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Halloween Jack posted:I would like to read more about Yugoslavia, but I find it rarely gets covered even in leftist magazines like Jacobin. IIRC a big problem was the worker self-management process being taken over by the white-collar, upper-income workers, which is not surprising when you think about it. "Economic Policy in Socialist Yugoslavia" by Rudolf Bicanic goes into the various policies put in place during the course of Yugoslavian development, and why certain approaches were abandoned or adopted as times and needs changed. The book was published a while before the collapse, but that actually made it more interesting to me because the author was actively looking for potential solutions to existing problems within the socialist system and potential paths that could allow it to prosper. Been forever since I read it though.
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Jul 6, 2018 18:43
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Thanks!
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Jul 6, 2018 18:46
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Foreign Affairs also has an article in its archive by Rudolf Bicanic, which kinda goes into the same themes of the book. The gist of it is that socialist Yugoslavia went through three distinct periods after WWII, with heavy bureaucracy in the beginning focused on rapid industrial development giving way to a more decentralized approach with a focus on democracy and openness later on. Bicanic's take is interesting because he was basically a pragmatic socialist who stressed the need to shift gears if something isn't working, or has served its purpose. He also has interesting insight into the country's domestic politics in the early Cold War. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/europe/1966-07-01/economics-socialism-developed-country Grammarchist fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Jul 6, 2018 |
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Jul 6, 2018 18:57
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Halloween Jack posted:I would like to read more about Yugoslavia, but I find it rarely gets covered even in leftist magazines like Jacobin. IIRC a big problem was the worker self-management process being taken over by the white-collar, upper-income workers, which is not surprising when you think about it. IMO it’s possible to sort of “have your cake and eat it” here, i.e. argue both that the USSR, PRC, etc. were socialist in a sense, i.e. motivated by socialist ideas and sharing certain structural features with any possible socialism, and that they were not the only possible socialism, or even the most likely result of a socialist revolution under contemporary economic, social, political etc. conditions. This way the issue is less “how and by whom was real socialism betrayed” and more one of “what were the mistakes and elisions in classical Marxist (Leninist, etc.) theory that led to the problems that emerged?” The Yugoslavia example I think points to the fact that there can be other sources of economic power besides formal ownership of the means of production, such as technical expertise and “social capital”, and that these sources of hierarchy are likely to reassert themselves in socialism unless/until a response to them is formulated.
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Jul 6, 2018 21:11
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Or similarly it suggests that socialism in one country has some major inherent problems when it exists in an international setting and thus is probably not something you want to pursue.
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Jul 6, 2018 21:34
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proletarian_pixie posted:IMO it’s possible to sort of “have your cake and eat it” here, i.e. argue both that the USSR, PRC, etc. were socialist in a sense, i.e. motivated by socialist ideas and sharing certain structural features with any possible socialism, and that they were not the only possible socialism, or even the most likely result of a socialist revolution under contemporary economic, social, political etc. conditions. With the disclosure that I am not particularly well read on Yugoslavian history, I'd have to imagine the problem of ethnic nationalism was exacerbated by such informal hierarchical structures, particularly after the death of Tito in 1980.
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Jul 6, 2018 21:45
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Pardon me for entering late, but in almost 630 pages of posting has anyone pointed out that libertarianism is dumb and bad?
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Jul 6, 2018 21:46
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By the by it is very weird to read people in the 70s praising Kim il Sung for inventing Socialism of Our Style when Yugoslavia is right over there hey remember that guy, biggest partisan resistance leader in Europe, he's running it?
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Jul 6, 2018 21:53
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Dolphin posted:Pardon me for entering late, but in almost 630 pages of posting has anyone pointed out that libertarianism is dumb and bad? o poo poo, we didn't think of that, this changes everything
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Jul 6, 2018 21:55
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Dolphin posted:Pardon me for entering late, but in almost 630 pages of posting has anyone pointed out that libertarianism is dumb and bad? Hmm, tell us more.
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Jul 6, 2018 22:21
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OwlFancier posted:Or similarly it suggests that socialism in one country has some major inherent problems when it exists in an international setting and thus is probably not something you want to pursue. Unless I'm totally misreading the gist of your remark, I'm 100% with you. The thing that capitalists fear more than anything is prosperous socialism, and the global super-wealthy will do anything to discredit or destroy a country that shows the world a viable but less horrible way of life. Dolphin posted:Pardon me for entering late, but in almost 630 pages of posting has anyone pointed out that libertarianism is dumb and bad? We'll get to that when we're done discussing Yugoslavia and the merits of melons; be patient.
