NationStates

Nakena wrote:

Byzconia wrote:Dialectical materialism is actually a fine way to look at history. A class-based look at history can fill in a lot of gaps and re-contextualize popular events (as Howard Zinn has proven, even if he does go off the rails every now and then). The only real issue is how Marxists try to use it to predict the future and insist that it's some kind of law of history that must be obeyed. Still, it has far more value in history than Libertarian praxis does in economics.

Thats my main problem indeed with Diamat and why I am opposed to it because it then becomes a totalitarian and only true worldview than merely one possible model amongst many.

Byzconia wrote:

Northern Davincia wrote:Economists, and more than just forty, overwhelmingly oppose the minimum wage and increases thereof. Still, even forty experts is a small sample size to claim unanimity for the rest.

Source?

And I never claimed unanimity, just citing actual evidence. You've cited no data in the gold standard's favor (of course, Libertarians almost always reject economics they disagree with as "not real science"--Hayek would be proud).

Northern Davincia wrote:

Kubra wrote: I'm not suggesting an end to investment entirely, merely, as you say, a reduction in the rate. We're in agreement on this occurrence, yes?

Could you clarify the second point? I read it as savings being generally preferable to the current trend of rising household debt, is this correct?

We would be in agreement on the first point, yes. As for the second, savings give households more leverage in paying off their debts, so you are correct.

Byzconia wrote:Forty economists, whose opinions are all far more valuable than a sub-par politician like Ron Paul. And what about the minimum wage?

Economists, and more than just forty, overwhelmingly oppose the minimum wage and increases thereof. Still, even forty experts is a small sample size to claim unanimity for the rest.

Kubra wrote:

Northern Davincia wrote:We would be in agreement on the first point, yes. As for the second, savings give households more leverage in paying off their debts, so you are correct.

Economists, and more than just forty, overwhelmingly oppose the minimum wage and increases thereof. Still, even forty experts is a small sample size to claim unanimity for the rest.

Alright, thanks for the clarification. Let's assume ourselves a moneylender facing a low-risk debtor. we want $1,000 valued as it was initially as interest out of a $10,000 loan. In which period do we have the greater incentive to lend, an inflationary one or a deflationary one?

Northern Davincia wrote:

Kubra wrote: Alright, thanks for the clarification. Let's assume ourselves a moneylender facing a low-risk debtor. we want $1,000 valued as it was initially as interest out of a $10,000 loan. In which period do we have the greater incentive to lend, an inflationary one or a deflationary one?

During the deflationary period, that $1000 becomes worth much more than during the inflationary period, so it makes sense to lend during the latter, although the risk is whether or not the debtor pays it off during the early stage of deflation.
If you want stable profit, inflation is preferable. If you want greater profit, deflation is preferable.

Forgive me if I misread the question.

Northern Davincia wrote:https://www.epionline.org/studies/survey-of-us-economists-on-a-15-federal-minimum-wage-2/

https://books.google.com/books?id=SNe5DQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=essentials+of+economics+mankiw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjA0bKZxPnUAhUQ5WMKHeDiCEQQ6wEIKTAB#v=onepage&q=essentials%20of%20economics%20mankiw&f=false (check page 31)

As for the gold standard:
https://www.marketslant.com/articles/gr ... d-standard

https://thedailycoin.org/2018/01/07/returning-to-a-gold-standard-why-and-how-2/

Byzconia wrote:1. All true. However, the issue still remains that the Shah's regime was unpopular. Something the West must've recognized if they were willing to lend the protests legitimacy. said, credit where it's due, the Shah did try extremely hard to placate and compromise with the protesters, whereas many others in his position would've immediately resorted to violence. Whereas Khomeini was the one fanning the flames to try and force an uprising. Still, none of that inherently invalidates the protesters' reasons for protest. There were plenty of mistakes and misunderstandings to go around.

