Are these mingy little beasts really the champions of the working class? - Page 16 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#15066935
ckaihatsu wrote:
Just because you disdain the *non-equity* type of capital



Truth To Power wrote:
See? You can't even bring yourself to call things by their correct names: production goods and privilege.



We *don't* agree on terminology -- I'll interchangeably call rentier capital 'non-equity' capital, too, if I like, validly. Your pettiness and egotism leads you to think that you're scoring-a-point for your school of interpretation.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
doesn't mean that such *rentier* capital in any way curtails the potential for a 'free' (unregulated) type of market.



Truth To Power wrote:
False. Privilege inherently deprives others of their rights to liberty. A market whose participants trade in others' rights to liberty is a slave market. A slave market is not a free market, duh.



And yet your blithe comparison of *land-ownership* to *slave-ownership* is a non-starter -- it's a *strawman* construction, and invalid.

Since your concern is with the continued social reliance on the *market* mechanism for all economic purposes, the continued valuation of land (etc.) in *market* terms is what you and your ideology *inherit* -- you need to stop complaining to me and others about it, because it's *not* any kind of pressing social issue, plus it's *internal* to the capitalist camp.

You want to call rentier-capital ownership 'privilege'. Fine -- that's your own moralizing, but it's *not* a political issue. I take no stance, except for that of a generally *anti-capitalist* one. And, yes, of course I don't support the past feudalist practice of commodifying human beings as property, slavery.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
So any quasi-free-market, being based in the market mechanism, is inherently *capitalist*, and *not* anti-capitalist.



Truth To Power wrote:
Disproved above.



No, you *haven't* proved that 'free markets' are anti-capitalist. Markets *equal* capitalism, and anti-capitalism fundamentally means moving *past* the market mechanism, to something that's *non*-exchange-value (non-money-based), like societal *central planning*:


Emergent Central Planning

Spoiler: show
Image



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ckaihatsu wrote:
No, you haven't.



Truth To Power wrote:
Yes, I have.



No, you haven't. The economics of *any* market mechanism are generally capitalist, so being anti-capitalist means moving *past* the economics of markets altogether, to a *non*-exchanges-based material social economics, like my 'Emergent Central Planning' at the diagram above.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
The use of *any* kind of capital, in *any* kind of market, is the very practice of capitalism and is *not* 'anti-capitalist'.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, that contradicts the definition of capitalism: private ownership of the means of production (production goods and natural resources (land)).



Capitalism includes *both* private ownership of the means of mass industrial production, raw materials / natural resources, *and* the economic practice of market exchanges. Capitalism is *not* anti-capitalism.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Don't call me 'junior'.



Truth To Power wrote:
Very well, child.

Don't leave huge blank spaces in your messages.



You may soon learn that it's a bad habit to *condescend* to people, particularly me.

You can always use a text editor to strip out any line spacing that you don't like.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Land, like anything else under capitalism, is a *commodity* -- it is bought and sold on the market.



Truth To Power wrote:
No. It is not a "commodity" like anything else because unlike anything else -- and most specifically production goods -- its supply is fixed: it cannot be produced, and the entire supply is always available to the market with no help from its owners or any previous owners. Why do you refuse to know that fact?



I don't *argue* these empirical petty distinctions because I *don't care* and I have *no interest* in such, either. Your internal complaints about the particularities of capitalism are your own, and you may find more receptive ears at your local Chamber of Commerce, or something.

Land and all rentier capital *are* commodities since they may all be bought and sold on capitalist markets. Just because rentier capital may be more deflationary / overvalued doesn't mean that it's not a commodity.


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Truth To Power wrote:
That was my point, junior: capitalism requires landowning, which contradicts the free market.



ckaihatsu wrote:
You happen to *disdain* this fact, but it remains the existing practice under capitalism's markets.



