Questions For Our Russian Friends

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

I do not totally agree with you.
Marx explained, demonstrated and quoted other economists, that the prices given by the market are arbitrary and absolutely do not reflect the reality.

Market prices in their purest form are determined by supply and demand, provided there is a willing buyer and a willing seller. Where arbitariness enters the equation is in deciding what the buyer is willing to pay, which is a key reason why speculative bubbles arise. But Communist countries will experience market distortions from shortage of supply. What often happens is that the price is kept artificially low and the suppliers will refuse to supply if they cannot break even on the official price. Then the black market comes into play.

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Today you can tell me what you want, but that's not normal that a liter of gasoline is cheaper than a liter of red wine. It's not normal to see the price of the gasoline that cheap. We burn important gasoline... to have fun.

At £1.20 or €1,40 a litre, petrol is not cheap and we are not being encouraged to squander it thoughtlessly.

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Value of gold or silver are cultural, but not real.
When the conquistadors arrived in South America, Azteks and Mayas were surprised about the gold addiction of European invaders.
South American cultures were well developped without thinking that gold was a financial reference.

One has to remember that the Aztecs would sacrifice you to Quetzalcoatl at the drop of a hat. I feel reserved about the superiority of their culture.

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Why do we destroy environment for diamonds, or in stocking gold or silver, when we could perfectly live without them?
We destroy areas in extracting gold that we burry again in strong safes.
That's pure absurdities.

This is not a specifically capitalist issue. If Marxism were a safeguard of good environmental practise, then where has the Aral Sea gone?

Originally Posted by xyzde69

That's all these kind of absurdities that were revealed by Marx and today environmentalists.

See above.

Originally Posted by xyzde69

I've to thank Brecht, deepsepia and a friend of mine thanks to debate, in pushing me to read Marx and anarchists after all these years, because 150 years ago Marx put on paper an analysis of our today problems far before that he had faced.
He faced social problems that we clearly see coming back but didn't face the environmental problems that are caused by the operation of Capitalism that push enterprises to make always more money to.... survive. But he was aware about environmental problems.

Karl Marx did not foresee Chernobyl of course. But he might have foreseen how a centrally planned economy would lack environmental protection or law enforcement, might not be economically stable and worst of all, would be above being held accountable.

Originally Posted by xyzde69

That's all the problem. Capitalism doesn't know how to create a virtuous circulation of money. Capitalism need to destroy the environment to survive. It's a real dramatic system in front of which people daily are confronted and stay paralized because they learned it was the only solution.

The record of state communism is very much worse than the record of free market capitalism. But what makes both systems fail is how averse they are to effective government regulation of environmental and safety standards.

I have always argued for a mixed economy in which both the state and the free market have key roles.

[ponky]

Originally Posted by SanteeFats

Of course not palo she is not Putin and can not control the "independent" polling agency.
Honestly my friendly comrade if you did not go so far to defend Russia and denigrate all other nations and non-Russian opinions I would hold your positions in a much higher regard. I just don't recall any post you have made where you said yes Russia in some form or the other was culpable at least to some extent. Of course I have not read all you posts, sooooo

After 1990 I didn't see any poll with results which does not give advantage to ordering side in some way. That's how Western-type democracy works, I suppose.

SanteeFats, we were on both sides - "dictarorship communism" or "people's democracy" and "Western democracy" or "dictatorship of interest groups". Both systems in both terms deserve quotation marks, for sure. But for us, Western democracy or dictatorship of interest groups was far worse.

I believed that Russians, since they lived in harder conditions (I'm Yugoslav), would worship Western system in 99% of opinions, but actually that's the case just in clear minority.

I understand when Czechs, Pols, Albanians or Hungarians talk about this with hate - they were under some sort of extremely limited-state-freedom, occupied by madman, and by someone's else decision. But that's not problem with socialism or non-Western-democracy-system as idea, that is problem with poor or misused performance/execution of it. For me... Nostalgia aside, I vote with sense of freedom, level of culture, my wallet, car I can afford, flat, quality of education, working conditions, health care, security... clean victory for people's democracy or communism dictatorship, at your will.

Putin plays under Western-democracy rules, but with idea to achieve something closer to people's democracy results - that's how I think the majority see situation. And if he here and there plays rough, they see that as side effect of rules of game itself.

[ponky]

Originally Posted by Brecht

Das Kapital is not something you can easily explain to children. It's a thorough and complex analysis of capitalism, industry, science and their historical evolution. If that were the case, the people in Poland would have been a highly educated nation. I bet your Polish colleague doesn't even know what Das Kapital is about.

We all have it in middle schools (high schools in western system). It is not so complicated, specially for students of economic schools who have whole system about economy (basis of all Marx's works was economy), and rest of us have it trough classes of Marxism.

By the way, does students of economic schools on the West read Kapital, learn about socialism, communism... ?

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Marxism also values work by inputs rather than by results. Give Estreeter and Scoundrel the same ingredients, the same time and the same oven: Estreeter might well bake an excellent loaf of bread whereas Scoundrel produces a lump of charcoal. The same effort and the same materials did not result in the same value and so were not equally worthy of reward.

