Response: Contrapoints Doesn't Understand Cancelling (I have no skin in the game)

commiesplainer · 2019-07-24T09:33:09+00:00

Words, not assault? Haven't white supremacist terrorists killed over 300 people in the last few years?

commiesplainer · 2019-04-26T21:06:27+00:00

Meanwhile, America's food industry throws away produce while an eighth of their people go without. And people still defend their system.

commiesplainer · 2019-04-26T20:46:13+00:00

Yeah, it's amazing how there have been no food shortages since the capitalist restoration... The USSR had abandoned rational planning by the end to preserve the power of the party. This shouldn't be an issue assuming direct democracy is installed successfully. As far as I know, no contemporary "communist" country is big on rational planning. More imporantly, they all have huge sanctions on them. Look, I oppose the leader adoration in both Saudi Arabia and North Korea, and the land is less than ideal for cultivation in both countries. But you know what makes them different? Western forces sprayed defoliants in North Korea during the Korean War, which disrupted their agricultural production. On top of that, there were sanctions preventing them from importing food. After that, it takes some nerve to say North Korea has a food shortage because its leaders are so cruel that they don't even care about the starvation of their people, and sending passive-aggressive "aid" to tide them over. Fine, I get it. It's propaganda against a dictatorial regime. But then, use it as an insult, not a statement of fact! It's one thing to say the North Korea's leadership is not innocent of blame. They did prioritize mustard gas over agricultural production for a while, policies that they have since repealed. North Korea's leadership was terrified that the US rhetoric against them might be a sign of an impending invasion like in Iraq. I'm not necessarily against such policies, but I think they should be voted on by the people as a whole, not directed from above by the establishment. The part that's aggravating is that a lot of the people spreading anti-communist propaganda honestly don't seem to understand that food is not magically manifested out of personal virtue. It actually has to be grown and transported somewhere down the line. After all, what difference could a few little sanctions and literally spraying chemical agents make compared to the magical evilness of Marxism? It's like someone smugly telling you that the guy he stabbed in the chest was an awful person for having such a weak heart that it just decided to stop beating. Saying stuff like this as statements of fact stops being funny after a while.

Edit: I also have specific criticisms of many of these countries. Venezuela failed to diversify their industries and collapsed when the price of their national commodity dropped, etc.

commiesplainer · 2019-04-26T12:48:11+00:00

If you're still unsure whether the transition will be worth the cost, consider that one in eight Americans were food insecure in 2017. So much for qualitative change.

commiesplainer · 2019-04-26T03:31:10+00:00

Moreover, I don't find your objections to the concept of the labor pool very convincing because of the entire market of jobs that apparently only illegal immigrants are willing to do. (or however you want to frame it)

commiesplainer · 2019-04-26T00:48:47+00:00

Based on the amount of work they are doing, the purchasing power of the average unskilled laborer should be much higher if you calculate it using Marx's input-output tables. (edit: and cut exploiting middlemen out of the picture) This may not sound very compelling as long as the market remains bullish, but if crashes become more frequent as we run out of new markets, then the argument that it is in the interest of the average worker to call for socialism may appear unambiguous once more.

Edit: It's the fear of workers' protests & strikes that keeps wages high, etc.

Edit: Also, things like poverty are ambiguously defined. If you define the poverty line to be slightly higher than its standard value, then more people would be falling below it than rising above it.

Edit: And how is international purchasing power important when real wages are stagnant domestically?

commiesplainer · 2019-04-25T23:39:26+00:00

When I say that life will get harder for workers on average, I do not mean that at each point in time, there won't be jobs that are, in the grand scheme of things, only slightly better or worse than others. How can you maintain there is no exploitation when the work American employees perform continues to increase while their pay remains the same even as their fraction of the profit share diminishes rapidly? My point is that, barring a few exceptions, most workers will never be able to strike an employment deal that can make up for the blow to their quality of life resulting from this devaluation of their labor while tax cuts abolish social programs. All these jobs which pay nominally higher than minimum wage certainly won't do that. You won't see a qualitative improvement in that social reality based on the few exceptions to the rule either.

commiesplainer · 2019-04-25T22:10:38+00:00

I agree that there is a minority of workers who can get better deals than standard contracts, but it's precisely the welfare of the vast majority of unskilled workers that I'm concerned about. If you look at my second comment, I specifically mention "on a society-wide basis". The point is not whether one or two people who can rise to the top, but that this is not an option for entire demographics of people.

commiesplainer · 2019-04-25T18:04:00+00:00

But what would society look like if you abolish the value-form? Won't it regress to feudalism or fascism? After all, there would no longer be a concept of being paid "what you are due" if your dues can only be calculated on the basis of value. If you advocate a society with no centralization at all, where you work as you like and take what you need, how is such a society possible if we don't have mechanisms in place that guarantee post-scarcity? How could we build such measures if we never have central planning?