Truth To Power wrote:
It's not a question of disdaining the fact, it's a question of knowing what it implies. Which you clearly do not, or you would not be disingenuously pretending that land is a commodity like anything else.



I'm not being disingenuous -- land / real-estate *is* a commodity within capitalism because it is bought and sold:



A real estate bubble or property bubble (or housing bubble for residential markets) is a type of economic bubble that occurs periodically in local or global real estate markets, and typically follow a land boom. A land boom is the rapid increase in the market price of real property such as housing until they reach unsustainable levels and then decline. This period, during the run up to the crash, is also known as froth. The questions of whether real estate bubbles can be identified and prevented, and whether they have broader macroeconomic significance, are answered differently by schools of economic thought, as detailed below.[1]

Bubbles in housing markets are more critical than stock market bubbles. Historically, equity price busts occur on average every 13 years, last for 2.5 years, and result in about 4 percent loss in GDP. Housing price busts are less frequent, but last nearly twice as long and lead to output losses that are twice as large (IMF World Economic Outlook, 2003). A recent laboratory experimental study[2] also shows that, compared to financial markets, real estate markets involve longer boom and bust periods. Prices decline slower because the real estate market is less liquid.

The financial crisis of 2007–2008 was related to the bursting of real estate bubbles that had begun in various countries during the 2000s.[3]



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




Real estate is "property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more generally) buildings or housing in general.[1][2]



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



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ckaihatsu wrote:
You're even *acknowledging* that it's a necessary practice ('capitalism requires landowning').



Truth To Power wrote:
It's only "necessary" because that is how capitalism is DEFINED. HELLO???



Okay, so what are *you* proposing? How *should* land, etc. (all rentier capital) be handled, if not through markets?


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ckaihatsu wrote:
I'll repeat the question, How else would people handle the apportionment of land within capitalism, if not through land-commodity markets?



Truth To Power wrote:
:roll: I'll repeat the answer: there is BY DEFINITION no way to apportion land under capitalism but through private ownership and trade because that is what capitalism IS.



So then you're admitting here that, through capitalism, the only way to apportion land is through market exchanges. Your only point here is that rentier capital is non-commodity-productive, and is deflationary / overvalued -- it's a complaint that's *internal* to capitalism.

Since I'm a revolutionary anti-capitalist *I* say overthrow *all* private property, both equity capital *and* rentier capital valuations.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
My politics *don't require* belief because my reasoning / ideology is based in the empirical world. My *politics* is for the working class. That's it.



Truth To Power wrote:
No. Your politics is based on absurd and anti-scientific Marxist bloviation.



Well, this is just name-calling -- what parts of it are 'absurd', 'anti-scientific', and 'bloviation'?


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ckaihatsu wrote:
My *politics* is for the working class. That's it.



Truth To Power wrote:
So you gladly sacrifice liberty, justice and truth, putatively for the working class. Hence the idiotic Marxist gibberish. OK.



Again you need to define your terms -- what do *you* consider, exactly, to be paragon examples of 'liberty', 'justice', 'truth', and 'Marxist gibberish' -- ?


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ckaihatsu wrote:
This is the *opposite* of a fact, because, yes, the markets are capitalist, and, yes, libertarians *are* capitalists because they / you support the 'free market' ideal.



Truth To Power wrote:
Already disproved. Capitalism is defined by OWNERSHIP, not MARKETS.

GET IT??



No, I can *generalize* from this -- there have been *several* modes of production, not just capitalism, that have featured class-based 'ownership' -- feudalism, Asiatic, barbaric, antique.)

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


Only capitalism has exchange-value-based *markets*, and finance.

But, most importantly, one cannot have capitalism *without* markets / market-exchanges -- if you're going to disdain markets then you have to suggest something to replace them, for material economic functioning. (I have already, with my 'Emergent Central Planning' diagram / framework.)


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ckaihatsu wrote:
because 'free market' and 'anti-capitalist' are *contrary* terms.



