges are going, instead of dealing with the actual subject matter. This isn't *politics*, it's just *interpersonal*, and superficially so. Please just stop because you're obviously not here to carry on any *political* discussions.


Truth To Power wrote:
I have, very clearly and patiently, multiple times.



No, you haven't -- all you're doing is *opinionating* without addressing the actual political dynamics, and I fully *disagree* with you on the little substance that you *have* posited.


Truth To Power wrote:
Scale is not a significant factor. Government is force, and force is fully identified by magnitude (anarchist to totalitarian) and direction (left to right).



Scale is synonymous with 'magnitude', but 'anarchist' to 'totalitarian' doesn't apply well to that dimension of 'scale', or 'magnitude'. Local-to-global would be a better vertical continuum to use for 'scale'.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, because any left-right posture can range from anarchist to totalitarian.



Here you're not even *listening*. I'm not going to bother, since you're not.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, that's not necessary at all. The extreme right can have a minimal state (feudalism) and so can the extreme left (primitive anarchism).



But, *further* in either direction would entail *centralization* -- you seem to think that 'anarchism' is as far-left as it goes.


Truth To Power wrote:
For or against the "bourgeois state" (which is merely a Marxist contrivance) is not the basic choice. The basic choice is egalitarian or elitist.



You seem to think that the existing bourgeois state is somehow 'value-neutral', and it's *not*. It's best described as a *plutocracy*, a system that favors and rewards the already-rich just for being rich.

If you're so 'egalitarian-conscious' you should describe what you happen to think *is* 'egalitarian'.
#14950791
ckaihatsu wrote:No, given your hostile attitude, it would be a waste of my time. You can always go back and re-read the article and figure it all out yourself.

So you can't support your claims. Thought not.
So even though we're on a thread about socialism, in the socialism section of this PoFo discussion board, you're making *blanket* dismissals / generalizations of 'Marxist' politics.

That's right, because it's claptrap.
I don't think you're really here for discussion, since *you're* the one who's being obscurantist regarding the subject matter.

Nonsense. I have been very clear, and have demonstrated how my arguments support my statements. You, by contrast, have been content to offer yards of irrelevant Marxist claptrap without troubling to explain how it relates logically to the issues.
No, not for the purposes of discussion --

Yes, because assertion without evidence short-circuits any discussion. It just shrugs off the burden of proof.
it's like you're in an echo chamber of your own, and you're fine with that.

This, from a MARXIST??!?!? :lol: :lol:
I'm not going to be providing any more in-depth, topical-type responses

Your responses may have been "topical" in a tangential way, but have not been responsive or relevant, and there is difference between depth and mere length.
if you're just going to lord your own subjective *opinion* over such.

I have provided logical and factual evidence for my statements. You have just paved irrelevant Marxist boilerplate.
There's no two-way street here.

There never is with Marxists.
Your blanket stereotyping here doesn't help things either.

Identifying a consistent issue is not stereotyping.
The difference, though, was that the Nazis were *genocidal*, on the basis of bullshit about racial "differences"

And Stalin was democidal on the basis of bullshit about capital.
-- that's worth *defeating*,

So was Stalin.
so Stalin was certainly politically in-the-right in WWII.

Ah, no. Stalin signed agreements with the Nazis that facilitated Nazi aggression in Western Europe, including an agreement on a coordinated invasion of Poland to divide it between them. Moreover, at the time the Nazis turned on Stalin, he, not Hitler, was the one who had already committed a genocide with tens of millions of victims, which is why the Nazis were greeted as liberators in many areas of the USSR.
Now you're being *evasive* about political matters. This isn't *discussion*.

You make false claims without evidence, then dodge requests for same, and you accuse me of evasion??
Now you're defending U.S. sanctions,

That's a bald fabrication, as we have learned to expect from Marxists.
which puts you *very close* to being pro-coup. You're at *least* pro-imperialism here
.
Fabrication with no evidence.
You're failing to notice that capitalism just doesn't suffice for most people in the world

No, YOU are STILL failing to notice, even after it has been pointed out to you numerous times, that I am not defending capitalism and have stated clearly that it is an evil system that enslaves billions and kills millions EVERY YEAR. But socialism is even worse: historically, it kills people at about triple the rate capitalism does.
-- that's why a proletarian revolution is *objectively* needed, so that Trump isn't allowed to become *even more* of a dictator, etc.

False dichotomy fallacy, which Marxist dialectical epistemology makes pretty much inevitable.
That's too *vindictive* -- for the current situation the point is to see how to make things *better*.

I'm just identifying the relevant facts that explain why things are so bad. Sorry if that seems vindictive to you.
Well, (substitutionist bourgeois) 'government' is antiquated and obsolete.

<yawn> More Marxist gibberish.
We now have the technological means to aggregate inputs from *every individual*, worldwide, to *explicitly* find out what unmet demand for human needs is at any given moment.

So what?
We no longer empirically require exchange values or commodity production when the workers can certainly collectively handle issues of production for actual human needs.

Too bad you can't understand that people's WANTS are also part of the problem.
You're getting too abstract -- you're merely opinionating on the way these exchanges are going, instead of dealing with the actual subject matter.

No, I have identified the relevant facts.
This isn't *politics*, it's just *interpersonal*, and superficially so. Please just stop because you're obviously not here to carry on any *political* discussions.

You are trying to evade the economics by pretending it's all politics. Typical post-modern Marxist claptrap.
No, you haven't -- all you're doing is *opinionating* without addressing the actual political dynamics,

I am talking about economic dynamics. Claiming everything is just politics -- power relations -- is evasion.
and I fully *disagree* with you on the little substance that you *have* posited.

But have offered no reasons for your disagreement but walls of irrelevant Marxist gibberish.
Scale is synonymous with 'magnitude',

No, scale is size: the difference between a society of 1M and one of 1G.
but 'anarchist' to 'totalitarian' doesn't apply well to that dimension of 'scale', or 'magnitude'.

Wrong. It is magnitude -- the size of government functions relative to the whole society -- not scale (the absolute size of the society).
Local-to-global would be a better vertical continuum to use for 'scale'.

Right, but that is scale, not magnitude.
Here you're not even *listening*.

I am correcting your errors. Can't do that without listening, and the fact that I don't adopt your errors doesn't mean I haven't listened to them.
But, *further* in either direction would entail *centralization* -- you seem to think that 'anarchism' is as far-left as it goes.

No, but there is a difference between theoretically and politically extreme egalitarianism (or elitism).
You seem to think that the existing bourgeois state is somehow 'value-neutral', and it's *not*.

I've neither said nor implied any such thing. They are just what is.
It's best described as a *plutocracy*, a system that favors and rewards the already-rich just for being rich.

I call it plutism (a system that artificially enriches the rich) to distinguish it from plutocracy (government BY the rich).
If you're so 'egalitarian-conscious' you should describe what you happen to think *is* 'egalitarian'.

I am neither an egalitarian nor elitist because I understand the normal and Pareto distributions. So I advocate equality of rights and opportunity, not outcomes.
#14950966
ckaihatsu wrote:
No, given your hostile attitude, it would be a waste of my time. You can always go back and re-read the article and figure it all out yourself.



Truth To Power wrote:
So you can't support your claims. Thought not.



No, that's not it. You're jumping to spurious conclusions, which is *another* reason -- besides your overall shitty antagonistic attitude -- why I'm not going to cater to your requests.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
So even though we're on a thread about socialism, in the socialism section of this PoFo discussion board, you're making *blanket* dismissals / generalizations of 'Marxist' politics.



