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Ardent Communist posted:The perfect rejoiner to people arguing against communism is to ask them what they propose is the step forward for humanity. Is our political and economic system completely perfect? If not, how should we change it for the better? 
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Jun 27, 2018 02:28
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Ardent Communist posted:The perfect rejoiner to people arguing against communism is to ask them what they propose is the step forward for humanity. Is our political and economic system completely perfect? If not, how should we change it for the better? Well, first of all, are we talking about 'communism' here as a vague yet to be realized end state that Marx and others described in only the vaguest terms or are we talking specifically about Leninism and its off shoots?
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Jun 27, 2018 02:31
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Helsing posted:Well, first of all, are we talking about 'communism' here as a vague yet to be realized end state that Marx and others described in only the vaguest terms or are we talking specifically about Leninism and its off shoots? Whichever is momentarily more convenient for my argument.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:35
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Communism is an end state, socialism is the path towards it. Communist states are states that are pursuing communism, but do not have it. Communism is international and goes beyond states, which will wither away once capitalism is destroyed. The reason why communist states were authoritarian and the reason they did not wither away are the same. They were necessary for the survival of socialism as a world power, and capitalism tried to strangle it in the bed countless times, with all the non authoritarian attempts being overthrown from within or without. The loss of the Soviet Union has had drastic effects on the progress of the human race, but it is not permanent and it is not something that can't be learned from. It wasn't perfect, but smart communists can look at it's many successes and be proud, and acknowledge its failings and endeavor to do better.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:40
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Ardent Communist posted:Communism is an end state, socialism is the path towards it. Communist states are states that are pursuing communism, but do not have it. Communism is international and goes beyond states, which will wither away once capitalism is destroyed. The reason why communist states were authoritarian and the reason they did not wither away are the same. They were necessary for the survival of socialism as a world power, and capitalism tried to strangle it in the bed countless times, with all the non authoritarian attempts being overthrown from within or without. The loss of the Soviet Union has had drastic effects on the progress of the human race, but it is not permanent and it is not something that can't be learned from. It wasn't perfect, but smart communists can look at it's many successes and be proud, and acknowledge its failings and endeavor to do better. Is a social democracy a fated slide to socialism which is fated to become communism? History doesn't support that.
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Jun 27, 2018 03:04
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Huh? Social democracy is not a way towards socialism, because it does not attempt to destroy capitalism. It's one of the examples of people thinking they can paper over all of the faults of capitalism and make it not terrible, while ignoring that its power, and its constant drive for more power, will eventually render all of their successes defunct. I'm not going to say it's worse than a more capitalist-oriented state, because it has the chance to make things better for some people, but it can't last. It can only radicalise further, or be destroyed through the death of a thousand cuts of austerity.
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Jun 27, 2018 03:13
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yeah, I guess the caveat is that even under socialism the economy can collapse sufficiently enough that the government can't prop up inefficient industries anymore, it's just that the people will have literally ran out of toilet paper a year or so before that point but expecting helsing to make a good faith argument instead of simply asserting that Marxist thinkers some time in the past have long resolved whatever issue with Socialist economics you bring up is prob too much at this point Typo fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Jun 27, 2018 |
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Jun 27, 2018 05:03
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Typo posted:yeah, I guess the caveat is that even under socialism the economy can collapse sufficiently enough that the government can't prop up inefficient industries anymore, it's just that the people will have literally ran out of toilet paper a year or so before that point You’ve proven consistently that you have no real understanding of marxism or socialism and are only interested in scoring cheap rhetorical jabs. Simplistic truisms about ‘human nature’ and ‘efficiencies’ aren’t going to cut it
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Jun 27, 2018 05:31
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Whoa now cheap rhetorical jabs are the sign of a great poster.
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Jun 27, 2018 05:47
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Surely there is already a good half dozen threads on the merits of various flavours of socialism/communism/anarchism each in DnD already? This thread is for groaning about the new dumb thing doug ford said or what stupid socks justin wore to a cabinet meeting, I thought.
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Jun 27, 2018 05:53
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Dukemont posted:You’ve proven consistently that you have no real understanding of marxism or socialism and are only interested in scoring cheap rhetorical jabs. a page ago you literally did not understand that two worker owned enterprises can compete against each other to make the better product
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Jun 27, 2018 06:52
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Can we not do a multi-page derail about socialism every couple of pages? That would be like, cool. I want to know how Doug Ford is ruining my home province of Ontario on a day by day basis.