Truth To Power wrote:
I just proved they aren't.



ckaihatsu wrote:
No, you haven't proved jack-shit



Truth To Power wrote:
Yes, I have proved everything I said I have proved.



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ckaihatsu wrote:
you're proving that you think your own repetition of a falsehood will somehow alter the greater objective world, so that it magically conforms to your opinions and wishes, much like Trump. The world doesn't work this way.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, that's you -- and all Marxists/socialists.



Look, here, I'll *spell it out for you*:

We all exist within a number of enveloping 'layers' -- if-you-will -- the outermost is *nature* / natural reality, since all life on earth evolved out of organic chemicals that were already here. Within this natural layer is 'objective social reality', meaning all regular social institutions that tend to last beyond a single person's lifetime and that have great social impact / influence on people's lives in general (say, government, for example).

Now within *that* 'layer' is *subjective social reality*, and this will vary person-by-person, since people live in various geographic and social locations. Those that a person interacts with on a regular basis will be those of the 'subjective social reality', along with more-formal, but individually particular, interactions with the larger 'objective social reality'.

Finally we can also view the individual *individually* -- the 'individuality / subjectivity' layer.

So all of that is prelude to addressing your prior contention (in agreement with Sivad) that there can be such a thing as a 'free-market anti-capitalist'. I'm maintaining, of course, that those terms are *mutually contradictory* in meaning, and thus the construction is invalid.


Worldview Diagram

Spoiler: show
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Anatomy of a Platform

Spoiler: show
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ckaihatsu wrote:
so that it magically conforms to your opinions and wishes, much like Trump. The world doesn't work this way.


Truth To Power wrote:
As they say in Japan, "It's mirror time!"



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ckaihatsu wrote:
(And, by this admission, I'll ask you / the reader to look into what economic mechanism / dynamic *is* favored by libertarians -- it's the *markets*, and markets are a feature of *capitalism*, so libertarians favor capitalism and are *not* anti-capitalist.)



Truth To Power wrote:
No. Libertarians favor markets because markets work by CONSENT. Capitalism cannot work by consent because land is not and cannot be property by consent.



Will you also acknowledge that *you're* a libertarian?

If so, then I can validly say that *you* favor markets in capitalism because markets work by consent.

You're being confusing, here, though -- does capitalism work through market-consent, or does it *not* work through market-consent? (Land / real estate functions as a commodity since it's bought and sold, through market-consented exchanges, correct?)


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ckaihatsu wrote:
By 'liberty' you mean 'private property ownership', and you *don't* mean 'government upholding of people's own individual civil rights, by punishing those who violate these civil rights, for social justice'.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, the right to property in the fruits of one's labor is different from the right to liberty.



Okay, well, then, you may want to define / explain what you mean by 'right to libery', and 'liberty', here.

I'll note that I don't agree with your meaning for the term 'fruits of one's labor' since such fruits, according to your definition, may derive from actual wage-labor, *or* they may derive from financial gains. That's why I use the term 'labor' to strictly refer to wage-labor work.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
and you *don't* mean 'government upholding of people's own individual civil rights,



Truth To Power wrote:
Yes, in fact, I do.



Okay -- well, please be more *explicit* and *forthcoming* in general with your meanings and terms, so as to facilitate communication here.

So, for the record, TTP's meaning of 'liberty' includes people's enjoyment of government-upheld civil rights in society.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
by punishing those who violate these civil rights, for social justice'.



Truth To Power wrote:
Social justice is an oxymoron. Justice can only apply to individuals.



Well, which *is* it -- do individuals have civil rights that will be upheld by (bourgeois) government, or don't they? What should happen to perpetrators who *violate* any such individual's civil rights? Can those who are found guilty by the (bourgeois) government be punished for violating others' civil rights, as with time to be served in jail, for example? (Can we call this 'social justice', or is there another term that you'd prefer to use for this 'civil rights' meaning?)


