LOL

This, anyone who objects to worker ownership is a sour grapes lifestylist.

marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/

I trust you're saving up for your ticket to Turkey?

Where does Marx say that the wage system isn't socialism, and not merely that it should be done away with?

I've got bad news for you- when we finally get rid of wages we'll get UBI instead. And at first you'll only get it if you work. We'll only be able to end consumption limiting mechanisms when production is unlimited, and FALC is a long way off.

True democratic centralism means replacing the vanguard party with competing slam poetry syndicates.

I don't think I could handle the cringe.

...

This comic makes no sense, to me, at least, I'm sure the author was having a top old kek when he wrote it.

Communerds need to realise that they can't create their state within a vacuum. No single state has every resource that their nation needs, and as such they need to trade with others to balance the economy. If you genuinely think you can establish a communist revolution in the West outright nowadays you're a bit dense, honestly. You need to agitate constantly towards the left and disrupt those that would disrupt you.

I just hate how much that no matter how far on the left you are, it's pointless. Everyone will either:
A) Sperg out over identity politics
B) Sperg out over 'not left enough'

Our countries aren't left at all, dipshits. How many leftist governments exist in the West right now, and how many do you think will be there in 2020? Stop trying to shove fucking communism and anarchy down everyone's throats and actually push for an equal society before even thinking about socialism, let alone your quaint kitsch ideology. The more I read ramblings on here and the complete disconnect from the average poster the more I feel like most of the human race is going to suffer for eternity. There was simply no competition. You see it especially with the 'muh sekrit club' posters, but there are chunks of it all over. Demanding ideological purity on a board of less than a thousand users trying to cause an insurrection by millions of people with enough ego to believe their pedantry would survive any of it because of their snowflake syndrome. If it was between wanting a better planet and wanting to be an edgy snowflake I would choose the latter.

Then again the edgy NEETs will just say "Aha! Class traitor! He does not think [deeply held personal belief]!"

Writing this I think I've been won over to Spectacle thinking. Everyone spent their time having a little moan during the glory years and now they're over they've cucked themselves and their kids out of a future for eternity. I don't see much of a downside in the boogeyman robotic slaughter if this is what the average person has to offer.

Should read

one of the telltale signs of a supposed "leftist" movement really being at its core a national liberation movement is how mad the people concerned with it get at the slightest hint of outside criticism, whether they take any kind of criticism as a personal attack by merit of the movement representing some identity of theirs that can't be changed

One of the telltale signs of being a LARPer is this.

sorry for not supporting actually existing socialism mr khrushchev

Wow, keep the buzzwords coming. You know that the first part of the fucking Manifesto spends ages sucking capitalism's dick, right? Saying how much it's brought for the world, blah blah.

The difference between "market socialism" (nb. in a gosh-darn war zone) and whatever you've got going on is that the guys on the ground have an actual plan for socialism, rather than sitting around in a book club doing nothing.

But it was Stalin that claimed the Soviet Union the be "actually existing socialism", to be honest.

i'm not a marxist though
can you please give an argument about why i'm not allowed to question the party line of the PYD instead of just calling me unrealistic or saying that i read too many books?

I didn't say you weren't allowed to question the "party line" (but holy shit, what? They're democratic confederationalists, mate). I do admit that I presumed you were a Marxist - out of interest, what are you? - and I don't have much sympathy for ultraleft, c.f. OP's comic.

i'm some kind of anarchist, like in the meme
but something i've seen a lot on the internet is pro-rojava people getting really defensive over criticism and somehow calling everyone who disagrees "not a real radical, just a lifestylist, jealous" etc
i can have disagreements with it like i can have disagreements with bookchin, i still hope for the best for kurds

revolutionary movement aided by the german government?
gmil is being a useless retard as always

The meme was written, directed and produced by an ultra-leftcom, I believe. Which makes it shit, for the reasons above.

And I totally get it if you have disagreements with the actual policies of Rojava, that's totally cool. It's just that ultras saying "flush it all away, they're no better than the Turks/Assad/ISIS" are fucking stupid.

Yeah, GMILfag I think posts here and he's some kind of stuck up third worldist purist shiteater which makes itself very evident in his comics.

nigga what?

So basically you have no idea what you're talking about? Good to know. When you say you're not a Marxist you're rejecting ideas like dialectics and historical materialism, ideas that are fundamental to a working implementation of socialism. Marxism and anarchism aren't mutually exclusive. I'm not sure if you realize this, but basically everyone who says they're not Marxist like for example the post-left are the type that think full communism would work tomorrow.

GMIL is a huge idiot and he should kill himself. He honestly believes that shitty gay wsws myth that B████ was a sheepdog. The worst thing is that brainiacs like him and far stupider are the bulk of the movement as it stands. The reason /r/socialism is so bad is because it's filled with the socialist equivalent to normies. Those idiots are the majority. If anything I'd say Bernheads are better socialists than they are, the fucking masturbatory do-nothings, because Berners are willing to learn and adapt and negotiate to advance their cause in the long run. Ultraleft doesn't even proselytize because it's "dumbing down theory" (my ass), yet they expect their method to bring about a socialist revolution EVENTUALLY when the masses all wake up and see the light. I never thought I'd see both statist and anarchist variants of leftcom, but they're all united by their need to go "muh Luxemburg!!" every time someone mentions reform.

...

i don't think so and neither does comrade lenin, fagglet

If it makes you feel any better user we've got tons of room to grow and are gradually becoming the biggest player in the far left just as Holla Forums is the biggest player in the far right.

Who?

What exactly is your point here? I don't get what you are saying? We should abandon communism because "there are no leftist governments"? Have you ever heard of the USSR?

No, his point is that we can't snap our fingers and have exactly what we want in a week. We have to take baby steps towards our goal because of material and social conditions.

ussr was not leftists

ussr was state-capitalits

u r wrong

But the existence of socialist nations directly disproves this. His "argument" was "durr hurr do you REALLY think that would happen IN 2016???" - which he didn't qualify at all.

