The façade of Marxist 'Class Struggle'

[AnarchistCain]

In 1848 Marx wrote this in the Communist Manifesto:

"Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat."

In Capital Volume 3, Chapter on Classes he wrote:

"The owners merely of labour-power, owners of capital, and land-owners, whose respective sources of income are wages, profit and ground-rent, in other words, wage-labourers, capitalists and land-owners, constitute then three big classes of modern society based upon the capitalist mode of production."

At the end of this chapter Marx goes on to say:

"However, from this standpoint, physicians and officials, e.g., would also constitute two classes, for they belong to two distinct social groups, the members of each of these groups receiving their revenue from one and the same source. The same would also be true of the infinite fragmentation of interest and rank into which the division of social labour splits labourers as well as capitalists and landlords-the latter, e.g., into owners of vineyards, farm owners, owners of forests, mine owners and owners of fisheries."

Then the third volume of Capital ends...

I propose to this group that the Marxist theory of class struggle is a facade formulated by Marx in order to substantiate his historical materialism dialectic. The idea of 'classes' in a society are ambiguous and can be carried out to suit the subjective needs of the viewer as Marx described in his above statement. Capitalists are in constant competition in acquiring wealth and resources, certainly not thinking of 'class interests'. The workers themselves can be described as thus "This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves." Therefore, both capitalists and workers are continually competing with one another under the premise of self-interest.

We have here above the 'logic progression' [if it can be called such] of Marx's inevitable class antagonism theory. From a theory of simplification of classes into either Bourgeois or Proletariat into a hints of a complex multi-class system with Ricardian flavor. If there is a multi-class system where one can be in any class at any time at any point of there life, then it is absurd to establish the claim that society will advance from the inevitable 'consciousness' of a class that is so haphazardly defined. Marxists to date are constantly changing what it means to be a proletariat in order to sustain their dying religion. I had recently been told that the proletariat class was now everyone from the lower to middle classes. Certainly Marx did not see the 'middle class' as the proletariat, perhaps in his mind they could be pushed into that class but it is very clearly stated that they are workers who make only subsistence.

Capitalists themselves were described as those sustaining their lifestyles on 'surplus profit' and nothing else, yet Bill Gates labors for his corporation [however much he does is irrelevent, for when he labors he stops being a 'capitalist'] and yet these serve as examples of the facade I am presenting. Class could mean anything to anyone and this is only confirmed by continued Marxist revisionism.

[New Tet]

"Class struggle"? What "class struggle"?

http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/usbj1895/jan13_1895_usbj.pdf

[AnarchistCain]

A libertarian must educate a Socialist (?) on Marxist class struggle?

Or perhaps were you making a witty quip?

[Nwoye]

I think it's unfair to Marx and his theory of class struggle, to not at the very least consider it as a product (or a reaction to) his time period. We're talking about mid-19th century Europe, where economies were transforming from primarily agrarian economies to mass-producing consumer economies. With technological development came capital accumulation, as labor costs shrunk and production rose. When Marx was writing, there was a clear and growing distinction between the workers and the capitalists, a distinction much the result of rapid technological development which concentrated capital in too few hands. Germany exemplified this process, as the country as a whole made rapid leaps in economic growth. So in Marx's time, his analysis was accurate.

Now transfer these theories into modern society, and they obviously do not seem to apply as aptly. The progressive and reformist movements of the early 20th century, much of which came as a result of the Great Depression and other perceived failures of capitalism (labor exploitation, dust bowl, etc), has given rise to more interventionist and pro-working class public policies. Policies such as minimum wages, recognition of labor unions, redistributive taxation, medicaid, etc were implemented to satisfy the pleas of poor workers, and their "representatives". Consequently, the general standard of living has risen, and such the lines between classes have been blurred.

As a result of these policies, and a result of growing technological abilities, we saw large scale capital flight, and economic globalization. With labor costs in the United States rising (the the tax rates rising as well), corporations shifted operations overseas, where governments had for the most part repressed populist labor movements. The governments of more developed nations were integral to this transformation of the world economy, as they used military and political power to serve the interests of these transnational corporations (see Lenin's, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism). As these corporations found new sources of labor, the american (and western in general) standard of living, and general wage level, began to rise. As a whole, the role of the proletariat has been shifted overseas, as capital has traveled from place to place searching for cheap labor. Back in the West, citizens prosper from government intervention in the form of social welfare policies, and from foreign production, as they assume jobs centered around services, management, and finance (how much the working class actually "benefits" from government intervention is debatable, but I think an analysis of its history shows the state to consistently be an organ of class rule).

To sum up, Marx's analysis for the most part holds true, if you consider recent developments in economic globalization. I mean, there's a pretty clear distinction between the working class and bourgeois class in Southeast Asia, or Latin America, for example.

[Jack]

You're welcome to check out the Worker Struggles section, if you wanted a dose of class struggle.

[AnarchistCain]

'Your proposal is hereby rejected on the basis that it is based on argument from ignorance.'

To utilize this claim you need to concede that historical materialism has yet to be proven true [therefore it has not existed]. So which is it? Is historical materialism non-existent based only in theory or did you misspeak?

'Historical materialism is different from dialectical materialism. learn2Marx.'

Marx in the Communist Manifesto was trying to establish evidence of class struggle throughout history between classes. Applying dialectical materialism in a historical fashion.

'Classes are not carried out anywhere. Workers are those who depend solely on their labor for their survival. Capitalists are those who depend on non-labor income as the major part of their income. Do you get this?'

This is wonderful doublethink. 'Classes are not carried out anywhere' yet you establish the Worker class and the Capitalist class in the next two sentences. Who are those who do not labor for survival nor like capitalists, subsist off surplus labor? Are you inventing another class in the Marxist system through revisionism?

'Class as defined by Marxists is based on ownership of wealth and property, not on income.'

Karl Kautsky Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx:
'The employer of wage workers only becomes a capitalist when the mass of surplus-value created by them is large enough to assure him a comfortable income and to increase his wealth, without his being obliged to put his own shoulder to the wheel.'

'Have you ever worked anywhere?'

Of course. Labor is a means to an end :p

[AnarchistCain]

' I think it's unfair to Marx and his theory of class struggle, to not at the very least consider it as a product (or a reaction to) his time period.'

To state this is to concede that his future predictions about class struggle are false thereby implying that his whole theory of historical materialism [ class struggle ] is basically a falsehood, which I am trying to rationalize to you individuals. Now I wish this were the truth but you probably just misspoke without fully thinking through the implications of this statement. Let's get the game back on, you believe in the inevitable socialist revolution because capitalism supposed creates its own gravediggers and I think you are wrong [we obviously can't both believe you are wrong whither you explicitly or implicitly concede it and then hope to continue debate and I don't want to actually be proven right on my first day..that would just be tragic...so game back on, dismiss this comment and carry on]

'We're talking about mid-19th century Europe, where economies were transforming from primarily agrarian economies to mass-producing consumer economies.'

Capitalism existed in the 12th century and in practice there it was in pockets throughout the Middle Ages. I do believe though that Marx was convinced that capitalism would be dead in the mid 19th century with the revolutions happening throughout Europe. Yet here we are...still 'capitalistic' in a sense.

'The progressive and reformist movements of the early 20th century, much of which came as a result of the Great Depression and other perceived failures of capitalism (labor exploitation, dust bowl, etc)'

Actually the progressive movement was a result from pietist millennialists who wanted to use government to establish a 'kingdom of God' on Earth. Rather interesting time.

'Policies such as minimum wages, recognition of labor unions, redistributive taxation, medicaid, etc were implemented to satisfy the pleas of poor workers, and their "representatives". Consequently, the general standard of living has risen, and such the lines between classes have been blurred.'

Actually standards of living rise due to increase productivity and capital development. Wages can't merely go up because unions wish them to be so.

'The governments of more developed nations were integral to this transformation of the world economy, as they used military and political power to serve the interests of these transnational corporations (see Lenin's, [I]Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism).'

We agree on the concept of mercantilism is a moral wrong. However, Lenin like many Socialists confuse Mercantilism with Capitalism. They are in fact two distinct ideologies.

'As a whole, the role of the proletariat has been shifted overseas, as capital has traveled from place to place searching for cheap labor.'

The individuals of developing nations were already on subsistence. To call them proletariat is a misnomer. They now in fact have a profession and are thereby already in a psychological sense better off then they were before [ being in a state of unemployment ]

'Back in the West, citizens prosper from government intervention in the form of social welfare policies, and from foreign production, as they assume jobs centered around services, management, and finance (how much the working class actually'

You label an 11 trillion dollar debt...prosperity?

'
To sum up, Marx's analysis for the most part holds true, if you consider recent developments in economic globalization. I mean, there's a pretty clear distinction between the working class and bourgeois class in Southeast Asia, or Latin America, for example.'

How strange. You start off this writing as saying Marx's theories were merely a product of his time...now you say his theories can even be applied to modern day actions.

[AnarchistCain]

'It exists in your head like any other fact.'

Then you concede that historical materialism is only a theory and not applicable to empirical data?

'I dont understand what is meant by "carried out". Classes just exist much like nations, but on a different basis.'

Indeed there are many classes. Everyone who weighs 160 lbs is certainly a class. A class of 6 feet gentlemen is a class. The examples can be turned out ad infinitium.

'You tell me.'

Well my whole argument is that there is no Marxist class conflict system...So you should be answering this question.

'Where am I doing that?'

Labors are on subsistence, capitalists live on surplus labor...since there are individuals who don't live on subsistence but on an income that is beyond that...who is that middle class?

'So what? Do you understand what is meant by ownership of wealth? To put in terms you can perhaps grasp, if you own a factory you are a capitalist. If you work in it you are a worker.'

You say 'so what' to the intellectual heir of Engels? Are you suddenly turning into a nihilist?

'Whose end?'

Obviously my own for when I concede to labor I do so on a voluntary basis to achieve some end goal or commodity.

[New Tet]

A libertarian must educate a Socialist (?) on Marxist class struggle?

Or perhaps were you making a witty quip?

You make two claims: That it is impossible to determine the objective existence of classes and that there is no such thing as a struggle among them.

Other than the quotes you provide, you make no attempt on your own to define classes or struggle. Your premises are defective.

Oh, and one more thing: As a worker and someone who has lived the class struggle: Fuck You.

[Nwoye]

To state this is to concede that his future predictions about class struggle are false thereby implying that his whole theory of historical materialism [ class struggle ] is basically a falsehood, which I am trying to rationalize to you individuals. Now I wish this were the truth but you probably just misspoke without fully thinking through the implications of this statement. Let's get the game back on, you believe in the inevitable socialist revolution because capitalism supposed creates its own gravediggers and I think you are wrong [we obviously can't both believe you are wrong whither you explicitly or implicitly concede it and then hope to continue debate and I don't want to actually be proven right on my first day..that would just be tragic...so game back on, dismiss this comment and carry on]
I didn't concede anything (implicitly or otherwise). I simply stated that dismissing his analysis of classes due to developments in social and economic relations is rash and uncalled for. Certainly class relations have changed, mostly as a result of forces I listed earlier. However, the general theory - of conflict between the producers and those who reap the benefits of production - remains, and it is essentially the basis of Marxist theory.

Secondly, I never explicitly stated or implied that I believed in the inevitability of socialism. That's just an assumption on your part.



Capitalism [in theory] existed in the 12th century and in practice there it was in pockets throughout the Middle Ages. I do believe though that Marx was convinced that capitalism would be dead in the mid 19th century with the revolutions happening throughout Europe. Yet here we are...still 'capitalistic' in a sense. Capital accumulation (which leftists generally recognize as the key determinant of capitalism as a socio-economic system) arose during the Industrial Revolution, out of the Feudal mode of production.

I would like to point out though that a disillusionment with capitalism, and with liberalism, which was its major proponent, was prevalent during the late 19th/early 20th century. However, these movements for the most part lacked the revolutionary tendencies that Marx predicted.


Actually the progressive movement was a result from pietist millennialists who wanted to use government to establish a 'kingdom of God' on Earth. Rather interesting time. mmk. But the rise of new liberalism and other interventionist movements was a reaction to what was considered the failures of laissez-faire capitalism, such as the suppression of labor movements by big business, the dust bowl, and the great depression.

In my opinion, this fits in fairly well with Marx's theory, the exception being that this movement against capitalism was one focused on reform rather than a socialist alternative.


Actually standards of living rise due to increase productivity and capital development. Wages can't merely go up because unions wish them to be so. I think it's undeniable that government intervention and social welfare policies have changed class relations in america and elsewhere - which was my original point.



We agree on the concept of mercantilism is a moral wrong. However, Lenin like many Socialists confuse Mercantilism with Capitalism. They are in fact two distinct ideologies. Of course. But capitalism has undeniably become globalized. And integral to this development has been the governments of developed countries enforcing their economic interests (the interests of transnational corporations) on foreign states. If you need evidence, see the Cold War and the United States' global crusade against "communism".


The individuals of developing nations were already on subsistence. To call them proletariat is a misnomer. They now in fact have a profession and are thereby already in a psychological sense better off then they were before [ being in a state of unemployment ] Well we could debate whether they actually are better off, but that is not relevant to the current discussion. However, workers in developing countries employed by transnational corporations are undoubtedly proletarian.


You label an 11 trillion dollar debt...prosperity? prosperity in the sense that they're not sowing blankets in sweatshops for 5 dollars a day.

btw, I'm not going to argue for that the actions of the U.S. govt have been pro-worker, even generally positive - only that they have shifted worker exploitation outside the country.


How strange. You start off this writing as saying Marx's theories were merely a product of his time...now you say his theories can even be applied to modern day actions.They can. And I've addressed your other comment about me conceding the argument above.

[AnarchistCain]

' You make two claims: That it is impossible to determine the objective existence of classes and that there is no such thing as a struggle among them.'

No I determine it is impossible to have objective knowledge based on class. What Marx terms 'class consciousness'

'Other than the quotes you provide, you make no attempt on your own to define classes or struggle. Your premises are defective.'

Actually if you read my statement I pronounce that classes are ambiguous. Do I need to define ambiguous?

'Oh, and one more thing: As a worker and someone who has lived the class struggle: Fuck You.'

Honestly, how petty. You own a computer, a piece of capital, yet you define yourself as a worker in the Marxist sense which would mean you live on subsistence.

[AnarchistCain]

'I didn't concede anything (implicitly or otherwise). I simply stated that dismissing his analysis of classes due to developments in social and economic relations is rash and uncalled for.'

Indeed it is rash and completely dismisses the Marxian prediction of future inevitable socialism on a scientific basis.

'Certainly class relations have changed, mostly as a result of forces I listed earlier. However, the general theory - of conflict between the producers and those who reap the benefits of production - remains, and it is essentially the basis of Marxist theory.'

Well thank you for completely refuting the first Marxist quote I present based in the Communist Manifesto. The premise that class simplification will be exacerbated in the future, that there will inevitable be only two classes, the bourgeois and proletariat. That was the only course for Marx's historical materialist dialectic. Now if only I can make you implicitly start denying everything else Marx says. Perhaps I can be like some political converter :laugh:. Seriously though if you look at my signature, the quote by Sir Alexander Gray, you are certainly living up to it.

'Capital accumulation (which leftists generally recognize as the key determinant of capitalism as a socio-economic system) arose during the Industrial Revolution, out of the Feudal mode of production.'

Why is it wrong to accumulate capital? Is that not the Socialist end goal also? To give capital to individuals?

'I would like to point out though that a disillusionment with capitalism, and with liberalism, which was its major proponent, was prevalent during the late 19th/early 20th century. However, these movements for the most part lacked the revolutionary tendencies that Marx predicted.'

Because of the Socialist idea that we can have the industrial revolution with state control. Laissez-Faire was toted as unnecessary. Obviously this appeal to the 'old regime' of conservative statists and those willing to try something that was supposedly 'morally superior.' A jolly laugh those men got when they realized the fruits of this dubious deed.

'mmk. But the rise of new liberalism and other interventionist movements was a reaction to what was considered the failures of laissez-faire capitalism, such as the suppression of labor movements by big business, the dust bowl, and the great depression.'

Actually the Progressive movement was roughly 1890's to 1920's. The dust bowl was 1930 along with the great depression. While you can argue that laissez-faire brought about something during those times. It would be absurd to argue that the Dust Bowl, Great Depression or other 20th century events were caused by anything but an exuberance to state planning [ Fascistic or Socialistic ] it would simply be anarchonistic.

'I think it's undeniable that government intervention and social welfare policies have changed class relations in america and elsewhere - which was my original point'

It has politicized it.

'Of course. But capitalism has undeniably become globalized. And integral to this development has been the governments of developed countries enforcing their economic interests (the interests of transnational corporations) on foreign states. If you need evidence, see the Cold War and the United States' global crusade against "communism".'

Yet again you speak of mercantilism. You would do well to realize the definition of it so you do not further confuse it with capitalism.

'Well we could debate whether they actually are better off, but that is not relevant to the current discussion. However, workers in developing countries employed by transnational corporations are undoubtedly proletarian.'

Again you brush aside the fact that they live subsistence before hand. It would be like painting a donkey with stripes and calling it a zebra.

' prosperity in the sense that they're not sowing blankets in sweatshops for 5 dollars a day.'

One has to ask why they sow in the first place. A realization that the value of money differs from our bloated inflated currency should suffice.

'I'm not going to argue for that the actions of the U.S. govt have been pro-worker, even generally positive - only that they have shifted worker exploitation outside the country.'

To premise exploitation in a Marxian sense, you must first agree to that the Labor Theory of Value existes as a price setting system. Do you agree to the Labor theory of value? Which derives surplus value thereby exploitation?

[AnarchistCain]

'Its a theory based on empirical facts, like the law of gravity.'

So now you are assuming that the theory is possible to true or false thereby you misused the argument by ignorance fallacy.

'Of course. But as socialists, we are interested only in the class that matters: the working class.'

And the working class can be anyone at anytime...good luck trying to achieve consciousness with such ambiguity

'Where? It may not be in your head, but its there in the real world.'

Pray tell...where is this 'real world'? I can easily point out several early communists who by their existence refute Marx's dialectic.

'They are between the capitalist and working class. That proves nothing however. The class conflict between worker and boss doesn't "disappear" because a middle man suddenly appears'

Who is between the capitalist and working class? Just a class termed 'The middle'? How scientific.

'I don't know what you're trying to prove with that quote. Kautsky was no heir. He was a capitlist reformist.'

Haha ok. Let me guess, was Engels a 'bourgeois spy'?

[Nwoye]

Well thank you for completely refuting the first Marxist quote I present based in the Communist Manifesto. The premise that class simplification will be exacerbated in the future, that there will inevitable be only two classes, the bourgeois and proletariat. That was the only course for Marx's historical materialist dialectic. Now if only I can make you implicitly start denying everything else Marx says. Perhaps I can be like some political converter :laugh:. Seriously though if you look at my signature, the quote by Sir Alexander Gray, you are certainly living up to it.

George Lukacs:
Let us assume for the sake of argument that recent research had disproved once and for all every one of Marx’s individual theses. Even if this were to be proved, every serious ‘orthodox’ Marxist would still be able to accept all such modern findings without reservation and hence dismiss all of Marx’s theses in toto – without having to renounce his orthodoxy for a single moment. Orthodox Marxism, therefore, does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the results of Marx’s investigations. It is not the ‘belief’ in this or that thesis, nor the exegesis of a ‘sacred’ book. On the contrary, orthodoxy refers exclusively to method.

Why is it wrong to accumulate capital? Is that not the Socialist end goal also? To give capital to individuals? I never said it was wrong, and therefore I'm not going to engage in debate over whether it is or not. I simply stated that it existed, and that leftists consider it the main determinant of a capitalist economic system.


Because of the Socialist idea that we can have the industrial revolution with state control. Laissez-Faire was toted as unnecessary. Obviously this appeal to the 'old regime' of conservative statists and those willing to try something that was supposedly 'morally superior.' A jolly laugh those men got when they realized the fruits of this dubious deed. completely irrelevant to this thread.


Actually the Progressive movement was roughly 1890's to 1920's. The dust bowl was 1930 along with the great depression. While you can argue that laissez-faire brought about something during those times. It would be absurd to argue that the Dust Bowl, Great Depression or other 20th century events were caused by anything but an exuberance to state planning [ Fascistic or Socialistic ] it would simply be anarchonistic. I'm not going to get into a tangential argument about what caused or who could be blamed for the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, I'm simply stating how they were perceived and how that affected the populace's view of "free market" capitalism.


Yet again you speak of mercantilism. You would do well to realize the definition of it so you do not further confuse it with capitalism.
If you're going to argue that the current nature of the world economy constitutes mercantilism, then you're essentially saying that capitalism leads to mercantilism.


Again you brush aside the fact that they live subsistence before hand. It would be like painting a donkey with stripes and calling it a zebra. That's irrelevant. They are proletarians, and because of this they fit into Marx's analysis.


One has to ask why they sow in the first place. A realization that the value of money differs from our bloated inflated currency should suffice. That has absolutely nothing to do with this thread.


To premise exploitation in a Marxian sense, you must first agree to that the Labor Theory of Value existes as a price setting system. Do you agree to the Labor theory of value? Which derives surplus value thereby exploitation?That has nothing to do with this thread. I also think it's undeniable that workers in Southeast Asia or Latin America or Africa are being exploited (whatever definition you use, Marxist or otherwise), and being treated as mere means to an end rather than ends in themselves.

---------------------

I apologize, but I probably won't be able to continue the discussion at this moment, as I won't have access to a computer for the next several days. I'm not intentionally abandoning the discussion, and I would love to pick up where we left off when I get back. That being said, you currently seem to be eager to engage in various debates regarding different aspects of Marxist theory, and you show no such interest in discussing the theory of class struggle, which is supposed to be the subject of this thread. If we're to continue when I return, I'd like to talk about class struggle, not about capital accumulation, the LTV, or other such subjects.

I genuinely hope you and your Austrian comrades stick around (and continue your insurgency), as you've generated some interesting discussion. All the best.

[AnarchistCain]

'George Lukacs'

Ah the great reformer Lukacs. To engage this comment, I point yet again to my signature quote from Alexander Gray. Marxists are willing to completely throw Marx overboard just to save the name of the Marxist ideology.

'I never said it was wrong, and therefore I'm not going to engage in debate over whether it is or not. I simply stated that it existed, and that leftists consider it the main determinant of a capitalist economic system.'

Fair enough, another day another debate.

'completely irrelevant to this thread.'

Just merely commenting to you how the progressive movement came about since we were discussing the subject. I'm a historian, so I sometimes go off on tangents about history.

'If you're going to argue that the current nature of the world economy constitutes mercantilism, then you're essentially saying that capitalism leads to mercantilism.'

Well society is not grounded to be simply one ideology during a period. One can certainly go from Socialism to Capitalism to Socialism to Mercantilism etc etc. So I don't believe you concept that Capitalism leads directly to mercantilism.

'That has absolutely nothing to do with this thread.'

Well you were talking about 'sweatshops'

'That has nothing to do with this thread. I also think it's undeniable that workers in Southeast Asia or Latin America or Africa are being exploited (whatever definition you use, Marxist or otherwise), and being treated as mere means to an end rather than ends in themselves.'

Well exploitation loses objectivity as a scientific method when it is not utilizing the LTV.

'I apologize, but I probably won't be able to continue the discussion at this moment, as I won't have access to a computer for the next several days. I'm not intentionally abandoning the discussion, and I would love to pick up where we left off when I get back. That being said, you currently seem to be eager to engage in various debates regarding different aspects of Marxist theory, and you show no such interest in discussing the theory of class struggle, which is supposed to be the subject of this thread. If we're to continue when I return, I'd like to talk about class struggle, not about capital accumulation, the LTV, or other such subjects.'


I'm interested in discussing Marxist theory. I actually used to be a Marxist myself.

[Plagueround]

Protip: That little button that says "Quote" at the bottom of each post is not some hideous communist conspiracy to steal your "self-ownership". Use it.

[AnarchistCain]

'Its possible to know about classes. Your argument is based on the fact that you don't know anything about classes.'

That is like saying it is possible to catch smoke with your fists. People can slide in and out of classes so easily that to believe there can somehow be a consciousness of that class is pretty absurd in my mind.

'Please do so.'

Early Christian communists such as the Brethren of the Free Spirit, the Taborites, the Anabaptists and the Adamites all setup communist societies based not no class struggle but millennialist values. Thereby showing that communism can come about not through class struggle, class consciousness, but actually something from the historical materialist 'superstructure' namely 'religion'. To Marx, communism can only come about through economics. Historical materialism thus...disproven.

'What are you trying to say?'

That there SHOULD BE according to Marx's own writings only two classes in this day...yet you are proposing a sizable middle one..

[AnarchistCain]

'Protip: That little button that says "Quote" at the bottom of each post is not some hideous communist conspiracy to steal your "self-ownership". Use it.'

Thanks but I like to do it my way.

[AnarchistCain]

'Haha. Only in your bizarre imagination can people "slide in and out of classes". The upward mobility of workers transforming to capitalists almost does not exist for 99% of the workers. So what if 1% gets lucky? What about the rest of 99% of the workers?'

So only 1% of the working class has a higher living standard? Where have you deduced this percentage?

' My oh my. Has someone been reading Rothbard's crap analysis about Marx?'

How do you know it is Rothbard?

'What convincing analysis and argument! Some people tried to bring about communism of consumption (not wealth or property) and failed miserably. So Marx is refuted!'

Communism of consumption? What does that even mean?

'You're wrong. Marx often commented on the middle class, aka the petit bourgeois. Its not sizeable actually. The working class is always the majority anywhere with petit bougois and bourgeois making up a minority.'

Clearly we are no longer in the 1840s. The petit bourgeois should of either become bourgeois or proletariat now due to the intensification of supposed class struggle.

