Capitalism has failed us...

[kapitalyst]

After hundreds of years of capitalism, look at where it has gotten us...

Recent research has proven that the poor in America have outdated computers, smaller wardrobes, eat less seafood and steak, are more likely to be overweight and cannot afford to get the latest iPhones until months after release. Furthermore, new technology has eliminated grueling jobs that once required manual labor, cheating the working class out of valuable exercise. Automobiles have also lowered the amount of exercise per capita drastically. A recent study by a group of respected dermatologists found that the working class is also less likely to get a tan from spending too much time indoors. Average life expectancy has also increased, forcing people to see more years under capitalist domination.

Something must be done! ¡Viva la Revolución! :che:

[#FF0000]

computers and consumer electronics are hella cheap thanks to near slave labor in other parts of the globe and a 10-year-strong war in the Congo over some metal that is only used for electronics. Also, you know. Technology.

Obesity does not mean well-nourished. The poorest in America do especially bad, what with food deserts being so common in very rural areas as well as inner cities.

The new technology is baller and if you don't notice means that we can do more with less. I worked in a factory that provided important medicines for all of America and it was only one of a handful of factories that produced what it did. There were a total of three lines running at any one time.

Yet imagine the immense need across the globe for medicines and vaccines and imagine how easy it would be to produce things like this for everyone if one didn't have to worry about saturating the market? (p.s. that last bit is why we dump tons of food in the ocean every year while billions are malnourished.

Automobiles aren't to blame for lack of exercise. I think that people are generally too busy to get things in order to make a concerted effort to get more exercise and eat better. What might be to blame? Urban sprawl. You need a car to get most anywhere nowadays unless you're in the city.

And honestly if life expectancy and all of this is your argument then you have to come to the conclusion that the Soviet Union and China were baller as shit too, considering they made similar gains in less than a decade.

[RichardAWilson]

Two hundred years of capitalism and over a third of the world's population is malnourished.

Hundreds of millions of men, women and children don't even have clean drinking water.

Malaria still claims millions of lives.

All of this things could be prevented when food is being burned and pharmaceutical executives are pocketing billions of dollars.

How about the following?

Two hundred years of capitalism has led to widespread deforestation and environmental degradation.

All of these things have led to thousands of extinctions, desertification and global climate change.

Two hundred years of capitalism and people are wearing masks to save themselves from harmful particulate matter in the air (Mexico City, Shanghai, etc.).

3 decades of Piss Down Economics, Privatization and Deregulation and we're suffering from the worst financial crisis since the Great-Depression, all of which was caused by filthy rich banking bastards that gamed the system and rewarded themselves with lavish bonuses for running their businesses into the ground, leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill.

[kapitalyst]

Number 16,711,680... Or should I say "111111110000000000000000"? You've taken it a bit too seriously, I think. :lol:


computers and consumer electronics are hella cheap thanks to near slave labor in other parts of the globe and a 10-year-strong war in the Congo over some metal that is only used for electronics. Also, you know. Technology.


Really? What metal? China is actually the largest exporter of rare earth metals, and Mongolia is also a large exporter. Companies like Molycorp (MCP) and Avalon Rare Metals (AVL) satisfy a lot of US demand.



Obesity does not mean well-nourished. The poorest in America do especially bad, what with food deserts being so common in very rural areas as well as inner cities.


No, it doesn't mean well-nourished. It does mean you're not starving or hurting for food.

I also don't buy the "I'm fat cuz' I'm poor" deal... No, you're fat because of the foods you like or were taught to like by your parents and/or culture. That or your ignorance of health or outright gluttony. I live in a rural area which is a low-income district. There is plenty food. I only make a trip to Walmart if I'm buying a lot of groceries, and the savings justify the gas expense (gotta consider average unit cost!). And I know food prices -- from futures market to retail. It would cost me more to feed four people at McDonalds than to cook a very nice meal or buy four exceptional microwave seafood alfredo meals. Junk foods are typically more expensive than anything, because you're paying packaging and shipping premiums on top of commodity cost. The cheapest stuff of all, like Ramen noodles and canned soup, isn't exactly fattening either.

No... when I see people shopping with their food stamp cards, with bellies sagging over their belts, or dressed in night clothes (at 2pm) with a wad of soggy dollar bills, their carts are full of bacon, pork ribs/chops, beef, ham hocks, pig's feet, Lil Debbie cakes, Twinkies, potato chips, etc. Not a single bit of fruit or vegetables. I was poor and broke once, and I know how to shop on a bare-bones budget. No one is fat because they're poor.



The new technology is baller and if you don't notice means that we can do more with less. I worked in a factory that provided important medicines for all of America and it was only one of a handful of factories that produced what it did. There were a total of three lines running at any one time.


What are you trying to get across here?



Yet imagine the immense need across the globe for medicines and vaccines and imagine how easy it would be to produce things like this for everyone if one didn't have to worry about saturating the market? (p.s. that last bit is why we dump tons of food in the ocean every year while billions are malnourished.


Who dumps food in the ocean?

Don't even get me started on the medical industry... I hate them almost as much as I hate authoritarian government. Probably because they work together...



Automobiles aren't to blame for lack of exercise. I think that people are generally too busy to get things in order to make a concerted effort to get more exercise and eat better. What might be to blame? Urban sprawl. You need a car to get most anywhere nowadays unless you're in the city.


That was a joke.



And honestly if life expectancy and all of this is your argument then you have to come to the conclusion that the Soviet Union and China were baller as shit too, considering they made similar gains in less than a decade.

What do you mean by "baller"? Of course, I know the slang definition like "Dat nigga ballin!"... But I looked it up and don't see any other usage for it, so not sure what you're trying to say, haha.

[RichardAWilson]

Buy four exceptional microwave seafood alfredo meals.

Loaded with sodium. Watch your heart.

[#FF0000]

Really? What metal?

Columbite-Tantalite


wordsThe "good" alternatives you mentioned, e.g. Ramen, microwaved meals, are horrible for you. Good in a pinch, yeah, but the sodium in those things is crazy.

And that's what working people live on, mostly. Fast microwave meals and pasta (though I managed to grab some tuna steaks for five motherfucking dollars last week) are fine but those = way to much in the way of carbs and sodium.


No one is fat because they're poor.Bullshit. Like I said -- food deserts. There are places in America where actual grocery stores are inaccessible.


What are you trying to get across here?
That it takes very little to produce so much.


Who dumps food in the ocean?
The U.S. and England. I'm sure others do it as well.


What do you mean by "baller"? Of course, I know the slang definition like "Dat nigga ballin!"... But I looked it up and don't see any other usage for it, so not sure what you're trying to say, haha.Baller = swell, great, outstanding, the bee's knees.

[#FF0000]

Oh and btw there is a p. strong correlation between poverty and obesity (http://scienceblog.com/14046/correlation-between-obesity-and-poverty-healthy-people-2010-should-increase-attention-on-those-in-poverty/), and a lot of people nowadays are talking about how food insecurity contributes to obesity and all this. To say that poverty doesn't contribute to health issues is kinda silly, broseidon

[Revolution starts with U]

This can't be said enough. And tho I hate caps, I am going to say it in bolded caps so it can sink in to anyone willing to listen:

We socialists fully recognize the progressive nature of capitalism. All of the problems with capitalism derive from these 2 words; for whom?

[Bud Struggle]

I also don't buy the "I'm fat cuz' I'm poor" deal... No, you're fat because of the foods you like or were taught to like by your parents and/or culture. That or your ignorance of health or outright gluttony. I live in a rural area which is a low-income district. There is plenty food. I only make a trip to Walmart if I'm buying a lot of groceries, and the savings justify the gas expense (gotta consider average unit cost!). And I know food prices -- from futures market to retail. It would cost me more to feed four people at McDonalds than to cook a very nice meal or buy four exceptional microwave seafood alfredo meals. Junk foods are typically more expensive than anything, because you're paying packaging and shipping premiums on top of commodity cost. The cheapest stuff of all, like Ramen noodles and canned soup, isn't exactly fattening either.


Right. People are fat because they choose to eat poorly. Rich of Poor. It cost more money to eat poorly, high sodium, high sugar, high fats, than it does to eat well. It cost a family of four about four times more to eat at McDonalds than to eat a home cooked salmon, vegtable, and rice or potato dinner at home. Do that for a whole year and it adds up.

The problem with poor people being fat is pure and simple laziness. To make a healthey dinner it does take a bit of planning and work.

[RGacky3]

You don't judge how things are by comparing yourself to the stoneage, you see how life should be in the richest country in the world for its citizens and how it is.

[Tim Cornelis]

Chomsky also addressed this "argument" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFxYyXGMfZM.

If capitalism is good because quality of life is improving, and therefore capitalism is justified. Slave societies, as well as 'Stalinism', were justified because quality of life improved.

Furthermore, right-wingers always fail to look beyond their borders. Capitalism, unlike feudalism for example, is an international system. You cannot look at one Western country and conclude: capitalism works. Your description of "the poor" is simply false when we're talking about capitalism as the global system that it is. The poor die of starvation, work 14 hours a day, sometimes 24 hour shifts, earn next to nothing, are no better off than slaves. Profits over people.

But even in the West capitalism is disastrous. The "middle class" in Greece is disappearing, for example a story of a teacher and a broker who used all their money to buy food and drinks, no TV, no car, no internet. Because they do not have enough money.

[Nox]

The Congo Basin contains over $30 trillion worth of Metals, including Copper which is vital to electronics.

Those resources are being mostly unutilised because of the conflicts in the region, that's why China is trying to get a foothold in Africa. I'm quite surprised that the USA hasn't got involved...yet.

[kapitalyst]

Well, I must admit I've learned a few things. I wasn't aware of the conflict coltan mining in the Congo, which can be likened to conflict diamonds (aka "blood diamonds"). Dzhugashvili is right though, it's now going mostly unused... and this isn't the fault of "capitalism"... I also found that Sony was using the metal in PS2s, and thought that it was coming from a legit source. They found out and then discontinued its use. Same thing has happened with a few other companies, as the metal is smuggled out of the country and appears to come from legitimate sources. It's a terrible situation... you might buy the coltan and fund atrocities... or you might forgo the coltan and people go hungry... My heart goes out to these people. Is there any way, such as any apolitical charities, we can help?


Goti123:

Furthermore, right-wingers always fail to look beyond their borders. Capitalism, unlike feudalism for example, is an international system. You cannot look at one Western country and conclude: capitalism works. Your description of "the poor" is simply false when we're talking about capitalism as the global system that it is. The poor die of starvation, work 14 hours a day, sometimes 24 hour shifts, earn next to nothing, are no better off than slaves. Profits over people.
And I would say left-wingers fail to look beyond their copy of Manifesto. ;)

If you talk about capitalism in a purely academic context, the private ownership of capital, that's not exactly what we advocate. By that definition, every attempted communist/socialist society was "capitalist" because all of the capital became the private property of state oligarchs. To us, after years of ideological clashes, capitalism has become synonymous with free enterprise -- and that's what we advocate. Merely having some form of private ownership alone is totally unsatisfactory (e.g., fascist Italy). Only does this do any good when coupled with a free society, and a political system by which the state is limited. Few countries have ever embraced that, and we have begun to abandon it in the west. We asked for it and we got it... That is why there is such a disparity in the living standard between, say, America and Vietnam. People who are systemically oppressed by the state can't escape...

Goti123:
But even in the West capitalism is disastrous. The "middle class" in Greece is disappearing, for example a story of a teacher and a broker who used all their money to buy food and drinks, no TV, no car, no internet. Because they do not have enough money.

Yeah, I wonder what got Greece into so much trouble? *cough* :rolleyes:

FF0000:
Oh and btw there is a p. strong correlation between poverty and obesity (http://scienceblog.com/14046/correlation-between-obesity-and-poverty-healthy-people-2010-should-increase-attention-on-those-in-poverty/), and a lot of people nowadays are talking about how food insecurity contributes to obesity and all this.

Correlation does not imply causation fallacy... And wtf is "food insecurity"?

FF0000:
To say that poverty doesn't contribute to health issues is kinda silly, broseidon.
That I absolutely did not say...

And just curious... your use of the term "baller"... What part of the world come from? Is it English slang? Because I've only been exposed to the "ghetto" slang "ballin" and "baller"... I grew up along side of and went to school with a lot of black kids, and I live in an area that's now majority black where I have a lot of local friends. So I got exposed to all of their slang from the time I was a child, but I've obviously missed something here! :lol:

[Nox]

Well, I must admit I've learned a few things. I wasn't aware of the conflict coltan mining in the Congo, which can be likened to conflict diamonds (aka "blood diamonds"). Dzhugashvili is right though, it's now going mostly unused... and this isn't the fault of "capitalism"... I also found that Sony was using the metal in PS2s, and thought that it was coming from a legit source. They found out and then discontinued its use. Same thing has happened with a few other companies, as the metal is smuggled out of the country and appears to come from legitimate sources. It's a terrible situation... you might buy the coltan and fund atrocities... or you might forgo the coltan and people go hungry... My heart goes out to these people. Is there any way, such as any apolitical charities, we can help?


You vastly underestimate the scale of this, almost every single computer chip/electronic good in the world contains copper from the congo. I heard that something like 74% of the world's copper supply comes from the congo. The vast majority of that is mined via slavery, by gangs/militias.

[Bud Struggle]

You vastly underestimate the scale of this, almost every single computer chip/electronic good in the world contains copper from the congo. I heard that something like 74% of the world's copper supply comes from the congo. The vast majority of that is mined via slavery, by gangs/militias.


Bad I agree. So what's going to stop this? a world Revolution where we all agree all men are brother? Christians have been trying this for 2000 years.

You have to have a better plan than "Hey guys and gals, let's have a Revolution!"

Been there, done that.

But I agree there is a problem in the world.

[kapitalyst]

Bad I agree. So what's going to stop this? a world Revolution where we all agree all men are brother? Christians have been trying this for 2000 years.

You have to have a better plan than "Hey guys and gals, let's have a Revolution!"

Been there, done that.

But I agree there is a problem in the world.

Great point!

I don't buy that copper statistic though. Copper is one of the most common (and cheapest) metals on the planet. I can find copper in my soil here at home. It just wouldn't make sense... And I trade the stocks, time to time, of various copper mining companies. Many of them are actually gold and silver miners who produce copper, lead, tin and zinc as by-products, and mine the precious metals at a negative net cost. Among these are Goldcorp (GG), Endeavor Silver (EXK) and Silvercorp Metals (SVM)... though they're (Silvercorp) the source of a major controversy about alleged fraud, which they claim was a hoaxer short their stock. But none of them are in the Congo or dealing their copper, and have sizable market-share in the US, Canada, China and Europe.

Dzhugashvili might be right. I just say I'll believe it when I see it and don't buy it. In politics, people often get their information by hearsay from people who have no clue what they're talking about. So forgive me for my skepticism!

[Tim Cornelis]

And I would say left-wingers fail to look beyond their copy of Manifesto. ;)

What is this, I don't even. We are discussing the nature of capitalism, so stop making silly irrelevant remarks like these. Especially since I'm not a Marxist.


If you talk about capitalism in a purely academic context, the private ownership of capital, that's not exactly what we advocate. By that definition, every attempted communist/socialist society was "capitalist" because all of the capital became the private property of state oligarchs.

That's exactly what most socialists argue. The West is private capitalist, and the Soviet Union was state capitalist.


To us, after years of ideological clashes, capitalism has become synonymous with free enterprise -- and that's what we advocate.

So, then common ownership of the means of production combined with free enterprise (i.e. market socialism) is capitalism?

[Bud Struggle]

What is this, I don't even. We are discussing the nature of capitalism, so stop making silly irrelevant remarks like these. Especially since I'm not a Marxist.


Really? That the problem With RevLeft, It's always "I'm not one of THOSE GUYS, see my solution for society is XYand Z." "I'm not a Marxist--I'm a neo paeleo Leninist of the Marxist brotherhood--but not really." "If you only did what I SAY there would be peace on earth and eternal happiness."


Yea.


If you are of the Communist belief on this site--take the hits as well as the kudos. You expect us Capitalists to take "credit" for things like Copper mining in the Congo.

Thanks.

Your Capitalist friends on OI.

[Robert]

Especially since I'm not a Marxist.

What's wrong with Marxism? (Rob asks in all innocence).

[RGacky3]

HFxYyXGMfZM

I love Chomsky, the guy says things so clear and logical, theres a reason he's the most respected intellectual and is the second most quoted person after Jesus.

[Tim Cornelis]

Really? That the problem With RevLeft, It's always "I'm not one of THOSE GUYS, see my solution for society is XY and Z." "I'm not a Marxist--I'm a neo paeleo Leninist of the Marxist brotherhood--but not really." "If you only did what I SAY there would be peace on earth and eternal happiness."

You expect us Capitalists to take "credit" for things like Copper mining in the Congo.

Thanks.

Your Capitalist friends on OI.

Wat...

So if someone points to me that I'm not looking at the world beyond the Communist Manifesto, a booklet to which I do not subscribe, and I disagree with completely, rather than pointing out that I do not advocate Marxism and disagree with the programme drawn up in the Manifesto I should refrain from pointing this out and shut up?

If someone discusses capitalism with me and attacks Marxism, I should not point out I'm not a Marxist?

So if you're a fan of Ayn Rand and I say "Rothbard sucks", you should not point out that you disagree with Rothbard and that--unlike him--you believe in a minimal state? Simply because you both share some aspects of your ideology?


If you are of the Communist belief on this site--take the hits as well as the kudos.

That's utterly laughable. Ok, I am going to go to a Rothbard-fanclub site and instead of arguing against Rothbard I'm going to argue against, say, Milton Friedman. And when people point out "we are not Chicago schoolers, but advocates of the Austrian school", I will use your logic:

"Really? That the problem With "Rothbard fan club.com", It's always "I'm not one of THOSE GUYS, see my solution for society is X Y and Z." "I'm not a Randian--I'm a neo Rothbardian Konkinist of the Autarchist brotherhood--but not really." "If you only did what I SAY there would be peace on earth and eternal happiness.". If you are of free market capitalist belief, take the hits as well as the kudos, meaning even though you may disagree with something, I'm going to pretend you do not."



You expect us Capitalists to take "credit" for things like Copper mining in the Congo.

Wat? I did not mention Congo once, nor copper, nor mining.

You sir, do not make sense.

Your not so friendly non-Marxist, non-Maoist, non-Leninist, libertarian socialist.

P.S. Sorry for this being too lengthy, it just pisses me off when people assume I necessarily agree with all Marx or Stalin, or whatever prominent socialist, said because I happen to be a socialist of some kind.

[Bud Struggle]

Wat...

So if someone points to me that I'm not looking at the world beyond the Communist Manifesto, a booklet to which I do not subscribe, and I disagree with completely, rather than pointing out that I do not advocate Marxism and disagree with the programme drawn up in the Manifesto I should refrain from pointing this out and shut up?

If someone discusses capitalism with me and attacks Marxism, I should not point out I'm not a Marxist?

So if you're a fan of Ayn Rand and I say "Rothbard sucks", you should not point out that you disagree with Rothbard and that--unlike him--you believe in a minimal state? Simply because you both share some aspects of your ideology?



That's utterly laughable. Ok, I am going to go to a Rothbard-fanclub site and instead of arguing against Rothbard I'm going to argue against, say, Milton Friedman. And when people point out "we are not Chicago schoolers, but advocates of the Austrian school", I will use your logic:

"Really? That the problem With "Rothbard fan club.com", It's always "I'm not one of THOSE GUYS, see my solution for society is X Y and Z." "I'm not a Randian--I'm a neo Rothbardian Konkinist of the Autarchist brotherhood--but not really." "If you only did what I SAY there would be peace on earth and eternal happiness.". If you are of free market capitalist belief, take the hits as well as the kudos, meaning even though you may disagree with something, I'm going to pretend you do not."




Wat? I did not mention Congo once, nor copper, nor mining.

You sir, do not make sense.

Your not so friendly non-Marxist, non-Maoist, non-Leninist, libertarian socialist.

P.S. Sorry for this being too lengthy, it just pisses me off when people assume I necessarily agree with all Marx or Stalin, or whatever prominent socialist, said because I happen to be a socialist of some kind.

FINE then knock off all fo that "Capitalism SUCK"S nonsense. kapilyst and I have just met and Roblert and I are barely on speaking terms.

If you dont want me lumping you in wih Brother Number One then don't lump all of us Capitalist in together.

