ckaihatsu wrote:
Offhand it sounds like you're thinking of *finance*, which is a relatively recent development ('70s-'80s).
wat0n wrote:
Finance is from way, way before the 20th century.
Yeah, I realized I was being imprecise, so I added the 'CLARIFICATION' post.
Here's more from that Wikipedia entry about 'financialization':
As a result of this rapid financialization, the financial sector scaled up vastly in the span of a few decades. In 1978, the financial sector comprised 3.5% of the American economy (that is, it made up 3.5% of U.S. GDP), but by 2007 it had reached 5.9%. Profits in the American financial sector in 2009 were six times higher on average than in 1980, compared with non-financial sector profits, which on average were just over twice what they were in 1980. Financial sector profits grew by 800%, adjusted for inflation, from 1980 to 2005. In comparison with the rest of the economy, U.S. nonfinancial sector profits grew by 250% during the same period. For context, financial sector profits from the 1930s until 1980 grew at the same rate as the rest of the American economy.[18]
By way of illustration of the increased power of the financial sector over the economy, in 1978 commercial banks held $1.2 trillion (million million) in assets, which is equivalent to 53% of the GDP of the United States. By year's end 2007, commercial banks held $11.8 trillion in assets, which is equivalent to 84% of U.S. GDP. Investment banks (securities broker-dealers) held $33 billion (thousand million) in assets in 1978 (equivalent to 1.3% of U.S. GDP), but held $3.1 trillion in assets (equivalent to 22% U.S. GDP) in 2007. The securities that were so instrumental in triggering the financial crisis of 2007-2008, asset-backed securities, including collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) were practically non-existent in 1978. By 2007, they comprised $4.5 trillion in assets, equivalent to 32% of U.S. GDP.[19]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial ... ted_Growth
Again, the financial sector is *non-productive* -- it does not produce any commodities.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Sure, corporate stock *buybacks* can increase share prices, which can increase on-paper *profits*, but Marxists note that *nothing is being produced*. The government then does deficit-spending, adding liquidity into the system, but the capital doesn't *circulate* because it just gets sopped-up, all over again, into share prices and offshore tax havens. Thus there's no real economic *growth* (GDP).
wat0n wrote:
Buybacks don't explain 100 year long trend.
You're not being clear -- do you mean the Declining Rate of Profit data that I shared previously -- ?
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/ ... d-piketty/---
ckaihatsu wrote:
Technological developments *themselves* -- like driverless cars or driverless *flying* cars -- don't *automatically* spur new markets, especially when so many are *broke* and unemployed, and *can't afford* new tech toys.
Also, such specific technological trajectories may not necessarily aid *profits*, either, and so are not considered as 'innovations', according to the market.
wat0n wrote:
Of course they won't be adapted immediately. But they will, eventually, if they are invented and profitable.
Well, again, that's not *automatic* -- look at the Great Depression, for example, when consumer buying power was *sharply* reduced. (Etc.)
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ckaihatsu wrote:
(See page 2.)
[23] A Business Perspective on the Declining Rate of Profit
wat0n wrote:
No disagreement there, but I think it's an important point. For a Marxian economist, some stuff mainstream economists would count as "capital costs" actually correspond to the producer's profits.
ckaihatsu wrote:
No, this is utter *horseshit* -- you're just making shit up. (See the diagram above.)
wat0n wrote:
Would you put this into a mathematical formula? It doesn't have to be using accounting definitions, it can be simply conceptual/theoretical... For a start.
Well, I can't *stop* you from doing it -- I provided sample data for it, and there's always Wikipedia as well....
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ckaihatsu wrote:
You're going off on a tangent again. It looks like you're *conceding* on the point of the declining rate of profit.
I don't think there's any controversy, ideologically, over how the measurement of 'profit' is calculated. (See my diagram from the previous post.)
wat0n wrote:
Well, I would say there is definitely a controversy at least as far as actually testing the theory empirically is concerned:
Various efforts have been conducted since the 1970s to empirically examine the TRPF. Studies supporting or arguing in favour of it include those by Michael Roberts,[75][76] Minqi Li,[77] John Bradford,[78] and Deenpankar Basu (2012).[79] Studies critical or contradicting the TRPF include those by Themistoklis Kalogerakos,[80] Marcelo Resende,[81] Òscar Jordà[82] and Simcha Barkai.[83] Other studies, such as those by Basu (2013),[84] Elveren[85] Thomas Weiß[86] and Ivan Trofimov,[87] report mixed results or argue that the answer is not yet certain due to conflicting findings and issues with appropriately measuring the TRPF.
wat0n wrote:
So yes, the issue of definitions is indeed important.