Soviet Russia had entirely different social conditions. And as you know plenty of people dispute that it was socialist, such as myself.

What he was talking about was ideological purity in general. Not socialism.

The material and social conditions can be seen pretty clearly, actually. First, the Red Scares fucked over socialist organization in America and it's only just coming back - it doesn't have anything near general working-class support. The only way to solve this without electoral politics is vanguardism, but (a) vanguardism is shit and (b) the armed revolution that implies is impossible, given the immediate annihilation it would face in the West (and an inevitable slide into reaction as a result).

Second, the complete and total failure of the USSR first to establish any kind of admirable conditions for its working class (call it bourgeois propaganda if you like, personally I think it's true - but it's what the Western public feels is true, which is what matters) and its eventual failure as a state have allowed liberals to rewrite the history of communism as the history of the USSR. This isn't helped by tankies, but whatever. In any case, liberalism is currently seen as the only option, which is why we need to actually engage in politics rather than just sit in our book clubs "waiting for the Great Leap Forward".

I don't really give a shit about the USA - it is the global centre of reactionism - and will likely be the last place reached by socialism.

I live in the UK - where more people think favourably of socialism than capitalism, Corbyn has wide public support under the guise of "socialist politics".

How come 25% of the population thinks he has the "qualities of a PM", then?

Oh hey, I used to live in the UK as well (born there!). In any case, Corbyn is pretty SocDem - less so than anything America has, but still. It's not as though he'll lead us all into socialism immediately right now, as though his supporters all advocate for property abolition. You still need to work within the system there.

that's to do with his perceived personal image and media smear campaign - not his policies.

I'm not saying I believe in Corbyn - I recognise he is essentially a socdem with anti-austerity policies - the point is that his public image is one of "comrade Corbyn" - a crazed communist seeking to install socialism in the UK - but this is precisely why young people have flocked to him.

I am very confident that these same people will soon see that the bourgeoisie, anti-democratic Labour Party can never be reformed - and join the actual workers parties that exist in the UK.

I would be all for that. I don't think we disagree about anything here, really, except whether the USSR was socialist.

But why do you think that? And what is your vision of "socialism"?

...

Socialism is workers' control of the means of production, i.e. direct-democratic control. It literally cannot be centrally planned, because representation is not a democratic system (strong assertion, I know, but stay with me), and in any case the USSR was not even a representative "democracy". Labor was produced by a working class, and coordinated by officials who did not represent that working class.

But for years the leadership was subordinated to a party that WAS a genuinely socialist organisation.

Besides, here's the issue - in a truly "free" socialist country, with direct democratic control, total freedom of party affiliation etc. what is to stop opportunists and populist reactionaries coming to power?

As far as I'm concerned without a vanguard party - with committed revolutionary leadership - you will end up in the exact same situation that many countries are in right now - being led by an avowedly capitalist "socialist" party.

Nothing. That's freedom. If it happens, the country wasn't ready for socialism.

In what sense? What part of Lenin's state was genuinely interested in the dissolution of the state?

… direct democracy? Also constitutionalism, and propaganda. But those are easy.

That is literally what happens for every single vanguard party ever.

What sort of an opinion is this?????

You can't dissolve the state until global socialism has been achieved.

Do you not think a vanguard party with a traditional, educational and constitutional commitment to socialism and communism has a better chance of maintaining a socialist system, than an open electoral system in which every single snake toungued bourgeoisie opportunist can take part?

So socialism in Russia ended in 1927, when Stalin came to power and internationalists were purged?

Sure, if it ever worked that way. But the "vanguard party" inevitably becomes bourgeois, because they have both power over labor and power over their own muh privileges.

No, socialism is spread worldwide by support for fellow revolutionary movements, governments and parties - which was always the policy of the USSR and other socialist countries - often with great success.

And the second point you mention is why you need a cultural revolution or two in a socialist country.

Sorry, I highly value freedom, even if it leads to socialism being delayed. Do you not? Are you a fascist?

So you think that military force and creating puppet states is the way to socialism. Does that not involve horrific oppression? I can think of 91 miles of concrete that would say yes.

Who decides whom to purge?

You sound like a fucking American imperialist

Why are you even here?

You do realise we are NOT FREE? The only way of obtaining freedom is communism - which should be worked towards by any means.

There isn't a single socialist who views a vanguard party state as an ideal form of society - it is a means to an end - not the end itself.

But you don't have any mechanism for actually taking down the vanguard party. There is literally no step from "socialism" to a stateless society in ML.

...

yeah, unless the FBI or CIA don't like your views, in which case they will extra-judicially execute you in cold blood. There's also the torture camp the US runs in Cuba. Plus the highest prison population in the world. And god forbid you're not american, then you're likely to get invaded by the US, or perhaps just have your right to democracy suspended by a CIA coup. Maybe you'll move to america, get trapped in an exploitative economic system and victimised by the police.

but "muh freedom" right? i suppose that nasty stalin did kill a hundred million thousand people didn't he?

So the world is still a sucky place, is that any reason to deny it's gotten less sucky?

Take the USA in, say, October 1918, compare it to… Oh, December 1991. Hey, we have a pension system, industrial safety laws, minimum wage, overtime, right to unionize, abolition of child labor, bankruptcy, mandatory standards on consumer safety and medicine, environmental restrictions, no more draft, etc… If you talked to your forefathers, the people who won those victories, would they be proud? I think so. Would they be satisfied? Certainly not, it's hardly even a fraction of what they were attempting, but that's no reason to spit on their graves and reject their tremendous accomplishments.

Now compare Russia over that same period, what great advances were made?

Concessions which have been won by "left" politics (and not liberalism)

Of course there is no mainstream left in America - but there is always - and will always be - the threat of one, which is what has led to reform in the first world over the past 100 years (notice the correlation between social reform in capitalist countries and the emergence of socialism elsewhere?)

