[Cookie Monster]

Particularly when the required path to changing over from capitalism would be bloody and not garunteed to succeed. In the slightest.

I don't care if I'm just to much of a coward for revolution. Most avowed Communists don't seem to be bothering to get armed and plan the war either, I just own it.

This is common and in fact quite normal in societies. It is the reason why most societies remain stable, even when they are led by unpopular governments/leaders. The majority of people will not take action, even if it is in their direct interests to do so, unless they are lead by visionaries and when such action builds up enough attraction, only then will there be enough momentum against this immobility. A comparable phenomenon is identified in war sciences, it is called friction:

Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction, which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen war. Suppose now a traveller, who, towards evening, expects to accomplish the two stages at the end of his day's journey, four or five leagues, with post horses, on the high road—it is nothing. He arrives now at the last station but one, finds no horses, or very bad ones; then a hilly country, bad roads; it is a dark night, and he is glad when, after a great deal of trouble, he reaches the next station, and finds there some miserable accommodation. So in war, through the influence of an infinity of petty circumstances, which cannot properly be described on paper, things disappoint us, and we fall short of the mark. A powerful iron will overcomes this friction, it crushes the obstacles, but certainly the machine along with them. We shall often meet with this result. Like an obelisk, towards which the principal streets of a place converge, the strong will of a proud spirit, stands prominent and commanding, in the middle of the art of war.

And logically this phenomenon also occurs in politics. By the way, the guy who observed this phenomenon is Clausewitz.

[Ter]

you support the capitalist system, but only so long as it's not capitalism.

Well, there is capitalism and then there is capitalism.
The capitalism in most of Western and Northern Europe is a capitalism with a human face, with social nets for unemployed, handicapped, and the elderly, with progressive income taxes to pay for all of that. I am OK with that.
And there is a capitalism where people cannot get food, shelter or medical services if they have no money. I am not OK with that.
I have stopped supporting capitalism in general when globalism and open borders became part of the deal. For the same reason I am against the EU.

[mikema63]

@Crantag the tactic of corporations like ciggarette corps was to muddy the watter on issues. Attacking low prescription rates of opiods as a moral issue is the sort of reframing they do to obfuscate evidence.

Ciggarette companies would muddy the water on the certainty of research and evidence.

GMO's do not have some huge body of evidence that they are bad that is being muddied by biologists. They have a huge body of evidence supporting their safety which is attacked as a grand conspiracy of paid scientists.

The actual tactics of obfuscation are to have a handful of people bullshitting, not to buy off an entire field of research.

@Cookie Monster I'm not denying that to be true. Assuming I were convinced that socialism would work if we managed to get through the nasty bits I am still not willing to kill or be killed for that chance.

I am not a vissionary, or particularly brave, or even provided with an existing movement that would lend that as an option to begin with.

I see a way to help people that isn't sexy or big or world changing. That's what I'm going to do. I will have to live with that choice and it's outcomes both good and bad and I'm at peace with that.

@Ter globalism is a necessary concequence of capitalism. You can't oppose globalism and be pro-capitalism.

[noemon]

@mikema63 and @Potemkin should be made aware that freemarket capitalism has historically only applied one way only and not the other. ie the British Empire forced free-market access in China for its own products but it never provided Chinese products with free market access in Britain. The EU is still making deals that provide preferential treatment to EU products and less preferential treatment to the other party's products in the EU. That never stopped anyone from claiming to be globalist or capitalist.

The US has a half-a-trillion trade deficit with China, you can hate Trump all you like but you have not offered any rational argument as to why his measures against China are irrational or bad for the US. Even Varoufakis agrees with the concept as well as various other leading economists. The fact is most people hate the fact that it is Trump who did this and that it will be Trump the man to take the credit for it. For myself however and others this is completely inconsequential. I see this as the beginning only and hope that the massive Chinese surpluses will disappear because if they do not the west stands to lose a lot in the future. We can all see Chinese belligerence in the South China Sea and that is at a time when China has still not surpassed the west. What about the day that China does indeed surpass it? What then?

[Crantag]

What GMOs are in large respect about from an economics standpoint is the commodification of agricultural inputs. A quintessential example is 'round-up ready' seeds, which entail the seeds and the pesticides be monopolized by Monsanto. It also entails the overuse of pesticides. One of my professor devoted a large section of a chapter in a book to the topic of the monopolization of the different links in the chain of agricultural production and distribution, although the book is in Japanese so it wouldn't do much good to anyone here probably even if I wanted to share it in this venue (which I don't really).

