What do you think of Communism

[Redwood Ridge]

And the solution isn't only in ostracizing and depriving them of their resources. Lowering barriers of entry, and encouraging more competitors to enter the market, will weaken the position of the current market players. Which entails promoting personal responsibility, competence, and entrepreneurship.

do you honestly think the modern kings and princes will deign themselves to sharing their things or graciously permit the plebs to enjoy not starving?
like dude, we tried all that "personal responsibility" thing with victorian workhouses... and they weren't exactly great or designed to not eliminate the poor by starvation

Okay so you hate the corpos and their monopolies, fair enough. But you also hate the idea of getting people to build up real competition to them, or create a more locally focused business model, or break out of the wage cage and work for themselves, all because that might not punish the ultra rich as much as you want it to? A person who works for themselves rather than simply collecting a wage is by definition, more self-sufficient. In their situation, there's no larger authority to appeal to, no boss whose responsibility is to fix the problem, the entrepreneur is the authority. He has to be the fixer. For a worker, maybe you get a dressing down if you make a mistake, maybe you lose your job and that's no joke. But to the small business owner, they lose their job and all their labor and equity they've invested in building the business, if they don't keep it running. It's not the same level of responsibility.

It's almost like the idea of a competitive market isn't to strive towards some all important ethic of eating the rich and punishing the overachievers. Maybe, there are real positives towards encouraging people to take ownership of their labor exclusively, have a right as individuals over their own labor and nobody else, and that they can spend it on whatever they want as they see fit.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

As for the latter point: productivity will not reach infinity, but we don't need infinite production to eliminate all poverty. In fact, if you define poverty simply as the inability to access basic needs (such as healthcare, housing and good) then we already prduce enough to meet everyone's needs, even without socialist restructuring of production. There is enough food and housing in the world for everyone already. We just distrubute it unfairly, which creates poverty. But the idea that poverty is just a part of nature is unfounded and not supported by any facts.

Can you actually show this to be true? With you know, facts. Can you then show the class how distributing all of that fairly would work in practice? You have a finite amount of labour to go around, right? Some of that labour must be allocated to transferring good from place A to place B. Distributing resources more fairly, would presumably put more demand on transferring of goods, right? Is that not then less labour involved in production? Even more of a problem, if you take into account the initial cost of setting up this more fair system of distribution, no? Then there is the equation of using more natural resources to transfer goods around and keeping up with current production if not more, which means more CO2 emissions and pollution. Does all of that just magically cease to be a problem after the revolution? Or am I just being an idiot?

Why would distributing resources more fairly lead to more strain on goods transfer? I mean, it theoretically could, but it could also cause less strain on infrastructure. In fact, using more localised products and decentralising production chains could lead to less CO2 use in transprortation. So, I don't know where your assumptions come from.

[Rakhalia]

They are vastly inferior in political power compared to the thousands of oligarchs out to enrich themselves.

And the solution isn't only in ostracizing and depriving them of their resources. Lowering barriers of entry, and encouraging more competitors to enter the market, will weaken the position of the current market players. Which entails promoting personal responsibility, competence, and entrepreneurship.

No, it quite literally is the solution. These resources are being used incredibly inefficiently -- the current amount of global food waste produces enough calories to practically end the concept of someone 'starving to death', yet people still starve to death and suffer serious malnutrition, all because of the way we understand private property. That sort of negligence cannot be allowed to stand.

[Redwood Ridge]

And the solution isn't only in ostracizing and depriving them of their resources. Lowering barriers of entry, and encouraging more competitors to enter the market, will weaken the position of the current market players. Which entails promoting personal responsibility, competence, and entrepreneurship.

No, it quite literally is the solution. These resources are being used incredibly inefficiently -- the current amount of global food waste produces enough calories to practically end the concept of someone 'starving to death', yet people still starve to death and suffer serious malnutrition, all because of the way we understand private property. That sort of negligence cannot be allowed to stand.

