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Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

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Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#141

Post by quadrangle »

WalterBright wrote: post #124
quadrangle wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been nowhere near enough actual trials of communism to conclude anything fully. The core examples were all poorer countries with various problems, corruption… To reject communism as a concept over the atrocities of Stalin et al is as reasonable as rejecting capitalism because the U.S. was built on slavery and the genocide of first peoples. The atrocities were real, and they did connect to economics, but to…

Review "The Black Book of Communism" for a catalog of the death and misery from communist countries, over and over. Voluntary communes and Kibbutzen have failed as well - none have been capable of operating without subsidy.

All you're saying is that attempts at communism have all had major problems. That's true, but it's not enough to be conclusive.

If you want to pick examples that point various ways, you can note that Cuba has corruption, lack of democracy, is an impoverished island suffering the effects of significant economic embargoes in the global system and yet still vies for having one of the best health care systems. They even a top country in providing doctors to serve abroad in troubled places!

And the Soviet Union was a horrendously corrupt place that failed in most respects to live up to communist ideals and yet still managed to compete technologically with the richest countries on the planet despite being economically far far far weaker in fundamentals. The U.S. only barely beat the Soviets in the space race etc while being massively richer. The Soviets had many orders of magnitude more losses in WWII also.

The history of Communism is one where anti-communists did everything they could to undermine any success, the trials were full of corruption and abuse, and even still they had notable successes.

The kibbutzen failed not strictly because all the ideas were unworkable. They failed because they had to function economically in a larger context. None of them had wealth along the lines of successful capitalists either. Capitalists have only ever operated capably by controlling a lot of capital or getting subsidy, at least in the form of law enforcement that serves the side of capital.

We can conclude that all attempts at communism so far have had serious flaws. We can also conclude that capitalism has always had serious flaws too. Anyone who takes a polarized one-sided view on this stuff can be rejected as just being dogmatic. Piketty is not one of these one-sided dogmatic people, he's actually interested in studying empirical evidence and not concluding more than the evidence can truly support.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#142

Post by [deleted] »

WalterBright wrote: post #124
quadrangle wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been nowhere near enough actual trials of communism to conclude anything fully. The core examples were all poorer countries with various problems, corruption… To reject communism as a concept over the atrocities of Stalin et al is as reasonable as rejecting capitalism because the U.S. was built on slavery and the genocide of first peoples. The atrocities were real, and they did connect to economics, but to…

Review "The Black Book of Communism" for a catalog of the death and misery from communist countries, over and over. Voluntary communes and Kibbutzen have failed as well - none have been capable of operating without subsidy.

[deleted]

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#143

Post by yk »

barney54 wrote: post #133
turar wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing communism with totalitarianism.

Usually communism requires totalitarianism. I don't know of any examples where communism didn't require totalitarian as long as we are talking about the country level. But I'd like to hear some counter examples I'm not thinking of.

There are no states in communism, quoting Lenin:

>> Only now can we fully appreciate the correctness of Engels' remarks mercilessly ridiculing the absurdity of combining the words “freedom” and “state”. So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state.

Lenin, The State and the Revolution, 1917 https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/c...

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#144

Post by BurningFrog »

turar wrote: post #136
barney54 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually communism requires totalitarianism. I don't know of any examples where communism didn't require totalitarian as long as we are talking about the country level. But I'd like to hear some counter examples I'm not thinking of.

No countries actually had communism, but if we're talking about socialism, then you're mostly right. My opinion is that there are many reasons for it, including: - Those countries were poor and without sufficiently established democratic institutions. - Those countries had to immediately mobilize to defend from richer capitalist countries (lead by the US) trying to undermine them in any possible way. Constant defense…

Central planning of all production means that the central planners controls everything in society.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#145

Post by quadrangle »

4WIW wrote: post #117
quadrangle wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been nowhere near enough actual trials of communism to conclude anything fully. The core examples were all poorer countries with various problems, corruption… To reject communism as a concept over the atrocities of Stalin et al is as reasonable as rejecting capitalism because the U.S. was built on slavery and the genocide of first peoples. The atrocities were real, and they did connect to economics, but to…

You can say the same thing about National-Socialism or any other ideology out there. There are just not enough countries to try them all on, and I am not sure why should we...

National Socialism (i.e. Hitler) was based fundamentally on nationalism and racism. We can reject it because the principles themselves are unethical. We can reject it even if it had succeeded economically!

If you want to make an argument that the principles of communism are unethical, that's an independent argument from the claim that certain historic attempts had various atrocities and therefore you reject the principles (even though many of the atrocities are not related to the principles — Stalin disappearing his political enemies has no basis in communist principles…

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#146

Post by y80 »

nickff wrote: post #138
turar wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism isn't inherently authoritarian.

This is a classic 'no true Scotsman' fallacy. If you would like to avoid the fallacy, you could make arguments such as 'more socialist systems are associated with _ positive outcome', or socialism is more moral because _. I lean strongly against socialism, but would prefer everyone made better arguments for their causes; G.A. Cohen is a good starting point for moral/ethical arguments in favor of socialism. Update: pa…

This isn't a no true scotsman, that commentor is correct. The state building ideologies of the 20th century are inherently authoritarian, but if you think they're the only components to socialist thought then you're simply uninformed. There are a multitude of anti-authoritarian socialist schools of thought, most notably anarcho-communism. There's also mutualism which is a market based socialist system.

