General Politics Discussion [ARCHIVED] • Page 59

I think you lack the capacity for reading comprehension.

 

is this guy birdman

 

Just answer one question. How do you handle it when your country can no longer produce on pace with population growth?

 

Capacity for production hasn't been a viable issue with socialism in 90 years since the Russian collective economy's meteoric creation of capital. There are plenty of snags along the way and plenty of areas that you can criticize socialism. Doubting whether it can produce is simply parroting capitalist myths.

 

Ok.. what if you have a massive drought or natural disaster, right on the heels of a large population growth. How do you handle this?

 

I view this as Trump's election to lose. Hillary can do very, VERY little to improve her public perception. If she wins, it will be because people don't want to elect Trump. She knows this, seeing as she is going to try and court Republican voters rather than rallying the left.

 

I dismiss this question. It is Malthusian nonsense. It begins with assumptions specific to the form of capitalist production, then proceeds to impose them,in the form of a question, on a completely different economic system. If your argument is that overpopulation is a threat to socialism, the onus is on you to demonstrate why this is the case. My position is that "overpopulation" is a historically determined relationship that speaks not to actual numbers, but to the limits of a particular mode of production in addressing the population in general. So, for example, it isn't that there are too many people on the continent of Africa that causes starvation and poverty throughout the countries, it is that their relationship to the world is one in which their resources are extracted and they receive none of the benefit. They have numerous natural resources, but the global division of labor is such that their access is mediated through their local petty bourgeoisie and corporations. One can extrapolate this outward and see the point I'm trying to make.

 

Ok I will make my case. As your population grows, it strains your countries natural resources. The higher the population, the more you need to produce. If it starts growing too fast, or you have natural disasters or war, you may not be able to provide enough food, so you need to ration it and that's where you get the long lines and staples of food that no one can find. People are basically all fairly poor, even the skilled workers, so you have to make sure they don't get any media from the outside world. Their skill would provide them a much better life elsewhere, but you can't have your skilled workers leave.

Then you can look at the capitalist countries, they don't get hit with this as hard if they were being smart economically. If they have strong allies to trade with, they don't have to worry about shortages of their own natural resources. They can trade resources they have more than enough of, or innovations that the corporations in the country can ship to them. Your products go out, and other countries money comes in. This allows you continue to build and innovate, and be the stronger military power. You're country is getting richer, so there is more to go around. Countries need to diversify what industries they have that are bringing in money, because then when a resource like oil goes down, it doesn't hit your economy too hard. The countries that hit problems are ones that rely on one resource to provide everything people need to survive. Money stops coming in, everything crumbles.

That's one thing a lot of European countries are doing well.. diversifying and were investing in green energy so they didn't rely on selling their oil. Also with high taxes, people have less money to spend on foreign goods, so you can keep a trade surplus. As for Africa, we do need to work to make sure they are part of this global market. With their resources they can develop fairly quickly, we need to allow them to do so, but they also need the right governments in place. Capitalist countries do put their interests first, but most countries through history have done the same.

If you want the whole world to be equal.. you would need one world government making sure everyone is getting a fair share of resources. Most people just don't want to have that level of dictator.

 

And I've addressed this on multiple occasions in our interactions, as well as in the post you've quoted. You're speaking to a historically specific mode of production. I am critiquing it and your response is that in capitalist countries (European countries/US), which is representative of the narrow scope with which you see the world, this is not a problem. We know that this is false. The argument you're offering up is essentially the "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" ideology that is completely divorced from history. Africa and the Middle East have problems, not because of colonialism, but because of something they just chose to do. As a corollary, the west, which you use interchangibly with capitalism in a very Eurocentric and uneducated way, their dominance had nothing to do with slaughter, slavery, colonialism, imperialism, et. al., they were just really good at economy-ying or something. By the way, the relations haven't ended. The institutions the west has at their disposal to exploit poor countries are manifold and this isn't an outlier, it is part of the systems way works. So you really haven't done anything here except prove your ignorance. Educate yourself, then return to this conversation.

