Capital is made up of dead labor and raw materials, it isn't something shared by the Capitalist and Worker. Instead, it's vampiric in the sense that ownership by the Capitalist allows said Capitalist to exploit living labor.
Commodities trend towards being sold at their values, not below or above, over time, yet profit is still taken. This is due to the laborer working for more hours than they are paid. Ie, if they create 50 dollars of Value in 4 hours, yet recieve 50 dollars for 8 hours labor, then they are working 4 hours for themselves and 4 hours for the Capitalist.
I work in flexographic printing as a QA and I get to see the numbers in our database. A print/lamination job for a million and a half impressions of frozen chicken nugget bags will gross $350,000. We do that in a day and a half while the other press and laminator is also doing other jobs. One of our presses costs $3.5m. we could literally be buying a new one every goddamn month. Press operators are at $25/hr for 5-6 12hr shifts every week. I make $17/hr for an admittedly really easy job(except when we're really busy).
Our roof leaks everywhere. The eye wash stations are all broken. They only just fixed the AC because they're expecting people to quit just after the latest round of BS. They just installed a crazy number of cameras and are now installing a turnstile because they think people are stealing hours. They owe literally all of us back pay for the pay half year because the clock system isn't tracking lunch properly.
Our big boss owns a whole damn building in Manhattan. We could all be doing really well if this guy wasn't just a leech in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars every year. The only reason we can't make more money is because we don't have the financial freedom to leave or stand our ground. We have no union. None of us will ever have the chance to invest in our own equipment. Our wages are a leash, not a return on value produced.
It’s more insidious than teaching us to “hate” Marxism. They teach us “oh, it’s lovely in theory but because of that darn human nature that makes all of us so greedy it can never work in practice.”
Saying it's human nature to be greedy while they live in a capitalist society is like saying it's human nature to drown while they are held under water.
No, I expect deeply unserious analysis, I just like trying to lead these people to theory. Doesn't work all the time, obviously, but it does work sometimes.
All I see is you being toxic. You're not leading people anywhere. People will want to stay away from your way of thinking because of all the hatred in your tone. Dial it down a bit if you want to have any impact.
Please demonstrate where this toxicity is. Please give examples of the "hatred in your tone" in this thread. Otherwise, you are poisoning the well and hiding it under pseudo-respectability garbage.
People should be able to enumerate the benefits of their preferred form of governance. They should also be able to be honest about its weaknesses and have a discussion about past failures.
I think Socialists should be like really good sales people, not just trying to get a quick sale, but trying to convert you to a lifelong happy customer. Provide the talking points and let people decide for themselves.
The benefit is that there's at least a goal that will benefit the poorest strata of society.
Capitalism doesn't address it at all. It's every man for themselves and fuck everyone else. That's textbook recipe for sick societies, like all capitalist societies on the planet. None of them work for the poorest of the people, none of them attempt to do so.
It's crisis after crisis, with random economical meaningless inflation fear mongering to get people to hate their fellow workers. To compete for an ever decreasing pool of jobs.
I'm not well read in Marxism so I'm probably not qualified to answer this, but the recurring issue with Communism seems to be the same as capitalism, in that it requires people to not be assholes in order to properly function.
The recurring issue with Communism in practice is that it requires true equality amongst its citizens and there's always some asshole or group of assholes who want power and dominion over others, so it seems to repeatedly fall into a practical dictatorship.
Capitalism at its best requires businesses to find and deploy the most effective and efficient means of product delivery in order to compete with each other, which means that the consumer will always have the best product at the best price allowed by the market. The problem is that greedy assholes either conglomerate competing companies into monopolies, or otherwise collude with one another to maximize their profit margins.
Why does Communism require "true equality amongst its citizens?" What does that even mean, in practical terms? How would a group of people take advantage of this to form a "practical dictatorship?"
Capitalism does not deploy the most efficient means of product delivery, but the most profitable. It means weaker but more profitable products are pushed, and rampant consumerism of useless trinkets is pushed for profit. Collusion and monopoly are not why Capitalism cannot work, those are merely symptoms of a broader exploitative system that naturally decays due to issues like the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall.
What of Marx have you read? Or any leftist theorist? I can make some suggestions for reading material if you wish.
