Marx: a complete guide to capitalism

[Novac08]

6 hours ago, PhilGR said:

Perhaps this dream sells a lot in America today which is in the verge of collapse.

I'm sorry to say this, as I admire Europe, but I believe Europe is at greater risk of facing significant challenges than the US.

An aging workforce, precarious energy security, a lack of military preparedness to safeguard energy supplies, and rising welfare costs will all act as headwinds, keeping Europe behind the U.S. for many years to come. Additionally, there is increasing pressure against one potential solution to some of these issues: immigration. The rise of anti-immigrant parties in Europe suggests that governments are likley to move further away from this option.

Even the ECB recently published a report highlighting how European productivity is falling behind the U.S., largely due to slower adoption of digital technologies and a stagnant industrial structure. Europe's lag in the tech sector, in particular, has widened the productivity gap over the years, with the U.S. far outpacing Europe in innovation and economic growth.

None of Europe’s problems have easy fixes. For example, building up a military would require taking resources away from healthcare. The US, on the other hand, has significant problems but no energy/food/defense vulnerabilities, and its issues are ones that can be dealt with over time.

Finally, while Marxism can be useful for analyzing systemic contradictions (which is why it’s so popular in academia), if you think Varoufakis is going to get us out of this, I’m afraid the likelier scenario is that you’ll need to relearn some hard lessons from the 20th century about what happens when a genuine left takes power. For many Latin Americans in the US, those lessons have left scars that will stay with them for life.

Here's the ECB report:https://commission.europa.eu/topics/strengthening-european-competitiveness/eu-competitiveness-looking-ahead_en

[Novac08]

On 10/23/2024 at 9:00 AM, Alex4 said:

My parents say the same thing about fascism, 

@Husseinisdoingfine

It's interesting—you do hear this opinion in Argentina and Uruguay as well. It's not a popular or politically correct perspective, but you do hear people on the right say that the streets were clean and safe under fascism, with no graffiti, etc. I've never been to Chile, but I hear Pinochet still has significant support, likely due to his economic reforms that stabilized the country despite his regime's brutal human rights abuses, which makes it telling that he was apprehended outside of Chile.

[PhilGR]

@Novac08 Europe is by far bankrupt, and that is the fault of the same neoliberal policies that catastrophically managed the past crisis of 2008, we have become insignificant in the tech domain. 

Look at Greece, despite the incapable governments and the mistakes , the biggest mistake was Germany's obsession for austerity measures for the masses. Tryin to save the greek banks that basically gave the money back to teh German and French banks.

Today the country is under landgrabbing and in the the Economist the talk about Greece as an economic success. Same story in the rest of the South. Now in Germany itself as well. 

Failed neoliberal policies brought Europe to fascism again. The little cousin of capitalism , history repeats my friend.

And regarding US role on that, its quite big. You would think that descions are taken in Brussels but they are coming from Washington to be honest. We are in the same defence alliance anyways.  

And the social degradation comes along in Europe, once a continent of True spirit, resistance, community and solidarity has now its culture decayed and its people as an audience in the same play they should be the actors.

And I come again on my argument. No alternatives...

 

Ps Mario Draghi put out a report that was paid a lot to make, about economic projections etc. and policies. Varoufakis and his political movement have been shouting this stuff since 2019.

 

[Rafael Thundercat]

On 23/10/2024 at 4:32 PM, Leo Gura said:

If you really wanna understand Marxism, don't read about Marx or even Marx, read the history of the Soviet Union. That shows you how it plays out in the real world rather than theory. Reading that history will make your jaw drop at the devilry of it all.

I will add some good books about that soon. I studied it a lot.

I agree with this approach. Is like reading Mein Kempf and seeing the result of what the writer of that book created. Waiting for the reading list. Last nigth in a fiery conversation about Russia War I could see clearly how stupid people opinate when their sensemakimg depends only on the mainstream media. But a Russian Girl was in the conversation and made all people aware that once you are inside that system you need to move your lips very carefully( journalists) so you dont say something that can compromisse your life. All is fine in Theory but the Devil is in the details. 

[Leo Gura]

9 hours ago, Raze said:

@Leo Gura based on the description of Hegel’s beliefs near the beginning of the vide, do you think he had god realization?

