Marxist thought

  On 5/8/2021 at 1:13 AM, Braintree said:

The definition of socialism is, which will persist with or without his lived experience.

The lived experience provides for the definition, and transforms the actual experience. 
This is the interaction between abstractions and the real world as explained by Karl Poppers three worlds.

  On 5/8/2021 at 1:09 AM, cyanobacteria said:

the state overrides the democratic process 

What do you think central planning is?

  On 5/8/2021 at 1:09 AM, cyanobacteria said:

also, in your scenario, how is the state telling people "no bikes sorry" any different from pricing bikes too high for poor people or failing to build robust supply chains to supply bikes? very notably, in the US it has been difficult to buy bikes the entire pandemic.  the richest nation on earth, and capitalist, and it literally cannot produce bikes.  so it's great you brought up this example.

If you can’t see the difference between the state saying “no bikes” and consumers making a choice how to spend their money, I’m sorry, I can’t help you.

The pandemic has had an impact on bikes for sure, and Canada experienced a similar issue. But production of cheaper bikes ramped up quickly and that issue is largely solved. 
The state cannot change direction so quickly (I work in government, and the length of time it takes to make changes in government direction is ridiculous).

  On 5/8/2021 at 1:58 AM, chenGOD said:

If you can’t see the difference between the state saying “no bikes” and consumers making a choice how to spend their money, I’m sorry, I can’t help you.

The pandemic has had an impact on bikes for sure, and Canada experienced a similar issue. But production of cheaper bikes ramped up quickly and that issue is largely solved. 
The state cannot change direction so quickly (I work in government, and the length of time it takes to make changes in government direction is ridiculous).

"consumers making the choice to not buy stuff they cant afford"

capitalism.jpg

  On 5/8/2021 at 1:53 AM, chenGOD said:

The lived experience provides for the definition, and transforms the actual experience. 
This is the interaction between abstractions and the real world as explained by Karl Poppers three worlds.

What do you think central planning is?

central planning is a way of planning an economy.  whether it's democratic is determined by whether the state is behaving in the way desired by the people.  you seem to be implying capitalist allocation is democratic when it's really private and totalitarian

  On 5/8/2021 at 1:53 AM, chenGOD said:

The lived experience provides for the definition, and transforms the actual experience. 
This is the interaction between abstractions and the real world as explained by Karl Poppers three worlds.

What do you think central planning is?

This is philosophical and not concrete.

  On 5/8/2021 at 1:49 AM, chenGOD said:

Which, if you read the wiki portal link, is varied. 
the link you provided merely said it CAN flourish, not that it is a necessary condition.  

That is a wikipedia article and we know how those go. I gave you something specific. Also, democracy is essential to forming unions. It is an essential component.

All in all, you're trying to change the goalpost for this debate. My argument is that it is established that Burma was not a socialist country. This link that was shared earlier even states it was a dictatorship. Dictatorships are not socialist because of literature I've already cited. It is antithetical to the working class to have a dictator.

Sorry bud , but you're wrong.

  On 5/8/2021 at 3:20 AM, Braintree said:

Dictatorships are not socialist because of literature I've already cited. It is antithetical to the working class to have a dictator.

Dictatorships can be socialist, and if you wade deep enough into zeff territory he’ll start talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat. 
 

I’m saying that people’s lived experience with socialism in general has been through dictatorships, so it’s hard to fault them if they don’t respond well to the notion, even if it doesn’t align with someone else’s notion of what socialism is. 
The Wikipedia portal on socialism is quite well done,  it provides a broad overview with a lot of relevant citations. But fine: here’s an article which outlines the differences between a socialist and a democratic socialist. 

  On 5/8/2021 at 2:35 AM, cyanobacteria said:

“consumers making the choice to not buy stuff they cant afford"

That’s cute that you’re misquoting me.

In capitalism, firms also have the discretion to enter the market at different price points to meet different demands. Which is why you can buy a $100 bike from Canadian Tire, or a $10K bike from Lance Armstrong’s Ballsack Bikes.  

  On 5/8/2021 at 3:31 AM, chenGOD said:

Dictatorships can be socialist, and if you wade deep enough into zeff territory he’ll start talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat. 
 

I’m saying that people’s lived experience with socialism in general has been through dictatorships, so it’s hard to fault them if they don’t respond well to the notion, even if it doesn’t align with someone else’s notion of what socialism is. 
The Wikipedia portal on socialism is quite well done,  it provides a broad overview with a lot of relevant citations. But fine: here’s an article which outlines the differences between a socialist and a democratic socialist. 

That’s cute that you’re misquoting me.

In capitalism, firms also have the discretion to enter the market at different price points to meet different demands. Which is why you can buy a $100 bike from Canadian Tire, or a $10K bike from Lance Armstrong’s Ballsack Bikes.  

