(Wolff again) Global Capitalism - The Three Key Economic Issues of 2020 [January 2020] - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15060438
Global Capitalism - The Three Key Economic Issues of 2020 [January 2020]




Hi, all, I'd like to add another Wolff video to the list of thread topics here, the one at the YouTube link above.

While watching it I made some notes along the way. Anything I don't comment on means that I agree with it in its entirety, which is at least 95% of Wolff's content. Okay, so onto the segments:


48:30 "When you stimulate the economy, when the government comes rushing in with huge amounts of money to spend, at the same time that everyone wants to borrow, borrows money and pumps that into the economy, you have an economy which suddenly there's a wall of money spending, coming at you. Now in a private capitalist economy, where we allow private enterprises to do whatever they want, every business has a moment of truth. How are we, in the shoemaker, the breadbaker, or the car producer, going to react to all of this extra purchasing power that's now in the economy thanks to the stimulus program of the Treasury, and to the money increasing program of the Federal Reserve?"


Wolff should know that quantitative-easing types of injections of liquidity into the capitalist economic system *don't* necessarily impact the real economy -- that of employment, personal incomes, and increased productive business activity.

In other words government deficit spending usually -- in my understanding -- takes the form of attempting to *fix balance sheets*, by providing cheaper capital to the markets, by buying up bad / toxic debts, etc. Just take a look at what's been going on *recently* with governmental economic intervention into the repo market:


---


Earlier this month, the New York Fed injected another $56.7 billion into the repo market in an effort to keep fed funds interest rates in-line with the Fed’s target range of between 1.5% and 1.75%. The Fed also said its balance sheet grew from $3.8 trillion in September to $4.17 trillion by the end of 2019.

“The big picture answer is that the repo market is broken,” James Bianco, founder of Bianco Research in Chicago, told MarketWatch back in December. “They are essentially medicating the market into submission...But this is not a long-term solution.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/repo-mar ... 56690.html


---


I think Wolff is misrepresenting what the government economic intervention is doing. It's not increasing market capitalizations of firms, for increased purchasing power that 'trickles down' into the real economy, but rather the deficit spending is just trying to prop-up the financials in the balance sheets of banks.


---
---


49:47 "But of course a business has a second option. It can choose not to get more stuff. It can choose to raise the price of what it already sells. And, you know, that's a lot more attractive. You don't have to spend a lot of time calling the factory to get more stuff made. You don't have to arrange for the transportation. You don't have to arrange for the storage, or putting it on the shelf. You can make just as much more profit, just by raising the price of everything. And if you do that it's called inflation, prices go up."


In this section Wolff seems to be trying to sell the viewer on a purported economic regime of *inflationary* valuations, while elsewhere he accurately states the GDP for the U.S. as being 2-1/2 percent, which is roughly a *neutral* rate of growth in relation to U.S. population growth.

Yes, capitalists are always more tempted to pursue better payoffs, and so *luxury goods* production is inherently encouraged by capitalism in a slow-growth environment like the current one, but, no, we aren't in an economic paradigm of *stagflation*, or runaway inflation combined with slow growth, as happened to the U.S. in the '70s, after the country incurred the huge expense of Vietnam War military spending, forcing the U.S. off the gold standard and *devaluating* its production on global markets, hence the accompanying undesired *inflation* of prices.

Today's economic paradigm is one of *deflation* -- no matter how much liquidity is pumped into the system it all gets mopped-up and *doesn't* increase prices because of the now-very-well-integrated global capitalist economy and the systematic siphoning-off of cash reserves into tax havens, instead of finding productive avenues for investment, due to the prevailing *slow growth* paradigm.


---


58:36 "Or people who decide they can do better in the illegal economy than they can [in the legal economy]. I'm sure there's nobody in this room who could imagine such a thing, but there are people like that. Millions of them, and more each day, because the illegal is a better shot for income in many cases than the legal."


I can't help but wonder if this mass-assumption has any basis in reality. Since it's the market mechanism that distributes economic rewards, my own understanding is that the sector *itself* wouldn't really matter in terms of what incomes are distributed to what jobs and work roles.

What's far more definitive, whether for a regular job or one in the black markets, is how much capital one possesses and can actively invest in whatever, within any given sector or industry.


1:07:09 "Napa Valley. Because if there's a tariff of 25% on French wine, that's the price, when you go to the liquor store, for the French wine section of the liquor store. Prices are going to go up. Because that liquor store has to pay part of the cost of this tariff. Now wines from Napa don't go up there, they're not subject to the tariff. So this is a way of shifting the business from the French wine, or the Italian wine, or the Australian wine, or whatever the tariffs are [hitting], to the American alternative. It gets even more complicated 'cause if you do it to the French, but you don't do it to the Italians, well then it hurts France, its exports to America drop, but the Italians don't mind because they're exempted from it. So now we get an immense amount of, ready, of political horse-trading. Everybody is fighting to have a tariff or to not have a tariff. If a tariff is passed, to get an exemption from the tariff."


I think a better description, than 'endless political horse-trading', would be 'nationalist currency devaluations', or 'trade war', since that's always the danger here.

