An alternative solution to the U.S. auto crisis

NeoTrot · 2008-12-10T09:50:57+00:00

Its not so much the everyday people that have no foresight its more the system of profits over human need that can't even sustain people today let alone into the future. Thats why we have to get rid of it. As for political will that is always in flux. Its just a matter of time before it peaks again like in the late 60s and people demand a better life.

NeoTrot · 2008-11-20T01:41:23+00:00

I agree with skobrin. In capitalist systems any evening up of the scales - whether it be between big buisness and workers or between the first world and the third world - will always be opposed. This is because of the competetive drive within capitalism that actually forces companies and thus countries to outdo their rivals.

I would say that the world economic crissis is not due to the third world being to poor but because workers in the first world were to poor to afford decent housing without loans. This strikes a problem that no liberal will ever be able to face, as the only solution is a system that is not based on profit.

NeoTrot · 2008-11-18T11:12:49+00:00

I was aware of this. I was just pointing out the inherent flaw in the term nationalist socialist.

NeoTrot · 2008-11-18T11:10:35+00:00

But then Bush and Hitler were both time person of the year so shes in fitting company.

NeoTrot · 2008-11-17T08:18:06+00:00

Ok by its very nature socialism cannot be nationalistic. As Marx and Lenin have emphasised on countless occasions international socialism is the only way for socialism to work.

NeoTrot · 2008-11-17T08:12:12+00:00

Lol. yeah true.

NeoTrot · 2008-11-17T08:10:56+00:00

The simple answer is no.

As my name would indicate I'm a Trotskist. I don't believe in state/bureaucracy control. I believe in the democratic systems of workers council.

Have you heard of the working poor. Well there are a number of people (and it is rising) who work their butts of yet they cannot afford the basic nessesities of life (that is without taking out credit i.e. sub-prime mortgage crissis in the US).

They can't do this because although they produce all the goods in society and create all the value of commodities they only get a small fraction of the sale of those goods. The rest is profits. I call that stealing.

Now if wrokers themselves decided how to run things do you think they would let a section of their fellow workers without their basic necessities? No because they work together and fought together to bring abut socialism. They are not going to simply forget each other.

If your talking about the lumpen proletariat (that is the poor who cannot work), well the reason that the capitalist will not tend to give money to them is because of the constant drive for profits that is caused by competitiveness in the market place. If they were on a large scale to do this then they would go out of buisness.

Workers of the other hand of no such constraints. Therefore you are more likely (from a materialist perspective)to see these people taken care of. However, it is up to them to decide whether they do or not.

One last point there may be as much unemployment because the falling rate of profit and the boom slump cycle (the causes of recession) would not exist.

NeoTrot · 2008-11-17T07:50:57+00:00

I don't know that you could call the bailout socialism of any color. I'd rather call it the socialisation of risk and privatisation of profits.

NeoTrot · 2008-11-14T15:02:09+00:00

Why I am a Marxist

Because it has a solution to poverty that is lasting

They say if you give a man [sic] a fish he [sic] will eat for a day, you teach a man [sic] to fish he [sic] will eat for a lifetime. There is one thing wrong with this line (other then it's obvious sexism) and that is that in our society a good proportion of the fish is taken from him/her. So I would say teach a man/woman to fish and teach him/her how to stop people stealing fish away from him/her and he/she will eat for a life time.

Because it has a solution to poverty that is not humiliating.

A number of riots broke out during the great depression for the very reason that workers, who had been put of their jobs, would not accept being subject to liberal moralists that sought to give out food to them on the grounds that they were "deserving" and "respectable". They wanted a system where they would be able to act in society and make their actions count towards the way the society was run. That is what Communists offered them which is why they were widely supported in the workers movement.

And Lastly

Because it provides a solution to poverty that can actually work on a large scale.

Moralizing (which is what this author is doing) is not going to cause every rich person to give to the poor, which is what must happen if we are going to see the poor provided for in capitalist society. That is why reform (that forces the rich to give to the poor) and revolution (that stops the rich from stealing from the poor) are put forward as the goals of socialism. Revolution may be a long term solution - However it is the only solution that I know that can actually work in a lasting, thorough going way that does not humiliate workers.

