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Trump claimed that he would help them when he was campaigning- for example, he promised to revitalize the coal industry and protect the coal workers’ jobs. The Democrats told them that their jobs were bad for the environment and they’d just have to find something else. This doesn’t describe every reason someone might have voted for Trump, obviously, but many people are going to choose what seems like it would improve their life the most, or at least keep it from getting worse. Are they rubes for believing that Trump would actually deliver what material things he did promise in his campaign? Maybe, but no more than people who believed Obama’s promises on the campaign trail, or Biden’s last year. Is there a significant amount of racism and bigotry that drove voters to Trump? Obviously yes, but you are not going to change the attitudes of the American electorate by scolding them for those attitudes while also asking for their votes and support. These kinds of changes in societal attitudes typically take decades or a massive upheaval of some sort that changes the paradigm. So you can either expand the electorate in your favor by reaching nonvoters, or change what you’re offering to appeal to more of the current electorate. That could either be running to the right on policy and/or culture war issues (the usual Democratic response to losses or close elections), or by offering something appealing enough that it outweighs the bigotry of some portion of the electorate. You won’t change every person’s mind; some will find their social beliefs more valuable than the material offer. But it won’t be zero, and it certainly has a better chance of getting those voters than by telling them that something is wrong with them. (Even though there is.) So the Dems could either try offering something that would energize non-voters into participating, or something that would override the bigotry of the voters who support republicans due to their prejudice. I don’t think they’ll do either, as they’re nearly completed captured by capital. But if you’re going to write off everyone who currently votes Republican as not gettable, then you need to get those non-voters into the booth to pull the lever for you, but the Democrats aren’t reaching out to them much either- they’re mostly, by their own admission, chasing the voters who agree with republicans on fiscal policy but feel bad about being associated with overt racism and bigotry. DragQueenofAngmar fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Nov 27, 2021 |
# ? Nov 27, 2021 18:01 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 18:16 |
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Sorry wrong thread
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 18:13 |
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mobby_6kl posted:More like UBI. I'm not really seeing anything that would impact the ownership of the means of production I think people in this thread are doing the exact opposite of the Fox news crowd where Socialism is code for "things I like" and Capitalism is code for "things I don't like" Socialism is a pretty big umbrella term, but in any socialist economic system, private corporations are not a thing anymore. At all. Full stop. You can't be "employed" by somebody in a socialist system. Companies are either owned by a community or by all workers jointly like a co-op or credit union. Hence seizing the means of production. This probably works well for like grocery stores or plumbers but probably wouldn't work for say a microchip manufacturer or a car company where you would need tens of thousands of people to vote on literally everything. You'd quickly end up appointing a board of directors and get "capitalism but with mandatory stock options." That's the socialism closest to capitalism. There are options that involve various amounts of government ownership of companies and if you go by Marx's definition, socialism has no money at all. If you're thinking of the thing where corporations still exist but are heavily regulated with strong unions and a robust social safety net, you're thinking of Democratic Socialism, which is actually just capitalism with the corners filed off. Edit: I want to be clear that I think coops are good. I belong to a credit union instead of a bank and push everyone I know to do the same. But I don't think we need to go full hog "no companies at all and maybe no money either" to get things like universal welfare and low income inequality. KillHour fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Nov 27, 2021 |
# ? Nov 27, 2021 18:49 |
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Sometimes it seems that when folks say "capitalism" what they're saying is "a world where suffering exists at all".
