Laissez-faire Politics Thread - Praxis? I didn't play Deus Ex, sorry.

[OnlyRegret]

I was wondering why I had union-skepticism despite not having any real exposure to unions at all.
Yeah, regarding immigration and wages thing, that is definitely a big thing. I've been thinking more so that it really isn't the immigrants to blame for wage depression, they are just cogs like the rest. Other people pin the blame on them, which is likely the preferred response by bougie. Better to blame the immigrants for immigrating than to stop, take a step back and wonder what really is to blame.

The anti-immigration stance is people with capitalist-critique unaware of how to address and grapple with it and so fall along the most convenient path, ala Carlson clip.

[OnlyRegret]

This isn't an rpg, you don't have to pick a label or anything. Just search for knowledge and find your own truth.

ok don't do this

 

[shosta]

The tucker position against immigration is "low wages in other countries are sad, but that's not my problem" which could be a morally acceptable stance except whenever they try to raise their own wages, the international organizations call it a cartel, Hillary Clinton murders your union leaders, and if you had a political movement behind you your whole government is branded a dictatorship and a coup is organized against your president.

[OnlyRegret]

Yup, it excludes the conditions, a lot of why and background. The book touches upon the various bits of the oligopsony setup that permanently cripple any chance for improvement and the outsourcing style that hands-free forces conditions downwards.
None of this is a concern in the States because the plight of foreigners is irrelevant to what they are pushing.

Fox and co. are trying to shift the blame off naked capitalism to the foreign threat under a veneer of vaguely anti-cap talking points that become more and more transparent the more I read this book.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1235582102550216704

[shosta]

My favorite Marxist was a huge fourth international guy... and in fact I think the Trotskyist and (some...) Eurocommunist authors did an important job of preserving and advocating for socialism without having to excuse everything the Soviet Union ever did. The pitfall is when you're so pure that you denigrate any revolution that ever happened and also let yourself be a tool for counter-revolutionary forces. Some authors are better at this than others.

[shosta]

I mentioned this but I'm getting into Ralph Miliband because he's one of the few marxists who had interesting insights into post-war capitalist democracies and strategies within them, and man, he just absolutely lays into the political parties, the union leadership, social democracy, etc. That and his commentary about "revolutionary reformism" is timeless... if you don't prepare to defend yourself, it doesn't matter how legitimate your political movement is, once you reach a critical point, you and everyone else will be fucking murdered.

Also I always found the concept of worker councils quaint and I like someone telling me that we can keep many of the organs of the state

[OnlyRegret]

History matters. The news matters. Ideology matters.

As far as what to read or what to do*, that completely depends on what you figure out is important and why.

*don't become a Trotskyist

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=trotskyist

 

https://urbandictionary.store/products/mug?defid=12648439&utm_campaign=onpage&utm_source=define&utm_medium=web

 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Didn't know UB got in on $$$ merchandizing

[close]

[toku]

I can't reconcile my views, I do not know what esoteric or obscure political alignment I am

Just say you're an anarchist then don't engage in any discussion about it

[Joe Molotov]

Leon Trotsky, the original Trotskyist.

[OnlyRegret]

maybe I should

[OnlyRegret]

The  proletarians  of  the  semi-colonial  countries  are  its  first  victims,  but  the  broad  masses  of  working  people  in  the  imperialist  countries  also  face destitution. The new, youthful, and female proletarians of low-wage countries  dug  capitalism  out  of  the  hole  in  which  it  found  itself  in  the  1970s. now, together with workers in the imperialist countries, it is their mission to dig another hole—to excavate the grave in which to bury capitalism and thereby secure the future of human civilization.

Mostly done reading it now, glazed over the heavier parts naturally but I think I've taken away stuff to think about. Thanks guys.

[team filler]

[OnlyRegret]

in 1991 the GnP was turned into the GdP—a quiet change that had very  large  implications.  under  the  old  measure,  the  gross  national  product, the earnings of a multinational firm were attributed to the country  where  the  firm  was  owned—and  where  the  profits  would  eventually  return.  under  the  gross  domestic  product,  however,  the  profits  are  attributed  to  the  country  where  the  factory  or  mine  is  located, even though they won’t stay there. This accounting shift has turned  many  struggling  nations  into  statistical  boomtowns,  while  aiding the push for a global economy.

in  this  case,  an  increase  in  the  capital  value  of  a  firm,  as  measured  by  its  share price, is arbitrarily ascribed to an increase in the firm’s intangible assets; this is transformed into a purely imaginary addition to this firm’s value-added,  yet  depreciation  of  this  firm’s  tangible  assets  remains,  as  before,  excluded  from  the  calculation  of  its  gross  value  added.  each  of  these highly dubious procedures raises many complex issues that require a much more detailed examination than is possible here. it is sufficient to note, for present purposes, that if it wasn’t for these changes, the long-term and accelerating decline in GdP growth in imperialist economies discussed in the next chapter, would look even more dramatic.

