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[wierd]

I work with people with dementia every day.  If trump has dementia, he is very high functioning. 

Remember, you can be a delusional, opinionated ass, and NOT have dementia. Since he is able to determine the difference between present and past, knows his surroundings, and passes basic verbal and memory competencies--- in the absence of any medical diagnosis for any lesions or xray anomalies, I must agree with the physician that he does not present with dementia.

Now, there are a few senators who I STRONGLY suspect... but let's not name names.

If you want a condition that I think trump has, it is early cardiovascular disease. We'll find out if he ever gets a medical order for TED hose.

[wierd]

That's not even considering that the USSR was about as actually socialist as the DPRK is democratic.

Thats like eating "Apple Pie", when it is in fact, made of pears, and just claims to be apple--- then deciding that you dont like apples.

[Virtz]

That's not even considering that the USSR was about as actually socialist as the DPRK is democratic.

Thats like eating "Apple Pie", when it is in fact, made of pears, and just claims to be apple--- then deciding that you dont like apples.

What is your definition of socialism? Cause in my opinion the USSR and sattelite states were very much socialist due to heavily nationally governed industries and redistribution of wealth. Like where do you get your definition? Cause mine doesn't seem at odds with the dictionary to me.

[Baffler]

That's not even considering that the USSR was about as actually socialist as the DPRK is democratic.

Thats like eating "Apple Pie", when it is in fact, made of pears, and just claims to be apple--- then deciding that you dont like apples.

It makes perfect sense. If there are toxic products labelled "apples" everywhere, yet nobody's sure actual apples even exist, is it so unbelievable people would be leery of them?

[Reelya]

He's talking about Marx's actual definition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_mode_of_production

The core principle of this is stated as " to each according to his contribution". Which effectively means that the value of your input = the value of your remuneration. Which was very much at odds with early capitalism, in which the business owner gets the majority of the value that each worker creates. Basically, if anyone other than the person who inputted the labor gets a cut of the value you created, it fails to qualify as socialism according to Marx's written definition. That includes either private landlords, rent extracted via management, or government owners who take a slice of the action. All of those go against Marx's explicit definition: the core principle is that the value of what you created is respected. You can take value from someone who created it, but not without replacing it with something of equal value. So ... under a purist Marxist model of socialism, even taxes are disallowed, because they take value away without replacing it. The early Marxists were divided on this issue, some said no taxes ever while others argued that some taxes were needed to maintain roads and the like. So ... basically a similar argument to libertarianism.

The other principle stated here is that the working class own the means of production. That effectively means either democratic control of centralized resources, or worker owned corporations. Marx was very clear on this: dictatorships that centralize production don't count as "socialism" because they lack the "working class owns the means of production" thing. They also fail the first test, "to each according to his contribution" since those governments take value away from the workers who made it, effectively robbing them of their labor value, from a Marxist viewpoint.

Hell, if you count any type of centralized control as the only criteria, then the Roman Republic / Roman Empire and basically everything else is "socialism" rendering the term completely meaningless.

[scriver]

He's talking about Marx's actual definition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_mode_of_production

The core principle of this is stated as " to each according to his contribution". Which effectively means that the value of your input = the value of your remuneration. Which was very much at odds with early capitalism, in which the business owner gets the majority of the value that each worker creates. Basically, if anyone other than the person who inputted the labor gets a cut of the value you created, it fails to qualify as socialism according to Marx's written definition. That includes either private landlords, rent extracted via management, or government owners who take a slice of the action. All of those go against Marx's explicit definition: the core principle is that the value of what you created is respected. You can take value from someone who created it, but not without replacing it with something of equal value. So ... under a purist Marxist model of socialism, even taxes are disallowed, because they take value away without replacing it. The early Marxists were divided on this issue, some said no taxes ever while others argued that some taxes were needed to maintain roads and the like. So ... basically a similar argument to libertarianism.

The other principle stated here is that the working class own the means of production. That effectively means either democratic control of centralized resources, or worker owned corporations. Marx was very clear on this: dictatorships that centralize production don't count as "socialism" because they lack the "working class owns the means of production" thing. They also fail the first test, "to each according to their contribution" since those governments take value away from the workers who made it, effectively robbing them of their production, from a Marxist viewpoint.

Hell, if you count any type of centralized control as the only criteria, then the Roman Republic / Roman Empire and basically everything else is "socialism" rendering the term completely meaningless.

I personally think this goes doubly for one-party states like the USSR, where they effectually creates a new class of people - party people - which own everything, because the state=party owns everything, while the people owns nothing.

[Reelya]

Also, it should be noted that Marx's concept of Communism is post-automation. Basically, it's a stage in economic development in his "historical materialism" theory which stretched back 100s of years, from feudalism to mercantilism, to capitalism, but also, logically, stretches forward by centuries as well.

