NationStates Jolt Archive

"SeOCC, you challenged me to a war of words, a war of ideas. Let it be so.

New Separatism vs Communism.

The outline of Separatism shall not be detailed in this time, more detail will arise as the argument progresses.

Let it begin!"

The Debate

Economically speaking, Separatism seeks plainly to satify everyone. Both the Workers and the Businessmen, the craftmen and the salesmen! Honourable goals but do they work.
I believe they can.
The rights of the workers must be protected, that is most certain for anything else is slavery. We intend to eventually craft an agreement, a contract between the workers and the state and the employers; one that will guarantee the rights to strike, the right to notice, the right to improve ones wages. Of course, even the right to strike must be limited slightly for even strikers can demand too much, it is the goal of the state to mediate between the two sides. Compromise is the greatest ally that we have.
The rights of the businessmen must be protected; entrepreneurs must be allowed to enterprise. It is basic human nature to drive through competition, through goals, through ambition. They must be allowed to take pleasure winning. Under Communism, if everyone is equal, no one can except everyone and individual Humans take no pride in seeing everyone win. They want to stand out, separatism will grant this right.

As long as the workers and the businessmen are protected equally, then class division, class squables do not exist and therefore Communism and Capitalism, the poor ideology vs the rich ideology no longer is required. Middle ground is the hope of humanity, without it we are forever destroyed by our own petty squabbles.

You may pick apart this like a vulture and I will respond in kind at your ideas.

(You will have my answers in the morning, you have an evening to come up with argument. I am off to bed. Goodnight!)

let's define a few words here:

capitalism: an economic system with two main features: 1) private ownership of the means of production, 2) wage labor. let us remember that feudal economies had neither, and that both wage labor and private private property are ideas no more than 400 years old.

communism: nothing, the word means nothing. communists pre-date Marx and Engels, so one could feasibly be a non-Marxist communist. communism has also become associated with the USSR, which was never communist, as even Lenin would have told you. Lenin called it 'capitalism without capitalists,' and intended to produce a communist society by industrializing without capitalism, thus forming a proleteriat, thus creating communism. he never achieved that point, and thus the USSR is NOT communist.

in general i don't use the word to describe anything but systems strictly and orthodoxly following what was laid down in Marx's writing, the Manifesto, Captial, et al. since the historical conditions under which he wrote those books no longer exist i feel that communism cannot exist.

Marxism can, the fundamental nature of capitalism has not changed in 150 years, and so almost all of Marx and Engel's descriptions are still true. and let's recall, that's what Marx was first and foremost: historian, who attempted to apply a scientific analysis to history, just as Ricardo and Smith, among others, did. Smith concluded that capitalism was the next step, Marx concurred, as do it. Marx said that after capitalism will come communism; i concur, just that it will come in a way quite unlike how Marx anticipated (but only cosmetically).

and i am not a communist, i'm getting tired of saying this. your picture of communism is completely wrong, it shows no indication you've even read Marx and/or Engels, and it serves as your strawman. what you're really advocating here is not a 'third way,' its a modification of capitalism. you have not removed either of the two fundamental elements of capitalism, you merely want to eliminate conflict, something that is quite impossible, another thing you would have picked up in Marx.

you should be familiar with two ideas: zero sum games and pareto optimum scenarios. economics is a zero sum game, my gain is your loss. why? because scarcity exists, period. nothing can change that; Marx thought capitalism could but he was wrong, and he got it wrong because he lived in a time before we understood things like eco systems. intuitively, though, Marx knew this, because he identified the falling rate of profit within capitalism; he knew it would run out, he knew how, he just got the why wrong. Marx knew the capitalism must continually grow in order to remain profitable; if you disagree with this go back to economics one oh dumb.