Regarding the measurement used for 'profit', I just remembered that such is implied / included in my 'Labor & Capital' diagram that I posted last time. Here it is again:
[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends
[/quote]
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Marxists don't *have* to fetishize the definition of 'profit', because such is still *trackable* in financial terms, according to capitalist definitions.
What Marxism brings to the *economics* table is the workers' *labor-power* aspect of the capitalist enterprise, and it notes that -- as far as the *labor* component is concerned -- such quantity of present-day labor-capacity has to be *maintained* and *reproduced* going-forward, into the future, if only so that it stays *constant* and dependable as a quantity, instead of *decreasing*, while capitalist business looks to *grow* over time while utilizing / exploiting it.
So, this is called 'necessary labor value' -- the amount of labor-value, measured in wages, that it takes to *sustain* and *reproduce* (future generations of) the current quantity of labor-power (as in a 'snapshot').
And:
[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends
[23] A Business Perspective on the Declining Rate of Profit
wat0n wrote:
On the other hand, even some Marxian economists would concede that the tendency of the rate of profit to fall rests on several assumptions, some of which are not particularly great news. The idea that technological progress can increase profits goes as back as Okishio's Theorem (1961), which was established as a result by a Marxian economist.
It also does not easily follow from neoclassical economics, where most mainstream growth models (particularly more recent ones) suggest that growth itself depends (largely) on productivity growth in the long run, which is itself a result of technological development.
You *could* address the empirical data, in the graph, that I've now provided *twice*.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
The stock market is all about *speculation*, or *gambling*, more-or-less, with equity capital.
wat0n wrote:
Not in the long run.
ckaihatsu wrote:
What *matters*, economically, internationally, are debt-to-GDP ratios.
wat0n wrote:
You'll need to elaborate a bit here.
Well, look at Lebanon, for a recent example -- it suffered *hyperinflation* due to U.S. sanctions on its economics, so creditors weren't willing to lend it money to bolster its currency, and it turned to the IMF.
What good is its *stock market* when the 'real economy' itself was no longer functioning in any meaningful way?
Within weeks, as the currency’s value plummeted and inflation soared, Diab announced that Lebanon would default on its $30 billion foreign debts and turned to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan. But access to international loans and economic support pledged at the 2018 Cedre conference, policed by Washington and Paris, was always going to be dependent on the imperialists’ foreign and economic policy agenda.
The Trump administration has been applying pressure in support of its local stooges, intensifying its sanctions on Hezbollah and those organisations, including the banks, dealing with it, and imposing new sanctions on Syria, whose economy is closely linked to Lebanon’s.
The Diab government submitted a plan to the IMF that would have involved Lebanon’s banks, the country’s chief creditors, taking a substantial “haircut,” as well as a raft of austerity measures and privatisations. But the banks, owned by the Christian and Sunni plutocrats around Hariri’s Future Movement, rejected it.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/0 ... a-a15.html
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ckaihatsu wrote:
No, not necessarily, and I never said it *would* automatically be centralized -- any such 'centralization' would be *emergent*, according to empirical circumstances and intentional, consensual cross-centralization over geographies, per-item. (A post-capitalist political economy would be *entirely intentional*, by definition, so all material flows would necessarily be socially intentional and pre-planned by liberated-laborers.)
wat0n wrote:
How would the level of centralization be determined then?
You're *still* thinking conventionally and in a *state*-based way. Again, there's *no* standing government, or government / state of any kind. There are no financial institutions, or businesses, or companies, because there's *no need* for such in communism. No exchange values / finance / money / currency / exchanges.
Centralization would *only* happen over productive means in common (factories / workplaces), by combined consent of the respective active liberated laborers, per-item, for generalization over any given item, like face masks.
Here's a sample scenario -- let's say that face masks are being produced by liberated laborers in the factories roughly in the vicinity of Locality 'A'. It just so happens that liberated laborers near Locality 'B' are *also* making face masks at several factories around *their* area. Journalists around that industry are publishing a blog, and they pick up on what's happening with the Locality B area and that area's production of face masks. The active face-mask liberated-workers around Locality A read the industry press and they come across a series of articles on the face-mask industry around Locality B, and some of them decide as a group to take the initiative to reach out to Locality-B-area face-mask liberated laborers, and they suggest that, given the numbers reported, the face mask factories of *both* areas could see an increase in productivity by as much as 28% if they combine their respective supply chains to feed into *both* geographic areas, for face masks, realizing economies-of-scale as a result. (Factories near Locality A could concentrate just on the elastic string, while factories near Locality B could focus on just producing the fabric material, with final assembly at both locations, making the process more materially efficient, and faster.)
