Election 2020 - Printable Version +- Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory (http://generational-theory.com/forum) +-- Forum: Fourth Turning Forums (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-1.html) +--- Forum: Current Events (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-34.html) +---- Forum: General Political Discussion (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-15.html) +---- Thread: Election 2020 (/thread-5245.html) |
RE: Election 2020 - Classic-Xer - 11-13-2020 (11-13-2020, 12:51 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:What social virtues are you talking about? How is he going to earn the trust of the Trump supporters? Is he going to take on China? Is he going to put America First and piss off half his donors? The dude is a sell out you know and if you didn't know that then you heard it from me first.(11-11-2020, 10:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(11-11-2020, 09:14 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Who cares? Biden won. So, what's so great about Bumbling Biden? I didn't see anything great about Biden. So, what do you know about Biden? Was Biden ever great? Well, I have to say is he better be great because that's what the Democrats are going to keep the country and fulfill all of its obligations or find themselves being depleted and directly competing with America itself. We're going to win dude because nature always wins. RE: Election 2020 - Classic-Xer - 11-13-2020 (11-13-2020, 01:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:Self reliance means what it means. If you don't know and understand what it means then look it up in a dictionary. Have you ever been self reliant?(11-12-2020, 08:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(11-12-2020, 10:13 AM)David Horn Wrote:(11-12-2020, 05:34 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(11-12-2020, 01:25 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Biden represents the old values ( FDR/ LBJ/ Obama values) or failing values as you say. Popularity isn't much of a factor when it comes to ones actual abilities to get anything done. You can say what you want but Trump got things done. We're still more or less a fifty country that's more or less dead locked which is a far cry from where FDR was, LBJ was and Obama was back in 08'. RE: Election 2020 - pbrower2a - 11-13-2020 (11-13-2020, 09:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(11-13-2020, 12:51 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(11-11-2020, 10:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(11-11-2020, 09:14 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Who cares? Biden won. So, what's so great about Bumbling Biden? I didn't see anything great about Biden. So, what do you know about Biden? Was Biden ever great? Well, I have to say is he better be great because that's what the Democrats are going to keep the country and fulfill all of its obligations or find themselves being depleted and directly competing with America itself. We're going to win dude because nature always wins. For one thing, the Constitution is far more important than the will of the President. Maybe you neglect something. Utah was a solid D state during the New Deal Era. As late as 1948 it was more Democratic than the US as a whole, boing nearly 54-45 for Harry Truman in the 1948 Presidential election. Until then it went D except in R landslides. Apparently R pols nationwide were slow to allow statehood to Utah. After 50 years that was no longer relevant, and Eisenhower found that he could appeal to the Mormon hierarchy in Utah to win it over. Oh, did he win it over! Only in the 1964 disaster of Barry Goldwater has it since voted for a Democratic nominee for President. I may not like Mormon theology, but Mormons aren't bad people. The social order that they have established in Utah is a social order that closely imitates liberal norms and gets good results. That Mormons do not drink or smoke keeps a big chunk of the government from being devoured in the treatment of smoking-related and alcohol-related pathologies that prove expensive and difficult (if not futile) to treat. So Utah does fairly well at social welfare -- like a typical Blue state. I'm a Democrat. I would love to have Mormons on my political side. They wouldn't be trouble. I contrast them to some loathsome people that Donald Trump cultivated as if they could make a difference in the election: neo-Nazis. I hate them. They are a disgrace to a big part of my ancestry (German -- and German-Americans think of Nazis about like most Italian-Americans think of the Mafia). If I had to choose between being a Nazi and a Jew I would be a Jew, for such would cause me no fewer compromises of my ethical and cultural values. (In case you think that German-American families in rural America listen to much Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Schubert, Schumann, Bruckner, and Brahms, then you are wrong. It's mostly country music for adults and a surprising amount of rap (which I would not dignify with the description "music") among youth. Yuck! But back to the point: some people really are toxic