Why do people not understand socialism ? - Page 5 - 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.
#15229935
Truth To Power wrote:
Same reason socialists do not understand socialism: refusal to know the facts that prove their beliefs are false and evil.



*Or*, it's a historical-predestination *stereotype* on your part -- as though there's a religious-type 'original sin' that can't be shaken-off. Sucks to be a socialist, 'cause crash-and-burn, right -- ?

All *socialists* are missing right now is *you* in the ranks -- !


x D
#15229940
ckaihatsu wrote:Look at everyday workplace realities -- it's the *workers* who are physically next-to and all-over the machinery anyway, so next-step, *they* get to decide how to use it, and what to do with it.

You could with equal "logic" claim that as construction workers are the ones who are physically next to and all over the bridge anyway, they are the ones who should get to decide how to build it, and what it is used for. Problem is, we already know for an absolutely certain fact that they are not competent to do so:

https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/9780784481035.014
Seems fair to *me*.

But that doesn't make it any less unfair, inefficient, irrational and doomed to fail.
Last edited by Truth To Power on 27 May 2022 03:12, edited 1 time in total.
#15229941
ckaihatsu wrote:*Or*, it's a historical-predestination *stereotype* on your part

No. It's a plain fact, as your contributions to this thread prove.
-- as though there's a religious-type 'original sin' that can't be shaken-off.

It can be shaken off. Just consent to know facts. You won't, because your false and evil beliefs are more important to you than liberty, justice, or the truth.
#15229943
Pants-of-dog wrote:You are confusing socialists with climate denialists.

No. Socialists are economics denialists who deny that factories are provided by those who cause them to exist, that payment of agreed wages for labor extinguishes the worker's claim to the product, and that devoting one's purchasing power to creation of a production system contributes to production.

Climate denialists, on the other hand, deny that the natural factors that caused all previous century-scale warming episodes could also have caused the most recent one, that the lowest sustained solar activity in 10,000 years occurring at the same time as the lowest global temperatures in the same period of time was more than coincidence, and that the highest sustained solar activity in several thousand years during the 20th century could have been the principal cause of the warming that occurred at the same time.
#15229945
@Truth To Power

Socialists are merely people who are organically reacting to the inherent contradictions and injustices of capitalism, including anthropogenic climate change.

Socialism and climate change activists are both making rational decisions based on verifiable events.
Last edited by Pants-of-dog on 27 May 2022 03:45, edited 1 time in total.
#15229947
Truth To Power wrote:
You could with equal "logic" claim that as construction workers are the ones who are physically next to and all over the bridge anyway, they are the ones who should get to decide how to build it, and what it is used for. Problem is, we already know for an absolutely certain fact that they are not competent to do so:



Interesting special case -- you're saying that all infrastructure-building-type workers are just *fucked* either way, by the landowners and the government, or by the commies. Society 'steamrolls' them (heh) for their labor, very much in a natural-monopoly kind of way, since the total labor power needed for any discrete public works project, like a bridge, is going to be 'x', and then the construction workers don't exactly live in their own apartments on the bridge afterwards.

Maybe you just need to get into the 'Christmas-spirit' of it (apologies). I think blue-collar workers would not be *shunned* by a more egalitarian-type society, but, hey -- work it out. Pretend I'm not here. (grin)


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
-- as though there's a religious-type 'original sin' that can't be shaken-off.



Truth To Power wrote:
It can be shaken off. Just consent to know facts. You won't, because your false and evil beliefs are more important to you than liberty, justice, or the truth.



So what's the metaphorical equivalent of 'salvation' here -- ? Do I still have a chance to love equity capital, and despise landholdings and equity-finance, for the sake of my soul? (grin)
#15229949
ckaihatsu wrote:What about *corporate debt*, though? (How would *that* be prevented?)

There is nothing inherently wrong with debt assumed to finance creation of a production system. The problem is that that kind of debt cannot nearly satisfy the debt-creation appetite of private commercial banks in a debt-money system, so they lend to finance acquisition of privilege -- i.e., to enable the super-duper uber-rich to bid up the prices of each other's privileges. There is no natural limit to that sort of thing.
Okay, thanks for the limited-hangout, but what exactly could prevent this *kind of dynamic*, financialization, from occurring spontaneously, given 'x' scenario and 'y' starting factors -- ?

Things don't just occur spontaneously in economics any more than in ballistics. They are caused. Financialization is caused by the debt-money system.
Where *else* would all of that built-up capital *go*?