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 18:56 |
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Smeef posted:Those brave toxxers Talk about getting the man off your back. Dumb Guy Socialism: loving sucks how the man makes you and the dudes you have beers with after work be at your station with your tools 15 minutes before your shift starts and you don’t even get paid for it. That’s a loving beer’s worth of time! gently caress that let’s all show up this month on time, as in when we start getting paid. Now you and a bunch of dumb guys you work with have discussed wage theft and collective action, and maybe come up with a plan. The man says you gotta have a job to be able to afford to see a doctor. That doesn’t make any loving sense; kids don’t got jobs, old people don’t got jobs, and tons of jobs don’t even have “insurance” which is just a scam anyway! Literally just a middle man between me and the doctor I trust. My doctor may tell me to quit the cigs but that’s between me and him. My insurance company throws an extra fifty bucks a month onto the tab because I have a few smokes a day. Who said they need to be in this situation at all? This is an A-B conversation with my doctor, C yourself out you greedy shits. You just have to be willing to tell people what the actual problems are, who their enemies are, in a language that connects. The theory is correct, but it doesn’t need to be in the foreground.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 19:06 |
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How are u posted:Sometimes it seems that when folks say "capitalism" what they're saying is "a world where suffering exists at all". Usually because capitalism is the source of whatever suffering someone is referring to.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 19:06 |
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Now I'm curious. Does anyone here advocate for actual non-market planned socialism and believe we should completely get rid of capital/money as a concept? How do you see that working? How would goods be allocated? If there's no financial motivation to take a job do you assign them somehow or would people just pick what they want to do? Genuinely want to know what a post-capital America might look like there.the_steve posted:Usually because capitalism is the source of whatever suffering someone is referring to. That's a bit reductionist. I think it's more fair to say that the unfair allocation of resources is the source of suffering. Saying it's capitalism specifically kind of implies that capitalism is uniquely bad at doing that. It's a genuinely hard problem, even in very simple situations. Matt Parker just did a good video on it actually: https://youtu.be/GVhFBujPlVo KillHour fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Nov 27, 2021 |
# ? Nov 27, 2021 19:08 |
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the_steve posted:Usually because capitalism is the source of whatever suffering someone is referring to. I think it's not so much capitalism as human greed, selfishness, and malice. Those traits are not exclusive to capitalism. They have always existed, certainly under communism and socialism, and they will always exist. e: I don't think that it's capitalism that makes bad people bad people. I think bad people will be bad within whichever system they exist. How are u fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Nov 27, 2021 |
# ? Nov 27, 2021 19:08 |
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How are u posted:I think it's not so much capitalism as human greed, selfishness, and malice. Those traits are not exclusive to capitalism. They have always existed, certainly under communism and socialism, and they will always exist. You have you cause and effect reversed. "Greed, selfishness, and malice" are descriptions of actions, not causes of actions. We're not RPG characters who are born with the "greed" trait that forces us to act a certain way. Capitalism is a system that necessitates greed because it is a system where your company either grows its profits or it dies, and it doesn't particularly care how those profits are grown. Also if you're going to make a human nature argument you're gonna have to grapple with the fact that our species made it 180,000 years as hunter-gatherers who communally produced food according to one's ability, and distributed according to one's need. Eta: thinking that there are people who are just inherently bad is fash as hell is pepsi ok fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Nov 27, 2021 |
# ? Nov 27, 2021 19:19 |
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KillHour posted:You mean the one that happened after Russia was defeated in war with Japan and also in the middle of a revolution threatening Tzarist rule? The revolution started first and the strikes were largely an opportunistic symptom of that. This is some vile poo poo. Not Tzarist Russia? Motherfucker take a look around your country. You have people wishing they could live in Tzarist Russia. It'd be an amazing upgrade. So many words to say "I'm not personally suffering under the heel of capitalism so gently caress everyone else to the point where i don't want the workers to be able to apply collective bargaining. An actual literal "gently caress you, got mine" in 2021. gently caress you man.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 19:27 |
