Why do people not understand socialism ? - Page 6 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#15229989
Negotiator wrote:So, looking at many threads in this forum, people clearly dont understand what socialism is.


IMHO, those who should be blamed are those "implementing" socialism in the past 100 years.
From what they have done, my perception is that socialism is an unstable system that can easily decay into Stalinism.

Also, many people are much lazier than anyone of us would ever believe.
Good socialism has to be built on individuals' independency, both in environment and in mind.
Not all societies are capable to do that.

And unfortunately, the more "socialist" a country claims itself to be, the less capable the people there can do "socialist".
#15229990
ckaihatsu wrote: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.


That's not our aim. STFU please.
#15229991
Patrickov wrote:
IMHO, those who should be blamed are those "implementing" socialism in the past 100 years.



But:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_in ... _Civil_War


Patrickov wrote:
From what they have done, my perception is that socialism is an unstable system that can easily decay into Stalinism.

Also, many people are much lazier than anyone of us would ever believe.
Good socialism has to be built on individuals' independency, both in environment and in mind.
Not all societies are capable to do that.

And unfortunately, the more "socialist" a country claims itself to be, the less capable the people there can do "socialist".
#15229997
ckaihatsu wrote: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





Boo.


You've probably figured this out CK, but I'll never agree with you just to meet you halfway, so you'll agree with me halfway. I have enough faith in my positions and actual historical events to back them up.

That probably confounds you, since you aren't used to that. I have plenty of ammo to work with. You don't. Plus you're a self-proclaimed marxist, so you're an enemy, no matter what.

BTW, I couldn't GAS what wikipedia or wsws publish.

Happy trails, sunshine.
#15230000
Patrickov wrote:
I fail to see why this justifies Stalinism.



Not *trying* to 'justify' Stalinism -- the emergence of Stalinism was *incidental* (to how the preceding Bolshevik Revolution was treated by the Allies).


Patrickov wrote:
As things turned out, maybe it would have been better if the Allies had won.



Ouch.

Would you really deny the overthrow of *monarchy* to the people of Russia, even though the American colonies kicked out the *British* crown -- ?



The main events of the revolution took place in and near Petrograd (present-day Saint Petersburg), the then-capital of Russia, where long-standing discontent with the monarchy erupted into mass protests against food rationing on 23 February Old Style (8 March New Style).[4] Revolutionary activity lasted about eight days, involving mass demonstrations and violent armed clashes with police and gendarmes, the last loyal forces of the Russian monarchy. On 27 February O.S. (12 March N.S.) the garrison forces of the capital sided with the revolutionaries. Three days later Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, ending Romanov dynastic rule and the Russian Empire. A Russian Provisional Government under Prince Georgy Lvov replaced the Council of Ministers of Russia.



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



And:


When the Czar was still in power, many Americans deplored fighting a war with him as an ally.



Before Germany surrendered in November 1918, the US participated in Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War with the Polar Bear Expedition and the American Expeditionary Force Siberia. The American goal was not necessarily ideological, but rather to prevent the German enemy from gaining access to war supplies controlled by the Bolsheviks, although the United States also tacitly supported the White movement against the Soviets.[28]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_E ... tions#Wars
#15230002
BlutoSays wrote:
You've probably figured this out CK, but I'll never agree with you just to meet you halfway, so you'll agree with me halfway. I have enough faith in my positions and actual historical events to back them up.

That probably confounds you, since you aren't used to that. I have plenty of ammo to work with. You don't. Plus you're a self-proclaimed marxist, so you're an enemy, no matter what.

BTW, I couldn't GAS what wikipedia or wsws publish.

Happy trails, sunshine.



'Faith'.

There it is. Impenetrable by reason.
#15230003
ckaihatsu wrote:'Faith'.

There it is. Impenetrable by reason.


Faith as in trust.

But yes, attack faith. You can't help yourself. You have to. Religion is a threat to marxists. You must conquer it, so it can be replaced by "The State".


Here's a great saying... "Kill a commie for mommy!" :D
#15230004
BlutoSays wrote:
Faith as in trust.

