New Here, Obviously

[Matt-DestroyerOfWorlds]

Hello, I'm Matt, apparently.

I'm not sure I'm any kind of radical leftist at all. I might just be a democrat with libertarian leanings. I don't think I would ever be a Marxist (consider the track record so far...holy crap) because labeling myself after one guy seems just ridiculous. I'm an atheist. Either that, or God is a real bastard.

I know that I'm against authoritarianism, totalitarianism, etc., but I'm not sure that capitalism really counts as that sort of thing. If I want to sell a product, I will, and I don't care how immoral it is. Sorry to disappoint you, exploit you, etc. That's something like my policy. I do see the benefits of things like universal healthcare and welfare (that's why I'm hesitant to conform to some idealogy). I believe in free education, as well. I do not think workers have a right, to say, throw a revolution because they feel miserable. I think they have the right to learn a new skill and get a better job to provide for their family more (although a living wage would be good, so they can have what they NEED). I just don't think socialism could work unless everyone in the socialist...country, agreed with socialism and was a workaholic. As in, what most people are NOT.

The other thing that frightens me about socialism, communism, etc., is that (at least in America) quite a few workers are very, very capitalist (Blue collar workers are mostly conservative, I believe...someone should look that up). And then you get students and professors saying: "Here is what is best for the workers." And then the students and professors split up into about 2000 different factions (Maoism, Leninism, etc.) and have fights with each other, and end up accomplishing nothing. Traditional academic stuff (as far as the humanities and some social sciences go).

What attracts me to this leftist stuff is Noam Chomsky's writings and opinions. He's very well-informed.

Now, I have a cousin at MIT (no she isn't rich, but she's probably going to be) and that is where Prof. Chomsky works. She had him autograph The Chomsky Reader for me. That was truly awful of her, and here's why: No self-respecting leftist will BUY an autographed book, so the value is practically nil. This God person must hate me.

Anyway, I'm here. Sorry the introduction was so long, but I anticipate flamers and stupid posts about how horrible I am, and felt I needed to justify me standings on the issues. If you've got some scientific (let me clarify: tested, observed, analyzed) evidence that this socialism stuff works, let me know if you wish, because I'd be interested.

Thanks,
Matt

[Gryphon]

Welcome to RevLeft, but be warned stuff like: "If I want to sell a product, I will, and I don't care how immoral it is" can get you restricted or banned in this forum.

[Matt-DestroyerOfWorlds]

Er...let me rephrase. I think I have the right to sell things I make, and no one has the right to make me share. It's a freedom/liberty...not a practical business thing.

[Whitten]

Maybe you should look in mutualism? or possible market socialism?

[Guest1]

Well, normally you'd get restricted, but if you're here to learn, I'd support letting you read up first. Some exceptions are made, sometimes, we'll see what happens. Anyways, welcome.

Some of the things you say are based on a misunderstanding of revolutionary Marxism and revolutionary Anarchism.

[Matt-DestroyerOfWorlds]

Thanks. I am here to learn, definitely.

[Enragé]

hmm lets see...



I don't think I would ever be a Marxist (consider the track record so far...holy crap)

well first of all, the USSR, China etc werent/arent marxist.
They're more like state capitalist.

Sure they used marxist terminology and waved a red flag, but you dont believe bush when he says he's fighting for freedom either, or do ya?


because labeling myself after one guy seems just ridiculous

"All that I know, is that I'm not a marxist"

- Marx


I know that I'm against authoritarianism, totalitarianism

join the club

and dont let the stalinists scare you, nobody takes them serious anyway


I think I have the right to sell things I make, and no one has the right to make me share.

lets examine this statement

Say..you make something completely on your own, that is, you dont get help from anyone with the actual production process. Now consider how rare that actually is, but ok, hypothetically, we'll stick to this.

Now you need material to make it, dont you? Are you going to mine, then process the ore yourself and are you going to cut down a tree for the wood etc?
If not, well then that person cutting down the tree, and the one mining the ore and the one processing it into iron or whatever is part of the production process, and thus are entitled, just as you are, to the end-product, are they not?

Also, you need to be alive to make it. To be alive you need food, clean water, a house if possible.
Well this brings the farmer, the dude at the water cleaning installation or whatever, and the house-builder into the production process. So they too are entitled to the share of what you make.

