|
reserved for debord shituationist posting
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 03:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 2, 2024 07:47 |
|
|
reserved for ostrom's analysis of the structures of the (tragedy of the) commons, though the lens of "common pool resources" and the game theory of collectives beyond "the prisoners delemma" tying into the built environment of cities/societies On "structureless" non-hierarchical social organizations, an essay by Jo Freeman based on experiences in the 1970's women’s liberation movement https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm Tyranny of Structurelessness posted:During the years in which the women's liberation movement has been taking shape, a great emphasis has been placed on what are called leaderless, structureless groups as the main -- if not sole -- organizational form of the movement. The source of this idea was a natural reaction against the over-structured society in which most of us found ourselves, and the inevitable control this gave others over our lives, and the continual elitism of the Left and similar groups among those who were supposedly fighting this overstructuredness. Tyranny of Structurelessness posted:Formal and Informal Structures The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Elinor Ostrom posted:Prisoners who have been placed in separate cells and cannot communicate with one another are also in an interdependent situation in which they must act independently. Acting independently in this situation is the result of coercion, not its absence. Computer Serf has issued a correction as of 05:29 on Jun 12, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 03:35
|
|
|
How does socialism/communism reconcile land ownership in a world where people are increasingly packed together in cities? Does some govt just control mass amounts of public housing, and this is doled out via need? I always see DSA etc, they want housing guarantees and whatever, which sounds good. But how do you do this fairly at all? Surely you want people to live where they need to, but also have the freedom to move. I suppose the opposite end might be the current system but with stringent price controls and regulation such that proper housing exists albeit in private hands. Final showerthought, do we actually need cities in their current super dense state ?
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 04:26
|
|
|
Thanks for the answers to my question, this thread is good. Any good history books about the Zapatistas or Cuba?
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 04:48
|
|
|
Computer Serf posted:Formal and Informal Structures https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm#s2 quote:Furthermore, during the transition from capitalism to communism suppression is still necessary, but it is now the suppression of the exploiting minority by the exploited majority. A special apparatus, a special machine for suppression, the “state”, is still necessary, but this is now a transitional state. It is no longer a state in the proper sense of the word; for the suppression of the minority of exploiters by the majority of the wage slaves of yesterday is comparatively so easy, simple and natural a task that it will entail far less bloodshed than the suppression of the risings of slaves, serfs or wage-laborers, and it will cost mankind far less. And it is compatible with the extension of democracy to such an overwhelming majority of the population that the need for a special machine of suppression will begin to disappear. Naturally, the exploiters are unable to suppress the people without a highly complex machine for performing this task, but the people can suppress the exploiters even with a very simple “machine”, almost without a “machine”, without a special apparatus, by the simple organization of the armed people (such as the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, we would remark, running ahead). Dictatorship of the proletariat is the formal structure that will maintain the condition of socialism until the formal and informal structure become indistinguishable and communism is achieved.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 08:29
|
|
|
This is a bit off topic but leftists seem to use "liberal" differently from how everybody else uses it (in America at least). What exactly does a leftist mean when they call a person or idea a liberal? Is conservatism the right edge of liberalism under this definition, or is it still a separate school of thought?Sylink posted:Final showerthought, do we actually need cities in their current super dense state ? not gonna answer this from a socialist standpoint but from an ecological standpoint dense cities are almost mandatory. The closer you pack people in the fewer resources you use on transportation; everything gets more efficient when you don't have sprawling single-use housing; and the less land is being used by people, the more land is being left in its natural state cheetah7071 has issued a correction as of 08:39 on Jun 12, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 08:37
|
|
|