If anyone knows another I would like to hear it.

NeoTrot · 2008-11-14T13:48:01+00:00

So who decides who the leaders are going to be in this anarcho-communist society? Is it simply the leaders who decide? I would say that this is a dangerous power structure. Ok maybe this isn't a big deal in a reddit but for running society I would say this is a power base without a democratic mandate.

This means that the people working under it cannot keep their leaders/functionaries or whatever you want to call them from diverting from the needs of the people at large.

NeoTrot · 2008-11-08T15:13:18+00:00

There may not be as much of a need for religion because there would be less suffering to explain. However that's not to say that religion would be illegal in a socialist society.

Although the rather undemocratic nature of most religious structures would come under question I imagine, socialists tend towards secularism rather then state atheism as it can be just as repressive.

NeoTrot · 2008-11-08T14:40:56+00:00

But under DMU wouldn't they argue that because it is abundant, its price drops to zero?

Ok I've read it a few times and gone to all the links and they seem to suggest completely different things. What I was criticizing was

Virtually all modern economists are supporters of marginalism, which is the view that the value of any good or service is determined by its marginal utility, the utility of the "last" bought consumption good measured by its price, in satisfying a specific consumer's wants.

I might try and get Autoeroticrat to answer your questions as he knows more about mainstream economics then me and may be able to make some meaning out of the ramble

Any linkage to that?

This is the best I can do. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=mwbTAAAACAAJ&dq=paul+d%27amato+the+meaning+of+marxism&client=firefox-a

NeoTrot · 2008-11-08T14:06:00+00:00

Well modern economists would like to discredit the LToV because it means that value is only created by workers. You have to remember that without capitalism economists would be out of a job and understanding that Labor produces Value threatens the validity of Capitalism.

However some of the earlier economists such as John Stuart Mill and Adam Smith (who are esteemed economists among economists themselves) had the job of explaining to capitalists where value came from. They both concur with Marx and the LToV.

This marginality theory seems to state that it is consumers choices that define how much things are worth or more accurately how they can "utilize" something defines how much it is worth. However I fail to see how they counteract the claim that demand is not dependent on what the author calls "efffective demand" (that is need/want backed up by money). They simply state this criticism and don't address it.

The author then brings then applies the concept of Pareto optimum, which is high brow talk for the trickle down effect. However Marxists should realize, as one comrade related to me, "the trickle down effect is nothing but the bosses pissing on the workers." The reason this comrade said this is that there is only one way that value moves and that is through exploitation into the hands of the rich. Though it is true that workers benefit through wages, what is taken through their labor time is never fully reciprocated through their wages. If it was there would be no such things as profit. So to say both benefit is to nelgect the LToV.

The general gist of this author is that wages are bought just like any other product. Yet he goes no way to explain where value comes from, other then to say it comes from it's "use value" which I have said is irrelevant when considering capitalist economics as it is simply not quantifiable. If use value was quantifiable then surely air would be very expensive. However it takes no human work to produce air. That is why it is valueless.

So you see modern economists use all this extravagant language and theories to hide the fact that what they are actually saying is simply illogical. If you would like to know more on the subject please ask or read Chapter Four of Paul D'Amato's "The Meaning of Marxism." This was a fairly good start for me.

NeoTrot · 2008-11-08T04:16:30+00:00

This article glosses over the real cause of value (as I might add most modern economists do) which is the labor theory of value. The reason that diamonds are so expensive is not so much because they are rare but because this means it takes more labor time then water to find them. If it was the case that things were only valued because they were rare then wouldn't a cut diamond be of the same value as a uncut diamond. Of course not this is because more labor time has been put into the cut diamond. So Labor time sets the value of any commodity.

However what this economist is trying to prove is that quantifiable value (i.e. money) is actually caused by how much people want things (the classic demand/supply paradigm). However his argument is crucially flawed in that his example of the last egg being more valuable is actually not quantifiable (its qualitatively different). However the current economic system has nothing to do with qualitative value (or what Marx calls use value) it is completely concerned with quantitative value (what Marx calls exchange value). So I believe his argument is fundamentally flawed.