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Socialism says to extend these personal civil rights into the *economic* realm as well, so that each person is seen to have a birthright stake in an appropriate portion of the *material* world, for their needs for life and living, instead of leaving these needs to the whims and vagaries of privately-controlled ownership over the same.



Truth To Power wrote:
Right: socialism refuses to distinguish between the material world that is provided unconditionally by nature and the material world that is produced by others' labor.



Oh, I don't think that this is / would-be the case -- it's just that human labor happens to greatly leverage *machinery* / technology, which means that far more output is now produced per unit of human-labor *input*, meaning that more people can be provided-for, for relatively less human labor work-effort.

Certainly a post-capitalist society could make formal itemized distinctions between people-produced, and nature-available, categories. I happen to have created a set of database fields for a system of formalization, which could be added-to, as for this distinction that you've raised.



ISSUER

AUTOMATIC TIMESTAMP UPON RECEIPT (YYYYMMDDHHMM)

ACTIVE DATE (YYYYMMDD)

FORMAL-ITEM REFERENCED (OR AUTOMATICALLY CREATED), IF ANY

FORMAL-ITEM NUMERICAL INCREMENT, 001-999, PER DAY, PER UNIQUE GEOGRAPHIC UNIT

GEOGRAPHIC LEVEL INTENDED-FOR ('HSH', 'ENT', 'LCL', RGN', 'CTN', 'GBL')

GEOGRAPHIC SOURCE UNIQUE NAME, ABBREVIATED

FIRSTNAME_LASTNAME_BIRTHYEAR(YY)

INDIVIDUAL'S ITEM RANKING, 0001-9999 (PER DAY)

RANK-ITEM TYPE ('INI', 'DMN', 'PRP', 'PRJ', PDR', 'FND', 'DTI', 'LLI', 'PLP', 'ORD', 'REQ', 'SLD')

TITLE-DESCRIPTION


WORK ROLE NUMBER AND TITLE

TENTATIVE OR ACTUAL HAZARD / DIFFICULTY MULTIPLIER

ESTIMATE-OF OR ACTUAL LABOR HOURS PER SCHEDULED WORK SHIFT

TOTAL LABOR CREDITS (MULTIPLIER TIMES HOURS)

ACTUAL FUNDING OF LABOR CREDITS PER WORK SHIFT (FUNDING ITEM REFERENCE REQUIRED)

SCHEDULED DISCRETE WORK SHIFT, BEGINNING DATE & TIME

SCHEDULED DISCRETE WORK SHIFT, ENDING DATE & TIME

AVAILABLE-AND-SELECTED LIBERATED LABORER IDENTIFIER


DENOMINATION

QUANTITY, PER DENOMINATION

TOTAL LABOR CREDITS PER DENOMINATION

SERIAL NUMBER RANGE, BEGINNING

SERIAL NUMBER RANGE, ENDING



https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... ost2889338



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ckaihatsu wrote:
No, I *know* that labor is not the only input to production -- I have it in a graphic right here:


[23] A Business Perspective on the Declining Rate of Profit

Spoiler: show
Image



Truth To Power wrote:
Which is wrong.



And how exactly is it 'wrong'? What you're doing here is the equivalent of name-calling, if you're so reluctant to deal with the actual subject-matter underneath.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
But here's the thing, TTP -- all of the 'other inputs' to the process of commodity-production were created only because of the *main* input, labor.



Truth To Power wrote:
False. Land was never created by labor.



Well, here's the thing, though, TTP -- no parcel of land under capitalism is ever taken as-is. Invariably there has been some kind of *alteration* done to it, to make it suitable for regular use, and such alteration has used *human labor* for that tailoring. So that makes the land a labor-produced *commodity*, just like anything falling off a factory assembly line.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
So the landscaped land, the buildings, the equipment / machinery, the tailored raw materials, etc., are available only because they're 'dead labor', or the value that comes from applying human labor to the rough materials directly from nature.