cheetah7071 posted:This is a bit off topic but leftists seem to use "liberal" differently from how everybody else uses it. What exactly does a leftist mean when they call a person or idea a liberal? Is conservatism the right edge of liberalism under this definition, or is it still a separate school of thought? liberals love global free-market capitalism in an almost unregulated state and believe in ~individual action~ as solutions and tut-tuting from an academic level because they don't believe better things are possible. neoliberalism economics is basically de-regulate, austerity, privatize profits and socialize costs. same poo poo conservatives believe in except sometimes some protectionism thrown in. now there's shades of that in "some regulations" like some obama-esque poo poo, but it's not meaningful because anything meaningful could upset their own life in some form. some liberals will say they're progressive but mostly in the aesthetics of 'progressive-ism' than actual any real material changes that would even infinitesimally upset their own standing (and not that there even needs to be sacrifice per se), and that's mostly the only real difference between conservatism. basically look at every capital D democrat, clinton, pelosi, schumer, etc. look at poo poo imf does hailing global free-market capitalism as the way to enlighten and enrich the 'global south'. look at all the awful policies like soda tax, straw bans, grocery bag tax, gas tax, means-tested solutions, etc that they push because they actually don't want to do anything to themselves really. on another similar aspect, a good post Pentecoastal Elites posted:I'm totally convinced both american liberalism and american conservatism are exactly the same in terms of a foundational white supremacy that underlines both. the white viewpoint is the only valid one and non-white viewpoints don't exist because nonwhite (especially black) people are weird nonhuman entities that are fundamentally capital-O Others. If you're a liberal these others have no agency or independence and don't really do anything besides be a passive receptacle for abuse and oppression, and it's your job to infantilize and protect them and Uphold Their Voices (tm) in a way that doesn't do anything except redound to your status as a good ally and good liberal. with conservatives it's much more straightforward because then you just see these Others as demoniac engines of destruction that you (and your surrogates, the police) have to dismantle and repress. In either view nonwhite people are fundamentally incomprehensible, if you admit they have any kind of internal self at all, which I think explains the perspective of both the cops and of the lib "allies"
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 08:50
|
|
|
SniperWoreConverse posted:One time I was at work & everyone was bitching about mgmt loving up & I was like "we should get to vote on the moron decisions our boss makes" and everyone started getting uncomfortable and the conversation stopped. I've had this exact conversation, though my workplace is already unionized. It's bizarre how quickly the subject gets changed, like workplace democracy is some deadly sin.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 12:48
|
|
|
cheetah7071 posted:This is a bit off topic but leftists seem to use "liberal" differently from how everybody else uses it (in America at least) Not off topic at all, pretty much the opposite. Leftists in the United States use "liberal" as, well, the rest of the world does. It is a curiosity of mine how that came to happen. Liberalism, being the dominant ideology of our time, is enmeshed along with conservatism in having capitalism as their material conductor, so to speak, but they are not one and the same. What characterizes the split between liberal and conservative ideologies are the discourses and matters of civic liberty in opposition to privilege and power. In an absence of a more sophisticated context, liberals default to being the "better option" because at least they have the appearance of changers. Conservatives, in general, are an ideology more in the sense of representing the inertial force of society, the resistance to change and consequence of the natural human instinct towards having things to endure. The funny thing about it, which is relevant to your question, is that the heyday of their enmity towards liberals is long past, for they disagreed very little on the the economic constitution of society. Once aristocratic privileges are over and the New York prosperous proprietor of a couple of businesses had as much political liberty and action as the Massachusetts landowner and rentier, the battles to be had are, for example, about what their sons and daughters feel about the civic rights of Others in their society. Then the socialists come along. One particular thing to the United States that is kinda fascinating is how liberalism there created a heroic delusion, of wanting to be simultaneously the force that makes practical, concrete decisions that unfortunately must be done and that antagonizes many of the people whom it takes for granted, while also being caring, compassionate, understanding, blablabla. Socialists look at that and say, "hey, you are full of poo poo. You say this but you cannot deliver, because your power structure denies you the ability to do so." Liberals turn this around by making the socialists look like the ones who are with head in the skies, arguing for impossible things to have, for effective structural change, and when they do so, what is the difference of their behavior from a conservative? That is why liberals are centrists. Their role is to present a political discourse and a civic morality that ultimately legitimizes the system, regardless of its flaws, where the only changes possible are through its own institutions. Vote. Be a candidate. Study Law hard and become a judge. Be the change you want in society. If you do not vote, you cannot complain! Then the socialist tells "you know what, I am going to strike because if I wait for your help I am going to die homeless and starving" and the next thing you know, the liberal comes crying to their conservative friends calling for the righteous rule of law to be upheld against them.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 15:39
|
|
|
wow! sounds like these “liberals” actually succ and aren’t very good at all!