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ckaihatsu wrote:
At this point maybe you should *ask* me questions about my framework, because your *statements* here do *not* correspond to the conception, or model, that I've put forth.
Doing it *this* way, I have to first *correct* you since you've been misrepresenting the framework with *every* statement of yours so far.
Prioritization of individual daily 'demands' rankings are done by the *individual*, and no one else. Labor credits do *not* apply in this aspect because they only apply internally to the 'society' of active liberated-laborers, over active and future projects. Individual and popular (mass-aggregated) demands do *not* require or use labor credits.
There are *zero* exchanges because monetary-type exchanges are *not necessary* within a communist gift economy. Also there's *no* central government, or any *standing* government of any kind, nor nation-states.
wat0n wrote:
How would labor credits be allocated and how would you stop people from simply taking whatever they want, by force?
There *can't* be any such 'stealing' because no one *owns* anything, not even the machinery / factories, or the products of them. No one receives anything directly in exchange for their efforts to produce for the common good, so no one can get 'paid' more or less than anyone else, in a strictly 'pure' (*zero*-labor-credits) communist gift economy.
I introduce the vehicle of labor credits into the baseline communist gift economy so as to cover the possibility that *no one* would want to do certain labor roles that are socially necessary but are too hazardous / difficult / distasteful. (I've previously used the example of manually cleaning out clogged sewers in a municipal sewer system, like that in Mexico City.)
To sum up, people *could* simply take whatever they want, whenever they want, without money, and they wouldn't have to resort to using force, because everything produced post-capitalism would be *free-access* and *directly distributed*. Worst case would be that factories would keep a certain *surplus* -- maybe 20% -- of whatever it is that they produce, on-hand, according to the liberated-workers there, for any such 'walk-ups' (which would be outside of the formal daily individual self-ranked 'demands' lists, for mass-aggregation). Over time and experience this percentage could be tailored to each particular workplace. (In alignment with the overall description of 'a landscape of piles of stuff'.)
Labor credits would be allocated to *proposals* and *projects*, per plan, and such plans / proposals / projects would *compete*, and would be open to inclusion on individuals' daily self-ranked 'demands' lists (as socio-political 'demands', either abstractly, or specificly, by plan).
Perhaps one active proposal would allocate more labor credits to 'elastic string makers', while another active proposal in circulation would allocate more labor credits to 'face mask material makers'. In both cases the 'funding' of labor credits would necessarily have to come from liberated laborers who *have* such potential funding, in part, *in hand*, necessarily from their *own* past liberated-labor efforts.
*Localities* could also issue their own *debt-based* labor credits, if necesssary, per proposal, but it would be public knowledge that such labor credits (by serial number, and batch) are *debt-based*, until enough people from that locality then go out and do work elsewhere to bring back sufficient amounts of labor credits to *neutralize* the debt that they issued as a locality. That information would be public knowledge as well, and the labor credits themselves would continue to circulate, regardless. (Think of the labor credits as 'IOUs', for actual liberated-labor done, that are debt-based until covered / neutralized by labor credits earned and brought-back to that locality that issued the debt-based labor credits, to cancel the debt. All labor credits *always* continue to circulate, regardless.)
communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors
https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... ost2889338---
wat0n wrote:
Why would members of the community do any of that if, as you say, they have all their core needs taken care of regardless of what they do?
ckaihatsu wrote:
This is similar to a previous question, at a past thread:
wat0n wrote:
Do these motives hold for society at large most of the time? How many people regard their jobs as a hobby?
It depends on the *scale* on the endeavor. Work roles could be for the common good, in concert with others, as on industrial machinery of mass production.
*Or* efforts could be at *any other* scale, conceivably, even person-to-person, as with handicrafts. Which work roles would be considered to be a *social priority*, for *socially necessary* production, would be a socio-political thing.
