Communism. Good or bad. What do you really know about Communism?

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Let's see: did that life of leisure ever occur in a Marxist regime?

Hardly.

The Stalin Constitution of 1936 promised a shorter work week, but of course Stalin didn't care about what was on paper. When he told you to work, you worked or got sent to his enormous prison labor complex, the gulags.

People tend to forget just how much prison labor the Soviets used-- prisoners did everything from building railroads and canals to designing aircraft. You may have heard of the Soviet aircraft designer, Tupolev. What you likely don't know is that he wasn't a free man-- he and his colleagues did their work in a special sort of gulag, called a "sharashka" (шара́шка).

But at least in a salt mine you can always get salt.

[CARLTON BROWN]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

But at least in a salt mine you can always get salt.

What about all those teddy bear factories then?

[Estreeter]

Went shopping today, Christmas shopping is all done,
But today was just for things we needed, some essentials, not craps as xyz puts it

I need a new pair of everyday footwear, so Leather which he'd hate as that's harming animals, synthetics which need chemicals, rubber which comes from rubber trees and wastes a lot of power to make, could opt for clogs but that's harming trees, so I guess footwear is also out of the question using his logic

Next item we needed to buy.
A new door handle, amazing how much is needed to make that item when you think about it, so I guess a door handle is crap also.

Next item
Missus has recently started a new hobby of pickling and preserving food, glass jars and metal lids OK, not essential but it's just the kind of food I think xyz would really approve of

I could go on, but just exposing more lunatic thinking about waste as everything there needs power to make, uses resources and so on, among many thousands of other non crap items.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Estreeter

I could go on, but just exposing more lunatic thinking about waste as everything there needs power to make, uses resources and so on, among many thousands of other non crap items.

There is a really remarkable youtuber from Oz, who has a whole set of videos devoted to him walking around the bush, starting with nothing, and building things out of nothing. He's kind of a "bush McGuyver". Its not aboriginal bush tucker type stuff-- he's basically showing how you could -- if you knew how-- essentially reinvent a lot of technology and the industrial revolution yourself

If you search on primitivetechnology all one word, you'll find his blog and videos. Its simply amazing stuff. He never says a word in these videos, but one day he's walking around what looks like (maybe) tropical north Queensland in his shorts, the next he's smelting iron, all without a single piece of store bought technology.

He's got a whole video on how to make and fire mud bricks, starting with nothing. By nothing, I mean no tools other than what he's made. Its pretty amazing, pretty sure its not how you do it!

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

There is a really remarkable youtuber from Oz, who has a whole set of videos devoted to him walking around the bush, starting with nothing, and building things out of nothing. He's kind of a "bush McGuyver". Its not aboriginal bush tucker type stuff-- he's basically showing how you could -- if you knew how-- essentially reinvent a lot of technology and the industrial revolution yourself

If you search on primitivetechnology all one word, you'll find his blog and videos. Its simply amazing stuff. He never says a word in these videos, but one day he's walking around what looks like (maybe) tropical north Queensland in his shorts, the next he's smelting iron, all without a single piece of store bought technology.

He's got a whole video on how to make and fire mud bricks, starting with nothing. By nothing, I mean no tools other than what he's made. Its pretty amazing, pretty sure its not how you do it!

That all can and will work on a small scale, the thing to remember though on a large scale plus the fact that not everyone and probably vast majority wouldn't have the brain power to do it from nothing and even the patience and skill and so on.

[bowlinggreen]

I'm not sure I'd trust any bricks I made to hold up a house. I'd buy the bricks from Estreeter instead.

If he charged me more per brick than Home Depot does, would he be an evil exploiting Kulak or an enterprising member of the proletariat, according to xyzde69's worldview?

I've been reading this book the last couple of days:

https://www.amazon.com/Lab-Rats-Sili.../dp/031656186X

Fairly interesting. It looks like office workers in certain sectors are now being tortured in various ways by their corporate overlords. There is something called "Lego Serious Play", in which workers are ordered to build things out of Legos as part of a job evaluation.

WTF?

I'd build a big red Lego dildo and stick it you know where, some corporate ninny tried that shit with me.

Signs of Late Capitalism, perhaps?

One good point the book makes is how shareholder capitalism vs. stakeholder capitalism is causing all sorts of damage to society.

In America, this is actually a problem, we've got all sorts of Gordon Gekko types running around pulling all sorts of shit and making tons of money, and they return absolutely nothing of value to society.