Truth To Power wrote:
That's right, because it's claptrap.



This is just more facile opinionating from you, which I'm not interested in *at all*. Either *discuss* the subject matter, or just don't bother posting.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
I don't think you're really here for discussion, since *you're* the one who's being obscurantist regarding the subject matter.



Truth To Power wrote:
Nonsense. I have been very clear, and have demonstrated how my arguments support my statements. You, by contrast, have been content to offer yards of irrelevant Marxist claptrap without troubling to explain how it relates logically to the issues.



Just because you *say so*, doesn't mean that it's true -- your mere opinions don't count for *shit* with me.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
No, not for the purposes of discussion --



Truth To Power wrote:
Yes, because assertion without evidence short-circuits any discussion. It just shrugs off the burden of proof.



Your blathering here just supports my next statement, which is that you like to hear yourself talk.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
it's like you're in an echo chamber of your own, and you're fine with that.



Truth To Power wrote:
This, from a MARXIST??!?!? :lol: :lol:



It would be correct no matter *who* said it.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
I'm not going to be providing any more in-depth, topical-type responses if you're just going to lord your own subjective *opinion* over such.



Truth To Power wrote:
Your responses may have been "topical" in a tangential way, but have not been responsive or relevant, and there is difference between depth and mere length.



This characterization applies to *your* responses here.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
if you're just going to lord your own subjective *opinion* over such.



Truth To Power wrote:
I have provided logical and factual evidence for my statements. You have just paved irrelevant Marxist boilerplate.



You're showing yourself to be one-sided, and with a *bias* against 'Marxists'. There's no common ground for a discussion here.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
There's no two-way street here.



Truth To Power wrote:
There never is with Marxists.



You haven't even *attempted* to address any points -- you just blather about your facile opinions.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Your blanket stereotyping here doesn't help things either.



Truth To Power wrote:
Identifying a consistent issue is not stereotyping.



You're being too abstract -- your statements have no meaning because there's no way to identify what exactly you're referencing.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
The difference, though, was that the Nazis were *genocidal*, on the basis of bullshit about racial "differences"



Truth To Power wrote:
And Stalin was democidal on the basis of bullshit about capital.



I'm not going to defend Stalin, but others would based on the matter of what his *intention* actually was.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
-- that's worth *defeating*,



Truth To Power wrote:
So was Stalin.



In the context of historical Western imperialism and geopolitics, that's not necessarily so -- the USSR had the status of national-liberation, against Western capitalism. Being anti-USSR then was synonymous with being pro-West.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
so Stalin was certainly politically in-the-right in WWII.



Truth To Power wrote:
Ah, no. Stalin signed agreements with the Nazis that facilitated Nazi aggression in Western Europe,



I don't defend, or support in any way, the [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact"]Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact[/url].


---


Truth To Power wrote:
including an agreement on a coordinated invasion of Poland to divide it between them. Moreover, at the time the Nazis turned on Stalin, he, not Hitler, was the one who had already committed a genocide with tens of millions of victims, which is why the Nazis were greeted as liberators in many areas of the USSR.



No, it wasn't *genocide*, because of the issue of *intention*:



The Holodomor genocide question consists of the attempts to determine whether the Holodomor, the catastrophic man-made[1] famine of 1933 that killed 7 to 10 million people in Ukraine,[2] was an ethnic genocide or an unintended result of the "Soviet regime's re-direction of already drought-reduced[3] grain supplies to attain economic and political goals."[4] The event is recognized as a crime against humanity by the European Parliament,[5] and a genocide in Ukraine,[6] while the Russian Federation considers it part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–33 and corresponding famine relief effort.[4] The debate among historians is ongoing and there is no international consensus among scholars or governments on whether the Soviet policies that caused the famine fall under the legal definition of genocide.[7][8]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor ... e_question



---


Truth To Power wrote:
I know what I said. You still haven't explained how it makes me a supporter of the reactionary Venezuelan right, nor will you ever be doing so.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Now you're being *evasive* about political matters. This isn't *discussion*.



Truth To Power wrote:
You make false claims without evidence, then dodge requests for same, and you accuse me of evasion??



You're making mischaracterizations here, so just stop it. You need to keep yourself to the subject matter, and stop with this interpersonal shit. See the next segment:


---


Truth To Power wrote:
Unlike the case of Cuba, where there was an effective blockade, I see no evidence that US involvement has been a significant factor in Venezuela's collapse.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Now you're defending U.S. sanctions,



Truth To Power wrote:
That's a bald fabrication, as we have learned to expect from Marxists..



Instead of slandering-by-political-category, why don't you look at what you wrote -- ?

If you're going to *excuse* the empirical factor of U.S. policy intervention in matters of international relations and trade, then you *are* defending U.S. imperialism.



Tensions between the countries further increased after Venezuela accused the administration of George W. Bush of supporting the Venezuelan failed coup attempt in 2002 against Chavez,[2][3] an accusation that was partly retracted later.[4]

Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with the U.S. in September 2008 in solidarity with Bolivia after a U.S. ambassador was accused of cooperating with violent anti-government groups in that country, though relations were reestablished under President Barack Obama in June 2009. In February 2014, the Venezuelan government ordered three American diplomats to leave the country on charges of promoting violence.[5]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... _relations



And:



Economic relations

Chávez's socialist ideology and the tensions between the Venezuelan and the United States governments had little impact on economic relations between the two countries. On September 15, 2005, President Bush designated Venezuela as a country that has "failed demonstrably during the previous 12 months to adhere to their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements." However, at the same time, the President waived the economic sanctions that would normally accompany such a designation, because they would have curtailed his government's assistance for democracy programs in Venezuela.[26] In 2006, the United States remained Venezuela's most important trading partner for both oil exports and general imports – bilateral trade expanded 36% during that year[27] As of 2007, the U.S. imported more than $40 billion in oil from Venezuela and the trade between the countries topped $50 billion despite the tumultuous relationship between the two.[28]

With rising oil prices and Venezuela’s oil exports accounting for the bulk of trade, bilateral trade between the US and Venezuela surged, with US companies and the Venezuelan government benefiting.[29] Nonetheless, since May 2006, the Department of State, pursuant to Section 40A of the Arms Export Control Act, has prohibited the sale of defense articles and services to Venezuela because of lack of cooperation on anti-terrorism efforts.[30]

Opposition to U.S. foreign policy

Since the start of the George W. Bush administration in 2001, relations between Venezuela and the United States deteriorated markedly, as Chávez became highly critical of the U.S. economic and foreign policy. Moreover, he has critiqued U.S. policy with regards to Iraq, Haiti, Kosovo the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and other areas. Chávez also denounced the U.S.-backed ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004.[citation needed] In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Chávez said that Bush promoted "a false democracy of the elite" and a "democracy of bombs".[31]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... _relations



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
which puts you *very close* to being pro-coup. You're at *least* pro-imperialism here.



Truth To Power wrote:
Fabrication with no evidence.



See above.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
You're failing to notice that capitalism just doesn't suffice for most people in the world



Truth To Power wrote:
No, YOU are STILL failing to notice, even after it has been pointed out to you numerous times, that I am not defending capitalism and have stated clearly that it is an evil system that enslaves billions and kills millions EVERY YEAR. But socialism is even worse: historically, it kills people at about triple the rate capitalism does.