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Jun 27, 2018 09:06
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Caedus posted:Can we not do a multi-page derail about socialism every couple of pages? That would be like, cool. i heard he's going to... start... selling... weed?
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Jun 27, 2018 09:20
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Caedus posted:Can we not do a multi-page derail about socialism every couple of pages? That would be like, cool. Posts like this are why Canada isn't socialist yet
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Jun 27, 2018 09:22
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Typo posted:yeah, I guess the caveat is that even under socialism the economy can collapse sufficiently enough that the government can't prop up inefficient industries anymore, it's just that the people will have literally ran out of toilet paper a year or so before that point You tried to cite Bell as an example of the capitalist market ruthlessly winnowing out inefficient enterprises before they can pass the consequences of their bad decisions onto the consumer. Bell. There are plenty of examples of market competition being a spur to innovation but you managed to pick one of the worst examples possible.
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Jun 27, 2018 13:16
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But Helsing, let me tell you about how the market weeds out inefficiency so that consumers are left with better choices in the long run, using the fate of a little company called Bombardier.
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Jun 27, 2018 13:29
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The fact that Bombardier line workers manage to hammer the poo poo they receive from their parts suppliers into actual rolling stock is a strong indicator that the current successes of Bombardier are primarily due to the workers and that it's the capitalists at the top that are failing the company. If the Bombardier BOD positions were occupied by people representing the line workers it probably wouldn't be the shitshow it is today.
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Jun 27, 2018 13:42
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I don't think you can use Bell and Bombardier as counterexamples to the "efficiency of the market" nonsense, since their continued existence is solely due to government intervention (enforced monopoly/oligopoly or bailouts) and thus a distortion of true free markets.
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Jun 27, 2018 13:47
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EvilJoven posted:The fact that Bombardier line workers manage to hammer the poo poo they receive from their parts suppliers into actual rolling stock is a strong indicator that the current successes of Bombardier are primarily due to the workers and that it's the capitalists at the top that are failing the company. If the Bombardier BOD positions were occupied by people representing the line workers it probably wouldn't be the shitshow it is today. Uh excuse me I've got an MBA and that means I completely understand every part of every business, let me tell you how we can make this production line more efficient
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Jun 27, 2018 13:48
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infernal machines posted:I don't think you can use Bell and Bombardier as counterexamples to the "efficiency of the market" nonsense, since their continued existence is solely due to government intervention (enforced monopoly/oligopoly or bailouts) and thus a distortion of true free markets. It's almost like there's no such thing as a true free market.
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Jun 27, 2018 13:48
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vyelkin posted:It's almost like there's no such thing as a true free market. It's a lot like that, but that's a different argument than "markets aren't efficient because X" At best it demonstrates that markets aren't efficient because of government intervention, which presumably isn't the point you're making. EvilJoven posted:The fact that Bombardier line workers manage to hammer the poo poo they receive from their parts suppliers into actual rolling stock is a strong indicator that the current successes of Bombardier are primarily due to the workers and that it's the capitalists at the top that are failing the company. If the Bombardier BOD positions were occupied by people representing the line workers it probably wouldn't be the shitshow it is today. Aren't their "parts suppliers" in this context also Bombardier? Like, in the case of the TTC streetcars and Flexity LRTs the parts that don't fit are coming from Bombardier factories in Mexico IIRC. infernal machines fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Jun 27, 2018 |
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Jun 27, 2018 13:51
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vyelkin posted:It's almost like there's no such thing as a true free market. Just like how we've seen there's no such thing as true socialism/communism. Ideology is garbage.
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Jun 27, 2018 14:20
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Helsing posted:You tried to cite Bell as an example of the capitalist market ruthlessly winnowing out inefficient enterprises before they can pass the consequences of their bad decisions onto the consumer. In canada a subset number of firms do have the soft budget constraint problem but in state socialism this is extended to essentially all firms. My point was never about bell specifically.
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Jun 27, 2018 14:23
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Typo posted:a page ago you literally did not understand that two worker owned enterprises can compete against each other to make the better product Again you out yourself as a dumb poo poo. In a planned economy, there is absolutely no reason why workers would be in competition with each other. What purpose would this serve?