Truth To Power wrote:
Including the vital labor of the entrepreneur/provider of production goods.



Since you're not contending my point there, I'll tentatively take your inaction to be an implicit *acknowledgement* of my point, by you.

*I* don't acknowledge owner or managerial efforts to be 'labor', so you'll have some difficulties in using that term that way, here. Yes, capital is provided by private property ownership, and *equity* capital, in particular, enables material productivity under capitalism, but what the owner does is *not* labor, but rather is a political-social *organization* of *actual* labor, which produces the finished commodity.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
You barely even *acknowledge* that labor exists at all,



Truth To Power wrote:
False.



ckaihatsu wrote:
and much less that it contributes anything materially to the productive process that creates commodities (exchange values, and use values) under capitalism.



Truth To Power wrote:
Again, false.



Okay, so I'd like to confirm that you're acknowledging that wage-labor produces commodities / use-values / exchange-values / profits. Please confirm / acknowledge.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
So you're against feudal land rights, and you're for equity capital in modern capitalism. Everyone on this thread knows your position as well as their own kids' names at this point.



Truth To Power wrote:
Also private property in land.



But you've acknowledged that private property in land is *necessary* within capitalism:


ckaihatsu wrote:
You're even *acknowledging* that it's a necessary practice ('capitalism requires landowning').



Truth To Power wrote:
It's only "necessary" because that is how capitalism is DEFINED. HELLO???



---


So your position is *contradictory*, and ill-defined -- you don't *want* land to be private property or a commodity, yet you know that empirically it *has* to be, as a part of capitalism. You, as a libertarian, welcome the use of consensual market exchanges, which are an integral part of capitalism, so you're fine with retaining capitalism, which also needs rentier-type capital (land, etc.) to function.


ckaihatsu wrote:
and you're for equity capital in modern capitalism.



Truth To Power wrote:
But called by its correct name: production goods.



That's fine -- I use the terms 'means of mass industrial production', 'equity capital', and 'production goods' pretty-much interchangeably.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Everyone on this thread knows your position as well as their own kids' names at this point.



Truth To Power wrote:
You just got through proving you don't know anything at all about my position.



Well, I'm *trying* -- since I'm not you, I can't make statements for you. You have to do that yourself. You may want to be less coy and opaque, and be more explicit and forthcoming about where you stand on these issues that we cover in these exchanges.

For this last comment, maybe *detail* what I'm "not-getting" about your position.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
With *this* line, TTP, you're showing yourself to *not* be a 'free market' person, because you're *upholding the state and its regulations*,



Truth To Power wrote:
The free market can't exist without a state to secure liberty, property and contract rights.



Okay, then, your *entire ideology* is contradictory, because 'free markets' means 'no government regulation', while you're also saying that markets can't exist without a state to secure liberty, property, and contract rights.

You're *not* a 'free market' person. You're squarely on the side of private property rights, upheld by the bourgeois state, over any considerations for individual civil rights, if they happen to come into conflict with private property rights. You're basically a nationalist.


Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals

Spoiler: show
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ckaihatsu wrote:
in this case to close national borders to a free flow of human labor, and the economic opportunities in the markets on the other side of the border for those laborers.



Truth To Power wrote:
The state is only responsible for the rights of its own citizens, not every other state's.



Yup, you're a nationalist.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Currently there *are* no socialist-type countries in existence.



Truth To Power wrote:
Sure there are: Cuba, North Korea and Laos.



Do the workers (working class) of Cuba, North Korea, and Laos, control the countries of Cuba, North Korea, and Laos, respectively?

If not, and those countries are in fact controlled by *bourgeois-type* government apparatuses / bureaucracies, which are composed of *standing*, specialized administrative roles, then those countries are *not* socialist.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Workers can *only* get jobs through private ownership, so whether it happens to be this-or-that particular employer is of *no importance* to the job-seeker.



