The cancer infecting the political Left

[Eric the Green]

(07-28-2020, 12:28 AM)Einzige Wrote: Biden and Trump are both terrible and the very fact of their nominations is a testament to the decay at the heart of the United States.

What has happened is that Americans received so much prosperity and peace and became such a great power as never before in history, that they have gotten used to these conditions, and prefer to hang on to what remains from the great high rather than start a risky revolution. So they settle for Biden rather than Bernie Sanders, because they think a socialist can't win.

It is only one 84-year saeculum, however. The system in place today will still be around for another 400 years, although the USA as we know it may not be around in its current form for all this time. It won't matter; we are a global society now, and this is irrevocable as of the world wars and the new technology. The global system as we know it will remain pretty much intact, even if decaying in its latter stages, for the next 400 years.

The years 2160-65 will see a confluence of world powers, and a true new world order. The powers will come together at a great conference in 2162-63 and create a true working world government. At the same time, nations will demand and maintain their place. A war could follow to substantiate the new system in circa 2165, but it won't last long, and a good working system will emerge that could last for millennia. This will also be exactly one cycle of Pluto since the League of Nations was founded.

This era to come is marked by the same Uranus-Neptune alignment that followed on the heels of the creation of the great power system at the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and the organization of the Concert of Europe in 1815 following the defeat of Napoleon that created a system of relative peace for a century. Just after George H W Bush declared the "new world order" came the previous such conjunction in 1993, which I predicted to bring about the end of the Cold War, and it did. More new nations emerged than ever before, and a truly new diplomatic order emerged in which some degree of world cooperation became possible. The EU was founded in 1993 and it will withstand the tremors it has experienced and be a model for the future world system in 2165.

Only if we receive the inspiration of the last two Awakenings, and thus re-open to occult and esoteric knowledge and thereby discover that astrology holds the true key to charting our destiny, and that its 84-year revolutionary cycle of Uranus is identical to the modern saeculum so that its recurring cycles were already known to astrologers before S&H, will we truly be able to understand where we are in history and where we're going. There is more than one cycle, or one megacycle, going on at all times in human civilization and culture.

[Eric the Green]

As far as the Left is concerned, socialism is passe. It remains as one of the two first revolutions of the modern age, the first being the democratic. They represent the bourgeosie and the proletariat. The third great revolution is Green, and this is the cycle that is moving toward its fulfillment now, not just as some temporary adjustment, but a full remaking of society just as the socialist and democratic revolutions remade society. Admittedly, these first two revolutions are also unfinished, and are far from established orders in many countries. So the third revolution, the Green, also includes the first two. The aims of this revolution are spelled out in the Green Party's 10 Key Values. This is the revival of the world, the overgrowing of oppression, and the renewal of spirit.

http://www.cagreens.org/kern/TenKeyValues.htm

In case you don't know, a conjunction, like a new moon, happens when two planets align on the same side of the Earth, and the opposition, like a full moon, happens when they align with the Earth between them.

The cycles of Uranus and Pluto outline the destiny of these three movements. The Third Revolution began in the sixties, the second in circa 1848, and the first originated in the early 18th century. These are when conjunctions or new moons in the cycle happened. They come to full expression at the full moon, Uranus-Pluto oppositions. The first Revolution climaxed in the French Revolution of 1789-1794. The second climaxed at the turn of the 20th century. These were the times of Uranus-Pluto oppositions (as was the peak of the British Great Rebellion in 1649). The third revolution will climax in our next Awakening circa 2046-2049 during the next Uranus-Pluto opposition, which will fulfill its beginning during the previous conjunction and Awakening of the sixties (exact in late June 1966).

So a Marxist Revolution is no longer the cutting edge of the cycle. Even so, as the Green Revolution unfolds, the aims of the first two cycles will also continue to be advanced. But they can be fulfilled only in the context of the new movement.

Dialectical materialism, industrialism, and ownership of the means of production by the state, must be superceded as the method and destiny of the movement. Now, as the Third Revolution unfolds, we realize that there is no matter without spirit. Now we realize that there is no economy without ecology. Community-based economics in a global system, and a combination of local and global powers, alone can create the synergy needed to create prosperity and fulfillment on the widest scale. Human civilization must be inserted back into Nature, conceived as a living Being, and must become interdependent with it again. Technology and economics must be smart and appropriate to, and not dominant over, Earth and Humanity, and meet the needs of all its classes, genders and races, not just a privileged few. Quality rather than mere quantity and survival must be our aim. People power is the dominant method.

The birth of People power! There's still something in the air!

