[Fruriourl]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
More obviously, if a socialist-lead revolution shows any chance of succeeding, external capitalist powers declare war on it to beat the economy into failure. Eh, more likely the capitalists will start a war between nations that will distract people from the communist movement.

[itititit]

Originally posted by Lonestar
"Textile worker" is not a "High paying manufacturing job". It could be.

[Gscvbhhv]

Originally posted by Lonestar
Because of an arbitrary decision that those are "good jobs"? That would work.
Textile factories will go almost completely automated before it's worth paying a textile worker the same as an autoworker or a steelworker. Isn't steelworking and autoworking completely automated? What's the difference?

[PapsEdisa]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Well, it wasn't really in his power to foresee certain developments. As to not thinking the capitalists would become smart or grow a conscience, again, the issue isn't about individual bad capitalists, but the nature of the system. Marx also discusses "bourgeois socialism" in the Manifesto, which was an actual current at the time, so one can hardly claim he didn't foresee it (technically I guess that's true, since it predated him). Well... Marx himself, wasn't exactly working class

Marx also failed to foresee the rise of capitalist imperialism, and thought that capitalism and colonialism still had a positive role to play in the rest of the world. Well, I suspect he thought Imperialist oppression as superior to the pre-feudal systems there (as long as there wasn't much genocide or whatever).

[rujeltaoser]

Originally posted by Patroklos
In other words, after taking power a leftist government ran the country's economy into the groupd. Mugabe would be proud. Oddly enough, as many times as this scenario repeats itself we still have Che's running around.

Che As I said, the capitalists began to tank the economy. In fact, the United States had a hand in this happening.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm

Not that this is legible, but this is the famous memo where Nixon says to make the Chilean economy scream.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch26-01.htm

Kissinger's quote as to why they were doing this, "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people."

Challenging me on Chile is foolish, as it is an extremely well documented case of the U.S. destroying a country, finally resulting in a coup d'etat.

You should have gone after France, about which I know considerably less. As it is, in 1980, the French Socialist Party won the elections on a strong social democratic platform. Immediately, the economy began to nose dive, and they were forced to back off their plans.

[ThzinChang]

*Originally prepared for that other thread*

Actually, some poster in that "Death of a racist" thread was right, I don't know many real communists.
Most people I know that identify themselves as communists are either:
- clueless Trotskyites who usually are also antiglobalists, ecoterrorists, anarchists, libertarians, gay rights activists and radical feminists at the same time.
- Stalinists, who I refuse to call communists at all, as Stalinism was basically a nationalist socialism.

Teh USSR was a socialist country, and most CPSU members did not really give a damn about communism (There were some real believers in the communist ideals a hundred years ago, but only Bolsheviks were down-to-earth enough to carry out their plans). Likewise, modern CPRF promotes socialist, not communist ideals.

For communism to function, it has to be able to satisfy the demands of the society, and this requires appropriately scaled economies. In a primitive tribe, the demands are low, and a single tribe can build a communist society. In a modern first world society, the demands are exorbitant, and a communist society can be built only on a global or nearly global scale. Therefore, communists support globalisation. Globalisation also draws more people into exploitative capitalist relationships, thereby hastening the arrival of a revolution.

A global economy that is not profit-, but satisfaction-oriented, requires tremendous computative resources. A profit-oriented (capitalist) economy can be run by a multitude of independent agents, each trying to maximize their own profit by maximizing the demand for their goods. A satisfaction-oriented economy can be brought to its knees by such actions, and balancing the production to satisfy the demands of every participant (you might be satisfied in your first world country, but can the girl who sewed your shirt buy everything you have?) requires constant supervision. Without computer support, it is impossible.
You might say that this economy is unstable and therefore is worse than the current one, but modern fighter jets are also aerodynamically unstable; they are kept in the air by their computers and are superior to aerodynamically stable older jets.

Another problem that must be solved for communism to function is the direct democracy. Soviets (councils, if you want a translation) function very well as direct democratic institutions at a local scale (a village or a factory council, for example), but when applied globally, they lead to the emergence of a class of professional politicians, which, in a classless communist society, is an abomination. This means only a direct electronic democracy will work in such a society, and it also requires advanced computing support.

A direct democracy also requires high levels of education among the general populace. This means a greater importance must be placed upon compulsory education, without such bullsh*t as African studies or cheerleading, but with much greater importance placed on economy (micro, macro and world), geography, history and maths. People must be able to understand the domestic policies of the global government well enough to shape them.

Nationalism and fundamentalism are the enemies of communism, as it depends on uniting the nations and blurring the differences. Secularisation of the people is also important, as religious differences, however small, can foster the enmity between different groups.

This means that communism can be successully started in a technologically advanced country, where even exploited third world immigrants can get an education, where the level of secularisation is high and nationalism has been subdued. Right now this place doesn't exist, just like there was no place for a bourgeois capitalist society to emerge in 13th century.

To reiterate: communism requires advanced technology, planned economy, direct democracy, mass education, secularism and cosmopolitanism. Anyone can call himself a communist, but that doesn't necessarily make him one.

[violalmina]

Challenging me on Chile is foolish, as it is an extremely well documented case of the U.S. destroying a country, finally resulting in a coup d'etat. That is a direct result of illegally nationalizing US property, hense rightly placed at the feet of the leftests who violently imposed land redistribution.

The fact that the US didn't go along with the wholesale theft of their property is not a mark against it. The fact that the leftests knew what was going to happen and did so anyway shows they have no understanding of economics. Leftists lose.

Again, Wiki says it all, the land redistribution was a failure US embargo or not (as it violent land distribution always is).