Here are a couple recent news articles on the topic, from a web search:


IMF warns that currency devaluations will not fix a country’s economic problems

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/21/imf-war ... blems.html


Trump mustn't fall for devaluing the dollar

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opin ... the-dollar


---


I'll assert and maintain that raising nationalist protectionist tariffs is *equivalent* to Keynesian-type deficit spending, or currency devaluation, since tariffs effectively make one's own domestic production artificially more competitive to the domestic market, compared to the imported goods from one's international competition, as Wolff outlines.


---
---


1:15:14 "China is what the United States was. It's the up-and-coming economy, there's no way around that, you can jump up and down all you want, the rate of growth of the Chinese economy is a runaway dominant [economy] over the United States. This is the lowest rate of growth that China has had in many years, it's roughly 6%. Our rate of growth this year, the United States, will be 2-1/2%. Do you understand? They're going at three times the rate and they have been going at three times the rate for thirty years. That's why they caught up. And that's why they will surpass the United States as an economic unit within the next ten years. And there's nothing Mr. Trump can do about it."


I'd like to note that a country's economic growth rate is only meaningful in relation to its *population* growth rate. China's population growth has far outstripped that of the U.S., averging around 7% a year, from recollection, to the U.S.' 2% per year.


The economic growth rates of nations are commonly compared using the ratio of the GDP to population or per-capita income.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_growth
#15060724
ckaihatsu wrote:Global Capitalism - The Three Key Economic Issues of 2020 [January 2020]




Hi, all, I'd like to add another Wolff video to the list of thread topics here, the one at the YouTube link above.

While watching it I made some notes along the way. Anything I don't comment on means that I agree with it in its entirety, which is at least 95% of Wolff's content. Okay, so onto the segments:


48:30 "When you stimulate the economy, when the government comes rushing in with huge amounts of money to spend, at the same time that everyone wants to borrow, borrows money and pumps that into the economy, you have an economy which suddenly there's a wall of money spending, coming at you. Now in a private capitalist economy, where we allow private enterprises to do whatever they want, every business has a moment of truth. How are we, in the shoemaker, the breadbaker, or the car producer, going to react to all of this extra purchasing power that's now in the economy thanks to the stimulus program of the Treasury, and to the money increasing program of the Federal Reserve?"


Wolff should know that quantitative-easing types of injections of liquidity into the capitalist economic system *don't* necessarily impact the real economy -- that of employment, personal incomes, and increased productive business activity.

In other words government deficit spending usually -- in my understanding -- takes the form of attempting to *fix balance sheets*, by providing cheaper capital to the markets, by buying up bad / toxic debts, etc. Just take a look at what's been going on *recently* with governmental economic intervention into the repo market:


---


Earlier this month, the New York Fed injected another $56.7 billion into the repo market in an effort to keep fed funds interest rates in-line with the Fed’s target range of between 1.5% and 1.75%. The Fed also said its balance sheet grew from $3.8 trillion in September to $4.17 trillion by the end of 2019.

“The big picture answer is that the repo market is broken,” James Bianco, founder of Bianco Research in Chicago, told MarketWatch back in December. “They are essentially medicating the market into submission...But this is not a long-term solution.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/repo-mar ... 56690.html


---


I think Wolff is misrepresenting what the government economic intervention is doing. It's not increasing market capitalizations of firms, for increased purchasing power that 'trickles down' into the real economy, but rather the deficit spending is just trying to prop-up the financials in the balance sheets of banks.


---
---


49:47 "But of course a business has a second option. It can choose not to get more stuff. It can choose to raise the price of what it already sells. And, you know, that's a lot more attractive. You don't have to spend a lot of time calling the factory to get more stuff made. You don't have to arrange for the transportation. You don't have to arrange for the storage, or putting it on the shelf. You can make just as much more profit, just by raising the price of everything. And if you do that it's called inflation, prices go up."


In this section Wolff seems to be trying to sell the viewer on a purported economic regime of *inflationary* valuations, while elsewhere he accurately states the GDP for the U.S. as being 2-1/2 percent, which is roughly a *neutral* rate of growth in relation to U.S. population growth.

Yes, capitalists are always more tempted to pursue better payoffs, and so *luxury goods* production is inherently encouraged by capitalism in a slow-growth environment like the current one, but, no, we aren't in an economic paradigm of *stagflation*, or runaway inflation combined with slow growth, as happened to the U.S. in the '70s, after the country incurred the huge expense of Vietnam War military spending, forcing the U.S. off the gold standard and *devaluating* its production on global markets, hence the accompanying undesired *inflation* of prices.

Today's economic paradigm is one of *deflation* -- no matter how much liquidity is pumped into the system it all gets mopped-up and *doesn't* increase prices because of the now-very-well-integrated global capitalist economy and the systematic siphoning-off of cash reserves into tax havens, instead of finding productive avenues for investment, due to the prevailing *slow growth* paradigm.


---


58:36 "Or people who decide they can do better in the illegal economy than they can [in the legal economy]. I'm sure there's nobody in this room who could imagine such a thing, but there are people like that. Millions of them, and more each day, because the illegal is a better shot for income in many cases than the legal."


I can't help but wonder if this mass-assumption has any basis in reality. Since it's the market mechanism that distributes economic rewards, my own understanding is that the sector *itself* wouldn't really matter in terms of what incomes are distributed to what jobs and work roles.

