|
Is Communism good? This poll is closed. |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes |
|
375 | 66.25% |
| No |
|
191 | 33.75% |
| Total: | 523 votes | ||
|
JBP posted:The pseudo-psychological side of Marx is pretty dumb but the economics is tight af. No, it's really not. It was ok-ish for the time he was writing. But he does stuff that's stupid by modern standards. Like looking at the average contribution of inputs, instead of marginal contribution. His models end up looking as a special case of a general equilibrium model, where you throw in weird constraints like, "and all production is linear, because reasons." Marx is historically interesting. But his work isn't doing much in modern econ research.
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 16:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 21:33 |
|
|
Cicero posted:An ideology that falls over the instant someone looks at it the wrong way isn't terribly useful. The most fundamental problem with anarchism is that it's hard to fight wars without a state or something like it. This is an overly broad generalization. Relative size and international support are far bigger issues.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 17:17
|
|
|
falcon2424 posted:No, it's really not. I'm pretty sure the labor theory of value has held up even into the model of 21st-century global capitalism. Also if you think Marxism made Russian and Chinese societies worse based off of the famines they caused, then fine. But you should actually travel to those countries and ask people who lived through those times whether they think their lives improved compared to those of people in neighboring countries. I think you'd be surprised.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 17:32
|
|
|
Fiction posted:I'm pretty sure the labor theory of value has held up even into the model of 21st-century global capitalism. Less surprising given the relative difficulty of international travel, direct state control over information/media/press, and assorted other attempts to foster exactly that point of view. Many North Korean defectors have been pretty sure they had it better than the rest of the world until actually seeing a glimpse of the rest of the world. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Mar 27, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 17:51
|
|
|
Also you can't ask the people that died in famines or purges if their lives improved or not because, you know, they're dead. Survivorship bias and all.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 18:08
|
|
|
That's true but you're pulling my leg if you think even complete state control over media can hypnotize people into thinking their lives are better off now than they used to be. There are plenty of people kicking around who suffered but didn't die during the Great Leap Forward and are still alive to this day. Anyway ask Russians how they feel about "shock therapy" and American "democracy-building" efforts.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 18:59
|
|
|
How about asking former Soviet satellites about no longer being sucked dry by the Soviet imperial parasite?
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 19:12
|
|
|
steinrokkan posted:How about asking former Soviet satellites about no longer being sucked dry by the Soviet imperial parasite? I'm sure that despite getting to no longer have the Russians boss them around, most of the former Soviet satellite states still weren't happy with American business parasites sucking out what was left of their economies.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 19:17
|
|
|
Lol, sure thing, buddy, I'm mad I never had the opportunity to wait in line for the last roll of toilet paper or bribe a bunch of guys just to get a plumber scheduled to fix the sink. Or that I will never get to see the majestic sights of tree-melting acid rains from all the progressive Communist industry.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 19:22
|
|
|
steinrokkan posted:Lol, sure thing, buddy, I'm mad I never had the opportunity to wait in line for the last roll of toilet paper or bribe a bunch of guys just to get a plumber scheduled to fix the sink. Or that I will never get to see the majestic sights of tree-melting acid rains from all the progressive Communist industry. I'm not saying they liked Soviet-style collapse better. Unfortunately, that collapse was shortly followed by another catastrophe when we finished the job of picking the bones clean.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 19:26
|
|
|
Fiction posted:That's true but you're pulling my leg if you think even complete state control over media can hypnotize people into thinking their lives are better off now than they used to be. There are plenty of people kicking around who suffered but didn't die during the Great Leap Forward and are still alive to this day. I heard a joke years ago that might be on point. When asked what he thought of the fall of the USSR a russian replied "Everything the communists said about communism was a lie. Unfortunately, everything they said about capitalism was true."