How can we get back to the halcyon days of the 50s and 60s when stakeholder capitalism ruled, without going commie like xyz wants us to do?

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Estreeter

That all can and will work on a small scale, the thing to remember though on a large scale plus the fact that not everyone and probably vast majority wouldn't have the brain power to do it from nothing and even the patience and skill and so on.

Oh, yeah-- I just posted it because its interesting. Its not a practical alternative to industry: the key here is one guy with crazy great skills. That's not an industrial organization, that's one guy . . . walking barefoot in the bush, and doing stuff on a very small scale. He meets the wrong end of a brown snake, and that's it for the clever.

That's probably what happened to the Aborigines. Its clear that they once had more technology than they do-- but with a low density population, if "the guy who knew how to build a masted sailing canoe" died without teaching someone, that information disappears.

And when you do have people doing cottage type industry, but a lot of them-- the pollution from it is terrible. India has a massive indoor pollution problem from their cooking fires, for example . . . as bad or worse than their industrial pollution.

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

That's probably what happened to the Aborigines. Its clear that they once had more technology than they do-- but with a low density population, if "the guy who knew how to build a masted sailing canoe" died without teaching someone, that information disappears.
.

This is occurring now-as we willingly devolve more and more consumer production to china in particular and close down factories and disperse workforces....not only do we lose the knowledge-we lose the facilities-and in a sense that's a bigger problem-especially on a mechanical scale.

Once upon a time-we had numerous railway workshops in NZ-a country with not much in the way of heavy industry, unlike the UK or US-but those workshops were set up in the age of steam...and could produce steam locomotives, rolling stock etc. Big deal you say?,,,,,well implicit in that ability-making steam locomotives-is the ability to machine large castings and components, cast the said castings, move subassemblies and completed locomotives etc-that implies large capacity machining facilities, welding capabilities-cranes with the capacity to handle 100+ ton loads and a variety of other big industrial processes such as smelting.

In the event of war-that same capacity allows you to produce tanks and heavy AFVs, artillery, whilst a slight adjustment allows you to produce aircraft, and also lends itself to shipbuilding if using a prefab approach. In the event of major hostilities-such as the US and china having a serious set to over the South china sea-the first thing that will happen is closure of the sea lanes....and then where are you?

But in the race for economic efficiency...we largely gave up our ability to produce for our own needs-and by doing so imperilled our future.....if you want to look at xyzde's utopia....have you ever wondered why the most honoured and respected individual in a village was usually the blacksmith? Not the bloke who grew things....the bloke who MADE things-and fixed things....

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

Once upon a time-we had numerous railway workshops in NZ-a country with not much in the way of heavy industry, unlike the UK or US-but those workshops were set up in the age of steam...and could produce steam locomotives, rolling stock etc. Big deal you say?,,,,,well implicit in that ability-making steam locomotives-is the ability to machine large castings and components, cast the said castings, move subassemblies and completed locomotives etc-that implies large capacity machining facilities, welding capabilities-cranes with the capacity to handle 100+ ton loads and a variety of other big industrial processes such as smelting..

NZ and Oz, but especially NZ always impressed me with a "know how to fix anything" culture. Kiwis in particular do some amazing auto repairs with #8 wire

But on the bigger scale, you're right. All kinds of specialized skills-- they may be done more efficiently at greater scale in China, but if you lose them entirely then you lose entire value chains, including future uses no one is thinking about yet.

People forget that the West has had successes with industrial policy. Back in the 80s and 90s, it looked like the Japanese were going to take over semiconductor fabrication equipment, but the US Government sponsored a private industry coalition called Sematech, to keep companies like Applied Materials and Lam Research in business. It paid off . . .

[Enrico32]

Originally Posted by Estreeter

You know he'll deny that was communism, I don't even know why we bother with his out of this world dream.

Ok, everyone must admit that the official definition of "communism" in socialist regimes of 20th century was "common man is nothing, the state is everything." So basically every their action, even entirely superficial and useless, was to show the supremacy and all-mightiness of state.

But then, how could anyone want such an ideology? I think no normal people may ever choose to discard their individual rights.

BUT give an oppressed people that had never had personal rights. Eg people familiar with Tsar accepted Lenin as new Tsar without analyzing whether he was a true communist or not. Then we need to admit that the regimes of 20th century actually weren't "communist" in anything but name.