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[feelotraveller]

Welcome back to the nightmare.

Thanks. So....is this just pretty much used for reinventing the Marx wheel now?

Some of us use it to follow the latest developments in creeping fascism which occasionally get mentioned - either way its all about derailing now... that and the flow of information; the ads must flow (even or especially in the desert).

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/09/trump-whistleblower-russia-election-threat

[SalmonGod]

A momentary look at the economy makes it clear that we don't have "too many people".

Have you seen our labour force participation rates? Maybe we aren't looking at the same economy here.

The unspoken implication here being that people only exist for the purpose of working... to produce luxuries for one another necessary to cope with the misery of working, I suppose.

[scriver]

No. It's just the reality of the world we live in that people need to work to earn money.

[Maximum Spin]

Or to put it another way, in a very real sense, people do only exist for the purpose of doing things for other people. That's the closest thing to a "purpose" we can have: what benefit you bring to everyone else.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Careful now, someone might not take kindly to that kind of commie talk.

[SalmonGod]

Right.  So... we have too many people because the workforce doesn't need them.  So because the workforce doesn't need them, they can't make money.  Because they can't make money, they can't have things provided to them.

So the logical conclusion is of course that we have too many people because everyone's needs are already met, resulting in people's needs not being met.  Got it.

Economy make much sense.

[Maximum Spin]

Careful now, someone might not take kindly to that kind of commie talk.

The logical conclusion of that kind of commie talk, of course, is that some people's lives are less valuable than others, because they are capable of contributing less, and those people deserve to be poor because they can't do enough for society to justify the expense of keeping them alive.

I agree that communism inevitably implies this, yes.

[MrRoboto75]

which is why the invisible hand of the free market provides safety nets for those in ne- oh wait.

[Max™]

No, capitalism implies that there must be people less valuable than others, capitalism requires poverty so you can redistribute wealth upwards and force people to accept reduced wages or risk poverty themselves.

Communism implies nothing of the sort, it implies we automated ourselves out of jobs, rose up and threw off the shackles of stupid capitalism induced nightmares, and began the process of maturing as a species towards an end goal where we don't need leaders because everybody knows what to do and how to get what they need to do what they want and if there are disagreements everybody can be polled and decide as a group large enough to be relevant to said disagreement from local scales all the way up to global ones.

Marx forgot to put the green skinned alien babes and laser swords in his books so people didn't realize it was scifi.

[Maximum Spin]

No, capitalism implies that there must be people less valuable than others, capitalism requires poverty so you can redistribute wealth upwards and force people to accept reduced wages or risk poverty themselves.

Communism implies nothing of the sort, it implies we automated ourselves out of jobs, rose up and threw off the shackles of stupid capitalism induced nightmares, and began the process of maturing as a species towards an end goal where we don't need leaders because everybody knows what to do and how to get what they need to do what they want and if there are disagreements everybody can be polled and decide as a group large enough to be relevant to said disagreement from local scales all the way up to global ones.

Marx forgot to put the green skinned alien babes and laser swords in his books so people didn't realize it was scifi.

Communism still values people according to their contribution to the community, though.

[Reelya]

Right.  So... we have too many people because the workforce doesn't need them.  So because the workforce doesn't need them, they can't make money.  Because they can't make money, they can't have things provided to them.

So the logical conclusion is of course that we have too many people because everyone's needs are already met, resulting in people's needs not being met.  Got it.

Economy make much sense.

This is in fact a built in aspect of productivity gains. It's recognized by Marx. The debate isn't whether or not labor becomes a surplus, but how to deal with it.

For example cheap food production puts subsidence farmers out of business. But, more affordable food is undoubtedly better for everyone else and definitely improves nutrition, education etc. The solution isn't to hobble the cheap food to keep those farmers in business, it's what yo do with with the surplus people.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Communism still values people according to their contribution to the community, though.

It quite literally doesn't, though? The most boiled down understanding of communism is "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs." You seem to be having some trouble with that second part.

[Maximum Spin]

It quite literally doesn't, though? The most boiled down understanding of communism is "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs." You seem to be having some trouble with that second part.

It's not really me who has trouble with the second part, it's that guy who keeps accidentally slipping up and sending them to the gulags instead.

[Max™]

Do yourself a favor and disassociate what the soviets did from what the US propaganda machine told you they did and recognize that neither were what Marx was talking about.

Dude was literally never saying the proles should reject capitalism for a communist wonderland.

He saw capitalism as a stage to be progressed through until it inevitably leads to an automation crisis (dude was completely accurate so far btw, remember that) at which point it should be discarded for a system where ownership is divided up amongst the people rather than hoarded by the few who saw how rigged the game was and jumped on top of it.

When you have an allergic reaction to communism or socialism or see anything but capitalism as backwards nonsense to reflexively reject, ask who that serves, who told you that?

I'll save you the trouble: it's for the benefit of someone making money off of you cooperating with a system they rigged in their favor long ago. Getting rich is not a good thing, it should not be viewed as some desirable prize the way it is here in the US, that's a sign of sickness within a society because it means the society has been infected with cancerous bullshit letting a small group sacrifice the majority for their pleasure.

Acting like the rich fuckers who lied to you your whole life were right because when people try to skip straight to communism it turns out badly is absurd and it is exactly what they want all of us to keep thinking because otherwise they run the risk of people refusing to cooperate with their bullshit and it's harder to keep propping yourself up on top of everybody else when they don't cooperate.

Skipping capitalism to try some fucked up version of state controlled economy that they told you was communism is like a little kid skipping from trying to learn how to ride a bike to competing in those crazy ass supermoto races.

Without the necessary tools and skills and practice it's gonna go badly and end up fatal... let's check the history books and... yep, looks like trying to skip the capitalism stage and advance directly to communism goes... badly, and ends up... yep, fatal for a fuckton of people.

Is that the fault of communism or the fault of the assholes who tried to skip ahead without knowing what was wrong with trying?

I don't blame the kid who was told he could handle a ducati race bike that terrifies me for getting killed trying, I blame the fucker who told them that, and let them try it.

[Maximum Spin]

In case you weren't aware, I'm a property owner. I'm not the one being lied to, I'm the one who gets to do the lying. I don't even work, except for myself, when I feel like it.


And yeah, I don't want you proles on my land. Obviously. But the truth is, Marx was wrong about a lot of things, the most important of which being the Malthusian collapse that makes "ownership divided up amongst the people" a perfect irrelevancy when there are not enough resources to spread out in the first place.

Billions of people are going to die, one way or another, and communism "as Marx intended" is never going to happen.

ETA: Well, actually, I would let you filthy proles specifically onto my land if you wanted to rent. I just mean filthy proles in general.