I'm not american

Surely you're joking here, or are completely ignorant on the subject?

...

Sure, but unless you're in some 3rd-world toilet where the working class was mostly or completely suppressed by authoritarians during the heydey of socialist agitation, I'm sure the story was pretty similar for your people.

Yeah, I'm from Britain, but I don't really understand how I'm "spitting on the graves of my forefathers"?

I credit social advances to the global socialist movement - which includes worker's parties in my country, and socialist countries such as the USSR.

I too credit the various leftist movements, both of my country, and of international organizations like the IWW, for these advances. I also credit the representative democratic forms of government that existed to varying degrees for allowing these reforms to be made, and for providing a model others imitated and improved on.

I do not, however, credit authoritarian powermongers like the fiends who founded the USSR with anything except seizing the efforts of others, blackening the name of the movement, and setting it back for decades to come.

And by "spitting on their graves", what I mean is talk like which raises issues that are minutia compared to what the reforms I mentioned fought against, and dismisses total counterproductivity of Leninism.

And the threat of Bolshevik horde on the horizon was not involved in any way.

Went from feudal Somali-tier shithole to civilized industrial state despite 2 wars and a Civil War (none of which US had)?

yeah that was my point fam: as I said

Social progression in the 20th century was hugely motivated by the USSR and other socialist countries

Well, yeah. I'm a bit of a slowpoke.

You two realize global anarchist terrorism in countries like the USA & UK predates the USSR by decades, and that the New Deal and similar reforms abroad postdate the expulsion of Trotsky's permanent revolution in favor of party fat cats consolidating the power and riches they'd seized. The influence of Leninism on real reforms elsewhere is an arguable point, but I'd honestly give far more credit to the great depression, and a bit later fascism, pushing working class anger at capitalism over the boiling point.

anarchist terrorism that achieved fuck all?

we're not having an "i got here first" argument, we are saying that social reform advanced as the "threat" of organised socialism loomed over imperialist powers.

OK, you say that you give "credit" to the great depression and fascism. But think about what you are saying for a second. there have been boom-bust cycles and authoritarian regimes for as long as capitalism has existed.

But never before were there social reforms on this scale, people were repressed, they suffered due to capialist economics, and nothing changed.

Why do we now have social reform as a response to these events?

Maybe it's because a viable alternative was suddenly available, and now the bourgeoisie were under threat, and had to do more to please the working class…

Anarchism isn't worth anything because it's random violence.

On the other hand, Bolsheviks (well, Third International) presented a real threat precisely because they were organized and had an actual program to go hand-in-hand with violence.

That's not how it works.

First and foremost, USSR presented undeniable proof that workers actually CAN overthrow capitalists and can live without them. It also explained how you do it. It didn't need to do anything itself. Existing was enough.

Secondly, you don't understand what you are talking about when it comes to theory. Stalin's "socialism in one state" didn't actually prohibit any violence against capitalist states. It simply put priority on making USSR independent power.

What are you talking about?

Not really. No. It's hardly arguable outside of marginal theories.

Not Leninism itself, obviously, but it's results.

Let me get this straight.

Are you claiming that it's Fascism that created your FREEDOMS? Because I want to be 100% certain here.

Capitalism requires capital. Capital doesn't have to be embodied in an individual capitalist (or group of capitalists), it can also be embodied in an institution. This institution could be a bank, state, superfund or even a cooperative. As long as the capital accumulation cycle exists it's capitalist.

Are you having a laugh? There is alienation present wherever there is commodity production/exchange. If a group of people own a particular means of production and I am not part of that group, then I am alienated from that means of production (and the products it produces).

Try all marxists except stalinists, mautists and "titoists".

Socialism was originally used interchangeably with communism by marx and later it was used to mean the lower phase of communism (which in marx's definition does NOT have commodity production) by lenin and his contemporaries. Stalinists and their ilk use the term to mean the transition between capitalism and communism.
Going by the original definition no society has ever been socialist.

What's your problem with Stalinism?

Also,
This is dumb. Alienation implies alienation from the product of your labor.

You cannot be alienated from something you wasn't part of in the first place.

A steady trickle of reforms and violent uprisings had occurred ever since the industrial revolution, but the 1930s were the first capitalist crisis of such magnitude to occur after the labor movement's organization into a robust worldwide institution. Regarding Leninism, let's not forget it was but one among many disruptions to arise following WWI, a period of imperial, colonial, and monarchic breakup.

It also presented a false but vivid argument for porky that any attempt to destroy capitalism will inevitably result in state capitalism more brutal and greedy than anything it replaced

Fascism was simply capitalism's penultimate gasp for breath in failure, the harshest possible example of why capitalism couldn't be allowed to continue in its course unmolested.

Capitalism is ownership of the means of production to extract surplus value from others

Socialism is ownership of the means of production by those who produce value

It's pretty simple, can't really get it wrong.

The only truly successful (among the radical).

What are you talking about? You keep talking about some randroid bullshit and keep ignoring questions about it. Are you even sane?

Also, this "state capitalism" meme is dumb.

You didn't answer the question.

Socialism is not a value producing society.

And yet, apparently you can.

Pretty much no one produces anything individually in an industrial economy, we all play our part in the chain of production so it doesn't really make sense to say you can't be alienated from products produced socially.

What created our freedoms was the catastrophic self-destruction of capitalism forcing porky to either burn in the pyre of their own making, or cede ground to those willing to put it under control.

You still have to be part of this chain of production.

The wording I can't agree with was quite clear: merely by existing you are entitled to all products of all labor everywhere.

Choose one, please.

Proceed here:

And the specific form it took was known as USSR.

Durr

Asshurt trotskyites belong in the gulag.

In a fully socialised economy there are no separate chains of production. Even If you don't directly participate in the creation of a particular product, you are producing goods and services that other workers are consuming in order to continue producing their own goods.

