Need to learn theory, Marxian economics, enough bourgeois economics debunk it...

this. stay away from anything involving YouTube in particular. I had the displeasure of watching one of Sargon of Mossad's videos lately and the knowledge that people actually watch that shit made me want to hang myself with my own entrails.

my advice to OP would be to utilize a lot of Wikipedia if you don't know much about things mostly as a jumping off point for history and to a somewhat lesser degree political ideology and economics. just don't feel under pressure, read shit in your spare time, find topics you're interested in and ask questions here, I find you can get some quality responses amongst all the crap here, and at the very least some reading recommendations from other anons.

I think you're doing well if you've already realized just how complex trying to have a coherent worldview really is, rather than falling prey to Dunning-Kruger, because 99% of people are over-earnest fucktards. keep up a healthy thirst for knowledge, we believe in you.

Marx's texts were intended more as a critique of capitalism rather than going through and explaining to a high school/first year uni class how economies work, so if you literally know nothing about economics I don't think trying to tackle something like Capital is wise. I'm considering getting into Adam Smith for that purpose, but I was lucky enough to have an economics class in school.

Don't get in arguments with people who view the world through the lens that Murdoch and Breitbart give them. It's futile. Its not worth engaging with such braindead dolts unless you're going to kill them. That's the only cure for such dreggs.

This is how I've been feeling lately. How do I know what I believe to be true is actually true without understanding a massive amount of economics, history, political philosophy, psychology etc. first?

I need to start reading more, but I just never feel like it. I don't know how to get into the habit of it.

...

Always study more and more material. The more you learn the clearer things become and the easier it is to sniff out bullshit.

Getting into the habit is just a matter of reading a little bit every day. Just tell yourself you will read for a half hour or something every day. Even if you don't feel like it a half hour is easy. Some days you will find yourself engrossed in the material and read more while other days you won't. This is the way it is for developing any good habit. The longer you do it the easier it will be.

Reading won't really change much. It will increase your knowledge and your ability to debate. Most importantly it will give you the ability to explain how the current world works and how we should change it. It means that you can convince new people that they made the right choice when joining a leftists group. When it comes to fighting the status quo it is easier to just get rid of those who defend it. Because those who defend it (not just neutral) are indoctrinated by their ideology and won't listen to any argument you present to them. I have tried it plenty of times. They will keep finding new reasons why capitalism is good or why communism is bad. Until you have countered every argument there is, with as many sources or counterarguments possible. No words will come through to them. You should do it for yourself, and you shouldn't do it if you hate reading about theory. Summaries don't give the same understanding or coherent ability to explain it afterwards, but they will enable you to build up your own worldview.

Can someone redpill me on race? What's going on there? I was surprised to see that someone on irc was talking about race being indeed a biological phenomenon.

Was this person right or wrong? What evidence is there? Anything I should read? Help would be appreciated.

It is a more a matter of semantics because no real consensus about what is race. If you really want to dive into this autism:

web.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/minorities.shtml
debunkingdenialism.com/2015/02/03/mailbag-fetishizing-richard-lewontin/
americananthro.org/ConnectWithAAA/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=2583
physanth.org/about/position-statements/biological-aspects-race/
livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/race-reconciled-debunks-race/
Roberts, Dorothy (2011). Fatal Invention. London, New York: The New Press.
Lee et al. 2008:
Harrison, Guy (2010). Race and Reality. Amherst: Prometheus Books. "Race is a poor empirical description of the patterns of difference that we encounter within our species. The billions of humans alive today simply do not fit into neat and tidy biological boxes called races. Science has proven this conclusively. The concept of race (…) is not scientific and goes against what is known about our ever-changing and complex biological diversity."

As for why some people consider it doesn't exist.
Also pdf for lack of consensus on the meaning of the thing itself.