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 17:07
|
|
|
Sylink posted:How does socialism/communism reconcile land ownership in a world where people are increasingly packed together in cities? Does some govt just control mass amounts of public housing, and this is doled out via need? decommodification and the elimination of artificial scarcity driving up the price. Even now there's ~4-6 empty homes for every homeless person in the US. If you have 10,000 people who need houses in an area, you just build 10,000 houses, a thing which is easy to do if the concept of being housed isn't tied to your retirement and the necessity of making rich fuckers even richer don't even need to be a commie to want to get rid of land and housing as an investment. Smith and Ricardo were anti-landlords and Georgism was so popular that the book on it was 2nd in sales to only the bible for decades (ask yourself why it's extremely likely you've never even heard of this lol)
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 17:17
|
|
|
cheetah7071 posted:This is a bit off topic but leftists seem to use "liberal" differently from how everybody else uses it (in America at least). What exactly does a leftist mean when they call a person or idea a liberal? Is conservatism the right edge of liberalism under this definition, or is it still a separate school of thought? In the context of the time when terms like Socialism and Communism were being defined, Liberals were the people arguing for capitalism and constitutional republics. Adam Smith and Thomas Paine are classic Liberals. People often toss around Neo-Liberal now because the Liberal project has had many updates in the past 200 years. The US has a weird situation were a right/left spectrum exists but the 2 party system confuses things. The parties aren't fixed on the left and right, but leapfrog each other. So there was a time when then Republicans were progressive, busted up the slave economy of the south and ended with the reforms under Teddy Roosevelt. After those reforms became the new normal, the Democrats jumped over into the New Deal and on to the Civil Rights Act. Right now, Democrats are the conservative party. Republicans, starting with Reagan, leapt over the Democrats with a new project that is hard to describe without getting into postmodern theories.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 18:16
|
|
cheetah7071 posted:This is a bit off topic but leftists seem to use "liberal" differently from how everybody else uses it (in America at least). What exactly does a leftist mean when they call a person or idea a liberal? Is conservatism the right edge of liberalism under this definition, or is it still a separate school of thought? Leftists trash liberals because the latter fundamentally prioritizes the interests of private property over people (capitalism) just like conservatives do. The only difference, at least in the 21st century, is how they cynically use different talking points (social justice, environmentalism, etc.) and aesthetics in order to continuously facilitate the exploitation and oppression of the proles. This is also why liberals have historically sided with the far right against the left almost every time - Pelosi, Schumer, Clinton, Obama, etc. are simply the latest iteration of this.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 18:56
|
|
|
Sylink posted:How does socialism/communism reconcile land ownership in a world where people are increasingly packed together in cities? Does some govt just control mass amounts of public housing, and this is doled out via need? Epic High Five posted:decommodification and the elimination of artificial scarcity driving up the price. Even now there's ~4-6 empty homes for every homeless person in the US. If you have 10,000 people who need houses in an area, you just build 10,000 houses, a thing which is easy to do if the concept of being housed isn't tied to your retirement and the necessity of making rich fuckers even richer In addition to what Epic High Five posted, an example of the state guaranteeing housing is the Soviet Union where the government built and controlled a large amount of the housing and the rest was owned by cooperatives and semi-state entities. I'm simplifying things here, but look for stuff on Propiska and Soviet Housing for more information for potential flaws and how it worked in more detail. I'm stealing some of this post from another goon (sorry I don't remember you're username):  Soviet housing tended to be owned by the government and "new" construction organized into these sorts of blocks, at least in and around cities, especially larger ones, and you received a permit from the government that says you live here and everyone was constitutionally guaranteed housing. These were administered by various government ministries and at the apartment / local level by housing managers. Moving and living somewhere would be approved by the government and you would be issued a permit saying so. If you had to live somewhere temporarily but for longer than a few weeks, like if you had to go somewhere for work or if you wanted to study at a university, for example, you would be issued with a temporary permit/housing in addition to your permanent housing permit that would expire at the end of your work or studies. This housing could be a dormitory or barracks style housing. However, essentially, no one could refuse or be stripped of the permit at one location without substitution with another permanent location. Citizens could also trade housing with one another (for example, a newly married couple trading their two one room apartments for a two room apartment to start a family). There were