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 19:29
|
|
|
Fiction posted:I'm not saying they liked Soviet-style collapse better. Unfortunately, that collapse was shortly followed by another catastrophe when we finished the job of picking the bones clean. For most Communist countries the economic collapse happened before the revolution, with recovery after it. The Soviet Union was an exception.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 19:33
|
|
|
Fiction posted:That's true but you're pulling my leg if you think even complete state control over media can hypnotize people into thinking their lives are better off now than they used to be. There are plenty of people kicking around who suffered but didn't die during the Great Leap Forward and are still alive to this day. i happen to spend a lot of time in russia and most russians i've asked aren't big fans of communism either buddy
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 19:51
|
|
|
steinrokkan posted:For most Communist countries the economic collapse happened before the revolution, with recovery after it. The Soviet Union was an exception. the number one reason the soviet union collapsed is that the economy ground to a halt and was unable to supply even basic goods to so many portions of the population even most of the people on top just said gently caress it
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 19:59
|
|
|
Fiction posted:I'm pretty sure the labor theory of value has held up even into the model of 21st-century global capitalism. I've spent quite a bit of time in the communist far east actually. To the extent that a North Korean or Chinese believes he has it better off than his neighbors, we have a fresh indictment of communism. Not only has it destroyed lives and the good life for people who survived, but it has debased them into believing nonsense and lies. One of the most terrifying things a person can ponder, after having spent time in the PRC, is "what if it could have been like Taiwan or Hong Kong." The number of people affected makes the scale of the horror hard to comprehend.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 22:12
|
|
|
Denying, minimizing, or attempting to rationalize or justify the horrors of communism is denying, minimizing, or attempting to rationalize or justify the horrors of the holocaust, and for equally despicable motives.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 22:14
|
|
|
hakimashou posted:Denying, minimizing, or attempting to rationalize or justify the horrors of communism is denying, minimizing, or attempting to rationalize or justify the horrors of the holocaust, and for equally despicable motives. nah and re: china, india did not go communist and remained as poor as china, and until very recently (last ~20 years or so) failed to achieve the same growth as china post-78 same with russia btw, there was an article in the nyt the other day about what if kerensky had won, and i see not much reason to think a left-liberal government in a large poor eurasian country would have performed better than the same thing in india icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Mar 27, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 22:15
|
|
|
hakimashou posted:Denying, minimizing, or attempting to rationalize or justify the horrors of communism is denying, minimizing, or attempting to rationalize or justify the horrors of the holocaust, and for equally despicable motives. yep
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 22:18
|
|
|
Ideologically, you kinda have to push harder than you actually intend to go to get what you really want. It's like negotiating.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 23:24
|
|
|
hakimashou posted:Denying, minimizing, or attempting to rationalize or justify the horrors of communism is denying, minimizing, or attempting to rationalize or justify the horrors of the holocaust, and for equally despicable motives. Nah that's actually the far right line on things.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 23:36
|
|
|
Fiction posted:Nah that's actually the far right line on things. Letting the far right be morally superior to you is not something to be proud of, at all.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 23:55
|
|
|
Bulgogi Hoagie posted:i happen to spend a lot of time in russia and most russians i've asked aren't big fans of communism either buddy I am currently living in Russia right now, and a lot of people do look more fondly at the Soviet period. They may not ideologically care about communism, but they desperate want some stability back in their lives. Basically, to sum up this thread, nothing can actually be fixed with capitalism unless you have some type of ideological weight to force it to change and since that doesn't exist, it won't. icantfindaname posted:same with russia btw, there was an article in the nyt the other day about what if kerensky had won, and i see not much reason to think a left-liberal government in a large poor eurasian country would have performed better than the same thing in india Granted, there was pretty much zero chance Kerensky's government would have survived. The Bolsheviks basically walked into power because the government had so little support and the army was already collapsing on itself. Even if you took all the leftists out of the equation, eventually monarchists/whites would have turned on him as well (Kornilov). Even if put his government in complete isolation it was pretty doubtful Russia