The cancer infecting the political Left

[Einzige]

Bureaucracies do not exist under socialism. Socialism is literally nothing more than the proletariat seizing society and operating it in its image. The bureau belongs to the age of abstract capitalist management, including Soviet and Maoist capitalism.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-25-2020, 11:26 PM)Einzige Wrote: You conceive, again, of Marxism as a prescriptive moral doctrine, that is, as a liberal doctrine. It isn't. Marxism is descriptive.

For example: what would it mean for FDR or Biden to "fail"? What would a fail-state be for someone whose function is preserve and extend Capital, other than the abolition of capitalism?

Failure on the class conflict aspect would involve the inability to get enough wealth in the hands of the worker so there was a perception of the last resort being reached.  Failure on the environmental aspect would be enough land and resources being unavailable so that enough wealth cannot be put in the hands of the people, therefore the last resort is reached.  Failure on the rule of law front would be if the powers that be place themselves above the law.  Failure on the equality front would involve a perception that minorities are unable to get equality through political means, and that aa a last resort violence is called for.

Basically, the government is so greedy and unresponsive that the people get ticked off.  Thus far in the west, the elites are yielding just enough not to reach that point.  In other parts of the world, autocratic culture was stronger than the democratic ideals, so they reached the ticked off phase without leaving the autocracy behind.  The result?  Marxist revolutions become non-marxist.  They became autocratic.  The elite remained a dominant class with no feedback to limit their desire to exploit.

And this lack of feedback is a flaw in Marxist theory which has raised the bar of people considering if failure has been reached, if the standard of last resort calls for violence.  People are just more willing to engage in democratic and non violent attempts to change first.

I would agree that Marxist theory doesn’t describe the real world, but I see it less as a good thing.

We may or may not passed the point where you get not get enough elitism, racism and religious desire to impose on the culture to make the red pattern sustainable.  We shall have to see if Biden manages to keep some promises, and how intact the Republican advantage remains after the oncoming struggle for control of the party.  Will we get a new progressive era, a new new deal, when government serves the worker and minorities, or will the combination of elitism, racism, and Neo colonialism continue.

Reaching the people perceiving failure, of violence without credible feedback from the violent, isn't really a contending view at this point.  What would make you trust a violent barbarian?  What would it take to keep him under control?  Words?  Theories?

(11-26-2020, 02:25 AM)Einzige Wrote: Bureaucracies do not exist under socialism. Socialism is literally nothing more than the proletariat seizing society and operating it in its image. The bureau belongs to the age of abstract capitalist management, including Soviet and Maoist capitalism.

Bureaucracies exist in all governments.  They are the way problems are solved, a government organization gets created to solve them.  Marxist theory supposes that problems will go away and not have to be solved?  I doubt it.  Again, you are not reflecting an understanding of how the real world works.  You attempt to solve problems with language.  It doesn't work that way.

[pbrower2a]

(11-26-2020, 02:25 AM)Einzige Wrote: Bureaucracies do not exist under socialism. Socialism is literally nothing more than the proletariat seizing society and operating it in its image. The bureau belongs to the age of abstract capitalist management, including Soviet and Maoist capitalism.

No true Scotsman fallacy. So you make the argument:

No true Scotsman likes jazz. But "Angus MacPherson just bought a large collection of jazz records. Oh. When you look closely into it, his mother is Russian. Oh, that explains it. Angus McPherson isn't really Scots, then".

You can't say that a system isn't socialist because it has oppression, bureaucracy, militarism, or some other objectionable feature.

...I didn't intend to disparage jazz.

A cat is still a cat if it chases a dog (which is possible with a small dog).

[Einzige]

(12-01-2020, 04:29 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-26-2020, 02:25 AM)Einzige Wrote: Bureaucracies do not exist under socialism. Socialism is literally nothing more than the proletariat seizing society and operating it in its image. The bureau belongs to the age of abstract capitalist management, including Soviet and Maoist capitalism.