I've entertained the thought-experiment of 'a post-capitalist society of rock stars', meaning that maybe, post-capitalism, everyone would just want to work on their own music, and on performing -- many socially necessary work roles, like food production, would go untendered in that case, and society would have to adjust somehow, perhaps by *automating* all food production so that everyone could get back to playing guitar, or whatever.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
I'm *not* guaranteeing any kind of 'perfection', or 'utopia'. If people happen to be demanding better-quality goods, then someone has to *make* them that way, so it always boils down to (liberated) labor. If no one wants to put forth such 'better' efforts -- as in designing a better-quality good -- in such an egalitarian, same-page kind of society, then everyone would have no one else but *themselves* to blame for substandard-quality goods.
Components of Social Production
wat0n wrote:
Good to read this. But then, since when do people blame themselves for their failures?
Well, you're taking this rather *morally*, in a *moralistic* way, which is your prerogative, of course, but in the *socio-political* context, it realistically means that everyone in such a society would have to collectively set their own 'standards', or social norms.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
You're *again* conflating workers-of-the-world socialism, with *state*, bureaucratic-elitist *Stalinism*. The two are *not* the same. (Re-read my previous statement about the existence of such a collective incentive to *fully automate* production, post-capitalism.)
wat0n wrote:
Fair point, but the USSR was a real example. As such, do you share that criticism of the Soviet system?
The USSR was a real example of *Stalinism*. No one before Stalin came to power *wanted* Stalin to come to power -- it was a historical *accident*, basically.
Of course I share the criticism of Stalinism in that it's *not* workers-of-the-world socialism.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
You're confusing 'soviet' with 'Soviet'.
The soviets were the initial *workers councils*, while the Soviets were the Stalinist / bureaucratic-elitist state planners of the USSR -- basically the Stalinist country / government turned the 'soviet' into a *name-brand*. I don't advocate Stalinism / Sovietism.
ckaihatsu wrote:
It's easy to see that soviet democracy is functionally *better*, because of it being based in the workers and workplaces themselves (for social material productivity), and with *immediately recallable* representatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_democracy
wat0n wrote:
Were Stalin or his stooges ever recalled in places like Ukraine while people were starving? 
ckaihatsu wrote:
Nope -- which shows you the *difference*. Soviet democracy took place early-on, while Stalinism came *later*, was top-down, and heavy-handed. I do *not* defend Stalinism, except in the geopolitical context, versus the West.
wat0n wrote:
Ah, so I'm guessing you are more of an anarchist type of person (this doesn't mean you necessarily like Proudhon's or Bakunin's systems).
But even at that scale, democracy can sometimes fail to work. It is still more democratic than Sovietism, though.
No, I've never been an anarchist -- it's too *localist*, but, that said, I *am* in favor of *bottom-up* organizing of social productivity, post-capitalism, as seen in this diagram of mine (also a *critique* of anarchism):
Emergent Central Planning
For the proletarian revolution I'm a *vanguardist*, and I have a treatment of that here:
From all the discussions on vanguardism I've ever been around, including on this thread, it seems that there are really only a handful of issues involved.
My greatest concern is that we don't get *bogged down* by history. While I admire and champion all comrades who are adept at revolutionary historical matters -- certainly moreso than myself -- I've found that I've shied away from a more comprehensive, academic approach simply because the past is *not* directly transferable onto the future. There are many substantial, determining details of the historical situation back in 1917 that are *not* confining us today -- sheer material productive capacity would be one, not to mention communications capability, and so on.
This means that we *can't* look to the Bolshevik Revolution as the definitive, transferable model by which to form all revolutionary plans for the future. Yes, we should all be well aware of its intricacies and outcomes, but no, we should not be *beholden* to its *specific* storyline here in the 21st century.
I'm more than a little surprised that so many are so concerned about a vanguard organization's potential for "hanging onto power" after a revolution is completed. In my conceptualization the vanguard would be all about mobilizing and coordinating the various ongoing realtime aspects of a revolution in progress, most notably mass industrial union strategies and political offensives and defenses relative to the capitalists' forces.
*By definition* a victorious worldwide proletarian revolution would *push past* the *objective need* for this airport-control-tower mechanism of the vanguard, for the basic fact that there would no longer be any class enemy to coordinate *against*. Its entire function would be superseded by the mass revolution's success and transforming of society.
A vanguard is certainly needed *for* a revolution simply because it would be the ultimate centralization of mass political power that the world has ever seen -- far moreso than current bourgeois institutions like the UN Security Council or the United Nations General Assembly or whatever. A vanguard would accurately reflect the minute-by-minute interests of the mass working class, similar to the several Marxist news sites in existence today.