And what entitles you to stealing the fruits of somebody else's labor? If your only answer to everything is by turning the government into an organ of collectivized theft, that is not only very mask off, but it will make everything worse than they already are. There are less radical, legal, and genuinely helpful solutions to this problem without having to resort to tyranny.

[Rakhalia]

And what entitles you to stealing the fruits of somebody else's labor?

Brilliant question -- ask my employer. They get quite a lot out of my labour.

If your only answer to everything is by turning the government into an organ of collectivized theft

That's not the answer and I never said it was

There are less radical, legal, and genuinely helpful solutions to this problem without having to resort to tyranny.

Haven't we already resorted to tyranny? Doesn't a western-led mafia of nations, armed to the teeth, maintain a regime of interventionism that secures its economic interests of a broad mass of impoverished nations that serve as a place to source cheap resources and labour at the expense of the local population? Is that not a cruel form of tyranny?

[Betoni]

Can you actually show this to be true? With you know, facts. Can you then show the class how distributing all of that fairly would work in practice? You have a finite amount of labour to go around, right? Some of that labour must be allocated to transferring good from place A to place B. Distributing resources more fairly, would presumably put more demand on transferring of goods, right? Is that not then less labour involved in production? Even more of a problem, if you take into account the initial cost of setting up this more fair system of distribution, no? Then there is the equation of using more natural resources to transfer goods around and keeping up with current production if not more, which means more CO2 emissions and pollution. Does all of that just magically cease to be a problem after the revolution? Or am I just being an idiot?

Why would distributing resources more fairly lead to more strain on goods transfer? I mean, it theoretically could, but it could also cause less strain on infrastructure. In fact, using more localised products and decentralising production chains could lead to less CO2 use in transprortation. So, I don't know where your assumptions come from.

Do you think, food production is equal in efficiency everywhere on the planet? Do you think shifting to local production and decentralising production chains would not affect the amount of food we can produce globally. Do you have any numbers on this, like the facts you were so eager to talk about before. You made the claim that this thing could be done better with different system. You claimed that you have facts on this. Could you share them?

[Redwood Ridge]

And what entitles you to stealing the fruits of somebody else's labor?

Brilliant question -- ask my employer. They get quite a lot out of my labour.

If your only answer to everything is by turning the government into an organ of collectivized theft

That's not the answer and I never said it was

There are less radical, legal, and genuinely helpful solutions to this problem without having to resort to tyranny.

Haven't we already resorted to tyranny? Doesn't a western-led mafia of nations, armed to the teeth, maintain a regime of interventionism that secures its economic interests of a broad mass of impoverished nations that serve as a place to source cheap resources and labour at the expense of the local population? Is that not a cruel form of tyranny?

Except you are not forced to work for your employer. He hired you, there's a difference, this isn't slavery where you're treated as property. You consented to working for them, didn't you? You agreed to sell your labor in exchange for their payroll, under what should be an equivalent exchange. I don't know the details of your employment, but let's assume you're genuinely apart of the Proletariat and not a college kid inconvenienced by the idea of having to work a part-time job. What makes you think you and your employer have an equal level of responsibility? And if you genuinely think the aforementioned contract isn't fair exchange, then why did you agree to voluntarily work there?

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Except you are not forced to work for your employer.

He who does not work does not eat. Employment for poor people is always accompanied by the imminent and real threat of starvation.

[Rakhalia]

Except you are not forced to work for your employer. He hired you, there's a difference, this isn't slavery where you're treated as property. You consented to working for them, didn't you?

Well, I kind of didn't. You see, there's this thing I need called 'money', which affords me 'things' like 'food' and 'clothes' and 'rent'. Now, presume I did not find an employer under whom I worked -- I would no longer have something to eat, things to wear, and a roof over my head. This is what we call a 'problem', because these are very important things that people generally don't like to go without. As such, I don't think seeking employment can be meaningfully considered 'voluntary' under such circumstances.

You agreed to sell your labor in exchange for their payroll, under what should be an equivalent exchange.