space limitations where each person living in a dwelling had to have x square meters of space unless they were immediate family. When you married someone, you would register them to say they lived with you. Children would be registered at their parents' residence. If all the listed residents of an apartment/housing died or permanently moved, control would revert to the government, who would then re-assign it. Obviously, this system wasn't without its flaws which are heavily documented elsewhere, but, as an example, certain people would get preferential treatment for better housing and interesting schemes were hatched about who was listed as the resident of an apartment or house to prevent it from reverting to the government. I'm not an expert, so if someone has more information they'd like to share or something they feel needs correcting, feel free. Quoting from nameless goon post, referring to the above apartment block image: "this one's in Moscow so it's nice, if you live somewhere less important it'll be less nice, on average. maybe you live in some house from the 1800s and everything sucks. but, the principle in one of these is that you walk most places because your essential services are all inside or adjacent to your district, which is maybe 500m end to end. 'footpaths' can take cars if they have to, like if you've got one and want to park it by your house, but ultimately there aren't that many cars so you can get away with that. maybe you work downtown, that's ok because the bus or tram line runs past your district and you can get the bus, which again is not far to walk to. it's slow and probably doesn't go exactly where you need to but it's real cheap so whatever. so, you don't need a car. if you do have a car, you don't generally drive it to work because it's pointless and some dumbass is just going to steal your wipers because theirs broke and it's been three months since they ordered a set and they still don't have any. what you do is put the car in one of the garages and take it out at the weekend. go for a picnic in the countryside, maybe you have a little cottage out of town. drive to the big department store and go look at wall rugs. then you take it home and put it away again for the week. usually in Moscow/St. Petersburg at least there is going to be a metro stop 10-15 minutes (sometimes more or less) from most housing and that is going to allow you to cross the city in half an hour to 45 minutes. Usually, most commutes are about an hour...without a car at least if you live inside the city itself. Obviously, smaller cities may only have 1-2 metro lines or just trams/buses. Another benefit of "Socialist" construction is you have common green areas around every building, and usually, you have community gardens and play areas for children along with the rest of the infrastructure."
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 22:32
|
|
|
That kind of touches on one of the questions I've thought about a few times: when land is de-commodified, how is it decided who gets to live where? How is it decided how land is used? More and less desirable land is basically unavoidable even if you have never-ending blocks of identical buildings (and that's setting aside the fact that people will disagree on what is more desirable), and you're always going to have differing views on whether a location should be a factory, or a park, or a community center, or housing, or... Obviously, the way we decide now is "the richest person who cares decides" which is basically the worst possible way to decide it, but I personally haven't heard any solutions that don't suck at least a little bit. Like that Soviet system you describe sounds like it's really easy to fall into corruption on the part of the officials who distribute land, and makes it kind of hard to move if you can't find someone willing to make a 1-for-1 trade. Is there any theory (either political or honestly mathematical because this feels like the kind of problem you could model reasonably well) that comes up with solutions that avoid these problems? Or do leftists just say that some amount of friction on the issue is unavoidable? cheetah7071 has issued a correction as of 22:52 on Jun 12, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 22:47
|
|
|
One question I like to pose to people to get them to start their brain working along the right path is, "why does it feel natural that you can vote for who gets to be the most powerful person in the world, but not your boss or landlord? Is total control over the nuclear arsenal really less critical than total control over when your faucet gets fixed or what on a menu?" Richard Wolff gave me this one and his podcast, Economic Update, is bite sized and fantastic for normies and introductory stuff. He's got a wall full of credentials too so libs have to listen to him cheetah7071 posted:That kind of touches on one of the questions I've thought about a few times: when land is de-commodified, how is it decided who gets to live where? How is it decided how land is used? More and less desirable land is basically unavoidable even if you have never-ending blocks of identical buildings (and that's setting aside the fact that people will disagree on what is more desirable), and you're always going to have differing views on whether a location should be a factory, or a park, or a community center, or housing, or... There's public land and housing right now, how is that decided? By people or commissions that are tasked with distributing it in the fairest and most responsible manner possible, and most importantly are accessible to and accountable to the public they serve
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 23:52