Obviously during the lower phase of communism there will need to be rationing according to work done (by labour vouchers or some equivalent), but that will apply to all goods produced, even those products produced by your own workplace/industry, as they will belong to all of society. You won't simply be able to walk of with stuff just because you work there.

I've read this post, but I couldn't be arsed to answer it.

Are you hegelian by any chance?

:^)

I have. And Marx would have recognized that a worker cooperative =/= a capitalist enterprise:

"[T]he means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital. They only become capital under circumstances in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation of, and domination over, the worker." When the producer owns his "conditions of labour" and "employs that labour to enrich himself instead of the capitalist" then it is an economic system "diametrically opposed" to capitalism. (Capital 1: 938, 931)

When "the direct producer" is "the possessor of his own means of production" then he is "a non-capitalist producer." This is "a form of production that does not correspond to the capitalist mode of production" even if "he produces his product as a commodity." (Capital III: 735, 1015)

It's easier to draw snarky comics than to make a difference.

If the workers are still working for a wage they're still alienated

Fixed wages are bourgeois, but wages can be maximized based on contribution, simply as a way to distribute the surplus labor of a business among the employees.

LOL

:(

Co-ops are non capitalist producers, but they still produce capital to sell in the market for profit, and any society that produces for the exchange value and not fot use value is doomed to degenerate to capitalism acording to Marx, this exactly what Khruschev did with de USSR and why MLMs call him revisionist

So-called "leftism" like that pic is nothing but contrarianism

Did a Maoist make that?

They aren't capitalist. US aid does not undermine their leftism.

Okay… how the fuck do we get the ball rolling?

Its not the aid is bad in of in itself, but you do have to admit they are playing a dangerous game.

no it doesn't.

the fact that they are literally fighting a US proxy war intended to destroy an independent state does, however.

nationalists please go

yeah, the US undermining the sovereignty of democratic governments by invading them, is like totally anarchic bro. rock on

also

What the fuck kind of world are tankies living in?

FUCKING HELL

I am absolutely disgusted by the presence of people like you on this board, so fucking ignorant. You belong in /r/worldnews or, better yet, in the fucking ground.

If you bothered to learn a single thing about the world you live in, you would know that Syria is a democratic country - where a large majority of the population support Assad.

You would also know that there is no "uprising" - but a vast coalition of contras flooding into the country to rape and pillage on the US' dime.

Fuck your ignorance. The fact that you can post your lies here and try to pass them off as truth truly, truly sickens me.

Imperialism relies on people like you, it thrives off your sheer stupidity.

Mind to give your quotes in context? All I manage to find on Google is a book called "A Proudhon anthology" and an anarchist website

fucking lol

tankies get out

the posting of this image really does sum up the sheer childishness of leftcoms.

in some ways i would almost like to see your carving up of the syrian state succeed - just to watch anarkiddies bawl as they realise they were chasing an infantile, impossible fantasy

Is Rojava socialist?

Also who's the leftcom? Murray Bookchin did nothing wrong.

I'm going to keep posting this image to see >yfw you'll never build actually existing socialism with a Kurdish qtπ

What is this plan?

Fucking disgusting.
You autistic, contrarian edgelords are fucking useless.

This.

This place is as bad as Holla Forums.

kek

She's going to get her fucking face blown off by an american bomb, when they install a puppet leader in a CIA coup.

That's if Syria don't win their defensive war against Kurdish and Wahabbist aggression, which is increasingly likely.

You seem to be using "muh kurds" as some sort of despicable orientalist fantasy, exposing you as the racist you are as well.

Glorious market socialism and democratic confederation. What's yours?

Yeah, fuck the democratic right of the Syrian people eh, bomb them all to fuck I say!

the eternal haindmaiden of fascism trying to get on his high horse. lovely

Is this bait, m8?
I guess DPRK, Russia and Turkey are like totally democratic and anything that says otherwise is propaganda.
Pure ideology.

holy shit it's not 1910 stop LARPing

Pure ideology

So you know nothing of the subject on which you speak. Nice one, imagine you'll be quite embarrassed once you have performed the necessary google search.

yeah, supporting the ideology that currently existing states are based on is LARPing - I should support ineffective leftcom idiocy instead

That's not a plan, that's an end goal. What is the plan to make the world a glorious market socialist democratic confederation?

Make an international communist party. Make a state ruled by this party. Take over the means of production one by one. Run them as "communist" as possible.

Once again, weird indoctrinated american on the wrong board betrays his complete lack of knowledge on the situation at hand.

Why the fuck would the US bomb it's own agent? Why the fuck would I oppose this action? How the fuck are you comparing secular, anti-imperialist Syria to Wahabbist, US armed ISIS? How the fuck did you think you would get away with this pathetically flimsy, laughable strawman?

Only you know.

Give me a google search that proves 1. that Syria is democratic, and 2. that the Kurdish people have any self-determination whatsoever in the Syrian state. I fucking dare you cunt

What is that ideology?

They actually are a glorious market socialist democratic confederation, mate. And personally, I'm planning on working to establish the same in America, JewStain2016

Good luck with your international communist party. There are already like twenty in America alone.

...

As the state withers around us we will build glorious market socialist democratic confederations and pretty soon the state would be gone.

It's like you're retarded on purpose.

Enjoy your paramilitaries in the third world and irrelevance in the first.

t. ankies

You are an idiot, you are legitimately not capable of googling "syrian election" and you think your opinion actually counts for shit.

Marxism-Leninism

Wow, wonderful argument mate. Did you figure it out yet, how to work a search engine? The fact that you have continued down this route is really fucking great tbh, the payoff is going to be so much sweeter, that is if you actually let facts penetrate your thick wall of delusion.

fucking disgusting, tankies get out

I think it is too. So, great! You support Rojava now!

OMG read something besides Russian propaganda you pure ideology.

The SDF isn't fighting Assad, they got a truce with him (granted its an uneasy one with skirmishes here and there). The US is bombing ISIS to support them, Assad isn't getting bombed.

...