Truth To Power wrote:
The conditions that define his bargaining position are.



Yes, but again you're being petty -- my point here is that for those who have no other option in the capitalist markets but to sell their labor power, it makes no difference as to who or what the employer is, because of the material requirement to obtain money / wages, for the sake of fulfilling one's material needs for the necessities of modern life and living.

Just *maneuvering* in the job market requires resources, resources that one may not necessarily have, so one's bargaining position is *lessened*, or even non-existant, without money.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
The whole dynamic is correctly called 'wage slavery' because one cannot avoid having to sell one's labor to an employer if one happens to need wages / income, to buy the necessities for one's life and living.



Truth To Power wrote:
It could not be called wage slavery if people had their liberty rights to use land to earn their own living.



Okay, so what are you suggesting, exactly? How could land, in general, be used to better-benefit people, compared to the way things are now?


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ckaihatsu wrote:
I think it's more accurate to term you a ruling-class ideologue at this point.



Truth To Power wrote:
And you claim to know my position?? :lol: :lol: :lol:



Yeah, you're a nationalist. And you defend present-day bourgeois-nationalist policies, as regarding immigration policy, for example.
#15066961
@Sivad

SolarCross wrote:Lenin used German gold

Revolution doesn't come cheap. Lenin used German and American gold to pay for his.
Last edited by ingliz on 13 Feb 2020 17:09, edited 1 time in total.
#15066985
Pants-of-dog wrote:None of this contradicts my point that there is no significant group of Cubans in Cuba who want to get rid of socialism.

How would you know, any more than you would know if there was a significant group of North Koreans who wanted to get rid of socialism? There is no freedom of speech, expression, association, or the press.
If that is your evidence that the USSR controlled Cuba, then your case is very weak.

Only in your incorrect opinion.
That does not support your argument unless you assume that the state supervisors were cronies.

Who else could they be?
And since that is what you are trying to support, you are trying to use your argument as a premise for your argument. Bad logic.

:lol: :lol: After your spectacularly incompetent equivocation fallacy, you are THE VERY LAST PERSON IN THE WORLD who can accuse anyone else of bad logic.
You think your ideas about economics are the only objective ones.

No, you also made that up. My ideas about economics are objective and yours are not, but that doesn't mean there are no other objective ideas about economics.
#15067000
Sivad wrote:the soviet union didn't even last a full century but it's the bankster oligarchs who have been running the world many centuries who don't have a long game... :lol:

Since the bankers financed it, at the start at least, perhaps the USSR and its fall was all part of the long game... If the regime at heart was nothing more than a punishment of Russians for the pogroms, well... how long does it need to last to do that?

Of course Stalin was a pretty much an anti-semite so I guess they must have lost any influence they had on the USSR by then. Even Lenin probably was not that devoted. He took the money but once over the border he would be serving his own interests from then on.
#15067002
Truth To Power wrote:How would you know, any more than you would know if there was a significant group of North Koreans who wanted to get rid of socialism? There is no freedom of speech, expression, association, or the press.

Who else could they be?


Do you need me to repeat how the US has been unable to support a counter revolution in Cuba, because there is none?

I actually know some of the people who worked in Allende's agrarian reform office. None of them knew Allende personally and could not have been his cronies. Just your typical well educated Marxist.
#15067003
Sivad wrote:the soviet union didn't even last a full century but it's the bankster oligarchs who have been running the world many centuries who don't have a long game... :lol:


The short-term-mindedness of capitalist firms is pronounced in the theory of shareholder primacy. If you actually follow the business world you can very plainly observe how reckless the pursuit of profit has become through the creation of new financial instruments, not only putting stakeholders at risk but the long-term viability of those companies as well.
#15067004
SolarCross wrote:Of course Stalin was a pretty much an anti-semite so I guess they must have lost any influence they had on the USSR by then. Even Lenin probably was not that devoted. He took the money but once over the border he would be serving his own interests from then on.


