So I have some questions about left wing worldview and solutions to certain problems in society

This is basically what leftists argue about all the time. There's really varying views about this from there shouldn't be a state to a really imposing state.

There's definitely something wrong with the way things are organized right now though. Environmental and labor exploitation is essentially the norm, even in high-skill industries. The prevailing wisdom in the liberal left is just to sort of give up or pay lip service to these issues, something I personally think is counterproductive.

But what separates Stalins and those poor fuckers in Ukraine, what value/virtue, what is the thing that makes you the government in a leftist society??

These barons at least keep it simple and honest, one plated knight can wipe out a whole village of 50 people that only have pitchforks and stones that do not go trough plate.
Fascist dont fuck around either, they have a massive fucking axe as their symbol, there's a bit of beauty in such simplicity.
Capitalists also have a $, enough said.

But these socialists/communists…. they have a red star. What the fuck? Or hammer and sickle, these poor bastards grinded soles of their boots and bones of their dead to make food. That shit is clearly false. That's not it.

At least I know what I have to do in capitalism/fascism/feudalism to be in the upper class.

so ultimately I think we just need more people on board to say "look, these are real problems" and think of real solutions and advocate for the issues that affect them.

A lot of the energy right now is on the far-right, which sometimes identifies some right problems (rich people are absurdly rich, etc.) but has a bunch of garbage attached (racism, anti-Semetism, free-market evangelism, religious conservatism).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution

whats a leftist opinion of this ?

The point of leftism is that the goal of the government should be ending class or hierarchy. The endpoint is that you don't have to scrounge for your next meal. You don't kill your neighbor because they look different than you.

It's difficult to transition to this, it's really difficult to think outside of the system we've been living under for generations. All of our alternatives are inherently colored by the omnipresence of capitalist propaganda and values.

Collective action is a starting point. Organizing labor can work if people are willing to stand strong.

Are you high or merely bring retarded?

Also, I'm legitimately wondering if you actually know what you have to do to be in the upper class of capitalism. You basically have to exploit people until you get there or have absurdly rich family.

But again, that's assuming that there's enough shit for everyone.
I am asking if there's 5 breads in existence and 100 people, who gets to eat?

In capitalism, the richest. In feudalism, the ones with most land and knights. In fascism, the strongest. And so on. Who gets to eat in socialism/communism if there's not enough for everyone?

ill awnser it for you, because the dumb commiebastards are going to take forever to find an awnser to this.

But it will be something like this:

"we would just increase the production so that there is enough bread"

-"yeah but what if there where only 5 breads to eat NOW!?"

"well, then it isnt real communism"

You already had this answered above. We produce way more food than we could possibly need and, because people produce food, you just move people to the production of food.

Nah, being an upper class in capitalism is simple: become a doctor/engineer. That's literally it. Supply and demand. Never met a doctor/engineer that was doing bad in capitalism. You just need to have a relevant skill, and not be shit at it.
Other thing is: be intelligent. Take a loan of x. Invest it. Make 4x, return 2x. Now keep investing, keep making more money. This is obviously risky as fuck but if you are smart.
Another thing: tech companies. Private sector fortune 500 seem to be 90% tech companies.
Another thing: blind luck. Get born into wealth, win a lottery. Dont think you can do anything about that one tho. I mean there are ~0% chances of marrying into or winning the lottery.

tl;dr western capitalism is.. a system. It's not perfect but it lets me shitpost online.

as explained they will make more, your argument that facism and capitalism giving breads to the highest of all is pretty shitty. Just because you have people on top to take such things doesn't mean it's a smarter thing to do. If there really was a scarcity like this in real life then every system would more then likely find a fix for it, though in communism people would work to fix the problem for everyone. In other systems such a crisis would probably lead to them fixing the problem but at a cost like only given to the "strongest" given to those deemed useful, etc.

m8
Why didnt they do that shit in Ukraine? Or what about Best Korea?
True, but this is becoming a circular waste of time, you know what I want, how do I get to be the people's commissar in the sea of dirty worker peasants?

because that was state capitalism

Sounds like a Christians without a Christ kinda thing going on. In case of unforseen disasters happening.. are we supposed to collectively turn the other cheek, and all perish together?

Ok, let me ask you this: what is the central virtue in these left wing ideologies?

If there's 2 breads and 100 people it doesn't matter what the fuck you do because your society is so dysfunctional everyone's dead in a month anyways.

If there's 98 breads and 100 peoples a couple of Olds "go out on a hunting trip" and never come back so as not to be a drain on the community, usually completely voluntarily

It's not 1890 anymore, there's no reason for people to go hungry. Stop this meme.

