Capitalism will also cause bread lines but those will be permanent

[Deletedaccount1]

Linky link?

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...9#post44687189

Read pages 30-35 of that thread where a mod denies the role of communism in genocides and defends Marxism-Leninism.

[Mittens]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...9#post44687189

Read pages 30-35 of that thread where a mod denies the role of communism in genocides and defends Marxism-Leninism.

Holy shit, that was a hell of a read and a lot of quotes for future signatures.

This one is deffo my fav.

Sure it has. The American Revolution's death toll, for instance, was well below that mark. And really, the "massive restructuring of society" occurred AFTER the Revolution, and had a death toll that was practically zero.

@Endus, the American revolution can't be compared to socialist revolutions. For starters, the ruling class wasn't replaced and both the economic system and system of laws (English law) wasn't radically changed.

[Daelak]

The moderator of this forum has openly denied the Great Leap Forward so it isn't surprising.

He never did such a thing in that thread. You misattributing, show us where he said it.

[Santti]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...9#post44687189

Read pages 30-35 of that thread where a mod denies the role of communism in genocides and defends Marxism-Leninism.

These hate-boners towards Endus are really cute.

[Endus]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...9#post44687189

Read pages 30-35 of that thread where a mod denies the role of communism in genocides and defends Marxism-Leninism.

1> I never denied that communist regimes committed genocides. I denied that communism itself is what caused them to occur. Stalin's regime was politically totalitarian and economically communist, and the genocides stemmed from the totalitarianism.

2> I defended the root ideals. For instance, it's pretty much impossible to blame Marxist ideology for totalitarian regimes. Marx's utopia was stateless. The antithesis of totalitarianism. Stalin really didn't agree with much of Marx's (or Lenin's, for that matter) ideology, and borrowed what he found useful and discarded what he did not.

You'll never find me defending Stalin's or Mao's regimes or their actions. I just don't blame the entire diverse spectrum of communist theory for those things.

But I'm sorry, I interrupted you when you were flat-out lying about things I'd supposedly said.

[breadisfunny]

Exctinction of bees :


Productivity vs wage ratio :


Climate change :


Please explain to me how free market is any good for the goddamn world considering it is a system that relies on infinite growth in a planet with finite ressources.

As of [this day] the Planet Lives on Ecological Credit

People doing rolling coal and climate change deniers should have been put in jail a long time ago.

one of your charts is nearly 20 years old.
and none of them have anything to do with each other.
another is 12 years old and yet another is 11 years old.

[Forogil]

2> I defended the root ideals. For instance, it's pretty much impossible to blame Marxist ideology for totalitarian regimes.

It's easy and straightforward to blame Marx for it.

After the original leftist revolution had lead to the reign of terror ere Marx co-wrote the communist manifesto.

Marx still wanted a violent revolution and didn't try to put in safe-guards avoiding a repeat of the reign of terror, that makes Marx share the blame for the millions killed in his name.

(Marx' theory in "Das Kapital" is just plain wrong; the inaccuracy also contributing directly to some of the deaths - and to the rise of other scientific idiocies like Lysenkoism.)

[Molis]

I paid 69 cents for a loaf of bread at Target last night

It was quite amazing

[Endus]

It's easy and straightforward to blame Marx for it.

After the original leftist revolution had lead to the reign of terror ere Marx co-wrote the communist manifesto.

Marx still wanted a violent revolution and didn't try to put in safe-guards avoiding a repeat of the reign of terror, that makes Marx share the blame for the millions killed in his name.

(Marx' theory in "Das Kapital" is just plain wrong; the inaccuracy also contributing directly to some of the deaths - and to the rise of other scientific idiocies like Lysenkoism.)

I'm not a Marxist, and you won't see me advocate that his vision was the best way forward. I'm just making the point that most of what people blame "communism" for boils down to the action of a powerful totalitarian regime, and that's not a Marxist concept in the first place.

Which underscores my greater point that "communism" has a fair bit of diversity to it. Hippie communes are "communist" too.

A lot of this is just the last gasps of McCarthyist propaganda, where anything left of anarcho-capitalism was labelled as "red commie propaganda" and so forth.


It also bears mentioning that if you're gonna cite the Black Book of Communism's bullshit data (the "communism responsible for as many as 100 million deaths" stuff), you need to recognize that applying the same methodology to "capitalism" nets you far greater death tolls. That "100 million" is both highly exaggerated (the co-authors disavowed the book because of this) and fundamentally misleading. Which isn't me saying Stalin's regime was awesome; I'm saying the Black Book's methodology was a fucking stupid way to try and quantify things.


The simple reality is there's communist variations that don't share those issues. Ignoring those just means you're engaging in Cold War propaganda rather than engaging in reasonable discussion. We can condemn the evils of Stalin and Mao just fine without resorting to that.

[NicoWolf]

Not exactly what you're trying to prove here with bee deaths, wages, and global warming. This looks like an utter garbage attempt to try and look smart while you provided logistically no proof.