But yes, attack faith. You can't help yourself. You have to. Religion is a threat to marxists. You must conquer it, so it can be replaced by "The State".


Here's a great saying... "Kill a commie for mommy!" :D



*Jesus*, that's dramatic. Shakespeare fan?

Okay, I'll bite -- connect the dots for me, and tell me how 'religion' / faith is going to lead us into equity heaven, or whatever.

Playwriting scripts aside, remember that this is all about *social organization*, and not some symbolic civilizational cage-match between professional wrestlers.


Social Production Worldview

Spoiler: show
Image
#15230011
Okay, guys, I know it's past your beddy-bye, but the shit's getting *real* out here -- is NATO really *worth* all of this?



North America

United States

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm blamed the OPEC oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia and the U.S. gas and petroleum industry for rising motor fuel prices in the United States.[69][70][71] As the Financial Times reported on November 4: "The White House has said OPEC+ risks imperiling the global economic recovery by refusing to speed up oil production increases and warned the U.S. was prepared to use ‘all tools’ necessary to lower fuel prices."[72]

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, American families heating with propane can expect to pay 54% more in winter 2021/22 than they did last year.[73]

On 23 November 2021, the Biden administration announced it would release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).[74]

Due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent international sanctions during the Russo-Ukrainian War against Russia, oil prices worldwide soared. In the beginning of March 2022, the price of Brent Crude passed US$113 a barrel, the highest level since June 2014, while West Texas Intermediate was trading at just under US$110 a barrel.[75] On 8 March, President Joe Biden ordered a ban on imports of Russian oil, gas and coal to the US.[76] Biden ordered another 30 million barrels of oil released from the SPR in early March, which on 31 March was followed by a release of 1 million barrels on average per day for 180 days, the latter on which is the largest release from the SPR in its history.[77] The Biden administration was pressed on potential oil deals with Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Iran that would have them increase their oil production.[78] However, so far, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have declined requests from the US.[79][80]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%8 ... th_America
#15230045
ckaihatsu wrote:Would you really deny the overthrow of *monarchy* to the people of Russia?


Indeed YES! Neither Russia nor China came out any better. If anything, they then get semi-voluntarily trampled by totalitarian dictators 100 times worse than a monarch!

What Americans did was their choice, and incidentally BOTH of them came out better. They deserve more credit than those anti-Imperialists and anti-Capitalists give them.
#15230061
ckaihatsu wrote:*Jesus*, that's dramatic. Shakespeare fan?

Okay, I'll bite -- connect the dots for me, and tell me how 'religion' / faith is going to lead us into equity heaven, or whatever.

Playwriting scripts aside, remember that this is all about *social organization*, and not some symbolic civilizational cage-match between professional wrestlers.



Religion isn't going to lead you to heaven or whatever. There's no afterlife.

This is about you on this planet trying to control people instead of them living their lives freely without your two cents.

Fuck your social organization and grandiose plans forced by government bureaucrats "for the greater good". You control freaks need to STFU and stop worring about others. Create your own country to rule or migrate overseas. I really don't GAS. Just stay out of my way, Karen.
#15230091
Patrickov wrote:
Indeed YES! Neither Russia nor China came out any better. If anything, they then get semi-voluntarily trampled by totalitarian dictators 100 times worse than a monarch!

What Americans did was their choice, and incidentally BOTH of them came out better. They deserve more credit than those anti-Imperialists and anti-Capitalists give them.



This is still *presumptive* and *imposing* -- you're just expressing *pro-merchant* sentiment, because you're of the merchant / finance class, one ruling-class faction along with the state, or bureaucratic faction, which you vie against.

You're being nakedly *opportunistic*, and would rather throw entire societies to the wolves, as you just did, than to see any country's bureaucracy / government cover the ground that you think should be *yours*.

Uninspiring, at best.
#15230092
BlutoSays wrote:
Religion isn't going to lead you to heaven or whatever. There's no afterlife.

This is about you on this planet trying to control people instead of them living their lives freely without your two cents.



This isn't about *me*.

We're *talking* here, and my politics are *not* about wielding a state bureaucracy for the sake of its own existential interests. *Still* not a Stalinist.