I'd imagine that most of the routine political issues of the day, even going into a revolutionary period, could be handled adeptly by these existing organizations and organs -- however, the tricky part is in carrying out specific, large-scale campaigns that are under time pressure. This is where the world's working class should have the *benefit* of hierarchical organization, just as the capitalists use with their interlocking directorates and CEOs and such.
A vanguard organization would have to, unfortunately, *take over* and *be responsible for* certain crucial, time-sensitive aspects of a united front against the capitalists. Too much lateralism -- which anarchists promote -- is just too slow and redundant in its operation, organizationally, to hope to be effective against the consolidated hierarchies that the capitalists employ.
Just as it's easier to travel in elevators than in cars we should *strive* for a vertical consolidation of militant labor groupings as part of a worldwide proletariat offensive. This tight centrality and focus would enable the vanguard to manuever much more quickly and effectively against the class enemy's mobilizations, no matter where and when they take place, worldwide.
https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/117736-Vanguardism
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ckaihatsu wrote:
I can't and *don't* agree -- the distinction is that state / *government*-backed killer cops are acting and killing in the name of the *public*. That's why it's tolerated, because such killer cops are effectively *legal* since the vast majority of them go free without being treated as criminals.
All other / civilian killings may happen for various reasons, and such should be addressed by society appropriately, but the government has the power *right now* to treat killer cops as the criminals that they are, and to impose *criminal* penalties on them, as it would for any similar act by a *civilian*.
ckaihatsu wrote:
Yeah -- 'whatever'. You're going off on a tangent again, to *combine* state-sanctioned killer cops, with *all*, civilian-based killings. You're mushing too much together, when the festering problem of killer cops *can* be shut-down, since they're a branch of government, and the government has the power to simply *defund* and *disempower* all police departments, so that cops aren't on the streets to commit more killings.
Another way to think of it is that the police departments have *failed* a 'health inspection', and so they need to be shut down.
wat0n wrote:
Well, as it stands, I think it depends a lot on the circumstances. You are assuming all police killings are unjustified, which is probably not the case.
If a civilian was met with an armed person trying to enter his home, he would generally have the right to use force, even deadly force, to repel the trespasser. If the same civilian was met with an armed person at his job, had a legal right to carry firearms and the said person was using his firearm to commit a crime, he would also have a right to stop him using his own guns - particularly if there was no professional police. The cops' job is precisely to leave these kind of tasks to the State itself as much as possible, and it's also why more activities of this kind are being regarded as vigilantism (which is illegal by definition) over time.
Then, yes, cops engaging in crime is of course a problem. But defunding or abolition does not guarantee the alternative would be any better. I can imagine civilians carrying policing out in their own way would almost surely be actually worse at the job and be more trigger happy than the cops are, for a whole lot of reasons (for starters, they are not trained professionals and are likely to want to avoid taking risks even more than the cops do - one way to do that is to be trigger happy).
As such, you cannot fully separate dealing with both types of crimes (i.e. those committed by both cops and civilians) from how should policing be conducted itself. And then, yes, of course one needs to consider the effects of these proposals on overall crime and killings.
You're really *exaggerating* violent civilian crime, as though such *needs* policing, when crime rates are at historic *lows* -- again, the greater societal threat right now comes from *killer cops*, moreso than *killer civilians*, especially since the killer cops are state-sanctioned and mostly are not treated as criminals, unfortunately.
This is where *deterrence* is called-for, because in *any other* situation there would be changes made to *deter* such overreactions on the part of professionals.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, so then street-based and worker-based *social change* is the *independent* variable, and 'electoral results' and 'local affairs' (including policing), is the *dependent variable*.
wat0n wrote:
Is it? Government action can also influence how well street-based and worker-based social change works. It seems there is a system of equations here.
No, I can't agree, because my political perspective is that government is a *plutocracy* and primarily -- almost *exclusively* -- serves the interests of the wealthy. I think a particular anarchist saying is appropriate here:
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
Emma Goldman
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/emma_goldman_107325
The bourgeois establishment favors the *status quo* -- as you do -- or even *rolling back* social progress, as with civil rights, working conditions, gender roles, etc.
wat0n wrote:
But how Governments even get to power, in electoral democracy, falls largely upon voters. And that includes those who don't actively set out to the streets as means to get whatever they want.
You're failing to see that *class* is paramount, and you're too caught-up in the *procedurals* of intra-national political rituals.
