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by UniversalCommons » Sat Jun 27, 2020 8:05 pm
by Cisairse » Sat Jun 27, 2020 8:43 pm
Atheris wrote:Cisairse wrote:Sure, but that doesn't mean it has inherent meaning.
Currency itself doesn't have inherent meaning - it's a bunch of paper, polyester, and metal. What does have inherent meaning, though, is the power of buying and selling and the market. Get rid of currency, and you get rid of the market, which in turn leads to a collapse of the economy and a subsequent drain on the standards of living and the personal lives of many.
by Atheris » Sat Jun 27, 2020 9:36 pm
Cisairse wrote:Atheris wrote:Currency itself doesn't have inherent meaning - it's a bunch of paper, polyester, and metal. What does have inherent meaning, though, is the power of buying and selling and the market. Get rid of currency, and you get rid of the market, which in turn leads to a collapse of the economy and a subsequent drain on the standards of living and the personal lives of many.
Your premise is valid but your inductive step is wrong. Therefore, your conclusion cannot be said to be valid.
The entire point of socialism is an economy structured without a market.
by Cisairse » Sat Jun 27, 2020 10:51 pm
Atheris wrote:Cisairse wrote:Your premise is valid but your inductive step is wrong. Therefore, your conclusion cannot be said to be valid.
The entire point of socialism is an economy structured without a market.
And that's one of the reasons why socialism can not work. It's impossible to have an economy without a market. Money acts as a store of value - It is convenient to store wealth in form of money. For example - a man has 1000 eggs, its inconvenient to store this wealth as egg instead he can sell them and store them in form of money. Capital, and subsequently currency, acts as a medium of exchange - Money is used as a medium of exchange unlike barter there isn’t lack of coincidence of want. Thus money is freely acceptable to used as a medium of exchange. It acts as a measure of value - when you buy a product, it has a price, the price is nothing but the value of the product expressed in term of money. Goods can be easily expressed in term of money, It also makes economic calculation more easier. Money is also used for standard deferred payment. The modern day business is heavily dependent on credit; thus, money acts as a mean for standard deferred payment since the value of money doesn’t fluctuate often. Even if a barter system is used, that style of market and economy is outdated and only works with small societies, which is why when societies began centralizing and becoming more powerful, they began using coinage.
by UniversalCommons » Sat Jun 27, 2020 10:52 pm
by Cisairse » Sat Jun 27, 2020 11:11 pm
UniversalCommons wrote:There are other ways to generate currency than markets. Currency can represent a variety of things from labor credits to watts to other measures of value. Market socialism approximates socialism by building in market values. This allows for smaller scale industry to happen as well as individual contributions to an economy. Centralized bureaucratic states are inefficient and often exclude people. They also often require the use of places like dachas to ensure people have enough food. Thus there is a move to state capitalism in China or market socialism in Yugoslavia. Quite a few of the socialist systems have had to modify how they work to fit either more communal property ownership with market elements, or some kind of planning focused on approximating the market. Pure socialist markets do not work. Mixed economies work like in Vietnam, because they fix the holes in how people act. Small farmers, new enterprises, and many other enterprises do not survive in non-market systems.
Pure socialism in an economic sense does not thrive. Mixed economies in some cases can do better than capitalism.
by Duvniask » Sun Jun 28, 2020 1:24 am
Atheris wrote:Cisairse wrote:Your premise is valid but your inductive step is wrong. Therefore, your conclusion cannot be said to be valid.
The entire point of socialism is an economy structured without a market.
And that's one of the reasons why socialism can not work. It's impossible to have an economy without a market. Money acts as a store of value - It is convenient to store wealth in form of money. For example - a man has 1000 eggs, its inconvenient to store this wealth as egg instead he can sell them and store them in form of money. Capital, and subsequently currency, acts as a medium of exchange - Money is used as a medium of exchange unlike barter there isn’t lack of coincidence of want. Thus money is freely acceptable to used as a medium of exchange. It acts as a measure of value - when you buy a product, it has a price, the price is nothing but the value of the product expressed in term of money. Goods can be easily expressed in term of money, It also makes economic calculation more easier. Money is also used for standard deferred payment. The modern day business is heavily dependent on credit; thus, money acts as a mean for standard deferred payment since the value of money doesn’t fluctuate often. Even if a barter system is used, that style of market and economy is outdated and only works with small societies, which is why when societies began centralizing and becoming more powerful, they began using coinage.
by Gensokyo Soviet Fairies Republic » Sun Jun 28, 2020 2:42 am
Duvniask wrote:Someone really doesn't get the point of analogy. They are not 1:1 comparisons. If refugees were a main source of info on Iraq, the same reasons would apply. I was not referring to present-day Iraq, I was referring to Iraq under Sadam Hussein as he gassed the Kurds in the 1980s.
