[ckaihatsu]

The state is needed to enforce contracts. Business processes only work due to contracts. Contracts are peaceful agreements voluntarily consented to between 2 or more parties for mutual benefit. A worker doesn't have to attack their employer to get them to give them their paycheck and a business doesn't have to threaten to kill the spouse of a client if they don't pay back a debt. They go to court to enforce the contract rather than grab a weapon, which is what happens without a state. Russia and China behave like the mafia because their states are dysfunctional. Corporations run much of America because that state is also dysfunctional (corruption). A state that is actually ruled by its citizens is far less dysfunctional.

A state also enforces laws. If the world was a state Putin and Dubya Bush would be arrested for breaking the law and corporations couldn't steal resources from other countries...unless it was corrupt and dysfunctional and it was allowed by law. But I doubt the majority population of the world would allow such things. The main threat to the proper function of a state is when the power leaves the hands of the governed and tyrants come to control things, against the interests of the governed, which is what always happens in a dictatorship.

In your fantasy utopia who enforces rules? Who makes the person who steals a pretty piece of jewelry give it back to the collective? Violent gangs of workers?

The point here with all of this is that it's all *overhead*, to private property. Once there's no more social institution / respect for 'private property' (meaning *beyond* one's own personal usage / needs / wants), then there's no need for (governmental-type) *overhead* for that kind of economics, 'capitalism'.

Jewelry and other desirable kinds of goods are considered 'semi-rare' in the model:

'additive prioritizations'

Better, I think, would be an approach that is more routine and less time-sensitive in prioritizing among responders -- the thing that would differentiate demand would be people's *own* prioritizations, in relation to *all other* possibilities for demands. This means that only those most focused on Product 'X' or Event 'Y', to the abandonment of all else (relatively speaking), over several iterations (days), would be seen as 'most-wanting' of it, for ultimate receipt.

My 'communist supply and demand' model, fortunately, uses this approach as a matter of course:

consumption [demand] -- Every person in a locality has a standard, one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination

consumption [demand] -- A regular, routine system of mass individual political demand pooling -- as with spreadsheet templates and email -- must be in continuous operation so as to aggregate cumulative demands into the political process

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174


I'm also realizing that this model / method of demand-prioritization can be used in such a way as to lend relative *weight* to a person's bid for any given product or calendar event, if there happens to be a limited supply and a more-intensive prioritization ('rationing') is called-for by the objective situation:

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

Recall:

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

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

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

[Unthinking Majority]

The point here with all of this is that it's all *overhead*, to private property. Once there's no more social institution / respect for 'private property' (meaning *beyond* one's own personal usage / needs / wants), then there's no need for (governmental-type) *overhead* for that kind of economics, 'capitalism'.

Jewelry and other desirable kinds of goods are considered 'semi-rare' in the model:

In communism, if there are items that are rare enough that they can't be made for everyone they will be stolen by some, and somebody has to enforce the rules.

[ckaihatsu]

In communism, if there are items that are rare enough that they can't be made for everyone they will be stolen by some, and somebody has to enforce the rules.

Rare items belong in *museums*, and I think the social ethos / mores of a post-scarcity society would be enlightened enough for museums to be *respected*, unlike during the war on Iraq.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destructi ... amic_State

[Rich]

If the world was a state Putin and Dubya Bush would be arrested for breaking the law and corporations couldn't steal resources from other countries...unless it was corrupt and dysfunctional and it was allowed by law.

If the world was a functional uncorrupted state then Saddam Hussein and the Taliban would have already been dealt with and it wouldn't have been up to Bush and Blair to take moral leadership on those matters. It doesn't matter what else they did wrong. It doesn't matter what their motivation for doing the right thing was, the key point is that they did the right thing. The anti war movement was utterly wicked and shameful.

[ckaihatsu]

If the world was a state Putin and Dubya Bush would be arrested for breaking the law and corporations couldn't steal resources from other countries...unless it was corrupt and dysfunctional and it was allowed by law.

