Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Dec 16, 2021 8:53 pm Americans are the world's 1%.

That's not very likely given that they represent around 5% of the global population.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 6:04 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Dec 16, 2021 8:53 pm Americans are the world's 1%.

That's not very likely given that they represent around 5% of the global population.

That's apples to oranges.

We're talking income, not numbers of people here. And yes, the average American income puts the average American in the 1%.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 6:16 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 6:04 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Dec 16, 2021 8:53 pm Americans are the world's 1%.

That's not very likely given that they represent around 5% of the global population.

That's apples to oranges.

We're talking income, not numbers of people here. And yes, the average American income puts the average American in the 1%.

Mathematically that can only be the case if America has sufficient income inequality that the average wage there rests somewhere within the 7th decile or above of the income spread. Not the wisest choice of argument with which to confront a Marxist.

You are using raw income figures not purchasing power anyway. What matters is what you are able to buy with your income, not how many pieces of paper are in your wallet. I'm sure you would like to tell us all about your adventures in the developing world somewhere $100 bought you a lot more stuff than it does in New York.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 6:30 pm You are using raw income figures not purchasing power anyway.

Oh, it's much worse than you think. Because as commodities become shorter, as in Marxist States they always do, their price goes up, not down. The value of that 10K remains flat. It doesn't gain in "purchasing power," it loses, and loses big.

Meanwhile, that alleged 10k the government hands you has to cover everything you can possibly want or need. And you can't have any more, because any more would be "unequal." If you do anything to add value, you are immediately required to redistribute it, so "equality" can be achieved.

But Leftists don't want "equality." They want "equity," which differs in this way: that certain groups are owed MORE than others, because of alleged "historic injustices" to which they are presumed heirs. So you must also pay your reparations out of your 10K.

And how much? Well, the entitled "communities" never say how much would pay off the "historic" debt. It's infinite. So if we buy the Leftist argument about equity, you have something considerably less than 10K to live on. In Minnesota. In the winter. No matter how sick you get, or what kind of education you want, or how much food you think you need...

C'mon, American Marxists: tell us about how good this is going to be.

Dangerpants is right, tho. It's the purchasing power of those incomes that should be examined... not a comparison of relative incomes across the planet. Also the circumstances of the purchasing power. How much of that purchasing is done with credit, which adds another expense - interest accrued - to the purchasing process.

"Because as commodities become shorter, as in Marxist States they always do, their price goes up, not down."

But again, there haven't yet been any Marxist states. Your homegirl Rosa the Red already explained this to you in her quora digest that you didn't browse.

Here, don't read this either. Instead, refer to the pseudo-marxist states of Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc., when someone axes you about the track record of Marxism.

Tell them how brain surgeons will make as much as janitors...er, excuse me, I mean 'custodial technicians', and how the state will own everything, including your eating utensils.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 7:40 pm ..., there haven't yet been any Marxist states...

Yes, this is what is always said. Nobody ever "gets it right." As risible as that excuse is, it keeps coming up over and over again.

But WHY don't they "get it right"? And what's our warrant for thinking that the next guy will "get it right"? And since nobody's ever "gotten it right," what is the basis for anybody to believe that there's any way to "get it right" at all?

More importantly, what poisonous influence came in and made the Russians, the Chinese, the Venzuelans, the Zimbabweans, and every other aspiring-Marxist state in the history of the world get it so very, very wrong...what made them able to kill so many millions of people.

Don't you want to know, before you tell us to try again?

But all this is also a different issue from the obvious practical question, how are you going to keep Minnesotans alive, healthy, happy and educated on some fraction of $10K a year?

the pseudo-marxist states

so there's never been a true marxism, and no one wants to stick their neck out and describe...

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=34096

...how a true marxism might actually work

it's like tryin' to sell me a car, sight unseen, with no possibility of return

promethean75 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 5:24 pm Hold on Quirk I'm eating three over-priced cheddar melts at a badly managed Arby's. Imma holla atcha tho.

no worries...I don't actually expect a response

"So: an individual's right to his life, liberty, property, these are just persistent memes"

That's correct, because 'rights' only exists if one has the power to exercise them. They are not granted by some 'god', nor are they 'self evident'. If I come take your shit, apparently your right to property is NOT evident. Instead, people agree to establish laws and enforce them. But that again depends on a measure of power to do so.