And don't try and cowardly sidestep the issue here. We are dealing with what's far-fetched given that you're literally here questioning what's even true.
Duvniask wrote:I don't care what you think you're referring to. You're employing the same tactics as a conspiracy theorist, cherry picking witness accounts in service to a narrative that North Korea is not that bad, whilst being incredibly wishy-washy about whether or not you actually think North Korea is a bad place.
What's well documented is extensive human rights abuses; arbitrary arrest, detention without trial, torture, execution, disappearances, no freedom of speech, limited freedom of movement and restriction of access to the outside world (per the Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea).
-snip-
Media coverage of North Korea (officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) is hampered by an extreme lack of reliable information. There are a number of reasons for this lack of information. Access to North Korea by the outside news media is severely restricted by the North Korean government. There are very few full-time correspondents in the country. In the absence of on-the-spot reportage, a key source of information about North Korea is the testimony of defectors, but the defectors are not necessarily reliable for several reasons.
Duvniask wrote:Irrelevant. It is a simple acknowledgement of the fact that the US is on confrontational terms with North Korea and South Korea views it as an existential threat.
Duvniask wrote:The article provides no name and no source for this fisherman reportedly going back a 4th time (it begs the question of why he keeps leaving, too). The article also makes clear that these returnees are used for internal propaganda purposes, all whilst Kim Jong-un is also strengthening border security. North Korea is notoriously corrupt (the most common way of escaping was bribing the border guards), so the ability for some to luck out on receiving punishment is not unexpected.
Duvniask wrote:Yes, and who do you think they have contact to organize their tour with?
These angencies first have to obtain licenses to do tours, and they do so with state approved guides to state approved locations. You go where the North Korean government decides. Don't be a cheeky little liar and pretend this is somehow equivalent to any other guided tour, like the one I had when I visited Japan and we could just go wherever we wanted when we didn't have tour-guide time.
I never said you were restricted to Pyongyang only. I've seen a fair share of documentaries about traveling to North Korea. What's the fact of the matter is that Pyongyang is for the Elite, it's where the important people live, whilst the real squalor of the country is to be found elsewhere. The other places you are shown are just as carefully selected so as to not show too much of the bad stuff.
Duvniask wrote:They can drive to places like Luo, which is near the border. This is not equivalent to me going next door to Germany and being able to drive anywhere in the country. I am able to go to the shittiest little half-abandoned village in Eastern Germany and no one will wag their finger at me and tell me no. There is no such freedom of movement for visitors to North Korea.
Duvniask wrote:They are awfully inconsistent in their stance.
"Social and economic rights hold an important position in the issue of human rights, as it is related with creative and material life of the people aimed at taming the nature. The entire people of the DPRK are fully provided with rights to economic activities and life and enjoy a genuine material and economic life." -Report of the DPRK Association for Human Rights Studies, p. 79 (published by the Korea Central News Agency)
Duvniask wrote:Most of these North Korean workers in Russia work at construction sites or logging camps in remote parts of Eastern Siberia where they're largely cut-off from the outside world anyway. To be sure, some actually get to experience what life is like there, but they are consistently under the watch of state minders, who ensure they don't run off. It's also been common practice to select married men with children so as to lessen the chances of escape (family being made into hostages or a bargaining chip).
Duvniask wrote:It's a case of widespread black market activity that many people have access to some kind of foreign media, but it is still quite illegal.
The recent concert was part of the thaw in diplomacy, it's not indicative of general Party attitudes toward foreign media.
Duvniask wrote:Jesus fucking Christ. I'm not denying that there are people who want to go back to North Korea, because they miss their family, or think their life was somehow easier to cope with (we humans prefer what we're used to). It's not inconsistent logic. Tankies are the ones ignoring all the accounts from people who do indeed think that North Korea is a brutal hellhole. You've been sowing doubt constantly this entire time. "They're inconsistent", "they're making things up". What do you actually hope to accomplish by saying this? Are you saying North Korea is not a dictatorship, that it does not repress its citizens? If not, I have no idea why you're so dedicated to sowing the seeds of doubt. I never once claimed everything that comes out of North Korean defectors is a true depiction. I said it is part of an extensive account of conditions in the country, also backed up by actual analysts and experts in the field.
-snip-
Traumatic events are not the only reason why North Koreans experience difficulty adjusting to the new way of living. Woo Teak-jeon conducted interviews with 32 North Korean defectors living in South Korea and found that other adjustment difficulties that are not related to PTSD occur due to such factors as the defector's suspiciousness, their way of thinking, prejudice of the new society, and unfamiliar sets of values.