in politics. Pedophile advocates are in that category. Do you think we liberals want them near us? Support for people that scummy would lose us far more votes than such would get us. If you are a conservative, then you would be wise to treat neo-Nazis who advocate at the most charitable a sort of Apartheid but suggest to me through their symbols and rhetoric the will to do mass murder, perhaps with some forced labor to wear people down first. Need I remind you that Ronald Reagan, he of undeniable conservative credentials, expressed unqualified disdain for Klansmen and neo-Nazis while President when those creeps emerged from the gutter? We have had mass killings, and Trump never took on the core beliefs that underpin neo-Nazi ideology. Nazis killed, and so have neo-Nazis. RE: Election 2020 - Classic-Xer - 11-13-2020 (11-13-2020, 12:51 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:How are you going to tell the Marxist-Leninist's to get lost at this point? What was Bernies average percentage of the Democratic electorate? What about the Social Justice Warriors ( the Obamacrats/Third Worlders, Black Lives Matter, Antifa and so forth) ? They're starting to get pretty powerful/dangerous these days too? How are you going to tell them to get lost at this point? We can tell them to get lost but how can you?(11-11-2020, 10:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(11-11-2020, 09:14 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Who cares? Biden won. So, what's so great about Bumbling Biden? I didn't see anything great about Biden. So, what do you know about Biden? Was Biden ever great? Well, I have to say is he better be great because that's what the Democrats are going to keep the country and fulfill all of its obligations or find themselves being depleted and directly competing with America itself. We're going to win dude because nature always wins. RE: Election 2020 - Classic-Xer - 11-13-2020 (11-13-2020, 10:37 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:Dude, your side has already trashed the Constitution. It's just not official yet. Your side needs the Constitution to go away. Like I said, you can give up your rights and accept whatever the Democrats have to offer in exchange. You are free to do that right now by accepting welfare and you expressed you're willingness to do so with your Second Amendment Right. Once that's gone then taking away the rest will be rather easy.(11-13-2020, 09:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(11-13-2020, 12:51 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(11-11-2020, 10:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(11-11-2020, 09:14 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Who cares? Biden won. So, what's so great about Bumbling Biden? I didn't see anything great about Biden. So, what do you know about Biden? Was Biden ever great? Well, I have to say is he better be great because that's what the Democrats are going to keep the country and fulfill all of its obligations or find themselves being depleted and directly competing with America itself. We're going to win dude because nature always wins. RE: Election 2020 - Eric the Green - 11-14-2020 (11-13-2020, 11:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(11-13-2020, 10:37 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:Dude, your side has already trashed the Constitution. It's just not official yet. Your side needs the Constitution to go away. Like I said, you can give up your rights and accept whatever the Democrats have to offer in exchange. You are free to do that right now by accepting welfare and you expressed you're willingness to do so with your Second Amendment Right. Once that's gone then taking away the rest will be rather easy.(11-13-2020, 09:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(11-13-2020, 12:51 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(11-11-2020, 10:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: They said much the same of the governor of New York, FDR. The reason FDR got elected in as decisive an election as Biden was because their predecessors went with the old values and did not address the primary problem the culture was facing. Not a good idea in a crisis. Yet, Hoover thought he shouldn’t try to regulate the economy or find jobs, and Trump aligned against solving the bug and racist violent policing. For that matter, Buchanan was all in favor of slavery. The "rights" you are concerned about is the right for goons to go out on the street or invade vote counting centers and threaten people with automatic weapons, or just massacre people. Your version of "rights" are not those that any sensible person should recognize as rights. RE: Election 2020 - Eric the Green - 11-14-2020 (11-13-2020, 10:23 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Self reliance means what it means. If you don't know and understand what it means then look it up in a dictionary. Have you ever been self reliant? I'm sure you will be self-reliant when a huge flood sweeps through your ex-urb and wipes out your house and your entire neighborhood, and see you not ask for help from FEMA but just be a "self-reliant" homeless person. And by the way, try being "self-reliant" and just breathe in air and never have to breathe out. Or vice versa. And "self-reliant" when that air makes you sick from acid rain because your self-reliant philosophy has shut down the Environmental Protection Agency that restrains your "self-reliant" oil barons from polluting our air. RE: Election 2020 - Eric the Green - 11-14-2020 The electoral vote decided. Current popular vote: Biden 50.9% 78,114,089 Donald Trump 47.4% 72,741,954 RE: Election 2020 - pbrower2a - 11-14-2020 (11-13-2020, 11:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(11-13-2020, 10:37 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(11-13-2020, 09:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(11-13-2020, 12:51 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(11-11-2020, 10:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: They said much the same of the governor of New York, FDR. The reason FDR got elected in as decisive an election as Biden was because their predecessors went with the old values and did not address the primary problem the culture was facing. Not a good idea in a crisis. Yet, Hoover thought he shouldn’t try to regulate the economy or find jobs, and Trump aligned against solving the bug and racist violent policing. For that matter, Buchanan was all in favor of slavery. This was done: to make this sacrilegious stunt possible. Donald Trump does not attend this Episcopal church, and that particular church did not give the President permission for this infamous photo-op. Even worse, I see no evidence from the behavior of this hideous person that he reads or heeds the ethical guidance in the Bible. This stunt has been condemned by mainline Protestant churches and the Catholic Church. I got to choose between a devout Christian and a Santa Claus-and-Easter Bunny Christian. I can say that this time (it has never been a real choice) that I voted for the Christian. Joe Biden will restore Christian ethics and behavior to the White House. (He will appoint some Jews, but Jewish ethics are indistinguishable from Christian ethics. No more 'grab 'em by the (kitty-cat)' stuff. No more bragging that he could go down Fifth Avenue and shoot people and he wouldn't lose any votes stuff. No more highly-politicized attacks on dissidents. I also got to choose between a President who has a healthy reverence for America's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who have accepted the danger, hardship, and regimentation of military life on behalf of the American people now and in all prior wars and one who could say "I prefer heroes who weren't captured". That pointless swipe at Senator John McCain (R-AZ) likely cost him the eleven electoral votes of Arizona. I see no obvious cause for expecting any difference between Joe Biden and the President (Barack Obama) for whom he was an understudy on that. I got to choose between a President who sides with dictators or with democratic leaders. It has never been so easy. I got to choose between a President who recognizes the usefulness of science even if it is politically inconvenient to someone who subordinates science to the will of his favored (high-polluting) special interests. It was easy. Joe Biden. Devout Christian. Good family man. No corrupt gain in his life. No string of sexual harassment. Respects active-duty service personnel and veterans. Trusts science more than gut feelings. Appeals to the best in human nature. It's easy. RE: Election 2020 - David Horn - 11-15-2020 (11-13-2020, 11:03 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: How are you going to tell the Marxist-Leninist's to get lost at this point? What was Bernies average percentage of the Democratic electorate? What about the Social Justice Warriors ( the Obamacrats/Third Worlders, Black Lives Matter, Antifa and so forth) ? They're starting to get pretty powerful/dangerous these days too? How are you going to tell them to get lost at this point? We can tell them to get lost but how can you? What is it with you guys and all the Marxist rhetoric? No one, and I do mean no one, is interested in that economic system, And Leninism? Really. That's just dictatorship with pseudo-populist propaganda -- a lot more like the Trumpster than anything the Dems are doing. I know it's worked in the past, but that may now be ending. The Millies and Zoomers are not listening. And yes, there are a lot of social problems you don't see in your lily white enclave. I get it. My neighbors are just like you. But the minority can't lord it over the majority for very long, and the demographics are shifting pretty fast. Bernie hit a nerve, because the pain was already there. Trump didn't help ... he made it worse. The zealots in the Democratic Party are no more zealous than the ones the GOP hugs everyday, and a lot less violent. You might consider cleaning your own stables. RE: Election 2020 - pbrower2a - 11-15-2020 (11-15-2020, 06:34 AM)David Horn Wrote:(11-13-2020, 11:03 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: How are you going to tell the Marxist-Leninist's to get lost at this point? What was Bernies average percentage of