But if GdP is a true measure of a nation’s product then the residents of Bermuda, a “British overseas ter-ritory,”  which  in  2006  boasted  the  world’s  highest  per  capita  GdP,  are  among the most productive members of humanity.27 This tax haven leapt above luxemburg to take the top spot after becoming a favorite destina-tion for hedge funds left homeless by the destruction of the world Trade Center in 2001, and was given a further boost by the devastation of new orleans by hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Financial Times reported that “Bermuda’s reinsurance business has exploded in scale. The rapid growth started  after  the  September  11  attacks  in  2001  and  gathered  pace  fol-lowing  .  .  .  hurricane  Katrina.  These  disasters  .  .  .  pushed  up  the  cost  of insurance premiums . . . prompt[ing] hedge funds and private equity groups to dash into the sector, hoping to reap fat profits if premiums stay high. Bermuda became their favoured location.”28

its  per  capita  GdP  in  2006  stood at PPP$5,549, 8 percent of Bermuda’s, or just 3 percent at market exchange rates. according to raphael Kaplinsky, workers in its footwear factories make shoes out of imported components, thereby adding 30¢ to the value of each pair of shoes—just 2 percent of the final selling price—and to the dr’s GdP, to be shared between the state, the capitalist owners of the shoe factory, and the workers.31“yet, in international trade statis-tics, the unit value of shoe exports was not the added value of 30¢ but the gross value of the final product, which was more like $15,”32while trade in value-added (TiVa) statistics (were they available) would count $0.30 toward dr’s exports—and if the shoe factory is a foreign-owned subsid-iary, part of this $0.30 would be repatriated to the parent company.

I did not know of this and the GDP shenanigans 

[OnlyRegret]

finished reading, good read, last bits a bit head spinning
why are commies so bleak, buncha doomers

while researching bits, articles that I would've not raised an eyebrow at now do so

https://reason.com/2018/07/27/sorry-if-youre-offended-but-socialism-le/

But none of them admit that capitalism has been the most effective way to eliminate poverty in history. Today, in former socialist states like India, there have been big reductions in poverty thanks to increased capitalism. In China, where communism sadly still deprives more than a billion people of their basic rights, hundreds of millions benefit from a system that is slowly shedding socialism. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the extreme poverty rate in the world has been cut in half. And it didn't happen because Southeast Asians were raising the minimum wage.

https://mises.org/wire/4-reasons-why-socialism-becoming-more-popular

The more reason we give anyone to think that capitalism means crony capitalism, the more they’ll clamor for socialism.

https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/socialism-elections-liberty-freedom/

investors.com

 

[OnlyRegret]

Funnily enough, I thought the USSR was cool back in high school and thought communism was neat. Then I grew out of it afterwards and began to extol capitalism/free-market/normal stuff as being free/moral. And now I'm going about the Soviets all over again.
Time is a flat circle and all...

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/mtsw/status/1236683566316228608

----

https://twitter.com/athenogenes/status/1236347624212570114

[OnlyRegret]

H Section huh 

[OnlyRegret]

I got other stuff to do but am now reading Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds instead since that meme from above.

God, this book absolutely bangs and I'm only like 20 pages in
I'm learning so much so fast, socdems screwing over the left in the end to support fascists, fascists being capitalist dogs, red scare goes back 100 years (fuck you russiangaters)
Why can't the other dorky droners be this riveting, this author rules.

[Crash Dummy]

you're having way too much fun for this thread, read this next it'll bring you back down:

(Image removed from quote.)

[OnlyRegret]

Now a pragmatic look at what shaped the USSR, critique of the cowardly ideal socialism looks like blah-blah, a sobering look at human nature (one of the biggest sticking points I've always thought about when it came to communism)

This book is literally everything I wanted, it's art. It's a marvelous marxist masterpiece. 
Thank you Esch. 

