General Politics Discussion [ARCHIVED] • Page 58

I don't know.. you keep saying people aren't motivated by money.. but every socialist country has failed because of this. I don't care about your links by socialist supporters, I could find just as many that would praise capitalism as it historically has provided the most wealth to the most people. I don't want to live in a county that tells me how much food I get, can't afford me anything past my basic needs, and says that all jobs are equal. They are not, some are much harder. If I could quit my job now and go back to my job sitting by the pool checking people in, I would. Who wouldn't?

 

This all comes back to two simple truths: individualism is a construct, and we should adopt a more relational outlook on the economy.

 

I don't think that is a simple truth.

 

"9. This leads to the most startling figure in the report: "Our estimates suggest that the lower half of the global population possesses barely 1% of global wealth, while the richest 10% of adults own 86% of all wealth, and the top 1% account for 46% of the total."

10 startling facts about global wealth inequality


So, you live in a world in which all of the things you're ascribing to socialism are actually being manifested by capitalism.

And once again, the criticism about socialism meaning the government determining every facet of your life has been dealt with. It means economic democracy, the complete opposite.

Again, you refuse to engage with the critique of capitalism. Here is its reality:

It is founded on slave labor and genocide, and the afterlife of those structures persist because it is encoded in DNA; it uses sweat shop labor currently; it is destroying the environment and externalizing the cost on to us, without our consent; it subjects people to the choice work or starve; it subordinates those who do work to those who do not; it functions on a gendered division of labor which refies norms and identities built on the specified gender divisions; it speculates on food, housing and healthcare, all of which are basic means of surviving; and destroys countries through war in the game for economic hegemony.

All your criticisms of socialism have been realized in the era of authoritarian capitalism. You refuse to see it because you are not on the receiving end of it.

 

Well you refuse to take any critiques of socialism.. engage in that. In Cuba you get basically get food stamps, and 30 bucks a month to buy a little extra if you want. People run out of food in the middle of the week. They have black markets so people can get the food they want. Do you not remember the old socialist countries where they literally had to kill people off because they couldn't support everyone? I agree that if you let capitalism run wild, it will. I can also agree that moving to public college and healthcare could be a good thing. We do have too much income inequality and capitalism does mean that will happen. But come on man, full blown socialism has always lead to everyone being equal, equally poor. My guess is you've never tried to start a business, never worked in a high stress job like being a doctor, because it's a much more demanding job than most people would do out of the goodness of their heart. And yes, work or starve. I shouldn't have to work all day so someone can eat cheetos and smoke weed.

 

are you reading out of a book of like "30 most common misconceptions about socialism"

 

are you not seeing facts?

• 40-70 million killed. China under Chairman Mao. Single Party Socialism. 1958-61 “The Great Leap Forward”.
• 20 million killed. USSR under Joseph “socialism in one country” Stalin. 1936-52 “The Great Purge”.
• 40 million killed. USSR under all other leaders.
• 4 million killed. Cambodia under Pol Pot. Communist. 1975-79.
• 1.6 million murdered; 4 million killed in hard labor. North Korea under Kim Il Sung. Independent socialist State.
• 1.15 million killed. Yugoslavia under Josip ” socialist federation President” Tito. 1945-65.
• 1 million total killed. Ethiopia under Menghistu. Communist. 1975-1978 “The Red Terror.”
• 1 million killed. Indonesia under Suharto. Communist. 1966.
• 1 million killed from genocide; this does not include war casualties. Afghanistan under Brezhnev. Communist. 1979 – 1981.
• 800,000 killed. Rwanda under Jean Kambanda. 1994. Socialist.

 

damn he even quoted the black book of communism that's incredible, hitting every trope

 

Ok. Well i researched Cuba today, because this was bugging me. They do make 30 dollars a month, yes, things a cheaper, but everyone does get the same amount of food and you can buy more but not a lot. They very often run out of things. I mean toilet paper costs a lot there. These aren't just conservative articles.. this is what people said that live there. Are they all unhappy? No. They also have government controlled media, up until lately didn't even have cell phones. And most people don't have much access to internet. If it's between here and there, ya I'll pick here.

 

Also you don't think you do the same? You think small business owners don't work hard and they all started with a lot of money? Watch some shark tank.. a lot started with a couple thousand and almost lost everything trying to make it work. They work all day, every day. One of the biggest misconceptions about capitalism is that the wealthy didn't work for what they have.. actually that would be a person in a socialist country that doesn't have the motivation to take a risk or get a skill.

 

I've answered your critiques in depth. Cuba isn't a good example. It has had a super power oppressing them for six decades, economically and otherwise. Is it ideal? No. Is it socialist? No, it is a variant of capitalism in which the state has substituted itself for workers. Nevertheless, it has made inroads medically and culturally by bypassing some of the forms of capital accumulation one finds in first world countries. The other country I believe you may be referring to is Russia. Once again, seven first-world countries, including the US and Britain, sent soldiers to undermine the nascent revolution, then funded the Czarist white army, which led to the decimation of the working class and any hope of providing a stable base on which to build Soviet democracy. It quickly degenerated into bureaucracy. However, once again, I point out the atrocities that occurred because of, and as a requirement of, the market imperatives. You believe capitalism works because you live in the first world. The benefits of global wealth inequality/a global division of labor flow towards first world countries that use various mechanisms to exploit them. So, once again, demonstrate to me how capitalism is an actually functioning system. We are at a point in time where humanity, quite literally, is facing extinction and we are hamstrung by the profit motive to do anything about it, other than cosmetic changes.

