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Re: venuzuala...

Postby funkykeyboard » 21 May 2018, 16:44

it's an absolute fact that Karl Marx was ALWAYS against the state, and called for "workers to have democratic control of the means of production"a completely different thing. And how the "democracy" would formulate was never predetermined. What would be nothing like we have under capitalism in the UK or the US.
Look at the history of China. Always had a very strong state control over the country. Until capitalism, it consistently led the worldin technology. Statism, is not socialism.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby funkykeyboard » 21 May 2018, 16:47

it's an absolute fact that Karl Marx was ALWAYS against the state, and called for "workers to have democratic control of the means of production".
Look at the history of China. Always had a very strong state control over the country. Until capitalism, it consistently led the worldin technology. Statism, is not socialism.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 21 May 2018, 17:11

Its not capitalism though. There was no free trade, no or little ownership of property or business by individuals. And yes it was still socialist.

Capitalism is the thing that stopped them dying with minor infection or rotten teeth or starvation. Capitalism gave them freedom. Choice. And it made the country wealthy on the back of it, allowing people to have a decent standard of living with such things as enough food, power, heat, transport, medical care, education, the ability to afford a safety net for those that couldnt work, Its the thing that made people free. And fed them. And made them live longer, healthier lives.

Look at the history of China. Always had a very strong state control over the country. Until capitalism, it consistently led the worldin technology. Statism, is not socialism.


It had ABSOLUTE control over everything and everyone. Almost zero indiviudual freedoms. And predictably desperately poor. It was a communist dictatorship, and a socialist economy. The only thing it led the world in was totalitarian control, exreme poverty, death, lack of freedom, and mortality.

Sorry. When I grew up china had nothing. Literally eating dead roadkill and dead babies for protein. And no power, no medical care, no clean water, certainly no transport for the masses. As far as technology goes, if they had any, it wasnt obvious! And certainly didnt help them under their system. Or lead the world!
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 21 May 2018, 21:46

Inflation has started to be a little bit of a problem in venuzuala today.

It just reached FORTEEN THOUSAND percent! If you get paid, by the time you get to a shop, its valueless... And theres no food or medication on the shelves anyway.

The new president who got the most votes (!), said today, that they are sticking with socialism. Corbyn in the UK has now added it to the endless list of socialist countries that must have done it "wrong" again...

People trying to escape the country in every direction.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby funkykeyboard » 25 Jun 2018, 14:00

Burgerman wrote:Its not capitalism though. There was no free trade, no or little ownership of property or business by individuals. And yes it was still socialist.

Capitalism is the thing that stopped them dying with minor infection or rotten teeth or starvation. Capitalism gave them freedom. Choice. And it made the country wealthy on the back of it, allowing people to have a decent standard of living with such things as enough food, power, heat, transport, medical care, education, the ability to afford a safety net for those that couldnt work, Its the thing that made people free. And fed them. And made them live longer, healthier lives.

Look at the history of China. Always had a very strong state control over the country. Until capitalism, it consistently led the worldin technology. Statism, is not socialism.


It had ABSOLUTE control over everything and everyone. Almost zero indiviudual freedoms. And predictably desperately poor. It was a communist dictatorship, and a socialist economy. The only thing it led the world in was totalitarian control, exreme poverty, death, lack of freedom, and mortality.

Sorry. When I grew up china had nothing. Literally eating dead roadkill and dead babies for protein. And no power, no medical care, no clean water, certainly no transport for the masses. As far as technology goes, if they had any, it wasnt obvious! And certainly didnt help them under their system. Or lead the world!

1st of all, I've thought a lot about what you said "capitalism has never existed". I think you said something like that. I think you was eluding to the fact the classical economists made about "perfectly competitive economy". And on that point (if I've not misinterpreted you) I think we agree.

I've also moved somewhat to thinking capitalism as 'you' describe it, especially if it was a "perfectly competitive economy", would be much better for society than what we have at present.