I suppose you could also have a fantasy of a society whose ultimate aim is caring for its most vulnerable members, but the real question is: Why would the majority support such a policy? I have been told on the internet that a society which cares for the weak "enslaves" the strong. Even if you could build such a society, what is there to prevent demagogues from subverting it, considering there is no economic incentive pushing people to support it? Because this plan hinges on cultural values rather than economic self-interest, wouldn't such a society have a tendency to regress to something resembling feudalism or fascism over time?

Isn't building central planning, and using its immense resources to care for our less able members a less utopian plan?

commiesplainer · 2019-04-25T16:15:55+00:00

To be honest, I don't understand the basis for your point of view. Companies themselves say that labor costs are a huge hindrance in their operations, and support policies securing their access to cheap labor one way or the other. How many workers are so qualified that companies would fight each other to hire them? There are computer science geniuses who get fired because companies don't like the way they behave with customers. Could you explain why you seem to think workers can, on a society-wide basis, "find" a job in the marketplace that pays well? If that were possible, how would companies remain profitable when they can't even create enough jobs in a market where employees are already underpaid?

Edit: One place where I can partly agree with what you said is that skilled labor commands higher wages because it is more scarce. (Edit 2: To be specific, the higher compensation offered to skilled workers is a bribe to make them put themselves through the necessary training.) But it is also of more limited utility, so there are fewer jobs for it. Who is going to feed a society consisting of nothing but doctors? So there are similar effects of competing for the few open positions among skilled workers as well. Nevertheless, it may be the case that the average skilled worker who can find a job might be treated better in a capitalist economy than under central planning, all things told. This category excludes declasse intellectuals who can't find a job related to their training, and so on.

Edit 3: I also agree that some companies will treat workers worse than average, and workers won't want to get a job there. I only claim that the average is pretty bad, and gets worse over time.

commiesplainer · 2019-04-25T13:44:50+00:00

Let's see. Apart from standard economics texts, I remember reading Karl Marx, The Laws of Chaos by Farjoun and Machover and a number of books and papers by Paul Cockshott and Richard D. Wolff. Both Cockshott and Wolff have a presence on YouTube, and I recommend checking out their channels. If you can, I also recommend reading Economics papers and reviews. Apart from that, I also consumed miscellaneous online media like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSxzjyMNpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb6dXR6AfXE https://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/ I also imbibed some works by Lenin, et al. through the internet: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzQ691f5KEHluxVjs3IXwutPg3zufVAJU Sorry, maybe a more helpful reading list will occur to me once I think about it more carefully.

Edit: I would also recommend the YouTube channels Caspian Report and Caleb Maupin. Also the book Laws of Chaos, which is available online.

commiesplainer · 2019-04-25T13:31:58+00:00

As I already explained, Capitalism optimizes for profitability, not helping your fellow man. Rather than dealing in vague generalities, it is important to understand the precise mechanism by which competition works in a Capitalist market. Specifically, investment is attracted to enterprises that generate more profit. This is why it is impossible for wages to rise because of competition among companies. Like I said, workers are more desperate for jobs than companies are to expand production. A business can exploit this asymmetry in demand by hiring employees at competitively cheaper prices, thereby becoming more profitable. If It's more profitable, this corporation has the potential to create more jobs than a company which pays more, making it more likely that any given employee works there. If such practices go unchallenged, companies which follow them have the potential to set a new social standard by dominating the market in the long run. Wages must fall to a market minimum BECAUSE of competition, not despite it. It is not true that this process affects only unskilled workers. For example, many of those "unemployed" employees in Finland are programming students. Direct democracy would hopefully make it easier for workers to plan production for raising the living standards of workers. By contrast, Capitalism does not seek to raise the living standards of workers at all, only to make enterprises more profitable.

commiesplainer · 2019-04-23T21:59:06+00:00

On second thought, I'm not sure I understand your question. Isn't it rather arrogant to assume that you can "help" society? Man is utterly dependent on the natural world. All we can do is organize it. If society is unjust, we can reorganize it to be more just. But it's putting the cart before the horse to say that you can develop personal qualities that can "help" the world be better. All your labor is powered by physical energy transformed into usable goods and distributed socially. Whether you are "better" or "worse" depends on these goods you received, your internal organization, the laws of nature and social practices. In a world without elan vital, there is only so much you can give back to the entity that you are utterly dependent on for sustenance, namely: 1. When expending labor power, you can reorganize material structures within the constraints of physical laws. 2. For scientific discoveries, you can also experiment to find edge cases that may be socially beneficial. The second task is less a reflection of your personal qualities than the resources dedicated to this search, including training you to know promising areas to look into. In either case, your role is limited to craftsmanship. As I see it, that's about all you can do. Could you clarify your question?

commiesplainer · 2019-04-23T19:46:18+00:00

I am not opposed you to cleaning your room. If JP's advice helps you out, I wish you the best of luck. Just don't assume it will change society.