As if I control the Fucking Congo! :(

[Travis Bickle]

Capitalism is a *good* problem. Marx was not anti capitalist. He was post capitalist. In Russia socialists tried to skip capitalism and failed utterly.

[RadioRaheem84]

In other words the OP provided another I-Pods in the ghetto rant?

Always confusing the relative freedoms found in exchange with the non-freedom found in production.

[Revolution starts with U]

Im just going to revive a rap line I wrote a while ago:

Sassafras and razzamatazz. Superficial nonsense and "all that jazz" creates mechanical people with tyrannical brain, enslaved in style with designer chains.

It doesn't really matter if you're stuck in chains of stone, or chains of gold... you're still stuck in chains.

[#FF0000]

If you talk about capitalism in a purely academic context, the private ownership of capital, that's not exactly what we advocate. By that definition, every attempted communist/socialist society was "capitalist" because all of the capital became the private property of state oligarchs.

This is actually 100% correct.


Correlation does not imply causation fallacy... And wtf is "food insecurity"?

I'm well aware but there is a hella strong link. I'm not gonna saying being poor makes you fat but there are conditions that working class people live with that certainly make it easy to become obese.

Food insecurity is lack of access to food.


And just curious... your use of the term "baller"... What part of the world come from? Is it English slang? Because I've only been exposed to the "ghetto" slang "ballin" and "baller"... I grew up along side of and went to school with a lot of black kids, and I live in an area that's now majority black where I have a lot of local friends. So I got exposed to all of their slang from the time I was a child, but I've obviously missed something here! :lol:

Think it's New York/New Jersey but I assume it's used p. much everywhere

[#FF0000]

Capitalism is a *good* problem. Marx was not anti capitalist. He was post capitalist. In Russia socialists tried to skip capitalism and failed utterly.

Nah. I hear this a lot and it's wrong. People say "oh if Russia was just capitalist it wouldn't have been a problem because they needed to develop industry gubgubgubgubg"

I have to disagree with it. Russia was in a position where it was set for rapid industrialization with or without the Revolution. To write it off and say "nah it wasn't READY for revolution", I think, is the wrong way to look at it and is kind of a cop-out. The USSR failed early on for other reasons.

[Nox]

Bad I agree. So what's going to stop this? a world Revolution where we all agree all men are brother? Christians have been trying this for 2000 years.

You have to have a better plan than "Hey guys and gals, let's have a Revolution!"

Been there, done that.

But I agree there is a problem in the world.

You haven't been there, you haven't done that.

Christianity is fucking filth, I feel insulted that you compared our efforts to that of Christians.

[NGNM85]

Capitalism doesn't exist.

[Robert]

double post

[RadioRaheem84]

Capitalism doesn't exist.

Right. The corporate mercantile, corporate communism or whatever it was you said last time, exists? :rolleyes:

[#FF0000]

Capitalism doesn't exist.

I think I explained to you why your definitions are kinda dumb.

Private property and wage labor do exist, though. Call it whatever you want but that is what we're aiming to get rid of.

[RGacky3]

I'm sick of these semantics game. Can we agree from now on.

Capitalism = Private property, for profit economy and wage labor
Socialism = Worker control of production and economic democracy.

THATs what were talking about here, if you want to talk about something else go to another forum.

[kapitalyst]

I'm sick of these semantics game. Can we agree from now on.

Capitalism = Private property, for profit economy and wage labor
Socialism = Worker control of production and economic democracy.

THATs what were talking about here, if you want to talk about something else go to another forum.

Who appointed you Divine Deity of Definitions? :rolleyes:

There are a lot of different views present here, and a lot of different perspectives. For instance, you were unable to refrain from inserting your highly opinionated words "democratic economy" into a definition of socialism you want all to accept. What if I propose my own "official" definitions, like so:

Capitalism - teh b3st, z0mG it 0wNzzzzz!111!1!!!one!!!
Socialism - a political disease

:lol:

Dzhugashvili, I'm glad you consider me "filth" because I'm a Christian. I'm an anti-fundamentalist, non-conventional Christian, but filth all the same. I look forward to the great purge, in which filth like me will cleansed from society for the greater good. ;)

[CommunityBeliever]

After hundreds of years of capitalism, look at where it has gotten us...Every Marxist will agree with you that capitalism is historically progressive, however, our point of contention is that *capitalism is failing us now* in the 21th century.


There are a lot of different views present here, and a lot of different perspectives. For instance, you were unable to refrain from inserting your highly opinionated words "democratic economy" into a definition of socialism you want all to accept. What if I propose my own "official" definitions, like so:

All of these terms were precisely defined by Marx and Engels if you do a little reading:

Productive forces:
All of the elements in which go into production, such as the instruments of labor (tools, factories, infrastructure, etc) and the subjects of labor (raw materials like metals).

Relations of production:
The social relationship of to the productive conditions. People are grouped into social classes based upon their relationship to production.

Mode of production:
The combination of the productive forces and the relations of production.

Capitalism:
Capitalism evolved out of feudalism, when a new class of merchants arose to trade between feudal societies that eventually overtook the feudal lords.


Productive forces: this includes the use of non-nutritive energy sources in production, such as coal and steam-power.
Relations of production: there is a social class (the capitalists) that controls the means of production and all of its products, the capitalists organise production around personal profit. There is another social class (the workers) that work for the capitalists to receive a wage which in order to satisfy their physiological (food, water) and safety (housing, health care) needs.

Socialism:
Socialism arises when the working class overtakes the capitalist class, just like the merchants overtook the fuedal lords. Similarly, just as merchantilism was a transitory period from feudalism to capitalism, socialism will be a transitory period from capitalism to pure communism in which workers develop our productive forces.


Relations of production: there is only one social class - the working class - and they own all of the means of production in common, and they organise production around maximising use-value. Compulsory work and a money system may still exist.

Pure communism:
This emerges out of socialism and it is the final stage in human history (before posthumanism that is).


Productive forces: production is vastly expanded to create a post-scarcity level of goods, services, and information, with technologies like the molecular assemblers, 3D printers, universal internet access, nuclear fusion, space based solar power, friendly weak AI, advanced automation, asteroid mining, etc.
Relations of production: there are no classes or states, and everything is free and people don't have to work and if they do they will only work on intellectual tasks like computer programming and scientific research.

[kapitalyst]

Every Marxist will agree with you that capitalism is historically progressive, however, our point of contention is that *capitalism is failing us now* in the 21th century.


I realize that. And it is true, capitalism, alone, is failing us. Capitalism alone, as I have already stated, is meaningless. A notion of ownership and contract pre-exists in human psychology, and always has -- capitalism will always be present.

None of us merely advocate private capital ownership as a path to prosperity. We advocate free enterprise, a free society and individual liberty. We indeed recognize that capitalism revolutionized humanity by eliminating the caste system of feudalism, and allowing each individual to transcend the barrier of birthright and heredity. But the change here was not private ownership of capital, which existed in feudalism and every other society, but rather freedom of enterprise. That merchants, like Hanse traders, were able to attain wealth by the fruits of their labor and savvy despite their ancestry.

For us, the line of progress for humanity is in eliminating the state to the greatest degree possible and constant, rapid technological development to improve the material situation of mankind. The state is the barrier to freedom and equality, not the path to it. And the state is not the path to eliminating the state, but rather a minefield leading to greater oppression than was ever before known. You will obviously disagree and reject these notions as misrepresentation or misunderstanding of communism. But it is not. We fully understand you, but we insist that these desires for collectivism and public-ownership simply create a state. Thus far that has only lead to tyranny, and always will. Obedience to authority is an unavoidable part of the human psyche. Therefore we reject the argument of the "greater good" and collectivism, for it is simply a vehicle for abuse of the individual.



All of these terms were precisely defined by Marx and Engels if you do a little reading:I've read Marx before, but not Engels.Again, I reject Marxist thought and collectivism. Marx's views and definitions are incompatible with ours. And in fact, I think they promote divisions of social class. How many left wingers here would let me train them to be successful traders or teach them to succeed in enterprise in the ways I have? None... They would consider it being a "sell out" or "pig", and are determined to remain in the same material situation for the sake of ideology.


Capitalism:
Capitalism evolved out of feudalism, when a new class of merchants arose to trade between feudal societies that eventually overtook the feudal lords.


Productive forces: this includes the use of non-nutritive energy sources in production, such as coal and steam-power.
Relations of production: there is a social class (the capitalists) that controls the means of production and all of its products, the capitalists organise production around personal profit. There is another social class (the workers) that work for the capitalists to receive a wage which in order to satisfy their physiological (food, water) and safety (housing, health care) needs.



Here we clash again, because of the belief that this unshakable, rigid class called capitalists controls everything and enslaves the masses. The capitalist "class" is open to anyone. There is no criteria based on heredity, race, sex, religion or anything else. To join the capitalists and the wealthy, one must only satisfy a need or want for which others are willing to exchange for payment. Anyone is capable of this except the handicapped and mentally deficient (some of whom, like myself, have still overcome their condition). For every failure we find and try to blame on the "system", another has overcome the same (or worse) set of circumstances to succeed. It is a system based on merit. But some don't like this absence of excuse or deferment of blame, nor the reality of owning up to your mistakes and taking responsibility for ones own actions. But it is that very pressure which causes progression and development, and maintains the necessary structure of society and promotes mutualism and cooperation. Not the other way around.



Socialism:
Socialism arises when the working class overtakes the capitalist class, just like the merchants overtook the fuedal lords. Similarly, just as merchantilism was a transitory period from feudalism to capitalism, socialism will be a transitory period from capitalism to pure communism in which workers develop our productive forces.


Relations of production: there is only one social class - the working class - and they own all of the means of production in common, and they organise production around maximising use-value. Compulsory work and a money system may still exist.



Unfortunately, that's never going to happen. The only way to attempt it is through using the state to bully the successful and appease the "underlings". Inevitably, it later sets its sights on oppression of the masses and satisfaction of its personal wants and self-interest. Again, that is one reason why we support the "hands-off" approach and individualism... the constant effort to push liberty.



Pure communism:
This emerges out of socialism and it is the final stage in human history (before posthumanism that is).


Productive forces: production is vastly expanded to create a post-scarcity level of goods, services, and information, with technologies like the molecular assemblers, 3D printers, universal internet access, nuclear fusion, space based solar power, friendly weak AI, advanced automation, asteroid mining, etc.
Relations of production: there are no classes or states, and everything is free and people don't have to work and if they do they will only work on intellectual tasks like computer programming and scientific research.



You just named a bunch of things capitalists are developing already, many of which already exist (3D printers, nuclear fusion, automation, etc)! Without the obstruction of enterprise, those things will all be developed -- and faster than they could be in any other system. Just as the liberalization of enterprise has lead to past leaps and bounds of technology and widespread improvement for the situation of mankind, it will lead to those in the future -- so long as we don't reject it. In fact, I'm part of this... in my own small way. One of my greatest passions is programming, and experimental AI is a hobby of mine. I've thus far failed to break any significantly new ground, but I'll still try -- and maybe someone will learn from my mistakes. :cool:

You're kidding yourself, however, if you think there will ever be a point in time where no one has to work and it will just be a matter of choice to write code or study science. New needs for human labor will arise that we cannot even imagine, and in ways we cannot even imagine. Society will always have problems that need solving. Heaven on earth is a pipe dream.

P.S. -- Can someone please tell me how to post Youtube videos? I've tried everything, and it won't work. I have a lot I'd like to share.

[La Peur Rouge]

I realize that. And it is true, capitalism, alone, is failing us. Capitalism alone, as I have already stated, is meaningless.

What do you suggest?

A notion of ownership and contract pre-exists in human psychology, and always has -- capitalism will always be present.

Evidence?

None of us merely advocate private capital ownership as a path to prosperity. We advocate free enterprise, a free society and individual liberty. We indeed recognize that capitalism revolutionized humanity by eliminating the caste system of feudalism, and allowing each individual to transcend the barrier of birthright and heredity. But the change here was not private ownership of capital, which existed in feudalism and every other society, but rather freedom of enterprise. That merchants, like Hanse traders, were able to attain wealth by the fruits of their labor and savvy despite their ancestry.

Merchants only attained the "fruits of their labor" through others' labor.

For us, the line of progress for humanity is in eliminating the state to the greatest degree possible and constant, rapid technological development to improve the material situation of mankind.

I absolutely agree.

The state is the barrier to freedom and equality, not the path to it. And the state is not the path to eliminating the state, but rather a minefield leading to greater oppression than was ever before known. You will obviously disagree and reject these notions as misrepresentation or misunderstanding of communism. But it is not. We fully understand you, but we insist that these desires for collectivism and public-ownership simply create a state.

How does common-ownership create a state?

Therefore we reject the argument of the "greater good" and collectivism, for it is simply a vehicle for abuse of the individual.

If communism is an abuse of the individual, capitalism is an abuse of the common good then? of the human race as a whole?

I've read Marx before, but not Engels.Again, I reject Marxist thought and collectivism. Marx's views and definitions are incompatible with ours. And in fact, I think they promote divisions of social class.

The goal is to abolish class.

How many left wingers here would let me train them to be successful traders or teach them to succeed in enterprise in the ways I have? None... They would consider it being a "sell out" or "pig", and are determined to remain in the same material situation for the sake of ideology.

I agreed with you up until the last sentence, I would guess that the main reason we are socialists is because we Don't want to remain in the same material situation, but instead of using our energy in pursuit of individual wealth we see that the entire human race can be well off and the only people that would really be sacrificing anything is the 1-2% of the Earth's population that is the capitalist class.

Here we clash again, because of the belief that this unshakable, rigid class called capitalists controls everything and enslaves the masses.

I would argue that they do, but it's not some massive conspiracy theory, it is in the best interest of the capitalist class to hold on to their way of life.

The capitalist "class" is open to anyone.

I agree, in theory anyone can be a capitalist, but the reality usually doesn't confirm this.

There is no criteria based on heredity, race, sex, religion or anything else.

Great, I love equality.

To join the capitalists and the wealthy, one must only satisfy a need or want for which others are willing to exchange for payment.

I disagree, does the working class not satisfy the need for labor to the bourgeoisie in exchange for payment?

For every failure we find and try to blame on the "system", another has overcome the same (or worse) set of circumstances to succeed. It is a system based on merit.

I would hardly say capitalism is based on merit.

But some don't like this absence of excuse or deferment of blame, nor the reality of owning up to your mistakes and taking responsibility for ones own actions.

So maybe if I would have just been more careful and worked a little harder capitalist crises would never occur?

But it is that very pressure which causes progression and development, and maintains the necessary structure of society and promotes mutualism and cooperation. Not the other way around.

It seems to me that it only promotes competition and alienation.

Unfortunately, that's never going to happen. The only way to attempt it is through using the state to bully the successful and appease the "underlings".

Ah yes, the "Successful", those who have succeeded by standing on the shoulders of us lowly "Underlings".

Inevitably, it later sets its sights on oppression of the masses and satisfaction of its personal wants and self-interest. Again, that is one reason why we support the "hands-off" approach and individualism... the constant effort to push liberty.

I would say that individualism can't truly exist in a world that only promotes uniformity and obedience like capitalism does.

New needs for human labor will arise that we cannot even imagine, and in ways we cannot even imagine. Society will always have problems that need solving. Heaven on earth is a pipe dream.

Absolutely, which is why we are not utopian.



P.S. -- Can someone please tell me how to post Youtube videos? I've tried everything, and it won't work. I have a lot I'd like to share.

I was going to, but linking videos don't seem to be working for me either...

[Catmatic Leftist]

Who appointed you Divine Deity of Definitions? :rolleyes:

There are a lot of different views present here, and a lot of different perspectives. For instance, you were unable to refrain from inserting your highly opinionated words "democratic economy" into a definition of socialism you want all to accept. What if I propose my own "official" definitions, like so:

Capitalism - teh b3st, z0mG it 0wNzzzzz!111!1!!!one!!!
Socialism - a political disease

:lol:

Dzhugashvili, I'm glad you consider me "filth" because I'm a Christian. I'm an anti-fundamentalist, non-conventional Christian, but filth all the same. I look forward to the great purge, in which filth like me will cleansed from society for the greater good. ;)

...he's not trying to coerce his own definition of socialism and capitalism onto everyone; he's defining the terms and then using those terms as premises for his own argument.

I think that's what Gacky was aiming for; please correct me if I'm wrong.

[kapitalyst]

...he's not trying to coerce his own definition of socialism and capitalism onto everyone; he's defining the terms and then using those terms as premises for his own argument.

I think that's what Gacky was aiming for; please correct me if I'm wrong.

"Coerce" is definitely too strong of a word. But he was basically saying we should forget all of our own definitions and use his... not basing his arguments on his own, as others have done.

@ Revolutionary Sandwich:

Someone finally told me the trick. Copy the sequence of characters in the Youtube URL following the "=" character.

Example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91kdwxFsthI

--becomes--

91kdwxFsthI

And is put between the "" tags...

Rendering this result:

[YOUTUBE]91kdwxFsthI

:star2::thumbup1::star2:

LOL!

[Os Cangaceiros]

re: fat poor people

The reason that obesity strikes the poor in the manner it does has a lot to do with agricultural subsidies, specifically agricultural subsidies that go towards corn production. This is then used to make corn syrup, commonly used in any number of fattening/unhealthy food products. And, since agribusiness is already getting subsidies that they don't actually need, they can then market/sell these products at dramatically lower prices in contrast to healthier options.

So the situation has nothing to do with poor people being lazy gluttons and everything to do with agribusiness' influence on political leaders.

[CommunityBeliever]

For us, the line of progress for humanity is in eliminating the state to the greatest degree possible and constant, rapid technological development to improve the material situation of mankind.


Without the obstruction of enterprise, those things will all be developed -- and faster than they could be in any other system. Just as the liberalization of enterprise has lead to past leaps and bounds of technology and widespread improvement for the situation of mankind, it will lead to those in the future

As I mentioned before capitalism was once progressive a century ago, however, beginning in the 20th century with events like the great depression (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression) it began to technology stagnation to a considerable extent, and many times the capitalist plutocracy even suppressed the development of important technologies.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/The-Great-Depression-300x300.jpg

Actually, many people consider that after the great depression and WW2 the west became a mall economy (http://imperialistsoweuniversally.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-challenges-communist.html), that is most all people begin to put to focus on the creation of artificial scarcity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_scarcity) and artificial demand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_demand) in order to find ways to sell things to people to keep things in tact, for example, there are advertisements all everywhere on the web (even on revleft) telling people to buy things.

Considering the technological stagnation of capitalism that a century ago, I think you will find most technologies of the last century that actually did manage to get developed, were made by non-profit organisations and the state. This is the case with computers, the Internet, nuclear power, spacecraft, etc. Even important developments in auto-mobiles like seat belts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt) were only put on when the state came along. Many other technologies were suppressed from coming into existence. As such, at this point I am absolutely convinced that we need social progress before we can have significant technological progress because of capitalist suppression of technological development.


You just named a bunch of things capitalists are developing already, many of which already exist (3D printers, nuclear fusion, automation, etc)!

At the moment we are totally dependent on uranium fission, coal, oil, etc. Our current energy technology is disastrous:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Deepwater_Horizon_offshore_drilling_unit_on_fire_2 010.jpg/300px-Deepwater_Horizon_offshore_drilling_unit_on_fire_2 010.jpg

And even if anyone did acquire nuclear fusion technology, it would be suppressed because capitalism is a scarcity based economic system and nuclear fusion would create abundant cheap energy. This one reason capitalists have suppressed many technologies in the past.

As for 3D printing and automation technology, they aren't developed in the extent they could be because it is often more profitable for capitalists to use *cheap labor* from third world workers.


You're kidding yourself, however, if you think there will ever be a point in time where no one has to work and it will just be a matter of choice to write code or study science. New needs for human labor will arise that we cannot even imagine, and in ways we cannot even imagine. Society will always have problems that need solving. Heaven on earth is a pipe dream.I think you are misrepresenting my words. Please read:

http://www.adciv.org/Advanced_automation

http://www.adciv.org/upload/thumb/c/c4/Robot_arm_and_maintenance_bot.jpg/180px-Robot_arm_and_maintenance_bot.jpg (http://www.adciv.org/Image:Robot_arm_and_maintenance_bot.jpg)


Advanced automation here refers to sophisticated automated systems, ideally with the additional capability for self-maintenance and repair, mostly requiring little or no human interaction to operate, apart from top-level guidance. Not being reliant on human effort to scale, these systems would hugely magnify our capability for production and decouple human time and effort from industrial productivity, allowing us to create as much of anything that is needed while releasing people from mindless labour. This situation will arises when automated harvesting of raw materials, is combined with automated logistics (already commonplace), automated transport systems (http://www.adciv.org/Automated_transport_systems), robotic manufacturing and self-maintenance and repair (http://www.adciv.org/Advanced_automation#Self-maintenance_and_repair), creating fully automated production of useful goods.