the Democratic electorate? What about the Social Justice Warriors ( the Obamacrats/Third Worlders, Black Lives Matter, Antifa and so forth) ? They're starting to get pretty powerful/dangerous these days too? How are you going to tell them to get lost at this point? We can tell them to get lost but how can you? Marxism-Leninism is such a failure that what passes as the Left has abandoned it. Marxism-Leninism is so obsolete that it is now reactionary. Government ownership and operation of all productive business is a failure. Central planning is a disaster. Free markets are far better than some administrators in deciding what is made and what it will cost the consumer. Monopolies such as power companies are starting to feel the pressure from such competition as solar and wind power. Cellular phone companies are gutting the revenues of the landline phone companies. ...as for the Third World: West Virginia is one of the whitest states in America, and it is incredibly poor. If by "Third World" Classic X'er means "non-white", then much of the American middle class is non-white. Statistically, Americans of East, Southeast, and South Asian origin do better than white people. Although poverty may result from being where economic progress completely missed, it can also result from being in places in which what used to pass for prosperity is no more. A hint: if you want the Good Life in America, stay clear of the Ohio valley between Portsmouth, Ohio and Huntington, West Virginia (this includes Ashland, Kentucky). Don't go barefoot around there, for you might find some abandoned needles for IV drug use with your feet. I'll say this for middle-class blacks and Hispanics: they at least give a damn about the poor of their ethnic groups. That's far better than I can say about middle-class and upper-class white people. OK, so if you live on the North Side of Chicago or in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (a truly prosperous suburb of Detroit) you are a long way from eastern Kentucky or even southern Ohio. Quote: And yes, there are a lot of social problems you don't see in your lily white enclave. I get it. My neighbors are just like you. But the minority can't lord it over the majority for very long, and the demographics are shifting pretty fast. Bernie hit a nerve, because the pain was already there. Trump didn't help ... he made it worse. The zealots in the Democratic Party are no more zealous than the ones the GOP hugs everyday, and a lot less violent. You might consider cleaning your own stables. I doubt that Classic X'er cares little for poor white people. He is not a racist in his contempt for the poor; he is an equal-opportunity debaser of poor people irrespective of their race or ethnicity. It's time for a new New Deal for America -- or a Marshall Plan for America's poor. Pick your slogan! RE: Election 2020 - Classic-Xer - 11-16-2020 (11-15-2020, 06:34 AM)David Horn Wrote:You're not interested in the system that you've been more or less promoting/supporting/representing for as long as I've known you and the others here. I think you're right, I think the majority of the country favors American capitalism over lowly third world socialism. I think you're also right about the elites losing control over the American people as well. You're seeing signs of it now. Bernie hit a nerve but Trump hit a much larger nerve than Bernie. The Democratic zealots are going down. It's just a matter of how hard are they going down at this point. Biden is a sellout and that will be made very clear by the mid terms. The Democrats voted to go backwards which is fine for Democrats these days.(11-13-2020, 11:03 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: How are you going to tell the Marxist-Leninist's to get lost at this point? What was Bernies average percentage of the Democratic electorate? What about the Social Justice Warriors ( the Obamacrats/Third Worlders, Black Lives Matter, Antifa and so forth) ? They're starting to get pretty powerful/dangerous these days too? How are you going to tell them to get lost at this point? We can tell them to get lost but how can you? RE: Election 2020 - Bob Butler 54 - 11-16-2020 (11-16-2020, 02:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You're not interested in the system that you've been more or less promoting/supporting/representing for as long as I've known you and the others here. I think you're right, I think the majority of the country favors American capitalism over lowly third world socialism. I think you're also right about the elites losing control over the American people as well. You're seeing signs of it now. Bernie hit a nerve but Trump hit a much larger nerve than Bernie. The Democratic zealots are going down. It's just a matter of how hard are they going down at this point. Biden is a sellout and that will be made very clear by the mid terms. The Democrats voted to go backwards which is fine for Democrats these days. If people are living close together, it is natural that they want to help each other. If they are spread way out, they have to become more self reliant, do a greater number of things themselves. Neither is evil. Neither is