And *you're* content to conflate *Stalinism* ('socialism-in-one-country'), with socialism -- you sound too credulous when any nationalist leader claims 'socialism' within their own country's boundaries.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
-- that's why a proletarian revolution is *objectively* needed, so that Trump isn't allowed to become *even more* of a dictator, etc.



Truth To Power wrote:
False dichotomy fallacy, which Marxist dialectical epistemology makes pretty much inevitable.



No, *you're* failing to see that there's no 'default', 'underlying', 'generic' social condition available -- if people reject Trump or any other leader, there still remains a country to keep in operation that has to happen in *some* way, absent a worldwide proletarian revolution to sweep the system of bourgeois nation-states away entirely.

This anarchist fallacy of 'denounce-without-alternatives' especially applies to *Syria*, where you think that being anti-Assad is the appropriate position to take, when it *isn't*, because that stance just leaves the door wide open for Western / NATO imperialism. Why should your politics help U.S. predations into Syria when the country itself *should* enjoy national sovereignty against Western imperialism -- ?


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Why should Venezuelan people suffer for the class-retaining system of Chavez and Maduro?



Truth To Power wrote:
Because they voted for them. And Chavez and Maduro have not retained the capitalist class structure, they have substituted their own privileged class of Marxist loyalists for the capitalist privileged class of landowners.



ckaihatsu wrote:
That's too *vindictive* -- for the current situation the point is to see how to make things *better*.



Truth To Power wrote:
I'm just identifying the relevant facts that explain why things are so bad. Sorry if that seems vindictive to you.



See -- you're only looking at the *power*-politics of the situation, and you're ignoring that there's still a country of *people* to deal with in some way -- similar to the Syria situation.

You don't *mind* if the people of Venezuela *suffer* for the actions of stagnant, non-revolutionary leadership (Chavez / Maduro) because all your politics enables is denunciations.

Whenever Marxists like myself suggest actual potential revolutionary-left avenues, you turn your denunciations towards *Marxist* positions as being too 'authoritarian' because you don't offer any trajectories *yourself*, with your patchwork-communal-markets *anarchist* politics.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Well, (substitutionist bourgeois) 'government' is antiquated and obsolete.



Truth To Power wrote:
<yawn> More Marxist gibberish.



No, it's *not* gibberish -- are you anti-capitalist, or *aren't* you -- ?


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
We now have the technological means to aggregate inputs from *every individual*, worldwide, to *explicitly* find out what unmet demand for human needs is at any given moment.



Truth To Power wrote:
So what?



This means that there's no longer any socio-material objective need for political *substitutionism* -- and, instead of relying on the market-mechanism 'money-backed demand' yardstick, we can realistically get information about daily *humane* need from every individual, if need-be, and aggregated over any arbitrary geographic area by *rank* position (#1, #2, #3, etc.).

Here's from the FAQ:



[T]his method *aggregates* / tallies all personally prioritized demands lists *and* formal list items for a locality or pre-defined larger geographic area, on a *daily* basis, per rank position (#1, #2, #3, etc.), so that *no* standing institutional 'administration' is ever needed, and neither are political representatives of any kind required, either -- (no elections or voting processes are ever used). This daily mass-prioritization of material and socio-political demands is the information most needed by society, and by liberated labor in particular, a mirror-reflection of total verbatim collective consciousness, through compiled data. Liberated labor -- as available-and-willing, and as formally requisitioned through defined work roles in policy packages, and potentially funded with labor credits -- then itself flexibly collectively decides which finalized policy package(s) to take-up and implement, to completion, or not. (Greater-aggregatively-tallied, higher rank positions are populist-type *advisements* to liberated labor, but they do not *obligate* it in any way.)



https://tinyurl.com/labor-credits-faq

https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... -Questions



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
We no longer empirically require exchange values or commodity production when the workers can certainly collectively handle issues of production for actual human needs.



Truth To Power wrote:
Too bad you can't understand that people's WANTS are also part of the problem.



I don't *deny* that wants are important as well. Here's from the FAQ again:



Communism is supposed to be about fulfilling unmet human needs (and wants), so what counts from the consumer is *how badly* they want something to be produced, by active liberated laborers, if not already immediately available.



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Political Spectrum, Simplified

Spoiler: show
Image



Truth To Power wrote:
More silliness.



ckaihatsu wrote:
You're being *vague* --



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I'm being *civil*, and it is a bit of a strain.



ckaihatsu wrote:
I'm saying that spouting *insults* doesn't do anything for anyone -



Truth To Power wrote:
There is a difference between insults and identification of unsavory facts.



ckaihatsu wrote:
You're getting too abstract -- you're merely opinionating on the way these exchanges are going, instead of dealing with the actual subject matter.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I have identified the relevant facts.



No, instead of *explaining* why you used the pejorative of 'silliness' in relation to my graphic diagram, you went off on a *tangent* of abstraction.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
This isn't *politics*, it's just *interpersonal*, and superficially so. Please just stop because you're obviously not here to carry on any *political* discussions.



Truth To Power wrote:
You are trying to evade the economics by pretending it's all politics. Typical post-modern Marxist claptrap.



This is more blanket-dismissiveness and irrelevant opinionating from you. You really need to stick to the *points* and *topics*, instead of spinning-off into your fatuous abstracted-commentary-from-above, which is *tangential* to the original political topic(s).

On this point in particular, why don't you *explain* what you mean -- ? If you spent a little more time on *describing* your intended meaning, you might actually *communicate* your point. By keeping your responses so brief there's not enough information available for me to respond to.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
No, you haven't -- all you're doing is *opinionating* without addressing the actual political dynamics,



Truth To Power wrote:
I am talking about economic dynamics. Claiming everything is just politics -- power relations -- is evasion.



So on *this* point explain a bit more what you mean with this, and include references to past relevant statements of yours or mine.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
and I fully *disagree* with you on the little substance that you *have* posited.



Truth To Power wrote:
But have offered no reasons for your disagreement but walls of irrelevant Marxist gibberish.



Nope -- again, instead of making *blanket* statements, try to address *specifics*.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Scale is synonymous with 'magnitude',



Truth To Power wrote:
No, scale is size: the difference between a society of 1M and one of 1G.



Oh, you're only looking at scale / size / magnitude *quantitatively* -- you're missing that increases in quantity give rise to *qualitative* changes.

For example, in my scale-delineated structuring of society, there are *qualitative* changes as one goes 'upward' from 'micro' (local, specific), to 'macro' (broadly deterministic). We can look at 'people' (second category from the bottom) *generically*, but what happens when any subset of people agree to meet at a specific date, time, and place -- ? Then it's a qualitative emergence of an 'event' (third shelf from the bottom), which isn't the same as everyday existence as just 'people'.


‭History, Macro-Micro -- politics-logistics-lifestyle

Spoiler: show
Image



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
but 'anarchist' to 'totalitarian' doesn't apply well to that dimension of 'scale', or 'magnitude'.



Truth To Power wrote:
Wrong. It is magnitude -- the size of government functions relative to the whole society -- not scale (the absolute size of the society).



I don't think your distinctions between magnitude, size, and scale are significant-enough -- I see those three terms as being effectively *synonymous*. You seem to be *dissembling* here for the sake of evasiveness.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Local-to-global would be a better vertical continuum to use for 'scale'.



Truth To Power wrote:
Right, but that is scale, not magnitude.