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-28-2020, 12:14 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-26-2020, 04:36 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-26-2020, 01:16 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: He's driving old big government bureaucrats like Colin Powell to the side where he belongs because he wouldn't have been a one star general telling us how the war effort was going during the first Iraq War and later the Secretary of State who was telling us about all the WMD's that our troops were going to find hidden in Iraq. Yep. He belongs on the same side as the sore losers and liars.

This is not about Colin Powel.  This is about Trump.  I note you went on to someone else rather than defend Trump.  I don't know that he is defendable.

The Republicans are the side of the liars, whether it is Bush 43 about finding the WMDs, or Trump having a tendency to move his lips.  Sore loosers?  We'll see how Trump does.

One of your more articulate and truthful posts.

[Classic-Xer]

(07-26-2020, 11:21 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Another poster and I asked that your previous incarnation be banned when it called for someone to commit suicide. I complained to the moderator about that, and suggested that you might not be in such trouble with me if you rescinded the offending post and apologized. Many times we post what we might regret later.  I did not need protection: I thought that someone else might have needed some protection. Besides, I thought that a benign correction of your then-incarnation was apt and perhaps even beneficial to you. The cost of divesting oneself of a bad habit is usually well worth freedom from that bad habit.

There have been times when someone called attention to me that I had gone too far... and I backed down. I deleted or modified the post or apologized for what I had said. But I am going to hurt some feelings at times.  I know that. 

As someone with Asperger's syndrome I might see things more literally than others.  Even so, I could not see what was said as harmless. I might have accepted "Kill that character"... which I can imagine with a film director doing with a character in the script who is dragging a screenplay into a muddle. Just think of "Ugarte" (Peter Lorre) in Casablanca.  The character makes his point quickly as one who steals from people in distress and sanctimoniously blames the victims for being his victims. "Ugarte" had to be killed at some point; he was an odious character, and it would have been all to easy to have him collaborating with the Germans and mucking up the story. After all, he had the precious exit passes critical to the story, Casablanca is my favorite movie, and I have described its script as being the sort that Shakespeare would have written as a screenplay had he been active in the early-middle decades of the 20th century. Yes, Shakespeare had no qualms about killing a character when such was essential to the success of his plays. 

I see death, except as a literary or stage device, too serious to treat lightly. We all make mistakes, and your previous incarnation made a big -- but not irredeemable one. It could have said "I did not mean that literally" or "Gee, it is unfortunate that we have some moralizers who can't recognize a joke for what it is". But that was some time ago. My father was alive then and still had his mental capacities and moral compass. I told him what I did in seeking the poster banned. He concurred with me. It is terribly wrong to urge someone to commit suicide, and if one is successful in urging someone to do so, then one is culpable at the least of manslaughter. I may have an inadequate sense of humor, but I have some moral sensibilities.

(OK, I did cheer when Charles Manson and Saddam Hussein departed This World and went to the world of demons in which they would far better fit... but that involves extreme cases of unmitigated and inexcusable evil. But most of us could understand that).  

... the problem isn't your disagreement with me; it is with your disagreement with statistical inferences that do not depend upon any personality. If it were Hillary Clinton down by ten points or so against a Republican challenger this time at this stage, then I would be hedging my personal life upon the near-certainty of a win by the Republican nominee for President. Politically I would be trying to rescue what I could, like vulnerable incumbents.

I didn't mean it literally and it was quite obvious at the time. You'd think an adult substitute teacher like yourself would be mature enough to figure that out. What made you think that I had to apologize to you and remove a post that wasn't directed at you or a person that I felt would take it literally and do it? Hint: What you actually did marked to beginning of the end of that forum? Personally, I don't think people like you should have the power but then again its your life that your placing on line not mine.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-26-2020, 02:11 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-25-2020, 06:30 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: All that I ask is that the GOP go back to being humane and sane. We need that!

That is a tall order. They would have to go back as they were before about July 1964.

Their last sanity was for many of them to vote for the civil rights bill. Their insanity began with Goldwater's nomination. I do admit some sane acts did manage to get through from Nixon, but on balance, he and his party had gone over the edge at that point.

I am not sure sane is quite the right word.  They had a better feeling for where the people were at the time.  If there came to be elitist and racist elements to the GOP, the fact that the progressive era came to an end showed how racist America was at the time.  The Democrats going for all men being equal under law and fighting on the side of the working man was a losing proposition.  There were just more racists at the time.

Not sure that this is still the case.  Appealing to the old racist values may not be a winning proposition at this point.

[pbrower2a]

(07-28-2020, 03:28 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-26-2020, 11:21 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Another poster and I asked that your previous incarnation be banned when it called for someone to commit suicide. I complained to the moderator about that, and suggested that you might not be in such trouble with me if you rescinded the offending post and apologized. Many times we post what we might regret later.  I did not need protection: I thought that someone else might have needed some protection. Besides, I thought that a benign correction of your then-incarnation was apt and perhaps even beneficial to you. The cost of divesting oneself of a bad habit is usually well worth freedom from that bad habit.