the correct solution for all circumstances, for all environments. The crime is in thinking other people living under different circumstances should be forced to do what you do. Any attempt to help your neighbor, to cooperate, to work together, has come to be called socialism. Ben Franklin in that case was a big socialist. He thought it was neat for a bunch of well to do merchants to get together and pave the road, or to get them together to form a postal service. The idea was to create a more perfect union. More recently it is called domestic spending. The government tries to help the people... or not as the case might be. Some people just are not team players. It’s about themselves, they don’t need support from anybody. Well, bully for them. They just shouldn’t get in the way of those who do want to work together, or to be good at one thing and let others do what they are good at. I picture a culture of independence where everybody is supposed to learn how to fix their own air conditioner. I’d rather not, myself. I’ll just call in a guy who specializes in fixing air conditioners. Classic just seems incapable of understanding the principle. Edit: Now, if all air conditioners were owned by the state, and that by law you could not fix your own air conditioner or others except by being a member of the party's official air conditioning bureaucracy, and that only the sons of party bureaucrats seemed ever to become members, and if you were illegally caught fixing an air conditioner you got exiled to some ridiculous cold place, now then you are getting into the sort of abuse which gave socialism a bad name among certain people. That doesn't seem to be the case here. RE: Election 2020 - Einzige - 11-17-2020 As an actual Marxist, I see very little difference between the platforms of the Democratic Party and the Republicans. Both are ultra-capitalist, ultranationalist parties of the bourgeois and their bootlickers among the privileged sectors of the working class (the"middle-class", whose own relationship to the means of production is identical to the lowliest Third World laborer). Bill Clinton created the Imigration And Customs Enforcement agency weaponized by Trump with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996; Barack Obama was the Deporter-in-Chief. These parties are structurally and functionally identical. Welfare programs, for example, are simply designed to facilitate the increased circulation of money. That's all. They are the products of a particular bourgeois economic theory which holds that economic crises are the product of under consumption (ironically, the same theory underpinning Republican supply side economics), which can be overcome endogenously without changes to the mode of production. "Crony capitalism" issimply capitalism which prioritizes the circulation of money to competition; it isn't some radically new mode of production. The Green New Deal on the socdem Left is another example. It's nothing more than an attempt to solve a capitalist problem capitalistically- to heal Marx's "metabolic rift" with nature and perhaps to induce a Keynesian knock on effect in the process. There is absolutely nothing revolutionary, or even radical, in any of AOC's proposals towards this end. Green capitalism is garbage. RE: Election 2020 - Bob Butler 54 - 11-17-2020 (11-17-2020, 02:15 PM)Einzige Wrote: As an actual Marxist, I see very little difference between the platforms of the Democratic Party and the Republicans. Both are ultra-capitalist, ultranationalist parties of the bourgeois and their bootlickers among the privileged sectors of the working class (the"middle-class", whose own relationship to the means of production is identical to the lowliest Third World laborer). Bill Clinton created the Imigration And Customs Enforcement agency weaponized by Trump with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996; Barack Obama was the Deporter-in-Chief. These parties are structurally and functionally identical. At the height of the unravelling, I could go with that analysis. Both parties were more loyal to the elites than to the working man. These days, things have shifted a little bit. It is more that the Republicans are loyal to the elites and racists, the Democrats to the working man and minorities. It seems possible that the conflict can be resolved through votes and legislation rather than violence. The problem with Marxism is that the party becomes the new elites. They own the means of production. In all attempts a Marxism to date, the revolutionaries come to care more about the revolutionaries than the people. As a result, the Marxist economies are unable to compete with the capitalists. Until that problem is solved, Marxism is a non starter. That leaves us trying capitalist problems using capitalist methods. They may not be radical, but they have not historically failed enough that socialism has become a dirty word. RE: Election 2020 - Einzige - 11-17-2020 (11-17-2020, 02:37 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(11-17-2020, 02:15 PM)Einzige Wrote: As an actual Marxist, I see very little difference between the platforms of the Democratic Party and the