That is a good thing. Some of them will do something better - so what? All we have is limited time to live, and it is fair to give fair chance to anyone to find his happines, and to spread some minimum standard to all.

Even if man X is 10 times better worker than man Y, it is wrong to give him 10 times more money - simply, he can't drive 10 cars in same time, live in 10 houses, or live 10 times longer. It's one and only life for both, and if they efforts are similar - they paychecks must be at least comparable.

That's logic of socialism... Not perfect, but best I heard for.

[crinolynne]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

.

The record of state communism is very much worse than the record of free market capitalism.

I am not so certain about that - the horrors and injustices of the 18th century are glossed over. If free market capitalism were actually market driven and free, but power concentrates and greed and unenlightened self-interest destroys what we think might be natural and good.

State communism dragged a feudal society from 200-300 years ago forward in 50 years. There are theocracies today which still haven't made it to 1900.

I with you on the mixed concept, but wouldn't underestimate how fragile it is.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by crinolynne

I am not so certain about that - the horrors and injustices of the 18th century are glossed over. If free market capitalism were actually market driven and free, but power concentrates and greed and unenlightened self-interest destroys what we think might be natural and good.

State communism dragged a feudal society from 200-300 years ago forward in 50 years. There are theocracies today which still haven't made it to 1900.

I with you on the mixed concept, but wouldn't underestimate how fragile it is.

When you contemplate the huge number of deaths in the 1930s under Stalin and Beria, and the death toll of the so-called Cultural Revolution in China between 1962 and 1976, you have to wonder whether this was absolutely necessary, even as an antidote to feudalism and backwardness. Capitalism has inbuilt mechanisms to correct and punish economic mismanagement, whereas Communism tended to praise and reward stupidity.

[ponky]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

When you contemplate the huge number of deaths in the 1930s under Stalin and Beria, and the death toll of the so-called Cultural Revolution in China between 1962 and 1976, you have to wonder whether this was absolutely necessary, even as an antidote to feudalism and backwardness.

There's not such a thing in Kapital. "Kill x million citizens", "exterminate all sparrows" or "made part of country into contrentration camp" can not be found there, as well as in Western-democracy theories you can't read "declare war to whole World", "cure AIDS by raping virgins" or, well, "made part of country into contentration camp".

Beside that, Lenin (except up to 1921) and Stalin were not communists, or at least not ever anything near to good ones. Their works qualifies them as just dictators.

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by crinolynne

I am not so certain about that - the horrors and injustices of the 18th century are glossed over. If free market capitalism were actually market driven and free, but power concentrates and greed and unenlightened self-interest destroys what we think might be natural and good.

State communism dragged a feudal society from 200-300 years ago forward in 50 years. There are theocracies today which still haven't made it to 1900.

I with you on the mixed concept, but wouldn't underestimate how fragile it is.

The "closing of the commons" involved ejecting the "tenants" from lands they and their ancestors had inhabited for centuries. Hence, the quote "Property is theft." Marx and Engels were reacting to the horrors and abuses of mid-19th century industrial capitalism. They pretty much predicted that workers would be replaced by machines and left to starve in the midst of plenty.

As a a philosopher, I am here to tell you that the philosophical, hence legal and moral, underpinnings of capitalism are based on very dubious assumptions. I am convinced that historically private property arose from bandit tribes divvying up the spoils of conquest.

[Brecht]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

I am convinced that historically private property arose from bandit tribes divvying up the spoils of conquest.

Friedrichs Engels dedicated an entire book to this topic, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, published in 1884. He was influenced by the work of American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan, particulatly his first publication, Ancient Society (1877).

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

When you contemplate the huge number of deaths in the 1930s under Stalin and Beria, and the death toll of the so-called Cultural Revolution in China between 1962 and 1976, you have to wonder whether this was absolutely necessary, even as an antidote to feudalism and backwardness. Capitalism has inbuilt mechanisms to correct and punish economic mismanagement, whereas Communism tended to praise and reward stupidity.

Damned... But how can you tell that?
Russian mathematicians, physicians, chess players were among the best in the world.
When Capitalism tended to praise stupid games, wasting energy, making money on life casino (or real casinos) or such stupidities.

I'm born and was raised in one of the most capitalist countries in the world and I can tell you, Capitalism viciously promotes greed and contributes to let a part of the people in the lowest social class.
Look at the popular cultur today. It's pure decadence.

Why almost all the greatest scientists get doubts about capitalism? Because they know that only tend to one goal... becoming rich without caring at the limited ressources of our planet.

I met quite a lot of scientists, I rarely, rarely heared them telling that "free market" was good for the future.

According to American and European studies made during the end of the 80's, do you know how many people can live on Earth with the Occidental standards without exhausting the natural ressources? About 700 millions.
The Occidental way of life is unbearable for the humanity.

Look at the composition of our European governments, rightist often are lawyers, businessmen, when leftist mainly are scientists. That's the fact in Switzerland.
When I met Swiss leaders of the Green party, they all were mathematicians, physicists, biologists and one was a lawyer.
When I met Swiss liberal politicians, they all were lawyers.

[Motorboater]

The thread for the rest of the week should be called "Questions for our VEF members from Russia".