Newfriend here with a question:

t. - petty lord in 1650

The amount of fallacies in your post is astonishing.

The fact that a successful economic transition to capitalism in the past doesn't automatically prove that a transition away from capitalism would work. Neither does it prove that socialism would be the next step. That's pure speculation on Marx's part with his stages of history prediction.

You seem to have completely missed the point of my post. Subtlety is wasted on you.
There were many attempts at implementing capitalism before it took hold on a global scale. Is that better?

No not really. You're trying to justify an idea with a parallel to historic events in an attempt to make it sound as though the outcomes will be the same. It doesn't work like that.

Why are you even convinced that the dispossessed proletariat of Neoliberalism will do better under socialism?

Because they will?

Why are you convinced that the same proletariat will be better under Keynesianism?

What did you want to discuss

I'm open to trying to "fix" capitalism as a way of building a larger leftist movement

Historical evidence says otherwise. As does economic theory.

Because of historic evidence and economic theory.

The Hansseatic League was not successfull. And the French Revolution, Oliver Cromwell and American revolution, were needed for Capitalism to be established. You think Thervandes would right anything if the transaction was easy?

Also, if you have a better system that will benefit the workers and not just create a new upper class, do tell.

I'd like to see some examples.

Isn't primitive communism just communism by another name?

Did you not just disprove your own point by mentioning that communism itself is an old system that has been replaced by a succession of other systems and is essentially regressionary in nature.

The first place to start would be achieving full employment with proper fiscal policy. That would lead to a massive reduction in poverty, much higher wages and high wage growth.

Of socialism failing or Keynesianism working?

Because we are socialists, not liberals.

Nope.
It's the first stage of human societies.
Read Historical Materialism.

We were eating since human societies were born, and having children… and tellin stories.. so.. they are all regressionary?

4chan/pol/ is friendlier

There is literally no way to refute the fact that capitalism is doomed to fail. Keynesianism just prolongs peoples suffering by dragging the process out.

Unfalsifiable statement.

It produces better results than any other system ever tried.

"Slavery is ok, but we need to regulate it".

Comparing capitalism to slavery is hyperbolic. I freely acknowledge all the problems of capitalism which is why I'm not a free marketer. But you're constructing a false dichotomy where either you're Mises or Marx. It doesn't work like that.

Ok.
"Feudalism is fine, we just need to regulate it. Make better merchantilism. Free Trade a bust".

You refuse to accept the huge costs/risks of socialism and the huge benefits of managed capitalism. It's not automatically granted that all the good things we currently have would continue.

There's a real inflexibility in your thinking which is common in many Marxians which is that capitalism is a priori wrong and socialism is a priori right regardless of experience and policy changes.

Where did you get this meme from? Marxism is not moralistic.

Any system that has at its core exploitation and forcing submissiveness of people is unfixable and requires destruction. Keynesianism has only perpetuated class struggle and Capitalism, not fixed its issues.

You refuse to accept the natural evolution of capitalism.

A Cyberpunk Dystopia.

No matter how you regulate it, cause it only wants one thing.

PROFIT.

The opinions I hear.

It doesn't have to be like that though. There are differnet kinds of capitalism.

That's because Marx's opinion is just that. An opinion. There's no evidence that history is moving in any particular direction.

Well, if you want discuss Post-Keynesianism, fine by me. It's always good to discuss economics (I find MMT interesting matter).
Now, if you want the "fixing capitalism rather than doing away with it and bringing about socialism", prepare yourself to hold your ground and be criticized.

I suggest you actually read Marx before spewing retarded drivel.

There is evidence that capitalism is moving in the direction of corporatocracy.

Also, Marx did scientific theory. Not opinion.

Not gonna happen under capitalism.

They rely far too much on smoke and mirrors and their policy proposals which is Lerner's Functional Finance + Minsky's Employer of Last Resort would probably be very inflationary.

I'm quite familiar with parts of Das Kapital but you could recommend me more if you want.

Marx called it "Scientific Socialism" but a lot of his predictions are just unfalsifiable making it unscientific.

It forces people to work under threat of starvation and robs them of the things they create. How is this not slavery?

Why do you say that? Are you going to refer to Kalecki's argument? (He's a man both Marxians and Post-Keynesians can love and share).