Syria is being attacked by the US, through the contras that they arm and openly support throughout the country.

The US and proxies' token bombing of ISIS has been so woefully ineffective precisely because ISIS serve the exact same interests as the US. They openly pursue the same goal - of course their bombing "campaign" just happens to be laughable. And when Russia enters the fray? incredibly effective bombing that turns the tide of the war. Funny how that works.

What is this "same goal" that ISIS and the USA want?

Also you never sent me your google search btw.

Maybe you could cite some sources, you obnoxious cunt.

You realize most Russian bombing has been overwhelmingly pro Assad, right?

Oh, so it's not only glorious market socialism: it's glorious market socialism in one country. Stalin would be proud!

It really is sickening. Here's an edgelord american anarchist type, sitting in his dorm-room shitposting.

He doesn't care one bit about the Kurdish people. He only cares about his precious ideology. Those philosophical and economic terms he picked up the other day.

The Kurdish people are fighting and dying in an imperialist war, which they have no hope of "winning" because they are not an imperialist power. The american edgelord supports this - because the real struggle, the real deaths of these Kurdish people furnishes his superficial and shallow ideology with the tiniest bit of credibility.

The destruction of Syria's socialist project.

Well, no, I'm looking for glorious market socialism in every country. Although in theory market socialism does kind of work in one country, unlike Leninism (of fucking course).

That's why we're working to actually dismantle the American political system as well, whereas you're sitting around sucking Bob Avakian's dick or whatever.

fucking lol

TWO edgy leftcoms who can't work fucking google. my oh my.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Syria

I guess i have to spoonfeed you ignorant cunts, don't I

Did you show at any point that the Kurds were an enfranchised part of this election?

What is a leftcom? Aren't communists left-wing?

The irony is as dense as a neutron star.

AFAIK one of the reasons for Syrans' resentment was neoliberal policies by the Assad regime, but don't hold me to that.

Your freedom loving Kurdish seperatist movements didn't allow them to vote.

Jesus fucking christ, it's almost painful watching completely ignorant people flailing around trying to find a coherent argument.

...

hmm yes these elections look totally democratic and fair just look at those results

another demonstration of your ignorance. you can stop now mate - we all know you are an idiot.

I'm actually denigrating an imperialist war waged on the Kurdish and Syrian people.

Syria is actively fighting against US imperialism, but I suppose that doesn't count as "getting shit done"?

but no, clearly the YPG are the ones preventing them from participating in government!!! because… they're Kurds, and Kurds don't want Kurdish rights… right?

Yeah, I mean every international observer said the election was fair and transparent - but you've looked at the numbers once on wikipedia (on a page you couldn't find yourself) and definitely know better than them.

This is why the left loses.

okay.
So we should support the tyrant Assad over a faction that are actually left-wing?
Makes sense.

Proof?

I beg you, please stop embarrassing yourself. You manage to be wrong about literally fucking everything. Lenin was writing about left communism in fucking 1920 and you think it's board lingo.

Google motherfucker. Learn how to use it.

TOO FREE BRO, TOO FREE

...

I'm confused as to why you're looking at statistics from nine years ago when I quite clearly linked a page that had details about the election two years ago.

watertight logic

So it was a dictatorship then?

So let me get this straight - you are moaning that Kurds don't have citizenship of a country they are actively waging war against?

Assad is the 4th most leftist leader in the world behind only Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin. Saying he isn't a leftist is a complete joke.

Huh?

this

They were deprived of citizenship in 1962 - along with their children. There were 300,000, give or take, who were not citizens in 2007. Are you really this dense?

Was Syria a dictatorship in 2007?

This is clearly supposed to be some form of wit. Seems that you are ignorant to the fact that every left-wing world leader backs Assad, and all the forces of reaction are opposed to him - and support "Rojava" funnily enough

Who are these left-wing world leaders? pls name

That's just like, your opinion.
Well why don't you give me a synopsis, you elitist?

This is just western propaganda, you revisionist.

Pure ideology.

Oh, it was a ruse.
10/10, took the bait.
Would get trolled again.

Why are you asking me this?

Khamenei.

Let's just say I'm interested. Can you answer?

So what's your argument here then? Honestly, what is it? You have listed previous crimes of the Syrian state, yes? What are you going to do with them, how are you going to form them into a coherent argument against anything I've said? It remains to be seen.

...

it really couldn't be easier to find this information online tbh, don't know what the issue is
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_presidential_election,_2014

omg fucking lol fucking lol lol lol lol lol kek kek laugh out loud 555 xaxaxa

That the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2007 were not legitimately representative of the 300,000 Kurds arbitrarily deprived of citizenship.

I'll assume that your silence is affirmative. So Syria was a dictatorship in 2007.

What changed?

I'm sure your movement of ten edgy college kids in a bookstore fapping over theory are worthwhile.
Good trolling, though. I still feel compelled to respond to you.

Why do we keep taking the bait?

sorry mate:(

I'm done spoonfeeding you, you clearly know fuck all about socialism. If you're curious, look it up yourself.

No. Did I give you the impression I could, or was even interested in the matter? I think you're mistaking me with someone else.

Fucking lol, dictatorships don't change.

So let's say Syria was a dictatorship in 2007. Is it still a dictatorship now?

And where did I dispute this? I challenge you to find a post in this thread where I claimed Syria was a democratic state in 2007.

What changed?

You do realise that's not me - that's someone else who never said a word about the Syrian elections.

Again: what do I care?

Nod really.

So are the Kurds right in rising up against the regime, which is not representative of them?

I can't tell who you are so it's very difficult to answer you. Why do you, personally, not support the YPG?

Reminder that half an hour ago all these edgy Rojava-bros were claiming that Syria isn't a democracy.

Now they are desperately scrabbling around to find obscure reasons to delegitimise it.

This all could have been avoided if you had even the most cursory knowledge of the situation that you're talking about

Because market socialism is not a thing, nor is socialism in one country. There's nothing worth supporting here.