There has never been proper capitalist society in its pure form, there has always been monopoly and monopsomy issues in capitalism. Which has got even worse today with the massive concentration of capital that took place over the last 40 years.

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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 25 Jun 2018, 14:13

Individuals are irrelivant in the scheme of things. In any system, there are wild aberations. It doesent matter. But I dont do facetube or any social media garbage. I followed the link to a confused page and have no idea what or who you mean?

There has never been proper capitalist society in its pure form, there has always been monopoly and monopsomy issues in capitalism. Which has got even worse today with the massive concentration of capital that took place over the last 40 years.


There has never been pure capitalism. Because capitalism only adresses one thing. Free trade, free employment, free property ownership and all with no government interference other than to protect these rights any you and your property. It doesent adress anything else. All the taxing, and supporting society is socialism, ie wealth transfer. And some of that is also required.The problem is that governments grow bigger and bigger and involve themselves in ever more socialist stuff... As for monopolies then that can be a problem. But if a monopoly was making significant money out of you, then so could any competition in a properly capitalist system. So it would not remain a monopoly for long.

E.G. Musk is now launching rockets for the us government at ONE THIRD the cost of all 6 or 8 other launch companies. If this continues then he will soon be a monopoly. As nobody else will be able to compete. They could, but they dont think well enough, or far enough ahead. And then he can charge what he likes. But if he gets greedy, it leaves room for a competitor to appear. Since theres then enough $$$ in it... Capitalism, if no government interferes, is a self balancing system that makes better products, cheaper for all, and drags the living standards higher. Socialism, does the opposite.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby funkykeyboard » 25 Jun 2018, 14:22

Burgerman wrote:Its not capitalism though. There was no free trade, no or little ownership of property or business by individuals. And yes it was still socialist.

Capitalism is the thing that stopped them dying with minor infection or rotten teeth or starvation. Capitalism gave them freedom. Choice. And it made the country wealthy on the back of it, allowing people to have a decent standard of living with such things as enough food, power, heat, transport, medical care, education, the ability to afford a safety net for those that couldnt work, Its the thing that made people free. And fed them. And made them live longer, healthier lives.

Look at the history of China. Always had a very strong state control over the country. Until capitalism, it consistently led the worldin technology. Statism, is not socialism.


It had ABSOLUTE control over everything and everyone. Almost zero indiviudual freedoms. And predictably desperately poor. It was a communist dictatorship, and a socialist economy. The only thing it led the world in was totalitarian control, exreme poverty, death, lack of freedom, and mortality.

Sorry. When I grew up china had nothing. Literally eating dead roadkill and dead babies for protein. And no power, no medical care, no clean water, certainly no transport for the masses. As far as technology goes, if they had any, it wasnt obvious! And certainly didnt help them under their system. Or lead the world!

secondly mate, I wasn't talking about the China of communism. I was talking about ancient China. The China of the great wall, the inventor of so much technology that slowly spread to the west.

the point I'm making is, things are not so black and white. The state, has been the shoulders upon which capitalism has stood. Without the state Chinese, Roman, Egyptian, feudal, et cetera et cetera capitalism could never have been built.

Without doubt, CAPITALISM IS the greatest SYSTEM ever produced by human beings. Karl Marx fully acknowledged that capitalism is the greatest social system ever. However, even within capitalism. Russia and Germany initiated "state capitalism". This is where to some degree in the case of Germany and later Britain, America, Japan, throughout the world after the Second World War, the private sector still played the productive role, but capital investment was massively directed by the state. The growth in "state capitalism" where the state directed and massively effected investment by redistribution of wealth from the capitalists into job creation, Keynesianism, correlates directly with the greatest sustained boom in capitalist history, the war and post-war boom.this is undeniable. Also the reversal of Keynesianism since 1979 seen a massive fall in the rate of growth of the global economy, and a more pronounced boom and slump cycle.

Marx did not define capitalism the same way you do "free trade". So you and him talking about different things.