Life forces people to work unless you live in a post-scarcity society. Employment with threat of penalty would be forced under any system.

...

Central Bankers shouldn't be in the top of the pyramid. They're "Top Bureaucrats" under Elected officials.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a hierarchical society either.

...

neolibs get out

If a hierarchical system produces more benefits than a distopian forced egalitarian system, why wouldn't it be desirable?

...

Who's forcing it if it's egalitarian and non-hierarchical?

I assume you ignored the reading list, no?

HA HA HA, OH WOW!
The 'benefits' (if it can even be called that) can't satisfy my needs and cannot be provided to me by any authority without a cost to itself. Also hierarchy is naturally harmful to humans: nature.com/articles/srep18634

There would have to be institutions in place in order to maintain an egalitarian society. It would not spontaneously regulate itself.

What reading list? All there is on that image is Holla Forumstard feudalism vs. corporate feudalism.

Not unless that cost has the added benefits of maintaining social and political stability which creates the platform for economic profit.

Excessive, yes. But some is desirable.

Wew lad. Read the posts next time.

Because labor in capitalism is like any other commodity and is subjected to supply and demand law. It is necessary for the accumulation of capital to have a reserve army of labor that drives the labor price down, and contributes to discourage dissent. There are various aspects inherent with capitalism that ensure that this state of affairs persists (deindustrialized societies are always the ones with the most jobless people, it's an effect, among other things, of lack of skilled laborers due to social stratification) but many capitalist societies go out of their way to make it even worse. Look at europe's monetary system, it's practically designed to ensure a bunch of people remain without work, especially in the south.

There's plenty of people who don't work. They can afford not to work because other people work in their stead. Back then they were called slaves, and now they're called laborers. Production for exchange is tremendously inefficient and only insures that a small portion of the population live in wealth and security while the rest have to get on with subsistence salaries… And to do that they have to work more than any other free person in history. While I'm not a loony and I won't say that a deported african picking cotton in america 200 years ago had the same life of your average worker in the west today, the change in condition is very formal and little substantial. You're still forced to do things you don't want to do, for a large portion of your day, for the best part of the week, so that someone else can get rich while doing nothing.

The nature of the struggle between two opposing classes has always existed throughout history.Since the establishment of capitalism, the profit motive under the law of value outweighs the capitalist desire to do things for the benefit of society. As a result, tempoary changes will eventually be subject to dissolution and opposition by the ruling class. Also, the high standard of living is only sustainable with keeping prices low by the means of imperialism, colonialism, and moving jobs overseas. This also results in unsustainable growth and massive waste in resources on Earth that will no doubt affect us massively in the future. Amongst many other reasons, these are just a few why capitalism has got to go.

Why do you believe I'm ignorant of Marx though? I'm quite aware of a lot of Marxian economics. I'll look at the reading list though.

Which is why I said the first thing to do would be for the government to create full employment.
Can you explain what this means?
What?
It's a mistake to believe the owners don't do any work. They have to constantly monitor production processes and constantly innovate them while maintaining supply lines, financing etc. They also have to be willing to adapt to new market trends and technologies. They deserve some reward for this. But not too much.

I don't think you understand. You see this flag next to my post? No political system can give me what I want. They all seek to supress my will.
Your fallacy is thinking institutions have to exist for the extended time in place even when they're not needed, they tend to degenerate into political bickering with no base. I suggest you look into Insurrectionary Anarchism theory which handles this quite well; groups that form to take action and then disperse when no longer needed so as not to give rise to the possibility of degenerating into an authoritarian structure.
The only hierarchy that could be called acceptable is one that is completely voluntary. In order for it to do so, it must meet some qualifications:
1. Must be non-exploitative, in such that one party won't profit from the disadvantage of another (telling someone you will save them from drowning in exchange for them being your slave is not voluntary)
2. Informed consent must be given so that the party understands and is in full capacity to understand the terms and conditions
3. The party must have the ability to leave company at any time
4. There cannot be punishments for leaving, regardless of situation

The state institutions do not allow for these.

Your posts are evidence you have not read Marx himself, since you present right wing talking points which were disproved by himself before they came to be.

t. classcuck

This is how I can tell you've never actually held a job; Bosses don't do any of the things you just described. Why? Because they already have employees who do all those things for them. They're called "managers"

Yea I don't think an anarchist, voluntary society with no permanent institutions in place to protect people is remotely workable. I guess we'll just have to disagree.