To anyone else on this forum: Can you send more scholarly Socialists? Disproving this one lacks a challenge. Bring on your most devout theorist. Bring me your paladin of Socialism.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

To anyone else on this forum: Can you send more scholarly Socialists? Disproving this one lacks a challenge. Bring on your most devout theorist. Bring me your paladin of Socialism.

Unwarranted self-importance, much? :lol:

[AnarchistCain]

Unwarranted self-importance, much? :lol:

I like to strike the root :p. I mean I am a believer in individual rights therefore according to Marx I'm an 'egoist'

[mikelepore]

"The richest 1% of adults in the world own 40% of the planet's wealth, according to the largest study yet of wealth distribution.... The report found the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total of global assets. Half the world's adult population, however, owned barely 1% of global wealth." - The Guardian, 6 Dec 2006 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2006/dec/06/business.internationalnews)

Poverty is getting boring. Why don't we all just decide to slide into that class that has the money?

[#FF0000]

Just for all you Mises.org trolls, I want to point out that we've heard almost everything you have to say to us and it's very, very, very old.

It's also pretty hard to believe that you're here to seriously engage us when you 1) deride us as a cult over in your camp, and 2) come here and pedal this weak shit at us.

And though it might surprise you, folks here aren't ignorant mallrats who jumped on board with socialism because it was the cool and rebellious thing to do. Generally, people here have read into marxism (and economics in general) at length, and have been politically active at home and abroad for some amount of time. I'm sure we've got some members who've faced actual persecution for their politics and activism.

In any case, if you're actually here to engage us, make it interesting, don't be so dismissive (pretty bad form), and, most importantly, understand what the fuck we're talking about. People look ridiculous when they to talk about marxism without having even a basic grasp of it (lol altruism!), while you've got folks here who have a good portion of their worldview based on knowledge and analysis of capitalism.

BTW: if OP was ever really a marxist, he was a horrible one.

[Little Red Robin Hood]

Capitalists are in constant competition in acquiring wealth and resources, certainly not thinking of 'class interests'.

Who cares? Do you think that class coordination is somehow required for exploitation to take place?

If you had ever read Marx you would know that it is competition between capitalists which he considers the driving engine of capitalism in many respects...

[Kronos]

To anyone else on this forum: Can you send more scholarly Socialists? Disproving this one lacks a challenge. Bring on your most devout theorist. Bring me your paladin of Socialism.

You have thrown down the gauntlet, and I have answered.

[ yawn ]

[Hit The North]

Who cares? Do you think that class coordination is somehow required for exploitation to take place?

If you had ever read Marx you would know that it is competition between capitalists which he considers the driving engine of capitalism in many respects...

Yes, indeed. One aspect of capitalism which Marx points out is that it is an autonomous system of economic exploitation which does not require a conscious conspiracy between capitalists. In fact, many capitalists are in denial that they are exploiting labour.

It is the competition between capitalists which guarantees that exploitation of labour will continue and intensify.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

I propose to this group that the Marxist theory of class struggle is a facade formulated by Marx in order to substantiate his historical materialism dialectic.

http://www.facepalm.org/images/03.jpg


The idea of 'classes' in a society are ambiguous and can be carried out to suit the subjective needs of the viewer as Marx described in his above statement. The Marxist definition of class is based on how a group relates to the production process, eg. an owner the of means of production. That isn't very ambiguous, and it wouldn't matter if it was. Lacking a definition for a particular relation to the production process doesn't somehow mean that relation doesn't exist.


Capitalists are in constant competition in acquiring wealth and resources, certainly not thinking of 'class interests'.Because...acquiring wealth and resources is part of the class interests of the capitalist class. That's not exactly complicated now is it?


The workers themselves can be described as thus "This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves." Therefore, both capitalists and workers are continually competing with one another under the premise of self-interest. While that doesn't contradict Marxism, historical materialism goes a lot deeper than people acting in some abstract self interest. It explains what the main determinant of what they view as their self-interest actually is.


We have here above the 'logic progression' [if it can be called such] of Marx's inevitable class antagonism theory. From a theory of simplification of classes into either Bourgeois or Proletariat into a hints of a complex multi-class system with Ricardian flavor. If there is a multi-class system where one can be in any class at any time at any point of there life, then it is absurd to establish the claim that society will advance from the inevitable 'consciousness' of a class that is so haphazardly defined. Uh, .01% of the working class turning into bourgeoisie doesn't somehow prevent the other 99.9 from realizing that capitalism does not benefit them.


Marxists to date are constantly changing what it means to be a proletariat in order to sustain their dying religion. I had recently been told that the proletariat class was now everyone from the lower to middle classes. Whoever told you that wasn't a Marxist. That's based on the liberal definition of class. And yes, of course we are going to change definitions, come up with new ones, etc. The relations of production are in a constant state of change. I think it's fairly obvious that things have changed since Marx's time.


Certainly Marx did not see the 'middle class' as the proletariat, perhaps in his mind they could be pushed into that class but it is very clearly stated that they are workers who make only subsistence.
Making subsistence doesn't make you a part proletariat. That was a quality of the proletariat at that time. There are millions of subsistence farmers that own their own land.


But it is not the highness or lowness of wages which constitutes the economical degradation of the working class: this degradation is comprised in the fact that, instead of receiving for its labour the full produce of this labour, the working class has to be satisfied with a portion of its own produce called wages.



Capitalists themselves were described as those sustaining their lifestyles on 'surplus profit' and nothing else, yet Bill Gates labors for his corporation [however much he does is irrelevent, for when he labors he stops being a 'capitalist']
and yet these serve as examples of the facade I am presenting. Class could mean anything to anyone and this is only confirmed by continued Marxist revisionism.There is no substance to your argument. It's like saying that the statement "libertarians cause me to be annoyed" is wrong because libertarian means different things to different people. Okay, that's a horrible example, but I can't think of a better one atm.

[Bilan]

Then the third volume of Capital ends...

It should be noted that the third volume of Capital was an amalgamation of Marx's notes on the subject, and not a finished work (unlike Capital). Furthermore, what he wrote isn't Gospel (especially considering it was never fully completed, due to illness and because he died before completing it).
However, let's move on.




The idea of 'classes' in a society are ambiguous and can be carried out to suit the subjective needs of the viewer as Marx described in his above statement.

This sentence is very unclear. I presume you're suggesting that classes are ambiguous. Which, if you have an understanding of what class is, then that is false. Class is a relationship to production - so, the working class would be a class that must sell its labour in order to survive, and hence does not own the means of production. The capitalist class buys the labour time of others, and owns the means of production.
There are, of course, people whom don't necessarily fit into these, but this does not undermine the fact that these classes in themselves do exist, and that they are the largest classes.



Capitalists are in constant competition in acquiring wealth and resources, certainly not thinking of 'class interests'.

That is a gross misunderstanding of what class interests are. Their individual interests are derived from their class position. The fact that capitalists are in competition with each other in order to sell the most of their commodity, and accumulate the greatest amount of capital possible doesn't change the fact that they're part of the class which is in the position to do this, because of their relationship to production.



The workers themselves can be described as thus "This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves." Therefore, both capitalists and workers are continually competing with one another under the premise of self-interest.

That doesn't make any sense. The working class isn't depicted by it's party, but by it's relationship to production.

I'm sorry but your critique doesn't make much sense. It sounds like you've just picked a few random quotes from Marx without understanding them in much depth.
The fact that Marx said "class relations are simplified under capitalism" doesn't mean it is an immediate fact since capitalism was born - especially noting that when Marx wrote the manifesto, and throughout his life, lived when capitalism was still in it's period of ascent - it means that through capitalisms development, class relations will continually be simplified (in comparison to the previous class relations under feudalism). Marx understood that class relations develop under specific historical and economic circumstances.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

AnarchistCain:


Marx in the Communist Manifesto was trying to establish evidence of class struggle throughout history between classes. Applying dialectical materialism in a historical fashion.

'Dialectical materialism' [DM] was in fact a term invented by Plekhanov long after Marx's death, but the theroy originated with Engels, not Marx.

There is no necessary connection between Historical Materialism and DM, whatever you think of either theory.

[laminustacitus]

"The richest 1% of adults in the world own 40% of the planet's wealth, according to the largest study yet of wealth distribution.... The report found the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total of global assets. Half the world's adult population, however, owned barely 1% of global wealth."[/URL]

Poverty is getting boring. Why don't we all just decide to slide into that class that has the money?

You suffer from the fallacy that the economy is a zero-sum game, and that just because some individuals have more money than before that that means that money must have been taken from others.

[laminustacitus]

Yes, indeed. One aspect of capitalism which Marx points out is that it is an autonomous system of economic exploitation which does not require a conscious conspiracy between capitalists. In fact, many capitalists are in denial that they are exploiting labour.

It is the competition between capitalists which guarantees that exploitation of labour will continue and intensify.

There's most definitely an "exploitation" of the workers when they sign a voluntary contract with their employers about their work, and wage. :rolleyes:

There is no exploitation where there is no coercion.

[trivas7]

There is no necessary connection between Historical Materialism and DM, whatever you think of either theory.
Nonsense; no one but you believes this.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

There's most definitely an "exploitation" of the workers when they sign a voluntary contract with their employers about their work, and wage. :rolleyes:

There is no exploitation where there is no coercion.

here ya go:


Just for all you Mises.org trolls, I want to point out that we've heard almost everything you have to say to us and it's very, very, very old.

It's also pretty hard to believe that you're here to seriously engage us when you 1) deride us as a cult over in your camp, and 2) come here and pedal this weak shit at us.

And though it might surprise you, folks here aren't ignorant mallrats who jumped on board with socialism because it was the cool and rebellious thing to do. Generally, people here have read into marxism (and economics in general) at length, and have been politically active at home and abroad for some amount of time. I'm sure we've got some members who've faced actual persecution for their politics and activism.

In any case, if you're actually here to engage us, make it interesting, don't be so dismissive (pretty bad form), and, most importantly, understand what the fuck we're talking about. People look ridiculous when they to talk about marxism without having even a basic grasp of it (lol altruism!), while you've got folks here who have a good portion of their worldview based on knowledge and analysis of capitalism.

[mikelepore]

You suffer from the fallacy that the economy is a zero-sum game, and that just because some individuals have more money than before that that means that money must have been taken from others.

Are you saying that the capitalist class doesn't acquire its wealth by extracting it from the working class, but that the capitalist class generates its own wealth?

Let's consider how the capitalist class could do that.

Wealth has to be produced by taking nature's raw materials and putting them into new and useful forms.

Is your theory that the types of activities that produce wealth are such things as sunbathing on a yacht, having a banquet in the mansion, etc. -- the types of activities that the capitalist class performs?

I would have thought that the kinds of activities that produce wealth are such things as planting seeds, mining ore, assembling parts, driving trucks, teaching school -- the kinds of activities that the working class performs.

Which of these categories of activity takes nature's raw materials and converts them into new forms?

[turquino]

You suffer from the fallacy that the economy is a zero-sum game, and that just because some individuals have more money than before that that means that money must have been taken from others.

All economic relations between individuals and groups can be reduced to the division of labour and the distribution of its products. The economy is not technically a zero-sum game because it expands, but in a given instant when an individual is receiving more of the social product than the value produced by their labour, another is receiving less.


There's most definitely an "exploitation" of the workers when they sign a voluntary contract with their employers about their work, and wage.

There is no exploitation where there is no coercion.
Ideal capitalism doesn’t need to resort to open coercion to compel the workers to labour. It is enough that they need to sell their labour-power to survive and don’t possess the instruments of production. Then it is only the hallowed private property of capitalists that needs to be enforced.

[Hit The North]

There's most definitely an "exploitation" of the workers when they sign a voluntary contract with their employers about their work, and wage. :rolleyes:

There is no exploitation where there is no coercion.

You might be right if you're using some hitherto unknown definition of the word "exploitation". :rolleyes:

[mikelepore]

After I saw the assertion that people "slide in and out of classes", I contrasted it with a news report about half of the population altogether owning only one percent of the wealth. (Only one of several available studies of this kind.)

To reconcile such statistics with the claim that people "slide in and out of classes" would require a most absurd explanation.

It would require that the poorer half of the population could have decided to "slide" into into propertied status, but, I guess they just didn't think of it -- perhaps they were daydreaming or got distracted, and that this, that people who could have slid into the propertied class just didn't think of it, happened to most of the members of the population, and this happened every day for more than a century.

That would be quite a coincidence, with a probability of perhaps one in a googolplex.

[Kronos]

'Dialectical materialism' [DM] was in fact a term invented by Plekhanov long after Marx's death, but the theroy originated with Engels, not Marx.

There is no necessary connection between Historical Materialism and DM, whatever you think of either theory.

Cain, that was Rosa, our resident socialist scholar. My advice to you is to stay as far away from her as you can....because she will eat you for breakfast.

You'd have a fighting chance with me, though. I've got three years of highschool and an addiction to wikipedia. With the former you need not worry...with the latter, tread carefully- I've been known to level entire forum board battlefields with stuff I lift from wikipedia.

[laminustacitus]

You might be right if you're using some hitherto unknown definition of the word "exploitation". :rolleyes:

There is no exploitation where there is no compulsion.

[Hit The North]

There is no exploitation where there is no compulsion.

Well, if you only own your labour power, there is always an economic compulsion to sell it in the labour market.

But substituting this word for "coercion" doesn't help you, anyway.

[laminustacitus]

Well, if you only own your labour power, there is always an economic compulsion to sell it in the labour market.
There's also economic compulsion for you alone in the wilderness without the evil capitalists as well. This point holds no weight whatsoever, and of course in the wilderness alone man hunts for subsidence alone in the wilderness, without any material comfort, and dying at the age of twenty because of cholera while in the capitalist society one sells one's labor on the market enjoying the fruits of modern capitalism, and dies at a venerable age. By the way, did I mention how many more individuals survive their first months because of capitalism?


But substituting this word for "coercion" doesn't help you, anyway.
Because coercion is something done to individuals by other individuals through violent force; "economic compulsion" is a natural fact of the world, not something artificial done onto man by other men.

[Kronos]

There's also economic compulsion for you alone in the wilderness without the evil capitalists as well. This point holds no weight whatsoever, and of course in the wilderness alone man hunts for subsidence alone in the wilderness

Wait, are you saying one can avoid the compulsion to work for a wage by just dropping out of society?

The last time I tried that, the only thing I wanted to hunt for was the key to the handcuffs I was put in for trespassing on government property.

Anyway you are dodging the point, bub. First you claim there is no compulsion in society which pressures one into accepting being exploited as a wage laborer. Then Bobby calls you on that. Then you conveniently change your premise to "well, the compulsion to survive in the wilderness is worse than the compulsion to allow oneself to be exploited as a wage laborer!"

Man is born free...but everywhere he is in chains, I tell you!

If I stay in your society I gotta pimp myself out. If I leave, I gotta hide from the po-leece. If I kill myself I'll go to hell.

There is no way out.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Nonsense; no one but you believes this.

Yes, I can just imagine a sixteenth century numbskull like you saying to Copernicus:


Nonsense; no one but you believes this 'sun at the centre' BS.

Fortunately, Marx agrees with me, not you:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/scrapping-dialectics-would-t79634/index4.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158574&postcount=73

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158816&postcount=75

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1161443&postcount=114

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1163222&postcount=124

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kronos:


My advice to you is to stay as far away from her as you can....because she will eat you for breakfast.

Advice, it seems, you are reluctant to take yourself.

[laminustacitus]

You did not grasp my point.



Wait, are you saying one can avoid the compulsion to work for a wage by just dropping out of society?

There is no compulsion to work for a wage, there is only a biological compulsion for man to attain subsidence; one can work for a wage, but if one does not want to, then don't.





The last time I tried that, the only thing I wanted to hunt for was the key to the handcuffs I was put in for trespassing on government property.

And what does government property have to do with this other than that being a utter non sequitur.




Anyway you are dodging the point, bub. First you claim there is no compulsion in society which pressures one into accepting being exploited as a wage laborer. Then Bobby calls you on that. Then you conveniently change your premise to "well, the compulsion to survive in the wilderness is worse than the compulsion to allow oneself to be exploited as a wage laborer!"

The compulsion I speak of is as much of a biologic as an economic compulsion to attain subsidence, which is completely different from the social economic compulsion he speaks of that does not exist!

[laminustacitus]

All economic relations between individuals and groups can be reduced to the division of labour and the distribution of its products. The economy is not technically a zero-sum game because it expands, but in a given instant when an individual is receiving more of the social product than the value produced by their labour, another is receiving less.

Clever long exposition to hide the fact that your conclusion does not make sense. Mind actually substantiating your conclusion?



Ideal capitalism doesn’t need to resort to open coercion to compel the workers to labour. It is enough that they need to sell their labour-power to survive and don’t possess the instruments of production. Then it is only the hallowed private property of capitalists that needs to be enforced.

Besides the fact that in ideal capitalism anyone can become an entrepreneur, and employ themselves; but of course that requires a spark of inspiration that not everyone has. Nevertheless, this is nothing but a histrionic, irrational, and dramatic rant rather than any true description of reality.

[Kronos]

I'm scoping you out, Rosa. Finding your weaknesses. Like a master guerrilla tactician, I will retreat when you attack, pester and provoke when you rest, and attack when you withdraw.

[laminustacitus]

Fortunately, Marx agrees with me, not you:


Kronos has just become a far more intelligent person in my eyes.

[Kronos]

My god, you've lost your marbles. That chick has forgotten more than I will ever learn. Just because I'm slick with rhetoric doesn't mean I'm smarter, it just means I'm cooler, which means more people will like me, which means I will have more power. (I'm a Machiavelliean at heart)


There is no compulsion to work for a wage, there is only a biological compulsion for man to attain subsidence; one can work for a wage, but if one does not want to, then don't.


Ah, then we are quibbling over definitions. I agree, nobody has to become a wage worker, but in capitalist society, the alternatives through which one might obtain subsidence can be a little impractical, no?

One either works for a wage, defects and drops out, becomes a capitalist, or lives under the wing of the welfare state.

[laminustacitus]

Ah, then we are quibbling over definitions. I agree, nobody has to become a wage worker, but in capitalist society, the alternatives through which one might obtain subsidence can be a little impractical, no?

However, there is no coercion to force individuals to take one path over another, they are at liberty to decide for themselves, just because it is impractical does not mean that it is impossible.





One either works for a wage, defects and drops out, becomes a capitalist, or lives under the wing of the welfare state.
Don't forget join a monastery. :p

[Little Red Robin Hood]

ideal capitalism

...is such a laughably utopian idea that it makes Thomas More look like a hard-bitten cynic. :)

Still, this is just an aside; as I said before, it is a capitalism of free competition which Marx takes as his starting point, so it's hardly like socialists build their case on the basis of "distortions" in capitalism by mistakenly thinking these are essential to it. We don't.

We do, however, deal with capitalism as we see it in the real world, even when this doesn't conform to the holy writ of our ideological forebears. Can you say the same?

[krazy kaju]

Class as defined by Marxists is based on ownership of wealth and property, not on income.

And this is why capitalism is the cure to class struggle. Free market capitalism continually brings more and more of the proletariat into the fold of the bourgeoisie. The vast majority of middle and lower class Americans, for example, are bourgeoisie. These are the people who own the means of production via stock and who fund the expansion of capital via savings and bonds.

[Kronos]

However, there is no coercion to force individuals to take one path over another, they are at liberty to decide for themselves, just because it is impractical does not mean that it is impossible.A momentum of unfortunate circumstances can gather for some people, increasing the odds against them. Or, one can be born into a situation where the deck is stacked against them.

Take a black kid born in the projects who does as well as he can in school, hoping to get a scholarship for college, but isn't smart enough to get it...and ends up flipping burgers at McDonalds...which, consequently, doesn't bring him enough money to get to college, no matter how hard he tries to save. With every day that passes, his chances of owning a car dealership or winning the noble prize for a brilliant scientific discovery decrease. Ten years later, he's a manager at that same McDonalds and what money he does have left over after paying his bills, he uses to buy the Tu-Pac CD box set and have his Corolla waxed.

Now you could tell this guy "you decided for yourself" if you want, but he'll tell you to talk to the hand. The guy didn't want the Tu-Pac and 93 Corolla. He wanted dinner parties in tuxedos, par three golf expeditions on the island, a white girlfriend named Teresa, landscape ties to separate his imported banzai garden from his perfect, lush fescue lawn, a son who takes karate, and two irish setters. Instead he lives deep in da hood, playa. But he tried, Lamin. He tried.

[krazy kaju]

it is a capitalism of free competition which Marx takes as his starting point, so it's hardly like socialists build their case on the basis of "distortions" in capitalism by mistakenly thinking these are essential to it. We don't.

Well it's rather funny then that the vast majority of critiques against capitalism are based on government distortions, e.g. capitalism is not unstable, government promoted and created fractional reserve banking and central banking are unstable.

[laminustacitus]

We do, however, deal with capitalism as we see it in the real world, even when this doesn't conform to the holy writ of our ideological forebears. Can you say the same?
I can actually say that the theories I ascribe to actually describe economics rather than some fairytale I concocted.

[Little Red Robin Hood]

Well it's rather funny then that the vast majority of critiques against capitalism are based on government distortions


We do, however, deal with capitalism as we see it in the real world, even when this doesn't conform to the holy writ of our ideological forebears.

You couldn't even read a three-line post all the way through before hitting 'reply'?


I can actually say that the theories I ascribe to actually describe economics rather than some fairytale I concocted.

Actually, you actually don't actually do that. Because actually, it's inevitable that the rich will use the government to construct a vast array of special privileges for themselves.

[MikeSC]

Ah, then we are quibbling over definitions. I agree, nobody has to become a wage worker, but in capitalist society, the alternatives through which one might obtain subsidence can be a little impractical, no?

One either works for a wage, defects and drops out, becomes a capitalist, or lives under the wing of the welfare state.Isn't this needlessly restricted to developed world workers?

What about, say, the thousands children sold to cocoa plantations as literal slaves to bring the developed world its Mars bars? The hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of kids who work those plantations for 70-100 hour weeks, living on the plantation, relying on the plantation owners for what little food they get, though not technically slaves because they're free to leave their job (and simultaneously their food and bed)- how would such a child become a capitalist?

A person, to sustain himself or herself, has to work using the resources of this planet. But these resources have been siezed by the state and granted to individuals. You can work with them only at the terms set by capitalists, but if you're going to sustain yourself you have to. You have a choice of which capitalist (restricted by various factors) but you can't just opt out of the capitalist system- you've no choice but to work within it if you want to get the things you need as a human being.

Because of seizure and the creation of private property, individual property owners dictate how society is to exploit natural resources. Class struggle is in securing everyone a vote, and a vote of equal weight, concerning how society exploits natural resources.

[laminustacitus]

Actually, you actually don't actually do that. Because actually, it's inevitable that the rich will use the government to construct a vast array of special privileges for themselves.

The future is never inevitable.

[Little Red Robin Hood]

In the libertarian future rich people will play nice, yay.

Face it, your philosophy requires that everyone be a devout libertarian ideologue. Mine only requires that people feel the hunger in their stomachs and decide to do something about it. Which is more likely to happen?

[krazy kaju]

A momentum of unfortunate circumstances can gather for some people, increasing the odds against them. Or, one can be born into a situation where the deck is stacked against them.

Take a black kid born in the projects who does as well as he can in school, hoping to get a scholarship for college, but isn't smart enough to get it...and ends up flipping burgers at McDonalds...which, consequently, doesn't bring him enough money to get to college, no matter how hard he tries to save. With every day that passes, his chances of owning a car dealership or winning the noble prize for a brilliant scientific discovery decrease. Ten years later, he's a manager at that same McDonalds and what money he does have left over after paying his bills, he uses to buy the Tu-Pac CD box set and have his Corolla waxed.

Now you could tell this guy "you decided for yourself" if you want, but he'll tell you to talk to the hand.

You did absolutely nothing to disprove the statement you quoted. Nobody forced your hypothetical projects child to do anything in your example. However, in a socialist or communist society, some form of central planning would force said child to do certain things.

Moreover, your example is absolutely absurd in itself. It is possible to save enough for college even if you earn a measly $5 per hour after taxes. For example, if you decide to go industrial revolution and work 14 hours a day, 6 days a week, you can earn $420/week, or $1680/month, or $20160/year. It's possible to rent for well under $500, but for simplicity's sake, we'll say our hypothetical wage laborer pays $500 per month in rent. Now, this laborer needs to eat, so let's say he eats another $500-worth per month, or $16.67 per day. That leaves $680/month for health care, utilities, and misc., which, we'll say, our wage laborer uses $500/month. That leaves $180 in savings per month. Within a year, the laborer will have saved $2160, or more than enough to pay for two semesters at a community college.

That said, there are many other factors to consider, like: how much higher would the laborer's wages be if it weren't for income, payroll, business, corporate, and capital gains taxes? How much more could the laborer afford if it weren't for sales taxes and regulations limiting supply of goods and services (like utilities)? For example, a cut in corporate taxes from 35% to 10% would double the size of the economy every thirty years, according to Professors Young Lee (Hanyang University) and Rodger Gordon (UC — San Diego) - see mises[dot]/story/3024. This alone would cause a doubling every thirty years in the real wage of the laborer even if the nominal wage of the laborer didn't increase at all.

All of the above still represents only a minority of factors. It would be possible under a free market for someone who earns only $5/hour to work 8 hours a day (40/week) and still be able to save enough after two or three years of work to afford community college and then move on to a much higher paying job.

[laminustacitus]

In the libertarian future rich people will play nice, yay.

Never said that, so you can stop putting words into my mouth.

The future is unknown to man, we can only give our best predictions to what will really happen; experience is the well-spring of all knowledge, without which there could be no knowledge whatsoever, and we cannot have experience about the future.

[laminustacitus]

So is fascism

Strange, did not fascism develop from socialism with Mousillini being a editor of a socialist newspaper, and Hitler being a member of the National Socialism Party? Of course, some socialists like pretending that fascism is a form of capitalist, but that is factually wrong.