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Jul 6, 2018 22:37
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Basically I'm saying that for the moment your upper limit of socialisticalness, is capped by your ability to maintain normal relations with the rest of the world. Of course at present it's also capped by a bunch of other poo poo but even in an ideal political environment within one country, they've got to take into account their international position.
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Jul 6, 2018 22:50
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Halloween Jack posted:By the by it is very weird to read people in the 70s praising Kim il Sung for inventing Socialism of Our Style when Yugoslavia is right over there hey remember that guy, biggest partisan resistance leader in Europe, he's running it? Well, one of those two nations remain, perhaps that is a reflection of their differences? BTW hi thread! After years of many things, including this thread, having challenged my preconceptions, I'm currently finding the Marxist-Leninist perspective to best reflect and understand the world, economics, etc.
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Jul 7, 2018 01:30
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SyHopeful posted:Well, one of those two nations remain, perhaps that is a reflection of their differences? So I wonder why any Westerners at all were taken in with it. Was there just no cultural exchange with, or too little public awareness of, the Eastern Bloc?
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Jul 7, 2018 02:22
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Halloween Jack posted:Oh, there's no doubt as to their actual differences. What I mean is that Juche Thought was effective propaganda, soliciting admiration from Western leftists who were deceived into believing Kim il Sung was a warrior-philosopher on a level with Mao or Ho. BR Myers is controversial to say the least, but I think he makes a convincing case in North Korea's Juche Myth that Juche is not only insipid, it says nothing in any way controversial within the Communist sphere from Cuba to Romania to Vietnam. Never anything that could alienate China or Russia in any way. Did westerner really love Juche so much or you just hype up small clique among leftist? For Tito and Yugoslavia, it was unpermitted for those who took Soviet funds to say much of praise to Tito because Tito refused to bow down to Stalin and could credibly hold his territory. Even after Stalin removed, Soviet reluctant to soften stance against Tito's way because it threatened control. Juche meanwhile and Kim Il Sung - Kim Il Sung creature installed by STalin and later backed up military by Mao, very heavy reliant on both. Kim could never choose to become controversial against them because he would never hold power the way Tito was able to hold. Meanwhile, plenty of Western businessman happy to deal with Yugoslavia, was even fairly open place to visit and vacation from West in times of heavy control over visit in other Eastern Bloc country. Certainly there was lots of Westerns who preferred Yugoslavia's way of thing over North Korea. But if you mean these day, only total moron can support North Korea and Juche. North Korea do not even support Juche because Kim Jong Il officially lowered its standing against the military first movement. Nothing of value remain there, just swine love of contrarihood. Like teenager who thinks insulting all people is deep thought and cool.
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Jul 7, 2018 02:43
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Halloween Jack posted:Oh, there's no doubt as to their actual differences. What I mean is that Juche Thought was effective propaganda, soliciting admiration from Western leftists who were deceived into believing Kim il Sung was a warrior-philosopher on a level with Mao or Ho. BR Myers is controversial to say the least, but I think he makes a convincing case in North Korea's Juche Myth that Juche is not only insipid, it says nothing in any way controversial within the Communist sphere from Cuba to Romania to Vietnam. Never anything that could alienate China or Russia in any way. What are his specific criticisms of Juche? Is not the correctness of a theory or school of thought it's real-world success, and that the fact that the DPRK is still extant while Yugoslavia succumbed to NATO evidence of that correctness? They also learned from Libya's mistake - obtaining a nuclear capability is the only way to counter US aggression. I'm not particularly taken in with it (or, honestly, specifically familiar with it), but I appreciate that it appears to be working for them and I can't call myself an internationalist if I don't support their right to self-determination in the face of the US. SyHopeful fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Jul 7, 2018 |
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Jul 7, 2018 03:09
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SyHopeful posted:What are his specific criticisms of Juche? Is not the correctness of a theory or school of thought it's real-world success, and that the fact that the DPRK is still extant while Yugoslavia succumbed to NATO evidence of that correctness?