"which ought be jettisoned in favor of a system of production/distribution thru which all contribute and benefit equally, yeah?"

No, unless you mean some privileges, opportunities and rights - like medical care, education, housing - are extended to everyone, by your phrase 'benefit equally'. But if you mean everyone will have the same personal property, social mobility and capacity to advance in profession... then no. People are not equal in this regard, nor would a Marxist want them to be, as that would destroy any incentive to better oneself.

Whaddya think, Karl? How they doin so far?

"More importantly, what poisonous influence came in and made the Russians, the Chinese, the Venzuelans, the Zimbabweans, and every other aspiring-Marxist state in the history of the world get it so very, very wrong...what made them able to kill so many millions of people."

The two biggest reasons were probably the super-exploitation of the people (workin niggas to def) in order to drastically hike up production to compete with capitalist economies around the world. Socialism can't work in a sea of capitalism, remember, and any socialist state becomes isolationist... or cooperates with some other struggling socialist state (for the same reasons). The result; a big ass, mismanaged cluster-fuck of inefficiency and rusty AK-47 trading.

The second reason was probably the failure to decentralize the vanguard party that governed the fledgling Marxist state, and turn over control to self managing soviets/syndicates/workers counsels. Basically the Maos and Castros and Shtalins didn't wanna give up control and declared the revolutions complete due to a misunderstanding of leninism (the vanguard party theory).

And when you combine boaf of dees factors, well... you end up at some variation of state capitalism 'er time.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 11:22 pm "More importantly, what poisonous influence came in and made the Russians, the Chinese, the Venzuelans, the Zimbabweans, and every other aspiring-Marxist state in the history of the world get it so very, very wrong...what made them able to kill so many millions of people."

The two biggest reasons were probably the super-exploitation of the people (workin niggas to def) in order to drastically hike up production to compete with capitalist economies around the world.

Whoa.

So your explanation is as follows: Captialism was doing much better for people than Socialism could do unless Socialism hiked up its production by tyrannizing its citizens, opening gulags, and shooting enemies into a ditch. So the reason that Socialism became so vicious was...Capitalism's fault!

What a triumph of tortuous rationalizing! The reason for all Socialism's failures is Capitalism! Classic.

The second reason was probably the failure to decentralize the vanguard party that governed the fledgling Marxist state, and turn over control to self managing soviets/syndicates/workers counsels. Basically the Maos and Castros and Shtalins didn't wanna give up control and declared the revolutions complete due to a misunderstanding of leninism (the vanguard party theory).

Okay, let's accept that one for a minute.

What's to stop the despots who lead the revolution from becoming the next Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Maduro, Mugabe, Hoxta, Ceaucescu, Kim Jong, etc....? In history, it's happened every single time: the Party despots end up ruling the roost, and killing everybody they don't like. So what's in your "real" Marxism to guaranteed us that that cannot possibly happen again...even though it always has?

Real marxists say NO to putschism.

Revolutions have to begin from the bottom up. No more of these social Democrat shenanigans where some party seizes power, promises reform, and only ends up throwing the working classes a few more scraps.

Now since we're pretty sure nothing big will ever kick off in the streets, we have to somehow fully democratize the work place, first (read: professor Wolff). But this will take some major amending of the constitution and property rights. And conservatives ain't gonna let that happen without a fight.

Hard to say what'll happen, really. But keep your bandana poised for action cuz you never know.

"So your explanation is as follows: Captialism was doing much better for people than Socialism could do unless Socialism hiked up its production by tyrannizing its citizens, opening gulags, and shooting enemies into a ditch. So the reason that Socialism became so vicious was...Capitalism's fault!"