Empirical data proves the opposite. Did you miss mikelepore's post above?

If the data is tortured, it will confess. Empirical data proves nothing, and, if anything, empirical data shows that the poor fare far better under capitalist economies than socialists ones.

[laminustacitus]

Face it, your philosophy requires that everyone be a devout libertarian ideologue. Mine only requires that people feel the hunger in their stomachs and decide to do something about it. Which is more likely to happen?

There has never once been a famine in a capitalist society; not once.

[Little Red Robin Hood]

There has never once been a famine in a capitalist society; not once.

Yeah there tends not to be when you're forcibly importing all the grain you need from colonies. You export the famine to them in return.

Anyway, did you really think my comment was pertaining to agriculture, or were you just sidestepping? The fact that there is no famine and no absolute shortage of subsistence in capitalist societies, and yet people still feel hunger--the producers, no less--was in fact my whole point, and is the single greatest indictment of the capitalist system. You continually make my points for me.

[laminustacitus]

Yeah there tends not to be when you're forcibly importing all the grain you need from colonies. You export the famine to them in return.

No, it was thanks to the invention of the mechanical reaper by Robert McCormick, and its subsequent mass production that ended the reign of famines. It was not the sad-story you tell of the exploitation of colonies, which is a mercantilist policy, but technological progress thanks to capitalism that ended hunger's reign.





Anyway, did you really think my comment was pertaining to agriculture, or were you just sidestepping? The fact that there is no famine and no absolute shortage of subsistence in capitalist societies, and yet people still feel hunger--the producers, no less--was in fact my whole point, and is the single greatest indictment of the capitalist system. You continually make my points for me.

No, I continually show how you have NO BASIS WHATSOEVER for the lies you spew. The greatest beneficiaries of capitalism have been those with "hunger in their bellies" since it is capitalism that can provide the mass production to produce enough food to end their hunger.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Strange, did not fascism develop from socialism with Mousillini being a editor of a socialist newspaper, and Hitler being a member of the National Socialism Party? Of course, some socialists like pretending that fascism is a form of capitalist, but that is factually wrong.

Hmm, it seems you are the one who is factually wrong here. What little evidence you have to suggest that fascism some how "developed from socialism" because Mussolini was once a socialist; and because the Nazi party had the term socialist in it's name is incredibly pale in comparison to the actual reality of fascism.

The economic systems in ex-fascist countries was capitalist, there is no pretending here. Sure, fascists like to proclaim their economic principles as a "third way", however fascist economics in practice is no much different from regular old capitalism; the bourgeoisie was still the ruling class and owns the means of production.




If the data is tortured, it will confess. Empirical data proves nothing, and, if anything, empirical data shows that the poor fare far better under capitalist economies than socialists ones.
So basically, your arguing that the 'poor' fair better under capitalism than socialism, even if the evidence proves otherwise? :lol:

There has never once been a famine in a capitalist society; not once.

1845-1849 Great Irish Famine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Irish_Famine) killed more than 1 million people[45] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines#cite_note-44)

1846 famine led to the peasant revolt known as “Maria da Fonte” in the north of Portugal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugal)

1846-1857 Highland Potato Famine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Potato_Famine_%281846_-_1857%29) in Scotland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland)

1879 Famine in Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Famine_%281879%29)

1878-1880 famine in St. Lawrence Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lawrence_Island), Alaska (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska)[48] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines#cite_note-47)

1915-1916 Armenian Genocide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide). Armenian deportees starved to death

916-1917 famine caused by the British blockade of Germany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany) in WWI; up to 750,000 Germans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germans) starved to death[53] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines#cite_note-52)

1916-1917 winter famine in Russia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia)



965-1967 drought (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought) in India (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India) responsible for 1.5 million deaths[67] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines#cite_note-66)
1966 famine in Bihar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bihar), India (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India).[68] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines#cite_note-67)
1967-1970 Biafran famine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biafra#Legacy) caused by Nigerian blockade
1968-1972 Sahel drought (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahel_drought) created a famine that killed a million people[69] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines#cite_note-68)
1973 famine in Ethiopia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famines_in_Ethiopia); failure of the government to handle this crisis led to fall of Haile Selassie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie) and to Derg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derg) rule
1974 famine in Bangladesh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_famine_of_1974)




1998 famine in Sudan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Sudan_famine) caused by war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sudanese_Civil_War) and drought (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought)
1998 ENSO famine in Northeastern Brazil
1998-2000 famine in Ethiopia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia). The situation worsened by Eritrean-Ethiopian War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrean-Ethiopian_War)
1998-2004 Second Congo War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War). 3.8 million people died, mostly from starvation and disease
2000-2009 Zimbabwe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe)'s food crisis caused by Mugabe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe)'s land reform (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reform_in_Zimbabwe#Economic_Consequences) policies[72] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines#cite_note-71)


Took about a second to find all of those, don't be an idiot and make obviously false claims.

[laminustacitus]

Socialist,
The potato famine was the result of government policies, and there was no capitalism in Ireland at that time, it was still more, or less a feudal system with English land holders in control.

Neither was India capitalist at that time, capitalism has yet to completely penetrate India even in our modern era, but it was instead a mercantilist project of the English government. Need I add that colonization, and state-control are mercantalist, not capitalist policies?

Your examples are fallacious.

[laminustacitus]

Hmm, it seems you are the one who is factually wrong here. What little evidence you have to suggest that fascism some how "developed from socialism" because Mussolini was once a socialist; and because the Nazi party had the term socialist in it's name is incredibly pale in comparison to the actual reality of fascism.

The economic systems in ex-fascist countries was capitalist, there is no pretending here. Sure, fascists like to proclaim their economic principles as a "third way", however fascist economics in practice is no much different from regular old capitalism; the bourgeoisie was still the ruling class and owns the means of production.

That is not capitalism, that is corporatism, an outgrowth of socialism. May I also note how some of the greatest capitalist theorists needed to flee Nazi rule?





So basically, your arguing that the 'poor' fair better under capitalism than socialism, even if the evidence proves otherwise? :lol:

Look at how the poor fared under in the USSR, during Mao's rule in China, even in North Korea today.



Again, none of the famines you listed occured in capitalist countries, unless you have redefined it to your liking, of course.

[turquino]

Clever long exposition to hide the fact that your conclusion does not make sense. Mind actually substantiating your conclusion?
Are you familiar with the _marxist_ law of value? Abstract human labour measured in duration is the source of all value. An hour of human labour expended in the production of one commodity is equivalent to another hour in any other industry, no matter how different the two commodities are in shape or quantity. They have the same value. Billions of hours of human labour is expended every day producing that day`s worth of the entire social product. The social product, possessing a certain value, is then divided up based on the individual`s relationship to the means of production and division of labour. Workers are exploited because they are not paid for the value they contributed to the product, but for the value of the product required to sustain them, their labour-power. That difference produces a surplus that enriches the capitalists, managers, creditors etc. Thus, where an individual worker is receiving less than the value of her contribution to the social product, someone else is receiving a surplus.


Besides the fact that in ideal capitalism anyone can become an entrepreneur, and employ themselves; but of course that requires a spark of inspiration that not everyone has. Nevertheless, this is nothing but a histrionic, irrational, and dramatic rant rather than any true description of reality.
My response was not a rant but an explanation for the existence of wage labour and the material basis of class division, and far more grounded in reality than an imaginary society of associated `entrepreneurs`. If this is how you usually respond, with vitriolic comments, don`t bother.

[mykittyhasaboner]

:lol::laugh: This just gets easier.

That is not capitalism, that is corporatism, an outgrowth of socialism. May I also note how some of the greatest capitalist theorists needed to flee Nazi rule?
Corporatism is an outgrowth of socialism? What the fuck are you talking about?

Prove this, hell at least explain this.

On "greatest capitalist theorists needing to flee Nazi rule", what about all the capitalists who cooperated, supported, or profited from Nazi rule?

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/61/193.html
http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_06.htm





Look at how the poor fared under in the USSR, during Mao's rule in China, even in North Korea today. Oh, just look at this country and that country and there and there!!

Are you going to present any evidence at all? Or are you simply going to continue to run your mouth like idiot?




Again, none of the famines you listed occured in capitalist countries, unless you have redefined it to your liking, of course.The famines I posted that occurred in the 19th century all happened in Europe, which had developed capitalism by then. The rest happened in the late 20th century, so said countries had been well integrated into the capitalist market by then; why don't you try actually looking up definitions before you go claiming that I have changed them.

[Little Red Robin Hood]

The greatest beneficiaries of capitalism have been those with "hunger in their bellies" since it is capitalism that can provide the mass production to produce enough food to end their hunger.

Way to not say a single thing that isn't in the Communist Manifesto.

Seriously, why did you think it would be a good idea to come here without having made the slightest investigation of the theories you were going to argue against?


May I also note how some of the greatest capitalist theorists needed to flee Nazi rule?
what about all the capitalists who cooperated, supported, or profited from Nazi rule?

It doesn't really matter.

[laminustacitus]

Are you familiar with the _marxist_ law of value?
Have you ever heard of the correct subjective theory of value first postulated by Jevons, and Menger?




Abstract human labour measured in duration is the source of all value.
Not true, there is no source of value other than the preferences of the man who is valuing.




An hour of human labour expended in the production of one commodity is equivalent to another hour in any other industry, no matter how different the two commodities are in shape or quantity.
There is no such thing as objective value, you always need to keep in mind the preferences of the valuer when speaking of value.




They have the same value.
According to whom? I surely do not value an hour's worth of lawn mowing to an hour's worth of surgery.




Billions of hours of human labour is expended every day producing that day`s worth of the entire social product.
No such thing as a "social product."




The social product, possessing a certain value, is then divided up based on the individual`s relationship to the means of production and division of labour.
Again, there is no such thing as a social product, and according to whom does it possess that amount of value. In addition, there is not unit of value as this statement implies when you speak of a product "possessing a certain value;" instead, individuals value goods in an ordinal manner, with A being valued more than B, and B more than C, ect..




Workers are exploited because they are not paid for the value they contributed to the product, but for the value of the product required to sustain them, their labour-power.
Since value is only subjective, the workers gave no value to the product they created, they merely created that object.




That difference produces a surplus that enriches the capitalists, managers, creditors etc. Thus, where an individual worker is receiving less than the value of her contribution to the social product, someone else is receiving a surplus.
What is the value of that worker's contribution to the imaginary social product? It takes an acting individual to value a good, and individuals value goods differently; ergo, what you speak of simply does not exist, its a fantasy that has been disproved by economists over a century ago.




My response was not a rant but an explanation for the existence of wage labour and the material basis of class division, and far more grounded in reality than an imaginary society of associated `entrepreneurs`. If this is how you usually respond, with vitriolic comments, don`t bother.
And your response amounts to not having a single true statement in it; it is the creation of an overactive imagination, "social products" do not exist, or outdated economics, relying on the debunked labor theory of value.

[laminustacitus]

:lol::laugh: This just gets easier.
I know, you have yet to utter a single correct utterance.




Corporatism is an outgrowth of socialism? What the fuck are you talking about?

Prove this, hell at least explain this.
Corporatism, while it does not entail complete state control over the factors of production, does involve a quantity of state oversight in their use. Where did the concept of the state even getting involved with how the factors of production are utilized evolve from: socialism.

In fact, the fact corporatism emerged in Germany is no coincidence of history since the Hohenzollern Prussian state was not adamantly against socialism rather it was willing to incorporate socialism into its government. Eventually, German socialism mutated into German corporatism.




On "greatest capitalist theorists needing to flee Nazi rule", what about all the capitalists who cooperated, supported, or profited from Nazi rule?
Your point being. Entrepreneurs (a far better term than the rhetorically clichéd "Capitalist") are everywhere, just because they are somewhere does not make it automatically a capitalism economy.





Oh, just look at this country and that country and there and there!!

Are you going to present any evidence at all? Or are you simply going to continue to run your mouth like idiot?
It is not I who sounds like an idiot right now.




The famines I posted that occurred in the 19th century all happened in Europe, which had developed capitalism by then. The rest happened in the late 20th century, so said countries had been well integrated into the capitalist market by then; why don't you try actually looking up definitions before you go claiming that I have changed them.
Ireland was certainly not capitalist, it was under the boot of the British empire! Free enterprise was not allowed to flourish there, only an outdated economic system that doomed the entire Catholic population to starvation. The same thing with Scotland.

As far as the famine in Germany following WWI, its cause was a blockade, not some flaw in capitalism. It was a totalitarian policy completely diametrical to capitalism.

Believe it or not, just being "integrate into the capitalist market" (even though true free trade does not involve massive government bueraucracies like the WTO to regulated it, again that is a trait of mercantilism) does not mean that a nation is capitalist. In none of the nations you list was there the strict protection of property right, or a domestic market that integrated the entire nation (this being either thanks to a totalitarian regime, as in Sudan, or heavy regulation thanks to a Socialist regime, as in India).


As of now, mykityhasaboner, your entire attack against me is in shambles, and you have displayed to be a rather immature individual, with your screen-name not disappointing. Every single thing you have said against me, I have displayed as a fallacy; have fun picking up the pieces.

[laminustacitus]

Way to not say a single thing that isn't in the Communist Manifesto.

Seriously, why did you think it would be a good idea to come here without having made the slightest investigation of the theories you were going to argue against?
Does not the Communist Manifesto speak of greater, and greater suffering by the proletariat as the evil bourgeois receive more, and more of the economic pie as the former receive less, and less resulting in enough suffering that eventually results in an uprising that results in the bourgeois being overthrown, and a dictatorship of the proletariat being instituted? Was this not supposed to a process as valid as any other scientific theory?

I showed above how the above view, which is really what the Communist Manifesto says, is simply not true, and how capitalism has brought prosperity to all sectors of society.

How about you know your own material before you accuse me of not know it.

[laminustacitus]

You should be living in the dark ages, dude. We have this thing called "science" now. Its uses empirical data to give you good things like the computer you are using.
Empirical evidence, even in the natural sciences does not prove the validity of a theory, it only proves that a theory is not wrong. The fallacy of causation can take down even the most vigilant.

As far as the social sciences, in this case, empirical evidence cannot even point the the fallacy of a theory since there are far too many factors to account for, and the evidence is never iron-clad enough to prove theories wrong. Instead, theories are need prior to empirical evidence in the social sciences so that our comprehension, and interpretation of that evidence can be guided by a theory we already know to be true.

[MikeSC]

Corporatism, while it does not entail complete state control over the factors of production, does involve a quantity of state oversight in their use. Where did the concept of the state even getting involved with how the factors of production are utilized evolve from: socialism.

In fact, the fact corporatism emerged in Germany is no coincidence of history since the Hohenzollern Prussian state was not adamantly against socialism rather it was willing to incorporate socialism into its government. Eventually, German socialism mutated into German corporatism.


Christ, you really have no clue of the history of... anything you try to talk about do you? You think the state was invented alongside socialism?

Isn't there state oversight wherever the state creates private property? Do you think there was no state oversight under despotism, or feudalism? What about all capitalism that has ever existed? From the pre-socialist capitalism of Adam Smith to capitalism now the state has been there every step of the way. Capitalism relies on the state and always has done.


Your point being. Entrepreneurs (a far better term than the rhetorically clichéd "Capitalist") are everywhere, just because they are somewhere does not make it automatically a capitalism economy.
Weren't you saying that Nazism couldn't be capitalist because some capitalists fled Nazi Germany? Your stupidity is truly staggering, I mean even for someone who would engage in "forum invasions" and the like.


It is not I who sounds like an idiot right now.
Haha!


Ireland was certainly not capitalist, it was under the boot of the British empire! Free enterprise was not allowed to flourish there, only an outdated economic system that doomed the entire Catholic population to starvation. The same thing with Scotland.

As far as the famine in Germany following WWI, its cause was a blockade, not some flaw in capitalism. It was a totalitarian policy completely diametrical to capitalism.

Believe it or not, just being "integrate into the capitalist market" (even though true free trade does not involve massive government bueraucracies like the WTO to regulated it, again that is a trait of mercantilism) does not mean that a nation is capitalist. In none of the nations you list was there the strict protection of property right, or a domestic market that integrated the entire nation (this being either thanks to a totalitarian regime, as in Sudan, or heavy regulation thanks to a Socialist regime, as in India).You free-marketeers are truly obnoxious. You represent a very small percentage of capitalists, yet you think your definitions of capitalism, of socialism, and so on, should supersede those used for centuries by their practitioners- and by the majority of people now. Those things weren't 100% free market laissez-faire capitalism, that doesn't mean they weren't capitalist.

[turquino]

Have you ever heard of the correct subjective theory of value first postulated by Jevons, and Menger?
The incorrect subjective theory of value, and yes, it has been discussed many times. Take some time to educate yourself rather than repeating assertions ad nauseam.

[laminustacitus]

The famines were caused during the rule of capitalist rulers.
The landed gentlemen in Ireland were capitalists? Now you just spout ideologically motivated nonsense.





Without the occupation of these countries as colonies and new markets, capitalism could not have developed.
The pin industry in Great Britain definitely emerged in the 1700s because of England importing iron from all of its colonies, and the textile industry must have only emerged because of that fine wool being imported from English colonies.

There is nothing to support that statement other than the correlation of the rise of free enterprise in Europe with the rise of the colonial period (fallacy of causation). Nothing else supports your thesis. Plus, if colonization leads to the emergence of capitalism, why was Spain not the first nation to industrialize?




You have again skipped past my other points about poverty in capitalism and fascist class collaboration that you are advocating.
What other points?

[laminustacitus]

The incorrect subjective theory of value, and yes, it has been discussed many times. Take some time to educate yourself rather than repeating assertions ad nauseam.
Seriously, have ever taken Micro 101? There is no such thing as objective value, all value depends on someone to value it, and there is no unit of value, which an objective theory of value necessitates.

If the Labor Theory of Value is true, what explains the diamond-water paradox (I expect an answer to this otherwise you concede).

[laminustacitus]

The incorrect subjective theory of value, and yes, it has been discussed many times. Take some time to educate yourself rather than repeating assertions ad nauseam.
Also, if you are correct, point out every error in my critique of you.

[laminustacitus]

Christ, you really have no clue of the history of... anything you try to talk about do you? You think the state was invented alongside socialism?
And yet you cannot refute what I just said! You insult me, yet you do not rationally prove me wrong!





Isn't there state oversight wherever the state creates private property?
Property is the natural relation between man, and his environment. Property does not necessitate the existence of the state.


Do you think there was no state oversight under despotism, or feudalism?
Utter non sequitur with absolutely no relevance to what I have hitherto stated; otherwise, please, pro me misero, show me why that is not a non sequitur.


What about all capitalism that has ever existed? From the pre-socialist capitalism of Adam Smith to capitalism now the state has been there every step of the way. Capitalism relies on the state and always has done.
The state has been there creating mercantilism, not capitalism. Is it truly hard to realize the differences between the two systems. One is based on voluntary commerce, the other based on government bueraucracies regulating commerce for its own benefit.




Weren't you saying that Nazism couldn't be capitalist because some capitalists fled Nazi Germany? Your stupidity is truly staggering, I mean even for someone who would engage in "forum invasions" and the like.
The Nazis simply were not capitalist, they were corporatists. I thought maybe you would be intelligent enough to get that reference to Ludwig von Mises who condemned German corporatism as just another form of socialism, but I guess I was wrong.




You free-marketeers are truly obnoxious. You represent a very small percentage of capitalists, yet you think your definitions of capitalism, of socialism, and so on, should supersede those used for centuries by their practitioners- and by the majority of people now. Those things weren't 100% free market laissez-faire capitalism, that doesn't mean they weren't capitalist.
You spurt opinions without being able to defend them rationally.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kronos:


I'm scoping you out, Rosa. Finding your weaknesses. Like a master guerrilla tactician, I will retreat when you attack, pester and provoke when you rest, and attack when you withdraw.

I think you'd be well advised to revert to plan B -- give up.

[Little Red Robin Hood]

Does not the Communist Manifesto speak of greater, and greater suffering by the proletariat

Does it speak of absolute immiseration? No, it does not.

And to limit your discussion to the Communist Manifesto is about as impressive as if I showed evidence of having read some libertarian tract, and nothing else, then claimed to know my way around your philosophy.


capitalism has brought prosperity to all sectors of society.

How about you know your own material before you accuse me of not know it.


The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it. Limiting ourselves to just the Communist Manifesto, the above two passages are Marx's actual position.

Does a rising tide lift all boats? Of course. As living standards go up, the 'minimum wage' (in the Marxist sense) goes up as well, obviously. But the 'minimum wage' of the day is still what the wage laborer is paid, and as a class, the majority of people are still kept from a serious ownership stake in the means of production. The question, then, is not poverty or misery in any absolute sense, but rather social relations of production. This is very basic stuff.

And as seen from your Misesian comrade's desperate calculations in this thread trying to show that a poor person can, by being frugal, save up enough to afford two semesters of city college (oh joy!), I'd say that the second passage has pretty much been proven as relevant for today's society.


the sad-story you tell of the exploitation of colonies

Ahistoricity--the mark of a free market libertarian.

[laminustacitus]

Does it speak of absolute immiseration? No, it does not.
It is implied as the cause by which the proletariat will rise against the bourgeois.




And to limit your discussion to the Communist Manifesto is about as impressive as if I showed evidence of having read some libertarian tract, and nothing else, then claimed to know my way around your philosophy.
Blah, blah, blah.




The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
This has nothing to do with this conversation, there is nothing said here about whether, or not the proletariat will have access to these wonders of the modern era.




The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.
Notice the "bare existence" part? The proletariat today have far more than what Marx spoke of in "a bare existence"; in fact, the proletariat today have the living standards of the aristocracy of the past.




Does a rising tide lift all boats? Of course. As living standards go up, the 'minimum wage' (in the Marxist sense) goes up as well, obviously. But the 'minimum wage' of the day is still what the wage laborer is paid, and as a class, the majority of people are still kept from a serious ownership stake in the means of production. The question, then, is not poverty or misery in any absolute sense, but rather social relations of production. This is very basic stuff.
And that "very basic stuff" was not what Marx was talking about. What Marx was referring to was a proletariat, much like that depicted in the stories of Dickens, where they would barely etch out an existence. By no means was he speaking of the universal prosperity we see with capitalism today.




And as seen from your Misesian comrade's desperate calculations in this thread trying to show that a poor person can, by being frugal, save up enough to afford two semesters of city college (oh joy!), I'd say that the second passage has pretty much been proven as relevant for today's society.
The fact that everyone, if they can pay for it, can pursue post-secondary education is absolutely remarkable, and completely contrary to Marx's theory - the fact that everyone can receive a secondary education is even more remarkable.




Ahistoricity--the mark of a free market libertarian.
You insult me, and then you do not even bother to show why I was wrong. My analysis of history is correct, critique it if it is not, do not merely insult me.

[laminustacitus]

So you reject the scientific method and expect to be taken seriously? There's no point in talking to mystics.
The first was the hypothetic-deductive method theorized by Popper in Objective Knowledge. The second is what all utilizing statistics in the realm of the social sciences must know, L. Robbins, F.A. Hayek, and N.N. Taleb have all endorses; none of them are "mystics." There is absolutely nothing against the scientific method in either proposition of mine.

Again, I love how in this forum I am insulted, but my points are never rationally critiqued.




So consider this my final reply to you.
I humbly accept you concession.

[Little Red Robin Hood]

And that "very basic stuff" was not what Marx was talking about. What Marx was referring to was a proletariat, much like that depicted in the stories of Dickens, where they would barely etch out an existence.

Don't let textual evidence get in your way, laministicusalitis. You've got a point to prove, and you're gonna prove it. :lol:

P.S. - Even though you are clearly much more of a Marx expert than me, do I at least get to say what I believe? With your kind permission, that is.

[Hit The North]

Because coercion is something done to individuals by other individuals through violent force; "economic compulsion" is a natural fact of the world, not something artificial done onto man by other men. Then you must believe that economics is a force of nature, rather than the creation of human interaction. However, irrespective of what you may have heard, money does not grow on trees. :rolleyes:


The compulsion I speak of is as much of a biologic as an economic compulsion to attain subsidence, which is completely different from the social economic compulsion he speaks of that does not exist!


Whether this gobbledegook means anything is irrelevant as exploitation does not rely on either coercion or compulsion. It relies on two things: the worker's separation from the product of her labour and the capitalist's, or her surrogate's, control over the labour process.

[turquino]

Seriously, have ever taken Micro 101? There is no such thing as objective value, all value depends on someone to value it, and there is no unit of value, which an objective theory of value necessitates.

If the Labor Theory of Value is true, what explains the diamond-water paradox (I expect an answer to this otherwise you concede).
I`m quite familiar with what is taught in university microeconomics. The value you are referring to here is what Marxists call use-value. The diversity and quantity of commodities in the market is determined by society`s wants and needs, however they are *sold* at prices of production which oscillate around their labour values.

The labour theory of value explains diamonds and water quite adequately. Marginalists claim that the overabundance of water diminishes the price of water even though it has a high total utility to people. But is this not simply the law of value at work? As I have already mentioned, use-values coordinate the market to produce what, and in what quantity. When something like water is in abundant supply in nature it implies it doesn`t take much labour to produce. The opposite is the case in diamond mining. According to Wikipedia on average 0.3 to 1.0 carats of diamonds are recovered per metric ton of diamond ore, ore that needs to be extracted, crushed, sorted, and X-rayed. I would say quite a labour and capital intensive process.

[laminustacitus]

Then you must believe that economics is a force of nature, rather than the creation of human interaction. However, irrespective of what you may have heard, money does not grow on trees. :rolleyes:
The laws of economics are just as binding as the laws of nature. Just like gravity, the law of supply, and demand will always exist, and exert its force on human society. To deny it is absurd.