If the world was a functional uncorrupted state then Saddam Hussein and the Taliban would have already been dealt with and it wouldn't have been up to Bush and Blair to take moral leadership on those matters. It doesn't matter what else they did wrong. It doesn't matter what their motivation for doing the right thing was, the key point is that they did the right thing. The anti war movement was utterly wicked and shameful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... inal_Court

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... of_Justice

[QatzelOk]

We simply did not make a deal to not expand NATO.

And yet multiple sources (and my long memory) say that you are incorrect, and this is important.

21 Feb 2022 – A newly discovered document provides more evidence that Western governments broke their promise not to expand NATO eastward after German reunification.

Notes from a 1991 meeting between top US, British, French, and German officials confirm that there was a “general agreement that membership of NATO and security guarantees [are] unacceptable” for Central and Eastern Europe.

Germany’s diplomatic representative emphasized that the Soviet Union was promised in 1990 that “we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe” river, in eastern Germany....

West’s promises not to expand NATO eastward turned out to be a ‘dirty lie,’ — Putin
According to the Russian president, the West hoped for impunity believing "that it would get away with it as it did before"

NATO broke its "promise" not to expand but there must be no war, says Medvedev

Another thing to consider is the West's precedent. The invincible USA, for example,broke virtually all the treaties it made with the First Nations, over the course of a few centuries.

Lie after lie to get more stuff.

But now the USA is credible because it's governed by by Goldman Sachs, Blackrock, and Nancy Pelosi?

[late]

And yet multiple sources (and my long memory) say that you are incorrect, and this is important.

If a million morons says something, that doesn't make it important, or accurate.

"To understand Russia’s claims of betrayal, it is necessary to review the reassurances then US secretary of state James A. Baker made to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during a meeting on February 9, 1990. In a discussion on the status of a reunited Germany, the two men agreed that NATO would not extend past the territory of East Germany, a promise repeated by NATO’s secretary general in a speech on May 17 that same year in Brussels.

Russia and the West finally struck an agreement in September that would allow NATO to station its troops beyond the Iron Curtain. However, the deal only concerned a reunified Germany, with further eastward expansion being inconceivable at the time.

"The Soviet Union still existed and the countries of Eastern Europe were still part of the Soviet structures – like the Warsaw Pact – which was not officially dissolved until July 1991,"  said Amélie Zima, doctor of political science at the Thucydide Centre (Panthéon-Assas) in Paris. "We cannot speak of betrayal, because a chain of events that would rearrange the security configuration in Europe was about to take place."

In short, at a time when Westerners were offering the "guarantees" spoken of by Vladimir Putin, no one could have predicted the collapse of the USSR and the historic upheavals that followed.

"In addition, these promises were made orally and were never recorded in a treaty,” recalled Olivier Kempf, associate researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research. "The turning point of NATO enlargement came much later, in 1995, at the request of the Eastern European countries." 

That year, NATO published a study on its enlargement before starting membership talks two years later with Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, all of which would become members in 1999. The addition of these new members has long sparked debate within NATO, thus undermining the Russian myth of a betrayal orchestrated by the West. "Even within the American administration, some thought that NATO should not expand because it would make it less effective, dilute its skills and become a financial burden," explained Zima."

https://www.france24.com/en/russia/2022 ... o-the-east

You could have found that in the same 30 seconds it took me to find it. You had not studied the history, and didn't want to know...

You have your story, that is what matters to you.

[QatzelOk]

If a million morons says something, that doesn't make it important, or accurate.

That's why I quoted multiple sources, and also mentionned my own memory of the events as they were happenning. You only went with one source, and the source you mentionned was "out of date" when all of my articles were written.

https://www.france24.com/en/russia/20220130-did-nato-betray-russia-by-expanding-to-the-east

You could have found that in the same 30 seconds it took me to find it. You had not studied the history, and didn't want to know...

