Al! posted:

sitting in lotus position and humming as i envision a perfect capitalist utopia with perfectly efficient exploitation

gradenko_2000 posted:

BillsPhoenix posted:

Not calling you out, just wanting to note I'm not the only poster here that doesn't find that question crystal clear.

Son of Sorrow posted:

More efficient at what OP

Son of Sorrow posted:

More efficient at what OP

dead gay comedy forums posted:

didn't read this before because I was writing the post lmao

now put that post + what I wrote above and guess what happens?

Karach posted:

Can you surgically implant curiosity in another human being? Let's find out.

Buck Wildman posted:

many cats died in the d&d phase

Raskolnikov38 posted:

hubris.height posted:

lol that's very fair

this was the question I was referring to. im not an econ major so I spent the twilight hours thinking about it as I dozed just trying to find something that fit there and came up with 'central planning???' '

Friedrich Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific posted:

Active social forces work exactly like natural forces: blindly, forcibly, destructively, so long as we do not understand, and reckon with, them. But, when once we understand them, when once we grasp their action, their direction, their effects, it depends only upon ourselves to subject them more and more to our own will, and, by means of them, to reach our own ends. And this holds quite especially of the mighty productive forces of today. As long as we obstinately refuse to understand the nature and the character of these social means of action — and this understanding goes against the grain of the capitalist mode of production, and its defenders — so long these forces are at work in spite of us, in opposition to us, so long they master us, as we have shown above in detail.

But when once their nature is understood, they can, in the hands of the producers working together, be transformed from master demons into willing servants. The difference is as that between the destructive force of electricity in the lightning in the storm, and electricity under command in the telegraph and the voltaic arc; the difference between a conflagration, and fire working in the service of man. With this recognition, at last, of the real nature of the productive forces of today, the social anarchy of production gives place to a social regulation of production upon a definite plan, according to the needs of the community and of each individual. Then the capitalist mode of appropriation, in which the product enslaves first the producer, and then the appropriator, is replaced by the mode of appropriation of the products that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production; upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production — on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment.

Whilst the capitalist mode of production more and more completely transforms the great majority of the population into proletarians, it creates the power which, under penalty of its own destruction, is forced to accomplish this revolution. Whilst it forces on more and more of the transformation of the vast means of production, already socialized, into State property, it shows itself the way to accomplishing this revolution. The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property.

Raskolnikov38 posted:

BillsPhoenix posted:

I'm even more confused now.

Can capitalism reach a state of zero profit with imbalanced distribution?

Or in theory, for zero profit to be reached, there must be equality, with requires centrally planned (socialism?)?

BillsPhoenix posted:

Can capitalism reach a state of zero profit with imbalanced distribution?

quote:

zero profit

BillsPhoenix posted:

I can't disagree with the reality of that stealing and killing.

But those aren't issues in theory.

BillsPhoenix posted:

So in a perfectly competive market, this can't be achieved in theory

Karach posted:

*furrowing brow* Marx and Engels at... Tanagra

dead gay comedy forums posted:

lmao

wouldn't be like the opposite situation here?

Karach posted:

I mean maybe it's been symbolic language the whole time. You've been trying to be more and more precise, yet Riker is just standing there befuddled.

dead gay comedy forums posted:

*Engels turns to Marx* -- Stirner, replying in letter to you

*Marx ponders somberly, furrowing heavily* -- Mary Burns, when slapping your rear end

*Engels guffaws*

BillsPhoenix posted:

Fwiw, I did 'study' the book gradenkos quote references, and a shitload of math kept the 'clever' students from asking questions.

Benevolent dictatorship did come up. This was dismissed as "show me any time in history there was a benevolent dictator".

In retrospect that's a big red

BillsPhoenix posted:

Fwiw, I did 'study' the book gradenkos quote references, and a shitload of math kept the 'clever' students from asking questions.

Benevolent dictatorship did come up. This was dismissed as "show me any time in history there was a benevolent dictator".

In retrospect that's a big red

https://www.marxists.org/archive/selected-marxists.htm posted:

Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919)
Championed the idea of the mass strike. Tireless opponent of WWI, she renounced the German Social Democracy, helped to create the Spartacus League, and later the German Communist Party. Critical of the Soviet government. Executed by the German government.

dead gay comedy forums posted:

undiagnosed combo of autistic dyslexia

BillsPhoenix posted:

Fwiw, I did 'study' the book gradenkos quote references, and a shitload of math kept the 'clever' students from asking questions.

Benevolent dictatorship did come up. This was dismissed as "show me any time in history there was a benevolent dictator".

In retrospect that's a big red

dead gay comedy forums posted:

I think we discussed some basics of exchange itt (or maybe Asia thread)

crepeface posted:

what is the difference between "unequal exchange" (i.e. re: cockshott) vs mutually beneficial trade?

you hear about poo poo like how the EU is structure that lets the wealthy countries exploit the labour of the poor or how extractive resource trade destroys the global south but how does that differ from china's trade? the benefits of BRI infrastructure are obvious, but i'm thinking of things like buying australian minerals or the deals that let them negotiate peace between iran and KSA.

dead gay comedy forums posted:

This is a pretty good question. In an system based on the exploitation of inequality, is there a thing such as a "mutually beneficial trade"?

The answer is: yeah, there can be. Contradictions of capital allows as such. You mentioned the EU, let's use an example from there. Greece back then during their shitstorm was going to privatize the Piraeus port to Western clients, then China came in with a better deal. Then Yannis Varoufakis when made minister of finance said that the deal wasn't good enough still, they asked the Chinese that the previous government made a huge mistake and they wanted to renegotiate. China surprised a lot of them when they went "Oh yeah sure no prob", when they were expecting to get into serious trouble for that.

Turns out that the party that was talking about having a strong commitment to favorable and friendly negotiations, also known as the European Central Bank, turned out to be far worse than anything that was propagandized about the Chinese. This actually led the hardcore communists in the coalition to say "maybe we can actually work a full deal with China", which caused some impressive gnashing of teeth, socdems splitting over and whatnot.

So what happened here? China initially got an assessment from the government itself for the port and its present associated infrastructure, which was seriously undervaluated. It didn't assess itself because it simply trusted the Greek government. When Syriza got in, they engaged with China in earnest and said 'hey they did a seriously loving bad job and we have the receipts right here' and China fully agreed with the new terms, even offering a bigger entry payment to help them with their ongoing EU negotiations.

In the raw commercial terms we came used to see in those contexts, the new deal was much "worse" for China, especially when it could simply force bad terms to a much weaker party, which is something we learned to expect here in the south of the world. But by losing so deliberately, China reaps far more in secondary gains: having infrastructure of their own in Europe means the ability to set their own regulation in the flow of trade.

This sort of commercial agreement is what some socialist thinkers consider as mutually beneficial within the possibilities of capitalism (iirc my political economy of trade). The stronger party takes on primary losses to benefit the weaker one, but has secondary gains that are structural and better than imperial profit.