If it produces more benefits in the long run then why be against it?

Oh user, I do work. And owners do oversee the managers who are directly accountable to -guess who- owners.

there's a lovely book written on this topic actually

Contending economic theories: neo-classical, Keynsian and Marxian.
digamo.free.fr/wolffresnick12.pdf

sounds like Anwar Shaikh's book Capitalism

yes and i explained why it won't happen

poor people tend to study and specialize less

what?

they wouldn't need to do that under a system that produces for use. the bourgeoisie is literally wasted resources, instead of producing useful stuff they have to do retarded shit like this because, you guessed it, the material conditions force them to do it.

And most of them are working class, it's a common misconception that they aren't.

Even in the most generous Rawlian sense, that inequality should exist to the extent it benefits the least well off, capitalism is unjustifiable.

Benefits, sure, but for whom, and for what purpose. It is profit for profit's sake, growth for growth's sake, enriching the richest capitalists, while the mass of people get bread crumbs in comparison. We live in the ideology of a cancer cell.

STOP BOOLYING NEWGUYS!!

Some innocent user has come with questions and for discussion and considering the enormous amount of newfags here who probably know only a little more about leftist concepts I suggest you all take a listen.

lmao. Our desires and behaviors are mostly reliant on our material conditions and under the context of our society. Back under neolithic egalitarian communities, living and communally working together was completely normal. Not to say that that is socialism or communism, but it proves my point.

My point isn't to structure society in such a way in the first place. In fact, I wish to abolish society as an entity deemed responsible for the safety of its citizens. Nobody can "protect" you, you have to do it yourself. My claim is to simply take from this society. Read Stirner.
Telling people to tell other people to tell others below them what to do doesn't qualify as work from my point of view.

Where did I say they weren't proles?

Nowhere. I was adding.

And I explained that with correct government action it could be achieved.
The idea that production for direct consumption is superior to production for exchange. I don't agree with it at all.
Of course there would. Production doesn't just magically take place without planning, financing, innovation etc.

I also disagree with your diagnosis that poor/less industrialised societies are due to lower skilled workers. It's way more macro than that.

OK OK!
Here.
I'll even leave links to Das Kapital, the mango, as a sing of good will!
mangafox.me/manga/das_kapital/
4shared.com/s/fwYR868iUba

No. You said that the government should do X and I told you why it won't happen. You explained nothing.

I can see that, you've been saying it from the start.

There's no money in a communist society, so right off the bat you eliminated the financing part. Production is self monitored as the MOP belong to everyone and production is to everyone's benefit. "Constant innovation" isn't a thing under communism, you don't have to constantly outperform other sellers because you're not selling anything, so there's innovation when there's innovation (also I don't know why you think that innovation comes from the bourgeois. it comes from labor, just like everything else). I'll concede that ther might be light hierarchical control depending on the workplace and activity: such things will be decided democratically among the workers.

...

I was talking about a socialist society since that's what's supposedly comes after capitalism, not communism which is later.

No money is extremely excellent because it reeks of the calculation problem. Without a standard unit of account it becomes impossible to compare different allocations and they're usefulness to society.

*extremely excellent

why is p-r-o-b-l-e-m-a-t-i-c coming up as excellent

worldfilter to mess with sjws

I think you mean "Holla Forumstards pretending to be SJWs pretending to be Holla Forums"

Like he said, right wing sjws

But seriously OP, how can you ever stop capitalism overconsuming and destroying the environment?

This is where radical individualism steps in. Both Capitalism and Socialism are inadequate at dealing with the human need for freedom. What comes next will be as radically different as feudalism was to hunter gatherers. Though the blonde beast, and people's varied spooks are constantly denying this change to us.

I find it an apt assessment. It's wages, man. Wage labor means that workers aren't connected with the profit they're creating. Work becomes then, actual useless toil for the individual . It doesn't benefit me as much as it does porky and the stock holders. Why should I do it, then? Because I will starve otherwise.

Watch Lars Trier's Manderlay for a good illustration.

