LWDT IX: Discussing the Left From All Engels

[Ostroeuropa]

Can we just all agree that capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, neoliberalism all exist, all are interconnected (and may be described as forms of each other), and should all be explicitly opposed in all their forms?

Sure.
I merely don't see the purpose in making the distinction between neo-colonialism and capitalism for the same reason I don't think we need a specific word to describe how the lower-middle classes benefit from the exploitation of the working class.

Especially as articulating that point can serve as a means to distract from overall criticism of the causes by pitting those groups against eachother.

[Cisairse]

Can we just all agree that capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, neoliberalism all exist, all are interconnected (and may be described as forms of each other), and should all be explicitly opposed in all their forms?

Don't forget neocapitalism and neoimperialism.

[True Refuge]

Can we just all agree that capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, neoliberalism all exist, all are interconnected (and may be described as forms of each other), and should all be explicitly opposed in all their forms?

Don't forget neocapitalism and neoimperialism.

Also, neocon as the combination of those two.

[Kowani]

Can we just all agree that capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, neoliberalism all exist, all are interconnected (and may be described as forms of each other), and should all be explicitly opposed in all their forms?

Sure.
I merely don't see the purpose in making the distinction between neo-colonialism and capitalism for the same reason I don't think we need a specific word to describe how the lower-middle classes benefit from the exploitation of the working class.

Especially as articulating that point can serve as a means to distract from overall criticism of the causes by pitting those groups against eachother.

When the processes and the response of people to the two terms is different, the words become important.

[Ostroeuropa]

Some cool shit in the Samurai code books.

"If you encounter an insane person, endeavor to see them returned to their family. Do not indulge their delusions, as doing so is an indignity to both yourself and to them and may result in their distress, but also do not patronize them either through timidity or pity. Instead, firmly and continuously insist they should return to their family and offer assistance in this if they should require it. Though they may issue threats against you, they are not often violent, and are not a concern. Should they damage your property, do not kill them as you would a sane person, instead seek compensation from their family."

"Sometimes upon associating with a person you shall realize they are stupid. This cannot be helped if you were unaware of this before hand, however, if you continue to associate with them after you are aware of their stupidity, then you are also stupid. There are some stupid samurai."

"It is too much to expect that a Samurai will never make excuses for their failures or poor behavior. However, those who attempt to shift blame onto others for their misdeeds are cowards, and lack dignity. Should you find yourself compelled to make excuses, do not do so in this fashion."

"If you see a monster or mythological beast, exercise discretion and keep this to yourself."


----

First one is like "Oh. Even Samurai are better at mental health than US cops. Oh.".

[Liriena]

Some cool shit in the Samurai code books.

"If you encounter an insane person, endeavor to see them returned to their family. Do not indulge their delusions, as doing so is an indignity to both yourself and to them and may result in their distress, but also do not patronize them either through timidity or pity. Instead, firmly and continuously insist they should return to their family and offer assistance in this if they should require it. Though they may issue threats against you, they are not often violent, and are not a concern. Should they damage your property, do not kill them as you would a sane person, instead seek compensation from their family."

"Sometimes upon associating with a person you shall realize they are stupid. This cannot be helped if you were unaware of this before hand, however, if you continue to associate with them after you are aware of their stupidity, then you are also stupid. There are some stupid samurai."

"It is too much to expect that a Samurai will never make excuses for their failures or poor behavior. However, those who attempt to shift blame onto others for their misdeeds are cowards, and lack dignity. Should you find yourself compelled to make excuses, do not do so in this fashion."

"If you see a monster or mythological beast, exercise discretion and keep this to yourself."


----

First one is like "Oh. Even Samurai are better at mental health than US cops. Oh.".

[big oofs in Japanese]

[Liriena]

Speaking of the Samurai code... HOI4 got me doing a bit of light reading on Sun Yat-sen, the Three Principles and his idea for a republic governed by five branches instead of the conventional three.

Confucian social democracy sounds kinda dope, ngl.

[Shanghai industrial complex]

Confucian social democracy sounds kinda dope, ngl.

WTF......Whose idea? Don't add socialism to everything.....

[Liriena]

Confucian social democracy sounds kinda dope, ngl.

WTF......Whose idea? Don't add socialism to everything.....

Sun Yat-sen. The "welfare" part of his Three Principles sounds pretty succdem, at the very least.

[Fahran]

WTF......Whose idea? Don't add socialism to everything.....

Sun Yat-sen. The "welfare" part of his Three Principles sounds pretty succdem, at the very least.

This is unfathomably based.

[Liriena]

Sun Yat-sen. The "welfare" part of his Three Principles sounds pretty succdem, at the very least.