There have been times when someone called attention to me that I had gone too far... and I backed down. I deleted or modified the post or apologized for what I had said. But I am going to hurt some feelings at times.  I know that. 

(deleted for brevity)

... the problem isn't your disagreement with me; it is with your disagreement with statistical inferences that do not depend upon any personality. If it were Hillary Clinton down by ten points or so against a Republican challenger this time at this stage, then I would be hedging my personal life upon the near-certainty of a win by the Republican nominee for President. Politically I would be trying to rescue what I could, like vulnerable incumbents.

I didn't mean it literally and it was quite obvious at the time. You'd think an adult substitute teacher like yourself would be mature enough to figure that out. What made you think that I had to apologize to you and remove a post that wasn't directed at you or a person that I felt would take it literally and do it? Hint: What you actually did marked to beginning of the end of that forum? Personally, I don't think people like you should have the power but then again its your life that your placing on line not mine.

I have empathy and morals. I recognize that encouraging people to commit suicide is manslaughter if someone actually does it, and murder if one gives aid and assistance. For an analogy, suppose that someone posted a sexually-explicit  post where such is unwelcome.  

If you want to know where I get really ruthless -- try commercial spam here. At the worst someone once offered fake passports on this site. First, it is fraud; second, someone who uses a fake passport is likely to get into real trouble. No passport is better known than the US passport, and any deviation from a rigid norm in the passport shows that one is up to no good. Use one of those in China, and instead of getting to tour the Great Wall of China or the Forbidden City you will be walled up in a place that the Chinese have for people who do forbidden things. Chinese officials will assume that you are a criminal, and the US State Department will do nothing to help you. You could be a spy, a drug courier, or a human trafficker. American tourists are safe in China. American criminals are not. 

The offending post was deleted and so was the thread. So was my warning.

[Isoko]

(07-28-2020, 12:58 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 12:28 AM)Einzige Wrote: Biden and Trump are both terrible and the very fact of their nominations is a testament to the decay at the heart of the United States.

What has happened is that Americans received so much prosperity and peace and became such a great power as never before in history, that they have gotten used to these conditions, and prefer to hang on to what remains from the great high rather than start a risky revolution. So they settle for Biden rather than Bernie Sanders, because they think a socialist can't win.

It is only one 84-year saeculum, however. The system in place today will still be around for another 400 years, although the USA as we know it may not be around in its current form for all this time. It won't matter; we are a global society now, and this is irrevocable as of the world wars and the new technology. The global system as we know it will remain pretty much intact, even if decaying in its latter stages, for the next 400 years.

The years 2160-65 will see a confluence of world powers, and a true new world order. The powers will come together at a great conference in 2162-63 and create a true working world government. At the same time, nations will demand and maintain their place. A war could follow to substantiate the new system in circa 2165, but it won't last long, and a good working system will emerge that could last for millennia. This will also be exactly one cycle of Pluto since the League of Nations was founded.

This era to come is marked by the same Uranus-Neptune alignment that followed on the heels of the creation of the great power system at the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and the organization of the Concert of Europe in 1815 following the defeat of Napoleon that created a system of relative peace for a century. Just after George H W Bush declared the "new world order" came the previous such conjunction in 1993, which I predicted to bring about the end of the Cold War, and it did. More new nations emerged than ever before, and a truly new diplomatic order emerged in which some degree of world cooperation became possible. The EU was founded in 1993 and it will withstand the tremors it has experienced and be a model for the future world system in 2165.

Only if we receive the inspiration of the last two Awakenings, and thus re-open to occult and esoteric knowledge and thereby discover that astrology holds the true key to charting our destiny, and that its 84-year revolutionary cycle of Uranus is identical to the modern saeculum so that its recurring cycles were already known to astrologers before S&H, will we truly be able to understand where we are in history and where we're going. There is more than one cycle, or one megacycle, going on at all times in human civilization and culture.

Eric,

You have mentioned this world government concept before and the years you provide astrologically actually match up with the birth of Sobornost in Russia...which is supposed to take shape around the year 2150. From my own research into the matter, it does seem to be pointing more towards and not entirely a global event...so the question is -why are we occultists predicting the Sobornost and you on the other hand are predicting a world government during the same period? That interests me.

You do forget however that the concept of the golden age might not even come about. Resources are starting to run out and the world will eventually hit peak oil. I recall speaking to some gazprom guys about this and they told me Russia has about 50 years left of crude before peak starts. I am sure America is already hitting peak or might follow suit in a few decades down the line.