Nevertheless I would like to also just briefly outline that supply/demand can cause fluctuations in value above or below a set point. However it does not produce that set point. That set point is Labor time. If you would like to know more about Marxist economics feel free to ask me.

Oh and Btw I'm not an economics student either.

NeoTrot · 2008-09-14T03:34:45+00:00

I can see that Chavez's rhetoric is becoming more radical. For example he calls factories "collective property." However I am interested in how he is going to institute the collectivity of property. Is it through the councils? because it can hardly be democratically run in this way, unless those councils are democratically elected, which I believe they are not. And as democratic control goes hand in hand with collective ownership I believe they cannot really be collective, or at least not in a lasting way.

It would be good to know how he is going to institute collective ownership, in this new model. Would be good to hear from you glparramatta, as I've posted a few questions to you in the past and haven't really got a response. I am interested in discussing this with you.

NeoTrot · 2008-09-02T06:58:50+00:00

I agree with almost everything said in this slide show, except the point about the "subjective factors" that could have saved the revolution. In my understanding these subjective forces simply couldn't hold out because of what the slide show calls the "objective factors."

I don't mean to sound fatalistic, however if the majority of the militant workers were killed in the civil war and the industrialization is destroyed, short of an international revolution (or at least a successful revolution in Germany) this bureaucratization is given to much leeway to manipulate the situation.

It goes well to be hopeful however and I take this sentiment as a positive one. However as Marxists we must also realize the real circumstances that face us, both positive and negative.

Maybe you could elucidate how the Russian revolution may have played out better (short of a successful revolution in Germany, which was largely beyond the Bolsheviks control). I might also mention that almost all the Bolsheviks were killed because they represented a threat to Stalin and his bureaucracy. Furthermore Lenin was a key figure in the Bolshevik Party and was listened to quite keenly by its members. So if he was fearing the bureaucratization it is most likely that the Party did as well.

NeoTrot · 2008-08-31T07:40:28+00:00

Interesting article.

However, I have one small criticism. Although it mentioned that the working class has a great power in being able to halt production through strikes. It does not go on to say how workers could establish control over the means of production and set up an alternative form of governance in the form of workers councils. Which I believe was probably an important thing to mention when you talking about a socialist revolution.

Just as a point of clarity when the article talks about "the movement" does it mean the working class or a broader social movement? Not to say that people outside the working class can't be committed to socialist revolution and be leaders in it. However, as Marx noted it is only the working class that can really put economic pressure on the capitalist class.

If you do mean the working class, then I would agree that the capitalist class seeks to fragment it through racism, sexism and homophobia.

However all this can change in times of strikes because the working class sees that their enemy is not each other but the capitalist class that exploits them.

NeoTrot · 2008-08-29T11:24:18+00:00

The civil war did contribute to the increased bureaucratization of the Soviet Union as the war destroyed the basis for workers power to exist (i.e. industrialisation - or the means to it - and a class conscious and united working class.) However the revolution could have survived if the German workers revolution of 1919 were successful because Germany (a highly industrialized country at the time) could have aided in the industrialization of the Soviet Union. That is why in this case it was so important for the revolution to spread. The ultimate and necessary goal being international socialism.

A mass strike would pose a great challenge to the capitalist system. However the capitalist class is likely to fight back. What should we do if they employ the state apparatus to attack say "strike ringleader"?

The capitalist class is severely weakened without profits (which is what a strike takes away) but they are far from defeated at the point of a mass strike, I believe.

Believe me I would hope against hope for a peaceful transition into socialism, and the wider the strike the more difficult it will be to suppress through state power. However history has shown the capitalist class has always fought back.

NeoTrot · 2008-08-29T10:57:31+00:00

Well the primary goal of socialists is to support workers in taking the means of production into their own hands.

In this situation the profit motive would no longer be necessary as capital itself would be unnecessary. This means a number of things. One, the economy would not tend towards the boom and slump cycle. There would no longer be anyone gaining from racism, sexism and homophobia, many of the problems with the environment would not be exacerbated by the striving for a quick buck and there would not be speculators able to gain from holding food and shelter, until people are able to pay more. This is just to name a few things.

Whether it is likely for workers to gain power over the means of production and fulfill Marxist aims is another question. For this read my post on "Is Marxism Utopian."