This is unfathomably based.

Multicultural nationalism, democracy with extra checks and balances and accountability to the people and a strong welfare state. All this stuff is missing is a wuxia aesthetic.

[Shanghai industrial complex]

WTF......Whose idea? Don't add socialism to everything.....

Sun Yat-sen. The "welfare" part of his Three Principles sounds pretty succdem, at the very least.

Emmm....I searched, and find they deleted the part of Confucianism that protected the emperor and the feudal system.Use the idea of the social welfare and ethnic integration components.Where do you know these things? For the first time, I heard people associate Confucianism with socialism.

[Bear Stearns]

Can we just all agree that capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, neoliberalism all exist, all are interconnected (and may be described as forms of each other), and should all be explicitly opposed in all their forms?

Don't forget neocapitalism and neoimperialism.

Don't forget neopets

[Cisairse]

Speaking of the Samurai code... HOI4 got me doing a bit of light reading on Sun Yat-sen, the Three Principles and his idea for a republic governed by five branches instead of the conventional three.

Confucian social democracy sounds kinda dope, ngl.

Taiwan used the five-branch idea for many years, until they had some issues and went down to four.

Sun Yat-sen is based though.

[Cisairse]

WTF......Whose idea? Don't add socialism to everything.....

Sun Yat-sen. The "welfare" part of his Three Principles sounds pretty succdem, at the very least.

ｓｕｃｃｄｅｍ ｗｉｔｈ ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒｉｓｔｉｃｓ

[Jack Thomas Lang]

What's the deal with folx?

[Novus America]

Confucian social democracy sounds kinda dope, ngl.

WTF......Whose idea? Don't add socialism to everything.....

Social democracy =/= socialism.
Although some have called the Mínshēng advocated by Sun Yat-sen “socialism” it seems more social democratic as he was explicitly influenced by Georgism which advocates taxing unimproved land value but leaving most land privately owned.

We see this in Taiwan (Republic of China) and who use such a land value tax to fund social welfare.
Singapore uses a similar tax as well, probably not by coincidence.

The combination of Mínzú or civic nationalism and civic nationalist obligations, (including national serivce) plus democracy and separation of powers or Mínquán, and Mínshēng or providing for the basic welfare combined do seem to be fairly closely aligned with Nordic social democracy.

Unfortunately the actual execution was lacking do to the chaos and military rule, but today Taiwan or the Republic of China is doing well overall on the model, even if it took some 80 years to get it running.

[Novus America]

Can we just all agree that capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, neoliberalism all exist, all are interconnected (and may be described as forms of each other), and should all be explicitly opposed in all their forms?

Sure.
I merely don't see the purpose in making the distinction between neo-colonialism and capitalism for the same reason I don't think we need a specific word to describe how the lower-middle classes benefit from the exploitation of the working class.

Especially as articulating that point can serve as a means to distract from overall criticism of the causes by pitting those groups against eachother.

Capitalism is such a vague and overbroad term as to incorporate ideas and strains that avoid the types of neoliberalism and neocolonialism. Basically neoliberalism and neocolonialism are capitalist, but not all capitalism is neoliberal or neocolonial.

Also there is a differentiations between the neocolonialism and neoliberalism, PRC neocolonialism is heavily based on state owned companies and state directed such that it might even operate at a loss to advance the power of the state and demands enterprises put the interest of the state above just profit, (although making a profit is fine if it does not harm the states power trip) and this is not neoliberal, despite being the most blatantly neocolonial.

[Brunswick-upon-Raritan]

This poll is biased, there is no Maoist option

[Valrifell]

This poll is biased, there is no Maoist option

It's leftist ideologies, not crypto-fascist ones.

[Novus America]

Exactly why is conscription not acceptable to you?

As Cisairse says: conscription is antithetical to personal liberty.

It is also pointless. The social cohesion you guys expect from welfare states doesn't derive from the fucking draft. Jesus.

And completely unrestricted individualist personal liberty cannot coexist with things like social welfare. You give up some liberties to get benefits from the state. Expecting you can have both unrestricted individualist personal liberties AND collectivist policies at the same time is doublethink.

In order to ave both at the same time you need to have a compromise that sacrifices some personal liberties and is only partially collectivist. Real social democracy realizes this.
Even if many left coms and US “democratic socialists” seem to struggle with the idea that they are pushing two partially conflicting ideas and unwilling to compromise on both.

And the social cohesion in the Nordic States does not stem ENTIRELY from the draft, the draft absolutely plays a role in it. The problem is you refuse to admit it plays a part on ideological grounds.

Having an obligation to society (which can be fulfilled with alternative non military service for conscientious objectors) in form of a draft is one of those critical obligations, not the only one but an important one.