Marx originally studied under Hegel. Hegel's objective was to understand the evolution of social society from hunter gatherer to the capitalism he lived in, which she saw as the pinnacle and end achievement of human society. Marx having studied Hegel, turned his ideas on dialectics on their head into dialectical materialism. Marx saw social evolution in terms of defining sets of social relations. The relationships of various groups to each other in one societyi.e. feudalism, distinguished that society from the social relationships various groups participated in in another former societyi.e. capitalism.there was free trade in feudalism. There is free trade in capitalism. FOR Marx free trade was not the issue, it was people's relationships to the means of production that distinguish the 2.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 25 Jun 2018, 14:30

Sounds like you swallowed a load of edu establishment socialist books.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 25 Jun 2018, 14:35

capitalism
ˈkapɪt(ə)lɪz(ə)m/
noun
noun: capitalism

an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
"an era of free-market capitalism"
synonyms: private enterprise, free enterprise, private ownership, privatized industries, the free market, individualism; laissez-faire


Where to find this?
Rich countries mostly... Where the poor, disabled, long term out of work have wide screen TVs, houses, cars, food, heat, medical care , iphones... And where the majority of modern scientific advances and discoveries were/are made.

socialism
ˈsəʊʃəlɪz(ə)m/
noun
noun: socialism

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
synonyms: leftism, Fabianism, syndicalism, consumer socialism, utopian socialism, welfarism; More
communism, Bolshevism;
radicalism, militancy;
progressivism, social democracy;
labourism;
Marxism, Leninism, Marxism–Leninism, neo-Marxism, Trotskyism, Maoism
antonyms: conservatism
policy or practice based on the political and economic theory of socialism.
synonyms: leftism, Fabianism, syndicalism, consumer socialism, utopian socialism, welfarism; More
communism, Bolshevism;
radicalism, militancy;
progressivism, social democracy;
labourism;
Marxism, Leninism, Marxism–Leninism, neo-Marxism, Trotskyism, Maoism
antonyms: conservatism
(in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of Communism.


Where to find this?
Very few places now. Most went bankrupt or starved to death over the last 70 years. Theres a few struggling on in diluted form, with some small business under the counter capitalism so they dont starve like cuba, and some that are now eating from bins, no heat in spite of having the largest oil reserves on the planet, no drugs, and suffereing tens of thousands of percent inflation like venuzuala.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 25 Jun 2018, 14:53

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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 26 Jun 2018, 15:21

Fox is well. FOX... But this is absolutely on the ball


youtu.be/DS2bvTDIq-I
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 26 Jun 2018, 21:38

Strange isnt it. How theres barely a mention of venuzuala on mainstream media.

Theres mass starvation, people eating zoo animals, and road kill. Dying in the streets, complete collapse of their economy and no fuel, food, or anything else. Yet theres endless crap about the never ending multiple suffering of muslims in a dozen countries. day after day. Why? Because MSM is full of leftists, liberals who love socialism in spite of the fact that it always ends the same way. Because the likes of berni sanders, or jeremy corbyn love socialism. They both held up venuzuala as the proof that socialism could work a few years back.

But the lefty, liberal media full of acedemics who love this ideal, that always fails, love to help the muslims as much as the poor. So on TV its all: what about the poor muslims, who have been murdering each other and anyone thats not muslim, for many centuries. Venuzuala? Best not mention that. Especially the reason.

It's socialism 101: A government that controls production and distribution, creates scarcity--followed by sham elections, arrests, dictatorship, corpses in the street. But it never starts out that way. It begins with the left-wing populists and its fan base, self-absorbed elites portraying a holy-hell as a heaven in waiting.

Take not you social democrat voters, and labour voters.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 26 Jul 2018, 00:23

So the leftist mainstream media never mentions venuzuala now its socialist marvel has begun to go south (exactly as expected and I predicted when the idiot jeremy corbyn told us how marvelous it all was and held it up as an example of socialism working), and they also never mention WHY. so I will.