|
|
|
it's important to emphasize that these systems not only can exist within market capitalist economies, but they currently do. Singapore and I believe Vienna are the gold standards in this regard, and while I'm not familiar with the details the Singapore model is something that would potentially go over well in the US which has been condition to demand home OWNERSHIP, because iirc the government builds the houses and then "sells" it to citizens on like 0% APR 100 year loans, so that nobody is homeless but they still get a sense of ownership I may be wrong, but the broader point is that there are lots of ways to handle housing that are both not "socialism" and still provide everybody who needs one with a home. This is important to keep in mind because the real estate status quo in the US is incredibly hosed up edit - the caveat here of course is that market capitalist economies will seek to destroy and subvert them in every way they can, which is why it is critical all reforms like this be universal and there exist no haves or have nots. If Jeff Bezos wants to give up his mansions and live in a block like was posted above, he has a right to do that. So too middle class and the petit boogies. Universality is absolutely critical because it robs capital of a wedge. Look at the histories of Medicaid and the ACA, for example Epic High Five has issued a correction as of 00:00 on Jun 13, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2020 23:56
|
|
|
Epic High Five posted:edit - the caveat here of course is that market capitalist economies will seek to destroy and subvert them in every way they can, which is why it is critical all reforms like this be universal and there exist no haves or have nots. If Jeff Bezos wants to give up his mansions and live in a block like was posted above, he has a right to do that. So too middle class and the petit boogies. Universality is absolutely critical because it robs capital of a wedge. Look at the histories of Medicaid and the ACA, for example This is kind of a crucial point- there's a lot of social-democratic reforms which could make the system less terrible while maintaining the capitalist system; but since the system is, well, controlled by capitalists, anything that impedes them even slightly will have to be fought for tooth and nail
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 00:27
|
|
|
cheetah7071 posted:This is a bit off topic but leftists seem to use "liberal" differently from how everybody else uses it (in America at least). What exactly does a leftist mean when they call a person or idea a liberal? Is conservatism the right edge of liberalism under this definition, or is it still a separate school of thought? In addition to what everyone else has said, part of what you're seeing is here is a function of marketing and Overton Window pushing in the US. From an economic standpoint, it's correct to say that the Dem/Repub divide is not very large. I'd hesitate to say there's no difference between the two parties because that's dumb, one of them is literally a death cult and one is simply Really Bad but from an economics standpoint it's pretty true. Republicans simply want the economy to more blatantly cater to corporations than Dems, but otherwise they want capitalism with few rules and market based solutions. However far right conservatives have spend decades trying to vilify anyone even slightly to the left of them as The Most Dangerous Leftist ever, so it gives you the false impression that Liberals are massive opposites of the conservatives on every issue, when functionally it's simply a social policy split. Because of this people who might more accurately describe themselves as centrists or even conservatives identify as "Liberal" thinking they're opposite of people who are closer to them in policy than leftists are. Which is also why US liberals are more likely to side with conservatives than leftists when the rubber hits the road
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 01:06
|
|
|
StashAugustine posted:This is kind of a crucial point- there's a lot of social-democratic reforms which could make the system less terrible while maintaining the capitalist system; but since the system is, well, controlled by capitalists, anything that impedes them even slightly will have to be fought for tooth and nail it's already on display now even. Look at the Dem backlash to free college proposals - every single one is "do you really want your taxdollars going to sending Jeff Bezo's kids to school"? Libs cannot answer this because they cannot make bold stances, don't understand what they're talking about, and above all else do not actually believe in anything. To most people though, the obvious answer is, "sure, why not? If he's paying for it he's entitled for his kids to go to free public schools." Public K-12 is normalized to the point that they can't agitate against it without getting told to eat poo poo, but just see how they react to what amounts to a logical extension of an existing and universal right. Then, look at student loan originators and who they donate to and invite to their fancy dinner parties lol
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 01:29
|
|
|
I hope my posts in this thread, both past and future, are helpful and sensible. I highly highly recommend anybody who disagrees to please voice it and fight with me on it because for me this thread isn't just educating goons, but also practicing my rhetoric for tabling and public events, so feedback is extremely useful for me even if it's negative one thing I can tell you as someone who hoots and hollars to the public about this stuff, give me a hundred "voted for Trump but not happy with anybody" people over a single insulated affluent lib