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Pamela Springstein posted:Because they have been conditioned for years to believe that all their problems come from liberal government/immigrants/declining christianity. They still believe they are getting screwed, hence the desire to return to when America was Great, but they have a different (mostly wrong) idea of how to unscrew themselves. I don't disagree, which I thought it was incredibly wild how Majorian said that the working class already know it's being exploited yet votes for the the guy who exploits them even more! Remember which party almost gutted the ACA? Do we really want to go back to a healthcare system where insurers are able to decline coverage because it's too expensive? I don't, I'd prefer to simply reform the system we already have - kind of like software development where you refactor a specific part of the application. Pamela Springstein posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDgcjVGHIw Yea, zoning sucks across the United States. That said, Texas has it's own issues with literally no zoning and you are living next to a toxic waste plant or the leftists groups like the DSA which is has been continually voting against upzoning because it's gentrification . Willa Rogers posted:Why would it be surprising that those voters didn't expect Clinton or Biden to materially change their conditions and thus they were willing to chance Trump, who promised them he'd work to reverse things like NAFTA, or kill the TPP, or get rid of the financial penalty for not having private health insurance? I'm not surprised but Trump sold them a bunch of lies. I don't think all of these voters are racist or fascist but then again Hilary's decision to label them as deplorables as a terrible messaging decision but I don't control the DNC messaging strategy.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 19:29 |
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KillHour posted:
What's super interesting is that there have been a bunch of recent strikes from John Deere machinists and few other smaller groups I think Nabisco or something. And they won but aren't asking for any Marxist revolution and never were in the first place.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 19:41 |
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How are u posted:I think it's not so much capitalism as human greed, selfishness, and malice. Those traits are not exclusive to capitalism. They have always existed, certainly under communism and socialism, and they will always exist. Greed, selfishness, and malice are of course not exclusive to capitalism, but capitalism is a system in which greed, selfishness, and malice are considered virtues rather than sins. It makes the most immoral of us into the most powerful of us.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 19:41 |
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:What's super interesting is that there have been a bunch of recent strikes from John Deere machinists and few other smaller groups I think Nabisco or something. And they won but aren't asking for any Marxist revolution and never were in the first place. We've already established that I wasn't talking about collective bargaining in general; I was talking about an impossible hypothetical scenario where a bunch of Goons infiltrate all the labor unions and convince everyone that capitalism is defacto bad and we should do a communism about it. It was an intentionally absurd hypothetical to highlight my original point, which was that there's nothing sad mc sadgoon can do to kill capitalism. Please don't take that out of context and say I hate unions thanks.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 19:55 |
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KillHour posted:Now I'm curious. Does anyone here advocate for actual non-market planned socialism and believe we should completely get rid of capital/money as a concept? How do you see that working? How would goods be allocated? If there's no financial motivation to take a job do you assign them somehow or would people just pick what they want to do? Genuinely want to know what a post-capital America might look like there.[/url]
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 19:59 |
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:I don't disagree, which I thought it was incredibly wild how Majorian said that the working class already know it's being exploited yet votes for the the guy who exploits them even more! The working class is majority non-white. It's also majority non-male. It didn't "vote for Trump." Most working-class people either voted for Clinton or stayed home. You're buying into the far right's framing of the working class here. How are u posted:I think it's not so much capitalism as human greed, selfishness, and malice. Those traits are not exclusive to capitalism. They have always existed, certainly under communism and socialism, and they will always exist. Capitalism incentivizes greed, selfishness, and malice to a greater degree than socialism or capitalism do. Majorian fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Nov 27, 2021 |
# ? Nov 27, 2021 20:05 |
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World Famous W posted:Yes, I want real socialism. No, I don't know what that'll look like. As someone living on less than 15000 a year, I also don't care. Some of the people I help feed, some who don't have running water or sewage, barely care You're welcome to wish for "literally anything other than the system we have now" because that comes along with the territory. But there's nothing really to debate or discuss about that so instead I'll say I'm rooting for you, fellow goon. I don't know your situation but you're welcome to PM me or email me at [username]@gmail.com if you need to talk or if there's something I can maybe help with?
