Why do people not understand socialism ? - Page 17 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#15251574
SkilfulDotCom wrote:
Thanks Truth To Power - I am critical of economists so will put it on the reading list.

Wiki: It is a treatise on the questions of why poverty accompanies economic and technological progress and why economies exhibit a tendency toward cyclical boom and bust.



TLDR: TTP says an ideal government administration of all (nationalized) land parcels would be sufficient as the material basis for a sound frictionless equity-markets worldwide economy.
#15251576
ckaihatsu wrote:TLDR: TTP says an ideal government administration of all (nationalized) land parcels would be sufficient as the material basis for a sound frictionless equity-markets worldwide economy.

I would have to spend a week getting my head in the right mindset to understand how TTP's proposition would work.

Frictionless?
#15251578
SkilfulDotCom wrote:
I would have to spend a week getting my head in the right mindset to understand how TTP's proposition would work.

Frictionless?



It's pure corporatist opportunism -- I just use the ten-foot-pole of 'F.I.R.E.' costs to capital ownership, and where-does-value-come-from / why-bother-hiring-employees.

As though only the *historical* land distribution was problematic, whereas everything would be *peachy* once all land issues are neatly administrated out of the way, leaving purely-meritocratic 'equity heaven' for everyone, as I call it.
#15251582
ckaihatsu wrote:It's pure corporatist opportunism -- I just use the ten-foot-pole of 'F.I.R.E.' costs to capital ownership, and where-does-value-come-from / why-bother-hiring-employees.

As though only the *historical* land distribution was problematic, whereas everything would be *peachy* once all land issues are neatly administrated out of the way, leaving purely-meritocratic 'equity heaven' for everyone, as I call it.

My head hurts - time for bed in UK - after 1am.

Goodnight.
#15251599
ckaihatsu wrote:Leave. Politics. Now.

= D

Albert Einstein is supposed to have said, "Any fool can know - the point is to understand".

May be Ernest Kinoy a script writer doing a script about Albert Einstein.

The point being, is that Professors of topics think they understand their subject - many (most/all?) do not.

Case in point, I proved economists wrong i.e. Gini coefficient and other metrics do not measure inequality.

Either wrong or liars - given they refuse to answer an extremely simple question - guess what I went for.

Not necessary to have their superior education - merely spot weak links in their logic and ask simple question:

"How am I wrong?"

Are political professors just as flawed about their ideologies - surely they will know that they have weak links?
#15251695
ckaihatsu wrote:What's your critique of the Gini coefficient, and what do you propose instead?

Where to start, nobody has pointed out facts that I have - not even the great Thomas Piketty - hero of socialists?

I have created a spreadsheet that will measure actual inequality of the entire population - are links allowed?
#15251697
SkilfulDotCom wrote:
Where to start, nobody has pointed out facts that I have - not even the great Thomas Piketty - hero of socialists?

I have created a spreadsheet that will measure actual inequality of the entire population - are links allowed?



'Are links allowed?' -- ?

Usually I have to ask *twice* around here.... (grin)
#15251884
SkilfulDotCom wrote:Thanks Truth To Power - I am critical of economists so will put it on the reading list.

You may like Henry George, then. The late professor Mason Gaffney wrote a book called, "The Corruption of Economics" that describes how modern mainstream neoclassical economics was originally developed as a stratagem to keep George's analysis out of economics. This was done by changing the definitions of technical terms so that George's arguments could no longer even be stated.
#15251938
Truth To Power wrote:You may like Henry George, then. The late professor Mason Gaffney wrote a book called, "The Corruption of Economics" that describes how modern mainstream neoclassical economics was originally developed as a stratagem to keep George's analysis out of economics. This was done by changing the definitions of technical terms so that George's arguments could no longer even be stated.

Thanks again TTP - it seems more what I am looking for - "changing the definitions of technical terms".

This is on the basis of my findings about inequality metrics e.g. the new definition of the word "inequality" itself.

The richest are now hidden with the average of a large group of those of much less income - I'd call that corruption.

The top people at the ONS and UK Statistics Authority are clearly afraid to answer the most simplest of questions.
#15251983
SkilfulDotCom wrote:This is on the basis of my findings about inequality metrics e.g. the new definition of the word "inequality" itself.

The richest are now hidden with the average of a large group of those of much less income - I'd call that corruption.

They use income as the measure of people's wealth to pretend that a burger flipper with no assets is somehow "richer" than a billionaire with no income. Obviously the measure of wealth is wealth, not income. But all the official statistics on economic inequality are based on income.
#15275260
Atheists have come up with more worldly definitions.