You have your story, that is what matters to you.

You actually, are the one with "only one story." And it's an out-dated one.

And you've never mentionned your own recollection of the events at the time, meaning that either you don't have one (you weren't paying attention or were too young) OR you simply want to forget history and keep scooping up colonies for the banksters.

[ckaihatsu]

If a million morons says something, that doesn't make it important, or accurate.

"To understand Russia’s claims of betrayal, it is necessary to review the reassurances then US secretary of state James A. Baker made to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during a meeting on February 9, 1990. In a discussion on the status of a reunited Germany, the two men agreed that NATO would not extend past the territory of East Germany, a promise repeated by NATO’s secretary general in a speech on May 17 that same year in Brussels.

Russia and the West finally struck an agreement in September that would allow NATO to station its troops beyond the Iron Curtain. However, the deal only concerned a reunified Germany, with further eastward expansion being inconceivable at the time.

"The Soviet Union still existed and the countries of Eastern Europe were still part of the Soviet structures – like the Warsaw Pact – which was not officially dissolved until July 1991,"  said Amélie Zima, doctor of political science at the Thucydide Centre (Panthéon-Assas) in Paris. "We cannot speak of betrayal, because a chain of events that would rearrange the security configuration in Europe was about to take place."

In short, at a time when Westerners were offering the "guarantees" spoken of by Vladimir Putin, no one could have predicted the collapse of the USSR and the historic upheavals that followed.

"In addition, these promises were made orally and were never recorded in a treaty,” recalled Olivier Kempf, associate researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research. "The turning point of NATO enlargement came much later, in 1995, at the request of the Eastern European countries." 

That year, NATO published a study on its enlargement before starting membership talks two years later with Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, all of which would become members in 1999. The addition of these new members has long sparked debate within NATO, thus undermining the Russian myth of a betrayal orchestrated by the West. "Even within the American administration, some thought that NATO should not expand because it would make it less effective, dilute its skills and become a financial burden," explained Zima."

https://www.france24.com/en/russia/2022 ... o-the-east

You could have found that in the same 30 seconds it took me to find it. You had not studied the history, and didn't want to know...

You have your story, that is what matters to you.

He's saying that it was all a *giant misunderstanding*, Qatzel, so nothing-to-see-here, keep-moving, etc.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controver ... assurances

[late]

That's why I quoted multiple sources, and also mentionned my own memory of the events as they were happening. You only went with one source, and the source you mentionned was "out of date" when all of my articles were written.



You actually, are the one with "only one story." And it's an out-dated one.

Thanks for the laugh, I used a good source, you can dig up a million morons, but crap is still crap.

The history is quite clear. You can't find me a treaty that says don't expand because no such thing exists..

What I quoted was accurate, so don't waste our time with more BS unless you can prove it wrong...

[ckaihatsu]

In July 2022, Russia warned Western countries from imposing additional sanctions on Russian energy. In a TV interview on Rossiya 24, Putin claimed “sanctions restrictions on Russia cause much more damage to those countries that impose them”. While Russia's energy industry was stabilized through redirecting oil exports to India and China, Western countries have experienced unprecedented inflation that has hampered economic growth, and increased the risk of a global recession.[58]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... #Sanctions

[late]

sanctions

This is like free speech. Free speech ain't always free.

There's 2 common ways of looking at this, WW1 and WW2. Do you continue to let things slide; or do you try and stop him before WW3 starts.

Either approach can fail, either can succeed. And I hate to say this, but I'm with Winston Churchill on this one.

[ckaihatsu]

This is like free speech. Free speech ain't always free.

There's 2 common ways of looking at this, WW1 and WW2. Do you continue to let things slide; or do you try and stop him before WW3 starts.

Either approach can fail, either can succeed. And I hate to say this, but I'm with Winston Churchill on this one.

Don't know if it was *you*, but this issue has cropped-up in the not-too-distant past.