[RGacky3]

Who appointed you Divine Deity of Definitions? http://www.revleft.com/vb/capitalism-has-failed-t161953/revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif

There are a lot of different views present here, and a lot of different perspectives. For instance, you were unable to refrain from inserting your highly opinionated words "democratic economy" into a definition of socialism you want all to accept. What if I propose my own "official" definitions, like so:

Capitalism - teh b3st, z0mG it 0wNzzzzz!111!1!!!one!!!
Socialism - a political disease

http://www.revleft.com/vb/capitalism-has-failed-t161953/revleft/smilies2/laugh.gif

Dzhugashvili, I'm glad you consider me "filth" because I'm a Christian. I'm an anti-fundamentalist, non-conventional Christian, but filth all the same. I look forward to the great purge, in which filth like me will cleansed from society for the greater good. http://www.revleft.com/vb/capitalism-has-failed-t161953/revleft/smilies/wink.gif

If your gonna argue against me, you ahve to argue againsat me based on what I am fighting for, also these are not MY definitions they are almost universally accepted, the vast majority of socialists fight for what I'm talking about, and almost everyone accepts that definitino as the definition of capitalism and its the stuff that we want to get rid of.

If you want to debate here, you have to argue with us based on what we believe in.

[CommunityBeliever]

It is a system based on merit.Name anybody in forbes 500 you would say is meritorious.


Recent research has proven that the poor in America have outdated computersComputers are the best example of capitalist failure I can think of, to be honest. I go on about how shitty things our with our computer systems for days and days. Hopefully this contains sufficient detail:

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

Artificial scarcity describes the scarcity of items even though the technology and production capacity exists to create an abundance. The term is aptly applied to non-rival resources, i.e. those that do not diminish due to one person's use, although there are other resources which could be categorized as artificially scarce.

An example of artificial scarcity is often used when describing proprietary, or closed-source, computer software. Any software application can be easily duplicated billions of times over for a relatively cheap production price (an initial investment in a computer, an internet connection, and any power consumption costs; and these are already fixed costs in most environments). On the margin, the price of copying software is next to nothing, costing only a small amount of power and a fraction of a second. Things like serial numbers, license agreements, and intellectual property create artificial scarcity, and give monetary value to otherwise free copies.

http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2004/january/software.htm

Closed source software (i.e. Microsoft Windows and Office) is developed by a single person or company. Only the final product that is run on your computer is made available, while the all important source code or recipe for making the software is kept a secret.

http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/drm.html

DRM is often written as "Digital Rights Management", but this is misleading, since it refers to systems that are designed to take away and limit your rights. So, we suggest you use the term "Digital Restrictions Management" instead. We also suggest "Treacherous Computing" as a replacement for the misleading "Trusted Computing".

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

In George Orwell’s “1984,” government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the “memory hole.”
Related

On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com.

In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.

http://en.windows7sins.org/

Nearly every computer purchased has Windows pre-installed -- but not by choice. Microsoft dictates requirements to hardware vendors, who will not offer PCs without Windows installed on them, despite many people asking for them. Even computers available with other operating systems like GNU/Linux pre-installed often had Windows on them first.

http://www.loper-os.org/?p=351

More and more people are realizing that they are buying infinitely-copyable information rather than dead trees or plastic disks. And many have come to the conclusion that publishing houses are, by and large, parasitic middlemen. The parasites understand that if this trend continues, their days are numbered. And so, they try to turn back the clock by encasing e-books in various nonsensical scarcity emulators. (Let’s popularize this term!) They hope that consumers will eventually make peace with artificial scarcity. Endless variations on the tired, old theme of “these bits live in hardware which you own, but you can’t view/flip them” will be tried.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman

Cloud computing – where IT power is delivered over the internet as you need it, rather than drawn from a desktop computer – has gained currency in recent years. Large internet and technology companies including Google, Microsoft and Amazon are pushing forward their plans to deliver information and software over the net.

But Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, said that cloud computing was simply a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that would cost them more and more over time.

http://www.loper-os.org/?p=21

Anyone who has read CS papers from ~1960-1980 and compared the original-idea-density to those of today (http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/whats-wrong-with-cs-research.html) might think forbidden thoughts (http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/07/my-navrozov-moments.html).


are more likely to be overweightGood thing you mentioned the food crisis. That is a great example of contemporary capitalist failure, people in the third world are starving to death and resorting to eating dirt (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3337cj4sJQ) well people in the first world die of prevented health problems onset by overeating:

s3337cj4sJQ
If you are interested in more information, here is a video with over an hours worth of information on our current food crisis:

g2iVKzTcbHA


Automobiles have also lowered the amount of exercise per capita drastically. AAh auto-mobiles. You mean the things that the state had to ensure had basic safety features like seat belts?

http://blog.freeinsurancequotes.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/what-makes-a-car-accident-fatal.jpg

Even now I think you will find there is no shortage of car accidents:

http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2008/10/18/alg_car_accident.jpg


Average life expectancy has also increased, forcing people to see more years under capitalist domination.Right now many of my close companions are afraid of getting medical care because it may cost too much, and it is like this all across America and much of the world. This is not the sort of system I want to live in.

[La Comédie Noire]

The thing about trickle down economics is you got to shake the branch a little to get the fruits to fall out. The benefits the working class have gained were the direct result of political and economic struggle with the capitalist class, which if you haven't noticed is making moves to take those gains back because we have become "lazy" and are now "living beyond our means."

There are a few misguided libertarians who see this as a tocsin sounding before the yawning gates of heaven, but really it will be a hell on earth. More like Charles Dickens than Thomas Moore

[Tim Cornelis]

FINE then knock off all fo that "Capitalism SUCK"S nonsense. kapilyst and I have just met and Roblert and I are barely on speaking terms.

If you dont want me lumping you in wih Brother Number One then don't lump all of us Capitalist in together.

I hate to reply to this, but I can't resist.

There is a difference between arguing that "Marxism sucks" against an anarchist, or arguing "The Chicago school sucks" against Austrian schoolers, one the one hand, and arguing that "socialism sucks" or "capitalism sucks" on the other. The former is just plain stupid, the latter may be correct if you think all forms of socialism suck (which you do) or all forms of capitalism suck (which I do).


As if I control the Fucking Congo! :(

STOP MENTIONING CONGO. I haven't mentioned it once, yet you're acting like I did! Perhaps you are lumping Dzhugashvili and me together?

[Nox]

Dzhugashvili, I'm glad you consider me "filth" because I'm a Christian. I'm an anti-fundamentalist, non-conventional Christian, but filth all the same. I look forward to the great purge, in which filth like me will cleansed from society for the greater good.

Your average everyday Christian who minds his own business isn't filth, but people who promote Christianity, preach Christianity and argue for Christianity are filth. They are opposed to the progression of humanity and are actively promoting sexism, homophobia and hate in general, and are also partially responsible for the tens of millions of deaths every year caused by starvation.

A purge won't be necessary, theistic beliefs will eventually die out naturally as people realise that they are a load of utter rubbish.

http://fineartamerica.com/images-medium/capitalist-pyramid-1911-granger.jpg

[Robert]

Your average everyday Christian who minds his own business isn't filth.The "everyday Christian" is "Christianity" IMO. Popes and pastors and Rabbis are just people. Yeah, they mess up now and then. Just like you and me.


A purge won't be necessaryYes it will, and we know who'll lead the parade.:lol:

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The "everyday Christian" is "Christianity" IMO. Popes and pastors and Rabbis are just people. Yeah, they mess up now and then. Just like you and me.

They're certainly not "just like you and me". Their status as clergy grants them an unreasonable level of influence (not to mention actual political power in states with established religions) over sincerely believing laypeople, and as a result are in the best position to take advantage of their flocks if the mood takes them, which it all too often does.

[Rafiq]

After hundreds of years of capitalism, look at where it has gotten us...

Recent research has proven that the poor in America have outdated computers, smaller wardrobes, eat less seafood and steak, are more likely to be overweight and cannot afford to get the latest iPhones until months after release. Furthermore, new technology has eliminated grueling jobs that once required manual labor, cheating the working class out of valuable exercise. Automobiles have also lowered the amount of exercise per capita drastically. A recent study by a group of respected dermatologists found that the working class is also less likely to get a tan from spending too much time indoors. Average life expectancy has also increased, forcing people to see more years under capitalist domination.

Something must be done! ¡Viva la Revolución! :che:

Statistically you are wrong. 85% of the world does not enjoy such conditions. Fail. Now go fuck yourself.

[Rafiq]

Chomsky also addressed this "argument" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFxYyXGMfZM.

If capitalism is good because quality of life is improving, and therefore capitalism is justified. Slave societies, as well as 'Stalinism', were justified because quality of life improved.

Furthermore, right-wingers always fail to look beyond their borders. Capitalism, unlike feudalism for example, is an international system. You cannot look at one Western country and conclude: capitalism works. Your description of "the poor" is simply false when we're talking about capitalism as the global system that it is. The poor die of starvation, work 14 hours a day, sometimes 24 hour shifts, earn next to nothing, are no better off than slaves. Profits over people.

But even in the West capitalism is disastrous. The "middle class" in Greece is disappearing, for example a story of a teacher and a broker who used all their money to buy food and drinks, no TV, no car, no internet. Because they do not have enough money.



I oppose such ethical criticisms.

Capitalism is systematically bound to failure. If it wasn't I see no reason to oppose it. If it actually is the best means of organizing societies and it will make everyone enjoy the best living standards, why oppose it? Because it doesn't do those things.

[Rafiq]

Bad I agree. So what's going to stop this? a world Revolution where we all agree all men are brother? Christians have been trying this for 2000 years.

You have to have a better plan than "Hey guys and gals, let's have a Revolution!"

Been there, done that.

But I agree there is a problem in the world.

I hope you're trolling.

The emancipation of the international working class is what will stop this, and global imperialism as well. It is an inevitability, and with it will come the liberation of all of the world's oppressed people's.

[Nox]

Yeah, they mess up now and then.

Like those people who believed that the false-prophet/liar/delusional Jesus was the 'Messiah'? They messed up big time.

Like anyone who ever became a Christian? They messed up big time.

[Jose Gracchus]

Right. People are fat because they choose to eat poorly. Rich of Poor. It cost more money to eat poorly, high sodium, high sugar, high fats, than it does to eat well. It cost a family of four about four times more to eat at McDonalds than to eat a home cooked salmon, vegtable, and rice or potato dinner at home. Do that for a whole year and it adds up.

The problem with poor people being fat is pure and simple laziness. To make a healthey dinner it does take a bit of planning and work.

Fuck you, factory-owning shitsack. Y'know, I do cook and shop at farmers' markets, but its really fucking tough and really cutting corners when I work two part-time jobs to try to piece together enough hours every week in pay, with constantly switching schedules and getting out of work at 2 am, while my girlfriend goes to school, moves paper for no pay for the hope of a job at an office all day and runs up debt.

If there were normal jobs and they paid adequately and labor-weeks were limited to what they were in the 1960s, and massive sprawl overdevelopment and community asset-stripping not massively subsidized at the State's expense, I would objectively have more money, real opportunities to shop (I forgot government has encouraged oligopolies in groceries, so I have to pay high prices now too unless I want to drive across town to find competitors) for healthy foods, and actual time to cook them.

Oh, and I am from a 'nice neighborhood' where I'm like one of the only non-white people growing up, and I went to a first-tier university and had a full-ride scholarship.

So go play in traffic you piece of shit


FINE then knock off all fo that "Capitalism SUCK"S nonsense. kapilyst and I have just met and Roblert and I are barely on speaking terms.

If you dont want me lumping you in wih Brother Number One then don't lump all of us Capitalist in together.

As if I control the Fucking Congo! :(

And are you really this fucking dumb? I thought they didn't let drooling apes run factories, but there's obviously a distinction between a social group or entity as an institution that plays a primary role, if one looks at the big-picture, in the evolution of history, and a club full of distinct individuals.

Lenin was a lawyer, Iron Felix was a nobleman; that does not matter. The fact is whatever individual capitalists think, if they do not fulfill their function as capitalists for capital, and that means waging the class struggle against workers to drive the cost of appropriating labor-power to its bare minimum in order to accumulate capital as quickly and greatly as is socially possible. If you do not do this, you go tits up and are removed from the capitalist class.

This is as simple as fucking reading anything on the voluminous world literature on social class, inside and outside the Marxian and revolutionary perspectives. Your dim-wit version is unheard of in educated circles unless you're dealing with idiot Tea Partiers or people who think Ayn Rand writes novels and not snuff-erotica.

[Rafiq]

FINE then knock off all fo that "Capitalism SUCK"S nonsense. kapilyst and I have just met and Roblert and I are barely on speaking terms.

If you dont want me lumping you in wih Brother Number One then don't lump all of us Capitalist in together.

As if I control the Fucking Congo! :(

We will classify you with the Bourgeoisie. If you subscribe to Bourgeois ideology than that just makes it easier for us. We aren't saying you are individually responsible for what's going on in the congo, we are saying that your class is responsible for what's going on in the congo, that of which you share their class interests.

Feel free to classify all of us wit the proletariat, but Mao and Stalin were not representatives of the proletariat, therefore we disassociate with them.

We have every right to blame Capitalism for this mess because capitalism isn't an ideology, it's a systematic means of satisfying the interests of the bourgeoisie.

We (The proletariat) do take the blame for the failure of 20th century communism, we failed to overthrow the bourgeoisie when the Russian revolution was imminent, resulting in the isolation of the Soviet Union and it's slow degeneration.

But that doesn't mean we are going to apologize for it, no, we are a forceful class. For every death you blame Socialism for 100 deaths occurred as a result of capitalism.

You (the bourgeoisie) have no moral authority over us. There is no argument, no discussion.

[Rafiq]

Capitalism is a *good* problem. Marx was not anti capitalist. He was post capitalist. In Russia socialists tried to skip capitalism and failed utterly.

I've been travelling around the world for many years. The last time was Pakistan. Everywhere the air was thick of reactionary culture, old traditions, religiosity that ensures the nation is kept in economic and intellectual poverty. It's the lack of capitalism.

The most equal country measured by gini is Denmark. Denmark is very much a capitalist country under great influence of Social Democrats (real wages increasing). On the other hand some workers in the US are working poorer. In some strange way you get what you've earned under capitalism. Capitalism presents a perfect opportunity for class struggle and everything is entirely in your own hands.

Looking back at the socialist alternatives for the past many decades I am very glad to see various strands of authoritarian socialism was defeated. I am even willing to credit Mises, Hayek et al. for their valuable struggle against socialism in their time.

Fool, you're wrong.

It's important that the revolution starts or spreads to the already industrialized countries first. If this happens that capitalism is unnecessary in countries like Pakistan. What is going on in Pakistan is just a different way the Bourgeoisie is ruling the masses, with culture and religion. It's not a feudal country, it is capitalist.

If you mean that westernization would be progressive, than yes, you are right, it would be, but again, it's just a different means of allowing rule of capital.

[Robert]

Their status as clergy grants them an unreasonable level of influence (not to mention actual political power in states with established religions) over sincerely believing laypeople, and as a result are in the best position to take advantage of their flocks if the mood takes them, which it all too often does.
Can't disagree with any of that. But ... (it never ends, does it?), there are about 4,000
priests in the USA who have been accused of sexual misconduct.
http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/PriestAbuseScandal.htm

That's about 4-5% of the priest population. Wayyyyy too many to be sure, but be fair and admit that religion (considering all faiths) does a lot, or at least inspires a lot, of on-the-ground, hard work for needy people.


Giving and volunteering, by the numbers
How do religious and secular people vary in their charitable behavior? To answer this, I turn to data collected expressly to explore patterns in American civic life. The Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (sccbs) was undertaken in 2000 by researchers at universities throughout the United States and the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. The data consist of nearly 30,000 observations drawn from 50 communities across the United States and ask individuals about their “civic behavior,” including their giving and volunteering during the year preceding the survey ...


The differences in charity between secular and religious people are dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6577

Religion inspires much that is good.

[Robert]

We (The proletariat) do take the blame for the failure of 20th century communism Thank you. Now why not recognize that it was inevitable? Or at least consider the possibility?


You (the bourgeoisie) have no moral authority over us.
I doubt any of us ever would ever make such a silly claim.


There is no argument, no discussion. And yet, here you are, arguing and discussing. More of you all the time. :mellow:

[Robert]

I went to a first-tier university and had a full-ride scholarship.

Wow. What was your major?

[Bud Struggle]

They're certainly not "just like you and me". Their status as clergy grants them an unreasonable level of influence (not to mention actual political power in states with established religions) over sincerely believing laypeople, and as a result are in the best position to take advantage of their flocks if the mood takes them, which it all too often does.

You make a point: in that way they are similar to Communist Party members in China or the USSR. Each religion needs its priests.

[NGNM85]

Right. The corporate mercantile, corporate communism or whatever it was you said last time, exists? :rolleyes:

'Corprorate Mercantlism', yes.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

That's about 4-5% of the priest population. Wayyyyy too many to be sure, but be fair and admit that religion (considering all faiths) does a lot, or at least inspires a lot, of on-the-ground, hard work for needy people.

...

Religion inspires much that is good.

It's easy for religionists to appear more charitable when religious organisations are frequently registered as charities.

Then there is the issue of atheists being one of the least trusted minorities (http://blog.lib.umn.edu/edgell/home/Strib%20Atheist%20Faith%20and%20Values.html) in the US, which is bound to cause a degree of social alienation that is hardly amenable to charitable action - why should someone invest their time and energy in a society that considers them morally bankrupt no matter what they do?


You make a point: in that way they are similar to Communist Party members in China or the USSR. Each religion needs its priests.

The difference being that Communist Party members cannot plausibly claim to have cosmic sanction.

[Robert]

Everything seems to run along reasonably well on OI until somebody like Jose Gracchus barges in with stuff like this: ("Fuck you, factory-owning shitsack ... are you really this fucking dumb? I thought they didn't let drooling apes run factories")


Flaming

Flaming is universally not permitted on RevLeft. While we understand that many issues discussed here are controversial and emotionaly charged, all members are required to maintain civil decorum. This means that personal slurs, name-calling, threats, derogatory slurs, and/or any other vareity of personal attack are not permitted.

Unprovoked and/or repeated flaming will result in suspensions, and incorrigible offenders may be banned at the discretion of the CC. Threads which degenerate into "flame wars" will be locked with the participants prohibited from reviving them in any form.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/misc.php?do=showrules

Gracchus, I call on you to either delete that post or admit that you don't give a damn what the rules of the forum are.

Your friendly de facto moderator of OI

[RadioRaheem84]

'Corprorate Mercantlism', yes.

You're not serious....

[Robert]

It's easy for religionists to appear more charitable when religious organisations are frequently registered as charities.

Appear?

Well, I sure hope you don't mean that "charitable giving" by religious people means, under the study I cited, mere giving to the church itself to keep the bishop in a Mercedes and the air conditioners running.

[Jose Gracchus]

I wish you would stop humping that Chomsky phase; he's just trying to get around saying things have become since the 1980s generationally and culturally sterile in popular contexts, like "capitalism" or "state capitalism". So he tries to just talk about 'the system' and people and stuff, because if you wade into a wide discussion of people going on about 'capitalism' and 'communism', no one will hear anything you say.

That said, I do think eh goes a bit far toward buttering up right-wing libertarianism, individualism, liberalism, and 'democratic' rhetoric.

[Rafiq]

Thank you. Now why not recognize that it was inevitable? Or at least consider the possibility?
:

No, fool, we have an explanation for the failure of 20 century communism. Jesus I hate these Idealist Liberals so much.

The FAILURE for the revolution to spread to the industrialized countries, the failure for communism to spread is why it failed. Jesus fucking Christ why don't you read a paragraph of Marx for once, even him, who died before the Russian revolution, would have expected it to work out right. Him and Engels specifically said Communism in one country can't work.

How's a say you smash that into your paper, role that up nice and soft, and smoke the shit out of it.

