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Life During Class Wartime

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Re: Life During Class Wartime

#11

Post by Atlas667 »

Do you really understand class war? Your suggestion is having the state legislate this away as if the state isn't fully compromised by the capitalist class?

This is the main lesson of the 20th century that liberals refuse to accept; that the state is controlled by capitalist class interests. Capitalist democracy is a curated racket.

And even if we were to force legislation exactly as described above it can't and hasn't lasted long due to the incentives ($billions) to undo it. They will go as far as to kill people for this, and they have.

Legislation does NOT fundamentally change existing power relations. They have this shit in their pockets and you're just saying that we should have them take it out of their pockets.

The western allergy towards Marxism is one of the most detrimental cultural positions the working class has EVER faced.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#13

Post by harimau777 »

tardedmeme wrote: post #4
zug_zug wrote: post #3

Yeah I'm glad somebody's talking about it. Wealth inequality seems like it will be THE defining issue of our lives (accelerated drastically by AI). I think there are many practical ways to solve it, and would love to see more proposals out there. Instead I tend to see nihilism or division.

Extreme power inequality seems to be the default state of human society. Power concentrates until it's maximally concentrated, then stays there. Power shakeups seem to usually replace one group of elites with another group of smaller or the same size. Exceptions to this rule come about for specific reasons. Before the industrial revolution, there just wasn't that much power to go around. Everyone was working their la…

That sounds like the same observation that Thomas Jefferson made:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#15

Post by FabCH »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #10
huragok wrote: post #7

[flagged]

And then?

Not to condone the violence OP is calling for, but we have very recent examples of what happens when somebody does this.

The factual answer to your question is: „for a limited time, rejections rates by health insurance companies plummets“

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#16

Post by joe_mamba »

tardedmeme wrote: post #4
zug_zug wrote: post #3

Yeah I'm glad somebody's talking about it. Wealth inequality seems like it will be THE defining issue of our lives (accelerated drastically by AI). I think there are many practical ways to solve it, and would love to see more proposals out there. Instead I tend to see nihilism or division.

Extreme power inequality seems to be the default state of human society. Power concentrates until it's maximally concentrated, then stays there. Power shakeups seem to usually replace one group of elites with another group of smaller or the same size. Exceptions to this rule come about for specific reasons. Before the industrial revolution, there just wasn't that much power to go around. Everyone was working their la…

>Everyone was working their land for sustenance, and the rent-seeking nobility extracted some percent of production because that's what there was to extract

Until the black death came in the 1300's and killed an estimated 30–60% of Europe's population, and now the nobility had nobody to rent seek or even to work their land.

So then, for the first time ever, the surviving workers gained bargaining power as landowners (lords) competed for labor, leading to high cash wages, better working conditions, and more freedom for peasants, because the feudal lords hadn't yet figured out how to replace the peasants with slaves, H1-Bs and illegals from across the planet.

So according to history, including your post-WW1 example, the only times peasants gained bargaining power was when millions of them died through world wars and global pestilence.

Looking at recent unfolding history, "There's something very familiar about all this" -Biff Tannen

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#17

Post by hootz »

Atlas667 wrote: post #11

Do you really understand class war? Your suggestion is having the state legislate this away as if the state isn't fully compromised by the capitalist class? This is the main lesson of the 20th century that liberals refuse to accept; that the state is controlled by capitalist class interests. Capitalist democracy is a curated racket. And even if we were to force legislation exactly as described above it can't and hasn…

In the west, the prevalent idea is that socialism/communism lost and that there is nothing beyond capitalism. This is it, we will forever live in a social-democracy state. I wonder who promotes this idea.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#18

Post by AlexandrB »

The elephant in the room is why governments need more money: old age benefits like social security. I fear that taxing wealth will just be a tax on future investment while funnelling that wealth to the elderly. Already, folks are pushing to make the key asset owned by the old - housing - free from property taxes (if you're over 60, naturally)[1] which will only push housing prices up and drive more budget deficits that needs fresh tax revenue.

I don't expect Social Security (or my country's equivalent) to exist in anything like its current form when I'm old enough to retire. This is the last hurrah and it's shocking how we're pulling out all the stops to make it happen.

[1] https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/news-releases-and-advi...

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#19

Post by harimau777 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #18

The elephant in the room is why governments need more money: old age benefits like social security. I fear that taxing wealth will just be a tax on future investment while funnelling that wealth to the elderly. Already, folks are pushing to make the key asset owned by the old - housing - free from property taxes (if you're over 60, naturally)[1] which will only push housing prices up and drive more budget deficits th…

Even if the government took the money and burnt it that would be a net good for society since it would lower inequality and thereby decrease power imbalances.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#20

Post by AlexandrB »

hootz wrote: post #17
Atlas667 wrote: post #11

Do you really understand class war? Your suggestion is having the state legislate this away as if the state isn't fully compromised by the capitalist class? This is the main lesson of the 20th century that liberals refuse to accept; that the state is controlled by capitalist class interests. Capitalist democracy is a curated racket. And even if we were to force legislation exactly as described above it can't and hasn…

In the west, the prevalent idea is that socialism/communism lost and that there is nothing beyond capitalism. This is it, we will forever live in a social-democracy state. I wonder who promotes this idea.

> In the west, the prevalent idea is that socialism/communism lost and that there is nothing beyond capitalism.

It didn't just "lose", it killed millions of its own people in the process. Having been born in a communist state, I'd rather clean toilets in American than do anything else in the USSR.

Edit: It's basically impossible to communicate the day-to-day misery and deprivation of late stage Communism without sounding like a crazy person. My parents were both university-educated professionals but we lived in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment with occasional hot running water and only newspaper for wiping after the bathroom. This was considered a rather affluent existence.

To find something similar in today's America you'd have to go to the worst, most impoverished parts of town and even then...

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