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The deep roots of modern resentment

economist.com

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Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#101

Post by selimthegrim »

ue_ wrote: post #78
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First point, yes on propaganda, but the failure of the Soviet Union had more to do with the inherent limitations of central planning than Marxist communism. That doesn't mean communism is a broken ideology, but rather that by attempting to refine the designs of failed communist states risks going back on the same path, instead of envisioning a new model for a community-focused ideology (in a way different from capita…

There are various new approaches to central planning that may be of interest, such as those in Towards a New Socialism by W. Paul Cockshott. I don't think central planning is necessarily something bad, and there are certainly sufficient alternatives from both inside and outside Communism. Many Communists such as myself are not attached to one method or another. The idea that some period of authoritarianism is require…

Cosma Shalizi deals very well with Cockshott's arguments on his blog: http://bactra.org/weblog/919.html

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#102

Post by kmicklas »

m_fayer wrote: post #12
dandare wrote: post #5

Sometimes I feel like the more has been achieved by western liberalism the more is it being criticized for not magically fixing everything there is to be fixed. Coincidentally those who criticize it never offer alternative realistic solutions.

Absolutely. The basics of liberalism as we see it today - rule of law and representative democracy, are young. How many presently-unthinkable violations of liberalism were committed by a Western nation within the lifespan of someone who is 90 today, with full public support? Outright genocide, systematic persecution and disenfranchisement of whole races and genders, violent militarised colonialism, you name it. Build…

> basics of liberalism as we see it today - rule of law and representative democracy

Add capitalist property relations though too.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#103

Post by kmicklas »

adrienne wrote: post #89
crdoconnor wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the failure of the Soviet Union had more to do with the inherent limitations of central planning than Marxist communism Between 1917 and 1950 they grew at a staggering pace. From agricultural backwater to first space power. That isn't an economic failure in any way. After the 1950s they tried to re-gear the economy to producing things like fridges and, of course, for consumer items it wasn't nearly as effective. In…

It is so fucking predictable that you're getting downvoted to hell for your smart comments.

Amen. If a comment on HN is controversial score is almost anti-correlated with insight.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#104

Post by kmicklas »

crdoconnor wrote: post #61
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First point, yes on propaganda, but the failure of the Soviet Union had more to do with the inherent limitations of central planning than Marxist communism. That doesn't mean communism is a broken ideology, but rather that by attempting to refine the designs of failed communist states risks going back on the same path, instead of envisioning a new model for a community-focused ideology (in a way different from capita…

>the failure of the Soviet Union had more to do with the inherent limitations of central planning than Marxist communism Between 1917 and 1950 they grew at a staggering pace. From agricultural backwater to first space power. That isn't an economic failure in any way. After the 1950s they tried to re-gear the economy to producing things like fridges and, of course, for consumer items it wasn't nearly as effective. In…

> Between 1917 and 1950 they grew at a staggering pace. From agricultural backwater to first space power. That isn't an economic failure in any way. > If we attribute Stalin to a failure of communism surely we have to also attribute Hitler to a failure of capitalism?

I agree with everything you said but this seems ironically contradictory...

> I think economic systems are orthogonal to political systems.

Not entirely orthogonal. But yeah, HN seems to think communism is inherently authoritarian.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#105

Post by kmicklas »

martincmartin wrote: post #82
rdtsc wrote: post #44

Interestingly it was specifically leftist thinkers and personalities who have been against globalization as promoted by free-market capitalism. That might seems shocking in light of recent election rhetoric. https://chomsky.info/secrets03/ --- About half of what are called US exports to Mexico are intrafirm transfers of this sort. They don’t enter the Mexican market, and there’s no meaningful sense in which they’re e…

The Economist has previously mused that the old distinction between "left" and "right" isn't as relevant any more. Instead, the extreemes on both the left and right have a lot in common, they're both "drawbridge up:" don't like free trade or open borders.

That's classic horseshoe theory nonsense.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#106

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

crdoconnor wrote: post #61
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First point, yes on propaganda, but the failure of the Soviet Union had more to do with the inherent limitations of central planning than Marxist communism. That doesn't mean communism is a broken ideology, but rather that by attempting to refine the designs of failed communist states risks going back on the same path, instead of envisioning a new model for a community-focused ideology (in a way different from capita…

>the failure of the Soviet Union had more to do with the inherent limitations of central planning than Marxist communism Between 1917 and 1950 they grew at a staggering pace. From agricultural backwater to first space power. That isn't an economic failure in any way. After the 1950s they tried to re-gear the economy to producing things like fridges and, of course, for consumer items it wasn't nearly as effective. In…

The engineers that drew up the Tsar's plans for industrialization implemented them under Communism. There is nothing surprising about that.

Likewise, it is predictable that a centrally planned economy would be able to develop industrial goods for industrial needs, but fail at producing consumer goods, which ultimately catalyzed far more economic growth in capitalist countries, both because of the market segmentation that a central plan could not predict or accommodate as well as a free market, and also because the incentives for the creator and access to the means of the production (primarily startup capital) were easier to come by in capitalist economies.

