Disaster capitalism

[normal]

Norway

norway isn't socialist

it has good social programs ie, it is liberal

It's a bit socialist?

You mean liberal as the Americans interpret it, right?

[kiki5711]

http://www.naomiklein.org/main[/quote]

that's interesting. !

[.Morticia.]

Norway

norway isn't socialist

it has good social programs ie, it is liberal

It's a bit socialist?

You mean liberal as the Americans interpret it, right?

no, dictionary definition of liberal

it's not a bit socialist at all

as far as i know the workers don't own the means of production

[Sisifo]

Norway

norway isn't socialist

it has good social programs ie, it is liberal

It's a bit socialist?

You mean liberal as the Americans interpret it, right?

no, dictionary definition of liberal

it's not a bit socialist at all

as far as i know the workers don't own the means of production

What's the difference according to you between communism and socialism?

[Seth]

bunch of fucking parasites.

Warren Buffett: Japan Disaster Presents A 'Buying Opportunity'

So...let's see, you'd rather people with capital to invest NOT invest in Japan, in spite of the obvious fact that Japan is going to need all the capital and investment from outside the country they can possibly get in order to recover from this disaster? Yeah, that sounds mindlessly Marxist all right.

You evidently would rather that the Japanese suffer and starve in Marxist solidarity than for Capitalism to once again, as it always does, prove just what a bunch of morons Socialists and Marxists actually are. Let the proletarian working class starve to death and suffer privation and poverty in order to maintain the purity of the ideology and the political high-horse of the Marxist elite. Yah, now THERE'S a great way to help Japan recover from the disaster. I keep saying it, Marxism and Socialism are ideologies and architects of death and destruction on a massive scale, and whenever they rear their ugly heads, people die for the cause, even when they don't want to sacrifice themselves. Marxists are always happy for OTHER people to die for the cause. Selfish pricks never put themselves on the line though.

Marxism is SUCH an idiotic economic theory...

as far as I know there is no such thing as "marxist economic theory"

unless you mean his analysis of capitalism

Along with his call for revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie merchant class, the forcible seizure of all their property, their extermination and the ultimate imposition of Communism as his utopian ideal of socioeconomic policy, yes.

sure, he wrote tons of stuff, he was encyclopedic ( I've seen that , it's about 40 big volumes I aint read it ), but as far as I know it's mostly analysis

He was psychopathic, and certainly prolific, but his entire Marxist economic argument was based on the single slender philosophical reed that return on investment of capital in the form of profits, rents, interest, dividends and suchlike are not "work" and therefore are not morally justifiable since they allegedly deprive the worker of the fruits of his labor. Everything he wrote was aimed at trying to justify this single preconception and make his revolutionary political and economic aims into a reality by propagandizing the ignorant lower classes into believing that the bourgeoisie merchant class cheats the worker out of his rightful due by exploiting him for profit.

Take away or demolish that one slender reed, and his entire political philosophy comes crumbling to the ground, and all of the thousands of pages he spent trying to reach a predetermined conclusion become, as they should, nothing but toilet paper, useful only for wiping one's ass.

he did write some stuff on rights and social programs

most of which has been implemented in modern capitalist societies

things like education for children'

no child labour

suffrage

that kind of thing

Oh get a fucking clue. Marx didn't come up with the idea of educating children, women's suffrage or the notion that child labor is bad. He merely parroted commonly held ideas for social reform.

What he wrote was, among other things, the Communist Manifesto, which calls for revolution, violent overthrow of government, theft of private property, and wholesale murder.

He is the Godfather of Communism and the progenitor of the genocide and murder of a hundred million innocent people who have been slaughtered in the last century by people trying to turn his insane social, political and economic ideas into reality. If there is a hell, he's certainly going to burn in it for eternity. And if there is any justice in the world, he, and every other Marxist will find themselves in hell. Sadly, I think they will escape justice and will just die eventually, but not before destroying liberty for many more hundreds of millions. That's why it's important to resist Marxism with every weapon available, and to destroy it whenever it rears its ugly head.

[Seth]

Optimal allocation of resources, just as Adam Smith described.

Well I wouldn't call it optimal - resources are allocated to wherever they are most profitable to those who are already wealthy. Those who find themselves in trouble are forced by their desperation to allow themselves to be screwed over more than they otherwise would be - and the system gets more and more unbalanced. You may well call that neutral, it's certainly very natural - Darwinian even - but in the 21st century with all our science, technology, and understanding of the world - how much longer should we put up with that?