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do you know what the dictatorship of the proletariat is?  just because there is the word "dictator" in it doesn't mean it's a dictatorship in the common sense of the word that you are thinking or trying to imply

the marxist conception of the state is that of a vessel for the dictatorship of one class over another.  in a capitalist nation it is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat, or in other words the bourgeoisie organized as the state.  thus the dictatorship of the proletariat is the proletariat organized as the state, and thus achieving dictatorship over the bourgeoisie.

in other words, it is, despite having the word dictatorship in its name, more democratic than the typical state of affairs in a capitalist nation - the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie - because the bourgeois class is by definition less numerous than the proletariat class. 

thus the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is not even objectionable within this conceptual framework, though you can take issues with specific attempts at the dictatorship of the proletariat, though in most cases these examples would be that of the dictatorship of some other class that has arisen among the proletariat themselves acting in opposition to the proletariat, and thus no longer representing a dictatorship of the proletariat but rather a dictatorship of the entrenched state bureaocracy or similar concepts

whether you agree with these ideas or not at least get the marxist terminology right, this is after all literally titled the marxist discussion thread

  On 5/8/2021 at 3:31 AM, chenGOD said:

Dictatorships can be socialist, and if you wade deep enough into zeff territory he’ll start talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat. 
 

I’m saying that people’s lived experience with socialism in general has been through dictatorships, so it’s hard to fault them if they don’t respond well to the notion, even if it doesn’t align with someone else’s notion of what socialism is. 
The Wikipedia portal on socialism is quite well done,  it provides a broad overview with a lot of relevant citations. But fine: here’s an article which outlines the differences between a socialist and a democratic socialist. 

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If your appeal to authority is Zeff, then you're off your rocker.

Again, their experience is not relevant to the definition of socialism. You don't define economic systems by asking joe schmo how he feels about it. That gives you their assumption and not the literal definition of the thing that makes them feel that way. That person is angry about authoritarianism, not socialism as it never existed there.

Re: your link (which I read when it came out), we're not talking about SocDems vs Socialists. As it relates to this thread directly, Marx thought democracy was pretty rad, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Marxism (I'll repeat here that the efficacy of the theory is not our focus)

As I've previously mentioned, you won't be able to form a union without democracy. The union is the first step to gaining control of the workplace over the company owners.

To take a break from all these heated debates, take a cup a tea and have this vid.

Interesting vid. All sorts of economical schools of thought in 10 mins. As far as I can tell, it's light hearted, fair and quite neutral as far as I'm concerned.

Although, they do mention that the most likely development will be that the various schools will converge in the centre, as opposed to an extreme. 

OK, that's it. Back to hair splitting again... ;D

  On 5/8/2021 at 11:03 AM, Satans Little Helper said:

To take a break from all these heated debates, take a cup a tea and have this vid.

Interesting vid. All sorts of economical schools of thought in 10 mins. As far as I can tell, it's light hearted, fair and quite neutral as far as I'm concerned.

Although, they do mention that the most likely development will be that the various schools will converge in the centre, as opposed to an extreme. 

OK, that's it. Back to hair splitting again... ;D

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extremely biased in favor of capitalism and fails to mention many different facets of economic theory within socialism.  also puts these ideas forward as if they're some intellectual debate rather than inherently emergent from the process of class struggle and post-hoc rationalizations

  On 5/7/2021 at 7:19 AM, Braintree said:

 

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  On 5/6/2021 at 10:30 PM, cyanobacteria said:

 

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@ 5:00 :

  On 5/8/2021 at 4:01 AM, Braintree said:

Again, their experience is not relevant to the definition of socialism

The experiential is highly relevant to people's creation of their world, including definitions. That's just basic sociological thought.

  On 5/8/2021 at 4:01 AM, Braintree said:

Re: your link (which I read when it came out), we're not talking about SocDems vs Socialists. As it relates to this thread directly, Marx thought democracy was pretty rad, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Marxism

The link I provided explicitly defines socialism:

"a system of social organization in which private property and the distribution of income are subject to social control. In other words, it's a state-controlled economy in which the state controls the means of production (factories, offices, resources, and firms). There are also forms of socialism in which the means of production are controlled and owned by workers." 

It then states that one form of socialism is democratic socialism.

It is widely recognized that there are many forms of socialism, so there is not one coherent definition, and certainly it is not correct to say that democracy is a necessary condition for socialism.

  On 5/8/2021 at 4:01 AM, Braintree said:

Marx thought democracy was pretty rad, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Marxism

Marx's vision of democracy was a communist society. From that link:

"In Marxist theory, a new democratic society will arise through the organised actions of an international working class enfranchising the entire population and freeing up humans to act without being bound by the labour market...between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat"

And what did Marx write about the dictatorship of the proletariat? "their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions."^[16] In light of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Marx wrote that "there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror." (This is of course the issue with many attempts to establish socialist societies, because interpretations of the dictatorship of the proletariat haven't really allowed for political pluralism, because of the stupidity of establishing a vanguard party).

So while some new form of democracy (which isn't really defined beyond "workers have control of the means of production in an equal share") is the end goal, it's not a necessary condition of the starting point. The only necessary condition is the creation of a vanguard party, which may or may not be democratic.