I still claim it isn't a democracy. Do you think an illegitimate democracy is actually a "democracy"? What would that even mean?

And shut the fuck up with your faux intellectualism, tankie dipshit.

Hey remember, when this guy "dared" me to find information about Syria's democracy.

What a stupid fucking cunt eh!

Why is market socialism not a thing?

Remember when you didn't reply?

I've just proven to you on multiple occasions that the democracy is completely legitimate but don't let that break your delusion.

Because a society based on market is basically the definition of capitalism.

I literally did - with actual facts - more than anything anyone else in this thread can muster.

You NEED to stop embarrassing yourself.

No, you linked me the wikipedia article of the election in 2014, when the Civil War was actually ongoing. I discussed the election of 2007, and you didn't have anything to say other than you didn't know whether it was a dictatorship. You didn't prove shit.

really

Did you know Nazi Germany was a democracy? It's true! They have wikipedia articles on the elections!

Also, you claimed that "every international observer" called it legitimate. Could you actually link one?

Or you could bring up Khamenei lol

nazbol has it right

Market or not market?

Did the USSR have markets?

CLEARLY NOT SOCIALIST

fucking ultras get out

Which somehow invalidates the election? It isn't a "civil war" either.

THAT'S NOT ME. That is a completely unrelated person who you were constantly asking about the election. Hence their confusion.

Yes, and and it was indeed clearly not socialist.

Like I said, Stalin would be proud of you.

here you fucking go
sott.net/article/280717-US-observers-report-on-Syrian-election-at-UN-Elections-were-free-fair-and-and-transparent

globalresearch.ca/international-observers-syrias-voting-process-was-fair-and-democratic/5385388

orientalreview.org/2014/06/03/international-observers-endorse-syrian-elections/

Can only laugh as once again a delusional kiddie's infantile arguments are foiled by facts.

...

...

Read the thread

Arsed explaining simple facts to yet another child

better yet - click the links directly above your worthless, redundant post

guess you don't like facts so much, huh guys?

nice websites mate

marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1922/democratic-principle.htm

The Assad regime is an all but outright hereditary dynasty.

Yep, they completely made it up, these visits never happened, and the elections weren't fair - that's definitely what's happened here.

Go away child, you have completely run out of arguments.

That's right, the country that is openly waging war against Syria has declared it's elections completely fair and transparent.

Pretty impressive isn't it?

Not to mention every other country that observed the election.

No it's not, it's a democracy, as this thread proves.

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_presidential_election,_2014

It's not really anarchists who keep bitching about Rojava not being perfect though…

If you can't trust Russia who can you trust?

Hmmmmmm…. What a mystery!!!

Seems you base your political positions on what the US, the EU and the UN tell you, would a good little lefty you are!

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Correct

Citation needed. Of course you can't find one - because it's unfounded bullshit. I've completely destroyed every single "muh rojava" argument in this thread with facts. So far i haven't been presented with any. The trend continues.

Think /r/worldnews is more suitable for great minds like you.

also:

big fucking man you are

[citation needed]
Right here famalam

Also the contrary:

Tankie?

I can take a joke. I personally am not offended by your post.

The fact that you are making fun of a disabled child is indicative of your own moral bankruptcy and complete stupidity and hypocrisy. Nothing to do with me.

Spooky

...

So you've gone from each of the observers were "personal friends" of Assad - to "some of the observers were from countries allied to Syria"

Pretty fucking big leap there - amazing how facts can decimate an argument isn't it?

Do you have anything to say about the US observers in Syria? I'll give you some time to come up with a ridiculous theory if you'd like.

Or the fact that observers came from 30 different countries?

But please - do continue towing the party line - courtesy of John Kerry!

abort all retards, no exception

That's right, keep posting memes rather than formulating any sort of coherent argument.

Makes you look really credible, people are now much more receptive to your political ideas I'm sure.

It was a bit of humorous hyperbole. Something you'll understand if science ever manages to cure your autism.

They were observers who are all affiliated with the Assad regime and his allies.

Not, of course, that you even need to dig so deep to be able to tell that Syrian elections aren't free and fair. Bashar al-Assad has ruled all but unopposed in Syria for 16 years, and he essentially inherited his post from this father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria for nearly 30 years straight. That's not what a democracy looks like, fam.

You're making moral arguments for what people are allowed to post on an anonymous anime imageboard.

You need to read The Ego and Its Own.

When Marx talks about capital he's not referring to it in the same way economists refer to Capital, rather it's a shorthand he uses to describe the social relation between the boss and workers

More weird mockery of disadvantaged people.

This isn't an argument.

No I'm not. you are allowed to post what you want.

no i don't

Stay spooked then, my property.

I can give you citations to the pages in the Penguon editions after I get home, if you're still interested.

*PENGUIN fuck me

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Touche!

Nope, still here. cba to reply to you defending fucking Assad lololol

This is the level of argument you are reduced to

Sorry, facts hurt champ

Also you type like you are 13

Hi, newfriend. How long have you been on here? One, maybe two hours?

So now you've retreated from any sort of argument and reason and are resorting to Holla Forums-tier rhetoric

That's not very surprising considering your previous behaviour tbh

Been on here a lot longer than that though, seeing as you're curious

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We can't be bothered to respond to you coherently because you don't listen to coherent arguments, preferring to post Russian propaganda instead. gtfo

coherent arguments that aren't backed up by facts?

Just the truth I'm afraid, as I've proved on multiple occasions.

Remember the start of the thread, when you lot were denying that Syria had any sort of democratic process - revealing your complete ignorance of what is actually going on in the country?

...

It's because you're DPRK tier "anything that refutes my points is Western propaganda"

You've only insulted yourself in this thread.

Going off now so you can circlejerk about your ethno-sectarian mountain canton at will now - without those nasty facts getting in your way!

Try again I suppose?

And you claimed that the Gulf Cooperation Council, EU and UN were at war with Assad.

