Left-Wing Discussion Thread III

[Genivaria]

Is that more or less than their proportion of committed crimes?

Well, there's an issue of disproportionate convictions and sentences.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/oregon-study-finds-racial-disparities-in-drug-convictions/

PORTLAND — A study conducted by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission has found that African-Americans in the state were convicted of felony drug possession at more than double the rate of whites in 2015.

That conviction disparity held true in methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine cases statewide, reported The Oregonian/OregonLive.

State Criminal Justice Commission Director Mike Schmidt said the results are striking given federal public-health survey data, which shows that illicit drug use is roughly the same across Americans of different races and ethnicities.

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/141027_iachr_racial_disparities_aclu_submission_0.pdf

There are significant racial disparities in sentencing decisions in the United States.1

Sentences imposed on Black males in the federal system are nearly 20 percent longer than those
imposed on white males convicted of similar crimes.2
Black and Latino offenders sentenced in
state and federal courts face significantly greater odds of incarceration than similarly situated
white offenders and receive longer sentences than their white counterparts in some jurisdictions.3

Black male federal defendants receive longer sentences than whites arrested for the same
offenses and with comparable criminal histories.4
Research has also shown that race plays a
significant role in the determination of which homicide cases result in death sentences.5

I would call this definitive proof that there is institutional racial bias.

[Trotskylvania]

Converting private business into state enterprises doesn't alter the economic relations. In North Korea, the state bureaucracy and the enterprise managers constitute an ersatz bourgeoisie. They may not own individual legal title to property, but their position within the state apparatus exists only through the exploitation of labor. North Korea is no more socialist than a company town is.

While I think that is an interesting argument my point was that NK is by definition not capitalist.
You can call it 'state capitalist' if you want like some call the Soviet Union but free enterprise is simply not a thing.

The relations of production do not change if a business is privately owned or if it is state owned. Basing a definition of capitalism on the existence of 'free enterprise' is distinction without difference.

[Northern Davincia]

...you do know that private business is illegal in NK right?

Converting private business into state enterprises doesn't alter the economic relations. In North Korea, the state bureaucracy and the enterprise managers constitute an ersatz bourgeoisie. They may not own individual legal title to property, but their position within the state apparatus exists only through the exploitation of labor. North Korea is no more socialist than a company town is.

North Korea has no competitive markets nor voluntary exchange. They do have a class structure but do not have capitalism.

[Trotskylvania]

Converting private business into state enterprises doesn't alter the economic relations. In North Korea, the state bureaucracy and the enterprise managers constitute an ersatz bourgeoisie. They may not own individual legal title to property, but their position within the state apparatus exists only through the exploitation of labor. North Korea is no more socialist than a company town is.

North Korea has no competitive markets nor voluntary exchange. They do have a class structure but do not have capitalism.

Yes they do. State enterprises are self-financing entities, and they compete for raw materials and labor in a mediated market exchange. Money and generalized commodity production exist, and thus markets in some form exist, as it is isomorphic to the commodity relation. And even did they not, North Korea still exists within the context of a global market system, which they are dependent upon no matter how much they attempt to isolate themselves.

A company town scaled up to the size of a nation-state wouldn't stop being capitalist. North Korea is just a particularly vicious company town draped in red bunting.

[Northern Davincia]

North Korea has no competitive markets nor voluntary exchange. They do have a class structure but do not have capitalism.

Yes they do. State enterprises are self-financing entities, and they compete for raw materials and labor in a mediated market exchange. Money and generalized commodity production exist, and thus markets in some form exist, as it is isomorphic to the commodity relation. And even did they not, North Korea still exists within the context of a global market system, which they are dependent upon no matter how much they attempt to isolate themselves.

A company town scaled up to the size of a nation-state wouldn't stop being capitalist. North Korea is just a particularly vicious company town draped in red bunting.

Sounds more like advanced corporatism. As for the global market system, if an area of land were to become socialist by your definition, would it be able to survive without external trade?