What's far more definitive, whether for a regular job or one in the black markets, is how much capital one possesses and can actively invest in whatever, within any given sector or industry.


1:07:09 "Napa Valley. Because if there's a tariff of 25% on French wine, that's the price, when you go to the liquor store, for the French wine section of the liquor store. Prices are going to go up. Because that liquor store has to pay part of the cost of this tariff. Now wines from Napa don't go up there, they're not subject to the tariff. So this is a way of shifting the business from the French wine, or the Italian wine, or the Australian wine, or whatever the tariffs are [hitting], to the American alternative. It gets even more complicated 'cause if you do it to the French, but you don't do it to the Italians, well then it hurts France, its exports to America drop, but the Italians don't mind because they're exempted from it. So now we get an immense amount of, ready, of political horse-trading. Everybody is fighting to have a tariff or to not have a tariff. If a tariff is passed, to get an exemption from the tariff."


I think a better description, than 'endless political horse-trading', would be 'nationalist currency devaluations', or 'trade war', since that's always the danger here.

Here are a couple recent news articles on the topic, from a web search:


IMF warns that currency devaluations will not fix a country’s economic problems

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/21/imf-war ... blems.html


Trump mustn't fall for devaluing the dollar

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opin ... the-dollar


---


I'll assert and maintain that raising nationalist protectionist tariffs is *equivalent* to Keynesian-type deficit spending, or currency devaluation, since tariffs effectively make one's own domestic production artificially more competitive to the domestic market, compared to the imported goods from one's international competition, as Wolff outlines.


---
---


1:15:14 "China is what the United States was. It's the up-and-coming economy, there's no way around that, you can jump up and down all you want, the rate of growth of the Chinese economy is a runaway dominant [economy] over the United States. This is the lowest rate of growth that China has had in many years, it's roughly 6%. Our rate of growth this year, the United States, will be 2-1/2%. Do you understand? They're going at three times the rate and they have been going at three times the rate for thirty years. That's why they caught up. And that's why they will surpass the United States as an economic unit within the next ten years. And there's nothing Mr. Trump can do about it."


I'd like to note that a country's economic growth rate is only meaningful in relation to its *population* growth rate. China's population growth has far outstripped that of the U.S., averging around 7% a year, from recollection, to the U.S.' 2% per year.


The economic growth rates of nations are commonly compared using the ratio of the GDP to population or per-capita income.[3]

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


I tried watching. After 20 minutes i gave up. The person talking does not approach events in an unbiased analytical manner and tries to insert every cliche in the book in to the discussion. This is no better than what Trump is doing at its core just done by a different person with a different ideological background.

Most scholarly analysis needs to be unbiased without spelling if something is good or bad. Look at how proper historians analyse Hitler or Stalin etc as an example.
#15060876
JohnRawls wrote:
I tried watching. After 20 minutes i gave up. The person talking does not approach events in an unbiased analytical manner and tries to insert every cliche in the book in to the discussion. This is no better than what Trump is doing at its core just done by a different person with a different ideological background.

Most scholarly analysis needs to be unbiased without spelling if something is good or bad. Look at how proper historians analyse Hitler or Stalin etc as an example.



Well, Wolff is not *trying* to be a strict empiricist -- he's an anarchist, and explicitly describes the ills of capitalism.

F.y.i.:


philosophical abstractions

Spoiler: show
Image
#15060878
ckaihatsu wrote:Well, Wolff is not *trying* to be a strict empiricist -- he's an anarchist, and explicitly describes the ills of capitalism.

F.y.i.:


philosophical abstractions

Spoiler: show
Image


Okay but that is more of a propaganda peace then. Unbiased approach is needed to discuss the negatives and positives and the outcomes of those negatives and positives. Some negative actions have positive outcomes and visa versa.

You can't simply name British PMS poodles of the US without explaining why this dependency exists and what are the benefits and downsides of such a relationship. Same goes for other topics discussed. This is a complicated subject that stems from social, political, military benefits along with cultural ties etc etc etc. Simplfying it as UK does what US says is simply wrong because there is much more to this.

Once you have that explained then you can explain what is your solution to this. Fun fact, most people know the negatives already. The reason we are in the situation is that there is no clear alternatives that are as beneficial/less damaging.
#15060879
JohnRawls wrote:
Okay but that is more of a propaganda peace then. Unbiased approach is needed to discuss the negatives and positives and the outcomes of those negatives and positives. Some negative actions have positive outcomes and visa versa.

You can't simply name British PMS poodles of the US without explaining why this dependency exists and what are the benefits and downsides of such a relationship. Same goes for other topics discussed. This is a complicated subject that stems from social, political, military benefits along with cultural ties etc etc etc. Simplfying it as UK does what US says is simply wrong because there is much more to this.

Once you have that explained then you can explain what is your solution to this. Fun fact, most people know the negatives already. The reason we are in the situation is that there is no clear alternatives that are as beneficial/less damaging.



Hmmmm, I don't think your 'blank slate' approach is warranted here -- capitalism has been around for 200+ years, and I think we now have enough data as to how it functions, and for whom.

And 'PMS' -- ? Really? You really want to use a sexist cliched stereotype to make your political points?

You're *unclear* on what the alleged 'dependency' is here -- are you referring to the U.S.-British 'special relationship' that's now unwinding, along with the British Empire, NATO, and U.S.-European relations?

