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Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

mrsteinberg.com

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Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#271

Post by beaconstudios »

michaelscott wrote: post #264
beaconstudios wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

joke's on you, I actually would rather my phone wasn't made by child labour. Also a communal system would scale with delegations and councils, not "everybody has to know each other". That's just the local basis.

A concentration of group "power" into any individual/s will introduce a hierarchy to the system, which begets inequality in power, which begets class systems, which begets corruption, etc. It's why delegations and councils make sense on paper but are, even at the best of times, not perfect in practice. I understand that we may not strive for perfection in our social systems, but this does go against the distribution…

I don't understand the willingness to give up on the idea so readily. Human nature is extremely malleable, we have many creative options for reducing accumulation of power, and even a delegate anarchist system would be an improvement over representative democracy and capitalism, because the power flows upwards from the people as democracy is supposed to enable, and moving from capitalism to collective ownership would enable greater individual freedom, reduced alienation, moral economics etc.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#272

Post by lucian1900 »

germandiago wrote: post #215
lucian1900 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuba is under an almost complete blockade, that’s why it’s poor. And despite this blockade, it’s doing better than many other central and South American countries that are capitalist.

No. The reason is the regime they have. More than anything else. How better? No economic data here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_American_and_Car... . I can say there were riots last July due to a lack of medicines and food.

GDP isn't a measure of human development or happiness. Cuba has lower infant mortality and higher life expectancy than most countries on the same continent, despite the brutal (and illegal) blockade by the US. They're doing a great deal with very little, which if anything suggests the "regime" is very effective.

There were some protests in Cuba, of course as usual presented in the western media as anti-government. Unsurprisingly, they were dwarfed by pro-government counter-protests.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#273

Post by germandiago »

aprdm wrote: post #176
germandiago wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

This list of : socialist or communist governments now: makes absolutely no sense. Mexico? Portugal? Argentina? Why don't you add Sweden, or even Canada by the same standards?

There are two lists. One is for countries that have been at some point and the other is countries with a socialist/communist ruling recently or nowadays.

In Portugal a socialist-communist government is governing right now. It is not like they do what their supposed ideology says, but it is a fact that the government is that. Mexico is now managed by Lopez Obrador, a socialist. Argentina by Alberto Fernández. Another socialist. I agree those countries are nothing near Russia before, but it is the governments they have now.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#274

Post by merpnderp »

ModernMech wrote: post #156
fallingknife wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But all of that is allowed under our current capitalist system, so then you have to answer the question of why steel mills have owners. Why is it that to have a "workers collective" or whatever, seems to require heavy handed government intervention to prevent competition with privately owned businesses which seem to just spring up and thrive all on their own.

> Why is it that to have a "workers collective" or whatever, seems to require heavy handed government intervention to prevent competition with privately owned businesses which seem to just spring up and thrive all on their own. Let's investigate this claim a little bit. First of all, when I think about heavy handed government intervention, I think about the use of lethal force. Labor history in the United States is r…

What about the heavy hand of government that keeps people from competing with unions in non-right to work states? If a union negotiates $100/hour for some pud job anyone can do, and I'm willing to do it for $99, then why does the union get to keep me from taking the job? Why does someone else's wants interfere with my free negotiations with someone else?

History is also replete with unions beating 'scabs' to death, like Caesar Chavez's union members beating immigrants in the desert as they tried to cross the border.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#275

Post by DarylZero »

int_19h wrote: post #260
DarylZero wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economic left isn't allowed into the mainstream of politics.

"Left" is not a synonym for "socialism". Socialism is a word that can be defined in absolute terms. But left/right is defined relative to society as a whole. Whoever is left of center in political mainstream is the economic left, by definition.

Seems like you're trying to define words in a way that makes the actual state of affairs in the USA impossible to describe.

No matter if all leftists are removed from society, leftism must still be said to be half of what remains.

Nothing in mainstream USA politics should be described as "economic left."