They are now almost up to ONE MILLION percent inflation, and you cant buy anything anyway, as theres nothing to buy. Not food, not medicines, not fuel, or bog roll. Marvelous this socialism. Works like a charm every place its ever tried. Here its reported by a typically socialist newspaper. So they wont mention the reason. And venuzualas government does what every collapsed socialist state does. Blames everyone and everything else. Its all the wests fault... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... las-maduro
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 20 Aug 2018, 17:32

In a frankly stupid attempt to stem their now 1,000,000 percent inflation expected befor xmas, the venuzualan socialist government are lopping 5 zeros of the currency!

That wont change a thing, obviously, because the problem is that the socialist system they love has reduced production of everything to almost negligable levels. So theres nothing available to buy, regardless of the number of zeros...

And there are millions trying to flea the country to places where they can get food, fuel, medical treatment, etc and so now all the other surrounding countries are adding immigration border controls to stop them. Cold war socialist countries history, all over again.

And STILL the younger generation, and the edu establishment will not teach the history or tell the truth about socialism. Instead they sanitize and lie about the history, blame everything possible for the endless failures, and keep on pushing out endless marxist, socialist loving students that dont have a damned clue.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 22 Aug 2018, 21:23

7 million people left for other countries on foot in 18 months. 4 million in the last 3 months alone. Mostly on foot. In the last 1 month 1 million went to columbia. This is the biggest immigration movement south america has ever seen. And unless the socialist (and now dictator too) is removed from power this will only get worse. Its a massive disaster in venuzuala. Regime change must happen or millions will die over the next few years.

I feel very sorry for them. Socialism, is not the only reason they are struggling but as a country with greater and easier to access oil reserves than even the likes of the oil rich middle eastern countries they should be running around in gold plated ferraris and huge rich cities and big rich industries.

But sheer sheer the ignorance of all those that simply do not understand why socialism always ends this way, is frankly amazing. It works its stupid magic EVERY SINGLE LAST TIME!!! Why cant they easily see why it cant ever work, or if too stupid to understand that, just look at the worlds history. EVERY last time it was ever tried it failed. Every TIME!!! That experiment was run. To death, quite literally, over and over for a century all over the world in hundreds of stupid attempts. The more socialist a country is the poorer it becomes destroying lives. The idealised central control, redistribution of wealth seems like such a fair ideal.Its why its so popular with students and the elites. So the poor have more. Unfortunately the opposite happens. The rich poor gap is reduced alright! Everyone ends up with absolutely nothing. Equality, socialist dream all fixed!!! :clap
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 25 Aug 2018, 03:03

Wheres stupid corbyn now? A decade back he was praising it and saying that it showed that there was a better way, to share the wealth, to plan the economy! To tax the rich to give to the poor. Working great that...

We are all waiting for J corbyn to explain that its because they did socialism "wrong" like every time throuout history, or its all gone to shit because of some other excuse. Its always some other reason! Never socialism!

Because the starvation has started. Heres a guy WITH wheelbarrows of money, trying to get protein for his kids by buying stinking rotten beef. Why rotten? No power. They already ate the pets, the wildlife, the zoo animals... https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/24/people-f ... e-7877731/

It wont end well. And as usual all the media wont mention the reason as they are all leftist idiots. Worse, they will give pages of "factors" but wont spell it out because it upsets the SJW mentality of the latest generations, edu establishments, the media, government types, and all those that "know" that they are right. The ones that all tell each other lies, and sanitise history in colleges and universities worldwide. The only ones that DONT do this? Those that lived through it.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 30 Aug 2018, 11:57

The opposite to socialism is letting the 1 percent get richer.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars ... track.html

Dyson isnt rich enough yet, so he is employing 8000 people directly initially. To build electric cars, and many many more later on. That will be exported worldwide to make the country richer, and so the 30,000 sub contractors wages and suppliers of everything from IT systems to car manufacturing robots, and materials, can all make more money. Its called capitalism. Allowing people to KEEP the proceeds, allowing them to invest, develop, improve, all to get richer! It DRIVES everything from drug and food development and production to clean water supplies, and makes everyones standard of living higher.