Whether this gobbledegook means anything is irrelevant as exploitation does not rely on either coercion or compulsion. It relies on two things: the worker's separation from the product of her labour and the capitalist's, or her surrogate's, control over the labour process.
And that force does not exist, it is a fiction of Marx. The first point you make has no weight whatsoever, being a fiction, and the second is false since entrepreneurs do not dictate prices to the market, instead the market harmonizes the catallactics, and valuations of many individuals, some of them workers, others entrepreneurs.

[laminustacitus]

I`m quite familiar with what is taught in university microeconomics. The value you are referring to here is what Marxists call use-value. The diversity and quantity of commodities in the market is determined by society`s wants and needs, however they are *sold* at prices of production which oscillate around their labour values.
There is no such thing as the use-value, labor-value dichotomy, if you bothered thinking about it rationally you would realize that it is a old tenet of classical economics that the Marginal Revolution obliterated. The value of a product sold on the market does not matter on its labor-value whatsoever, what matters are costs of production, and the amount consumers are willing to pay for the good.




The labour theory of value explains diamonds and water quite adequately. Marginalists claim that the overabundance of water diminishes the price of water even though it has a high total utility to people. But is this not simply the law of value at work? As I have already mentioned, use-values coordinate the market to produce what, and in what quantity. When something like water is in abundant supply in nature it implies it doesn`t take much labour to produce. The opposite is the case in diamond mining. According to Wikipedia on average 0.3 to 1.0 carats of diamonds are recovered per metric ton of diamond ore, ore that needs to be extracted, crushed, sorted, and X-rayed. I would say quite a labour and capital intensive process.
A diamond that I picked out of the mountainside having spotted it on a hike could sell for thousands of dollars, completely obliterating the idea of labor-value in one example.

[IcarusAngel]

These Libertarian "laws" of economics are what are the old myths. If they were real, then why didn't early humans have them. Why don't we see them in nature? Economic "laws" rely on many things that are merely human behavior, or things that constitute matters of opinion, like 'competitive market.'

Also, these 'laws' are violated all the time in economics - the reason being is they are not absolute or certain conditions exist that violate the laws. Economists explain these away in a variety of ways.

But the difference between a scientific law, like Newton's law of gravity, and a fake law like supply and demand is that the real scientific laws can't be violated or haven't been shown to be false.

[laminustacitus]

These Libertarian "laws" of economics are what are the old myths. If they were real, then why didn't early humans have them. Why don't we see them in nature? Economic "laws" rely on many things that are merely human behavior, or things that constitute matters of opinion, like 'competitive market.'
The laws of economics are a part of human nature; the axiom: "Man acts," and its consequences are fundamental features of man. Like it, or not, the laws of economics cannot be changed by socialists despite how hard they might try.




Also, these 'laws' are violated all the time in economics - the reason being is they are not absolute or certain conditions exist that violate the laws. Economists explain these away in a variety of ways.
Any economist who has not realized the perrenial nature of the laws of economics does not deserve the honor of being an economist. Man's nature is bred in man qua man, and it is from his human nature that the laws of economics spring. Again, they cannot be changed.




But the difference between a scientific law, like Newton's law of gravity, and a fake law like supply and demand is that the real scientific laws can't be violated or haven't been shown to be false.
All the laws of economics can be understood as a consequence of the axiom: "Man acts;" good luck disproving that axiom.

[AnarchistCain]

'No, my point is only a few workers get a chance to be a capitalist. Unless you were living under a rock, in today's economic situation, its lucky if a worker even has a job.'

Why are you perturbed by the your supposed idea that few workers become capitalists...is that not the point of Socialism in an indirect manner? To stop people from embracing capitalism? By the way, do you deny that the standard of living has not advanced in all classes?

'Consumption = "goods to be consumed" or "possessions". The communism that Marx advocated was of the means of production like factories, not your toothbrush.'

Actually you are think of a mutualist like Proudhon. Possessions are property. Private property in fact, and what is the first tenet of the Communist Manifesto. Abolition of private property...

'Haha. They need not of become anything like that. I would have expected a "former Marxist" to know what class struggle means. Classes are not created by class struggle, but by economic conditions.'

Are you kidding? Have you even read Marx? Class struggles is the fighting over the economic means of production therefore the economic conditions.

'Especially since you haven't done so.:rolleyes:'

Please, it looks as though you are but a petty high school student who has read nothing of Marx yet is a proponent of him. I don't need to waste any more time with you since I have so many others to choose from. :tt2: Who would of thunk, competition in debate on a Marxist forum?

[AnarchistCain]

'Who cares? Do you think that class coordination is somehow required for exploitation to take place?

If you had ever read Marx you would know that it is competition between capitalists which he considers the driving engine of capitalism in many respects..."

In a sense yes. There needs to be class consciousness among the capitalists to actively keep the proletariat down according to Marxism.

[IcarusAngel]

Economics studies business. No economics textbook - outside of one issued by the unaccredited Misean University - bases all of their assumptions off of "man acts." Man acts states something. But to study why man thinks and why he acts is the business of psychology. So far, there is no universal forumula that shows why people do things or predicts how any given person will act in a certain situation.

"Human nature" is very vague and doesn't predict anything either. Socialism supports a reorganizing of the economy that supports more closely what is called human nature - humans coming together to solve problems.

What's even more interesting is that most capitalists who are economists are not from the "Austrian school" in the first place.

[AnarchistCain]

The Marxist definition of class is based on how a group relates to the production process, eg. an owner the of means of production. That isn't very ambiguous, and it wouldn't matter if it was. Lacking a definition for a particular relation to the production process doesn't somehow mean that relation doesn't exist.

So then you concede that there is a barber class, a construction worker class, etc etc to ad infinitum? Since a class is merely defined as an owner of a means of production.



Because...acquiring wealth and resources is part of the class interests of the capitalist class. That's not exactly complicated now is it?


And it is not the same for workers?



While that doesn't contradict Marxism, historical materialism goes a lot deeper than people acting in some abstract self interest. It explains what the main determinant of what they view as their self-interest actually is.


What? That is nonsense. It is called materialism for a reason. Stop trying to make it an abstraction.





Uh, .01% of the working class turning into bourgeoisie doesn't somehow prevent the other 99.9 from realizing that capitalism does not benefit them.
Whoever told you that wasn't a Marxist. That's based on the liberal definition of class. And yes, of course we are going to change definitions, come up with new ones, etc. The relations of production are in a constant state of change. I think it's fairly obvious that things have changed since Marx's time.


So you too are conceding that living standards have not risen?




Making subsistence doesn't make you a part proletariat. That was a quality of the proletariat at that time. There are millions of subsistence farmers that own their own land.


Fine a better definition, subsistence without capital.



There is no substance to your argument. It's like saying that the statement "libertarians cause me to be annoyed" is wrong because libertarian means different things to different people. Okay, that's a horrible example, but I can't think of a better one atm.

What else can Marxism mean but the writings and theories of Marx himself?

[laminustacitus]

Economics studies business.
First fallacy, economics studies how society deals with scarce demand, and unlimited supply.




No economics textbook - outside of one issued by the unaccredited Misean University - bases all of their assumptions off of "man acts." Man acts states something. But to study why man thinks and why he acts is the business of psychology.
Economics only cares about the causation of events, economics does not care why a man sells a good, only that he does, and the results that his act has upon economy. There is no scientific method by which economics can determine the motivation of individuals, such knowledge has been denied to man.




So far, there is no universal forumula that shows why people do things or predicts how any given person will act in a certain situation.
That is not in the sphere of economics.




"Human nature" is very vague and doesn't predict anything either. Socialism supports a reorganizing of the economy that supports more closely what is called human nature - humans coming together to solve problems.
"Man acts" is anything but vague, what it says is that man, as the homo agens, will apply means in order to attain the ends he desire. That is anything but a vague statement, and it is a basic truth of economics.

Too bad socialism has been proven to be impossible by the economists. Ever heard of the calculation debate?




What's even more interesting is that most capitalists who are economists are not from the "Austrian school" in the first place.
And that matters?

[IcarusAngel]

'Actually you are think of a mutualist like Proudhon. Possessions are property. Private property in fact, and what is the first tenet of the Communist Manifesto. Abolition of private property...

It was abolition of private property in land, dumb ass.

Proudhon maintained the same thing throughout his life:


he continued to oppose concentrations of wealth and property, arguing for small-scale property ownership associated with peasants and artisans. He still opposed private property in land: "What I cannot accept, regarding land, is that the work put in gives a right to ownership of what has been worked on." In addition, he still believed that that "property" should be more equally distributed and limited in size to that actually used by individuals, families and workers associations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Joseph_Proudhon


Also, Marx did not oppose increasing production of items (which he didn't see anything wrong with) or people having posessions.

What he didn't like was how machinery etc. was used by the capitalist class, which becomes oppressive and turns the worker into a monotonous tool.

Adam Smith said the same thing pretty much.

[IcarusAngel]

First fallacy, economics studies how society deals with scarce demand, and unlimited supply.

How is that a fallacy? It's a statement and a fact. What I said was a fact: economics studies business transactions, and in fact that's why most people go itno the field. The concept of supply and demand shows that as the unit price increases, the demand for the commodity decreases. And also as the unit price increases the manufacturer will increase supply.

This relates to business but prior to that there were other ways of obtaining "scrace resources" than through businesses and this is studied by archeologists.

What to do with limited resources really should be more the job of political science or sociology, which should be the superset of economics, economics being the weaker social science.

Calcuation should exist, but also, the other social sciences need to tell us the effects they have on the population.


Economics only cares about the causation of events, economics does not care why a man sells a good, only that he does, and the results that his act has upon economy.

Yes. It is a unique social science.


"Man acts" is anything but vague, what it says is that man, as the homo agens, will apply means in order to attain the ends he desire. That is anything but a vague statement, and it is a basic truth of economics.

It certainly is vague. It doesn't tell us why he acts. Or how he acts. Or ultimately drives his actions. Or how his decisions came to be made. Or how his brain came to be formed that allowed him to act. Or what the consequences of his actions are, and so on.

It tells us no more than "wind blows" or "stars shine" or "computers compute."

[QUOTE=laminustacitus;1469018]"Too bad socialism has been proven to be impossible by the economists. Ever heard of the calculation debate?

Native people's had systems that were somewhat socialistic and lasted for centuries, that alone disproves this claim.

Economists have never disproven socialism. That isn't their job. If they have, they should come and show how people working together for common ends is invalid, and there would be no more social scientists etc. advocating socialism.

They've shown anything but and it seems that socialist principles flourish when they're put into practice whereas capitalist principles create "boom and bust" type systems.

[IcarusAngel]

I want to see this "proof" that shows that capitalism is inevitable and all other systems have been "disproven" in this "great debate."

Somehow I get the feeling I'm going to get a link to the pseudo-science website Mises.org.

[laminustacitus]

How is that a fallacy? It's a statement and a fact. What I said was a fact: economics studies business transactions, and in fact that's why most people go itno the field. The concept of supply and demand shows that as the unit price increases, the demand for the commodity decreases. And also as the unit price increases the manufacturer will increase supply.
Economics can be applied to business, yet economics qua economic science is not about business




This relates to business but prior to that there were other ways of obtaining "scrace resources" than through businesses and this is studied by archeologists.
Fallacious non sequitur.




What to do with limited resources really should be more the job of political science or sociology, which should be the superset of economics, economics being the weaker social science.
No, neither political science, nor sociology can elucidate the laws or economics, ergo they cannot deal with the problems that exist in the realm of economic laws.




Calculation should exist, but also, the other social sciences need to tell us the effects they have on the population.[QUOTE=IcarusAngel;1469038]
That is not calculation. Calculation refers to the process of distributing resources throughout society, and only economics can teach us anything about it.



[QUOTE=IcarusAngel;1469038]It certainly is vague. It doesn't tell us why he acts. Or how he acts. Or ultimately drives his actions. Or how his decisions came to be made. Or how his brain came to be formed that allowed him to act.
Those questions are not in the realm of economics.




Or what the consequences of his actions are, and so on.
It does teach this: the consequences of his actions will be economic order.




Native people's had systems that were somewhat socialistic and lasted for centuries, that alone disproves this claim.
An agrarian society, and an industrial society are two completely different animals. But yes, if you decide to go about a socialist economic system, you will enjoy the lovely life of the serf.




Economists have never disproven socialism. That isn't their job. If they have, they should come and show how people working together for common ends is invalid, and there would be no more social scientists etc. advocating socialism.
Economics elucidates that socialism will lead to nothing other than economic ruin; does the USSR ring a bell?




They've shown anything but and it seems that socialist principles flourish when they're put into practice whereas capitalist principles create "boom and bust" type systems.
First of all, the economy we live in today is not the capitalist economy of economic theory, there is both a central bank, and nationalized currency. Second, socialism has failed every time it has been applied.

[AnarchistCain]

'It was abolition of private property in land, dumb ass.'

Please point out where he differed between land and possessions.

'Also, Marx did not oppose increasing production of items (which he didn't see anything wrong with) or people having posessions.'

I agree with the former though he naively took on British school Ricardian economic theory, but you have yet to prove the second claim.


'What he didn't like was how machinery etc. was used by the capitalist class, which becomes oppressive and turns the worker into a monotonous tool.'

Which ideology has done more to create leisure, Capitalism (the advancement of capital intensive labor) or Communism (the advancement of manual intensive labor) ?

[laminustacitus]

I want to see this "proof" that shows that capitalism is inevitable and all other systems have been "disproven" in this "great debate."

Somehow I get the feeling I'm going to get a link to the pseudo-science website Mises.org.
Capitalism is not inevitable.

If truly want to learn how socialism has been disproven read Mises' Socialism, if not then research the calculation problem, and the impossibility of central command. Here (http://mises.org/humanaction/chap26sec1.asp) is the section of Human Action that deals with the calculation problem.

[Jack]

Actually you are think of a mutualist like Proudhon. Possessions are property. Private property in fact, and what is the first tenet of the Communist Manifesto. Abolition of private property...

Sure, but if you take the Nietzschian approach to slavery as being acceptable, and contrast it with the more popular opinion of it being wrong, you have quite a contradiction on your hands.

The point is, don't use one author's arguements contrasted with another, and try to pawn them off as one in the same.

[Jack]

Capitalism is not inevitable.

If truly want to learn how socialism has been disproven read Mises' Socialism, if not then research the calculation problem, and the impossibility of central command. Here (http://mises.org/humanaction/chap26sec1.asp) is the section of Human Action that deals with the calculation problem.

A minority of us on here advocate central planning, go talk to the Anti-Revisionists about that. Mises attacked "socialism" as being government spending and/or a planned economy, not workers controling the means of production as socialists desire.

[IcarusAngel]

Fallacious non sequitur.


It isn't a non-sequitur. YOU claimed that only capitalism can govern society, but other systems have been around far longer than capitalism.

You are just throwing the names of fallacies around because you're an idiot.


No, neither political science, nor sociology can elucidate the laws or economics, ergo they cannot deal with the problems that exist in the realm of economic laws.

That's ridiculous. It's like saying that a mathematician can't discuss physics.

People in one discipline make contributions in and comment on other fields all the time. Half of the early "computer scientists" were people who did not have degrees in computer science, for example.

Of course a sociologist or a political scientist can discuss economics as economics really is a subset of these fields - of the best way to govern society.


Economics elucidates that socialism will lead to nothing other than economic ruin; does the USSR ring a bell?


It shows no such thing and you give no such evidence. The USSR failed by its own accord due to the liberalization of Gorbachev combined with the pressures of the cold war and its failed invasions. The USSR was not even remotely socialist in the first place, and couldn't have been by definition because socialism means workers own the means of production, which had never existed in the USSR to my knowledge.

[IcarusAngel]

I ask for hard evidence, I get a link to a text written by an idiot.

Mises had no understanding of real socialist theory or even the social sciences. I believe his degree was in philosophy, or something of the sort. If what he said was true it would be discussed by serious academics.

[AnarchistCain]

'Private property has made us so stupid and one-sided that an object is only ours when we have it – when it exists for us as capital, or when it is directly possessed, eaten, drunk, worn, inhabited, etc., – in short, when it is used by us.'

Marx, Private Property and Communism in the Economic Manuscripts of 1848...

Hmmm...Angel...can you eat, drink or wear land? :tt2: It is rather enjoyable to prove I know more about Marxism then a Marxist. I still got it

[AnarchistCain]

'Sure, but if you take the Nietzschian approach to slavery as being acceptable, and contrast it with the more popular opinion of it being wrong, you have quite a contradiction on your hands.'

Nietzsche and popular opinion? :laugh:

I think you are the one speaking of contradiction.

[IcarusAngel]

I never said I was a "marxist." I read Marx as a philosopher. Here, he could be referring to private property as a capitalist usually sees it. It doesn't show he doesn't believe that people can control certain things to the exclusion of everybody else (possessions).

What he's saying is accurate - we can also own things when we do not possess it directly. If anything it proves my point.

[laminustacitus]

It isn't a non-sequitur. YOU claimed that only capitalism can govern society, but other systems have been around far longer than capitalism.
I never claimed that it is the only one, but it is the only one if you truly desire the highest standard of living possible. If you desire to live in an agrarian society, feel free to be socialist, but do not involve me in your economic disaster.




You are just throwing the names of fallacies around because you're an idiot.
Or I'm just utterly sick of you not giving me a rational answer.




That's ridiculous. It's like saying that a mathematician can't discuss physics.
Both sociology, and political science cannot elucidate the laws of economics, its a fact! Scholars in those disciplines try to handle social problems that cannot be tackled without the laws of economics.




Of course a sociologist or a political scientist can discuss economics as economics really is a subset of these fields - of the best way to govern society.
They first need the laws of economics to do this.




It shows no such thing and you give no such evidence. The USSR failed by its own accord due to the liberalization of Gorbachev combined with the pressures of the cold war and its failed invasions.
And how was the quality of life in the USSR? Citizens finally realized how terrible the USSR was, and, thanks to Gorbachev's reforms, rose against their oppressors.




The USSR was not even remotely socialist in the first place, and couldn't have been by definition because socialism means workers own the means of production, which had never existed in the USSR to my knowledge.
The USSR involved state control of the factors of production: socialism.

[Rosa Provokateur]

In 1848 Marx wrote this in the Communist Manifesto:

"Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat."

In Capital Volume 3, Chapter on Classes he wrote:

"The owners merely of labour-power, owners of capital, and land-owners, whose respective sources of income are wages, profit and ground-rent, in other words, wage-labourers, capitalists and land-owners, constitute then three big classes of modern society based upon the capitalist mode of production."

At the end of this chapter Marx goes on to say:

"However, from this standpoint, physicians and officials, e.g., would also constitute two classes, for they belong to two distinct social groups, the members of each of these groups receiving their revenue from one and the same source. The same would also be true of the infinite fragmentation of interest and rank into which the division of social labour splits labourers as well as capitalists and landlords-the latter, e.g., into owners of vineyards, farm owners, owners of forests, mine owners and owners of fisheries."

Then the third volume of Capital ends...

I propose to this group that the Marxist theory of class struggle is a facade formulated by Marx in order to substantiate his historical materialism dialectic. The idea of 'classes' in a society are ambiguous and can be carried out to suit the subjective needs of the viewer as Marx described in his above statement. Capitalists are in constant competition in acquiring wealth and resources, certainly not thinking of 'class interests'. The workers themselves can be described as thus "This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves." Therefore, both capitalists and workers are continually competing with one another under the premise of self-interest.

We have here above the 'logic progression' [if it can be called such] of Marx's inevitable class antagonism theory. From a theory of simplification of classes into either Bourgeois or Proletariat into a hints of a complex multi-class system with Ricardian flavor. If there is a multi-class system where one can be in any class at any time at any point of there life, then it is absurd to establish the claim that society will advance from the inevitable 'consciousness' of a class that is so haphazardly defined. Marxists to date are constantly changing what it means to be a proletariat in order to sustain their dying religion. I had recently been told that the proletariat class was now everyone from the lower to middle classes. Certainly Marx did not see the 'middle class' as the proletariat, perhaps in his mind they could be pushed into that class but it is very clearly stated that they are workers who make only subsistence.

Capitalists themselves were described as those sustaining their lifestyles on 'surplus profit' and nothing else, yet Bill Gates labors for his corporation [however much he does is irrelevent, for when he labors he stops being a 'capitalist'] and yet these serve as examples of the facade I am presenting. Class could mean anything to anyone and this is only confirmed by continued Marxist revisionism.

Bravo! Very well done! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one ready for Marxism to kick the can :tt2:

[mykittyhasaboner]

It doesn't really matter.

Why doesn't it matter?


I know, you have yet to utter a single correct utterance.
Wow, your one to talk.



Corporatism, while it does not entail complete state control over the factors of production, does involve a quantity of state oversight in their use. Where did the concept of the state even getting involved with how the factors of production are utilized evolve from: socialism.

In fact, the fact corporatism emerged in Germany is no coincidence of history since the Hohenzollern Prussian state was not adamantly against socialism rather it was willing to incorporate socialism into its government. Eventually, German socialism mutated into German corporatism.

So am I supposed to believe this load of garbage? I wonder if you actually know what your talking about.



Your point being. Entrepreneurs (a far better term than the rhetorically clichéd "Capitalist") are everywhere, just because they are somewhere does not make it automatically a capitalism economy.
My fucking point was that you were going on about "great capitalist theorists" fleeing from Nazi Germany, where as many capitalists actually in league with the fascist regime. Your an obvious fool who can't admit it.





It is not I who sounds like an idiot right now.Great argument, it shows to me that your a complete moron.





Ireland was certainly not capitalist, it was under the boot of the British empire! Free enterprise was not allowed to flourish there, only an outdated economic system that doomed the entire Catholic population to starvation. The same thing with Scotland.

As far as the famine in Germany following WWI, its cause was a blockade, not some flaw in capitalism. It was a totalitarian policy completely diametrical to capitalism.

Believe it or not, just being "integrate into the capitalist market" (even though true free trade does not involve massive government bueraucracies like the WTO to regulated it, again that is a trait of mercantilism) does not mean that a nation is capitalist. In none of the nations you list was there the strict protection of property right, or a domestic market that integrated the entire nation (this being either thanks to a totalitarian regime, as in Sudan, or heavy regulation thanks to a Socialist regime, as in India).Bourgeoisie own and control the means of production (be it foreign imposed or native) = capitalism. Your entire argument is just a nonsensical rant.



As of now, mykityhasaboner, your entire attack against me is in shambles, and you have displayed to be a rather immature individual, with your screen-name not disappointing. Every single thing you have said against me, I have displayed as a fallacy; have fun picking up the pieces.HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

[Skooma Addict]

Bourgeoisie own and control the means of production (be it foreign imposed or native) = capitalism. Your entire argument is just a nonsensical rant.

Capitalism implies private ownership over the means of production. Whether or not the owners are part of the Bourgeoisie is irrelevant.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Capitalism implies private ownership over the means of production. Whether or not the owners are part of the Bourgeoisie is irrelevant.
It's irrelevant? Are you that naive?

Would it be irrelevant if the bourgeoisie historically represent the class which espouses private ownership of the means of production, and that in practice has been for that very class which first developed the capitalist economy? If you really take a look at private ownership as a relation to production, as well as the exploitation of labor from workers, you'll find what makes the bourgeois class' foundation as a class, and this by definition implies capitalism.

[Skooma Addict]

Looks like you don't understand what bourgeois means. It means any owner of private capital.

Any owner of private capital? So the child working in a sweatshop in China is part of the bourgeois because he owns a pair of gloves he wears in order to help him work a machine?

[#FF0000]

Capitalism implies private ownership over the means of production. Whether or not the owners are part of the Bourgeoisie is irrelevant.

But... the ownership of property is what makes... when somebody is a part of the bourgeoisie, it means that...

Dear god you have no idea what the in hell you are talking about. This degree of ignorance is just astounding. It has opened my eyes to new horizons in human ignorance and foolhardiness. Looking back from this very moment, every stupid thing I have ever heard in my life is now, in retrospect, a glowing bead of truth, a shining nugget of wisdom and reason.

Your post has changed my life.

[mel]

Any owner of private capital? So the child working in a sweatshop in China is part of the bourgeois because he owns a pair of gloves he wears in order to help him work a machine?

Gloves aren't private capital. Gloves aren't even private property. They're personal property at best.

[#FF0000]

Any owner of private capital? So the child working in a sweatshop in China is part of the bourgeois because he owns a pair of gloves he wears in order to help him work a machine?

No.


Gloves aren't private capital. Gloves aren't even private property. They're personal property at best.

*Personal possession, but semantics, semantics.

[Skooma Addict]

Gloves aren't private capital. Gloves aren't even private property. They're personal property at best.

Dear god you have no idea what the in hell you are talking about. This degree of ignorance is just astounding. It has opened my eyes to new horizons in human ignorance and foolhardiness. Looking back from this very moment, every stupid thing I have ever heard in my life is now, in retrospect, a glowing bead of truth, a shining nugget of wisdom and reason.

Your post has changed my life.

[#FF0000]

Dear god you have no idea what the in hell you are talking about. This degree of ignorance is just astounding. It has opened my eyes to new horizons in human ignorance and foolhardiness. Looking back from this very moment, every stupid thing I have ever heard in my life is now, in retrospect, a glowing bead of truth, a shining nugget of wisdom and reason.

Your post has changed my life.

It was funnier when I said it.

But, no he's actually right. Gloves or an Ipod or a commodity like that generally isn't considered "private property", but a "possession". Property includes land, raw materials, industrial machinery...etc. You know. Capital.

It might help if you maybe read a little bit about marxism before you post again.

[mel]

Dear god you have no idea what the in hell you are talking about. This degree of ignorance is just astounding. It has opened my eyes to new horizons in human ignorance and foolhardiness. Looking back from this very moment, every stupid thing I have ever heard in my life is now, in retrospect, a glowing bead of truth, a shining nugget of wisdom and reason.

Your post has changed my life.

Funny. Gloves still aren't private capital, by any definition of the word I've ever seen. If you would like to disagree, please provide your own definition.

