I Knock Over Your Block Tower, a Metaphor For Socialism

[rickyb]

Ricky will just conflate the starvation faced by the Indians under British imperialism with capitalism. Which he isn’t wrong that it was a capitalist motivation to make a profit, but he is wrong about that being an example of libertarian free markets.

famine not unique to "communism" which some ppl describe as state capitalism.

 

[zubenelgenubi]

sure that is. are worker cooperatives more organic and smooth operating than capitalist biz? they are statistically more likely to succeed after all and are more democratic in theory.

check out michael hudson junk economics for critiques and what he thinks a free market is. im going to quote him and chomsky on free markets soon.

just cuz the us govt and russian govt calls it communism doesnt mean it is. govts lie. i know they busted up teh workers councils right away in russia which makes me think the collectivization they are referring to is hardly democratic and likely top down from the govt like capitalism is.

The point is they use communism as an ideal to rouse a revolution, then when the old government is gone, the new one takes over and is always much, much worse. The communist utopia is a lie.

The claim that co-ops are "more likely to succeed" is probably supported by some fancy redefinition of "success", or the fact that most people who start their own businesses fail because they don't know what they are doing. Co-ops do help spread liability around, but they are limited in just how "successful" they become, overall, compared to other types of businesses.

 

[El Correcto]

That's why I started this thread, so other posters won't read our interactions on other threads and think I'm being mean to little brother.

If you convince Ricky of the efficacy and ethical approach that is free markets working in a mixed economy, brown cafe should give you their version of a noble peace prize.

Godspeed.

 

[zubenelgenubi]

thats big bro to you the tall genetics are strong with this one.

It's a double-entandre. It's like you're not menacing enough to be "Big Brother", and it's also like how commies sometimes refer to each other, particularly ones in the party referring to other commies they threw into the gulag.

 

[zubenelgenubi]

If you convince Ricky of the efficacy and ethical approach that is free markets working in a mixed economy, brown cafe should give you their version of a noble peace prize.

Godspeed.

Yeah, I think about it like the samurai who fights against the incoming tide. He knows he can't keep it from rolling in, but he does it to get stronger.

 

[rickyb]

The point is they use communism as an ideal to rouse a revolution, then when the old government is gone, the new one takes over and is always much, much worse. The communist utopia is a lie.

The claim that co-ops are "more likely to succeed" is probably supported by some fancy redefinition of "success", or the fact that most people who start their own businesses fail because they don't know what they are doing. Co-ops do help spread liability around, but they are limited in just how "successful" they become, overall, compared to other types of businesses.

how are cooperatives limited? mondragon has 100,000 workers. by success i mean not go bankrupt.

i think after the soviet union broke up they did a poll and ppl prefered going back to the old system, not sure why maybe it was actually better than the american style economics which followed.

i dont think communist politicians are always worse than capitalist ones. nor do i think worker self determination is worse than capitalist.

youre quite right sometimes there are counter revolutions like in teh case of russia. that doesnt mean you give up on better economic systems.

 

[rickyb]

If you convince Ricky of the efficacy and ethical approach that is free markets working in a mixed economy, brown cafe should give you their version of a noble peace prize.

Godspeed.

noble peace prize and prize for economics is garbage, obama got it the drone king.

 

[Whither]

No agitating workers into murdering competent farmers, so that everyone starves to death is full of conflict.

Redirect Notice

Remember this one?

 

[refineryworker05]

We all knew, or maybe were, that kid in kindergarten whose mission in life it was to destroy anything the other kids spent their free play time building. You finally put that last block on top of your three foot tower, everything perfectly balanced, it's a thing of beauty you and a couple of buddies put your heart into. Then the class ass swings by and kicks it down. He has the audacity to say that it's your fault, and that you aren't a good tower-builder.

That's the process of starting to install a socialist system in a nutshell. People like that are why we can't have nice things.

Huh? what does this have to do with socialism?

 

[MyTripisCut]

We all knew, or maybe were, that kid in kindergarten whose mission in life it was to destroy anything the other kids spent their free play time building. You finally put that last block on top of your three foot tower, everything perfectly balanced, it's a thing of beauty you and a couple of buddies put your heart into. Then the class ass swings by and kicks it down. He has the audacity to say that it's your fault, and that you aren't a good tower-builder.