According to the socialists however, you should tax all his money and use it to prop up the poorer so he has less to invest or develop projects like this, and you should tax his profits too, so he loses all interest in ever bothering. Lets just let the government decide who and how everything is manufactured, the wages, the final socialist solution. So they can keep making 50 year old moskvich or other socialist system cars that you have to wait up to 18 years to get! :lol: Ask that twit j.corbyn as this is his plan. As he puts it, a better system, not just for the few but for all... Venuzuala did it, and thats going great!
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 31 Aug 2018, 11:20

For sacharlie and other socialists.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest tax data this month. The report details who contributed how much to federal revenues in 2009. The figures raise the question: why do so many in this country seem so eager to berate the ‘one percent’ rather than thank them for their extraordinary contributions to federal coffers?

According to the report, those in the top one percent had an average pre-tax income of $1,219,700 in 2009. Of this, they paid $353,000 federal taxes. Despite having earned 13.4 percent of the nation’s income, these individuals paid 38.7 percent of federal income taxes that year. To put it more starkly, this group makes less than 16 times as much as the average household but pays more than 40 times as much in federal income taxes.

Sure, the picture looks a little different when all federal taxes are included. With payroll, corporate, and excise taxes thrown into the mix, the top one percent contribute “only” 22.3 percent of all federal taxes. But in raw dollar terms, the average one percent household pays 23 times as much in total federal taxes as the average household—a difference of $337,700. Despite this, some politicians and activists claim with a straight face that our country’s top earners don’t pay their “fair share.”

Consider a world without such individuals—a world in which we have so taxed and vilified the most prosperous Americans that they all elect to follow Denise Rich and foreswear their U.S. citizenship in search of greater economic freedom. French President François Hollande is already learning this the hard way, as many of his country’s wealthiest individuals pack up and leave as a result of his proposed tax hike on French millionaires. Indeed, the U.S. itself has seen an eightfold increase in the number of Americans abandoning their citizenship (most, apparently for tax-related reasons). Since U.S. lawmakers have yet to show any ability to curtailing their spending, Uncle Sam would be looking to the remaining 99 percent of taxpayers to make up what would be a massive gap in income tax revenues due to the sudden emigration of the top one percent.

As a matter of simple arithmetic, everyone’s federal income taxes would have to go up by at least 63 percent to compensate for this lost revenue should the top earners depart. Such a gargantuan increase in taxes would rather substantially reduce work effort among the remaining 99 percent. The best evidence suggests that the economy loses 52 cents in output (lost work effort) for every dollar increase in individual income taxes. That means Congress would need to nearly double the rates for everyone else in order to cover the revenue gap.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 01 Sep 2018, 12:24

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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 11 Oct 2018, 01:00

Here you go. A reporter and description of venuzuala from the inside..

The great socialist revolution. The heros of corbyn. Chavez and then maduro...

Very interesting film.


youtu.be/3QjufrxigE4
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 13 Oct 2018, 14:32

Heres another winner.

The socialist Zimbabwe just got over 1 hyper inflation, almost zero production starvation disaster. A decade later they got a new leader, that loves socialism and they are back to no production, and empty shelves. No power. And starvation.

Zimbabwe. Empty shelves, and approx 1 TRILLION dollars for 2 tins of baked beans and 1 carrot...

They got tons of raw materials. Tons of labour. Tons of opportunity. But no freedom or incentives to trade and own business or property. So they starve.

We are back to, do you tax the rich, get the country into debt to buy the man a fish? Or do you buy that man a fishing net?

https://solidarity-us.org/atc/51/p4616/
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Lord Chatterley » 14 Oct 2018, 15:15

When self-sacrifice is considered to be a virtue their will always be those who are willing to collect those sacrifices for themselves.