[Skooma Addict]

It was funnier when I said it.

But, no he's actually right. Gloves or an Ipod or a commodity like that generally isn't considered "private property", but a "possession". Property includes land, raw materials, industrial machinery...etc. You know. Capital.

It might help if you maybe read a little bit about marxism before you post again.

An Ipod is private property. It is also a possession.

[Skooma Addict]

Private property is property that is used to exploit fellow human beings in the name of wage labor. Last time I checked I didnt have any employees working inside my shoes or gloves.:rolleyes:

How many definitions of "private property" do you guys have?

[mel]

How many definitions of "private property" do you guys have?

What definition do you have? Personal possessions and private property are of an entirely different character. If you can't tell the difference between the relationship of an individual to an iPod and the relationship of an individual to a factory, you're insane.

[Skooma Addict]

Funny. Gloves still aren't private capital, by any definition of the word I've ever seen. If you would like to disagree, please provide your own definition.

Assets available for use in the production of further assets. Whether or not gloves are Capital depends on how they are being used.

[mel]

Assets available for use in the production of further assets. Whether or not gloves are Capital depends on how they are being used.

By that definition the shoes somebody wears to walk around a workplace are private capital. That definition is so inclusive that it's entirely useless.

[Skooma Addict]

By that definition the shoes somebody wears to walk around a workplace are private capital. That definition is so inclusive that it's entirely useless.

It is not inclusive at all. It is also not useless. It is what separates a capital good from a consumers good. As for you shoe example, whether or not the shoes are capital goods depends on whether or not they are being used for the production of some kind of asset. Just because I wear shoes to work does not mean my shoes are capital. If I went hunting for a living, and I had snow shoes I had to wear in order to go hunting during the winter, then the shoes would qualify as a capital good.

[Skooma Addict]

By whom? Assets dont't produce themselves, do they? There are these people, called workers who do all the producing. Have you ever noticed those peculiar folk doing the actual work?

What is your point? I am not sure if I know what your trying to get at. I know assets don't produce themselves.

[mel]

It is not inclusive at all. It is also not useless. It is what separates a capital good from a consumers good. As for you shoe example, whether or not the shoes are capital goods depends on whether or not they are being used for the production of some kind of asset. Just because I wear shoes to work does not mean my shoes are capital. If I went hunting for a living, and I had snow shoes I had to wear in order to go hunting during the winter, then the shoes would qualify as a capital good.

The machinery in your previous example is the "capital". The gloves are not strictly a necessity and they are not actually a part of the process of production. The worker operates the machinery (which the worker could still do without gloves, the gloves just make it safer) and the machinery produces the commodities. The gloves could be replaced with another pair, or not worn at all, and the process would scarcely be changed. The gloves do not produce any value, the gloves are not an integral part of the creation of value. The worker adds labor, the machinery creates product. The gloves provide comfort and safety.

[Skooma Addict]

The machinery in your previous example is the "capital". The gloves are not strictly a necessity and they are not actually a part of the process of production. The worker operates the machinery (which the worker could still do without gloves, the gloves just make it safer) and the machinery produces the commodities. The gloves could be replaced with another pair, or not worn at all, and the process would scarcely be changed. The gloves do not produce any value, the gloves are not an integral part of the creation of value. The worker adds labor, the machinery creates product. The gloves provide comfort and safety.

But the gloves still are a part of the production process. Gloves make the laborers job easier, just like machinery makes the laborers job easier. Although, you are correct when you say the machinery is more important to the production process.

[mel]

But the gloves still are a part of the production process. Gloves make the laborers job easier, just like machinery makes the laborers job easier. Although, you are correct when you say the machinery is more important to the production process.

Having hands makes the laborers job easier, and so does wearing shoes. Capital is not 'anything that makes a worker's job easier', because otherwise that definition is again, ultra-inclusive and entirely useless.

[Skooma Addict]

My point is: without the workers performing wage labor, the capitalist cannot produce anything from their private property. But the irony is that everything the capitalist owns is produced by the workers. The capitalist has only appropriated them thanks to the law of private property, while giving the worker some pittance of a wage. As socialists, we want the producers (workers) to own the means of production and thus advocate the expropriation of the stolen private property from the capitalist class and to make this so-called private property a commonly owned resource, instead of it being restricted to the ownership of private individuals, who act as bulwarks against progress. In short, we want justice for the workers.

The reason workers wages are lower than the value of their product is due to time preferences, not exploitation. Workers are paid ahead of time, while the capitalist must wait until the product is sold before he can make a profit. In a free market, a workers wage will tend to be the value of their product minus the market rate of interest.

Look at it this way. Would you give me 10 dollars now, if I promised to give you 11 dollars 50 years from now? No, you wouldn't. But would you give me 10 dollars today, if I promised to give you 5000 dollars a year from now? I think you would. The same idea applies with workers wages. Workers are paid BEFORE their product is sold to the consumer. Since they are being paid ahead of time, the capitalist will pay them less than the value of their product. But again, this is because the value of present money is higher than that of future money.

[mel]

The reason workers wages are lower than the value of their product is due to time preferences, not exploitation. Workers are paid ahead of time, while the capitalist must wait until the product is sold before he can make a profit. In a free market, a workers wage will tend to be the value of their product minus the market rate of interest.

The capitalist produces no value, the capitalist does not deserve to make a profit, because profit is just exploitation. Even if this time preference bullshit was true (and it only ever would be before any product has been created at all), it is not as if workers are paid daily, and I don't see any evidence of a correlation between lower wages and workers that get paid daily vs. workers that get paid monthly. If workers were paid less due to time preference, wouldn't workers being paid monthly make higher wages than workers paid weekly?


Look at it this way. Would you give me 10 dollars now, if I promised to give you 11 dollars 50 years from now? No, you wouldn't. But would you give me 10 dollars today, if I promised to give you 5000 dollars a year from now? I think you would. The same idea applies with workers wages. Workers are paid BEFORE their product is sold to the consumer. Since they are being paid ahead of time, the capitalist will pay them less than the value of their product. But again, this is because the value of present money is higher than that of future money.

The capitalist has no right to profit from work that the capitalist did not do. All of this other bullshit about money now vs. money later is completely irrelevant. The capitalist steals what rightfully belongs to the worker.

[Skooma Addict]

The capitalist produces no value, the capitalist does not deserve to make a profit, because profit is just exploitation. Even if this time preference bullshit was true (and it only ever would be before any product has been created at all), it is not as if workers are paid daily, and I don't see any evidence of a correlation between lower wages and workers that get paid daily vs. workers that get paid monthly. If workers were paid less due to time preference, wouldn't workers being paid monthly make higher wages than workers paid weekly?

I am assuming you mean workers of equal skill. Generally, Workers earn their the value of their product minus the market rate of interest. The interest rate is basically the premium of present money over future money. So the answer to your question is No. Although that is a very good question.


The capitalist has no right to profit from work that the capitalist did not do. The capitalist steals what rightfully belongs to the worker.

Take out capitalist and insert bureaucrat.

[Skooma Addict]

Thats a load of nonsense. You are essentially presenting the classic bourgeois defense of wage slavery. Like all mysticism, it doesn't have any relevance in the real world. The capitalist essentially steals the labor of the worker in the form of non-labor income and knows very well that they are doing so, in spite of moronic "defenses" of capitalism by people like Mises, Friedman and Hayek.

I don't know what else to say. The capitalist does not steal from the worker like the government steals from the worker. The capitalist/worker relationship is completely voluntary. The coercive State/Worker relationship is not.

[mel]

I am assuming you mean workers of equal skill. Generally, Workers earn their the value of their product minus the market rate of interest. The interest rate is basically the premium of present money over future money. So the answer to your question is No. Although that is a very good question.

Interest is a function of time. Laborers of equal skill who are paid at different intervals (for example weekly vs. monthly) should, if the difference is time preferences, be paid different wages. A laborer paid weekly leaves the capitalst less time to get the profit from the product created by the worker. A laborer of equal skill ought to be paid more because they have given the capitalist more time to make the money used to pay them.

However, the others are right and none of this is actually relevant, I just wanted to show that this explanation was lacking.

[Skooma Addict]

Interest is a function of time. Laborers of equal skill who are paid at different intervals (for example weekly vs. monthly) should, if the difference is time preferences, be paid different wages. A laborer paid weekly leaves the capitalst less time to get the profit from the product created by the worker. A laborer of equal skill ought to be paid more because they have given the capitalist more time to make the money used to pay them.

However, the others are right and none of this is actually relevant, I just wanted to show that this explanation was lacking.

I see what your saying. I will try to use an example to clarify. Lets say the interest rate is 10%. Present money has a 10% premium over money receivable 1 year from now. So 100 dollars now is worth 110 dollars a year from now. Also, 100 dollars now is worth 101 dollars a 1/10 year from now. Someone who is getting paid every 1/10 of a year will actually make the same amount as an equally skilled person getting paid once a year.

That is a pretty bad and confusing example. But it gets the point across.

[Skooma Addict]

You're just saying that and I presume I should take your word for it? Workers have seen from personal experience how the bosses make workers work like hell while doing nothing themselves. Still they get the major part of the money workers earn for them. If any worker "voluntarily" quits their job, they starve and die. So, no, its not voluntary. Its as coercive as government taxation. The general ideology of the American conservative bourgeois apologist is that government is the only bad guy. This is what the capitalist class wants the American workers to think! They want us to forget who runs the government: the capitalists themselves. Not only do capitalists exploit the workers, but they get massive bailouts of tax payer money too!:laugh:

I am an anarchist, so I certainly do not support capitalists running the government. I was also against the bailouts of the businesses that should have failed. But what we have today is nothing like true capitalism.

I actually believe voluntary socialism is perfectly fine. I have nothing against you and other socialists getting together and forming a voluntary socialist community/society. Do you want to force socialism upon people who do not desire it?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

So then you concede that there is a barber class, a construction worker class, etc etc to ad infinitum? Since a class is merely defined as an owner of a means of production.

I don't see how you can possibly conclude that from what I said.


What? That is nonsense. It is called materialism for a reason. Stop trying to make it an abstraction. What the hell are you talking about?


So you too are conceding that living standards have not risen?Did you even read my post?


Fine a better definition, subsistence without capital.Again, did you even read my post? Subsistence has nothing to do with it.


What else can Marxism mean but the writings and theories of Marx himself?As someone pointed out earlier, Marxism refers to the method, historical materialism. That you think classes can be defined differently by different people means historical materialism is proven wrong is completely idiotic, and you've yet to even demonstrate that you know what the hell class is.


Actually you are think of a mutualist like Proudhon. Possessions are property. Private property in fact, and what is the first tenet of the Communist Manifesto. Abolition of private property...You should really learn what the hell you are talking about.


The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.
We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.
Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.
Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?
But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism. To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.
Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power.
When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.

The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.
In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.
In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.
And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.
By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.
But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the other “brave words” of our bourgeois about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.
You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.
In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.
From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised, i.e., from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishes.
You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.

It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.
According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work. The whole of this objection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can no longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.

My toothbrush and my house aren't exactly part of the production process. I wouldn't have posted so much, but you obviously don't know anything about what you're arguing against. I suppose you saw a few quotes on mises.org and thought to yourself "ZOMG MRAXISM DISPROOVED"


Which ideology has done more to create leisure, Capitalism (the advancement of capital intensive labor) or Communism (the advancement of manual intensive labor) ?

I knew you were ignorant, but by this post I can tell that you're just a troll.


Ever heard of the calculation debate?Only because Mises thought prices determined in free competition were the only ways to measure opportunity cost, which is intuitively wrong. IIRC he didn't even deal with the formation of the general rate of profit, but I haven't looked at the strawman filled "socialism" in a while.

[mel]

I see what your saying. I will try to use an example to clarify. Lets say the interest rate is 10%. Present money has a 10% premium over money receivable 1 year from now. So 100 dollars now is worth 110 dollars a year from now. Also, 100 dollars now is worth 101 dollars a 1/10 year from now. Someone who is getting paid every 1/10 of a year will actually make the same amount as an equally skilled person getting paid once a year.

That is a pretty bad and confusing example. But it gets the point across.

You need to put that in terms of salaries. Your example is confusing because it is flawed. Let's argue that your assumptions are correct for a moment and that your example is correct. Let's say that the worker agrees to only be paid when product is bought, and that product is bought from the capitalist once every year. We will call this worker "Worker A" and worker A is paid the "full value of their labor" because "Worker A" gets paid after product is purchased, like the capitalist.

Let's say that the product sells for $100 per unit, and the capitalist sells 10 units per year. Worker A is the only employee. Production costs amount to $50 per unit. In this scenario, "Worker A". Gross revenue is $1000 for the product, the production costs were $500, and the worker gets all of what is left because they did all of the work, and they get paid the full value of their labor. The capitalist provides the worker with the amount of profit ($500) minus the interest (10% * 0/11)) because they took money only after product had been sold, they did not get "money now". The 0/11 (only 11 because the last payment is necessarily not "money now" because it is after the product is sold) represents the number of months a worker accepts "money now" per year.

Now we'll describe "Worker B". All of the costs are the same, but "Worker B" gets paid every 6 months, with a 10% premium on "Money now". Worker B gets paid ($500 - ($500 * (0.10 * 1/11))) = $495.45 per year. Worker B is equally skilled as Worker A, but Worker B makes less per year (A lower wage) because Worker B receives more frequent payments.

Worker C is like Worker B, but Worker C gets paid once a month. Worker C makes ($500 -($500* (0.10*11/11))) = $450.00 per year. Worker C gets more frequent payments, and therefore makes less money per year.

Worker D is much like worker C, but Worker D gets paid 4 times per month, the equivalent of weekly payments. Worker D makes (500 -(500* (0.10*44/11)) = $300.00.

In the real world, there is not such a drastic change in wages for equally skilled workers based on frequency of payment, so your argument that Capitalist appropriation of profit is based on the value of "money now" vs. "money later" must not be correct, because equally skilled workers do not make, on average, more money if they are paid monthly instead of weekly.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

And this is why capitalism is the cure to class struggle. Free market capitalism continually brings more and more of the proletariat into the fold of the bourgeoisie. The vast majority of middle and lower class Americans, for example, are bourgeoisie. These are the people who own the means of production via stock and who fund the expansion of capital via savings and bonds.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a7/United_States_Income_Distribution_1967-2003.svg/800px-United_States_Income_Distribution_1967-2003.svg.png
And yes, I realize the US isn't your utopian free market capitalism, but I'm not going to argue based on something that never has and never will exist.


Strange, did not fascism develop from socialism with Mousillini being a editor of a socialist newspaper, and Hitler being a member of the National Socialism Party? Of course, some socialists like pretending that fascism is a form of capitalist, but that is factually wrong.

Because you don't know what capitalism is or what is leads to.


That is not capitalism, that is corporatism, an outgrowth of socialism. May I also note how some of the greatest capitalist theorists needed to flee Nazi rule?

But the way libertarians define socialism tends to give us the conclusion that every "capitalist" society in history has been socialist.


Since value is only subjective, the workers gave no value to the product they created, they merely created that object. All of your arguments against the labor theory of value are based on semantics, on your subjective idea of what value should mean. If we just all start calling it labor cost or labor units instead of labor value I doubt you'd have any argument.

For people that praise individuality and self interest, I don't get why you religiously attach yourselves to a socially produced libertarian morality, when unless you're a capitalist it probably isn't even in your self interest and only restricts your actions.


Does not the Communist Manifesto speak of greater, and greater suffering by the proletariat as the evil bourgeois receive more, and more of the economic pie as the former receive less, and less resulting in enough suffering that eventually results in an uprising that results in the bourgeois being overthrown, and a dictatorship of the proletariat being instituted? Was this not supposed to a process as valid as any other scientific theory?
Actually no, it was based on the relative immiseration of the proletariat. Their living standard will go up based on rising productivity, but they will receive less and less of the total wealth. In the graph I posted above for example, the bottom 50% received about 40% of the income as the top 5% of income earners in 1967. Now they receive about a quarter, even though they have flat screen tvs.


Property is the natural relation between man, and his environment. Property does not necessitate the existence of the state.Well, the classical liberals such as Adam Smith disagree. For them and Marx the state becomes necessary to defend those with wealth from those without. You support a system that centralizes wealth and power into the hands of a minority, but you're surprised when that minority with all of the power ends up controlling the state. It's as if you think the state is independent of the social forces that everything and everyone else are subjected to.


The Nazis simply were not capitalist, they were corporatists. I thought maybe you would be intelligent enough to get that reference to Ludwig von Mises who condemned German corporatism as just another form of socialism, but I guess I was wrong.No one here cares about Mises and I don't think you even attempted to prove your assertion.


Notice the "bare existence" part? The proletariat today have far more than what Marx spoke of in "a bare existence"; in fact, the proletariat today have the living standards of the aristocracy of the past.

Marx was talking about in free competition. You of all people should realize that things such as minimum wage, workplace safety regulations, workday limits, paid medical leave, pensions or the many other state regulated benefits etc are the result of state interference in the free market. You argue on the basis of current monopoly capitalism when it suits you, but disregard it as socialism or corporatism when someone tries to use it in their arguments against you. You want all of it's technological and standard of living benefits but none of it's defects.

[Hit The North]

The laws of economics are just as binding as the laws of nature. Just like gravity, the law of supply, and demand will always exist, and exert its force on human society. To deny it is absurd.
If you believe this to be the case, why were you making a song and dance of distinguishing between the two, arguing for the existence of natural compulsion but denying the existence of socio-economic compulsion, here:
The compulsion I speak of is as much of a biologic as an economic compulsion to attain subsidence, which is completely different from the social economic compulsion he speaks of that does not exist!
If this force does not impose itself as a compulsion then how does it impose itself on human society? Meanwhile, what has "subsidence" got to do with anything? You seem quite confused and further evidence for your confusion can be found here:

And that force does not exist, it is a fiction of Marx. The first point you make has no weight whatsoever, being a fiction, and the second is false since entrepreneurs do not dictate prices to the market, instead the market harmonizes the catallactics, and valuations of many individuals, some of them workers, others entrepreneurs.
If it is a fiction that the producer is separated from the product of her labour, why is she not allowed to keep or sell the product of her labour? If you deny this separation you deny the very basis of exchange in a capitalist wage economy. Secondly, when I talk about the ability of the capitalist to control the labour process, I am not arguing that entrepreneurs dictate prices. This is a different issue and, if you wish to debate in an honest manner, you should stick to the issue at hand.

Now, please point to the capitalist who is unable to control the labour process under their command and I'll show you a capitalist who is about to go out of business.

[MikeSC]

Christ, you went on all night?


And yet you cannot refute what I just said! You insult me, yet you do not rationally prove me wrong!Think for a second- you said that state interference was invented with socialism. You are a silly, silly prick.


Property is the natural relation between man, and his environment. Property does not necessitate the existence of the state.There is nothing natural about it, it is the result of state seizure. It is a matter of historical fact that the most primitive of societies held their land and resources in common, until it was siezed forcefully (it would have had to be, if it's held in common no person has the right to sell it or disown it). All land and resources are in private hands after at least one seizure. Locke's guess that property came about from virgin lands and that is something we know to be false, and is completely arbitrary anyway- who would you give the right to set such rules?


Utter non sequitur with absolutely no relevance to what I have hitherto stated; otherwise, please, pro me misero, show me why that is not a non sequitur.How can you be so staggeringly stupid?

This is what you said: "Where did the concept of the state even getting involved with how the factors of production are utilized evolve from: socialism."

You are completely and utterly wrong, that is the most stupid thing I've heard... ever. You should really get some pre-school level history under your belt before trying to argue about it. Christ.


The state has been there creating mercantilism, not capitalism. Is it truly hard to realize the differences between the two systems. One is based on voluntary commerce, the other based on government bueraucracies regulating commerce for its own benefit.Hasn't capitalism grown out of private property? So whatever created private property... created capitalism... which was, and is, the state...

Do you think that there has never been any capitalism? I mean, for real? Are we still mercantilist in your backward brain?


The Nazis simply were not capitalist, they were corporatists. I thought maybe you would be intelligent enough to get that reference to Ludwig von Mises who condemned German corporatism as just another form of socialism, but I guess I was wrong.I don't give a flying fuck what von Mises wants to label things, it is completely obnoxious when you try and force your own definitions onto people (no socialist would agree with your definition of socialism, no one who fits your definition of socialism calls themelves a socialist- you're just being stupid.) It had private property and companies operating for profit- under state restrictions, so do all capitalist countries to at least some extent.


You spurt opinions without being able to defend them rationally. This coming from someone who has claimed that the state was invented as a consequence of socialism- and who argues by redefining whatever you don't like the definition of. You can't argue without first finding out what you're meant to be arguing about, it isn't enough to just say "well I think I'll call this socialism- therefore anyone who is a socialist must argue against what I've decided socialism is." Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[gobblegobble]

so where did the first capitalist get his capital from to exploit his workers?

[#FF0000]

so where did the first capitalist get his capital from to exploit his workers?

Oh you know that answer you silly goose.

[gobblegobble]

Oh you know that answer you silly goose.
he stole it? i dunno please enlighten me.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

so where did the first capitalist get his capital from to exploit his workers?

Here are some quite descriptive passages from Marx's kapital for beginners:


Many moralists and politicians tell an edifying story designed to enlighten us about the happy origins of wealth and poverty. ‘Long, long ago,’ they say, ‘there were two sorts of people: one, the diligent, intelligent, and above all frugal elite; the other, lazy rascals, spending their wealth, and more, in riotous living. Thus it came to pass that the latter sort finally had nothing to sell except their own skins. And from this original sin dates the poverty of the great majority (who, despite all their labour, have up to now nothing to sell but themselves), and the wealth of the few (that increases constantly, although they long ago ceased to work).’ In real history, conquest, enslavement, robbery and murder play the greatest part. Not only the working class, but poverty, welfare, colonialism and all the rest are the result not of frail ‘human nature’, but of an epic assault on the common people by bosses and aristocrats of every type.
In capitalist society, surplus labour is extracted from the proletariat in the form of surplus value. How this came to pass we can best understand by exploring the history of the expropriation of the producer. We must cast our eyes back to that time in English history when great masses of men, women and children were suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of production and hurled onto the labour-market as sellers of labour-power. The basis of this process was the expropriation of the peasant from the land.

By the end of the 14th century, English serfdom had practically disappeared. The immense majority of the population consisted of free peasants. In contrast to earlier times, these peasants did relatively little work for the nobles, working instead on land commonly or privately owned. Though gigantic baronies were strewn about, small peasant properties were much more common. The violent expropriation of these small properties and proprietors occurred in several phases. Thus was formed a propertyless proletariat. The opening shot in the campaign was fired by the monarchy. In a bold move to strengthen the king against the nobles, the royal power took action to dissolve the bands of retainers surrounding the various luminaries of the nobility. These aides de camp thus became the first to be hurled in appreciable numbers onto the early labour-market.

In defiant opposition, the great feudal lords created an incomparably larger proletariat, undertaking the forcible seizure of peasant land-holdings in a ruthless effort to magnify aristocratic power. The direct impulse for this process of expropriation was provided by the rapid expansion of wool manufacture in Flanders, and the corresponding rise in wool prices. Seeking money, that emerging power of powers, the nobility decided to convert farm lands into sheepwalks. To do this, they concentrated all their military might on the peasantry in a vast, brutal, ultimately successful effort to uproot it, pillaging and razing countless villages in the process.

An Act from the time of Henry VIII speaks of the resulting transfer of control over the means of production, ‘whereby many farms and large flocks of sheep became concentrated in the hands of a few men; whereby marvelous numbers of people have been deprived of the means wherewith to maintain themselves and their families.’ Henry’s minister, Thomas More, speaks in Utopia of the curious land where “sheep swallow down the very men themselves’. As Francis Bacon declared, ‘This bred a decay of people, towns, churches and the like’. Once owners of several acres, the peasants now were virtually landless. To this day, the typical worker is lucky to own even a small garden.

The expropriation process received two new and terrible impulses during the 17th centry: the theft, on a colossal scale, of Catholic Church lands (during the Protestant Reformation) and of State lands (during the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688). The overall result was that by methods of ruthless terrorism the lands of England were converted from community property and small holdings into a set of gigantic private business ventures. Meanwhile the number of uprooted, propertyless, and rightless ex-peasants swelled beyond measure. Where did these peasants go?

‘Paupers are everywhere, and everywhere subjected’. Thus spoke Queen Elizabeth after a journey through England. Soon after, it proved necessary to recognize pauperism officially by the introduction of the poor-rate.

But the powers-that-be did not generally treat the refugee peasantry with anything like kindness. Just the reverse. Incredible new violence was visited upon these already terrorized people, to transform them into a passive, docile working class, to discipline them to the regime of industry, to break them of their rebellious spirit. Far from all of the uprooted labourers created by the expropriation of the peasantry could be employed by nascent industry. Abruptly dragged from their accustomed life, with few opportunities for wage-work, these unfortunates were turned in huge numbers into beggars, robbers, and vagabonds.

The state promptly showed its great and tender regard for the newly impoverished by enacting Draconian lawas treating beggars and vagabonds as ‘voluntary criminals’.

-During the reign of Henry VIII, in 1530, vagabonds were condemned to whipping for a first offence, loss of an ear for a second, and execution for a third – with no help offered in finding work.
-During the reign of Edward VI, in 1547, anyone refusing to work – at what? With what means of production? – was condemned as a slave.
-During the reign of Elizabeth, in 1572, unlicensed beggars 14 or older were severely flogged and branded. A second offence brought death.


‘Thus were the farming folk of England expropriated, chased from their homes, turned into vagabonds, and then whipped, branded, and tortured by grotesquely terroristic laws into accepting the discipline necessary for the system of wage labour.’


With this background, money was at long last free to function as capital, buying great quantities of labour-power to carry on manufacture and, later, industrial production. Spindles, looms, and other means of production – once dispersed through the countryside – were now gathered together in primitive factories. Trade penetrated everywhere, powered by the incipient ‘industrial revolution’. The combination of concentrated means of production and hired labour-power proved tremendously dynamic.


