Election results discussion thread (and sadly the inevitable aftermath)

[Seanchaidh]

The problem is that USSR style Communism has about as much in common with Social Democracy as Pinochet's form of capitalism has in common with US capitalism

Way less, really. For good and ill.

 

[tstorm823]

When I make a post detailing how I reached my conclusions and you reply with a one sentence binary fallacy, that is absolutely nonsense.

You reached your conclusion backwards, and illustrating the fault is easier than explaining it.

Structures don't exist as an expression of nature, structures exist as the contradiction to nature. A building isn't natural, a building is built to fight natural forces. That's the purpose. Government is not a natural force, it is a human structure in defiance of natural forces. Government exists to do things that people are unwilling or incapable of doing otherwise. When Republicans focus on something like national defense, it's not because they see people as violent, it's because they see them as non-violent and in need of that protection. When you see Republicans focusing less on helping the poor than the Democrats, it's not because people are evil and we want the poor to die, it's because people naturally help the poor and don't need the government to make them. If communism is a system put in place to have everyone cooperate, the implication is that it's not the natural state of society and needs to be actively implemented. If you believe people naturally care for one another, you don't need a system that mandates it.

 

[stroopwafel]

You do realize that anarchism is a traditional left ideology right and that AnCap is just a fancy way of saying Libertarian. Because Anarchism and Communism sums up the basics of the left's ideology really well: A society in which everyone cooperates and does their best for the greater good of everyone. It assumes that no one is looking out only for themselves, that no one is a mooch or will not pull their own weight if they can free load. The Right is far more cynical in comparison in that it assumes that people need at least a major carrot (money) to do anything and that anyone who's not already wealthy probably also needs the stick of starvation and homelessness to get off their lazy asses and become productive members of society.

You lay out your arguments really well and elaborate on them in a constructive manner but I think the above isn't necessary mutually exclusive. I agree it's indeed a difference in worldview but people can have completely opposite behaviors under different circumstances. Like when people know they are being held accountable and others know who they are and what they are doing most people will cooperate and not take advantage of others. But in modern society in which millions of people live in anonimity most people will only look after themselves and mooch off the system if they can get away with it because there is no personal accountability anyway and people will feel like a sucker because everyone else also only look out after themselves. Often this behavior is even justified because social democratic policies led to excuses, discouragement and entitlement. A privilige turned into a 'right' and discouragement into learned helplesness. This is then passed on through generations. Not to mention a lifestyle that is coupled with the necessary health problems so not only is there a big burden on social security but a disproportional burden on (collective) healthcare as well.

Now I'm not saying only the poor exploit the system, large capital(corporations, investment markets) do so in equal measure. If you consider how intertwined large capital and government is the distinction becomes almost theoretical. Both neoliberalism and socialism are broken in their own right because both have incorrect understanding of human nature. I think the meritocratic backlash is in no small part responsible for the rise of populism, this division of 'winners and losers'. The pain of social defeat might also be largely responsible for addiction and unhealthy lifestyle, particularly the opioid crisis in the U.S.

It's really just small business and the workforce that carry the majority of the tax burden and for this category I think both neoliberalism and socialism is equally unfair. Social democracy is a good middle ground in theory but even here you see a vast preference for particular lifestyle and background(college educated home owner with children). Bernie Sanders is like the ideal old-school social democrat and I'm not surprised he is(or was) the candidate most popular under college kids. In the nineties social-democracy ofcourse also experimented with 'third way' under Blair but these policies really gravitated towards meritocracy and automatic welfare checks for poor communities that only got more unhealthy, addicted and criminal as a result. Finding that balance that is mutually reciprocative and where everyone contributes in equal meaure seems more of pipe dream than ever with people living more and more isolated from one another.