No true Scotsman fallacy. So you make the argument:

No true Scotsman likes jazz. But "Angus MacPherson just bought a large collection of jazz records. Oh. When you look closely into it, his mother is Russian. Oh, that explains it. Angus McPherson isn't really Scots, then".

You can't say that a system isn't socialist because it has oppression, bureaucracy, militarism, or some other objectionable feature.

...I didn't intend to disparage jazz.

It's  not not socialist because it has oppression etc. It's not socialist because it has production for exchange, which bureaucracy implies.

Socialism has very little to do directly with moral abstractions like militarism, war, etc., though it ameliorates these. Socialism is the abolition of wage labor and production for exchange.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-01-2020, 05:31 AM)Einzige Wrote: It's  not not socialist because it has oppression etc. It's not socialist because it has production for exchange, which bureaucracy implies.

Socialism has very little to do directly with moral abstractions like militarism, war, etc., though it ameliorates these. Socialism is the abolition of wage labor and production for exchange.

On paper.  In theory.  In reality, the Communist powers indulged themselves with oppression, military expansion, bureaucracy, taking advantage of monopolizing the means of production, etc...

If your theory would acknowledge the nature of the leaders and elites, the problem with the working man having no means of controlling the Party, you might have something meaningful to contribute.  As is, they bury themselves into the theory and denying the history.

[Einzige]

The history is entirely explained by the theory: every State in which a Communist Party took power in the 20th century was a pre-capitalist agrarian society. Lenin wrote an entire book, The Tax In Kind, justifying the retention of wage labor and commodity production for exchange in the Soviet Union, and indeed the introduction of market relations where none had previously existed.

The Soviet Union was a capitalist society. It never ceased to be capitalist, and could not have done so under the circumstances

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-01-2020, 06:07 AM)Einzige Wrote: The history is entirely explained by the theory: every State in which a Communist Party took power in the 20th century was a pre-capitalist agrarian society. Lenin wrote an entire book, The Tax In Kind, justifying the retention of wage labor and commodity production for exchange in the Soviet Union, and indeed the introduction of market relations where none had previously existed.

The Soviet Union was a capitalist society. It never ceased to be capitalist, and could not have done so under the circumstances

As I said, the theory was never implemented.  It seems to have discredited itself before anyone tried it.  The reason it was rejected was a lack of understanding of the elites.  Those who are good at winning revolutions will not let go of absolute power once they have it.

If the theory includes a way where the people have power over the elites and leaders, it might gather followers.  Unfortunately, democracy is the obvious way to do that.  With the US alliance between the elites and the racists, concern for the working man and minorities has been thus far been suppressed.

We will see if this crisis changes that any, but Marxism is not a viable player on the stage.  It will not be without a way of checking the leaders and elites.

[pbrower2a]

(12-01-2020, 05:31 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(12-01-2020, 04:29 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-26-2020, 02:25 AM)Einzige Wrote: Bureaucracies do not exist under socialism. Socialism is literally nothing more than the proletariat seizing society and operating it in its image. The bureau belongs to the age of abstract capitalist management, including Soviet and Maoist capitalism.

No true Scotsman fallacy. So you make the argument:

No true Scotsman likes jazz. But "Angus MacPherson just bought a large collection of jazz records. Oh. When you look closely into it, his mother is Russian. Oh, that explains it. Angus McPherson isn't really Scots, then".

You can't say that a system isn't socialist because it has oppression, bureaucracy, militarism, or some other objectionable feature.

...I didn't intend to disparage jazz.

It's  not not socialist because it has oppression etc. It's not socialist because it has production for exchange, which bureaucracy implies.

Socialism has very little to do directly with moral abstractions like militarism, war, etc., though it ameliorates these. Socialism is the abolition of wage labor and production for exchange.

Then the "Great October Revolution" was simply an overthrow of a shaky democracy (the Russian provisional republic) and the replacement of a still-feudal political system with an economy still having feudal elements with a state serfdom. With this one makes the case for someone so blatantly pro-plutocracy as Friedrich Hayek. Maybe libertarianism and the Austrian school are themselves utopian, and maybe neither of them would work well. But Marxism-Leninism clearly failed for countries just beginning to industrialize that had big trouble feeding their people. I see no reason to believe that such would work any better here. 