How can it be an equivalent exchange? If it was an equivalent exchange - I produced for my employer precisely what they paid me - then how would my employer make a profit? They have to pay me less than what I produce, this is the modus operandi of capitalism. It's literally the most elementary kind of mathematics there is.

What makes you think you and your employer have an equal level of responsibility?

Oh no, my employer has far more responsibilities than me -- I'd imagine my manager's second car comes with a lot of MOT commitments!

And if you genuinely think the aforementioned contract isn't fair exchange, then why did you agree to voluntarily work there?

See literally everything I said above.

[Redwood Ridge]

Except you are not forced to work for your employer.

He who does not work does not eat. Employment for poor people is always accompanied by the imminent and real threat of starvation.

Bears who do not prepare for the winter will starve, lions that do not hunt but instead laze around by the watering hole all day will starve. If you don't want to starve, you have to work. This idea of "coercion" is a basic fact of the reality we live in, and you aren't entitled to the labor of others. The only reason parents provide to kids is because kids cannot provide for themselves, and it is moral for them to do so, because kids lack independence. At the very least, you're a grown adult. You aren't a kid, so you have the freedom to work in spite of how rough life can be, in order to make the best of your situation. Instead of blaming the employer for things outside of his control, you can take it upon yourself to plan your life and improve it somewhat. Believe it or not, this is in fact possible, everyone has the potential to be successful. The catch is that it requires hard work.

This doesn't change under Socialism. You still need to work in order to have an excess of anything, and labor needs to be carried out to produce anything. A bureaucracy is needed if you want to redistribute everything fairly at such a large scale, and you will need a state to hold people who don't want to live under this system at gun point: to re-educate the bourgeoise tendencies out of them (which is never successful because you can't reform human nature out of a human being), and to expropriate by force when somebody does not give your government the fruits of their labor.

The outcome of your experiments will result in tyranny, and this not just, moral, nor a good thing merely because this time the power dynamics have reversed and it's the dictatorship of the proletariat oppressing the bourgeoise, kulaks, counter-revolutionaries, and reactionaries.

[Duvniask]

Except you are not forced to work for your employer. He hired you, there's a difference, this isn't slavery where you're treated as property. You consented to working for them, didn't you?

Well, I kind of didn't. You see, there's this thing I need called 'money', which affords me 'things' like 'food' and 'clothes' and 'rent'. Now, presume I did not find an employer under whom I worked -- I would no longer have something to eat, things to wear, and a roof over my head. This is what we call a 'problem', because these are very important things that people generally don't like to go without. As such, I don't think seeking employment can be meaningfully considered 'voluntary' under such circumstances.

You agreed to sell your labor in exchange for their payroll, under what should be an equivalent exchange.

How can it be an equivalent exchange? If it was an equivalent exchange - I produced for my employer precisely what they paid me - then how would my employer make a profit? They have to pay me less than what I produce, this is the modus operandi of capitalism. It's literally the most elementary kind of mathematics there is.

What makes you think you and your employer have an equal level of responsibility?

Oh no, my employer has far more responsibilities than me -- I'd imagine my manager's second car comes with a lot of MOT commitments!

And if you genuinely think the aforementioned contract isn't fair exchange, then why did you agree to voluntarily work there?

See literally everything I said above.

Speaking of elementary stuff; your employer does not actually pay you for your labor, but for your labor power, and that amounts to, ceteris paribus, an exchange of equal values. A human's capacity for labor of whatever kind, requires an upkeep that is significantly less than the results of actually putting it to work. As such, the value of a person's labor power is less than the product of the labor actually performed. That is indeed the trick to a capitalist's profits.

The problem is that you're engaging this on bourgeois terms, and by doing so you tacitly submit to the notion that the problem is one of an nonequivalent exchange, as opposed to wage labor in general. Arguing against the backdrop of that kind of stupidity only leads you down the road of calls for a higher wage or petty bourgeois musings about turning workers into company stockholders so that they may "receive the full value of their labor" (nonsense in the vein of Lassalle).

