I have noticed that right-wing youtube 'community' tends to follow a specific formula:

Sorry, you misunderstand me. That point was in regards to property, I've yet to discuss wages and labour. But yes, Stirner's argument is essentially capitalism insofar as it allows individuals to seize and protect property. What we observe now is the pinnacle of property protection, what with the authorities and the judicial system upholding deeds which prove ownership and protecting individuals who are not powerful enough to take property back.

Well, efficiency requires evidence. Can you point me to an example of a Communist system, which you say is designed to be efficient (therefore successful at being efficient and desirable to those who value efficiency, which is a fair chunk of the population), that has been implemented in a period of history and has resulted in great advancements in technology? Basically, a Communist system that shows its efficiency that has lasted throughout the ages. Bear in mind, this must be stateless and without currency.

>"Exploitation" simply means that I've produced something with the value X, and in return you've given me something with the value Y

We've only had socialist states because the threat of imperialism makes it pretty much impossible to cultivate a classless and stateless society. I can only give you examples of socialist governments.

The USSR surprisingly did not fail due to socialism but because it moved economically further to the right. I'm no tankie, but I'll admit Gorbachev ruined them. Cuba despite western propaganda otherwise has had some success.

You're talking to an anarchist though. I'm not a good person to ask how it has been in practice because I think the way Marxist-Leninist-Maoist governments function is directly opposed to a classless society and I do believe in the state capitalism meme

Okay, so if Marxism is not concerned with morality, like you mentioned above (your own quote: Also, I want to point out that Marxism is not concerned with morality), then would a Marxist system do well to actually follow the amorality and fight to defend their lands? Imperialism is simply another foreign force, from their perspective. If Marxism is concerned with efficiency, then it would only follow that it would be able to defeat the foes it faces, if both nations are on the same level. If there is a power shift in favour of the imperialist nation, then would it not follow that the imperialist nation is superior? Perhaps it could be because of oil wars to kill millions, but this is something the Marxist system should already be doing, what with the amorality and all. The imperialist point is just an admission to the inferior power Marxist systems have had.
Also, socialism is not the same as Communism. I don't think the definition of socialism involves a stateless system without currency.

The USSR surprisingly did not fail due to socialism but because it moved economically further to the right. I'm no tankie, but I'll admit Gorbachev ruined them. Cuba despite western propaganda otherwise has had some success.
Is the USSR Communist? Or socialist? How is this relevant, didn't the state own the means of production?

I see. The "state capitalism" thing is a meme. If you believe that socialism is a mode of production, then you must be aware that capitalism is the same: private ownership of the means of production. A state is not the private entity in a society. The state has been shown to arbitrarily levy taxes, thereby manipulating markets. Taxation and subsidies are opposed to laissez-faire economics and are very much against private ownership.

I will ask questions related to anarchism, then. How do you determine to achieve a classless society in a system that does not have a universal code of laws that govern over the people? What is stopping me from killing you, taking your land, and achieving a higher class status (by owning the means of production, given a high success rate and forcing the defeated to work for me as slaves)? Men are not created equal and there will be those who control disproportionate power. When you remove all boundaries and plunge the people into anarchy, these power differences will only be more pronounced, not abolished (to achieve a classless society).

On this point, but more generally: the average person isn't defending their land by themselves. The state/police do it, because they have a claim something that is theirs, because a "piece of paper" says so. Just to get this out of the way. If people were defending their stuff by themselves, without any state-force permanently threatening violence to anyone who disobeys them, any mafia or milita could just take over anything they wanted to.

In that sense your whole "the weak" argument is a bit misguided, but I get the point.

If we were to go by your example, ie. "me picking cotton", then all I would have the "claim to" would be the picked cotton, before it's transported or processed. But this is already distorting our point, focusing on the wrong issues and applying terminology with the totally wrong implications.

Our goal isn't that every cotton-picker can keep all his cotton. and then be done with it.

Except for the point that I'm saying that this relation is specific for capitalism, and the universal human condition.

Wow, what a surprise ^^

Whenever someone starts with "Lions" or any other animals, it's not worth discussing. I want a human example, with everyday humans capable of rational thought, not some animals guided by their instincts.

Also, could you please use normal language. It's kind of embarrassing to read.

Not him (I actually disagree with him on a few points), but "Marxism" isn't a system that is to be implemented. What is called "Marxism", is simply the philosophy, the thoughts and the methods of analysis that were popularized by Marx and his followers. It's not a governmental system. Marx was first and foremost a critic, not a economist or a politician.

When you say private property, do you mean the capitalist definition or the leftist definition? Leftists make a distinction between property that you personally use (personal property) and property that someone owns but doesn't actually use, and instead allows someone else to use it in exchange for rent or dividends (private property). The concept of private property also allows wealthy individuals to create artificial scarcity in order to manipulate markets, such as how a bunch of rich Arabs and Russians bought a ton of houses in London which continue to sit empty but increase in value.

Its also important to remember that the concept of ANY type of property is purely a social construct- I could declare myself the supreme ruler of the world, but it wouldn't mean shit if nobody else acknowledged it. Thus, when the vast majority of the population are living in poverty while a small handful live like kings, the poor have no reason to continue to acknowledge the ruling class's ownership of property they don't even use.

I didn't mean "land you defend" exclusively to "you", the individual. I am aware of defence, by proxy. I quote from my post above here:
"What we observe now is the pinnacle of property protection, what with the authorities and the judicial system upholding deeds which prove ownership and protecting individuals who are not powerful enough to take property back."

It isn't just a piece of paper. The whole point is to reference the bullets behind the paper, so to speak.

"If we were to go by your example, ie. "me picking cotton", then all I would have the "claim to" would be the picked cotton, before it's transported or processed. But this is already distorting our point, focusing on the wrong issues and applying terminology with the totally wrong implications."
But that isn't the end of it. If you pick the cotton, your signature relinquishes your "full ownership" of it. Also the bullets behind papers point above. Just because you produce something does not mean you own it if there is context that is being omitted. If a miner mines a resource, he does not own it. There is machinery involved, assembly, prior notice to mine the lands, etc. The gripe I have is that the archaic "I pay you to do 'x' and we are the only two individuals involved in this exchange" is archaic and exists only on paper and rarely in reality.

"Our goal isn't that every cotton-picker can keep all his cotton. and then be done with it."
So the labour isn't exploitative? Then what was behind the whole "workers own the MoP", then?

"Except for the point that I'm saying that this relation is specific for capitalism, and the universal human condition."
As is mine. I follow it my stating how profit is required for businesses on the markets to survive. That is in regards to capitalism and the people who practice it.

"Wow, what a surprise ^^"
No system is moral because humans are involved in it. We are not moral agents. Crime will always exist, as the end of the day. Although there are systems that can produce great standards of living. Most of the first world, for example.

"Whenever someone starts with "Lions" or any other animals, it's not worth discussing. I want a human example, with everyday humans capable of rational thought, not some animals guided by their instincts."
Analogies are not equivalences. I am not referencing how lions will start up markets. It is meant to elaborate and, in this case, personify. You aren't really picking cotton. Nobody in the first world "picks" cotton anymore. This is more of an attack at the format than the meat of the matter. It does nothing to actually refute the point. I can revise it, but I'd caution against attacking the man over the matter.

Let's say there is a human society (called the USA) and a government (the US government). Let's say a percentage of the population wishes to revoke the right to bear arms from the population (i.e. abolish the power structure by making all citizens gun-less). Signing petitions would be futile (playing on the point above, I don't actually mean that lions will somehow develop written language and "write". It is an obvious personification), as they would still rely on one factor: governmental force. That is to say that the only way to abolish the hierarchy held by gun-owners is to re-establish the hierarchy in favour of the government. The state will require force (in the form of bullets) to revoke the right to bear arms. If you wish to remove a person from power, you must do so with force. Therefore, to abolish hierarchies is futile and self-defeating, as those in power are mighty because they… have power. It's a pretty linear point, really.

"Also, could you please use normal language. It's kind of embarrassing to read."
The analogy served its purpose. Your refusal to accept it doesn't make the point any less valid.

"Not him (I actually disagree with him on a few points), but "Marxism" isn't a system that is to be implemented. What is called "Marxism", is simply the philosophy, the thoughts and the methods of analysis that were popularized by Marx and his followers. It's not a governmental system. Marx was first and foremost a critic, not a economist or a politician."
Then a system utilizing Marxist philosophy.

"When you say private property, do you mean the capitalist definition or the leftist definition?"
If I am a business owner, then my private property is my shop that I own. It also extends to the house that I live in and the car that I drive. If I don't own a business, then just my house, car, etc.

"Leftists make a distinction between property that you personally use (personal property) and property that someone owns but doesn't actually use, and instead allows someone else to use it in exchange for rent or dividends (private property)"
Property is not concerned with how it is utilized, or how an arbitrary individual deems the "use" fit. If I sell you a car, you can set it on fire for all I care. It is your car and I have sold it to you. I don't have a say in what you do with the car. If I sell you a house, you can burn it or re-sell it at a later time, after you flipped it. You aren't "using" the house because you don't live in it. But I have no given the rights over to you (and I can't take the house by force because the deed is in your hands, and the deed is backed up by governmental force).

"The concept of private property also allows wealthy individuals to create artificial scarcity in order to manipulate markets, such as how a bunch of rich Arabs and Russians bought a ton of houses in London which continue to sit empty but increase in value. "
Again, I don't own the houses. If I sell it to them, it is no longer mine. I don't get to take back what I sell if the sale is final. If you go buy a shirt but never wear it, you extend an irrelevant definition of "shirt usage" to justify how my purchase was illegitimate, but the owner of the shirt can reject the definition as they own the shirt, not you.

"Its also important to remember that the concept of ANY type of property is purely a social construct- I could declare myself the supreme ruler of the world, but it wouldn't mean shit if nobody else acknowledged it"
Social constructs can be utilized and functional. Law is a social construct, so is language. If you say you're king and people buy it, the social construct would be valid. Something being "purely a social construct" doesn't mean a whole lot if it is accepted.

"Thus, when the vast majority of the population are living in poverty while a small handful live like kings, the poor have no reason to continue to acknowledge the ruling class's ownership of property they don't even use."
This is a statement of fact. The poor are, by definition, poor. The rich are wealthy. What is the point? The wealthy don't have their status diminished or altered in any way if the poor don't 'acknowledge' it anymore. This also speaks to the point I make above about the futility of abolishing hierarchies: you will simply tilt it in your favour by taking the throne. You cannot stop people from free exchange, black markets will always pop up and it is foolish to assume revolts will never spark against the "poor" who overthrow the rich.

Which is why I put "piece of paper" in quotes.

Which means you're talking about rights (or ownership) again, which is exactly what I was referring to with you distortions.

Labour itslef? How should it by itself be exploitative? Or are you talking about "Labour" in the sense of a capital-wage relation?

You've probably been talking more to the kind of people who focus in workers ownership. I personally disagree with them regarding that being enough, let alone that by itself being socialism. This has already been known for about 50 years by the value-form theorists (see endnotes.org.uk/issues/2/en/endnotes-communisation-and-value-form-theory)

So what's your point? I hold this as a communist, and you seemingly do too, as a person holding whatever ideas you hold.

I get your point in general - you need force to change stuff. That's nothing new. And I hope you're not assuming that we are anti-gun liberals here. But according to your theory, the world should only be getting more and more hierarchical/authoritarian as time goes on, since older ("weaker") forces get replaced by newer ("stronger") ones. I'd probably say that that is not the only factor, but let's ignore that for now.

How then do you explain democratic governments arising against dictatorships? Just as a quick example even though I still don't believe that your point has much to do with the actual issue

Just to get a better picture of who we are talking to, what does "system utilizing Marxist philosophy" mean to you?

Also, please use regular quotes. It's far easier to read.

I see.

You said this: But this is already distorting our point, focusing on the wrong issues and applying terminology with the totally wrong implications.
The point is related to justifying ownership of the product. That's the whole point I'm discussing. It isn't a distortion until you elaborate.

The latter. "Labour" as it is in the employee-employer sense.

>You've probably been talking more to the kind of people who focus in workers ownership. I personally disagree with them regarding that being enough, let alone that by itself being socialism. This has already been known for about 50 years by the value-form theorists (see endnotes.org.uk/issues/2/en/endnotes-communisation-and-value-form-theory)
It doesn't really matter who I talk to just as it doesn't matter who you talk to. The entire issue at-hand is elaborating on the disagreement in order to make a point to show how your stance is improved, in a way.
The link discusses LTV, to name one issue. It seems to pick up off of something, so I'll have to read it a bit to get more context. It seems to be more broad than what our specific discussion is centred on. Again, I'll have to read it to narrow it down to our discussion about justifying the ownership of what is produced by labour under the conditions we are discussing.

You made the point for me: businesses, as they are human, require profit to survive on the market. That's the point.

Good.

Was I assuming that we are all lions with my lion analogy? No.

It has been. Inferior, weaker civilizations have been conquered or are under the heel of the powerful ones. The strongest empires dominate the world field and markets today.

Raw force isn't the only thing, yeah. If you can persuade your opponent, then you don't need any force, really. Brains beat brawn any day.

The will of the people manifesting against the tyranny. Civil war comes out in favour of the people if their militaries defeat the tyranny. From that, a democracy can exist if that's what the conquerers choose, but their established system is steeped in their might. That is to say that they willingly relinquish the throne back to the people. If the military leaders wanted, they could just form a new state.
This point wasn't directed towards you, it was to the other guy who was an anarchist.

So, I'd say that a "system utilizing Marxist philosophy" is related to a rejection of the bourgeoise and their capitalist system (opting for the workers to, eventually, control the MoP in a stateless system without currency).

My first response got accidentally deleted before I could send it, so please forgive my brevity.

As you've mentioned, a business needs profit. And after deducing the costs for materials and tools, if they'd give the workers back the full value of their work. They'd go bankrupt. So exploitation is necessary (and therefore the wage-capital relationship is exploitative), for the reasons you already elaborated. No exploitation, no profit, means the businesses eventually will go bankrupt. This is not a accusations, not a simple fact, as I hope you agree.

The article talks about the misreading of marx and the fact that capital was a critique, not a how-to manual. It also elaborates on why just "workers ownership" is not socialism, and just changes the form of the capitalist mode of production, while keeping it's essence, they by effectivly not changing anything.

Ctrl-f "market socialism" to find the section.

I don't have the time now to go into the others points. For the most part, they seem to be simply misconception or bad memes against Communism, based on assumptions like "Communism wants everyone to be the same". As a first tipp, it's tell you not to take the communist manifesto too seriously, because many of the misreading stem from there.

I might come back to them later, but as I've already implied it would take a lot of explaining to dispelled some of these unfounded myths. If you want a more lively debate, I'd recommended starting your own thread. This is a thread about YouTubers, people won't be guessing there's a discussion going on there.

You failed to understand his argument
He clearly states "property that someone owns but doesn't actually use", you didn't mention this anywhere in your post other then discussing "how it is utilized" which isn't strictly the concern here.
He has a problem with property when the landlord has arbitrary ownership and rents it out to laborers, where the workers have no say in the distribution of their product or the design of the place they work. He is against absentees having any ownership over a distant property.
All you seem to discuss in your essay of a post is describe how selling things works, which is no actual refutation of anything he said.

So capitalism without its keystone definition? Okay fam

Sure.

I agree entirely.

So it is simply exploitation of the bourgeoise? That does seem to fit the line of "white people can't be racist"-tier identity politics, so I would expect backlash from that statement. If that's what you mean by "just changes the form of the capitalist mode of production, while keeping it's essence".

Yeah man, it's a long link. I'm still reading through it to make sense of it all.
I do object to "Communism wants everyone to be the same". So, in a Communist society, am I allowed to start up a business on my own land, selling crops I grow to people who value by crops and desire it? The issue I have with Communism is that it must have a state, because in order to abolish currency (or ban/prohibit anything), there must be some central power prohibiting the citizenry, which is usually called a "state".

Mods have banned me for two years, this is a proxy. I don't think the thread's topic is that far-off. I am somebody who is willing to debate you in a more honest way (one-on-one) than just showing a video on Youtube and picking it apart (as opposed to an actual debate).

Utilize is defined as "[to] make practical and effective use of".
It is irrelevant how you perceive property as being used or not used if you do not own it. You do not have a say in affairs that are none of your business. If I purchase land, it is mine. I have a government who fights for the deed's ownership. Therefore, your claims to ownership are rebutted. And if you don't own it, your input is irrelevant. Whether or not you think something is used "properly" or not is entirely subjective, as it is the owner who can use/not use something if he desired. I can purchase water and choose to not drink it. Your assessment does not change the status of the purchase.