No, we don't take it into consideration that it was inevitable, only an idiot would do that.

[Rafiq]

And yet, here you are, arguing and discussing. More of you all the time. :mellow:

And it is inevitable that you're going to fall flat on your face. There is no real argument, it will just lead to me winning. It's like arguing that Earth has one moon. So easy.

[Rafiq]

'Corprorate Mercantlism', yes.

:laugh: @ Hippie Liberal Chomskyan

[Robert]

There is no real argument.

Oh. Still here arguing, though?

[m1omfg]

Capitalism is a *good* problem. Marx was not anti capitalist. He was post capitalist. In Russia socialists tried to skip capitalism and failed utterly.

I've been travelling around the world for many years. The last time was Pakistan. Everywhere the air was thick of reactionary culture, old traditions, religiosity that ensures the nation is kept in economic and intellectual poverty. It's the lack of capitalism.

The most equal country measured by gini is Denmark. Denmark is very much a capitalist country under great influence of Social Democrats (real wages increasing). On the other hand some workers in the US are working poorer. In some strange way you get what you've earned under capitalism. Capitalism presents a perfect opportunity for class struggle and everything is entirely in your own hands.

Looking back at the socialist alternatives for the past many decades I am very glad to see various strands of authoritarian socialism was defeated. I am even willing to credit Mises, Hayek et al. for their valuable struggle against socialism in their time.

And this person who supports the immiseration of millions in Eastern Europe calls himself a communist. Long live the pie in the sky pure socialism!

[Bud Struggle]

Him and Engels specifically said Communism in one country can't work.

We ae quickly approaching the day when there's "Communism in NO countries" and that seems to be working out pretty well. :)

[ColonelCossack]

Hey man.


Fuck you.

I live in london- one of the richest cities in the world- and I still have to share a room with two sister, who themselves have to share a bed.

My other, 6 year old sister has to sleep on the floor in the living room.

One of my sisters who shares a bed has just started secondary school, and the combined toll on her is having a very noticeable physical and mental effect on her.

And that's in a first world country!

I'll repeat myself: Fuck you.

[Bud Struggle]

Hey man.


Fuck you.

I live in london- one of the richest cities in the world- and I still have to share a room with two sister, who themselves have to share a bed.

My other, 6 year old sister has to sleep on the floor in the living room.

One of my sisters who shares a bed has just started secondary school, and the combined toll on her is having a very noticeable physical and mental effect on her.

And that's in a first world country!

I'll repeat myself: Fuck you.

It really doesn't matter if your country, your county, your city or your next door neighbor is rich. All that matters is "how are you doing?" There's no pie in the sky of no revolution comming down the pike to change things for you. Yup, if you want things changed you have to do it yourself.

That's it for now Comrade--you have to do it yourself.

I did, Robert did, kapitalyst did. Now it's your turn. Get out there and go to it.

Good luck and if you need any advice we'll be glad to help you. And swear at us all you like--things can get frustrating so it doesn't hurt to let off a bit of steam now and again.

[ColonelCossack]

It really doesn't matter if your country, your county, your city or your next door neighbor is rich. All that matters is "how are you doing?" There's no pie in the sky of no revolution comming down the pike to change things for you. Yup, if you want things changed you have to do it yourself.

That's it for now Comrade--you have to do it yourself.

I did, Robert did, kapitalyst did. Now it's your turn. Get out there and go to it.

Good luck and if you need any advice we'll be glad to help you. And swear at us all you like--things can get frustrating so it doesn't hurt to let off a bit of steam now and again.

i i i

I'm poor because rich people are rich. Not everyone can be rich. It's pretty obvious... There just isn't enough money to go around for everyone to be rich. They tried printing more in germany in the 20's... it didn't turn out too well for them... (hyperinflation).

[Bud Struggle]

i i i

I'm poor because rich people are rich. Not everyone can be rich. It's pretty obvious... There just isn't enough money to go around for everyone to be rich. They tried printing more in germany in the 20's... it didn't turn out too well for them... (hyperinflation).

That's why I was poor, too. I decided to become a class trator and I never looked back, I suggest you do the same.

[ColonelCossack]

That's why I was poor, too. I decided to become a class trator and I never looked back, I suggest you do the same.

No, because i've got principles.


(Did i just sound like an idealist? :blushing:)


Also, what if everyone decided to do that? Huh?

[Bud Struggle]

No, because i've got principles.


(Did i just sound like an idealist? :blushing:) Whatever works for you.



Also, what if everyone decided to do that? Huh? Don't worry about it, they won't. As a matter of fact, too few people do.

All the best to you whatever you decide to do.

[CommunityBeliever]

I did, Robert did, kapitalyst did. Now it's your turn. Get out there and go to it.You and kapitalyst fail to understand that capitalism is not a merit based system. People can't just "get out there and go to it" because they have basic physiological and safety needs (shelter, food, water, etc) and they don't control the means of production (tools, factories, raw materials, etc).

[kapitalyst]

Fuck you.

I live in london- one of the richest cities in the world- and I still have to share a room with two sister, who themselves have to share a bed.

My other, 6 year old sister has to sleep on the floor in the living room.

One of my sisters who shares a bed has just started secondary school, and the combined toll on her is having a very noticeable physical and mental effect on her.

And that's in a first world country!

I'll repeat myself: Fuck you.

Let me tell you something...

I was born into a lower-working class family, and grew up in a trashy old trailer that was the best my parents could afford -- you could jump from one wall and hit the other. My father had severe, repressed psychological issues from his childhood and was an over-the-top religious zealot (listened to Jimmy Swaggart all night). My brother and I were mentally and physically abused (by which I mean horrible beatings).

My parents separated when I was about 16, and my mother, brother and I had to move in with our terminally ill grandparents to care for them. It was literally like running a nursing home, and there wasn't room in the house for everyone. My grandfather went crazy from a cocktail of drugs he was on, and kicked us all out! I think I was 17 or close to turning 17 when that happened. I had to find a rent trailer in the middle of nowhere, and find a job in a lousy food warehouse an hour away.

That was one of the worst jobs I ever had. I had to wake up at 3am just to get to work on time at 4:30am. I had to start off in a huge freezer way below 0-deg Fahrenheit. Then come right back out into a hot warehouse. I was intermittently assigned odd jobs around the facility, like hand-loading a fleet of trucks with frozen catfish... alone... I got hurt nearly every day. The pay was shit, barely enough to pay the rent, and I often went with nothing to eat. I had to keep food on my brother's plate and get him to school. And my mother was unemployed. Did some things I'm not proud of to make ends meet, like selling cocaine.

Working in the warehouse really exacerbated the problems with my spine. I have a severe and unusual form of scoliosis which has gotten progressively worse as I age. By the time I got out of there and we had to go back to my grandparents (their health took a turn for the worst), it was getting to where I couldn't walk sometimes. My grandparents didn't live very long after that. They had serious medical bills and debts, but had the money to pay for it. Unfortunately, an estranged family member wiped out their bank accounts and sued us for everything. I had to start paying everything out of pocket. A legal battle ensued that ate away the entire estate and left me stuck with all the debts. Basically, the sleezy local courts and lawyers got everything but the liabilities -- which, of course, they gladly let me inherit as the primary heir. That ruined my attempt to go to college, and destroyed my entrepreneurial efforts as a freelance software dev and PC tech.

To make matters worse, my own medical situation deteriorated. I became truly disabled, and suffered with severe chronic pain. I had to become dependent on narcotics, as the only alternative to a risky and expensive surgery. Unfortunately, the government doesn't approve of that... it's their body, not mine. So despite having insurance I was basically left to rot. :)

I'm still dealing with some of these problems (especially the medical issues -- just one way I've been oppressed by government, not capitalism). And this is only a summary of some of the main points of my life story. What's my point? Feel sorry for me? That I had the worst life? No, not at all. The point is you can overcome anything. People who've had it worse than me have succeeded also. I fought tooth and nail to get where I am now, and I'm not putting a halt to my efforts anytime soon.! My biggest problem now is trying to sell the real estate I own and need to liquidate fast, which I consider a "high quality problem" after what I've been through. ;)

Now I'm 23, and I'm a stock, commodities / futures, FOREX and options trader. I've gathered a net worth of around $400k in assets, less than $3k in debt and I own a big house, 40+ acres of land and drive a fine European auto. I still have problems, and always will. And I'll never forget where I came from. And I continue to encourage everyone, friends, family and strangers, to work hard, never give up and learn/use some financial sense. Anyone can do this... you don't even have to be smart. And I'm always here as a teacher to anyone who asks. :)

[CommunityBeliever]

@kapitalyst

Sorry to hear about your medical problems :crying:

I would like to know though, what do you think of closed-source software (e.g Windows) and other forms of artificial scarcity developed by capitalists? Also have you ever programmed in the Lisp programming language?

[kapitalyst]

No, because i've got principles.

(Did i just sound like an idealist? :blushing:)

Also, what if everyone decided to do that? Huh?

So you confess that you are oppressing you. I've seen first hand where self-defeatism gets you.

If everyone decided to do that? The world would be a much better place, that's what.


CommunityBeliever:
You and kapitalyst fail to understand that capitalism is not a merit based system. People can't just "get out there and go to it" because they have basic physiological and safety needs (shelter, food, water, etc) and they don't control the means of production (tools, factories, raw materials, etc).

Actually, it is a merit-based system. Of the world's richest people, only 7-10% inherited the wealth. And even those who did had to learn what to do with it.

You telling me Bill Gates just found pirate's treasure in his back yard? Steve Jobs had oompa-loompas to make computers with magic? Warren Buffet had a psychic to tell him what stocks to buy?

If anything you said was true then I should be, still, dirt poor to this day...

[Robert]

Also, what if everyone decided to do that? Huh? Reasonable question. Some would make it, some would fail.

But most won't try, either because they know they can't make it without an employer, they're too scrared, exhausted by life, or too debt ridden to try, or they're happy in their current jobs.

The average person who turns away from revolutionary leftism, assuming they give you the time of day as we do, thinks you're planning a lot of upheaval and misery that will just turn into chaos, at which point The Ghosts of Lenin, Robespierre, Castro, and Mao will re-emerge, the terror will ensue, and after plenty of blood letting there will still be the same jobs to perform. The jobs will then either be assigned by the vanguard or "democratically," and I think it can only be a vanguard, but they are the same jobs.

[#FF0000]

The average person who turns away from revolutionary leftism, assuming they give you the time of day as we do, thinks you're planning a lot of upheaval and misery that will just turn into chaos, at which point The Ghosts of Lenin, Robespierre, Castro, and Mao will re-emerge, the terror will ensue, and after plenty of blood letting there will still be the same jobs to perform. The jobs will then either be assigned by the vanguard or "democratically," and I think it can only be a vanguard, but they are the same jobs.

given they way some people who make up "the left" talk, this is entirely fair.

[Rafiq]

We ae quickly approaching the day when there's "Communism in NO countries" and that seems to be working out pretty well. :)

Revolution happens in Industrialized powerful imperialist countries.

That is basically world revolution right there.

[kapitalyst]

@kapitalyst

Sorry to hear about your medical problems :crying:

I would like to know though, what do you think of closed-source software (e.g Windows) and other forms of artificial scarcity developed by capitalists? Also have you ever programmed in the Lisp programming language?

Thanks for your concern. And I'm not sure if many here know, but I might be considered an "odd-ball" laissez-faire market libertarian. I consider police, fire departments and health care essential services required by society. I support the idea of free health care... it just doesn't make sense that it's free if I get mugged or my house catches on fire, but I'm shit out of luck if I'm sick. However, Obamacare is BS... The only way it'll ever work is to reduce the size of government and spending until we can afford it. And we can take care of our own people instead of bombing other countries, waging war on our own citizens and all manner of other stupid things.

Anyway, no I've never learned Lisp, but I know what (((it) (is)))! :D

The only languages I've truly mastered are C, C++, C# and x86/x64 assembly language.

About the software industry... Many of the things you guys are saying are totally true. For instance, I HATE DRM... I will never, ever use such crap in any product I ever make.

I do believe businesses have every right to sell their software and expect people to be honest and pay for it. But DRM does not boost sales, and only causes trouble for honest customers. A lot of times, the anti-piracy measures degrade the user experience or even render the software unusable. For instance, I love the military simulator ARMA II. I once bought the Steam version, which was a total waste of money -- it wouldn't even run. The box version with no DRM runs perfectly. I think one of the best models, especially for middle-ware tools, is to let it go for free for all non-commercial use, and just charge people wanting to use your product commercially.

I also don't consider it "artificial scarcity". Businesses often pour millions (sometimes billions) into software projects, and have no return for years. The first few years of sales is often an effort to break even. And failure is a constant threat for any software company.

[Rafiq]

I'm still dealing with some of these problems (especially the medical issues -- just one way I've been oppressed by government, not capitalism). And this is only a summary of some of the main points of my life story. What's my point? Feel sorry for me? That I had the worst life? No, not at all. The point is you can overcome anything. People who've had it worse than me have succeeded also. I fought tooth and nail to get where I am now, and I'm not putting a halt to my efforts anytime soon.! My biggest problem now is trying to sell the real estate I own and need to liquidate fast, which I consider a "high quality problem" after what I've been through. ;)


It was totally capitalism to blame. The government works on behalf of the Bourgeoisie, that of which retains the capitalist system to survive.

I don't care how lucky you got in the end, if you really want to know a little fucking secret, no matter how hard they work, not anyone can become rich. Wealth is finite. Only the lucky and the already rich (children), can become rich. Stop with your fucking horseshit

"Oh, ANYONE can get rich if they try hard! They just need to work hard!" Bull - Fucking - Shit.

What would happen if everyone tried their hardest? Nothing.

[Rafiq]

[/INDENT]Actually, it is a merit-based system. Of the world's richest people, only 7-10% inherited the wealth. And even those who did had to learn what to do with it.

Bullshit Statistics + Bullshit statement = Totally out of your ass



If anything you said was true then I should be, still, dirt poor to this day...

You were one of the lucky ones who got rich. Big fucking whoop. Only one man wins the lottery. I hope you feel real fucking special while the malnourished indian children are working in mines for fuckers like you inevitably doomed to poverty forever (And their kids as well, their kids kids, etc).

[Robert]

We (The proletariat) do take the blame for the failure of 20th century communism
+


Thank you. Now why not recognize that it was inevitable?+


No, we don't take it into consideration that it was inevitable, only an idiot would do that. +


Why don't you read a paragraph of Marx for once, even him, who died before the Russian revolution, would have expected it to work out right. Him and Engels specifically said Communism in one country can't work.

So me and Marx both said failure was inevitable. What's your problem? (Just messin' with you comrade, don't have a stroke.)

How's this: failure was inevitable given that it's impossible to have simultaneous socialist revolution everywhere. Especially in places where the majority doesn't want it.

[o well this is ok I guess]

So you confess that you are oppressing you. I've seen first hand where self-defeatism gets you.

If everyone decided to do that? The world would be a much better place, that's what.

CommunityBeliever:
You and kapitalyst fail to understand that capitalism is not a merit based system. People can't just "get out there and go to it" because they have basic physiological and safety needs (shelter, food, water, etc) and they don't control the means of production (tools, factories, raw materials, etc).

Actually, it is a merit-based system. Of the world's richest people, only 7-10% inherited the wealth. And even those who did had to learn what to do with it.

You telling me Bill Gates just found pirate's treasure in his back yard? Steve Jobs had oompa-loompas to make computers with magic? Warren Buffet had a psychic to tell him what stocks to buy?

If anything you said was true then I should be, still, dirt poor to this day... You heard it here first, people.
"Merit" is purely how well one gets along without any sense of scruples.

[Rafiq]

How's this: failure was inevitable given that it's impossible to have simultaneous socialist revolution everywhere. Especially in places where the majority doesn't want it.

Or maybe it's not possible within the constraints of a neo feudal war torn country that was invaded by over 17 countries plus the most powerful one on Earth?


Let's be quite honest, the failure of the proletariat in the industrialized countries was solely because they failed to apply a nasty Leninist tactic: The vanguard party.

It won't happen everywhere at once. It is like a domino effect (How's that, Mr. Eisenhower?). Even after the one in Russia it spread to Europe, but failed.

You see these bourgeois uprisings in the middle east? How the fuck did they all spread like that? The same way a socialist revolution will.

And the Bolsheviks, did have majority support by the way.

[Revolution starts with U]

Im going to have to see some statistics on the richest people being only 7% inheritance. Maybe if you're only counting the top 10 richest people or something. But 1) rich != wealth, per se 2) I would rather see a comparison of the top 10-20%

[kapitalyst]

It was totally capitalism to blame. The government works on behalf of the Bourgeoisie, that of which retains the capitalist system to survive.

Right... This all happened because a neighbor owned land, and a guy in New York owned a sardine factory. And the anti-business, anti-free market government really gives a flying fuck about enterprise. And the things that happened to me, like being denied medical care for the sake of "War on Drugs" and being stripped of everything I had by the courts wasn't the government... that was capitalism. :rolleyes:

In a way, you're right. Government is in the pockets of many businesses, and government is corrupt. Cronyism at its finest. Yet this is the very thing we oppose... The government should be stripped of such power, given to them in the name of "the general welfare" and "safety", and keep the fuck out of our personal lives and economy.



I don't care how lucky you got in the end, if you really want to know a little fucking secret, no matter how hard they work, not anyone can become rich. Wealth is finite. Only the lucky and the already rich (children), can become rich. Stop with your fucking horseshit


I did not get "lucky". That is the true horse shit. That is the attitude that keeps you and other people down. This idea that your moral superiority has kept you from succeeding in this wicked capitalist system. That you aren't responsible for yourself and your own actions. As if there's some law that stops you from making money and doing what you please. Give me a break, dude...



"Oh, ANYONE can get rich if they try hard! They just need to work hard!" Bull - Fucking - Shit.

What would happen if everyone tried their hardest? Nothing.

Oh, NO ONE can rich if they try hard! They just need to give up! What would happen if everyone did nothing? Something.

Bull - Fucking - Shit.

[Robert]

Let's be quite honest, the failure of the proletariat in the industrialized countries was solely because they failed to apply a nasty Leninist tactic: The vanguard party. "Let's be quite honest"? Oh yes, by all means, "let's."

I just posted the following post somewhere else:

The average person who turns away from revolutionary leftism, assuming they give you the time of day as we do, thinks you're planning a lot of upheaval and misery that will just turn into chaos, at which point The Ghosts of Lenin, Robespierre, Castro, and Mao will re-emerge, the terror will ensue, and after plenty of blood letting there will still be the same jobs to perform.

The world's memory of Lenin is your problem. You'd be better off trying to suppress that memory, not refresh it!

[CommunityBeliever]

The only languages I've truly mastered are C, C++, C# and x86/x64 assembly language.They say that the reason C isn't garbage collected is that if it were it would delete itself. As for C++ I think that Bjarne Stroustrup didn't know the difference between increment and excrement.

The D programming language (http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/index.html) is vastly better then C because it at least has garbage collection (GC) on by default. Garbage collection is an absolute necessity in the modern world.

As for C# at least it has garbage collection, I will give you that. The biggest problem with it though is that it is exclusively controlled by Microsoft and therefore is intertwined with the problems of propriety software and DRM. The technical problem with C# is that is another manifestly typed OOP language like Java.


Anyway, no I've never learned Lisp, but I know what (((it) (is)))!Some people have said that the good thing about the Ruby is not the language itself but rather its killer application: Ruby on Rails (http://rubyonrails.org/). Similarly, the great thing about Lisp is not the programming itself but rather its killer application: the Lisp machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_machine).

The Lisp machines used a single large distributed address which provided pointers with an immutable address. Some addresses were also made into immutable values, then the system could point to them creating a new immutable value, and continuing this process leads to persistent data structures, the most important of which is the singly linked list. Singly linked lists are the basis of Lisp itself:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/Cons-cells.svg/200px-Cons-cells.svg.png

Programs were stored as a symbol table of linked lists, which meant the user and the system itself could automatically inspect and modify any datum in the system leading to introspection/reflectivity. There was also hardware support for garbage collection since it is fundamental to any versioning SASOS and for dynamic typing through the use of tagged architectures. If the Lisp machines had continued to develop they would've also had a functional geometry based ZUI.