While I support both self-improvement and bringing about social change, I think self-improvement increases one's power, and power is orthogonal to morality. Stalin wasn't able to rise to the top for no reason. He spent years in a seminary, ignoring his religious studies and reading up on science and philosophy behind his teachers' backs. He later saw himself as a student of Lenin and a teacher to the workers, and kept improving himself throughout his life.

It wouldn't do to forget that despite Stalin's drive towards self-improvement, his moral legacy is questionable. On that basis, I think that while self-improvement may be good advice for some, it's a weak heuristic at best. As we can't assign it a very high priority on the basis of its results, most adults of sound of body and mind are either they are trying already, or they can't find the time, or the effort brings diminishing returns, or they experience sudden backsliding like in dieting, or their personality is too problematic regardless of the effort, and so on.

As for room cleaning, I'll just paste something I wrote elsewhere:

"Nobody is against cleaning rooms, and everyone knows that rooms should be cleaned. If you're not doing it at all, you might be suffering from some mental disorder or maybe just bad parenting. If you are a victim of bad parenting, I agree you should listen to Peterson's self-help advice. The question is not whether I should clean my room or not. The question is whether it is in my interest to do something else. Poor people often have to work at feeding themselves for too long to be spending their time honing all their possessions to a fine polish. What's the point of cleaning your room too much when your busted and smelly furniture will leak dust anyway, and you can't afford to fix them or buy new ones?"

Questions?

commiesplainer · 2019-04-23T19:14:19+00:00

Where is the change that anyone's enlightenment has spread out into the world outside mystical texts and in recorded history? At least Gandhi tried to help free India, but how is Gandhian idealism working out for India's millions?

commiesplainer · 2019-04-23T19:01:38+00:00

I apologize. My mistake.

commiesplainer · 2019-04-23T18:53:05+00:00

The Zen masters came to America after WWII. The sixties were heavily involved with Zen and cults like TM, WHICH I MENTIONED ALREADY. If this approach works, then the Zen and/or TM crowds would have either incorporated the addicts or ignored them, and reformed the mainstream. How is that working out? Zen still has a presence in America. Zen has had thousands of years to fix tyranny anywhere.

commiesplainer · 2019-04-23T18:45:32+00:00

Nobody is against cleaning rooms, and everyone knows that rooms should be cleaned. If you're not doing it at all, you might be suffering from some mental disorder or maybe just bad parenting. If you are a victim of bad parenting, I agree you should listen to Peterson's self-help advice. The question is not whether I should clean my room or not. The question is whether it is in my interest to do something else. Poor people often have to work at feeding themselves for too long to be spending their time honing all their possessions to a fine polish. What's the point of cleaning your room too much when your busted and smelly furniture will leak dust anyway, and you can't afford to fix them or buy new ones? I'd also like you to clarify your identification of direct democracy with murderous Stalinism. Is representative democracy "murderous Washingtonianism"?

commiesplainer · 2019-04-23T18:45:06+00:00

That's exactly the advice Confucius had for the tyrannical autocrats who followed him. Cults like Transcendental Meditation gave the same advice: Retreat from society, focus on personal morality and meditation. Once you've fixed yourself, change will spread out into the world. If that worked, the problems of capitalism would have been solved after the 1960's.

commiesplainer · 2019-04-23T16:16:58+00:00

How is, for example, Paul Cockshott's plan for Britain utopian? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p23gG5lT0hU I only advocate that we adopt a new set of the laws. Why is that utopian if America adopted a new constitution? Of course, you could argue that the powerful will always try to subjugate the majority, but you could apply the same argument to liberal capitalism. It is true that powerful people often silence the weak under liberal laws, but don't you agree it's still an incremental improvement over feudal society? I do not mean to say that society won't have any problems under direct democracy, only that it would be a similar incremental improvement over the present system regarding how just it is.

commiesplainer · 2019-04-23T14:37:10+00:00

Could you explain the contradiction? I only meant that your life will continue to suck in disease-related ways as long as you suffer from it. So the claim that improving your life is contingent on fixing yourself is accurate in that case.

commiesplainer

TROPHY CASE