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Jul 7, 2018 03:59
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SyHopeful posted:What are his specific criticisms of Juche? Is not the correctness of a theory or school of thought it's real-world success, and that the fact that the DPRK is still extant while Yugoslavia succumbed to NATO evidence of that correctness? They also learned from Libya's mistake - obtaining a nuclear capability is the only way to counter US aggression. What is this garbage? US have been aggressive against North Korea for over 60 year, but North Korea only had nuke that could leave country in 2015 or so. Did nuke time travel to protect them all though 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th, 00th? Also Yugoslavia never "succumbed to NATO" that war that broke up country was internal and no NATO involved. NATO become involved later when Serbia did genocides. In North Korea Juche is not work for them. They give it up during and after huge famine that nearly destroy country in favor of military first policy that also drops most socialist economic principle. Country still remains collapsed in citizen's life quality compared to 70th and 80th before Soviet start collapse. It behave as right wing dictatorship now even including class of private business magnate who owe loyalty to dictator to be allowed operate. In total, Yugoslavia population always live better than North Korea population while it was around. Then former Yugsolavia people during the 90th suffer less death and destruction from whole civil war than North Korea famine and infrastructure collapse. And after, former Yugoslavia people live much better lives and even receive more social benefit usual than North Korean does of today.
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Jul 7, 2018 04:07
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SyHopeful posted:What are his specific criticisms of Juche? Is not the correctness of a theory or school of thought it's real-world success, and that the fact that the DPRK is still extant while Yugoslavia succumbed to NATO evidence of that correctness? They also learned from Libya's mistake - obtaining a nuclear capability is the only way to counter US aggression. If anything, that was a Soviet strategy they borrowed. nepetaMisekiryoiki posted:What is this garbage? US have been aggressive against North Korea for over 60 year, but North Korea only had nuke that could leave country in 2015 or so. Did nuke time travel to protect them all though 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th, 00th? You don't need nukes if your friend has nukes. The need for them only came up once the USSR fell.
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Jul 7, 2018 05:09
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Babylon Astronaut posted:I wish. I've met more engineers whom don't understand marginal rates of progressive taxation than any other field. "You will never net less by grossing more." That is fuckall easy to understand. "You will always make more money" for the functionally illiterate. I think I know what it is. High-paid engineers tend to go above the income limit for social security, so around October/November a lot of us start to get used to their paycheck without the FICA deduction (yeah it's not smoothed out, most employers wait until you've actually gotten that amount of pay before applying the cap in case you quit), so upon their next year's raise, they see the January paycheck and the FICA deduction is back in, so they compare it with December's checks and fit whatever explanation suits their mentality. nepetaMisekiryoiki posted:Ehe? Surely you not believe every politician scapegoat. I presume welfare queen is real too because Republican say they need to cut service to get rid of it. I just want to say, you are my favorite poster and I always look forward to reading from you. It's like talking to my boss who has the same style of English and foundation of skepticism, but about fun political topics and history that don't come up at work. SyHopeful posted:BTW hi thread! After years of many things, including this thread, having challenged my preconceptions, I'm currently finding the Marxist-Leninist perspective to best reflect and understand the world, economics, etc. That's wonderful and I wish you well on your intellectual journey, and just want to remark that I'd be wary of using these fixtures in political thought as centers of gravity for framing the world. They are best understood in an historical context, one part of a vast landscape of ideation. In particular, I think that the late 19th early 20th century thinkers were immersed in an attitude where human dominion over nature and resource extraction was a given, and the only question was how to establish the rules of that game. The respect for nature found in Taoist thought was not widely available at the time and our vocabulary for climate and ecology weren't developed yet. This sort of thing occurred to me when I read the Marxist analysis of Spirited Away, which is fabulous and helped me see things I wouldn't have noticed on my own. In his studies Miyazaki developed an affinity for communist themes and identified fully as a communist in his youth, while preserving his own holistic identity as an artist. For expansions, I recommended learning about growthism and the degrowth movement, as well as learning about marketing and mythology. The movie Branded is really nice, despite the kitschy name.
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Jul 7, 2018 21:22
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Stinky_Pete posted:I just want to say, you are my favorite poster and I always look forward to reading from you. It's like talking to my boss who has the same style of English and foundation of skepticism, but about fun political topics and history that don't come up at work. Nepeta lives in beautiful Marseille, which makes me somewhat jealous. That said, it's awfully hard to be French right now due to the rise of right-wing nationalism and the fact that their two final choices for president were a complete fascist and a sellout neoliberal corporate stooge... imagine a male Hillary Clinton, basically. Unlike the US, however, France chose the *lesser* of two evils.