Forever, because the alternative is universal poverty, starvation, misery and death on a global scale, if Marxism or socialism prevail.

prove it

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Kampuchea
Communist China

That'll do for a start.

[Seth]

Optimal allocation of resources, just as Adam Smith described.

Well I wouldn't call it optimal - resources are allocated to wherever they are most profitable to those who are already wealthy. Those who find themselves in trouble are forced by their desperation to allow themselves to be screwed over more than they otherwise would be - and the system gets more and more unbalanced. You may well call that neutral, it's certainly very natural - Darwinian even - but in the 21st century with all our science, technology, and understanding of the world - how much longer should we put up with that?

I'll readily admit that money makes it easier to accumulate more money, and also that people with power (money being a form of power) may use that power to accumulate more power at the expense of those without power. Humans aren't omnibenevolent beings.

However, the default economic transaction is one where both parties profit. Of course this is a simplified representation of economic reality, but in most cases the simplification is justified. No market is perfect, however, and those imperfections can be exploited for profit at the exense of others. Those cases should be prevented by adequate oversight, which is why we have governments. I don't think investing in a disaster struck region of the world is such an abuse of market imperfections. All parties involved will benefit from such transactions.

The invisible hand isn't an ideal. It isn't "the way it should be". It's the way rational agents act in an environment with limited resources. It applies to capitalist systems, but it applies to other systems as well. It is simply the way things work. We may not always like the result, but we're stuck with it, because we are at least partially rational agents, and the world we inhabit has limited resources. We can, however, use our non-economic resources - like the political power we wield through democratic representation - to offset the undesirable results of the allocation of our economic resources. We can use progressive taxation to offset the concentration of wealth to a few fortunate people, and we can enforce laws to prevent the powerful to enrich themselves at the expense of the powerless. We do that all the time, though maybe not to the extent I would like.

In tis specific case, though, the result of our economic system is pretty good. Japan gets rebuilt, and the investors supplying the means to do it get a nice revenue. Sometimes capitalism actually works.

And more importantly, ALWAYS socialism DOES NOT work. Capitalism is the worst of all possible economic models...except for everything else.

overused, lame, bs quote alert!! Capitalism never works...except for the rich.

Capitalism always works for everyone better than any other economic model, and especially well for those willing to apply themselves to the principles and build their own economic success, which potential is unlimited under capitalism, and nonexistent under Marxism. That's why capitalism always reemerges almost immediately once Marxism has been destroyed and the active suppression of capitalism and free markets has been ended. Free markets and capitalism are the normal and natural function of any even marginally civilized society because it's merely a description of how people operate economically when left to themselves without government interference or active suppression.

People work to create wealth for themselves and their families through hard work, innovation and by addressing the needs of the market in the most efficient and effective manner possible that maximizes their individual return on investment of their time, labor and money. They engage in free market fair trade because that is the most beneficial model for everyone. Honest dealing and fair trade are the norm, and while greed, corruption and fraud do of course exist, because human nature dictates that they must exist, the natural functions of societies and free markets balance and correct such anomalies in most cases. The sole legitimate purpose of government when it comes to free market capitalism is to act as a policeman to ensure and enforce fair trade and honest dealing by imposing laws and regulations that prevent the initiation of force or fraud. So long as government stays within that proper role, markets flourish, trade is brisk, wealth is constantly created, and capital circulates, raising the economic status of everyone as the economic tide rises.

When government begins to meddle in the markets in order to impose Marxist and socialist notions of "fairness" when it comes to picking economic winners and losers through economic redistributionism and government-sponsored favoritism and oppression meant to achieve social and political goals, that's when capitalism inevitably is weakened and KILLED by Marxism. Capitalism never "fails," it must be actively suppressed and destroyed by Marxism through heavy-handed redistributionist social engineering. But the instant that the Marxists are destroyed, free markets spring back to life and capitalism returns as the natural economic state of being of humanity.

Marxism and its progeny socialism and communism, always fail because bureaucratic central planning of the economy never works and can never work, and because they all fail to properly analyze fundamental human nature. Marx was simply delusional in his analysis of human nature and need, and his quintessential "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" proves absolutely and conclusively that everything else he wrote is simply delusional worthless maunderings by a psychotic loon who resented being a have-not and who spent his life trying to morally justify taking what did not belong to him.