Read the posts I have made. It is "arbitrary" as much as violence is "arbitrary". Property rights are defended by violence. You cannot assert your ownership because your claims are defeated by the government. See:

The deed is not "arbitrary", by any stretch of the definition of arbitrary. It is backed by violence which has gone uncontested, therefore it is an established claim.
The workers have no say in how land they do not own is operated just as I don't have say to how the president rules: because I am not president, just like how I don't own the land.

You sell land that you defend your ownership rights. I have a patch of land and I sell it to you. Your neighbour did not purchase it, so his name is not on the deed and he does not determine what you do with the land. You are assuming some inherent democratic system in regards to how land and similar resources are planned. Without first substantiating that claim, there is no "refutation" to be made as no evidence is offered.

It's a mode of production: privately owned means of production.
To the image: the labourers don't have the most power if they cannot stage a revolution (read: show of might re-establishing the hierarchy in their favour). Again, this is a claim that is just "accepted" at face value. Where is the evidence? The workers cannot withstand the small businesses and the state because they choose not to revolt. This is obvious given the fact that there has been no such revolution in the West that you can point to.
"Slavery" assumes that you have no other option, that you are property. If you were property, your masters would harvest your organs and sell them, as that would yield millions of dollars in profit. Much more so than your measly labour on the field. This is just an appeal to victimization: labourers are not "slaves".

That must be protected and enforced by the State. A 'hostile takeover' in capitalism is not when people with guns and shit take over the workplace and declare it theirs, it is when shares of that company are bought to depose the current management

Lol whut? That was directly quoted by Striner. Why you are disagreeing with him when I am trying to show you that you are wrong about him?

lol okay

Where in the definition of capitalism do you find that laissez-faire economics require intervention and manipulation? That is, a state to tax and subsidize industries/people? The whole point is to allow absolute freedom to fail/succeed.

I am disagreeing with the point. The labourers don't have the most power. He is not correct in his statement.

This is not an answer. The statement is still true: there has been no such revolution in the West that you can point to.

To the first image:
The entire point is that the man is not "condemned" to anything if he chooses to work. If you choose to purchase crops from me instead of growing them yourselves, you are not condemned to anything. The anarchist ball (is that agorism? I can't tell, I think it is just standard anarchism) is enforcing his own feelings of what is moral and immoral on the society, even though anarchism is not concerned with what is moral, or what makes a man, but what the individual chooses to do.
Labour's intention is not to have "man be satisfied". That is a subjective, feelings statement with no real, clear definition. Labour is not "tangible".
The worker does not labour "into another's hand, and is used (exploited) by this other (read: employer)" if you cannot substantiate the exploitation. Like I said, just as the user stated above, anarchism (and, as the user stated above, Marxism) is not moral. I can take you as my slave. Then, the argument would hold some merit as you are not compensated. But the exploitation appeals to the archaic form of labour which does not exist. That's the problem with citing such work: it is no longer relevant. See the posts above where I elaborate on the lack of evidence substantiating the claim to ownership (regarding labour's "exploitation").
On the defence point, you seem to skip over my point regarding hierarchies and how they are guaranteed… by defence/violence. See:

The one where private property rights must be respected and enforced. And that usually requires a State

Are you legitimately stupid? The whole point of my original post is that you got Striner wrong. In that your original assessment in what Striner wanted and argued for is wrong. Whether or not you think and argue that Striner is wrong is irrelevant. You are wrong about what he said almost to the point of strawmaning and nitpicking on his quotes isn't magically going to change that.

Vive la Commune

lol, this guy

Not definitively. It isn't "state or bust". In fact, there is a certain aspect of the state that fundamentally infringes on private property regularly, what with taxation of property owned by individuals. Just because the judicial system deals with conflict does not mean the state can coexist alongside capitalism.

This is a lot of statements that I'm supposed to take as fact. I am using the quotes you provide to me and showing you how they can be interpreted. Labourers do not have the most power. This is evidenced by modern history and your response to "there has been no such revolution in the West that you can point to". If they did, the statement would be fulfilled. It has not been shown, so since there is no evidence supporting the claim, we can't believe in the claim anymore.
Nor is the whole "exploitation" point fulfilled. Just statements appealing to man's morals and how Stirner thinks men ought to be, ignoring what actually 'is'.

What? I have seriously no idea what you want to say here…

What I mean, is that capital just changes it's manager, and instead of some fat boss from outside making sure everything is done with way it should be, the workers reproduce the material conditions and capital. See attached video.

Also, here's another article, that might be better as a more general introduction to dispel common myths: libcom.org/library/capitalism-communism-gilles-dauve - the other was might be too technical, you don't have to read all of it for the discussion at hand.

First of all, you've got to understand: our problem is not two people trading stuff because they agree to it, or whatever ancaps define capitalism to be. Capitalism, from the communist/socialist tradition, is something far more fundamental than just "voluntary exchange", just as communism isn't "the state does stuff I don't consent to". To quote Perlmans's "The Reproduction of Daily Life" (marxists.org/reference/archive/perlman-fredy/1969/misc/reproduction-daily-life.htm):

We aren't out to abolish money by banning it, or by other means of using force (at the tool to directly abolish money). What we see, is that Money, Capitalism, Markets, etc. are all products of certain material and socio-historical conditions people are born into. These conditions, we wish to overcome, thereby rendering all these parts of capitalism useless and so to say, supersede them. It gets more technical, just so you don't accuse us of being idealist/utopian or something like that.

Under communism, you could theoretically start a business, but you would have to find someone to work for you, and someone to buy from you (if that's what you mean by business). But society would exist in such a way, that nobody would have to either sell their labour in a market, nor buy their means of subsistence in another either. You would so to say have to find people, who truly voluntarily want to make a deal with you - and this because they have true choice - the choice to say no, and abstain from choosing it itself.

Here the interesting point is, that if the "absence" of currency has to enforced, we still haven't overcome the previous society, no matter what the officials in the party say. Maybe this could serve as a hint to see what was going on in, eg. the USSR. But here's another article, since we've already established that you love reading: sinistra.net/lib/pro/whyrusnsoc.html ^^

TL;DR: Communism is not about abolishing "Capitalism" by prohibiting it (from above), but overcoming it from within. This is what I mean with misconceptions about Communism.

It was just a suggestion, since I thought people weren't seeing the debate going on, but as it seems, it's ok.

Absolutely irrelevant. If anything the taxation is needed for the state to preserve itself to enforce said private property rights. Shit on unnecessary taxation all you want but spare me this 'taxation is theft' meme without putting private property in there too.

Do you even know how an argument is? I have claimed that your statement about Striner's position is wrong and shown you such and your response are simply rambling about what you think Striner got wrong. You are clearly arguing past me and refusing to even listen to me and using ever opportunity to preach instead of arguing.

Again for the 3rd fucking time. Vive la Commune

It is going off of the statement (It also elaborates on why just "workers ownership" is not socialism, and just changes the form of the capitalist mode of production, while keeping it's essence, they by effectivly not changing anything).

The "fat boss" archetype is about as useful as the misconceptions you wish to dispel.
Again, this is assuming an inherent democratic necessity for labour, despite the equal claims the workers have on the "material conditions and capital" not being fulfilled/observed.

The link does make some bold statements. How can Communism already exist if it requires a revolution to be realized? Then it does not "exist". There are no half-measures in "existence". Again, I'll read it but you would do well to quote what your main argument is concerned. We are discussing exploitation of labour (fulfilling the burden of proof), hierarchies in human society, and private property.

The appeal to slavery is not substantiated. You are not property, by definition, of some "master". Capitalism is 'natural' insofar as it is observed in nature. Beyond that, the natural cannot be used as an argument for/against something, unless it is detrimental to our nature as a society. Cannibalism is "natural", as is symbiotic relationships. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. The definition does not make a statement on whether or not capitalism is an "end-goal" form of human society.

People aren't always "born" into the absence of/abundance of wealth. Most of the world's billionaires are self-made in that they did not inherit their wealth, and the "1%" millionaires are not some static population. See: youtube.com/watch?v=Qi8clPrg7kc.
This argument completely dismisses all agency and how an individual can, even in the slightest, make a good/bad financial decision.

If nobody has to sell their labour, then nobody is employed under an employer's business on the markets, because markets would be "overcome", as you stated above. Then who, if not the state or some other power, assists the people? Individuals, like you said above (in regards to profit, business, and human desires), do not simply share their wealth and take care of one another on such a mass scale so as to make employment under a business irrelevant.
People already do have the choice to refuse to work for me if I offer work. What you describe already exists. Nobody is forcing you to work for me, you can work for yourself if you choose. What you cannot do is sustain the well-being of everybody through some collective "state" sustenance.

Try banning a concept or substance and see how far you get without state power. Black markets will arise, whether you like it or not. Removing currency will cause a crypto-currency to arise, or the people to resort to barter. If you restrict free trade using currency, alternatives will pop up. It isn't that I dislike reading, it is that you seem to cite paragraphs that are largely irrelevant or cover broad topics without being succinct. I am not going to just shit out Adam Smith simply because we're talking about capitalism and markets.

Define overcome in this context. This seems like you're just resorting to weasel words. One can "overcome" a common cold, too.

Why would that be relevant? You and I see it, that is what matters.

I find it ironic that, later on, you ask me "how an argument is", yet you push a strawman that you cannot substantiate. I have never claimed taxation is theft, but you assume this position of me in order to poison the well and attack my statements easier. Argue in good faith, lad, or I'll stoop to your level, as I stated above:
You agreed to the terms of the debate when you responded, live up to your own word.
Taxation in order to pay for the judicial sector is not the only way to settle property disputes. It is the age-old "if the government can't do it, nothing else could ever come close". Individuals can settle disputes themselves, with force or civility. It depends on circumstance.

I'll quote from your own statements, the initial one "showing" me how I am wrong: Lol whut? That was directly quoted by Striner. Why you are disagreeing with him when I am trying to show you that you are wrong about him?
Your entire point is "stop disagreeing with his counter-point when I am showing you how you are wrong". That is not "how an argument is". Following suit, I will extend your own logic. Stop disagreeing with my statement showing you how you are wrong about me.
Again, my only position is that Stirner is wrong because labourers don't hold the most power, like he claims, because there is no evidence for this. So the claim without evidence is not warranted.

Not even lasting one calendar year. Instability is not becoming of a revolution, this just seems like a temporary coup before the system fell apart.

You are guaranteed to waste your time and energy if you choose to debate this sophist. Don't do it.

But you claimed fundamentally infringes on private property regularly, what with taxation of property owned by individuals. which is exactly that dressed up in flowery words.

Who is strawmanning now you moron. I have already said countless of times that your original assessment of what Striner wanted and advocated is wrong. He didn't wanted "essentially capitalism insofar as it allows individuals to seize and protect property." And to say that is strawmanning him and now you insist on strawmanning me to avoid this point. You are arguing past me whether by wilful ignorance or malicious intent, I will never know

Oh fuck off, you wanted an example when the workers overthrew the state by withdrawing their labour? The Parisians overthrew their government by doing so and only failed when the French government stepping in. Hell it is the perfect example that showed how one group of people did orchestrate a revolution and were overwhelmed by outside forces powered by labourers who didn't rise up.

You are right I should do so

Is this the same disingenuous fuck that's supposed to be banned?

Yes. No amount of argument will ever result in anything other than the same trite circular 'arguments', strawmen and deliberate misreadings.

You do not even understand what Stirner means by "property" and here you pretend to paint him like some capitalist. Do rightists even make anything? I mean, anything besides making excuses for pillage, rape and genocide?

How would you establish a human hierarchy if there was no one who would bow down to you?

I got that part, you explicity mentioned that, but what does this have to do with "white people can't be racist"-tier identity politics?

Forgot to put "fat boss" in quotes, I apologize.

Where and how was this assumed?

The idea goes back to a passage from The German Ideology (1845):

There are communists who disagree with this statement, mostly Marxist-Lenninists or Maoists.

You've admitted this exists, so there is nothing left here, as far as I'm concerned
As far as I'm concerned the issues you raised were non-issues, and unrelated to communism
Could you restate your issue, or did I just miss it?

It's not a "appeal to slavery". He mentioned slave society in the paragraph before the one I quoted. The point Perlman is making is that Capitalism is one among other systems, just like tribal, slave or feudal societies.

Which only works, if one uses the right-libertarian definition, ie "capitalism is free exchange", which I have explicity stated isn't the case ("Capitalism, from the communist/socialist tradition, is something far more fundamental than just "voluntary exchange").

Ignoring the fact that you're focusing on the wrong part of the argument from the Paragraph (the important one was: "like the earlier social forms, capitalism is a specific response to material and historical conditions"), he was just objecting to exactly the point you now made that capitalism was natural. Real the first two or three sections from the pamphlet, it goes directly into the argument you just tried to make.

Not only: you are leaving out the social totality, ie that fact that production is oriented towards exchange (ie. profit - as it says already in the came CAPITALism, where capital is money used to make more money) and the fact that most of society has to sell their labour-power to survive, or at least they generate most of their subsistence through employment. Requires specific conditions, for example the fact that most people just can't generate their own means of subsistence (food, shelter, etc.), but have to interact with society, in our case by "having a job".

Because that has nothing at all to do with what I am talking about - nowhere do I mention millionaires or anything like that. I'm talking about every day capitalism, not who gets to be "rich or poor".

Since we aren't Utopians and in the business of predicting the future, I can't tell you how societies will organize themselves, distribute their resources and work, or any other details. One could imagine this to be done communally, by a elected local-council or by computers. Who knows. I'm guessing the state if everyone who isn't in the market, even if it's people themselves organizing everything, but I see no reason to engage in this semantic problem over what a state is, since under the conditions described, "the market" as a agent doesn't make any sense anymore.

This is exactly what I meant by "true choice" - currently I have the choice to choose between A, B, C and D. But I have to choose one of them, but I'm free to choose which (like you said, I don't have to work for you). But I can't choose if I want to choose, ie. to become a employee or not, ie. the true choice.

Which is exactly what I said we aren't after….

Which means that the conditions for capitalism still haven't been overcome, and therefore capitalism still exists… Just as I've said before.

(I won't "define" it but I'll explain how I'm using the word) Capitalism, as already quoted above is the particular reaction to particular material conditions, eg. the fact that most people don't have the means to survive just by themselves, so they have to sell their labour on the market, to buy their means of subsistence from the market. There are not universal, but are reproduced over time - of course, not without their contradictions. On the other hand, the capitalist has to make a profit to stay in business, just as you've agreed to above. Neither this fact, nor this form (buisness) is eternal or necessary, but also the reaction to a certain situation and form of society. To overcome capitalism therefore is not to postulate a totally new society out of nowhere, like Utopians do, but instead, based on the current situation overcome the necessity for itself (capitalism) to reproduce itself, thereby getting rid of capitalism, but by law, but by destroying (or more mildly getting rid of) the condition that necessitate it's existence, as mentioned above.

Women have the best everything in terms of beauty.
I really don't understand how anyone can be gay.

Fam, unless you're pretty damn wealthy you don't even own your house, your bank or landlord does. If you can't pay your mortgage or rent, they will take it from you. Even if you have bought your house with your own money, the property you live on ultimately belongs to the state, because they will take it from you if you don't pay taxes.
The nature of private property means that the wealth produced by millions of people fall into the hands of a few individuals. The vast majority of people (the proletariat) must sell their labour for scraps, while the landowners (the bourgeoisie) make more than they will ever need just from the property that they "own" (which was really created and maintained by the proletariat and belongs to them only because the state says so). To dissolve private property would be to destroy this relationship and allow the majority of people to live much richer lives. Unless you are among those property owners defending capitalism and private property is ultimately against your self-interest. You are being cucked by the bourgeoisie and you're defending them. And meanwhile they are laughing at you in their billion dollar mansions paid for by money you earned for them.

bump

t. /fur/

No. everyone who gets baited into believing things by this method is a dumbass. we shouldn't encourage being dumb.

wew lad

Then have fun debating "evil rightists" who misrepresent you like in the OP. I am here willing to dissect your ideas and offer criticisms, but your best rebuttal is "sophist". Try making an argument first.

Property taxes, sure. Property taxes are not the only type of taxes. That statement makes no claim to taxation being theft. Taxation, as I said, is a method that exists to fund the judicial sector to settle property disputes, but this is not the only way. Pointing out property taxes does not mean said tax is theft, just that it is levied.