2. So, the "best idea" would've been for the Shah to resort to the very act of violence that you literally just condemned the IR for resorting to? Characterizing the storming of an embassy as "an invasion of territory," while technically accurate is still a massive misrepresentation. Embassies are on land granted to that country by the host country. As such, their status is revocable and violable, unlike a country's borders. Ergo, storming of an embassy is not "an invasion." It's certainly an attack, yes, but not an invasion.

3. "Minimal casualties" based on what? Do you have actual, accurate military estimates to back up this claim? Or are you just guessing based on what you'd like to think?

4. "Literally everything wrong in the ME now is directly, completely, and nearly totally the IR's fault and has nothing to do with Western Imperialism in the region." Wow. That's amazing, literally every word in that sentence is wrong. As someone who's actually studied the history and politics of the Middle East, I literally can't express how extremely, ridiculously wrong this is. You might as well have just said, "The earth is flat." Please, explain to me how the Suez Crisis, Arab-Israeli Wars, and the rise of Baathism/Arab nationalism are the result of the Iranian Revolution even though they all happened before the Islamic Republic even existed.

The last conflict that had anything to do with that was the Yom Kippur War nearly five years before the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

And that means it was the last conflict that was ever going to happen in the Middle East before the Revolution.

Byzconia wrote:

Northern Davincia wrote:https://www.epionline.org/studies/survey-of-us-economists-on-a-15-federal-minimum-wage-2/

Given that a quick Google search describes the EPI as "a fiscally conservative, non-profit American think tank that conducts and publishes research on employment issues, particularly aimed towards reducing the minimum wage," I'm going to be exercising very heavy skepticism.

Hmm, overall I'm surprisingly impressed. From what I can see, it seems like a legitimate academic paper. Interesting to see such opposition to $15 min. wage. That said, I don't think it's that big a deal, either way. By which I mean I don't see raising the minimum wage as the end all, be all method of decreasing poverty.

Having said that, though, this study points out that there's little evidence to suggest that raising the minimum wage has any particularly noticeable effect on employment.

https://books.google.com/books?id=SNe5DQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=essentials+of+economics+mankiw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjA0bKZxPnUAhUQ5WMKHeDiCEQQ6wEIKTAB#v=onepage&q=essentials%20of%20economics%20mankiw&f=false (check page 31)

So, mostly a re-statement of the above. Like I said, fascinating to see, though I again refer to the study above. This isn't to say I think the economists surveyed by Mr. Mankiw are necessarily wrong or anything, but offering contradictory evidence is a key aspect of the scientific method.

That said, there a few other things in there I find interesting. For instance, it says, "The redistribution of income in the United States is a legitimate role for the government" was favored by 83% of economists surveyed (that's even more than opposed the minimum wage increase). Hmm...

As for the gold standard:
https://www.marketslant.com/articles/gr ... d-standard

Sorry, but given Greenspan's rather consistent failures over the course of his career and helping to drive the world into global recession, I'm gonna say he's not the most reliable sort when it comes to economics.

https://thedailycoin.org/2018/01/07/returning-to-a-gold-standard-why-and-how-2/

You're gonna have to better than a blog post. (Also, based on what little information I could find about the author, he's a mathematician, not an economist, so he's not an authority on the subject anyway.)

North German Realm wrote:1- Their protest by definition becomes invalid when it has an Islamist origin and background.

And yes. Sure. There were plenty of mistakes. Not using the machine gun against protesters in '78 for one.

2- Yes. The best idea would be to execute every single one of them and resort, exactly, to that sort of violence. Because given what came after, even a million people killed in the protests would still be worth not getting Iran into the ruin it is right now.

3- Based on the fact that it wouldn't be as bad as the Iran-Iraq War -and without an Iran-Iraq war, literally none of the major civil wars and foreign expeditions that happened since the Gulf War would happen. No matter how many people would die, it would pale in comparison to the compiled number of casualties in WW1-Redux that was the Iran-Iraq war and the wars that came after. As such, minimal casualties.