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#276

Post by germandiago »

throwaway2331 wrote: post #206
germandiago wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The corollary to random consumer goods being in constant shortages is that other things are much more “affordable” than they’d be in a market economy. No way for their wealth, to begin with, and why you should choose how people choose? They are animals? Everything that is cheaper than its possible price is literally being paid by someone, with their labour or by others. Free things, literally, do not exist. And thi…

That exists everywhere in the world. The only difference is that Cuba doesn't have the opportunity to exploit foreign nations to enrich itself (and get even fatter on taxes).

I am really interested in knowing what "exploiting foreign nations" means for you.

Exploiting is what Cuba does with its doctors when they send them abroad and take 70% and kidnap their passports as if they were animals, or when you are assigned an arbitrary government salary for the sake of it without any possibility of alternatives.

Please explain to me what exploiting is: paying less than what you think they deserve? Note that those exploited foreign countries get investment from outside to improve lives of people there, not to worsen them, otherwise those people would not take a foreigner company job in the first play.They usually pay more than local companies except a few exceptions FYI. At least in Vietnam. In Vietnam working for an american, korean, japanese company means you are mostly blessed.

I know the factories topic well from Vietnam. If you want we can talk about why that is not exploiting but what Cuba does to its citizens is indeed. There is a big difference.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#277

Post by germandiago »

the_af wrote: post #268
germandiago wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

> "Honest" is one way of putting it. "Far right libertarian" is another.

In many ways, giving a public service without taking the wealth of others and giving up you assigned salary for the task could be seen as more socialist than what mamy socialists claim. That is why, as of today, I have respect for Milei: he tries to promote what he believes starting on not making the rest pay the bill.

Things can change, sure. And politics can change people. I can change my mind. I talk about now and today. Respect for Mr. Milei. If there was a person like Milei in Spain, and not necessarily a libertarian, I would probably vote again. Now I simply cannot.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#278

Post by Ichthypresbyter »

perl4ever wrote: post #170
Ichthypresbyter wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two things being confused here. Cuba wouldn't have an auto industry if it wasn't communist, unless it adopted weird protectionist policies- no comparable countries do. Therefore, it relies on imported vehicles. Partly because of the embargo, supply of these is limited- particularly in the case of personal cars, the government had better things to spend limited hard currency reserves on while people could ke…

Do you know of a clear explanation how the US prevents Cuba from getting cars? A lot of Americans haven't owned American cars since the 70s. Other Caribbean islands import vehicles that are neither American nor even available in the US. I know nothing about the auto industry, but South America is not that far away, and apart from tariffs, isn't it demonstrably economically viable to ship things long distances over th…

>Do you know of a clear explanation how the US prevents Cuba from getting cars?

It doesn't directly. It just makes it harder for Cuba to obtain hard currency to buy new cars.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#279

Post by the_af »

germandiago wrote: post #277
the_af wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> "Honest" is one way of putting it. "Far right libertarian" is another. In many ways, giving a public service without taking the wealth of others and giving up you assigned salary for the task could be seen as more socialist than what mamy socialists claim. That is why, as of today, I have respect for Milei: he tries to promote what he believes starting on not making the rest pay the bill. Things can change, sure. A…

> In many ways, [Milei] giving a public service without taking the wealth of others and giving up you assigned salary for the task could be seen as more socialist

You do realize that's a publicity stunt on Milei's part, and that it's completely unrelated to socialism, right?

> If there was a person like Milei in Spain

Aren't you living in Vietnam?

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#280

Post by int_19h »

beaconstudios wrote: post #270
int_19h wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free markets are orthogonal to shared or non-shared ownership of capital; you can have one without the other: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_anarchism

That's true, if everyone is willing to use labour cost as the limit of price - otherwise profit would recreate the system of capital domination. It seems like a hard bargain to maintain if a currency substitute like labour vouchers are used.

It can only happen if unlimited concentration of capital is possible in the first place. In property right systems based on use (i.e. where society refuses to protect other property claims), this is not the case.
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