I'm not sure what I'm LOLing at. Are you calling him a classcuck? He's right, if he's partially missing the point with why people are so mad at police.

Tightass leftcom, I think. They show no particular love for Mao, and then there's this comic where they point out the issue with ML quite accurately, actually. But really, what's the difference?

Have another LOL. I love how he/she lumps ML solidarityfags and people who dislike leftcom ideological purity together.

Nop
M-C-M
Capital circulation

Marx also recognised that simple commodity production is a pre-capitalist form, and that to attempt to return to it is a reactionary endeavor doomed to failure.

PS: when quoting Capital could you site the chapter as well as the page? Not all of us have access to it in book form.

Investable funds (M) purchase the commodities (C) used in production (means of production, MP, and labour-power, LP) in order to set them to work (P) producing commodity-capital (C’), which can be sold for revenue (M’) that yields a profit (M’-M).

All are moments of the totality that is capital. The Capital Cycle equation is an abstraction to show how the proletariat is exploited; you can't divorce it from this context and successfully apply it to enterprises that are owned and controlled by the producers.

The sources for those quotes are in Chapter 36 & 50 of Capital III, and Chapter 33 of Capital I.

This thread is a good example of why tankies should go against the wall

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It ultimately doesn't matter if you consider cooperatives to be capitalist or not, as market forces will force them to behave as capitalist enterprises. They will still have to sell commodities for a profit and as a result be afflicted by most of the problems that plague capitalist firms. They will still have to fire under-performing workers, still face competition from emerging firms, still find themselves having to work unpaid overtime or lower their wages when earnings are low, and still be effected by the falling rate of profit and the market crises that result.
Given that co-ops behave in a capitalist manner for all intents and purposes, I don't think it's unreasonable to apply the capital cycle equation to them.

"The workers forming a co-operative in the field of production are thus faced with the contradictory necessity of governing themselves with the utmost absolutism. They are obliged to take toward themselves the role of capitalist entrepreneur—a contradiction that accounts for the usual failure of production co-operatives which either become pure capitalist enterprises or, if the workers’ interests continue to predominate, end by dissolving." - Rosa Luxemburg

Markets existed before capitalism.
Markets have problems, but being capitalist is not one of them.

Did you know that in Rojava, coops are subject to regulation and redistributive policies by the local direct democratic assemblies, meaning the rate of profit won't necessarily fall, as income redistribution basically is a way of adding variable capital?

Don't you understand the difference between a society where markets exist and a society based on markets?

...

YPG supporters are officially tankies.

While it's true that all exploiting modes of production have featured market exchange to some extent or another, it doesn't mean that it would be a feature of socialism, a society based upon directly social production. In fact it would be a contradiction in terms, as production in such a society would be no more social then it is presently in capitalist society.

"Redistributive policies" wouldn't suppress the falling rate of profit, all that would achieve is subsidisation of less profitable firms at the expense of more profitable firms. At a social level the RoP would be uneffected.

They have been compared to the Bolsheviks by the anarchist federation, which is a ringing endorsement imo, considering the PYD and TEV-DEM are the ones setting up the communes and shooting reactionaries.

ML unity is only a thing against imperialism and fascism, in example spain, defending the bourgeoise democratic structure against reaction.
it does not unite with anarchists if they shit on democracy and fuck up things for their baby "revolutions" and wont ever whore itself out in favor for anyone elses goals.
lenin always advocated for necessary splits with all kinds of leftist cancers.

Take off your Lenin hat, you pussy. Rojava was literally set up by a Kurdish vanguard, as expected since the PKK, which the PYD are descended from, were hardcore MLs until Ocalan read some Bookchin and rejuvenated a tired movement.
Top kek.
Judging by what """socialists""" are doing in Cleveland right now, a book club would discredit us less.

ML was Soviet state ideology, so why does that come as a surprise? ML is dead and buried, but ML does not equate to "vanguardism", which is a method of organization.

Things can get out of hand if everything is on the table. See the French revolution.

The Kurds are well aware that they're being used as much as they're accepting US help. It's just a matter of the endgame. Will their position be strong enough to bargain for a permanently autonomous region? Or will the US back Turkey and the (presumably) new Syrian government and crush them? Only time will tell.

If I skew the balace of capital towards constant capital, the rate of profits fall.
If I push them towards variable capital, what happens.
Do you want to deny the reality that the RoT increased during the New Deal, even in spite of the fact that it still had extraction surplus-value?

The former has simple commodity production.
Just as market socialism does.

You can't increase the average variable capital simply through redistribution. You could freeze the organic composition of capital in place by removing the advantage created through automation, but in order to increase the ratio of VC to CC you would have to destroy accumulated capital (which is what actually happened during the ww2/new deal period).
Both of these things would be fucking retarded however, as they would either conserve or increase the amount of work we would have to do. The point of socialism is to free production from the constraints of market forces and abolish the necessity of mandatory work, not to fucking increase it.

No, it doesn't matter.

Why would anyone care what "Western public" feels? "Western public" is beyond irrelevant. They are disorganized, unarmed and brainwashed into unquestionable obedience. They don't have rights and don't have any ability to change anything. Their attempts at protests are absolutely laughable. Their best theories are on such tinfoil level, that even intellectuals of 19th century would call them retarded.

For all that matters, "Western public" doesn't even exist. How could it retroactively change history? Are you insane?

Yes. Or you know… Redistribute it.
Which the local assemblies have the power to. Which, in effect, is the same as increasing Variable capital and thus increasing the VoM.

The rate of profits increasing once again doesn't coincide with the WWII at all, indeed, it starts to decrease afterwards, as you'd expect.

To deny this is to believe in Marxism as religious dogma rather than science.

No. That conclusion only follows from the false premise that we'd have to destroy MoP. We don't. Indeed, redistribution is what will enable the slow out-phasing of labour, as the advatages of those who labour will become increasingly marginal in comparison to those who don't, and thus work become less and less desirable.