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 01:33
|
|
|
Epic High Five posted:one thing I can tell you as someone who hoots and hollars to the public about this stuff, give me a hundred "voted for Trump but not happy with anybody" people over a single insulated affluent lib eh I've found some of the liberals I can maybe radicalize or push left but a lot of the "voted for trump but hate politicians" turn out to be fans of bigotry
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 01:45
|
|
|
Jaxyon posted:eh I've found some of the liberals I can maybe radicalize or push left but a lot of the "voted for trump but hate politicians" turn out to be fans of bigotry it's a mixed bag but generally the libs I run into are firmly married to the notion of of the Dems being right because they aren't GOP, whereas Trump voters who don't like Trump or politicians generally tend to be like, former business owners who got hosed over by monopolistic poo poo and who are just generally super mad at poo poo and voted Trump because they didn't think he was part of the machine that turned him from a business owner to a member of the precariat in terms of "just using flowery language to mask obvious bigotry" I find it's pretty evenly split between the two sides. If you don't believe me, ask them what neighborhood they live in and then ask them if they'd support affordable housing complexes going up in <neighborhood near them>
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 01:56
|
|
|
StashAugustine posted:This is kind of a crucial point- there's a lot of social-democratic reforms which could make the system less terrible while maintaining the capitalist system; but since the system is, well, controlled by capitalists, anything that impedes them even slightly will have to be fought for tooth and nail This isn't true because capital is parasitic; social democracy is an overhaul of colonialism in that capital is simply increasingly exported while the resources and surplus of labor in the periphery of the neocolonial empire continues to be imported, absorbed and used to fuel and sustain those social benefits within the imperial core, at accelerating rates. When people say "capitalism isn't sustainable," one of the inescapable corollaries is also that any such change has to be a shift of the burden to somewhere else rather than an actual remedy for the root cause.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 01:58
|
|
|
Epic High Five posted:I hope my posts in this thread, both past and future, are helpful and sensible. I highly highly recommend anybody who disagrees to please voice it and fight with me on it because for me this thread isn't just educating goons, but also practicing my rhetoric for tabling and public events, so feedback is extremely useful for me even if it's negative Rhetoric practice is very compatible with the goal here and totally legit to have imo, but it is important to be aware that it serves much better establishing command of theory and intellectual articulation rather than giving you ability for public performance. If that is your goal as well, getting in touch with actors and performers is an amazing gamechanger.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 02:54
|
|
|
dead gay comedy forums posted:Rhetoric practice is very compatible with the goal here and totally legit to have imo, but it is important to be aware that it serves much better establishing command of theory and intellectual articulation rather than giving you ability for public performance. If that is your goal as well, getting in touch with actors and performers is an amazing gamechanger. I don't really view the two things as separate tbh, I'm not really "practicing" here because I am absolutely posting to educate and inform, my point is more like I invite any possible resistance or opposition because it'll make it easier to deploy irl where people are far less ideologically consistent than they are in CSPAM
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 03:07
|
|
|
because I will never stop hooting and hollaring, and I will NEVER stop posting
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 03:07
|
|
|
This is an excellent thread. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question in the  . I work in the medical field, specifically in a surgery center, and as such I've had the opportunity to speak with a wide variety of surgeons and anesthesiologists. The common theme is this: it is increasingly the case that doctors do not own and operate their own practice, but instead operate under the purview of hospital groups. I pulled out my copy of the Communist Manifesto (the only thing I've read by Marx so far lol), and he says this: "Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of laborers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army, they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants." Which seems to be what's going on in the medical field, as far as I understand it. Also, just as Marx seems to predict here, there has been an increase in specialist roles in the hospital setting, right down to having a "Medical Scribe" write a doctor's note for them during a wellness visit (which I can say firsthand is the most boring loving job ever). So I suppose I have two questions: 1) What, in a bit more detail, is the mechanism whereby Capital supplants private practices (or little workshops)? 2) Is there any literature on what the medical field is like in socialist countries? Cuba is famous for its medical internationalism. What was the system like in the Soviet Union? Vietnam? How did the workers organize themselves?