'Scale' *implies* 'magnitude', because the greater the scale, the greater the magnitude as well.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Also, the *one*-dimension axis, 'egalitarian-elitist', if you like, itself implies *method* -- the 'anarchist-totalitarian' axis



Truth To Power wrote:
No, because any left-right posture can range from anarchist to totalitarian.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Here you're not even *listening*.



Truth To Power wrote:
I am correcting your errors. Can't do that without listening, and the fact that I don't adopt your errors doesn't mean I haven't listened to them.



Anyway, my initial assertion stands -- there's no objective need for an 'anarchist - totalitarian' axis on the political spectrum because the further-away one's politics is from the center-positioned 'nation-state', or 'nationalism', the more those politics are going to depend on a nationalist-independent 'centralization' of all socio-political operations, which implies 'authoritarianism' since that dynamic of centralization (however determined, though preferably bottom-up) would by-definition *prevail* over all other political-type determinations.

Positions closer to the bourgeois-nationalist 'center' would effectively be far-more *reformist* than at the more-distant extents, since they would be far more *tolerant* of the existing, status-quo 'centralization' of the bourgeoisie, according to ruling-class interests and the nation-state international patchwork.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
But, *further* in either direction would entail *centralization* -- you seem to think that 'anarchism' is as far-left as it goes.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, but there is a difference between theoretically and politically extreme egalitarianism (or elitism).



Can you *expand* on this at all -- ? Again, there's not enough information here for me to respond appropriately.

What's the 'difference' between *theoretically* far-extent egalitarianism (or elitism), and *politically* far-extent egalitarianism (or elitism) -- ?


---


Truth To Power wrote:
For or against the "bourgeois state" (which is merely a Marxist contrivance) is not the basic choice. The basic choice is egalitarian or elitist.



ckaihatsu wrote:
You seem to think that the existing bourgeois state is somehow 'value-neutral', and it's *not*.



Truth To Power wrote:
I've neither said nor implied any such thing. They are just what is.



Well, you're definitely expressing an *ambivalence* about the bourgeois state by saying that it's not the basic choice.

*Socialists*, on the other hand, call for a *workers state*, so that the existing bourgeois state can be decisively displaced from power, to then wither-away.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
It's best described as a *plutocracy*, a system that favors and rewards the already-rich just for being rich.



Truth To Power wrote:
I call it plutism (a system that artificially enriches the rich) to distinguish it from plutocracy (government BY the rich).



It's *both*.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
If you're so 'egalitarian-conscious' you should describe what you happen to think *is* 'egalitarian'.



Truth To Power wrote:
I am neither an egalitarian nor elitist because I understand the normal and Pareto distributions. So I advocate equality of rights and opportunity, not outcomes.



So you're more market-oriented / -dependent?

Can you elaborate on the *political* aspect / superstructure of this formulation of yours?
#14951033
ckaihatsu wrote:You're jumping to spurious conclusions,

No, I'm identifying examples of established patterns.
Just because you *say so*, doesn't mean that it's true -- your mere opinions don't count for *shit* with me.

<sigh> I never said it was true because I say so. I say so because it's true. See the difference?
It would be correct no matter *who* said it.

No, it would not. Unlike Marxists, I support my statements with empirical evidence.
This characterization applies to *your* responses here.

No, because my responses are brief, clear, and to the point. Yours are walls of Marxist gibberish.
You're showing yourself to be one-sided, and with a *bias* against 'Marxists'.

It's not bias. It's based on long experience and significant study.
There's no common ground for a discussion here.

There never is between Marxists and honest investigators.
You're being too abstract -- your statements have no meaning because there's no way to identify what exactly you're referencing.

Then I'll try to be clearer: Marxist "argumentation" consists of redefining terms or making up new ones that remove the salient facts. The basic one is the concept of "the means of production," which removes the fact that tools are supplied by their owner while land is already available without any owner.
I'm not going to defend Stalin, but others would based on the matter of what his *intention* actually was.

He appears to have had no intention but aggrandizement of his own power. That is normal with Marxists.
In the context of historical Western imperialism and geopolitics, that's not necessarily so -- the USSR had the status of national-liberation, against Western capitalism.

Nonsense. Read "The Gulag Archipelago." The USSR under the Marxists, from Lenin to Gorbachev, was one vast concentration camp.
Being anti-USSR then was synonymous with being pro-West.

And the capitalist West was clearly FAR BETTER for its people than the socialist USSR was for its people, so being pro-West and anti-USSR was the correct stance.
No, it wasn't *genocide*, because of the issue of *intention*:

The only reason there is no academic consensus that the USSR committed genocide -- of which the Holodomor was just the worst incident -- is that some academics are Marxists.
If you're going to *excuse* the empirical factor of U.S. policy intervention in matters of international relations and trade, then you *are* defending U.S. imperialism.

I've neither excused US policy nor defended US imperialism. I've simply pointed out the FACT that in Venezuela -- unlike in many other countries from Afghanistan to Yemen -- US intervention was of minimal importance in its destruction.
And *you're* content to conflate *Stalinism* ('socialism-in-one-country'), with socialism -- you sound too credulous when any nationalist leader claims 'socialism' within their own country's boundaries.

Huh? That's the only way it ever happens: takeover of a national government. Claiming that nothing counts as socialism unless the whole world simultaneously becomes socialist is evasive, disingenuous and absurd.

Anyway, were China's tens of millions of dead killed by Stalin? Was 20% of Cambodia's entire population killed by Stalin more than 20 years after he died??

Get serious. It was SOCIALISM.
No, *you're* failing to see that there's no 'default', 'underlying', 'generic' social condition available -- if people reject Trump or any other leader, there still remains a country to keep in operation that has to happen in *some* way,

I make no assumption other than that the false dichotomy of capitalism-socialism is false.
absent a worldwide proletarian revolution to sweep the system of bourgeois nation-states away entirely.

That is SILLINESS used to evade the REALITY of socialism in practice.
This anarchist fallacy of 'denounce-without-alternatives'

There is an alternative to capitalism and socialism -- but both capitalists and socialists don't want anyone to know what it is. They are like two crooked palookas, holding each other up while they pretend to fight in order to avoid meeting the real challenger: JUSTICE.
especially applies to *Syria*, where you think that being anti-Assad is the appropriate position to take, when it *isn't*,

Sure it is. He's a fascist dictator.
because that stance just leaves the door wide open for Western / NATO imperialism.

No it doesn't, any more than Russian imperialism.
Why should your politics help U.S. predations into Syria when the country itself *should* enjoy national sovereignty against Western imperialism -- ?

Problem is, historically there are lots worse things than Western imperialism, including socialism, theocracy and fascism. I don't for a second condone US interventions, but that doesn't mean I supported Saddam, Khaddafi, Noriega, the Taliban, etc., etc.

PLEASE STOP LEAVING VAST EMPTY SPACES IN YOUR RESPONSES.
See -- you're only looking at the *power*-politics of the situation, and you're ignoring that there's still a country of *people* to deal with in some way -- similar to the Syria situation.

No, I am SEPARATING the power politics from the economic relationships. They are two different things, Marxist claptrap to the contrary.
You don't *mind* if the people of Venezuela *suffer* for the actions of stagnant, non-revolutionary leadership (Chavez / Maduro) because all your politics enables is denunciations.