I am a biochem student, so we are taught about our genetic material, how it is carried over to the next generation and how it mutates. Even though it is memed to death, race is actually a social construct. Races are convenient categories which we use to discern certain traits. White means nothing more than people with the pigment mutation which reduces melanin levels. This mutation is transferred from the parents to the children, who then also receive white skin. While blacks are people with more melanin. Even amongst those we call black, there are varying levels of pigmentation, yet we still all call them black. Even if one comes from northern Africa, while another comes from southern Africa. They show the same level of genetic difference between each other, as they do towards white people. Yet they are labelled the same, while whites are labelled differently. What we call race is therefore merely a definition shouldn't be used for any other reason than convenience when describing certain features.

On a genetic level, every human being is different. Traits are decided by a combination of our parents genetic material. Since most communities reproduce locally. Certain traits start to become distinct and different from other communities. Skull shape, skin colour, face shape. They all change gradually when moving from community to community. This is because of reproduction between people who move away from their birthplace and settle in somewhere else. You can observe this easily by examining traits in Europe, towards Asia and Africa. Light skin, blonde/red hair, specific skull structure and height are similar in Scandinavia, England and Benelux. Moving to the southern parts of Europe, brown and black are more likely hair colours, height diminishes slightly. Move towards the Middle East, we see exclusively black/brownish hair, skin tone becomes darker, even if they aren't tanned. Move towards Kazakhstan and Pakistan, you will see what looks like hybrids between Indian and Middle Eastern people. The point is that traits gradually change based on who we reproduce with, and what their traits were. Race as we know it is not very conclusive as to how to define a person's traits.

An easy way to show why race isn't is a biological phenomenon is when you reproduce with someone who has drastically different traits. For the black and white example. The genetic material received from the parents will result in a combination of what we consider white and black traits. The question is. What is this race? Something which didn't exist before. Showing clearly that races are just made up definitions to describe traits.

Cheers. If anyone has more reading/info about debunking race realism then please link, cuz this semes like a relevant thread.

This only seems unfeasible because we lack organization.

Learning Marxist theory wouldn't seem so overwhelming to you if there was a website that directed you on this enterprise: read this, this and this, those and those chapters, here's a download link, watch this lecture before jumping to this part, here's a small reference dictionary to explain some of the terms whose meaning deviate from our popular understanding of the word, in case you want to go deeper on this subject here's a small bibliography, etc.

Their are two kinds of people. People who are sure of themselves and people who think. The more sure you are in your own political or moral beliefs, typically the more wrong you are.

This is what is often said and, when you look into it, it often looks more than they are assuming it to be true rather than truly show what they claim to show.
That race might be a continuous does not make it a meaningless concept. In fact, the issue you are running into here are the same that biologists face when categorizing species. There are a lot of animals where it is not entirely clear whether they are the same species or not but that does not make the categorization itself meaningless.

Almost all humans disagree with this sentence. But of course you will claim that they are all brainwashed in some way.

no
read "Alternatives to Economic Orthodoxy, a Reader in Political Economy"
this is basically true (slightly high, about 80trillion in actuality), but never argue this point
just end these people
read "race and reality"

For me its natural curiosity in these issues so it doesnt feel like much work.

Just get to the position where you feel comfortable with your views and chill.
You don't really need to read literally everything, just get the main points of something and later think if it's worth reading for you or not.
You need it for your own understanding of the world after all, not to argue with some autists over the internet. If anything usually the people who insist you to read the whole fucking history of philosophy to "understand theory" are usually some burgeous kids from colledge with rich parents and no job.

Well I mean lets not get into another extreme and say that Marx economy is perfect and that he was right in everything. Criticizm of his economics, from the correct point of view, is actually beneficial to make his main thesises be applied to the current capitalistic development. Let's not treat it like some holy scriptures.

Focus on an issue, decide to trust certain experts. And understand that you dont need to know everything to want something better than now.

In debates be willing to concede points that sound smart and dont impact your position to much while guiding the discussion into your specialities.