What his personal opinions of what is permissible and what isn't is not concerned with the principle conclusion behind his claims: egoism is capitalism, it is conquest and defending property by force. He might have not agreed with capitalism, but in the first image you posted here:
Labourers don't hold the most power. It is irrelevant if he thinks that they do, what matters is if he can prove it, which he cannot. The labourers are also not slaves, by any definition of the term "slave". Stirner's victimization is irrelevant if he has no evidence of his claim.

Not a successful example. It lasted for around one month. You still cannot point to an example where the workers overthrow a state, and keep their supposed "superior system" from collapse.

It is funny to observe how most of these "worker's revolutions" either spectacularly fail or become so perverted that the workers themselves dissociate themselves from the movement by resorting to no true scotsmen.

Insults are not arguments. Perhaps you are getting some insight as to how "rightists" seek to debate people who keep on falling back on "ban this guy, he's a 'insert insult here'!"

Citation on where I committed a circular argument, where I misquoted and misrepresented you, and where I misread a post. Just saying it is not proof in an of itself.
To your quote: using your own logic of how a mode of production utilized by a nation may also include, in its definition, the deeds of said nation, then the USSR may have its political philosophy associated with gulags and Communism can have with its political philosophy associated the lack of substantive evidence proving its feasibility.
If Bush decides to initiate oil wars, that does not speak on the GOP's tenets and values of small government. If Obama decides to push NSA surveillance, that does not speak to the Democrats and their platform. It speaks to specific policies. It has nothing to do with the Democratic philosophy, but the specific Democrats in power. Imperialism is not contained within the definition of capitalism just as gulag systems are not within the definition of Communism. Do as I say, not as I do, right?

Who said I was a rightist? And if this is true, how does my political belief invalidate my claims? Stirner's egoism is capitalism. I will operate in my own self-interest, which is not confined by any agreed-upon rules in an anarchy. Whether or not Stirner/his followers "likes" something or not does not mean it cannot be pursued in an anarchy.
Poisoning the well by saying "look at this rightist, all they do is excuse rape and genocide!". This is just a lot of ideological attachment to claims, then outrage when those claims are extended to beliefs you disagree with.

Already elaborated on the human aspect, as the lions were just an analogy.
You would be correct, if I have no power to enforce my rule, then nobody will follow me.

It is the same guttural reaction I expected when I hinted to the fact that the bourgeoise could, in some circumstances (like the one we are discussing), be oppressed. Similar to how whites being oppressed is against the racism=power+prejudice point utilized today.

You did, it still doesn't dismiss the issue. That is not really relevant, just a gripe I had. Moving along.

Are you the same guy talking and advocating for worker's ownership of the MoP?

With all the in-group splits, one calling the other "not a true Communist" resembles a no-true-scotsman argument. Who are we to trust and take at face-value?

That private property is suspended with violence, yes. But not how working for another person is inherently exploitative. We were discussing the cotton analogy, about transportation and how you said you owned the cotton, and I said you didn't. This is a different issue. We agreed on the point how businesses on a market must be exploitative in that humans operate similarly. Your own quote here:

The business requires profit. But the burden of proof has yet to be fulfilled (in terms of outlining how that exploitation is necessarily in your favour and not in the business owner's). You aren't the only person your boss utilizes in the sale of the product/hires.

We were discussing hierarchies in human society when you refused to accept by lion analogy. Is this the same person? If so, then it is relevant. But our entire discussion is not rooted around Communism itself.

You missed it. I made my point clear: private property is enforced by hierarchy (the point we were discussing above, which you said is "irrelevant to Communism"), and how hierarchy is not moral, but simply exists. Also, that if you make a claim to ownership, it must be substantiated with violence or some just claim to be held up in a court/arbiter to decide.

But capitalism does not utilized slavery. That is not what slavery means. Unless you sign a contract selling your own body, nobody owns you.

Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. That's the definition. Free trade is involved in that; rather, it is allowed under capitalism.

But I'm not appealing to nature as justification for capitalism. I am pointing out how capitalism is simply observed in nature, not that it should be implemented because of that. This is a strawman argument you are pushing on me which I would ask you to cite me claiming. In fact, what I stated is the following: Capitalism is 'natural' insofar as it is observed in nature.

You are just stating that the majority of society is incapable of competing in a free market. That is to say that their businesses would fail. Also, voluntarily signing a contract is not equivalent to "survival". If you are on a desert island, you must fight to survive. Welfare and charities aren't prime points for the 'survival' issue.
If others cannot maintain their own survival, why is the next assumption that somebody must do it for them? If I cannot maintain myself as an adult, why should I appeal to the aid of another if I am incapable? This is reassigning agency and thinking others should necessarily help you if you fail.

Your own quote: What we see, is that Money, Capitalism, Markets, etc. are all products of certain material and socio-historical conditions people are born into.
I state that most of the rich don't actually stay in some static equilibrium and how most of the billionaires are not "born into capital".

Is this not a fatal flaw in your claim? There has to be some evidence showing the feasibility and how the system will organize itself. Who will run the computers? You mean an artificial intelligence?

The example you cite is very rare, not existing in human societies (besides welfare/charities) and is very uncommon in the animal kingdom. That is to say that there are few examples one may point to where one does not have to work in order to provide sustenance for oneself. You cannot reject to work for a business and assume you will have everything given to you (food, shelter, water, energy, etc.). If the desire is to live as our ancestors did, you can always live off the land in a remote forest location. But even there, your rejection of employment still relies on you to harvest materials. Nobody will do it for you, as you are not entitled to others' wealth.

So no state power enforcing rules? Then how do you remove currency? It isn't possible.

You're missing my point. If you attempt to ban prostitution, the results aren't related to "capitalism". Any time in human history, predating capitalism, the people formed black markets to trade goods that were banned. You can even try and ban knowledge, but Galileo will still revolutionize the sciences.

Alright, fair description. If in order to overcome capitalism, the necessity for capitalism to reproduce itself must be removed, this would assume that the labourer would no longer have to work and the capitalist would no longer have to have a business turn a profit. Explain how this can be done/if it has been attempted in the past, and how I am to take this at face-value, because it sounds very utopian to me. It seems to tilt towards the appeal to entitlement.

The nature of private property means that the wealth produced by millions of people fall into the hands of a few individuals. The vast majority of people (the proletariat) must sell their labour for scraps, while the landowners (the bourgeoisie) make more than they will ever need just from the property that they "own" (which was really created and maintained by the proletariat and belongs to them only because the state says so). To dissolve private property would be to destroy this relationship and allow the majority of people to live much richer lives. Unless you are among those property owners defending capitalism and private property is ultimately against your self-interest. You are being cucked by the bourgeoisie and you're defending them. And meanwhile they are laughing at you in their billion dollar mansions paid for by money you earned for them.
There is another example of the state being against property rights. The user above claimed that I stated that taxation is theft and how I thought that property rights were only enforced by the state, but here is an example of the state dismissing individual property rights. I digress.
The bank/landlord assumes I rent or have a mortgage. If I purchase a house, I have the deed proving its ownership. The point about the state is accurate.
Private property does not mean that "the wealth produced by millions of people fall into the hands of a few individuals". An example is me owning my house (purchasing it, not taking out a mortgage). What you are doing is extending my wealth to how I earned it. If I own a business, then I employ people to make/transport/advertise a product which my business sells. I pay the labourers what I deem is fit (usually, what minimum wage laws tell me I must), and sell the product on the market. With that, a percentage of the profits go to me (if I am a small business owner, not that much if I live in the US with the tax rates applied).
The point about: while the landowners (the bourgeoisie) make more than they will ever need. It is irrelevant what you perceive they do with their funds. I don't care what you do with your wealth. You might not buy the newest console. You don't even need that money, so it would be better in my hands. These opinion statements are not very valuable to the discussion.
Why should the proletariat have rights to live on the richer lands? What is their claim to have this be a truth that must be reached? Is this the same "I don't agree with what you do with 'x'" point, like above?

To the point about: Unless you are among those property owners defending capitalism and private property is ultimately against your self-interest. You are being cucked by the bourgeoisie and you're defending them.
I don't see how my status is relevant, seeing as how it will not invalidate my points. This is simply attacking an identity you disagree with. No better than fragmenting society based on status, the same method of conversation you dismiss as irrational, ironically. Also, it isn't really an argument. I am not a wealthy landowner, though. So your point is moot. It would be against my self-interest? This assumes the system you are preaching has any substantiated background to land on. That is, when the proles take the richer lands, what happens next? Can you point me to an example in the first world where that has been successful and the people have thrived?

To the point: And meanwhile they are laughing at you in their billion dollar mansions paid for by money you earned for them.
Again, justify or provide even a fragment of evidence showing how the money is something I earned for them, that they, then, stole from me. If I mine a resource for a mining company, it does not follow that the mined resource is my own property. The claim to ownership is just "I own it because I made it". The person who polishes the resource, or the person who transports it, or the person who advertises it, has the same claim to ownership as you do. However, the owner of the business does not pay each person the same amount that the resource is sold for because their labour is not worth that much. Again, I have elaborated on this point above, read my posts if you are interested in my rebuttal to this point in greater depth.

We don't deny this

No, I was the one who said that that is not enough

In the quote you used, I just said different tendencies disagree with each other on theoretical (and practical) aspects. Don't start forcing fallacies, please. Just take the arguments "at face-value", and decide how convincing they are for yourself.

It isn't. We aren't talking about "working for another person" in some abstract sense. We are talking about concrete jobs within actually-existing capitalism we all experience on a day-to-day basis…

…ie. what we mentioned here.

Are you suggesting that the business owner exploits himself on a regular basis? (If were talking about local shops, it's I'm not going to deny that their owners also work a lot, and help keep the business running)

I refuse to accept animal analogies in general, I understood the human one, and just said that it doesn't "disprove" communism or anything like that.

I'm here to discuss Communism, not some ideal Egalitarianism

I thought you said force? ("[…] private property is suspended with violence"). So what does hierarchy specifically have to do with this? Or do you think that I can't own (and reasonably assume that people will respect this) something without the abstract concept of a hierarchy? Maybe you'd have to elaborate on you usage of the word "hierarchy".

Where did anyone says capitalism utilizes slavery (on a regular basis, individual cases exist, but it's not the foundation)?

Btw, I'm fairly sure that this isn't possible. You'd need a state that allows this in the first place.

>Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. That's the definition.
I have already hinted that I'm not a fan of discussing "the definition" of a word, since word don't get their meanings from divine and eternal sources. It's simply (imo) an inversion of language, but before we start having a linguistic discussion, I'd rather stop here.

"Capitalism" as a term has different emphasis, depending on the tradition one looks at. If you want to, I can elaborate on this (again)…

…but then things like this pop up, but again, I've already explained this.

You said "capitalism is observed in nature" (I disagree), and I mentioned that this is what you said. I don't see a strawman. This is getting childish.

Use shorter quotes, because the way you're currently quoting, I don't see where you're getting this from

>Also, voluntarily signing a contract is not equivalent to "survival".
We've already been over the """voluntary""" aspect (see "true choice"), but besides that, I'm not saying it's equivalent, but (for most people/nearly everyone) it's necessary.

What does this have to do with anything? We are talking about society, and you want to ignore all of it to make a point?

For someone who wanted to have a honest discussion, you're pretty dishonest in making you assumptions about the argument of your opponent.

I get what you're trying to say, but this is a complete (frankly unbelievably wrong) misreading of what I'm saying. Try reading it again, and keep in mind that I'm not talking about wealth.

I'll just focus on money for now, because you mention it later on: ''Money (the way we know it) arises, not naturally and inevitably, but is a reaction to a certain material situation. People having to sell their labour and buy their means of subsistence, as I've said many times now, on the market, necessitates money as a universal equivalent between values (the value of ones labour, the value of ones food, shelter, transport, etc.)". Please stop misreading me, it's kind of unbelievable that you're not doing this intentionally.

So you except us to plan everything in advance, and hope that things will work out in the way we though? We cannot make any plans, just like a slave couldn't have contemplated how our world would look like, and make plans for it. We are not proposing a "alternative governmental and economic system", to be chosen from among an array of alternative - and as long as you think that's what we are doing, there is no point in a debate. That's not our business.

We don't (and can't know) what this will be or how it will look like. We are talking about the future here, remember? Not a re-imitation of the past, or the implementation of a 12-step program on how to achieve communism.

What does this have to do with anything? Capitalism is not (our) nature.

I'm out to disprove that the relation isn't voluntary, not whatever you're assuming. You're just trying to come up with some standard accusation, and force them on me. Again, childish.

I've explained this over and over again, and your dishonesty is getting annoying. If you want to ignore all my arguments, I'm just going to stop responding. In the last few comment you have not engaged in any relevant discussion, and all your arguments were based on (false) assumptions and baseless accusations.

I get your point, it's just that you are using a different (and idealist) definition of capitalism, and focusing on distribution.

Elaborated on above already. To do the opposite would be utopian.

Is the distinction between private and personal property so hard to understand.

women can be meanies and toxic, traps have the best of both worlds

Except vaginas are fucking nasty

Interesting, I thought the response would be the same as when I point out distinctions made on the basis of wealth are classified as a separation of identities.

I am losing track. What do you think is the goal, then? And why?

On what grounds do we determine validity? How can we assess which makes the best claim? One must be supporting an accurate representation of the philosophy, while the other is misrepresenting something, right? Not that this changes anything about the initial goal (that they were "Communists"). Also, just telling me to take something at face value without expounding on the point to warrant an acceptance is not something I would ask of you, so I'd ask that you extend the same courtesy.

Then we agree, there is nothing inherently exploitative about it. In real-world applications, the same is found. Lots of transport jobs, let's take a taxi driver. I don't own the car, but I get to drive it for a company who owns it. I top the car off for the next guy (common sense as to why that can keep the business flowing smoothly for the next employee) and pick up customers. I get charged to use the taxi, and keep the fairs I collect (minus rent and gas). But it isn't just me and the guy who hired me, there are licenses that have to be renewed, advertising, the car (that I don't own), etc. Just because he takes a fee off of the car that I don't own doesn't make it "wrong". It would be theft ONLY if I can claim my ownership. So if I can find a deed showing that I own the car, then the employer is in the wrong.

Yes.

No, what I meant is that the burden of proof outlining the exploitation done against you has not been made. The exploitation being in the favour of the business owner in that the business cannot operate on a flat system of no profit, not that it is self-exploitative. No business exists with that platform.

The point wasn't to disprove "communism", but to outline the duality of abolishing hierarchies.

My initial offer was to discuss any ideas, so I'm open to anything. We'll consider the other issues settled, then.

Hierarchy is only allowed by violence, as there is no peaceful hierarchy that can coexist if I can kill them all. That's what the lion/human analogy was meant to show. You cannot own something without a hierarchy being tilted in your favour. So if you cannot defend your land with violence (hence the tilted hierarchy in your favour), then I take what you own. All claims to 'x' are supported by a violent hierarchy. The same goes for claims against 'x'.

The Perlman quote about capitalism being among 'other systems, just like tribal, slave, or feudal societies'. That isn't a fair comparison as capitalist societies are not "like slave societies". Nobody is "owned".

Not really. Slaves are not brought into existence with a state. Two people can sign off any contract they desire without a state. In principle, that is.

What is the baseline, then? There must be accepted uses of a phrase in our dialogue, or else we cannot proceed.

The point I was making is that capitalism is not "good/bad" because it is "natural/unnatural".

It is observed in nature insofar as it is observed in our societies. That is what makes it natural. It is a statement of fact. I am not making a statement supporting/bashing capitalism because it is observed in nature (read: our societies in the West, to a degree), because that isn't a logical statement.

I can say the opposite thing. I don't know what you're quoting me from.

This ties into the accepted definitions point I made earlier. True choice would be in regards to ice cream. You can choose chocolate or strawberry, but you still have to eat ice cream. Employment is not like that. You can buy chocolate, strawberry, or sell your own.

It is in response to the point about the majority of society needing to sell their labour, and how I pointed out that this only speaks to the shortcomings of the majority of people and how the false sense of entitlement is not justified, seeing as how work is required to sustain one's life (not just in a capitalist system, but even on a desert island).

Then the workers' claim to ownership on the grounds of exploitation is rejected and they will have no just claim to anybody's wealth/assets, seeing as how there will be no seizure of assets as there is no entitlement complex acting as the driving force behind the revolution.

