[ckaihatsu]

It's incredible that critiques of Stalinism -- 'gulagism' -- are invariably one-sided, to the point of being obviously propagandist.

viewtopic.php?p=15062997#p15062997

There are no real critiques because there is no real study, just bawling in emotive language.

It is amusing at least.

To clarify, what I mean is that the world-historical capitalist system has created a global landscape of 'winners' and 'losers' among the nation-states -- the Western imperialist countries (England, France, U.S.) from the 19th century were ahead-of-the-game and fully industrialized by the time the emergent carve-up of the world came to a head, culminating in World War I.

Those who criticize 'communism' -- as Thai Traditionalist did -- automatically / necessarily do so in a one-sided, *propagandist* way, since such criticizing leaves out the other part of the world, those nations that were *attempting* to industrialize and move past feudal relations, the quintessential example being that of Russia in 1917.

'Gulagism' is unkind, unfair, and biased since the advanced Western imperialist countries have plenty of blood on their hands, which is what enabled them to be ahead of the pack early-on.

[ckaihatsu]

Now I get it. You didn't answer my question about whether a Carbon Tax is Pigovian because you don't know the answer.

Well, on the topic of a carbon tax / carbon-credits pollution-rationing, I don't place my confidence in the bourgeois nation-states to regulate their own respective nationalist industries appropriately.

Sure I'd *like* to see a global reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions, but any such nationalistic regulations of such would impede each respective country's competitiveness in the global capitalist arena.

I've even heard from climate-change activists that the political-economic paradigm of intercompetitive capitalism is an *insufficient* form of social organization to adequately take on the necessarily-*global* problem of global warming / climate-change. So, in other words, these days, if you're an environmental advocate, you *have* to be anti-capitalist because the social paradigm of capitalism can't empirically address, much-less *stop*, climate change.

And that explains the rest.

The privation you refer to were largely a result of the excessive concentration of power. Mao and Stalin were basically dictators. What they did interfered with production, and of course, you can only go without eating for so long.

So, to sum up, while I suspect there is a better way to organise humanity, it doesn't look to me like your ideas are up to the task.

I'll maintain that Mao and Stalin (and others) were basically leaders of *national liberation* movements, and that they were militarily opposed by the foreign interventions of already-developed Western powers (Japan and Europe, respectively).

This is a *relative* position, and not a principled one, since I'd prefer to see a genuinely *proletarian* revolution in which the *working class* takes control over society's production.


Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals

[skinster]

^ I was agreeing with you.

'Gulagism' is unkind, unfair, and biased since the advanced Western imperialist countries have plenty of blood on their hands, which is what enabled them to be ahead of the pack early-on.

Don't worry, it's only Sivad who does the whole 'gulagism' thing around here and he's mostly ignored on that front because of how absurd/ahistorical his take is. Frankly, I find those very angry rants he make quite amusing.

[ckaihatsu]

^ I was agreeing with you.

Oh, okay, got it now -- I've gotten so used to retorts *against* me, like from anarchists at the now-defunct RevLeft, that I misinterpreted the trajectory of your remark.

Don't worry, it's only Sivad who does the whole 'gulagism' thing around here and he's mostly ignored on that front because of how absurd/ahistorical his take is. Frankly, I find those very angry rants he make quite amusing.

Cool, thanks for the low-down around here. I've learned from experience that as soon as the personal name-calling and insults begin, that means the exchanges are off-topic and I need to contact a board admin.

Maybe someday I'll be able to appreciate levity around politics, but the subject is just too serious and critical for that most of the time.

[SolarCross]

@ckaihatsu
Like it or not you are pretending to have a get rich quick scheme for everyone. The trouble is no one is going to believe you unless you can demonstrate the effectiveness of your scheme by making yourself rich first. Get off the dole and show us how it is done. If Jeff Bezos wanted to sell your thing he could get half the planet to try it out by lunch time, because has already shown he knows how to get shit done.