I'm pleased to announce that there's another thread here at PoFo that I updated just yesterday with a solution-oriented proposal of mine:


COMMUNISM

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=30


And:


SOCIALIST PLANNING

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=151353
#15060881
ckaihatsu wrote:Hmmmm, I don't think your 'blank slate' approach is warranted here -- capitalism has been around for 200+ years, and I think we now have enough data as to how it functions, and for whom.

And 'PMS' -- ? Really? You really want to use a sexist cliched stereotype to make your political points?

You're *unclear* on what the alleged 'dependency' is here -- are you referring to the U.S.-British 'special relationship' that's now unwinding, along with the British Empire, NATO, and U.S.-European relations?

I'm pleased to announce that there's another thread here at PoFo that I updated just yesterday with a solution-oriented proposal of mine:


COMMUNISM

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=30


And:


SOCIALIST PLANNING

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=151353


Prime minister is a title. It has nothing to do with sexism.

As for a solution so what is it to the US-UK relationship? If you don't like UK being so friendly and doing things together with the US then what can you possibly offer to the UK which is better for the UK?
#15060885
JohnRawls wrote:
Prime minister is a title. It has nothing to do with sexism.



Whatever.


JohnRawls wrote:
As for a solution so what is it to the US-UK relationship? If you don't like UK being so friendly and doing things together with the US then what can you possibly offer to the UK which is better for the UK?



I don't get into geopolitics that much, mostly because I have no (working-) class interest in such bourgeois machinations. If the nation-states of the world happen to *threaten* my safety, and/or the safety of other working-class people, with their war-threats, like Trump does, against Iran, then I take notice.

Otherwise the bourgeois governments of the world can all go to hell.
#15060888
ckaihatsu wrote:Whatever.





I don't get into geopolitics that much, mostly because I have no (working-) class interest in such bourgeois machinations. If the nation-states of the world happen to *threaten* my safety, and/or the safety of other working-class people, with their war-threats, like Trump does, against Iran, then I take notice.

Otherwise the bourgeois governments of the world can all go to hell.


USSR played the geopolitical game the same way the US did. Geopolitics is apolitical and you will have to participate in it irrelevant of your ideology. And its not like only USSR played the game out of the Socialist/Communist countries. Yugoslavia, China etc. You can't hide your head in the sand and pretend it does not exist.

As Kotkin put it:
The utopian left view: That we live in a post geopolitic society where everything is managed by supra national and internnational institutions is simply wrong.
Same thing goes for the utopian right view: That US or EU are some kind of benevolent hegemons who are merely followed out of respect and benevolence for their ideals is also wrong.

Geopolitics exist and will continue existing irrelevant of anybody believing or not believing, participating or not participating in it.
#15060890
JohnRawls wrote:
USSR played the geopolitical game the same way the US did. Geopolitics is apolitical and you will have to participate in it irrelevant of your ideology.



No, geopolitics is *not* apolitical, because there are the elites at the top making decisions over geopolitical policy, such as Trump's illegal assassination of Qasem Soleimani.

Yes, I've already stated that geopolitics involves *everyone* because inter-imperialist warfare threatens international public safety at times, like now.


JohnRawls wrote:
And its not like only USSR played the game out of the Socialist/Communist countries. Yugoslavia, China etc. You can't hide your head in the sand and pretend it does not exist.

As Kotkin put it:
The utopian left view: That we live in a post geopolitic society where everything is managed by supra national and internnational institutions is simply wrong.
Same thing goes for the utopian right view: That US or EU are some kind of benevolent hegemons who are merely followed out of respect and benevolence for their ideals is also wrong.

Geopolitics exist and will continue existing irrelevant of anybody believing or not believing, participating or not participating in it.



JR, when are you going to reply to the points *I've* made?
#15060895
ckaihatsu wrote:No, geopolitics is *not* apolitical, because there are the elites at the top making decisions over geopolitical policy, such as Trump's illegal assassination of Qasem Soleimani.

Yes, I've already stated that geopolitics involves *everyone* because inter-imperialist warfare threatens international public safety at times, like now.





JR, when are you going to reply to the points *I've* made?


Regarding geopolitics:

Lets say that elites are gone but you will still have people planning or somebody who will be in charge. This changes nothing. Even if people are leaderless, classless etc then there still will be conflict on both personal and communal/societal scales because the same societies have different needs and approaches to different things even if you manage to convert every single person to one ideology. Our differences are not mearly ideological but also cultural, traditional, religious etc Ideology is a small part of it.

Regarding points:

Which of them? May be you forgot but i didn't watch all of the video if you mean the points from the 1st post. I watched like the 1st 20 minutes and then gave up as i said.
#15060898
JohnRawls wrote:
Regarding points:

Which of them? May be you forgot but i didn't watch all of the video if you mean the points from the 1st post. I watched like the 1st 20 minutes and then gave up as i said.



You need to at least make an effort -- this thread of exchanges is becoming increasingly one-sided, which then is not a conversation or discussion.

For the time being I don't mind addressing the points you initiate, but instead of forfeiting and leaving-off of these points / sub-issues, you may want to respond in turn and address my responses.