BlutoSays wrote:
Fuck your social organization and grandiose plans forced by government bureaucrats "for the greater good". You control freaks need to STFU and stop worring about others. Create your own country to rule or migrate overseas. I really don't GAS. Just stay out of my way, Karen.



Keep going. Let's see 'full meltdown' from you.
#15230101
ckaihatsu wrote:Interesting special case

It's the general case: line workers know their own jobs, but generally cannot do their supervisors' jobs, let alone the entrepreneur's or investor's. If you had ever had such a job, you would know that. A chef is the one who is in the kitchen, using the utensils and appliances, but that doesn't mean he knows how to start, design, or manage a restaurant, and the great majority who try to do so fail.
-- you're saying that all infrastructure-building-type workers are just *fucked* either way, by the landowners and the government, or by the commies.

No, I'm saying every honest, productive person is fucked unless and until they live in a geoist society.
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.

No idea what that is supposed to mean, but it is certain to be wrong.
So what's the metaphorical equivalent of 'salvation' here -- ?

Honesty.
Do I still have a chance to love equity capital, and despise landholdings and equity-finance, for the sake of my soul? (grin)

Of course you can choose honesty and righteousness. Nothing stops you but your commitment to injustice and evil.
#15230103
ckaihatsu wrote:Would you really deny the overthrow of *monarchy* to the people of Russia, even though the American colonies kicked out the *British* crown -- ?

The Russian monarchy had already been overthrown several months before the socialists took power by violence, and there was no chance it could be restored after it was formally dissolved a month before the Bolshevik putsch.
#15230104
ckaihatsu wrote:Okay, let me *clarify* this: There's 'nothing wrong' with private-equity debt,

<sigh> Only when it is undertaken to finance creation of a production system. Can't you read?
*or* with debt-creation by private commercial banks, based on a debt-money system,

No, based on a 100% reserve system where private commercial banks cannot increase the money supply because they have to have reserves to cover their demand deposits.

I repeat: can't you read?
*or* with the endless bidding-up of rentier-type (non-productive) assets -- ?

Can't you read? I have stated that a geoist economy would abolish such assets entirely.
Does capitalism *pay* you to be a tour guide? How does that work, exactly?

As you know, but always pretend not to, I oppose capitalism. I am merely aware of the fact that socialism is even worse.
Paradigm-shift, brah -- like trees-into-a-forest. Just *happens*. 'Emergent'.

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

The history of finance capitalism describes finance capitalism, not geoism.
Just saw a documentary -- what would you say to J.P. Morgan -- ?

"Time's up."
#15230225
ckaihatsu wrote:
Interesting special case



Truth To Power wrote:
It's the general case: line workers know their own jobs, but generally cannot do their supervisors' jobs, let alone the entrepreneur's or investor's. If you had ever had such a job, you would know that. A chef is the one who is in the kitchen, using the utensils and appliances, but that doesn't mean he knows how to start, design, or manage a restaurant, and the great majority who try to do so fail.



You're using a *capitalism* yardstick, though -- as though workers would have to fit-into the *existing structure*, and become financial / managerial movers-and-shakers.

All workers know *their own* workplace roles, and also the roles of those they interact with, to greater or lesser extents.

The *point* of all of this is to say that, *functionally*, this is sufficient -- and, built-out, would be sufficient for inter-worker coordination, and co-administration on mass scales, beginning with the individual worker's own known work roles / tasks / duties.


ckaihatsu wrote:
-- you're saying that all infrastructure-building-type workers are just *fucked* either way, by the landowners and the government, or by the commies.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I'm saying every honest, productive person is fucked unless and until they live in a geoist society.



Okay, it's not clear if you were trying to make a point about construction workers in particular, or blue-collar workers in particular / general, or what.

On the condition / treatment of workers in *general*, in society, sure, I can partially agree that 'geoist' global land reform, in a single-payer kind of way, would be an incremental societal *improvement*, but it would still be *incremental*, and a radical-reform for just land only. Why not extend it to *health care*, and *housing*, etc. -- ?