My point is resources are finite and the technological progress we think we are seeing actually isn't coming to fruition. To get out of this mess, we need a brand new energy or technology and this isn't taking shape. Why do you think all of these riots and protests are really happening? Because technology has stagnated and isn't leading us to the stars as it should be doing. Otherwise progress would continue onward. Yet in reality, we have overall stopped innovating since the 1970s with a brief spike with the internet but even that that is starting to dry up.

Im a big sceptic that a golden age is going to come about. If anything, we might end up seeing things immensely slow down on Earth which actually would be very good for the environment.

[pbrower2a]

(07-28-2020, 02:53 PM)Isoko Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 12:58 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 12:28 AM)Einzige Wrote: Biden and Trump are both terrible and the very fact of their nominations is a testament to the decay at the heart of the United States.

What has happened is that Americans received so much prosperity and peace and became such a great power as never before in history, that they have gotten used to these conditions, and prefer to hang on to what remains from the great high rather than start a risky revolution. So they settle for Biden rather than Bernie Sanders, because they think a socialist can't win.

It is only one 84-year saeculum, however. The system in place today will still be around for another 400 years, although the USA as we know it may not be around in its current form for all this time. It won't matter; we are a global society now, and this is irrevocable as of the world wars and the new technology. The global system as we know it will remain pretty much intact, even if decaying in its latter stages, for the next 400 years.

The years 2160-65 will see a confluence of world powers, and a true new world order. The powers will come together at a great conference in 2162-63 and create a true working world government. At the same time, nations will demand and maintain their place. A war could follow to substantiate the new system in circa 2165, but it won't last long, and a good working system will emerge that could last for millennia. This will also be exactly one cycle of Pluto since the League of Nations was founded.

This era to come is marked by the same Uranus-Neptune alignment that followed on the heels of the creation of the great power system at the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and the organization of the Concert of Europe in 1815 following the defeat of Napoleon that created a system of relative peace for a century. Just after George H W Bush declared the "new world order" came the previous such conjunction in 1993, which I predicted to bring about the end of the Cold War, and it did. More new nations emerged than ever before, and a truly new diplomatic order emerged in which some degree of world cooperation became possible. The EU was founded in 1993 and it will withstand the tremors it has experienced and be a model for the future world system in 2165.

Only if we receive the inspiration of the last two Awakenings, and thus re-open to occult and esoteric knowledge and thereby discover that astrology holds the true key to charting our destiny, and that its 84-year revolutionary cycle of Uranus is identical to the modern saeculum so that its recurring cycles were already known to astrologers before S&H, will we truly be able to understand where we are in history and where we're going. There is more than one cycle, or one megacycle, going on at all times in human civilization and culture.

Eric,

You have mentioned this world government concept before and the years you provide astrologically actually match up with the birth of Sobornost in Russia...which is supposed to take shape around the year 2150. From my own research into the matter, it does seem to be pointing more towards and not entirely a global event...so the question is -why are we occultists predicting the Sobornost and you on the other hand are predicting a world government during the same period? That interests me.

You do forget however that the concept of the golden age might not even come about. Resources are starting to run out and the world will eventually hit peak oil. I recall speaking to some gazprom guys about this and they told me Russia has about 50 years left of crude before peak starts. I am sure America is already hitting peak or might follow suit in a few decades down the line.

My point is resources are finite and the technological progress we think we are seeing actually isn't coming to fruition. To get out of this mess, we need a brand new energy or technology and this isn't taking shape. Why do you think all of these riots and protests are really happening? Because technology has stagnated and isn't leading us to the stars as it should be doing. Otherwise progress would continue onward. Yet in reality, we have overall stopped innovating since the 1970s with a brief spike with the internet but even that that is starting to dry up.

Im a big sceptic that a golden age is going to come about. If anything, we might end up seeing things immensely slow down on Earth which actually would be very good for the environment.

At some point, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran, and Algeria will be bigger sources for energy from solar power than from fossil fuels. Energy will not disappear; its source will change.

[Einzige]

Goddammit, Marxism is not simply Industrial Capitalism With Unions.

What it is, above all, is labor abolitionism.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-28-2020, 05:52 PM)Einzige Wrote: Goddammit, Marxism is not simply Industrial Capitalism With Unions.

What it is, above all, is labor abolitionism.

But Industrial Capitalism with Unions and strong benefits may be preferred to Marxism. Lenin, Stalin. Mao. Most people remember. The guy who proves best at organizing power and violence will often care more about power and violence than he does about the people.

[Einzige]

(07-28-2020, 06:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 05:52 PM)Einzige Wrote: Goddammit, Marxism is not simply Industrial Capitalism With Unions.