JohnRawls wrote:
Regarding geopolitics:

Lets say that elites are gone but you will still have people planning or somebody who will be in charge.



No, not at all -- you have a decidedly *medieval* (feudal) worldview of political dynamics. Yes, the world as it is does tend to depend on nationalistic 'strongmen' to make the world go 'round, but it certainly doesn't have to be this way. Take a look over at the framework model of mine that I linked to -- here's how the *demand* / 'planning' side of things could be:



Since everyone has a standard one-through-infinity template to use on a daily basis for all political and/or economic demands, this template lends itself to consumer-political-type *organizing* in the case that such is necessary -- someone's 'passion' for a particular demand could be formally demonstrated by their recruiting of *others* to direct one or several of *their* ranking slots, for as many days / iterations as they like, to the person who is trying to beat-out others for the limited quantity.

Recall:

[A]ggregating these lists, by ranking (#1, #2, #3, etc.), is *no big deal* for any given computer. What we would want to see is what the rankings are for milk and steel, by rank position. So how many people put 'milk' for #1 -- ? How many people put 'steel' for #1 -- ? How many people put 'milk' for #2 -- ? And how many people put 'steel' for #2 -- ? (Etc.)

*This* would be socially useful information that could be the whole basis for a socialist political economy.

So, by extension, if someone was particularly interested in 'Event Y', they might undertake efforts to convince others to *donate* their ranking slots to them, forgoing 'milk' and 'steel' (for example) for positions #1 and/or #2. Formally these others would put 'Person Z for Event Y' for positions 1 and/or 2, etc., for as many days / iterations as they might want to donate. This, in effect, would be a populist-political-type campaign, of whatever magnitude, for the sake of a person's own particularly favored consumption preferences, given an unavoidably limited supply of it, whatever it may be.



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



---


JohnRawls wrote:
This changes nothing. Even if people are leaderless, classless etc then there still will be conflict on both personal and communal/societal scales because the same societies have different needs and approaches to different things even if you manage to convert every single person to one ideology. Our differences are not mearly ideological but also cultural, traditional, religious etc Ideology is a small part of it.



I happen to agree that universal acceptance of one ideology / approach would not automatically make a rosy, utopian-type social reality.

What *I* focus on is the materialist dynamics of how and what society produces -- see the 'checks-and-balances' section of my labor credits FAQ for a quick rundown of these kinds of dynamics:


Spoiler: show
...Some of the readily apparent *checks-and-balances* dynamics enabled with the labor-credits system are:

- (Already mentioned) One could work for personal material-economic gains -- the amassing of labor credits -- instead of having to 'like' *both* the socio-political aspect *and* the personal-material-economic aspect of one's work within a strictly-voluntaristic, non-labor-credit, communistic-type political economy. (Individual vs. socio-political realms)

- The contribution of one's potential liberated labor to societal objectives would always be fully optional, since the premise of a communist-type social order is that no one could ever be *actually* coerced for their labor since the ubiquitous norm would be that no productive machinery or natural resources in the world could be used on a *proprietary* / private-accumulation basis, while all the material necessities for life and living would always be in readily-available, sufficient quantities for all. Collective social productivity would be *very good* using post-capitalist, communist-type liberated-labor self-organizing, leveraged with full automation of all productive processes, for *huge* ratios of industrial mass-production output, per hour of liberated labor input. (Individual vs. socio-political and material realms)

- Mass demand, as displayed publicly, per-locality, by the daily mass-aggregated tallied rank positions (#1, #2, #3, etc.), will always be an existing social-pressure, specifically regarding liberated labor contributions to the general social good for varying qualities of public consumption. Such active liberated labor may or may not receive labor credits for their valid efforts, depending on such general *implementation* of circulating labor credits, or not, and the specifics of any active policy package. (Socio-political and material realms vs. individuals)

- Active liberated-labor would control all *ultimate* ('point-of-production') productivity for society, but *not-necessarily-working* people of any intra-voluntary collective 'locality' (or localities) could make and agree-on proposals and final policy packages that contain great *specificity*, as over *exactly* who (which persons) are to be included as active liberated-labor, and also their respective rates of labor credits per hour per discrete work role, and each worker's particular work schedule, as a part of the overall project scheduling. (Consumers vs. liberated-labor)

- Any intra-voluntary 'locality' could collectively develop and agree-on any particular proposal or final policy package, with specifics over staffing, rates of labor credits per included work role, and work schedules for all work roles / liberated-laborers, but if the liberated-labor-internal social process *did not approve* of the terms for any given proposal or policy package they would not *forfeit* their collective control over the implements of mass industrial production as a result -- realistically the result would most-likely be a *devolving* of larger-scale work organizing, since no agreement was reached between mass-demand and self-organized liberated-labor. Production could still take place on any ad-hoc basis, with liberated labor always getting 'first dibs' on anything they themselves produce, but it would be far more small-scale, localized, and balkanized than if larger-scale, multi-locality proposals and policy packages could be realized, for material economies of scale. (Liberated-labor vs. consumers)

- Any given finalized policy package will include a formal announcement of key proponents, politically responsible for that project's implementation, if satisfactory participation to cover all the necessary components of it is present. There is never any *standing*, *institutional* administration over everything, as we're used to seeing historically at the nationalist level. If a project *isn't* performing up to formal expectations (as detailed in its policy package), the proponents can be replaced with a mass-approved (exceeding in ranking over the initial policy package) proposal that 'tweaks' those details that need changing, such as which personnel, exactly, are deemed to be the formal 'proponents' of that project. (Consumers vs. administration)