[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
The dynamics of *capitalism* -- as in the stagnation of 2000 onward to today -- apply to *state capitalism* as well. Economically the USSR did quite well, using state centralized planning, so the 'stagnation' you're referring to sounds like it applies more accurately to the *government* and to its *societal progress*.
wat0n wrote:
I would say "stagnation" is only a partial description of what has been going on in capitalist economies. It depends on what has stagnated and where.
The USSR did indeed suffer from stagnation in many dimensions, including how its Government worked and its societal progress. But it also suffered from economic stagnation from the 1970s onwards, indeed, its Government's stagnation was one of the causes of the general economic stagnation of the time.
Okay, I won't simply *ignore* this point, as you do for so many of the points *I* make -- here's the proof:
The value of all consumer goods manufactured in 1972 in retail prices was about 118 billion rubles ($530 billion).[54] The Era of Stagnation in the mid-1970s was triggered by the Nixon Shock and aggravated by the war in Afghanistan in 1979 and led to a period of economic standstill between 1979 and 1985. Soviet military buildup at the expense of domestic development kept the Soviet Union's GDP at the same level during the first half of the 1980s.[55] The Soviet planned economy was not structured to respond adequately to the demands of the complex modern economy it had helped to forge. The massive quantities of goods produced often did not meet the needs or tastes of consumers.[56]
The volume of decisions facing planners in Moscow became overwhelming. The cumbersome procedures for bureaucratic administration foreclosed the free communication and flexible response required at the enterprise level for dealing with worker alienation, innovation, customers, and suppliers. During 1975–1985, corruption and data fiddling became common practice among bureaucracy to report satisfied targets and quotas thus entrenching the crisis. At the same time, the effects of the central planning were progressively distorted due to the rapid growth of the second economy in the Soviet Union.[24]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_o ... %80%931990
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Whatever -- my point stands that you keep trying to disparage the *politics* itself (of workers-of-the-world socialism), while demonstrably showing that you don't even *understand* the politics (as with a communist-type 'gift economy').
wat0n wrote:
No, the issue is that I don't trust your predictions of how would such an economy work. What I do trust however is how these attempts have ended.
I'm not predicting *shit* -- such would be *presumptuous* on my part. What I *have* done is to put forward a comprehensive communist-gift-economy-based *model framework*, which has its own internal logic and functioning.
Your position, though, is based on analyzing historical *Stalinism*, and I'm certainly not for such bureaucratic-elitism. I'm for workers-of-the-world *socialism*.
---
wat0n wrote:
Even worse, how many of those 1,000 police killings were justified as simply self-defense/legitimate carrying out of police duties?
ckaihatsu wrote:
You tell me.
wat0n wrote:
Hard to know on the go since it needs to be done on a case by case basis. But it should be noted the vast majority of people killed were armed or using objects such as cars as weapons, so although this doesn't mean all those killings were justified it does mean one needs to dig deep on each one.
And the data comes from *police reports*, I'd estimate.
Don't you think that even *one* death at the hands of the police, by overreaction, is one death too many -- ? The government has the means to *shut that shit down*.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Jesus, wat0n, I'm not *fucking* concerned about 'crime' when the *far greater* problem is the 1000+ fully-preventable killings that are caused by the government's *police*.
All *you* do is go off on tangents instead of dealing with the *main issues* of this thread's topic.
wat0n wrote:
Why are police killings a greater problem than other killings? Why would the life of a person become more valuable when unjustifiably taken by a police officer as opposed to it be unjustifiably taken by a civilian?
Because the life of a person taken by a cop is a life that could have been *saved*.
Why are you so stubborn against getting cops off the streets so that there *are no* cops to commit killings? Human lives are more important than *property*.
I'm open to any observations you may have as to why *civilians* kill other people.
wat0n wrote:
The idea that it's because cops work for the State seems to be quite arbitrary since in that case no one would care about killings committed by vigilantes (who don't work for the State) more than they care about killings committed by gang members.
It seems to me all should be regarded as problematic in their own right. Yes, cops have law enforcement duties and as such anything that erodes trust in how the law is enforced, such as illegal killings, should be regarded as a serious problem. But that doesn't mean one should abolish the police and effectively let vigilantes replace them.
And this is definitely on topic.
But don't you see that you're *not suggesting* any realistic way to *address* this 'serious problem' -- ? At most, over dozens and dozens of posts, you might *acknowledge* that this is a 'serious problem', and then you go back to your main political line of defending the status quo. Your words ('serious problem') have *no weight* to them, whatsoever.
Look at all the state resources that are dedicated to chasing 'bad guys', internationally, with full military spending and shitloads of killing gear. Maybe the 'bad guys' are *here*, on the streets, in blue uniforms. Shouldn't we send the military in after *them*?