I read it again, I make the same statement. Wealth is not static. People who are rich today don't stay that way forever.
Currency is not unique to any one system, but to the concept of free trade and an agreed-upon standard. First and foremost, it is moving away from barter by improving it, not because people have to sell their labour. That is a cause, but not the only one. The people who cannot afford things work until they can. Then they use the agreed-upon unit to exchange goods on a market. As we observed, currency arose "inevitably", as barter is inefficient and people don't give their goods away for free.

No, I expect an ounce of evidence outlining the methodology and its feasibility in the real world. A car with no wheels won't go anywhere, so envisioning a joyride is just a pipe dream.

I keep noticing this constant appeal to slavery, both in rhetoric and analogy. You aren't a slave, and the example isn't like a slave. If the philosophy is implemented and failed, then it has no legs to stand on.

But there is no state, and "markets" are we formally know them to be wouldn't exist. I get that, my issue is that you have nothing to stand on to say that this will be a future than can ever exist. It's just waxing poetic about a revolution that can never arise, at least until some of the claims are grounded in evidence.

We can talk about the past, too. Historically, has Communism been attempted? If so, what was the result? I'm not asking you to explain to me the specifics of the system once it has been set up, I'm asking you to tell me why it should be pushed for to begin with. On what ground should there be any faith? What is the evidence that it is 'objectively superior and necessary'?

I never said capitalism is "natural" in that we have a natural affinity towards it. I said that it is "natural" in that we can see it in our natural environments (read: society). Just as how "theatres" are natural in our communities. But appealing to nature doesn't mean anything.

But it is voluntary. The ice cream analogy above outlines it. You would have a claim if you can show how there is no "true choice". You've just repeated the statement, but that isn't proof.

This is a very efficient debating tool for those who wish to remove themselves from an argument. Feign disinterest/convenient outrage, then leave. You haven't actually cited the passages where you allege I misrepresented you and expounding on your allegation. Look at it from my POV: "I see that you are guilty of 'x' and that is really bad, so I will stop responding". How so? Quote me and elaborate. Otherwise, it's just an accusation with no evidence.

Again, this has nothing to do with "overcoming capitalism". Banning anything needs authority. Even if you do, black markets form. None of this is within the definition of capitalism, but since you dismiss arguments from definitions, this is all on eggshells, so to speak.

To not attempt the philosophy would be utopian? This assumes some path of least resistance orientated towards the values of Communism, which still requires an explanation. Just saying it doesn't make it so.

Well, the "learned ones" who read all the 102382038201 books are usually too exhausted from hormone treatment to talk to anyone.

What the fuck man

Holla Forums it's not your fault you can't read, stop trying to rationalize it.

I wrote: , , , , , ,

Communism and a society with production for use. For a meme response, see pic attached. On a more serious note, we believe capitalism (as the foundation of the current existing system, not an ideal) is unsustainable and full of internal contradictions, and inevitably has to give rise to a system that resolves these - or destroy the planet. It's really not that much of a "choice" thing.

Depending on the strength of the argument? This discussion has already branched out, enough, and I hope I can say this without you accusing me of trying to not argue, but it is really unrelated to the other problems. It's not a issue of "accurate representations of a philosophy" (or at least in most cases), but mostly just theoretical disagreements, that don't have to be discussed here.

In the sense that "labour" doesn't exist in a void, unrelated to the rest of society, yes.

This whole point goes into what I was talking about above with the misuse of terms, wrong goals and questions. We aren't reformists, we don't just want to reallocate wealth from one person to another. We aren't here to discuss who gets the right to own what. These are all issues that exist within the current state of affairs, ie. the one we want to abolish.

You just seem to have gotten stuck on the "workers should own the MoP" talking point, and seem to have taken it too literally, with the wrong assumptions (eg. individual taxi owners own individual taxis). When this issue is raised within capitalism, it's concerning the value the worker generates, and that he should be entitled to all the value he creates. Within capitalism, this would only be possible if the workers collectively owned and managed the MoP. Imagine a Taxi union or something like that. But since communism abolishes social value, the whole talking point becomes an entirely different issue, when talking about that. I hope I could clarify this at least a bit, because you just seem to have horrible misconceptions about what the issue and the suggested solutions are. If it sounds as stupid and unworkable as you've described it, it probably isn't what is actually thought - just as a general guideline.

But you said that (for example in the case of democracies) the people can carry though a less tyrannical order, so I still fail to the the big problem if the "duality of abolishing hierarchies". Then again one could look into the material causes and backgrounds of hierarchies, and what makes them come about in the first place, but that's a different issue.

I get your point, does does this necessarily require a hierarchy? I see it as a simple issue of force and the ability to use it. Maybe the problem lies with what we think of with hierarchies, I'm supposing you're associating it with something along the lines of violence and the ability to exert force, or as I misguided? It might also help if you were to say what you argue for, just so I can fill the missing wholes in the discussion.

That is no the intent of the statement. I'm not sure if you've read the beginning of Perlman's article, but since it's mentioned and put into context right at the beginning, and this is really just a simple misunderstanding, I'm not going to comment on this anymore, except if you bring it up again. He's just talking about different modes of production, of which capitalism is just one among others (the others being tribal society, slave systems or feudalism - experienced in Europe in this order).

Yes, but I don't wish to establish these by mathematically postulating "definitions", like one defines variables. Again, a linguistic issue.

In that case I misunderstood you on two points:
1. I assumed you meant something like "animal kingdom" or "nature in general" with the term nature
2. I assumed you were trying to say that capitalism is the natural outcome for humans to coexist, and that everything else is a perversion of this "natural state"
Ancaps usually talk about it in the same way, so that's probably the background. But since you already said that this isn't an argument, I'd say let's agree to disagree, except if I'm missing where this issue is relevant for the rest of the discussion.

I'm only quoting the relevant parts, but it should all be in the order you mentioned it. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it seems the best way to get around. Until now, I at least found responding to his chain of posts far more enjoyable. Again, sorry if the feeling isn't mutual.

Ok, so on this point:
I'm saying this wouldn't be the real choice, since that would require the option: "I don't want ice cream". Or do you disagree/find this part irrelevant?

The issue, again, isn't one of entitelment. I'm not denying the fact that work has to be done for life to exist. Maybe automation can help us reduce it, labour laws can make it less dangerous (under capitalism), but the point still remains that it isn't "voluntary", in the sense of the true choice I explained in the previous paragraph. That's everything I'm saying (for now).

As elaborated above, the whole "claim to ownership"-point was misguided, and it's not based on the fact that people are exploited.

I still have no idea where you are reading anything about weath out of that statement… I'm probably the idiot here, but as it seems it's just our terminology that's so vastly different.

Before I would have to start elaborating on this issue, would it be enough if I found you a text that explains the whole argument and story behind this? From what I've gathered you seem to be unfamiliar with the (communist/socialist) arguments and analysis of history, and that's why you keep brining up these points.

What you're saying isn't wrong, but it's just unrelated to what I was talking about.

Of what?

Again, it's the whole "tribal society/primitive communism -> slavery -> feudal society -> capitalism" thing, outlining the different modes of production at different times, with material conditions. I could just as well use the serf/feudal lord analogy, but it's coincidence I've been talking about slavery more in this thread. I'm not saying we're slaves, in the sense that slaves were owned in Rome.

since we're not positively defining any future, but just saying what won't be the case (moneyLESS, classLESS, etc.) it's rather hard to argue the way you want to. These statements are come from a analysis of society, and it's contradictions, resulting in us basically saying "if these contradictions are to be overcome, the following mustn't exist anymore: …"

As already mentioned with the "real movement" quote from the German Ideology, communism isn't something to be "attempted". To phrase the issue this way, just brings with it tons of assumptions and implicit accusations.

But to at least touch on it, there have been communist uprising, and up until today they still occur, even if not everyone is conscious of it. Most of the times they either are crushed by state force (often fascist), dispersed from within or calmed down by unions/workers parties. It's a complex issue, but obviously since we still live under capitalism, the simple answer would be: they've all failed, since capital managed to save itself.

The "evidence", as explained above is the fact that capitalism has internal contradictions, just like any class society. It basically has the same fate as slave societies before, and feudal societies before capitalism. The difference of course between our modern times and the times of Marx and before, is that we have the power to destroy our planet, so it's not inevitable in that sense it was when Marx argued for it.

Basically you just have to remember that Communism, at least in the Marxian tradition, is a negative programme, although the term "programme" is a bit excellent, but never mind.

Just as a quick comment, you don't even have to respond - the way you use the word "natural" seems to really be a bit useless, isn't it? "Natural is what exists" really deprived the term of all it's meaning, or is your point a different one?

With ice cream or the case of employment? If it's the latter, from what I'm getting from you, you agree that there is no "true choice", for the reasons already enumerated.

I was afraid that this would come up, but for the most part your response quality is now better that last time, so never mind. You're very lucky that you've found someone who just won't end a debate until it's finished or both sides have agreed to end without a conclusion, so you don't have to fear me trying to remove myself from the argument.

An example is to be found in the next paragraph.

We. don't. want. to. ban. anything.

I think this is the third time I'm saying this, but when we say "we want to abolish X" this doesn't mean "we want to ban X by means of state force". The fact that you're assuming this over and over again, is why I accused you of misrepresentation or ignoring arguments.

I'm not "dismissing definitions", I'm just not trying to not base too much of the discussion on formal definitions, as if this were a kind of maths problem. Capitalism is a abstract term, but the existing social order. This we wan to describe in the most accurate fashion, and over these descriptions, their benefits and shortcomings, we can then talk. But the simple appeal to "the definition", I find to be the lazy (and wrong) way to go around. And this was another misrepresentation, btw.

My bad, was a misunderstanding. I meant to say that it would be utopian to "predicting and postulating the specifics of how a post-revolutionary society would look like, and we should base our activities on trying to get there"

Even if this is all because of a misunderstanding on my part, could you explain what you meant by this? I'm not quite understanding the point you're trying to make.

Production for use is illogical as that which you have no say in is not up for debate. Business production is not democratic because you aren't a shareholder/own nothing, so they can produce/operate however they see fit, not what you think 'is use' and isn't.
What internal contradictions? Elaborate.
A system that destroys the planet? This is relatively knew, Marx did not know any of this when he laid the framework for the political philosophy. There are other beliefs that are environmental without being anti-capitalist.

They both claim to be the same. I'd say neither given how both sects became statist.

Why? Why should one individual has his wealth reallocated to another? What has the other done to earn it? The surplus labour doesn't exist if you follow the quote above: it is illogical and has not been proven. The question should be a justification, either by force (violence) or in a court, to claim other people's wealth.

It does not exist. The contract makes the claim null, and the worker is not self-employed so he cannot claim it to be all his value. The argument is not substantiated. Read the chef example or the taxi example. You are not one single unit working in isolation. This point only works in a closed system. Even then, you signed it all away.

I shouldn't have to imagine it, you should cite me an example (not necessarily a taxi) showing me how it is possible and can last.

This is impossible. The society will still be comprised of individual consumers who have desires for certain things. Socially valuable goods can never be eliminated. Just saying "this will happen" is theoretical, there is no evidence behind the claim.

I stated that the democracies are established by violence and given away to the people. Kind of like robbing a bank and giving away the wealth. The revolution still occurs, but you willingly stand down from power.

The power structure itself is the hierarchy. The force behind my claim tilts the hierarchy in my favour, or against me.

The "like slave societies" does not seem to set up a timeline, but a comparison. Given the affinity to juxtapose between modern labourers and exploited slaves, I see this and the two click.

Definitions aren't postulated, they are accepted as fact because they are fact. It is more than linguistic, if you think linguistic means 'x' and I think it is 'y', then there is a rift right there.

From the quote above discussing capitalism and nature. Somewhere up there. I responded with my elaboration.

I can just hover on the post to see.

I agree. But this is not observed in our societies, at least in the West. We can choose between many flavours, or to craft our own, or to live off of the ice cream maker's dime. One can choose to work for 'x' or 'y', or set up their own business, or go on welfare, paid for by businesses/taxpayers.

It is voluntary, though. You can choose not make your own ice cream. Choosing not to eat ice cream would be to reject income entirely, which would be denying work altogether. Eating ice cream 'x' would be working for Wal Mart. Ice cream 'y' is working for Target. Making your own ice cream stand would be making your own shop. You can start selling ice cream to the consumer. It is voluntary, in that regard. You can choose not to eat ice cream/work for somebody, you can work for yourself.

well its more productive then sending people into gulag

Then why should wealth be allocated (your own words)? Where is the justification? It should come in one of two flavours: either workers take wealth by force, which they cannot do/no evidence of occurring in the West, or they defend their argument in court, which has not been done.

I'm discussing wealthy individuals that don't exist in an isolated system; that is, that if I make one million tomorrow, I am not guaranteed that full amount the next day.

Sure, bring something up. My point again: currency arises to improve barter as individuals desire exchanging goods on markets and as a commonly accepted unit for wages. The two can exist together.

Evidence justifying wealth allocation and how workers are justified in what they claim.

But capitalism isn't related to slavery, nor is it the next rung of the ladder. Private ownership of the means of production and laissez-faire economics takes no page from the slavery textbook. It just outlines how people trade without interference: free trade. You can sell anything, but there won't be a market for people/slaves as pronounced as a slave economy. It will still exist, like any other market, by definition of "don't interfere" markets.

This is the first you've mentioned of a contradiction. The previous post I responded to did not contain the term. How are they contradictions, which ones do you speak of, and why should they be overcome?

Wealth allocation is an active action. It can be "attempted" just as I can "attempt" to hit a home run. Of course it can be "attempted". My question still stands: has Communism been attempted? If so, what was the result?

So the hierarchy is not in the favour of the workers. So the property rights they say are in their favour are not backed by any force.
Also, define fascist. Any state existing/doing things is not fascist. There are few, if any, fascist states alive today.

Again, first time you've brought it up (didn't mention/elaborate before). What contradictions? Just saying it does not make it so. And this is why I pushed back on the slave point. Capitalism does not have the same fate as slave societies. Individuals are not "owned". Feudal societies, I can see, what with working on the land and getting a wage. But wages have increased and workers don't live on the land anymore, at least in the West. Elaborate on the points here.

How is it a negative programme?

That's the definition, though. Existing or caused by nature. Humans are a natural force, insofar as our biotic composition is natural.

The example about "you can choose ice cream A or ice cream B, but you still have to eat ice cream" was the extension of your argument. I was laying out the conditions that need to be met for the 'it isn't voluntary' statement to be true. But that isn't the case, because we can eat ice cream A, B, or make our own shop. It is voluntary as you can remove yourself from needing to eat ice cream/work for a wage.

Willingness to describe and defend your ideas from criticism isn't luck, it is an obligation/to be expected if you hold beliefs. You are just speaking to the anti-intellectualism of this board if you are hinting to the fact that many hold beliefs but can't be asked to defend them beyond shitposts.

Sure.

Then I can set up my own ice cream shop and have people come work for me. The point about abolishing 'x' is that you require a state to do so. You cannot claim that prostitution is sexist and we must abolish it without exerting force to back up your claim… as a new law. You require state power. I'd ask of you to point to an example where 'x' is abolished without state power, or the power of the individual upholding the claim (so, if I tell you not to walk on my lawn and wait on my porch with a loaded shotgun).

You should base your points in definitions. It isn't a misrepresentation if I quote "since you dismiss arguments from definitions" and you prove me right by claiming "I'm just not trying to not base too much of the discussion on formal definitions".

That is impossible, yes. My main point is asking why the revolution should occur and, if it ever has been done before, what the aftermath looked like.

That Communism is "bound to happen" requires more than a statement just repeating the point: that's a circular argument. It requires some evidence showing that that is the case.

Vaginas are fuckin hot. They're moist and really edible looking.

Dicks are nice and smooth so idk.

This doesn't refute production for use. If you're trying to say that under capitalism it wouldn't work, well that's no surprise. Production for use could only take place after capitalism, which produces for exchange/profit. Businesses the way we know them wouldn't exist. For a simple overview, since you don't quite seem to understand what I'm talking about, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_for_use

Also, where did you learn about communism/socialism in general?

There are a multitude of contradictions (or "antagonisms", as some people prefer to call it). Among these are the contradiction within the commodity, ie that of the use-value and the exchange-value, between the imperative for infinite growth and the fact that our planet has limited resources, the contradiction between the attempt to automate as much as possible and the fact that capitalism can never be fully automated, the contradiction between the wage-labourer (employee) and capital (employee), since the former want to work less or more, and the latter want the opposite.