‘The discovery of gold and silver in America, the elimination, enslavement, and entombment in mines of the original American population, the beginnings of the conquest and plunder of India, and the conversion of Africa into a preserve for the commercial hunting of Black skins – these are the idyllic proceedings that characterized the dawn of capitalist production.’


At first, capital could absorb a mere fraction of the surplus population driven from the land, leaving beggars and vagabonds unemployed in droves. But, once underway, capitalist production gathered momentum. As decades and centuries passed, the immense majority of the English population became proletarians. The same happened elsewhere, too.

The terroristic methods and harsh laws by which the landless population had initially been introduced to labour discipline became decreasingly necessary as capitalist production stabilized, becoming the ‘normal’ form of production.


‘Now, the silent compulsion of economic relations sets the seal on the domination of the capitalist over the worker. Direct extra-economic force is still of course used, but only in exceptional cases. In the ordinary run of things, workers can safely be left to the gentle mercy of production relations – to fears of joblessness, to hunger and need…’


Because they possess no means of production, workers have no option but to ‘freely’ sell their labour-power. It is in this way that the proletariat becomes the principal actor on the economic stage. The proletariat differs from openly unfree classes like serfs and slaves in two ways. Proletarians are ‘free’ to sell labour-power, and (unlike serfs) ‘free’ of all means of production. This is the double basis of the celebrated ‘freedom’ of bourgeois society.


-Freedom, because both buyer and seller are determined only by their own free will, contracting as free persons equal before the law.
-Equality because each relates to the other as a simple owner of commodities, exchanging equivalent for equivalent.
-Property, because each disposes only of what is his own.


When we leave the sphere of exchange – when we enter the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold hangs the notice, ‘No admittance except on business’ – a certain change takes place in the manner of our leading characters. The money-owner now strides forward as a capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his worker. The one smirks self-importantly and is intent on business; the other is deferential and fearful. We are now speaking about the alienation of labour – the subordination of the worker to an alien power. As the direct outcome of the sale of labour-power, the subordination of the worker is an intrinsic feature of labour-power’s status as a commodity. Comprising a false freedom – the ‘freedom’ to enter a subservient role – labour’s alienation is the vital prerequisite for its exploitation.

The worker’s freedom is a curious matter. It should be evident, on balance, that the worker, as a participant in commodity exchange, is free to do just one thing: sell time and energy for wages. Different bosses and different jobs are available but workers can avoid bosses and jobs only if they don’t care about ‘making a living’. Everyone knows that there are just two kinds of workers: employed and unemployed.

With the sale of labour-power, working people lose all control over what they do. What is produced and how – the purposes and methods of labour – are questions only the capitalist may answer. And the result of labour – the product itself – unquestionably belongs not to the producer but to the capitalist. An alien will, concerned not about the worker but about profit, decides what the worker does. The motives of working people are entirely discounted in production, trampled by the profit-motive.

Moneybags sternly warns the worker: ‘Just do what you’re told! That’s what you’re here for – you’re not paid to think! What you do on your own time is your own affair, but here you do what I say. What you produce is none of your business. If you don’t like making nerve gas, or neutron bombs or defective cars or adulterated foods, you can look for work elsewhere. Do I make myself clear?’ Workers are never allowed any say about what to produce, or why. ‘Investment decisions’ – how and why to employ labour-power and means of production, say, whether to make nuclear weapons or candy – are the prerogative of capital.

By selling labour-power – a matter of ‘free choice’ in name only – the worker surrenders control over labour. In this way labour, the use of labour-power, is alienated, just as the use of commodities is alienated in general. The difference is that labour, once sold, can never be recovered.

Bread, though its usefulness is repressed while it awaits sale, can at least be eaten when it does sell. The use of labour-power, by contrast, is most fully alienated after its sale. Though working people may resist the tyranny of the capitalist in various ways, this is done at personal risk. Workers can be fired. The capitalist can refuse to continue buying labour-power. At this point, the worker is severed both from the means of production and means of subsistence. Though resistance, to be sure, is possible and necessary it doesn’t alter the basic fact: that being a worker means being dependent on the capitalist.

And moneybags has the law on his side. After all, he buys your labour-power, doesn’t he? So it’s his – to use as he likes. If you object, just ask the police – or the courts. You’ll learn quickly enough that the use of labour-power belongs to its rightful, legal owner – Moneybags.And this should prove helpful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_accumulation

Though I doubt libertarians actually care to learn about real history...

[laminustacitus]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a7/United_States_Income_Distribution_1967-2003.svg/800px-United_States_Income_Distribution_1967-2003.svg.png
And yes, I realize the US isn't your utopian free market capitalism, but I'm not going to argue based on something that never has and never will exist.
Welcome to the politics of envy: they have more than me, so I must take from them to get what I want!




Because you don't know what capitalism is or what is leads to.
Insulting me without rationally proving me wrong is become a cliche on this forum.




But the way libertarians define socialism tends to give us the conclusion that every "capitalist" society in history has been socialist.
Because it has been, even in Marx's own definition of socialism, income tax, compulsory education, ect., our era has been one of faux-capitalism especially seeing how today there are massive governments with trillion dollar budgets, economy-controlling central banks, and nationalized currency.




All of your arguments against the labor theory of value are based on semantics, on your subjective idea of what value should mean. If we just all start calling it labor cost or labor units instead of labor value I doubt you'd have any argument.
Costs are more than just labor, and all value is subjective, it takes an individual to value an object. Again, more insulting without a rational critique of my ideas, yawn.




For people that praise individuality and self interest, I don't get why you religiously attach yourselves to a socially produced libertarian morality, when unless you're a capitalist it probably isn't even in your self interest and only restricts your actions.
I value liberty, and the ability of individuals to live life how they see best. Good attempt at strawmanning me, though.




Actually no, it was based on the relative immiseration of the proletariat. Their living standard will go up based on rising productivity, but they will receive less and less of the total wealth. In the graph I posted above for example, the bottom 50% received about 40% of the income as the top 5% of income earners in 1967. Now they receive about a quarter, even though they have flat screen tvs.
Percentages do not matter, the point is is that the proletariat are thriving these days competely contrary to what Marx foretold.




Well, the classical liberal such as Adam Smith disagree. For them and Marx state becomes necessary to defend those with wealth from those without. You support a system that centralizes wealth and power into the hands of a minority, but you're surprised when that minority with all of the power ends up controlling the state. It's as if you think the state is independent of the social forces that everything and everyone else is subjected to.
I have [B]never once[B] lauded the state, so again nice try at insulting me as well as strawmanning me.




No one here cares about Mises and I don't think you even attempted to prove your assertion.
No one here cares about the truth, then. You just like living in your own fantasy without having to worry about other theories.




Marx was talking about in free competition. You of all people should realize that things such as minimum wage, workplace safety regulations, workday limits, paid medical leave, pensions or the many other state regulated benefits etc are the result of state interference in the free market.
The reason why labor in the United States gets such a high pay is that labor in the United States, thanks to the amount of capita-intensive industries here, is very efficient - learn some basic economics, please.




You argue on the basis of current monopoly capitalism when it suits you, but disregard it as socialism or corporatism when someone tries to use it in their arguments against you. You want all of it's technological and standard of living benefits but none of it's defects.
Blah, blah, blah, more insulting, more insulting without referencing what I said.

[LeninBalls]

'Protip: That little button that says "Quote" at the bottom of each post is not some hideous communist conspiracy to steal your "self-ownership". Use it.'

Thanks but I like to do it my way.


Does anyone know how to do multiple quotes on that forum? It is quite annoying.

Lol?

[mikelepore]

laminustacitus, post #82

Have you ever heard of the correct subjective theory of value first postulated by Jevons, and Menger?
laminustacitus, post #100

the market harmonizes the catallactics, and valuations of many individuals

Those two ideas are inconsistent with each other. Once the individuals go to the marketplace, and the catallaxy has been all catallacticized into a net result, value is no longer subjective. It's an objective fact the going rate to exchange so much of this commodity for so much of that commodity is a certain number. Those who think it's a certain number, and it really is that number, are correct, and those who think that it's a different number are incorrect.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Welcome to the politics of envy: they have more than me, so I must take from them to get what I want!

Actually, me posting that had nothing to do with arguing for taking anything from anybody. He said capitalism constantly brings more of the proletariat into the bourgeois class, and that is demonstrably false.


Insulting me without rationally proving me wrong is become a cliche on this forum.How can I rationally prove you wrong? You never made an argument, you just said "fascism is not capitalism, it's corporatism, and corporatism comes from socialism."


Because it has been, even in Marx's own definition of socialism, income tax, compulsory education, ect., our era has been one of faux-capitalism especially seeing how today there are massive governments with trillion dollar budgets, economy-controlling central banks, and nationalized currency. So every government in history has been socialist? Do you honestly expect to be taken seriously when you say idiotic things like that?


Costs are more than just labor, and all value is subjective, it takes an individual to value an object. Again, more insulting without a rational critique of my ideas, yawn.I did not insult you, an it's hard to rationally critique your arguments when they're just based on semantics. You totally avoided what I said. Your argument is based on your subjective opinion of what the word value means, just like your arguments on socialism and capitalism. Pretty much all of your arguments look like this:


No, that's not socialism, socialism is[insert random subjective opinion of what socialism is while ignoring the content of the argument].
No, that's not capitalism, socialism is[insert random subjective opinion of what socialism is while ignoring the content of the argument].
No, that's not value, socialism is[insert random subjective opinion of what socialism is while ignoring the content of the argument].A mathematical value is objective, and that's what a labor value is. It has nothing to do with subjectivity. You're trying to take the argument out of the realm of science and put it into the realm of philosophy, because in the realm of science the LTV has the Austrian School beat.


I value liberty, and the ability of individuals to live life how they see best. Good attempt at strawmanning me, though.But liberty means not having to work for a capitalist, so no, you don't value liberty. People who don't value liberty are totalitarians, so you're a totalitarian.

See, I can make silly semantic arguments as well.


Percentages do not matter, the point is is that the proletariat are thriving these days competely contrary to what Marx foretold.And as I said, he was talking about relative poverty, not absolute poverty. For the most part it is based on debt anyway:


Between 1983 and 1995, the bottom 40 percent of households lost 80 percent of their net worth. The middle fifth lost 11 percent.
I have [B]never once[B] lauded the state, so again nice try at insulting me as well as strawmanning me.I'm pretty sure I remember you saying the state is not a tool of the capitalist class.


No one here cares about the truth, then. You just like living in your own fantasy without having to worry about other theories.
I've read most of Socialism, nice try at strawmanning me.


The reason why labor in the United States gets such a high pay is that labor in the United States, thanks to the amount of capita-intensive industries here, is very efficient - learn some basic economics, please.So labor would receive the same pay as it does now if all of that interference in the free market went away? Or would economic laws drive down the price of the labor commodity like they do to every other commodity(which is one of the reasons people give for supporting the free market)? Learn some basic economics, please.


Blah, blah, blah, more insulting, more insulting without referencing what I said.Actually, if you look above that comment, there's a quote from one of your posts.

I've yet to see you present a coherent argument for any of the assertions or address a lot of the points raised against. I don't even know why you bothered responding to my post, you said nothing of substance and ignored most of what I said.

[Jack]

That is not capitalism, that is corporatism, an outgrowth of socialism. May I also note how some of the greatest capitalist theorists needed to flee Nazi rule?

Maybe its because most of them were Jewish?

[Hit The North]

Because it has been, even in Marx's own definition of socialism, income tax, compulsory education, ect., our era has been one of faux-capitalism especially seeing how today there are massive governments with trillion dollar budgets, economy-controlling central banks, and nationalized currency.


None of those things were prescribed by Marx as "socialist". All this indicates is that your outlook does not even understand the reality of capitalism. Modern capitalism has never emerged anywhere without a massive centralisation of state power. Moreover, capitalism cannot develop its mode of production without creating a well educated, technically proficient work force. Consequently, every single capitalist society requires massive taxation and state funded education.

The capitalism you refer to is a chimera. It has never existed and never can. The fact that you don't understand this is proof that Marxism understands capitalism more completely and concretely than Mises and his acolytes ever could.


Costs are more than just labor, and all value is subjective, it takes an individual to value an object.

If all exchange value was subjective, a coherent commodity market would be impossible. You'd be left with a chaotic haggle system of exchange.


I value liberty, and the ability of individuals to live life how they see best. Good attempt at strawmanning me, though.

On the contrary, by opposing even the small gains ordinary people have achieved in capitalist society, such as a state education or public financed health systems, you want to consign most individuals to the tyranny of the market and condemn those born in poverty to a life of continuing poverty. In sum, you are the enemy of human liberty.


Percentages do not matter, the point is is that the proletariat are thriving these days completely contrary to what Marx foretold. Even if this was true, the plans you have for them would soon put a stop to their unseemly thriving.


No one here cares about the truth, then. You just like living in your own fantasy without having to worry about other theories.

Well done. You've just summed up your intellectual tradition completely and with admirable brevity.

[laminustacitus]

Maybe its because most of them were Jewish?
Do you know why the jews were detested? Even racial prejudice can be strangely rational in a twisted sort of way. By the way, look at my avatar, and you'll see the answer.

[trivas7]

Then you concede that historical materialism is only a theory and not applicable to empirical data?


Its a theory based on empirical facts, like the law of gravity.

I deny this. What empirical facts? How can a theory of history have an empirical basis?

[laminustacitus]

A mathematical value is objective, and that's what a labor value is. It has nothing to do with subjectivity. You're trying to take the argument out of the realm of science and put it into the realm of philosophy, because in the realm of science the LTV has the Austrian School beat.
Value has no mathematical objectivity outside of the realm of money, and the market, which is the harmonization of many individual valuations.




But liberty means not having to work for a capitalist, so no, you don't value liberty. People who don't value liberty are totalitarians, so you're a totalitarian.
You have a twisted view of Liberty, the only liberty you value is one where people march lockstep in your own fantasy, where you do not give them the free will to live as they please, only to live as you desire them to.




I'm pretty sure I remember you saying the state is not a tool of the capitalist class.
I do not divide society into arbitary classes.




So labor would receive the same pay as it does now if all of that interference in the free market went away? Or would economic laws drive down the price of the labor commodity like they do to every other commodity(which is one of the reasons people give for supporting the free market)? Learn some basic economics, please.
It takes the market to create capital-intensive industries, without the market, workers would simply be peasants - basic economics.

[laminustacitus]

Those two ideas are inconsistent with each other. Once the individuals go to the marketplace, and the catallaxy has been all catallacticized into a net result, value is no longer subjective. It's an objective fact the going rate to exchange so much of this commodity for so much of that commodity is a certain number. Those who think it's a certain number, and it really is that number, are correct, and those who think that it's a different number are incorrect.
Sigh, the price on the market is the price of a good that is the product of the the market harmonizing all individual valuations with respect to that good. When I am willing to buy good A for $100.00 that means that I, as an individual, subjectively value good A more than the market price of $100.00. There is nothing inconsistent at all with those two statements. The fact that men have different values with respect to goods is one of the reasons that a market exists, and why it is so efficient.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Value has no mathematical objectivity outside of the realm of money, and the market, which is the harmonization of many individual valuations.

You're an idiot, y'know that? Come back when you have more than semantics.


You have a twisted view of Liberty, the only liberty you value is one where people march lockstep in your own fantasy, where you do not give them the free will to live as they please, only to live as you desire them to.Cool strawman.


I do not divide society into arbitary classes.Then it's a good thing that they aren't arbitrary.


It takes the market to create capital-intensive industries, without the market, workers would simply be peasants - basic economics.Actually, as capitalism develops the state, monopolies, etc become the only institutions capable of investing in the required capital while maintaining profitability.


Sigh, the price on the market is the price of a good that is the product of the the market harmonizing all individual valuations with respect to that good. When I am willing to buy good A for $100.00 that means that I, as an individual, subjectively value good A more than the market price of $100.00. There is nothing inconsistent at all with those two statements. The fact that men have different values with respect to goods is one of the reasons that a market exists, and why it is so efficient.

You missed the point entirely.

I think it's pretty evident by now that you're just trolling.

[laminustacitus]

Modern capitalism has never emerged anywhere without a massive centralisation of state power. Moreover, capitalism cannot develop its mode of production without creating a well educated, technically proficient work force. Consequently, every single capitalist society requires massive taxation and state funded education.
Correlation does not imply causation, and the science of economics teaches us that government interference hinders the emergence of free markets.




The capitalism you refer to is a chimera. It has never existed and never can. The fact that you don't understand this is proof that Marxism understands capitalism more completely and concretely than Mises and his acolytes ever could.
Marx created a fantasy that was quickly dispelled, Mises actually studied economics, while Marx never wrote a single piece of economics after the Marginal Revolution.




If all exchange value was subjective, a coherent commodity market would be impossible. You'd be left with a chaotic haggle system of exchange.
You equivocate prices, with value. Thanks to money, this chaotic system of exchange you refer to because a complex market economy.




On the contrary, by opposing even the small gains ordinary people have achieved in capitalist society, such as a state education or public financed health systems, you want to consign most individuals to the tyranny of the market and condemn those born in poverty to a life of continuing poverty. In sum, you are the enemy of human liberty.
Was anyone ever refused healthcare before state-sponsored medicine: no.
You also do not realize that before capitalism, the government could not steal the amount of resources needed to do those service, but now with a growing market economy the state can afford to do that without killing economic progress.




Even if this was true, the plans you have for them would soon put a stop to their unseemly thriving.
You know nothing about my "plans".




Well done. You've just summed up your intellectual tradition completely and with admirable brevity.
You have not uttered a single true thing hitherto, but at least the brevity was nice.

[laminustacitus]

You're an idiot, y'know that? Come back when you have more than semantics.
Rationally critiquing me rather than calling me an idiot? Prices, and value are different, and your theory of value cannot account for that.




Then it's a good thing that they aren't arbitrary.
Why not Aryans against Jews? Why not Englishmen against Germans? Why not blue-eyed individuals versus brown-eyed ones? Any collectivist ideology is arbitrary in what classes it chooses.




Actually, as capitalism develops the state, monopolies, etc become the only institutions capable of investing in the required capital while maintaining profitability.
There is absolutely no reason why that is true. As enterprise becomes more expensive, surely there needs to be larger companies, but that does not mean that they will become monopolies.




I think it's pretty evident by now that you're just trolling.
And yet to proceed to insult me more than rationally critique me.

[Invader Zim]

'class struggle is a facade' [sic]?

Really? Well this is what one early 19th century commentator on the Hatian revolution noted:

“The oppressed watch the movements of their oppressors, and anxiously wait the first favourable moment to cast off the yoke, and administer requitals.”


It strikes me that class struggle is a very real and well documented phenomenon.


the science of economics teaches us that government interference hinders the emergence of free markets.

And the disipline of history teaches us that economies run on, or to be more exact approaching (an actual free market has never existed and probably never will), laissez faire principals end in disaster.

PS. Haven't you internet warriors got better things to do than attempt to storm the beaches that are this board?

[laminustacitus]

'class struggle is a facade' [sic]?

Really? Well this is what one early 19th century commentator on the Hatian revolution noted:

“The oppressed watch the movements of their oppressors, and anxiously wait the first favourable moment to cast off the yoke, and administer requitals.”
Its one man's opinion, it is a commentary on history events, more poetry than analytics, not a supposed truth.




It strikes me that class struggle is a very real and well documented phenomenon.
Its a literary cliche, but not a fact, history can be interpreted from many angles, and can support all view points if tortured enough.




And the disipline of history teaches us that economies run on, or to be more exact approaching (an actual free market has never existed and probably never will), laissez faire principals end in disaster.
History teaches nothing, one needs theories antecedent to historical analytics if one's studies are to yield anything worth while.
By the way, you contradicted yourself: while saying that an actual free market has never existed, you say that laissez-faire policies end in disaster, how would laissez-faire policies have such an effect if there has never been a free market, the goal of laissez-faire policies.




PS. Haven't you internet warriors got better things to do than attempt to storm the beaches that are this board?
Nope.

[Hit The North]

Correlation does not imply causation,


Well causation is difficult to prove in the social sciences but when the correlation occurs over and over again and no counter example is available, we at least need to take seriously the correlation and offer explanation. Why do you suppose capitalism and a powerful centralised state occur together? Do you think it's the result of some socialist conspiracy on behalf of big government?


and the science of economics teaches us that government interference hinders the emergence of free markets.


Given that you define a free market as one which is free from government interference, this is just a tautology. Is this what passes for knowledge in your 'science'? :lol:



Mises actually studied economics, while Marx never wrote a single piece of economics after the Marginal Revolution.


Evidently this didn't help Mises to grasp capitalism in any depth, if your arguments are anything to go by. Perhaps this is what is meant by "marginal" - marginal explanations!



Thanks to money, this chaotic system of exchange you refer to because (sic) a complex market economy


How so? If anything, money is a negation of the idea that value is subjective, as it provides a quantitative framework for exchange values to be realised. A commodity within a given market will sell for X dollars, irrespective of the subjective assessment of the consumer.


Was anyone ever refused healthcare before state-sponsored medicine: no. Are you kidding me? :rolleyes:



You also do not realize that before capitalism, the government could not steal the amount of resources needed to do those service, but now with a growing market economy the state can afford to do that without killing economic progress.


You're wrong. I do know that. However, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought one of your central arguments is precisely that the tax load required to fund public services was destructive of economic progress. If this isn't the case, why do you oppose it?


You know nothing about my "plans".


Again, you're wrong, as I think you've said quite enough for us to make an educated guess what kind of social policy you would be in favour of. Freedom for the rich; further misery for the poor.

[Invader Zim]

Its one man's opinion, it is a commentary on history events, more poetry than analytics, not a supposed truth.

Actually, my dear fellow, it was a comment on contemporary because the author lived through the events in question; thus it stands as witness to a particularly violent example of the phenomenon of 'class struggle', that you inform us doesn't exist, as it occurred.


history can be interpreted from many angles, and can support all view points if tortured enough.

You know, I never supposed that libertarians would be fans of post-modernist interpretation of the historical record. But on the basis of your logic surely most of what you have to say in this thread is bunk. For example you stated:

"and the science of economics teaches us that government interference hinders the emergence of free markets."

Presumably that lesson, from the grandly dubbed 'science of economics', is based upon an interpretation of the historical record as it relates to government interference in the emergence of free markets. Surely your own logic, proclaiming that history is all subjective, allows us to reject this argument of yours?


one needs theories antecedent to historical analytics if one's studies are to yield anything worth while.


But surely, based on your previously mentioned post-modern interpretation of history, bringing pre-conceived theories to the study of the historical record will only prejudice ones findings. After all "history can be interpreted from many angles, and can support all view points if tortured enough", right?


while saying that an actual free market has never existed, you say that laissez-faire policies end in disaster, how would laissez-faire policies have such an effect if there has never been a free market, the goal of laissez-faire policies.


You are confused. To paraphrase myself, I said that economies approaching a fully 'free market' end in disaster. Make careful note of the word approaching and try again.


Nope.

Well then, it is no wonder that libertarianism is now confined to a few internet warriors.

[laminustacitus]

Well causation is difficult to prove in the social sciences but when the correlation occurs over and over again and no counter example is available, we at least need to take seriously the correlation and offer explanation. Why do you suppose capitalism and a powerful centralised state occur together? Do you think it's the result of some socialist conspiracy on behalf of big government?
Unlike you, I have a sound scientific theory to explain the correlation: as capitalism grew the economy, the state grew. You are misinterpreting the correlation.




Given that you define a free market as one which is free from government interference, this is just a tautology. Is this what passes for knowledge in your 'science'? :lol:
I define the free market as the result of voluntary exchange.




Evidently this didn't help Mises to grasp capitalism in any depth, if your arguments are anything to go by. Perhaps this is what is meant by "marginal" - marginal explanations!
Hahahahah, very funny, but what was your point? Other than the fact you do not grasp the implications of subjective value, that is.




How so? If anything, money is a negation of the idea that value is subjective, as it provides a quantitative framework for exchange values to be realised. A commodity within a given market will sell for X dollars, irrespective of the subjective assessment of the consumer.
Money is a medium of exchange, it reflects prices of goods that are a result of individual valuations being harmonized in the market.
A individual will only be good A for X dollars if they value that good more than X dollars, the market price.




Are you kidding me? :rolleyes:
I kid you not.




You're wrong. I do know that. However, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought one of your central arguments is precisely that the tax load required to fund public services was destructive of economic progress. If this isn't the case, why do you oppose it?
Mind typing a coherent sentence? Of course, U oppose government taxation because of its effects on the economy, and because it is the case I oppose it.




Again, you're wrong, as I think you've said quite enough for us to make an educated guess what kind of social policy you would be in favour of. Freedom for the rich; further misery for the poor.
Cute, but you have yet to realize the basic tenet of libertarianism: the abolition of coercion as a socially acceptable means.

[trivas7]

Marx created a fantasy that was quickly dispelled, Mises actually studied economics, while Marx never wrote a single piece of economics after the Marginal Revolution.

You equivocate prices, with value.

Indeed. Your vitriol is apparent, BTB; too bad your arguments can't match their heat. Iaminustacitus pwns you here.

[laminustacitus]

Actually, my dear fellow, it was a comment on contemporary because the author lived through the events in question; thus it stands as witness to a particularly violent example of the phenomenon of 'class struggle', that you inform us doesn't exist, as it occurred.
The commentators are mere chroniclers of events, and they will interpret the events of their days according to their own opinions.




You know, I never supposed that libertarians would be fans of post-modernist interpretation of the historical record. But on the basis of your logic surely most of what you have to say in this thread is bunk. For example you stated:

"and the science of economics teaches us that government interference hinders the emergence of free markets."