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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Lord Chatterley » 30 Nov 2019, 04:12

They say politics is downstream of culture but culture is downstream of ethics - we need to ditch the horrific Christian ethos that self-sacrifice is a noble ideal.


youtu.be/ITCfu3yS5XU

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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 17 Jan 2020, 07:37

UNKNOWN AUTHOR

It’s easy to believe in socialism in modern America. It’s easy to hear about everyone working together for the common good, the government making sure everyone plays nice, and free and affordable everything for everyone and think, “Well that sounds like a great idea.” But the only reason it is so easy to believe is because we have never lived in a fully socialist country. We don’t know what socialism actually costs. Or what it actually looks like.

There’s an interesting story about Boris Yeltsin, then head of the Soviet Union, coming for a visit to America in 1989. He visited Johnson Space Center, but that nexus of technological wizardry didn’t turn his head. What did turn his head was an informal visit to a local Randall’s grocery store:

About a year after the Russian leader left office, a Yeltsin biographer later wrote that on the plane ride to Yeltsin’s next destination, Miami, he was despondent. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plentiful food at the grocery store and what his countrymen had to subsist on in Russia.

In Yeltsin’s own autobiography, he wrote about the experience at Randall’s, which shattered his view of socialism, according to pundits. Two years later, he left the Communist Party and began making reforms to turn the economic tide in Russia. . . .

“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin wrote. “That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.”

So there you have it. Socialism works only on paper. And it works on paper only in an environment of wealth. You look around you today in the US and you think, “A small percentage of people have such fabulous wealth. If only we could spread that wealth around, then everyone would be happy.” Yet you don’t realize that wealth has already been spread around.

The tragedy of socialism is that it destroys all the wealth in a country in an attempt to create equality. It happened in the Soviet Union. And in China. North Korea. Vietnam. Many places. It’s not as if we don’t have plenty of case studies of the failures of socialism and communism. They litter the road of history like discarded bags of half-eaten takeout.

Now is the only time when socialism makes any sense. When there is still wealth enough to go around, but it’s not going around quite like you’d like. That’s when socialism makes the most sense. But give into it, and it pulls its bait and switch. The reality of socialism fully unfurled is greater injustice, totalitarianism, and abject poverty. Ask anyone who has lived through it. Ask Boris Yeltsin. All it took for him to abandon socialism was a trip to an American grocery store. What’s our excuse?
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby funkykeyboard » 06 Feb 2020, 22:04

I come in peace, no point in arguing. Just a different perspective.

In George Orwell's animal farm you had the humans in control, and then you had the pigs in control. The point is, there were someone in control, and very little difference between the 2.

Now you could argue you always need somebody in control, fair point (though some anarchists would argue with this). BUT as Tony Benn said,
"In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

Karl Marx denied being a Marxist. He mostly called himself a Democrat. His inspiration for his whole PHILOSOPHICAL analysis was, the Paris commune where directors of the means of production were elected and D selectable by the people.

Russia was never communist, possibly socialist (socialism, some argued, was a period of transformation from the capitalist society, a society where the means of production are controlled by the top 1%, be that the bureaucratic Russian top 1% in the USSR or the privately owned 1% in the West. In either case there is still 1% at the top of society who own and control, or just control as in the case of Russia, the means of production, that the people "cannot get rid of".

You may question this definition. But it is not an sociological anomaly. The same situation occurred in feudalism. Kings and lords, analogous to the private capitalists, private individuals who owned and controlled the means of production, the land, and the priesthood who owned and controlled the means of production, the land.

It is taught in schools that Russia was state capitalism, the West has private capitalism, but at the end of the day they are both capitalism, and neither is communism. Communism, is a transformation in what Marx called "the social relationships". And it was fundamentally for Mark about whether 1% control society, or society control the 1%. Or at least in the modern day, the direction in which the 1% drags us.