Stalin was a complex figure. He also protected his lifelong Jewish friends and allies, like Lazar Kaganovich, from anti-Semites within the Bolshevik ranks.
#15067013
ingliz wrote:Except in a violent revolutionary setting, Georgism is politically infeasible.

Possibly; as history shows, the privileged prefer to perish in blood and flame, and to watch their children slaughtered before their eyes, rather than relinquish even the smallest portion of their unjust advantages. The purpose of advocating liberty, justice and truth then is not so much in hopes that they can be made politically feasible as to ensure that when the crisis of capitalism comes the actual solution to the actual problem of capitalism is on the table, and widely enough known and understood that it will be chosen over the guaranteed tyranny, injustice, poverty and stagnation of the bogus non-solution of socialism.
Given existing societal values, it is too blatantly 'unjust' to property owners.

Of course, it is not actually unjust to them; it merely requires them to pay for what they have been accustomed to taking unjustly, without paying for it. But it is certainly true that the privileged are always more attached to their unjust advantages than the productive are to their rightful earnings. That is why the employed owners of small landholdings such as may be found under a typical dwelling resist losing $5K in land rent that they do not earn far more than they resist paying $10K in unjust and economically destructive taxes on what they do earn, which is given to large landowners. It is not helpful to identify the fact that such people are harming themselves as they are completely immune to such facts.
Most bought their property at the full market price (paying the full site value as well as the value of the buildings)

Yes, very much as slave owners bought their slaves at the full market price, and on that basis opposed emancipation:

“When the emancipation of the African was spoken of, and when the nation of Britain appeared to be taking into serious consideration the rightfulness of abolishing slavery, what tremendous evils were to follow! Trade was to be ruined, commerce was almost to cease, and manufacturers were to be bankrupt. Worse than all, private property was to be invaded (property in human flesh), the rights of planters sacrificed to the speculative notions of fanatics, and the British government was to commit an act that would forever deprive it of the confidence of British subjects.”
– Patrick Edward Dove, The Theory of Human Progression, 1850

It might be worth remembering that just 250 years ago, emancipation of slaves was considered "politically infeasible."
and have paid taxes on it ever since.

I.e., have repaid a small portion of what they have been taking.
Moreover, as the only justifications for Georgism boil down to the contention that things would be better under Georgism,

No. The principal justification is that it restores the equal individual right to liberty and is indisputable justice, and because it is liberty and justice, everything would be far better.
it is doubtful that even under those circumstances people would be stupid enough to embrace it.

As 90+% of people would be better off under liberty and justice in taxation and land tenure -- most of them FAR better off -- it is only the stupid, the ignorant and the greedy who do not embrace it.
#15067015
ckaihatsu wrote:You're referring to the historic SPD, in Germany, of course:


Yes, but not exclusively though, I also have in mind La Montagne in France, the Fabians in Britain or the early Christian socialists. All of these movements were more or less (without omitting material determinants) born out of alienation from liberalism, which is probably why they appealed more to the middle class.

However, for the present-day I currently situate 'social democracy' as being fairly nationalist -- both corporatist and reformist:


The social democratic parties can still be taken over by socialists in my opinion. "Pasokification", if you will, can be reversed in certain situations (especially since neoliberal triangulation is dying these days). This is especially crucial in the United States where fascists can potentially take over a major bourgeois party, forcing the other to become a popular front.
#15067036
Pants-of-dog wrote:Do you need me to repeat how the US has been unable to support a counter revolution in Cuba, because there is none?

So, same as the socialist paradise of North Korea.
I actually know some of the people who worked in Allende's agrarian reform office. None of them knew Allende personally and could not have been his cronies.

You don't have to know someone personally to be a crony.
Just your typical well educated Marxist.

Maleducated, you mean.
#15067050
Truth To Power wrote:So, same as the socialist paradise of North Korea.