As a profit-based economic system, the capitalist criminals didn't see the incredible value of the Lisp machines or of AI itself so they died out as part of the late AI winter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter). For over twenty years Lispers have been waiting for a new operating system like the one the Lisp machines had to come along to fix computing. Personally, I got tired of waiting and trying to fix everything myself and I decided it is better to be a *social activist* then a computer scientist, and as I looked into things I found the capitalists suppressed the development of many other great technologies, such as energy technology.

Let me tell you, programming today is not a dream, it is more like a nightmare. You have to deal with file systems and saving and loading to them, storing programs as plain text files, the horrendous compile/debug/pray cycle, horrificly painful user interfaces with narrow menus to navigate through, etc, not to mention corporate corruption, closed source software, DRM, etc.


Actually, it is a merit-based system. Of the world's richest people, only 7-10% inherited the wealth. And even those who did had to learn what to do with it.Can I see the source for that statistic? There are definitely plenty of people that did get there wealth entirely from inheritance (like the Fords, Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Waltons, etc). I don't believe such people should have so much wealth just for the conditions they were born into.


You telling me Bill Gates just found pirate's treasure in his back yard? Steve Jobs had oompa-loompas to make computers with magic? Warren Buffet had a psychic to tell him what stocks to buy?I never said that. What those individuals were able to discover were business innovations that made them successful in the context of the capitalist system. Business innovations are not meritorious and they do not involve considerable improvements to society like introduction of new technologies, they are often actually destructive or even criminal because that is how the system works:

http://ariasprado.name/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/bill-gates-400x296.jpeg

See the United States vs. Microsoft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft) case for more information on how Bill Gates actions were actually criminal. He bullied competitors like netscape out of existence and the government never did anything about it, so I agree with you that our government sucks, it never stops criminals like Bill Gates and it never works to provide people like you with health care.

The technical innovations behind the computer systems of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were developed elsewhere in non-profit organisations like SRI by people like Douglas Engelbart who introduced the essence of these computing systems in 1968 in the mother of all demos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos). So I wouldn't say they had "oompa loompas" just that they knew how to manipulate the capitalist system to their advantage in order to satisfy their own greed.


About the software industry... Many of the things you guys are saying are totally true.

However, how do you not see that capitalism is at the source of the problems in the software industry?!


I do believe businesses have every right to sell their software and expect people to be honest and pay for it. But DRM does not boost sales, and only causes trouble for honest customers.DRM doesn't boost sales of the product itself, but it increases profitability in other ways, for example, Apple is in business with copyright holders with programs like iTunes (http://www.apple.com/itunes/) so their DRM benefits them considerably.


I also don't consider it "artificial scarcity". Businesses often pour millions (sometimes billions) into software projects, and have no return for years. The first few years of sales is often an effort to break even. And failure is a constant threat for any software company. First of all I know how bad things are for software companies in capitalism. Additionally, it is artificial scarcity because you can copy software or any other digital information free of charge and yet the corporations resist that.

[#FF0000]

Let's be quite honest, the failure of the proletariat in the industrialized countries was solely because they failed to apply a nasty Leninist tactic: The vanguard party.

nah

[Robert]

nah

Oh Yah ... Hurf Durf ...

Rafiq's your basic commie, FF. The jin-u-wine article. You'd better come on over to our side while there's time.

Come onnnnnnnnn, man. :cool:

[TheGodlessUtopian]

The "everyday Christian" is "Christianity" IMO. Popes and pastors and Rabbis are just people. Yeah, they mess up now and then. Just like you and me.

One word: Uganda

[#FF0000]

Oh Yah ... Hurf Durf ...

Rafiq's your basic commie, FF. The jin-u-wine article. You'd better come on over to our side while there's time.

Come onnnnnnnnn, man. :cool:

Nah. As disillusioned as I might get with the Left the idea of private property as coercive and unjust is one of those things I can't see myself ever changing my mind on.

[Veovis]

Why is it that on this board the troll threads are always the longest? :glare:

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Why is it that on this board the troll threads are always the longest? :glare:

that is a fantastic question one that I believe has to do with peoples need to combat every little bit of disinformation...of course,it is a debate forum,so I guess there is some give and take going on;take away the insanity while giving the trolls food.

It has been reasonably entertaining though.

[RichardAWilson]

Capitalist, if I may inquire, how did you obtain the money for investing?

As for your health, I too am sorry and I agree with you on the State and Medical Complex.

However, that's an inevitable end to capitalism.

The corporate medical complex has lobbied the state to maintain and perpetuate lucrative interests.

You shouldn't blame Washington as much as you should be blaming insurance companies and pharmaceutical drug (dope) companies.

In a "free-market paradise," the same insurance office would claim that you didn't need an operation.

You would have gotten better care in France.

[RGacky3]

Stock trading is'nt investing, the money does'nt go to the actual producers, the only thing it might help in is raising market cap which might help the companies get a loan.

[kapitalyst]

Capitalist, if I may inquire, how did you obtain the money for investing?

Self-sacrifice, mostly. Sometimes to the point of not eating to saving a buck. I'd go without cigarettes. I'd do odd jobs, especially fixing some computers. I cut down my spending to as near zero as possible. Every little thing of any value I had, basically, (except my PC) was sold on eBay. I raised a little over $1,000 in a reasonable amount of time, and that's all I needed to begin.



As for your health, I too am sorry and I agree with you on the State and Medical Complex.

However, that's an inevitable end to capitalism.


It's an inevitable end to authoritarianism -- capitalist or socialist.



The corporate medical complex has lobbied the state to maintain and perpetuate lucrative interests.


Yes, they have. As I've said before, I hate the medical industry above all. They're simply an unofficial part of the state. If it were up to me, they'd all be jailed and/or heavily fined (based upon the severity of individual crimes). It is blatant corruption. However, if the state lacked the power and autonomy they have, this would not be the case.



You shouldn't blame Washington as much as you should be blaming insurance companies and pharmaceutical drug (dope) companies.


I blame them all. But it's 95% government. Government enables it. Government causes it. Government allows it.

In my case, the pharma companies are actually on my side. They want to sell me the medication I need. I can make do with or without insurance, because it's rather inexpensive. The only obstacle is the state... given more power and autonomy than it was ever supposed to have. And that's our faults... it'll be our faults if we don't take that power away from them too.



In a "free-market paradise," the same insurance office would claim that you didn't need an operation.

You would have gotten better care in France.

The nature of insurance companies is to try not to pay.

France? I dunno... I think France, like most EU companies, is on the "War on Drugs" bandwagon too. To such governments, the well-being of patients comes second to paranoia and stupid social taboos.

Really, the whole thing comes down to the state thinking they know better than me about my quality of life and how I feel. The idea that it's somehow their "responsibility" to "protect" me from myself, as if I'm a rabid farm animal. It's a pseudo-socialist ideal... bullshit wrapped in the cloak of false altruism.


Gacky:
Stock trading is'nt investing, the money does'nt go to the actual producers, the only thing it might help in is raising market cap which might help the companies get a loan.

Not exactly, Gacky. True, trading and investing are not the same thing. But traders play the important role of liquidity providers. We are always there to accept the buy and sell transactions of investors moving in and out of the market. We're compensated for it in the form of a small spread (usually a penny difference between the prices we buy at and sell) or appreciation/depreciation of the asset over a short period of time.

[RGacky3]

Not exactly, Gacky. True, trading and investing are not the same thing. But traders play the important role of liquidity providers. We are always there to accept the buy and sell transactions of investors moving in and out of the market. We're compensated for it in the form of a small spread (usually a penny difference between the prices we buy at and sell) or appreciation/depreciation of the asset over a short period of time.

Yeah ... But its not investing.

[kapitalyst]

They say that the reason C isn't garbage collected is that if it were it would delete itself. As for C++ I think that Bjarne Stroustrup didn't know the difference between increment and excrement.

:laugh: That's hilarious! I've never heard those before, lol!



The D programming language (http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/index.html) is vastly better then C because it at least has garbage collection (GC) on by default. Garbage collection is an absolute necessity in the modern world.


I disagree with your last statement. I love garbage collection. But it requires a high-level managed runtime. Processors run native code. If we are to write operating systems, drivers and other low-level programs, we have to have native code. Performance is less of a concern these days, but it's just the nature of the CPU. And there are even plenty user-land tasks in which native code is the better choice.



As for C# at least it has garbage collection, I will give you that. The biggest problem with it though is that it is exclusively controlled by Microsoft and therefore is intertwined with the problems of propriety software and DRM. The technical problem with C# is that is another manifestly typed OOP language like Java.


This isn't quite true. C# is a standardized language that anyone can implement. And several companies and open-source groups already have. Most notable is the Mono project, of which I'm a supporter. People have tried to bash C# from the get-go, but it has proven itself a formidable language in every way.

As for the things you admire about Lisp... I agree with most. However, I'm becoming increasingly pleased with the flexibility of C# and the .NET framework. C# now has functional programming paradigms, aspect-oriented features, generic type capabilities... all sorts of great features (e.g., anonymous methods, lambda expressions, dynamics and more). Every language has its pros and cons. Each is like a tool. I've found that I can get the jobs done that I want to do with my own little toolbox. C# is my tool of choice.



As a profit-based economic system, the capitalist criminals didn't see the incredible value of the Lisp machines or of AI itself so they died out as part of the late AI winter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter). For over twenty years Lispers have been waiting for a new operating system like the one the Lisp machines had to come along to fix computing. Personally, I got tired of waiting and trying to fix everything myself and I decided it is better to be a *social activist* then a computer scientist, and as I looked into things I found the capitalists suppressed the development of many other great technologies, such as energy technology.


No, no, no, brother... To begin with, Lisp machines were hideously over-priced, and that was a huge margin business. They were killed off by cheaper, smaller PCs that could run Lisp programs faster than the Lisp machines. And the AI winter was mainly due to the hype cycle, as the Wikipedia article correctly explains.

AI tech is still developing nicely. AI is just an incredibly complicated field. Personally, I think it's going to take a long, long time before we see truly advanced AI. I think atomic quantum computing is the future, and what will finally make advanced AI reality.



Let me tell you, programming today is not a dream, it is more like a nightmare. You have to deal with file systems and saving and loading to them, storing programs as plain text files, the horrendous compile/debug/pray cycle, horrificly painful user interfaces with narrow menus to navigate through, etc, not to mention corporate corruption, closed source software, DRM, etc.


That's a rather dismal view of things I don't agree with. Programming today is loads of fun, highly productive and constantly improving.



Can I see the source for that statistic? There are definitely plenty of people that did get there wealth entirely from inheritance (like the Fords, Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Waltons, etc). I don't believe such people should have so much wealth just for the conditions they were born into.


I'll dig it up tomorrow. I also just read either Fortune 500 or Forbes which gave relatively the same statistic for the wealthiest of the wealthy (I think around 12%). I'll look it all up tomorrow. I can find it pretty easily, I think.

Indeed there are a lot of "old money" families. They are, however, on the decline. Most who come from inherited wealth are not super-rich. They are upper-middle class and low-upper class. And their wealth would fade away with continual enterprise and investment to maintain it.

The idea that it's wrong to inherit wealth is something I disagree with. People like me are working hard considering the future for our children and grandchildren, and don't want them to suffer in ways we did. But I also plan to teach my children work ethics, morality and charity. You know what I'm gonna do when my kid (when I eventually have some) is ready to strike out on their own? I'm going to let them go out there and learn what it's like to start from scratch and build something yourself.



I never said that. What those individuals were able to discover were business innovations that made them successful in the context of the capitalist system. Business innovations are not meritorious and they do not involve considerable improvements to society like introduction of new technologies, they are often actually destructive or even criminal because that is how the system works:


There's nothing wrong with business innovations... And business innovations are meaningless if you aren't doing something to please customers. If my business was kicking random people in the balls, all the business innovation in the world wouldn't help me. If my business was making delicious cookies everyone loved, business innovations would help me bring those cookies to more people at better prices.



See the United States vs. Microsoft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft) case for more information on how Bill Gates actions were actually criminal. He bullied competitors like netscape out of existence and the government never did anything about it, so I agree with you that our government sucks, it never stops criminals like Bill Gates and it never works to provide people like you with health care.


Bill Gates was not a criminal, and he did not "bully" Netscape. Netscape just couldn't hang. And we're better off now that we don't have to pay for web browsers. Out-competing someone by delivering more to the consumer is 100% legit.



The technical innovations behind the computer systems of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were developed elsewhere in non-profit organisations like SRI by people like Douglas Engelbart who introduced the essence of these computing systems in 1968 in the mother of all demos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos). So I wouldn't say they had "oompa loompas" just that they knew how to manipulate the capitalist system to their advantage in order to satisfy their own greed.


Only partially true in a few cases. And what they bought they bought. They made the sellers happier, then made consumers happier. I've often considered the idea of making a killer startup just to sell it to a Microsoft or Apple. I worked at a company once that is still working on that goal, and will probably succeed at it.



However, how do you not see that capitalism is at the source of the problems in the software industry?!


I dunno... I fail to see where you're getting this from! :lol:



DRM doesn't boost sales of the product itself, but it increases profitability in other ways, for example, Apple is in business with copyright holders with programs like iTunes (http://www.apple.com/itunes/) so their DRM benefits them considerably.


This is true. DRM and "vendor lock" is bullshit, bad business and obstructive policy. Microsoft has been progressively growing more liberal about it, while Apple remains a vigilante. I've always said that if the major OS creators (Apple, Microsoft and Linux devs) would work together and share technologies (like programming APIs) they could ALL make more money together, and so could end-user software developers.



First of all I know how bad things are for software companies in capitalism. Additionally, it is artificial scarcity because you can copy software or any other digital information free of charge and yet the corporations resist that.

They've taken things too far, I agree. There are a lot of old guys who dunno jack about programming or even using computers who vote these policies through on corporate boards. But what do you expect? That companies spend billions on resources and labor, then give away the software and go bankrupt? That's not gonna happen, my friend. And I support open-source and think it's a noble thing, but its successes have been few and far between. Commercial software is just better. People do better jobs and are more dedicated when they're being paid. After working on open-source projects and managing my own funded and unfunded projects, I know this is just the truth.

[CommunityBeliever]

I disagree with your last statement. I love garbage collection. But it requires a high-level managed runtime. Processors run native code. If we are to write operating systems, drivers and other low-level programs, we have to have native code. Performance is less of a concern these days, but it's just the nature of the CPU. And there are even plenty user-land tasks in which native code is the better choice.The Lisp machines had hardware level support for garbage collection which probably sounds like a radical thing from the perspective of modern turd-based computing architectures. Besides you can always turn off the garbage collector, which is why although D is garbage collected it is used to write an entire operating system:

https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb

There is no reason to continue to use C or C++ or other non-GC languages today. Yet the usage share of C/C++ combined outranks all other programming languages in the corporate market [1] (http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html). Fuck the corporate market.


This isn't quite true. C# is a standardised language that anyone can implement. And several companies and open-source groups already have. Most notable is the Mono project, of which I'm a supporter. People have tried to bash C# from the get-go, but it has proven itself a formidable language in every way.Of course, I am aware of Mono, and the fact that part of it is standardised by ECMA. However, Mono comes with many unsafe libraries, and since most of the libraries and programming infrastructure is delivered by Microsoft you have little means to escape from this trap when you are creating all but the simplest programs:

http://techrights.org/2009/07/08/mono-is-not-safe-gotcha/

1. Mono — like .NET — does not correspond to an ECMA standard because it brings with it more than just the core. It puts Microsoft in better charge of developers (as in “developers developers developers developers”). Patents were never the sole issue when it comes to Mono.


As for the things you admire about Lisp... I agree with most. However, I'm becoming increasingly pleased with the flexibility of C# and the .NET framework. C# now has functional programming paradigms, aspect-oriented features, generic type capabilities... all sorts of great features (e.g., anonymous methods, lambda expressions, dynamics and more). Every language has its pros and cons. Each is like a tool. I've found that I can get the jobs done that I want to do with my own little toolbox. C# is my tool of choice.C# still has considerable technical problems, many of them inherited from Java, since C# was created as a near direct rip off of Java. For example, C# is painfully verbose:



public class Hello1 {
public static void Main() {
System.Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");
}
}Here are some other points of contention:


The type system is excessively strict [2] (http://www.dumpingcore.com/2009/01/27/c-sharp-sucks-excessively-strict-typing/).
There are two types of collections: generic and non-generic.
Parameters are not supported on most properties.

We already are aware of a much better way of programming, but if you want to settle for second best that is up to you.


No, no, no, brother... To begin with, Lisp machines were hideously over-priced, and that was a huge margin business. They were killed off by cheaper, smaller PCs that could run Lisp programs faster than the Lisp machines. And the AI winter was mainly due to the hype cycle, as the Wikipedia article correctly explains. Here are some points that I differ about that:


The capitalist price system is *deeply flawed*. It has made Microsoft Windows $100 or more to purchase even though its data can be instantly copied and it creates artificial scarcity. Its no wonder that it can make a technology marvel like the Lisp machines to be overly expensive.
It is the responsibility of the developers to spend these twenty years to try to catch up to what the Lisp machines had, but they haven't and we still have computers that are deeply flawed.


Personally, I think it's going to take a long, long time before we see truly advanced AI.I agree with that. As we are still stuck with the constraints of capitalism it is going to be a very very very long time before we get advanced AI. Right now we have artificially stupidcomputing systems that are bloated, wasteful, and often destructive, a far cry from actual artificial intelligence. I wouldn't expect anything better from the capitalist criminals.

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.emacs/msg/821a0f04bab91864

I think the problem faced by software is one of communicating the principle of machine decision-making based on a fixed set of stored instructions to people who can barely program their VCR. the novice-friendly software goes out of its way to limit the decision-making to whatever users could do on their own -- or at least present an illusion to that effect. Emacs does work automatically that is way out of their league. some people actually feel intimidated by Emacs for this reason. also, Emacs doesn't crash. Emacs doesn't act stupidly. Emacs isn't annoying you without cause. if Emacs annoys you, it does so in a way that makes users feel stupid and feel they should take the blame. the novice-friendly software is more like a misbehaving dog: it shits on the floor, it destroys things, and stinks -- the novice-friendly software embodies the opposite of what computer people have dreamed of for decades: artificial stupidity. it's more human.


That's a rather dismal view of things I don't agree with. Programming today is loads of fun, highly productive and constantly improving.That's a rather dismal view of things I don't agree with. Programming today is loads of fun, highly productive and constantly improving.Did you say "constantly improving"?!?! Please show me the improvement in the state of programming affairs in the last twenty years!

You said yourself you are using C which is almost forty years old and C# which is from 2001, or nearly a decade old. You could have had the essence of your current programming experience years ago.

Personally, I'm not even waiting for the information technology industry to progress. I am waiting for them to catch up to the past achievements of Lisp. Once the state of the art is no longer a twenty year old technology, then you can come tell me about "constant progress."


There's nothing wrong with business innovations... There is something wrong with some business innovations, like the use of proprietary software because they are destructive in the sense that they suppress or neglect technological development.


Bill Gates was not a criminal, and he did not "bully" Netscape. Netscape just couldn't hang. And we're better off now that we don't have to pay for web browsers. Out-competing someone by delivering more to the consumer is 100% legit.Aren't you a capitalist? What ever happened to free competition? You don't have any problem with someone like Microsoft having a monopoly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly) on markets like the OS market and the web browser market and using it squash competitors like netscape?


I dunno... I fail to see where you're getting this from! :lol:I have told you how absolutely shitty things are in the software industry and the world, and right now we are living in the capitalism, so it is the capitalist system that we are living in that is responsible. We need a new system so that we can improve conditions and allow for technological progress leading to new technologies like molecular assemblers, nuclear fusion, space based solar power, wireless energy transmission, friendly AI, advanced automation, etc.


This is true. DRM and "vendor lock" is bullshit, bad business and obstructive policy.On the contrary, DRM is great business. Corporations don't do things that are bad for business.


They've taken things too far, I agree. There are a lot of old guys who dunno jack about programming or even using computers who vote these policies through on corporate boards. But what do you expect? That companies spend billions on resources and labor, then give away the software and go bankrupt?No I don't expect companies to make good decisions. Have you been listening to what I have been saying? They are part of the system so they are doomed to corruption. Change the system itself.


That's not gonna happen, my friend. Which is why we need a new system, not a change in corporate policy.


Commercial software is just better. It is made better by the corrupt capitalist system.


People do better jobs and are more dedicated when they're being paid.

Actually, the purpose motive is superior to the profit motive when it comes to intellectual tasks like software development.