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ckaihatsu wrote:
You're not showing any evidence for purported 'rent extraction' by the USSR, from Comecon members.
wat0n wrote:
Just read the source
ckaihatsu wrote:
You may want to present some kind of data, or *argument* here.
wat0n wrote:
Why bother when you refuse to consult the data or sources when they are provided to you?
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ckaihatsu wrote:
I never *denied* that the private sector does R&D of its own -- I said that it 'suckles' on the teat of government, for *much* of the R&D, and the *costs* for such, that it uses for its own profit-making. And my argument is backed-up by the data in the table that you provided.
wat0n wrote:
No, your argument refers only to basic research, not overall R&D - including applied research with commercial applications. Overall, at least in the US, most funding comes from businesses themselves.
Whatever -- you're splitting hairs again, since business is obviously *suckling on the government teat*, regarding the difficult-and-expensive 'basic research'.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
You're bullshitting -- I don't see the figure of '60%' *anywhere* on the page that contains Table 4-4.
wat0n wrote:
I'm speaking of Figure 4-4, on page 18. Table 4-4 is on page 20, shows most R&D investment is not done in basic research and:
NSF wrote:
Basic Research
Higher education institutions continued to be the largest performer of U.S. basic research in 2017, while the federal government remained the largest source of funding for basic research. Higher education performed just under half (48%) of basic research, and the federal government funded about 42% of all basic research performed (Table 4-3). The business sector was also a substantial performer (27%) and funder (29%) of basic research. The federal government (agency intramural laboratories and FFRDCs) and other nonprofit organizations were smaller performers, accounting, respectively, for 11% and 13% of the U.S basic research performance total in 2017.
Applied Research
The business sector was both the largest performer (57%) and largest funder (54%) of applied research in 2017— accounting for over half of each (Table 4-3). Higher education (18%), the federal government (17%), and nonprofit organizations (7%) were the next largest performers of applied research.
The vast majority of business sector funding for applied research remained within the sector (Table 4-3). The federal government provided a third of applied research funding, with its funding spread broadly across different sectors; higher education and federal intramural laboratories and FFRDCs received the largest amounts.
Experimental Development
The business sector predominates in experimental development, performing 90% of the R&D in this category in 2017 (Table 4-3).9 The federal government accounted for another 7%, much of it defense related, with the federal government itself the primary user of the results. By contrast, higher education and other nonprofit organizations perform relatively little development (respectively, 2% and 1% of the total in 2017).
The business sector provided 85% of the funding for the experimental development performed in 2017, nearly all of which remained in that sector (Table 4-3). Federal funding accounted for about 13% of the development total, with the business sector (especially defense-related industries) and federal intramural laboratories as the largest recipients.
I don't see the '60%' figure anywhere in the text you've excerpted here.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
So you're *admitting* that the government does the expensive, difficult R&D, at public expense, for the sake of private-sector profit-making.
wat0n wrote:
But most research is not basic science, and it isn't necessarily easy either.
You're not *addressing* what I've said -- you're going off on a tangent, and talking about something else, the private sector.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
I could just as validly say that *food* and *housing*, for modern life and living, is harder to make a profit from, since food costs and rent / mortgage payments make no profits, either, and should be *underwritten* by government spending.
wat0n wrote:
One difference, though, is that the Government gets part of that money back when such basic research leads to commercial applications since firms eventually pay taxes.
And actually, the Government does subsidize some of that for people who earn little enough to qualify.
To *summarize*, I'd call the U.S. system of R&D to be a *bourgeois technocracy*, since government R&D is funded by bureaucratic planning, and done by academia, to directly benefit companies' profits.
(In other words it's *not* free-market competition among self-funded companies, competing over market share, because none of them would even *exist* if they had to do *their own* basic research, in market-redundant ways, instead of getting that for *free* from the government, meaning *public funds*.)
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ckaihatsu wrote:
You're being *evasive* again, because it's *government police killings / brutality* that's the *independent* variable, and the protests / riots are a *knock-on* effect from *tolerating* government police overreactions.
If you solve the problem of government killer cops then you *won't have* any protests or riots.
ckaihatsu wrote:
Again you're showing that you don't understand the cause-and-effect here -- the *cause* of protests and riots is the government toleration of killer cops. If you're so 'annoyed' by protests and riots then *get rid of* the killings at the hands of cops. You've been provided with policy *alternatives* for enacting this.