I'm sure you're going to ask about rare products like laptops or whatever. There are varying proposed systems for the distribution of these items.

Do you really think doctors are upper class? Making even 500k a year isn't upper class dude.

lol, even the private equity funds aren't beating the S&P. Even forbes knows this shit forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2016/08/07/private-equity-returns-evaporate-when-you-account-for-leverage-small-cap-exposure/&refURL=https://www.google.com/&referrer=https://www.google.com/
Most startups fail miserably. Maybe 90% of fortune 500 are tech but 99% of tech companies are pretty much failures or have a tiny niche and never get "rich" on the level of Uber or Google.
Uh, yeah, I know.

I'm not sure what you're talking about with Ukraine, Ukraine (modern day) is a capitalist state.

North Korea is functionally a theocracy. They rarely even discuss communism in their official documents anymore.
reuters.com/article/idUSSEO253213

anyways, the point is that the government is a bureaucracy. instead of the leaders being chosen by plutocrats, there is freedom for democratically elected leaders of transportation, etc. There are tons of different visions for this so I won't really try to be specific, but that's really the least of our problems.

You know, I somehow never truly believed that there were people who just unthinkingly absorb ruling class ideology. Makes sense that if anyone did, it was going to be an engineer. In my experience those dudes are middle-class arch-reactionaries to a man.

Fucking Holla Forums is giving me a simpler and more precise explanation than you guys:
regular Holla Forums says that bolsheviks were disproportionally Jewish and that almost all the commissars were Jews.
I am asking you. For your side. How does one become a people's commissar in the sea of dirty peasants and workers? Lenin has an elitist vanguard party, how do you get into that?

University is going to offer its lab to the Nobel prize winning professor first. Capitalist share holders are buying the stock of the guy who made the biggest profit in the past first. Military is promoting the guy with the most kills/captures first. And so on.

Who does socialism/communism promote first?

Yeah, typically racism and anti-Semetism are simpler explanations because of propaganda.

Why can't awards work in a leftist society?

um yeah, but that doesn't exist in our society.

I mean, ideally we wouldn't need a military. But in reality, there is no reason for the typical hierarchy of militaries to exist for a while at least.

the endpoint of leftism is that there are no promotions because there is no hierarchy. People collectively choose what they value and the government implements those choices to maximize that. What is confusing about this?

No, people do things because if they don't they die. Nobody but the board gets profit, and they do nothing of value. That is what profit is.

There is truth in that. People quickly recognize the nature of a problem once it is made apparent to them. The wealth gap is already commonly recognized, but what isn't immediately recognized is how waged labor does not directly benefit the laborer. That will become progressively more clear as people find that they are never going to retire and will spend their old age in poverty greeting people at the door of Wal-Mart. Once a person sees the trap, they will not be able to unsee it.

Also more on your first point. Why is it easier to believe there is a worldwide zionist conspiracy than that a small subset of people exploit other people to gain profit in a sort of irrational, random way?

Like, ask anyone who works at McDonalds. You think you can sustain yourself much less a family working there? It's a fucking scam, don't buy into this whole american dream nonsense.

Finally, the answer. So it's democracy? The worst fucking system of them all. So I should prepare for standard fuckery, standard modern day political tactics of bribery, opinion manipulation, mass media narratives, celebrities, bread and circuses etc. Great.
Basically nothing changes.

Sure thing, but I wanna know the worst case scenario protocols. Yeah sure in an ideal world we wouldnt need militaries, but how is bringing that up answering what I am asking?

Well why the hell should you be raising a family on a mc donalds job? That shit is for God damn students. I didnt even finish my engineering degree, and I already got a much better job offer than all of the fast food/service sector jobs.

Life is hard, but that is a good thing. I have a personal bias against these low wage shitters because my mom cleans offices, dad is a drunk, I finished highschool with borrowed pen and paper, took a loan for uni engi degree, payed it off, and now am working and studying debt free. And life is only getting better from now on.
I was born in the glorious west, not chained in a Chinese sweat shop. I was free to find a way or to find an excuse.

Zero sympathy for fast food/service sector.

I guess that's the essence of your post. I think we can structure our political and economic system in a way that would make life improve significantly for the billions of people who have absolutely nothing and have no chance of living the type of life we do.

I think you need to de-class-cuck yourself. You've been conditioned to believe that these people are lower than you when they have aspirations, dreams, interests just like you. They're just trying to get through the day. Same with blacks, jews, gays, trans, etc.

Wait, are you somehow under the impression that democracy actually exists in present reality and that all the corporate corruption you listed is somehow a function of the democratic process and not a function of the present economic reality?