[OnlyRegret]

Finished reading, beautiful. Shit makes the soul tingle for class war. Will read more of him later.
I've actually got an idea about what fascism really is after being confused about it due to internet discourse.
10/10 would actually recommend this book to other people. 

tfw you were born after the USSR ended

[shosta]

read To Kill A Nation next if you want the most contrarian take ever made

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Bore's Law

[close]

[curly]

Working my way through Imperialism in the 21st Century and I'm enjoying it but I'm struggling with how Smith differentiates productive and nonproductive labor.

It may be asked, are not these non-productive activities providing “common goods” necessary for the reproduction of society? Shaikh and Tonak provide a cogent response: “To say that these labors indirectly result in the creation of this wealth is only another way of saying that they are necessary. Consumption also indirectly results in production, as production indirectly results in consumption. But this hardly obviates the need for distinguishing between the two.”77 To see the veracity of this argument, consider an economy made up of laborers and security guards.78 The laborers produce all of the goods that both they and the security guards need to live on; the security guards provide a “common good,” security. it is plain that the higher the ratio of security guards to laborers, all other things being equal, the lower the total product, and it is therefore logical to regard this economic activity as unproductive labor, a form of social consumption.

But if you reduce the number of security guards, and more of the goods the laborers produce are stolen, or eaten by wild animals during the night, then doesn't that lower total product? Are theft and waste counted as consumption? And say you have an overseer, who whips the laborers from time to time to make them go faster. If you converted him into a laborer, that could conceivably lead to lower total product; does that make whipping the laborers a productive activity?

[OnlyRegret]

Yeah, among the things I got tripped up over at times were things like his deliberation on productive work. When I was reading his bit on explaining how transporting goods falls under the purview of productive it felt odd as it seemed entirely intuitive to consider transport productive and more so he was convincing himself.

[bluemax]

https://twitter.com/lachancenaomi/status/1237163019169345538

[benjipwns]

I've actually got an idea about what fascism really is after being confused about it due to internet discourse.

Go straight to the source breh: http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm

No, like seriously, it's a short read and it always amazes me how often no one ever reads it or sources it when talking about fascism. Not to harp on her since she's on our alt-right hate side now but it's just one of the more prominent examples, when Contrapoints did her big fascism video that made her famous it was clear that she had never read anything academic on fascism, and even worse in my opinion had never actually read the original sources of fascist ideology.

Fascism is a very interesting ideology because it was constructed on the fly bringing together a whole bunch of existing currents and it was suppose to make heavily rational sense. To continue harping on others doing things wrong (:rage), the inclusion of or use of Nazism in place of fascism has always sowed confusion because the Nazis mostly went "hey, yeah, we'll do this because everyone is, but what about those Jews huh? and German superiority? and where's the party about dominating the globe?" to where the fascist adherents of the time felt this uncultured schlub from Austria was smearing his feces all over their intellectual movement. Like Trump and the beauty and purity that was the global conservative movement.

[OnlyRegret]

when repubs and dems call each other the actual fascists, you can't help but lose all track of what words mean

[OnlyRegret]

Fascism is a very interesting ideology

okay benji

shit, my bad, I meant to edit that in not make a new post

[benjipwns]

I mean in terms of how it came about, it was almost literally Mussolini going "I need a new ideology, someone help me make one!" He wasn't say, reinterpreting socialism to actually mean his conclusions or whatever. Almost every other ideology is backwards labeled, generally after the person is dead, not constructed on the fly with all the trappings of actually being a new ideology and with the lead persons trying to fit every form of philosophy or thought into it as they construct it. Gadhaffi's whole thing was similar.

And if you dare think this sounds like Objectivism well...

[OnlyRegret]

Yeah, reading it is kind of funny. What it says on the tin not what you get at all.

Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State (16).

Half of this reads like a self-help/motivational post especially by those shrewd grifter gurus, I could probably get random liberal-leaning people to repost this stuff because of the marketing-style word salad.
Like I could easily get some lefty on my feed to reshare this, especially one of the people getting into Stoicism which seems to be a recent hotness.

Fascism wants man to be active and to engage in action with all his energies; it wants him to be manfully aware of the difficulties besetting him and ready to face them. It conceives of life as a struggle in which it behooves a man to win for himself a really worthy place, first of all by fitting himself (physically, morally, intellectually) to become the implement required for winning it. As for the individual, so for the nation, and so for mankind (4). Hence the high value of culture in all its forms (artistic, religious, scientific) (5) and the outstanding importance of education. Hence also the essential value of work, by which man subjugates nature and creates the human world (economic, political, ethical, and intellectual).