So, unless you're a total recluse, completely self reliant, what you make is actually the end-product of the effort of most, if not of all, of society.
And in the words of anarchist communist kropotkin;
All things for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men worked to produce them in the measure of their strength, and since it is not possible to evaluate everyone's part in the production of the world's wealth... All is for all!

(another one by the guy i really like, on a sidenote, is "The two great movements of our century --towards Liberty of the individual and social co-operation of the whole community--are summed up in Anarchist-Communism.")

anyway..


I do not think workers have a right, to say, throw a revolution because they feel miserable

The workers produce everything in society, they produce ALL the wealth, yet they only recieve a tiny amount of it. That might make us a tiny bit miserable...now tell me, why wouldnt we have the right to "throw a revolution"?


was a workaholic.

Nonsense :)

Communism is based on everyone working to progress the entirety of society, thus for themselves (since all have an equal share in relation to their need of that society's wealth)

People would actually have to work less since there would be no parasitical class (the bourgeois, the rich) taking away all the wealth for themselves. Also, capitalism often leads to the destruction of goods to keep prices at a desirable level...there would be no need for this.

People in communism would only have to work like 4 hours. The rest of the time they could do what they want basicly, which would give a great boost to creativity, to science, to the arts in general.


quite a few workers are very, very capitalist

People are what they are because of their environment.
Example;
Raise a boy in a warzone
Raise another boy in beverly hills

who's most likely to become violent?

People are imprinted with what they see around them, with what is represented as truth by those around them.
Those workers are capitalist because they dont understand communism, because they in fact dont understand capitalism.

The US has a tradition of anti-communism, and probably just saying the word communism over there to most people would lead to the triggering of images of massacres and oppression in their minds.
Thats called brainwashing ;)


And then you get students and professors saying: "Here is what is best for the workers."

"The liberation of the working class can only be achieved by the working class itself"

- preface to the statute of the 1st international (worldwide communist organisation from the early days)

In fact, every serious revolutionary leftist group adopts this position.


And then the students and professors split up into about 2000 different factions (Maoism, Leninism, etc.) and have fights with each other, and end up accomplishing nothing

:lol:

aye, its annoying.

But in the end, most of us stand united when it comes to class struggle in practice.

[Matt-DestroyerOfWorlds]

QUOTE
I do not think workers have a right, to say, throw a revolution because they feel miserable


The workers produce everything in society, they produce ALL the wealth, yet they only recieve a tiny amount of it. That might make us a tiny bit miserable...now tell me, why wouldnt we have the right to "throw a revolution"?

--- My sentence didn't exactly come out right: I do not think workers should be opressed. But I don't think most American workers are, and I think sufficient social justice takes place in most liberal democracies, without a revolution.

Workers certainly do not do all the work, if we're focusing on the blue collar ones. Business is a learned skill, so those that do it are most definetely working. The same goes for engineering, computer programming, scientific research, etc. Mostly middle class stuff, and it all does very well under capitalism.

That sort of leads to my next point: I don't want Bob the Builder having an equal say in the design of a house. His safety should be guaranteed, but the architect ought to be making the design decisions. If Mr. the Builder want to pick up a B.A. (or is it S?) in Architecture, then perhaps I would trust him to build a house.

And about the product thing: I would be PAYING for all of the materials, at an agreed upon price, so everyone involved in the deal would benefit (including the physical laborers, in the end. at least the ones who do good work, instead of go out in the field and read "The Revolutionary Marxist Magazine" for 4 hours and then head home to paint a portrait).

[Zero]

Originally posted by "Matt"+--> ("Matt")My sentence didn't exactly come out right: I do not think workers should be opressed.[/b]
Thats what we're here for ;).


Originally posted by "Matt"+--> ("Matt")But I don't think most American workers are, and I think sufficient social justice takes place in most liberal democracies, without a revolution.[/b]
Well its quite obvious that legal workers in America are pretty well off. I mean, our minimum wage is considered the 'higher' brackets in 3rd world countries. However this is mainly the biproduct of our Military Industrial Complex (along with other variables) consistantly starting wars, and shipping products and raw meterials back home for cheap. Another big one being the World Bank, and IMF. These institutions have been forcing countries into extreme poverty, and left wide open for American companies to create sweat shops in to explot the (near)free labor. Just go to the library and look for any documentary on Indonesia for an example.

("Matt")Workers certainly do not do all the work, if we're focusing on the blue collar ones.[/b][/quote]
How is this so? Those who do all the work are --generally-- doing all the work.