What it is, above all, is labor abolitionism.

But Industrial Capitalism with Unions and strong benefits may be preferred to Marxism. Lenin, Stalin. Mao. Most people remember. The guy who proves best at organizing power and violence will often care more about power and violence than he does about the people.

The Soviet Union was State capitalist. This was readily admitted to by Lenin himself.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w...apr/21.htm

Quote:While the revolution in Germany is still slow in “coming forth”, our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of Western culture by barbarian Russia, without hesitating to use barbarous methods in fighting barbarism.

The belief was that the Soviets needed to pass through a capitalist phase of development to achieve socialism. Despite later protestations about achieving socialism in the 1950s, my contention is that the Soviet Union was State capitalist from the time of the suppression of the Soviets in favor of the NEP in 1920 until 1991.

It is my contention that socialism is going to be the organic response of the working-class to the final crisis of capitalism, and that it doesn't matter whether the workers view themselves as socialist or not. Per Marx in The Holy Family:

Quote: It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do. Its aim and historical action is visibly and irrevocably foreshadowed in its own life situation as well as in the whole organization of bourgeois society today.

[pbrower2a]

(07-28-2020, 05:52 PM)Einzige Wrote: Goddammit, Marxism is not simply Industrial Capitalism With Unions.

What it is, above all, is labor abolitionism.

At the worst, capitalists seek to transform industrial workers into serfs. They so succeeded in the demonic Third Reich. Highest profits come from exacting maximal toil for minimal pay (well, just enough to ensure that workers don't starve or commit suicide in large numbers.

Oddly, the German workers had unions, but those unions simply told workers to work harder and longer and demand less so that they can create more wealth and deserve more -- while serving as conduits of state propaganda and bleeding workers for contributions to Nazi "charities". One is better off with no union than with that sort of union!  

Nazi Germany had a high suicide rate -- among "Aryans", especially among industrial and farm workers.

[Einzige]

Unions in general are class collaborations organizations- I'd refer you for example to the AFL-CIOs support for the Vietnam War.

Here's Paul Mattick on unions:

Quote: Under conditions which preclude a sufficient capitalist accumulation, that is, under conditions of economic crisis, the reformist activities of political parties and trade unions cease to be operative and these organisations abstain from their supposed functions, as they would now endanger the capitalist system itself. They will rather try to help sustain the system, up to the point of directly sabotaging the workers aspirations for better living and working conditions. They will help capitalism overcome its crisis at the expense of the workers. In such a situation, the workers, unwilling to submit to the dictates of capital, are forced to resort to activities not sanctioned by official labor organisations, to so-called wildcat strikes, factory occupations and other form of direct actions outside the control of the established labor organisations. These self-determined activities, with their temporary council structure, indicate the possibility of their radical application under arising revolutionary situations, replacing the traditional organisational forms, which have become a hindrance for both the struggle for immediate needs and for revolutionary goals.

The goal of socialism is the abolition of the system of wage labor (one reason that the Soviet Union was not socialist). The trade union bureaucracies, whose task it is to mediate this system, naturally fights against it.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-28-2020, 06:49 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 06:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 05:52 PM)Einzige Wrote: Goddammit, Marxism is not simply Industrial Capitalism With Unions.

What it is, above all, is labor abolitionism.

But Industrial Capitalism with Unions and strong benefits may be preferred to Marxism.  Lenin,  Stalin.  Mao.  Most people remember.  The guy who proves best at organizing power and violence will often care more about power and violence than he does about the people.

The Soviet Union was State capitalist. This was readily admitted to by Lenin himself.

Well he should admit it.  But the relevant point is that the master of violence and organizing power too often will use violence and organize the power for himself rather than for the people.  That is the big gap between the theory and the practice.  No one in the Marxist tradition has ever wielded power in favor of the people.  Not Lenin.  Not Stalin.  Not Mao.  Not anyone.  Thus people are not likely to walk the Marxist route.  They just remember.

Especially if the combination of protest and legislation works.  Violence is always an option.  The powers that be don't want violence, and yield before that happens.  The advocates of violence in the Information Age democracies never get an inning.  How are they going to score?

[Einzige]

(07-28-2020, 08:46 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 06:49 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 06:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 05:52 PM)Einzige Wrote: Goddammit, Marxism is not simply Industrial Capitalism With Unions.

What it is, above all, is labor abolitionism.

But Industrial Capitalism with Unions and strong benefits may be preferred to Marxism.  Lenin,  Stalin.  Mao.  Most people remember.  The guy who proves best at organizing power and violence will often care more about power and violence than he does about the people.

