Anti-Socialism Thread

[Orostan]

Read the fucking pdf, liberal. Refute his claims if your so confident. The idea that he relies completely on confessions is nonsense and he goes to great length to factually verify them and determine if they can be trusted or not.

Read the pdf.

no one is going to read 170 pages.

read the pdf liberal.

Even the first few pages are better than nothing.

[Duvniask]

Oh, I’ve actually read that article you linked. It’s wrong and you wouldn’t have linked it if you’d read the pdf like someone who was literate and open to discussion. Within the first paragraphs of that’s article Furr’s methodology is misrepresented and the author makes it clear he isn’t trying to be objective. Had the author actually tried to be objective he’d talk about the evidence in the Trotsky archive Furr uses to confirm parts of the Moscow trials as well as corroborating confessions with evidence we have from outside the USSR and Trotsky’s owns actions before starting his ideological crusade.

What fucking evidence? I know what Furr's like, dammit, and I had already taken a look at it previously. Do you actually think evidence of Trotsky trying to get into contact with old buddies, in essence only proving Trotsky was opposed to Stalin's rule (fucking duh), somehow means Trotsky worked for the Nazis?

The absolute state of ML.


That's from Engels' Anti-Duhring.

Were you really not aware of the above?

As for commodity production, you, as a subscriber to Stalin's abominable and theoretically empty ideological creation, should be aware that Stalin admitted that the law of value and generalised commodity production continued to exist in the USSR during his leadership. Of course, he took the bullshit line that it was "socialist commodity production", an absolute joke and open contravention of basic conclusions such as the one from Engels above.

Why would Stalin lie about that?

This is some wack shit, implying that the USSR was simultaneously less and more developed then capitalism simultaneously. How is that possible?

The law of value has been true for slave society as well as feudalism before capitalism. Marx implies the law of value will have a presence under socialism in Critique of the Gotha Program as well. In the USSR there was a planned economy in which commodity production was subordinated to economic and human need.

This is the kind of thing said by people who don't understand Critique of the Gotha Program at all:

"Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form."

Do I need to spell out how this is foreign to the law of value, not to mention wage labor? A principle remains, but its form and content are changed so as to no longer be that of value.

[True Refuge]

In the USSR there was a planned economy in which commodity production was subordinated to economic and human need.

Too funny. A planned economy based on the exchange of commodities produced for use in order to facilitate the valorisation of capital for use. It's wondrous how much of an oxymoron that is.

[Duvniask]

In the USSR there was a planned economy in which commodity production was subordinated to economic and human need.

Too funny. A planned economy based on the exchange of commodities produced for use in order to facilitate the valorisation of capital for use.

Planning for the market, baby.

[Picairn]

In the USSR there was a planned economy in which commodity production was subordinated to economic and human need.

And that caused stagnation. Turns out bureaucrats couldn't account for human needs and wants that quickly.

[Orostan]

Oh, I’ve actually read that article you linked. It’s wrong and you wouldn’t have linked it if you’d read the pdf like someone who was literate and open to discussion. Within the first paragraphs of that’s article Furr’s methodology is misrepresented and the author makes it clear he isn’t trying to be objective. Had the author actually tried to be objective he’d talk about the evidence in the Trotsky archive Furr uses to confirm parts of the Moscow trials as well as corroborating confessions with evidence we have from outside the USSR and Trotsky’s owns actions before starting his ideological crusade.

What fucking evidence? I know what Furr's like, dammit, and I had already taken a look at it previously. Do you actually think evidence of Trotsky trying to get into contact with old buddies, in essence only proving Trotsky was opposed to Stalin's rule (fucking duh), somehow means Trotsky worked for the Nazis?

The law of value has been true for slave society as well as feudalism before capitalism. Marx implies the law of value will have a presence under socialism in Critique of the Gotha Program as well. In the USSR there was a planned economy in which commodity production was subordinated to economic and human need.

This is the kind of thing said by people who don't understand Critique of the Gotha Program at all:

"Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form."

Do I need to spell out how this is utterly foreign to the law of value, not to mention wage labor?

Well you obviously don’t know what Furr is like because you refuse to read his work. I do think Trotsky sending regular messages to his buddies in the USSR and sending messages urging a coup to parts of the government is indicative of a conspiracy, yes. And I do think there is evidence in the German archives to support the idea that the nazis knew what was going on and provided at minimum passive support. Read the PDF, liberal.

Your quote from Gotha proves my point! That’s how rubles functioned India the USSR. Just because what is functionally a socialist labor voucher is called a ruble doesn’t mean that when you get paid with it you are doing wage labor. The USSR didn’t even pay people with normal wages and the fact that you claim this shows that you are illiterate and incapable of reading my sources. The USSR paid people rubles according to production norms which is exactly what marx describes as certificates from society for labor done.