("Matt")Business is a learned skill,[/b][/quote]
Not that I've seen. I've sat through many upper level business classes, and taken a few courses when I've been required to. I see nothing in these lectures but common sense explained from a million different view points, all centered on the profit motive.

("Matt")so those that do it are most definetely working.[/b][/quote]
So signing papers, and meeting people for coffee is the same degree of labor as the person who actually physically makes the product? :huh:

("Matt")The same goes for engineering,[/b][/quote]
Engineering is not in any way comparable to Business.

Engineering is the science of turning concepts into reality, Business is the pseudo-science of structuring a hierarchy of contacts to bring labor in contact with distributers. Meanwhile they make a "healty profit" while those who do the physical labor (you know... the actual work) earn enough to get by.

("Matt")computer programming,[/b][/quote]
Being one myself, I can tell you that business majors are 90% clueless to how we work, yet them, and their types will demand outragious sums of money for the fruits of the programming team's toil! For instance, look at the Open Source scene. None of those people are getting paid for that, and if they are they aren't getting paid much I can tell you that. But they are turning out just as good if not better meterial then that of those who slave away in cubicles for hours a day typing code into a computer.

If anything, the computer world has been held back by these people. Along with the know-all politicans who decide they know what is best in a world they've never stepped foot in. Thanks to Microsoft, thanks to Sony, thanks to DRM... all this bullshit about Intellectual property rights, and "Digital Rights for Consumers!" that ends up being another advertisement dildo. All of that has been holding back the development of computers as a whole. If you don't believe me, I suggest you read a book called Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.

("Matt")scientific research, etc. Mostly middle class stuff, and it all does very well under capitalism.[/b][/quote]
I wouldn't say it does 'very well'. Did you know that there has been herbal remedies for Cancer? Did you know that there is a herbal prevention method for a great deal of them? Did you know that meditation has shown to reduce and remove ADHD problems?

Do you think this will be public knowlege when drug companies are making obscene profits off of concerned parents force feeding their children drugs? Hardly.


"Matt"@
That sort of leads to my next point: I don't want Bob the Builder having an equal say in the design of a house. His safety should be guaranteed, but the architect ought to be making the design decisions. If Mr. the Builder want to pick up a B.A. (or is it S?) in Architecture, then perhaps I would trust him to build a house.

Being that he is doing the physical work, I don't see why not. But remember when you talk about jobs being done in a Communist society rather than a Capitalist society is that education is greatly improved, and among the top (if not the top) prioritys of society. If people know what they are doing, I don't see why you should stop them from communally deciding what should be built where.


"Matt"
And about the product thing: I would be PAYING for all of the materials, at an agreed upon price, so everyone involved in the deal would benefit (including the physical laborers, in the end. at least the ones who do good work, instead of go out in the field and read "The Revolutionary Marxist Magazine" for 4 hours and then head home to paint a portrait).
The three main points of a Communist society is Classless, Stateless, Moneyless. With money comes classes, and with classes inevitably comes state. You wouldn't be PAYING for all these meterials, you would be exchanging your services for their raw meterials. In return for them exerting their labor into making raw meterials, you are exerting your labor onto these raw meterials to create a final product to submit to society, so that you will be given access to the fruits of others labor onto other final products.

This may seem a bit strange at first, but remember that this is only a future society. We wouldn't probably live to see such a stage, and for the better, since our generation has been tainted by greed. I urge you to look up the various forms of Socialism.

[Whitten]

Just imagine how productive society could be if we didnt give most of the fruits of our labour to a few CEOs and "businessmen".

A few links:

Market Socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism)
]Mutualism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29)

These may be compatable with your ideas. Wiki probably isnt the best source but if your interested in one then search arround.

Also I'd recomend reading Marx, to get it straight from him. You really cant understand marxism with dialectic materialism. Even if you dont think yu'll agree with it, doesnt hurt to understand what the other sides are talking about.

http://www.marxists.org

[Enragé]

I do not think workers should be opressed. But I don't think most American workers are, and I think sufficient social justice takes place in most liberal democracies, without a revolution.

Firstly
what is exploitation?
Exploitation is that the wealth you actually produce for the most part does not go to your benefit, but the benefit of some boss.

In fact, you're actually being robbed of what you produce by the bourgeois.
This most definitely is the case in the US, as is it..well...pretty much everywhere.