- Proponents of any given active finalized policy package would have considerable logistical social latitude for administrating over its implementation, depending-on / limited-by its finalized detailed terms. In some instances, for example, proponents over *several* localities, of several *similar* policy packages -- say, over agriculture -- or even at regional, continental, and *global* scales -- may cross-coordinate to *generalize* production across many similar policy packages, for the sake of greater efficiencies of scale. (Administration vs. consumers)

- Proponents are meant to represent the exact terms of an active finalized policy package, and by extension, to also represent popular demand for certain material production and/or socio-political initiatives. Proponents may bring attention to certain aspects of the active finalized policy package in the course of its implementation, as with any possible differences on the part of active liberated-labor on the project. (Administration vs. liberated-labor)

- Liberated-labor will always be able to physically organize internally, without external interference. Depending on each active finalized policy package's provisions, liberated laborers may decide on their own the details of *how* they collectively supply their labor, to meet the objectives of that policy package -- as with specific personnel of their own, which work roles are absolutely necessary, the scheduling of work shifts and personnel, what geographical location(s) are to be used, how machinery is to be used, what the supply chains with other factories are, how the bulk-pooled labor credits funding is to be divided-up, if any additional funding of labor credits is needed, or even if locality debt issuances for additional labor credits are to be called-for, what maintenance may be needed on infrastructure / machinery, what education or training may be required for certain workers, etc. (Liberated-labor vs. administration)



---


JohnRawls wrote:
This changes nothing. Even if people are leaderless, classless etc then there still will be conflict on both personal and communal/societal scales because the same societies have different needs and approaches to different things even if you manage to convert every single person to one ideology. Our differences are not mearly ideological but also cultural, traditional, religious etc Ideology is a small part of it.



That said, though, once society gets to a classless existence, there would be a *drastically* reduced social potential for serious conflicts -- individualistic hoarding impulses would not gain any traction in a classless society because nothing mass-productive would be allowed to be controlled by any person or private group. There would be no social-reality paths -- or outright encouragement, as there is today under capitalism -- to private accumulation at the expense of others' needs for consumption. Economically there would be no nations, either, because such would be superfluous and unsupported by the prevailing 'commons'-type, socialist society.

Sure people could have interpersonal spats and disagreements and whatever, but any potential victims would always have recourse to the 'commons' for escape and relocation, for safety, if they felt at all threatened. Presently this is more of a *luxury* for those who can afford a second private home, or whatever, if such public social services for the same aren't available due to lack of adequate funding.

Cultural differences *could* remain, but they wouldn't be substantive to anyone outside that chosen cultural realm -- cultural 'maintenance' and propagation could only be done on a basis of personal *willingness* since there would be zero other objective / empirical reasons to do so. (Today all cultural spheres have their own cottage-scale-and-greater *economics* to them, as well, so one can be born, grow up, live, and die all within a particular subculture and location, and still remain mostly *oblivious* to the larger world since the larger world takes no particular economic interest in any individual.)
#15061114
ckaihatsu wrote:You need to at least make an effort -- this thread of exchanges is becoming increasingly one-sided, which then is not a conversation or discussion.

For the time being I don't mind addressing the points you initiate, but instead of forfeiting and leaving-off of these points / sub-issues, you may want to respond in turn and address my responses.





No, not at all -- you have a decidedly *medieval* (feudal) worldview of political dynamics. Yes, the world as it is does tend to depend on nationalistic 'strongmen' to make the world go 'round, but it certainly doesn't have to be this way. Take a look over at the framework model of mine that I linked to -- here's how the *demand* / 'planning' side of things could be:







---





I happen to agree that universal acceptance of one ideology / approach would not automatically make a rosy, utopian-type social reality.

What *I* focus on is the materialist dynamics of how and what society produces -- see the 'checks-and-balances' section of my labor credits FAQ for a quick rundown of these kinds of dynamics:


Spoiler: show
...Some of the readily apparent *checks-and-balances* dynamics enabled with the labor-credits system are:

- (Already mentioned) One could work for personal material-economic gains -- the amassing of labor credits -- instead of having to 'like' *both* the socio-political aspect *and* the personal-material-economic aspect of one's work within a strictly-voluntaristic, non-labor-credit, communistic-type political economy. (Individual vs. socio-political realms)

- The contribution of one's potential liberated labor to societal objectives would always be fully optional, since the premise of a communist-type social order is that no one could ever be *actually* coerced for their labor since the ubiquitous norm would be that no productive machinery or natural resources in the world could be used on a *proprietary* / private-accumulation basis, while all the material necessities for life and living would always be in readily-available, sufficient quantities for all. Collective social productivity would be *very good* using post-capitalist, communist-type liberated-labor self-organizing, leveraged with full automation of all productive processes, for *huge* ratios of industrial mass-production output, per hour of liberated labor input. (Individual vs. socio-political and material realms)

