Left-Wing Discussion Thread II: Behind 700,000 Bunkers

[Pasong Tirad]

You actually hate income taxes? Cute. Just reminds me that people actually drink the right wing Kool aid.

Also, that's not an atrocity. I mean an ATROCITY, like people dying on the streets or being murdered. An atrocity from Demark

Denmark is not socialist. That's an atrocity in your book.

The LEGO prices are also atrocious.

Now if a country is raising the prices on Legos then that country deserves a revolution.

[Jelmatt]

I'm for the complete opposite, if anything. Extreme decentralization.

So you would be against a USSR or North Korean style of planning?

I don't think there're many here that would be for that.

[36 Camera Perspective]

So you would be against a USSR or North Korean style of planning?

I don't think there's many here that would be for that.

I didn't think there would be. I was just checking because I wanted to see if anybody had thoughts on Von Mises' calculation argument against central planning.

[Catochristoferson]

I don't think there's many here that would be for that.

I didn't think there would be. I was just checking because I wanted to see if anybody had thoughts on Von Mises' calculation argument against central planning.

You don't have to be a mathematician to be against central planning. Central planning gives to much economic control to the government, thus removing it from the people.

[Socialist Women]

Is anyone here in favor of central planning?

"Central planning" is a republican scare term. It's part of drinking the right wing Kool aid. You become against the "evil" federal government and reject government regulations as "too centralized"

[Wulfenia]

FIND ONE PICTURE of an "atrocity" in Denmark. One that isn't right wing garbage.

Your Danish fetish is rather.... unsettling.

The social democrat crushing of the German revolution with the help of Freikorps and killing of Rosa Luxembourg is one example of social democrat atrocities, from a socialist perspective at least.

[Minzerland II]

Is anyone here in favor of central planning?

"Central planning" is a republican scare term. It's part of drinking the right wing Kool aid. You become against the "evil" federal government and reject government regulations as "too centralized"

You have an odd obsession with Kool Aid, m80.

[36 Camera Perspective]

Is anyone here in favor of central planning?

"Central planning" is a republican scare term. It's part of drinking the right wing Kool aid. You become against the "evil" federal government and reject government regulations as "too centralized"

Actually, central planning is a recognized term in academia and has an objective definition independent of its rhetorical uses.

[36 Camera Perspective]

I didn't think there would be. I was just checking because I wanted to see if anybody had thoughts on Von Mises' calculation argument against central planning.

You don't have to be a mathematician to be against central planning. Central planning gives to much economic control to the government, thus removing it from the people.

That doesn't really say anything about Von Mises, but ok.

[Individual Thought Patterns]

Is anyone here in favor of central planning?

"Central planning" is a republican scare term. It's part of drinking the right wing Kool aid. You become against the "evil" federal government and reject government regulations as "too centralized"

Why must you always bring up "right wing kool aid"?

[Bakery Hill]

"Central planning" is a republican scare term. It's part of drinking the right wing Kool aid. You become against the "evil" federal government and reject government regulations as "too centralized"

Why must you always bring up "right wing kool aid"?

I wonder if the poster, given their apparently strident commitment to what they consider social justice, knows where the term comes from?

[Jelmatt]

I don't think there's many here that would be for that.

I didn't think there would be. I was just checking because I wanted to see if anybody had thoughts on Von Mises' calculation argument against central planning.

There are workarounds to the calculation problem, but the calculation debate is not why I don't like the type of planning of the USSR. I don't like it because it was too heavily controlled by the central bureaucracy and didn't allow public and worker participation in the economy. It crushed the entire goal of socialism in the name of socialism.

[36 Camera Perspective]

I didn't think there would be. I was just checking because I wanted to see if anybody had thoughts on Von Mises' calculation argument against central planning.

There are workarounds to the calculation problem, but the calculation debate is not why I don't like the type of planning of the USSR. I don't like it because it was too heavily controlled by the central bureaucracy and didn't allow public and worker participation in the economy. It crushed the entire goal of socialism in the name of socialism.

That makes sense.

Are you aware of any explicit workarounds to the calculation problem? I'm interested to see what solutions have been proposed.

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

Socialist here. This account's entire name is just for fun.

But not on the women part.

"Central planning" is a republican scare term. It's part of drinking the right wing Kool aid. You become against the "evil" federal government and reject government regulations as "too centralized"

Why must you always bring up "right wing kool aid"?

Because he only knows that.

[Jelmatt]

There are workarounds to the calculation problem, but the calculation debate is not why I don't like the type of planning of the USSR. I don't like it because it was too heavily controlled by the central bureaucracy and didn't allow public and worker participation in the economy. It crushed the entire goal of socialism in the name of socialism.

That makes sense.

Are you aware of any explicit workarounds to the calculation problem? I'm interested to see what solutions have been proposed.

The most obvious example is Oskar Lange's, which was basically where the state would still control prices and stuff, but allow state-owned businesses to sort-of "compete" against each other, and the state would pay for the products from their industries that customers bought. The state would lower prices in case of a surplus of goods, both to discourage more production and allow for the surplus to be bought up quicker, and raise prices in case of a shortage of goods. Basically, although everything's owned and managed by the state, it "simulates" a market economy. This was criticized by the Austrians as still not having a mechanism for financial investment (which banks and stock exchanges help to do in capitalism).

There are other examples, but they're far less well known than Lange's.

[Threlizdun]

No, they're a social democracy.