[Orostan]

In the USSR there was a planned economy in which commodity production was subordinated to economic and human need.

Too funny. A planned economy based on the exchange of commodities produced for use in order to facilitate the valorisation of capital for use. It's wondrous how much of an oxymoron that is.

>nooo how dare you industrialize the country that’s literally a capitalism you can’t do that

Planned economies are based on making the shit you need and can use, it’s not based on production for exchange by definition.

[Washington Resistance Army]

In the USSR there was a planned economy in which commodity production was subordinated to economic and human need.

And that caused stagnation. Turns out bureaucrats couldn't account for human needs and wants that quickly.

No the bureaucrats could just fine, but the mass Soviet increase in military spending fucked the civilian economy.

[Orostan]

In the USSR there was a planned economy in which commodity production was subordinated to economic and human need.

And that caused stagnation. Turns out bureaucrats couldn't account for human needs and wants that quickly.

The USSR literally made the fastest industrialization in history and brought its people standards of literacy, education, healthcare, and quality of life that they had never seen before.

[True Refuge]

This is the kind of thing said by people who don't understand Critique of the Gotha Program at all:

The #2 most misunderstood Marx text, coming in a close second to the Manifesto which apparently makes leftists' brains melt out of their ears.

That’s how rubles functioned India the USSR.

That'd be news to Stalin, then. Wonder what he was missing?

The USSR didn’t even pay people with normal wages

True to an extent. They paid quite a large sector of the population in the more unorthodox piece-wages instead, which are covered in Ch 21 of Capital Vol 1 and shown to be a daily variant of the standard time-wage.

[Orostan]

And that caused stagnation. Turns out bureaucrats couldn't account for human needs and wants that quickly.

No the bureaucrats could just fine, but the mass Soviet increase in military spending fucked the civilian economy.

Holy shit we agree on something even if it’s for different reasons. Your sig indicates you may have become actually correct in many ways since the last time we met, is this really the case?

[Scherzinger]

Welcome all!

(Image)

This thread is dedicated to advancing and providing a space for anti-socialist, anti-communist, and anti-Marxist discussion. Anti-socialism is opposition to socialism, but first it's important to understand what socialism is and isn't. In the broadest of terms, socialism (in theory) is an economic and social model that advocates for collective ownership of the "means of production" (basically things that make things). Most often, this "collective ownership" is really just state ownership with the veneer of popular ownership tacked on.

Socialism is opposed to capitalism, whose proponents believe that the means of production should be owned by individuals. Capitalists believe that, by voting with their money, individuals should decide what goods are produced in the free market. In this way firms that are the most efficient, cost-effective and practical for the consumer will rise to the top. Capitalism has coexisted with freedom and liberal democracy since its inception, and greater social/political freedom is exoribly tied to greater economic freedom. Socialists believe that production should be determined by the state, usually through economic planning. The core objective of socialism is the abolition of private property.

It's important to remember that socialism is not universal healthcare, public roads, free public education, taxes, unions, or "the government doing stuff." These are social policies, not socialist policies, and they are all perfectly compatible with capitalism.

Communism is the ultimate objective of socialism, which (again, in theory) is a movement whose ultimate objective is the creation of a classless, cashless worker-run society. It bears mentioning that, despite many regimes attempts to create such a society, a communist society has never truly existed and never will, as the ideas of communism are fundamentally impractical. Socialism is the vector through which communism is supposedly to be brought about.

There are different gradations of socialism. More standard fare revolutionary socialists believe that capitalism can only be overthrown by a popular revolution. Socialists of this stripe resort to authoritarian and illiberal actions to fulfill their goals. "Democratic" socialists believe that socialism may be brought about by democratic processes, particularly by electoral democracy. It's important to note that democratic socialists and revolutionary socialists do not differ in their ends. They both seek to establish a socialist society. They only differ in that they have different means to that end.

Of course, it's important to remember that there really is no such thing as "democratic" socialism, because the tenants of socialism are fundamentally anti-democratic. Democracy only exists as long as it respects individual liberty. You cannot strip people of their right to property and still call yourself a democracy. This is of course not to mention that all socialist regimes have been authoritarian hellholes whose economic plans have wreaked incalculable havoc upon the world and resulted in millions of people's needless deaths. Socialism is just an excuse for authoritarianism that has never nor will ever accomplish the goals it sets for itself.

---

So, anti-socialists of NationStates, here are a few questions:

1. Does socialism still present a threat to the world? To your country?
2. Should liberals and conservatives do more to square their differences and rally against socialist tides, wherever they may spring up?
3. At what point is armed resistance against socialism called for?

1) Yes and Yes. My family fled socialism in East Germany, now it threatens to infect the US
2) Yes, they should. Unfortunately, our fundamental disagreements on trivial beliefs prevent us from seeing the true enemy
3) When they kill one of ours, we kill 2 of theirs

[Orostan]

This is the kind of thing said by people who don't understand Critique of the Gotha Program at all:

The #2 most misunderstood Marx text, coming in a close second to the Manifesto which apparently makes leftists' brains melt out of their ears.