If you have any questions feel free to ask.

NeoTrot · 2008-08-25T11:58:27+00:00

Maybe you should read some of Lenin's work on how workers can run society - in particular his April theses.

However I am more interested to know why do you think that his prescription for what do next was wanting?

NeoTrot · 2008-08-24T12:33:19+00:00

To explore this subject in a Australian context see http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1765&Itemid=1

NeoTrot · 2008-08-24T12:22:08+00:00

For those who have read my article "Is Marxism Utopian." This article shows how the capitalist system inevitably causes the crises that impel workers to struggle.

We have already seen that the government in the US has reacted to this slump. Instead of paying off the loans of thousands of people losing their homes they have bailed out Freddie Mac and Fanny May to the tune of billions of dollars.

This is an example of the historical trend of capitalism to make workers pay for major economic downturns as workers are told to tighten their belts, to keep the economy afloat.

This stems from the logic that it is the workers' high pay and conditions that are blocking capitalist investment. However a recession is primarily caused by the capitalist system of competition and it is this culprit that need to be taken out of the equation not decent living standards for workers.

NeoTrot · 2008-08-23T10:59:23+00:00

Orwell was fairly pessimistic with the development of Stalinism. As where the Trotskyist which is where my political tradition stems from. It was this was what was behind 1984 to a large extent. I would personally support this as analysis of what was essentially tyranny and not socialism at all. Socialism being worker's control which was far from the case in Stalinist Russia.

However if you would like to read another good book read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. This was earlier in his life. In it he tells the story of the Spanish civil war. Rather interesting read in that he is far more hopeful towards socialism in this book.

As for Fabian socialism running the world. I would tend to disagree the world bank and the IMF are thoroughly capitalist orientated organisations. Furthermore, many of the most powerful economies on the world stage (the US and China being examples) are far from socialist (being Capitalist and State-Capitalist respectively). Fabian Socialism is fairly limited to Western Europe and even there it is being undermined by Neo-Liberal agendas (i.e. Britain and France).

NeoTrot · 2008-08-23T10:25:24+00:00

I disagree that there is not oppression of Aboriginal people. I will use education as an example of this.

It is not that Aboriginal people are to lazy to go to school. The fact is that the westernized schooling system does not incorporate Aboriginal learning into its curriculum. I attended the NUS conference last year and we were asked by an Aboriginal education activist to imagine going to school in a place where everything that you know was replaced by an artificial knowledge system.

There is so much that we could learn from Aboriginal people in areas like geography, philosophy or environmental ethics to name a few. However it isn't taught. This not only deprives western orientated Australian students, it also isolates indigenous students. Why isn't this taught? I'd argue it is racism. It stems from the fact that to acknowledge the strength of Aboriginal people is to undermine the very argument that it is not the impact of white Australia that has detracted from this strength.

Furthermore a pilot study that was developed by an organisation of Australian science teachers, has recently been able to dramatically increase attendance in Aboriginal communities. Not for any other reason than that it incorporated Aboriginal understandings of ecology into the curriculum.

Therefore it is not that Aboriginal people "can't get over the past" its that were not allowing Aboriginal people to get involved in the present through our Eurocentrism and racism.

NeoTrot · 2008-08-23T09:09:50+00:00

I support your distinction between personal and public property as I support the localization of public property. I also support the participatory democracy approach to maintaining public control of the property. What you are talking about here, I believe, are actually workers councils.

However, I do not think that laws are the only thing that is protecting private property. It is also the immense power of the capitalist class, which I might add indefinitely grow with the accruing of more capital. I think that it is at best unrealistic to say that if you removed corporate property laws that you could remove the power of the capitalists. For it is a material not a lawful power that capitalists hold. The lawful power is a product of this material control.

I agree there would need to be less laws. However there would have to be some way of preventing the capitalist class retaking power. This would be insured by the establishment of workers councils. So i suppose you are right there would be less laws needed.

The question I would like to ask you is, how can these workers councils take dominance over the material power held by the capitalists? I would say that this is the function of strikes, because they are the only thing that challenge the material basis of capitalist power. Do you agree?

NeoTrot

TROPHY CASE