[Rakhalia]

Speaking of elementary stuff; your employer does not actually pay you for your labor, but for your labor power, and that amounts to, ceteris paribus, an exchange of equal values. A human's capacity for labor of whatever kind, requires an upkeep that is significantly less than the results of actually putting it to work. As such, the value of a person's labor power is less than the product of the labor actually performed. That is indeed the trick to a capitalist's profits.

The problem is that you're engaging this on bourgeois terms, and by doing so you tacitly submit to the notion that the problem is one of an nonequivalent exchange, as opposed to wage labor in general. Arguing against the backdrop of that kind of stupidity only leads you down the road of calls for a higher wage or petty bourgeois musings about turning workers into company stockholders so that they may "receive the full value of their labor" (nonsense in the vein of Lassalle).

yeah yeah i get all that but i cba to go into actual polecon while talking to a really basic conservative lol

[Elwher]

Except you are not forced to work for your employer. He hired you, there's a difference, this isn't slavery where you're treated as property. You consented to working for them, didn't you?

Well, I kind of didn't. You see, there's this thing I need called 'money', which affords me 'things' like 'food' and 'clothes' and 'rent'. Now, presume I did not find an employer under whom I worked -- I would no longer have something to eat, things to wear, and a roof over my head. This is what we call a 'problem', because these are very important things that people generally don't like to go without. As such, I don't think seeking employment can be meaningfully considered 'voluntary' under such circumstances.

You agreed to sell your labor in exchange for their payroll, under what should be an equivalent exchange.

How can it be an equivalent exchange? If it was an equivalent exchange - I produced for my employer precisely what they paid me - then how would my employer make a profit? They have to pay me less than what I produce, this is the modus operandi of capitalism. It's literally the most elementary kind of mathematics there is.

What makes you think you and your employer have an equal level of responsibility?

Oh no, my employer has far more responsibilities than me -- I'd imagine my manager's second car comes with a lot of MOT commitments!

And if you genuinely think the aforementioned contract isn't fair exchange, then why did you agree to voluntarily work there?

See literally everything I said above.

The problem with this argument is that it presumes that the person for whom one works is the only possible way to make money.

First, and simplest, one can change jobs. In almost all situations, there are multiple employers in a given area, each of whom will offer a different combination of wages and benefits.

Second, one can improve one's skills. I started out stocking shelves at a local market and ended my first career as a systems analyst, then retrained and became a paralegal. Each step along the way led me to more of that elusive stuff called money.

Finally, one can start one's own business and perhaps become the employer rather than the employee.

All of these tend to invalidate the argument that one's current job is the pinnacle to which one can rise.

[Duvniask]

He who does not work does not eat. Employment for poor people is always accompanied by the imminent and real threat of starvation.

Bears who do not prepare for the winter will starve, lions that do not hunt but instead laze around by the watering hole all day will starve. If you don't want to starve, you have to work. This idea of "coercion" is a basic fact of the reality we live in, and you aren't entitled to the labor of others. The only reason parents provide to kids is because kids cannot provide for themselves, and it is moral for them to do so, because kids lack independence. At the very least, you're a grown adult. You aren't a kid, so you have the freedom to work in spite of how rough life can be, in order to make the best of your situation. Instead of blaming the employer for things outside of his control, you can take it upon yourself to plan your life and improve it somewhat. Believe it or not, this is in fact possible, everyone has the potential to be successful. The catch is that it requires hard work.

This doesn't change under Socialism. You still need to work in order to have an excess of anything, and labor needs to be carried out to produce anything. A bureaucracy is needed if you want to redistribute everything fairly at such a large scale, and you will need a state to hold people who don't want to live under this system at gun point: to re-educate the bourgeoise tendencies out of them (which is never successful because you can't reform human nature out of a human being), and to expropriate by force when somebody does not give your government the fruits of their labor.

The outcome of your experiments will result in tyranny, and this not just, moral, nor a good thing merely because this time the power dynamics have reversed and it's the dictatorship of the proletariat oppressing the bourgeoise, kulaks, counter-revolutionaries, and reactionaries.