Republicans. Both are ultra-capitalist, ultranationalist parties of the bourgeois and their bootlickers among the privileged sectors of the working class (the"middle-class", whose own relationship to the means of production is identical to the lowliest Third World laborer). Bill Clinton created the Imigration And Customs Enforcement agency weaponized by Trump with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996; Barack Obama was the Deporter-in-Chief. These parties are structurally and functionally identical. The Democratic Party is not "loyal to the working man", lol. Even from a vulgar left-populist position (laborite capitalism - pro-unions, pro-welfare, etc.) the Democrats are loyal to specific segments of the working class- workers in the tech sector and finance, the actual Democratic base. In reality, social democratic demands like "loyalty to the working class" are useless. What is necessary is nothing less than the self-abolition of the working class as a class. Unions are useless in this struggle, indeed counterrevolutionary. Per Professor Paul Mattick: https://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1975/lebel.htm Quote: Although the continued existence of capitalism, in either its private or state-capitalist forms, proved that the expectation of the growth of a new labour movement in the wake of the Second World War was pre mature, the continued resilience of capitalism does not remove its immanent contradictions and will therefore not release the workers from the need to put an end to it. Of course, with capitalism still in the saddle, the old labour organisations, parliamentary parties and trade unions, could also be maintained. But they are already recognised, and recognise themselves, as part and parcel of capitalism, destined to go down with the system on which their existence depends. Quote:The problem with Marxism is that the party becomes the new elites. They own the means of production. In all attempts a Marxism to date, the revolutionaries come to care more about the revolutionaries than the people. As a result, the Marxist economies are unable to compete with the capitalists. Until that problem is solved, Marxism is a non starter. The revolution does not require a formalized Party at all. I would suggest studying Amadeo Bordiga's views on the matter. RE: Election 2020 - pbrower2a - 11-17-2020 (11-17-2020, 02:15 PM)Einzige Wrote: As an actual Marxist, I see very little difference between the platforms of the Democratic Party and the Republicans. Both are ultra-capitalist, ultranationalist parties of the bourgeois and their bootlickers among the privileged sectors of the working class (the"middle-class", whose own relationship to the means of production is identical to the lowliest Third World laborer). Bill Clinton created the Imigration And Customs Enforcement agency weaponized by Trump with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996; Barack Obama was the Deporter-in-Chief. These parties are structurally and functionally identical. As a practical matter, I reject the concept of proletarian revolution because it has never worked well. The dictatorial regimes that replace the predecessors (exclusion: Nazi Germany) prove just as dictatorial and despotic as the nasty regimes that they replaces. Marxist socialism is simply the imposition of state ownership of the productive capital, and that proves simply a newfangled form of feudalism. Markets are much more rational than is central planning because markets take the human part out of decision-making of what gets made and what gets offered. The human part in central planning is often simply foolishness, making a surfeit of what is obsolete or substandard because such is easier than responding to consumer demand. "Socialist" economies have proved backward in technological innovation (think of the old East German version of 'high tech') except in military equipment (the Drug Enforcement Agency bought some MIGs for surveillance aircraft, and after overthrowing Saddam Hussein the US bought plenty of AK-47's of Soviet design for the new Iraq). In the wake of a revolution that overthrows a thoroughly-nasty, corrupt, non-market system (despots of the Right and Left are equally hostile to free markets, at the least free markets in ideas), it is best to go full-bore free market. After that we need capitalism with a human face. American capitalism has been trending toward monopolization (destruction of competition), vertical integration (denial of small-business opportunity) and bureaucratic elites within corporate behemoths. The worst trend in America is that toward a capitalist version of a Soviet-style nomenklatura in an executive class that gets well rewarded for treating people badly. Quote:Welfare programs, for example, are simply designed to facilitate the increased circulation of money. That's all. They are the products of a particular bourgeois economic theory which holds that economic crises are the product of under consumption (ironically, the same theory underpinning Republican supply side economics), which can be overcome endogenously without changes to the mode of production. "Crony capitalism" is simply