Whether this is possible or not is another discussion. I don't think it is, I think the right-wing have won all the arguments and the left virtually doesn't exist any longer. But, the right-wing have won the arguments fighting straw men. If you really want to attack communism you have to attack democracy. You have to attack the principle of the people who are governed having any type of control over those who govern them (and I don't mean politicians, I mean the chairman of the boards.)

Best wishes, Tremulous Tetra.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby funkykeyboard » 06 Feb 2020, 22:24

Another thing that needs to be pointed out in any truthful discussion is this;

Is state capitalism completely inferior to private capitalism? The USSR inferior to the USA?

In the period of the birth of the USSR, Russia went from a backward none capitalist monarchal society that couldn't even put laces in the boots of soldiers, to the world number 2 superpower. The 1st 1 into space. China, is a massive economic superpower.

China, Russia, became basically technocratic revolutions against monarchal societies, that were to a great degree ESPECIALLY in the nineteen twenties, thirties, forties initially more successful, achieved greater growths in GDP than any Western society, and then competed strongly at the latter stages. There were, absolutely agreed, fundamental problems with the isolationism of Russia and China. The bureaucratic state direction of capital has had problems. But we should not ignore the successes if we are going to be honest.

This is not me lording China or Russia. For me they are not communist societies. And so they are societies whose antidemocratic principles I am as opposed to as much as the Western capitalist antidemocratic principles.

China now has a greater GDP than America. Perhaps any other society in the world? Which model will win, state capitalism in China or Western capitalism in the rest of the world, is yet to be seen.

(Venezuela has seen MASSIVE attempts at destabilisation by the US. Cuba the same.)

Best wishes, Tremulous Tetra.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby funkykeyboard » 06 Feb 2020, 22:35

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Re: venuzuala...

Postby funkykeyboard » 06 Feb 2020, 22:36

This 1 is good because he discusses the philosophical and economic forefathers of the Conservatives, Adam Smith, who argued against the current neoliberalist policies. Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxp_wgFWQo
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 07 Feb 2020, 00:09

I come in peace, no point in arguing. Just a different perspective.

But a flawed one.

Now you could argue you always need somebody in control, fair point (though some anarchists would argue with this). BUT as Tony Benn said,
"In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

Correct.

Karl Marx denied being a Marxist. He mostly called himself a Democrat. His inspiration for his whole PHILOSOPHICAL analysis was, the Paris commune where directors of the means of production were elected and D selectable by the people.

Makes no sense.

Russia was never communist, possibly socialist (socialism, some argued, was a period of transformation from the capitalist society, a society where the means of production are controlled by the top 1%, be that the bureaucratic Russian top 1% in the USSR or the privately owned 1% in the West. In either case there is still 1% at the top of society who own and control, or just control as in the case of Russia, the means of production, that the people "cannot get rid of".

Wrong in so many ways. The FREE MARKET (capitalism) that doesent exist in socialist economies controls employment, wages, production, investment in products to compete resulting in ferraris rather than moskivichs, and far wider choice. It also ensures that there is food on the shelves. And anyone is FREE to do, own, build, travel, work where they wish or run their own business. In the US the top 1% do NOT control anything. The FREE MARKET does. Its a natural supply/demand or goods people and very thing that society needs or wants. Every top down controlled society always fails. Just like venuzuala. And they ALWAYS blame everything except themselves.

It is taught in schools that Russia was state capitalism,

Capitalist economics literally meand free markets and free market employment, investment, and production, and ownership. Thats the exact opposite to anything state controlled. So your definition is totally wrong!

the West has private capitalism, but at the end of the day they are both capitalism, and neither is communism. Communism, is a transformation in what Marx called "the social relationships". And it was fundamentally for Mark about whether 1% control society, or society control the 1%. Or at least in the modern day, the direction in which the 1% drags us.

Capitalism is the OPPOSITE to what you call state capitalism! Thats socialism. And it always ends very badly.