Presumably that lesson, from the grandly dubbed 'science of economics', is based upon an interpretation of the historical record as it relates to government interference in the emergence of free markets. Surely your own logic, proclaiming that history is all subjective, allows us to reject this argument of yours?
The science of economics is not based on history, but it is history that must be interpreted in light of the science of economics.




But surely, based on your previously mentioned post-modern interpretation of history, bringing pre-conceived theories to the study of the historical record will only prejudice ones findings. After all "history can be interpreted from many angles, and can support all view points if tortured enough", right?
Historical studies are always prejudiced, that is why I reject them as a method of finding truths.

[Hit The North]

Unlike you, I have a sound scientific theory to explain the correlation: as capitalism grew the economy, the state grew.


That's a description, not an explanation. You need to say why the state grew as the economy grew.


You are misinterpreting the correlation

The only way I could misrepresent the correlation is if you've now suddenly decided we're dealing with causation. By definition a correlate is not a cause. We talk of correlation when we have no way of understanding the direction of cause and effect between the presence of two variables.


I kid you not.
Then you must be kidding yourself. Before state administered health systems, how do you suppose that those without money paid for health care? Perhaps you wish to claim that poor people did't exist in your imaginary capitalist utopia. Meanwhile, just a cursory search pulls up two contemporary concerns about certain groups being excluded from a decent standard of health care in the USA:
http://www.naturalnews.com/019518.html

http://www.futurehealth.org/populum/link.php?id=112

And here is an article reflecting on the state of health care in the UK before the advent of the NHS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/nhs_at_50/special_report/123511.stm



Mind typing a coherent sentence?
Sure, when you learn to read one.

Meanwhile, what the fuck does this mean:

Of course, U oppose government taxation because of its effects on the economy, and because it is the case I oppose it.
:confused:

Cute, but you have yet to realize the basic tenet of libertarianism: the abolition of coercion as a socially acceptable means. No, not cute. The thought of you lot getting your hands on power is scary. As I said before: Freedom for the rich; further misery for the poor.

[Hit The North]

Indeed. Your vitriol is apparent, BTB; too bad your arguments can't match their heat. Iaminustacitus pwns you here.

Not really, trivial7, old chap. Like Marx I don't equivocate price with value.

As for poor Marx's neglect of the marginal school (he was no fool!), so what? We have Hilferding's and Mandel's biting critiques.

[mikelepore]

Sigh, the price on the market is the price of a good that is the product of the the market harmonizing all individual valuations with respect to that good. When I am willing to buy good A for $100.00 that means that I, as an individual, subjectively value good A more than the market price of $100.00. There is nothing inconsistent at all with those two statements. The fact that men have different values with respect to goods is one of the reasons that a market exists, and why it is so efficient.

I understand what you're saying. I'm dispelling the popular misuse of the word "subjective" in the discussion of economics. Think and feel whatever you may, there is nothing subjective about the manifested results. Even if the theory of marginal utility is entirely valid, there would still be nothing subjective in the outcome. National and world markets for fungible commodities aren't under the control of the idiosyncratic preferences of any one individual. The word "subjective" refers to evaluations that are true or false in reference to one individual only -- fast music sounds more pleasant than slow music, pepperoni pizza tastes better than mushroom pizza, backgammon is fun but chess is boring -- that is what "subjective" mean. The word "objective" means that which is true for everyone. It is true for everyone that silver has a higher price than an equal mass of aluminum on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. That characteristic of being an objective fact, which is true for the instantaneous price, is also true for the value, which in Marxian theory is the slower-changing level about which the price daily fluctuates.

[trivas7]

Not really, trivial7, old chap. Like Marx I don't equivocate price with value.

It's obvious to me that Marx -- mainly under the influence of Hegel and Feuerbachian materialism -- made up the material conception of history out of whole cloth. Isn't it obvious to you?


I understand what you're saying. I'm dispelling the popular misuse of the word "subjective" in the discussion of economics.

This true only on materialist grounds, which von Mises explicitly rejected.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


It's obvious to me that Marx -- mainly under the influence of Hegel and Feuerbachian materialism -- made up the material conception of history out of whole cloth. Isn't it obvious to you?

In fact, we already know Marx borrowed from Ferguson, Millar, Smith (that is, the Adam Smith -- who was also a historical materialist), Stewart, Robertson, Kant, Rousseau and the French communists (as did Hegel).

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1441385&postcount=34

What Marx achieved was to systematise this theory fully and make it scientific.

[trivas7]

What Marx achieved was to systematise this theory fully and make it scientific.
Nonsense; historical materialism is fiction, not fact.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Nonsense; historical materialism is fiction, not fact.

Who said it was a 'fact'? I said it was a scientific theory.

Lost the abilty to read now, I see.

[trivas7]

Trivas:
Who said it was a 'fact'? I said it was a scientific theory.

Scientific theories are facts. Evolution, e.g., is both a theory and a fact.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Scientific theories are facts.

No, facts (or, I'd prefer to say truths) may or may not follow from scientific theories, but theories cannot be facts since human beings invent theories -- they do not invent facts.

Or perhaps you think human beings do invent facts?:lol:

[trivas7]

Trivas:
No, facts (or, I'd prefer to say truths) may or may not follow from scientific theories, but theories cannot be facts since human beings invent theories -- they do not invent facts.

No, once proved scientific theories are factual.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


No, once proved scientific theories are factual.

Ah, so they're no longer facts (as you claimed), they are now 'factual'.

Once more, we can observe the facts and record them -- neither of these things is true of theories. We do not discover theories in the world, but we do discover facts. Theories can be incorrect, facts cannot. If a fact is 'incorrect' it is no longer a fact; but an incorrect theory is still a theory.

Moreover, a theory (if true) tells us how the facts are related, and it might even explain them, and that's what makes such theories 'factual'.

But to confuse a theory with the facts is about as brainless as to confuse a map with a mountain or a river that that map depicts.

I trust you are not that brainless.

Perhaps you are...

[Bud Struggle]

This is 21st Century "Marxist Class Struggle."

Posted in Reactionary Chatter by Kronos:


I went to the Chinese buffet last night and half way there I realized I was wearing my Mao t-shirt. I became a little nervous because I wasn't sure how the staff at the place would handle it. Some of them might like Mao, some of them might hate him, and some of them might hate me because I'm wearing a shirt with a guy they hate on it. I didn't want them thinking I was trying to "relate to their culture" by wearing it, you know. I didn't want to be the "silly American who is trying too hard and looking like as ass because of it."

Fuck it though, I wasn't turning around just to change shirts.

When I got there I tried to keep my arms up in front of me so nobody would see Mao. I was watching their eyes to see if they fell on my shirt. So far so good.....I don't think anyone thought anything of it.

There was a young fella at the sushi bar who saw it and said "hey, I like your shirt". I nodded in his direction....a stiff, nervous nod...the kind of nod a guerrilla would give a comrade in the field while waiting on an ambush. I got my sushi and walked quickly back to my seat.

Now get this. Across from me was a group of four old people. Two women, two men. At least in their seventies. One of the old geezers turns around and squints at me.....trying to focus on my shirt. I try to ignore it and continue munching on my sweet-n-sour orange chicken....then he says "hey, are you some kind of spiritual leader?"

Now I knew what was coming. I knew it. This guy was a war veteran and he was about to sacrifice me. Sure enough, it happened.

So I paused, as if to pretend to be confused, and said "oh, you mean the shirt?"

He says "you know, his troops tried to kill me!"

It was here that I fumbled the ball. Now I shoulda replied directly with "and I assume you tried to kill his too" and sent the discourse in a moral relativism direction, which would of cut him short and shut him up.

Instead, I sat there, caught totally off guard, and finally got the words out of my mouth "well, I consider myself a socialist." I basically just handed him his victory. I can't believe I fumbled the ball like that. And of course we know what he was going to say next. What they all say next:

"Well why don't you leave the country!?"

So I go on this tirade about how I'm broke and I can't afford it BECAUSE THE CAPITALISTS HAVE ALL MY MONEY, etc., etc., and he just turns around and ignores me....knowing damn well I feel like an idiot.

I'm still infuriated with myself this very moment. I CAN'T BELIEVE I let that old fuck have that argument. I coulda made his fucking head spin if I DIDN'T FUMBLE THE BALL. Look, there are cases where a person is so smart (yours truly) that he cannot possibly sum up his position in thirty seconds while seated at a resturant talking to old people who were raised on The Andy Griffith show. I simply locked up. That's all. I was in the wrong environment. I shoulda gave him this web address and told him to TAKE IT TO THE BOARDS, OLD MAN!

What if I asked him to define "spirit", when he said "are you a spiritual leader", then after he gave some amatuer Jimmy Swaggert answer, I hit him with some neutral monism? It woulda been over before it even began.

[ sigh ]

That's all folks! Kronos nailed it. Class struggle in the 21st Century is a lifestyle issue.

[trivas7]

Once more, we can observe the facts and record them -- neither of these things is true of theories. We do not discover theories in the world, but we do discover facts. Theories can be incorrect, facts cannot. If a fact is 'incorrect' it is no longer a fact; but an incorrect theory is still a theory.

Once more, incorrect theories are not scientific theories, and scientific theories are facts. Yazman gets it right:


Theories and fact are not mutually exclusive; evolution is both a theory and a fact; just as the theory of gravity is a theory, a law of science, and a fact. Just as the theory of bacteria and cell theory, and the theory of heliocentrism are all theories and facts. Scientific theories are also falsifiable and analysing falsifiability is one of the reasons for the constant reproduction of results and attempts to reproduce experiments.

[IcarusAngel]

Is he a scientist? Here is the basic explanation:


As used in science, a theory is an explanation or model based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning, especially one that has been tested and confirmed as a general principle helping to explain and predict natural phenomena.
Any scientific theory must be based on a careful and rational examination of the facts. A clear distinction needs to be made between facts (things which can be observed and/or measured) and theories (explanations which correlate and interpret the facts.

Theories interpret facts.



A fact is something that is supported by unmistakeable evidence. For example, the Grand Canyon cuts through layers of different kinds of rock, such as the Coconino sandstone, Hermit shale, and Redwall limestone. These rock layers often contain fossils that are found only in certain layers. Those are the facts.
It is a fact is that fossil skulls have been found that are intermediate in appearance between humans and modern apes. It is a fact that fossils have been found that are clearly intermediate in appearance between dinosaurs and birds.

http://www.fsteiger.com/theory.html

Evolution is fact and theory because we have obviously observed the fossil record and the transitions that have occurred, just as we observe the stars etc.

Facts can be mistaken. It was once a fact that the Universe was infinite, now the universe is expanding.
However, in this case, it was really just a mistake of observation, which can happen.

[New Tet]

Let it be known that the existence of classes, social and economic, and the antagonism between them are well documented and borne out by a gazillion pieces of historical evidence, most of it provided by those whose greatest wish it has been to keep it a secret.

Here's our original poster's idea paraphrased and properly nut-shelled:

Whereas Romans in the first Century A.D. were unaware of the principles of gravity and electro-magnetism it is logical to suppose that the phenomena in question were nonexistent; Ancient Romans floated through space and were made of a fantastic material possessing neither molecules nor atoms.

Right out of a fucking comic book.

It would take a lot more than an appeal to ignorance to overthrow the science supporting the principle of class struggle. All we have to do is point to the evidence.
Thankfully, some very much smarter people than we already did that way back when horse-pulled wagons were called trucks and trolleys...

The American Marxist and journalist, Daniel De Leon, maintained that perhaps the best evidence to prove the objective existence of the class struggle, was the trades union plain and simple (in the middle ages it was 'guilds'; artisans' and otherwise). He likened trades unions to the involuntary reflexive action a person makes when confronted by someone about to smash their head in with a crowbar (lately it's more police batons than crowbars, but each can hurt as bad as the other).

Confuse the workers about classes and class struggle and you will find them ever directing their revolutionary energy in all the wrong directions. The capitalists will always win the class struggle as long as sufficient numbers of workers are kept ignorant and confused about it.

(http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/burn_ques.pdf)These are the four primary pamphlets of Marxism-De Leonism:
"Reform or Revolution" (http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/reform_rev.pdf), "What Means This Strike" (http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/wm_strike.pdf), "The Burning Question Of Trades Unionism" (http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/burn_ques.pdf), "The Socialist Reconstruction Of Society" (http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/soc_recons.pdf).


In re. the class struggle in ancient Rome:
"Two Pages From Roman History" (http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/two_pages.pdf)


"Give us a truce with your reforms! There is a sickening air of moral mediocrity in all such petty movements and childish aspirations at times like these, when great-man issues are pounding [actually thundering] at every man's door, demanding admission and solution!"

[laminustacitus]

Let it be known that the existence of classes, social and economic, and the antagonism between them are well documented and borne out by a gazillion pieces of historical evidence, most of it provided by those whose greatest wish it has been to keep it a secret.
Historical evidence can never prove the existence of class antagonism since it can be interpreted from many different angles depending on what collectivist philosophy the historian holds. If we have a worker-capitalist division, why not a German-Frence one, or a racial one for that matter?




It would take a lot more than an appeal to ignorance to overthrow the science supporting the principle of class struggle. All we have to do is point to the evidence.
Historical interpretation is not evidence.




The American Marxist and journalist, Daniel De Leon, maintained that perhaps the best evidence to prove the objective existence of the class struggle, was the trades union plain and simple (in the middle ages it was 'guilds'; artisans' and otherwise). He likened trades unions to the involuntary reflexive action a person makes when confronted by someone about to smash their head in with a crowbar (lately it's more police batons than crowbars, but each can hurt as bad as the other).
Trade unions, and guilds often keep incoming workers out of a profession in order to achieve an elite group that have a monopoly over that service; many unions keep an inflated wage-rate by preventing other workers from competing in that sector of the market. How does that fit with this philosophy of class consciousness?




(http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/burn_ques.pdf)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Once more, incorrect theories are not scientific theories, and scientific theories are facts. Yazman gets it right:

Are you saying that Ptolemy's theory, which was successful in predicting the motion of the heavens for well over a thousand years, and was more accurate in many ways than Copernicus's theory, was not scientific?

Or that Kepler's even more accurate theory was not scientific even though it is largely wrong?

Or that Darwin's theory is not scientific since it incorporated large parts of Lamarck's (incorrect) theory, and included his own wildly erroneous blending theory of transmission?

Or that Dalton's atomic theory is not scientific since he was totally wrong about the nature of atoms?

Or that geology up until the mid-1960s was not scientific since geologists had a completely wrong idea about the origin of the continents and mountain chains, and what caused volcanic eruptions and earthquakes?

And what if the Standard Model turns out to be wrong (which it may very well do if the Higgs Boson is not discovered)? Is the whole of Quantum Mechanics therefore non-scientific?

Now, you keep repeating the unsupported claim that scientific theories are facts (even though you seemed to waver recently and merely described them as 'factual'), ignoring the many differences I listed between theories and facts. Once more, you have nothing to say about such things; you clearly have not given this much thought, and have no answer except to keep repeating the unsupported mantra: theories are facts.

But, you also said this:


No, once proved scientific theories are factual.

This implies that a theory can be scientific even if not yet proven, contrary to your latest claim.

If so, this recent claim of yours cannot be correct (or it needs modifying):


incorrect theories are not scientific theories, and scientific theories are facts.

Here you seem to be claiming that only if a theory is proved is it a fact; but why would anyone bother to try to prove a non-scientific theory? If only proven theories are scientific, then non-proven ones cannot be. In that case, no scientist would try to prove them true.

And much as I agree with Yazman over most things, he is incorrect here:


Theories and fact are not mutually exclusive; evolution is both a theory and a fact; just as the theory of gravity is a theory, a law of science, and a fact. Just as the theory of bacteria and cell theory, and the theory of heliocentrism are all theories and facts. Scientific theories are also falsifiable and analysing falsifiability is one of the reasons for the constant reproduction of results and attempts to reproduce experiments.

Here he is confusing the process of evolution with our attempt to explain it -- like you, he has not noticed the glaring differences that exist between facts and theories (which I listed in my last two posts).

He also repeats Popper's (erroneous) claim that scientific theories are falsifiable, but non-scientific theories are falsifiable too. So that cannot distinguish science from pseudo-science.

But, facts are not falsifiable; if an alleged fact is false, it is not a fact. So, even if Popper's criterion were correct, facts would still be different from theories.

So, I was right; you are dopey enough to confuse a map with what it depicts...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

IcarusAngel:


Evolution is fact and theory because we have obviously observed the fossil record and the transitions that have occurred, just as we observe the stars etc.

Well, as I argued in my response to Trivas, you are, I think, confusing the process of evolution with our attempt to explain it.

The theory of evolution cannot be the same as the process itself (obviously -- if it were, then every time we altered the theory, as we did 100 years ago when Mendelian theory was incorporated, replacing Darwin's Blending theory, that would imply that the actual process itself, all those millions of years ago, would have changed accordingly! Backwards causation!).

So, the process of evolution is a fact, but the theory itself cannot be (for the reasons I outlined in my last three posts).

[IcarusAngel]

That is exactly what I said. We observe the process of evolution and make theories based off the observations. The observations may lead to errors in the theories or explanations. But the word "evolution" refers both to the theory of evolution and to the actual process of evolution, and to the process of extracting roots in mathematics, etc. Like many words it has multiple meanings.

[New Tet]

Historical evidence can never prove the existence of class antagonism since it can be interpreted from many different angles depending on what collectivist philosophy the historian holds. If we have a worker-capitalist division, why not a German-Frence one, or a racial one for that matter?

Oh, but there is a German-French division! It's called a national border;
and there are a number of "racial" ones as well, it's called ethnicity.



Historical interpretation is not evidence.

Oh, are you asserting that artisan guilds never actually existed in the Middle Ages and beyond?

If you concede that guilds, associations, unions and similar exclusive organizations exist or existed then you must concede, at the very least, that there exists or existed economic, political and sociological forces that compelled humans to create them.


Trade unions, and guilds often keep incoming workers out of a profession in order to achieve an elite group that have a monopoly over that service; many unions keep an inflated wage-rate by preventing other workers from competing in that sector of the market. How does that fit with this philosophy of class consciousness?

THANK YOU!

The class struggle is so real that workers, in their pathetic ignorance, engage in it even against each other. You just said said so yourself, Einstein!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Icarus:


That is exactly what I said. We observe the process of evolution and make theories based off the observations. The observations may lead to errors in the theories or explanations. But the word "evolution" refers both to the theory of evolution and to the actual process of evolution, and to the process of extracting roots in mathematics, etc. Like many words it has multiple meanings.

Forgive me, but I read this as meaning the opposite:


Evolution is fact and theory because we have obviously observed the fossil record and the transitions that have occurred, just as we observe the stars etc.

I stand corrected if I misinterpreted you. I think however, you need to insert the phrase 'process of' before 'evolution', as I did, to minimise confusion:


Well, as I argued in my response to Trivas, you are, I think, confusing the process of evolution with our attempt to explain it.

[laminustacitus]

Oh, but there is a German-French division! It's called a national border;
and there are a number of "racial" ones as well, it's called ethnicity.
But its obvious that those two are the driving forces of history!




Oh, are you asserting that artisan guilds never actually existed in the Middle Ages and beyond?
That fact can be interpretted many ways.




If you concede that guilds, associations, unions and similar exclusive organizations exist or existed then you must concede, at the very least, that there exists or existed economic, political and sociological forces that compelled humans to create them.
Man created it for man's benefit, they were the creation of individuals reacting to their environment.




THANK YOU!

The class struggle is so real that workers, in their pathetic ignorance, engage in it even against each other. You just said said so yourself, Einstein!
No, its merely a struggle between individuals, not a class struggle between arbitrary classes.

[trivas7]

So, the process of evolution is a fact, but the theory itself cannot be (for the reasons I outlined in my last three posts).
Your being absurd; you're arguing that while the process of evolution is a fact, the theory that explains it isn't.


Let it be known that the existence of classes, social and economic, and the antagonism between them are well documented and borne out by a gazillion pieces of historical evidence, most of it provided by those whose greatest wish it has been to keep it a secret.

While all this might be true, it doesn't constitute a scientific theory of history.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Your being absurd; you're arguing that while the process of evolution is a fact, the theory that explains it isn't.

Yet again you ignore the clear differences between facts and theories (I outlined in my previous posts), as I predicted you would, preferring (1) to confuse the process itself with our attempt to understand it, and (2) merely to repeat the unsupported mantra: theories are facts.

Once more, and to change the image, that is about as brainless as confusing a biography with the person it is about.:lol:


While all this might be true, it doesn't constitute a scientific theory of history.

This is a bit rich coming from someone who merely asserts things, and cannot argue for them, but who then ignores anything that does not fit.

[Invader Zim]

The commentators are mere chroniclers of events, and they will interpret the events of their days according to their own opinions.

So, if we extend the logic of your argument, the past is unknowable because all commentators write their subjectivie opinions rather than provide an entirely accurate and objective image of the past.


The science of economics is not based on history,

On the contrary, that is precisely what it is based upon. Economics is, funnily enough, based upon analysis of economic trends that have already occured. Thus in dismissing history you have dismissed your own views of the 'science of economics'.


but it is history that must be interpreted in light of the science of economics.

-----

Historical studies are always prejudiced, that is why I reject them as a method of finding truths.


You are tying yourself in knots.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

laminustacitus:


Historical studies are always prejudiced, that is why I reject them as a method of finding truths.

This looks like a statement about the history of historical studies so far, which, if correct, naturally means that you should reject your own conclusion (since it is based on just such an alleged historical study).

On the other hand, if it is incorrect, you should reject it anyway.

So, either way, you should reject it.

[AnthArmo]

There's most definitely an "exploitation" of the workers when they sign a voluntary contract with their employers about their work, and wage. :rolleyes:

There is no exploitation where there is no coercion.

Hello, from now on you are going to be locked in my basement. I am going to come down here from time to time to mercilessly rape you. In return, I am going to keep you alive by feeding you just enough to survive.

But don't worry, you aren't my slave, your just signing a voluntary contract with me. For you see there's nothing to stop you from not eating the food I give you and dying a slow and painful death.

[laminustacitus]

Hello, from now on you are going to be locked in my basement. I am going to come down here from time to time to mercilessly rape you. In return, I am going to keep you alive by feeding you just enough to survive.

But don't worry, you aren't my slave, your just signing a voluntary contract with me. For you see there's nothing to stop you from not eating the food I give you and dying a slow and painful death.
There was no voluntary contract, and there is definitely coercion there; so, if you try to do that to me I will blow your head off.

[laminustacitus]

This looks like a statement about the history of historical studies so far, which, if correct, naturally means that you should reject your own conclusion (since it is based on just such an alleged historical study).
It is a simple fact that history can be twisted to fit any view point, and any metaphysical judgement of history. I need not study history to discover that, all that I need is a basic education in epistemology.

[laminustacitus]

So, if we extend the logic of your argument, the past is unknowable because all commentators write their subjectivie opinions rather than provide an entirely accurate and objective image of the past.
Knowledge of the past is problematic, it is only hypothetical for I do not know exactly what happened, and I do not know if there are any historical documents out there that might prove me wrong, and I must admit that all authors of primary historical documents are no omniscient with respect to the events they are writing about, and may very well be influenced by their own judgment of values.




On the contrary, that is precisely what it is based upon. Economics is, funnily enough, based upon analysis of economic trends that have already occured. Thus in dismissing history you have dismissed your own views of the 'science of economics'.
Economic history can only be analyzed with the knowledge of the laws of economics which man discovers by dint of his reason, not by analyzing history. For instance, if economics is to analyze history a la Friedman's, and Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States, there first must be theory before historical analysis. Even the most positivist economic epistemology is still based on analyzing data compiled in scientific surveys, not history.




You are tying yourself in knots.
I speak the truth, and all the statements I have hitherto said are consistent with one another.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

laminustacitus:


It is a simple fact that history can be twisted to fit any view point, and any metaphysical judgement of history. I need not study history to discover that, all that I need is a basic education in epistemology.

But, you are relying on knowledge of past experience to come to this conclusion, which makes what you say also subject to the constraints you have imposed on other sorts of knowledge of the past. [A basic education in epistemology, after all, does not prevent distortion, error or lies -- even I might be distorting it right now, and so might you.]

In that case, you should also reject those sceptical conclusions of yours, since your knowledge of the deliverances of epistemology is not itself apodictic knowledge, but is also subject to distortion.

Of course, if you allow this proposition through as 100% reliable:


I need not study history to discover that, all that I need is a basic education in epistemology

then there seems to be no good reason why you should disallow other propositions as reliable, which also rely on past experience.

Anyway, epistemology should have taught you that practically anything can be, and has been, "twisted to fit any view point". In which case, it would seem that you should, if consistent, only trust analytic truths and/or simple Cartesian certainties.

For example, statistics can be twisted, so can scientific evidence, so can the reports of observers, so can experimental evidence, so can immediate sense experience...

We have known this since at least the time of the ancient Greek Sceptics.

And since that is also an example of historical knowledge, you can, of course, learn from what they had to say -- which would, alas, only undermine further your suspicion of historical knowledge.

The irony here is therefore quite plain: while we are told that revolutions devour their own children (another piece of historical knowledge often used against us on the left), the truth is that philosophical scepticism of any sort soon devours itself.

[trivas7]

But, you are relying on knowledge of past experience to come to this conclusion, which makes what you say also subject to the constraints you have imposed on other sorts of knowledge of the past.
What does this mean? Anyone?

[laminustacitus]

But, you are relying on knowledge of past experience to come to this conclusion, which makes what you say also subject to the constraints you have imposed on other sorts of knowledge of the past. [A basic education in epistemology, after all, does not prevent distortion, error or lies -- even I might be distorting it right now, and so might you.]
Experience, and historical commentaries are two different animals.




In that case, you should also reject those sceptical conclusions of yours, since your knowledge of the deliverances of epistemology is not itself apodictic knowledge, but is also subject to distortion.
Again, I am not relying on historical commentaries to come to my epistemological conclusions; again, experience, and history are two different things.




then there seems to be no good reason why you should disallow other propositions as reliable, which also rely on past experience.
Studying history is not about experience, it is about researching commentaries of previous events.