Ofcourse the degree of exploitation may vary, but that has to do with the actual threat of class struggle in any given country coupled with superprofits from enormous companies operating in 3rd world countries.

Basicly it goes like this;
Back "home" (a western country) the workers tend to be more organised, in unions and the like (the US is actually a bit of an exception since the unions arent so powerful), the more of an impact the unions can make, the higher the wages are.
However, this is not sufficient on its own. The capitalists still want to make a profit.
So what do they do? They go abroad where you can pay a worker 3 cents for the labourtime that would equal a 60 dollar pair of shoes, so he makes a profit of 59,97. Now, the employees in the richer countries who are a bit more rebellious are pacified with a higher wage, say 15 dollars for labourtime which is the equivalent of say...30 dollars (or, depending on how well the workers are organised and how big the threat of a strike, unrest, or perhaps even a revolution is, 20-30, 25-30) But in the end he still makes a shitload of profit so everythings fine by him.

So yes, american workers are well off compared to other workers around the world, but they are well off because the other workers are not, they are well off because they have organised themselves...but even then, they are still exploited (just in a lesser degree).

They are, the labor aristocracy
"In Marxist theory, those workers (proletarians) in developed countries who benefit from the superprofits extracted from the impoverished workers of underdeveloped countries form an "aristocracy of labor." The phrase was popularised by Karl Kautsky in 1901 and theorised by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin's theory contends that companies in the developed world exploit workers in the developing world (where wages are much lower), resulting in increased profits. Because of these increased profits, the companies are able to pay higher wages to their employees "at home" (that is, in the developed world), thus creating a working class satisfied with their standard of living and not inclined to proletarian revolution. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_aristocracy


Workers certainly do not do all the work, if we're focusing on the blue collar ones. Business is a learned skill, so those that do it are most definetely working. The same goes for engineering, computer programming, scientific research, etc. Mostly middle class stuff, and it all does very well under capitalism

workers are those who are forced to sell their labourtime to be able to survive. They aren't just factory workers, but bus drivers, office clerks etc etc etc.

Business is not a learned skill. To do business succesfully is to be most proficient at exploiting workers and selling crap back to them without getting them so angry they lynch you.

As for engineers, scientific research etc, are petty bourgeois, always in a state of flux between either becoming working class or owning class (bourgeois).

And it doesnt do very well under capitalism because companies decide what is researched and what is not. So only the interests of the rich are met, only when something is profitable is it researched.

As for engineering, well as an engineer i might design a bridge but who's going to build it?
Also, in communism those would-be engineers wouldnt just dissappear, they'd be people who put ideas forward in councils "how about doing..."


I don't want Bob the Builder having an equal say in the design of a house. His safety should be guaranteed, but the architect ought to be making the design decisions. If Mr. the Builder want to pick up a B.A. (or is it S?) in Architecture, then perhaps I would trust him to build a house.

Look people can listen to eachother now cant they?
Imagine this
The council of an area in which a new house is to be built convenes, to talk about how to go about building a house
First to speak is some guy who is really smart and is good at designing houses, and whose designs have proven to be good in the past
"Well i think we should do..." etc

Then Bob the Builder, a strong man, good at carrying bricks and the like starts talking
"Well i think we should just put all the stones on top of eachother and thats that. Easy does it"

then the council votes

which plan do you think would get the most votes? :lol:


I would be PAYING for all of the materials, at an agreed upon price, so everyone involved in the deal would benefit

Err yea. In capitalism yes. There's alot of things wrong with capitalism, for instance that the agreed upon price goes to the boss, not the workers, that the agreed upon price might be countless times higher as what it actually cost to make it etc etc etc.

But not in communism, we were talking about communism remember. You wanted justification why everything belonged to everyone. I gave it :)




Market Socialism

market socialism sucks :P

[Whitten]

market socialism sucks tongue.gif

agreed, but its better than leaving him to the capitalists

[Black Dagger]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2006, 01:50 AM

market socialism sucks tongue.gif

agreed, but its better than leaving him to the capitalists
Not really, market socialism is a form of capitalism.

[Enragé]

indeed it is

[R_P_A_S]

i understand why this guy was restricted. good job guys. by the way welcome to revleft. lots of the crap you wrote made me dislike you. BUT then again you aren't very well informed. its all good!

[RevolutionaryMarxist]

This 'welcome' thread quickly turned into a debate...but hello to you too lol