That’s how rubles functioned India the USSR.

That'd be news to Stalin, then. Wonder what he was missing?

The USSR didn’t even pay people with normal wages

True to an extent. They paid quite a large sector of the population in the more unorthodox piece-wages instead, which are covered in Ch 21 of Capital Vol 1 and shown to be a daily variant of the standard time-wage.

Autocorrect really hates me today.

1. Rubles are a little more complex than being labor vouchers by another name because of the way currency works in an economy that has to trade with capitalists, but I think you got the point.

2. Really? I’ll have to take a look at the chapter again. Are there specific passages you can point to?

[Orostan]

Welcome all!

(Image)

This thread is dedicated to advancing and providing a space for anti-socialist, anti-communist, and anti-Marxist discussion. Anti-socialism is opposition to socialism, but first it's important to understand what socialism is and isn't. In the broadest of terms, socialism (in theory) is an economic and social model that advocates for collective ownership of the "means of production" (basically things that make things). Most often, this "collective ownership" is really just state ownership with the veneer of popular ownership tacked on.

Socialism is opposed to capitalism, whose proponents believe that the means of production should be owned by individuals. Capitalists believe that, by voting with their money, individuals should decide what goods are produced in the free market. In this way firms that are the most efficient, cost-effective and practical for the consumer will rise to the top. Capitalism has coexisted with freedom and liberal democracy since its inception, and greater social/political freedom is exoribly tied to greater economic freedom. Socialists believe that production should be determined by the state, usually through economic planning. The core objective of socialism is the abolition of private property.

It's important to remember that socialism is not universal healthcare, public roads, free public education, taxes, unions, or "the government doing stuff." These are social policies, not socialist policies, and they are all perfectly compatible with capitalism.

Communism is the ultimate objective of socialism, which (again, in theory) is a movement whose ultimate objective is the creation of a classless, cashless worker-run society. It bears mentioning that, despite many regimes attempts to create such a society, a communist society has never truly existed and never will, as the ideas of communism are fundamentally impractical. Socialism is the vector through which communism is supposedly to be brought about.

There are different gradations of socialism. More standard fare revolutionary socialists believe that capitalism can only be overthrown by a popular revolution. Socialists of this stripe resort to authoritarian and illiberal actions to fulfill their goals. "Democratic" socialists believe that socialism may be brought about by democratic processes, particularly by electoral democracy. It's important to note that democratic socialists and revolutionary socialists do not differ in their ends. They both seek to establish a socialist society. They only differ in that they have different means to that end.

Of course, it's important to remember that there really is no such thing as "democratic" socialism, because the tenants of socialism are fundamentally anti-democratic. Democracy only exists as long as it respects individual liberty. You cannot strip people of their right to property and still call yourself a democracy. This is of course not to mention that all socialist regimes have been authoritarian hellholes whose economic plans have wreaked incalculable havoc upon the world and resulted in millions of people's needless deaths. Socialism is just an excuse for authoritarianism that has never nor will ever accomplish the goals it sets for itself.

---

So, anti-socialists of NationStates, here are a few questions:

1. Does socialism still present a threat to the world? To your country?
2. Should liberals and conservatives do more to square their differences and rally against socialist tides, wherever they may spring up?
3. At what point is armed resistance against socialism called for?

1) Yes and Yes. My family fled socialism in East Germany, now it threatens to infect the US
2) Yes, they should. Unfortunately, our fundamental disagreements on trivial beliefs prevent us from seeing the true enemy
3) When they kill one of ours, we kill 2 of theirs

1. good
2. vaguely fascistic
3. You sure love violence.

[True Refuge]

2. Really? I’ll have to take a look at the chapter again. Are there specific passages you can point to?

First sentence of the chapter:

Wages by the piece are nothing else than a converted form of wages by time, just as wages by time are a converted form of the value or price of labour-power.

[Wink Wonk We Like Stonks]

no one is going to read 170 pages.

read the pdf liberal.

Even the first few pages are better than nothing.

something about the way this is phrased ...

no, i don't think i will.

[True Refuge]

And that caused stagnation. Turns out bureaucrats couldn't account for human needs and wants that quickly.

The USSR literally made the fastest industrialization in history and brought its people standards of literacy, education, healthcare, and quality of life that they had never seen before.

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
- The Communist Manifesto

Industrialization improves living standards, who knew?

[Orostan]

2. Really? I’ll have to take a look at the chapter again. Are there specific passages you can point to?

First sentence of the chapter:

Wages by the piece are nothing else than a converted form of wages by time, just as wages by time are a converted form of the value or price of labour-power.