If you're going to *insist* on being a statist, then:

Hope strangled again

In a famous passage, Winston Churchill recalled how he met Stalin in Moscow in October 1944 and said to him, ‘So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have 90 percent predominance in Romania, for us to have 90 percent in Greece and go 50-50 about Yugoslavia?’

Churchill wrote down a list of countries with the appropriate percentages next to them, and Stalin wrote a large tick on it.

At length I said, ‘Might it not be thought rather cynical if it seemed we had disposed of these issues, so fateful to millions of people, in such an offhand manner? Let us burn the paper.’ ‘No, you keep it,’ said Stalin.250

It was not the resistance fighters in Greece, Italy and France who decided Europe’s destiny, but meetings such as this. At conferences in Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam, Stalin agreed with Churchill and Roosevelt to divide Europe into spheres of influence. The US was not happy with this division at first. It hoped to use its massive industrial superiority to transform the whole world into a single US sphere of influence, free trade providing it with open markets everywhere.251 Churchill, committed as ever to maintaining an empire run exclusively from London, would not countenance this, and neither would Stalin, who had the sheer size of Russia’s army to counter US economic power. Between them they persuaded Roosevelt to accept the division they wanted.

The deals were a death blow to the hopes of the resistance movements. They gave Stalin’s armies a free hand in Eastern Europe. Stalin was not going to let Communists elsewhere upset the arrangement by attempting to lead revolutions, however favourable the mass of people might be. His former foreign minister Litvinov spelt it out bluntly to US representatives in Italy in September 1944: ‘We do not want revolutions in the West’.252

Harman, _People's History of the World_, pp. 536-537

[ckaihatsu]

Good thing you mentioned you're a *progressive*, late, otherwise I'd've mistaken you for a *nationalist* -- !


= D

[late]

Harman, _People's History of the World_, pp. 536-537

Harman was a Socialist, not a historian.

After Hitler was dead, Britain was pretty much done for. America was more than ready to call it quits.

As I've pointed out before, we had no idea what to do about Stalin. It took a while to figure that out. You can say we should have done more, but we had done a lot. Ironically, you appear to agree with Patton that we should have dealt with Stalin while we still had an army in Europe. But, politically, Americans had had it with the war.

[Unthinking Majority]

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... of_Justice

You can't put George Bush or Putin in front of the ICC because there's no global police to arrest them, because there's no global government. The ICC is a nice attempt but it's a joke.

[Unthinking Majority]

Rare items belong in *museums*, and I think the social ethos / mores of a post-scarcity society would be enlightened enough for museums to be *respected*, unlike during the war on Iraq.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destructi ... amic_State

You're going to get full compliance on everyone in the entire world voluntarily giving up all their rare valuable items...without violence? And then nobody will ever try to steal the items in the museum? Good luck!

Rape and murder will also disappear!

[ckaihatsu]

You can't put George Bush or Putin in front of the ICC because there's no global police to arrest them, because there's no global government. The ICC is a nice attempt but it's a joke.

If countries like the U.S. can take up membership in trans-national / 'supra-national' / international organizations like the UN or NATO, then the only distance remaining to the ICC or ICJ is that of *political will* -- similarly to the festering police violence issue.

[ckaihatsu]

You're going to get full compliance on everyone in the entire world voluntarily giving up all their rare valuable items...without violence? And then nobody will ever try to steal the items in the museum? Good luck!

Rape and murder will also disappear!

Well, I appreciate your *time*, UM, but I'd say don't-bother from here on out, if you're just going to take pot-shots from afar.

Also, *you're* violence.

[Unthinking Majority]

Well, I appreciate your *time*, UM, but I'd say don't-bother from here on out, if you're just going to take pot-shots from afar.

Also, *you're* violence.

I'm trying to do you a big favor and convince you that your nonsensical ideas are bad. It's not working.

I'm not violence. I'm not the one wanting to take all private property from everyone.