I think in this scenario the developed world will continue to automatically gravitate towards neoliberalism but ofcourse this is not sustainable because of the heavy burden on the environment. Espescially the plastic waste, heavy pollution and severe burden on agriculture and livestock necessitate changes in behavior will we maintain a habitable planet in the first place.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[deleted20220709]

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[stroopwafel]

This is an entirely possible problem (though I am not sure it holds true on any major scale in contemporary society) and part of why I mentioned that the left can be incredibly naive. In its desire to help people it assumes that people who are handed "free" money will eventually ween off of that money if given the chance to work for that money instead. Some will obviously do that, but some will not and the left has been very bad at striking a good balance there.

I'm also surprised no ideology ever considered how important it is for people to feel validated and appreciated or just be 'seen' in the first place. Often this even trumps *ahem* self-interests.

 

[Agema]

Is there any possibility, at all, that the abandonment of the labor movements were as a result of the policies and rhetoric coming from those movements? i.e. some personal responsibility for their own failure?

Well, I think it would be often agreed that some of the British labour unions needed to be defanged. It says a lot that in the end, even some of the other labour unions abandoned the more extreme ones. To some extent, however, the unions are convenient scapegoats for failings of government policy and incompetent management.

* * *

Politics is about power, really. Various bodies - particularly business owners - will attempt to squash unions wherever and whenever they can, because it doesn't really matter whether the unions behave responsibly or not, they represent an alternative power base that can challenge decision makers. One might note, for instance, that people who are resolutely "anti-regulation" are inevitably keen on regulating labour unions very heavily indeed, to the point they're little more than a social club. A few rich people are allowed to hold national policy to ransom by threatening to emigrate and take away their money and taxes, but heaven forfend 30,000 workers should be allowed to strike for a £5 a week pay increase.

In the same way, when I look at lot of more laissez-faire capitalists talk about issues of pay and employment, they present salary as a matter for the market, the market being a system where workers compete and force each other's salaries down, and where the employer can of course select where required by setting salary relative to market rates. There's a sort of a giveaway there: implicitly, the worker is conceptually excluded from the discussion. It's not a worker's place to even ask, much less demand - they should take what they are offered by the market and employer. It is an ideology of profound human disempowerment.

 

[Agema]

The anarcho-capitalists out way to one side believe so completely in the natural goodness of humanity that they think a world without laws would serve the people better and the rich will care for the poor without forcing them to,

No, the anarcho-capitalists imagine they will own the farms, the factories and the businesses, and they'll be tooled up with the guns (or have the money to pay private security agencies) to protect them from anyone who disagrees.

 

[Agema]

But since I don't seem to be getting through to you on how that's not some clever loophole but a stupid and nonsensical attempt at a 'gotcha', let me break it down for you:

That's as comprehensive, brutal and accurate a takedown as this forum has seen in a long time. Kudos.

 

[tstorm823]

What you write here is pseudo-philosophy at best, because no contemporary political thought has come out of the question "how do we counteract (human) nature?". It has instead rather come out of the questions "How do we change the current system into something better?" or "How do we improve the current system?". Communism, Conservatism and Liberalism all rose as responses to the decline of feudalism and the start of the industrial revolution. They all sought to solve the issue of how resources, particularly the means of production, should be distributed in a society where most people would not be subsistence farmers but laborers in long value chains of manufactured goods. Conservative politics was to avoid messing with politics, what had worked for a thousand years was obviously functional enough. Liberalism argued for maximizing the freedom of the individual to prosper or fail on their own merit without neither old nor new systems to keep them in place. Communism argued for a seizure of the means of production and for collective decision making to ensure that as many people as possible would benefit the most from the new source of wealth.