The Soviet Union was State capitalist. This was readily admitted to by Lenin himself.

Well he should admit it.  But the relevant point is that the master of violence and organizing power too often will use violence and organize the power for himself rather than for the people.  That is the big gap between the theory and the practice.  No one in the Marxist tradition has ever wielded power in favor of the people.  Not Lenin.  Not Stalin.  Not Mao.  Not anyone.  Thus people are not likely to walk the Marxist route.  They just remember.

Especially if the combination of protest and legislation works.  Violence is always an option.  The powers that be don't want violence, and yield before that happens.  The advocates of violence in the Information Age democracies never get an inning.  How are they going to score?

You really don't have a strong grasp on Marxism.

In short, capitalism needs crises to fuel future expansion, e.g. the resumption of American capitalism after the Second World War or the stock market growth we see during Covid. Capital not only profits from crisis, it needs them to overcome the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

But in the process it produces a crisis-proof society. In an age of nuclear weapons, there can be no wars to rebuild from, for example. 

It is precisely in its stability that capitalism creates crises endogenous to its operations,because there are increasingly fewer crises exogenous from which it can profit.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-28-2020, 08:53 PM)Einzige Wrote: You really don't have a strong grasp on Marxism.

In short, capitalism needs crises to fuel future expansion, e.g. the resumption of American capitalism after the Second World War or the stock market growth we see during Covid. Capital not only profits from crisis, it needs them to overcome the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

But in the process it produces a crisis-proof society. In an age of nuclear weapons, there can be no wars to rebuild from, for example. 

It is precisely in its stability that capitalism creates crises endogenous to its operations,because there are increasingly fewer crises exogenous from which it can profit.

Hmm. Classic is trying to convince me that as I am a blue, and all blues are Marxists, tharefore I must be a Marxist. I’m glad you agree that I’m not.

I also agree that there will be a lack of triggers among the big democracies leading to crisis wars in the Information Age. Thus, triggers will be rare, no need to recover from crisis wars.

I will also state that September 11, Katrina, Iraq, the housing bubble collapse and other likely catalysts were not triggers. They did not make a transition to the new values inevitable. Not triggers. Catalysts. Both sets of values remained active and seemingly viable. You have to know the S&H theory to see the handwriting on the wall, to know what is coming.

But I do not see Wall Street as happy to see COVID or Black Lives Matter. They wanted or needed a big stimulus for COVID, and will see pauses in profits and bankruptcies anyway. No joy in Muddsville. The economy will struggle as a result of this particular crisis. I don’t see them as profiting from from Black Lives Matter either. Thus, I doubt your claim that capitalism created crisis for profits. How did they create either aspect? How will they profit from either aspect? You can’t choose your crisis at this point. Maybe you once could. Once upon a time if you were the aggressor in a crisis war, you could shape how and who you are going to fight. How do you intend to shape the new trigger and crisis now?

Again, you cannot count in observations from the last age to tell you anything about this one. Last age had lots of crisis wars and profit from them and their aftermath. Now? Put the observation that capitalists need crises for profits during the Information Age on hold pending their making a profit off a crisis. In the meantime, think, do not assume.

Also, I see the S&H turnings as a mechanism for how cultures change. A crisis is the time when the much debated two sets of values from the unravelling are resolved in favor of the new values. A trigger is an event which makes this process inevitable. The regeneracy is the time frame when the federal government fully embraces the new values, though it only begins a several year trial and error process as the new values are tried and tuned. This time the two sets of values debated are the red and the blue. Did you notice that Marxism is not one of the two? Did you notice that the blue is the new set?

Thus, we are not working from the same perspective at all. You are working from an Industrial Age perspective based on Industrial Age observations on how things work, and are pathetically out of date in the Information Age.

You can try to nitpick the details of Marxist theory. This does not change that Marxist theory has always failed. The red and blue values are both more relevant than Marxism. Marxism has been rejected for good reason. Three good reasons. Lenin. Stalin. Mao. Considering the magnitude of past failures, Marxism doesn’t deserve another chance.

[Einzige]

(07-28-2020, 10:13 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Hmm.  Classic is trying to convince me that as I am a blue, and all blues are Marxists, tharefore I must be a Marxist.  I’m glad you agree that I’m not.

He, also, has no conception of what Marxism actually is- the concept of "cultural Marxism" (or, as the Nazis had it, Kulturbolschewismus) is incoherent. Per Marx:

Quote:Once upon a time a valiant fellow had the idea that men were drowned in water only because they were possessed with the idea of gravity. If they were to knock this notion out of their heads, say by stating it to be a superstition, a religious concept, they would be sublimely proof against any danger from water. His whole life long he fought against the illusion of gravity, of whose harmful results all statistics brought him new and manifold evidence. This valiant fellow was the type of the new revolutionary philosophers in Germany.

