Who will be the Democrats' presidential candidate against Trump?

VivaStPauli wrote:

CBarca wrote:

Adit wrote:The funny thing is in socialist countries people are tired of its inability to create enough wealth.

While capitalistic countries which became rich thanks to capitalism now wants socialism.

Life quality in The best socialist country is worse than the worst capitalist state .

Can someone tell me what socialist countries exist right now that aren't either failed states or are currently suffering strongly (Venezuela)?

This is like the most obvious statement of all time. The quality of life in the best socialist country is awful.

Unless you mean to say democratic socialist states like Scandinavian countries...? Not sure what you are referring to here

There is no, and has never been a, socialist country. All governments pretending to be socialist have just used that framing to legitimize their dictatorships. Socialism isn't achieved until the means of production are controlled by the working class, the first step of which is nationalization, and all those regimes always stopped at that step, and centralized control, instead of then decentralizing control and ceding it to the workers, as demanded by the theory.

Because well, it only works in theory.

If centralized agency can't estimate the demand then how would the working class know how much to produce, what to produce and when to produce.


Marx with his utopian theory has made irreparable damage to many countries.

Adit wrote:Because well, it only works in theory.

We don't know that, because nobody has tried it yet.

If centralized agency can't estimate the demand then how would the working class know how much to produce, what to produce and when to produce.

Marx never envisioned the weirdo planned economy that actually was attempted at some points, there is nothing prohibiting syndicalized production centers to react to demand, there is also no reason they can't just charge money for their product and/or service, the difference would just be that that money would stay with the people doing the actual work. Cooperatives exist already in current market systems, and they work perfectly fine.

Marx with his utopian theory has made irreparable damage to many countries.

Marx didn't do any damage, except maybe mooching off his friends while writing his books. I'm not a communist, but you're making your blanket rejection of Communism awfully easy (and a bit too dumbed down) on yourself.
Would-be dictators used Marx' writings because it was good-sounding stuff that could easily convince the have-nots to rise up against the haves, because they believed they would get something after. When they never got anything you can of course blame the promise, but TBH if Mao never had any intention of ceding power to any kind of council, it's kind of disingenuous to then point at China and say "Communism bad", when they never exhibited any telltale signs of a Marxist society.

China, or Soviet Russia, are about as Communist as a pedophile televangelist is a good Christian. Just like you can read the Old Testament, ignore the new one, and be Rick Santorum or some other kind of unbelievable asshole, you can read the Communist Manifesto, and stop reading after the revolution part, and just be there for the violence. It's hardly the point of the book, though.

Adit is one of those guys who read a few economy books and then goes ACKSHUALLY socialism will never work because hUmAn NaTuRe.

An advice to my friend, please don't talk about something you've have limited knowledge of, and no an economic degree doesn't give you the qualification to make a judgement on this issue.

Blue wrote:None of the candidates beside Bernie believes that the person with most delegates and support should get the nominee. So basically they don't believe they can come first heading into the DNC convention. They are hoping to decide the nominee in a undemocratic process behind closed doors by superdelegates.

If they do indeed follow through this would destroy the democratic party, you simply cannot deny the voters first choice and think they would be okay with that.

Source?

CBarca wrote:

Blue wrote:None of the candidates beside Bernie believes that the person with most delegates and support should get the nominee. So basically they don't believe they can come first heading into the DNC convention. They are hoping to decide the nominee in a undemocratic process behind closed doors by superdelegates.



If they do indeed follow through this would destroy the democratic party, you simply cannot deny the voters first choice and think they would be okay with that.

Source?

It was the last question at the debate from last night.

I personally would avoid using capitalism, socialism or any other ideologue to describe myself at all cost. It is much better to describe your views specifically, rather than pigeonholing yourself to a specific ideology. One it allows you to be more flexible in your viewpoints, second it can allow you to avoid being held to criticism of the ideology. So avoid labels.

Socialism has a bad reputation in America, it is looked unfavorably, at the same time Bernie has a high favorability and his ideas are quite popular. Bernie should have never described himself as a socialist, because it would only work against him.

Fair enough, I tuned out the last 30 minutes or so until closing remarks

CBarca wrote:Fair enough, I tuned out the last 30 minutes or so until closing remarks

Cable Media is already talking about it, and Harry Reid who was the long time Dems leader in the senate before retiring recently also expressed that if Sanders doesn't outright win that other candidates should consolidate their delegates to bring a new candidate forth.

They are planting the seed, so if it happens they can normalize the incident.

If they do this they basically reject the peoples choice. The narrative they will run is that other candidates give them a better chance to beat Trump and that is what is most important. They absolutely have to know if they go that route Trump victory is guarnteed and fracturing the party for many years.