Socialism isn't about state control, the socialist states that existed (and still do sort of exist, notably Cuba) see themselves as transitionary states between capitalism and socialism, up until the time they're no longer necessary (I don't defend this approach, there's multiple reasons why I believe this is wrong). These states never claimed to be practicing socialism, but they remain socialist states because of their end goal.

If you're interested in stronger well structured arguments for socialism, from an anti-authoritarian perspective I recommend reading the writings of Bakunin and Proudhon for more theoretical looks at property and the state. Kropotkin is great for anarcho-communism. Here's some books I recommend with free links:

The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin (Check this one out first) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-c...

What is Communist Anarchism? (Or this one first, they're both great intros) By Alexander Berkman https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexander-berkman-wh...

Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-anarchi...

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution by Peter Kropotkin https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutua...

And not particularly an ideology book, but an interesting firsthand recount by George Orwell of his time fighting with Socialists and Anarchists against the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War which is called "Homage to Catalonia"

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#147

Post by quadrangle »

nickff wrote: post #139
quadrangle wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been nowhere near enough actual trials of communism to conclude anything fully. The core examples were all poorer countries with various problems, corruption… To reject communism as a concept over the atrocities of Stalin et al is as reasonable as rejecting capitalism because the U.S. was built on slavery and the genocide of first peoples. The atrocities were real, and they did connect to economics, but to…

How many more millions of test subjects must die before you accept the negative result?

The only important question in terms of test subjects dying is whether they don't die under some other circumstance. The U.S.S.R and Chinese dictatorships were/are horrendous. On the other hand, Cuba has major ethical problems but subjects dying isn't these days really among them. Cuba does a better job of keeping people healthy and secure than the U.S. does. There's no homeless sick people in Cuba basically. Everyone gets quality medical care even though the country is massively poorer in fundamental resources than the U.S.

The people dying in the cases you are referencing did not die because of the ideas of communism. The atrocities were carried out in the name of communism but had no basis in actual communist ideas.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#148

Post by quadrangle »

loki49152 wrote: post #140
broke_wagon wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism isn't some "radical" boogeyman, it's just a process to eliminate inequality. (Why should there be any inequality at all?) We don't need to be diminutive about relatively different ideas; that's unhelpful at best.

Communism is a very specific ideology with a well-known, well-documented content and intellectual history. It isn't "just a process" for anything. Communism is evil because its ideology has no relationship with reality and will inevitably be a practical disaster anywhere it's implemented to the degree that it's implemented as a result. There's no escaping it any more than you can escape the laws of physics.

The definition of evil is not based on being out of touch with reality. "Tragically flawed" would be a better term for what you are talking about.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#149

Post by WalterBright »

quadrangle wrote: post #141
WalterBright wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Review "The Black Book of Communism" for a catalog of the death and misery from communist countries, over and over. Voluntary communes and Kibbutzen have failed as well - none have been capable of operating without subsidy.

All you're saying is that attempts at communism have all had major problems. That's true, but it's not enough to be conclusive. If you want to pick examples that point various ways, you can note that Cuba has corruption, lack of democracy, is an impoverished island suffering the effects of significant economic embargoes in the global system and yet still vies for having one of the best health care systems. They even…

> major problems

That's a bit of an understatement. It has a pretty much 0% success rate, for both coercive and voluntary attempts.

> capitalism has always had serious flaws too

Yes, but nothing like the communist failures, and capitalism has had incredible success stories.

> The Soviets had many orders of magnitude more losses in WWII also.

Nobody doubts the heroism and sacrifice of the Red Army in WW2. That's a whole 'nother topic, though.

> The U.S. only barely beat the Soviets in the space race etc while being massively richer.

The USSR was able to direct massive resources at single problems, at the sacrifice at most everything else, but the US could do it with little sacrifice.

> did everything they could to undermine any success

Nobody made the communist countries perform mass slaughter.

> The kibbutzen failed not strictly because all the ideas were unworkable.

They couldn't feed themselves. No communist system has ever been able to feed itself. All have required imports from capitalist economies, or starved, or tolerated capitalist farmers.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#150

Post by TaylorAlexander »

y80 wrote: post #146
nickff wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a classic 'no true Scotsman' fallacy. If you would like to avoid the fallacy, you could make arguments such as 'more socialist systems are associated with _ positive outcome', or socialism is more moral because _. I lean strongly against socialism, but would prefer everyone made better arguments for their causes; G.A. Cohen is a good starting point for moral/ethical arguments in favor of socialism. Update: pa…

This isn't a no true scotsman, that commentor is correct. The state building ideologies of the 20th century are inherently authoritarian, but if you think they're the only components to socialist thought then you're simply uninformed. There are a multitude of anti-authoritarian socialist schools of thought, most notably anarcho-communism. There's also mutualism which is a market based socialist system. Socialism isn'…

I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to provide this information. I wish more people understood that communism and anarchism are legitimate forms of government that haven't been well tried and are widely misunderstood.
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