Hegel had some serious understanding of God. I have quoted him in the past.

[Husseinisdoingfine]

 

[Kid A]

13 hours ago, Novac08 said:

@Husseinisdoingfine

It's interesting—you do hear this opinion in Argentina and Uruguay as well. It's not a popular or politically correct perspective, but you do hear people on the right say that the streets were clean and safe under fascism, with no graffiti, etc. I've never been to Chile, but I hear Pinochet still has significant support, likely due to his economic reforms that stabilized the country despite his regime's brutal human rights abuses, which makes it telling that he was apprehended outside of Chile.

It’s also interesting that the majority of people who lived in East Germany thought that life was better under communism, when they were asked in 2009.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html

[Alex4]

14 hours ago, Rafael Thundercat said:

 

 

15 hours ago, Novac08 said:

@Husseinisdoingfine

It's interesting—you do hear this opinion in Argentina and Uruguay as well. It's not a popular or politically correct perspective, but you do hear people on the right say that the streets were clean and safe under fascism, with no graffiti, etc. I've never been to Chile, but I hear Pinochet still has significant support, likely due to his economic reforms that stabilized the country despite his regime's brutal human rights abuses, which makes it telling that he was apprehended outside of Chile.

I believe what happens to them is that they remember their youth with fondness and nostalgia and confuse that with the idea that the regime was better than the current one. 

[Novac08]

6 hours ago, Kid A said:

It’s also interesting that the majority of people who lived in East Germany thought that life was better under communism, when they were asked in 2009.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html

Yes, but they’ve voted in the AFD instead of the far left.

[Novac08]

5 hours ago, Alex4 said:

I believe what happens to them is that they remember their youth with fondness and nostalgia and confuse that with the idea that the regime was better than the current one. 

That makes sense, which is why you don't see these countries bringing dictatorships back into power. There's order in a police state, but most people aren't willing to take a pay cut, which is why communist and fascist systems are often imposed rather than voted in. It’s not like you see East Germans clamouring to rebuild the wall 😅

[Kid A]

2 hours ago, Novac08 said:

Yes, but they’ve voted in the AFD instead of the far left.

Left, right—doesn't matter. As long as it’s authoritarian! 

[Bobby_2021]

On 10/24/2024 at 8:14 AM, Leo Gura said:

My Dad was put in Soviet prison for starting his own business.

He wasn't even around when I was born, because he was in a Soviet prison in the Arctic circle.

I grew up in the Arctic circle to be near him.

That's Marxism in a nutshell.

Being sent to prison for wanting to improve society is depressing to say the least. 

We human beings have no clue what we are doing. Not respecting basic stuff like privacy and private property will not allow any society to advance no matter how idealistic they poise themselves to be.

[Bobby_2021]

Let's not attribute everything about Communism to one man like Marx. He had plenty of ideas and some were genuinely bad like giving workers the rights to manage the means of production. 

Stalin understood better in the sense he advocated for the state to control the means of production on behalf of the workers.

We have to be fair in the sense that capitalist experiment has also went through a couple of upgrades. The first capitalist experiment resulted in the great depression. Then neoliberal reforms came after Keynesian economic reforms. 

Western style capitalism had plenty of version upgrades.

Marx was version 1 of communism. Reagan's neoliberal reforms is at version 3 of capitalism

We have to compare similar versions of the eastern and western experiments. 

Being fair to both sides here.

Edited October 25 by Bobby_2021

[Bobby_2021]

This is the kind of depth of nuance that is missing while trying to understand the model of economics in eastern socialist setting. 

 

[Leo Gura]

Listening to Richard Wolff helped me realize that socialism is nonsense. He doesn't understand the basics of how business works and why it works the way it works.

[Nemra]

On 10/25/2024 at 10:53 PM, Bobby_2021 said:

We have to compare similar versions of the eastern and western experiments. 

What's interesting is that Communism came from the west.

[zazen]

The Western mind gets too hung up on definitions, labels and ideologies to fit itself and others into. As a comment in that Richard Wolff video said- China follows whateverworksism lol. Both extremes can help in understanding the flaws in the other.