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Jun 27, 2018 14:25
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Does socialism imply a planned economy? I don't think so, but if you disagree I'd like to hear your reasoning.
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Jun 27, 2018 14:26
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infernal machines posted:I don't think you can use Bell and Bombardier as counterexamples to the "efficiency of the market" nonsense, since their continued existence is solely due to government intervention (enforced monopoly/oligopoly or bailouts) and thus a distortion of true free markets. Or you could claim that regulatory capture is a natural outcome of free market competition, where the truly ruthless learn how to bend the rules of the game into their favour to continue to profit even further.
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Jun 27, 2018 14:26
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NZAmoeba posted:Or you could claim that regulatory capture is a natural outcome of free market competition, where the truly ruthless learn how to bend the rules of the game into their favour to continue to profit even further. The original definition of "free market" in capitalist theory was never the complete absence of regulation -- rather, regulation and legal systems were seen as necessary specifically to remove those forces -- like regulatory capture -- which could distort the market and cause problems. This weird, anti-regulation libertarian offshoot of capitalism is something else entirely, just as revolutionary communism/Leninism/Maoism isn't exactly Marxism.
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Jun 27, 2018 14:29
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NZAmoeba posted:Or you could claim that regulatory capture is a natural outcome of free market competition, where the truly ruthless learn how to bend the rules of the game into their favour to continue to profit even further. That's a good argument.
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Jun 27, 2018 14:30
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xtal posted:Posts like this are why Canada isn't socialist yet Doesn't Canada have socialism on the indigenous reserves?
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Jun 27, 2018 14:32
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EvilJoven posted:The fact that Bombardier line workers manage to hammer the poo poo they receive from their parts suppliers into actual rolling stock is a strong indicator that the current successes of Bombardier are primarily due to the workers and that it's the capitalists at the top that are failing the company. If the Bombardier BOD positions were occupied by people representing the line workers it probably wouldn't be the shitshow it is today. I apologize but you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve worked for bombardier in Downsview for 5 years. Everyone in that company is hosed from executives to the line workers. The only good people I knew at Bombardier were the dedicated engineers who worked there since the DHC days. Some of us definitely had a passion for the product that helped make it successful but the rest of the company was corrupt to the core. Here are some examples I’ve experienced there: 1. Extreme nepotism 2. Overtime pay abuse - workers would sabotage equipment and say they had to come in on Sunday to do the testing. They’d fix it and go to sleep in a cubby somewhere for 5 hours and collect their double pay. Other employees in office union positions would have no work to do but wouldn’t clock out till 8pm to get extra overtime pay for no work done. This practice ruined it for the rest of us and led to us getting OT pay revoked for non union positions leading to half of us working harder than everyone else and not being compensated. 3. Rampant malingering and alcoholism in the floor staff. Guys would walk super slow between work centres and be on their phones instead of riveting fuselages during a tight production season. An aircraft had to be delayed because someone crashed a cart into the side of it. A bunch of line workers took a scissor lift up to the top of the tail of a business jet and had a BBQ on company time and got drunk. The only reason anyone got caught was because they stumbled out drunk as a fish through the employee entrance and security checked the cameras. I think two of them are back on the job now. Note that these workers get paid 80k-110k depending on overtime pay and office workers make maybe 70 tops unless they’re senior. In a lot of cases they make more than management. 4. Theft. When the morning shift ends security checks everyone’s bags because people steal parts and hardware on a routine basis. 5. An entire department in Bombardied had to be suspended and their boss fired because of time sheet shenanigans and vacation pay fuckups. In all this we have a management culture where it’s like the emperor has new clothes. That dog in the burning house fire saying “this is good” is an apt description for bombardier. The entire company is hosed up with a terrible work culture and management. The most productive workers get paid the least and management stresses them the most while other people particularly the CAW kids get a free ride and a massive salary that the rest of us pay for. The absolute worst job you can have in Bombardier is to be a line manager in operations. Your hands are tied and you have to deal with allocating 1 productive worker to make up for 3 layabouts. Traveled work is a fact of life at Bombardier. You got poo poo that should’ve been done 3 stations ago being fixed/installed at the place where final customer delivery is supposed to happen. I once sat in on an operations meeting where one of the line managers ( a black lady) stood up after the discussion got heated and said “You know what? Suck my dick. (Everyone looks shocked.) And nothings gonna happen to me because I’m black, I’m a woman and I’m Jewish”. Sure enough she didn’t get fired till the latest round of layoffs. Kraftwerk fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Jun 27, 2018 |
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Jun 27, 2018 14:50
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PT6A posted:Does socialism imply a planned economy? I don't think so, but if you disagree I'd like to hear your reasoning. You are right that it doesn’t necessarily imply a planned economy, and I’m falling into the same trap as the critics here in not specifying exactly what type of socialism we are talking about. IMO market socialism is more capitalistic than socialistic and subject to the same disastrous contradictions inherent in capitalism.