Your point about, 'well everyone has to work, even the BossMan :^)' sucks, frankly. Why not skip the middle man? Sure, everyone has to 'work' on some level just for basic survival. This does not mean toil ceaselessly in order to enrich others. What if my work is all on the mental plane? Then it's imperceptible to others. And don't come at me with some utilitarian bullshit.

How many people have 'Starbucks degrees' aka a 'useless' degree in humanities rather than STEM? How I produce capital should not determine my worth as a person, my place in society, or my access to basic needs..

If im a scientist, why do I need to get funding and approval from an academy or a state (increasingly ruled by corporate entities) in order to advance my field? Then I have to worry about patents and thieves. It's wild that we've put up with this for as long as we have.

Read the damn bread book. It's not just possible, it's what forms and functions well in the absence of hierarchy.

Off the top of my head, in historical order, I can name several functional ones: Iroquois Confederacy, Cossacks (see: stanitsa), 18th century pirates (ships run on ancom lines in all but name, read "The Invisible Hook"), Anarchist Ukraine, Anarchist Catalonia (both worked AND was industrial!), Rojava (where Kurds are fighting ISIS right now - its end goal is anarcho-communism under a different name, it's getting there and functioning).

You'll note that many of these didn't call themselves anarchist. That's because anarcho-communism is based in the biological work "Mutual Aid: A Factor Of Evolution" and relies upon observation of what kinds of sturdy egalitarian structures humans spontaneously form, going on to work on figuring out how to create the conditions for that and defending them once they arise.

You're about as left wing as mike the electric fence pence.

There were econ threads.

I have a lot of time for post-Keynesians, though partially it's just because that's where my political evolution keeled over and died. (I had an epiphany: Nobody's ever going to get elected on a post-Keynesian government program. The proletariat are too stupid to liberate themselves and the bourgeois would rather we all die than compromise. We're going to hit an overshoot and collapse scenario and possibly kill off humanity. There is no hope whatsoever. Capitalism is doomed and it's going to take all of us with it - organising is pointless.)

Actually read some Keynes and I'll read Marx.
The impressive thing about Keynes is the degree of butchery needed so that baby-duck syndrome neoclassical economists could pinch one or two of his ideas without realizing that his position was much more radical than that.

Still capitalist, yes, but better than what we've got now. When capitalism will be perpetuated either way, better to perpetuate it with full employment and rising living standards. (Fortunately capitalism inherently resists this. You think there's a choice? HA!)

He was right to be honest. Feudalism with modern technology would be preferable to capitalism with the lie of social mobility. I've got more chance of randomly saving a King who crashed his private jet than I've got of striking rich.

Post-Keynesians generally fall to the left of most liberals, though. Economically I'd say there's a case to claim they're left of Corbyn or Sanders.

This is a severe oversimplification.
I'm going to respond with my own:
In a proper Keynesian economy, maybe just maybe political control of the economy would be strong enough to constrain pollution to the point where we don't all fucking die. Under the present system, with much reduced control, we are all going to fucking die.

Nah fam, it's basically slavery.
(Actually on a base emotional level I prefer slavery - at least the slave isn't told he's free.)

Considering the chronic low inflation in many economies, who cares?
We really need a much more radical "try it and see" approach, fuck globalisation and financial markets for making everyone into goddamn cowards obsessed with stability. We're going to stably march to our tombs.

please learn more about socialism

As a mid-term tactical move it's surely desirable?
I mean hypothetically, you time-travel back to feudalism, the dialectical materialist wants to establish capitalism, right?

*tipped*

youtube.com/watch?v=T9Whccunka4

This is your brain on utilitarianism

because this is a place for leftist discussion

not really no

Yet Corbyn and Sanders are A-OK.

If theory is true if it corresponds to reality.

For last half of century we had laissez-faire approch concerning role of state, if only state didnt medel with economy we wouldnt had crisis. We were told that problem is that workers were too greedy, If only workers didnt pressure capitalists they wouldnt run away with their capital.

Now that workers movement is destroyed, most of public services has been privatized and paradigma is that state shouldnt be involved in economy; but crisis are still happening and disparity in wealth is bigger then ever I would say that mainstream economics paradigm has failed and it doesnt correspond to reality.

So please, the question is why are you not at least considering marxian economics? After all two major predictions in marxist economics came true: cyclic crisis are still happening, and disparity in wealth is greater then ever.