Both systems (capitalist and communist) concentrate power - communism does so through the state, capitalism does so through private power. Both systems claim to undermine monopolies and the concentration of power that is abused - communism literally concentrates power via the state, capitalism claims market competition can challenge, disrupt and keep monopolies in check. Both systems under-appreciate half of human nature - communism dismisses that people need incentives to thrive, capitalism dismisses that unchecked power always tries to concentrate itself. They don’t deny the other side, just dismiss its importance.

Communism fundamentally contradicts itself in its core tenent which is to have a classless and stateless society. In order to have a classless society, you need a state to enforce it via redistributing wealth from elite classes to the masses - but inequality is natural and inescapable, though we strive to shrink the gap, it can never truly be closed which is the naive aspiration of the Utopian minded. Communism believes that once the state creates a classless society, it will dissolves itself. But that's now how human nature works. How does a centralized power structure ie the state - relinquish its own power, power simply doesn't walk away. Communism also relies on central planning - which also requires a state. What plans the economy once the state no longer exists to centrally plan it…the market? But that’s bad old capitalism.

Capitalism contradicts itself in that it thinks free market competition doesn't create monopolies and that wealth trickles down to the many. But just like communism overlooks one part of human nature, so does capitalism. Capitalism turns a market place into a chessboard where others get dominated and power concentrates itself, never wanting to let go. Capitalists love to view their society as a wild jungle, where the chaos thrives to create innovation and growth and where the invisible hand of the market regulates itself. But apex predators turn that jungle into a rigged game where the most powerful animals decide who gets fed and who doesn't.

In a nutshell: Both systems produce outcomes that contradict the systems ideals.

It's good to read capitalist theories to counter communism's flaws, as much as it is to read communist theories to counter capitalism flaws. 

''The extent to which property rights are infringed determines the extent to which the incentive to earn and acquire it goes. If the incentive is gone they refrain from earning.'' - Ibn Khauldun (14th Century) centuries before Adam Smith

The capitalist techno optimists like Marc Andreeson who are backing Trump view the economy like this:

''Willing buyer meets willing seller, a price is struck, both sides benefit from the exchange or it doesn’t happen. Profits are the incentive for producing supply that fulfills demand. Prices encode information about supply and demand. Markets cause entrepreneurs to seek out high prices as a signal of opportunity to create new wealth by driving those prices down.

We believe the market economy is a discovery machine, a form of intelligence – an exploratory, evolutionary, adaptive system.

We believe Hayek’s Knowledge Problem overwhelms any centralized economic system. All actual information is on the edges, in the hands of the people closest to the buyer. The center, abstracted away from both the buyer and the seller, knows nothing. Centralized planning is doomed to fail, the system of production and consumption is too complex. Decentralization harnesses complexity for the benefit of everyone; centralization will starve you to death.''

''David Friedman points out that people only do things for other people for three reasons – love, money, or force. Love doesn’t scale, so the economy can only run on money or force. The force experiment has been run and found wanting. Let’s stick with money.

We believe the ultimate moral defense of markets is that they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start religions into peacefully productive pursuits.

We believe markets, to quote Nicholas Stern, are how we take care of people we don’t know.

We believe markets are the way to generate societal wealth for everything else we want to pay for, including basic research, social welfare programs, and national defense.

We believe there is no conflict between capitalist profits and a social welfare system that protects the vulnerable. In fact, they are aligned – the production of markets creates the economic wealth that pays for everything else we want as a society.

We believe central economic planning elevates the worst of us and drags everyone down; markets exploit the best of us to benefit all of us. 

We believe central planning is a doom loop; markets are an upward spiral.''

 

Edited October 28 by zazen

[Bobby_2021]

On 10/28/2024 at 11:24 AM, Leo Gura said:

Listening to Richard Wolff helped me realize that socialism is nonsense. He doesn't understand the basics of how business works and why it works the way it works.

He spews a shit ton of crazy non-sense on a lot of stuff. Typical Marxian professor. But I do not want to use that as a reason to dismiss everything he is saying.

He does a good job at explaining certain kind of stuff. Like China 

Wolff is living within the larger capitalist framework trying to sneak in his commie ideas that miserably falls short. But when the paradigm itself is communist or leftist like in China, his ideas start to make a lot more sense.