[Aillyria]

Converting private business into state enterprises doesn't alter the economic relations. In North Korea, the state bureaucracy and the enterprise managers constitute an ersatz bourgeoisie. They may not own individual legal title to property, but their position within the state apparatus exists only through the exploitation of labor. North Korea is no more socialist than a company town is.

While I think that is an interesting argument my point was that NK is by definition not capitalist.
You can call it 'state capitalist' if you want like some call the Soviet Union but free enterprise is simply not a thing.

Free enterprise, or the market, isn't necessary for captialism to exist.

The bourgeoisie don't care about race, profit has no color. Minorities are guinea pigs for policies they will eventually enact everywhere.

That's not necessarily true. Even if you choose to view the boujees as one homogeneous mass (a problematic outlook in its own right), reinforcing racism can still be advantageous to them and to their profit.

Yes, racism can be profitable, and is profitable. But the elites aren't stupid, they flow with the times, and guide it to a time when everyone will be in the same boat.....regardless of something as petty as what color your meat is rapped in.

[Northern Davincia]

While I think that is an interesting argument my point was that NK is by definition not capitalist.
You can call it 'state capitalist' if you want like some call the Soviet Union but free enterprise is simply not a thing.

Free enterprise, or the market, isn't necessary for captialism to exist.

Yes it is. Free enterprise and markets are among capitalism's most essential foundations.

[Trotskylvania]

Yes they do. State enterprises are self-financing entities, and they compete for raw materials and labor in a mediated market exchange. Money and generalized commodity production exist, and thus markets in some form exist, as it is isomorphic to the commodity relation. And even did they not, North Korea still exists within the context of a global market system, which they are dependent upon no matter how much they attempt to isolate themselves.

A company town scaled up to the size of a nation-state wouldn't stop being capitalist. North Korea is just a particularly vicious company town draped in red bunting.

Sounds more like advanced corporatism. As for the global market system, if an area of land were to become socialist by your definition, would it be able to survive without external trade?

Existence within the context of a global capitalist market requires adopting capitalist relations. I categorically reject the notion of "socialism in one country" for this reason.

In any hypothetical revolution against capital, there would have to be a transitional period during the process of globalizing that revolution. And that transitional period would still be fundamentally capitalist in economic relations. Marx called this transitional period the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, and defined this as the seizure of power by the working class, as a class, united in its interest as a class for itself. It exists to suppress the class enemies of the revolution during its internationalization.

The essence of tankie apologetics all the way back to Stalin has been the conflation of this transitional period with socialism, and the redefinition of the workers' state into a bureaucratic class society based on the subjugation of the working class to the party-state intelligentsia, and the destruction of working class institutions of power (such as the very soviets that had formed the basis of working class activity in the October Revolution and had lent their name to the polity that came after).

[Genivaria]

While I think that is an interesting argument my point was that NK is by definition not capitalist.
You can call it 'state capitalist' if you want like some call the Soviet Union but free enterprise is simply not a thing.

Free enterprise, or the market, isn't necessary for captialism to exist.

That's kind of the definition of capitalism.

[Aillyria]

Free enterprise, or the market, isn't necessary for captialism to exist.

Yes it is. Free enterprise and markets are among capitalism's most essential foundations.

No, it isn't. Capitalism is a manner of organizing labor relations with private ownership of the means of production, you don't need a market for that.

[Alsheb]

It does, though. We can debate the extent and gravity of it, but it does exist.

No, it really doesn't.

"It doesn't exist, since I have never suffered from it."

[Northern Davincia]

Yes it is. Free enterprise and markets are among capitalism's most essential foundations.

No, it isn't. Capitalism is a manner of organizing labor relations with private ownership of the means of production, you don't need a market for that.

The market is what determines the organization of labor relations within a capitalist system.

[Alsheb]

Yes it is. Free enterprise and markets are among capitalism's most essential foundations.

No, it isn't. Capitalism is a manner of organizing labor relations with private ownership of the means of production, you don't need a market for that.

Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production, and usually is based on commercial activity. It has always existed with markets, as free markets (even though the term is inherently flawed and the principle is self-destructive in essence) are essential for capitalism to exist.
The DPRK is therefore definitely not capitalist.