Whether they are "revolutionary" or not is irrelevant: they are socialist. I mind a lot that people suffer from bad government policy; but I don't imagine they can be helped as long as they SUPPORT that bad policy.
Whenever Marxists like myself suggest actual potential revolutionary-left avenues, you turn your denunciations towards *Marxist* positions as being too 'authoritarian' because you don't offer any trajectories *yourself*, with your patchwork-communal-markets *anarchist* politics.

I do object to authoritarian solutions, Marxist or otherwise, because it's clear they don't work. But I definitely offer an alternative trajectory based on educating people in the nature of liberty, justice, and rights.
No, it's *not* gibberish -- are you anti-capitalist, or *aren't* you -- ?

I am almost as anti-capitalist as I am anti-socialist. Marxist blather is gibberish because relies on idiosyncratic vocabulary.
This means that there's no longer any socio-material objective need for political *substitutionism* --

Gibberish.
and, instead of relying on the market-mechanism 'money-backed demand' yardstick,

I.e., consent....
we can realistically get information about daily *humane* need from every individual, if need-be, and aggregated over any arbitrary geographic area by *rank* position (#1, #2, #3, etc.).

Irrelevant. Finding out what people need barely scratches the surface of the allocation problem.
I don't *deny* that wants are important as well.

Then stop pretending need is all that matters.
Here's from the FAQ again:

AND STOP LEAVING HUGE EMPTY SPACES IN YOUR POSTS.
On this point in particular, why don't you *explain* what you mean -- ? If you spent a little more time on *describing* your intended meaning, you might actually *communicate* your point. By keeping your responses so brief there's not enough information available for me to respond to.

I've explained already: Marxists ignore -- refuse even to know -- the crucial difference between producer goods and land (natural resources), invalidly aggregating them as "the means of production" for political reasons.
So on *this* point explain a bit more what you mean with this, and include references to past relevant statements of yours or mine.

It would take too long to search through your massive walls of boilerplate.
Oh, you're only looking at scale / size / magnitude *quantitatively* -- you're missing that increases in quantity give rise to *qualitative* changes.

If that is true, then such changes should be considered separately as such.
For example, in my scale-delineated structuring of society, there are *qualitative* changes as one goes 'upward' from 'micro' (local, specific), to 'macro' (broadly deterministic).

Really? How?
We can look at 'people' (second category from the bottom) *generically*, but what happens when any subset of people agree to meet at a specific date, time, and place -- ? Then it's a qualitative emergence of an 'event' (third shelf from the bottom), which isn't the same as everyday existence as just 'people'.

Nonsense. Having a meeting doesn't change anything.
I don't think your distinctions between magnitude, size, and scale are significant-enough -- I see those three terms as being effectively *synonymous*. You seem to be *dissembling* here for the sake of evasiveness.

No, there is a crucial difference between the absolute and relative size of government.
'Scale' *implies* 'magnitude', because the greater the scale, the greater the magnitude as well.

I meant magnitude relative to society: the portion of society's functions carried out by government.
Anyway, my initial assertion stands -- there's no objective need for an 'anarchist - totalitarian' axis on the political spectrum because the further-away one's politics is from the center-positioned 'nation-state', or 'nationalism', the more those politics are going to depend on a nationalist-independent 'centralization' of all socio-political operations,

Assumption without evidence.
which implies 'authoritarianism' since that dynamic of centralization (however determined, though preferably bottom-up) would by-definition *prevail* over all other political-type determinations.

But in fact, it doesn't. Totalitarianism doesn't work.
Positions closer to the bourgeois-nationalist 'center' would effectively be far-more *reformist* than at the more-distant extents, since they would be far more *tolerant* of the existing, status-quo 'centralization' of the bourgeoisie, according to ruling-class interests and the nation-state international patchwork.

Impenetrable gibberish.
Can you *expand* on this at all -- ? Again, there's not enough information here for me to respond appropriately.

One can hold extreme egalitarian views -- common enough among Marxists, who think how people produce goods determines the contents of their minds and character -- without supporting Procrustean policies, or extreme elitist views -- like the feudal libertarians -- without supporting fascism.
What's the 'difference' between *theoretically* far-extent egalitarianism (or elitism), and *politically* far-extent egalitarianism (or elitism) -- ?

There is a continuum from mere theoretical recognition of a given degree of human (in)equality to its political enforcement.
Well, you're definitely expressing an *ambivalence* about the bourgeois state by saying that it's not the basic choice.

*Socialists*, on the other hand, call for a *workers state*, so that the existing bourgeois state can be decisively displaced from power, to then wither-away.

Right: I don't buy that false dichotomy.
It's *both*.

IMO there is a useful distinction, as plutism is a choice, plutocracy a condition.
So you're more market-oriented / -dependent?

Markets work, and are also inherently fair.
Can you elaborate on the *political* aspect / superstructure of this formulation of yours?

Socialists blame markets and property for problems that are actually caused by privilege. Remove property in privilege, and markets and property would work for people rather than against them.
#14951228
Okay, you're decidedly being too interpersonal and defensive, so I'm only going to respond to segments where you're actually addressing *content*, and I'll be excising all the rest.


Truth To Power wrote:
Then I'll try to be clearer: Marxist "argumentation" consists of redefining terms or making up new ones that remove the salient facts. The basic one is the concept of "the means of production," which removes the fact that tools are supplied by their owner while land is already available without any owner.



[Private property] 'ownership' wouldn't even be *valid* within the context of socialism -- yes, capitalism has developed the means of (mass industrial) production that are in use today, but, no, we don't need private 'owners' of that in order for such to be *collectivized* and controlled in common by a workers state, leading into a post-capitalist communistic gift economy.


Truth To Power wrote:
He appears to have had no intention but aggrandizement of his own power. That is normal with Marxists.



Stalin wasn't a Marxist because there's no concept of 'socialism-in-one-country' within Marxism.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
In the context of historical Western imperialism and geopolitics, that's not necessarily so -- the USSR had the status of national-liberation, against Western capitalism. Being anti-USSR then was synonymous with being pro-West.



Truth To Power wrote:
Nonsense. Read "The Gulag Archipelago." The USSR under the Marxists, from Lenin to Gorbachev, was one vast concentration camp.



I'm talking about the USSR *externally*, in the context of West-dominated *geopolitics*, while you're talking about it *internally*.

Also, regarding working and living there, you're *oversimplifying* -- there was a fair amount of collectivization that favored workers' autonomy. I'm including some sample excerpts here:



Employment

Productivity

Several Soviets expressed concern over the focus of sharp growth in per capita income over that of labour productivity.[1] A problem was that wages in the Soviet Union could neither be used as a way of disciplining workers or as an incentive system, except in a limited capacity. Soviet workers were not controlled by the stick and carrot (the carrot being increased wages and the stick being unemployment).[2]

Women

The early Soviet regime ensued a policy of pushing more women into urban industrial employment; these policies were ideologically, politically and/or economically driven. The post-revolutionary turmoils which took place hampered any improvements for immediate prospects of increased employment of women in urban areas. The 13th Party Congress, held in 1924, took employment of women very seriously, and were alarmed with the developments in the country; employment of women had decreased to 23 percent of the total workforce from 25 percent. By 1928, the proportion of women working in the workforce had increased to 24 percent.[4] During Joseph Stalin's rule the number of women working increased from 24 percent of the workforce in 1928 to 39 percent in 1940.[3] In the period 1940–1950 women were 92 percent of new entrants in employment; this is mostly due to the exodus of the males who fought during World War II. As seen in the table, the return of males to civilian life decreased women employment; 56 percent of the workforce were women in 1945, it decreased to 47 in 1950.[5]