Some would argue that the Russian and Chinese revolutions were premature, according to orthodox theory. The idea is that you need a relatively modern economy and a great concentration of proletariat in order for an effective revolution to occur. Remember that tsarist Russia wasn't a modern industrial economy, but rather a mish-mash of primitive industry and agriculture dispersed over thousands of miles of wasteland inhabited by scattered peasants. Same with China but even worse. Mao's whole frickin army was armed only with garden rakes.

So what happens is, the revolution spawns prematurely because it attempts to emerge straight out of feudalistic model economies, not advanced industrial conditions. Marx believed in the stage theory... where each model creates internal conflicts that would lead to revolutionary change of said model. So, a socialist revolution proper would need to advance out of a fully functioning and robust capitalism... not a feudalism/mercantilism.

This is why we're living in an era where conditions are ripe in the first world for this to happen with some real balls, this time.

Fully functioning late stage capitalism. Check.

Struggling, indebted working classes who ain't tryna hear it anymore. Check.

Digital communications technology. Check.

Bald headed billionaires who think they're captain Picard flying celebrities to space instead of working to end poverty. Check.

All systems go.

pro,

'rights' only exists if one has the power to exercise them.

might makes right vs right justifies might

They are not granted by some 'god', nor are they 'self evident'.

Oh, the universal intuition of bein' one's own is quite evident.

If I come take your shit, apparently your right to property is NOT evident.

That's like sayin' becuz I can use a fire extinguisher, fire doesn't exist.

People are not equal in this regard, nor would a Marxist want them to be, as that would destroy any incentive to better oneself.

What happens to square peggish, self-reliant folks like you and me in a true marxism?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 18, 2021 12:50 am This is why we're living in an era where conditions are ripe in the first world for this to happen with some real balls, this time.

Fully functioning late stage capitalism. Check.

Struggling, indebted working classes who ain't tryna hear it anymore. Check.

Digital communications technology. Check.

Bald headed billionaires who think they're captain Picard flying celebrities to space instead of working to end poverty. Check.

All systems go.

You've left out a key ingredient, luckily for you there's plenty of it lying around waiting to be scooped up...

All the successful revolutionary efforts since .... hmmm quite a long time I would say.... have allowed for the collection of former ideological opponents under one slightly broadened umbrella and thus have gained critical mass by appealing to the disaffected troops of somebody else's failed revolution.

So the Bolsheviks added some mild anarchist platitudes into their rhetoric which brought in many converts from the anarchist movements, then they added some national self-determination stuff that appealed to the White Russians and further increased their manpower, all of which added to the sense of momentum that allowed them to seize power out of the chaos.

The Deutsche Arbeiterpartei renamed to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei and added some socialist stuff to their 25 point plan, which brought in many soldiers of the Social Democratic and even the KDP militias by promising to abolish unearned incomes and nationalise everything (even as their leadership reassured all the business leaders that so long as they adhered to the stuff about Jews they had no reason to fear the stuff about nationalisation).

The USA today has a legion of non specific angry people who attach themselves to every protest against otherness they can find. Tell them to be angry about a football player kneeling and they will be incandescent with rage for you. Tell them that wearing a mask to prevent the spread of a disease is equivalent to slavery and they will find some shit little philosophy forum to post angry memes to for years.

But they have a weird collection of nothing commitments entirely driven by fears. They all vote Republican right now, but they aren't free trade advocates, they are into protective tarrifs and closed borders. They hate capitalism, specifically the sort that moves money around the globe. They hate central authority that tells they have to educate their children, and it really worries them that their kids might learn that Jerry Falwell Sr only founded Liberty U after he lost some tax breaks for running whites only schools. They seem to be perpetually afraid that somebody wants to take Christmas away from them. And they often talk about how willing htey are to weild firearms in defence of whatever is being stolen from them.

It shouldn't be too hard to put together a program of political action tailored to bring them into any fold because they are currently a cult of personality that worships a wannabe strongman who is old, heavily linked to a dead pedophile, and addicted the abuse of prescription medicines. So when that guy is removed from the scene, his rabid followers are there for the taking and likely candidates to do that taking via traditional inheritance are shockingly stupid.

These people have already carried an election where they were promised a bunch of easy fixes to right the ship and no end of "winning". Instead they got daily injections of emergency. They could break either way.