[Killforpeace]

This idea that your moral superiority has kept you from succeeding in this wicked capitalist system. That you aren't responsible for yourself and your own actions. As if there's some law that stops you from making money and doing what you please. Give me a break, dude..

And what about people who do succeed and are against it? What about people who have the option to succeed but choose not to? or people who have inherited loads and are still against it? What is their idea of moral superiority?

I think moral superiority only exists in the greedy and the religious. Life for an atheist is meaningless, it doesn't have to be purposeless too though, while there are still millions of starving children, whilst there are still all kinds of discrimination, mass destruction of the environment etc humans have a purpose. If you think these things can be achieved in capitalism, I believe your either delusional or an ignorant, greedy, purposeless human.

- Apologies if you truly think capitalism can solve the issues in the world.
- Apologies if you truly think humans have no hope and your depressed.

[ColonelCossack]

If everyone decided to do that? The world would be a much better place, that's what.

Da fok? No it wouldn't... Capitalism can't sustain everyone being rich. how would that work? The bourgeoisie needs workers to support their lifestyle. What happens when there's no workers? It's pretty obvious, like I said.

The real reason I don't just go, "Fuck the workers, I'ma gonna make me some CA$H!", Is that it would be totally arbitrary- and quite unlikely- for me to become rich, or a successful capitalist. Also, capitalism is inevitably going to collapse at some point in the future; it's a pointless exercise to carry on perpetuating it, because it's going to cause me and everyone else unnecessary hassle now, as well as when it does all come crashing down.

Also, unlike you, I'm not a massive douche bag arse-hole.

[ComradeOmar]

After hundreds of years of capitalism, look at where it has gotten us...

Recent research has proven that the poor in America have outdated computers, smaller wardrobes, eat less seafood and steak, are more likely to be overweight and cannot afford to get the latest iPhones until months after release. Furthermore, new technology has eliminated grueling jobs that once required manual labor, cheating the working class out of valuable exercise. Automobiles have also lowered the amount of exercise per capita drastically. A recent study by a group of respected dermatologists found that the working class is also less likely to get a tan from spending too much time indoors. Average life expectancy has also increased, forcing people to see more years under capitalist domination.

Something must be done! ¡Viva la Revolución! :che:
Agreed but people don't exactly have a great outlook about communism either. And about "something must be done" the only thing that can be done is to educate people that communism isn't what they think it is otherwise communism will never succeed.

[ColonelCossack]

Agreed but people don't exactly have a great outlook about communism either. And about "something must be done" the only thing that can be done is to educate people that communism isn't what they think it is otherwise communism will never succeed.

I think he was being sarcastic, comrade. Look at his username.

[kapitalyst]

Da fok? No it wouldn't... Capitalism can't sustain everyone being rich. how would that work? The bourgeoisie needs workers to support their lifestyle. What happens when there's no workers? It's pretty obvious, like I said.


That is an absurd idea...



The real reason I don't just go, "Fuck the workers, I'ma gonna make me some CA$H!", Is that it would be totally arbitrary- and quite unlikely- for me to become rich, or a successful capitalist. Also, capitalism is inevitably going to collapse at some point in the future; it's a pointless exercise to carry on perpetuating it, because it's going to cause me and everyone else unnecessary hassle now, as well as when it does all come crashing down.


First of all, making money is not saying "fuck the workers". You don't even have to employ anyone (I don't at this point in time). If you did, then go ahead and show the world how to treat the workers right.

Even if the last part of your paragraph were true, this still makes no sense. Do something to make money and live decently. Give what you don't need to the poor. Beats sitting around and grumbling about how you hate your life and capitalism, eh? :sleep:



Also, unlike you, I'm not a massive douche bag arse-hole.

Oh, but you've just proven that you are. You see, I don't think communists or leftists are douche bags. I think people who resort to personal insults and have a hostile demeanor are though.

[Jose Gracchus]

Blah blah blah I worked hard anyone can do it blah blah blah.

Yo man, Horatio Alger fiction has already been invented. Your personal story has no significance in the discussion of social matters, and is an example of anecdotal evidence, which is in no way a meaningful sample.

And sorry, but 'capitalism' will feel quite free in the future to leave you to die without medical care. It is an irrefutable fact that outcomes, life expectancies, and morbidity across society all improve with the limited social impositions placed on the 'free market' for health care in the 'socialized medicine' societies.

[ColonelCossack]

That is an absurd idea...



First of all, making money is not saying "fuck the workers". You don't even have to employ anyone (I don't at this point in time). If you did, then go ahead and show the world how to treat the workers right.

Even if the last part of your paragraph were true, this still makes no sense. Do something to make money and live decently. Give what you don't need to the poor. Beats sitting around and grumbling about how you hate your life and capitalism, eh? :sleep:



Oh, but you've just proven that you are. You see, I don't think communists or leftists are douche bags. I think people who resort to personal insults and have a hostile demeanor are though.

Alright, dude, sorry about the flaming.

I hold doors open for old people, and offer them my seat on the bus! :lol:

Anyway, I find it hard to comprehend that you can't see that there's only a finite amount of wealth out there. Are you serious? Not everyone can make a profit... capitalism needs losers in order to function... can't you see that?

Again, man, sorry for the flaming. :P

[W1N5T0N]

'scuse me, but didnt Stalin/Russia drain that one lake in Kazakhstan for cotton production?

:laugh:

[Rafiq]

nah

Okay, then it was a result of them failing to apply and formulate a more efficient revolutionary tactic than the ones stressed by the Left Liberatarians.

[Rafiq]

Nah. As disillusioned as I might get with the Left the idea of private property as coercive and unjust is one of those things I can't see myself ever changing my mind on.

Then I would suggest reading more, clinging on to a mere ethical criticism of capitalism is not enough.

[kapitalyst]

The Lisp machines had hardware level support for garbage collection which probably sounds like a radical thing from the perspective of modern turd-based computing architectures. Besides you can always turn off the garbage collector, which is why although D is garbage collected it is used to write an entire operating system:


I know it had hardware support. But as I already said, the PC could run Lisp on software faster than the Lisp machine could run Lisp.

Modern PC architecture exists because it beats everything else on performance and price.



There is no reason to continue to use C or C++ or other non-GC languages today. Yet the usage share of C/C++ combined outranks all other programming languages in the corporate market [1] (http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html). Fuck the corporate market.


There are plenty of reasons. The main reason being superior performance and being close to the metal. You can get a lot done that way if/when you need to.



Of course, I am aware of Mono, and the fact that part of it is standardised by ECMA. However, Mono comes with many unsafe libraries, and since most of the libraries and programming infrastructure is delivered by Microsoft you have little means to escape from this trap when you are creating all but the simplest programs:




http://techrights.org/2009/07/08/mono-is-not-safe-gotcha/

1. Mono — like .NET — does not correspond to an ECMA standard because it brings with it more than just the core. It puts Microsoft in better charge of developers (as in “developers developers developers developers”). Patents were never the sole issue when it comes to Mono.


Sigh... This is just typical anti-Microsoft conspiracy theorism. The additional components that come along are helpful. Few people take this sort of stuff seriously.


C# still has considerable technical problems, many of them inherited from Java, since C# was created as a near direct rip off of Java. For example, C# is painfully verbose:



public class Hello1 {
public static void Main() {
System.Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");
}
}

You consider verbosity a "technical problem" and you consider that verbose? You've just written very clear, concise code. I consider this verbose and annoying:



(defun factorial (n)
(loop for i from 1 to n
for fac = 1 then (* fac i)
finally (return fac)))And that doesn't even do justice to the parenthesis madness... :lol:



Here are some other points of contention:


The type system is excessively strict [2] (http://www.dumpingcore.com/2009/01/27/c-sharp-sucks-excessively-strict-typing/).
There are two types of collections: generic and non-generic.
Parameters are not supported on most properties.



The type system is fine. The guy complaining ([2] (http://www.dumpingcore.com/2009/01/27/c-sharp-sucks-excessively-strict-typing/)) just doesn't know what the hell he's doing. All he had to do was:



var ArrayList list = new ArrayList();
var myArray = list.ToArray<string>();
And I don't even see what the hell he's accomplishing anyway. No dynamic-length arrays? That's essentially what a List<T> is. Plus, I've extended System.Array in my own application framework, so that all arrays have dynamic length and even provide methods such as Add(T), Remove(T). His assumption is also incorrect that you would only check array bounds to loop. Plus, you can simply use the foreach construct to iterate.



We already are aware of a much better way of programming, but if you want to settle for second best that is up to you.


I respect your opinion, but most of the world disagrees with it, as do I.



Here are some points that I differ about that:


The capitalist price system is *deeply flawed*. It has made Microsoft Windows $100 or more to purchase even though its data can be instantly copied and it creates artificial scarcity. Its no wonder that it can make a technology marvel like the Lisp machines to be overly expensive.



That doesn't make sense to me... :huh:





It is the responsibility of the developers to spend these twenty years to try to catch up to what the Lisp machines had, but they haven't and we still have computers that are deeply flawed.



Bro, if this were actually true and the Lisp machines were worth bringing back, I'd be the first one to hand you a lab, staff and a few million in funding to do it. It would be worth untold fortunes. But it's really not, which is why no one is bothering to bring back the defeated technology.



I agree with that. As we are still stuck with the constraints of capitalism it is going to be a very very very long time before we get advanced AI. Right now we have artificially stupidcomputing systems that are bloated, wasteful, and often destructive, a far cry from actual artificial intelligence. I wouldn't expect anything better from the capitalist criminals.


I think you're having some nostalgia for those old Lisp machines. There's nothing they could do that my PC can't do better (and for cheaper and less energy consumption). I mean, shit... if anything, if the Lisp machines were worth it, it could be a great weapon in digital warfare by its inherent superiority. Someone would re-develop the technology to use it. But it's simply not...

Also, you're taking it a bit over-the-top with the whole "criminals" thing. You think I'm a criminal? I deserve to be imprisoned? :lol:



Did you say "constantly improving"?!?! Please show me the improvement in the state of programming affairs in the last twenty years!


You're looking at it, using it and simultaneously cursing it! :lol:



You said yourself you are using C which is almost forty years old and C# which is from 2001, or nearly a decade old. You could have had the essence of your current programming experience years ago.


I don't use C very often. But C still has great uses in low-level programming. It's very lightweight, fast and requires no runtime environment, for one. It's portable to any platform, two.



Personally, I'm not even waiting for the information technology industry to progress. I am waiting for them to catch up to the past achievements of Lisp. Once the state of the art is no longer a twenty year old technology, then you can come tell me about "constant progress."


You mean this:


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/94/Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg/400px-Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg.png



There is something wrong with some business innovations, like the use of proprietary software because they are destructive in the sense that they suppress or neglect technological development.


Ah, but that's not even what we were talking about. You were saying what Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did in the context of the capitalist system was wrong by its standards.



Aren't you a capitalist? What ever happened to free competition? You don't have any problem with someone like Microsoft having a monopoly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly) on markets like the OS market and the web browser market and using it squash competitors like netscape?


I'm not merely capitalist. But anyway... monopoly doesn't last unless it's propped up by the state. Microsoft also never had a true monopoly. Microsoft was just kicking arse because it had the most appealing product. We can make many good arguments about Linux being better at A, B, C and Mac being better at X, Y, Z... But consumers didn't think so. Plain and simple. And I'll take a so-called "monopoly" any day when it's giving me something I like for a better price than any competitor would.

And now, Apple is larger than Microsoft. Apple is winning the game thanks to their mastery of the mobile market. It's what consumers want now. The anti-trust suit against Microsoft achieved nothing other than slightly irritating Bill Gates. The market busted Microsoft's dominance, all on its own. It will happen again, too. Apple won't always be the juggernaut it is now. The reason no one can compete with these companies isn't because they have monopolistic control, it's because no one can deliver superior products and pricing. And we as consumers are just fine with it.



I have told you how absolutely shitty things are in the software industry and the world, and right now we are living in the capitalism, so it is the capitalist system that we are living in that is responsible. We need a new system so that we can improve conditions and allow for technological progress leading to new technologies like molecular assemblers, nuclear fusion, space based solar power, wireless energy transmission, friendly AI, advanced automation, etc.


So if we have a rainstorm it's the fault of capitalism too? As I've said before, I'm not merely a capitalist. I'm a free enterprise proponent. What we have today isn't free enterprise, and the whole world isn't even capitalist. It's more like crony pseudo-socialism with some private property ownership, maintained by authoritarian government.



On the contrary, DRM is great business. Corporations don't do things that are bad for business.


I disagree. It appears effective, in a few cases, but it's restricting its own proponents from a world of business opportunity.



No I don't expect companies to make good decisions. Have you been listening to what I have been saying? They are part of the system so they are doomed to corruption. Change the system itself.


Human beings are doomed to corruption.



Which is why we need a new system, not a change in corporate policy.

It is made better by the corrupt capitalist system.


This "new system" actually being an old, 1800s system that doesn't work and never worked? :lol:



Actually, the purpose motive is superior to the profit motive when it comes to intellectual tasks like software development.

The "profit motive" is what drives our behavior (not all profit is money) as human beings, more often than not and even when we're unaware of it. I eat because it's profitable. I have sex because it's profitable. The six theories of motivation:

1) Instinct - motivation results from behaviors that are unlearned, uniform in expression and universal in species

2) Drive-Reduction -motivation begins with a physiological need (or lack/deficiency) that elicits a drive toward behavior that will satisfy the original need/want

3) Arousal - organisms are motivated to achieve and maintain an optimal level of arousal

4) Incentive - motivation results from environmental stimuli that "pull" the organism in certain directions

5) Cognitive - motivation is affected by attributions, or how we interpret or think about our own or others' actions

6) Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - lower motives (such as physiological and safety needs) must be satisfied before advancing to higher needs (such as belonging and self-esteem)

These sources of motivation tell us: profit, profit, profit! Greed is a built-in part of animal (including humans) psychology. There isn't any greater motivator than profit. And even in many examples one attempts to give to demonstrate altruistic behavior, it is often pseudo-altruistic -- benefits others to benefit oneself. This is one of the fundamental reasons I reject communism and collectivism. The social model simply will not work.

In fact, the failure of open-source to beat commercial software is an exemplary example of the fact. It has nothing to do with the "corporate machine" or "capitalist system". No, this just gives us an opportunity to see the concept of profit motivation vs idealistic motivation. Profit wins. We're only human. May seem wrong, but in that case we're wrong for existing -- and I don't think that. Our built-in greed is what has insured our survival and success as a species.

[Rafiq]

Right... This all happened because a neighbor owned land, and a guy in New York owned a sardine factory. And the anti-business, anti-free market government really gives a flying fuck about enterprise. And the things that happened to me, like being denied medical care for the sake of "War on Drugs" and being stripped of everything I had by the courts wasn't the government... that was capitalism. :rolleyes:

In a way, you're right. Government is in the pockets of many businesses, and government is corrupt. Cronyism at its finest. Yet this is the very thing we oppose... The government should be stripped of such power, given to them in the name of "the general welfare" and "safety", and keep the fuck out of our personal lives and economy.



I did not get "lucky". That is the true horse shit. That is the attitude that keeps you and other people down. This idea that your moral superiority has kept you from succeeding in this wicked capitalist system. That you aren't responsible for yourself and your own actions. As if there's some law that stops you from making money and doing what you please. Give me a break, dude...



Oh, NO ONE can rich if they try hard! They just need to give up! What would happen if everyone did nothing? Something.

Bull - Fucking - Shit.

Oh wow, more free market horse shit with no concrete evidence to back it up. Yawn.

You still provide no critical refute to my statement That Wealth is finite and if everyone took your advice, to work as hard as they can, they still couldn't be rich.

[Jose Gracchus]

The "profit motive" is what drives our behavior (not all profit is money) as human beings, more often than not and even when we're unaware of it. I eat because it's profitable. I have sex because it's profitable. The six theories of motivation:

1) Instinct - motivation results from behaviors that are unlearned, uniform in expression and universal in species

2) Drive-Reduction -motivation begins with a physiological need (or lack/deficiency) that elicits a drive toward behavior that will satisfy the original need/want

3) Arousal - organisms are motivated to achieve and maintain an optimal level of arousal

4) Incentive - motivation results from environmental stimuli that "pull" the organism in certain directions

5) Cognitive - motivation is affected by attributions, or how we interpret or think about our own or others' actions

6) Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - lower motives (such as physiological and safety needs) must be satisfied before advancing to higher needs (such as belonging and self-esteem)

These sources of motivation tell us: profit, profit, profit! Greed is a built-in part of animal (including humans) psychology. There isn't any greater motivator than profit. And even in many examples one attempts to give to demonstrate altruistic behavior, it is often pseudo-altruistic -- benefits others to benefit oneself. This is one of the fundamental reasons I reject communism and collectivism. The social model simply will not work.

In fact, the failure of open-source to beat commercial software is an exemplary example of the fact. It has nothing to do with the "corporate machine" or "capitalist system". No, this just gives us an opportunity to see the concept of profit motivation vs idealistic motivation. Profit wins. We're only human. May seem wrong, but in that case we're wrong for existing -- and I don't think that. Our built-in greed is what has insured our survival and success as a species.

Oh, this Randroid trick. Simply redefine "profit" from its socially-specific, and historically-contextual (that is, meaningful) definition to be equivalent to "things people like and need." Then PROFIT = MOTIVATION, QED!

How droll. The simple fact is by far most of human history consisted of social activity not driven for anything like modern profit, which is a particular form of socially organized production particular to this period of history.

[Nox]

When the world's resources begin to run out, Capitalism will come crashing down, and on to the ash heap of history.

[Bud Struggle]

When the world's resources begin to run out, Capitalism will come crashing down, and on to the ash heap of history.

And so will Communism. All economic systems are built on growth.

[ColonelCossack]

And so will Communism. All economic systems are built on growth.

What will replace it? Communism is the perfect form of production, because there's no antithetical relationship between any classes- so that won't happen. Communism, by definition, doesn't have one class exploiting another, so it can continue growing indefinitely.

Just out of interest, what do you think would cause it collapse?

[Nox]

And so will Communism. All economic systems are built on growth.

You're wrong.

In Capitalism, people just go ape shit digging up every single drop of oil and every single speck of metal, until the resources run out.

In Communism, energy is renewable, materials are recycled, resources are not drained, etc.

[Rafiq]

And so will Communism. All economic systems are built on growth.

Capitalists use resources inefficiently, though. If you think that Capitalism will be the best means of rationalizing the distribution of resources you are naive and need to take a course on human history.

[Rafiq]

What will replace it? Communism is the perfect form of production, because there's no antithetical relationship between any classes- so that won't happen. Communism, by definition, doesn't have one class exploiting another, so it can continue growing indefinitely.

Just out of interest, what do you think would cause it collapse?

How do you know? Do you have any evidence to back up such an assertion?

I am sorry, but such statements are undoubtedly Utopian. I don't think any of us know what communism will look like. But I think we know that we are capable of organizing ourselves into a more efficient system than Capitalism, though that is all.

[Bud Struggle]

You're wrong.

In Capitalism, people just go ape shit digging up every single drop of oil and every single speck of metal, until the resources run out.

In Communism, energy is renewable, materials are recycled, resources are not drained, etc.

Nonsense. No country was ecolocically worse than the Soviet Union.

[Killforpeace]

Nonsense. No country was ecolocically worse than the Soviet Union.

Source please

And


In 2006, Cuba was the only nation in the world which met the WWF's definition of sustainable development; having an ecological footprint of less than 1.8 hectares per capita and a Human Development Index of over 0.8 for 2007.[15]

Can't post links, but cuba's wiki, cite 15.

[Bud Struggle]

Source please.

Sure. Here's one of hundreds.

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

[Killforpeace]

Sure. Here's one of hundreds.


eh can't post links yet but the first image on the wiki page....

This picture shows images from 1989 and 2008, soviet union collapsed in 91, so after that image from 89, they drained that in less then 2 years?

edit: I'm not defending the SU, i'm still learning. It just seems that it was still somewhat full after the canals were built, even with the amount of draining.

Also, within a communist society, would people be eating locally grown food like in Cuba, or does that only apply to Cuba because of the embargo?

[Rafiq]

We do not lay down blueprints for a future communist society, friend ^.

We don't know what communism will look like really.

[hatzel]

eh can't post links yet but the first image on the wiki page....

This picture shows images from 1989 and 2008, soviet union collapsed in 91, so after that image from 89, they drained that in less then 2 years?