Capitalism isn't the cause of bee death. That is poor air quality and pesticides on plants/flowers.
Capitalism isn't the cause of poor air quality; that is pollution and lack of care in eco-friendly waste removal/recycling.

Hell, even capitalism doesn't have a direct impact on wages earned per productivity. That's just businesses deciding their own model. Whether that graph is the closest to any merit is beyond me.

Remember; this is MMO-Champion Off Topic where it is more important to feel right than to be right.

[Deleted]

But even if you were right - that would only show that Marx and Engels were unable to propose a workable way towards communism, since both the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR) and China's Socialist State didn't clearly deviate from the 10-point plan in the communist manifesto.

Like most people you haven't even read the manifesto, you just looked at the 10-point plan. Congratulations you are a parody of modern youth: you can't digest anything unless it is a top 10 list.

Marx actually wrote some books. To comment on Marx then you should at least try to read them, or alternatively, you could refrain from commenting on things you know nothing about.

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(Marx' theory in "Das Kapital" is just plain wrong

Makes you wonder why he spent twenty years in the round reading room at the British Library. He was just wrong. Forogil has spoken.

[Sunseeker]

Capitalism isn't the cause of bee death. That is poor air quality and pesticides on plants/flowers.
Capitalism isn't the cause of poor air quality; that is pollution and lack of care in eco-friendly waste removal/recycling.

But isn't pollution (lets just sum up all those things with one word for ease of argument) done because it's cheaper to pollute than to be clean? And Capitalism argues for maximizing profit and minimizing cost?

[Thrive]

Exctinction of bees :


Productivity vs wage ratio :


Climate change :


Please explain to me how free market is any good for the goddamn world considering it is a system that relies on infinite growth in a planet with finite ressources.

As of [this day] the Planet Lives on Ecological Credit

People doing rolling coal and climate change deniers should have been put in jail a long time ago.

It spurs advancement and colonization at the point in which we reach a wall. So, I suppose we just become mars now and it's all good.
Seriously though, it's the best we got in my mind. All systems fail eventually, but this one has worked for us for quite a bit.

[Yvaelle]

Do they drop any good loot?

Ya they drop honey, the stuff is great

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I paid 69 cents for a loaf of bread at Target last night

It was quite amazing

Ya but I bet you had to stand in a bread line at the check-out!

In the future there will be no lines, we'll just walk out of the store with our bread and Amazon will sort that shit out with cameras and AI breadcounters.

[Tackhisis]

Climate change :

There was no thermometers allowing for the 0,2°C precision in 1880s.

So that chart is simply a doctored BS.

[Forogil]

I'm not a Marxist, and you won't see me advocate that his vision was the best way forward. I'm just making the point that most of what people blame "communism" for boils down to the action of a powerful totalitarian regime, and that's not a Marxist concept in the first place.

But Marx proposed a violent revolution, confiscating property and forced labor - laying the perfect groundwork the totalitarian regimes that used his name.

It also bears mentioning that if you're gonna cite the Black Book of Communism's bullshit data (the "communism responsible for as many as 100 million deaths" stuff), you need to recognize that applying the same methodology to "capitalism" nets you far greater death tolls.

Another of Chomsky's gish-gallops full of half-lies and distortions - that only fool the ignorant ones.

Let's look closely:
He claims that the horrors of communism were well-known, even though a large part of western communist were proud to call themselves communists - until the fall of the wall, then they changed their name - and simply the deaths caused by communists were not as accepted as Chomsky implies.

Then there is some smoke and mirrors.

And then he focuses on the Chinese "famine" 58-61 and switches from the "black book" to Amartya Sen's description - which conveniently includes a comparison with democratic India.

That allows Chomsky to falsely attribute the problem in India to capitalism - note the convenient switch from "democracy" to "capitalism"; and the ignorati swallows this; failing to recognize that the Congress party (a centre-left party) had the power in India for a long time - and several states had communists in power. So, India was hardly a capitalist prodigy.

Chomsky also ignores that the decrease in mortality in China after 1979 (after the fall of GoF) is linked with a dramatic increase in capitalism - in the formally communist China.

Or in summary: That "100 million" is fairly accurate.

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Like most people you haven't even read the manifesto, you just looked at the 10-point plan.

Actually I read the entire manifesto - including the attacks on social democrats and other reformists; and "Das Kapital".

However, I would recommend that you instead read the Gulag archipelago - to better understand the Soviet system.

BTW: The call for a violent revolution is not part of the 10-point plan, since it logically precedes it (it's a 10-point plan for what to do in power). If you had read the communist manifesto you would have known that.

Congratulations you are a parody of modern youth: you can't digest anything unless it is a top 10 list.

Ehmm? Marx wrote a bad 10-point plan to summarize what to do and you attack me?

Marx actually wrote some books.

Yes, I read the parts of "Das Kapital" written by Marx (except I might have skipped the part where he list price history for silver; English price-listings are just ridiculous) - and can thus safely say that it's bad science.