No, I've never been a doctor or tried to start a business. The stress I feel is from the full weight of poverty and white supremacy that. The precarious nature of being both working class and a black person in America didn't deter me from helping others or doing more labor. That isn't to extrapolate my personal experience to a universal experience, but to undercut your notions of my experience and what people are willing to do, even under high stress circumstances. What you fail to recognize is that it isn't about the goodness in people's hearts, but the relations around which we build social interaction and the need to transform those relations to serve our well-being. If how people relate to one another isn't through money as a means of survival, but through solidarity and cooperation as the means of survival, then the idea of doctors as "special" or a hierarchy of labor loses any coherence.

And to your last point. That is a really stupid talking point. The majority of Americans who suffer from malnutrition are children, who have parents that work, but cannot afford to put food on the table. So that is who is starving. But, even if they were stuck at home, you reveal your hypocrisy because those who make money with fictitious capital and receive bailouts do little work. They are the people to whom your tax dollars go, not the people who need it. Lastly, this idea that people are home who do not want to work is yet another fiction meant to shore up this moralism surrounding work, and it disregards how the system has actually structured labor markets so as to have a reserve of unemployed, which helps depress wages and maintain profitability. In short, all you've offered up are straw men and stereotypes that have no relation to reality, and you don't actually know how the system you defend works.

Also, fuck you for your stereotypes and ideological tunnel vision when it comes to assessing what legitimate hardship and anxiety is. It isn't being a doctor, it is being a working person and trying to figure out how to eat, pay rent and not be gunned down by the police on the way to work.

 

He's got you there, Dave.

 

One hundred million indigenous people were wiped out during the colonial era. Estimated twenty million slaves were taken from parts of Africa, only half made it. Six millions Latin American people died due to right-wing, pro-market governments supported by the US. One million died in French colonies; thirty million during British colonial rule in India; six hundred thousand in Belgian colonies; let's give it a total of fifteen millions for the various interventions across the globe for imperial purposes of US capitalism. Next example please?

 

One country on my list killed way more than that.

 

At the very least, I would say that individualism is certainly a construct. And individualism is why our economy is incentive-based rather than relational.

 

This is awful

 

Don't think this guy even has a firm grasp on what socialism actually is, so idk why y'all are bothering right now

 

So Sanders is apparently getting a less than enthusiastic response to the selection of Cornel West.

Am I missing something? Is there a way in which West isn't the fucking man?

 

Because he doesn't have a firm grasp of socialism. This guy represents the vast majority of America, we need to know how to discuss issues like this with them.

It's not the misunderstanding of socialism that's the issue...it's the deeply seeded capitalism that's hard to break. For us it's so easy to see that meritocracy is a farce but no person growing up in this country would think that.

 

Physicians are championed as a function of their salary. Same reason why every parent wants their kid to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. They are fields that allow you to do "good" and pocket a lot of money...capitalism! However, other professions should be deemed as important, but the compensation is not there and capitalism does not reward those. Teachers are the best example.

We recite the hippocratic oath at the start and end of med school, I just said it at graduation, no where in there is salary mentioned. Call me a sucker but I buy into it. For the record, I do not come from a well off family, we were on various forms of social support while growing up...I still share a room with my brothers haha. The profession is one rooted in altruism but has been degenerated by insurance, medicare, and the healthcare complex.

There's a lot of shitty people who are now doctors. It's frightening as fuck.

A common joke in med school is "if we wanted to make money, we wouldn't be in med school, we'd be on wall street". Still, we know there's money to be made. One of the lies we're told to say at job interviews is that we would never do private practice medicine and would always pick academia over it. Academics make upwards of 100K less than privates.

See the chart I posted earlier. Why should I, an American physician, be entitled to more money than one from Norway who pretty much has to do the same training and work as me. I know this because we frequently meet with European and Asian physicians at conferences. This actually counters your entire premise because plenty of other countries have enough physicians doing great work without the same compensation...if money is a driver, they wouldn't exist. Admittedly, some come to the US chasing the dollar, but last i checked, Germany is not in the midst of a healthcare crisis due to lack of physicians. Secondly, incentivizing via salary does not correlate to the best physicians. I would argue the opposite as many physicians interested in money are more interested in seeing as many patients as possible (as in, spending as little time with the patient as possible) and performing many unnecessary procedures (because we can bill for more that way).

I can assure you that when I'm dead tired on the floor or the ED, I'm not thinking "thank god I'm making money". I'd put money on it that no other physician is either.

 

Can you explain to me how the democratic socialist nations of Scandinavia are failing? Thanks.

 

Ignoring the clickbait-y title and plug for this guy's book or whatever at the end of the video, this actually brings up some pretty good points. Hillary has a big branding and message problem, and is allowing this election to be reframed in terms that aren't favorable to her, but are very much favorable to Trump.

 

You're missing the point. One can go on and on, particularly if one includes those who die from hunger as a result of a the economic system. It undermines the entire argument that it is a more peaceful or less oppressive system. Anywho, I'll let you get back to your simplistic worldview.

 

I would send you to Dominick's earlier post about of those are failing, and also how they are not socialist countries. I personally have conceded the point that I am open to us adopting their way of doing education and health care. What Dominick is arguing for is full socialism. You know, the one that relies on it's country to be able to produce enough food for it's people. When it eventually overpopulates itself, it has to either kill some people off or go to war.