4- I see you are incapable of reading too. "The last one that had anything to do with Western Imperialism being the Yom Kippur War that ended 5 years before the Islamic Revolution happened". After the IR Revolution, literally every event (from the Arab Spring to the Iraq War) is directly due to an action taken by the IR or a reaction against it.

Kubra wrote:

Byzconia wrote:Given that a quick Google search describes the EPI as "a fiscally conservative, non-profit American think tank that conducts and publishes research on employment issues, particularly aimed towards reducing the minimum wage," I'm going to be exercising very heavy skepticism.

Hmm, overall I'm surprisingly impressed. From what I can see, it seems like a legitimate academic paper. Interesting to see such opposition to $15 min. wage. That said, I don't think it's that big a deal, either way. By which I mean I don't see raising the minimum wage as the end all, be all method of decreasing poverty.

Having said that, though, this study points out that there's little evidence to suggest that raising the minimum wage has any particularly noticeable effect on employment.


So, mostly a re-statement of the above. Like I said, fascinating to see, though I again refer to the study above. This isn't to say I think the economists surveyed by Mr. Mankiw are necessarily wrong or anything, but offering contradictory evidence is a key aspect of the scientific method.

That said, there a few other things in there I find interesting. For instance, it says, "The redistribution of income in the United States is a legitimate role for the government" was favored by 83% of economists surveyed (that's even more than opposed the minimum wage increase). Hmm...


Sorry, but given Greenspan's rather consistent failures over the course of his career and helping to drive the world into global recession, I'm gonna say he's not the most reliable sort when it comes to economics.


You're gonna have to better than a blog post. (Also, based on what little information I could find about the author, he's a mathematician, not an economist, so he's not an authority on the subject anyway.)

Oh, is this all regarding minimum wage? Normally "read an economics textbook" is a real dumb answer, but in this case yeah most econ 101 textbooks will touch minimum wage as increasing unemployment, probably because it's a very simple thing to have students graph. That's probably a better statement of "consensus", because things that are generally assumed to be tend not to be hotly debated in intro textbooks.
Though, lemme say, obviously you don't have to believe it simply because it is write in an econ 101 textbook. Wanna know what's also written in there? Capitalism, bro.
I kid, I kid, I don't kid at all actually. You know how it is, if we were so into the authority of mainstream econ I'd be very difficult to, y'know, be socialists. And that aside, obviously once you get down to it most economic issues are much more nuanced and complex than what hungover undergrads looking for an easy A can discern.

Byzconia wrote:

Kubra wrote: Oh, is this all regarding minimum wage? Normally "read an economics textbook" is a real dumb answer, but in this case yeah most econ 101 textbooks will touch minimum wage as increasing unemployment, probably because it's a very simple thing to have students graph. That's probably a better statement of "consensus", because things that are generally assumed to be tend not to be hotly debated in intro textbooks.
Though, lemme say, obviously you don't have to believe it simply because it is write in an econ 101 textbook. Wanna know what's also written in there? Capitalism, bro.
I kid, I kid, I don't kid at all actually. You know how it is, if we were so into the authority of mainstream econ I'd be very difficult to, y'know, be socialists. And that aside, obviously once you get down to it most economic issues are much more nuanced and complex than what hungover undergrads looking for an easy A can discern.

You're not entirely wrong, but I would generally warn against dismissing economics altogether. It's definitely not an exact science (like most other social sciences), but research and data matter. That said, as a market socialist, I don't really see any contradiction between my views and most mainstream economics. Cooperatives exist and manage to do fine for themselves, so I don't see an issue.

Byzconia wrote:

North German Realm wrote:1- Their protest by definition becomes invalid when it has an Islamist origin and background.

Except Islamists were only one group out of many. The opposition was broad and included liberals (of both religious and secular varieties), Islamists, and Communists.