Standard of living

Working conditions

Working conditions for a Soviet worker changed over time; for instance, at the beginning of the Communist regime the government pursued a policy of worker participation at the enterprise level.[8] During Joseph Stalin's crash-industrialisation drive, workers lost their right to participate in the functioning of the enterprise, and their working conditions deteriorated.[8] In 1940, for example, a decree was promulgated and became law stating that a worker could be arrested if he had three accumulated absences, late arrivals or changed jobs without the official authorisation.[8] Shock work, which meant that workers had to work past regular hours, was introduced alongside central planning.[8] During World War II the pressure on workers increased and it was expected of them to take on Herculean efforts in their work.[8] In the post-war years conditions did not improve but in fact worsened in some cases.[8] For instance, small theft became illegal; this had been allowed for several years to compensate for workers' low salaries.[8] The situation for the common worker improved during the post-Stalin years, and some of the worst measures approved by the Stalin regime to improve worker productivity were repealed.[8] Because of the lack of a stick and carrot policy under the Brezhnev administration, worker productivity and discipline decreased during the 1970s.[8]

Wages

Since unemployment was rendered unviable through various acts of legislation, the Soviet worker, in contrast to a Capitalist worker, was more secure economically.[9] In return for working, a Soviet worker would get an individual return in the form of a money wage; however, during the period under the New Economic Policy, hyperinflation rendered money effectively useless, and wages sometimes occurred through bartering. Money wage in Soviet parlance was not the same as in Capitalist countries.[1] The money wage was set at the top of the administrative system, and it was the same administrative system which also set bonuses. Wages were 80 percent of the average Soviet workers income, with the remaining 20 coming in the form of bonuses. The Soviet wage system tried systematically to make wages more equal; for instance, the relationship between wages was termed "ITRs", a measure of comparing wages across occupations. For engineers and other technical workers ITR was 1.68 in 1955, but had decreased to 1.21 in 1977.[10] Social wages were also an important part of the general standard of living for an average household; it stood at 23.4 percent of income for the average Soviet worker and their family, and at 19.1 percent for the family income of collective farmers. In the period between 1971–81, the social wage grew faster than the money wage; the money wage grew by 45 percent for workers and employees and 72 for workers at collective farms. In contrast, per capita income from social wages increased by 81 percent. Social wage took many forms; it could be improved health, education, transport or food subsidies, which was the responsibility of the state, or the improvement (or introduction) of sanitation and working facilities.[1]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_wo ... Employment



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Being anti-USSR then was synonymous with being pro-West.



Truth To Power wrote:
And the capitalist West was clearly FAR BETTER for its people than the socialist USSR was for its people, so being pro-West and anti-USSR was the correct stance.



We'd have to look at respective CEO-to-worker pay ratios, in the West versus the USSR. Here's a graph that shows *recent* data, that the current CEO-to-worker pay ratio in the U.S. is 271:1.


Image


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Truth To Power wrote:
The only reason there is no academic consensus that the USSR committed genocide -- of which the Holodomor was just the worst incident -- is that some academics are Marxists.



Now you're going off on a tangent again, to make scurrilous claims, instead of dealing with the subject matter.


---


Truth To Power wrote:
I've neither excused US policy nor defended US imperialism. I've simply pointed out the FACT that in Venezuela -- unlike in many other countries from Afghanistan to Yemen -- US intervention was of minimal importance in its destruction.



This isn't true at all -- the U.S. has been spreading its colonialism and imperialism throughout all of Latin America since 1898, according to its Monroe Doctrine whereby it considers Latin America to be in its 'backyard' and open to military predation at any time:


► Show Spoiler



---


Truth To Power wrote:
Huh? That's the only way it ever happens: takeover of a national government. Claiming that nothing counts as socialism unless the whole world simultaneously becomes socialist is evasive, disingenuous and absurd.

Anyway, were China's tens of millions of dead killed by Stalin? Was 20% of Cambodia's entire population killed by Stalin more than 20 years after he died??

Get serious. It was SOCIALISM.



You sound fucking ridiculous and credulous as hell -- just because some opportunistic dictator *says* that what they're doing is 'socialism' doesn't automatically mean that it *is*.

Again, there's *no* provision for country-by-country 'socialism' according to Marxism:



Proletariat

"The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labour power and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death,whose sole existence depends on the demand for labour...

How did the proletariat originate?

"The Proletariat originated in the industrial revolution... [which was] precipitated by the discovery ofthe steam engine, various spinning machines, the mechanical loom, and awhole series of other mechanical devices. These machines, which were veryexpensive and hence could be bought only by big capitalists, altered thewhole mode of production and displaced the former workers, because themachines turned out cheaper and better commodities than the workers couldproduce with their inefficient spinning wheels and handlooms. The machinesdelivered industry wholly into the hands of the big capitalists and renderedentirely worthless the meagre property of the workers (tools, looms, etc.).The result was that the capitalists soon had everything in their handsand nothing remained to the workers....

"labour was more and more divided among the individual workers sothat the worker who previously had done a complete piece of work now didonly a part of that piece. This division of labour made it possible to producethings faster and cheaper. It reduced the activity of the individual workerto simple, endlessly repeated mechanical motions which could be performednot only as well but much better by a machine. In this way, all these industriesfell, one after another, under the dominance of steam, machinery, and thefactory system, just as spinning and weaving had already done.

Fredrick Engels

Principles of Communism

In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed – a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce.

Karl Marx
Communist Manfesto: Bourgeois and Proletarians



https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms ... roletariat



---


Truth To Power wrote:
I make no assumption other than that the false dichotomy of capitalism-socialism is false.



There's *zero* compatibility between capitalism and socialism, because the modes of production are diametrically *opposed* to each other -- capitalism uses the institution of private control over the means of social production, while socialism is about *collectivist* *workers* control over the means of social production. These two modes of production cannot be resolved with each other or 'combined' in any kind of way.


Truth To Power wrote:
There is an alternative to capitalism and socialism -- but both capitalists and socialists don't want anyone to know what it is. They are like two crooked palookas, holding each other up while they pretend to fight in order to avoid meeting the real challenger: JUSTICE.



What a crock of shit -- the *reality* is workers-versus-bosses.


Truth To Power wrote:
Sure it is. He's a fascist dictator.



He also happened to be *democratically elected*, similarly to Trump here in the U.S. -- I would defend neither on their merits, but nothing gives NATO the right to summarily *invade* a sovereign country, Syria.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
because that stance just leaves the door wide open for Western / NATO imperialism.



Truth To Power wrote:
No it doesn't, any more than Russian imperialism.



There *is no* 'Russian imperialism' because it's not taking over territory the way that U.S. / Western imperialism does.


---


Truth To Power wrote:
Problem is, historically there are lots worse things than Western imperialism, including socialism, theocracy and fascism. I don't for a second condone US interventions, but that doesn't mean I supported Saddam, Khaddafi, Noriega, the Taliban, etc., etc.



No, there *aren't* worse things than the ongoing predations of U.S. and Western imperialism.



