The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(06-01-2021, 07:55 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-01-2021, 12:37 PM)Einzige Wrote: Capitalism has nothing to do with character independent from all other social relations. There are capitalists - not many, but some - who are indeed kind, philanthropic and charitable from personal conviction and not because it benefits them in the form of public relations or tax wirte-offs.

This is also completely irrelevant to the actual, systemic functions of capitalism.

The basic problem though is not with capitalism or Marxism.  Human elites tend to gather power to themselves.

That is the point. Vile people have found ways in which to pervert any ideology, religion, or economic order. Some people are pure thieves, brigands, or perverts; they do what they can get away with until they are caught. Such is their nature, and no re-education or thought-reform can correct them. The Soviet Union had a culture of thieves that had existed in the times of the tsar. Not even the Gulag, which could break practically anyone, could break them. 

People respond to the structure of rewards. Punishment breaks people down, which may explain why a system that offers no rewards to most people, such as a pure slave system, breaks down easily under stress. (Consider one cause of failure of the Confederate side in the American Civil War: slaves knew that all that they needed do was to slip away to the Union lines. When enough slaves broke toward the Union lines, the food supply for Confederate troops broke down. There is no more certain Fifth Column than slaves who literally have nothing to lose but their chains. 

American capitalism in recent years has structured its rewards in ways that promote the rise and enrichment of narcissistic types who treat people badly for their personal gain that manifests itself in extreme indulgence. Treating people badly includes keeping people overworked and underpaid or ripping them off through shady dealings or crony capitalism. That is 3T behavior, and it must die in a 4T.    

 

Quote:The Republicans, Democrats, Marxists, Fascists and even royalists all had that problem.  The powers that be identified with each other rather than the people.  Many come to turn themselves against the people directly, which is the Republican's current problem.

Did you hear what disgraced former General Michael Quisling -- ahem, Flynn -- said at a Qanon conference?





To Hell with any would-be "James Mattoon Scott" from Seven Days in May!

Quote:The answer is to identify with a mechanism which give power to the people.  To date, representative democracy and elections seems to be the dominant alternative.  I will occasionally remind people of computer networked democracy, of giving power directly to the people, rather than the representative system which forces the people to count on the benefit of the representatives, who seem to inevitably identify with the elites.

But democracy, to be workable, depends upon a wise populace. 



It is essential that the people who get grave responsibility in administrating public institutions, leading troops in battle, practicing law or doing law enforcement, teaching pupils at any level, influencing people's minds as journalists or therapists know the fundamentals upon which not only establish our Republic, keep it free, and keep it workable. Gaming the system at the expense of essential liberty must be unthinkable. 

Thug methods get thug results. OK, maybe one can make some exceptions in war time or a warlike situation, assassinating a Reinhard Heydrich or an Osama bin Laden. Even so, Shakespeare (who is a Founding Father of American culture left no question that thuggish methods in gaining power, as done by Macbeth in Macbeth, lead to tragedy for all concerned.  

    

Quote:I keep asking you (Einzige)  to identify some such mechanism to prevent the latest bunch of pseudo Marxists from following the path of Lenin, Stalin and Mao.  You have consistently failed to do so.  Until you do, you and any other pseudo Marxists will be rejected by the people you count on to commit violence for your own sake.

There is a saying that begins "fooled me once, shame on you."  How does it end?

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Maybe we can learn something from Marx -- that Marxist assumptions about a society have validity when the elites of the time make those assumptions true about the society in question. The best lesson for people doing well is that very bad practices by economic elites that make life unduly miserable for all but themselves constitutes the potential for suicide. Maximizing profits for maximal indulgence  looks like a good way to ensure that one is among the first to be mowed down in a fusillade in the name of "proletarian" or "revolutionary" justice. 

The lesson should be obvious. To keep living well, make sure to leave no question that one be good.