Well, sans the one word fascism of course

[OnlyRegret]

The remaining point of course being how the state needs to fuck your ass and how you'll benefit from it. If you live.

[benjipwns]

The spiritual stuff about how only Fascism can give your soul meaning is my favorite stuff, I always forget the name of the longer book Mussolini had ghostwritten about that, oh, and also this from the paragraph before your quote:

the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity (11). It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual (12). And if liberty is to he the attribute of living men and not of abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then Fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State (13). The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist  State  - a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values - interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people (14).

No individuals or groups (political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) outside the State (15).

[OnlyRegret]

Fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State

If only we had an emote for that one, one of the crying+flag ones. 

Japan will have to do.

And obviously, touting bravery and all sorts of things supposedly connected to war such as nobility, duty, fighting spirit coming from an Italian.

[jakefromstatefarm]

in my head canon ‘fascism’ is only used to describe mussolini’s italy and other far right movements of the 20s 30s and 40s to the extent theyre similar. like i’d even prefer exclusively using ‘nazism’ to describe germany instead of calling it ‘fascism’. it’s nice to have a catch-all term for the part of the far right that isn’t throne and altar counter revolution, but its ultimately definitely a family resemblance kind of a thing, not a discrete set of first principles. im also not terribly convinced whatever intellectual content is there isn’t an after thought*

*as in, the global sense of ‘fascism’, not when it’s narrowly used in the italian context

[BisMarckie]

I wrote a paper as an undergrad about why German national socialism isn’t congruent with fascism, so I consider myself an expert on that topic.


Especially since I fudged my citations from wikipedia.

[shosta]

I think the broader view of fascism as a human inclination which persists forever is still useful... Umberto Eco's famous essay is quite good

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism

So I'm not annoyed so much when someone says "that's fascist".

[OnlyRegret]

I think the broader view of fascism as a human inclination which persists forever is still useful... Umberto Eco's famous essay is quite good

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism

So I'm not annoyed so much when someone says "that's fascist".

Pretty good read.
I feel "capitalism in decay" and observing the trajectory of fascist governments in terms of state and big money collusion gives you a strong feel for what role it plays.

The afterthought though, as Jake put it, I don't feel you can entirely discredit it. It plays a vital role of drawing in the disaffected by capitalism masses and promises them (falsely) a better life.
It contributes alongside intentional media disinformation to a romantization of sorts of fascism. That somehow it will give the hopeless a purpose, the eternal campaign against communism instills a distinctive knee-jerk to avoid going down a Marxian path. Which leaves a fascist path instead for the lost.

This is of course entirely acceptable by certain people in power.

[jakefromstatefarm]

yeah i mean, we can definitely give a rational reconstruction of it; i think if anything is fundamentally characteristic of it its a rejection of liberal pluralism. all i mean to say is that, when we try to dig underneath those characteristics, at bottom, they rest on kneejerk revulsion, not argument. like, theres no rawls of fascism. paxton describes it as an appeal to the passions at the expense of reason, and i think thats borne out when we look at who could possibly qualify as the rawls of fascism: schmitt and gentile are pretty clear that their whole shtick is legitimizing -under certain conditions, some more, some less extensive- the suspension of reciprocal respect for persons in order to assert raw, naked will to power. that is intellectually interesting but its not really intellectually defensible. its more like an admission that your interlocutor doesnt give a shit about engaging you in good faith.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/creature_maria/status/1237161051529121793

[jakefromstatefarm]

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism

huh, didn’t realize how much my last couple posts...echo Eco

i’ve seen plenty of chapo types shit on this piece but it’s way better than they’d lead you to believe

[shosta]

I've never heard anyone shit on that piece (which I got from sphagnum, pbuh), what's the gist of the criticism?