But look at that, we had a slightly rational conversation about it, rather than your first stab at labeling my a conspiracy theorist in your smug attempt to claim some type of high ground.

Mind you, I only presented a little info and do not have a sufficiently deep basis to go much further. You probably don't either though, and so so much for your high ground. Forgive me if I do not like smugness.

[Cookie Monster]

@Cookie Monster I'm not denying that to be true. Assuming I were convinced that socialism would work if we managed to get through the nasty bits I am still not willing to kill or be killed for that chance.

I am not a vissionary, or particularly brave, or even provided with an existing movement that would lend that as an option to begin with.

I see a way to help people that isn't sexy or big or world changing. That's what I'm going to do. I will have to live with that choice and it's outcomes both good and bad and I'm at peace with that.

Not arguing that you should be leading a revolution, just describing the motivations you have for not taking actions is part of the phenomenon of friction when observed from a broader look at society. With you many others share this situation, hence the difficulty to actually venture out from the present status quo system to an unknown system.

[Potemkin]

Well, there is capitalism and then there is capitalism.

No, actually there is only capitalism.

The capitalism in most of Western and Northern Europe is a capitalism with a human face, with social nets for unemployed, handicapped, and the elderly, with progressive income taxes to pay for all of that. I am OK with that.

In other words, you'e okay with capitalism so long as its strongly diluted with socialism. Okay, gotcha.

And there is a capitalism where people cannot get food, shelter or medical services if they have no money. I am not OK with that.

But that is what capitalism is, Ter. Do you really know nothing about history, or how capitalism in the developed West acquired its 'human face'?

I have stopped supporting capitalism in general when globalism and open borders became part of the deal. For the same reason I am against the EU.

But these are inevitable consequences of the development of the capitalist system, Ter. Capitalism is a dynamic system - it changes over time, and in a rational fashion. These changes can be predicted, and they were predicted. These changes are in the interests of the ruling elite, but are not in the interests of the majority of the population of the developed West. It is unrealistic to expect the ruling elite to care about this.

[mikema63]

offered any rational argument as to why his measures against China are irrational or bad for the US.

It makes goods more expensive for the American consumer, risks a disasterous trade war, contracts the economy, sheds jobs in sectors of the economy who now have more expensive inputs and lower sales because consumption has contracted, makes our exports more expensive by making inputs more expensive so we export even less, moves capital from things we produce efficiently to things we produce less efficiently which makes it harder to raise capital and makes all the stuff capital is more expensive for more expensive to buy which feeds back into lower sales.

Raising costs of capital inputs for funsies hurts the entire economy.

@Crantag you are defending a conspiracy theory to hold on to a bad belief. Sorry you find this so offensive to have it pointed out that gmo fearmongering is baseless nonsense.

@Cookie Monster sure, but we carry on anyway and if I have no intention of being a revolutionary I'm not going to play at it. That's just the choice I've made.

[Beren]

They are a bunch of losers, Beren, don't listen to them.

They're more popular outside Germany indeed, you exported them too basically.

Our new bible is called Maastricht Treaty.

And the German constitution itself. They're both liberal bibles though.

[noemon]

It makes goods more expensive for the American consumer, risks a disasterous trade war, contracts the economy, sheds jobs in sectors of the economy who now have more expensive inputs and lower sales because consumption has contracted, makes our exports more expensive by making inputs more expensive so we export even less, moves capital from things we produce efficiently to things we produce less efficiently which makes it harder to raise capital and makes all the stuff capital is more expensive for more expensive to buy which feeds back into lower sales.

Raising costs of capital inputs for funsies hurts the entire economy.

It doesn't do any of those things. Putting tariffs in Chinese steel which the Chinese have been dumping with impunity in the US and all over the world does not raise the cost of steel at all. It prevents China from destroying everyone's else's steel industries which she has been attempting to do for years now by dumping it at prices below cost. It does risk a trade war with China but that is inevitable, it's better to have it while you have the upper hand instead of have it when she has the upper hand. Most people in the know would tell you that it is long-overdue for such a "trade-war" to take place. The EU has been imposing tariffs on Chinese steel for years now but noone has blamed it for anything, no prices have risen or the end of the world has arrived, nor has anyone claimed that the EU is not globalist or capitalist anymore. In fact if this was Obama doing it, the same people arguing against it would be defending it by pointing to the European example which the US is merely following.