And no it is not pointless. It can help prevent the formation of ethnic ghettos if people are sent to desegregated units, break down other societal barriers, encourage a sense of common sacrifice, can absolutely improve military performance if done selectively to select recruits with needed skills (people assume draftees must be infantry put this is not the case, if the US reactivated the selective service it would likely to be to get health and IT personnel, which it has shortages of, not basic infantry).

You do not like it purely on ideological grounds, when pragmatically several places have used it quite successfully.

Although again I prefer simply making certain government benefits and the ability to vote contingent on the national service over threat of imprisonment.

[Valrifell]

What's the deal with folx?

If I had to guess it's a bastardization/new spelling of the word "folks" that came from Twitter's strict character limit. People like to use the word "folks" because of how neutral and charming it is.

Though apparently it's been (back-defined, imo) reused to indicate that you're consciously thinking of traditionally underrepresented groups, I guess.

[Novus America]

At least in terms of Africa, the biggest victim of neo-colonialism; capitalism isn't the cause of its woes so much as it is a symptom.

The much bigger problem is corruption, with African leaders embezzling funds and sucking their countries dry. They tend to play off of popular discontent with the West and blame foreign powers for their continent's woes; and while their grievances are true to some extent, the bulk of the blame lies with them. They are the ones who accept the bribes, turn a blind eye to multinational corporations abusing their people as cheap pools of labour and crack down violently on attempts at reform. Most Third World countries are raped and pillaged with the full consent of their leaders. The problem starts and ends with them.

If you let a gang of thugs into your dorm to go wild on your mates, does the problem start and end with you? Of course not.

Surely you'd see there's also a problem with, you know, the guys you let in who're going to be the ones actually doing the horrible shit you let them do?

African leaders are compliant. That does not make them the cause.

They are part of the cause. Why are you being so reductionist? There can be more than one cause, both of which must exist for the problem to occur.

In the hypothetical both the gang of thugs AND you are causes, that must both exist for them to run wild. Both you and them are guilty. Quite often things occur because of the right combination of causes, and in many if not most crimes, there is more than me guilty party, or at least party that contributed to the crime.

[Novus America]

Well I am not sure what exactly you mean by economic conscription but I do agree an alternative civilian service should be available for those not best motivated or suited for military service.

By economic conscription I mean serving your term of conscription via public works projects or state-administered employment in underemployed sectors. Or just the public sector in general.

Fair. Then we are in agreement on that point. I do think we need a national service but obviously not everyone is best suited for active military service, and only those motivated and qualified for military service, who are not better used serving in a non-military capacity should be called up for full time military service.

To make the system equitable all persons should be able to to participate, even those who have a physical disability or some other reason that makes them not well suited for military service.

[Novus America]

No, conscription does have a lot to do with it. I am not against social democracy, just the Sanders/DSA misunderstanding of it. Social democracy is a much more than just more welfare, it is a social contract, nothing is “free”. Society has an obligation to you, but you have obligations to society (such as fighting to defend it). Thus saying free healthcare and free college shows a complete misunderstanding of it.

You're an ignorant American who should stop thinking he understands the Nordics. 99.1% of Danish recruits in 2014 were volunteers, only 19 persons (!) were not volunteers. Excuse me for not believing your bullshit that conscription actually matters in terms of fostering the level of social cohesion seen in Nordic countries (as is usually measured by levels of social trust; trust in institutions and in other citizens). Studies of the subject generally attribute it to equality, long-standing democratic-participation norms, the universality of the welfare state, etc. The draft is a complete afterthought, and Sweden re-instituted it (after a period of deactivation from 2010-2017), because there was a lack of soldiers deemed necessary for defense, not because there was a collapse in social cohesion or something like that.

Again reductionist. The fact that you COULD be drafted is an important psychological notion, which also encourages more people to volunteer.
Everyone being available for military service if you are not called up is a part of it. As it encourages a notion of participation in society and equality by everyone being available for it, even if not all are called up.

Sure the draft is not a silver bullet, not the only thing. I do not think draft + welfare = Nordic model, but the draft is a part of the Nordic model, and more than just an afterthought. It is an social obligation that you would serve to protect the state as needed. The Nordic model is very complex, with many important parts. Simply picking a few of those parts, or ignoring the ones you do not like is not a proper understanding of it.

Although it should be noted that I do not think you can drop the Nordic Model wholesale on a non Nordic country, not do I think it perfect, but it has a lot of beneficial aspects we could learn from in building our own model.

And there is more than one reason one can have a draft. Such as to address personal shortages AND contribute to social cohesion (again obviously it is not the ONLY thing that contributes to social cohesion, but it is one of them).