It's akin to my saying that you can prevent headaches if you don't hit your head against the wall.
wat0n wrote:
No, you won't have protests or riots over police killings.
Um, have you seen the *topic of this thread* -- ?
What do you think the 'violent protests in Portland' are *about* -- ?
wat0n wrote:
You can perfectly have them over other things, something leftists are good at is finding those other things so that's patently false. And indeed, people can also be annoyed about those riots over other things, and then leave us where we are.
But you are missing the point. The issue of riots can have electoral (and thus political) consequences, some of which the rioters did not expect or want. Whether they are about police killings or something else is of little relevance when that moment comes.
*Or*, the *new* asshole gets into power and the *issues* remain unaddressed, so the protestors / rioters have cause to do the same thing that they're doing *now*.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Your 'decentralization' rhetoric is at-odds with the government policies that benefit *corporations*, and the wealthy, like the government spending on R&D which is then given to the private sector for free, at public expense. There's no mention of 'decentralization' for this, or for military spending, or for tax breaks for the rich, or for bailing out the stock market.
You're expressing a *double standard* that aligns according to *class interests*.
wat0n wrote:
Not really. Issues like national defense are better dealt by the Federal Government (do I need to explain why? States only spend on their National Guard), and actually States are also free to e.g. raise taxes on the rich or tax financial transactions if they want. So even that isn't quite true.
I could just as easily say that issues like defunding the police are better dealt by the Federal Government, as are festering issues like COVID-19, unemployment, hazardous workplace conditions due to COVID-19, rent, etc.
You're more interested in legalistic aspects of government *procedure* than with the unaddressed social *issues* themselves.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
You're being *evasive* because the governmental *hierarchy* *could* undertake a *broad-based push* to stop killer cops, and their racist killings, if it wanted to.
wat0n wrote:
There are limits to that under the US Constitution.
What the Federal Government can do is set minimum standards and deny funding to States and localities who don't comply. But policing, ultimately, is a local affair.
You're saying the *wrong* thing -- protestors don't need to hear the run-around.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
No, vigilanteeism does *not* correspond to a legalized, alternative, organized 'community policing' approach.
Again you're simply being *disingenuous*, and you're basically *lying*.
wat0n wrote:
That's exactly what happens with no police. If you want to force PDs to adopt community policing strategies, that's a different matter but you can't do that if you abolish the police.
I would say it is you who is being disingenuous here, trying to fool the reader about what "abolishing the police" means.
Abolishing the police means that we can save 1000+ lives each and every year. That's worth it.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Again, *property crimes* is *not* my political concern here -- the *priority* is stopping killings at the hands of killer cops.
wat0n wrote:
Again, more disingenuous trash here. I never mentioned property crimes.
Yes, you did -- you call it 'crime' and you specifically cited 'home invasions' and 'vehicle thefts', by my recollection.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
'Non-professional police forces' are *not* police forces, because they're *outside* of government functioning. You just described *vigilantes*, which you seem to be *tolerant* of.
wat0n wrote:
And that's what you get when you abolish the police. I would say it is you who is tolerant of vigilantism.
No, I never *called for* vigilantism. You're *assuming* that all hell will break loose if the police are disbanded, which is your *own* preferred nightmarish vision.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
No, I'd say that you're being *fatalistic*, just as you are with the politics of workers-of-the-world socialism.
wat0n wrote:
Or you are trying to sell smoke. After all, what successful historical examples do you have to offer?
Duh. If workers-of-the-world socialism was historically successful then we'd be living in it *today*.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Great -- and I'll all for such reforms, but the measures that would be *even more* effective would be to *shut down* police departments so that cops aren't on the street to commit killings *whatsoever*.
wat0n wrote:
Hope you enjoy the vigilantes!
Why don't you first personally undertake to make sure that all police departments *are* shut down, and then I'll enjoy the vigilantes, okay -- ?
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Since forever -- ideology indicates in *what direction* people want society to go towards.
Anti-capitalists like myself say that society no longer needs capital, private property, or the capitalist class divide -- that the workers of the world can organize social production in the interests of *everyone*, on de-privatized, collectivized productive machinery (factories), to benefit all on an egalitarian basis.
wat0n wrote:
That is a naive idea at best. After all, clientelism is a very old political phenomenon that does not deal with whatever direction people want society to go.
Well, you're just being *pessimistic*, to imagine that proletarian revolution will automatically fatalistically devolve into capitalist-type clientelism, or patronage.
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