You don't have to know someone personally to be a crony.

Maleducated, you mean.


If you knew about the history of the US in Latin America and how it has supported intervention to support right wing governments, and if you knew that this did not happen in East Asia, you would not make this faulty comparison.

I am now ignoring your ad hominem about Allende since you have no actual evidence.
#15067119
Truth To Power wrote:it restores the equal individual right to liberty and is indisputable justice,

The philosophical basis of Georgism is theft. Land is wealth and wealth is land. The private ownership of wealth is implicit in a free economy.


:)
#15067162
Truth To Power wrote:
No. It is not a "commodity"



ingliz wrote:
Except in a violent revolutionary setting, Georgism is politically infeasible. Given existing societal values, it is too blatantly 'unjust' to property owners. Most bought their property at the full market price (paying the full site value as well as the value of the buildings) and have paid taxes on it ever since. Moreover, as the only justifications for Georgism boil down to the contention that things would be better under Georgism, it is doubtful that even under those circumstances people would be stupid enough to embrace it.


:)



Truth To Power wrote:
Possibly; as history shows, the privileged prefer to perish in blood and flame, and to watch their children slaughtered before their eyes, rather than relinquish even the smallest portion of their unjust advantages. The purpose of advocating liberty, justice and truth then is not so much in hopes that they can be made politically feasible as to ensure that when the crisis of capitalism comes the actual solution to the actual problem of capitalism is on the table, and widely enough known and understood that it will be chosen over the guaranteed tyranny, injustice, poverty and stagnation of the bogus non-solution of socialism.

Of course, it is not actually unjust to them; it merely requires them to pay for what they have been accustomed to taking unjustly, without paying for it. But it is certainly true that the privileged are always more attached to their unjust advantages than the productive are to their rightful earnings. That is why the employed owners of small landholdings such as may be found under a typical dwelling resist losing $5K in land rent that they do not earn far more than they resist paying $10K in unjust and economically destructive taxes on what they do earn, which is given to large landowners. It is not helpful to identify the fact that such people are harming themselves as they are completely immune to such facts.

Yes, very much as slave owners bought their slaves at the full market price, and on that basis opposed emancipation:

“When the emancipation of the African was spoken of, and when the nation of Britain appeared to be taking into serious consideration the rightfulness of abolishing slavery, what tremendous evils were to follow! Trade was to be ruined, commerce was almost to cease, and manufacturers were to be bankrupt. Worse than all, private property was to be invaded (property in human flesh), the rights of planters sacrificed to the speculative notions of fanatics, and the British government was to commit an act that would forever deprive it of the confidence of British subjects.”
– Patrick Edward Dove, The Theory of Human Progression, 1850

It might be worth remembering that just 250 years ago, emancipation of slaves was considered "politically infeasible."

I.e., have repaid a small portion of what they have been taking.

No. The principal justification is that it restores the equal individual right to liberty and is indisputable justice, and because it is liberty and justice, everything would be far better.

As 90+% of people would be better off under liberty and justice in taxation and land tenure -- most of them FAR better off -- it is only the stupid, the ignorant and the greedy who do not embrace it.



TTP's counter-historical-progress, anti-socialist sentiment aside, what I'm seeing is that TTP has a solid *anti-aristocratic* line, as from the days of the American Revolution.

This is all well and good, but it's anarchronistic, of course, because society's production no longer comes from *land*, as it did during the times of feudalism, but in the present era it comes from *industrial production*, a fact of the modern-day that TTP doesn't want to acknowledge.


ingliz wrote:
The philosophical basis of Georgism is theft. Land is wealth and wealth is land. The private ownership of wealth is implicit in a free economy.


:)



I *appreciate* this parody of TTP, because while TTP may want to 'modernize' the treatment of non-productive assets like land, this same approach is *not* applied to what matters *today*, which is the means of mass industrial production, or 'production goods'.
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