[late]

Well, on the topic of a carbon tax / carbon-credits pollution-rationing, I don't place my confidence in the bourgeois nation-states to regulate their own respective nationalist industries appropriately.

Not what I asked. I asked if it was Pigovian. You don't have answer.

I don't care enough to get into the details, but on the surface it looks like it is.

[ckaihatsu]

@ckaihatsu
Like it or not you are pretending to have a get rich quick scheme for everyone. The trouble is no one is going to believe you unless you can demonstrate the effectiveness of your scheme by making yourself rich first. Get off the dole and show us how it is done. If Jeff Bezos wanted to sell your thing he could get half the planet to try it out by lunch time, because has already shown he knows how to get shit done.

Uh, "thanks" for the careless assumptions and lifestyle advice -- I'm a revolutionary so I'm not even *looking* for social solutions within the existing framework of capitalism and bourgeois nationalism / imperialism.

Politically you're missing the point anyway. Industrialization has brought about the technology of *mass production*, but humanity's 'software' -- its economics -- is woefully out of date in comparison to its hardware.

Society doesn't *need* medieval-type titans of the tech industry like Bezos or whatever -- workers collectively running the world's machinery would be a far better arrangement than what we have today, and it would be the social organization the world needs to solve myriad stubborn social ills *in an instant*.

This isn't some sales pitch -- it's an estimation of how the world *could* run, compared with the class-riven competing, countervailing interests of class we have today that lock-up society from taking on pressing civilizational issues that throbbingly need solutions.

[ckaihatsu]

Not what I asked. I asked if it was Pigovian. You don't have answer.

I don't care enough to get into the details, but on the surface it looks like it is.

You may want to rephrase, and introduce this topic appropriately if you want me or others to consider it.

[SolarCross]

Uh, "thanks" for the careless assumptions and lifestyle advice -- I'm a revolutionary so I'm not even *looking* for social solutions within the existing framework of capitalism and bourgeois nationalism / imperialism.

Politically you're missing the point anyway. Industrialization has brought about the technology of *mass production*, but humanity's 'software' -- its economics -- is woefully out of date in comparison to its hardware.

Society doesn't *need* medieval-type titans of the tech industry like Bezos or whatever -- workers collectively running the world's machinery would be a far better arrangement than what we have today, and it would be the social organization the world needs to solve myriad stubborn social ills *in an instant*.

This isn't some sales pitch -- it's an estimation of how the world *could* run, compared with the class-riven competing, countervailing interests of class we have today that lock-up society from taking on pressing civilizational issues that throbbingly need solutions.

Ok, I'm sold, I'll help you with your business making weird graphs. As you can see from one of my side hustles I am handy with image processing software : http://SolarCross.redbubble.com I am cheap too, just £10 an hour. When do I start?

[ckaihatsu]

Ok, I'm sold, I'll help you with your business making weird graphs. As you can see from one of my side hustles I am handy with image processing software : http://SolarCross.redbubble.com I am cheap too, just £10 an hour. When do I start?

It's not a business, brah. (Heh.)

My weird graphs give me a weird joy, so that's why I do it.

Seriously, though, I've almost converted the underlying 3D framework for this one --


Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals




...To be fully data-driven, so that world events (and groupings, etc.) can be depicted with its symbolic-metaphoric language of platforms, etc.

Once I've done that I'll have more free time for commerce-tinted banter with the likes of you. (Begin breath-holding *now*!)


= D

[SolarCross]

@ckaihatsu

You do not get to be in charge unless you can pay. If the "revolution" only pays loot and spoils then it is every man for himself.

[late]

You may want to rephrase, and introduce this topic appropriately if you want me or others to consider it.

First Rule of Holes: when you're in one, stop digging.

[ckaihatsu]

@ckaihatsu

You do not get to be in charge unless you can pay. If the "revolution" only pays loot and spoils then it is every man for himself.

Dude, I don't conform to the wild-eyed monomaniacal stereotype that you're projecting here.