One can make the case that production for exchange is not so much a political reality that results from some ideology as it does from human nature. Prosperity depends upon the exchange of good for good, which is possible only when people can do good deeds or make good things. People can produce all the schlock possible, but most of us will not like it. The pointless bellowing of some  drunk or lunatic doesn't make it to a bookstore, but poetry by Emily Dickinson and Carl Sandburg does. Figure that such a composer as Jean Sibelius left behind a mystery about an Eighth Symphony that has never made the concert hall because he thought it substandard. He destroyed it because he thought that it would detract from his reputation as a composer. Is it as awful as he thought? We will never know, although some interesting sketches survive. Many fine composers started projects that never went far into completion. It may be a catchy tune, but it doesn't fit some grand counterpoint that might work with something else. "Sketch first and paint second" applies to painters when canvas and paint were not cheap... OK, Bob Ross said at one time that when he made a mistake he typically turned it into a bird.   

OK... infants up to a certain point are proud of their ability to produce two things: shit and urine. At some point they are toilet trained, and at that point they learn that a toilet is something at which to get rid of things that nobody values and in fact, about everyone over a certain age considers disgusting and even harmful. Somewhat later we find that our doodles and some of our writings are of no value to anyone else... and we cast those off in the knowledge that those are worthless.    

We are at a time in which technology makes the production of good stuff as easy as the production of schlock. As an economic order advances technologically, which includes its productive capacities, quality becomes more important than quantity. I do not collect the wish-fulfillment novels (OK, this may be sexism on my part) in which a (usually) female author has as her plot "He bought me this, he bought me that, we went to some expensive lace where he lavished upon me a great time without concern for cost, and we had great sex"... for men it might be adventure novels in which the hero bayonets his way through Vietcong soldiers to rescue his innocent Vietnamese girlfriend for marriage, and she is of course a virgin... or some space drama in which one travels to Tau Ceti II with the aid of something that the late science-fiction author Robert Heinlein calls a double-talk drive to save the planet from an invasion. (OK, Star Trek is allegedly Wagon Train in space, and I am surprised that nobody has come up with Little House on the Prairie in space, which would probably take a woman to do). 

One can live in a delusion of material wealth if one is a late-adapter, as one can use castoffs that one bought cheaply at Goodwill, Salvation Army, or the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Obvious there is stuff not worth keeping because it is too unwieldy, like console 'entertainment packages' or because it is no longer usable, like pianos that can no longer be tuned. You would be surprised at how cheap compact discs and DVD's are now that they have flooded the market. For really unsalable stuff, just look at the vinyl records recorded for the GI generation back in the 1960's... Lawrence Welk, Montovani, Guy Lombardo... one can hardly give that away anymore because those are now pre-modern, and not very good, tastes. 

Production of enough isn't adequate in itself.

[Einzige]

Quote:then the "Great October Revolution" was simply an overthrow of a shaky democracy (the Russian provisional republic) and the replacement of a still-feudal political system with an economy still having feudal elements with a state serfdom.

Again, holy shit, Lenin said this himself.

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.

As per usual, you don't address the substance of a post, preferring instead to go off on a tangent into high culture.

[pbrower2a]

Russia was already in the early stages of capitalist development and in fact in a rapid-growth phase before World War I. Russia was already on par with the West in creativity in culture; it had some daring authors, artists, and composers. It had a fine scientific community. All countries go through the difficult early-industrial stage, and Russia was no exception. That is no easy time because capitalists can get away with doing much on the cheap because there are plenty of peasants willing to do an industrial job that pays a little more than agricultural labor even if the people that they replace died in industrial accidents or were worn out at age 35 and starve to death or die of disease at age 40. Farm laborers go to the Big City and come back with the observation that the streets are paved with gold... they see the lavish expenditures of the elites in their expensive carriages and at pricey restaurants... maybe they can get in on the revelry itself vulgar.