But before we go on forever, just google "Contradictions of capitalism", there are also good videos on YouTube about (I especially recommend Kapitalism101's "Law of Value" series, eg. on this topic: kapitalism101.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/law-of-value-5-contradiction/). It also helps puts all of this within the general context of the critique of capitalism, the materialist analysis of society, etc. - one should at least have some familiarity with all of this to really understand what all of this is about.

I belive I mentioned this later on, that while he didn't know about this, communism isn't a religion and marx isn't a prophet, he was just outlined his method of analysis and criticism, which was then later, once one had more evidence and research, applied to ecology. I'm not saying every ecologist is an anti-capitalist, don't put words in my mouth.

How do these "sects" claim to be the same? It's just people disagreeing, which is to be expected. And what are these "statist sects" you are even talking about? I just mentioned that ML disagree on one point, and you're trying to frame this in some narrative about communists being a religion.

You might have misunderstood me - when I said "we don't just want to reallocate wealth from one person to another" the implication was that we don't want to take the "wealth" from person A and give it to person B. After all, if the systems still exist that made A more wealthy than B, there's no point is simple reallocation, because after a while the same situation would return (although A and B don't necessarily have to be in the same positions as before).

But the main point still is that wealth isn't our main issue, which is one of the differences between socialist/communists and social democrats or left-liberals. Except if you regard the MoP as "the wealth of a capitalist", but I'm assuming that's not the case, because that would be most unusual. On the other hand, from what I've experienced until now, I wouldn't even be too surprised.

What quote? If you said that exploitation, ie. collecting the value produced by the surplus value, is the source of profit, you implicitly accepted that surplus labour exists, but now you're saying the opposite?

Also, why are you talking about courts all the time? A court by itself has no power, but serves only as a means to decide how force is used.

We aren't operating here within the legal framework of the state, contracts are meaningless, and a non-argument. Of course one can't go to a court within capitalism and "claim" (again, wrong terminology) the value they produced. We live under capitalism, the state's interest is to preserve capitalism, and the laws are already written with the assumption that there's nothing wrong about it - it's not a surprise that some people refer to all of this as the "bourgeois state" or "bourgeois law".

I have already addressed all of these, pleaser read my responses in full before replying to them.

Ok, look at any cooperative business. Here where I live (Germany), there are many of them. Banks, Technology firms, local shops, etc. I might not be familiar with a taxi example, but there is no reason it shouldn't work. I'm asking you to imagine in, since we're talking about a imaginary situation.

One might object to the idea that "indivudual consumers" might exist, or what "elimination of social goods" might mean or imply, but all of this is, as you say are more theoretical issue that requires a certain background in value theory (if you're interested, look of the writings of the value-theorists since the 60's, I've also already linked an article from the endnotes journal) and ties into the whole thing of communism being a negative programme. Except if you insist on it, and you show that you do understand the termonology and the background (eg. not confusing preferences/need for goods with exchange-/use-value), then we could go into this, but otherwise, seeing it's a theoretical and not a central issue, I'd put it aside.

Ok, but what's so special about this? This is basically just a truism, nothing fascinating about it.

Ok, then I get what you're talking about.

There is a comparison in the quote, namely that the slave just like the modern worker reproduces the system he lives within, in the former case slave, in the latter capitalism. Nowhere is he saying the worker is a slave - if he were, than we would be still living under a slave society, and not capitalism. Again, read the first few section from his pamphlet. This is a non-issue.

My issue is just seeing definitions and then applying these definitions to what one experiences, instead of doing it the other way around, as I elaborated later on. In some cases definitions make more sense, there I'll also use definitions, but in the case of studying the existing society, definitions, I argue, are the wrong way to get around.

Basically, I prefer discussing descriptions, and arguing which one is better fit to do it's task - describe society, instead of seeing if a society fits a (preconceived, and probably ideologically influenced) definition.

This is because, there is no true choice. Also the whole thing with "you can sell ice cream yourself has nothing to do with the issue. We're talking about the options a worker has - if he becomes the business owner/employer, his choices and interests automatically change.

Just a quick note, while I'm lucky enough not to have ever had to rely on welfare, I know that this isn't a issue of choice. You don't just say, "I don't want to work", and that's it. You usually have to prove you're actively looking for a job, that you have no other income, that you actually need everything you are getting, etc.

Yes, but this isn't the "true choice" I'm talking about. You're basically given two options, work for someone or start your own business. And except if you see the latter as a possibility to say "no", ie. the choice not to choose, you aren't in a really voluntary situation (at least if you ask me). Add to this that you can't just lean back and wait for the money to roll it when you start your own (usually small) business, but you're a active and important part in all of the operations.

I've already talked about the nonsense of the latter "flavour", but regarding the first one, it is true that until now the workers couldn't take over state power, at least in the west (the only successful case being 1917, which deteriorated, and other well known cases being the workers uprisings in general after WW2, revolutionary Spain and to some extent '68 or the workers uprising within the eastern block, which were crushed).

But this has nothing to do at all with what I'm talking about, I don't contradict this,mention or imply anything in this direction at all.

This encyclopedia article gives a short overview (see "Historical Overview"): marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/l.htm

The main point is how resources are produced, and who gets what. In tribal societies, or what sometimes is called primitive communism, people worked directly for use, eg. I need to eat, so I'll kill an animal and prepare, gather some fruit, etc., while the division of labour mainly was organised around extended family relations or gender. The main idea was outlined already by Engels in "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State", but has since then been corrected with newer anthropological research.

I like this short overview, from the "Feudal Society" entry (marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/e.htm#feudal-society), where other modes of production are compared to Fedualism:

Again, just Google for "Marxism comparison of modes of productions", and I'm sure you'll find something.

Currency, by itself, has existing before capitalism, this is true. But it is under capitalism that is has gained the everyday significance, not only to enrich oneself, but to live and survive at all (while in better parts of the world, the state might help). This is of course because all exchange is mediated by money and the market, it's the modern, material foundation of society, and all production revolves around selling on this market, to get people to buy your stuff, and to make a profit.

Again, we aren't talking about "just" giving stuff from A to B.

Putting the issue aside, that no "slavery textbook" exists, the point is putting these two side by side, is to show how the two are different. How different classes relate to each other, what the consequences are, how this was ideologically explained/justified (see Aristotle and his writings on some people being "natural slaves"), etc. You're really irrirated by this for no reason.

Also, while "Private ownership of the means of production" is a central part of capitalise, "laissez-faire economics" is not. Just to get that out of the way. This is a particularly American way of thinking. It also idealizes capitalism, making it not the system we live in, but a tendency or a potential our current society could achieve.

I've explained and enumerated some above already, but regarding why they "should" be overcome, again, this is not a issue of choosing. They either will continue to exist, or will be resolved (leading to communism, which is quasi "defined" as the resolution of these conflicts, in a negative sense).

We aren't talking about reallocating wealth, again. And besides that, in the modern world, the whole situation is so complex, that just "reallocating" stuff would not be enough, or in fact it would barley change a thing, besides who has what. A more egalitarian capitalism, that just spins the clock backwards, and will give rise to new centres of capital accumulation.

I literally talk about this in the next paragraph. Could you please first finish reading my post, before responding.

In your sense of hierarchy, yes, but under capitalism the workers are never in the position of power.

Here we have the same problem again - communism isn't about changing who gets the right to what. Ultimately, it entails the abolition of private property (not personal) in itself. But ignoring the loaded words, and the phrasing that obviously tries to play into a preconceived notion of what is just, which coincidentally opposes anything communism wants, their "claims" were backed by force, but they were beaten down and the uprisings, which were in the end manifestations of force, were crushed. Take for example the Spartacist uprising in Germany. The new Weimar republic (under Ebert from the SPD) hired the Freikorps to actively oppose them in the streets. These guys later went on to become the Nazi's that fought the SPD and the KPD in the late 20's. The same went on with the Blackshirts in Italy. ("When insurrections die", libcom.org/library/when-insurrections-die, talks about this, if you're interested). Capitalism, by means of the state and hired thugs, could save itself from collapse.

It was a particular form of state that arose after WW2 in response to communist moments. The Freikorps or the Blackshirts were in this sense proto-Fascists. They disciplined the workers, dissolving traditional working-class organizations and replacing them with their own, and tried to overcome the before stated antagonisms that arise under capitalism. Just a few random things that came to my mind. Calling any authoritarian state action "fascist" is a particularly liberal/post-modern way to go around analysing things.

I'd argue there are none - which should it be?

I've talked about the rest, but just about this, Feudalism didn't have workers or wages, at least not as the major foundation of it's "economy" (or what one would want to call the economy). Serfs worked their own land, and, defined by particular arrangements had to give part of their produce to lords or religious institutions. Sometimes they even had to work part of their time on the land of their lord (here, the production of surplus of their work is clearly visible: the produce they created while working for the lord, the fraction of their own produce they had to give up) - this was how the not directly producing members of society (clergy, aristocracy, army, …) survived, and these specific relations that existed in that time, that were reproduced by the daily work of the serf, defined this mode of production.

I thought I already made this obvious with the
passage. Communism, if were speaking of it as a kind of future, post-capitalist society, cannot be predicted to have specific positive attributes (eg. what the system of governance will be, how will production be organized, will there still be anime, etc.), but everything we can deduce, is from the (materialist) analysis of current society, and the societies with their own kinds of productions. For example, one realizes that capitalism has inherent antagonisms, just like previous societies, and could of course only be resolved by the system being "abolished" (not by law, ie. prohobited). And just as a serf (or the example I used earlier, slave or slavemaster) couldn't have said if the future will have parliamentary democracies on a national basis or transnational technocratic unions, we can't predict the positive attributes of the future, since there are just too many, even arbitrary factors in the whole process. In that sense, had a serf been able to analyse his own society, had had he found out what it's internal contradictions were, he could have only said that the resolution of these, would entail the abolishment of certain attributes. Now I'm not a expert on feudal societies, but I would have guessed that he could have said that we would have to live in a castless system, without serf that have to give up a certain amount of their produce, etc., and maybe if he were really good, he would have figured out that the bourgeois were the revolutionary agents.

Frankly, I do understand a person who doesn't want to engage in a discussion going over days, addressing and having to explain many of the fundamental aspects of their "belief". Especially when concidering that most people come here, more for fun than theory, and lots of people here are still learning (for example from debates like these), and aren't fully capable to defend their positions by themselves.

Yes, but it would make no sense for anyone to work for you, as already explained above. It's like someone going around, and looking for people to become a master for new serfs - why should anyone want this, ignoring the fact that it would be rather hard nowadays - do to this? Wage labour, especially in the west.

You see, this is a issue I do think we need resolve the definition issue for, or rather find out what definition the people writing this are using. In that sense I'm trying to tell you that "abolishment of X" isn't defined as state suppression of X emerging, but destroying the conditions that lead to the emergence of X.

Why?

In the quote you give I say "I'm just not trying to not base too much of the discussion on formal definitions", ie. I want to avoid it where possible, so it's a blatant misrepresentation. But, as seen in the previous paragraph, I should point out that there are issues where I do see the merits of arguing with definitions, but these are not cases where the issue is describing (and analysing reality), for the reasons I already mentioned.

Because of the contradictions in the existing system (ie. capitalism), and it's inability to reproduce, to put in in one sentence
It has been tried, but has failed, either because of too strong forces against it, the fact that crisis of capitalism wasn't too deep or that the material conditions didn't even provide that basis of capitalism (eg. Russia, China)
The direct aftermath or the total aftermath? The latter can't be predicted, and the former depends on the situation where the revolution were to take place, and how it would be carried out. Here multiple theories exist, I personally find what the communisation theorists say most interesting (capitalism has produced the conditions for communism, and "One does not abolish capital for communism but by communism", etc.). But until then, we can only fight within the existing system for betterments of rights, working conditions, pensions and wages, healthcare, etc.

I believe I've gone into this more than enough in this post.

Ought-is, that is my entire point. I am not theorizing here, I am being pragmatic. I could be a bicycle if my legs were wheels, but they aren't. And if I am promoting a concept, I'd better have just cause to warrant my promotion, or some reasoning. Production for use cannot exist. If if "can technically exist post-capitalism", explain how post-capitalism will arrive.

How is this relevant? Doesn't advance the discussion.

Use-value and exchange-value does not make sense as the consumer determines the use. Not some inherent worth of the good. Also, if I produce 'x', sell it to you, and you re-sell it at a later time, there is nothing inherently contradictory about that exchange. The consumer determines how the product is used and if he/she wishes to re-sell the product at a later time.
Infinite growth can be achieved if we can harness renewable energy. Other than that, if you are just referring to a business growing larger (or desiring growth), then there is nothing wrong with that. Your contradiction is more to do with renewable energy and resources on Earth and how humans consume, not with capitalism. Capitalism is a mode of production that says the production/harvesting OF those resources will be in the hands of private companies, not the public. The utilization of resources, however limited they may be, is not mutually exclusive to capitalism.
Automation is possible. If human labour becomes irrelevant, then robots become the workers. Once the wealth of the consumers falls to zero, there will be an excess in supply and nothing will be sold IF the private companies allow such a thing to happen. That is to say, they allow their prices to not reflect the amount of money people have. See what happens if you have Apple charge three times as much for an iPhone. Nobody will buy it because they have no expendable income, so the price has to be lowered. Eventually, though, people will run out of money altogether, which is where the wealthy 1% will simply ignore them and ostracize them from society, letting them starve to death. The end result will not be some altruism where they forfeit the MoP and everything is produced by the people and all that utopianism. All of this relies on the automation postulation to be valid. It's already a shoddy "well, if the sky was green, then I could…" conjecture.
The contradiction about wage-labourer is worded poorly. What do you mean "less or more", then "the latter wants the opposite". So the latter wants more "or less"? You have to pick one. So, do you mean "former wants less, latter wants more"?

I can extend the same argument to you: go and google contradictions of Communism, I'm sure there are relevant points that exist out there. You'll have to be more specific.

Then his methodology was based on information that he did not know. Climate change wasn't well-known during that era, so using this retrospective logic and applying it to his methodology after the fact is arguing in bad faith. "Jesus died for the sins, specifically to sacrifice himself for those who died during 9/11". Not very honest.
I never said every ecologist is anti-capitalist. I said that there are other beliefs that can be environmental without being anti-capitalist. "Ecology" is not a belief.

Both are Communist, so they say. They follow Marxist philosophy. Who is to be taken seriously? Who is correct?
The "statist" point is referencing how the USSR devolved into statism, despite how Marx wrote about some inevitable divergence from statism (states weren't supposed to be around).

What makes you think that person A has more wealth simply because of the system in place? The people aren't interchangeable units with the same level of expertise. Even if you swap systems, you are making a judgement statement with no evidence to claim that there will be a gradual plateau.

The capitalist is wealthy when his business does well. Producing a product doesn't make you wealthy if nobody wants to buy it.

The point I made above discussing how profit is necessary in business. I never called it exploitation or referenced the surplus value being in the rightful possession of the labourer: my entire point is that the business owns it, not the labourer. If the product you helped assemble sells for 'x', and you make 'x-1' as your wage, you do not deserve 'x' because that is the profit the business earned, not you. It is profit, which businesses require to survive. But I never called it exploitation, I made sure to outline how the worker signed off on the profit on the contract and how the worker cannot show that he owns the business to receive the profits.

The reason I discuss courts is because that is how legal matters are resolved. If I win, then force is used to enforce the outcome in my favour. So, if you claim that the wages should match what the product is sold for, settle the dispute in court. When your argument inevitably falls flat on its face (because you cannot prove ownership and the contract refutes all your claims), you lose. That's why I keep mentioning it.

...

Ought-is, again. Your scenario involves many things. I could get away with murder when courts become meaningless, too.
You just refuted your argument. Also, courts aren't "capitalist". Capitalism is a mode of production, not a legal definition. Courts aren't 'bought my capitalists', it's just a simple matter of proving ownership, which you cannot.
My entire point has been that the theorizing you have been doing about "if the system falls apart, then x, y, z…" can never occur precisely because the state preserves the current system and the people have become aware of the failures of Marxism. There will be no gradual replacement, it's been over a century and the predictions have failed.
Also, appealing to every law being 'bourgeois' just because your claims to ownership are struck down doesn't mean the verdict is biased towards capitalism: it means your legal argument failed. It means you have nothing to stand on because you don't own the value you produce… because you aren't self-employed.

That was my response. Workers aren't operating in a closed system. To assume that they do requires substantiation, which has not been provided. It's presupposing that it is a 1-1 relationship, and that all the "value" that is produced and sold on the market is dependent on the labourer and not the consumer. If I paint a canvas and it person A purchases it for 'x', but person B outbids person A, the worth of the canvas is determined by the consumer, not the labour that I put into it. Similarly, if I work for somebody and produce the canvas, then I have signed off on its rights and I no longer own it.