In the absence of the privileges that give it value, the financial "capital" would vanish. The physical "capital" isn't going anywhere anyway. Note that you have to refuse to know the difference between them.
Of *course* at least *some* people with such capital will look to making it perform in the private sector, as with private equity, for example. How would you prevent *that*?

By removing the privileges that enable and reward it.
Now you're fetishizing the *terminology*

No, I am identifying the relevant facts using the correct terms.
-- the meaning is going to be entirely dependent on the *specifics* anyway, so there's no point here with whatever you're doing.

You have to refuse to use valid and accurate terms because you have already realized that they enable identification of the facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil. Simple.
#15229952
Pants-of-dog wrote:@Truth To Power

Socialists are merely people who are organically reacting to the inherent contradictions and injustices of capitalism, including anthropogenic climate change.

No. Socialists beginning with Marx erased the understanding of capitalism that the physiocrats and classical economists had achieved, replacing it with irrational, anti-scientific tripe that apologists for capitalism gleefully adopted as a way to rationalize the irrationalities and justify the injustices of capitalism.

There is no such thing as anthropogenic climate change; and if there were, it would have very little to do with capitalism.
Socialism, like climate change activists, are both making rational decisions based on verifiable events.

No, there is nothing rational about refusing to know indisputable facts of objective physical reality, such as the fact that factory workers are not capable of designing or running factories, or the fact that there is no climate "crisis" or "emergency," and atmospheric CO2 is an entirely benign gas.
#15229953
ckaihatsu wrote:
What about *corporate debt*, though? (How would *that* be prevented?)



Truth To Power wrote:
There is nothing inherently wrong with debt assumed to finance creation of a production system. The problem is that that kind of debt cannot nearly satisfy the debt-creation appetite of private commercial banks in a debt-money system, so they lend to finance acquisition of privilege -- i.e., to enable the super-duper uber-rich to bid up the prices of each other's privileges. There is no natural limit to that sort of thing.



Okay, let me *clarify* this: There's 'nothing wrong' with private-equity debt, *or* with debt-creation by private commercial banks, based on a debt-money system, *or* with the endless bidding-up of rentier-type (non-productive) assets -- ? Aw-shucks, and boys-will-be-boys, right -- ?

Does capitalism *pay* you to be a tour guide? How does that work, exactly?


ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, thanks for the limited-hangout, but what exactly could prevent this *kind of dynamic*, financialization, from occurring spontaneously, given 'x' scenario and 'y' starting factors -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
Things don't just occur spontaneously in economics any more than in ballistics. They are caused. Financialization is caused by the debt-money system.



Paradigm-shift, brah -- like trees-into-a-forest. Just *happens*. 'Emergent'.

Tons of cash sitting around? Yeah, junk bonds and subprime loans, historically. Just sayin'.


ckaihatsu wrote:
Where *else* would all of that built-up capital *go*?



Truth To Power wrote:
In the absence of the privileges that give it value, the financial "capital" would vanish. The physical "capital" isn't going anywhere anyway. Note that you have to refuse to know the difference between them.



Just saw a documentary -- what would you say to J.P. Morgan -- ?



Panic of 1907

The Panic of 1907 was a financial crisis that almost crippled the American economy. Major New York banks were on the verge of bankruptcy and there was no mechanism to rescue them, until Morgan stepped in to help resolve the crisis.[28][29] Treasury Secretary George B. Cortelyou earmarked $35 million of federal money to deposit in New York banks.[30] Morgan then met with the nation's leading financiers in his New York mansion, where he forced them to devise a plan to meet the crisis. James Stillman, president of the National City Bank, also played a central role. Morgan organized a team of bank and trust executives which redirected money between banks, secured further international lines of credit, and bought up the plummeting stocks of healthy corporations.[28]

A delicate political issue arose regarding the brokerage firm of Moore and Schley, which was deeply involved in a speculative pool in the stock of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. Moore and Schley had pledged over $6 million of the Tennessee Coal and Iron (TCI) stock for loans among the Wall Street banks. The banks had called the loans, and the firm could not pay. If Moore and Schley should fail, a hundred more failures would follow and then all Wall Street might go to pieces. Morgan decided they had to save Moore and Schley. TCI was one of the chief competitors of U.S. Steel and it owned valuable iron and coal deposits. Morgan controlled U.S. Steel and he decided it had to buy the TCI stock from Moore and Schley. Elbert Gary, head of U.S. Steel, agreed, but was concerned there would be antitrust implications that could cause grave trouble for U.S. Steel, which was already dominant in the steel industry. Morgan sent Gary to see President Theodore Roosevelt, who promised legal immunity for the deal. U.S. Steel thereupon paid $30 million for the TCI stock and Moore and Schley was saved. The announcement had an immediate effect; by November 7, 1907, the panic was over. The crisis underscored the need for a powerful oversight mechanism.[28]