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 20:08 |
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KillHour posted:Now I'm curious. Does anyone here advocate for actual non-market planned socialism and believe we should completely get rid of capital/money as a concept? How do you see that working? How would goods be allocated? If there's no financial motivation to take a job do you assign them somehow or would people just pick what they want to do? Genuinely want to know what a post-capital America might look like there. I mean you're asking the question that leads to a lot of the divisions within leftism, what will that future look like. I honestly have no idea though I have some possible guesses. But I also don't think it matters because for a planned economy to work the coercion I think you keep imagining, that there is some revolution forcing everyone into communism, won't work. Economies are just the collective actions of humans influenced by their social structures and material conditions. Capitalism as an economy is very coercive and has required destroying non-capitalist societies to force them into the system. Really the theory, and observed history backs this up, isn't about forcing communism onto people. It's that capitalism, and human economics in general, have contradictions and issues that will cause conflicts to rise and when those conflicts rise you'll see different possible ideas and economies emerge from what people do during those conflicts. What you can do now, before poo poo inevitably hits the fan, is to learn and prepare and organize so that when you're forced into a decision of the left or the right you don't ignorently find yourself on the side of the fascists. Again, I don't need to convince you communism is the right answer or that the left is the right answer. I just need you to know they exist and to understand them and as the status quo you currently want to protect breaks down and stops benefitting you you'll start looking for answers and thankfully you'll have them because of work you did now instead of being convinced by the right that the status quo can be preserved if we just get rid of all the "bad people". Gumball Gumption fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Nov 27, 2021 |
# ? Nov 27, 2021 20:09 |
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If it takes that many and that much to make the changes we must make, that's what we'll aim for. It does require people to forsake the status quo in a huge way. A lot of people even here seem resistant to that and that is part of the problem. The hour is indeed late it is going to take an appropriately desperate response. The tldr is "not with that attitude."
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 20:11 |
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Gumball Gumption posted:I mean you're asking the question that leads to a lot of the divisions within leftism, what will that future look like. I honestly have no idea though I have some possible guesses. But I also don't think it matters because for a planned economy to work the coercion I think you keep imagining, that there is some revolution forcing everyone into communism, won't work. Economies are just the collective actions of humans influenced by their social structures and material conditions. Capitalism as an economy is very coercive and has required destroying non-capitalist societies to force them into the system. This just boils down to "what we have is so bad that it will obviously fail and there's nothing that can be done to stop it and I don't know what will come out of that but it will be some natural ineffable consequence of our environment" and I guess I just disagree with that entire premise? Economic systems are created and managed with laws and rules, not happenstance. Even a revolution will lead to new laws that will be written by people. Revolutions are led by people and those leaders (try to) design the system that follows. Edit: this thread is WAY to the left of literally every politician in the US. Or maybe it's just the people responding at the moment. I'm not saying that's inherently bad (although I think of myself as very leftist even though I'm probably to the right of most of the thread), but I am very, very, VERY skeptical that the proletariat is going to throw off their shackles and come to the obvious answer of true socialism and/or communism en masse. People need figureheads for that kind of thing and we don't exactly have a modern Lenin going around gaining followers. KillHour fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Nov 27, 2021 |
# ? Nov 27, 2021 20:18 |
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:I'm not surprised but Trump sold them a bunch of lies. I don't think all of these voters are racist or fascist but then again Hilary's decision to label them as deplorables as a terrible messaging decision but I don't control the DNC messaging strategy. I mean, Trump at least followed through on no TPP, ending the war in Afghanistan & getting rid of the mandate penalty, which is a higher percentage of truth-to-lies than the Dems have managed (so far) on their own election promises to increase the minimum wage, forgive student-loan debt, have a public option for health insurance, and lower the cost of prescription drugs across the board for all consumers. I'm not talking about "messaging," which is where liberals feel the problem begins & ends when it comes to Dems' do-nothingness. Most voters care more about tangible results than party-generated propaganda.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 20:28 |
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Willa Rogers posted:I mean, Trump at least followed through on no TPP, ending the war in Afghanistan lol did he, now Something tells me that if Joe Biden signed a piece of paper that said "I swear I will withdraw from Afghanistan, pinky promise, totally guys!" and then somebody else did the actual hard work and took the political hit of actually doing it you wouldn't be falling over yourself to give Joe Biden credit for it. gently caress all the way off.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 20:34 |