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Jul 7, 2018 22:45
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Stinky_Pete posted:I think I know what it is. High-paid engineers tend to go above the income limit for social security, so around October/November a lot of us start to get used to their paycheck without the FICA deduction (yeah it's not smoothed out, most employers wait until you've actually gotten that amount of pay before applying the cap in case you quit), so upon their next year's raise, they see the January paycheck and the FICA deduction is back in, so they compare it with December's checks and fit whatever explanation suits their mentality.
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Jul 8, 2018 00:09
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JustJeff88 posted:Nepeta lives in beautiful Marseille, which makes me somewhat jealous. That said, it's awfully hard to be French right now due to the rise of right-wing nationalism and the fact that their two final choices for president were a complete fascist and a sellout neoliberal corporate stooge... imagine a male Hillary Clinton, basically. Unlike the US, however, France chose the *lesser* of two evils. on the plus side Macron's handling of Trump is reliably hilarious
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Jul 8, 2018 05:21
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Babylon Astronaut posted:I also think it is that way because of their average income going up during crunch time, and then having more withholding taken. They don't smooth out their income by redistributing their tax return, so it looks like they're being "punished" when in reality, they are getting over taxed, the IRS knows they're being over taxed, and they will get the money back . As in, because of overtime pay? No such thing in a salaried position. The culture of working into the night and on weekends is usually "because stock." I believe there's a law in California where salaried employees have to be paid the equivalent of at least $30/hr for a 40 hour work week in response to the crunch time thing
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Jul 8, 2018 07:15
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Stinky_Pete posted:As in, because of overtime pay? No such thing in a salaried position. The culture of working into the night and on weekends is usually "because stock." I believe there's a law in California where salaried employees have to be paid the equivalent of at least $30/hr for a 40 hour work week in response to the crunch time thing The main law is a federal regulation that mandates that you can only be salaried - exempt if you make over a certain yearly salary. It was stupidly low until Obama upped to to $40-something K a year. It used to be like $25,000. This was why McDonald's made everybody an assistant manager, gave them a lovely salary, and then worked them absurd hours every week. No idea if California has a law better than the federal one but that wouldn't surprise me if they did. Silicon Valley doesn't give much of a poo poo about that sort of thing as programmers usually get paid pretty fat salaries way beyond what the regs say. Of course this is also why they want a culture of working bug gently caress insane hours because you just love programming and solving problems that much.
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Jul 8, 2018 09:42
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https://twitter.com/wipeyadocsoff/status/1016018206316748801?s=21
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Jul 8, 2018 20:34
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The main law is a federal regulation that mandates that you can only be salaried - exempt if you make over a certain yearly salary. It was stupidly low until Obama upped to to $40-something K a year. It used to be like $25,000. This was why McDonald's made everybody an assistant manager, gave them a lovely salary, and then worked them absurd hours every week. No idea if California has a law better than the federal one but that wouldn't surprise me if they did. It's still not as good as it should be. I've seen plenty of jobs with state-level governments that barely pay 30k per year that are listed Exempt, and that's a pretty piss-poor salary even in low COL parts of the country. Moreso when you have to consider that a lot of these jobs require graduate degrees. It's almost as if the job market has a vested interest in getting people to work as much as possible for as little compensation as possible.
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Jul 8, 2018 21:12
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JustJeff88 posted:a country that shows the world a viable but less horrible way of life. The USSR was never that, though. They started out with murder quotas, quickly wheeled into wars of conquest, and after getting on their feet proceeded to suppress all their minorities and establish a racial hierarchy.
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Jul 8, 2018 21:57
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Osama Dozen-Dongs posted:The USSR was never that, though. They started out with murder quotas, quickly wheeled into wars of conquest, and after getting on their feet proceeded to suppress all their minorities and establish a racial hierarchy. So a viable but identically horrible way of life?
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Jul 8, 2018 22:11
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JustJeff88 posted:It's still not as good as it should be. You can say that about literally the entirety of America's labor laws right now.
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Jul 9, 2018 02:28
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ToxicSlurpee posted:You can say that about literally the entirety of America's labor laws right now. Sadly also still true if you remove the word "America" and even more horrid in scope. Apart from possibly a few Scandinavian countries, I don't think that it's been this bad to be a working person anywhere in the world since maybe the 30's.