Rule 1 is always to remain sceptical. This can't be argued. However, the arguments from rightwingers are either baseless, since they haven't read Capital. Or is an argument based on semantics or misunderstood terms. For example: "Value isn't inherent in a commodity, it is based on what people want to pay for it". This, in their eyes, somehow unravels the entirety of socialism and communism combined. Even if the LTV is sketchy on certain points, Marx always mentions the sketchy points. He mentions that people will pay what they perceive the value to be. And that this perceived value is based on our perception of labour. If we perceive a product to have higher quality (which more often than not requires more labour) we are willing to pay more for it. With an asterisk, because, value also increases based on supply and demand. Something which Marx also writes. The point is that under socialism and communism value is based on labour time. Value is based on the time it takes to create or modify a commodity, which makes sense when you don't work for money, but for the use of a commodity. Dead labour doesn't create or add value because it doesn't produce anything of value. Even then, this isn't even the key point of socialism anyway.

I don't know when to use critical thinking the post.
All living beings are related. Even plants and humans are related if you go far enough back. The key point is the know when it is useful to differentiate. When we talk about cell types, we differentiate between plants and animals, or bacteria and multicell organisms. Because those have key differences. When it comes to human races it is mostly based on skin colour and location. It doesn't mean it is incorrect. The problem is that these are not useful parameters when making important decisions. If Nazis want to categorise a person's guilt based on skin colour or nose length, it is time to stop using our vague concept of race. Because the differences between races are meaningless in these cases. A "Black" man can have a higher intelligence, be more caring, or be better integrated than a "White" man.

I'm an absolute layman in biology but I've read your post and none of it actually debunks Holla Forumss race realism except the semantics about race/haplotyles

There is nothing to debunk about race realism until they manage to go beyond some fake statistics and show some direct results. Then they could start to argue for evidence based eugenics or some shit. But racism just makes no sense whatsoever on a genetic level.

kek

What does dead labour refer to, may I ask? I thought it referred to that labour embodied in machines, which is transferred to the products being made in accordance with wear and tear of the machinery. In that case, does it not add value? Or do I have it all upside-down?

I gave a factual explanation. Race realism isn't a lie. It is the interpretation which is bogus. Race realism means that there are differences between races. This is true because races is a categorization of traits. These traits can change over time, by mutation (white skin) or by breeding for desirable traits. In Africa, these traits were usually the ability to hunt. Which reflects in their build and physical abilities. In Northern Asia and Europe cooperation was usually needed to succeed in farming and surviving harsher weather conditions. Societies usually survived based on the intelligence of its members, at least for the first period of settling. This is partially (partially is important) why you see a deviation in average (average is also important) intelligence. Because smart people were more successful.

There are plenty of studies which are testing intelligence. And they aren't afraid to conclude that both nature and nurture has an effect on intelligence. Here is why. Nature accounts for a part because of natural selection. What Nazis forget to mention is the massive importance of nurture. I have a higher intelligence than both of my parents and grandparents. If it was pure nature how would this be possible? Just like how tests show with people of African descent living in America have higher scores than native Africans. The amount of effort you put into training your brain. Together with the amount of nourishment you get during your early years. Have massive effects on intelligence. The rest can be explained by how intelligence diverges around a bell curve. What this means is that African Americans can become just as smart as White Americans. They could increase their scores by getting a better education and by getting better living conditions for their children. Add a social environment which encourages learning. And you would account for a large part of the current Autism Level difference. The problem is that most African Americans have both poor economic and social conditions. One could argue this is partly due to alienation, but that would open up another can of worms.

That is my fault. You are right. I can't remember the exact word he used, but, simply put it. If you perform labour that people perceive as useless or isn't objectively useful, it will not have any value.

1. When people talk about race they are definitely just talking about skin color.

2. The fact there is statistical variation within races does not mean the concept of race is not useful, as you can clear draw distinct distribution of traits for each race, i.e. there is statistical variation between races. For instance, to say that men are taller than women, as a general statement, is true. However, it is obvious that a very small number of women are taller than most men. Still, there are two clear height distributions for men and women, in such a way that if I wanted to find the tallest person alive, the prediction that it is a man would very likely be correct.