Ideas do not form material conditions; material conditions form ideas. This is the essence of materialism.

Quote:I also agree that there will be a lack of triggers among the big democracies leading to crisis wars in the Information Age.  Thus, triggers will be rare, no need to recover from crisis wars.

Which will lead to a tendency for crises to be increasingly endogenous, no?

Quote:I will also state that September 11, Katrina, Iraq, the housing bubble collapse and other likely catalysts were not triggers.  They did not make a transition to the new values inevitable.  Not triggers.  Catalysts.  Both sets of values remained active and seemingly viable.  You have to know the S&H theory to see the handwriting on the wall, to know what is coming.

I deny there's much difference between the two sets of values, tbh.

Quote:But I do not see Wall Street as happy to see COVID or Black Lives Matter.

Have you seen stock prices of late?

Quote:They wanted or needed a big stimulus for COVID, and will see pauses in profits and bankruptcies anyway.

The Federal Reserve began another round of QE last August - well before Covid. But Covid has given renewed impetus to it

Quote:No joy in Muddsville.  The economy will struggle as a result of this particular crisis.  I don’t see them as profiting from from Black Lives Matter either.  Thus, I doubt your claim that capitalism created crisis for profits.  How did they create either aspect?  How will they profit from either aspect?  You can’t choose your crisis at this point.

They are receiving free money, which acts as a countervailing tendency to the rate of profit to decline.

Quote:Again, you cannot count in observations from the last age to tell you anything about this one.  Last age had lots of crisis wars and profit from them and their aftermath.  Now?  Put the observation that capitalists need crises for profits during the Information Age on hold pending their making a profit off a crisis.  In the meantime, think, do not assume.

There's no hard and fast division between the "Information Age" and the "Industrial Age". Hell, Marx called the development of network capitalism back in 1857:

Quote:... But, once adopted into the production process of capital, the means of labour passes through different metamorphoses, whose culmination is the machine, or rather, an automatic system of machinery (system of machinery: the automatic one is merely its most complete, most adequate form, and alone transforms machinery into a system), set in motion by an automaton, a moving power that moves itself; this automaton consisting of numerous mechanical and intellectual organs, so that the workers themselves are cast merely as its conscious linkages.

- Marx, Grundrisse, "Fragment on Machines"

For whatever reason, people treat Marx like a Bronze Age thinker who couldn't forsee the transition to a knowledge economy (which he called the General Intellect):

Quote:The development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it; to what degree the powers of social production have been produced, not only in the form of knowledge, but also as immediate organs of social practice, of the real life process.

- ibid

Quote:Also, I see the S&H turnings as a mechanism for how cultures change.  A crisis is the time when the much debated two sets of values from the unravelling are resolved in favor of the new values.  A trigger is an event which makes this process inevitable.  The regeneracy is the time frame when the federal government fully embraces the new values, though it only begins a several year trial and error process as the new values are tried and tuned.  This time the two sets of values debated are the red and the blue.  Did you notice that Marxism is not one of the two?  Did you notice that the blue is the new set?

Blue is part of the old set.

Quote:Thus, we are not working from the same perspective at all.  You are working from an Industrial Age perspective based on Industrial Age observations on how things work, and are pathetically out of date in the Information Age.

See the Grundrisse. Marx foresaw the Information Age and was aware how it would alter the structure of capitalist production. It has not fundamentally transformed its method of surplus value extraction, however.

[pbrower2a]

(07-28-2020, 08:53 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 08:46 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 06:49 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 06:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 05:52 PM)Einzige Wrote: Goddammit, Marxism is not simply Industrial Capitalism With Unions.

What it is, above all, is labor abolitionism.

But Industrial Capitalism with Unions and strong benefits may be preferred to Marxism.  Lenin,  Stalin.  Mao.  Most people remember.  The guy who proves best at organizing power and violence will often care more about power and violence than he does about the people.

The Soviet Union was State capitalist. This was readily admitted to by Lenin himself.

Well he should admit it.  But the relevant point is that the master of violence and organizing power too often will use violence and organize the power for himself rather than for the people.  That is the big gap between the theory and the practice.  No one in the Marxist tradition has ever wielded power in favor of the people.  Not Lenin.  Not Stalin.  Not Mao.  Not anyone.  Thus people are not likely to walk the Marxist route.  They just remember.

Especially if the combination of protest and legislation works.  Violence is always an option.  The powers that be don't want violence, and yield before that happens.  The advocates of violence in the Information Age democracies never get an inning.  How are they going to score?

You really don't have a strong grasp on Marxism.