Not saying they dont have hopes and dreams, just saying that they arent doing anything about it. Almost nothing I did so far was risky, or instant gratification. And I consider myself better in comparison to those who didnt do these things.

You cant expect to eat like a fucking animal and then go around saying 'fat is beautiful' or whatever. You cant be a scrawny female that cant march for 20 kilometers with a 20 kilogram heavy machine gun, and expect the army to let you in, or expect the enemy to lower its standards.
That's not a constructive or a helpful thing to say! You are no pretty princess, you will sink if you dont swim!
It is not! Nature oppresses us all! All we can do is fight, there's nothing else, there's no political or economic system that can change this fundamental reality.

I am under impression that democracy inevitably leads to crony capitalism and nothing else. In my country half of the people dont even bother to vote. Everybody kinda knows how it is. You simply can not compete with… democracy tactics. We simply organize our lives more and more privately, work 'under the desk' (officially unemployed but working full time, so we dont pay taxes, because fuck the government and its bullshit permanent entitlements voter block).

user, I think you're trying to see or prove that if a crisis were to ever happen that would threaten us in a way that we couldn't save everyone then that would show a problem that our system can't fix. But if such a problem would occur it wouldn't a purely political one it would be something that would hurt society no matter who was in charge or what system was in place and t would need to be fixed in other ways like scientific research and whatnot. Just because the other systems would choose people the system deems more worthy to live in such a scenario and would choose those people to live while others to die off doesn't mean it's a better system or that it isn't flawed because it would choose to let people die in a time where people would have to die. Basically what i'm saying is if there was only enough food for a 20th of the planet it'd be bad no matter what and it's not even something that needs to be fixed politically alone.

I'm kind of tired so I'm going to stop discussing after this.

Look, we're both still pretty young I assume. What do you think leftists are doing? We are trying to fight but everyone is so brainwashed into thinking that capitalism is the only way to organize things. It's not like we're trying to change the weather, we just want to stop the exploitation of people.

It really doesn't have to be like this. You shouldn't have to live on the streets if you're schizophrenic. You shouldn't have to go hungry if you happened to be born in Africa.

I'm not saying life should be fair and I don't think I've espoused anything particularly utopian. Just that life can be more relatively fair. You said yourself that there are few ways to enter the upper class. This bootstrapping argument is bullshit, you have to get insanely lucky or be an aristocrat to get there.

I don't want to be working until I'm 80, and with the way things currently are, most people have to because there is nothing to protect them. You can build your assets as much as you want but their "growth" is inherently tied to fiscal policy, monetary policy, and the market fluctuations. It's going to be tough to have a reasonable retirement.

Well, not exactly. Sure, if there is a planet killer asteroid or whatever, we'd all be fucked.

But that's not what I am saying. I am saying all of these right wing ideologies have.. a compass. They all point toward somewhere, and the whole society is better for it. Being more Godly, or being stronger, or hoarding more shiny things, or being more competitive, etc etc, they all give you this ideal (that in my opinion works very well I think, well the God one has failed us atm but other ones are legit in my view).

I am asking for a leftist version of this, if it even exist. So far I got hoping for a best case scenario, and complaining. That shit is obviously inferior to.. lifting, avoiding drugs and fun, pursuing a sturdy degree, becoming more competitive, more, always more, more this, more that, climbing, fighting, going up, up the ladders, up the hierarchies, etc.

Uh, you realize these are things that only exist _because_ of capitalism. If things weren't organized in this shitty way then people wouldn't have to work 3 jobs to get by. And you wouldn't need to look for work or better yourself through education by indebting yourself to porky.

I didn't say >being oppressed is an argument
I said that things don't always work out for people and that we have enough resources to help people achieve some kind of stability in their lives but simply choose not to. This is what your kind of thinking employs.

We live in a place where anything, technologically, seems possible. SpaceX is reusing rockets. I can communicate with people from all over the world in milliseconds. We have managed to create bacteria that create insulin (before we had to butcher pig pancreases).

But it's COMPLETELY out of the question to…build a few more homeless shelters? Tax the rich by 20% more? You should be skeptical of their claims, they will do anything to keep what is theirs.

The only reason they don't pay engineers minimum wage is because they've collectively organized (maybe not through a union but similar) and agreed to not accept bullshit exploitative wages. That's really what we want–organize and resist the capitalists who want everything (their form of taking is almost religious, they zealously attempt to acquire more and more wealth).

well, the leftist ideology would be that they'd work for the betterment of society and it's people. If such a thing happened in a communist society then they'd try to fix it, try to save everyone and themselves from dying off. Also moral compass isn't really a naturally good thing for society 100% as it may help point towards good things some times but in some situations it will probably lead or point toward that thing even though the way to fix the problem may be in another direction.