And yes. Sure. There were plenty of mistakes. Not using the machine gun against protesters in '78 for one.

2- Yes. The best idea would be to execute every single one of them and resort, exactly, to that sort of violence. Because given what came after, even a million people killed in the protests would still be worth not getting Iran into the ruin it is right now.

"The ends justify the means."

3- Based on the fact that it wouldn't be as bad as the Iran-Iraq War -and without an Iran-Iraq war, literally none of the major civil wars and foreign expeditions that happened since the Gulf War would happen. No matter how many people would die, it would pale in comparison to the compiled number of casualties in WW1-Redux that was the Iran-Iraq war and the wars that came after. As such, minimal casualties.

In other words you're just pulling it out of your ass, got it.

4- I see you are incapable of reading too. "The last one that had anything to do with Western Imperialism being the Yom Kippur War that ended 5 years before the Islamic Revolution happened". After the IR Revolution, literally every event (from the Arab Spring to the Iraq War) is directly due to an action taken by the IR or a reaction against it.

Fair enough, I misread what you said. That said, it doesn't mean your claim is right.

Okay, please explain to me how Netanyahu's policies towards Palestine were caused by the Islamic Revolution.

Kubra wrote:

Byzconia wrote:You're not entirely wrong, but I would generally warn against dismissing economics altogether. It's definitely not an exact science (like most other social sciences), but research and data matter. That said, as a market socialist, I don't really see any contradiction between my views and most mainstream economics. Cooperatives exist and manage to do fine for themselves, so I don't see an issue.

I'm not saying "dismiss" economics, but quite the opposite: to treat its study seriously and understand the concepts explained instead of rote reiteration. Research and data matter immensely, along with the ability to interpret such. It's why it's a problem if undergrads are taught simply to graph, y'know?
You don't? Well that's a shame, there's a lot of fun to be found in trying to define the value of Sraffa's standard commodity.

North German Realm wrote:1- The Communists are not even worthy of the mention, given literally every single one of them was a member of a terrorist organization.

he Liberals were generally subservient to either the Communists or the Islamists. The few among them who were sane (the Constitutionalists) did not have a voice in the crowd. While I love to say the revolution wasn't "Islamist", given the sheer popularity that figures like Motahhari and Taleqani enjoyed -or the level of influence the talking points of Shariati had on the revolutionaries- it's quite fair to say the revolution had always been Islamist in nature. Even half the Communists were "Islamic Marxists" as they liked to call themselves.

2- Yes. Executing traitors is good if a government I like does it. I've never tried to hide that. The situations aren't the same, the same solution doesn't work for both. The Shah's downfall was his lack of action -not firing at the protesters and suppressing the dissent. The Regime's downfall -ironically enough- is the very thing that would have saved the Shah at the time.

3- Not really, but you're free to be wrong in imagining that if you want.

4- Netanyahu's policies towards the Arab colonists in Judea and Samaria is a direct result of what happened the last time it tried to negotiate with a body representing the Palestinian Authority -which resulted in an Iranian proxy terrorist organization basically taking over Gaza- and the situation in Lebanon. Ad his own personal greed. And disputes between Muslims and Jews that go back at least 1400 years -but are irrelevant to any form of "Middle Eastern" politic in general.

Hoxworthia wrote:literally

Totenborg wrote:

Proctopeo wrote:I fail to see the issue. Especially taken with the amendments (or at least the Bill of Rights, ie the first ten), it's an incredible governing document. "God-given" is a stretch, but I see few to no people who actually act like it is.

Too bad their fervor for the Constitution is often very selective.

Proctopeo wrote:

Duvniask wrote:Ron Paul-style libertarianism sucks, not least because of the old geezer himself and the stupid bullshit he has advocated for: returning to the gold standard, abolishing the central banking system, climate-change denial, etc. The near-religious fervor with which right-libertarians view private property and the market is sickening. In the US, also, there's the additional tendency among these folks to essentially worship the United States' Constitution as God-given; it's always struck me as totally ridiculous.