The struggles between these three main ideologies (and later their offspring like social democracy for communism and fascism for conservatism) has never been predicated on the idea that they must rectify human nature. They've been struggling with how to shape society from its historical form into something new. This has a lot of philosophical and ideological implications, but the starting point is not "Man is X, therefore I must Y" but rather "Society looks like A, therefore we need to do B". When a communist says they must seize the means of production that's not because they believe the means of production naturally arose in the hands of a few members of the capitalist class. They recognize that through the centuries our society has been shaped by the cumulative actions of a multitude of actors and that for it to improve into a better (not one that somehow flies more in the face of human nature, where did you come up with that stuff?) society they must act in a certain fashion. All the political ideologies understand that societies are messy things with many independent people doing their own thing, thus they try to shape a society that will work to the benefit of all or some of the people.

You should understand, what you're describing in the first couple sentences is the theory of progress, a theory that many political ideologies actively disagree with. I agree progress is made by asking "how do we make the system better", but that's not what revolutionary ideologies are asking.

And like, I'm with you, I don't think many people are considering their opinions in relation to their view of human nature. That's very abstract, too abstract in fact. But in a practical sense, a close companion to "society looks like A, therefore we need to do B" is "what needs to be done that isn't?", and how one answers that question is going to play against their general worldview. If you see a society as kind people who will feed the hungry and clothe the naked, you're unlikely to have those answers for what government ought to be doing. I have it rationalized in the abstract sense, but it's a very practical train of thought.

 

[stroopwafel]

Well, I think it would be often agreed that some of the British labour unions needed to be defanged. It says a lot that in the end, even some of the other labour unions abandoned the more extreme ones. To some extent, however, the unions are convenient scapegoats for failings of government policy and incompetent management.

* * *

Politics is about power, really. Various bodies - particularly business owners - will attempt to squash unions wherever and whenever they can, because it doesn't really matter whether the unions behave responsibly or not, they represent an alternative power base that can challenge decision makers. One might note, for instance, that people who are resolutely "anti-regulation" are inevitably keen on regulating labour unions very heavily indeed, to the point they're little more than a social club. A few rich people are allowed to hold national policy to ransom by threatening to emigrate and take away their money and taxes, but heaven forfend 30,000 workers should be allowed to strike for a £5 a week pay increase.

In the same way, when I look at lot of more laissez-faire capitalists talk about issues of pay and employment, they present salary as a matter for the market, the market being a system where workers compete and force each other's salaries down, and where the employer can of course select where required by setting salary relative to market rates. There's a sort of a giveaway there: implicitly, the worker is conceptually excluded from the discussion. It's not a worker's place to even ask, much less demand - they should take what they are offered by the market and employer. It is an ideology of profound human disempowerment.

Yeah but market rates is usually no more than what is decided to be minimum wage, so employers don't pay more because they see it as losing out on their competitiveness. That is why minimum wage needs to be raised across the board. It's not really about the minimum wage but the competition incentive. Either every large company pays the same minimum wage or none of them will. Corporations don't even deny this.

 

[Exley97]

So the "Party of Ideas" has come to this...

"As Donald Trump refuses to concede the election, some of his most loyal allies have become obsessed with a bizarre new conspiracy theory about the race, insisting that Trump only lost the election because a deep-state supercomputer named “Hammer” and a computer program named “Scorecard” were used to change the ballot count.

The election fraud claims center on Dennis Montgomery, a former intelligence contractor and self-proclaimed whistleblower who claims to have created the “Hammer” supercomputer and the “Scorecard” software some Trump fans believe was used to change the votes."

(For shits & giggles, read up about Montgomery, especially in James Risen's book "Pay Any Price.)

Infamous ‘Hoax’ Artist Behind Trumpworld’s New Voter Fraud Claim

He tricked the Bush administration into thinking he could detect terrorist signals in al Jazeera broadcasts. Now Dennis Montgomery has a new set of believers.

www.thedailybeast.com

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Is Covid on its way out now?

 

[gorfias]

Real talk for a moment.

I genuinely feel sorry for your wife, kids, and anyone who has to interact with you daily. Please seek professional help for their sake if not your own. Continuing down this path of conspiracy theories will lead to nothing but pain for you and them. You haven't found some secret "truth" that the evil overlords want to keep from you. You're falling into an unfortunate quirk of the human psyche that rejects reality because it's easier to process conspiracies.