If this the route that end up happening it will be extremely sad. Bernie has overcomed the political money machine, he is completely financed by the average working class families. He has bested the corporate media bias, and his own party agenda.

VivaStPauli wrote:

Adit wrote:Because well, it only works in theory.

We don't know that, because nobody has tried it yet.

If centralized agency can't estimate the demand then how would the working class know how much to produce, what to produce and when to produce.

Marx never envisioned the weirdo planned economy that actually was attempted at some points, there is nothing prohibiting syndicalized production centers to react to demand, there is also no reason they can't just charge money for their product and/or service, the difference would just be that that money would stay with the people doing the actual work. Cooperatives exist already in current market systems, and they work perfectly fine.

Marx with his utopian theory has made irreparable damage to many countries.

Marx didn't do any damage, except maybe mooching off his friends while writing his books. I'm not a communist, but you're making your blanket rejection of Communism awfully easy (and a bit too dumbed down) on yourself.
Would-be dictators used Marx' writings because it was good-sounding stuff that could easily convince the have-nots to rise up against the haves, because they believed they would get something after. When they never got anything you can of course blame the promise, but TBH if Mao never had any intention of ceding power to any kind of council, it's kind of disingenuous to then point at China and say "Communism bad", when they never exhibited any telltale signs of a Marxist society.

China, or Soviet Russia, are about as Communist as a pedophile televangelist is a good Christian. Just like you can read the Old Testament, ignore the new one, and be Rick Santorum or some other kind of unbelievable asshole, you can read the Communist Manifesto, and stop reading after the revolution part, and just be there for the violence. It's hardly the point of the book, though.

People have tried it. They were unable to move from centralized government production to decentralized production because one can not predict demand. Just because it is decentralized doesn't mean it can predict demand better.

The concept of money is anti communist. If everything is done by the workers for the workers with out any profit the concept of interest and money is irrelevant .

If you start using money there will be people who will earn more money than others and this will end up in accumulation of wealth. This is the fundamental violation of communism.

Cooperative society works in capitalist economy where demand and price determines market. When they start to produce things by not charging anything and for the good of the society they would fall apart. The current cooperatives which works for PROFIT is no model co operative for communist economy.

You want ideal communist state but you want to use money as well? How does that work? If different people get different money that will inevitably create class division. In an ideal communist state there is no scope for money or interest. Those are capitalist tools. Everything you need is taken care by the society then there is no need for money.


We don't have to fully implement a program to know it's viability. The fact that it has no proper mechanism for moving away from state control to decentralised production is what we saw in all wanna be communist states. They had no idea how to transition because it was not written in theory how to transition.

Imagine actually supporting Marxism and/or communism. A completely utopian idea that has failed no matter how pedantic we are being, and always will fail.

Capitalism fails because of political incentive and meddling and poor balance of control in the market. Not to mention variables that have little to do with capitalism itself but the anomalies that spawn from it.

Its contributions to the world have been innumerable paired with the scientific revolution it incepted.

Ask former Soviet citizens how Communism worked for them let alone countless other examples and yes we can be pedantic but the same thing can apply for general criticisms towards Capitalist ideals.

I wonder how many more millions of people have to suffer for marxism under the excuse that "it's never been tried".

It doesn't work, never has, never will.

Also, Sanders isn't a communist, socialist, or marxist, by the traditional definitions at least. His proposals are sensible within a capitalist system, in the same sense that the nordic countries aren't socialist but call their political brand "social democracy". You can have good market freedom and a competitive economy, and still have more easily accessible healthcare and public higher education.

Adit wrote:People have tried it.

What are you talking about? The Spanish syndicalists? The Makhnovshchyna in Ukraine? Those are probably the closest historical instances of someone trying I know of, but maybe you know more than me. Please enlighten me.

They were unable to move from centralized government production to decentralized production because one can not predict demand.

What the Christ are you talking about? Capitalist production is decentralized and it can reasonably well predict demand, how the hell did you arrive at the idea that centralized production could predict demand? If anything you're advocating for a planned economy yourself. Why?

Just because it is decentralized doesn't mean it can predict demand better.

I never even entered the discussion of what type of economy is better at predicting demand. I said there's no reason you can't predict demand in a communist economy any worse than in a capitalist one.
What straw man are you arguing again? Did you even read my post?

The concept of money is anti communist. If everything is done by the workers for the workers with out any profit the concept of interest and money is irrelevant

Again, you clearly demonstrate you've never read Marx, and haven't understood his theories. I, again, state I'm not a Marxist, or Communist. But I've read it, at least. And while Marx is not a huge fan of "letting your money do the work", rejection of the notion that the means of production should be controlled not by capital interest is not a cry to abandon money and barter for goods and services.
And if everything is done for the workers, they'll want some profit so they can get paid - even if it's in surplus wares;
those would then also be profit.