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 09:27
|
|
|
pogi posted:1) What, in a bit more detail, is the mechanism whereby Capital supplants private practices (or little workshops)? You can basically look at medical industry America, analyse it and realise how it happens. There are multiple methods, but here are the most prominent:
dex_sda has issued a correction as of 09:56 on Jun 13, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 09:53
|
|
|
Also, once you are part of the capital complex, the capitalist goes back to using every trick in the book to force you to stay with them. Non-compete clauses, contracts for losing back pay, and in the tech industry you often get a huge chunk of your renumeration in stock options that turn worthless if you switch your job. It's basically like reverse scrip lol.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 10:05
|
|
|
HiroProtagonist posted:This isn't true because capital is parasitic; social democracy is an overhaul of colonialism in that capital is simply increasingly exported while the resources and surplus of labor in the periphery of the neocolonial empire continues to be imported, absorbed and used to fuel and sustain those social benefits within the imperial core, at accelerating rates. Yeah this is a good point and one I should have made clearer. I think that's sort of a corollary to what I'm saying (it's easier to exploit people harder away from your borders) but it's good to be reminded of the international aspect
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 16:36
|
|
|
pogi posted:This is an excellent thread. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question in the You're welcome, very glad to have you back  quote:1) What, in a bit more detail, is the mechanism whereby Capital supplants private practices (or little workshops)? 1) dex_sda answered pretty well, I believe. I would supplement by saying that such categories of labor are, due to their very nature, not easily subverted and only through financial capital that methods of interference and appropriation in a greater, "industrial" scale, are possible. Healthcare insurance allows doctors to be exploited indirectly and further wealth extraction happens with increasing "buffers" of service that have nothing to do with the actual matter (healthcare) but serve as means of exploitation: the inane bureaucratic requirements, tonnes of administrative pseudo-work in order to pay the least possible in treatment, immense requirements of legal services to provide regulatory capture and lobbying efforts, etc 2) I began to read stuff about it once the pandemic started when a friend (also a physician) threw me some interesting tidbits. The hard part of learning about it is that healthcare was something the USSR truly excelled at, which made propaganda against it quite ubiquitous in the West, while also having the problem of counter-propaganda which made the real and concrete achievements appear less credulous. The early USSR health commissars (which came from health services) made very clear and to the point that providing "advanced" healthcare outside of Moscow, Petrograd, Kiev and the other major cities would be simply non-viable given the enormous other necessities at the time. They proposed, instead, a radical strategy at the time, shifting the focus from treatment to prevention and maximizing prophylactic methods through education and active consultation, with an entirely new program of medical formation for doctors and nurses, flipping the convention: doing a lot of stitching and bandaging while learning practical matters of biology and anatomy, then increasing the scientific workload as experience and skill also grew. They also proposed the construction of comfortable resting homes - a new type of sanatorium - in accordance to the more innovative discoveries of psychology and psychiatry, being places where workers could be sent to simply chill out for a while. This was also a way to outmaneuver the Russian character about hard toil at the time: you might not like it and think it is no big deal, but doctor's orders are more important. According to my friend, this was an absolute slam dunk, as it helped to prevent (and even treat) all sorts of problems that plague physical labor. That practice was increased further as resources for on-site work clinics and nurseries were established, which helped healthcare workers recognize problems as early as possible and treat accordingly.   Likewise, along the Commissariat of Education, the health program made one hell of an effort towards physical exercise: fitness is health, after all. The health commissars were particularly concerned in that sense because of the damage endured by a World War then fighting their Revolution and the subsequent civil war: in a manner of speaking, the collective physical capacities of their nations was heavily spent. They proposed a regimen of daily exercising for all citizens to follow, other commissars reportedly really liked the idea and expanded it further with Lenin's support, which eventually became quite literally a mandatory mass physical training program, called "Readiness for Labor and Defense". Its major difficulty and problem was that technological access and means of highly sophisticated medicine were restricted to the metropolitan areas, and as such, more complex treatments had a service bottleneck. Even so, with far less resources at the start, they managed to have much greater effects and results than the West, with Cuba reinforcing the merit of this approach later on when basing its own strategy from the Soviet experience. (there is a loving lot of stuff about healthcare in the USSR, it is an interesting topic which has lots of angry American papers about it for SOME REASON GEE WHY IS THAT) dead gay comedy forums has issued a correction as of 18:17 on Jun 13, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 18:15
|
|
|