In short, capitalism needs crises to fuel future expansion, e.g. the resumption of American capitalism after the Second World War or the stock market growth we see during Covid. Capital not only profits from crisis, it needs them to overcome the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

But in the process it produces a crisis-proof society. In an age of nuclear weapons, there can be no wars to rebuild from, for example. 

It is precisely in its stability that capitalism creates crises endogenous to its operations,because there are increasingly fewer crises exogenous from which it can profit.

Capitalism is no monolith. The profit motive can put one set of capitalists against another -- just think of the American Civil War. Just think of Northern railroad interests against Southern railroad interests.  You may dispute whether the slave-owning planter were really capitalists.


It is possible to see the Crisis of 2020 as a crisis in capitalism even without an overt struggle between official Marxist regimes and capitalist regimes.  Marx foresaw that ever-increasing productivity would itself create a scenario in which scarcity and poverty need no longer drive human efforts and politics. The end of the line for scarcity and poverty is the Communist stage of human society. 

Question: can a society go from capitalism to Communism without undergoing the Marxist-Leninist style of organization?

[Classic-Xer]

(07-28-2020, 10:13 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Hmm.  Classic is trying to convince me that as I am a blue, and all blues are Marxists, tharefore I must be a Marxist.  I’m glad you agree that I’m not.

I also agree that there will be a lack of triggers among the big democracies leading to crisis wars in the Information Age.  Thus, triggers will be rare, no need to recover from crisis wars.

I will also state that September 11, Katrina, Iraq, the housing bubble collapse and other likely catalysts were not triggers.  They did not make a transition to the new values inevitable.  Not triggers.  Catalysts.  Both sets of values remained active and seemingly viable.  You have to know the S&H theory to see the handwriting on the wall, to know what is coming.

But I do not see Wall Street as happy to see COVID or Black Lives Matter.  They wanted or needed a big stimulus for COVID, and will see pauses in profits and bankruptcies anyway.  No joy in Muddsville.  The economy will struggle as a result of this particular crisis.  I don’t see them as profiting from from Black Lives Matter either.  Thus, I doubt your claim that capitalism created crisis for profits.  How did they create either aspect?  How will they profit from either aspect?  You can’t choose your crisis at this point.  Maybe you once could.  Once upon a time if you were the aggressor in a crisis war, you could shape how and who you are going to fight.  How do you intend to shape the new trigger and crisis now?

Again, you cannot count in observations from the last age to tell you anything about this one.  Last age had lots of crisis wars and profit from them and their aftermath.  Now?  Put the observation that capitalists need crises for profits during the Information Age on hold pending their making a profit off a crisis.  In the meantime, think, do not assume.

Also, I see the S&H turnings as a mechanism for how cultures change.  A crisis is the time when the much debated two sets of values from the unravelling are resolved in favor of the new values.  A trigger is an event which makes this process inevitable.  The regeneracy is the time frame when the federal government fully embraces the new values, though it only begins a several year trial and error process as the new values are tried and tuned.  This time the two sets of values debated are the red and the blue.  Did you notice that Marxism is not one of the two?  Did you notice that the blue is the new set?

Thus, we are not working from the same perspective at all.  You are working from an Industrial Age perspective based on Industrial Age observations on how things work, and are pathetically out of date in the Information Age.

You can try to nitpick the details of Marxist theory.  This does not change that Marxist theory has always failed.  The red and blue values are both more relevant than Marxism.  Marxism has been rejected for good reason.  Three good reasons.  Lenin.  Stalin.  Mao.  Considering the magnitude of past failures, Marxism doesn’t deserve another chance.

You once described yourself to me as a half Marxist. A far as you personally, you're a Democratic minded capitalist positioned on the Marxist side today. I've warned you long ago that oil and water don't mix. I'd say that you are slightly outnumbered right now and if the current Liberal trend of attracting and gathering more and more poor people (the so called demographics) continues the Democratic capitalists will be significantly outnumbered and unable to support financially or able to hold up institution wise either.

[Einzige]

(07-28-2020, 11:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Capitalism is no monolith. The profit motive can put one set of capitalists against another -- just think of the American Civil War. Just think of Northern railroad interests against Southern railroad interests.  You may dispute whether the slave-owning planter were really capitalists.

Marx called them a "band of warring brothers" for just this reason.

Quote: Question: can a society go from capitalism to Communism without undergoing the Marxist-Leninist style of organization?

Yes. Lenin's vanguardism was adapted for the pre-capitalist, feudal structure of Russia. This is probably why it resulted in State capitalism there. The ideal social form for organization within capitalist society, which all nations today are (yes, including ostensibly "Marxist" ones like China or Cuba) is the workers council.