Do you have any reservations with full *nationalization* -- of land, healthcare, housing, etc.


ckaihatsu wrote:
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.



Truth To Power wrote:
No idea what that is supposed to mean, but it is certain to be wrong.



In other words the construction workers aren't receiving any kind of *equity* -- you were initially indicating some sort of 'unappreciated social role', or a special-case kind of 'dispossession', perhaps for all blue-collar workers in general, but you weren't clear as to what you were getting-at.

Wouldn't you regularly say here that a *wage* is 'fair', including for all *construction workers* as well -- ?


ckaihatsu wrote:
So what's the metaphorical equivalent of 'salvation' here -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
Honesty.



Am I being less-than-forthright about anything here? Any objections?


ckaihatsu wrote:
Do I still have a chance to love equity capital, and despise landholdings and equity-finance, for the sake of my soul? (grin)



Truth To Power wrote:
Of course you can choose honesty and righteousness. Nothing stops you but your commitment to injustice and evil.



Are you going to stick to *politics* / economics, or are you edging things over to some kind of imposed *moralism*, on my person in *particular* -- ?

If so, go-fish elsewhere.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Would you really deny the overthrow of *monarchy* to the people of Russia, even though the American colonies kicked out the *British* crown -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
The Russian monarchy had already been overthrown several months before the socialists took power by violence, and there was no chance it could be restored after it was formally dissolved a month before the Bolshevik putsch.



Note that the overthrow of the Russian monarchy was accomplished by (revolutionary) *violence*:



Revolutionary activity lasted about eight days, involving mass demonstrations and violent armed clashes with police and gendarmes, the last loyal forces of the Russian monarchy.



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



And, similarly:



1766

[...]

Liberty Pole erected in New York City commons in celebration of the Stamp Act repeal (May 21). An intermittent skirmish with the British garrison over the removal of this and other poles, and their replacement by the Sons of Liberty, rages until the Province of New York is under the control of the revolutionary New York Provincial Congress in 1775



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_ ... Revolution



So again my point stands that there was U.S. and Allied *discrimination* against the people of Russia and China, in *their* nationalist / anti-colonialist revolutions.

Regarding the 'putsch', maybe you're thinking of *this*:



1917 Russian Revolution: The Kornilov putsch

[...]

In the dramatic weeks after the July Days of 1917 in Russia, the small forces of the Bolsheviks had started to recover and regroup, gaining ground not least in the proletarian base of Petrograd. Yet the danger of reaction had not gone away. During the summer, General Kornilov had been appointed to lead the Russian forces on the Western front.

It soon became clear, however, that he had ambitions of his own and saw himself as a Russian Napoleon, ready to “save” the country by becoming its dictator. His intention was to use the military forces under him to achieve that aim.



https://www.socialist.net/1917-russian- ... putsch.htm



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, let me *clarify* this: There's 'nothing wrong' with private-equity debt,



Truth To Power wrote:
<sigh> Only when it is undertaken to finance creation of a production system. Can't you read?



ckaihatsu wrote:
*or* with debt-creation by private commercial banks, based on a debt-money system,



Truth To Power wrote:
No, based on a 100% reserve system where private commercial banks cannot increase the money supply because they have to have reserves to cover their demand deposits.

I repeat: can't you read?



This is a *reactionary* political position, because you're calling for a *deflationary* money supply, one that *can't* expand with either the population growth rate, *or* with the increased productivity and an *increased* supply of produced goods and services, that need a larger money supply, to provide face-values / valuations for all of that production.



Free silver was a major economic policy issue in the United States in the late 19th-century. Its advocates were in favor of an expansionary monetary policy featuring the unlimited coinage of silver into money on-demand, as opposed to strict adherence to the more carefully fixed money supply implicit in the gold standard. Free silver became increasingly associated with populism, unions, and the fight of ordinary Americans against the bankers and monopolists, and the robber barons of the Gilded Age capitalism era and was referred to as the "People's Money."



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



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
*or* with the endless bidding-up of rentier-type (non-productive) assets -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
Can't you read? I have stated that a geoist economy would abolish such assets entirely.