Challenging me on Chile is foolish, as it is an extremely well documented case of the U.S. destroying a country, finally resulting in a coup d'etat. In your head perhaps. Wow, you mean after stealing other people's property the former owners decided not to do buisness with them? That is not the capitalists turning off production, as the left nationalizes/redistrbuted the means of production (as well as making their nation unfavorable to trade and investment). You fail.

[jgztw2es]

Originally posted by Patroklos
That is a direct result of illegally nationalizing US property, hense rightly placed at the feet of the leftests who violently imposed land redistribution.

Where does it say anything about violent imposed land redistribution?

The fact that the US didn't go along with the wholesale theft of their property is not a mark against it. The fact that the leftests knew what was going to happen and did so anyway shows they have no understanding of economics. Leftists lose.

You are only demonstrating my original point, in fact, you are making my case for me and opposing your original point, if there was one. When a party is elected that intends to carry out a serious reforms to the capitalist economy, the capitalists **** the economy over.

I win!

Again, Wiki says it all, the land redistribution was a failure US embargo or not (as it violent land distribution always is).

There wasn't an embargo. Among the actions the U.S. government took was to flood the market with copper, driving prices into the ground, which undermined Chile's economy, which was largely based on copper exports. Also, as wiki points out, it was resistance from the ruling class that made Allende's reforms fail.

You lose. I win. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

[incimisiche]

Originally posted by Traianvs
The periphery, being the poor countries, are in effect simply being exploited. Simple enough really. The elite in the rich countries appease the working class in their own country with all kinds of benefits (higher wages, social benefits etc) in order to gain their alliance. That way the enormous masses of the poor working class in the rest of the world are powerless.

That's from an international politics point of view so need to bear that in mind.

In fact Wallerstein's theory is one of the most thought provoking ones around there in my book. Marx still has relevance, but as times change, Marxism also changes. Basic principles can be applied in any era, right? I have two problems with that theory.

1) The capitalists didn't give higher wages and benefits to workers in the first world. Those workers fought for what they got. If anything by outsourcing production they have hurt industrial workers in the first world, not benefited them.

2) The new jobs that have been created in globalisation have largely been created by the "new capitalists" not the old owners and managers of the old industrial economy.

[alecoplesosse]

Originally posted by Kidicious


I have two problems with that theory.

1) The capitalists didn't give higher wages and benefits to workers in the first world. Those workers fought for what they got. If anything by outsourcing production they have hurt industrial workers in the first world, not benefited them.

2) The new jobs that have been created in globalisation have largely been created by the "new capitalists" not the old owners and managers of the old industrial economy. You're mostly right about first world workers who fought for those benefits, but they principally achieved that in a time when we did not have our current globalized world. Working class people were largely similar to present day third world world class.

They fought for more rights, wage etc on their own, but when they started to achieve their goals, and the bourgeoisie felt they could not sustain their resistance because it would be everyone's downfall, our working class became appeased by the good life. Those same people who have a relatively good life now sympathize with the bourgeoisie and are actually part of its machinery nowadays. Humans stay human. In this line of thought people can be manipulated, in contrast to liberal ways of thinking for example. Nobody really decides who, what or how they are.

So the working class was incorporated, slowly but surely and is now part of the oppression of the masses out there in the third world. After all, we all want our cheap consumption goods too, thereby causing all kinds of detrimental effects of social, environmental, etc. nature.

Of course there's no point in taking all those theories literally as the only truth. There is never one holistic theory on this as we all know eh . So... critical theory and even realism have their merit too for example.

But this particular theory has quite a few valid points that I find hard to refute.


PS: I don't understand what you are trying to say with that second point.

[JacomoR]

It depends on the worker, Kid. Dockworkers make obscene amounts of money, and despite Detroit's troubles, autoworkers are still quite well paid. Enough of the American working class does well enough that their politics isn't oriented around working issues, but rather lifestyle issues, like which politician make them feel validated.

[DumnEuronoumn]

Wilson was not really very socilaist he was more a leftish social democrat. The realists in the labour party by the 70's had worked out that the government was rubbish at running industry

[gechaheritt]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Social Democrats are socialists. Piss poor ones to be sure, but still, socialist. I'm not sure about that,Social democrats will attempt tp regulate rather than own the euro and Uk version of social democrats are quite prepared to go for higher taxation but tend not to want to nationalise everything these days

[Ocqljudq]

Originally posted by TheStinger


I'm not sure about that,Social democrats will attempt tp regulate rather than own the euro and Uk version of social democrats are quite prepared to go for higher taxation but tend not to want to nationalise everything these days Hence the qualifier, piss poor

[iklostardinn]

Originally posted by Kidicious
No one has mentioned Cuba? Someone did.

Originally posted by Cort Haus
More obviously, if a socialist-lead revolution shows any chance of succeeding, external capitalist powers declare war on it to beat the economy into failure.

[Jasonstawnosaa]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
More obviously, if a socialist-lead revolution shows any chance of succeeding, external capitalist powers declare war on it to beat the economy into failure. This is at best a convenient excuse to explain the failures of socialism. Socialism's failures are purely internal, not the effects of "economic warfare" like the radicals would contend.

The problem is that all Marxists are philosophers, not economists. The kind of collectivization, central planning, or labor-union induced economic development that the socialists have tried for 150 years has been no less than an unmitigated disaster; the only times such doctrines have been successful is if they use the power of the state to greatly reduce (or eliminate altogether) the freedom of the individual to act in protest of such policies.

Russia may have industrialized rapidly, but at the price of 20,000,000+ lives and 60 years of virtual slavery for nearly 300,000,000 under the grip of the Politburo.