Socialism & Communism

Casual conversation between friends. Anything goes (almost).
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Nemo
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Nemo »

I don't think Adam Smith is being characterized fairly. He thought landlords would not have the heart to exploit peasants excessively. He considered his magnum opus to be The Theory of Moral Sentiments not the Wealth of Nations. His capitalism was subservient to a moral framework.

I think a return to the Ricardian ideas of separating rentier income from the actual economy would be a wonderful tonic for our current ills. Assholes making money while they sleep from mountains of inherited capital is not production. They are parasites on the real economy and should be taxed out of existence.
Malcolm
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Malcolm »

MiphamFan wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 1:01 am
Malcolm wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 1:09 am
PuerAzaelis wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 12:42 am Loppon, if you feel inclined pls elaborate. Labor is not the only factor of production. But it may be that many or most entrepreneurs are motivated by jealousy, etc. in which case capital is controlled by ... um, a-holes. Therefore labor surplus is really the only honest factor left.
Labor value does not account for the water/diamond paradox.
There is no paradox -- Adam Smith was using "utility" in its commonplace English definition. Water is useful, diamonds were worthless in his time except for ornamentation (zer o "value-in-use") and but still had great value-in-exchange.

There is only a "paradox" once people tried to read a utilitarian definition of "utility" into him, which is completely anachronistic.
There is a paradox, which is why Jevons, et all, came up with the marginal theory of value.
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Minobu
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Minobu »

well like i said in another thread...capitalism as we know it is about to end.
population growth, and the emergence of IA and robotic industry , will leave billions of unemployed.

A guaranteed income , not welfare but an income one can live on is on the horizon and much thought is going into it.
so i guess socialism will win the race and forever be the paradigm we live in world wide.

Certain people will be richer than ever and their products and services will be guaranteed to be bought and sold by a populace that has money to do so.

groups like isis will no longer have the have nots to give reason for joining them...
Mental health will improve and the arts will flourish..
it's a win win situation.
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DNS
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by DNS »

Nemo wrote: Wed Nov 08, 2017 2:12 pm I think a return to the Ricardian ideas of separating rentier income from the actual economy would be a wonderful tonic for our current ills. Assholes making money while they sleep from mountains of inherited capital is not production. They are parasites on the real economy and should be taxed out of existence.
Doesn't Ricardo's idea still include some sort of profit-incentive since it includes payment beyond the actual costs?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent

I'm a landlord and I never received any inherited capital. In fact I was written out of all family members' wills; the price of being successful or Buddhist, earning everything on my own. :tongue:

My wife and I are a dying breed, being mom-and-pop self-made landlords. Today the mom and pops are being bought out by large REITs (real estate investment trusts) which are basically large corporations who buy large apartment buildings, hi-rises, apartment complexes. They sell shares on Wall Street and gain more capital for purchasing more and more properties, taking mom and pops out of the landlording business. We get calls and letters from them all the time, trying to buy us out too.

On the plus side the REITs renovate properties, put in various luxury features, coffee service, concierge services, valet, etc but on the negative side they charge exorbitant rents for those services, making it more difficult for middle and lower middle classes to find affordable housing.
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

US Congress forms a Caucus for the Victims:

http://victimsofcommunism.org/members-o ... sm-caucus/
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
KristenM
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by KristenM »

Minobu wrote: Wed Nov 08, 2017 5:30 pm well like i said in another thread...capitalism as we know it is about to end.
population growth, and the emergence of IA and robotic industry , will leave billions of unemployed.

A guaranteed income , not welfare but an income one can live on is on the horizon and much thought is going into it.
so i guess socialism will win the race and forever be the paradigm we live in world wide.

Certain people will be richer than ever and their products and services will be guaranteed to be bought and sold by a populace that has money to do so.

groups like isis will no longer have the have nots to give reason for joining them...
Mental health will improve and the arts will flourish..
it's a win win situation.
That's an absurd idea, and yet actually pretty close to what we are experiencing now. There's already tons of unemployed people. In Stockton, California they're starting a guaranteed income for living program unlike anything done in most US cities. Will it stop Isis? I doubt it. I've been to Cuba and seen first hand what this can look like and it was terrible. Everyone is like a slave on a plantation and no ability to escape.
MiphamFan
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by MiphamFan »

Malcolm wrote: Wed Nov 08, 2017 2:58 pm
MiphamFan wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 1:01 am
Malcolm wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 1:09 am

Labor value does not account for the water/diamond paradox.
There is no paradox -- Adam Smith was using "utility" in its commonplace English definition. Water is useful, diamonds were worthless in his time except for ornamentation (zer o "value-in-use") and but still had great value-in-exchange.