However, the total number is thought to be higher. A former South Korean MP estimated that in 2012 about 100 defectors returned to North Korea via China.[95] In 2015, it was reported that about 700[96] defectors living in South Korea are unaccounted for and have possibly fled to China or Southeast Asia in hopes of returning to North Korea.[94] In one case, a double defector re-entered North Korea four times.[93]
In 2013, a re-defector was charged by South Korea upon return.[98] In 2016, defector Kim Ryon-hui's request to return to North Korea was denied by the South Korean government.[99][100] In June 2017, Chun Hye-sung, a defector who had been a guest on several South Korean TV shows using the name Lim Ji-hyun, returned to the North. In July 2017, a man who had defected to the South and then returned to the North was arrested under the National Security Act when he entered the South again.[101] In 2018 a defector was arrested in South Korea and charged with sending rice to North Korean secret police prior to an attempted return.
Duvniask wrote:And the cherry on top is your suggestion that people wouldn't want to go back to a dictatorship. That's hardly true. People will go back to abusive parents out of fear just the same. People want the comfort of the familiar, their usual routines. People want security, and part of that is community (the very thing they have left behind when they make a mad dash for South Korea; family, friends, co-workers, schoolmates).
Duvniask wrote:Per your own The Diplomat article, North Korea is referred to as society governed by a Confucian-styled "Mandate of Heaven":
“If no meaningful economic and social reforms are carried out the people may withdraw the ‘mandate of heaven’ (outlined by Confucius),” Abt explained when asked to clarify whether he believes the leadership takes care of its citizens in accordance with their wishes. “The rulers know that and they seem to follow, albeit very slowly and cautiously, Vietnam’s and China’s examples.”
The principle of "Mandate of Heaven" concerns the legitimacy of Kings and Emperors, being legitimate in their rule if they govern "justly" (to whatever acceptable extent) and perform the correct rites. Thing is, such rulers have nothing to do with socialism. It's applicable to societies where much power is vested in a political hierarchy, not the participatory democracy of socialism.
Duvniask wrote:Fucking Christ. Yeah, "human rights abuses" like lack of housing, not like torture, arbitrary detention, forced labor camps, punishment without trial... Yeah, housing, that's the kind of human right's abuses North Korea has to deal with! Give me a break.
They "accept" recommendations and then do nothing about it. The things they reject almost all had to with visits to the country (see: Position of the DPRK on the recommendations received during its first cycle UPR). The aforementioned report also could not receive access to the country. Hmm, I wonder why North Korea wouldn't want human rights investigators to have access . I'm really struggling to think of a reason here. Actually getting people on the ground to come and have a look at things as they truly are. However could that be a problem!
by Duvniask » Sun Jun 28, 2020 4:26 am
by UniversalCommons » Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:04 am
Cisairse wrote:UniversalCommons wrote:There are other ways to generate currency than markets. Currency can represent a variety of things from labor credits to watts to other measures of value. Market socialism approximates socialism by building in market values. This allows for smaller scale industry to happen as well as individual contributions to an economy. Centralized bureaucratic states are inefficient and often exclude people. They also often require the use of places like dachas to ensure people have enough food. Thus there is a move to state capitalism in China or market socialism in Yugoslavia. Quite a few of the socialist systems have had to modify how they work to fit either more communal property ownership with market elements, or some kind of planning focused on approximating the market. Pure socialist markets do not work. Mixed economies work like in Vietnam, because they fix the holes in how people act. Small farmers, new enterprises, and many other enterprises do not survive in non-market systems.
Pure socialism in an economic sense does not thrive. Mixed economies in some cases can do better than capitalism.
Pure socialism could work if it was actually pure; unfortunately, a global economy that is capitalism requires following capitalist rules w/r/t resource acquisition and trade, which means at some level you need a translator to translate between the language of socialism and the language of capitalism (ie elaborate command structures can allocate resources just fine in a single system, but when Mexico wants cash for its oil, it isn't going to accept anything other than cash).
by Gensokyo Soviet Fairies Republic » Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:43 am
Duvniask wrote:I'm not denying or ignoring anything about defector accounts having internal inconsistencies. Fucking Christ. You on the other hand sure are "denying the work of North Korea experts and analysts in the field" when it comes to serious human rights violations that aren't merely about lack of food provision or housing, but brutal and intentional state repression.
You refuse to go beyond this diatribe about defector accounts being inconsistent, you refuse to actually engage with any of my points beyond that, such as how a consistent pattern of human rights abuses has emerged in spite of these inadequacies in information?