Take a step back and ponder the following: the fact that a society needs work to function is not in dispute. What is in dispute are the very structures that compel work to take place, the nature of how it takes place and for whose benefit and to whose detriment. Your error lies in taking the natural starting point of "society needs work to function" and then proceeding to "that means people should work in the way capitalism makes them", when there is no apparent connection between these two things.

[Rakhalia]

The problem with this argument is that it presumes that the person for whom one works is the only possible way to make money.

no it doesn't

First, and simplest, one can change jobs. In almost all situations, there are multiple employers in a given area, each of whom will offer a different combination of wages and benefits.

sure. still working for a capitalist, still operating under that economic modus operandi, exploitation of surplus value still happens. nothing changes.

Second, one can improve one's skills. I started out stocking shelves at a local market and ended my first career as a systems analyst, then retrained and became a paralegal. Each step along the way led me to more of that elusive stuff called money.

Finally, one can start one's own business and perhaps become the employer rather than the employee.

this argument is so funny because literally not everyone can do these things. capitalism will always require workers, skilled or unskilled. there will always be workers who can't ascend beyond that point of being workers by economic necessity. what, you think the world would work if everyone was a CEO and nobody did the grunt work? are you, like, in a different world or something?

All of these tend to invalidate the argument that one's current job is the pinnacle to which one can rise.

so yeah no they don't invalidate shit

[Redwood Ridge]

Well, I kind of didn't. You see, there's this thing I need called 'money', which affords me 'things' like 'food' and 'clothes' and 'rent'. Now, presume I did not find an employer under whom I worked -- I would no longer have something to eat, things to wear, and a roof over my head. This is what we call a 'problem', because these are very important things that people generally don't like to go without. As such, I don't think seeking employment can be meaningfully considered 'voluntary' under such circumstances.

How can it be an equivalent exchange? If it was an equivalent exchange - I produced for my employer precisely what they paid me - then how would my employer make a profit? They have to pay me less than what I produce, this is the modus operandi of capitalism. It's literally the most elementary kind of mathematics there is.

Oh no, my employer has far more responsibilities than me -- I'd imagine my manager's second car comes with a lot of MOT commitments!

See literally everything I said above.

The problem with this argument is that it presumes that the person for whom one works is the only possible way to make money.

First, and simplest, one can change jobs. In almost all situations, there are multiple employers in a given area, each of whom will offer a different combination of wages and benefits.

Second, one can improve one's skills. I started out stocking shelves at a local market and ended my first career as a systems analyst, then retrained and became a paralegal. Each step along the way led me to more of that elusive stuff called money.

Finally, one can start one's own business and perhaps become the employer rather than the employee.

All of these tend to invalidate the argument that one's current job is the pinnacle to which one can rise.

They don't believe in the individual's ability to improve their standing through merit. At best, they aspire to use the state or commune as a tool of violence to knock the successful down a peg.

[Hispida]

Well, I kind of didn't. You see, there's this thing I need called 'money', which affords me 'things' like 'food' and 'clothes' and 'rent'. Now, presume I did not find an employer under whom I worked -- I would no longer have something to eat, things to wear, and a roof over my head. This is what we call a 'problem', because these are very important things that people generally don't like to go without. As such, I don't think seeking employment can be meaningfully considered 'voluntary' under such circumstances.

How can it be an equivalent exchange? If it was an equivalent exchange - I produced for my employer precisely what they paid me - then how would my employer make a profit? They have to pay me less than what I produce, this is the modus operandi of capitalism. It's literally the most elementary kind of mathematics there is.

Oh no, my employer has far more responsibilities than me -- I'd imagine my manager's second car comes with a lot of MOT commitments!

See literally everything I said above.

The problem with this argument is that it presumes that the person for whom one works is the only possible way to make money.

First, and simplest, one can change jobs. In almost all situations, there are multiple employers in a given area, each of whom will offer a different combination of wages and benefits.