Rosa Luxemburg added that capitalism must expand into new markets in order to remain profitable; this is caused by the saturation of markets and thus the creation of overproduction crisis's. the expantion of markets includes finding new resources, labor or natural, to exploit. there are a limited number of markets and a limited number of natural resources.

i went through all of that to set up one thing: workers and capital owners are in a zero sum game; Kists call it pareto optimum, where one persons holdings cannot be increased without lessening another's. the Labor Theory of Value is correct, profit is created by labor. therefore giving a worker increased wages removes the amount of value left to be taken as profit.

i said your theory has been disproven in practice and it has. every case of mixed economy, where someone tries to mitigate the dehumanizing requirements of capitaism, has ended with social reforms repealed and a return to free market capitalism. consider the past 70 years in America, the roll back of the new deal, the rise of neo-liberalism AGAINST the capital-labor accord, Ronald fucking Reagan. look at Scandinavia or Europe in general; there has been a shift to the right, economically, since WWII, since Bretton Woods, and why?

because capital must remain profitable, first and foremost. Marx knew this, i know it, you seem to have been left out. when you propose this system you MUST answer how capital stays profitable. in the end someone always pays, that's how capitalism goes, someone has to be underpaid for their labor, or natural resources must be taken below value, in order to subsidizes the cut capitalists take.

you have a notion, not a system, not even a theory. your notion has been tried and it has failed. social democracy does not work, it requires the exploitation of the Periphery, the third world, in order to afford the high wages it has at home. and over time, as we have seen, high wage earners leave the country, fleeing high taxation, forcing the state to lower taxes, forcing them to decrease the welfare state, and so on.

i don't want ideas from you, i want proof, because right now you sound like another hokey liberal negotiator trying to have it both ways. as long as there is profit labor must be exploited, that's a fact. period. that is the source of class antagonism, and it is endemic to capitalism. until you eliminate the private ownership of the means of production and the institution of wage labor you cannot avoid it.

so unless you've got magic pixie dust that can change the most basic of tenet, the most sacred of pillars of capitalism, your idea won't ever work.

Expanding into new markets, is that not what trade is all about. Without trade the country is crippled as Russia was for quite some time, the only reason why Russia pulled through this crippling state was because of two factors (I am refering to the the USSR but I am not refering to the 'Communist System', only to a situation of no real trade),

1. Abundant Resources
2. Large and Cheap Labour Force

Most countries are lacking in at least one of these two things and therefore must expand into other markets in order to gain the required resources for survival. The USA requires oil for example. The same could be said biologically, organisms must consume foods from outside the body in order to survive, a human consumes the beef of a cow, does the cow benefit? Every reaction in the entire universe after all requires an input so their can be an output.
Rosa Luxemburg, that German Communist killed by the Freikorps was must definitely right about capitalism expanding into other markets, but the same could be said for every other economic system on the planet. Without trade, which I translate into expansion into foriegn markets, their is no survival.

And do not throw around your labour theory at me, this theory about balance where to increase one side you deplete the other side. If you were to balance both sides of this equation, then all income would be equal. This destroy the incentive to work.
Man would have nothing to be jealous about and thus would also lose the incentive to win. Sure, you could buy of the population with other incentives but in time the people would realise that these incentives were equalised as well in order to preserve the communist system through all works of life.

you have a talent for over simplification. 'abundant'? abundant what? if a society, like the pre-colonial Native Americans, has no need of metal, then if they live in a place with no metal but lots of flint, grain and bison, they've still got abundance; equally, if they lived in a place with tons of metal but no bison, that's scarcity.

and as for large and cheap labor force, you've just validated the Labor Theory of Value by admitting you need CHEAP labor in order to turn a profit; this is exactly why Fordism failed.

trade is NOT expanding into new markets. EXPANDING into new markets means that capitalism must always grow, forever. and your parallell between trade and eating other things is utterly spurious, having no relation to the actual economic activity that goes on.

the point is not that we must trade, which i agree with, but that KSM cannot stop growing, even when it threatens our very survival; do you know what an overproduction crisis is?

And do not throw around your labour theory at me, this theory about balance where to increase one side you deplete the other side. If you were to balance both sides of this equation, then all income would be equal. This destroy the incentive to work.

the Labor Theory of Value, which you seem unfamiliar with, has nothing to do with balancing the equation, it's about finding out where profit comes from. your logic is completely lacking; there are socialist theoris a hundred years old that preserve incentive through differential wages (Market Socialism, for instance).

and you have not responded to the fact that mixed economies become capitalist economies. until you can show a compelling reason that your theory will avoid the pitfalls of Cuba, Scandinavia, even the Mondragon corporation, you've still got nothing but hollow hollow words.

do you know what an overproduction crisis is?