Why does Communism require "true equality amongst its citizens?" What does that even mean, in practical terms?
Do you imagine a communist system that has social classes?
How would a group of people take advantage of this to form a "practical dictatorship?"
Castro, Zedong, Putin
Capitalism does not deploy the most efficient means of product delivery, but the most profitable...
You're arguing Communism on a philosophical level against capitalism on a practical level.
What of Marx have you read? Or any leftist theorist?
As I said, I'm not well read and unprepared for the higher level argument you are seeking here.
I can make some suggestions for reading material if you wish.
I appreciate your desire to educate, but I'm too busy being exploited by the current system to dive further into social philosophy. When you guys are ready to rise up I'll be there, but I won't be a part of the debate on which system we should implement going forward.
Do you imagine a communist system that has classes of people?
If you are referring to the Marxian term, ie proletarians, bourgeois, etc. Of course not. Do you instead mean people must be paid equally, and there can be no management? Also of course not, Communism isn't a bunch of horizontal organization and equal pay.
Castro, Zedong, Putin
Putin is a Capitalist, so I am unsure of what you mean by including him here.
As for Mao and Castro, Mao lost power within the CPC over time and Castro retained power democratically, neither of which maintain your points. This appears to just be vibes.
You're arguing Communism on a philosophical level and capitalism on a practical level.
What on Earth does that mean? I am advocating for Communism on both practical and philosophical grounds, this is just gibberish.
As I said, I'm not well read and unprepared for the higher level argument you are seeking here.
I am trying to get to a base level of understanding so we can have a conversation. I wouldn't even call it an argument, I am just trying to get you to understand your own preconceptions.
I appreciate your desire to educate, but I'm too busy being exploited by the current system to dive further into social philosophy. When you guys are ready to rise up I'll be there, but I won't be a part of the debate on which system we should implement going forward.
Revolution doesn't happen just because people vibe it into existence, it's a consequence of deteriorating Material Conditions. If you don't have time to read Marx, why do you have time to discuss Marxism online with strangers? This entire convo would have been better spent comprehending the bigger picture of Marxism.
From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs. - Marx in 1875.
Its not about equality, it's about fair distribution of goods and services produced by the society. As in, it is fair that national leaders get to fly planes to travel abroad frequently,for example.
The recurring issue with communism is that capitalist powers keep on trying to corrupt, infiltrate and sabotage popular governments.
While there's incentive from outsider agents to control the resources in a piece of land, and the population in that area, there's risk that some people within that population will betray their people for individual gain.
There's no passive corruption without active corruption. Active corruption happens for individual gain in detriment of other people. Active corruption is the role of money players, the capitalists.
The recurring issue with communism is that capitalist powers keep on trying to corrupt, infiltrate and sabotage popular governments.
Idk, while capitalism meddling in communist governments is a reoccurring theme, I think blaming all problems that have occurred within communist governments on any level of outside corruption is highly reductive.
The problem with Marx is that while it points out problems and offers some solutions, it doesn't address the way to organize a governmental hierarchy. Specifically it does not outline the required path of transforming a revolutionary government into a functional communist government.
Revolutions require a very rigid hierarchy of control and command, and most often resembles a military command structure rather than a bureaucratic one. Transitioning the state control from the hands of revolutionary militants to bureaucratic policy makers is the pitfall of any revolution, Marxist or not.
There are different kinds of work which needs to be done for our society to function. These tasks have costs for those who perform them (lost time, spent energy, danger, boredom, etc).
In pure communism, everyone works hard and everyone is given the spoils of the work we collectively provide. But it is rational for any individual to not work as hard, because he will bear less of the cost of that work, but still realize the same gain
Therefore most people tend to shirk their duties, and the output of the entire collective drops. In order to maintain the system, the threat of violence is introduced, and we quickly get to Stalinist purges
Your argument can be made against all forms of social services, and ignores that people work to get paid. This hasn't panned out in your game theory favor at all.
If you're trying to argue against higher stage Communism, "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs," then that also doesn't follow. Higher stage Communism has never been achieved by any AES country, so again, your example is false.
In no reading of your statement does it follow reality.