There is only a "paradox" once people tried to read a utilitarian definition of "utility" into him, which is completely anachronistic.
There is a paradox, which is why Jevons, et all, came up with the marginal theory of value.
Jevons was writing in a time when utilitarianism had already become commonplace.

What Smith said was very simple straightforward English that utilitarian economists turned into something complicated. Marginal economics is completely based on the premises of utilitarianism, which wasn't even fully expressed when Smith died.

He said value really means two things, value in use and value in exchange and the two are unrelated to each other.

Water is very useful but is cheap. Diamonds were useless in his time, except for ornamentation, but had a high value in exchange.

There is only a "paradox" if you think value means one single thing -- Smith pointed out use-value and exchange-value are two separate things while utilitarians conflated use-value with their concept of "utility" and thence with exchange-value.

Smith proceeds to talk about exchange-value in the rest of book 1 of WON. He doesn't even view it as a "paradox" himself.

It is striking that economists' arguments for the "paradox" all depend on utilitarianism: https://balanceofeconomics.com/2016/02/ ... -of-value/
http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.sg ... x.html?m=1
They admit that it was Samuelson in 1948 who started this whole train of thought but fail to consider that thinking of ostentation having "utility" wouldn't even have occurred to Smith.
MiphamFan
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by MiphamFan »

Admittedly, Smith didn't explicitly explain the high prices of luxury goods with little use like diamonds -- he did explain how tariffs drive up the prices of goods. Ricardo did however build on Smith to talk about how monopoly power drives up prices of goods.
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Minobu
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Minobu »

TharpaChodron wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 12:33 am
Minobu wrote: Wed Nov 08, 2017 5:30 pm well like i said in another thread...capitalism as we know it is about to end.
population growth, and the emergence of IA and robotic industry , will leave billions of unemployed.

A guaranteed income , not welfare but an income one can live on is on the horizon and much thought is going into it.
so i guess socialism will win the race and forever be the paradigm we live in world wide.

Certain people will be richer than ever and their products and services will be guaranteed to be bought and sold by a populace that has money to do so.

groups like isis will no longer have the have nots to give reason for joining them...
Mental health will improve and the arts will flourish..
it's a win win situation.
That's an absurd idea, and yet actually pretty close to what we are experiencing now. There's already tons of unemployed people. In Stockton, California they're starting a guaranteed income for living program unlike anything done in most US cities. Will it stop Isis? I doubt it. I've been to Cuba and seen first hand what this can look like and it was terrible. Everyone is like a slave on a plantation and no ability to escape.
it's been talked about for years and it seems now some pretty smart people see it as the only viable way out of capitolism in the modern age...people will not stand for the whole dickensesque sweatshop being a goal to survive for a billion people.

why i say issis is that these are the totally lost have nots ..they are preyed upon...they are the great forgotten with no hope...
now we find out after they get conned into it they are put on opiates in order to do the madness...

anyway take away the extreme hopeless poverty and there is less....

Canada manages to kepp it''s poor at bay with welfare and the likes.
KristenM
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by KristenM »

I was just in Spain and noticed how many less homeless people I saw there, which I attribute to the strong welfare system and family orientation of the people. I honestly came back to the US thinking that we need more of whatever they are doing there for our society.

But I also heard an idea (which is total conjecture and maybe incorrect) about why the Muslim community in the US seems less prone to extremism than in Europe. Someone said that in the US immigrants are given far less social welfare so they have to work harder to assimilate and there's less attitude of expectation to be taken care of by the state, so they are encouraged to become more a part of the general society, rather than create isolated communities where they can nurture feelings of separation and resentment towards western culture. could be bullshit, but it came from a muslim and i thought it sounded interesting.
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by KristenM »

We have a lot of welfare too in the US, but somehow it is different. I work next to the welfare office and you can see every homeless and poor person come there every month to pick up their checks and food stamps, but many drug addicts just use it to support their habits. They sell and trade their welfare for drugs and continue to live on the streets with no incentive to change. You can get welfare in the US your entire life and remain homeless and on drugs. It's enough money to do that, but if you start working they take away your benefits so a lot of people think it's better to not work or improve their lives, as backwards as that sounds.
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Minobu
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Minobu »

in the 80's i lived with a soviet Jew. she grew up in communism.
she explained it creates very little incentive and she saw it as the main cause for wide spread alcoholism. she said when you went to the store to buy something they always had a box of broken items at the check out counter you had to buy.
these were made , and had to be sold...the system was that frak up.
so like you buy what you need and as a good citizen are forced to buy the broken iron .
she said clothes aways needed to be fixed when bought new..like resewing the buttons.

