Socialism & Communism

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justsit
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by justsit »

Did some digging, just out of curiosity. Seems there are now only five communist countries remaining in the world - China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. The only major player there, China, changed the country's constitution in 2004 to recognize private property. And it seems like a capitalist mindset is well entrenched there.

An interesting fact about North Korea: In 2009, the country's constitution was changed to remove all mention of the Marxist and Leninist ideals that are the foundation of communism, and the very word communism was also removed.
https://www.thoughtco.com/communist-cou ... ew-1435178

There are some other countries with ruling communist parties, but they are not considered "communist" as other political parties are present and active.
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Malcolm wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2017 2:56 am
Dude, you give communism way, way too much power. It's [expletive to be supplied by your imagination] done. There is no more communism anymore, nor is it possible anymore. Corporations have amassed far too much wealth to ever permit anything like a communist revolution, save an absolute collapse of the world economy, in which they will be powerless to respond in any case.
The CPUSA is not "expletive done", as their optimistic piece suggests. When more of the thuggish Left discovers where most of their ideas & practices came from, they will embrace their malign forebears' movement eagerly.

http://www.cpusa.org/article/membership ... onference/
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
Malcolm
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Malcolm »

Nicholas Weeks wrote: Wed Nov 01, 2017 2:51 am
Malcolm wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2017 2:56 am
Dude, you give communism way, way too much power. It's [expletive to be supplied by your imagination] done. There is no more communism anymore, nor is it possible anymore. Corporations have amassed far too much wealth to ever permit anything like a communist revolution, save an absolute collapse of the world economy, in which they will be powerless to respond in any case.
The CPUSA is not "expletive done", as their optimistic piece suggests. When more of the thuggish Left discovers where most of their ideas & practices came from, they will embrace their malign forebears' movement eagerly.

http://www.cpusa.org/article/membership ... onference/

They are a fringe group. Communism is done. It’s toast. Marx is for adolescents.
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PuerAzaelis
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by PuerAzaelis »

What aspects of Marx. Saying that the egalitarian results advocated by socialists are unachievable is one thing. But the exploitation of labor surplus by the owners of capital is something I accept at this point.
Generally, enjoyment of speech is the gateway to poor [results]. So it becomes the foundation for generating all negative emotional states. Jampel Pawo, The Certainty of the Diamond Mind

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pothigai
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by pothigai »

Malcolm wrote: Wed Nov 01, 2017 3:16 am
Nicholas Weeks wrote: Wed Nov 01, 2017 2:51 am
Malcolm wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2017 2:56 am
Dude, you give communism way, way too much power. It's [expletive to be supplied by your imagination] done. There is no more communism anymore, nor is it possible anymore. Corporations have amassed far too much wealth to ever permit anything like a communist revolution, save an absolute collapse of the world economy, in which they will be powerless to respond in any case.
The CPUSA is not "expletive done", as their optimistic piece suggests. When more of the thuggish Left discovers where most of their ideas & practices came from, they will embrace their malign forebears' movement eagerly.

http://www.cpusa.org/article/membership ... onference/

They are a fringe group. Communism is done. It’s toast. Marx is for adolescents.
I'd definitely agree that the 'Orthodox Marxism' of the 19th and 20th Centuries is done. A lot of what is thought of as 'Marxism' is pretty much Marx as he was interpreted by Engels and Lenin according to the conditions in which they lived. However, a lot of Marx's analysis of capitalism, both in Das Kapital and his earlier, more humanist work is definitely relevant in my opinion.

I think a lot of the failure of 20th Century Marxism is due to people reading a lot into rather undeveloped aspects of Marx's theory of capitalism, and also trying to read it through the lens of Hegel's Science of Logic.
ہستی اپنی حباب کی سی ہے
یہ نمائش سراب کی سی ہے

hasti apni habaab ki si hai
yeh numaaish saraab ki si hai

Like a bubble is your existence
This display is like an illusion

- Mir Taqi Mir (1725-1810)
Malcolm
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Malcolm »

pothigai wrote: Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:30 am
Malcolm wrote: Wed Nov 01, 2017 3:16 am
Nicholas Weeks wrote: Wed Nov 01, 2017 2:51 am

