Marxism 101: Socialism and Communism

[etienne]

Yes, Flanders is in Belgium. Hi-diddly-ho. :)

So I watched your critique videos on Bernie Sanders. Finally got around to it.
As they weren't regarding a politician I'm myself very familiar with, I don't think I fully got everything out of it. But the critique is for a large part, I believe, applicable to our kind of socialism. Which I myself previously explicitly named socialism of the Western European meaning of the word. Small differences there may be, as we are a corporist Welfare state, rather than a liberal Welfare state, I'm thinking it still kind of applies.
I don't know what you want me to do with it, however. They were fairly interesting videos, and the guy has a decent way of explaining his view. But it didn't bring anything particularly new to the table for me. Nor did it do anything, for me at least, to sway me to communism.
Mind you that up to this point, I've not been interested in discussing communism. All of this stems from me sharing a tidbit with @Baruch and you replying to that. I'm still not really all that interested in talking politics and economics. Though if you have questions, I'll try to answer them.   

I could translate a chapter of Liu's book. If you'd like. (It's a collection of texts.) But only if you promise to read it. Again. If you don't want to read it, that's fine. (It's not the core of my views, it's just a book I'm reading.) No one has time to go through all sources that exist. Heck, it took me a few days before I had the time and interest to have a gander at 15 minutes of film which you provided. But I don't want to waste my time typing it. (Which will take a while.)
Again, you don't have to read it. I'm just saying; don't dismiss other points of view offhand because they don't align with your preconceived notions. Such as you seem to claim proudly to do. With both Liu and other members on this forum, boasting about your, frankly, rather childish deportee list. That way you end up with cencorship, a blockade on conversation and discussion and to isolation of the free market of ideas. Of course, segregation and the impossibility to having open discussion is a key component to revolution.

The childishness is in the content of the posts of the trolling posters, now deportees.  If they actually want to add something mature and substantive to the conversation, I wont ignore them.  But they are attack trolls to this subject, plain and simple.  I dont have time for that.

Anything you want to share re Liu, I will read.

Western Euro "socialism", I will repeat, is "democratic socialism" or, more specifically, "Keynesian" tax redistribution within a capitalist society from the top to the bottom.  It is capitalism, nonetheless, the means of production are still privately owned by an investor class.  This is the antithesis of so-comm, where the working class and/or proletariat State seizes control of the primary means of production. "Democratic Socialism" is capitalism, which is made abundantly clear in the Unruhe vids.

[etienne]

David Pluth's Seven Days in North Korea 2007 Remastered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxhPEqyJf6I&index=38&list=WL

More on the DPRK:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgHh6f1GYx0

[Shiranu]

Vaffanculo.

[Baruch]

I'm not real big on practiced communism either...  Theory fails when there is 1 beet and 2 hungry people.

Famously ... Capitalism = two wolves and a sheep, arguing over who gets to eat the sheep.

But ... Communism = two wolves and a sheep, sheep has wolves liquidated, uses their pelts for fur coats to meet  5 year plan quota.

[Baruch]

To say @Shiranu put it succinctly would be an understatement: "You have your head so far up your own ass trying to suck your own dick and patting yourself on the back, you have no concept of what reality is."

I created Etienne, in my mad scientist lab, as a distraction ... and he is way more politically literate than Seri ... and unlike Tay, isn't a damn fascist!

[etienne]

Famously ... Capitalism = two wolves and a sheep, arguing over who gets to eat the sheep.

But ... Communism = two wolves and a sheep, sheep has wolves liquidated, uses their pelts for fur coats to meet  5 year plan quota.

Well, you just saved us all alot of time there.  Class dismissed...

[Baruch]

Well, you just saved us all alot of time there.  Class dismissed...

The problem with any violence ... my paduan ... is that it rebounds on the perpetrators.  So be sure and be ready to catch shit.

[etienne]

The problem with any violence ... my paduan ... is that it rebounds on the perpetrators.  So be sure and be ready to catch shit.

I think I covered the topic of violence thoroughly at this point.

[Baruch]

I think I covered the topic of violence thoroughly at this point.

Keep your hazmat suite and doggie pooper scooper handy!

[Gilgamesh]

The childishness is in the content of the posts of the trolling posters, now deportees.  If they actually want to add something mature and substantive to the conversation, I wont ignore them.  But they are attack trolls to this subject, plain and simple.  I dont have time for that.

Honestly you're not wrong. all I've done here is score cheap points with funny image macros ¯\_(ãƒ,,)_/¯

[etienne]

Honestly you're not wrong. all I've done here is score cheap points with funny image macros ¯\_(ãƒ,,)_/¯

Is this an appeal to be unexiled?  I'll have to review the "funny pics".  If they make me laugh, I'll prolly set you free.

[etienne]

Cap Propaganda

One cannot discuss a socialism which has built an enormous industry by reducing the standard of living of the masses and a capitalism which has raised the standard of living*, reduced working hour**, and permitted the consolidation of labor unions***, as if there were the same realities that Marx considered a century ago or that he anticipated according to a system which has since been refuted by events.
Raymond Aron (1955, 2000). The Opium of the Intellectuals. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers. p. 337.

*

**Americans Work the Longest Hours

http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/09/news/economy/americans-work-bush/

Many work even longer. Adults employed full time report working an average of 47 hours per week, which equates to nearly six days a week, according to Gallup. That's about an hour and a half more than they reported a decade ago. Nearly four in 10 workers report logging 50+ hours on the job.Jul 9, 2015

***

In 2013 there were 14.5 million members in the U.S., compared with 17.7 million in 1983. In 2013, the percentage of workers belonging to a union was 11.3%, compared to 20.1% in 1983. The rate for the private sector was 6.7%, and for the public sector 35.3%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States

[etienne]

Karl Marx On Slavery

Freedom and slavery constitute an antagonism.  Slavery is an economic category of paramount importance.

Without slavery, North America, the most progressive nation, would be transformed into a patriarchal country. Only wipe North America off the map and you will get anarchy, the complete decay of trade and modern civilisation. But to do away with slavery would be to wipe America off the map. Being an economic category, slavery has existed in all nations since the beginning of the world. All that modern nations have achieved is to disguise slavery at home and import it openly into the New World. 

Karl Marx, Letter to Pavel Annekov, dated 28 December 1846.

[etienne]

Primitive Accumulation:  The Starting Point

Omali Yeshitela, African Peoples Socialist Party

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MGWjf-7lsM

(Capitalism necessitates "primitive accumulation" through slavery as a necessary starting point.)

This primitive accumulation plays in Political Economy about the same part as Original Sin in theology.

Karl Marx. Capital Volume One  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch26.htm

[Sorginak]

The average American employee works entirely too much and has absolutely nothing to show for it.  The problem with America is that it overworks people merely for the one percent to remain rich.