 

Ok ya I can leave.. I will not educate myself on a failed system that won't ever be implemented. Again, not talking about the European system.. the full blown socialist hellscape.

 

To echo what Dom said, you're cherry picking your examples to champion capitalism. I think what you need to do instead is explain how capitalism has crippled the nation of Bangladesh (where my family is originally from). There was the initial colonization by the British leading to literal enslavement, segregation, and murder of my people so that British people may live better. Remember, capitalism requires hierarchy and exploitation of the lower classes for the benefit of the upper class. By way of your argument, this was justified...the British "earned" the right to do this to my people.

Now, the common counter is "that was 70 years ago, the British east india company does not exist". As Dom again explained, the remnants of colonization persist and continue to decimate Bangladeshi people daily. Look up some of the poverty statistics of that capitalist nation then tell me that capitalism is great for everyone.

 

???

Then there will shortages, which would be true whether an economy was capitalist or socialist. Only, under a socialist regime, there would be price and supply controls in place meant to benefit everyone-- it wouldn't just be a matter of multiplying the price and exploiting the shortage for private profit. I'm not sure if your argument works under the assumption that the modes of production cannot/would not expand with the population or what, but I don't think I follow your argument.

 

Moving the goalposts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I didn't say it was great for everyone. No system is. Talk to people that lived through socialism.. I'm sure they have some terrifying stories..

 

Lol this is so fact-averse I can't even believe it. You're essentially saying "I don't like this thing, so I don't even want to try and understand it!!!" Like, capitalism is goofy as fuck, but its opponents seem to still take the time to "educate themselves" about it.

Furthermore, capitalism has failed on the majority of your own premises. Do you see an economy built upon slave labor as being a legitimate economy?

 

Anywho, back to general politics:

Trump escalates attack on Bill Clinton

"Trump’s latest shot came Monday when he released an incendiary Instagram video that includes the voices of two women who accused the former president of sexual assault, underscoring the presumptive Republican nominee’s willingness to go far beyond political norms in his critique of his likely Democratic rival."

 

Of course it's legit, the capitalist elite earned those slaves! They deserve to reap the benefits of chattelizing humans.

Capitalism and legitimacy, at any level, do not mix.

 

No but I also don't think everyone needs to basically make the same amount of money. You keep saying educate yourself on capitalism, I have, it's created powerful economies. We need to regulate and find ways to distribute wealth better sure.. but I don't get why you can't understand why I wouldn't want to live under a socialist regime. They don't end up being any better to their people. The problem I will always have in this argument is you will never give credit to capitalism for creating the most powerful nation on earth. Just that people were exploited to do it, like our country has never done great things. But most people now have a better life here than they did at any point in history.. that's why people flee their dictators to come here. Land of opportunity.

 

Holy LOL. The land of opportunity for white, straight, cis-men.

 

What's funny is that, in the grand majority of online political discussions, Dave Dystra's position would be considerably left.

I have no problem with people who would prefer moving to social democracy before experimenting with massive deprivatization. There's nothing wrong with that.

 

Idk I can guarantee you would not like living in a socialist country. My advice, play the capitalism game.. with hard work skys the limit.

 

These are your liberals baby. These are your Hillary Clinton voters. Look into their eyes and despair

 

It's ok if people were exploited by a country as long as there are some people not struggling in that country hundreds of years later. And if one thing is successful nothing else could have worked, and nothing else should be considered. Of course there's only one factor leading to success, and that success isn't subjective at all. Cmon guys this is all so simple

 

Of course we credit capitalism for creating the US. We're not idiots. But that's not a good thing. At what cost was this greatness made? To this day, we have to denigrate groups of humans both within the US and outside to achieve "greatness". What you need to acknowledge is that this greatness is not there for all of us. You do realize that, right?

 

I was actually surprised just how radical people here are.