I fail to see the issue.

Especially taken with the amendments (or at least the Bill of Rights, ie the first ten), it's an incredible governing document. "God-given" is a stretch, but I see few to no people who actually act like it is.

Duvniask wrote:

Proctopeo wrote:I fail to see the issue.

No surprise there.

Especially taken with the amendments (or at least the Bill of Rights, ie the first ten), it's an incredible governing document. "God-given" is a stretch, but I see few to no people who actually act like it is.

Because it is dogmatically invoked

and people like Ron Paul refuse to recognize anything that goes beyond whatever has been identified in the Constitution (which is both weirdly arbitrary and stubborn).

They treat it as if it were the stone tablets of Moses.

This, too, tends to go hand in hand with worship of the Founding Fathers and trying to adhere with the utmost strictness to "what the Founders intended", even though they were flawed human beings that lived in vastly different circumstances more than 200 years ago.

Byzconia wrote:

Happpy wrote:Then you have no idea what fascism is.

I don't think you do. Trump isn't a fascist. He's definitely a far-right, xenophobic, faux-populist demagogue, but not a fascist. He has neither questioned capitalism nor repudiated the liberal world order. That said, I also think it's stupid to completely dismiss him, as he has the support of many actual fascists and is pretty contemptuous towards human rights. He's not a fascist, but he's not harmless, either (if only because he's a symptom of a bigger problem).

Are you seriously implying that Trump is liberal???? What planet do you live on?

Given that he supports a capitalist market economy, yes, he's a liberal.

Oh my fucking god... you CANNOT be serious. Trump is NOT a liberal, not by a longshot. I mean... do you even know what liberalism IS? It is an ideology based on liberty, consent of the governed, and EQUALITY before the law. If you have bothered to actually READ liberal philosophers, maybe you'd understand that Trump is FAR from being liberal.

Typical of commies though. Everything they hate is 'liberal' to them.

What liberals believe and what they've practiced are quite different (as with any ideology). Liberal regimes have very much not been egalitarian throughout modern history and, in fact, have often been quite sexist (most capitalist countries were opposed to it for decades), racist (racism is still a massive issue in most Western states, especially the US), and classist (with calling poor people "lazy" and saying they "deserve" to be poor). As Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "Liberal institutions cease to be liberal upon gaining power."

Realistically, liberalism is more about capitalism than anything else.

Both of these points are fair enough, but that doesn't make him a liberal though.

No, what makes him a liberal is his support for free market capitalism. I think you're misunderstanding the word and using it in the context of American politics as a synonym for "progressive," which it isn't. That's exclusive to the US, no one else defines the word that way (except maybe Canadians, since the LPC has been associated with social liberalism for most of its existence, unlike most other liberal parties, which are more heavily market liberal).

"unless capitalism is dismantled" lmao like they were better off starving to death under communism

Implying that Soviet-style communism is the only possible alternative to capitalism.

(Also, the "LOL starving" thing is a meme, not an accurate representation of life in those countries across the decades.)

Byzconia wrote:

Nakena wrote:
Thats my main problem indeed with Diamat and why I am opposed to it because it then becomes a totalitarian and only true worldview than merely one possible model amongst many.

Yeah, pretty much. Dogmatic beliefs like that are emblematic of totalitarian systems. It's why Marxism (and especially Marxism-Leninism) often ends up looking a lot more like a religion than any Marxist would dare admit. That said, it does raise the question of what would've happened if libertarian communists (like Rosa Luxembourg or council communists) had come to power at any point. Would they have stayed the course or would they resort to more authoritarian means when their predictions started to fail?

Honestly, I sometimes wonder how Marx himself would've reacted to something like the Soviet Union. I could honestly see arguments either way.