Makes you wonder why he spent twenty years in the round reading room at the British Library.

Spending time in a library does not guarantee learning.
And it just make him seem like the typical "academic revolutionary"; explaining a revolution for the workers without doing an honest day of work.

He was just wrong. Forogil has spoken.

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But isn't pollution (lets just sum up all those things with one word for ease of argument) done because it's cheaper to pollute than to be clean? And Capitalism argues for maximizing profit and minimizing cost?

One answer is that it is only cheaper to pollute since no-one owns the air/water etc.

Others try to argue that capitalism is good for optimizing, but you can give constraints - either by forbidding some activities or pricing them through cap'n'trade systems etc.

Alternatives to capitalism doesn't work significantly better for this: China and USSR didn't have unpolluted air and water.

[Wyrt]

Capitalism is unstable in its current form in the US and steps need to be taken to address the problems in it or it will eventually face revolution at the hands of the exploited workers.

[Deleted]

Actually I read the entire manifesto - including the attacks on social democrats and other reformists; and "Das Kapital".

I don't believe you. You haven't produced a single quotation. Marx is very specific on the need for a bourgeois revolution as a precursor to the withering of the state. This is Marxism 101. Both Mao and Lenin bypassed that stage and were Marxist heretics for that reason.

To prevent further bullshit obfuscation of the issue by you designed to confuse people who aren't familiar with the source material, I'll just say this:

The word "communism" in essence implies collective ownership of the state. The Soviet Union and PRC were both ruled by one man. Obviously they were not communist or Marxist in any practical sense. They do not represent the sort of socialism or communism any one on the far left actually wants or has ever wanted.

[Forogil]

I don't believe you. You haven't produced a single quotation. Marx is very specific on the need for a bourgeois revolution as a precursor to the withering of the state. This is Marxism 101. Both Mao and Lenin bypassed that stage and were Marxist heretics for that reason.

You are just being rude and wrong.

As for Mao and Lenin differing: that's why you found a lot of Marxism-Leninism - and some Leninism and Maoism in the west.

But as you correctly imply: Marx was wrong - the revolution didn't happen in industrialized countries. He didn't understand history, economy - or personal hygiene.

To prevent further bullshit obfuscation of the issue by you designed to confuse people who aren't familiar with the source material, I'll just say this:

The word "communism" in essence implies collective ownership of the state. The Soviet Union and PRC were both ruled by one man.

And as I have repeatedly stated - before Marx co-wrote the communist manifesto the original leftist revolution led to a reign of terror. That a revolution could lead to that without proper safe-guards should thus have been known by Marx - especially if he spent 20 years in a library, or just opened his eyes.

Did he spend considerable time on those safe-guards? Were they included in his top-10 list?

No, and that's why he is not blame-less for the millions killed in his name.

[Endus]

You are just being rude and wrong.

As for Mao and Lenin differing: that's why you found a lot of Marxism-Leninism - and some Leninism and Maoism in the west.

But as you correctly imply: Marx was wrong - the revolution didn't happen in industrialized countries. He didn't understand history, economy - or personal hygiene.

That's partly unfair. A big reason why that revolution never happened was precisely that Marx identified the possibility, and Western governments mostly adjusted their policies to keep the "proletariat" comfortable and satisfied enough to NOT revolt. It's less that "Marx was wrong", and more that Marx predicted and outcome if circumstances didn't change, and people changed those circumstances to avert that outcome. Successfully.

It's like if Marx said "we're heading right for that rock in the road, we're gonna crash", and then the diver swerves around the rock. That doesn't mean Marx was wrong.

I think he overestimated human capacity for selflessness, but I don't really think he was wrong about the class conflict. Pressure releases were just incorporated into society to keep it at a simmer rather than letting it boil over.

And as I have repeatedly stated - before Marx co-wrote the communist manifesto the original leftist revolution led to a reign of terror. That a revolution could lead to that without proper safe-guards should thus have been known by Marx - especially if he spent 20 years in a library, or just opened his eyes.

Did he spend considerable time on those safe-guards? Were they included in his top-10 list?

No, and that's why he is not blame-less for the millions killed in his name.

Yes, but why aren't we blaming the similar millions killed in Adam Smith's name? Why aren't we bemoaning the horrors of capitalism? If you're using body count metrics, it's at least as alarming and arguably much worse.

That's the inconsistency in this that's so ridiculous. It focuses the blame on the wrong targets, the economic ideology. Marx's vision of a revolution was violent and could arguably be condemned, though I'd venture he saw it more as an inevitability, a "necessary evil", than a "good". The communist nation that emerged in the aftermath, however, was laudable. People blame Marx for the process, but they do so by targeting the end goal, that was never achieved, and that's where it all gets silly. "Communism" was never the problem. Totalitarianism, violent revolution, class warfare of the darkest and most heinous sort, those are the real villains, and we can comfortably take issue with those without feeling the need to get all McCarthyist and blame hippie communes and market socialists for sharing in those crimes against humanity.