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KillHour posted:This just boils down to "what we have is so bad that it will obviously fail and there's nothing that can be done to stop it and I don't know what will come out of that but it will be some natural ineffable consequence of our environment" and I guess I just disagree with that entire premise? Economic systems are created and managed with laws and rules, not happenstance. Even a revolution will lead to new laws that will be written by people. Revolutions are led by people and those leaders (try to) design the system that follows. Yes, but the conflicts and needs inform those plans. There won't be a modern day Lenin because he was a product of that time and conflict. And it's not that they will throw off their shackles in mass. Most likely they won't. Fascism is definitely the more likely outcome in situations where they could throw off their shackles. But education and understanding of these topics now will help when you're in those future situations. The choice won't be socialism, barbarism, or everything stays the same. It's just going to be socialism or barbarism.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 20:41 |
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Gumball Gumption posted:Yes, but the conflicts and needs inform those plans. There won't be a modern day Lenin because he was a product of that time and conflict. And it's not that they will throw off their shackles in mass. Most likely they won't. Fascism is definitely the more likely outcome in situations where they could throw off their shackles. But education and understanding of these topics now will help when you're in those future situations. The choice won't be socialism, barbarism, or everything stays the same. It's just going to be socialism or barbarism. This reads of "I'm so sold on the promise of Socialism that it must be the only good economic system" and I definitely disagree on that. All economic systems are flawed compromises, including socialism, which again is just an umbrella term for many economic systems of various plausibility. Regardless, the scientific way to determine this is to iteratively study, implement and reevaluate economic policies top-down, not roll the dice and grab your ankles.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 20:49 |
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KillHour posted:This reads of "I'm so sold on the promise of Socialism that it must be the only good economic system" and I definitely disagree on that. All economic systems are flawed compromises, including socialism, which again is just an umbrella term for many economic systems of various plausibility. Regardless, the scientific way to determine this is to iteratively study, implement and reevaluate economic policies top-down, not roll the dice and grab your ankles. OK? There is no "perfect" system but socialism is a far better one than capitalism. It's fine to study and prepare before making a major leap but delaying through years of anal retentive study while the world burns around you is not helpful.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 20:54 |
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Mellow Seas posted:lol Biden did take a political hit for actually doing it, which was stupid (the hit, not the withdrawal) but Trump signed the original agreement a year before Biden deferred the withdrawal date by months, pissing off the taliban and forcing Biden's hand into the hasty departure. Trying to say that Biden was responsible for the entire withdrawal is as fallacious as claiming that Biden has reined in covid (or fast-tracked the vaccine, for that matter). There's nothing wrong with political honesty even if it doesn't fit the "narrative," "perceptions," or "messaging."
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 20:57 |
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KillHour posted:This reads of "I'm so sold on the promise of Socialism that it must be the only good economic system" and I definitely disagree on that. All economic systems are flawed compromises, including socialism, which again is just an umbrella term for many economic systems of various plausibility. Regardless, the scientific way to determine this is to iteratively study, implement and reevaluate economic policies top-down, not roll the dice and grab your ankles. Either the capitalists continue to own the means of production or the workers take them. Those are the options. You keep talking about socialism like it's a theoretical system that someone wrote all the rules down for and people are arguing that we should adopt that system when in reality it's the name given to the struggle against capitalism which has a several century long academic and practical history.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 20:58 |
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KillHour posted:This reads of "I'm so sold on the promise of Socialism that it must be the only good economic system" and I definitely disagree on that. All economic systems are flawed compromises, including socialism, which again is just an umbrella term for many economic systems of various plausibility. Regardless, the scientific way to determine this is to iteratively study, implement and reevaluate economic policies top-down, not roll the dice and grab your ankles. No, I just think it's one of the possible natural outcomes from these conflicts and I prefer it over the other options like fascism. This is a prediction from the study of human conflicts and economies. Marxist theory isn't just "boy communism would be swell". It's about why human conflicts arise, economies, and what the results of those conflicts can be. Edit: the question of socialism or barbarism has come up before and the last time we picked barbarism we fought 2 world wars if you want observable tests of the alternatives.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:00 |
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is pepsi ok posted:Either the capitalists continue to own the means of production or the workers take them. Those are the options. Then let me be very clear about my argument. Many modern businesses are far too large for workers to own equitably. You can't have a billion dollar multinational co-op and Steve's corner shop can't mass produce millions of complex computer chips. The other option is for governments to own the business and I don't want to buy a computer with a network card made by the NSA. The most common solution proposed to this is "capitalism with training wheels and a helmet" commonly known as Democratic Socialism. If you have a better idea that allows us to both keep our smart phones and completely gets rid of capital without having everything owned directly by the state, let's hear it.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:08 |
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KillHour posted:
this is completely wrong. if a company can be owned by shareholders it can be owned by workers. how coulld you possibly come to this conclusion?