I think your comparison with Hitler is lacking in depth, unless it was meant to be a dig at my comment, which I believe I have rebutted.

I fundamentally disagree with your final statement. The accumulation of physical resources and political power is and will always be intertwined. If you can name one example in all of human history (from agriculturalization onwards), whereupon the political system did not depend on the economic system and the economic system did not depend on the political system, then I will concede my point. Until then, I find your argument lacking.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#107

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

kmicklas wrote: post #104
crdoconnor wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the failure of the Soviet Union had more to do with the inherent limitations of central planning than Marxist communism Between 1917 and 1950 they grew at a staggering pace. From agricultural backwater to first space power. That isn't an economic failure in any way. After the 1950s they tried to re-gear the economy to producing things like fridges and, of course, for consumer items it wasn't nearly as effective. In…

> Between 1917 and 1950 they grew at a staggering pace. From agricultural backwater to first space power. That isn't an economic failure in any way. > If we attribute Stalin to a failure of communism surely we have to also attribute Hitler to a failure of capitalism? I agree with everything you said but this seems ironically contradictory... > I think economic systems are orthogonal to political systems. Not entirely…

Maybe that's because for many people, the belief that communism=authoritarianism was propaganda, spoon-fed at an early age and whipped up by the government at regular intervals to keep people afraid of the other and from questioning their present authority.

Same goes for terrorism these days. "If you're not with us you're against us," was the phrase I believe Bush the junior liked to tell us.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#108

Post by kmicklas »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #107
kmicklas wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Between 1917 and 1950 they grew at a staggering pace. From agricultural backwater to first space power. That isn't an economic failure in any way. > If we attribute Stalin to a failure of communism surely we have to also attribute Hitler to a failure of capitalism? I agree with everything you said but this seems ironically contradictory... > I think economic systems are orthogonal to political systems. Not entirely…

Maybe that's because for many people, the belief that communism=authoritarianism was propaganda, spoon-fed at an early age and whipped up by the government at regular intervals to keep people afraid of the other and from questioning their present authority. Same goes for terrorism these days. "If you're not with us you're against us," was the phrase I believe Bush the junior liked to tell us.

If I had a nickel for every time a HN poster said "socialism inevitably leads to communism" I could personally buy out the bourgeoisie and institute 100 years of Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#109

Post by PeterisP »

crdoconnor wrote: post #42
compiler-guy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is another criticism, not an alternative proposal. Please give an alternative proposal.

Raise the minimum wage to $20/hour. Watch as "serious economists" lie about: * All of the jobs that will actually not disappear. * All of the prices that will actually not rise (by much). And try really really hard to pretend that: * Raising the minimum wage doesn't channel profits into the pockets of workers. What surprises me isn't that they lie. What surprises me is that people continue to believe them.

A significant rise of the minimum wage would rapidly accelerate the ongoing process of automation making people unemployable.

Already there are swaths of jobs that could be done better by machines but currently it's cheaper to hire a "cheap brown person" as the parent post says by outsourcing it. For example, the manufacture of clothing and footwear which currently employs many millions of people worldwide, mostly in SE Asia. As soon as rising wages pass that barrier and companies pony up for the required capital investments these jobs are never coming back.

There will always be more desires for new jobs/tasks that could be done - but the market price for them will be below the minimum wage, so they will happen only as hobbies.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#110

Post by Sacho »

ue_ wrote: post #96
camikazeg wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If communism could just be boiled down to "laborers own the means of production" then what stops that from happening within capitalism? What prevents people from banding together to create factories that they then work in, for example?

These factories must compete with others which value profit as the highest motive. So because there is still a profit motive, the co-op factory must optimise on two fronts: money in order to keep itself afloat and still purchase the required capital (and labour power), and further to operate by "ethical" principles toward the workers (whatever those may be). Thus co-ops will have a tendency to fail within capitalism,…

Okay, but this competition is a benefit to the consumer, so you're arguing that the consumers should eschew this benefit in favor of "ethical" factories. From what you're saying you seem to believe consumers largely refuse to do this, so you would have to remove this choice from them completely.

The problem then(also identified by communists of old..) is that you can't compete with forces outside your control - so you either need a global communist revolution, or you need pretty strict isolationism.

Since you never convinced your consumers that ethical factories are worth supporting, how do you plan to deal with the resentment they feel when they see the wealth foreigners posses achieved through the harsher competition policies of capitalism? Will you be suppressing information and limiting access to the Internet? Maybe some propaganda pieces about how your ethical factories are better than slavery under capitalism?

Maybe the "horror stories" of communism were caused by its flawed leaders more than the ideology itself. But it seems that a lot of stuff that we wouldn't really be happy with needs to happen in order to implement "perfect communism".

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