3. People have evolved to be extraordinary good at identifying salient variables, i.e. easy to detect, which are correlated with a wide range of outcomes. Race is one of them, and that is precisely people notice it right away. You keep on saying the concept is not useful, but the truth is if I distance myself from all young black men, the probability of me being a victim of a crime is lower than if I didn't, all else constant.

they are definitely not just talking about skin color*

I've only read part of chap 1 but he's already mentioned it, here for reference:

It is possible that two dumb parents have a genius kid because the largest pie of intelligence is explained by sheer random luck when you are conceived in your mother's womb. That's why the correlation of Autism Level between identical twins is so high.

sounds like special pleading

you're an idiot

very nice rebuttal
you definitely showed me

no, it makes sense when he discusses what labour actually is - a portion of the aggregate labour of society, i.e that labour which is socially useful. A commodity is a complex of two values, use value and exchange value.
Also, he's laying out a theory, and that's just part of the theory.

1. Is your ideology being dense? I was talking about how deciding someone's worth based on race is retarded. Not if people imagine a certain stereotype if they hear white or black. Because it is obvious that people do that. People are different and showcase different mannerisms and traits. This is also true outside a racial context. Even if people associate traits with skin colour. Would you be able to distinguish between a black person who acts like a white person and a regular white person, without looking at their skin colour? Probably not, because it is hard to distinguish between the two. That is why we fall back to calling races by skin colour.

2. This is because we decided to create certain boundaries for who we lump together. We already do this with different countries. And neonazis still somehow hold onto an idea of whiteness instead of "germanness" or "frenchness". Where do we draw the line? More important which line do we draw. Slavs don't count as white, Jews don't count as white, Mexicans don't count as white. What about white Americans, aren't they bastards too? The people who are part Native American, what about them? Here is an idea. Stop caring so much about these statistics for very specific populations. Instead, focus on how specific genes affect our health and where these genes are most common so that we can use it to help people.
Good job, you figured out that an entire chromosome makes a different.
This is what I was saying. Stop putting people into boxes when it doesn't matter either way. Look at them individually.

3.
You are a pansy. I guess your trait is to be a little bitch in the most statistically correct way.
I bet the probability of dying in WWII on the German side was higher than getting mugged by a black person in Berlin today. And who was to blame for that?

1. A body is fundamental part of what a person is. To try to decouple it from the mind is ridiculous. And again, there is more to race than just skin colour. You have African albinos, who have a white skin but look black and are considered black by everyone.

2. It's about ethnocultural distance. French and German people are much more similar to each other than they are to sub-Saharan Africans. So, if you must have populations living together, you are going to be much more successful having French and Germans together than French and sub-Saharan Africans, or Germans and sub-Saharan Africans.
You will never be able to refrain from "putting people into boxes" because the cost of looking at people individually is prohibitively high. There is a reason why humans categorize their physical and social world - it is informationally useful to do so. People are defined by the groups they belong to, meaning that knowing about group membership immediately gives you useful information about that person's thoughts and behaviors.

3. You have a fundamental problem with the idea that there is statistical variability according to race. If you were buying a car and independent tests showed you that one has 10% chance of having a serious engine failure, while the other has just a 2% chance, would you ignore this fact? Also, would you reply to people who bought the second car because of this fact that they should just look at individual cars, namely by noticing the 90% of the first type that don't fail?

That's completely tautological. For something to have value it has to be made by socially useful labour. Labour is considered socially useful by the fact it is giving value to something.

It is just useless monism.

The other user got it slightly wrong. Marx says in Capital that in order to have value (social construct) a commodity has to have a use-value (which he defines as a physical property of a commodity which has a use, such as a lodestone in a magnet).

Something that has no use-value, like a mudpie, can't have value.

What does that concept of value add to use value or exchange value? What new understanding is brought by it? Why is it considered a useful definition?

Value is the basis of exchange value. Things can't be exchanged unless they have a common property. In the case of the commodity, it is labor.

Marx was trying to get to the root of why someone could just buy commodities (like iron, labor-power, etc…) and sell commodities and somehow derive a profit. From my understanding (and I could be wrong here, I'm still working my way through Marx) the point of setting up the early definitions in Capital was just trying to set up the answer to this problem. Not that you could actually measure value and do mathematics with it

I am sorry user. You have autism. I hope you can get over your troubles and one day treat people as more than objects. You are so deeply steeped in ideology. You have created a worldview where everything is a zero-sum calculation, and even considering people beyond their stereotypes isn't worth the time. Because time is money. And money is king. Truly capitalism in human form.