21st century imperialism

The United States has aggressively used its power to expand its influence in recent times, seeking to enter numerous countries militarily, such as Afghanistan and Iraq;[45][46] building military bases around the world, especially in the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf;[47] deploying its navy in the South China Sea, widely seen as a way to contain Chinese claims in the South China Sea;[48] supporting the overthrow of democratically elected governments such as Venezuela, Iran, and Syria;[49][50][51] supporting rebel groups in Libya and Syria;[52][53] continuing the allegedly illegal occupation of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba;[56] influencing the complete blockade of countries such as Qatar;[57]; using the dominance of the US dollar in worldwide trade to sanction rival countries such as Turkey, Russia, Venezuela and Iran;[58][59][60][61] initiating a trade war with major economic rival China;[62] using protectionist measures against traditional allies and fellow WTO-members, Canada, Mexico, and the European Union;[63] and embargoing countries such as Cuba.[64]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_ ... mperialism



---


Truth To Power wrote:
PLEASE STOP LEAVING VAST EMPTY SPACES IN YOUR RESPONSES.



You're off your rocker -- I don't do this, and please stop making bullshit accusations like this.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
See -- you're only looking at the *power*-politics of the situation, and you're ignoring that there's still a country of *people* to deal with in some way -- similar to the Syria situation.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I am SEPARATING the power politics from the economic relationships. They are two different things, Marxist claptrap to the contrary.



You keep using the insult 'claptrap' in an abstract way to be dismissive of Marxism on the whole -- this is yet another way for you to not-deal with the *issues* themselves. Please stop stereotyping in this way.

The economics of Venezuela *have* been influenced by U.S. imperialism:



Opposition to U.S. foreign policy



The Bush administration consistently opposed Chávez's policies. Although it did not immediately recognize the Carmona government upon its installation during the 2002 attempted coup, it had funded groups behind the coup, speedily acknowledged the new government and seemed to hope it would last.[33] The U.S. government called Chávez a "negative force" in the region, and sought support from among Venezuela's neighbors to isolate Chávez diplomatically and economically.[citation needed] One notable instance occurred at the 2005 meeting of the Organization of American States. A U.S. resolution to add a mechanism to monitor the nature of American democracies was widely seen as an attempt at diplomatically isolating both Chávez and the Venezuelan government. The failure of the resolution was seen by analysts as politically significant, evidencing widespread support in Latin America for Chávez, his policies, and his views.[citation needed]

The U.S. also opposed and lobbied against numerous Venezuelan arms purchases made under Chávez. This includes a purchase of some 100,000 rifles from Russia, which Donald Rumsfeld implied would be passed on to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the purchase of aircraft from Brazil.[citation needed] The U.S. has also warned Israel to not carry through on a deal to upgrade Venezuela's aging fleet of F-16s, and has similarly pressured Spain.[citation needed] In August 2005, Chávez rescinded the rights of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents to operate in Venezuelan territory, territorial airspace, and territorial waters. While U.S. State Department officials stated that the DEA agents' presence was intended to stem cocaine traffic from Colombia, Chávez argued that there was reason to believe the DEA agents were gathering intelligence for a clandestine assassination targeting him, with the ultimate aim of ending the Bolivarian Revolution.[citation needed]

When a Marxist insurgency picked up speed in Colombia in the early 2000s, Chavez chose not to support the U.S. in its backing of the Colombian government. Instead, Chavez declared Venezuela to be neutral in the dispute, yet another action that irritated American officials and tensed up relations between the two nations. The border between Venezuela and Colombia was one of the most dangerous borders in Latin America at the time, because of Colombia's war spilling over to Venezuela.[34]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... ign_policy




Presidency of Nicolás Maduro



On May 28, 2014, the United States House of Representatives passed the Venezuelan Human Rights and Democracy Protection Act (H.R. 4587; 113th Congress), a bill that would apply economic sanctions against Venezuelan officials who were involved in the mistreatment of protestors during the 2014 Venezuelan protests.[73]



On August 11, 2017, President Trump said that he is “not going to rule out a military option” to confront the autocratic government of Nicolás Maduro and the deepening crisis in Venezuela.[80] Venezuela’s Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino López, immediately criticized Trump for his statement, calling it “an act of supreme extremism” and “an act of madness”. The Venezuelan Communications Minister, Ernesto Villegas, said Trump’s words amounted to “an unprecedented threat to national sovereignty”.[81] President Maduro's son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, stated during the 5th Constituent Assembly of Venezuela session that if the United States were to attack Venezuela, "the rifles would arrive in New York, Mr. Trump, we would arrive and take the White House".[82]



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
You don't *mind* if the people of Venezuela *suffer* for the actions of stagnant, non-revolutionary leadership (Chavez / Maduro) because all your politics enables is denunciations.



Truth To Power wrote:
Whether they are "revolutionary" or not is irrelevant: they are socialist. I mind a lot that people suffer from bad government policy; but I don't imagine they can be helped as long as they SUPPORT that bad policy.



The *worst* government policy comes cascading down from U.S. imperialism, and it's really a shame that you're so eager to denounce Second-World-type countries instead of attacking the *source* of downhill-rolling shit, which emanates from the *apex* of the world power structure, namely U.S. imperialism.


---


Truth To Power wrote:
I do object to authoritarian solutions, Marxist or otherwise, because it's clear they don't work.



You're still showing yourself to be too credulous -- why should a *country* (erroneously) be deemed to be 'socialist' when socialism itself is a *global*, *international* working-class kind of society -- ?

Your political line is to *impute* 'socialism' onto any country that resists U.S. imperialism, which means you're just parroting the U.S. empire's line regarding the same.

You're not realizing that the only formulation that can *defeat* U.S. and Western imperialism *is* a workers state, or the dictatorship-of-the-proletariat, which then implies *authority* over social production, *against* private-property control. So not all authority is the same, because authority *can* be anti-bourgeois.


---


Truth To Power wrote:
But I definitely offer an alternative trajectory based on educating people in the nature of liberty, justice, and rights.



These are just bullshit liberal abstractions, which serve the interests of the status-quo hegemony, or power structure. These terms *were* revolutionary during the times of the bourgeois revolutions, but only for the interests of the *merchant* class. Today what's at-stake is *productive prowess*, as with mass industrial production techniques, which you're both oblivious-to and ignoring-of.


---


Truth To Power wrote:
I am almost as anti-capitalist as I am anti-socialist. Marxist blather is gibberish because relies on idiosyncratic vocabulary.



Hmmmm, now you're drifting more into the *libertarian* camp -- you wish for a golden age of nascent 18th-century bourgeois ascension. Those days are *over*.

You're *not* anti-capitalist because you prefer to pick on Second-World countries in the same way as U.S. / Western imperialism does, instead of taking-on the most capitalist and imperialist country there is, the U.S.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
This means that there's no longer any socio-material objective need for political *substitutionism* --



Truth To Power wrote:
Gibberish.



In other words we have *technological* means today -- the Internet -- that would enable all non-monetary human / humane need, and wants, to be tallied at the individual scale according to individual *prioritizations*, and those individual priorizations to be *aggregated* and collated according to prioritization-*rank* (#1, #2, #3, etc.).

By doing social production *this* way we can eliminate the market mechanism *altogether*, along with the process of *political commodification* ('representatives'), which would collapse capitalism.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
and, instead of relying on the market-mechanism 'money-backed demand' yardstick,



Truth To Power wrote:
I.e., consent....



Now you're *definitely* not anti-capitalist -- you're having to rely on the markets for the operation of society, which means that you *defend* capitalism.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
we can realistically get information about daily *humane* need from every individual, if need-be, and aggregated over any arbitrary geographic area by *rank* position (#1, #2, #3, etc.).