If you read the words, rather than just consulting the pictures, you will find:


The disappearance of the lake was no surprise to the Soviets; they expected it to happen long before. As early as in 1964, Aleksandr Asarin at the Hydroproject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroproject) Institute pointed out that the lake was doomed, explaining "It was part of the five-year plans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-Year_Plans_for_the_National_Economy_of_the_Soviet_ Union), approved by the council of ministers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_the_Soviet_Union) and the Politburo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo). Nobody on a lower level would dare to say a word contradicting those plans, even if it was the fate of the Aral Sea."[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea#cite_note-winse-12)The reaction to the predictions varied. Some Soviet experts apparently considered the Aral to be "nature's error", and a Soviet engineer said in 1968 that "it is obvious to everyone that the evaporation of the Aral Sea is inevitable."[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea#cite_note-13) On the other hand, starting in the 1960s, a large scale project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal) was proposed to redirect part of the flow of the rivers of the Ob (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ob_River) basin to Central Asia over a gigantic canal system. Refilling of the Aral Sea was considered as one of the project's main goals. However, due to its staggering costs and the negative public opinion in Russia proper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSFSR), the federal authorities abandoned the project by 1986.[15] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea#cite_note-14)
From 1960 to 1998, the sea's surface area shrank by approximately 60%, and its volume by 80%. In 1960, the Aral Sea had been the world's fourth-largest lake, with an area of approximately 68,000 square kilometres (26,000 sq mi) and a volume of 1,100 cubic kilometres (260 cu mi); by 1998, it had dropped to 28,687 square kilometres (11,076 sq mi), and eighth-largest. The amount of water it has lost[when? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Chro nological_items)] is the equivalent of completely draining Lake Erie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Erie) and Lake Ontario (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Ontario). Over the same time period its salinity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salinity) increased from about 10 g/L (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram_per_litre) to about 45 g/L.


Also, within a communist society, would people be eating locally grown food like in Cuba, or does that only apply to Cuba because of the embargo?
Personally, I'd consider this a beneficial development, for people to eat locally-grown, in-season food as much as possible. It would be a much more efficient use of resources, though technology may change this, and make previous unimaginable possibilities real. Either way, one could surely still acquire more exotic produce.

[Killforpeace]

If you read the words, rather than just consulting the pictures, you will find:




Personally, I'd consider this a beneficial development, for people to eat locally-grown, in-season food as much as possible. It would be a much more efficient use of resources, though technology may change this, and make previous unimaginable possibilities real. Either way, one could surely still acquire more exotic produce.

I read it and i wasn't denying the soviet unions actions and the result of these actions, merely saying that it continued without the soviet union, and its now being mined by capitalists.

The question was a bit off the mark.

[Bud Struggle]

I read it and i wasn't denying the soviet unions actions and the result of these actions, merely saying that it continued without the soviet union, and its now being mined by capitalists.

The question was a bit off the mark.

When it comes to rapeing the earth the Capitalsits and the Communists are brothers.

[hatzel]

I read it and i wasn't denying the soviet unions actions and the result of these actions, merely saying that it continued without the soviet union, and its now being mined by capitalists

...and? Sorry, I don't see the argument here. I don't really feel Bud can use the Soviet Union to attack communism's environmental credentials, but if 80% of one of the world's biggest seas vanished in the Soviet Union, then 80% of one of the world's biggest seas vanished in the Soviet Union, which suggests something REALLY wrong happened. What then happened in post-Soviet Russia does nothing to negate Bud's argument. Not least because posta-Soviet Russia is a place where tonnes of crazy shit takes place...

[Robert]

We don't know what communism will look like really.

I have my suspicions. :(

[Killforpeace]

...and? Sorry, I don't see the argument here. I don't really feel Bud can use the Soviet Union to attack communism's environmental credentials, but if 80% of one of the world's biggest seas vanished in the Soviet Union, then 80% of one of the world's biggest seas vanished in the Soviet Union, which suggests something REALLY wrong happened. What then happened in post-Soviet Russia does nothing to negate Bud's argument. Not least because posta-Soviet Russia is a place where tonnes of crazy shit takes place...

Again, I was merely pointing out to him that the environmental atrocities in the Aral sea continue without the Soviet Union. To solely blame the Soviet Union on the state of the Aral sea is not in my opinion correct. Something wrong happened, something wrong continues to happen, although he was talking about what happened in the Soviet Union era (which is what I asked, yes) but this is a why capitalism has failed us thread and I was just relating it back to the original discussion.

I'm sorry for the miscommunication.

As for locally-grown/produce food, I agree that it would be a much more beneficial/sustainable system and yes technology could change this but the problems of global food are not only production and transport but storage and waste (of packaging too). Not to mention the positives of a green city from urban agriculture.

[Jose Gracchus]

And so will Communism. All economic systems are built on growth.

Care to prove the claim that patrimonial/feudal agricultural-based economies (what we call the "feudal mode of production") as typified the social production of Europe from about 900-1500, was based on year-after-year growth in produce production, for its own sake, for the sake of maximizing sale-value and thus profits?

Because it sure as shit wasn't.

OI Capitalists: Because who needs to read a history book, when I learned everything I ever needed from Independence Day and going to Fourth of July parades! Hoo-RAH!

[Ingraham Effingham]

Human beings are doomed to corruption.

Ah, the secret nihilism that all capitalists rationalize with, and bank on.

Lefties are so much more optimistic.

[kapitalyst]

Oh wow, more free market horse shit with no concrete evidence to back it up. Yawn.

The evidence stares you in the face every time you look outside and every time you open a history book. The western world became successful and wealthy because it embraced free enterprise, individualism and liberty.



You still provide no critical refute to my statement That Wealth is finite and if everyone took your advice, to work as hard as they can, they still couldn't be rich.

Do I really need to, even though it's obviously bullshit? Very well...

Think about what you're saying: "wealth is finite; everyone cannot be rich". So under communism, everyone will just be poor because there's not enough, according to you. Your statement is incompatible with your own belief system.

It's also no secret that wealth is not finite. Let's say you pay me $20 to make you a new hat... I make the hat, give it to you and take the $20. I've just created new wealth. You are just as wealthy as you were before (you simply have a hat instead of $20), and I have become $20 wealthier...

According to your idea, there are a finite number of hats that just go in circles. C'mon, use your head...


Ah, the secret nihilism that all capitalists rationalize with, and bank on.

Lefties are so much more optimistic.

Yeah, I suppose we're wrong then, and one day we'll live in a world of total peace and harmony where we sing praises to Dear Leader and all suffer equally. Lennin save the revolution! :P

[Zostrianos]

A few years ago during the Iraq war, I saw this article online that said the money the US was spending per year on the war (it was I don't know how many trillions) was enough to feed the whole of Africa for 20 years. Capitalism is not only detrimental to humanity, it's criminal

[Jose Gracchus]

kapitalyst: I suppose you just choose to not reply to responses you cannot answer effectively? Care to man-up to your absurd citing of Orwell as some rhetorical ally against "Dear Leaders" (as if this is an intelligible and historically literate view of Vladimir Lenin, and I say that as not a Leninist) and 'collectivism'?

Maybe you have another rags-to-riches theater with which to entertain us?

If you want to claim why the West is prosperous, on the basis of history, maybe you won't might replying to someone with an academic background in history? I can tell you one thing, the West didn't "choose" 'liberty' and 'free enterprise' in the 1700s and the "East" just didn't, like God set up some morality play.

P.S.: You do realize the Thomas Jefferson you quote was passionately opposed to the development of the finance aristocracy which employs you, and saw it as an enemy of liberty, right?

[kapitalyst]

Alright, dude, sorry about the flaming.

I hold doors open for old people, and offer them my seat on the bus! :lol:

Anyway, I find it hard to comprehend that you can't see that there's only a finite amount of wealth out there. Are you serious? Not everyone can make a profit... capitalism needs losers in order to function... can't you see that?

Again, man, sorry for the flaming. :P

No worries. You show a lot of civility by extending the olive branch, and are thus worthy of respect. My apologies for reacting harshly too. :lol:

[kapitalyst]

kapitalyst: I suppose you just choose to not reply to responses you cannot answer effectively? Care to man-up to your absurd citing of Orwell as some rhetorical ally against "Dear Leaders" (as if this is an intelligible and historically literate view of Vladimir Lenin, and I say that as not a Leninist) and 'collectivism'?


What responses? This thread is growing pages at a time, so I've possibly overlooked something. As for the latter part of your paragraph, what the hell are you even asking?

It almost sounds like you're proposing Orwell was a statist and was writing about his hopes for the future of humanity, rather than expressing his fears of what it could become...



Maybe you have another rags-to-riches theater with which to entertain us?


Do you have any more woe-is-me melodrama about your life in the "capitalist system"? Any more melancholy whining about how others are to blame for the actions of individuals? If so, we'll make a trade...



If you want to claim why the West is prosperous, on the basis of history, maybe you won't might replying to someone with an academic background in history? I can tell you one thing, the West didn't "choose" 'liberty' and 'free enterprise' in the 1700s and the "East" just didn't, like God set up some morality play.


I have an "academic background" in the social sciences, including history. So?...



P.S.: You do realize the Thomas Jefferson you quote was passionately opposed to the development of the finance aristocracy which employs you, and saw it as an enemy of liberty, right?

"And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, May 28, 1816

"Paper is poverty,... it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself."

Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington (27 May 1788)

I agree, in almost every instance, with Jefferson's views on money and finance. Jefferson would have a heart attack is he saw the way our financial system worked today... a credit-driven system, centrally-planned by the state, and based on worthless fiat currency.

I'm not employed by anyone. I'm an individual trader. I work from home. I reject fiat currency, and only use it for transactions because I'm forced to by unconstitutional laws. When I save money, I do just that: I save money, not currency. The financial aristocracy Jefferson feared exists today, and my goal and ultimate hope is to take it down. Like Jefferson, I believe the monetary system belongs to the people... the people make up the market. This is an abstraction meaning we are supposed to be free to choose our money -- not forced and coerced into use garbage fiat from the state's printing presses. Our wealth isn't truly in our hands anymore, it's in the hands of the state now. Only if you own gold, silver or other hard assets is your wealth truly yours.

[#FF0000]

Do you have any more woe-is-me melodrama about your life in the "capitalist system"? Any more melancholy whining about how others are to blame for the actions of individuals? If so, we'll make a trade...I don't think anyone around here really throws their experiences and anecdotes around as readily as you.

[ColonelCossack]

How do you know? Do you have any evidence to back up such an assertion?

I am sorry, but such statements are undoubtedly Utopian. I don't think any of us know what communism will look like. But I think we know that we are capable of organizing ourselves into a more efficient system than Capitalism, though that is all.

What I meant was that it would be the final stage of Historical materialism- I know we have very little idea what it's really going to look like, but because there (by definition) won't be any classes with an antithetical relationship (and thus no class struggle), there will be nothing to drive any new means of production that may be beginning to emerge.

I can't think of anything that might be more efficient, or better at providing for the human race, than a communist form of production. It's like trying to visualise a fourth spatial dimension.

[NGNM85]

:laugh: @ Hippie Liberal Chomskyan

You're just throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. I'm surprised you didn't call me a 'fascist', while you're at it. If you really want to shock me; say something intelligent for once in your life.

[danyboy27]

Right. People are fat because they choose to eat poorly. Rich of Poor. It cost more money to eat poorly, high sodium, high sugar, high fats, than it does to eat well. It cost a family of four about four times more to eat at McDonalds than to eat a home cooked salmon, vegtable, and rice or potato dinner at home. Do that for a whole year and it adds up.

The problem with poor people being fat is pure and simple laziness. To make a healthey dinner it does take a bit of planning and work.

Coming from a family of verry poor folks i can tell you that its cheaper to eat fat when you are poor, especially if you cook it for yourself.

Fat is cheap and aboundant in many really cheap stuff like ground beef, ground pork,sliced sandwich meat white flour, white bread, potatoe, pasta.

Shepherd pie, Sandwich, homemade hotdog and burgers, homemade desserts, these are all stuff that pretty much every poor people with enough ressources do to get by and its verry harmful to their heallth.

Vegetable and fruits are not really cheap, especially if you run on a monthly budget. If i start to get nut and decide to purchase, lets say some fruits and vegetable to change the taste of my meals, it cost a solid 50 to 60 bucks more. For me, i can handle it, but for a family who have an electricity bill to pay? not really. they will buy massive amount of ground beef and potatoes instead.

Its not only about being educated on how to cook, its also about being able to buy the damn groceries.

[Rafiq]

You're just throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. I'm surprised you didn't call me a 'fascist', while you're at it. If you really want to shock me; say something intelligent for once in your life.



Think about why i called you that. Dont dismiss it as slander, think about it.

[Revolution starts with U]

Becuase you suffer from liberal paranoia. Idk, NGM may be a liberal. But you still suffer from a paranoia about them.

[Rafiq]

Becuase you suffer from liberal paranoia. Idk, NGM may be a liberal. But you still suffer from a paranoia about them.



Chomskyan Liberalism is something that is prominent in this forum. A revival of Marxist and revolutionary Anarchist politics is something I imagine would come into place eventually, though.

[danyboy27]

I would also like to mention that owning A computer or a refregirator or even a T.V is hardly a sign of wealth at all. From my personnal experience, most poor people purchase those ''luxury'' items used/barely working or are inherited from someone in the family.

A lot of these ''luxury'' items are verry often what can help them to avoid those families and invididuals from starving/having a job. Without refregirator, the burden of getting food and preserve it would be verry hazardous and time consuming. T.V and Video games are a verry cheap way for poor peoples to get entertained and to entertain their kid. Dont believe me? check how much a ps3 game cost vs a piano or a karate courses, how much does it cost to go to a theater or go to a fancy place to eat?

Computer are something essential these day if you look for work, and having a car is also essential if you want to go to your workplace or if you want to look for work.

[Rafiq]

It's also no secret that wealth is not finite. Let's say you pay me $20 to make you a new hat... I make the hat, give it to you and take the $20. I've just created new wealth. You are just as wealthy as you were before (you simply have a hat instead of $20), and I have become $20 wealthier...

According to your idea, there are a finite number of hats that just go in circles. C'mon, use your head...



What you are describing is not the Capitalist system. If Hat's could just be made out of thin air your point would stand.

Capitalists do not produce hats. They hire workers to do that. Therefore the total amount of money they earned + the worker's wage is the total labor value of the hat, and fully belongs to the proletarian. That is not the case, though.

What you describe as wealth, is ridiculous. I suggest taking a look at the falling rate of profit theory, it should help you a lot in that regards.

Also, "Money" doesn't come out of thin air somehow. You didn't "create" wealth, you moved already existing value towards yourself. And you bet your fucking balls that it isn't a fair deal. What you did was simply a trade. I imagine under a post capitalist system people will be able to trade their underwear for... I don't fucking know, toothpaste.

You are oversimplifying an extremely complex system.

Wealth is finite. A dollar in your pocket is a dollar out of someone else's.

[Rafiq]

The evidence stares you in the face every time you look outside and every time you open a history book.

Only if the Bourgeoisie are the ones writing your grand book of history, which they have been for the past two hundred years.

[Bud Struggle]

Only if the Bourgeoisie are the ones writing your grand book of history, which they have been for the past two hundred years.

Yup. Anyone could write a history from any point of view (as long as he gets his facts straight) that is equally valid.

That Zinn guy did. It is no more right or wrong than any other history.

[Rafiq]

Yup. Anyone could write a history from any point of view (as long as he gets his facts straight) that is equally valid.

That Zinn guy did. It is no more right or wrong than any other history.

the very basis of writing history with delibirite political bias cannot be valid completely.

[NGNM85]

Think about why i called you that. Dont dismiss it as slander, think about it.

Cut the crap. You said it because you're an asshole. This is not constructive criticism, that isn’t what constructive criticism looks like. Honestly, I’m not convinced you even understand the terms you are employing. You certainly don’t understand my politics. Again; if you really want to shock me; say something intelligent for once in your life.

[RadioRaheem84]

Honestly, I’m not convinced you even understand the terms you are employing.Why don't you cut the crap and stop employing this accusation that no one understands political terms? Especially your narrow sorry excuse for a definition of capitalism.

Corporate mercantilism? :rolleyes:

Clearly, clearly that is not an anarchists view of our current system.

[Rafiq]

NGNM85 is about as Anarchist as Franco.

[RadioRaheem84]

NGN's anarchism = extreme liberalism

[kapitalyst]

You are oversimplifying an extremely complex system.

Wealth is finite. A dollar in your pocket is a dollar out of someone else's.

Yeah, we all know there are a fixed number of dollars in the world as well as hats... :rolleyes:

Sigh... *face palm*

[#FF0000]

Cut the crap. You said it because you're an asshole. This is not constructive criticism, that isn’t what constructive criticism looks like. Honestly, I’m not convinced you even understand the terms you are employing. You certainly don’t understand my politics. Again; if you really want to shock me; say something intelligent for once in your life.

I told you your concept of "corporate mercantilism" was dumb baby nonsense and had literally nothing that distinguished it from the capitalist mode of production and then you stopped talking to me :(

[NGNM85]

Why don't you cut the crap and stop employing this accusation that no one understands political terms? Especially your narrow sorry excuse for a definition of capitalism.

I’d stop saying it if it stopped being true. The flagrant abuse, and misuse of language, here, is epidemic. That isn’t new.


Corporate mercantilism? Clearly, clearly that is not an anarchists view of our current system.

‘…Some economists have plausibly described the world system as one of "corporate mercantilism," remote from the ideal of free trade.’
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199711--.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199711--.htm)

‘…the emerging system of state corporate mercantilism…’
http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20000226.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20000226.htm)

‘…based on a system of global corporate mercantilism…’
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199606--.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199606--.htm)

‘In contrast, the formal economy -- the international economy -- is a kind of mercantilism, or corporate mercantilism,…’
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20000303.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20000303.htm)

‘What's developing is a kind of corporate mercantilism…’
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19970303.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19970303.htm)

‘The current system is more like corporate mercantilism…’
http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20011115.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20011115.htm)

Etc., etc.

[eyedrop]

Yeah, we all know there are a fixed number of dollars in the world as well as hats... :rolleyes:

Sigh... *face palm*

While you are technically correct, the rise in wealth is not dependent on stocktrading.

If a stock is traded 100 times on it's way from worth C to C' it would certainly increase GDP a lot, but it wouldn't increase real-wealth any.

Stocktrading only function now is as a capital allocation system and I think a decent case can be made for speculators to worsen it's function as a capital allocation system.

[#FF0000]

I’d stop saying it if it stopped being true. The flagrant abuse, and misuse of language, here, is epidemic. That isn’t new.



‘…Some economists have plausibly described the world system as one of "corporate mercantilism," remote from the ideal of free trade.’
[FONT=Verdana][COLOR=#800080]http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199711--.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199711--.htm)

‘…the emerging system of state corporate mercantilism…’
http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20000226.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20000226.htm)

‘…based on a system of global corporate mercantilism…’
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199606--.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199606--.htm)

‘In contrast, the formal economy -- the international economy -- is a kind of mercantilism, or corporate mercantilism,…’
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20000303.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20000303.htm)

‘What's developing is a kind of corporate mercantilism…’
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19970303.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19970303.htm)

‘The current system is more like corporate mercantilism…’
http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20011115.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20011115.htm)

Etc., etc.

but i said a thing and you ignored it and literally never tried to defend it

[Rafiq]

I&rsquo;d stop saying it if it stopped being true. The flagrant abuse, and misuse of language, here, is epidemic. That isn&rsquo;t new.



&lsquo;&hellip;Some economists have plausibly described the world system as one of "corporate mercantilism," remote from the ideal of free trade.&rsquo;
[FONT=Verdana][COLOR=#800080]http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199711--.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199711--.htm)

&lsquo;&hellip;the emerging system of state corporate mercantilism&hellip;&rsquo;
http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20000226.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20000226.htm)

&lsquo;&hellip;based on a system of global corporate mercantilism&hellip;&rsquo;
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199606--.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199606--.htm)

&lsquo;In contrast, the formal economy -- the international economy -- is a kind of mercantilism, or corporate mercantilism,&hellip;&rsquo;
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20000303.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20000303.htm)

&lsquo;What's developing is a kind of corporate mercantilism&hellip;&rsquo;
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19970303.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19970303.htm)

&lsquo;The current system is more like corporate mercantilism&hellip;&rsquo;
http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20011115.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20011115.htm)

Etc., etc.