It is at the beginning of Capital. It is used to create a relation between labour and value. This is later used to describe how the value of a commodity is used to trade with others. Where you can compare the value of, for example, leather with leather boots. Where leather has a value, and leather boots have a higher value because of the extra labour put into creating the boots out of the leather. This relation of commodities later comes to explain how it relates to money. When money is backed by gold, which in itself also is a commodity.

Marx was all about scientific socialism. And he did his best to create a solid foundation to build knowledge on top of (very Hegelian of him). It is almost as someone explaining what mass and energy is before explaining E=mc^2.

Where am I treating people as less than objects?
Where does it show I think everything is a zero-sum calculation?
Where did I say that we should never look beyond stereotypes?
Where did I say that money is king and that time is money?

Also, you're the one rejecting what I say on principle itself, so if anyone is embroiled in ideology here it's you. Stop projecting.

Useless monism. Exactly what I said. You don't need this to explain trade, so the statement "value is the basis of exchange value" is wrong.

The issue is that you say things have a higher value because of the extra labour but you define labour in such a way that it has to increase value. This is not the labour theory of value but rather an attempt at defining value as labour. Since this is obviously false, you get around it by trying to homogenize labour in some way and define labour to be only the socially useful type, which is the one that inputs use value into goods.
And as I said to the other user, you don't need this concept of value to explain trade.

You are correct that you don't need to have this view to perform a trade. People will decide on their own what they want to pay for commodities. The idea is that we perceive items to have more value if it has more labour put into it. In this relation, one should keep in mind that it is for use, and not for reselling or further production. Unless you are able to create something from leather, most people wouldn't buy it. This means that for most people leather has no use value. Yet would resign it to having no value at all? The same person who doesn't want to buy the leather, would still say that the leather has some value. Since someone's labour went into the creating the leather. This is the idea behind it. It isn't supposed to be understood as an ultimate truth. It is supposed to be a rule for comparing items when they are freed from their use value. Under current capitalism, all commodities are defined by their use value. Which means that commodities that don't sell under capitalism don't have any value. The critique of capitalism still holds regardless of the LTV. So, for the most part, it is arguing semantics and what one considers value. Which as said is dependent on opinion and beliefs.

Do you even realise what you are typing? Do you understand why I stopped making actual arguments?

the process of investigation is roughly as follows:

Also, the LTV is literally about defining value as labour, and there ought to be no problem with doing that, so long as labour and value are defined in the correct way, which Marx has attempted to do with the concepts of SNLT and value. It's not 'getting around' anything, it's observing that labour is the source of value.

yes you do; the economy does not run on completely arbitrary exchanges. They may happen now and then, but society does not tend to exchange a house for a sandwich in the long run. If you say "well that's just how it is, goods are exchanged at how they are exchanged" then you also have to ask yourself from where that ratio of exchange comes from. Marx has attempted to answer this question.

It's an example so you understand my point. Are you seriously arguing we should ignore statistics when dealing with people?

Do you even know what a zero-sum interaction is? This is a case where your criticism is not even wrong.

Do you know what opportunity cost is? I am not talking about money but feasibility. You are somehow assuming that getting individual information on someone is possible, feasible or even desirable. But, okay, next time I make any decision about a person, I'll make sure I do a full journalist-like report on said person, measuring and accounting for all relevant factors behind that person's thoughts and behaviors. One week later, I hope I have enough information so you don't judge me for using group information. And I'm the one who's supposed to be the autist? lol

Again, where am I saying you should only look at group membership? I am clearly saying you should not ignore it, not that you should base everything on it. Why is it the case when I say "A", you think I said the whole alphabet? And this is especially funny given what you wrote about costs, as you are completely stereotyping me lol

We? Who? Not me.