The wealth is not evenly distributed among the people. There is still profit that the labourers don't receive. This is a simple fact I can derive because the businesses are still working. If the circumstances which you are trying to paint them in were true, they would have already failed because, as you already ceded, profit is required.

Individual consumers do exist. You can object to anything, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If you cannot prove the assertion, then the theories aren't really theories: they're failed hypotheses. Similarly, simply alluding to my confusion without quoting a passage and explaining how it is incorrect is an empty statement.

It explains the answer to your question. It establishes fundamental ground upon which our definitions can stand.

Kind of like this.

It is an issue considering how it makes reference to victimization that does not exist. The modern worker isn't "like a slave". If you make this claim, explain how and why this is to be accepted. That's the whole point I'm trying to get across.

Experience is subjective and using that, one can warp any definition to any experience. An apple is not green and only green just because I like green apples.

Explain how there is no true choice. Repeating yourself doesn't make the claim more true. There IS true choice: you can work for me, work for my neighbour, or work for yourself. It is irrelevant what the worker's interests are: the statement is concerned with choice, not interests. He has the choice to become an employer, something you state, which refutes the "no true choice" point.

I never actually made a statement referencing this. I am aware of how welfare works. It takes money from the taxpayer and gives it to people who cannot work. There is great incentive for welfare recipients to remain under welfare, as the welfare cliff drops steep when they earn enough to get off welfare.

Shifting the goalposts. The "no true choice" was referencing the requirement TO work to survive, not that you could become an employer. I can move the goalposts, too: there is no true choice as you can either choose to work to survive or choose not to work to survive.
The statement is still true: you have true choice in that you do not have to work to survive.

So on what grounds do you base your beliefs and how they will eventually come to fruition if you have literally no evidence highlighting a successful instance?

This has to do with the point I made earlier about wealth not being static. Then we agree.

Alright, and how is this relevant to our modern society?

Yes, and? If this is a statement of fact, then I agree. If this is pointing to some injustice, on what grounds?
What traditional rights and ethics? Appealing to the archaic, but ignoring the non-existence of traditional rights, is not consistent. There is no such thing as rights, and ethics only exist if we will them to. Nobody deserves any 'traditional rights' if they have them stripped from them, which is what, you claim, has been done by the upper class who rule over. Nothing wrong with this, and objecting appeals to relics of the past. If you allow yourself to be in such a situation, you should have fought harder.

What do you think currency was used for prior to capitalism? It was used for exchange, which is what one of its uses is today. "Everyday significance" existed thousands of years ago, too.

True. This is the superior system which has lasted in the face of all competition.

Then destroying the systems that allow A to have more than B. This destruction has not been proven to work in the past as all of its implementations have failed or been destroyed by superior systems establishing their might, and is internally inconsistent because there is no reason to believe the new system will not have B become the new A (pigs for farmers). This also ties into the whole "statism is required to enforce restrictions, even if it is against free market capitalism".

As in the basis for a slave society, not a literal textbook. Do you want to literally seize the MoP? Where is it? We won't get anywhere pulling this shit.
Understandable. Given the "workers of the world, unite" and the whole breaking free from chains, one can be understandably hesitant at the mention of slavery because it appeals to the emotions of the workers.

It is a direct consequence of private ownership. It does NOT allow public ownership, and must be allowed to exist without interference. If private businesses are not allowed to trade freely, then they do not own the MoP, and it is not capitalism.

I have responded.

I've understood, now it is "destroying the systems that allowed for wealth centralization". That won't stop person A from having more, though.

Exactly, which speaks to how seizing the MoP will not stop the 1% from having vast sums of money.

Weren't you responding to the point about seizing wealth directly even after you elaborated on your goals? Hello pot, I'm kettle…

Yes. There is nothing wrong with this.

So what is the point about complaining about exploitation if you have no right to claim the surplus value: that just means the business does.

Yes, you see: this is what wealth reallocation means. You cannot destroy private property without seizing another person's assets… that you do not own.

This is just another example of a failure defeated by the superior system. How is this a good example for your case?

A capitalist nation (that you claim is capitalist without any evidence, we should just believe you) hired thugs, sure. This does not mean that is within the definition of capitalism. Seems like more of quelling a rebellion against the state than it does with private businesses hiring thugs. If I come to take your house, you shooting me dead is more self-defence and speaks to your desire to protect yourself than it does to your mode of production.

So fascism can exist under capitalism? Explain to me how private businesses can freely own the MoP under a fascist state.

I'm not sure. We haven't adequately defined fascism yet, you just called it a form of a state. Very vague.

Anything serfs make while working for the lord is not owned by the serfs because the serfs were bound by the lord. The issue is that you keep on assuming the profit earned necessarily belongs to the serfs, or the workers. It does not because they do not own the business and they are not self-employed (for serfs, they are bound by what the lord says).

No, you never mentioned how it was a negative programme. You just mentioned how it lacked money and class.

This is an incredibly blatant attempt at excusing yourself from evidence. You are operating off of the fact that it is impossible to determine how production will be organized or how the people will govern themselves: this speaks to the lack of evidence and reasoning the system of beliefs is based on, and explains why every implementation has either fallen from the inside, perverted to the same statism it attempted to run away from, or was crushed easily. Also, I am not asking you to predict the existence of anime, but the first two are MAJOR foresights.

I've responded to the antagonisms. On the serf point, I am not asking the serf to predict the future, but to have some basis for reasoning to justify the revolution and to explain how their systems are feasible/an improvement. Otherwise, you are just abolishing a system to replace it with yours… with no plans for how it will be an improvement other than hypotheses which have already failed.

Like I said, instead of having a debate (by the way, the time it runs is irrelevant, unless you are lazy), people just want to shitpost and not provide any evidence. In fact, you still haven't proven why your beliefs are valid. The historical examples you've given me have all been destroyed or failed, and you already admit to no real plan for governance, just some basal desire to abolish something with no plans for replacement. Pretty sure the US tried that in the ME, it worked out great for them when… a powerful centralized authority rose up and terrorized the people.

We aren't serfs. And people who do not want to start businesses will work for them: welcome to our modern society in the West. That's the entire point. What do you mean, nobody will want that? People have different aspirations in life, and some don't want to own businesses and just want to work for one.

You admit to wishing to destroying the "conditions that lead to the emergence of 'x'". What the hell do you think happens when sentiments that are pro-X arise in a society? You will… have to, as you said, destroy the conditions. And if people start to sympathize or capitalists start to rise up again, you kill them. That's my whole point.

For coherent and logical debate.

But you didn't say you wanted to avoid it where possible. You said "I'm just not trying to not base too much of the discussion on formal definitions". Why avoid it, anyways? Allowing for common ground upon which definitions may be placed is how debates work.
It is actually incredibly relevant to our discussion. Just above, you defined what you really meant by abolishment of 'x'. I can just dismiss that, as I don't "want to base too much of the discussion on formal definitions". I want to take "abolishment of 'x'" to mean anything I want it to mean. But that isn't a reasonable stance that will advance the discussion. So I accept your definition/elaboration, and critique it further.

If one of the factors is the inability to reproduce, then wouldn't the same critique extend to the failures of Marxist philosophy to manifest itself into a revolution that actually worked and didn't fail/become perverted once it succeeded?
I have already elaborated on the contradictions. They are not so much gripes with capitalism as with environmentalism, exploitation (without proving it is), contracts, courts acting as arbiters, etc.

It cannot reproduce itself because other systems can easily defeat it. So the revolution should not occur. By reproduce, I mean to produce what the hypotheses entail. It is always crushed because it cannot succeed against other systems.

Right after the failure, and the years following it. I don't mean forever.
I don't mean the revolution, I mean once the system failed/was defeated.

Why? Betterment of rights means nothing, elaborate. Pensions already exist, working conditions are fine in the West (take it up against China or Pakistan), healthcare already exists (pay for your own injuries yourself), and you are already paid a wage. If you want a higher one, work for yourself.

Yes, you said it is because of the contradictions of capitalism that it is bound to occur. For such a system that is riddled with contradictions, it sure seems mighty powerful and easily able to destroy the attempts at your system.

This is ignoring the fact that it has existed, and still does. Pre-capitalist societies didn't produce for exchange, although they might have sold and traded surpluses from production. Whenever someone has their own garden where they plan their own vegetables and fruit, their are producing for use, instead of with the intent to produce a profit.

Not "technically", it's totally pragmatic. You are not producing with the intent to sell, and generate the largest possible profit, but directly for the use.

Because you have horrible and massive misconceptions about communism/socialism and many concepts related to it, just as shown now. You weren't familiar with the basics of historical materialism, the negative conception of communism, use/exchange value, cooperatives as an existing system, the whole "workers ownership of the MoP", etc. When you suggested to have a serious debate, I somehow excepted that you at least had some basic knowledge about these concepts. But instead half of my replies are just explaining the basics one could read up by oneself in a book.

Use-value is the "the qualitative aspect of value, i.e., the concrete way in which a thing meets human needs". What you are saying isn't disproving anything, that's literally what use-value is. Again, lacking any knowledge of basic concepts.

Infinite growth refers to the aggregate growth of the economy, and the possibility to "harness renewable energy" doesn't change anything about this. Good would still have to be produced and sold, but at a larger scale than today, and ever increasing. The problem then becomes producing (never mind convincing people to buy) all these new things.

But robots aren't consumers, they don't buy commodities, and assuming everything were to be automated, all the "consumers" wouldn't have any money any more (except if UBI were implemented, but that's a different issue), so none of them could buy anything. Ergo, even though everyone has more free time, less hard work has do be done, and one would except a net positive outcome, within capitalism, it's harmful and horrible, but since this is in some sense in the interest of the capitalist, but also not (since it would mean the system could collapse), it's a contradiction.

Well imagine how fond the "99%" would be about that. It's not like people would, you know, do something about this?

Said nobody ever, but how would you know?

The capitalist would want you to work 24/7 for no pay (ideally), and the worker would want to work nothing, but get the highest possible wage (again, ideally). Obviously, neither works, but there's still a inherent antagonism between the two, be it that severity depends on the situation.

I did, and what I found was a two minute YouTube video with a worse understanding of Communism than you have. "Communism is no private property, and economics is about private property. Communism BTFO!", basically. But maybe you have something better.

I've been more specific, but I recommended googeling it, since there are multiple articles and videos that go over exactly these, and more points, just in greater detail.

Why don't they ever try and "debunk" Noam Chomsky, Richard Wolff, Michael Parenti, Howard Zinn, Slavoj Zizek, David Harvey, Murray Bookchin etc etc? Why is it literally always just stupid hippie college kids?

He outlined the ideas, but he's no prophet, and his words aren't final. There are plenty of aspects where modern communists disagree with Marx, but using his method, and applying it to modern discoveries, is in absolutely no sense arguing in bad faith. You're just coming up with bogus accusations by now.

Says the right person ^^

"Marxist philosophy" isn't a final document, or some kind of religion. The whole idea make no sense. There are many people who call them selves economists, some are neo-clasical, some are keynsian. Does this somehow discredit everyone, just because there are disagreements?

That was the assumption behind my analogy. If you have nothing to say about it, don't raise non-issues, as if they were significant. These replies are already too long, by themselves. That's why I've been skipping the non-issues, things I've already explained but you ignore or things I mention in the next paragraph. If you think something was important, but I didn't reply to it, just say so.

Nobody is saying that that isn't the case under capitalism. That's a reason some people oppose capitalism. This really isn't that hard to understand. Unless you work in a coop, you can't avoid this.

Courts exist within capitalism, and are part of the state. The state, or the legislative has it's laws, which are written to support and legitimize capitalism. This is not a conspiracy, in the sense that they own it, but just the realization that the state has certain interest groups, and they are inclined to operate in their interest.

1. There is only a certain point until the state can help things to go on the way they are. Eventually, to we believe, the contradictions will be so intense, that the state won't be able to cope with it.
2. There is no necessity for the people to actively peruse "Marxism", join the "official communist party", or anything like that. Marxism isn't a a political current in the sense that libertarianism, social democracy or fascism are. We analyse society, and try to make sense of it.

What do you even mean by "closed system" in this context?

The people, as in the population, or the workers of the coop? Also, please stop the meme that Communism is about total equality.

The workers in a coop decide how their surplus is distribute, and because they all have a interest in the business not failing, they collectively decide to reinvest in the business, but theoretically they could receive all the profit. It's just not in their interest to do so, especially while they still exist within capitalism.

We were talking about communism, but as I said, I'll leave this issue (and the following baseless accusations) aside.

That's your interpretation, but not at all what we're talking about. You're just making up issues, when I'm talking about history. Nobody is saying (nowadays) that the worker has the same plight as a slave. But you, instead of addressing this, or god forbid, say maybe we aren't totally wrong about anything, ignore it, and try to make a different issue the main problem.

You said it yourself, you can't choose no to decide who to work for (or start a business). You have to make a choice, hence it's not fully voluntary. You MUST choose.

I've been talking about this all along, you mentioning "you can start a business" doesn't change that.

You can't just say this without any evidence and except people to accept it!!!1!!

On an analysis of society, it's contradictions, it's history, previous movements and their faults/situations, as I've mentioned over and over again. But who cares if you have to power to ignore all arguments? Also "successful instance" is once again, loaded question. Doing this all the time, despite me addressing this is juts dishonest and rude.

There was no issue about this at any point. We were talking about something completely different, but you changed the issue to ignore the previous point!

Because all of this still exists today, just in different forms. That's the whole issue we are talking about!

Again, we aren't talking about justice, rightfulness or accusing anyone of being "evil". As I've said, this is all a amoral analysis of history, society and facts.

Again, not denying that. Kind of the reason currencies were invented. But my point still stands, that most people are far more reliant on markets that they used to be. Neither a slave, nor a serf had to fear getting fired, and neither got their subsistence from buying and selling.

This is all a far more complex issue than you're making it out to be. Just by saying that, it shows all the assumptions you've already made up in your head before coming to this conclusion.

I said "putting aside", but never mind, no more stylistic devices. Also, modern theories do exactly talk about these issues, that the MoP don't exist in the same way they did 100 or 150 years ago. That's why I haven't been insisting on the vulgar "seize the means of production"-phrase others use.

[citation needed]
Products are not created merely for use. iPhones are made because there is a demand for them. To create something for the sake of use without profit means that your competition will out-compete you every time. They are able to expand their business and steal your business every time.
How is this relevant to our modern society? Today, if you just make ends meet with no profit, your competition can take away your business with the profit they make.
In that regard, no shit it exists. I am talking about businesses on a market. It simply cannot exist, if your baseline is +1000, -1000, your competition will always beat you. Of course you can grow vegetables to eat them: you aren't selling them.

Markets require profit, so you are de facto preaching for the abolishment of markets. This will result in total societal collapse, if it can even be achieved and if the masses will be complacent. Global markets will crash. Economic despair isn't exactly a great future to have in mind.

Because I'm not defending Communism: you are. Scroll up to the thread: I am here to debate your ideas, not to explain them to… myself. The burden of proof is on you to make the best case for your arguments, which I have debunked.
I am not here to debate the concepts, but how they are applied to the real world and if they are feasible/if there is evidence for its success. I cannot know what you believe in until you explain what it is. I am only going off of what information you provide to me. I am not going to make your arguments for you and say "Oh, you mean x y z, well here this is what I respond". You have to come with your points to elaborate on what you believe in. I am not going to tell you what it is you believe in so that I can dismantle it.

See, now you explain your points and we reach common ground. Use-value is simply consumer demand. Again, burden of proof is on you to explain the definitions of the terms you use, not me. I am not going to ask you to define what, say, quantitive easing means: I have to explain what it is and why I believe in it, then provide examples.

You are just describing human desire for expanding market growth. So, to have a gradual increase in shares or how goods will always be produced. This isn't a contradiction because goods can be renewed, like livestock or crops. Things like oil, no. It isn't a blanket statement because it requires elaboration. Renewable goods refute the contradiction.

I already explained that below. I am aware. Once people run out of money, they starve and die off by the millions.

Who cares. Ought-is, if you claim automation is an inevitability, then it 'is'. What you think ought to be is irrelevant because your own beliefs have never existed successfully in the real world. They are either brought down or collapsed from within. Not a great track record.