Peter Hardi (from the Karl Marx University) wrote the following on the transition from capitalism to socialism "...in traditional theory (and practice) the party first seizes power and only then starts to implement its program  of "socialist transformation" of the society; in the new version, the Communist Party first tries to transform society into a more advanced, partly socialistic stage, and then (or simultaneously) attempts to gain power by consensual means in a pluralist society." (Why Do Communist Parties Advocate Pluralism? World Politics Vol. 32, No. 4 (Jul., 1980), pp. 531-552 (22 pages)). YOu can access that article at jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/2010056 (JSTOR set up a system where you get 100 articles to read for free a month, and i couldn't find it on LibGen).

I think it makes it pretty clear that democracy is not a prerequisite for trying to achieve a socialist state, at least in the traditional sense of Marxism.

You are having a really hard time putting two and two together my man. You are so close.

Democracy is required for the working class to make any moves at all.

  On 5/8/2021 at 6:12 PM, chenGOD said:

The experiential is highly relevant to people's creation of their world, including definitions. That's just basic sociological thought.

This is fucking nonsense. The lived experience does not have anything to do with how socialism is defined. You've taken one too many rugby balls to the head.

  On 5/8/2021 at 6:35 PM, Braintree said:

Democracy is required for the working class to make any moves at all.

pitchforks & torches are a form of democracy y/n

  On 5/8/2021 at 6:40 PM, Cryptowen said:

pitchforks & torches are a form of democracy y/n

n

That's mob rule.

also dudes i'm about to go to the local anarchist bookstore because i need some research literature on the situationist movement, what are some other fun communist things to keep a look out for while i'm there?

Democracy is a form of government.

  On 5/8/2021 at 6:42 PM, Braintree said:

Democracy is a form of government.

in your opinion what are the fundamental distinctions between mob rule & government? (actually not trying to be contrarian or disagree here, genuinely curious to see how this could be formalized for you)

  On 5/8/2021 at 6:45 PM, Cryptowen said:

in your opinion what are the fundamental distinctions between mob rule & government? (actually not trying to be contrarian or disagree here, genuinely curious to see how this could be formalized for you)

In the simplest way to express it; because there's no structure in a mob. A government is a structure.

  On 5/8/2021 at 6:48 PM, Braintree said:

In the simplest way to express it; because there's no structure in a mob. A government is a structure.

okay yah that makes sense. My first impression here would be that a mob does have a sort of directionality to it (ie in the sense that there's some intensely-felt sentiment that gets people moving; though this can become confused as we see in the case of riots that break out following political protests & inevitably draw out actors who are just there for the sake of taking part in a riot). But it's a destructuring kind of energy, tearing through the fabric of the social landscape as an ireversable historical process. at most it clears space for a new self-sustaining order to develop in, but it doesn't provide these things of its own accord

  On 5/8/2021 at 6:42 PM, Cryptowen said:

also dudes i'm about to go to the local anarchist bookstore because i need some research literature on the situationist movement, what are some other fun communist things to keep a look out for while i'm there?

UPDATE: I didn't get any situationist literature because i'm not in the right headspace to read 5,000 pages of untranslated Guy Debord rn. I did get Bakunin's God and the State, Alden Wood's The Cultural Logic of Insurrection (I think he's vaguely associated with the invisible commitee? i dunno i kinda got this one on a whim), Yuk Hui's The Question Concerning Technology in China (a friend recommended this for getting a sense of contemporary Chinese thought. @cyanobacteriahave you heard of this book? it seems like something you might be into)

  On 5/8/2021 at 6:35 PM, Braintree said:

You are having a really hard time putting two and two together my man. You are so close.

Democracy is required for the working class to make any moves at all.

what godel is talking about is bourgeois electoral representative democracy.  marxists are not democratic socialists who believe in working within the existing system to try to achieve socialism, given that its impossible.  democracy is a broad word, and indeed the working class overturning this unjust institution when it systematically meets the needs not of them, but the owning class, is democratic, despite not being bourgeois democratic, and in fact because it is not

so in this way it is right to say marxists are not "democratic" in that they do not believe in bourgeois electoral representative democracy.  but they -are- democratic in that they believe in direct democracy and the working class not fettering itself to institutions meant to give the illusion of democracy to the working class while really working as an instrument of democracy for the owning class

  On 5/8/2021 at 6:42 PM, Braintree said:

Democracy is a form of government.

definitely not, it's a vague word with many ways of interpreting it.  its meaning has been debated since the ancient greeks

  On 5/8/2021 at 9:31 PM, cyanobacteria said:

  On 5/8/2021 at 6:42 PM, Braintree said:

Democracy is a form of government.

definitely not

It is quite clear to me that I am arguing with nimrods.

  On 5/8/2021 at 9:47 PM, Braintree said:

It is quite clear to me that I am arguing with nimrods.

i gave you a nuanced answer involving many facets of the word democracy in marxism and modern usage of the term, i dont know how you can make such a statement when it's in fact your statements that are lacking nuance and accuracy