Whether this is possible or not is another discussion. I don't think it is, I think the right-wing have won all the arguments and the left virtually doesn't exist any longer. But, the right-wing have won the arguments fighting straw men.

Oh it exists. Theres 45% of the UK, much of europe, almost all of the media, and the likes of the UK labour party still keen to send us bankrups. As will your liberal democrats if you let them.

If you really want to attack communism you have to attack democracy.

Those are 2 different things. So no. You can have a communist dictator, or a conservative right wing dictator. Neither is democratic. You can have democraccy in either case.
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Re: venuzuala...

Postby Burgerman » 07 Feb 2020, 00:23

Another thing that needs to be pointed out in any truthful discussion is this;

Is state capitalism completely inferior to private capitalism? The USSR inferior to the USA?

Theres no such thing as state capitalism! If the state control the free market then its the opposite to capitalism.

TRUE STORY,
UNKNOWN AUTHOR

It’s easy to believe in socialism in modern America. It’s easy to hear about everyone working together for the common good, the government making sure everyone plays nice, and free and affordable everything for everyone and think, “Well that sounds like a great idea.” But the only reason it is so easy to believe is because we have never lived in a fully socialist country. We don’t know what socialism actually costs. Or what it actually looks like.

There’s an interesting story about Boris Yeltsin, then head of the Soviet Union, coming for a visit to America in 1989. He visited Johnson Space Center, but that nexus of technological wizardry didn’t turn his head. What did turn his head was an informal visit to a local Randall’s grocery store:

About a year after the Russian leader left office, a Yeltsin biographer later wrote that on the plane ride to Yeltsin’s next destination, Miami, he was despondent. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plentiful food at the grocery store and what his countrymen had to subsist on in Russia.

In Yeltsin’s own autobiography, he wrote about the experience at Randall’s, which shattered his view of socialism, according to pundits. Two years later, he left the Communist Party and began making reforms to turn the economic tide in Russia. . . .

“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin wrote. “That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.”

So there you have it. Socialism works only on paper. And it works on paper only in an environment of wealth. You look around you today in the US and you think, “A small percentage of people have such fabulous wealth. If only we could spread that wealth around, then everyone would be happy.” Yet you don’t realize that wealth has already been spread around.

The tragedy of socialism is that it destroys all the wealth in a country in an attempt to create equality. It happened in the Soviet Union. And in China. North Korea. Vietnam. Many places. It’s not as if we don’t have plenty of case studies of the failures of socialism and communism. They litter the road of history like discarded bags of half-eaten takeout.

Now is the only time when socialism makes any sense. When there is still wealth enough to go around, but it’s not going around quite like you’d like. That’s when socialism makes the most sense. But give into it, and it pulls its bait and switch. The reality of socialism fully unfurled is greater injustice, totalitarianism, and abject poverty. Ask anyone who has lived through it. Ask Boris Yeltsin. All it took for him to abandon socialism was a trip to an American grocery store. What’s our excuse?
[/color]

In the period of the birth of the USSR, Russia went from a backward none capitalist monarchal society that couldn't even put laces in the boots of soldiers, to the world number 2 superpower. The 1st 1 into space. China, is a massive economic superpower.


Where 20 million died of starvation and waited 10 years to get a used soviet "car" or a fridge and they never owned anything. Where the shops were empty. Superpower militarily yes. The people were in abject poverty, had zero freedom and no way out. So yes russia was seriously inferior.

And china was socialist and the poorest place on the planet. 50 years ago, they allowed a small area to run their own businesses, to own property, to keep the profits. And to hold their noses... They hated it, it goes directly against their communist/socialist beliefs. But they couldnt deny the results. but that area was super poor. Now its shenzen, the biggest industrial powerhouse in china. They still have to worry about big brother, and are controlled, watched, etc. But they allowed FREE TRADE or if you prefer CAPITALISM to do its thing.
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