Firstly, it's not just "atheists" who recognize socialism for what it has been in the real world and how it has been practiced.

Secondly, Mark does not say in his writings "this is what socialism is". You put that there but Mark never said that.
#15281824
Agent Steel wrote:Firstly, it's not just "atheists" who recognize socialism for what it has been in the real world and how it has been practiced.

Oh come on. Socialism was attempted in several cases of agrarian economies that never established and consolidated it before anti-socialist forces perverted it and converted any progress to some form of capitalism. And therefore socialism, since it never really got a solid foothold, was never “practiced”.

Now, can we agree on this one thing?: Any discussion of socialism is a discussion of class struggle. That’s what it’s about. Agreed?
#15282049
Senter wrote:Oh come on. Socialism was attempted in several cases of agrarian economies that never established and consolidated it before anti-socialist forces perverted it and converted any progress to some form of capitalism. And therefore socialism, since it never really got a solid foothold, was never “practiced”.

Now, can we agree on this one thing?: Any discussion of socialism is a discussion of class struggle. That’s what it’s about. Agreed?

Well, technically all primitive people are living as communists and socialists, so both systems definitely existed and have been for 99% of all people ever born the conditions of their living, and for 190,000 years nothing else was known anywhere.

If you are a hunterer/gatherer, there are no poor people, and there is no rich class.

Which is why our mind always assumes that we live in communism and socialism, even if you're the worst capitalist on the planet. In fact capitalism often develops into socialism for the rich.

Never communism, though. In fact scientists found that amusingly the more rich the rich get, the more poor they feel. Thats because if the divide between regular people and the rich is relatively small, a rich person might know another rich person that owns maybe ten times as much. But the more extreme it gets, the more extreme differences are between the rich themselves, too. So a very rich 200 times millionaire meets Elon Musk - and this already super extremely rich person just met a person thats no less than a thousand times as rich.

Only the invention of agriculture and cities and the resulting reforms allowed the creation of classes, and the phenomen that some people suffer from poverty, and the idea of slavery. Which, in a mild form, exists to this day as capitalism.
#15282414
I figured it would be understood that the socialism I referred to was that which has been proposed and attempted AFTER capitalism, . . . . . -not BEFORE all other civilization.

My mine has never assumed I live in communism and socialism.

Socialism is normally understood to be the antithesis of capitalism.

The plight of the rich and their perception of their degree of “richness” doesn’t worry me.

The “invention” of exploiting other people for personal gain invented classes.
#15282543
Senter wrote:
Socialism is normally understood to be the antithesis of capitalism.



Can a mode of production be the antithesis of another one? If socialism is the antithesis of capitalism, what is the antithesis of feudalism? And of slavery?
An abstractal principle can be the antithesis of another one. But a mode of production is a complex construction integrating different elements. It would be right to say that socialism has some characteristics that are antithetical to some characteristics of capitalism.
It is also an error to think that there is only one type of socialism. Socialism is the result of constructivism and constructivism is imagination.
Capitalism has four major characteristics:
- entrepreneurship
- salaried work
- capitalist property
- market exchange
The qualities of capitalism come from market exchange, its defaults from capitalist property.
Socialism must be freed from the defaults of capitalism but not necessarily from its other characteristics, such as market exchange. Market socialism is not socialism blended with capitalism but a genuine form of socialism.
#15282560
Monti wrote:Can a mode of production be the antithesis of another one? If socialism is the antithesis of capitalism, what is the antithesis of feudalism? And of slavery?
An abstractal principle can be the antithesis of another one. But a mode of production is a complex construction integrating different elements. It would be right to say that socialism has some characteristics that are antithetical to some characteristics of capitalism.
It is also an error to think that there is only one type of socialism. Socialism is the result of constructivism and constructivism is imagination.
Capitalism has four major characteristics:
- entrepreneurship
- salaried work
- capitalist property
- market exchange
The qualities of capitalism come from market exchange, its defaults from capitalist property.
Socialism must be freed from the defaults of capitalism but not necessarily from its other characteristics, such as market exchange. Market socialism is not socialism blended with capitalism but a genuine form of socialism.

Well, I agree with your last sentence, but socialism as we have come to know it in the 20th century is a socio-economic system. It is both an economic system and a governing system. I’m sure “dictatorship of the proletariat” is a familiar term.
  • 1
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18

He is even less coherent than Alex Jones. My gu[…]

Yes, and it did not order a ceasefire. Did you ev[…]

@Rugoz You are a fuckin' moralist, Russia could[…]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

A new film has been released destroying the offici[…]