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Jun 27, 2018 14:55
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https://twitter.com/brianhillGlobal/status/1011963809488166912
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Jun 27, 2018 14:56
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I've been waiting for these stories about Canada to start dropping.
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Jun 27, 2018 14:59
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Dukemont posted:IMO market socialism is more capitalistic than socialistic and subject to the same disastrous contradictions inherent in capitalism. If by market socialism you mean any form of socialism which incorporates market competition, I think 'disastrous' might be overstating the case. The end goal of competition versus a planned economy is to use market principles within a socialist context to favour better products/services. For example, let's look at cigarette brands in Cuba. Hollywood competes with Upmann and Vegas and Cohiba, they all cost different amounts, but they are all produced by the same state-owned enterprise and the same workers. Should one "fail" in the market, the workers are not the ones who will suffer, but through allowing this sort of internal competition, consumers get a wider choice of product at a variety of prices. While this is a bad and broken policy, I don't think it's fair to compare this to what's going on in the US right now. It's something that urgently should be fixed, but it's not concentration camps for kids, and it's not using children as hostages to get parents to drop asylum claims or anything like that.
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Jun 27, 2018 15:12
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quote:The reason for this difference, she says, is that when a parent allows a child to travel to Canada alone, the government has a “presumption” the parent is not acting in the child’s best interest. The government official, in 2006, said it’s not a presumption in “every case,” insisting the two-step process is necessary so the parent’s motivations can be further investigated. Pardon the gently caress out of me? If you're a parent fleeing murder gangs, and you sold everything you're worth and rented out the rest of you to put your kid in a sea can and mail him to Canada so he can maybe have a better life, how is that "not in the child's best interest"? I mean yeah, nobody had my grandfather's best interest in mind when the UK deported his "orphan"ed Catholic rear end to work on a farm in Canada, but if a teenager shows up speaking fluent Pashto with a story about how he didn't want to be killed by the Taliban I wouldn't think questioning his parents' decision-making would be high on their list of priorities.
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Jun 27, 2018 15:21
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PT6A posted:If by market socialism you mean any form of socialism which incorporates market competition, I think 'disastrous' might be overstating the case. I consider market socialism to be a form of capitalism, not socialism. We’re getting into a semantic argument about what ‘competition’ means here, because your usage above is not ‘competition’ as understood under capitalism. Also you are having a hard time separating the idea of ‘products’ and ‘consumers’ from capitalism, because under socialism(with a planned economy) these terms lose their meaning.
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Jun 27, 2018 15:22
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Dukemont posted:Also you are having a hard time separating the idea of ‘products’ and ‘consumers’ from capitalism, because under socialism(with a planned economy) these terms lose their meaning.  What the gently caress? Of course there are products and people that consume them under socialism.
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Jun 27, 2018 15:24
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PT6A posted:If by market socialism you mean any form of socialism which incorporates market competition, I think 'disastrous' might be overstating the case. Not comparing to anything, but we are throwing stones in a glasshouse when we say US immigration policies are bad when we've had similarly lovely policies in place for decades.
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Jun 27, 2018 15:26
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Thought experiment for the capitalism apologists: If socialism could eliminate poverty and homelessness in Canada at the cost of a drastic decline in the variety of luxuries available to be consumed (with all necessities being provided for), would you accept it?
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Jun 27, 2018 15:29
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This is an opportunity for Canada to make a smart policy change and win big brownie points internationally while passive aggressively condemning the USA.
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Jun 27, 2018 15:32
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