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Jul 9, 2018 02:57
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Osama Dozen-Dongs posted:The USSR was never that, though. They started out with murder quotas, quickly wheeled into wars of conquest, and after getting on their feet proceeded to suppress all their minorities and establish a racial hierarchy. What murder quotas? What wars of conquest? What suppression of minorities and establishment of a racial hierarchy? Stinky_Pete posted:That's wonderful and I wish you well on your intellectual journey, and just want to remark that I'd be wary of using these fixtures in political thought as centers of gravity for framing the world. They are best understood in an historical context, one part of a vast landscape of ideation. In particular, I think that the late 19th early 20th century thinkers were immersed in an attitude where human dominion over nature and resource extraction was a given, and the only question was how to establish the rules of that game. The respect for nature found in Taoist thought was not widely available at the time and our vocabulary for climate and ecology weren't developed yet. This sort of thing occurred to me when I read the Marxist analysis of Spirited Away, which is fabulous and helped me see things I wouldn't have noticed on my own. In his studies Miyazaki developed an affinity for communist themes and identified fully as a communist in his youth, while preserving his own holistic identity as an artist. I disagree - dialectical materialism isn't a dogma, it's a framework of analysis that one can always apply. Material conditions are vastly different today than they were during Marx's time, or Lenin's time, but a Marxist-Leninist analysis of class and material conditions has still provided the most accurate reflection of the world as it moves, to me anyway. And I still prefer to align with the most real-world successes in building socialism, which have been in places like the USSR and Eastern Bloc, PRC, Cuba, DPRK, Vietnam, etc. Marxism and environmental stewardship aren't mutually exclusive - arguably the one nation doing the most to combat pollution and climate change is the Marxist-Leninist state of China.
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Jul 9, 2018 15:46
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SyHopeful posted:What murder quotas? I have no clue what they mean about "murder quotas", but I'm pretty sure Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, at least, would have something to say about wars of conquest. As for suppression of minorities, with the many non-Russian groups being forcibly deported or relocated at various times, and official policies placing Russian rights above others, I'd say the state came across as Russian-supremacist. It's questions like this, that appear to ignore the Soviet Union's faults, that really ruin any kind of quality discussion about the Soviet Union's merits, either theoretical or actual.
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Jul 9, 2018 16:04
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SyHopeful posted:Marxism and environmental stewardship aren't mutually exclusive - arguably the one nation doing the most to combat pollution and climate change is the Marxist-Leninist state of China. 
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Jul 9, 2018 16:08
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Golbez posted:I have no clue what they mean about "murder quotas", but I'm pretty sure Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, at least, would have something to say about wars of conquest. Okay, how were they wars of Conquest? What relocations and why? It's broad, unsourced assertions about the history of the USSR that makes quality discussion about it difficult.
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Jul 9, 2018 16:49
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SyHopeful posted:What murder quotas? I didn't say it was a dogma, just that it's limited by its historical and literary context. I understand that there is an expanded literary tradition that has gone on under the name, but I just don't understand why it should stick with that name, it would be like saying Lavoisierist chemistry.
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Jul 9, 2018 16:51
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Stinky_Pete posted:I didn't say it was a dogma, just that it's limited by its historical and literary context. I understand that there is an expanded literary tradition that has gone on under the name, but I just don't understand why it should stick with that name, it would be like saying Lavoisierist chemistry. Sure, but im less interested in semantics and more about building a better world. If you don't like calling that marxism, thats fine!
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Jul 9, 2018 17:07
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SyHopeful posted:Okay, how were they wars of Conquest? quote:What relocations and why? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tatars
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Jul 9, 2018 17:24
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SyHopeful posted:Okay, how were they wars of Conquest? SyHopeful posted:Sure, but im less interested in semantics and more about building a better world. If you don't like calling that marxism, thats fine! 1/10, try harder next time.
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Jul 9, 2018 17:26
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The main law is a federal regulation that mandates that you can only be salaried - exempt if you make over a certain yearly salary. It was stupidly low until Obama upped to to $40-something K a year. It used to be like $25,000. This was why McDonald's made everybody an assistant manager, gave them a lovely salary, and then worked them absurd hours every week. No idea if California has a law better than the federal one but that wouldn't surprise me if they did. This was blocked by a court once Trump got elected and the regulatory change was reversed when he took office iirc.
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Jul 9, 2018 18:57
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