I’ll take a look at the chapter but I don’t think Soviet production norms were wages by piece, of that were the case I could describe labor vouchers as the same thing even though they’re clearly not.

[Debate Proxy 1]

And that caused stagnation. Turns out bureaucrats couldn't account for human needs and wants that quickly.

The USSR literally made the fastest industrialization in history and brought its people standards of literacy, education, healthcare, and quality of life that they had never seen before.

South Korea was the fastest industrialization in history. North Korea actually industrialized even faster than the Soviet Union did, but you can see what "brain drain", undoubtedly accelerated by Kim's purges, ended up doing to its economy today. It leaped ahead of SK during the Syngman Rhee years, but Park Chung Hee turned the situation rapidly around.

Arguably, SK, for all its faults, still does have better health-care, education, and quality of life than NK.

[Orostan]

The USSR literally made the fastest industrialization in history and brought its people standards of literacy, education, healthcare, and quality of life that they had never seen before.

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
- The Communist Manifesto

Industrialization improves living standards, who knew?

Yes, and the USSR did it the fastest in history with a socialist economy.

read the pdf liberal.

Even the first few pages are better than nothing.

something about the way this is phrased ...

no, i don't think i will.

read it

[Orostan]

The USSR literally made the fastest industrialization in history and brought its people standards of literacy, education, healthcare, and quality of life that they had never seen before.

South Korea was the fastest industrialization in history. North Korea actually industrialized even faster than the Soviet Union did, but you can see what "brain drain", undoubtedly accelerated by Kim's purges, ended up doing to its economy today. It leaped ahead of SK during the Syngman Rhee years, but Park Chung Hee turned the situation rapidly around.

Arguably, SK, for all its faults, still does have better health-care, education, and quality of life than NK.

NK and SK were similar until the seventies, with NK actually ahead of the south. This only started changing when massive amounts of foreign capital came into South Korea while the North was becoming increasingly economically isolated. I can’t contest you on that claim that NK industrialized caster than the USSR did but if they did that’s great for them.

SK has edges over its northern neighbor but I’d hesitate to call if a better society. For what North Korea has to work with they do a very impressive job at providing for their people.

[Wink Wonk We Like Stonks]

something about the way this is phrased ...

no, i don't think i will.

read it

no u, then summarize it, and i'll consider reading your summary.

[Picairn]

The USSR literally made the fastest industrialization in history and brought its people standards of literacy, education, healthcare, and quality of life that they had never seen before.

And they still had stagnation. Turns out central planning is not effective forever.

[Orostan]

The USSR literally made the fastest industrialization in history and brought its people standards of literacy, education, healthcare, and quality of life that they had never seen before.

And they still had stagnation. Turns out central planning is not effective forever.

It had stagnation after market reforms. Its economy preformed the best under the strongest central planning.

[Farnhamia]

No, fuck you.

https://www.scribd.com/document/1087482 ... ugust-2011

Oh, I’ve actually read that article you linked. It’s wrong and you wouldn’t have linked it if you’d read the pdf like someone who was literate and open to discussion. Within the first paragraphs of that’s article Furr’s methodology is misrepresented and the author makes it clear he isn’t trying to be objective. Had the author actually tried to be objective he’d talk about the evidence in the Trotsky archive Furr uses to confirm parts of the Moscow trials as well as corroborating confessions with evidence we have from outside the USSR and Trotsky’s owns actions before starting his ideological crusade.

I'll happily criticize them for that. The point of my first post was that whether Venezuela was socialist or capitalist doesn't matter, as how the government became a failure is mostly unrelated. Also, the economies reliance on oil was already increasing before 2008, though that was the nail in the coffin for "anything that's not oil".

The freezing of the CITGO assets happened after Venezuela's economic collapse (I could be mistaken, so if you have any source for those first two causes that is available I'll look into it). Also, while Saudi Arabia's antics helped, the doubling of oil production in the USA and Canada also generally collapsed pretty much any market for oil in North America.

1) Then why bring up Venezuela if it’s not related to anything?

2) Yeah, and it made it worse. I don’t have sources on hand right now but without much looking it becomes very clear Venezuela’s situation was made much worse than it had to be by the west and by domestic sabotage. I am open to a discussion about this in the future but right now I don’t have any good sources I can show you on most of the stuff, though you can find the economic sanctions news almost anywhere.

Khrushchev was a massive hypocritical asshole. But a quote from 10 Minute History sums his rule up the best. "[The liberalization] didn't mena you wouldn't go to prison for criticizing the government-you were just less likely to get shot for it.". Also, Stalin deported a bunch of Chechens to Central Asia.

Utterly irrelevant and ten minute history is factually wrong, as I have linked sources that show the soviet government regularly being freely criticized under Stalin. You are just bringing up various anti communist myths because I already got rid of your main arguments.

*** Warned for flaming ***