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



Truth To Power wrote:
As you know, but always pretend not to, I oppose capitalism. I am merely aware of the fact that socialism is even worse.



No, you *don't* oppose capitalism because you're all-for *private equity capital*.


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



Truth To Power wrote:
Nope. Flat wrong.



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



Truth To Power wrote:
The history of finance capitalism describes finance capitalism, not geoism.



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



Truth To Power wrote:
"Time's up."



Should Morgan have bailed out the U.S. economy, as he did, or not -- ?

(As soon as he *does*, that's *finance*, and is *debt* for the U.S. government, the same as if it had printed its own fiat currency.)
#15230552
ckaihatsu wrote:You're using a *capitalism* yardstick, though -- as though workers would have to fit-into the *existing structure*, and become financial / managerial movers-and-shakers.

No, I am observing that they do not know how to design, create, or operate a production system.
All workers know *their own* workplace roles, and also the roles of those they interact with, to greater or lesser extents.

Just as an actor knows his role and those of his fellow thespians. That doesn't mean he, or all of them together, could ever in 1000 years write the script.

GET IT???
The *point* of all of this is to say that, *functionally*, this is sufficient -- and, built-out, would be sufficient for inter-worker coordination, and co-administration on mass scales, beginning with the individual worker's own known work roles / tasks / duties.

None of which he has any clue about until the entrepreneur tells him what he has to do.
On the condition / treatment of workers in *general*, in society, sure, I can partially agree that 'geoist' global land reform, in a single-payer kind of way, would be an incremental societal *improvement*, but it would still be *incremental*, and a radical-reform for just land only.

The geoist reform I advocate is not for land only, although that is by far the most important reform, which will make all the rest possible.
Why not extend it to *health care*, and *housing*, etc. -- ?

Because they are not rights. There are definitely issues that make health care a market failure, and government should at least be paying for most medically effective care. But housing is a privately produced good that can benefit from market competition. A geoist economy would have ample good, affordable housing because that would be the only way for landholders to make a profit.
Do you have any reservations with full *nationalization* -- of land, healthcare, housing, etc.

I have no issues with land nationalization in principle, but in practice it is probably better and certainly less wrenching to just reform it. Health care is a privately produced good, and while government has a role in its provision and certainly regulation, there is no good reason to nationalize it. Housing should be left to the free market, which would provide plenty of it absent the exorbitant subsidy to idle landowning.
In other words the construction workers aren't receiving any kind of *equity* -- you were initially indicating some sort of 'unappreciated social role', or a special-case kind of 'dispossession', perhaps for all blue-collar workers in general, but you weren't clear as to what you were getting-at.

Everyone has been dispossessed of their rights to liberty, and deserves just compensation. That would restore workers' bargaining power, eliminating the systematic exploitation characteristic of capitalism.
Wouldn't you regularly say here that a *wage* is 'fair', including for all *construction workers* as well -- ?

A wage agreed under duress is not fair. But the solution is to remove the duress by removing the privilege that creates it, not try to fix it with layers of countervailing privilege or removal of others' rights.
Am I being less-than-forthright about anything here?

Yes: your disingenuous refusal to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.
Any objections?

Evil must always be justified, and the only way to justify it is with lies. You do the math.
Are you going to stick to *politics* / economics, or are you edging things over to some kind of imposed *moralism*, on my person in *particular* -- ?

Economics is inherently normative.
Note that the overthrow of the Russian monarchy was accomplished by (revolutionary) *violence*:

A system sustained by violence can of course rightly be overthrown by violence. That doesn't mean it's always the best route, as the contrast between the British and American routes to emancipation of slaves shows.
So again my point stands that there was U.S. and Allied *discrimination* against the people of Russia and China, in *their* nationalist / anti-colonialist revolutions.

US foreign policy has been atrocious for at least a century, with the brief 1941-51 intermission.
Regarding the 'putsch', maybe you're thinking of *this*:

No, the October "Revolution" that overthrew a democratically elected government.
This is a *reactionary* political position, because you're calling for a *deflationary* money supply, one that *can't* expand with either the population growth rate, *or* with the increased productivity and an *increased* supply of produced goods and services, that need a larger money supply, to provide face-values / valuations for all of that production.