Thus, Marx's idea of communism isn't some "system" you can actually "implement" in the real world: it's a prediction on how goods and resources will come to be distributed in a post-automation world. And isn't just about everyone talking about "universal basic income" as the most sensible-sounding solution to providing for everyone in a post-automation world? What is that, if not exactly what Marx predicted? Methinks nobody actually really understood what he was talking about, and he's likely to have the last laugh.

[McTraveller]

Uhh... how can Marx's stuff be post-automation? If things are fully automated, then the contribution of a laborer is zero, so would get zero remuneration? Or everyone gets the same remuneration from the automatically-generated stuff?  I feel like there is a disconnect there.

Now, I haven't studied Marx, so perhaps it is just something missing in attempt to summarize on an internet forum?

[smjjames]

I work with people with dementia every day.  If trump has dementia, he is very high functioning. 

Remember, you can be a delusional, opinionated ass, and NOT have dementia. Since he is able to determine the difference between present and past, knows his surroundings, and passes basic verbal and memory competencies--- in the absence of any medical diagnosis for any lesions or xray anomalies, I must agree with the physician that he does not present with dementia.

Now, there are a few senators who I STRONGLY suspect... but let's not name names.

If you want a condition that I think trump has, it is early cardiovascular disease. We'll find out if he ever gets a medical order for TED hose.

I thought you worked in the aircraft industry, not in a nursing home....

[Reelya]

Marx predicted that labor would be automated by improved machines, and that after that, resources won't be distributed based on labor anymore (duh) but on need. That's what he wrote.

And it's what he referred to as communism in his writings. Basically his term communism means post-labor.

People have conflated that with states that call themselves "communist" and are based on the "everyone must work for Big Daddy" model. It's basically nothing to do with what he wrote.

http://www.globallearning-cuba.com/blog-umlthe-view-from-the-southuml/marx-on-automated-industry

Marx viewed automated industry as a new mode of production that would constitute the material foundation for a fifth stage in human history, that of socialism.  Marx had a long-range view of automation from the vantage point of the worker.  He saw it as establishing conditions for a society in which human beings would be freed from work in its conventional form.  Instead of laboring as a slave, serf, or appendage to a machine, human beings would now have the work of designing and maintaining machines, a form of work that is much more versatile and requires education and creativity.

Basically, almost nobody actually got this. Socialism was said by Marx to be the stage during which everything becomes automated, leading to communism, the post-automation stage. Basically by Marx' reckoning we're at the very dawn of the socialist era.

[smjjames]

Heh, Marx was definetly far-sighted in seeing how automation would affect labor, and yet that's not what anybody remembers him for. It's like every attempt at communism/highly applied socialism/marxism wasn't taking automation into account when in fact Marx was taking it into account.

[Reelya]

Yeah, it's a bit like a great thinker says "some day everyone will have a flying car, and every house will have a heli-pad" then you go and build the heli-pads, then when nobody gets a flying car you say "that guy was full of shit!"

[smjjames]

Maybe not a great example, but yeah.

Anyways, automation and AI has really only recently gotten to the point where his concept of economics could start being applied correctly. Or at least to the point where people are thinking of solutions to post-automation.

Unfortunately, Republicans go berserk at the mere mention of the word socialism or communism.

[wierd]

I work with people with dementia every day.  If trump has dementia, he is very high functioning. 

Remember, you can be a delusional, opinionated ass, and NOT have dementia. Since he is able to determine the difference between present and past, knows his surroundings, and passes basic verbal and memory competencies--- in the absence of any medical diagnosis for any lesions or xray anomalies, I must agree with the physician that he does not present with dementia.

Now, there are a few senators who I STRONGLY suspect... but let's not name names.

If you want a condition that I think trump has, it is early cardiovascular disease. We'll find out if he ever gets a medical order for TED hose.

I thought you worked in the aircraft industry, not in a nursing home....

Job volatility.

Or, how the company I worked for got bought out by a fortune 500, and a horrible IP agreement in perpetuity was required (the kind that outright says they own literally everything creative you make forever, and literally claims your 'know-how' as their property and that you agree to extraordinary remuneration on your part if you violate it. I think I still have it someplace if you want to see), so I sought alternatives rather than comply.  Later, landed a temporary gig as a contractor in aerospace,  but then got cut later due to year end budgets.

Eg, now using the side gig to pay the bills. Inglamorous, but effective.

[scriver]

People have conflated that with states that call themselves "communist" and are based on the "everyone must work for Big Daddy" model. It's basically nothing to do with what he wrote.

I mean. I don't want to be that guy. But it has a little to do with what he wrote

Also: The People's Party rising up to seize control over the means of popduction