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Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

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Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#51

Post by soco »

7sidedmarble wrote: post #46
g42gregory wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there is corruption in capitalist society, no question. And corruption can reach the point where it's no longer a free capitalist society. But I think what people do not understand is the Socialism is a totalitarian society to begin with. You can't have one without the other. All of our leaders were "democratically" elected. We have one choice at the ballot and you can vote Yes or No. You place your "secret" bal…

I'm not sure what you mean, but I think it's intellectually dishonest to claim we can't engage with the ideas of Marx because of the history of the 20th century communist revolutions. Revolutions themselves tend towards things like military juntas or communist ruling parties. I think incremental change is possible and if you read Marx he very much saw socialism as a continuum.

I think the point is there's a huge discrepancy between any, just any writing of Marx, and the daily life in any, just any, socialist country. I lived myself in one as well, and while I can recognize Marx's writing merits, it gets me sick when I hear about thinking to implement any of those. Because I've seen them at work and there's no better proof than reality.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#52

Post by soco »

bccdee wrote: post #47
g42gregory wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there is corruption in capitalist society, no question. And corruption can reach the point where it's no longer a free capitalist society. But I think what people do not understand is the Socialism is a totalitarian society to begin with. You can't have one without the other. All of our leaders were "democratically" elected. We have one choice at the ballot and you can vote Yes or No. You place your "secret" bal…

A socialist would argue that socialism is by definition democratic, and the fact that (eg) the USSR was totalitarian from the get-go means that it was never socialist. After all, a socialist society is definitionally one where power rests in the hands of the working class, and that was certainly not the case in the USSR. Now, you could argue that, per this definition, no socialist society is possible. But that's not…

I think it matters much less what they wanted, than what got implemented. Nobody lived in an imaginary society, they all lived in the real world where things turned up bad. Also amanita looks beautiful, right?

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#53

Post by asdff »

phonypc wrote: post #5
asdff wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrespective of flavor of socialism, just logically capitalism does not make any lick of sense unless you are among the capital class already who benefits from scraping the barrel of revenue to collect an amount as profit. The fact that there exists a profit margin and businesses cannot operate at cost is why manufacturing in China is used in the west vs western manufacturing, since businesses operating at cost can o…

Sorry, what? You think Chinese manufacturing businesses aren't making a profit?

They make a profit at the end of the supply chain, but all their materials are sourced at cost since the state is running the company. US companies have to pay profit all down the supply chain, which is why there is such an advantage to being able to vertically integrate your supply chain in the US. In China, is essentially all vertically integrated already.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#54

Post by asdff »

dantheman wrote: post #4
asdff wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrespective of flavor of socialism, just logically capitalism does not make any lick of sense unless you are among the capital class already who benefits from scraping the barrel of revenue to collect an amount as profit. The fact that there exists a profit margin and businesses cannot operate at cost is why manufacturing in China is used in the west vs western manufacturing, since businesses operating at cost can o…

I'll take the vast improvement of living standards under capitalism over those found in socialist countries. Are you arguing that the rapid decline in poverty in China due to capitalism is a bad thing?

I'd argue that what we see in terms of living standards in ostensibly socialist countries is much more due to corruption of office, which happens here too, vs the way that profit is shared among a business. Three of my city councilmembers have been indicted by the FBI for corruption in the last three years. Luckily in the U.S. the levers of power are pulled by more people dispersed across a larger bureaucracy, so corruption of office can only affect so many things, vs somewhere like PRNK or KSA where there is absolute rule.

There are plenty of businesses that run on a more socialist model even within capitalist countries. They are owner operated and share profit amongst the cooperative, are often successful and have motivated employees who work longer tenures than your average employee at a company where they don't see any share of the profit for their hard work.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#55

Post by asdff »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #6
asdff wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrespective of flavor of socialism, just logically capitalism does not make any lick of sense unless you are among the capital class already who benefits from scraping the barrel of revenue to collect an amount as profit. The fact that there exists a profit margin and businesses cannot operate at cost is why manufacturing in China is used in the west vs western manufacturing, since businesses operating at cost can o…

> scraping the barrel of revenue I believe the idea behind capitalism is exchanging value for value (private property and the ability to exchange it). Someone sitting back and skimming a tax off the top of others property, without providing value, doesn’t seem to be compatible with the philosophy.

What is a whale shareholder playing tennis off of their dividends and doing no 'work' toward their investment beyond looking at their quarterly statement if not someone skimming off the collective pot of profit generated by labor for their own personal hedonism? We have a lot of dragons in society who are celebrated for their difficult job of sitting comfortably on their pile of gold. Not sure why.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#56

Post by AnimalMuppet »

g42gregory wrote: post #20

> I’ve heard that, under socialism, workers would vote on who they want to be managers... I grew up under socialism and wanted to mention that author "heard" very, very wrong. Under socialism, the Party bosses will decide who will be the managers. The person's qualifications and achievements will be largely taken into consideration, together with their loyalty to the Party, who their parents are, friends in high plac…

> The person's qualifications and achievements will be largely taken into consideration, together with their loyalty to the Party, who their parents are, friends in high places who vouched for them, favors that need to be returned, etc... Not that much different from the capitalism.

One's loyalty to the Party is not often taken into consideration under capitalism.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#57

Post by bitcuration »

tomlockwood wrote: post #24

There are innumerable examples of people pursuing quality, efficiency and work satisfaction, over profit. We exist on a news site where one of the most upvoted articles is about reading Hegel . I'd invite the author to imagine a world where someone can take pride in having a clean and efficient shop, for the joy of it. Did the author write their article with the intent of some kind of "value-increasing"? And, what is…

Bingo. Value, bottomline... it's about time to re-exam these assumed awards for what it really is and is it the same as everyone has assumed, and furthermore are these the right award worth all cost to pursue? Have we missed anything more profound more impactful but lack of immediate satisfactory of value, bottomline?

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#58

Post by bccdee »

soco wrote: post #52
bccdee wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A socialist would argue that socialism is by definition democratic, and the fact that (eg) the USSR was totalitarian from the get-go means that it was never socialist. After all, a socialist society is definitionally one where power rests in the hands of the working class, and that was certainly not the case in the USSR. Now, you could argue that, per this definition, no socialist society is possible. But that's not…

I think it matters much less what they wanted, than what got implemented. Nobody lived in an imaginary society, they all lived in the real world where things turned up bad . Also amanita looks beautiful, right?

The problem is that your argument is unsound.

> All of our leaders were "democratically" elected. We have one choice at the ballot and you can vote Yes or No. You place your "secret" ballot (filled out in a closed booth!) into a separate "Yes" box or "No" box in full public view of election officials, who just signed you in and have pen and paper in their hands. Our leaders enjoyed an overwhelming public support as a result. This is Socialism.

That's not socialism. That's authoritarianism. Look in any dictionary — you won't find any of them say that sham elections are a component of socialism.

Of course, you can make the argument that socialist societies are necessarily authoritarian, but you're not. You're just pointing at an authoritarian society that called itself socialist (and which, incidentally, also called itself a democracy despite not being one) and saying "this is definitionally socialism, and socialism necessarily entails everything we see here."

Regardless of what you actually think of socialism, that's not a sound logical argument.

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