That's the process of starting to install a socialist system in a nutshell. People like that are why we can't have nice things.

Awww. Poor baby got his bwocks knocked down?? Lol!!

 

[PT 4 Life]

China and Russia were ass backward pre communism. I’ll just throw that out there. I don’t support it at all, but in a ty way it helped build those countries. Just sayin

The point is they use communism as an ideal to rouse a revolution, then when the old government is gone, the new one takes over and is always much, much worse. The communist utopia is a lie.

The claim that co-ops are "more likely to succeed" is probably supported by some fancy redefinition of "success", or the fact that most people who start their own businesses fail because they don't know what they are doing. Co-ops do help spread liability around, but they are limited in just how "successful" they become, overall, compared to other types of businesses.

 

[zubenelgenubi]

China and Russia were ass backward pre communism. I’ll just throw that out there. I don’t support it at all, but in a *ty way it helped build those countries. Just sayin

Or set them back by decades.

 

[zubenelgenubi]

Awww. Poor baby got his bwocks knocked down?? Lol!!

Your eyebrows are mine, mo!

 

[SLW]

Or set them back by decades.

I think you might be able to argue this with China. Their political system is basically just a continued dynastic system and their economic power comes from a kind of authoritarian capitalism that other countries managed to adopt without any brutal change. Granted, those countries are still oppressive nightmares, but at least they avoided the persecutions and famines etc.
But with Russia, it's no contest: Stalinism took what was essentially an 18th century feudal state and turned into an extremely advanced 20th century global hegemon in a period of 20 years. It "worked," but that's not really the problem. The problem is the massive cost in human life.

 

[vantexan]

I think you might be able to argue this with China. Their political system is basically just a continued dynastic system and their economic power comes from a kind of authoritarian capitalism that other countries managed to adopt without any brutal change. Granted, those countries are still oppressive nightmares, but at least they avoided the persecutions and famines etc.
But with Russia, it's no contest: Stalinism took what was essentially an 18th century feudal state and turned into an extremely advanced 20th century global hegemon in a period of 20 years. It "worked," but that's not really the problem. The problem is the massive cost in human life.

Not sure I agree about "extremely advanced." The only thing advanced about the U.S.S.R. was their nuclear capability. Economically they were India with a military.

 

[rickyb]

Or set them back by decades.

russia was a superpower and they called themselves communist.

 

[rickyb]

I think you might be able to argue this with China. Their political system is basically just a continued dynastic system and their economic power comes from a kind of authoritarian capitalism that other countries managed to adopt without any brutal change. Granted, those countries are still oppressive nightmares, but at least they avoided the persecutions and famines etc.
But with Russia, it's no contest: Stalinism took what was essentially an 18th century feudal state and turned into an extremely advanced 20th century global hegemon in a period of 20 years. It "worked," but that's not really the problem. The problem is the massive cost in human life.

yea i recall hearing that too, it was a backwards country and it rapidly advanced in some good ways.

 

[zubenelgenubi]

russia was a superpower and they called themselves communist.

Lasted not much past the end of World War II. The cold war was mostly a dog and pony show to hide the fact that their infrastructure was crumbling and their population was on the brink of starvation. Of course the high ranking party members had it pretty good.

yea i recall hearing that too, it was a backwards country and it rapidly advanced in some good ways.

I wonder what might have happened if a free market economy begun instead.

 

[rickyb]

Lasted not much past the end of World War II. The cold war was mostly a dog and pony show to hide the fact that their infrastructure was crumbling and their population was on the brink of starvation. Of course the high ranking party members had it pretty good.



I wonder what might have happened if a free market economy begun instead.

markets have all kinds of problems like monopolies, wall st centralized decision making, rent seeking, high prices which makes them uncompetitive, etc.

 

[zubenelgenubi]

markets have all kinds of problems like monopolies, wall st centralized decision making, rent seeking, high prices which makes them uncompetitive, etc.

Each one of those issues requires more time than I have to discuss them. The basics are that markets exist anytime there us trade. The freer the market the better, but freedom of markets also depend on the rational conduct of the people participating in them. People have a tendency to not always be rational, which is where regulation comes in, which, as I stated before, has it's own set of problems.

Having said all that, it's still infinitely better than socialism.