I'm sure this will be debated...it's all true...i think Tharpa Chodron is onto something.
life in communist russia was a nightmare..
she lived in an apartment with her family...across the hall they had an apartment with a washroom and shower that they used and they had the kitchen that across the hall used and shared..
the one thing they did have was this comradeship thing..I learned that community speaking they were so much closer to one another than us...less us and them sort of thing.
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by KristenM »

Yes, even in communist society, classes still remain with their privileges (at least in Cuba). Government and military enjoy all the luxuries of the elite, they can travel and buy what they want. But the workers are forced to work where and do what they are told. You can't speak out or express dissension or else you are taken to a prison camp. Maybe Cuba is just a distortion of what true communism is supposed to be, but it's the reality for the one communist country that I've experienced.
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Malcolm »

TharpaChodron wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 6:48 am We have a lot of welfare too in the US, but somehow it is different. I work next to the welfare office and you can see every homeless and poor person come there every month to pick up their checks and food stamps, but many drug addicts just use it to support their habits. They sell and trade their welfare for drugs and continue to live on the streets with no incentive to change. You can get welfare in the US your entire life and remain homeless and on drugs. It's enough money to do that, but if you start working they take away your benefits so a lot of people think it's better to not work or improve their lives, as backwards as that sounds.
What you are seeing is not welfare payments. Most of these people are on disability. Welfare in the US is really only available to mothers with children. Staying on foodstamps is a huge pain in the ass for these folks, because they must prove to the Gvt. they have a stove and an apartment. Disability payments however require no such proof. And yes, if you start working and earn more than a certain amount, your disability is pulled.
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by KristenM »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 4:51 pm
TharpaChodron wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 6:48 am We have a lot of welfare too in the US, but somehow it is different. I work next to the welfare office and you can see every homeless and poor person come there every month to pick up their checks and food stamps, but many drug addicts just use it to support their habits. They sell and trade their welfare for drugs and continue to live on the streets with no incentive to change. You can get welfare in the US your entire life and remain homeless and on drugs. It's enough money to do that, but if you start working they take away your benefits so a lot of people think it's better to not work or improve their lives, as backwards as that sounds.
What you are seeing is not welfare payments. Most of these people are on disability. Welfare in the US is really only available to mothers with children. Staying on foodstamps is a huge pain in the ass for these folks, because they must prove to the Gvt. they have a stove and an apartment. Disability payments however require no such proof. And yes, if you start working and earn more than a certain amount, your disability is pulled.
Hmmm, you may be right (you usually are), but I actually worked a bit inside the welfare program (Welfare to Work) and I learned about the eligibility requirements and how it works. Every state might be different, but in California a person can qualify for food stamps and receive them for their entire life, as it's only based on income (I believe). There's also general assistance, but that is temporary. As far as the AFDC program, a family gets more money depending on how many kids they have (up to 10 or so) but they time-out of the program in 48 months. But, it is possible for a person to continue to have more kids and get more money, such as if they have kids with different people. as far fetched as it sounds, if a person has a kid with someone and times out, they can have a child with someone else who has not been on aid and the family can continue to get aid based on the new parent.

I am 99% sure you don't need an actual home address in California to get food stamps. You can tell them you are homeless and they put the county's own P.O. Box address as your own and people come pick up their checks right at the office.

Oh, and I guess it looks like an adult can time out of the program, but children don't tie-out, so a person still receives benefits for the kids until they turn 18 (that's the CalWorks program).
Last edited by KristenM on Thu Nov 09, 2017 6:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Grigoris
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Grigoris »

Minobu wrote: Wed Nov 08, 2017 5:30 pm well like i said in another thread...capitalism as we know it is about to end.
population growth, and the emergence of IA and robotic industry , will leave billions of unemployed.

A guaranteed income , not welfare but an income one can live on is on the horizon and much thought is going into it.
so i guess socialism will win the race and forever be the paradigm we live in world wide.

Certain people will be richer than ever and their products and services will be guaranteed to be bought and sold by a populace that has money to do so.

groups like isis will no longer have the have nots to give reason for joining them...
Mental health will improve and the arts will flourish..
it's a win win situation.
This may be a reality for some (very few) developed Western nations. When one looks at the top ten countries in the world in terms of population, the US is the only one in the first ten and is only 1/4 of the size (333 million) of the top two largest countries (China 1.4 billion and India 1.3 billion) and the US is only 100 million above the fourth largest, Indonesia. Canada is only 36 million. So the future you foresee seems to only apply to the tiniest and richest portion of the world's population.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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Minobu
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Minobu »

Grigoris wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 6:42 pm
Minobu wrote: Wed Nov 08, 2017 5:30 pm well like i said in another thread...capitalism as we know it is about to end.
population growth, and the emergence of IA and robotic industry , will leave billions of unemployed.

A guaranteed income , not welfare but an income one can live on is on the horizon and much thought is going into it.
so i guess socialism will win the race and forever be the paradigm we live in world wide.