To make a long story short, Imperial Russia conducted a bungled war, a costly stalemate against the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey, largely) bleeding the country dry. Eventually Russia lost so many troops that the Imperial regime could no longer defend itself effectively, and its erratic leadership made revolution a certainty. The Provisional Republic did what it could, but the Central Powers would not give the Kerensky government a chance to withdraw from the war and lick its wounds. Lenin would surrender great swaths of territory to the victorious Central Powers because of his vision that Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey would themselves fall to revolutions like his.. and align themselves with his Socialist revolution, making defeat in the Great War irrelevant to Russia. It almost worked.

Almost means not.

Lenin instituted a political order much more barbarous than anything else in Europe at the time, and Stalin made it even more full of death and misery. It took Hitler to approach Stalin in horror, and for a short time Hitler surpassed Stalin, in part by adopting Stalin's methods of state terror, including concentration camps resembling Stalinist Gulags.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-01-2020, 01:36 PM)Einzige Wrote: Again, holy shit, Lenin said this himself.

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.

But that is because Lenin was a barbarian.  He was no Marxist.  I thought you acknowledged that Marxism has never been tried?

The problem is attracting people to the Marxist cause who are not barbarians.  You have to convince civilized people that violence, the last resort, has been reached.  This would be after it has been demonstrated that only a barbarian is going to win a revolution.  Civilized people are more likely to use the tools of the Enlightenment, Gandhi or King.

[David Horn]

(12-01-2020, 03:10 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-01-2020, 01:36 PM)Einzige Wrote: Again, holy shit, Lenin said this himself.

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.

But that is because Lenin was a barbarian.  He was no Marxist.  I thought you acknowledged that Marxism has never been tried?

The problem is attracting people to the Marxist cause who are not barbarians.  You have to convince civilized people that violence, the last resort, has been reached.  This would be after it has been demonstrated that only a barbarian is going to win a revolution.  Civilized people are more likely to use the tools of the Enlightenment, Gandhi or King.

The Marxist dream is just that: a dream. Pure socialism, without any externals to motivate, is only viable in a place that operates on magic.  Why produce if it has no direct relevance?  If we all can receive based on need, then any decision to contribute is optional, and likely rare. Without inputs outputs are impossible, so everyone starves.

[pbrower2a]

(12-01-2020, 03:28 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-01-2020, 03:10 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-01-2020, 01:36 PM)Einzige Wrote: Again, holy shit, Lenin said this himself.

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.

But that is because Lenin was a barbarian.  He was no Marxist.  I thought you acknowledged that Marxism has never been tried?

The problem is attracting people to the Marxist cause who are not barbarians.  You have to convince civilized people that violence, the last resort, has been reached.  This would be after it has been demonstrated that only a barbarian is going to win a revolution.  Civilized people are more likely to use the tools of the Enlightenment, Gandhi or King.

The Marxist dream is just that: a dream. Pure socialism, without any externals to motivate, is only viable in a place that operates on magic.  Why produce if it has no direct relevance?  If we all can receive based on need, then any decision to contribute is optional, and likely rare. Without inputs outputs are impossible, so everyone starves.

Which is why we need a market -- to smash delusions.  One of the worst delusions is that enterprise is no necessity.

[Einzige]

Quote:Why produce if it has no direct relevance?  If we all can receive based on need, then any decision to contribute is optional, and likely rare

Bullshit.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-01-2020, 04:08 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Which is why we need a market -- to smash delusions.  One of the worst delusions is that enterprise is no necessity.

And yet the need for labor changes.  In order for the elites to gather their ever increasing cut, the economy is producing Unneeded stuff in order that the working man keeps employed enough to maintain a reasonable lifestyle.  Labor is not required as much as it once was.  Thus, do we need the 40 hour work week and retirement age of 65?  Do we have to allocate resources that are getting ever rarer to stuff nobody needs?

A lot has to change for the new economy to be built back better.  A rethought exchange of labor for necessities is one of them.  Rewarding those who put in a little extra in exchange for more than necessities seems necessary.