Garbage. I advocate direct government control of the money supply through an independent Mint whose sole mandate is price stability as measured by a commodity price index. It would issue enough new money to keep commodity prices stable (i.e., a steady increase in commodity-priced wages) by giving it to the Treasury to spend into circulation.
No, you *don't* oppose capitalism because you're all-for *private equity capital*.

No, I oppose capitalism because I am all for the productive having secure property in the fruits of their labor.
Should Morgan have bailed out the U.S. economy, as he did, or not -- ?

The economy should never have been in a situation where it would need Morgan to bail it out. That's how banksters rob the rest of us under the debt money system.
(As soon as he *does*, that's *finance*, and is *debt* for the U.S. government, the same as if it had printed its own fiat currency.)

That is anti-economic nonsense that only shows you know nothing about money. Fiat currency is not debt for the government.
#15230558
ckaihatsu wrote:
You're using a *capitalism* yardstick, though -- as though workers would have to fit-into the *existing structure*, and become financial / managerial movers-and-shakers.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I am observing that they do not know how to design, create, or operate a production system.



Untrue.

Workers are *used* to doing the day-to-day, and it's hardly a stretch to say that they could be similarly professionally cooperative -- but in their *own* material interests, instead of doing it for the private aggrandizement of the employer.


ckaihatsu wrote:
All workers know *their own* workplace roles, and also the roles of those they interact with, to greater or lesser extents.



Truth To Power wrote:
Just as an actor knows his role and those of his fellow thespians. That doesn't mean he, or all of them together, could ever in 1000 years write the script.

GET IT???



No, I'm not *going* to 'get-it', because I *don't agree* with you.

The process of *doing* (regularly everyday job roles) lends itself to *networking* -- which could then be for *anything*, according to what the workers think would be *best*, for the greater societal situation.


ckaihatsu wrote:
The *point* of all of this is to say that, *functionally*, this is sufficient -- and, built-out, would be sufficient for inter-worker coordination, and co-administration on mass scales, beginning with the individual worker's own known work roles / tasks / duties.



Truth To Power wrote:
None of which he has any clue about until the entrepreneur tells him what he has to do.



Bullshit -- this is downright *laughable*, as though people are the automatons that you *think* they are.


ckaihatsu wrote:
On the condition / treatment of workers in *general*, in society, sure, I can partially agree that 'geoist' global land reform, in a single-payer kind of way, would be an incremental societal *improvement*, but it would still be *incremental*, and a radical-reform for just land only.



Truth To Power wrote:
The geoist reform I advocate is not for land only, although that is by far the most important reform, which will make all the rest possible.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Why not extend it to *health care*, and *housing*, etc. -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
Because they are not rights. There are definitely issues that make health care a market failure, and government should at least be paying for most medically effective care. But housing is a privately produced good that can benefit from market competition. A geoist economy would have ample good, affordable housing because that would be the only way for landholders to make a profit.



Based on *this*, it sounds mostly like you have some particular *personal* vested interests in *land*, and now things are spiralling out of control, and you're having to go to the bourgeois government for 'leadership' because you can't handle the real-estate thing any longer.

On *political principle*, yes, one would want to take as much as possible out of the hands of private interests, including 'housing', 'food', etc., for full-nationalization, since the private sector failed spectacularly across-the-board when the coronavirus hit. (Etc.)


ckaihatsu wrote:
Do you have any reservations with full *nationalization* -- of land, healthcare, housing, etc.



Truth To Power wrote:
I have no issues with land nationalization in principle, but in practice it is probably better and certainly less wrenching to just reform it. Health care is a privately produced good, and while government has a role in its provision and certainly regulation, there is no good reason to nationalize it. Housing should be left to the free market, which would provide plenty of it absent the exorbitant subsidy to idle landowning.