- Mass demand, as displayed publicly, per-locality, by the daily mass-aggregated tallied rank positions (#1, #2, #3, etc.), will always be an existing social-pressure, specifically regarding liberated labor contributions to the general social good for varying qualities of public consumption. Such active liberated labor may or may not receive labor credits for their valid efforts, depending on such general *implementation* of circulating labor credits, or not, and the specifics of any active policy package. (Socio-political and material realms vs. individuals)

- Active liberated-labor would control all *ultimate* ('point-of-production') productivity for society, but *not-necessarily-working* people of any intra-voluntary collective 'locality' (or localities) could make and agree-on proposals and final policy packages that contain great *specificity*, as over *exactly* who (which persons) are to be included as active liberated-labor, and also their respective rates of labor credits per hour per discrete work role, and each worker's particular work schedule, as a part of the overall project scheduling. (Consumers vs. liberated-labor)

- Any intra-voluntary 'locality' could collectively develop and agree-on any particular proposal or final policy package, with specifics over staffing, rates of labor credits per included work role, and work schedules for all work roles / liberated-laborers, but if the liberated-labor-internal social process *did not approve* of the terms for any given proposal or policy package they would not *forfeit* their collective control over the implements of mass industrial production as a result -- realistically the result would most-likely be a *devolving* of larger-scale work organizing, since no agreement was reached between mass-demand and self-organized liberated-labor. Production could still take place on any ad-hoc basis, with liberated labor always getting 'first dibs' on anything they themselves produce, but it would be far more small-scale, localized, and balkanized than if larger-scale, multi-locality proposals and policy packages could be realized, for material economies of scale. (Liberated-labor vs. consumers)

- Any given finalized policy package will include a formal announcement of key proponents, politically responsible for that project's implementation, if satisfactory participation to cover all the necessary components of it is present. There is never any *standing*, *institutional* administration over everything, as we're used to seeing historically at the nationalist level. If a project *isn't* performing up to formal expectations (as detailed in its policy package), the proponents can be replaced with a mass-approved (exceeding in ranking over the initial policy package) proposal that 'tweaks' those details that need changing, such as which personnel, exactly, are deemed to be the formal 'proponents' of that project. (Consumers vs. administration)

- Proponents of any given active finalized policy package would have considerable logistical social latitude for administrating over its implementation, depending-on / limited-by its finalized detailed terms. In some instances, for example, proponents over *several* localities, of several *similar* policy packages -- say, over agriculture -- or even at regional, continental, and *global* scales -- may cross-coordinate to *generalize* production across many similar policy packages, for the sake of greater efficiencies of scale. (Administration vs. consumers)

- Proponents are meant to represent the exact terms of an active finalized policy package, and by extension, to also represent popular demand for certain material production and/or socio-political initiatives. Proponents may bring attention to certain aspects of the active finalized policy package in the course of its implementation, as with any possible differences on the part of active liberated-labor on the project. (Administration vs. liberated-labor)

- Liberated-labor will always be able to physically organize internally, without external interference. Depending on each active finalized policy package's provisions, liberated laborers may decide on their own the details of *how* they collectively supply their labor, to meet the objectives of that policy package -- as with specific personnel of their own, which work roles are absolutely necessary, the scheduling of work shifts and personnel, what geographical location(s) are to be used, how machinery is to be used, what the supply chains with other factories are, how the bulk-pooled labor credits funding is to be divided-up, if any additional funding of labor credits is needed, or even if locality debt issuances for additional labor credits are to be called-for, what maintenance may be needed on infrastructure / machinery, what education or training may be required for certain workers, etc. (Liberated-labor vs. administration)



---





That said, though, once society gets to a classless existence, there would be a *drastically* reduced social potential for serious conflicts -- individualistic hoarding impulses would not gain any traction in a classless society because nothing mass-productive would be allowed to be controlled by any person or private group. There would be no social-reality paths -- or outright encouragement, as there is today under capitalism -- to private accumulation at the expense of others' needs for consumption. Economically there would be no nations, either, because such would be superfluous and unsupported by the prevailing 'commons'-type, socialist society.

Sure people could have interpersonal spats and disagreements and whatever, but any potential victims would always have recourse to the 'commons' for escape and relocation, for safety, if they felt at all threatened. Presently this is more of a *luxury* for those who can afford a second private home, or whatever, if such public social services for the same aren't available due to lack of adequate funding.

Cultural differences *could* remain, but they wouldn't be substantive to anyone outside that chosen cultural realm -- cultural 'maintenance' and propagation could only be done on a basis of personal *willingness* since there would be zero other objective / empirical reasons to do so. (Today all cultural spheres have their own cottage-scale-and-greater *economics* to them, as well, so one can be born, grow up, live, and die all within a particular subculture and location, and still remain mostly *oblivious* to the larger world since the larger world takes no particular economic interest in any individual.)


Regarding not answering points:

I am not answering your points because they are not clear to me or i can't find them. Do not expect people to go through several topics and answer them under another. This time you put some effort which is more clearer. If you want something addressed then put a clear question or outline the points of some sort. This will make it simpler.

Regarding your system:

On one side you do not explain how to transition to such a system from what we have now. That is something that people are missing all the time. You can't simply claim that i have invented this new system and we should use it. It is not how it works. There is a transition from old to new and also an explanation why your system is better compared to what we currently use.