capitalism which prioritizes the circulation of money to competition; it isn't some radically new mode of production. I concur on the effect of strengthening the flow of transactions. People who use food aid (SNAP, earlier food stamps) typically spend the aid in entities such as Wal*Mart, Safeway, Kroger, Meijer, Publix, Spartan-Nash, Aldi, Family Dollar, and Dollar General. I can easily imagine worse either as starvation or poor people such as the handicapped either starving or becoming great burdens on people who have better things to do. One pays one way or the other. Medicaid and Medicate go through medical providers. But this is not crony capitalism in which a select few capitalists, often real estate developers who quickly become rentier landlords making a killing (this is where Donald Trump made his only reliable income), get the aid of the Government in deciding who gets to build what and where. Government deciding which capitalists make the money is crony capitalism, which is not a market-based economy. Quote:The Green New Deal on the socdem Left is another example. It's nothing more than an attempt to solve a capitalist problem capitalistically- to heal Marx's "metabolic rift" with nature and perhaps to induce a Keynesian knock on effect in the process. There is absolutely nothing revolutionary, or even radical, in any of AOC's proposals towards this end. Green capitalism is garbage. We have all seen Donald Trump in action, and the only mitigation of his proposed nastiness is his incompetence as a political leader. The democratic elements within our political culture align with humanist tendencies (and when all is said and done, humanism is the only viable ideology) favor a more humane social order and one that better accommodates environmental reality. RE: Election 2020 - Einzige - 11-17-2020 (11-17-2020, 02:55 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(11-17-2020, 02:15 PM)Einzige Wrote: As an actual Marxist, I see very little difference between the platforms of the Democratic Party and the Republicans. Both are ultra-capitalist, ultranationalist parties of the bourgeois and their bootlickers among the privileged sectors of the working class (the"middle-class", whose own relationship to the means of production is identical to the lowliest Third World laborer). Bill Clinton created the Imigration And Customs Enforcement agency weaponized by Trump with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996; Barack Obama was the Deporter-in-Chief. These parties are structurally and functionally identical. Yes, Communism will be totalitarian - just as capitalism is today. You cannot exist outside of capitalist relations today; there is no way to achieve independence from money relations, no matter how skilled the individual may be (even survivalists must buy their land, pay property taxes, buy tools, etc, all to encourage them to remain in the system.). Capitalism as a mode of production is all-encompassing now. So Communism will be also. Quote:Marxist socialism is simply the imposition of state ownership of the productive capital, and that proves simply a newfangled form of feudalism. Wrong. Read Engels' Socialism: Utopian & Scientific Chapter III: Quote:If the crises demonstrate the incapacity of the bourgeoisie for managing any longer modern productive forces, the transformation of the great establishments for production and distribution into joint-stock companies, trusts, and State property, show how unnecessary the bourgeoisie are for that purpose. All the social functions of the capitalist has no further social function than that of pocketing dividends, tearing off coupons, and gambling on the Stock Exchange, where the different capitalists despoil one another of their capital. At first, the capitalistic mode of production forces out the workers. Now, it forces out the capitalists, and reduces them, just as it reduced the workers, to the ranks of the surplus-population, although not immediately into those of the industrial reserve army. So what happened in the Soviet Union? It simply passed from feudalism into State capitalism, as even Lenin recognized. Per The Tax In Kind. 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. If there are anarchists and Left Soeialist-Revolutionaries (I recall offhand the speeches of Karelin and Ghe at the meeting of the Central Executive Committee) who indulge in Karelin-like reflections and say that it is unbecoming for us revolutionaries to “take lessons” from German imperialism, there is only one thing we can say in reply: the revolution that took these people seriously would perish irrevocably (and deservedly). Quote:Markets are much more rational than is central planning because markets take the human part out of decision-making of what gets made and what gets offered. The human part in central planning is often simply foolishness, making a surfeit of what is obsolete or substandard because such is easier than responding to consumer demand. There is no central planning under socialism. There is social planning, in which the whole of society directs production for the whole of society, unmediated by bureaucracies or