Yes but I dont see anyone enforcing any standards. I dont see any moral system. Just a political, legal and economic, and all it does is saying 'we are all equal' and that's it.

This is why I think that in a physical clash, leftists should lose to right wingers even if there is more of them. If we are all equal, there is no reason to lift. If we are all equal, there is no reason to avoid drugs and what Holla Forums calls fun. If we are all equal, there is no reason to get into engineering instead of philosophy.

Right wingers shame weakness. Result: stronger collective.
Left wingers shame successful people or pseudo-injustice or I dont even know (that's why I'm asking). Result: a collective where no one strives to become better.

The leftist spirit is to create a more equal society that allows everyone to have a higher quality of life. I guess if that's inferior to "lifting" or whatever (do you really think you should have to pay to maintain your health?) then good luck. I honestly just think the way we have organized our society is really hampering to humans' better qualities. Our sense of community, curiosity, aesthetic, etc. We should have more time to spend on these things then figuring out where we are going to live.

Before I get into this post I think it's funny that the market actually does value people who have critical thinking skills gained from studying philosophy (source: fivethirtyeight.com/features/philosophers-dont-get-much-respect-but-their-earnings-dont-suck/)

um, who cares if people use drugs (especially alcohol or weed)? This is your argument about the moral decay of the left? I mean, right now people just get jailed for doing drugs, there's no chance to recover and they end up being homeless.

I mean, why do you think it's weak to not want to actively shut people down?

Rich people are not "successful" except by the dollar amount attached to them. They generally exploit people all over the world for cheap labor. I'm not sure how you see sweatshop labor is a pseudo-injustice. Are you just trolling?

This is again just 'we should make things better' or 'for the greater good!' or stuff along those lines. Just empty crap.

Let me ask you this: what is the practical first step towards this?
Right wingers have this figured out. Because they also have a moral system. Strength is a virtue, weakness a sin. Everyone has to lift instead of being unfit. Hoarding guns and ammo is more important than voting, because you cant vote the enemy away. Always find a way, never find an excuse. Always prepare for worst case scenario, you dont even need to plan for a best case scenario.

So when faced with more people than resources, right wingers know what to do.

Even the omnipresence of the open source movement proves you wrong. People work on open-source projects totally for free, just to create stuff. I'm not sure why that wouldn't happen (re: engineering).

Once people are free from wage-slavery, totally new possibilities for liberation are opened up. Are you ready to jump on or not? I get it if you aren't, but at least understand where we are coming from.

There pretty much is no first step right now except to organize more people. Clearly the rise of bernie sanders showed that people are open to radical(ish) ideas about the way our economy should be structured, but it's just a starting point. I don't think cap is _all bad_ but it should be a stepping stone to something better. I think we're close, especially since we actually have the resource to overcome famine and housing in the West (just the potential, obviously there are tons of hungry and homeless people in the West).

Organize, advocate, and discuss. People will be ready eventually.

...

I'm not as well read as many on this site so I don't have the answers to all of your questions, but there's definitely some interesting stuff to read in our FAQ
8ch.net/leftypol/res/1312944.html

If you're genuinely interested and not here to just shitpost, do some reading and keep an open mind. The left wing is not a jewish conspiracy, really, we just want a better society.

Yes, when we are all clothed and sheltered, we tend to be good people, I know, it's just that when people are starving, cannibalism can happen.

I want to discuss more people than resources situations. Capitalism sets supply and demand. It works in crisis just as it works in the golden age. How does central planning deal with a disaster? Who does it cut off?

Well, the West did its fair share of looting non-West. Which is why we live so well. Even now we bomb the living shit out of others for resources. But here's a thing: right wing sees this as a natural and a good thing.
Left wing bitch and moan about it, and offers no viable alternatives.

Well I am just saying, this is what happens when three sailors get stranded on a desert island. They eat the weakest one. Dont make me link google stories about this shit happening.

FAQ has whole books on general subjects, I am just looking for someone to give me a quick answer on a specific question. As Feynman and Einstein both said: if you cant explain it to a 5 year old, you dont understand it yourself.
I am posting under assumption that anons here know their own FAQ.

Look, I'm not an expert on disaster preparedness. I would assume they would just do the best they can, just like our governments do now. Only with more resources for FEMA equivalents.

Maybe not bombing the living shit out of others for resources? Really makes you think.

Our FAQ has hundreds of books in it. I don't have time to read them all, unfortunately.

Another issue is that there's a lot of diversity of opinion here (unlike the Holla Forums JOOZ DINDUs and TRUMP hivemind). I don't want to be too specific and you think I'm speaking for the entire board, I'm trying to speak generally.