Anyway, epistemology should have taught you that practically anything can be, and has been, "twisted to fit any view point". In which case, it would seem that you should, if consistent, only trust analytic truths and/or simple Cartesian certainties.
Synthetic a priori judgments cannot be twisted to fit any view. Again, you are equivocating between historical commentaries, and experience.




For example, statistics can be twisted, so can scientific evidence, so can the reports of observers, so can experimental evidence, so can immediate sense experience...
A priori truths cannot be twisted for they are true as they are.





The irony here is therefore quite plain: while we are told that revolutions devour their own children (another piece of historical knowledge often used against us on the left), the truth is that philosophical scepticism of any sort soon devours itself.
I'm not of the school of philosophic skeptics you speak of; I just realize that historical commentaries can be twisted to fit any view, and are not even necessarily true; therefore, history only gives us a problematic knowledge about the past. Throughout your entire post you have equivocated between experience, and our knowledge of historical events.

[laminustacitus]

What does this mean? Anyone?
It means nothing in light of the conversation, my assertions against historical knowledge via commentaries of historical events were equivocated with being an assertion against experience per se.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


What does this mean? Anyone?

I am sorry, I forgot you get out of your depth rather too easily. And yet you think you can pontificate about philosophy. :lol:

In fact, it wasn't addressed to you; if it were, I'd have used only one- or two-syllable words, and posted a few cartoons (to help maintain your attention span).

[Bud Struggle]

Trivas:



I am sorry, I forgot you get out of your depth rather easily -- and yet you think you can pontificate about philosophy.:lol:

In fact, it wasn't addressed to you; if it were, I'd have used one or two syllable words only, and posted a few cartoons.

Rosa: you are a HOOT! :laugh::laugh::laugh:

You are the honorary Queen of OI! :tt1:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

laminustacitus:


Experience, and historical commentaries are two different animals.

Indeed, but like all animals, they share enough to make my point valid.

Unless, of course, you are unlike other human beings and appropriate the information in historical texts and documents in a different way to anything else in your experience; by telepathy perhaps, or maybe 'intuition'? [More on this below.]


Again, I am not relying on historical commentaries to come to my epistemological conclusions; again, experience, and history are two different things.

I actually covered this in an earlier post (and again in a different way, above); but here it is once more, in simpler terms (so even Trivas can follow it):

Unless, I distort your argument -- your claim is that historical evidence/documents can be distorted, so they cannot be the source of genuine knowledge.

But, you, like the rest of us, have to use your 'experience' (or a rather sketchy epistemological argument) to weigh-up the validity of historical explanations. But, your knowledge of historical explanations is not something you either invented or which dawned on you recently (I presume). You have to access your memory of what they are.

But, the doubts you expressed about the possibility or likelihood that historical explanation is capable of being distorted also apply to your memory (and to any other item you enlist in your favour).

If so, you have no more nor no less reason to reject historical explanation than you do for other items you have relied upon to arrive at the sceptical conclusion you posted here.

But, if you still insist on throwing doubt on the reliability of historical explanation, then you should throw equal doubt on the means by which you derived this result.

In other words, philosophical scepticism here rapidly spills over and infects every other reasoning process. Which is why I said:


the truth is that philosophical scepticism of any sort soon devours itself.

On the other hand, if I have distorted your argument, that makes my point even stronger, since your argument is equally prone to distortion as is any other item of knowledge. In which case, you have no good reason to pick only on historical knowledge.


Studying history is not about experience, it is about researching commentaries of previous events.

In other words, as I surmised above, you seem to think that studying history, and doing research, involves the use of none of your senses.

On which planet did you learn this?

On this planet, by way of contrast, if you had no senses, or you were unable to use them, then you could learn no history.


Synthetic a priori judgments cannot be twisted to fit any view. Again, you are equivocating between historical commentaries, and experience.

You give me an example of a synthetic a priori judgement (if there are any of these -- you seem to take this controversial idea for granted -- I do hope you are not distorting post-Kantian philosophy!), and I'll twist it out of shape.


A priori truths cannot be twisted for they are true as they are.

But, this might be to distort the nature of a priori truths. How can you tell?

And yet, even if this is granted, other non-a priori truths can be twisted, so history is not special in this regard. Why therefore you pick on it is something of a mystery.


I'm not of the school of philosophic skeptics you speak of; I just realize that historical commentaries can be twisted to fit any view, and are not even necessarily true; therefore, history only gives us a problematic knowledge about the past.

How do you know you are not of this school if you can't trust history. In order to make the claim you just have, even you will have to know something about these sceptics, and in order to do that you will have to suspend your criticisms of historical knowledge.


Throughout your entire post you have equivocated between experience, and our knowledge of historical events

It now turns out that the fault lies with you, since you seem to think you can read a historical document, for example, without the use of your eyes (or if blind, without the sense of touch)!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

laminus:


It means nothing in light of the conversation, my assertions against historical knowledge via commentaries of historical events were equivocated with being an assertion against experience per se.

As we can now see, this is a couple of star systems away from the truth.

[New Tet]

[...]I'm interested in discussing Marxist theory. I actually used to be a Marxist myself.

You'd never know it, judging by all the inanities you've posted here!

[New Tet]

It means nothing in light of the conversation, my assertions against historical knowledge via commentaries of historical events were equivocated with being an assertion against experience per se.

You're the one who's equivocated every time you've asserted that truth cannot be discovered through historical interpretation.

Admit it: you're even a lousy sophist.

[Kronos]

Trivas, you'll have to excuse Rosa. She's a little impatient sometimes. Wittgensteineans are like that (did you know Ludwig used to beat his students with a ruler when they didn't understand him?) My goodness.


Once more, incorrect theories are not scientific theories, and scientific theories are facts.You are wrong, and although Rosa explained how and why, the explanation can be put into simple terms.

A theory cannot be a fact because a theory is about facts, and is an effort to discover the cause/reason for those facts in mind through hypothetical explanation. Now it can be a fact that one has a theory, of course.

An incorrect theory is still a theory, but has postulated hypothetical explanation for some facts that turned out to be wrong. The facts are still there, and will be the same subject of investigation for a new theory....and this new theory, again, will not be a fact, but about facts....an attempt to explain why such and such facts are facts.

If we say that a scientific theory is a fact...we can only mean that it is a fact that there is a theory.....but not that the theory is right.

If a theory is found to be right, there is still some issue with calling the theory a fact. For instance, the theory of gravity. Now, we can say that gravity is acting when an object falls back to the earth. In this sense we can say that gravity is a fact, but really this is a different category of fact, because we can only theorize why gravity exists.

You see what happens here: every theory, although correct, requires further theory in order to be explained itself. There is always an incompleteness regarding theoretical knowledge, and we accept theories on pragmatic grounds- if it works to explain a phenomena...we take it. But we still have to explain how and why that which we have accepted as being the cause/reason for that phenomena, exists. Hence, the on-going search for "grand unifying" theories, so to speak.

But look. Concerning the difference in category here.....consider this...which will demonstrate the difference for you.

A fact such as a "duck billed platypus" is "true" despite what explanation might be afforded for its existence. This is where theory comes in. But a theory can't be a fact like the platypus because it requires further theory to be explained.

I can experience a duck billed platypus (and have...at a zoo...but that's personal...something I'm not comfortable talking about), but I cannot experience a theory. I cannot experience gravity...but only the effects in natural phenomena that we explain as happening because of gravity. The same with any theory. Evolution, for example- we describe a natural process that occurs as "evolution", but we do not experience evolution....only the events we call the product/result of evolution. Theory is in the mind....facts are in experience.

You see the difference now, Trivas! I knew you would.

Today is a good day, comrades.

[trivas7]

You are wrong, and although Rosa explained how and why, the explanation can be put into simple terms.

A theory cannot be a fact because a theory is about facts, and is an effort to discover the cause/reason for those facts in mind through hypothetical explanation. Now it can be a fact that one has a theory, of course.

RL assumes that all facts are empirical. I don't make that assumption.

Perhaps to say that scientific theories are facts means merely that they are veridical.



If we say that a scientific theory is a fact...we can only mean that it is a fact that there is a theory.....but not that the theory is right.

No, the criteria for a theory to be scientific is that it is correct.

[AnthArmo]

There was no voluntary contract, and there is definitely coercion there; so, if you try to do that to me I will blow your head off.

How is there coercion there? according to your logic, this was a voluntary contract. I'm not physically forcing you to by my sex slave, you can say no and starve to death if you wanted to. You have a way out of the dilemma, therefore its not slavery :rolleyes:

I don't think you see my point here, just because your not being physically restrained doesn't mean your still free. if I owned all the food in the world, and all the food creating utilities. Then I could make everyone my slaves because they would be dependent on me for sustenance. according to your logic however this isn't slavery, its a voluntary contract because they all have the freedom to not take my food and starve to death.

What is it with you guys and completely forgetting the importance of Positive Freedom.

[Kronos]

RL assumes that all facts are empirical. I don't make that assumption.

I dunno know what she thinks about that, but I'll tell you what I think. The alternative to 'empirical' (if this is concerning philosophical dichotomies) is 'rational'. Rationalists assert that there are truths which exist independently of posterior experience. Now, if this is so, the material world must correspond to these truths in order to be known...or....these truths must be about something other than the material world.

In the first case, if there are truths that are conceived prior to experience, then no type of experience was necessary for their conception. If this is true, then the "mind" must not be causally related to the material world. It would have to be transcendent. And if this is so, experience is not necessary for there to be mind. Unfortunately for the rationalists, never has there existed a person who had a mind but did not exist in the world.

In the second case, there would be no way of confirming that one of the truths was actually true, rather than false, if all of them are merely mental concepts.

There are many, many more ways to argue against the rationalist position which I will withhold at this time, since I think you might agree with these simple points.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Rosa: you are a HOOT! :laugh::laugh::laugh:

You are the honorary Queen of OI! :tt1:

Stop fucking spamming. Consider this a verbal warning.

[mikelepore]

Historical evidence can never prove the existence of class antagonism since it can be interpreted from many different angles depending on what collectivist philosophy the historian holds. If we have a worker-capitalist division, why not a German-Frence one, or a racial one for that matter?

The word "classes" can also mean any categories that someone chooses to define when they sort and classify any bunch of objects or data. So why is the Marxian use of the word "classes" different from any other?

It is different because it provides us with great powers of explanation when we observe that the economic interests of some people is to have wages higher, profits lower, work hours shorter, job benefits expanded, and it is in the economic interests of some other people to have wages lower, profits higher, work hours longer and job benefits reduced. How else are you going to explain such an observation?

Without a theory of class exploitation, how else could we explain the empirical observation that hard work is correlated with poverty, while personal idleness is corrrelated with wealth?

We can explain the observed results only by concluding that various people's relations to the means of production are fundamental in determining how life turns out in this kind of economic system.

What explanatory abilities would you have by classifying people according to national or racial criteria?

[laminustacitus]

How is there coercion there? according to your logic, this was a voluntary contract. I'm not physically forcing you to by my sex slave, you can say no and starve to death if you wanted to. You have a way out of the dilemma, therefore its not slavery :rolleyes:
How is coercion not involved in there? I do not have the choice of not being coerced into slavery, or being coerced into being his prisoner one way or another - if it were a voluntary contract I could say "No", and go about my way unharmed.




I don't think you see my point here, just because your not being physically restrained doesn't mean your still free. if I owned all the food in the world, and all the food creating utilities. Then I could make everyone my slaves because they would be dependent on me for sustenance. according to your logic however this isn't slavery, its a voluntary contract because they all have the freedom to not take my food and starve to death.
You will never own all the food in the world, plus I could always grow my own food need be - your argument is ridiculous at best.




What is it with you guys and completely forgetting the importance of Positive Freedom.
Because it does not exist, positive freedoms are opinions on what individuals should have that are based on the fancies of the individual, not rights.

[laminustacitus]

The word "classes" can also mean any categories that someone chooses to define when they sort and classify any bunch of objects or data. So why is the Marxian use of the word "classes" different from any other?
Because it is an arbitrary division. All collectivist ideologies are based around arbitrarily deciding upon how society ought to be divided.




It is different because it provides us with great powers of explanation when we observe that the economic interests of some people is to have wages higher, profits lower, work hours shorter, job benefits expanded, and it is in the economic interests of some other people to have wages lower, profits higher, work hours longer and job benefits reduced. How else are you going to explain such an observation?
Simple: individual preferences. It takes an individual to think, and act; ergo, analysis must begin from the individual: methodological individualism.




Without a theory of class exploitation, how else could we explain the empirical observation that hard work is correlated with poverty, while personal idleness is corrrelated with wealth?
Hard work is correlated with poverty simply because anyone can do hard word, it is not a task that requires much beforehand training, unlike being an accountant, therefore the supply is extremely high resulting in lower wages, and the poverty of laborers in such sectors.

Personal idleness correlated with wealth! Are you kidding me? Do you realize how difficult the lives of entrepreneurs are? Plus, "idleness" is a misleading term for what truly matters is the worth of the goods, and services produced by an individual, not necessarily how "hard" he works - work smart, not hard.




We can explain the observed results only by concluding that various people's relations to the means of production are fundamental in determining how life turns out in this kind of economic system.
Or you can use my above analysis.




What explanatory abilities would you have by classifying people according to national or racial criteria?
What explanatory abilities do you have by defining classes according to the factors of production? All collectivist classifications are irrational so I will not defend any of them for they all reject methodological individualism.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Unlike you, I have a sound scientific theory to explain the correlation: as capitalism grew the economy, the state grew. You are misinterpreting the correlation.

But according to you all the "capitalist" countries in history were in reality socialist, so capitalism didn't grow anything. Everything you see is the result of socialism. If you don't like socialism stop using your computer and move to Somalia.


Because it does not exist, positive freedoms are opinions on what individuals should have that are based on the fancies of the individual, not rights.

http://diplomacy.vlexo.net/style_emoticons/default/emot-ughh.gif

But rights exists as something other than the opinions of society on what people should be able to do/have?

[laminustacitus]

You're the one who's equivocated every time you've asserted that truth cannot be discovered through historical interpretation.

Admit it: you're even a lousy sophist.
Its usually expected that you bolster your thesis with evidence, after all I do not even know what you accuse me of equivocating; though that might be a bourgeois practice.

[New Tet]

Its usually expected that you bolster your thesis with evidence, after all I do not even know what you accuse me of equivocating; though that might be a bourgeois practice.

You kidding? They've got it down to a science. Compared to the best and brightest of the bourgeoisie, you're a babe in the woods!

Oh, by the way, It was you who produced the best testimony for my point of view when you admitted that workers created associations, unions and the like to (among other things) include some workers and exclude others.

Thank you. Really.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Its usually expected that you bolster your thesis with evidence, after all I do not even know what you accuse me of equivocating; though that might be a bourgeois practice.

You're not in a position to be asking for evidence. You've attempted to prove barely any of your assertions, such as Nazism being corporatism, corporatism being socialism, all "capitalist" countries ever being socialist, etc. Half your arguments are pretty much unsubstantiated things like "collectivism is irrational."

[AnthArmo]

How is coercion not involved in there? I do not have the choice of not being coerced into slavery, or being coerced into being his prisoner one way or another - if it were a voluntary contract I could say "No", and go about my way unharmed.

THANK YOU!!!! wow, your absolutely brilliant at proving other people's points aren't you? you are truly a master of "Self-Ownage"

You are right, it is coercion. Although I'm not physically forcing you to be my sex slave through use of me violating your negative rights. I am still using coercion into forcing you to be my sex slave by violating your positive right to eat.

It is the exact same dilemma in Capitalism. I need money to survive. I do not own a business due to me not having enough money to survive. Therefore, the only option I have is to do whatever the people who DO own the means of production want me to do.

They could ask me to do whatever they want, work in the most unsafe and harshest of conditions, for the lowest pay possible, as hard as possible And I would have no choice because the alternative is to go without money and starve to death.

So it isn't coercion because me negative rights are being violated, but its still coercion because my positive rights are being violated.



You will never own all the food in the world, plus I could always grow my own food need be - your argument is ridiculous at best.

I just said that I have all the food growing utilities in the world, so you can't grow your own food.

And its an analogy, the point is to illustrate an argument that your idea that private property = freedom is stupid because a person could use private property to violate somebodies positive rights.



Because it does not exist, positive freedoms are opinions on what individuals should have that are based on the fancies of the individual, not rights.

As I've just demonstrated, Positive rights do exist. I don't know who you are. but when Capitalism has well and truly fucked you over in 10 or so years time. And your crushed by debt and can't do anything but work endlessly because you can't pay off your debts. Than you'll begin to understand what positive rights are.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


RL assumes that all facts are empirical. I don't make that assumption.

Where do I assume this? And on what basis do you assume otherwise?

In fact (no pun intended), I look at how we use the word 'fact' and base my conclusions on that. What you do is make stuff up, and ignore the plain differences I brought to your attention.

Here is yet another example:


Perhaps to say that scientific theories are facts means merely that they are veridical.

We have already been through this; a theory is 'veridical' if it can explain, accommodate and predict the facts.

If a theory were a fact, it would have to explain itself, predict itself and accommodate itself.


No, the criteria for a theory to be scientific is that it is correct.

Once more, we have been through this (and, as usual, you just ignored it). Here it is again for you to ignore it some more:


Trivas:


Once more, incorrect theories are not scientific theories, and scientific theories are facts. Yazman gets it right:

Are you saying that Ptolemy's theory, which was successful in predicting the motion of the heavens for well over a thousand years, and was more accurate in many ways than Copernicus's theory, was not scientific?

Or that Kepler's even more accurate theory was not scientific even though it is largely wrong?

Or that Darwin's theory is not scientific since it incorporated large parts of Lamarck's (incorrect) theory, and included his own wildly erroneous blending theory of transmission?

Or that Dalton's atomic theory is not scientific since he was totally wrong about the nature of atoms?

Or that geology up until the mid-1960s was not scientific since geologists had a completely wrong idea about the origin of the continents and mountain chains, and what caused volcanic eruptions and earthquakes?

And what if the Standard Model turns out to be wrong (which it may very well do if the Higgs Boson is not discovered)? Is the whole of Quantum Mechanics therefore non-scientific?

Now, you keep repeating the unsupported claim that scientific theories are facts (even though you seemed to waver recently and merely described them as 'factual'), ignoring the many differences I listed between theories and facts. Once more, you have nothing to say about such things; you clearly have not given this much thought, and have no answer except to keep repeating the unsupported mantra: theories are facts.

But, you also said this:


No, once proved scientific theories are factual.

This implies that a theory can be scientific even if not yet proven, contrary to your latest claim.

If so, this recent claim of yours cannot be correct (or it needs modifying):


incorrect theories are not scientific theories, and scientific theories are facts.

Here you seem to be claiming that only if a theory is proved is it a fact; but why would anyone bother to try to prove a non-scientific theory? If only proven theories are scientific, then non-proven ones cannot be. In that case, no scientist would try to prove them true.

And much as I agree with Yazman over most things, he is incorrect here:


Theories and fact are not mutually exclusive; evolution is both a theory and a fact; just as the theory of gravity is a theory, a law of science, and a fact. Just as the theory of bacteria and cell theory, and the theory of heliocentrism are all theories and facts. Scientific theories are also falsifiable and analysing falsifiability is one of the reasons for the constant reproduction of results and attempts to reproduce experiments.

Here he is confusing the process of evolution with our attempt to explain it -- like you, he has not noticed the glaring differences that exist between facts and theories (which I listed in my last two posts).

He also repeats Popper's (erroneous) claim that scientific theories are falsifiable, but non-scientific theories are falsifiable too. So that cannot distinguish science from pseudo-science.

But, facts are not falsifiable; if an alleged fact is false, it is not a fact. So, even if Popper's criterion were correct, facts would still be different from theories.

So, I was right; you are dopey enough to confuse a map with what it depicts...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kronos:


You see the difference now, Trivas! I knew you would.

Today is a good day, comrades.

You will, I hope, soon realise that Trivas 'does not think about things he does not think about'.*

That's why, no matter what you say, he just repeats the baseless assertions we have come to know and loathe.

------------------------------

*This is a quote from William Jennings Bryan (the Trivas of a few generations ago) during the Scopes 'Monkey Trial':

http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/i-do-not-think-about-things-i-dont-think-about/

[trivas7]

What you do is make stuff up [...]
Tough titties.


You're the one who's equivocated every time you've asserted that truth cannot be discovered through historical interpretation.

But that's exactly right -- scientific truth can't be discovered by interpreting history alá Marx. Ever heard of Lysenkoism?

[laminustacitus]

You are right, it is coercion. Although I'm not physically forcing you to be my sex slave through use of me violating your negative rights. I am still using coercion into forcing you to be my sex slave by violating your positive right to eat.
No, you are locking me up in your basement, the rights violation is not that you are not giving me food, it is that you are forcing me, by coercion, to live in your basement, rather simple point.




It is the exact same dilemma in Capitalism. I need money to survive. I do not own a business due to me not having enough money to survive. Therefore, the only option I have is to do whatever the people who DO own the means of production want me to do.
Through voluntary contracts in a free market, there is no similarity between the two examples.




They could ask me to do whatever they want, work in the most unsafe and harshest of conditions, for the lowest pay possible, as hard as possible And I would have no choice because the alternative is to go without money and starve to death.
You can say no, and fine a better job in the free market. If you happened to waste your life consuming, and if you never built up a set of skills that are in demand, and ergo need to work dangerous labor, that is the fault of your high time preference.




So it isn't coercion because me negative rights are being violated, but its still coercion because my positive rights are being violated.
No, it is because you are being coerced, the end. The violation of positive "rights" is not the issue per se, the issue at hand is that I am being locked in your basement against my will.




I just said that I have all the food growing utilities in the world, so you can't grow your own food.
Now we are in la la land where individuals forgot the basic skill of growing a garden.




And its an analogy, the point is to illustrate an argument that your idea that private property = freedom is stupid because a person could use private property to violate somebodies positive rights.
That is coercion, someone can use a gun to kill someone, that does not mean that property killed the murdered, violence did.




As I've just demonstrated, Positive rights do exist. I don't know who you are. but when Capitalism has well and truly fucked you over in 10 or so years time. And your crushed by debt and can't do anything but work endlessly because you can't pay off your debts. Than you'll begin to understand what positive rights are.
More politics of envy. Its all about you having things, isn't it?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Tough titties.

Get them seen too, then.


Ever heard of Lysenkoism?

Nothing to do with Marx.


scientific truth can't be discovered by interpreting history alá Marx

So you keep saying, but we have yet to see the proof -- or even a weak attempt at substantiation.

[trivas7]

Get them seen too, then.

Nothing to do with Marx.

So you keep saying, but we have yet to see the proof -- or even a weak attempt at substantiation.
I will assume this is one of your post I have been enjoined by you to ignore. ;)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


I will assume this is one of your post I have been enjoined by you to ignore.

By all means -- I'd hate to think I was in any way responsible for disabusing you of your self-inflicted ignorance.

[mel]

No, you are locking me up in your basement, the rights violation is not that you are not giving me food, it is that you are forcing me, by coercion, to live in your basement, rather simple point.

I'm not going to try to defend this analogy, it wasn't a very good one, but I can see a situation in which somebody would be desperate enough to sign a contract in which they would be locked up in somebody's basement for a steady supply of food.



Through voluntary contracts in a free market, there is no similarity between the two examples.

A free market cannot exist and will not sustain itself. Eventually power consolidates itself into the hands of monopolies (state or otherwise). It seems to me that market freedom and worker's rights have an inversely proportional relationship. When markets have fewer restrictions, workers get treated worse, because the capitalists have all the bargaining power, especially in unskilled labor



You can say no, and fine a better job in the free market. If you happened to waste your life consuming, and if you never built up a set of skills that are in demand, and ergo need to work dangerous labor, that is the fault of your high time preference.

I've already dismissed your nonsense about there existing a "free market" above, so I won't address that again here. Not everyone without marketable or in-demand skills "wasted their life consuming". Some people spend their lives with a skill that is in-demand when suddenly it falls out of demand, some never had the opportunity to build up their skills because they are too busy trying to work to put food on their table. It's an unfortunate reality that when one has to work 3 jobs to sustain themselves and their families that there isn't much time left for skill-building. Beyond that, what should this person eat while they're off looking for a "better job" (not that one often exists for an unskilled laborer) on the "free market"? A person's needs don't suddenly stop because they need a good job, and a person often needs to take a dangerous, low-paying job out of necessity.

You say that it's the fault of the worker that they are doing unskilled work, but you neglect that capitalism functions on the bargain that a vast number of people will be unable to find the time, energy, or money to do anything but the most menial labor, because capitalism cannot sustain itself without a massive working class. Not everyone can be a business-owner, not everyone can make a decent living if they just work hard enough, and not everyone is in a position to bargain for a living wage, especially not without restrictions on businesses that keep wages from the rock bottom.


No, it is because you are being coerced, the end. The violation of positive "rights" is not the issue per se, the issue at hand is that I am being locked in your basement against my will.

As above, I will not defend the analogy, it was poor, but you fail to see coercion when the only options are "take one of three jobs which will not pay me a living wage" or "starve to death on the street", so your mind is probably not functioning properly.


That is coercion, someone can use a gun to kill someone, that does not mean that property killed the murdered, violence did.

A gun isn't property, it's a posession. In any case, it wasn't "violence" that killed the victim, it was a person. None of this has anything to do with the context of this discussion, however, because the existence of private property NECESSARILY violates someone's rights. The existence of a gun (and other possessions) does not have that implicit quality.



More politics of envy. Its all about you having things, isn't it?

It's all about equality, fairness, and liberty, concepts apparently alien to you because of your inexplicable attachment to exploitation.

[mikelepore]

laminustacitus, post #244 - I am not the person who wrote those statements that you attributed to me.