If you think that is the point, then you have never starved for neither food or free.
It's about abolishing the need for all work. It's about transforming it into play instead.

It's about the total emancipation of the individual. That's the very core of it. All other things spring from this.

A zombie?

Communism was a ghost in 19th century. A skeleton according to WWII Nazi propaganda. I say we have a progress.

Does Rojava have a separate (government-regulated) capital market?

I.e. ban on trade of MoP with regular (consumer) cash?

Are you asking if whether coops sell shares or not?

No.
Of course they don't. If they did they wouldn't be cooperatives.

One of the cantons approved cooperatives taking loans from foreign investors, but that is not the same as selling shares.

I don't see how this follows at all. Given that OCC = c/(v+s), if you redistribute income from high earning firms to low earning firms you will lower the organic composition of capital for low income firms but raise it for high income firms. When averaged across the whole economy the OCC will be the same.

The rate of profit starts rising in the 30's due to massive amounts of value being destroyed during the great depression, not because of income redistribution. In fact during the Reagan/Thatcher years through to the 00's, there was an increase in the rate of profit as a result of driving down wages and cutting welfare spending, something which according to you should have had the opposite effect.

You're basically just rephrased what I said.

He's talking about a producer goods market, not a stock market. An actual capital market as opposed to a fictitious capital market (though I think both are incompatible with socialism).

Who talked about giving from large firms to small firms? Besides, indeed, as it turns out, those who earn less spend more as a percentage of their income in the economy compare, compared to high-earners meaning that indeed, redistribution increases overall total consumption, which indeed is at the heart of the tendency of profits to fall.

Oh hello, Hayek.

The whole initiative was made to make it more attractive to hire more labour instead of investing in new and better machinery, thus adding varable capital over constant capital. Indeed, in the Reagan era, the average household income arose thus negating the tendency of profits to fall through an increase in the ability to consume.
It's a very cruel method of achieving the same thing.

If he's asking whether worker's can voluntarily and freely start their own cooperatives at their own initiative, then indeed they can.

No. I meant industrial goods. Means of Production. Machinery and stuff.

Is it regulated in any way?

I think we've stumbled onto the source of our disagreement here. You seem to adhere to a kind of under-consumptionist theory of the falling rate of profit, which I think is utterly wrong (and at odds with much of marxist theory).
I take it you're a fan of Richard Wolff? :^)

Hello Keynes.

No, that's not what he's asking at all. He's inquiring as to whether Rojava has separate markets for consumer goods and producer goods, with separate money for each.

Who cares if it is at odds with Marxist theory? If it is, then Marxist theory is at odds with reality. Perhaps, when presented with new data, we ought change the hypothesis a little bit, yah?

All evidence points towards that money, when accumulated, remains stagnant, and thus, demand for consumer goods fall. This is also helped by the fact that the expansion of constant capital means that people find less employment and thus have their hands on less means of consumption.

No. It doesn't.
You can own MoP. You can't employ people though. Simple commdity production is allowed.

Ah. Okay.

So what happens if you have a co-op with no money to buy industrial equipment, but with ability and willingness to use it, and a co-op with excess of industrial equipment it is willing to sell (in credit) or loan?

Is there some central authority to manage this? Or will those co-ops handle everything themselves?

Would you mind elaborating?

We don't know yet.
However, again, the local direct democracies, to whom the cooperatives are subject, have the ability to either loan the poor coop money or just redistribute industrial equipment from one to the other, as they see fit, according to the will of the direct democratic assemblies and the community as a whole.

Or perhaps when the data better fits an existing theory we stick with that one?

thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/too-much-profit-not-too-little/

Underconsumption and LTV are at odds with one another. Read the John Weeks PDF I linked in my previous post, it's only 20 pages and will explain it better than any half-arsed attempt on my part.

^Added wrong image

Hm. Process is not formalized. Well, time will tell.

Generally, understanding of a concept grants an ability to express it short (even if somewhat distorted) form.

I was curious if this was already covered before under a different name (by Bukharin, for example). Modern Western economists have an annoying habit of re-inventing century-old ideas. I may read it tomorrow.

The vast majority of pre-capitalist production was not commodity. Contrary to market "socialism".

So does every democracy in the world. But they don't. Why is you magical one different?

Thanks. I'm gonna need to read it in French h when I'm home, end of the week.

Marxist hate liberalism so much that they are willing to support conservative fascist because its "anti-imperialism".

Anarchists and tankies hate marxism so much that they are willing to support conservative soc-dem because its "democracy".

Everything you've listed are legitimate criticisms of market socialism, which I do not advocate.

My problem with applying the equation to co-ops is that (I believe) the main point of the equation is how owners are able to make profit off the labour of their workers without the workers themselves being able to tap into it.

In other words, it's specific to how a capitalist firm is structured organizationally. The equation would have to be modified in order to fit a cooperative structure, otherwise you'd have to do some mental gymnastics in order to justify using the same one in both cases.

Because western democracies are elective oligarchies and you know this, and because cooperatives have no actual class-antagonism. You'd think this would be a pretty important distinction.

Over 10 seconds in MSPaint

Perhaps it needs to be modified to applied to cooperatives, though I'm not sure how that could be done. In any case it's certainly a better fit than simple commodity production, something than really can only be applied to individual producers. After all cooperatives hire workers for a wage and extract a surplus which is used to buy constant capital in order to expand production (even though the accumulated capital is held in common).

Jesus Christ, the quality of posts coming from actual leftypol posters has never been worse before.

There's a certain degree of irony in your post, given that you're disrupting a perfectly civil discussion with your shitposting. Why don't respond with an actual argument?

Not an argument.

::DD

to be fair the author of this comic probably hates the USSR too, as well as Rojava, and so on and so on, and every tendency except his despite complaining about splitters.

If wage-labour is still present then I think the equation would fit; I was referring more to co-ops that split the profits equally amongst its members

Not arguments.