Second, one can improve one's skills. I started out stocking shelves at a local market and ended my first career as a systems analyst, then retrained and became a paralegal. Each step along the way led me to more of that elusive stuff called money.

Finally, one can start one's own business and perhaps become the employer rather than the employee.

All of these tend to invalidate the argument that one's current job is the pinnacle to which one can rise.

this is fucking stupid.

[Elwher]

Bears who do not prepare for the winter will starve, lions that do not hunt but instead laze around by the watering hole all day will starve. If you don't want to starve, you have to work. This idea of "coercion" is a basic fact of the reality we live in, and you aren't entitled to the labor of others. The only reason parents provide to kids is because kids cannot provide for themselves, and it is moral for them to do so, because kids lack independence. At the very least, you're a grown adult. You aren't a kid, so you have the freedom to work in spite of how rough life can be, in order to make the best of your situation. Instead of blaming the employer for things outside of his control, you can take it upon yourself to plan your life and improve it somewhat. Believe it or not, this is in fact possible, everyone has the potential to be successful. The catch is that it requires hard work.

This doesn't change under Socialism. You still need to work in order to have an excess of anything, and labor needs to be carried out to produce anything. A bureaucracy is needed if you want to redistribute everything fairly at such a large scale, and you will need a state to hold people who don't want to live under this system at gun point: to re-educate the bourgeoise tendencies out of them (which is never successful because you can't reform human nature out of a human being), and to expropriate by force when somebody does not give your government the fruits of their labor.

The outcome of your experiments will result in tyranny, and this not just, moral, nor a good thing merely because this time the power dynamics have reversed and it's the dictatorship of the proletariat oppressing the bourgeoise, kulaks, counter-revolutionaries, and reactionaries.

Take a step back and ponder the following: the fact that a society needs work to function is not in dispute. What is in dispute are the very structures that compel work to take place, the nature of how it takes place and for whose benefit and to whose detriment. Your error lies in taking the natural starting point of "society needs work to function" and then proceeding to "that means people should work in the way capitalism makes them", when there is no apparent connection between these two things.

I agree that there is no direct connection between these two statements. Where there does exist a correlation, however, is that on the list of happiest countries, all the top members share one factor. They are all capitalist countries. They have various degrees of social programs, to be sure, but none are avowedly socialist/communist. China, for example, comes in at 82 out of 146. If socialism is a superior form of how people should work, one might think it would make for happier people.

[Rakhalia]

Take a step back and ponder the following: the fact that a society needs work to function is not in dispute. What is in dispute are the very structures that compel work to take place, the nature of how it takes place and for whose benefit and to whose detriment. Your error lies in taking the natural starting point of "society needs work to function" and then proceeding to "that means people should work in the way capitalism makes them", when there is no apparent connection between these two things.

I agree that there is no direct connection between these two statements. Where there does exist a correlation, however, is that on the list of happiest countries, all the top members share one factor. They are all capitalist countries. They have various degrees of social programs, to be sure, but none are avowedly socialist/communist. China, for example, comes in at 82 out of 146. If socialism is a superior form of how people should work, one might think it would make for happier people.

yeah bro but consider the fact that these capitalist countries aren't happy off the back of them being capitalist, they are happy cuz there are poorer capitalist countries producing all their shit. the process by which the coltan (the shit that makes our electronics run) got into your mobile phone wasn't pretty bro

[Duvniask]

Speaking of elementary stuff; your employer does not actually pay you for your labor, but for your labor power, and that amounts to, ceteris paribus, an exchange of equal values. A human's capacity for labor of whatever kind, requires an upkeep that is significantly less than the results of actually putting it to work. As such, the value of a person's labor power is less than the product of the labor actually performed. That is indeed the trick to a capitalist's profits.