How about instead of just saying that I am wrong, describe to me how an individual in a higher stage communist state would be prevented from slacking in his duties (and still gaining "according to his need") without state induced violence
I don't really think it can placed as a comparative argument, because under capitalism it's more or less the exact same. Either you work or starve/jail.
For a more wholehearted answer. Under each ideology there is a perfect citizen for each of them. Any one ideology will fail in real life. Providing a rouge actor doesn't disprove the ideology. Almost each country implements some aspect of each ideology in order to run smoothly.
Problem arises when a lot of people under capitalism feels left out, because only ruthless capitalism is rewarded. They try to find their communities online and now we are here. I'm almost certain that people here could create a functioning communist state. But you can't create one, when people who are born in one are already part of it.
Do you think Communists believe upper-stage Communism can be achieved in our life time? No, it is only achievable after rapidly improving production. Communists advocate for naturally building up to that point through steady improvements and collectivizing production through Socialism, then lower stage Communism, then finally upper stage Communism.
Another thing - an upper stage Communist society would be both international and stateless. You're arguing against Anarcho-Communism, and poorly as well, not Marxism.
But it's now clear that communism for you is a religion. Upper stage communism is the paradise that is promised to those who follow the tenets of the faith fully, and I am a heretic non-believer
I will not be continuing this discussion any further
Communism is not a religion, it's a process of collectivizing property and improving production so as to produce based on the needs of society rather than profit.
You seem to be arguing against a vague abstraction well into the future as though it has already been tried, which is why you said it "happened in the dozen or so times it has been tried."
My main issue with it is that it is not evidence based but that the development of the target socially is speculative It's incredibly hard to predict such development and Marx didn't have the tools to do it properly.
The Communist Manifesto was a pamphlet written within the context of Marx's time, and the Material Conditions that came with them. They were not meant to be the solution, but a solution, and for his time period.
Reading the Communist Manifesto as a means to say Marx's ideas are problematic by stripping them from their context and slapping them onto modern times is a disservice to Marxism.
Marxism is a frame of analysis, a philosophical method via Dialectical Materialism, and a tool for looking at how to improve whatever situation you are in. As such, further reading of Marx beyond the Manifesto is a requirement to understand what Marxists of today advocate for.
They agree to trade the surplus value they create in order to have a job, and receive a ratio of that surplus value instead. This is because they know they haven't the capital, nor the preparation to do otherwise.
If they owned the means of production, they probably wouldn't work so hard as they'd have a relatively larger slice of the pie.
This means the "efficiency of Capitalism" comes from the exploitation of workers. It it only because the full surplus value is kept from them, and they have a knowledge that they can be fired, or have their lives made difficult by "superiors" that they can be worked so hard (aka "efficiently").
Finding a better balance or third way structure, would require finding a way to motivate people, whilst also rewarding them AND not exploiting them.
Perhaps workers could be arranged to keep each other in check. Perhaps there's some other structures that facilitate freedom, a lack of alienation or exploration, whilst retaining motivation... That's what's needed... Comfortable, unalienated labor, that is desirable, and efficiently structured.
This is because they haven’t the capital or preparation to do so.
I would argue this isn’t the whole picture which is a significant flaw in the argument. There’s a lot of people who if they had the capital or the preparation would destroy the value they were given.
IDK why you got downvoted. Is it coz you are not actively promoting communism as silver bullet? But rather pointing out fact that all known approaches have issues
Marx didn't like it when people followed a set of rules with no Materialist bearings but imagined it to be logically consistent. Marx was definitely a fan of believing things and advocating for better.
When Marx said he wasn't a "Marxist," he was referring to people who took his words as dogma, not people who generally used the Marxian method of analysis. He wasn't dunking on people who agreed with him, he was telling people to also touch grass.
I don't know what playing the stock market has to do with anything, Communism isn't a vow of poverty and nothing about society would change if he refused to do so.
I had none of the misapprehensions you've assumed I had, and was not making any case against Marx (but against ideology instead). That said, maybe someone else will read your comment and understand more about Marx.
It's not a question of class, it's a question of labour vs motivation/reward.
This still has a behaviouralist slant though, and perhaps that's because I find the concept of unalienated labour hard to envision the practicalities/pragmatics of. Perhaps due to having never seen such a thing (having always lived under Capitalism).