Certain people will be richer than ever and their products and services will be guaranteed to be bought and sold by a populace that has money to do so.

groups like isis will no longer have the have nots to give reason for joining them...
Mental health will improve and the arts will flourish..
it's a win win situation.
This may be a reality for some (very few) developed Western nations. When one looks at the top ten countries in the world in terms of population, the US is the only one in the first ten and is only 1/4 of the size (333 million) of the top two largest countries (China 1.4 billion and India 1.3 billion) and the US is only 100 million above the fourth largest, Indonesia. Canada is only 36 million. So the future you foresee seems to only apply to the tiniest and richest portion of the world's population.
if you google it you find you are correct about working for some and not others.
and yeah i just realized maybe the reason i'm talking about it in canada is i live in the province that is exploring the possibility.

The thing is this,for me anyway.
the world is wealthy enough and knows economics well enough to do away with the poor.
The poor is about to grow exponentially as AI and robotics grow , along with global populations.
Capitalism can no longer exist in a climate where there are more people not working than working. and i am referring to the countries we consider have countries.
I look at greece and see the under employed and the people out in the streets protesting about it and i feel a fear...i don't live there so i don't know , but when i hear that tax dodging is like an olympic sport in Greece i see something that has also reared it's head in Canada..i realize that at least a fairness in taxation could stem the tide a little. that and anti corruption in government spending..

not going to happen so the easy way out is to print money like america and Europe do, call it quantitative easing ,lol, and give it away ...
Malcolm
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Malcolm »

TharpaChodron wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 6:30 pm
Malcolm wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 4:51 pm
TharpaChodron wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 6:48 am We have a lot of welfare too in the US, but somehow it is different. I work next to the welfare office and you can see every homeless and poor person come there every month to pick up their checks and food stamps, but many drug addicts just use it to support their habits. They sell and trade their welfare for drugs and continue to live on the streets with no incentive to change. You can get welfare in the US your entire life and remain homeless and on drugs. It's enough money to do that, but if you start working they take away your benefits so a lot of people think it's better to not work or improve their lives, as backwards as that sounds.
What you are seeing is not welfare payments. Most of these people are on disability. Welfare in the US is really only available to mothers with children. Staying on foodstamps is a huge pain in the ass for these folks, because they must prove to the Gvt. they have a stove and an apartment. Disability payments however require no such proof. And yes, if you start working and earn more than a certain amount, your disability is pulled.
Hmmm, you may be right (you usually are), but I actually worked a bit inside the welfare program (Welfare to Work) and I learned about the eligibility requirements and how it works. Every state might be different, but in California a person can qualify for food stamps and receive them for their entire life, as it's only based on income (I believe).
Food stamps are not welfare.


I am 99% sure you don't need an actual home address in California to get food stamps. You can tell them you are homeless and they put the county's own P.O. Box address as your own and people come pick up their checks right at the office.
Since food stamps are a block grant program, different states have different rules. In Mass, you have to have a stove.
Oh, and I guess it looks like an adult can time out of the program, but children don't tie-out, so a person still receives benefits for the kids until they turn 18 (that's the CalWorks program).
That is across the board. But you know, these aid programs account for a minuscule percentage of the budget.
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Grigoris
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Grigoris »

Minobu wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 7:16 pmthe world is wealthy enough and knows economics well enough to do away with the poor.
Sure, but you have to do away with the rich for this to happen. The reason that there are poor people is due to the unequal distribution of wealth, not a lack of wealth. But somehow I don't see any of the filthy rich about to give up their privileges so other people don't have to suffer. The rich have always been quite happy to pay a small amount of their wealth to people that are willing to kill and terrorize the poor for them to ensure that the poor remain poor and they remain rich.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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Minobu
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Minobu »

Grigoris wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 7:21 pm
Minobu wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 7:16 pmthe world is wealthy enough and knows economics well enough to do away with the poor.
Sure, but you have to do away with the rich for this to happen. The reason that there are poor people is due to the unequal distribution of wealth, not a lack of wealth, but somehow I don't see any of the filthy rich about to give up their privileges so other people don't have to suffer. The rich have always been quite happy to pay a small amount of their wealth to people that are willing to kill and terrorize the poor for them to ensure that the proor remain poor and they remain rich.
thanks for bringing a tear to my eye..
it's a nightmare.

so maybe this whole give them a livable wage is just another scheme to keep them rich and by distributing enough money for people to buy the cheap life of lousy food and throw away clothes and stuff..keeps them rich..

i'm not a rich guy...i struggle to to eat well and wear good clothing ...it's harder and harder for the food is getting horrid over here in Cananda..GMO's and industrial food is about all the poor can afford. that and filling the belly with fast food.
i eat well...it's a must...so im like eat well poor as opposed to ...get this and this real...house poor or ..are you ready for this for this is very real in Canada ...Hockey poor...keeping your kids in hockey is very expensive.
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