I hope you'd agree that our level of discourse is much higher, good luck trying to have this type of conversation on Holla Forums.

I think this is a good link for a general description of how a lot of us feel. Read it or don't, but not every concept has to be incredibly visceral or immediately intuitive like what right-wingers believe.

forgot link s3.jacobinmag.com/issues/jacobin-abcs.pdf

and again my point is when tragedy strikes it's a tragedy no matter what and can't be fixed with politics alone. And that also just because these systems choose who gets to live based on whatever standards they have doesn't make them better because the outcome is the same. People under communism would do what they can to fix the problem and if they could then good, but if people die no matter what then they'll die. As for who would live in that situation who knows but just as they are times when they "weak" are chosen to die there are times in which people give up their lives, even to those they don't know, to save them but such is life.

Just saying, average Holla Forumsack reads Nietzsche, contemplates on master/slave morality, quotes 'vae victis' from the Romans (woe to the conquered), avoids de generacy because he has a moral system, lifts because its better to be strong than weak, he has a picture of the ubermensch and is doing his best to become one himself.
Even if extremely crude, it exist. Their strategy, principle, axiom, founding rule is:
Might is right.

Where is leftist way of life? What is leftist moral code? What makes a commissar a commissar? Why is a socialist bureaucrat a socialist bureaucrat? What is leftist ubermensch? What is leftist will to power? When Stalin killed all the Red Army officers and abolished rank, who was calling the shots? And why?

I dont want the 'do the right thing' and 'for the greater good' and 'hope for the best' crap! Too much left for interpretation! Actually it is meaningless!

I'm not sure how might is right has any more inherent meaning than saying our society should be more free and equal. I mean, I've been posting with you for an hour or so now and you're either not reading what our guiding principles are or are just being totally dense.

Are there any, like, accelerationist arguments in favor of temporarily having a free(ish) market, technocratic meritocracy like Singapore in order to advance a country to the point to where it has the infrastructure to support collectivization? Isn't a common critique of the USSR that they went straight from feudalism to """socialism""" without a pure market capitalist system with free trade beforehand?

We're basically already having that happen, so there's no point in arguing about it so much.

Because I cant visualize it in my head. I can imagine might is right. I can imagine it when things are good, everyone is fed and clothed and smiling, certain individuals are saluting certain other mightier individuals.
I can also imagine it when things are bad. These mightier individuals, more organized, better armed etc, are taking the bread.

Now, 'more equal' society, whatever that means. I can imagine it if things are good. Some sort of science fiction type of thing. Far future. Technology got us all covered.
But I am constantly asking for THE BAD SCENARIO.
I cant imagine 'more fair and equal' society in case of not enough shit for everyone.

There's no reason to have that vision. We're not united by a dystopian vision of jews controlling every part of my life.

If things get shitty, we just work through it like every society has, just with an eye towards our values of egalitarianism and freedom. That's kinda how it goes. Like that other user said, if there's a huge disaster it's going to be a problem for everyone. We just have to work through it.

Well maybe I am looking at history trough my own optics here, but arent there organized crime groups roaming Venezuela atm? Werent Soviets ran by brutal "siloviks" (secret service types, kgb officials, above the law commisars etc)? Isnt Best Korea practically a fascistic military dictatorship?

Seems to me like egghead intellectuals rile up toothless masses to overthrow current 'might is right' aristocrats and replace them with a different flavor 'might is right' dictatorships where weak continue to suffer, and strong continue to rule/'exploit'.

Because as Richard Pipes said Leftists are attracted to fantasies where the intelligentsia (i.e., them) "saves the commoners from themselves" via socialism. The main problem is that most Leftists are clever-silly types that are incapable of imagining anyone cynically exploiting their ideal state for their own ends

the majority of leftists don't really have that vision in mind, obviously. Venezuela has totally politically failed (and exploits its citizens, is essentially a petrol-state, etc.). Best Korea removed the word communism from their constitution and are essentially a military dictatorship with a theocratic twist. Soviets are weird, Stalin was bad, but you're going to get a lot of different answers about that here.

I mean, we don't want that to happen and it doesn't necessarily have to. That's why there are no real radical leftist movements in the West for now. But there's more energy on the left than there has ever been and people are more fed up with the lies of the right (if you work hard you'll make a living wage!)

So I'm cautiously optimistic. But the 20th century is over, nobody reasonable has any illusions about NK or Venezuela

speak for yourself. I'm a research scientist. All we want are living expenses, an interesting problem to attack and scholarly kudos.

If you want money, go join the finance sector.