Vowing never to let it happen again, and realizing that in a future crisis there was unlikely to be another Morgan, in 1913 banking and political leaders, led by Senator Nelson Aldrich, devised a plan that resulted in the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913.[31]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._Mor ... ic_of_1907
#15229971
Godstud wrote:@BlutoSays Nice lie, but keep at it. You have come to be stupid enough to believe it.

Image


Why would you even post something so patently false and then call someone else a liar? 90% of that chart isn't even verifiable. You trust comparisons on data yanked out of thin air like this?

- 2nd happiest country or 14th happiest country? WHAT THE FUCKEVER! I'm happiest when water-skiing and do that at least 1200 days a year, so there. :lol: I win!
- Free higher education? General statement. You don't know what the payback REALLY is. Different university systems, degrees, courses of study, and on and on.
- Average personal tax rate? Based on what assumptions across both countries? Our tax code is 50,000 pages. No idea what Norway's is. You think someone did an in-depth comparison?
- Definitions of poverty wage and living wage across countries? Who wrote those defintions and who interpreted them? Da fuq????
- Everywhere I look I find Norway has 18 weeks of paid paternal leave, not 35. Did you have a specific year in mind? Where the fook did you get this shitty chart? You couldn't even do some BASIC checks on it?
- Infant mortality is defined differently in different countries, and the U.S. definition is notably broader than that of most other countries. - https://thefederalist.com/2017/07/11/no ... ped-world/
- Union protection as a benefit? If you need yoonyens, well then yer in shit city anyway. I mean, just a GIANT WTF!
- Financial security for seniors vs. no security for seniors. How was that measured.
- Romania has a 96% rate of home ownership. Maybe everyone should move there! Yeah, that's the ticket, uh huh uh huh uh huuuuh. :roll:
- What is their upward mobility vs. ours? I'm sure you'll have some chart on that also.

No standardized controlled measurement, no citations, opinion vs. opinion. That chart is fucking surreal. Is that what you slurp and gobble?

You know what? Just shut thy filthy whoring keyboard. Weaponized autism, right there. :lol:
#15229977
@Godstud

Other thing aside (and I think some of @BlutoSays's points only showed his stand rather than what's universally accepted),
home ownership can mean very differently from places to places,
and I think this is a big flaw in that comparison chart for people not having read enough extra information.

If public housing is the norm at a place, then a lower rate of home ownership does not necessarily mean it's bad.
Also, it's more fair to compare how much people pay for their housing, with relation to their income.

For example in Hong Kong, owning a home very much means you have a BIG loan to repay.
#15229979
Patrickov wrote:@Godstud

Other thing aside (and I think some of @BlutoSays's points only showed his stand rather than what's universally accepted),
home ownership can mean very differently from places to places,
and I think this is a big flaw in that comparison chart for people not having read enough extra information.

If public housing is the norm at a place, then a lower rate of home ownership does not necessarily mean it's bad.
Also, it's more fair to compare how much people pay for their housing, with relation to their income.

For example in Hong Kong, owning a home very much means you have a BIG loan to repay.


Nooooo, you would like stuff to be universally accepted because you agree with it. It's not. F that "settled science" bullshit to cut off debate.
#15229980
BlutoSays wrote:Nooooo, you would like stuff to be universally accepted because you agree with it. It's not. F that "settled science" bullshit to cut off debate.


Don't play on my words when I am essentially on your side, friend.
#15229983
BlutoSays wrote:Having seen your ideology on this forum, we're not on the same side.


I see myself opposing your opponents more than you.

You are at worst stupid or annoying. They can be dangerous.
#15229988
Patrickov wrote:
I see myself opposing your opponents more than you.

You are at worst stupid or annoying. They can be dangerous.



BlutoSays wrote:
Yeah, yer a legend in your own mind.



Um, could you two please work out who's going to be in charge, so that the rest of us know who to oppose -- ?

Thanks much.


x D


Patrickov wrote:
They can be dangerous.



Boo.
  • 1
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 18

Oh please post those too :lol: Very obvious p[…]

No, it does not. It is governed by the rather vagu[…]

Go tell this to all states that have establishe[…]

@KurtFF8 Litwin wages a psyops war here but we[…]