Why We Fall for Conspiracy Theories

How are conspiracies created and why do they spread?

faculty.lsu.edu

Trapped in a hoax: survivors of conspiracy theories speak out

What happens to those caught up in the toxic lies of conspiracy theorists? The Guardian spoke to five victims whose lives were wrecked by falsehoods

www.theguardian.com

Conspiracy Theory Addiction

Conspiracy theory addiction often causes long-term negative effects on a person's life. Focusing on personal goals and how to achieve them can help.

www.addictioncenter.com

First of all, your personal attack on me is despicable. Shame on you.
Second, there are laws against all sorts of conspiracies. Conspiracy to commit murder, engage in fraud, etc. To call something a "conspiracy" is not a Jedi Mind Trick. Simply using the word does not make real wrongdoing disappear. Or do you really believe Epstein killed himself?

ITMT: Good video

 

[Buyetyen]

Simply using the word does not make real wrongdoing disappear.

Nor does the assertion that there was wrongdoing automatically mean that there was. For example, Republicans have had over a decade to prove the rampant voter fraud they're always screaming about and in that time they have ponied up no meaningful evidence.

 

[Iron]

Nor does the assertion that there was wrongdoing automatically mean that there was. For example, Republicans have had over a decade to prove the rampant voter fraud they're always screaming about and in that time they have ponied up no meaningful evidence.

It's because Reps are also responsible for rigging elections for Bush. I'm not talking about the 2000 Florida recounts but something else.

Michael Connell - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Everyone is interested in keeping this secret because it would hurt the US immensely.

 

[Iron]

Well, I think it would be often agreed that some of the British labour unions needed to be defanged. It says a lot that in the end, even some of the other labour unions abandoned the more extreme ones. To some extent, however, the unions are convenient scapegoats for failings of government policy and incompetent management.

* * *

Politics is about power, really. Various bodies - particularly business owners - will attempt to squash unions wherever and whenever they can, because it doesn't really matter whether the unions behave responsibly or not, they represent an alternative power base that can challenge decision makers. One might note, for instance, that people who are resolutely "anti-regulation" are inevitably keen on regulating labour unions very heavily indeed, to the point they're little more than a social club. A few rich people are allowed to hold national policy to ransom by threatening to emigrate and take away their money and taxes, but heaven forfend 30,000 workers should be allowed to strike for a £5 a week pay increase.

In the same way, when I look at lot of more laissez-faire capitalists talk about issues of pay and employment, they present salary as a matter for the market, the market being a system where workers compete and force each other's salaries down, and where the employer can of course select where required by setting salary relative to market rates. There's a sort of a giveaway there: implicitly, the worker is conceptually excluded from the discussion. It's not a worker's place to even ask, much less demand - they should take what they are offered by the market and employer. It is an ideology of profound human disempowerment.

What kind of laissez-faire capitalists did you hear talk, mate. That sounds depressing af
When you've got nothing to offer but your hands you can't be surprised that people are importing foreign hands for a quarter of the price. What could Unions even do when the fatcat can gather scabs from halfway across the world and make your entire employment disagreement irrelevant?
Silv would then cry out "It is the fault of the fatcats for importing hands for a quarter of the price!" and I will answer, "Would you rather consume less if it meant you only bought from local hands?".

 

[Buyetyen]

"Would you rather consume less if it meant you only bought from local hands?".

Yes.

 

[Iron]

Yes.

How are your electronics doing? still mined in the congo, manufactured in china and sold at your apple-store?

 

[Buyetyen]

How are your electronics doing? still mined in the congo, manufactured in china and sold at your apple-store?

No ethical consumption under capitalism. But I do indeed shop local businesses whenever possible. It costs more, but I get way better service. And in the case of places like the local butcher shop, better products too. The increased cost means I've had to budget more, but it's worth it.