As for your system. This is more of a better/worse situation. I do not think it is reasonable or possible for people to judge the products? Well because people have certain needs like food, medicine etc BUT they do not have a need in raw resources like cattle, steel, wood etc So how can they judge the importance of those resources if they have no clue about the manufacturing process. This is an amateurish way to manage a planned economy. And planned economy is already not so efficient if everything is planned. It can work in certain situations but in majority it doesn't.

Regarding classless society:

Classless society doesn't mean that there is no organisation on communal, societal or national level. It still happens but with a more robust and inclusive network then instead of 1 "Leader" managing it. The social structure will not disappear if we change to classless in that regard. Managing of small groups, communies, societies and nations still existed in pre-historic, classical, medieval, etc times even before capitalism or communism even existed so i do not think that particular component can go away.

So as long as any form of organisation exists on communal, societal, national levels then this means we will have conflict regarding any non-ideological disagreements: culture, tradition, religion etc.

The only way to destroy conflict on personal level is to make sure no persons exist, the only way to destroy conflict on communal level is to make sure no communes exist etc. But this is something anti-humanity. We have lived as individuals, communes, societies and to a lesser degree nation for the last couple of thousand years.
#15061121
JohnRawls wrote:
Regarding not answering points:

I am not answering your points because they are not clear to me or i can't find them. Do not expect people to go through several topics and answer them under another. This time you put some effort which is more clearer. If you want something addressed then put a clear question or outline the points of some sort. This will make it simpler.



Okay, it's your prerogative, anyway -- just thought I'd bring it to your attention.


JohnRawls wrote:
Regarding your system:

On one side you do not explain how to transition to such a system from what we have now. That is something that people are missing all the time. You can't simply claim that i have invented this new system and we should use it. It is not how it works. There is a transition from old to new and also an explanation why your system is better compared to what we currently use.



Oh, if you're interested in the transitional period then I'm on a solid Trotskyist on all that -- vanguard, workers state, overthrowing the bourgeoisie, withering-away, full luxury automated communism, etc.


JohnRawls wrote:
As for your system. This is more of a better/worse situation. I do not think it is reasonable or possible for people to judge the products? Well because people have certain needs like food, medicine etc BUT they do not have a need in raw resources like cattle, steel, wood etc So how can they judge the importance of those resources if they have no clue about the manufacturing process. This is an amateurish way to manage a planned economy. And planned economy is already not so efficient if everything is planned. It can work in certain situations but in majority it doesn't.



Fortunately it's the liberated workers themselves who ultimately decide on what projects get implemented, and how, and who, etc. -- if *no one* is willing to fulfill any given popular proposal then it simply doesn't get done, to the possible detriment of the whole society.

What you're suggesting, though, is implicitly *specialization* (over the production process), which is *bad politics*, as bad as any Stalinistic stereotypes projected onto the political character of us far-leftists.

Why not instead take the attitude that more people need to get involved in this-or-that project, for the production of cattle, steel, wood, or whatever -- ? Then they'd also get a concomitant, more-socially-accepted say in what *should* get produced, even if it's only *vaguely* expressed (maybe there's a lot of deadwood, standing trees, around, and people generally notice this).

If hundreds of thousands happen to put 'steel' high on their personal daily prioritized demands lists day-in and day-out for months running, such a vague demand may not necessarily become *specific*, with any proponents detailing-out how such mass steel production could be used by industry, for consumers -- so it would, by default, be a non-starter, even though popular. (Again see the 'checks-and-balances' section of the labor credits FAQ.)


JohnRawls wrote:
Regarding classless society:

Classless society doesn't mean that there is no organisation on communal, societal or national level. It still happens but with a more robust and inclusive network then instead of 1 "Leader" managing it. The social structure will not disappear if we change to classless in that regard. Managing of small groups, communies, societies and nations still existed in pre-historic, classical, medieval, etc times even before capitalism or communism even existed so i do not think that particular component can go away.



Well, this happens to be a very 'modernist' (1950s, etc.) necessarily-linear, approach to the whole topic -- I'm a fan of complexity and *non*-linear dynamics, so I envision more of a landscape-of-piles-of-stuff that feed into each other, into various production processes, for finished products to the end consumers.

Because of our present-day digital data communications technology we no longer have any empirical need for formalistic political 'leader' types, to abstractly represent others' political will. We can now *all* potentially dive into the data itself and include ourselves in the mass-participation process over the same, to whatever degree, or not at all.


JohnRawls wrote:
So as long as any form of organisation exists on communal, societal, national levels then this means we will have conflict regarding any non-ideological disagreements: culture, tradition, religion etc.

The only way to destroy conflict on personal level is to make sure no persons exist, the only way to destroy conflict on communal level is to make sure no communes exist etc. But this is something anti-humanity. We have lived as individuals, communes, societies and to a lesser degree nation for the last couple of thousand years.



Okay, well, I'm not sentimental about any of this -- we should strive for a civilization that's *civilized*, instead of what we have today under capitalism's unchecked competitive landscape.

Outright conflict is only even *possible* when it's empirically tied-into other things, like people's jobs, livelihoods, personal identity, etc. -- we don't need to wave nationalistic flags anymore if we can get to a society where all personal unmet need is collectively provided-for, without the social overhead of group 'tribalism' (so-to-speak).

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