So why only 'land', then, and not *other* kinds of natural-monopolies, too, like the ones you're listing -- ?


ckaihatsu wrote:
In other words the construction workers aren't receiving any kind of *equity* -- you were initially indicating some sort of 'unappreciated social role', or a special-case kind of 'dispossession', perhaps for all blue-collar workers in general, but you weren't clear as to what you were getting-at.



Truth To Power wrote:
Everyone has been dispossessed of their rights to liberty, and deserves just compensation. That would restore workers' bargaining power, eliminating the systematic exploitation characteristic of capitalism.



Bullshit -- you want to let *equity capital* off-the-hook, as though rainbows shine out of its ass.


ckaihatsu wrote:
Wouldn't you regularly say here that a *wage* is 'fair', including for all *construction workers* as well -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
A wage agreed under duress is not fair. But the solution is to remove the duress by removing the privilege that creates it, not try to fix it with layers of countervailing privilege or removal of others' rights.



Even in a 'geoist' society, wage exploitation would continue -- again, new values have to come from somewhere, and that's due to economic exploitation of workers' surplus labor value, by equity capital / the-employer.


ckaihatsu wrote:
Am I being less-than-forthright about anything here?



Truth To Power wrote:
Yes: your disingenuous refusal to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Any objections?



Truth To Power wrote:
Evil must always be justified, and the only way to justify it is with lies. You do the math.



Okay, so 'no' then -- bluster away as much as you like, though.


ckaihatsu wrote:
Are you going to stick to *politics* / economics, or are you edging things over to some kind of imposed *moralism*, on my person in *particular* -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
Economics is inherently normative.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Note that the overthrow of the Russian monarchy was accomplished by (revolutionary) *violence*:



Truth To Power wrote:
A system sustained by violence can of course rightly be overthrown by violence. That doesn't mean it's always the best route, as the contrast between the British and American routes to emancipation of slaves shows.



Feel free to elaborate.

Also, you may want to look at the Western bourgeois revolutions side-by-side -- English, American, and French -- along with *non-Western*, similar anti-monarchical revolutions, Russian and Chinese.


ckaihatsu wrote:
So again my point stands that there was U.S. and Allied *discrimination* against the people of Russia and China, in *their* nationalist / anti-colonialist revolutions.



Truth To Power wrote:
US foreign policy has been atrocious for at least a century, with the brief 1941-51 intermission.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Regarding the 'putsch', maybe you're thinking of *this*:



Truth To Power wrote:
No, the October "Revolution" that overthrew a democratically elected government.



Oh, you mean the *Provisional Government* -- ?

All power to the soviets.


ckaihatsu wrote:
This is a *reactionary* political position, because you're calling for a *deflationary* money supply, one that *can't* expand with either the population growth rate, *or* with the increased productivity and an *increased* supply of produced goods and services, that need a larger money supply, to provide face-values / valuations for all of that production.



Truth To Power wrote:
Garbage. I advocate direct government control of the money supply through an independent Mint whose sole mandate is price stability as measured by a commodity price index. It would issue enough new money to keep commodity prices stable (i.e., a steady increase in commodity-priced wages) by giving it to the Treasury to spend into circulation.



Fed 2.0.


ckaihatsu wrote:
No, you *don't* oppose capitalism because you're all-for *private equity capital*.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I oppose capitalism because I am all for the productive having secure property in the fruits of their labor.



It's not going to happen as long as equity capital can continue to exploit the labor commodity, through employment of the laborer.


ckaihatsu wrote:
Should Morgan have bailed out the U.S. economy, as he did, or not -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
The economy should never have been in a situation where it would need Morgan to bail it out. That's how banksters rob the rest of us under the debt money system.



And yet it happened, and history shows us that U.S. society is hegemonic, by its *merchant* / finance ruling class. (In China, by comparison, the *bureaucracy*, and not merchants, is hegemonic.)


ckaihatsu wrote:
(As soon as he *does*, that's *finance*, and is *debt* for the U.S. government, the same as if it had printed its own fiat currency.)



Truth To Power wrote:
That is anti-economic nonsense that only shows you know nothing about money. Fiat currency is not debt for the government.



Feel free to elaborate. (You're talking about post-Bretton-Woods.)
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