I have to ask - what solutions does marxian economics actually propose? (I know it's a terrible question but bare with me)
I mean obviously there's the transition to socialism/communism, but that's a relatively difficult step. (Horrible analogy time: Like suggesting using a train when the problem instigated is losing control of your car on ice. A train being superior to a car, but not really answering the question on it's own terms)
By comparison (highly simplified, even bastardized) Keynesianism can say "If you want the recession to go away, spend more money to drive up aggregate demand"

Marx predicted a couple of things, came up with some breddy good theory, but in practice, as you graph shows, a small degree of keynesianism actually produced phenomenal results.

OP, how about you just discuss post-keynesian economics and ignore the screeching? I'm sure a few people like our socdems will appreciate that

guess we're stuck with capitalism, might as well try to make it not shit

I see people say this a lot, but can you give examples of ancient societies that didn't roughly go through the same process more or less? Most Arab and African societies went from hunter gatherer to slave economy to feudalism, same in Asia, if you want to read about these transitions super indepth I recommend Orlando Paterson's Slavery and Social Death, a book that I don't think anyone would accuse of being Eurocentric.

we're there really hunter gatherers in arabia? i doubt that.

The reason people on this board read Marx, and the reason not too many waste their time on Keynes is because Socialism is an attempt to negate Capitalism, to think of ways to overcome and move beyond Capitalism, no one here is interested in "making Capitalism better", I don't even know what the value of such a project would be. At their best reforms are a standby in a process of revolution, not a ends in and of themselves. Also, yes, obviously anything short of the negation and sublation of Capitalism would still be Capitalism, and since not too many economists or philosophers have put as much thought, let alone such nuanced thought, into such a project most people here are either Marxists or some type of Anarchist.

Yes, even though there were some of the earliest people to participate in agriculture there are plenty of examples of nomadic people who participated in hunting and foraging, do you think they had complex agricultural societies from the beginning of history? Are you that retarded?

Marx states that capitalism has internalised contradictions that are cause of problems and only way to get rid of them is to get rid of capitalism.

Keynes acknowledges that if capitalism left unchecked will lead to high employment and recession. Hes solution is fiscal and monitery policies that balance it out.

Keynes is concerned with capitalism in abstract sense blind to history and development of modern civil society and deals with it in typicall ahistoric and purely theorectrical way, so he can not understand essential materialist doctorin that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself, so he can not grasp revolutionary action.

But Marx and Marxian economics is shit, with armchair Marxists constantly relying on mental gymnastics to pretend Marx meant something other than what he wrote to make it make sense.
It's basically like a cult. Same as Austrian school shit.

I mean, you can do both and have it not be a waste of time. Or at least, no worse a waste of time than other wastes of time. I dick about here and read about socialism even though I've already reached the conclusion it's a miserable waste of time.

In an incredibly oversimplified sense, it doesn't seem unreasonable to say "Post Keynesianism now, kill capitalism soon!" instead of treating capitalism as this external factor that has to be destroyed in one go. The one-go approach seems much more likely to just leave capitalism unabated until it kills us all. I'm too lazy to concoct a runaway train analogy.

Yeah, but does Marxian economics actually have a way to mitigate a recession other than overthrowing capitalism itself?
(I apologise if it looks like I'm trying to reducio-ad-absurdum here. I mean, that's not an invalid conclusion, but when you consider the logistics of revolution and all the rest of it, it doesn't actually solve the here-and-now problem so to speak*)

*I actually thought of a good analogy of sorts, in medical terms - it's all well and good Dr. Marx telling you how to cure the disease, but while we're waiting for the pharmacist to concoct the cure, does Dr. Marx have any painkillers on-hand? (Dr. Keynes by comparison only hands out painkillers and hopes the disease will be fought off by the patient's own immune system in time.)

so he came up with an economic model with even more contradictions to replace it? what a genius.

The journey from Das Kapital to Petrograd is confusing and winding, don't conflate things.

As a means to an end.

Marx provided theoretrical framework for workers movement (that was based on mainstream science of that time - smith and ricardo political economy, french materialism and german idealism). While achivments of that movement - for example 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for work, and 8 hours for recreation - are not entierly hes contribution I would say that at least marxian economics provided some sort of tool that gave directions how to organize.

Dumb and proud