Happpy wrote:They would have most certainly have become more authoritarian, due to the fact that communsim often does not factor human nature as part of the equation. Or the libertarian communist 'states' would have collapsed immediately, again due to human nature, which commies don't seem to think

Proctopeo wrote:

Duvniask wrote:No surprise there.


Because it is dogmatically invoked

What do you mean by this?

and people like Ron Paul refuse to recognize anything that goes beyond whatever has been identified in the Constitution (which is both weirdly arbitrary and stubborn).

Elaborate.

They treat it as if it were the stone tablets of Moses.

No they don't.

This, too, tends to go hand in hand with worship of the Founding Fathers and trying to adhere with the utmost strictness to "what the Founders intended", even though they were flawed human beings that lived in vastly different circumstances more than 200 years ago.

Again, they don't. Thinking of the intentions of the Founders is an important rhetorical tool that can be used to shoot down dumb shit, but there's no fucking worship.

Anyway, it's pretty clear that you're basing your arguments off of memes from about a decade ago, so I'll drop this and let you fester.

Duvniask wrote:The theory of American civic religion is quite well-established. It naturally goes hand in hand with holding the Constitution in very high regard as well as American exceptionalism.

Nakena wrote:

Duvniask wrote:The theory of American civic religion is quite well-established. It naturally goes hand in hand with holding the Constitution in very high regard as well as American exceptionalism.

The theory holds kinda true. I'd would in fact argue that the American Civic Religion is the one thing holding back the country from fully giving in into it's occassional self-destructive, eschatological obsessions. In this context Ron Paul must be understood as the one who tried to warn americans from the loss of this as they are confronted with the apocalypse, in form of loosing it and stumbling into the abyss.

With Donald Trump this point of no return may have passed according to some.

PS: Thats also why nobody, but the most radical movements (AWD?) or those who don't identify with the US (Aztlan?), are willing to give up those things.

Duvniask wrote:Be that as it may, just from anecdotal experience alone I may note that it's rare to ever hear the constitution be brought up in political debates here in my home-country of Denmark. Now, obviously part of that is owing to the federated nature of the United States and discrepancies between the federal and state level.

Duvniask wrote:But, the quasi-religious element must play a role as well, and it is seemingly something quite unique to American politics. It also my contention that it is harmful in the sense that it helps stifle debate about what kind of society America truly could and should be. That is not to say everything in the Constitution is necessarily wrong, but I'm not really impressed by arguments whose essence is "the Constitution doesn't say this, therefore we absolutely should not do it" - Like, why? Changing the constitution is so incredibly hard as a it is, that simple common sense requires that you'd have to take measures that aren't explicitly endorsed by the Constitution.

Duvniask wrote:

Nakena wrote:
The theory holds kinda true. I'd would in fact argue that the American Civic Religion is the one thing holding back the country from fully giving in into it's occassional self-destructive, eschatological obsessions. In this context Ron Paul must be understood as the one who tried to warn americans from the loss of this as they are confronted with the apocalypse, in form of loosing it and stumbling into the abyss.

With Donald Trump this point of no return may have passed according to some.

PS: Thats also why nobody, but the most radical movements (AWD?) or those who don't identify with the US (Aztlan?), are willing to give up those things.

Be that as it may, just from anecdotal experience alone I may note that it's rare to ever hear the constitution be brought up in political debates here in my home-country of Denmark. Now, obviously part of that is owing to the federated nature of the United States and discrepancies between the federal and state level. But, the quasi-religious element must play a role as well, and it is seemingly something quite unique to American politics. It also my contention that it is harmful in the sense that it helps stifle debate about what kind of society America truly could and should be. That is not to say everything in the Constitution is necessarily wrong, but I'm not really impressed by arguments whose essence is "the Constitution doesn't say this, therefore we absolutely should not do it" - Like, why? Changing the constitution is so incredibly hard as a it is, that simple common sense requires that you'd have to take measures that aren't explicitly endorsed by the Constitution.