was ever going to develop without crash industrialization, especially since after the war it was even farther behind than before it. Also, India's issue was mostly geopolitical. India for most of the Cold War desperate tried to stay non-aligned and not move to far into either orbit. They more or less suffered for this since they weren't able to get the same type of trade relationship with the US that Western Europe/Japan/SK did. By the 1990s, there was no point in staying non-aligned and trade with the US (and the rest of the West) dramatically increased India's trade surplus and hence growth. Granted, the US/Europe wouldn't have given a poo poo about Russia if the October Revolution never happened in the first place and Russia would have just been ignored unless probably some right-wing nationalist government took power there eventually (sound familiar?). Ardennes fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Mar 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 00:09
|
|
|
hakimashou posted:Denying, minimizing, or attempting to rationalize or justify the horrors of communism is denying, minimizing, or attempting to rationalize or justify the horrors of the holocaust, and for equally despicable motives. This, but capitalism.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 00:11
|
|
|
Fiction posted:Nah that's actually the far right line on things. ehhhh, "actually stalin and hitler were just as bad" is more the cold war liberal line. the far right line is just to pretend hitler never existed and/or has nothing to do with you, while stirring up pants on fire panic over the Commies, or these last few decades Muslims
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 01:41
|
|
|
icantfindaname posted:ehhhh, "actually stalin and hitler were just as bad" is more the cold war liberal line. the far right line is just to pretend hitler never existed and/or has nothing to do with you, while stirring up pants on fire panic over the Commies, or these last few decades Muslims Seems that no matter what the political ideology, people seek to justify seizing absolute power.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 14:46
|
|
|
Fiction posted:I'm pretty sure the labor theory of value has held up even into the model of 21st-century global capitalism. Not really. If you look at detailed elaboration, for example by Rosa Luxenburg etc, it's really a very simplistic way of modeling the economy that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It was good considering that Marx did take into account the state of the art of economics, which no Marxists does today, was competent to see its flaws, which few Marxists do in earnest today, and that he looked very detailed at the actual accounting flows in firms, which also no Marxist does today. But his modeling is much more restricted and less flexible than what came after him. Labor theory of value is pretty much dead just by the fact that Marx analysis itself is inconsistent (for example since he just simply assumes everything about prices, works in perfect and static markets and was never able, with good reason, to show that these assumptions actually make sense). Since he can be attacked in this sort of framework, he has not been relevant for a long time. Read Schumpeter! On the other hand Marx did get some mechanisms right that are still relevant and being worked on today. I would be happy to see Marx on reading lists of every economics program, but only to the degree that it is historically relevant. In my opinion, Marx does not deserve the quasi-religious following he gets now. His model is flawed and we can reproduce his results much more accurately in different settings. Seeing him as a prophet is also problematic seeing as his views of communist Utopia, taken as a parallel to Feuerbach, is really deeply flawed and even dangerous in my opinion (and history shows this). Even more, this religious following has destroyed the intellectual ability and progress of the left in the last fifty years almost completely. Marxist economics has not produced a single innovative thought since forever and it takes hold of much of the intellectual potential for left thinkers. The only innovative ideas come from other fringe groups of economics such as Post-Keynesians. But much of the potential is wasted on Marxist dogmatism, which why leftism as an ideology is unable to address concrete questions in the open-world economics of this time, has not produced impactful analysis and is generally in decline all over the world. This is also a consequence of following Marx, because following Marx to the letter means there is no need to account for further human development - he already dealt the finishing blow to capitalist economics forever (his own words). Yet, the world is changed. Yet, economics as a scientific pursuit is completely different than it was fifteen years ago. Marxism? lol. Mostly concerned with salvaging Marx himself. He deserves to be seen as an eminent thinker, economist, historian and sociologist, a giant of his time and a freaking great writer, but also defined by his time, by Feuerbach and Hegel, by Smith and Ricardo and very much in line of their thinking. It's true to say that too few people actually read Marx, and read more than just Capital. This includes economists, but it certainly also includes leftists. Haramstufe Rot fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Mar 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 16:21
|
|
|