Do not think me completely stupid, I believe overproduction is where the factories produce far to much but demand is not growing with production therefore the production costs are not met by the profit. This happened in the Wall Street Crash.

you have a talent for over simplification

Yes. I take pride in my ability to appeal to all forms of intelligence, under simplicity everyone understands. Perhaps that is why everyone else is so annoyed by you.

and you have not responded to the fact that mixed economies become capitalist economies. until you can show a compelling reason that your theory will avoid the pitfalls of Cuba, Scandinavia, even the Mondragon corporation, you've still got nothing but hollow hollow words.

I dont see my economy going down the toilet and I have strictly adhered to my principles. I have a strong economy with a private sector and spend alot on welfare and social equality programs, the poor are far from suffering and are not exploited. Our economy has no signs of falling into a pitfall.
And I refuse to listen to your finite conclusion that mixed economies become capitalist. They dont ALWAYS become capitalist, so therefore it is not a fact as you say it is. How can I respond to a non-existent fact? I can respond to your opinion and my opinion is that your opinion is bollocks, I don't nor have I seen any indication of Scandinavia dying! On the contrary, Scandinavia has one of the highest standards of living in Europe. Cuba is dying because it is holding on to foolish OLD marxist principles and the only recovery is due to the slight capitalistic premises it is introducing to reinvigorate the economy.

Do not think me completely stupid, I believe overproduction is where the factories produce far to much but demand is not growing with production therefore the production costs are not met by the profit. This happened in the Wall Street Crash.

wrong. an overproduction crisis is when workers can no longer afford to buy back the products the create. oh there's plenty of demand but no buying power, which means that corporations sell less, which means wages are cut, people are fired, meaning people can't buy stuff and so on and so on. it was Luxemburg that built on Marx and identified that it is the expansion into new markets, finding new labor pools or resources to exploit, that allows corporations to become profitable again.

this is first year stuff, not complicated at all.

Yes. I take pride in my ability to appeal to all forms of intelligence, under simplicity everyone understands. Perhaps that is why everyone else is so annoyed by you.

right. and in the simplification you've left out some massively important details, like profitability. and declining rates of profits. and so on.

I dont see my economy going down the toilet and I have strictly adhered to my principles. I have a strong economy with a private sector and spend alot on welfare and social equality programs, the poor are far from suffering and are not exploited. Our economy has no signs of falling into a pitfall.

which one, your NS one? i'm talking about REAL LIFE here.


And I refuse to listen to your finite conclusion that mixed economies become capitalist. They dont ALWAYS become capitalist, so therefore it is not a fact as you say it is.

excuse me? do you know what a mixed economy is? have you seen China, or Cuba, or even North Korea? have you seen the Social Democracies of Europe go down the drain? i've given you my evidence, now you show me the mixed economy that hasn't gone to shit. or, give me one good reason why your theory is going to buck the trend.

How can I respond to a non-existent fact? I can respond to your opinion and my opinion is that your opinion is bollocks, I don't nor have I seen any indication of Scandinavia dying! On the contrary, Scandinavia has one of the highest standards of living in Europe. Cuba is dying because it is holding on to foolish OLD marxist principles and the only recovery is due to the slight capitalistic premises it is introducing to reinvigorate the economy.

Scandinavia is not dying, putz, but its moving right, as in away from the left, as in away from Social Democracy. Cuba is not dying either, it is liberalizing, and Cuba is not holding onto anything, they have one of the most revolutionary economies in the world, moving towards value added industries, using very interesting urban farming techniques and so on. regardless, you're simply reiterating my point, that as a mixed economy the capitalist sector is eating the non-capitalist sector.

SO HOW DO YOU DODGE THAT BULLET.

i'd like to see you cite some actual principles, or historical case studies, to show that your economy will work. i have, many times, in depth, walked people through my economy, how i dodge the gerontocracy problems, the inefficiences of social ownership, the incentive issue and so on. so i put this to you: mixed economies become capitalist, historical case studies show this, an analysis of how KSM works will inform this fact. you claim to have a mixed economy, how are you going to stop KSM from eating you?

Seperatism: you have a telegram