Truth To Power wrote:
Irrelevant. Finding out what people need barely scratches the surface of the allocation problem.



There's no allocation problem anymore if liberated-workers know exactly what's being mass-demanded, by this kind of survey-type method. Markets, exchanges, and exchange-values then all become obviated.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
I don't *deny* that wants are important as well.



Truth To Power wrote:
Then stop pretending need is all that matters.



I'm *not* 'pretending' that need is all that matters -- see the FAQ again.


Truth To Power wrote:
AND STOP LEAVING HUGE EMPTY SPACES IN YOUR POSTS.



You're seeing things that aren't there -- there are no 'empty spaces' in my posts, and please stop repeating this false allegation.


---


Truth To Power wrote:
I've explained already: Marxists ignore -- refuse even to know -- the crucial difference between producer goods and land (natural resources), invalidly aggregating them as "the means of production" for political reasons.



Now you're back to your capitalist-factional line about wishing that only *equity* values would exist, and that *rentier*-type valuations *wouldn't* exist.

Production goods (factories) and land / natural resources *are* both asset-valuated, and so both exist in material-economic terms as *commodities*, with factories being the 'means of production'.


---


Truth To Power wrote:
Nonsense. Having a meeting doesn't change anything.



Yes, a meeting is *qualitatively* more-socially-organized than the same number of people just being people and living relatively individually.

You're now sounding downright *conservative*, akin to Thatcher's famous (erroneous) quote that 'There is no such thing as society.'


https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_ ... e_Minister



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
I don't think your distinctions between magnitude, size, and scale are significant-enough -- I see those three terms as being effectively *synonymous*. You seem to be *dissembling* here for the sake of evasiveness.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, there is a crucial difference between the absolute and relative size of government.



ckaihatsu wrote:
'Scale' *implies* 'magnitude', because the greater the scale, the greater the magnitude as well.



Truth To Power wrote:
I meant magnitude relative to society: the portion of society's functions carried out by government.



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Anyway, my initial assertion stands -- there's no objective need for an 'anarchist - totalitarian' axis on the political spectrum because the further-away one's politics is from the center-positioned 'nation-state', or 'nationalism', the more those politics are going to depend on a nationalist-independent 'centralization' of all socio-political operations,



Truth To Power wrote:
Assumption without evidence.



Let me put it *this* way -- the societal hegemony of the bourgeois nation-state and its possible imperialism is *centralized* according to military might and imperialism, but is *decentralized* according to the geopolitical patchwork of hundreds of individual nation-states themselves.

On the 1-dimensional political spectrum this phenomenon can be placed at the 'center' of the continuum, with 'rightward' being more-hegemonic and more-centralized, towards monolithic fascism itself.

*Leftward* would be *critiques* of the nation-state, and *reformist* measures -- still decentralized -- all the way to *centralization* that *displaces* the existing bourgeois nation-state political formulation.

Leftward centralization, akin to a 'centrifugal' physical force, would be *full centralization* of political and material-economic social organization, also in a hegemonic way, but for the particular purpose of *eliminating* the bourgeois ruling class, which is a *qualitatively* different 'ends' than *rightward*-type *bourgeois* / fascist hegemony, for the sake of private power and control.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
which implies 'authoritarianism' since that dynamic of centralization (however determined, though preferably bottom-up) would by-definition *prevail* over all other political-type determinations.



Truth To Power wrote:
But in fact, it doesn't. Totalitarianism doesn't work.



You're *misreading* -- I *don't* support any kind of 'totalitarianism', since that term denotes 'ongoing singular control', when what's needed is 'working class hegemony', or the classical dictatorship-of-the-proletariat.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Positions closer to the bourgeois-nationalist 'center' would effectively be far-more *reformist* than at the more-distant extents, since they would be far more *tolerant* of the existing, status-quo 'centralization' of the bourgeoisie, according to ruling-class interests and the nation-state international patchwork.



Truth To Power wrote:
Impenetrable gibberish.



In other words, it's a *metaphor* -- a *physical* representation of a *spinning*, one-dimensional political spectrum, with *centripetal* force pulling the left- and right-midsections towards the status-quo centralization of political power, the bourgeois nation-state.

At the same time the *centrifugal* force pulls the left- and right-midsections towards the outward *extents*, meaning fully-structured hegemonic control of social production, but with respectively different goals -- the far-left side is to *eliminate* bourgeois ruling-class control over society, while the right-extent is to establish a greater authority of private property and private control over society -- fascism.


---


Truth To Power wrote:
No, but there is a difference between theoretically and politically extreme egalitarianism (or elitism).



ckaihatsu wrote:
Can you *expand* on this at all -- ? Again, there's not enough information here for me to respond appropriately.



Truth To Power wrote:
One can hold extreme egalitarian views -- common enough among Marxists, who think how people produce goods determines the contents of their minds and character -- without supporting Procrustean policies, or extreme elitist views -- like the feudal libertarians -- without supporting fascism.



Hmmmm, this is yet another misconstruing of Marxism -- yes, the way the world produces goods and services needs to be overhauled -- a (worldwide) proletarian revolution -- but this egalitarianism-over-production isn't tantamount to a new-psychology, as you're contending.

Yes, I and other Marxists are anti-Procrustean, anti-elitist, anti-feudalist, and anti-fascist.


Truth To Power wrote:
There is a continuum from mere theoretical recognition of a given degree of human (in)equality to its political enforcement.



Okay, this is commonly known as theory-and-practice.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Well, you're definitely expressing an *ambivalence* about the bourgeois state by saying that it's not the basic choice.

*Socialists*, on the other hand, call for a *workers state*, so that the existing bourgeois state can be decisively displaced from power, to then wither-away.



Truth To Power wrote:
Right: I don't buy that false dichotomy.



You don't have to, but it's not a false dichotomy -- see the segment above regarding the incompatibility of the capitalist vs. socialist 'mode of production'.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
It's best described as a *plutocracy*, a system that favors and rewards the already-rich just for being rich.



Truth To Power wrote:
I call it plutism (a system that artificially enriches the rich) to distinguish it from plutocracy (government BY the rich).



ckaihatsu wrote:
It's *both*.



Truth To Power wrote:
IMO there is a useful distinction, as plutism is a choice, plutocracy a condition.



You're thinking that disempowered / decentralized / consumerist-type 'choice-making' would be a sufficient social force to 'vote' plutocracy out of power -- you're mistaken.


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Truth To Power wrote:
Markets work, and are also inherently fair.



Now you're *definitely* pro-capitalism, and *not* anti-capitalism.


Image


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Truth To Power wrote:
Socialists blame markets and property for problems that are actually caused by privilege. Remove property in privilege, and markets and property would work for people rather than against them.



This is impossible, because as soon as there's any accumulation of equity values that can't be immediately plowed back into investments you're going to have non-productive *assets* on your hands, which are synonymous with your dreaded *rentier*-type capital. Also, as soon as anyone *purchases* any non-investment item, like a painting or actual gold, then you'd also have rentier capital.

Notice that you're also unable to address the modern industrial productive process, which requires *labor* -- all you're concerned with are the *exchange values* over the same, decidedly making you a *libertarian*, at best.
#14951557
Truth To Power wrote:No, they are mostly interested in riding the escalator.

As one gets older and wiser, he comes to realize that he would rather ride the escalator than climb the stairs or stay on the bottom floor. HalleluYah

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