But agreed the Marxist myth of from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs, is just that.  A myth.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-01-2020, 06:07 AM)Einzige Wrote: The history is entirely explained by the theory: every State in which a Communist Party took power in the 20th century was a pre-capitalist agrarian society. Lenin wrote an entire book, The Tax In Kind, justifying the retention of wage labor and commodity production for exchange in the Soviet Union, and indeed the introduction of market relations where none had previously existed.

The Soviet Union was a capitalist society. It never ceased to be capitalist, and could not have done so under the circumstances

I assume any society that uses some sort of monetary system as its primary means for exchange is a capitalist society.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-01-2020, 08:51 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-01-2020, 04:08 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Which is why we need a market -- to smash delusions.  One of the worst delusions is that enterprise is no necessity.

And yet the need for labor changes.  In order for the elites to gather their ever increasing cut, the economy is producing unrequited stuff in order that the working man keeps employed enough to maintain a reasonable lifestyle.  Labor is not required as much as it was.  Thus, do we need the 40 hour work week and retirement age of 65?  Do we have to allocate resources that are getting ever rarer to stuff nobody needs?

A lot has to change for the new economy to be built back better.  A rethought exchange of labor for necessities is one of them.  Rewarding those who put in a little extra in exchange for more than necessities seems necessary.

But agreed the Marxist myth of from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs, is just that.  A myth.

The need for labor hasn't changed. The world has changed since World War II. So, how are you going to compete with a changing world that's becoming more competitive and more productive by sticking with old tax laws?

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-01-2020, 09:53 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The need for labor hasn't changed. The world has changed since World War II. So, how are you going to compete with a changing world that's becoming more competitive and more productive by sticking with old tax laws?

As computer productivity eliminates jobs, as jobs are sent overseas, as labor shifts into unnecessary production of luxury goods and service, the labor situation has changed.  As an example, since the COVID precautions kicked in, I have cooked my own meals, and have spent less on my hobbies.

I do anticipate that Trump's tax cuts for the elites will be changed to get out of the economic downturn caused by COVID.  I do anticipate that more essential stuff, such as recently PPE and ventilators, will understandably be required to be built locally so nations will be less dependent on one another.

Competing with populations willing to endure environmental degradation, low wages, poor benefits and autocratic governments working hand in hand with the elites will be hard.  Tariffs on nations who feature these things striving to use the US market  are likely.  The key is that the elites use the low wage low benefit, poor environment environments for making a profit.  If you want to accept campaign contributions to benefit the elites as the establishment Republicans have through the unraveling, you's have to change.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-01-2020, 03:28 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-01-2020, 03:10 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-01-2020, 01:36 PM)Einzige Wrote: Again, holy shit, Lenin said this himself.

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.

But that is because Lenin was a barbarian.  He was no Marxist.  I thought you acknowledged that Marxism has never been tried?

The problem is attracting people to the Marxist cause who are not barbarians.  You have to convince civilized people that violence, the last resort, has been reached.  This would be after it has been demonstrated that only a barbarian is going to win a revolution.  Civilized people are more likely to use the tools of the Enlightenment, Gandhi or King.

The Marxist dream is just that: a dream. Pure socialism, without any externals to motivate, is only viable in a place that operates on magic.  Why produce if it has no direct relevance?  If we all can receive based on need, then any decision to contribute is optional, and likely rare. Without inputs outputs are impossible, so everyone starves.

The truth comes out now that Biden's in office.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-01-2020, 10:55 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The truth comes out now that Biden's in office.

Well, no. We have a couple more months before Biden gets in office. Two more months of lies. Likely more if Trump tries to hang on to the base.

He already claimed the coastal media will stop reporting on COVID once the election was over. It was supposedly an election hoax. The number of people hospitalized and dying makes that lie clear.

And he is claiming election tampering when the only attempts to fix the vote were Republican. That lie will become ever harder to maintain. The more he tries to sustain it, the clearer the issue becomes.

People will accept obvious untruths rather than rethink their mindset and values. It is as simple as that.