From the Free Market apologist Noam Chomsky, a liberal like yourself.

[Rafiq]

Yeah, we all know there are a fixed number of dollars in the world as well as hats... :rolleyes:

Sigh... *face palm*



Fucking idiot, there is a reason one dollar isn't worth as much as it used to be.

[RadioRaheem84]

I’d stop saying it if it stopped being true. The flagrant abuse, and misuse of language, here, is epidemic. That isn’t new.



‘…Some economists have plausibly described the world system as one of "corporate mercantilism," remote from the ideal of free trade.’
[FONT=Verdana][COLOR=#800080]http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199711--.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199711--.htm)

‘…the emerging system of state corporate mercantilism…’
http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20000226.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20000226.htm)

‘…based on a system of global corporate mercantilism…’
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199606--.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199606--.htm)

‘In contrast, the formal economy -- the international economy -- is a kind of mercantilism, or corporate mercantilism,…’
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20000303.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20000303.htm)

‘What's developing is a kind of corporate mercantilism…’
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19970303.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19970303.htm)

‘The current system is more like corporate mercantilism…’
http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20011115.htm (http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20011115.htm)

Etc., etc.

Chomsky / = anarchism

Chomsky is obviously accepting the neo-classical/liberal pov of what constitutes capitalism.

Capitalism is a system of social relationships in the workplace, it is also more than just a economic system but an entire social order.

To say that what we have is not capitalism is to give in to the free market purists and right-libertarians.

It's accepting their dogma.

NGN I figured you would've learned something by now instead of parroting everything and anything Chomsky says.

[RadioRaheem84]

I’d stop saying it if it stopped being true. The flagrant abuse, and misuse of language, here, is epidemic. That isn’t new.



It isn't misusing language. Capitalism is defined by the means of production remaining in private hands. That is the core of it's foundation. To where everything in society is done for the purpose of market exchange. Our system of public education, public utlities, etc. anything public is just there to increase or help market exchange. It's not there for the mere purporse of use value but to aid the market and further the capitalist social order.

To say it's corporatism, corporate mercantilism, crony capitalism, oligarchy, neo-feudalism or whatever else liberals say is utter fantasy and lack of clear understand of the dynamics of capitalism.

I like Chomsky, but I am no where near the ultimate fan boy that you are parroting every line of his as if it were Gospel. The man can be wrong and there is no real analysis in what he says about this topic.

[NGNM85]

From the Free Market apologist Noam Chomsky, a liberal like yourself.

Noam Chomsky is not a 'free market apologist', nor is he a 'liberal.' (Nor am I, for that matter.) Incidentally; I should thank you for proving my point about the epidemic abuse of language.

[NGNM85]

Chomsky / = anarchism

You, erroneously, said no Anarchist would say that. Clearly, this is false. I mean, I think facts should precede ideology, anyhow.


Chomsky is obviously accepting the neo-classical/liberal pov of what constitutes capitalism.

No, he’s using the Classical Liberal definition of what constitutes capitalism; the literal definition.


To say that what we have is not capitalism is to give in to the free market purists and right-libertarians.

It's accepting their dogma.

It’s not theirs, and it isn’t dogma. Capitalism doesn’t exist. Incidentally; I don’t think it’s a great idea.


NGN I figured you would've learned something by now instead of parroting everything and anything Chomsky says.

First of all, again, the question isn’t who said it, the issue is whether or not it’s true. Also; Chomsky has no more proprietorship of this phrase than I do. That credit belongs to some unnamed economist.

[Rafiq]

Noam Chomsky is not a 'free market apologist', nor is he a 'liberal.' (Nor am I, for that matter.) Incidentally; I should thank you for proving my point about the epidemic abuse of language.

But Chomsky is a Liberal.

He goes with the "This isn't real Capitalism" line. Capitalism is not a fucking Utopian Ideology or some corrupted Idea. Capitalism is what we call the modern mode of production. I don't care if it doesn't aspire to Chomsky's wet dreams about "free markets", it's still capitalism. Even the Soviet Union didn't get past the capitalist mode of production.

You have, without doubt, one of the shittiest economic analysis I've seen in a while. Chomsky is not only a Liberal, he's a sellout and an asslicker. He tries to make the Free-Marketters all comfortable and cozy with his politics, and even throws away proletarian emancipation in the face of all types of Liberatarianism, Bourgeois or Proletarian.

Chomsky is also vehemently Idealist in his psychological studies and his politics.

Compare a man like Slavoj Zizek with Chomsky. What a joke.

[RGacky3]

But Chomsky is a Liberal.


Meaning what?


Compare a man like Slavoj Zizek with Chomsky. What a joke.

I'd take chomsky every day, over a guy that spends more time talking about movies than applying facts to world situations. (I'm a fan of Zizek btw, and its strange that you are considering he considers Stalin's USSR to be even more horrible than Hitlers Germany.)

[RadioRaheem84]

You, erroneously, said no Anarchist would say that. Clearly, this is false. I mean, I think facts should precede ideology, anyhow.


But the definition of capitalism you through out at us is purely an ideal, while the one we as Marxists and Anarchists employ is based on material reality.



No, he’s using the Classical Liberal definition of what constitutes capitalism; the literal definition.


The classical liberal definition is not the literal definition. Capitalism itself was coined by Proudhon and later systemically analyzed by Marx and Engels as a specific social order.

Leftists coined the term not classical liberals themselves.

Chomsky himself admits that our system is far from the "ideal" proposed by neo-classical economists.

You are clearly presupposing the classical liberal definition of capitalism and asserting it as if it were material reality when it is clearly an idealogical perspective.




It’s not theirs, and it isn’t dogma. Capitalism doesn’t exist. Incidentally; I don’t think it’s a great idea.


The way you describe it is their definition and presupposing their narrow framework for what constitutes capitalism.

As I have pointed out before, the term was coined by an Anarchist Proudhon who if you cared to read his work does not share the same ideals about it as classical liberals.

Secondly, when considered a system or social order, the first people to coin the term capitalism in this way were Marx and Engels.

No classical liberal thinker thought of it as a social order at the time, and still don't.



First of all, again, the question isn’t who said it, the issue is whether or not it’s true. Also; Chomsky has no more proprietorship of this phrase than I do. That credit belongs to some unnamed economist.



How can you consider yourself a leftist and adopt the literal definition of classical liberal economists when they share the complete polar opposite of what constitutes capitalism from us? We see it as not a natural system like they do, but an entire social order. That social order is founded in the social relationships in the workplace,i.e. who controls the means of production.

Under your silly "corporate mercantilist" definition, this wouldn't matter because it is adopting the classical liberal ideal of what constitutes capitalism.

My god, you are extremely pathetic, NGN.

Instead of debating the definitions, please tell me why our society is "corporate mercantilism" and not capitalist. I will then proceed to show you why you are adopting the neo-classical ideal and not the leftist materialist perspective.

[RadioRaheem84]

Noam Chomsky is not a 'free market apologist', nor is he a 'liberal.' (Nor am I, for that matter.) Incidentally; I should thank you for proving my point about the epidemic abuse of language.

Chomsky is a great asset for the left to have. He is brilliant and in my view not a liberal per se. But he is an idealist.

[RadioRaheem84]

(I'm a fan of Zizek btw, and its strange that you are considering he considers Stalin's USSR to be even more horrible than Hitlers Germany.)

Zizek thinks that? Did he mean pre-invasion of Poland Germany? If not then Zizek is bonkers for thinking that.

[RGacky3]

But he is an idealist.

Chomsky almost ALWAYS quotes accepted facts and never talks about anything idealistic, he is as materialistic as you get, only dealing with hard facts.


Zizek thinks that? Did he mean pre-invasion of Poland Germany? If not then Zizek is bonkers for thinking that.

Look up his quotes about that.

[RadioRaheem84]

Chomsky almost ALWAYS quotes accepted facts and never talks about anything idealistic, he is as materialistic as you get, only dealing with hard facts.



Why would he accept the idea that our society is "corporate mercanilist" then?

Did he mean that judging by the neo-classical ideal, that our society resembles that more or does he really believe we're not a capitalist society?

What is materialist about that if he believes the latter?

[kapitalyst]

While you are technically correct, the rise in wealth is not dependent on stocktrading.

If a stock is traded 100 times on it's way from worth C to C' it would certainly increase GDP a lot, but it wouldn't increase real-wealth any.

Stocktrading only function now is as a capital allocation system and I think a decent case can be made for speculators to worsen it's function as a capital allocation system.

What? Forgive me, but I cannot derive any meaning from most of this... :confused:

GDP is the final net market value of goods and services produced in a country. Trading stocks doesn't directly change GDP.

The purpose of the stock market is quite simple. Businesses need cash to grow (and to get started, in the case of new enterprises). But how do they get that money? Well... you could borrow it. But borrowing sticks you with an obligation to repay, and costs a lot of money through interest. If you're unable to pay back the loan on time, you're screwed. So what is the solution? Equity... You sell units of ownership (shares, or stock) of your company to investors to raise capital. The investors are taking on a financial risk in the hope that your business succeeds and grows, from which their shares increase in value and make them money.

This worked fine by itself in the early days of the stock market. But as time progressed, technology advanced and business globalized, more participants came into the market place and business cycles began to change rapidly... and there were a lot more new businesses. Just going off the buying and selling of stock positions by investors did not provide enough market liquidity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_liquidity). Short-term imbalances of buy/sell-side pressure by investors would cause drastic price volatility. And the bid/ask spread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bid%E2%80%93offer_spread) for stocks and commodities was much too wide. What was needed was people who were willing to buy and sell stocks and other assets, round the clock, to pursue lots of small, short-term gains. This would provide market liquidity, and the competition between traders would narrow spreads. And it totally succeeded at that.

This also wasn't enough, however. Sometimes there were short periods of time when not enough shares were being sold, which would drive stock prices irrationally high before they came crashing down. Enter the short seller. Short selling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_%28finance%29) is when a trader borrows stock from a broker, which he is required to return at some time in the future, and selling it at the current market price. The proceeds of the sale are debited to the short seller. He/she hopes the price of the stock will decline, creating an opportunity to repurchase the shares at a lower price and return them to the lender -- the short seller then keeps the difference (of course, if prices rise this causes a loss for the trader). Short sellers ensure there is almost always a ready supply of shares to be sold to new investors entering the market and other traders. Short sellers also provide informational input to the market by selling the stock of companies they believe will perform poorly (beliefs they've formed through news and data interpretation), thus pushing the market towards a rational prices.

That's not even all there is to it (e.g., I didn't mention options). But that is why trading exists. Traders keep the money and assets flowing for investors, businesses and the financial system at large. Without traders and speculators, modern financial markets could not exist.

[Geiseric]

All of this is pointless, why are there people gambling for ownership of our economy in the first place?

[Rafiq]

(I'm a fan of Zizek btw, and its strange that you are considering he considers Stalin's USSR to be even more horrible than Hitlers Germany.)


Maybe you should pay more attention to my posts, then considering I agree with him and am NOT A STALINIST.

I will explain why later as I am busy

[Rafiq]

Nazi Germany was not as bad as the USSR, speaking as if you are someone who is "Wanted" by the government or is going to be jailed. And by this I mean in the 'philosophical' sense (USSR's prisons had better conditions).

In Nazi Germany the state did not try to justify what it was doing that much. When you were wanted, you knew the routine, no justification. "Communist? Your coming with me". "Jewish? Your coming with me".

The people who were Jailed knew they were dealing with a Monster and the Monster didn't try to justify it or lie about it that often, either. It was bad people who promised bad things and got in power and implemented them.

The difference in the USSR was that being jailed, you went through extensive Black Mail, heavy propaganda against you, and, not only did you have to go to a gulag, you had to agree with why you went and accept it. In the USSR it was people who promised good things but became horrible in the end.

That is what Slavoj Zizek meant when he said Nazi Germany was better than the USSR in terms of those things.

[Rafiq]

Chomsky almost ALWAYS quotes accepted facts and never talks about anything idealistic, he is as materialistic as you get, only dealing with hard facts.


Perhaps you should look up what "Idealist" means. Materialism is not "Hard facts". It's much more complicated than that. Read up some Materialism vs. Idealism.

[Thirsty Crow]

Perhaps you should look up what "Idealist" means. Materialism is not "Hard facts". It's much more complicated than that. Read up some Materialism vs. Idealism.
Why don't you help out a comrade who's having problems with idealism then? What should RGacky read, according to you, if s/he wished to clarify the difference between the two, and to understand how does Chomsky fall into the trap of idealism? What'd you recommend?

[Rafiq]

Why don't you help out a comrade who's having problems with idealism then? What should RGacky read, according to you, if s/he wished to clarify the difference between the two, and to understand how does Chomsky fall into the trap of idealism? What'd you recommend?

A simple Google search should do the job, in my opinion. I'm not trying to tell him "Go read materialism idiot" offensively, when I told him he should read up on some Materialism I actually meant it.

But, to start, maybe these could help http://www.marxist.com/History-old/historicalMaterialism.htm

http://struggle.net/mhf/alienation.htm

http://www.marxist.com/historical-materialism-study-guide.htm

These help a lot http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/hist-mat/index.htm

[RGacky3]

I know what historical materialism is, but what do you mean when you say idealist, it means many different things to different people in different settings, so what does that mean and how is CHomsky that?

[RadioRaheem84]

Why the hell would Chomsky encourage the usage of the term "corporate mercantalism" if he did not agree with the ideal of capitalism in the neo-classical definition?

[Thirsty Crow]

Why the hell would Chomsky encourage the usage of the term "corporate mercantalism" if he did not agree with the ideal of capitalism in the neo-classical definition?
Because intellectuals sometimes exhibit the tendency towards being excessively "creative" when it comes to concepts and specific terms? Or maybe because he simply holds a flawed notion of what constitutes "capitalism", so he might have mistakenly assumed that the formation of big multinationals trumps the defining feature of free enterprise (severely limited market entry etc.) when it comes to deciding what capitalism is?
I don't know, but he sure as hell did not seem as if he were supportive of a free market capitalism devoid of big multinationals (a petite bourgeois utopia if I've ever seen one). Or maybe he did? Though, I haven't seen any example of such an advocacy, so could anyone point it out to me?

[RadioRaheem84]

Because intellectuals sometimes exhibit the tendency towards being excessively "creative" when it comes to concepts and specific terms? Or maybe because he simply holds a flawed notion of what constitutes "capitalism", so he might have mistakenly assumed that the formation of big multinationals trumps the defining feature of free enterprise (severely limited market entry etc.) when it comes to deciding what capitalism is?
I don't know, but he sure as hell did not seem as if he were supportive of a free market capitalism devoid of big multinationals (a petite bourgeois utopia if I've ever seen one). Or maybe he did? Though, I haven't seen any example of such an advocacy, so could anyone point it out to me?


Then why does he praise certain classical liberal thinkers as being pioneers of libertarian socialist thought? He even considers himself as following the tradition of that classical liberal thought.

I am not trying to disparage Chomsky's work which I find highly valuable to leftists everywhere of any strain. I just think that he muddles his radical beliefs to fit a mainstream audience way too much.

[RGacky3]

I just think that he muddles his radical beliefs to fit a mainstream audience way too much.

He does that, and it does'nt bother me, he's speaking in mainstream language to reach the mainstream public.

[RadioRaheem84]

He does that, and it does'nt bother me, he's speaking in mainstream language to reach the mainstream public.

Sounds more like he speaking to mainstream academics to stay relevant.

If he did otherwise he would be tossed aside like other radicals.

Maybe he is trying to strike a nerve with the youth who are indoctrinated with the myths of the founding fathers and the Enlightenment, showing them that the origins of that era were actually more in tune with libertarian socialism. IDK, but it makes him look rather opportunist in my opinion.

[kapitalyst]

All of this is pointless, why are there people gambling for ownership of our economy in the first place?

1) It's not pointless 2) it's not gambling...

If you want to lose every penny you've got, then try to approach trading and investing like a virtual casino. Yes, there is uncertainty and risk involved -- and so there is in starting a new business, driving a car, etc. I just sincerely hope no one confuses this with gambling, as you might end up like a guy I know who lost $180,000 (out of roughly $200,000) in three days from "playing casino" with a 3x leveraged VIX ETF...

Owning stock doesn't make you own the economy. And if that were the goal (or even a possibility), everyone would be frantically trying to buy every company in existence and the system just wouldn't work.

[Jose Gracchus]

I am pretty certain that Chomsky is aware that modern corporate capitalism in the West is still the same ol' capitalist substance as there was since the beginning of the 19th century. I think he thinks that analysis and education can side-step terminology in pursuit of basic truths. Since criticizing 'capitalism' is outside the pale in North America, he fudges terms like "corporate mercantilism" to contrast the principles underpinning capitalism-in-theory--that is, classical liberalism--with the reality and consequences. I think he makes major errors in pursuing such a path, and I do not think it is as effective as he wishes, and in fact may shore up conceptions of an 'ideal' or 'reformed' capitalism.

[NGNM85]

But the definition of capitalism you through out at us is purely an ideal, while the one we as Marxists and Anarchists employ is based on material reality.
You are not a plural. As far as I can see, you don’t represent anyone besides yourself, you certainly don’t represent Anarchism. Neither Historical Materialism, or Dialectical Materialism, are fundamental components of Anarchism. You also continue to insist that I am not an Anarchist, with the latest in a long series of non-sequiturs.

The classical liberal definition is not the literal definition.
Yes, it is.

Capitalism itself was coined by Proudhon…
No, it wasn’t.

and later systemically analyzed by Marx and Engels as a specific social order.
Marx’s definition of Capitalism is decidedly different, and interwoven with Marxist theories.

Leftists coined the term not classical liberals themselves.
Again; this is incorrect.

You also continue to misunderstand the concept of ‘Right’ and ‘Left.’

Chomsky himself admits that our system is far from the "ideal" proposed by neo-classical economists.
No, he says that the present economic system is dramatically different from Capitalism as enumerated by Classical economists, like Adam Smith, etc.

As I have pointed out before, the term was coined by an Anarchist Proudhon who if you cared to read his work does not share the same ideals about it as classical liberals.
I’ve read What is Property?, however; again, Proudhon did not coin this term.

Secondly, when considered a system or social order, the first people to coin the term capitalism in this way were Marx and Engels.
Yes, this is a decidedly different, and explicitly Marxist definition.

How can you consider yourself a leftist..
How can you consider yourself a Leftist without being able to define it?

…and adopt the literal definition of classical liberal economists when they share the complete polar opposite of what constitutes capitalism from us?
There is no ‘us.’

Then why does he praise certain classical liberal thinkers as being pioneers of libertarian socialist thought?
Because this Libertarian strand exists. Because Libertarian Socialism sprang out of the Enlightenment. For a more detailed examination, see Rudolf Rocker’s Ideology of Anarchism;
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/rocker-rudolf/misc/anarchism-anarcho-syndicalism.htm#s1

He even considers himself as following the tradition of that classical liberal thought.
Yes. He was deeply influenced by works such as von Humboldt's Limits of State Action.

I am not trying to disparage Chomsky's work which I find highly valuable to leftists everywhere of any strain. I just think that he muddles his radical beliefs to fit a mainstream audience way too much.
This couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve read many of his books and articles, I’ve seen voluminous footage of him giving speeches, interviews, and unscripted events, and I have never seen any evidence of him tailoring his presentation to suit any demographic. The way he talks on DemocracyNow! or Firing Line is the way he talks to his gas attendant.

He says things like this for three reasons; First; because it’s true. Second; to expose the degree of Orwellian doublespeak that poisons our politicaldiscourse. (See; ‘Defense Department’, ‘National Interest’, ‘Creating Democracy in Iraq’, etc., etc.) Third; to highlight the often suppressed stand of Libertarian thought that runs through the Western intellectual tradition. Everybody’s heard of the ‘Invisible Hand’, but nobody knows about how Adam Smith decried the degrading and dehumanizing effects of the division of labor. Everybody celebrates Martin Luther King day, but his comments about Vietnam or capitalism (Or, rather, ‘capitalism.’) always seem to get left out. Or Madison’s comments about how private concentration of wealth threatened democracy, or Lincoln’s comments about Wage-Slavery. Etc., etc.

[Revolution starts with U]

Interestingly enough the word capital derives from the same root word as cattle and chattel. That really doesn't surprise me at all :lol:

Regardless, whoever coined the term, Proudhoun or Sombart, they are closer to Marx than Mises. That is for sure.