[Seth]

it worked in the Paris Commune

Ignorant horseshit. The Paris Commune lasted less that two months and was destroyed because it was comprised of traitors and thieves.

it worked so well that the federal government committed genocide to quash it

Indeed. It worked so well that the people of France DEMANDED that it be destroyed.

that was a true socialist economy, even though it was only nascent

You cannot rationally claim that a "nacent" socialist economy that FAILED utterly to survive is an example of success. The Paris Commune was an attempt that failed in large part because those in the elite class couldn't themselves agree how to run the fucking thing and as a result were unable to defend it against the French government, which had no interest in allowing Communards to continue to steal stuff that didn't belong to them. The Paris Commune was a den of thieves that was wiped out by the government, nothing more. No socialist state that seizes private property can legitimize itself morally or ethically by doing so, and only Marxists believe that the seizure of the property of others who have greater wealth than they is a moral act. Most of humanity will rightfully resist having their property seized by a bunch of disaffected losers who can't make it economically on their own because of their sloth, idleness and lack of industry.

the crap that the reactionaries keep repeating about stalin etc is lies. Not a lie that they didn;t commit mass murder and were tyrants. The lie is that they were socialist.

If it looks like a socialist, and it smells like a socialist, and it kills like a socialist, it's a socialist. Marxism is the core ideology of all forms of socialism and communism. You cannot separate the evils of Stalin and Mao from socialism because it's all rooted in Marxism, which is an expression of revolutionary collectivism that seeks to justify the theft and elimination of private property and the collectivization of all things using specious claims and false arguments. The grisly details are just the natural extension of the core philosophy. When you believe that other people don't deserve to have the stuff they've obtained for themselves, and that you're more entitled to it than they are because you think that they are oppressing you by having greater wealth than you, you can rationalize any and every sort of murderous, evil scheme, and that's exactly what socialists do every day of the week.

I find the lies and mythologies about politics and economics to be very similar to those about religion.

The lies both serve religious organisations and those who would vilify them ( ie other religious organisations) . Of course, the people not served by the lies are the masses.[/quote]

Alinskyite propaganda. The truth is the truth, and it is you, and Marx, who are lying.

[Robert_S]

Back to Japan...

Who is forcing anyone to sell undervalued stock? If there are people in such dire straights that they'll starve to death if they don't sell their stocks at a loss, then I could see the point of criticizing the buyers. But what Warren has said will probably lead to the value of those investments rebounding more quickly than they otherwise would.

[Seth]

Back to Japan...

Who is forcing anyone to sell undervalued stock? If there are people in such dire straights that they'll starve to death if they don't sell their stocks at a loss, then I could see the point of criticizing the buyers. But what Warren has said will probably lead to the value of those investments rebounding more quickly than they otherwise would.

Precisely. It's a win-win situation for people who have suffered a terrible natural disaster...except to Marxists of course, who don't mind people dying in misery so long as they are ideologically pure in going about it.

[Wumbologist]

Question, Seth. What do you think of the concept of voluntary micro-socialism (co-ops and the like) existing within a capitalist state?

[Seth]

Question, Seth. What do you think of the concept of voluntary micro-socialism (co-ops and the like) existing within a capitalist state?

Perfectly Libertarian and fully acceptable, so long as it's entirely consensual. Socialism only becomes a problem when its compulsory, or when it seizes private property to fund it's pretensions.

Voluntary communism is just a lifestyle, and not a bad one at that. In a voluntary commune, one that's built by the labor of the members and NOT through revolution and theft, one either adheres to the ideals or one leaves the commune.

[.Morticia.]

I don't even know who alinsky is

sounds like another case of american imperialism, assuming everyone from all over the world automatically knows everything american

:eyeroll:

[Wumbologist]

I don't even know who alinsky is

sounds like another case of american imperialism, assuming everyone from all over the world automatically knows everything american

:eyeroll:

I thought you lived in Detroit? How is that assuming that everyone from all over the world knows everything American, if you're American?

[.Morticia.]

I don't even know who alinsky is

sounds like another case of american imperialism, assuming everyone from all over the world automatically knows everything american

:eyeroll:

I thought you lived in Detroit? How is that assuming that everyone from all over the world knows everything American, if you're American?

I'm australian,

I live in detroit and nyc

have lived other places too