The CPUSA is not "expletive done", as their optimistic piece suggests. When more of the thuggish Left discovers where most of their ideas & practices came from, they will embrace their malign forebears' movement eagerly.

http://www.cpusa.org/article/membership ... onference/

They are a fringe group. Communism is done. It’s toast. Marx is for adolescents.
I'd definitely agree that the 'Orthodox Marxism' of the 19th and 20th Centuries is done. A lot of what is thought of as 'Marxism' is pretty much Marx as he was interpreted by Engels and Lenin according to the conditions in which they lived. However, a lot of Marx's analysis of capitalism, both in Das Kapital and his earlier, more humanist work is definitely relevant in my opinion.

I think a lot of the failure of 20th Century Marxism is due to people reading a lot into rather undeveloped aspects of Marx's theory of capitalism, and also trying to read it through the lens of Hegel's Science of Logic.

Marx is not terribly original, IMO. His economics fall squarely in the Adam Smith school of the labor theory of value.
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PuerAzaelis
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by PuerAzaelis »

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.
Generally, enjoyment of speech is the gateway to poor [results]. So it becomes the foundation for generating all negative emotional states. Jampel Pawo, The Certainty of the Diamond Mind

For posts from this user, see Karma Dondrup Tashi account.
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Virgo
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Virgo »

It seemds many countries would do well to take Denmark as an example:



Kevin
Malcolm
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Malcolm »

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.
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Ignorance rules with Millennials [and others]: http://blog.victimsofcommunism.org/44-o ... -it-means/
Our study indicates that the attraction of socialism for Millennials has less to do with their familiarity with the ideology and more to do with their discontent with the current economic system, the flaws of which they blame on free-market capitalism...
Communism isn’t back: It never left. We simply forgot about it. And as it rears its ugly head once more, openly and shamelessly, we seem far less prepared to meet the ideological challenge in this century compared to the last.
Here are the polling results: http://victimsofcommunism.org/wp-conten ... -final.pdf
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
MiphamFan
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by MiphamFan »

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.
pothigai
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by pothigai »

Malcolm wrote: Wed Nov 01, 2017 2:47 pm
pothigai wrote: Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:30 am
Malcolm wrote: Wed Nov 01, 2017 3:16 am


They are a fringe group. Communism is done. It’s toast. Marx is for adolescents.
I'd definitely agree that the 'Orthodox Marxism' of the 19th and 20th Centuries is done. A lot of what is thought of as 'Marxism' is pretty much Marx as he was interpreted by Engels and Lenin according to the conditions in which they lived. However, a lot of Marx's analysis of capitalism, both in Das Kapital and his earlier, more humanist work is definitely relevant in my opinion.

I think a lot of the failure of 20th Century Marxism is due to people reading a lot into rather undeveloped aspects of Marx's theory of capitalism, and also trying to read it through the lens of Hegel's Science of Logic.

Marx is not terribly original, IMO. His economics fall squarely in the Adam Smith school of the labor theory of value.
This is false. Marx did ascribe to a labour theory of value, however, he did not equate value and price. There are also a number of other notable ideas that distinguish Marx from Smith; commodity fetishism, theory of class, and his different accounts of why capitalism is crisis-prone.
ہستی اپنی حباب کی سی ہے
یہ نمائش سراب کی سی ہے

hasti apni habaab ki si hai
yeh numaaish saraab ki si hai

Like a bubble is your existence
This display is like an illusion

- Mir Taqi Mir (1725-1810)
MiphamFan
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by MiphamFan »

Smith and Ricardo did not equate value and price either.

Value is based on labour, material etc. Price is simply what it is exchanged for. Both Smith and Ricardo made that clear.

It's only with marginal economics and the spread of utilitarianism that value and price were equated.

What's so bad about labour theory of value anyway? It explains technological unemployment much better than neoclassical economics.

I'm sure some will say people still got jobs in the industrial Revolution blah blah blah but those were jobs any unskilled labourer coming off a farm could do, much like menial labour in third world sweatshops today. Today's jobs involve robots displacing all those lowly skilled labourers; the new jobs are not jobs anyone can do, you need to learn mathematics, computer science, programming etc. Tell me how you are going to train all the taxi drivers, truck drivers, factory workers, miners etc in those things.