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:11 |
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punishedkissinger posted:this is completely wrong. if a company can be owned by shareholders it can be owned by workers. how coulld you possibly come to this conclusion? Plus, if it actually is too big to be owned by the workers, it should probably be broken up.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:13 |
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KillHour posted:Many modern businesses are far too large for workers to own equitably. You can't have a billion dollar multinational co-op and Steve's corner shop can't mass produce millions of complex computer chips. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation drat dude look how wrong you are
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:14 |
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KillHour posted:Then let me be very clear about my argument. Why are smartphones always offered as an example of the "greatness" of capitalism? Every single component that give us smartphones were funded with public money and public research, including Google. If businesses are supposedly "too large" to be equitably owned, then I suggest that behemoths like Google and Amazon are broken into small pieces - as they should be anyway because they're far too big and wield far too much power over our lives - and all of those 'chunks' owned and operated by the people who work there. There is zero need for CEOs or shareholders. They do nothing. They make nothing. All of the work that is done to make a business profitable is done by workers, so I'm skeptical of the argument that we "need" shareholders to prop up large businesses (which I hope wouldn't exist in a socialist/communist system anyway).
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:14 |
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Mondragon while having a lot of problems since it's still profit driven is a direct example of that not being true.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:14 |
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punishedkissinger posted:this is completely wrong. if a company can be owned by shareholders it can be owned by workers. how coulld you possibly come to this conclusion? Companies compete with capital for the things they need to get that large. When you have thousands of specialized jobs all doing a small part, you need a management team and when you're investing that much into design and development you inevitably end up with patents and NDAs and trade between companies. You very quickly end up with "capitalism but with stock options." And how do you found a new company like that? You either need the ability to have capital investment or the government does it and now suddenly the government owns companies again. Once you start adding back the things that allow big companies to exist independent of the government, you end up with capitalism. camoseven posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation drat dude look how wrong you are Mondragon is way closer to Democratic Socialism than it is to Marxism. They employ non-owners, they still have to deal with capital. I was specifically asking about non-market socialism. A socialism-capitalism hybrid can totally exist and is what I've been advocating. Edit: I'm not saying smartphones are a triumph of capitalism. I'm saying they need to exist. Any society that could not produce them could also not produce complex medical equipment or large scale farming capable of sustaining the earth's population or a myriad of other things. KillHour fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Nov 27, 2021 |
# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:20 |
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I would rather have more people not die preventable deaths (globally, not just america) than a cell phone
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:23 |
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KillHour posted:Then let me be very clear about my argument. Your smart phone has existed for about 20 years and we're cooking the planet. Maybe your smart phone is an incredibly lovely idea that's killing us.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:26 |
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KillHour posted:, I guess, not that this site will still be around to get banned from if I'm wrong.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:29 |
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:challenge accepted Edit: Also, if the ideal is Mondragon, we could just legislate that companies work more like Mondragon and less like Monsanto. We don't need a revolution to do that, just votes. KillHour fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Nov 27, 2021 |
# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:31 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 18:16 |
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Potentially the longest time frame a toxx has ever had.
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# ? Nov 27, 2021 21:36 |