If you start using money there will be people who will earn more money than others and this will end up in accumulation of wealth. This is the fundamental violation of communism.

It is not a fundamental violation of communism. Please read Marxist theory.
Communism doesn't want people to not accumulate wealth. It wants people to have access to the wealth their own work generates.

Cooperative society works in capitalist economy where demand and price determines market. When they start to produce things by not charging anything and for the good of the society they would fall apart. The current cooperatives which works for PROFIT is no model co operative for communist economy.

Again, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about, and seem to think that Communist theory demands a moneyless society where you don't pay for goods and services, which are just distributed by some central authority. You're thinking either of Star Trek, or maybe Anarcho-Syndicalist theories like those of Proudhon or Bakunin.

You want ideal communist state

Not really, no, I'm just offended by people using the word Communist while clearly not knowing what that entails.

but you want to use money as well?

Yes.

How does that work?

Like it does now.
Except that in Communism, if you work for Apple, and Apple makes $100 billion, it would be shared by it's 1 million workers, so everyone would rake in a sweet 100k.

If different people get different money that will inevitably create class division.

Ideally you'd want all people to use the same money.
If you mean different amounts of money, having salary disparities in the likes of people earning somewhere between 2k and 4k (made up numbers btw), that's hardly as bad as today, where Jeff Bezos has $120 billion, and others have 100k because of student debt.

In an ideal communist state there is no scope for money or interest.

And in an ideal capitalist state, everyone's income would be determined solely by the amount of time they invest, adjusted by the qualifications they possess, yet there are many more factors in reality.
Also yeah, no scope for interest generally.
You use money to keep track of the sum of your holdings, not to invest it.

Those are capitalist tools.

Money predates capitalism by several thousand years.

Everything you need is taken care by the society then there is no need for money.

Strawman argument. Money is still a useful medium for exchange, even if you can't buy stocks with it.

We don't have to fully implement a program to know it's viability. The fact that it has no proper mechanism for moving away from state control to decentralised production is what we saw in all wanna be communist states. They had no idea how to transition because it was not written in theory how to transition.

Stop trying to have your cake and eat it, too.
Your argument for the entirety of your post has been that only capitalism works because of market reasons, etc - and now you tell me the actual problem is that the state never ceded the means of production to the workers - which is what I fucking said in the beginning..?!

Yeah no shit, Sherlock, when you give a dictator control over all of your countries resources, he's not going to give it back. That doesn't mean a Marxist economy wouldn't work, which is my argument. You need strong institutions to safeguard the people from abuse of power. If there ever was a country where a Marxist party won a popular vote by a huge margin, we would now know if Communism works. So far, we only have examples of military coups (China, Russia, Cuba) using Communism as an excuse (or maybe they believed it themselves in the beginning, who knows), but directly bringing in hugely powerful central players that assumed control of the state.

Soviet Russia and Communist China are to Communism as Nazi Germany is to capitalism - yeah it's in there, but not in a nice way.


And once more:
I'm not a Communist.
I don't want a Communist revolution.
Not a Marxist.

I'm just saying you can't go around and talk about shit you clearly never understood.

Arquitecto wrote:Ask former Soviet citizens how Communism worked for them let alone countless other examples and yes we can be pedantic but the same thing can apply for general criticisms towards Capitalist ideals.

I tell you one thing: former Soviet Citizens certainly suffered a shit-ton more because they were living in a fucking Dictatorship than because of Marxist theorey.

You guys can't all just ignore that Marxism explicitly calls for a kind of grass-roots democracy as form of government.

[quote="VivaStPauli"]

What the Christ are you talking about? Capitalist production is decentralized and it can reasonably well predict demand, how the hell did you arrive at the idea that centralized production could predict demand? If anything you're advocating for a planned economy yourself. Why?

Capitalism predicts demands through price mechanism. If price rises production increases for the same. If 8 size shoe is in demand, it's price will increase and more 8 size shoe will be produced.

Now how does communism predict demand? You go around and survey people every day? Every week? How do they know the preference of the consumer? Micro surveying is not an option.

I never even entered the discussion of what type of economy is better at predicting demand. I said there's no reason you can't predict demand in a communist economy any worse than in a capitalist one.
What straw man are you arguing again? Did you even read my post?

I'm saying communism is terrible at predicting demand. They hence will produce stuffs that are of no use and optimal allocation of resources will not happen.

Again, you clearly demonstrate you've never read Marx, and haven't understood his theories. I, again, state I'm not a Marxist, or Communist. But I've read it, at least. And while Marx is not a huge fan of "letting your money do the work", rejection of the notion that the means of production should be controlled not by capital interest is not a cry to abandon money and barter for goods and services.
And if everything is done for the workers, they'll want some profit so they can get paid - even if it's in surplus wares;
those would then also be profit.