You just said it right now. How would I know, because this is all presupposing the thought experiment to be inevitable, which you haven't proven yet.
I can derive this conclusion from the fact that greedy porky won't forfeit his wealth and power. It is much easier and more efficient to simply let the proles die off.

But capitalists do earn money. Factory owners earn salaries. Chairmen, CEOs, etc.
Investors and the whole lots are paid. The worker who does not work will starve. Isn't that a quote by Lenin? Those who don't work, starve? Or was it from the Bible. Those unwilling to work, will not eat. Even they realized that false entitlement is a child's fantasy. Also, antagonism is not contradiction. An antagonism is: active hostility or opposition. It is conflict. Contradictions are: a combination of statements, ideas, or features of a situation that are opposed to one another. They are inconsistent and refute each other.

Literally any video I can find promoting Communism would be basing its entire existence on the validity of the belief system on failed hypotheses that cannot be proven to exist in reality. You even made this clear, all examples of Communism have been destroyed.

Googling it isn't really a specific argument.

This doesn't address the point: Climate change wasn't well-known during that era, so using this retrospective logic and applying it to his methodology after the fact is arguing in bad faith. His methodology was based on information he did not know. This is antithetical to the scientific method, which is to develop hypotheses which are validated by/refuted by the observations/information, not to base beliefs, assume they are valid, only to have them verified after the fact, then prance around thinking they meant anything to begin with.

See above.

I never called it a religion. I am asking you which of the conflicting groups who both say they are Communist should we look to as a role model/poster child example?

It is an assumption not verified by any evidence. Your entire method of argumentation is postulation assuming it will be validated one day. Don't get me wrong, even Einstein postulated concepts, but they turned out to be right.

There is a reason people oppose communism. Not really an argument, just a thinly-veiled opinion statement.

If it isn't a conspiracy, explain how I can disprove the claim. I'd ask of you to cite the laws that "support and legitimize" capitalism. In Germany and in the US. Courts existing 'within capitalism' and as a part of the state don't make them capitalist. Define capitalist. They are not definitively capitalist, by any stretch of the imagination. They can also defend a Communist's right to freedom of speech. This does not make them Communists. They are vessels for justice/the law.

And I believe God exists and is gay. So what? Believe in any hypothesis you want, go ahead. But until you can prove it with observations or something other than your faith, it means nothing.
The "we" are the people I am discussing.

Worker+employer. There is transportation, advertisement, mining/harvesting resources/ingredients, managerial work, etc. That's why wages are fragmented. Because the archaic concept has been made irrelevant. This is why Marx's writing are not really "updated" editions.

The people. I never said Communism was about total equality. I said that the wealth is not evenly distributed. Communism is just an idea, it is not about anything because the idea has been refuted by its own inability to be replicated.

Great. Coops are not the norm, and there is still profit to be made in a coop. How many do you think "theoretically…receive all the profit", and how do you think they divide it up? Could it be by… the skill of the worker… wait a minute…

Not addressing the point: individual consumers do exist. You and I are evidence of it. We have different desires towards different products. You buy different books than me.

That was my whole gripe: that the reference was trying to say that modern workers are like slaves. You admit that this is not true, so it's settled. Workers are in no way suffering the similar plight of slaves.

That's choice. You can choose between A and B. You have shifted the goalposts to mean "well, you can't choose to not be in any business". The statement still stands true: here IS true choice: you can work for me, work for my neighbour, or work for yourself. It is irrelevant what the worker's interests are: the statement is concerned with choice, not interests. He has the choice to become an employer, something you state, which refutes the "no true choice" point.
You can choose not to do anything, so it IS voluntary. You can choose to die of hunger, so there is choice in that.

You can start a business if you want. You have that choice. You can work for me or my neighbour. Or you can choose to live in the woods and pick berries, die in a few weeks time. Of course it's voluntary. Depends what you prefer.

You do not have to work to survive. You can live in the woods if you desire. You can start your own business, but you will still have to manage the business, but oops capitalists aren't really labourers. Are you denying the fact that people can start their own businesses or live like hermits in the woods?

So you determine the basis for your beliefs on the history of the failures of your beliefs/how they kept on being destroyed? All the analysis culminated in destruction.
This is my favourite point: Also "successful instance" is once again, loaded question.
Beautiful. I love it. It speaks volumes, you have just admitted that it is biased against Communism to ask for successful examples of Communism. It is a bad question because successful instances cannot be paired with Communism.

So we agreed that wealth is static. I did not ignore the previous point: I was the first person to raise the point about wealth not being static. That was the entire issue. I said that the "rich upper class" is not a monolith, which was a common error that even you had made when making reference to them.

No, it doesn't. Primitive communism does not exist in our society. I live in the city, there are no examples of it in the West. Where do you live?

Then your moral extensions of "rights" is refuted because the issue is "amoral". Workers have no "rights" and any moral basis for the extension of rights is dismissed.

Everybody relies on markets now, yes. Especially the Federal Reserve. And governments w/ currencies. Everything relies on markets, so abolishing markets and currency is devolution.

I'm going off of your own examples. All of your examples reference Communism being destroyed by outside forces. Hence, it is a weak example that cannot stand on its own two feet. I wouldn't have made the statement if you never provided the examples you did, where Communism failed.

You took me literally, so I did the same.
It was deliberately done, quote your full quote and my response for the context.

I'll just let you know that I'll take a screenshot of the "asking for successful instances of Communism is a loaded question" because that is a perfect point you made against Communism. I just really enjoyed it.

So, you enjoy reading all this shit?
What about brevity and wit?
What about Keep It Simple, Stupid?
What about engineering being at the pinnacle not when there is nothing more to add, but where there is nothing more to take away?

But I guess hands occupied with turning a billion pages in occupying therapy are no threat to anyone.

Only if you're gay

The Communist Manifesto was written in a time where many workers were actually not much better of than slaves. It's a dated piece of agitprop, and isn't taken to be the foundational by anyone.

The state can just as well operate the MoP, as if it were private, to generate profit. But capitalism would still exist. Laissez-faire is not necessary, and frankly it would be dangerous for capitalism, since it's contradictions would unfold even more severely, due to market competition.

Individual wealth differences are not our concern. All this "communism is equality" has more to do with the French (utopian) socialist which Marx and Engels criticised and the bourgeois Revolution of 1789 with their cry for "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity". We aren't here to make everyone equal and exactly the same.

THIS ISN'T ABOUT RIGHTS

If a system is superior in your eyes, because it manages to crush all opposition, then Stalin must have been the greatest person ever to have lived in your eyes.

Are you trying to imply that Germany and Italy weren't capitalist?

Fascism is a kind of capitalism…

Private businesses owned the MoP, be it not freely, since the state wanted to suppress all contradictions that arose, to prevent the system from failing. Even if we go by your "definition of capitalism", we don't need it to be owned "freely".

Where am I talking about any rights to own anything. You look at the system, that legitimizes itself, and say, "well it's all fine then". I look at it, and see that these people produce, and these people don't, yet, the former give the latter a part of what they made. We investigate why, and analyse the results. No. moral. accusation.

If you had any actually knowledge about communism, which one would except if you are so eager to argue, you would have known this.

I don't because I insist on anti-utopianism, but other tendencies like Communalism or Marxism-Lenninism do. I just disagree with their ideas.

Where did I imply that that is the case?

If people were given paid leave, under the current system, what's the chance that they would come to work in the morning and stay there all day long? I'd conciser it a slim one, since the person doesn't have to work any more in a employee-employer relationship.

Let's take a practical example, like the one I outlined above. People have a communal system of organizing food and distributing it, on plots they own and use by themseleves (let's assume on a local scale). Would people still regularly go to food shops to get their basic food they need to eat every day? This would (conceptually) be undermining the necessity for a food market, by giving people the possibility back to produce their own food, instead of having to sell their labour power, to buy food on the market. Now please elaborate how pro-"let's not have our own system of producing food, and instead let's give it back to private hands that only produce with the intent to sell as much as possible" will arise.

How is debating descriptions less logical and coherent than debating definitions? We're discussing the currently existing system, hence we need to describe it to analyse it. You and I have different descriptions, and we're debating (or trying to) which one is better. But coming around and saying "well the definition is […], so I don't care about what you described", is just a lazy to cheat yourself out of a proper debate.

—
Sorry for the split response, I had to go, and half my text was accidental deleted.

again, it's not your fault. just read wiki pages i guess.

Oooo, say that around this crowd and see what happens. I agree, though.

Of course, it has and does. That still isn't within the capitalist definition. State capitalism is an oxymoron. Free trade isn't allowed, then it isn't capitalist as the private ownership is stunted, arbitrarily.

How has that played out for the "wealthy" in the past? Or should I say, kulaks…

You can say to hell with rights and just do it: you will still lose, as you have.

Where is the USSR today?

Were the private businesses allowed to utilize the MoP as they saw fit?

Statism is antithetical to capitalism. Limiting free trade… does not allow the private owners full control of the MoP. Socialism… except only on Tuesdays… is not socialism.

Again, not capitalist.

Still didn't mention your points initially.

Then you aren't a Communist. We agree.

That's when it ceases to become a simile and becomes a direct comparison.

Paid leave is for sick days or vacation. You aren't supposed to come in. Related to paid leave: who do you think pays for it?

People who are self-employed don't seek employment. If you meet the requirements for food yourself, you don't need to buy it. Problem is, and bear with me…. not everybody has the same life goals and aspirations. Not everybody wants to grow food themselves. People like… freedom. They want the freedom to grow it themselves, which many do… AND to be able to buy it from people who grow it.
It isn't black-and-white like you paint it to be: both markets and self-sufficiency can co-exist.
I don't have to argue how the profit system will arise: it already exists. Take a look at Apple's recent stock price and see for yourself: they are producing iPhones and selling them to people. People can produce their own iPhones if they want to. Problem is, some people don't want to.

So we can define what fascism is and what capitalism is in order to avoid conflating the two erroneously, allowing for accurate descriptions of both systems. You'd be operating on a false premise. We, first and foremost, are debating definitions in the example I just gave you. Not descriptions. If you think it is 'x' and I think it is 'y', our descriptions will be operating on flawed definitions.

And I said that in that case the issue of defining was important, but in the case of capitalism/socialism/fedualism/… we want to describe it (positivity or negatively,not see if some preconceived definition fits what we have nowadays. And otherwise, I just find it "boring" (for the lack of a better word) to argue about definitions, when definitions aren't the central issue.

That is being done. People analyse and try to make sense of what happened in the USSR and what it's nature was (socialist, state capitalist, just capitalist, non-mode of production, etc.). In the end, everything has to be critiqued, if one wants to follow Marx.

What hypotheses? I'm just talking about the system reproducing the relations within and the conditions that necessitate it.

In that case either fighting that they stay at the same level, and aren't gotten rid of by neo-liberal austerity measures.

These two aren't connected. A system can have contradictions, but still have a state or equal force enforce it's existence by means of force, crushing all opposition, like the fascists did in the early 20th century

Its newest fashion for white virgin betas. They would piss their pants if they were forced to ethnically cleanse women and children by shooting in the back of the head.

I gave you a modern and a historical example, what more do you want?

…to be bought, ie exchanged for money. Apple doesn't care what you use it for, they just want to make the money they get by selling it, ie create a profit on their invested capital.

how hard is it to understand that capitalism has production for exchange, and of course production for use can't exist on a larger scale within it? We are talking about communism here!

What do you mean with relevant "to our modern society"? You said production for use can't exist, I said it has (and does). You're just dismissing and ignoring my argument in a very dishonest way.

Who ever mentioned or indicated that we were talking about this - again a case of just blatant misunderstandings because you don't even know anything about the basics of Marxism/Communism/Socialism.

BECAUSE THAT'S PRODUCTION FOR EXCHANGE.

In the end, yes.

Again, you prove an inability to think outside of the dominant ideology.

You can't just say this without any evidence. [Citation needed]. Just because you say so doesn't make it true. This is very theoretical. etc.

But one would still expect some basic knowledge to base the debate on. You know, just like one doesn't go to a debate about subatomic physics, without ever have had learned anything beyond newtons laws of motion.

Which you misrepresented, failed to understand, or ignored.

You're the one insisting of definitions all the time, of course you're here to debate concepts. I'm talking about applying them to the real world all the time, but suddenly this is your argument. If you're a troll, you're one of the best ones in a while.

I would have never agreed to this debate if I had known that I had to be your teacher and debate you side by side, while you attack argument, without even knowing what you're really attacking.

Where did I ever imply anything about demand? It's not demand, demand is a quantity, use-value isn't measurable since it's a individual issue. Again, it would be very helpful, and far, far less aggravating, if you know at least the basic terms.

What burden of proof? These are just basic concepts! You can read them up anywhere, but instead I'm wasting half my time explaining these to you, instead of actually discussing stuff. Also, it would still be preferable if you made your own thread to argue these, especially since I'm short on time, instead of having this debate in a hidden thread. It would all just be far quicker (and easier for me).

Infinite growth in production would require a infinite growth in consumption, otherwise, what's produced isn't sold. This has nothing to do with renewable energies.

Doesn't change anything about the future, and it's still a far more subtle issue than you're making it out to be. Also, as a anti-Bolshevik, I disagree and oppose with almost every major "communist country". But that's a personal thing.

You implied that it was by the good will of the owning class, I said that wasn't the case. Also, if you had been reading along, you would have seen that I said it isn't inevitable anymore, due to the possibility of the world to self destruct. Otherwise, what are you're suggesting for what a post capitalist world might look like?

Except that there would be massie unrest, and I'm quite sceptical of how they'd manage to protect it all by themselves. Otherwise, they'd establish a kind of "communism for the bourgeois" by themselves, which doesn't disprove me.

I'm not a Leninist, and I haven't read too much by him, so I'm not sure.

If it was by Lenin, he would have been talking about giving everyone a job, and distributing the need to work among all the people.

They are two translations for the german word "Widersprüche", I mentioned both of them being used in this sense.

I have mentioned examples of communist uprising and revolts, not communism itself.

I told you to google it if you wanted to learn more about it, since it is a pretty basic concept.

It still isn't. One can extend his theory, and argue based on new facts. That's like saying one can't measure the weight of a newly discovered molecule, because when the method of measuring it's weight was discovered, the didn't know about this specific molecule. It just isn't an argument, and shows how you're trying to force problems into existence that don't exist, it's dishonest, and I won't be replying to them in the future.

Says the right person.

But you fullwell implied this accusation by calling groups that disagree "sects". Don't play innocent, we all know what you meant. it's just retarded.

They are disagreeing groups, not conflicting. Nobody is a role model, just like in the example about economists I gave you. Again, lack of basic knowledge and then innocently playing ignorant.

That wasn't even the argument!

By showing that the legal system isn't set up to protect private property and profits of the owning class against the working class.

The very legal existence of private property, for example.

In this context (you see how I can't just define this in some sense independently of the context), it's that they help preserve and perpetuate capitalism. They support capitalism, over any opposition, so to say.

And the law is totally neutral, with absolute no class biases, seeing that elected representatives don't have their special interest groups.

Since you asked me to show you how to disprove something, I'll ask you how I should prove this? I said again and again that these are results of analysis, not of some empirical testing. If you're some positivist that only accepts empirical evidence as a foundation for truth, that's not my problem.

Do you get a wage, or you pay a wage. If we want to play your definition game again, this is what it's about. The worker is who gets of his subsistence from a wage, the capitalist gets his money from selling the commodities (ie. goods and services), and giving the worker part of the money back in wages (but not all of it).

Now, since I defined a few things, I have to fear you accusing me of redefining everything. This was one of the reasons I'm rather hesitant towards the defining-strategy of debating, I forgot to mention before.

I've already given you the quote that showed that communism, in the marxist sense, is not an idea, since marxist are anti-utopians. We are against constructing societies in our minds, and trying to make reality adapt to it.

Surplus would be the correct term, but whatever.

However they decide. Everyone could recive them same, or everyone recives a an amount of money proportional to their productive output. They decide.

I'm not adressing it, because that's not the issue. Of course individual consumers currently exist, my comment was hinting on the fact that the concept of a "individual consumer" might become superfluous, but that was really just a side note I didn't want to elaborate on. I'll stop these from now on, since they seem to confuse you

I'm telling you over and over again, it isn't. The only thing he's comparing them in is the fact that they reproduce the systems they live in by their daily work. But since you don't want to read the paragraps, I'll copy-paste them here for you:

Now I am to blame for responding before reading, but since I already wrote all of this, I'll just keep it there for now.

I'm not denying this statement, I'm just saying that since one must choose, it's not as voluntary as it is always being made out to be. That's all I was ever talking about, I haven't "shifted" any "goalposts".