Self-driving cars are going to destroy millions of drivers' livelihoods.

Even white-collar workers like doctora and lawyers are not going to be spared. A lot of junior lawyers' work will be done by algorithms in the future, computers can diagnose as well as doctors now.
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by pothigai »

MiphamFan wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 3:24 am Smith and Ricardo did not equate value and price either.

Value is based on labour, material etc. Price is simply what it is exchanged for. Both Smith and Ricardo made that clear.

It's only with marginal economics and the spread of utilitarianism that value and price were equated.

What's so bad about labour theory of value anyway? It explains technological unemployment much better than neoclassical economics.

I'm sure some will say people still got jobs in the industrial Revolution blah blah blah but those were jobs any unskilled labourer coming off a farm could do, much like menial labour in third world sweatshops today. Today's jobs involve robots displacing all those lowly skilled labourers; the new jobs are not jobs anyone can do, you need to learn mathematics, computer science, programming etc. Tell me how you are going to train all the taxi drivers, truck drivers, factory workers, miners etc in those things.

Self-driving cars are going to destroy millions of drivers' livelihoods.

Even white-collar workers like doctora and lawyers are not going to be spared. A lot of junior lawyers' work will be done by algorithms in the future, computers can diagnose as well as doctors now.
Yes, you're correct, thanks for pointing that out.

Edit: Any suggestions where I can find a decent comparison of Marx, Smith and Ricardo? It's rather hard to find one that doesn't push some dogmatically Marxist or neoclassical point of view.
ہستی اپنی حباب کی سی ہے
یہ نمائش سراب کی سی ہے

hasti apni habaab ki si hai
yeh numaaish saraab ki si hai

Like a bubble is your existence
This display is like an illusion

- Mir Taqi Mir (1725-1810)
MiphamFan
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by MiphamFan »

The best thing to do if you have time is to read Smith and Ricardo in the original. Smith's prose is excellent while Ricardo seems oddly modern for his era IMO.

I studied them in uni, can't really give any secondary literature recommendations, sorry. My old professor, Terry Peach, did write a book on Ricardo but TBH I never read it. He's an interesting guy, old-school Oxford professor.

That was the only economics course that interested me, I did study the neoclassical stuff just to pass exams but forgot pretty much all of it while I still remember Smith.

To be clear my views on technological employment etc are my own. I found one Marxian (not mainstream Marxist) blog also pretty interesting called therealmovement. Marxism is flawed but Marxians are the only people that seem to take labour theories of value seriously nowadays.
Last edited by MiphamFan on Sat Nov 04, 2017 7:25 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Grigoris
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Grigoris »

Personally I always liked the work of post-Marxist and neo-Marxists and also the theories of people like Guattari and Deleuze.

They break with the authoritarianism of the orthodox Marxists and bring psychology and culture into Marxist theory.

I particularly liked the work of the Situationists and (in terms of early Marxist thinkers) the initial theories of Wilhelm Reich. Especially his book "The Mass Psychology of Fascism".

Some of the anti-colonialist Marxist inspired writings by people like Franz Fanon are really interesting and relevant too.
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Malcolm
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Malcolm »

Grigoris wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 7:22 am Personally I always liked the work of post-Marxist and neo-Marxists and also the theories of people like Guattari and Deleuze.
Nomadology is fun.
Malcolm
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Malcolm »

MiphamFan wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 7:20 am Smith's prose is excellent...
Those Scotsman knew how to write.
DGA
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by DGA »

Malcolm wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 3:21 pm
Grigoris wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 7:22 am Personally I always liked the work of post-Marxist and neo-Marxists and also the theories of people like Guattari and Deleuze.
Nomadology is fun.
Let the record show that the Apparatus of Capture chapter is a very clever treatment of the labor theory of value, even though you won't find the terms "forces of production" or "relations of production" in it.

What a weird book. I mean that as a compliment.
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Re: Socialism & Communism

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

A dark centennial, proclaimed by President Trump:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of ... -communism
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
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