Leather has value because it can be converted to something useful at a cost. To most people this cost is too high, so the net benefit is negative, and people claim it has no value. If the conversion were free, people would regard leather and the derivatives of leather as perfect substitutes, and leather would be considered as valuable as its derivatives. On the other hand, manufacturers have invested in the technology of converting leather into its derivatives, so their conversion cost is so low that they can sell their produce to normal people at a profit. See, you only need use value here.

What does it mean for an item to be freed from its use value?

The first point does not imply the second. Also, it is false to say that what doesn't sell doesn't have value. You're forgetting that you need an entire institutional framework to sell a good. Goods do not exist in a vacuum.

How do you argue for labour exploitation without the LTV?

This is not what I typically see. Instead, usually marxists seem to reduce the LTV to the notion that value is determined by costs, in what sounds like the long-run equilibrium of marginalist models.

I know all about what you wrote. And again, why are you trying to reduce everything to labour? Why does the existence of a relative price between two goods implies that there must be a third thing that is equal among them, in the first place? As I said earlier, it is simply useless monism; that is, you are trying to reduce everything to a single principle when you don't even need to do so.

This is my point. It is not a theory but a definition, as it has no justification. Moreover, it adds nothing to the discussion to put things in terms of labour.

It is based on relative use values and on cost. By defining everything in terms of labour, you are saying cost is the ultimate driver of prices in the long-run in a roundabout and weird way because in the middle of the analysis you want to claim that workers are being exploited. Not only is that [cost is the ultimate driver of prices in the long-run] false, but the Marxist model of the economy is completely accounted for in marginalist models of perfect competition, where prices are determined in the long-run by the long-run marginal cost, provided that the marginal cost is low enough to begin with. Again, the Marxist framework is completely useless.

Even without the LTV items are produced and sold. The production is still the same, the price of production is still the same, the selling point would still be the same. The critique is that capitalists own the means of production. This means that those who don't own farmland or forest areas, can't acquire the food they need to survive. In addition, they also need to rent a room or life on the street without shelter. They can not farm the land to grow crops, neither can they hunt and gather food. Nor can they legally build their own home without buying land, with the money they don't have. And yes, this is all illegal in western countries. So they have to sell their labour to capitalists in order to make money. The capitalist wants the production cost of the product to be below the accepted selling price of said product. Otherwise, he can make no money. Free market advocates call this incentive. If you assume the LTV holds the argument is simple. The value is based on labour put into it. The item is sold for a price, which equals its value. The worker is paid less than this value because the capitalist needs to earn money as well. Now let us assume that LTV doesn't hold. For moralists, this never works, because no exploitation means that workers should be happy, for some reason. However if the workers cut out the middleman, in this case, the capitalist, the workers could sell their products and pocket the surplus value themselves. Alternatively, they could instead use the factory to create products for their own needs, instead of producing items for selling. If you argue that capitalists are job creators, you could just as easily argue that they are job enforcers. Because if they own the means of production, it forces you to work or die.

This is without arguing that capitalism in itself is an unstable economic system, which causes crises, erodes social cohesion, alienates us from work, and sees man and nature as a means to an end. So don't even try to use moral arguments against removing capitalists.

Stop it. I write in verbose ways to make you realize that this is a stupid argument, at least get angry and write stupid shit back. You know very well that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. And I know very well that statistics aren't false. You went and took my first post out of context. My first point was always that even if statistics might indicate that black people have higher crime rates, that doesn't mean that one should assume that a black person is a criminal. Your remark of having a lower chance of getting mugged when staying away from black people is statistically correct. It is still very autistic. If there was a white neighborhood with a lot of criminals, would you go there because white people on average have a lower crime rate? You wouldn't because it is stupid. It has nothing to do with race when you look at the individual cases. You don't even have to interview them. You can easily determine if someone has violent tendencies or not.

Lumping people together in groups dehumanizes them. If you call black people criminal long enough, those who aren't might even become criminal just to spite you. Some might find refuge in gangs where they feel wanted. And if everyone first thinks of statistics instead of looking at the individual, then how can they get out of the environment which is partially the reason why the statistics show criminal tendencies.