How many times do I have to tell you people, DENMARK IS A SOCIALIST COUNTRY

You're obviously new here, though you need to recognize how debate works. Simply shouting your point at someone repeatedly does nothing to actually rationalize your perspective. If you believe Denmark is socialist, please explain how you are defining socialism, what distinguishes it from capitalism, and what are examples that illustrate it's socialist nature.

Socialism, as many on here have already explained, is an economic system defined by social ownership and democratic administration of the means of production. This is differentiated from capitalism, which is a system defined by private ownership of the means of production, where economic activity is directed towards the accumulation of capital. Denmark practices a social market economy, a form of regulated capitalism that offers extensive labor protections, high rates of union membership, and the provision of social goods such as healthcare and education through the university level. These are some of the common goals of modern social democrats. Despite this, Denmark still has the means of production owned and directed primarily by private corporations operating within a market economy, where the end goal is still for the class who owns the means of production, the capitalists, to utilize the labor of workers in order to accumulate capital. This is why people on this forum are arguing that it is not socialist. Socialism is not about mere provision of social services by the state; most states do this to at least some capacity. The difference between capitalism and socialism is not a matter of what social services the state provides, but the basic structure of the economy itself and who owns the means of production.

This is the definition socialists have always used. The source of confusion may be over the appropriation of he word "socialism" by modern social democrats. Classical social democrats, who we now would likely call "democratic socialists", advocated for the transition from capitalism to socialism through gradual parliamentary reform, where social assistance by the state would be used to lessen the suffering of the workers under capitalism and create greater social equality with the hopes that it may one day serve as a stepping stone to actual socialism. However, essentially all social democratic parties came to moderate themselves, abandoning the goal of realizing socialism, and instead advocating for a regulated market economy as the ideal form of social organization. Unfortunately, some members of these parties continued usage of the word "socialism", even though it in no way resembled what the founding members of the party had originally envisioned when they identified themselves as such. The association of the term "socialism" with the social democracy of Scandinavia or U.S. politicians like Bernie Sanders, would historically speaking mark a clear misuse of the term.

[Gim]

I'm for the complete opposite, if anything. Extreme decentralization.

So you would be against a USSR or North Korean style of planning?

Certainly sounds like it.

[Threlizdun]

Is anyone here in favor of central planning?

Central planning requires the institution of strong bureaucratic apparatus, and is such is by nature hierarchical and oligarchic. It is therefore anathema to the egalitarian social control and democratic decision making native to socialism. Socialism necessitates decentralization to a degree to make direct control of communal economic activity possible, though while such organization must seek to be localist in nature, it still must maintain interconnectivity with other communes. Through the initiatives of experiments such as Rojava and the resurgence in social ecology among the left, I personally would look to the potentials of bioregions as providing the necessary structure to enable relatively organic means of formalizing these networks between communities in regards to how they are linked economically, culturally, and ecologically.

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

Denmark is not socialist. That's an atrocity in your book.

The LEGO prices are also atrocious.

Now if a country is raising the prices on Legos then that country deserves a revolution.

Revolution because of LEGO.

[Gim]

Now if a country is raising the prices on Legos then that country deserves a revolution.

Revolution because of LEGO.

Revolution? Leggo!

[Mattopilos II]

It is fun to watch the left and right unite to fight misinformation. It brings a tear to my eye :'^)

[Socialist Nordia]

Is anyone here in favor of central planning?

"Central planning" is a republican scare term. It's part of drinking the right wing Kool aid. You become against the "evil" federal government and reject government regulations as "too centralized"

I'm pretty sure they're not talking about central planning in GOP rhetoric. They're talking about actual central planning that took place in the USSR and others.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Is anyone here in favor of central planning?

I'm not in favour of central planning in the manner that it operated in the degenerated workers' states of history, no.

As a social democrat I see the role of central government planning as solely strategic in the narrow sense. Your private enterprises and your business owners, ideally with worker representatives on boards, are the local economic tacticians, making use of the wider enabling framework of strategic policy.

The government should set its aspirations and goals for various economic and quality of life indicators. It then should use the levers of monetary and fiscal policy to try to bring these about and encourage growth in particular target sectors by providing direct financial support to private business. It should use the income from taxation to provide a developmental welfare state that aims to look after people's basic needs while using a sensible combination of carrot and stick to ensure that people do not become stagnant or permanently left on the scrap heap when they are out of work. It should directly coordinate the development of public infrastructure through state ownership of the transport system, energy etc.

Government should not try to run the entirety of the economy directly - that just doesn't work. Too many fingers, too many pies, too many cooks.

[Socialist Women]

FIND ONE PICTURE of an "atrocity" in Denmark. One that isn't right wing garbage.

Your Danish fetish is rather.... unsettling.

The social democrat crushing of the German revolution with the help of Freikorps and killing of Rosa Luxembourg is one example of social democrat atrocities, from a socialist perspective at least.

That wasn't an atrocity. She deserved to die.

[World Anarchic Union]

Your Danish fetish is rather.... unsettling.

The social democrat crushing of the German revolution with the help of Freikorps and killing of Rosa Luxembourg is one example of social democrat atrocities, from a socialist perspective at least.

That wasn't an atrocity. She deserved to die.

So, in your book, it's perfectly fine to collaborate with ultranationalists and proto-fascists in order to crush a revolution which shares a lot of your ideals, in order to defend bourgeois institutions and capitalism?

Do you consider Cuba socialist? Also, what do you think about Allende's Chile?