Owing to its lack of access to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the commission obtained first-hand testimony through public hearings that were transparent, observed due process and protected victims and witnesses. More than 80 witnesses and experts testified publicly and provided information of great specificity, detail and relevance, in ways that often required a significant degree of courage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Dong-hyuk#Revision_in_2015 wrote:A Russian-born Korean specialist Andrei Lankov commented that "some suspicions had been confirmed when Shin suddenly admitted what many had hitherto suspected", described Harden's book as unreliable, and noted that defectors faced considerable psychological pressure to embroider their stories.[37][38] Some defectors said his testimony is "completely lies".[39] A former member of South Korea's National Intelligence Service said Shin had never lived in a "prison camp".[40] The writer Simon Winchester commented that the "authority" of the UN Commission of Inquiry report was "somewhat challenged" by this revelation.[41]
Duvniask wrote:Your linked paper is concerned with the right to food, and how this is impacted by hardliner reactions that result in sanctions, which is wholly different from matters of civil and political rights.
Duvniask wrote:Tell me something, because you ignored this little question of mine. Do you support North Korea or not?
by Northern Davincia » Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:56 am
Alcala-Cordel wrote:Latvijas Otra Republika wrote:
Mao’s bloody Great Leap Forward and falsified USSR state sponsored statistical date. I’m assuming you have now admitted that you believer the USSR and early Communist China to be an example of real Communism and Marxism. Or better yet, transitioning Marxism. Do you promote the values of these nations?
If you think those hijacked transitionary states were/are communist in the slightest, to need to read a few books on the communist ideology.
Conserative Morality wrote:"Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Hoppe."
by Cisairse » Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:59 am
by Atheris » Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:59 am
Alcala-Cordel wrote:Latvijas Otra Republika wrote:
Mao’s bloody Great Leap Forward and falsified USSR state sponsored statistical date. I’m assuming you have now admitted that you believer the USSR and early Communist China to be an example of real Communism and Marxism. Or better yet, transitioning Marxism. Do you promote the values of these nations?
If you think those hijacked transitionary states were/are communist in the slightest, to need to read a few books on the communist ideology.
by Fauzjhia » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:00 am
by Northern Davincia » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:00 am
Conserative Morality wrote:"Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Hoppe."
by Cisairse » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:01 am
Fauzjhia wrote:Northern Davincia wrote:Why does the majority of communist movements become "hijacked"?
i swear, someone must read my comment on the disbelief of (socialists) elite in democracy, and platonicism.
the leading socialists believe democracy to be a fool traps, because the idiots masses would constantly vote against their own interests.
by Atheris » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:02 am
Fauzjhia wrote:Northern Davincia wrote:Why does the majority of communist movements become "hijacked"?
i swear, someone must read my comment on the disbelief of (socialists) elite in democracy, and platonicism.
the leading socialists believe democracy to be a fool traps, because the idiots masses would constantly vote against their own interests.
by Cisairse » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:03 am
Atheris wrote:Fauzjhia wrote:
i swear, someone must read my comment on the disbelief of (socialists) elite in democracy, and platonicism.
the leading socialists believe democracy to be a fool traps, because the idiots masses would constantly vote against their own interests.
I'd vote against the Communist Party not because I'm "voting against my own interests", but because communism is ideologically opposed to my beliefs.
by Northern Davincia » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:03 am
Fauzjhia wrote:Northern Davincia wrote:Why does the majority of communist movements become "hijacked"?
i swear, someone must read my comment on the disbelief of (socialists) elite in democracy, and platonicism.
the leading socialists believe democracy to be a fool traps, because the idiots masses would constantly vote against their own interests.
Conserative Morality wrote:"Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Hoppe."
by Northern Davincia » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:04 am
Conserative Morality wrote:"Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Hoppe."
by Atheris » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:06 am
by Fauzjhia » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:08 am
Northern Davincia wrote:Fauzjhia wrote:
i swear, someone must read my comment on the disbelief of (socialists) elite in democracy, and platonicism.
the leading socialists believe democracy to be a fool traps, because the idiots masses would constantly vote against their own interests.
This is true toward bourgeois democracy, not democracy itself.
by Sannyamathland » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:10 am
by Atheris » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:11 am
Fauzjhia wrote:Northern Davincia wrote:This is true toward bourgeois democracy, not democracy itself.
this is Plato opinion of Democracy. The Idiots people killed socrates because he was asking too many questions, they are obviously too dumb to be allowed to vote on important policies, only those who take time to think, the philosophers, should be allowed to vote on important policies.
obviously the marxists-leninists claims to be thoses philosophers, just like the priests from catholic church claimed it. I really doubt Plato though about ideological or religious group when he was thinking about philosophers, but this is what happened.
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