How, I said the "true choice" would require him to not have to choose?

But by these standards, everything is voluntary (since one can always commit suicide, for example), and the whole concept looses any significance. To postulate that, would hence be self-refuting.

The function of the capitalist is the invest money, and he expects to gain a profit on this. I mentioned exactly this point somewhere above that if one starts a business by oneself, that it's not a free ticket not to work, but it's a hard job, since they have a dual role of a worker and a capitalist. In our times, where it is still possible to start ones own business and compete, the class roles aren't as crystallized at they are during financially worse times. And since I already mentioned this, you have no argument to accuse me of denying this.

What's your evidence. Although any reasonable person would accept this argument, I'm going to deny this on the basis that you just wrote words, but I want evidence!

Please elaborate. I wouldn't want to reach the false conclusions by guessing what you wanted to say here.

Because the term "instance" doesn't make any sense to begin with. Socialism (or capitalism) in one country makes no sense, these aren't instances, in the sense that each (arbitrarily defined) nation gets to independently choose which "system" they get to "implement". This is basically Stalinist-tier thinking, that the west was surprisingly acceptant of.

Although I explained it above already, this is just a proof of my statment. You asked this, and the form you phrased it gives one no other option than to say "all implementations of communism have failed", since the question already presumes these false concepts about thinking of the issue. But you see this as a kind of success, and proceed to misrepresent me. A very honest debate, I see.

No it wasn't, I wasn't even talking about that in that quote, but you changed the issue, and now want to ask as if there wasn't any issue. But since we've been arguing for so long, I forgot what it was about (which is the issue when these debates take so long, despite what you said -> make your own thread). But the issue wasn't "rich stay rich", as you said, you brought it up, to ignore the point I was making about the material conditions influencing the way people have to live their lives. What you mentioned was entirely unrelated, and and just served as a tool to not discuss the issue at hand. Again, very, very dishonest.

Where did I say it exists in our society? And how should it, considering that we live in a capitalist society? I was explaining tribal societies, and the method in general, not what is happening now, to explain the basic concepts of the theory, since you are too lazy to look it up youself. This is why a debate shouldn't be mixed up with a teaching session.

Here, we would have to define "rights", or explain how we are using them.

The fact that i'll never have such a wife like this is proof that life is shit

What a supprise? It's nearly as if we lived under neoliberal/free-market capitalism?

In the sense that people would take their own issues into their own hands, or what's the accusation here?

I have referenced nothing of that kind. Only uprisings in communist nature.

You do see how your attitude towards debating decreases the total quality of the debate. I've been sincerely angered after reading certain sections, just because it's such stupid misunderstandings, which happen over and over again. If I wouldn't have such a starch ethic about debates, I would have left long ago, since (as already mentioned) I conciser all of this very dishonest, and it's frankly more annoying than it helps me reflect on issues and understand my (or other) positions better. I don't even know what you promote, which makes all of this even more work for me.

I see that you're having fun, but don't forget to add my response. You wouldn't want to use a dishonest and impartial argument to make fun of your opposing side.

What crowd?

If you go by describing the world backwards through definitions, maybe. I disagree, because I don't see the superficial attributes like trade as central parts of the system. But even by your definition "Capitalism is private ownership of the MoP", this should work, since the state takes over as the private owner (especially if the state isn't democratic).

I'm not a Tankie, and I won't defend the USSR, Stalin or anyone else. Ask them for legitimations, I don't care and disagree with them on many issues.

A tankie would tell you that it collapsed because Gorbachev was too weak and revisionist. I would say it's because the contradictions of state capitalism grew too large, and it couldn't reproduce itself.

They owned it, don't you even know basic history?

Are you an ancap? This is nonsense, as I have already explained.

They have full control, but just can't sell it (publicly) without the state intervening.

Not true capitalism!!!

As I already mentioned, Marxism is anti-utopain. Not knowing this proved you have no idea what you're arguing against, and explains all your baseless misconceptions.

I was saying that we wouldn't even enter into serf-lord relations, how did you read that I'm saying we're serfs?

You don't address my issue, but try to change it. Again.

Didn't say that.

They can coexist, but markets wouldn't have the central role they have today - that's my whole point. The market would be abolished as the prime distributor of resources within society - maybe this phrasing would help you better understand what I want to say.

They actually couldn't, because of copyright systems and the simple fact that people outside apple have neither the tools nor the knowledge to build iPhones - since we live in a capitalist society. You're doing this all the time. I try to outline something that would be the case under socialism, you look at capitalism and say because it is currently not the case, it can never be the case. Just dishonest.

Or we can describe the fundaments of both, taking into account their histories, social relations, material conditions, etc. and we'd eventually figure out that these are the same. But since your "definition of capitalism" by coincidence excludes this from happening, you can rest assure that you don't have to fear capitalism to be blamed for fascism.

That's maybe you, but we never agreed to it, or even tried to establish anything like this. I explained why debating descriptions makes more sense, but you don't care, do you?

Definitions are the central issue if you are conflating the description of capitalism with fascist ideology.

No, you miss my point. If the inability to reproduce itself is a detriment, then your own argument extends to Marxism. It isn't about examining the nature of the USSR, it's about, like you said the "inability to reproduce".

Of the ideology.

Seems like your gripe is with neo-liberals, then.

Then the state would crumble apart precisely because of the contradictions. It would bring it down eventually. Virtually all major implementation of socialism on a national level relies on states, but they were still destroyed.

How does production for use still exist? Like, on a market-level. It seems that you are drawing on examples that cannot be compared to one another. Me growing crops for food is not equivalent to the NASDAQ, not even close.

Yes. That is how markets work, how trade works.

Yeah, I realize all of this. My problem is that you cannot eliminate production for exchange because people want to exchange. You are assuming that abolishing this is something people want: people do not all have the same life goals and not everybody, in fact the majority of people, do not want to produce for their own use. They want to purchase goods and services.

Because you are admitting it is an archaic concept with no relevance and large-scale usage in our modern society.

That is the foundation of producing goods/services… to be sold on a market. I am elaborating on production for exchange, not making a statement on production for use.

I am saying that production for use is only examined on a minor scale and isn't relevant, nor has it been since the last few hundred years.

Yes, this cannot happen. You have no evidence that you can even abolish markets, you cannot keep them abolished without statism, you cannot keep the workers in line as free trade will still occur on a black market, and you have no examples of abolishing markets altogether which are successful.

Observations are not ideology. The burden of proof is on you.

I quote your response to "you are de facto preaching for the abolishment of markets": In the end, yes.
You have already admitted that you want to abolish all markets. The result is a global market crash. You think you can just shift gears and remove markets with no ramifications? Again, this speaks to your own theories, which have no practical basis or successful examples. I don't want market abolishment because all the shit that was made for exchange… will now be irrelevant. That is not inconsequential.

I am not going to make your points for you. You need to provide definitions of your terms and explain how they are beneficial and relevant, then I will debate them. Like I said, I am not going to ask you to explain to me why quantitive easing is good: you have to.

[citation needed]

Concepts are useless without definitions, and when you conflate statism with capitalism, or ignore the whole free trade bit required for private ownership, you are operating on a flawed premise.

What do you think debates are. You are required to explain why your side is beneficial, with citations and elaborations. This is what Communism is, here are some examples, this is why it is good, this is why x, y, z. I can extend the same argument and levy it against you regarding your inaccurate definitions of capitalism. Instead, I defined it for you and explained how you are incorrect.

Demand is not a quantity. You cannot measure how much the consumer wants something, there is no metric to measure demand. There is a metric for consumer confidence. Is that what you mean? Related, but not exactly the same.

Doesn't excuse you from defining your terms.

That has been the case. World population has increased, which means higher overall demand.

Highly speculative with no evidence that it will even arrive, especially given the prior attempts have all been catastrophic. USSR HDI wasn't great.

Link me to where you said it wasn't inevitable. World self-destruction? You mean climate change? Go talk to Africa, China, and India about that.

Yes, and? They cannot revolt against anything, they simply replace the upper class with their own commissars. Assuming the weakest poor can do anything against the most powerful rich, anyways.

It was from the Bible.

It was from the Bible.

We aren't debating in German, we are discussing your translation into english, which are not equivalent.

Communism itself is an idea, it is not attainable until you give me some evidence to reason off of. Just alluding to the future is about as logical as claiming the Rapture will eventually happen.

You don't really understand how that isn't a good argument, so I'll levy it against you. Google why Communism is unattainable and has a track record of destruction.

Yes, that is how theories work. But it is a different argument when you appeal to Marx and his writing TODAY knowing that they were based on unknown knowledge at the time. He didn't predict climate change because he knew nothing about it. Citing Marx knowing he was wrong and his theories had nothing to do with the evidence, just postulation, is dishonest. It's the same as Nostradamus. He claimed doomsday was right around the corner, then 200 years later, doomsday happened. A broken clock can still be right twice a day, but we don't take its word with lots of credibility.

Not exactly. It's like saying "I believe 'x' will happen because I just believe it will happen!" Then, centuries later, it's true. Great, but it isn't actually providing a methodology as to how it is feasible, just an assumption. Like I said, a broken clock is still right twice a day.

You didn't link to any post or provide context at all.

Extending what you think I said or implied to mean it is something I actually claimed is a strawman.

They conflict because they disagree. Pretty sure there were purges over this, there sure as hell were conflicts. Again, lack of basic knowledge and then innocently playing ignorant.

It is a statement of fact.

The legal system also defends the rights of fascist freedom of speech. This doesn't make the courts fascist. Again, profits and private property are not exploitation so there is no reason the courts would be against them. Try citing some property laws first.

Not a citation.

That's not what capitalism is. Define capitalism.

Please source me to some massive judicial conspiracy where they have been bought off by the rich. Otherwise, yeah, still a conspiracy. Just repeating your claim like "oh my god how can you not believe this" isn't an argument.

Show me how successful Communism has been.

You can actually measure the success of a nation based on a couple metric, actually.

Still doesn't excuse you from providing evidence for your claim. Everybody is bound by it, sorry.

Me? I fail to see how it is relevant.

There is no one single worker operating in an isolated system, it is an interwoven connection and, even assuming the employer has paid to have the product shipped and advertised, there is still not enough profit to give the employee his "true wage". It does not exist.

You never defined capitalism. You just said "They support capitalism, over any opposition, so to say" for how judges are capitalist. Using your logic, they also support fascist and are fascists. Not really a definition.

Idealism is not an argument. Constructing society in your mind, then applying it in the real world, means nothing if you have nothing to point to as a successful application. of your mind construction. It would just be idealist nonsense.

Surplus, sure. They still make a surplus.

Yes. Because they are the collective owners. Kind of like how a board of directors makes their own decisions.

Ought-is. I don't care if it "might" become superfluous, you have no reason to believe that it will one day other than pointless conjecture.

Glossing over how this is just waxing poetic and not really making an argument for anything based in evidence (and that one can levy the same argument of "naturalism" against Communism), it is, like I said, directly comparing the unnatural tendencies of capitalism and slavery. Not an argument, appealing to nature.

It still supports my original accusation of appealing to nature and victimization.

You don't have to choose to work for anybody. You can choose not to work. You can choose to live in the forest. It is, by definition, voluntary.

He can choose not to work.

That's because choosing to live is voluntary. You can either live or die. You are assuming everybody wants to live. Many people choose to die.

That's because managerial roles are not inconsequential and owning something is a difficult role, which is why they are paid more than the average worker with no skill/experience. Your argument is promoting the idea that owning a business is difficult. The business owner isn't "paid a wage", though. He pays himself, like your point above: Do you get a wage, or you pay a wage.

investopedia.com/terms/s/self-employed.asp
theguardian.com/news/2017/mar/15/stranger-in-the-woods-christopher-knight-hermit-maine
There is a difference because I provide evidence. Also, our claims are not the same. There is an abundance of evidence showing how self-employment exists and how people have lived in the woods before (although many do it unsuccessfully). You have not provided any evidence, outside of conjecture and "maybe…" for how Communism will someday "arrive", if the world doesn't destroy itself. There is no basis for its arrival/existence, it can never be achieved and society will never devolve into a Communist system because we have evolved towards trade units and trade markets.

I'm saying that you are basing all your beliefs on the failures of any successful Communist implementations.

Instance: an example or single occurrence of something. We can use the word example if you like. Or does that mean nothing, either?

What? There are capitalist countries, what are you talking about. The MoP were privately owned. When that is the case, the nation is capitalist. Your definitions make no sense and trying to dissociate yourself from providing any reasonable evidence is not an argument. They can choose to allow the MoP to be owned privately or publicly. Then, the nation is socialist or capitalist.

Your proof was that there are no successful examples of Communism.

Because it already has. The question is simply asking: where are the examples of Communist success?
I can ask the same question: where are the examples of Communist failures?

Yes, it was. I was discussing how the rich has their wealth change: they are dynamic. Go to the Youtube link on Sowell, that's where I first raised the issue.

The "people" are not a monolith. A person who is rich one day is not rich the next. Material conditions obviously influence how people live their lives because accumulating wealth is an identity that categorizes people. Poor people behave differently than rich people. But the archaic "rich vs poor" dichotomy is not accurate in our modern times, so your example isn't totally honest because there is a middle class that can become rich or poor. The categories exist, obviously.

Great, so we agree that it does not exist and that our modern society has evolved away from it.

Right: that which is morally correct, just, or honorable. The issue does not concern 'rights', it is amoral.

Yes. There is no viable alternative that has been proven to work. Markets existing=civilization. This is the evolutionary curve civilizations have taken as they progressed and as trade was allowed. Men circumnavigated the globe looking for ways to trade with one another.

It is the reverse because free trade is removed when markets are abolished. I can't trade my gold for silver because the markets don't exist anymore.

Not even a single example, yet Communism is taken seriously? No basis for reasoning/no evidence=no evidence-based judgements. You've had over a century, and if nothing has come up, then don't talk so highly of an unsubstantiated ideology.

Subjective. You are upset because I used your own arguments against you. Try not taking people literally and they won't do the same in protest of your intellectual dishonesty.

Try and keep your emotions out of it.

No worries, it was just a simple question to your answer. Any successful examples of Communism? Stop asking loaded questions. It's telling of the historical failures of Communist attempts.

This lot here.

Capitalism is where the MoP are owned by private hands. Not the public. So any perversion of this is not capitalism. A state is not "private ownership", it is a state. They limit free trade. It is not capitalism. Define your terms. It would be the same if I said "the public own the MoP, but only when I say so". Not actually socialism.

Sure.

State capitalism is an oxymoron. You cannot arbitrarily allow the MoP to be owned by the private enterprises when you see fit. It isn't actually owned by the private owners, then.

Nope. If my business is not allowed to trade or to produce, then I am not allowed to own my own MoP. The Third Reich punished businesses that operated "against the German people's interests". The state owned the MoP. Not the private owners.

Statism is antithetical to capitalism. Try addressing the point instead of resorting to idpol.

"Hey public people, you have full control of the MoP, except just not when I say so, then I get control". Is that socialism? They don't own it, so it isn't socialism.

Then using your logic, any time the public "kind of" owns the MoP, it's socialism. So I'll ask you this: point me to the successful examples of socialism. Or is that a loaded question, too?

You sure are idealist, though. Constructing societies in your head and all, sure seems like wishful thinking.

Your point: If people were given paid leave, under the current system, what's the chance that they would come to work in the morning and stay there all day long?
Paid leave is MEANT for the worker NOT to come into work. It's for sick days and vacation. It is temporary because the business cannot sustain paid leave for everybody.

So stop calling for abolishing markets because people want to produce for exchange. Global market trade is evidence of this.

Because people can support themselves, hence the self-sufficiency. But… and bear with me… not everybody wants to abolish markets because people like purchasing/selling goods on markets. They want that freedom to cover their own requirements, or to buy them.

That has to do with intellectual property, because I didn't design the iPhone model. People can purchase the right to produce their own iPhones and make their own iPhones, then.

Sure, then define fascism and define capitalism. The are essentially the same.

Capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
Fascism: an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.
State control is not capitalist because the state is not a private owner of a business: the private owners are.

Way to excuse yourself from citing definitions. Then appealing to "my specific definitions" when the agreed upon definition of capitalism, by everyone but the intellectually dishonest you can dismiss definitions at their leisure, is combatting state control of the MoP.

Using your own argument, the USSR was socialist because the MoP was kind of owned publicly.

Smart lefty term: Reflected sound of underground spirits.

You're that troll that comes here to argue in circles for ages, aren't you?