[Alsheb]

Converting private business into state enterprises doesn't alter the economic relations. In North Korea, the state bureaucracy and the enterprise managers constitute an ersatz bourgeoisie. They may not own individual legal title to property, but their position within the state apparatus exists only through the exploitation of labor. North Korea is no more socialist than a company town is.

North Korea has no competitive markets nor voluntary exchange. They do have a class structure but do not have capitalism.

Indeed. They have collective ownership of the means of production, i.e. Socialism.

[Trotskylvania]

North Korea has no competitive markets nor voluntary exchange. They do have a class structure but do not have capitalism.

Indeed. They have collective ownership of the means of production, i.e. Socialism.

And this is why you should read more Lenin, and less of his Stalin appointed "interpreters"

[Aillyria]

No, it isn't. Capitalism is a manner of organizing labor relations with private ownership of the means of production, you don't need a market for that.

Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production, and usually is based on commercial activity. It has always existed with markets, as free markets (even though the term is inherently flawed and the principle is self-destructive in essence) are essential for capitalism to exist.
The DPRK is therefore definitely not capitalist.

You have to be kidding, akhti.

Usually, they come with a market, but not always. Commercial activity is really only relevant in western variants of capitalism, but it's the center factor of the system. North Korea is state capitalism, same as the USSR and their ilk.

[Aellex]

"It doesn't exist, since I have never suffered from it."

I have never suffered from the bubonic plague yet I won't say that it doesn't exist. "Institutionalised Racism" however doesn't exist in the West because it simply doesn't exist.

[Liriena]

"It doesn't exist, since I have never suffered from it."

I have never suffered from the bubonic plague yet I won't say that it doesn't exist. "Institutionalised Racism" however doesn't exist in the West because it simply doesn't exist.

Except we know it exists, at least in the United States. For starters, we can observe racial disparities in convictions and sentencing, as well as racial bias in law enforcement in various communities (such as Baltimore and Ferguson). Not to mention issues on the socioeconomic level, and the fact that the war on drugs, which continues to this very day, was originally envisioned as a way to suppress black dissenters.

[Alsheb]

Indeed. They have collective ownership of the means of production, i.e. Socialism.

And this is why you should read more Lenin, and less of his Stalin appointed "interpreters"

How about the assembled works of Lenin? Have they been written by Stalin-appointed interpreters?

[Alsheb]

Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production, and usually is based on commercial activity. It has always existed with markets, as free markets (even though the term is inherently flawed and the principle is self-destructive in essence) are essential for capitalism to exist.
The DPRK is therefore definitely not capitalist.

You have to be kidding, akhti.

Usually, they come with a market, but not always. Commercial activity is really only relevant in western variants of capitalism, but it's the center factor of the system. North Korea is state capitalism, same as the USSR and their ilk.

How can it be state capitalism if there is absolutely no private property of the means of production in the DPRK?

[The Multiversal Communist Collective]

North Korea isn't anywhere close to being socialist.....they're capitalist.

Politically, the DPRK is an unconstitutional monarchy. Economically, the DPRK is a state capitalist society (with very limited amounts of private capitalism).

[The Parkus Empire]

Or we could ignore them.

"The least of these"? Lazarus? Doesn't Christ say that you will go to hell if you do that?

Better be careful with your worship of satanists like Miss Rand and Mister Rothbard.

[Democratic Communist Federation]

Better be careful with your worship of satanists like Miss Rand and Mister Rothbard.

Satanists? I assume you are being metaphorical. Rand was, actually, not a very nice person (though the late New York publisher Bennett Cerf liked her). I don't know anything about Rothbard's character.

[Northern Davincia]

Or we could ignore them.

"The least of these"? Lazarus? Doesn't Christ say that you will go to hell if you do that?

Better be careful with your worship of satanists like Miss Rand and Mister Rothbard.

I'm not saying we ignore their needs, but their perspective, as desperate people tend to make poor decisions.

[The Multiversal Communist Collective]

You have to be kidding, akhti.

I don't mean to embarrass you, but did you mean ꞌaẖī or “akhi” (Arabic, أَخِي), i.e., my brother?