The problem is that you're engaging this on bourgeois terms, and by doing so you tacitly submit to the notion that the problem is one of an nonequivalent exchange, as opposed to wage labor in general. Arguing against the backdrop of that kind of stupidity only leads you down the road of calls for a higher wage or petty bourgeois musings about turning workers into company stockholders so that they may "receive the full value of their labor" (nonsense in the vein of Lassalle).

yeah yeah i get all that but i cba to go into actual polecon while talking to a really basic conservative lol

But do take notice of how, almost as if on cue, Elwher shows up telling you about all the wonders of meritocracy and how workers may simply start their own businesses if they're not content with the way things are... it's taking place as expected. By arguing on their terms, you invite this kind of thing in your wake.

Which is not to say you should never do so, but it easily turns into conceding the terrain for any argument you're making.

[Rakhalia]

yeah yeah i get all that but i cba to go into actual polecon while talking to a really basic conservative lol

But do take notice of how, almost as if on cue, Elwher shows up telling you about all the wonders of meritocracy and how workers may simply start their own businesses if they're not content with the way things are... it's taking place as expected.

yeah but that bullshit can be quite easily shut down by being fed up enough to not dress things up in polysyllables and being blunt about how the world works

[Kubra]

No, it quite literally is the solution. These resources are being used incredibly inefficiently -- the current amount of global food waste produces enough calories to practically end the concept of someone 'starving to death', yet people still starve to death and suffer serious malnutrition, all because of the way we understand private property. That sort of negligence cannot be allowed to stand.

And what entitles you to stealing the fruits of somebody else's labor? If your only answer to everything is by turning the government into an organ of collectivized theft, that is not only very mask off, but it will make everything worse than they already are. There are less radical, legal, and genuinely helpful solutions to this problem without having to resort to tyranny.

Oh, probably that about two thirds of said labour is just going to end up in the trash anyways. That's pretty entitling.
If you want to make a moral stand, go right ahead, but it's a discussion that won't go anywhere. Offering solutions to the mentioned problem, however fanciful, is a discussion that can go places.
You've been given ample chances to speak with substance on real economic problems, man. Why not take em?

[Duvniask]

Take a step back and ponder the following: the fact that a society needs work to function is not in dispute. What is in dispute are the very structures that compel work to take place, the nature of how it takes place and for whose benefit and to whose detriment. Your error lies in taking the natural starting point of "society needs work to function" and then proceeding to "that means people should work in the way capitalism makes them", when there is no apparent connection between these two things.

I agree that there is no direct connection between these two statements. Where there does exist a correlation, however, is that on the list of happiest countries, all the top members share one factor. They are all capitalist countries. They have various degrees of social programs, to be sure, but none are avowedly socialist/communist. China, for example, comes in at 82 out of 146. If socialism is a superior form of how people should work, one might think it would make for happier people.

Why would you waste anyone's time with this notion that China is anything but capitalist. Why waste time on this stupid bullshit that you've no doubt already been corrected on a million times. That's what I'm wondering.

[Elwher]

I agree that there is no direct connection between these two statements. Where there does exist a correlation, however, is that on the list of happiest countries, all the top members share one factor. They are all capitalist countries. They have various degrees of social programs, to be sure, but none are avowedly socialist/communist. China, for example, comes in at 82 out of 146. If socialism is a superior form of how people should work, one might think it would make for happier people.

Why would you waste anyone's time with this notion that China is anything but capitalist. Why waste time on this stupid bullshit that you've no doubt already been corrected on a million times. That's what I'm wondering.

If there has never been a socialist/communist economy in the world, then is there any evidence that it would work at all, much less work better than a capitalist economy?

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Why would you waste anyone's time with this notion that China is anything but capitalist. Why waste time on this stupid bullshit that you've no doubt already been corrected on a million times. That's what I'm wondering.

If there has never been a socialist/communist economy in the world, then is there any evidence that it would work at all, much less work better than a capitalist economy?

It works in smol Spanish village cooperatives.

China, for example, comes in at 82 out of 146

We should unironically assign blame for the Tiananmen Square Massacre to the ever growing list of crimes against humanity committed by capitalist hoarders.