caps on caps on caps posted:In my opinion, Marx does not deserve the quasi-religious following he gets now. His model is flawed and we can reproduce his results much more accurately in different settings. More on this would be interesting.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 16:28
|
|
|
Even in places where communists failed to enact their gruesome plans, there was still often a lot of suffering and death as a result of the necessary resistance to their efforts. Pretty much the only thing that has ever been able to legitimize far-right politics is its opposition to genocidal communism. Another proud achievement to display with all the corpses I suppose. The harm communism has done is incalculable.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 01:43
|
|
|
hakimashou posted:Even in places where communists failed to enact their gruesome plans, there was still often a lot of suffering and death as a result of the necessary resistance to their efforts. This, but capitalism.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 19:59
|
|
|
The labor theory of value isn't exclusive with marginal theory, in fact most every single criticism leveled at the ltv can be leveled against marginal theory. Also marxist theory as a whole isn't inconsistent, and i'm going to need proof from you of that claim of yours. rudatron fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Mar 29, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 20:39
|
|
|
Claims of a 'religion following' is also nothing but ideological propaganda. Even in it's heyday, marx was treated as a major scientific figure of the marxist theory, not a prophet. Saying that marxism is 'religious' is based on absolutely nothing, and the only reason the accusation is leveled is pure ideology.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 20:41
|
|
|
hakimashou posted:Even in places where communists failed to enact their gruesome plans, there was still often a lot of suffering and death as a result of the necessary resistance to their efforts.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 20:43
|
|
|
the world owes central planning a debt as well for ridding the world of the awfulness that was USSR
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 20:44
|
|
|
thank you marx for making an ideology so dumb it killed itself
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 20:44
|
|
|
Do people who claim Marx is a prophet of the radical left not realize that during his lifetime, Marx was only one of many competing socialist theorists and activists, engaged in a perpetual struggle to defend himself against intellectual opposition on the left as well as finding it hard to make any headway with leftist politicians of his day?
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 20:45
|
|
|
Bulgogi Hoagie posted:the world owes central planning a debt as well for ridding the world of the awfulness that was USSR You mean the central planning that took the USSR from a burned-down peasant country to the world's second industrial superpower in ~30 years and this with the most destructive war in modern history throwing a spanner in the works?
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 20:49
|
|
|
steinrokkan posted:Do people who claim Marx is a prophet of the radical left not realize that during his lifetime, Marx was only one of many competing socialist theorists and activists, engaged in a perpetual struggle to defend himself against intellectual opposition on the left as well as finding it hard to make any headway with leftist politicians of his day? Bulgogi Hoagie posted:the world owes central planning a debt as well for ridding the world of the awfulness that was USSR But there's plenty of room for improvement. A belief that a planned system can do no better than what the USSR achieved, no matter what other variables you changed, has no empirical basis.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 20:49
|
|
|
Bulgogi Hoagie posted:the world owes central planning a debt as well for ridding the world of the awfulness that was USSR in the long term, central planning increased life expectancy, literacy, access to health care, and production in russia and china lol basically Cerebral Bore posted:You mean the central planning that took the USSR from a burned-down peasant country to the world's second industrial superpower in ~30 years and this with the most destructive war in modern history throwing a spanner in the works?
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 20:51
|
|
|
Fiction posted:in the long term, central planning increased life expectancy, literacy, access to health care, and production in russia and china lol it also fractures your country into tiny pieces or forces you to switch to a free market model in the long term so that's good
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 20:54
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 21:33 |
|
|
Bulgogi Hoagie posted:it also fractures your country into tiny pieces or forces you to switch to a free market model in the long term so that's good the chinese government still owns pretty much all the land and their mixed economy is way more mixed than most other nations even now. also quasi central control over that economy means they're better equipped than the US to handle, say, a climate catastrophe that would require the government to be able to enact economic change instead of having the corporations pay you off to legislate how they want you to...
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 20:58
|
|