'Pay' ('price') is not nearly as precise and valid as you, and all other market-touting advocates proclaim -- consider that 'price' (exchange values) have to empirically do double-duty as sourcing-price and also demand-price. It's overextended as a mechanism / variable, since even sourcing-price itself doesn't describe / quantify how labor and natural-resource raw materials are valuated, and the component of demand-price fluctuates, of course, due to population-based dynamics that have nothing to do with sourcing-price.

You're trying to *criminalize* the politics of revolution, when in fact revolutionary sentiment is well-grounded, namely in the empirical social divide of *class* -- workers do *not* have the same economic / material interests as their bosses, since the ownership class of the world uses accumulated dead-labor (wealth) to economically *exploit* workers in the present and separate them / us from their / our labor, as a matter of regular material social practice.

[SolarCross]

Dude, I don't conform to the wild-eyed monomaniacal stereotype that you're projecting here.

'Pay' ('price') is not nearly as precise and valid as you, and all other market-touting advocates proclaim -- consider that 'price' (exchange values) have to empirically do double-duty as sourcing-price and also demand-price. It's overextended as a mechanism / variable, since even sourcing-price itself doesn't describe / quantify how labor and natural-resource raw materials are valuated, and the component of demand-price fluctuates, of course, due to population-based dynamics that have nothing to do with sourcing-price.

You're trying to *criminalize* the politics of revolution, when in fact revolutionary sentiment is well-grounded, namely in the empirical social divide of *class* -- workers do *not* have the same economic / material interests as their bosses, since the ownership class of the world uses accumulated dead-labor (wealth) to economically *exploit* workers in the present and separate them / us from their / our labor, as a matter of regular material social practice.

An imprecise pay slip would be annoying unless the payer had over paid me, in which case I would be okay with it being imprecise. Imprecise pay is 100000000000000000000% better than no pay however. Apparently communism = no pay.

[ckaihatsu]

An imprecise pay slip would be annoying unless the payer had over paid me, in which case I would be okay with it being imprecise. Imprecise pay is 100000000000000000000% better than no pay however. Apparently communism = no pay.

See, your political economy worldview is overly reliant on *exchange values* ('prices', roughly).

The reason people like myself advocate communism is so as to *bypass* all of the bullshit that comes with commodity-type pricing, as I've already laid-out. Yeah, in a sense communism = no pay, because there'd be no need for it anymore -- everything produced would be for the commons, and people could take from the commons as they liked, for human need (and want), and even be an active part of the *participation* and *planning* (and liberated-labor) for production in that society.

As long as enough people willingly provided their liberated-labor, to produce for society's needs and wants, society would have those needs and wants fulfilled, with no private claims, hoarding, capital, balkanization, or exchange values of any kind -- it would be a communistic gift-economy.

Here's a framework model for how this could be done:


Emergent Central Planning

Spoiler: show

And:


labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'

Spoiler: show

https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... ost2889338

[SolarCross]

@ckaihatsu My car is in the garage having a service literally right now. In what universe can I just wave some wacky pictures under the mechanic's nose and expect him to fix up my car for free? I am telling you it will not work, I have to pay him, because he is not an idiot. He would not be a mechanic if he was an idiot, and I would not want an idiot fixing my car anyway. You will have to go back to shooting people in the back of the head, funky graphs are even less persuasive.

[Truth To Power]

Dude, I don't conform to the wild-eyed monomaniacal stereotype that you're projecting here.

Actually, you pretty much do:

'Pay' ('price') is not nearly as precise and valid as you, and all other market-touting advocates proclaim -- consider that 'price' (exchange values) have to empirically do double-duty as sourcing-price and also demand-price. It's overextended as a mechanism / variable, since even sourcing-price itself doesn't describe / quantify how labor and natural-resource raw materials are valuated, and the component of demand-price fluctuates, of course, due to population-based dynamics that have nothing to do with sourcing-price.