1. If you have individual information about people, you should use it.
2. You cannot get individual information most of the time.
3. If you don't have individual information, try to use group information.
4. Some of the group information is very easy to obtain.
5. Some of the group information explains behaviour good enough. (Note I said good enough. Note that this means that some of the variability is explained by the group information. Note that this is the same as saying that I'm not immediately assuming that a black person is a criminal.)
Hence, there is no issue in using group information some of the times.

I would use the group information "these people belong to this shitty neighbourhood". That information means I'd be advised to keep my distance.

You can based on group information, not on individual information. That's my point.

It most definitely does not dehumanize anybody. In fact, belonging to groups is part of what makes us human.

I care about my safety and the safety of my own first. I don't care if I'm discriminating against others if it means I'm protecting myself, my family or my friends. People are endowed with free will, and the fact some people make it out of those environments is proof that others can do it too.

Your criticism basically boils down to not wanting people to be dependent on others. That's a reality in any society though. You will always be at the mercy of those around you to live a prosperous life. To attempt to disrupt this is to destroy one's economy and separate people from each other, which is going to make everything worse.
Also, capitalists are dependent on workers and on having the support of politicians as well.

Also, the function of profit is to discipline the production process. The pressure the owner exerts is felt throughout the chain of hierarchy of the firm. This is major reason why private owned firms controlled by major shareholders are better run than those with a very dispersed ownership and better than public firms. This is valuable in itself and should be compensated.

If they manage to do that, no problem. But no violent revolution nor seizing capital from anyone, please.

This is ridiculously inefficient. Specialization does make people richer.

We have gone from arguments to personal opinions, not that it really matters. Efficiency is a metric used by capitalists to measure success, based on being able to outcompete others. Under communism, this wouldn't be necessary, because you are producing to feed yourself, and not to create surplus value. You will still be dependent on others if you want certain goods. The difference is that it is voluntary, and not forced. Specialisation is more efficient but has to consequence that working becomes a monotone and tedious process. Under socialism or communism, people can decide if they want to work together and specialise. The reality is that not everyone thinks that efficiency is worth to negative aspects to follow with it. Even if the efficiency has lifted people out of poverty, it has made them completely dependent on this system, with no way out. And it still creates inequality, especially when comparing, the third world vs the first world, it morphs the social structure, it disregards the environment, it shifts social values and morals. All things I personally am against. Which is why I am a communist. If you don't care about these things, you wouldn't become a communist. Communism isn't about efficiency, it is about creating a different way a life.

Marx described labor as still being social in the lower phases of communism. You'd still need to appropriate some labor for important things like healthcare and education.

...

If you want to appeal to people but are proposing measures that revert the economy back to the stone age, people will not ever accept what you propose. I've seen people here saying that the progress of capitalism is actually solely due to science. That is blatantly false, not everything is due to progress in technology. Without trade, no amount of technology will save you, as you are destroying the single thing that made economies grow in these last years - specialization. Indeed, if you want, you could say that trade is a social technology, a type of practice we invented that allows us to increase our welfare; the same way that, for instance, marriage is a social technology.

m8, don't argue for poverty; at least argue that there is a trade-off and that you wish to be more on the side of less specialization. Don't regard it as a bad per se. I think you're doing that but you're ambiguous.

True in every society. Put a hunter-gatherer in a developed country, and you will see him fail hard. Put a random person from Europe in a hunter-gatherer society, and you will see him fail hard. Even, put a hunter-gatherer alone in nature and you will see him fail hard. To be human is to be dependent on others.

But if you are not trading, which is what is implied by "producing to feed yourself", you have every individual living in a personal autarky. There was never any economy like this in history ever. This is even worse than being a hunter-gatherer.

what is the ideal social structure?

inequality between countries has gone down since ww2. There has been a catching up in general, and especially if you ignore Africa, which is its own special kind of mess.

I rather see it generating the institutions to solve the problem as we speak. You say it is too slow but perhaps you might be wrong.

False, and drop the moral high horse, if that's what you're doing.