[shosta]

just realized that benji getting pedantic about what the word fascism refers to comes from the same place as him getting mad about the modern use of the word "corporatism"

[jakefromstatefarm]

I've never heard anyone shit on that piece (which I got from sphagnum, pbuh), what's the gist of the criticism?

ah, fuck i cant find the thread. iirc it was too idealist for them? as i google around for it im turning up more posts on the sub that are warm to it than posts that arent, so i guess i just stumbled on the three people who didnt like it.

re: esch; theres definitely a certain kind of irrationalism at work in fascist discourse, but id hesitate to call it irrationalism tout court. the worst part of the eco essay is where he ascribes to it a rejection of modernism. fascists (and tradcaths, and paleocons, and anprims) can say theyre turning back the clock, but theyre still practicing mass party politics, a paradigmatic feature of modernity. and i just dont think history works in that way, whatever move an historical actor makes is gonna be necessarily stamped by the time in which theyre acting. even negative moves end up affirming things left implicit.

coincidentally, i just finished up william doyle’s account of the french revolution where he makes the obvious claim that there isn’t any interpretation of the revolution that doesnt cleanly track some political programme or other, not only because everything under the sun has already been written about 1789, and the terror, and the 18th brumaire, but more centrally because the french revolution is the originary event of modern politics. doyle himself calls it a ‘tragedy’ while admiring the constitution of 1791 (and shirking at the constitution of 1793), in no small part because he’s exercising the perennial liberal revulsion towards violence.

[Great Rumbler]

https://twitter.com/creature_maria/status/1237161051529121793

Actual garbage

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Can't even hold a candle to the original classic.

https://twitter.com/neekolul/status/1234601269127458817

[close]

[shosta]

https://twitter.com/hereliesthighs/status/1237468448084688898

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/PopeProcyon/status/1237476463282192385

[OnlyRegret]

[OnlyRegret]

not surprised at hitting the woman, alt-righters really dislike women alongside jews, and non-whites

but yeah, I'm familiar with the alt-right sphere
their delusions about hitler and fascism somehow being free from greed and for the good of the people

[Joe Molotov]

not surprised at hitting the woman, alt-righters really dislike women alongside jews, and non-whites

https://twitter.com/iginister/status/1237097139853017089

[OnlyRegret]

for you commies and weebs

https://twitter.com/yuricommunism

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/hopefulmoron/status/1237550107790209025

https://twitter.com/AliceAvizandum/status/1237551688837259264

https://twitter.com/AliceAvizandum/status/1237552798230708224

https://twitter.com/AliceAvizandum/status/1237553610843508736

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/CalebJHull/status/1237584835394203649

They never heard about China? 

[shosta]

I think most people aren't familiar with the Cultural Revolution

[Tripon]

I think most people aren't familiar with the Cultural Revolution

You learn about the Cultural Revolution as part of World History. Admittedly it's at the end of the year after you get though World War II, (you might get to the end of the 20th century if your teacher is good at pacing). So I suppose there's a decent chance of not covering the Cultural Revolution. My point is that these guys can't even make the facil argument that China isn't a 'failed state' today because of neoliberal market reforms.

[shosta]

You learned about the cultural revolution in a world history course? Why?

[Tripon]

You learned about the cultural revolution in a world history course? Why?

Didn't you go to a CA high school? It's part of the state standards.

The Cold War grew in intensity as the Soviet Union developed atomic weapons
in an effort to catch up militarily to the U.S. An arms race continued for decades,
as the superpowers competed over advancements in nuclear weapons technology.
After a long civil war, communists, led by Mao Zedong, came to power in China,
expanding the geographic scope of the Cold War. The presence of communist
China complicated the earlier bipolar Cold War world, as tensions developed
between the two communist powers. The Great Leap Forward (1958–1961) and the
Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) caused massive turmoil in China. Students should
learn about the unrest and disorder in China during these years; elites were made
to work on farms; revolutionary justice was arbitrarily applied; and the Red Guard
even turned on members of Mao’s own party.
The question How was the Cold War waged all over the world? can continue
to frame students’ understanding of the Chinese experience. Moreover, if students
learn about the ascent of communism in China in the middle of the twentieth
century, the groundwork will be laid for their understanding of its later status
when its markets opened, but its political system did not.

https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/hs/cf/documents/hssfwchapter15.pdf

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Students don't really go into this unless you're in an AP class. 

[close]

[shosta]

I was in IB, we played fast and loose with state standards

I think I also might have satisfied that requirement with Geography instead? I can't remember.

[jakefromstatefarm]

Young people are supporting the failed ideology at an astronomical rate and it's because of our education system.

in a way, hes not wrong

[OnlyRegret]

on the subject of china, so what the hell kind of country/government are they really?
I'm a bit confused where on the spectrum they lie, communists stand with them but I thought they looked state capitalist or something

this dude say yes AF

https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/03/5-myths-about-the-chinese-communist-party/