See? You can't understand that the whole point of price is to reconcile the utility of the item to those who want it with the supply conditions that make it scarce. If you want to relieve scarcity, you will pay people more for producing the items that are in more demand relative to their scarcity. That is what the price mechanism accomplishes.

You're trying to *criminalize* the politics of revolution, when in fact revolutionary sentiment is well-grounded, namely in the empirical social divide of *class* -- workers do *not* have the same economic / material interests as their bosses, since the ownership class of the world uses accumulated dead-labor (wealth) to economically *exploit* workers in the present and separate them / us from their / our labor, as a matter of regular material social practice.

Nope. Like all Marxists, you don't understand class, either. The worker and the factory owner both belong to the contributor class, while the landowner and other privileged interests belong to the taker class. The only difference between the small net taker class and the even smaller criminal class is that the taker class is legally entitled to take.

[Donna]

from the book THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER which Orwell wrote in 1937 and which the so-called "Socialists" and Communists tried to have suppressed from publication:

Part Two: Chapter 11

"...The ugly fact is that most middle-class Socialists, while theoretically pining for a class-less society, cling like glue to their miserable fragments of social prestige....The Coles, Webbs, Stracheys, etc., are not exactly proletarian writers...Sometimes I look at a Socialist — the intellectual, tract-writing type of Socialist, with his pullover, his fuzzy hair, and his Marxian quotation — and wonder what the devil his motive really is. It is often difficult to believe that it is a love of anybody, especially of the working class, from whom he is of all people the furthest removed. The underlying motive of many Socialists, I believe, is simply a hypertrophied sense of order. The present state of affairs offends them not because it causes misery, still less because it makes freedom impossible, but because it is untidy; what they desire, basically, is to reduce the world to something resembling a chessboard. Take the plays of a lifelong Socialist like Shaw. How much understanding or even awareness of working-class life do they display? ... You get the same thing in a more mealy-mouthed form in Mrs Sidney Webb's autobiography, which gives, unconsciously, a most revealing picture of the high-minded Socialist slum-visitor. The truth is that, to many people calling themselves Socialists, revolution does not mean a movement of the masses with which they hope to associate themselves; it means a set of reforms which 'we', the clever ones, are going to impose upon 'them', the Lower Orders..."

Sadly this is a result of the aristocracy of labour under late capitalism. The working class in Western nations (especially the Anglosphere) do not want socialism or solidarity, they want the blood money that false consciousness has made the birthright of the white race. As a result the left in the West spends most of its energy combating racism since the possibility of coordinating something with the working class isn't even on the table.

[SolarCross]

Sadly this is a result of the aristocracy of labour under late capitalism. The working class in Western nations (especially the Anglosphere) do not want socialism or solidarity, they want the blood money that false consciousness has made the birthright of the white race. As a result the left in the West spends most of its energy combating racism since the possibility of coordinating something with the working class isn't even on the table.

How can it be? Orwell there was explicitly talking about middle class (pseudo) intellectuals, people who had never worked a day in their lives and 9 times out of 10 had never even met a working class person. He even is referencing them by name! Odious puss bags like George Bernard Shaw. These people are not the "labour aristocracy" because they are not working class nor have any connection with the working class. The "labour aristocracy" are like senior trades unionists and what not, people who generally at least from some kind of working class background and worked a job at some time in their life. Arthur Scargill or someone like that for an example. Perhaps they are problem people but they are a completely different problem to the "intellectuals" that Orwell is talking about in that passage.

[Donna]

@ckaihatsu My car is in the garage having a service literally right now. In what universe can I just wave some wacky pictures under the mechanic's nose and expect him to fix up my car for free? I am telling you it will not work, I have to pay him, because he is not an idiot. He would not be a mechanic if he was an idiot, and I would not want an idiot fixing my car anyway. You will have to go back to shooting people in the back of the head, funky graphs are even less persuasive.

You have to pay him because he has no other means of acquiring commodities except to extract the money-form in a piecemeal fashion by selling a service. This situation is unique to capitalism and people can only be expected to behave according to those rules.