[Ter]

@Potemkin
I am aware that the "socialised" model of capitalism was the result of the struggle of the workers and their unions which started at the end of the nineteenth Century.
That model became obsolete by adopting open borders because then you get a balancing of labour costs. When I grew up we still had manufacturing plants in Europe, they shifted to Asia only in my lifetime.

@Atlantis
The way the EU is going at the moment, I don't think you have many reasons to call me and other opponents "losers".
Farage, Le Pen, Wilders, and the leaders of Hungary, Poland, Austria and others will continue to spoil the EU broth.

[Potemkin]

I am aware that the "socialised" model of capitalism was the result of the struggle of the workers and their unions which started at the end of the nineteenth Century.

Precisely.

That model became obsolete by adopting open borders because then you get a balancing of labour costs. When I grew up we still had manufacturing plants in Europe, they shifted to Asia only in my lifetime.

Indeed. Globalisation, especially the free movement of labour as well as capital across national borders, spells the doom of all of the social and economic gains which the working class had struggled for for the previous century. Slowly, but inevitably, from the 1980s onwards, it was all rolled back....

Things are going to get... interesting over the next few decades....

[Rancid]

Can you ever really "win" a trade war?

[Potemkin]

Can you ever really "win" a trade war?

If your opponent's nation goes bankrupt and/or has a revolution before yours does, then you've 'won'. Lol.

[Crantag]

@Crantag you are defending a conspiracy theory to hold on to a bad belief. Sorry you find this so offensive to have it pointed out that gmo fearmongering is baseless nonsense.

Yeah, well, that's just like. Your opinion, man.

I have my doubts as to whether you even followed what I had to say on it. But dead dogs will lie.

[Seeker8]

@Potemkin, do you think it's impossible to move to pure socialism gradually through democracy? Because some countries, like the Scandinavians seem to be doing ok in that regard.

[Potemkin]

@Potemkin, do you think it's impossible to move to pure socialism gradually through democracy? Because some countries, like the Scandinavians seem to be doing ok in that regard.

It's not impossible, as Marx pointed out. It's just vanishingly unlikely. Most social classes, just like most individuals, do not go gentle into that good night. It was possible to move to pure capitalism from feudalism back in the early modern period. Yet France had a revolution, while England didn't. The transition from capitalism to socialism will probably be the same - Scandinavia will probably make the transition while barely noticing, while the USA will probably collapse in fire and ruin before they complete the transition.

[SpecialOlympian]

Can you ever really "win" a trade war?

No, it's like the War on Poverty. You can kill as many poor people as you like but you can't kill an idea. You should try though, you should totally try to kill as many poor people as you can.

[Atlantis]

The way the EU is going at the moment, I don't think you have many reasons to call me and other opponents "losers".
Farage, Le Pen, Wilders, and the leaders of Hungary, Poland, Austria and others will continue to spoil the EU broth.

I didn't call you a loser. I called capitalists, socialists and fascists losers.

Where would the populists go? Join Russia? Join the US? Join the Arab League?

There just aren't that many good options. Le Pen doesn't even want to abolish the Euro now. M5S have said that Brussels shouldn't worry about them. Orban won't cut his lifeline. Nor will the PiSsers. The Dutch aren't going nowhere without the Germans. Kern is pro-EU. Babis is even proer-EU. Right now, the only thing we need to worry about is that so many of these people support the EU.

[jimjam]

Talk about how America is getting screwed by other nations plays well at rallies and in the living rooms of folks who have been screwed ............... by their own government. But ......... it is nothing more than cheap talk designed to gin up political power. Certainly it is not difficult to find problems with the world economic order .... it is massive. But, it is functioning. When it ceases to function, the shit hits the fan, big time. Trump's simple minded playing to the grandstand methods reminds me of Smoot-Hawley 88 years ago. History does indeed repeat itself ... over and over and ............

The Tariff Act of 1930 (codified at 19 U.S.C. ch. 4), commonly known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff or Hawley–Smoot Tariff,[1] was an act implementing protectionist trade policies sponsored by Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley and was signed into law on June 17, 1930. The act raised U.S. tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods.[2]

The tariffs (this does not include duty-free imports – see Tariff levels below) under the act were the second-highest in the U.S. in 100 years, exceeded by a small margin by the Tariff of 1828.[3] The Act and following retaliatory tariffs by America's trading partners were major factors of the reduction of American exports and imports by more than half during the Depression.[4] Although economists disagree by how much, the consensus view among economists and economic historians is that "The passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression."[5]