Now you want a watered down communism. If all means of production and distribution is taken care of the society then there is no need of money. Money is needed when you sell or buy things. There is no need that is not taken care of by the society in communism.

It is not a fundamental violation of communism. Please read Marxist theory.
Communism doesn't want people to not accumulate wealth. It wants people to have access to the wealth their own work generates.

They are not accumulating any wealth in a communist state. Again when you are providing a service to the society you aren't selling it. It is for the society for free of cost. In return you are getting other services and goods free of cost. If different goods and services are priced based on market dynamics then the lower valued labourers will not be able to obtain many of the services.

A doctor decide to price his labour at a certain high cost since he believes that his labour is of that much value who is going to stop him from charging that?

This is why Money mechanism can't be implemented in communism. If some one decide their labour is worth more than other people's labour the entire system will break down and money payment for labour is the easiest way to achieve it.

Again, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about, and seem to think that Communist theory demands a moneyless society where you don't pay for goods and services, which are just distributed by some central authority. You're thinking either of Star Trek, or maybe Anarcho-Syndicalist theories like those of Proudhon or Bakunin.

If entire production, distribution is done by the society for the society where is the need for money.?

All my needs are met by society then what is the need for money. By introducing money it will mean that many in the society will not be able to meet their needs. The people whos labour is valued less will have less money and less resource purchasing power.

Like it does now.
Except that in Communism, if you work for Apple, and Apple makes $100 billion, it would be shared by it's 1 million workers, so everyone would rake in a sweet 100k.

A Facebook with 1000 employees can create service for a billion people. Even charging a nominal amount will make all thousand billionaires and hence division based on labour is now in effect.

They will have higher resources purchasing power and will drive up the prices effectively introducing market dynamics.

Ideally you'd want all people to use the same money.
If you mean different amounts of money, having salary disparities in the likes of people earning somewhere between 2k and 4k (made up numbers btw), that's hardly as bad as today, where Jeff Bezos has $120 billion, and others have 100k because of student debt.

Ideally ...? Yes ideally you want all the people to earn the same money. Yet you want to let different groups to keep the profits to themselves. Like I said 1000 Facebook employees will be billionaires in a month.A doctor can charge as much as he wants. This is how you can corrupt communism by introducing money concept.

You want watered down communism? Weren't you the one blaming watered down version for the failures? So let's not advocate the watered down one.

Strawman argument. Money is still a useful medium for exchange, even if you can't buy stocks with it.

It isn't. Money is not needed in the first place for exchange. There is no buying and selling. The society is providing everything for free of cost. Then what is the need for money?

If you introduce money, different products and services are more priced differently. That means certain labour groups will generate unreal profits and will have the first right on resources.

Arquitecto wrote:Imagine actually supporting Marxism and/or communism. A completely utopian idea that has failed no matter how pedantic we are being, and always will fail.

Capitalism fails because of political incentive and meddling and poor balance of control in the market. Not to mention variables that have little to do with capitalism itself but the anomalies that spawn from it.

Its contributions to the world have been innumerable paired with the scientific revolution it incepted.

Ask former Soviet citizens how Communism worked for them let alone countless other examples and yes we can be pedantic but the same thing can apply for general criticisms towards Capitalist ideals.

These guys should visit the "Museum of life in communism" in Warsaw...pure banter man.

This was the "allocated" food for a family of 4 PER MONTH in 1980. (I took the photo myself)....people waiting in line for hours just to pick up bread or butter. If you wanted to buy anything of "luxury", like a TV, you'd have to be in line for days.



I work with some who was the surgeon of the Polish Army during communist times, a job definitely with pedigree and social class, yet he said his monthly salary was $36 in the late 1970s !!!

and all of this with basically not mentioning not being allowed to travel to non-communist countries, or even with some luck you went there, you had to go and report every second of your stay.

My parents and grandparents have plenty of stories they often tell from the Communist era (and also WWII)

Basically, even if you had money, there was only vinegar on the shelves most of the time along with some other basic stuff so there was nothing you could spend your salary on anyway

Every communist monument and the like were demolished & communist-era officers stripped of their ranks among other things. A very famous saying in 90s Poland also originated: "From trees, instead of leaves, Communists will be hanging".

A year ago today, @BernieSanders announced his run for the presidency.

They started discrediting him before he even began. pic.twitter.com/JLRX3dOsxm

— once again i am asking (@BernieWatchdog) February 19, 2020

As you guys know I'm not about bernie at all, but I found this great anyways. The MSM hate only turns him into a lovable underdog

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