This isn't gonna be a bit long post but I want to add Nepal to the list of good, modern socialist countries out there in the world rn. The Maoists there defeated the king but succily opened up free elections without dealing with the libs and a neo-liberal government took over for a while. My friend who was living there at the time said they only had like 5 hours of electricity a day cause the neo-libs were selling it all to foreign corps. Thankful this was close enough to the actual revolution that capital couldn't get its claws in entirely and people voted in the Maoists who set about unfucking things and made it so everyone could have 24 hours of electricity. They're still in power and doing go besides the old looming shade of S P L I T T E R S but they've had to deal with the fascist Modhi government down in India for a long time. After the earthquake India backed an attempted Hindu Nationalist coup and right now is claiming the Nepalese lowlands and getting really aggressive towards them.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 22:17
|
|
|
I appreciate this thread a lot. I literally had to take a state-mandated high school course called "Comparative Economics" which was entirely "Communism sucks, the USA rules, OK?" I thought it was a dumb course at the time, but the combination of that and meeting Your Typical College Marxist made me stop having reasoned reactions to Marxism. This thread is great for actually thinking.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 22:26
|
|
|
Marxism and more specifically historical materialism is one of those things that people just straight up need to understand, even if they don't agree with it. The biggest example of this that isn't obvious real world stuff is in literature. Like, authors who understand but do not agree with historical materialism are still able to make coherent and compelling worlds. People who reject it make incoherent and unexpliable ones. Dune versus Heinlein/Harry potter. basically what all fiction boils down to is that either history and material conditions inform the world we live in, or it's magically omniscient and infinitely capable computers doing everything for us while we pretend it's a victory for individualism
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 23:09
|
|
|
and this is of course, not even delving into the master class of literature that is Ursula K Le Guin, whose even merest novella is sufficient to destroy any chud challenger
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 23:11
|
|
|
Epic High Five posted:and this is of course, not even delving into the master class of literature that is Ursula K Le Guin, whose even merest novella is sufficient to destroy any chud challenger I still chew over The Dispossessed in my mind every so often, and it's at least thirty years since I read it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 23:21
|
|
|
another baby question: One talking point I hear bandied around a lot is that capitalism is ultimately self-destructive, because as the rich acquire more and more, new entrepreneurs have to get luckier and luckier (or more and more brilliant, depending on your viewpoint) to catch up to the already-wealthy. Eventually this will hit a tipping point where even capitalism's proponents will be unable to ignore the fact that capitalism's supposed virtues are not actually functioning at all, and the system will have to collapse, because nobody actually benefits from it (even the ultra-wealthy would rather have it collapse into neo-feudalism, at that point). As the argument goes, this routinely gets delayed via wealth destruction in the form of warfare, and as the world gets more and more peaceful, this band-aid is increasingly irrelevant. (Please correct me if I have this argument incorrect, as well). However, one thing I never see accounted for in these arguments--not, I'm sure, because nobody has, but just because I'm not looking in the right places--is the role of inflation. Inflation is a non-violent method of wealth destruction. It also behaves far differently today than it did in Marx's day--fiat currencies with planned, carefully managed rates of inflation did not, to my knowledge, exist in the 19th century. Or perhaps it did exist in some places even back then and Marx addresses it somewhere. Either way, how does this fit into the argument I presented in the first paragraph? Just thinking about it for myself for an hour I was able to think up a handful of hypotheses which are relatively testable and a smart economist could probably just, do the research and figure out which one is right (or if none of them are right), and probably already has done so. Those hypotheses I was able to think of are: 1) Inflation does not actually destroy wealth. It just increases the number we use to represent that wealth. I'm a bit skeptical of this one, but I'm open to being convinced. 2) Inflation does destroy wealth, but only wealth held in the form of cash. The upper class by and large does not store its wealth in cash, and thus this largely only matters to the middle class, ironically speeding up the process by which the upper class squeezes the working class dry. 3) Inflation does destroy wealth, including the wealth of the upper class. However, it does so at a rate slow enough that it does not fully counteract the process I described, and at best delays the collapse of capitalism. 4) Inflation does destroy wealth, and does so at a rate sufficient to maintain capitalism at an equilibrium indefinitely. 21st century socialists face a less self-destructive foe than 19th century socialists.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 23:24
|
|
|
I know this isn't strictly socialist education, but would somebody be willing to do an effort post breaking down right/conservative ideologies? I'm at a point where I understand most of the subdivisions of the left, but honestly I know very little about the other side.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2020 23:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 2, 2024 07:47 |
|
|
BULBASAUR posted:I know this isn't strictly socialist education, but would somebody be willing to do an effort post breaking down right/conservative ideologies? I'm at a point where I understand most of the subdivisions of the left, but honestly I know very little about the other side. Mathew McManus work on postmodern conservatism will explain a lot of the zany stuff that falls under Neo-Conservative and Alt-Right. There are probably some honest Paleo-Conservatives still out there, but things are so muddled now that it is impossible to tell if ones belief in classic liberalism and Christianity is genuine or ironic.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2020 00:55
|
|