markets. Quote:"Socialist" economies have proved backward in technological innovation (think of the old East German version of 'high tech') except in military equipment (the Drug Enforcement Agency bought some MIGs for surveillance aircraft, and after overthrowing Saddam Hussein the US bought plenty of AK-47's of Soviet design for the new Iraq). There has never been a socialist economy. More later. RE: Election 2020 - pbrower2a - 11-17-2020 (11-17-2020, 03:18 PM)Einzige Wrote:(11-17-2020, 02:55 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(11-17-2020, 02:15 PM)Einzige Wrote: As an actual Marxist, I see very little difference between the platforms of the Democratic Party and the Republicans. Both are ultra-capitalist, ultranationalist parties of the bourgeois and their bootlickers among the privileged sectors of the working class (the"middle-class", whose own relationship to the means of production is identical to the lowliest Third World laborer). Bill Clinton created the Imigration And Customs Enforcement agency weaponized by Trump with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996; Barack Obama was the Deporter-in-Chief. These parties are structurally and functionally identical. Only if you confuse "totalitarian" with "inhuman" or "anti-human". A capitalist system with a leader at all dictatorial (as in Pinochet or Trump) will be inhuman to the extent that it holds that that those who own and administer the assets have no responsibility to the common man, but instead that the common man knows no restraints on the responsibility to the economic elites. Pinochet is often suggested as an exemplar of market forces but he was the head of an order of extreme concentration of wealth and economic power. He destroyed democracy and stifled freedom of expression to protect the elites from all challenge. Trump is more neurotic and less organized, and the American economy has a larger small-business sector. Quote:Quote:Marxist socialism is simply the imposition of state ownership of the productive capital, and that proves simply a newfangled form of feudalism. Marxism-Leninism is already obsolete. The capitalists do not have a death wish, and they will do what they can to make a proletarian revolution impossible and even intellectually absurd. Capitalists do not need to be particularly humane to decide that hunger and homelessness are calls for revolution: better a welfare state. Capitalists generally have found that a consumer society is a better idea than a command society that serves only the interests of the owners and administrators. Engels as an authority? Contemporary mathematicians remain in awe of Euler and Gauss, but they don't look to the writings of those great geniuses for the mathematical questions of the day. Quote:Quote:Markets are much more rational than is central planning because markets take the human part out of decision-making of what gets made and what gets offered. The human part in central planning is often simply foolishness, making a surfeit of what is obsolete or substandard because such is easier than responding to consumer demand. Markets decide that obsolete technologies such as mainframe computers, pre-recorded VHS tapes, Windows 7 and earlier PC's, and CRT televisions are no longer made for mass consumption. We are beginning to see this even with dead-tree editions of books. Just go to Goodwill or Salvation Army stores to see what people used to cherish but don't now. (OK, one qualification: the thrift shops don't want obsolete TV's and computers). Quote: Definitional dodge. RE: Election 2020 - Einzige - 11-17-2020 (11-17-2020, 04:30 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Only if you confuse "totalitarian" with "inhuman" or "anti-human". A capitalist system with a leader at all dictatorial (as in Pinochet or Trump) will be inhuman to the extent that it holds that that those who own and administer the assets have no responsibility to the common man, but instead that the common man knows no restraints on the responsibility to the economic elites. Pinochet is often suggested as an exemplar of market forces but he was the head of an order of extreme concentration of wealth and economic power. He destroyed democracy and stifled freedom of expression to protect the elites from all challenge. Trump is more neurotic and less organized, and the American economy has a larger small-business sector. Capitalist systems do not have leaders. It is Capital itself which is a totalitarian social system, not this clique of bourgeois politicians or that. Just as we can imagine a revanchist, reactionary interwar Germany bot led by Hitler and the NSDAP but doing substantially the same things - perhaps with Hugenberg at the helm - so too can we imagine the system governed by different actors functioning near-identically (e.g. Herbert Hoover inaugurating the New Deal, or Jimmy Carter deregulating airlines, trucking etc. before Reagan). Capital is the system; politics is its obfuscation Quote:Engels as an authority The point is that you are wrong to say that "Marxist socialism is simply the imposition of state ownership of the productive capital". That is rather (State) capitalism. |