Horrors of late capitalism

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by laberbacke

Communism would only work under a united world government, but even a much less regulative system of power allocation like capitalism isn't scalable enough to achieve such a government at our current technological level. It may work in a post-scarcity economy like the Federation in Star Trek, but before anyone invents the matter-energy replicator, I'm afraid Marx will continue to be filed in the "road to hell is paved with good intentions" column of macroeconomics.

The sheer number of people killed by governments under communist rule will likely put people off any further experiments in that direction. Even governments run by parties calling themselves Communist aren't really oriented to the workers overthrow of capitalism anymore. Marx will be remembered for pointing out that excess returns to capital are unsustainable, governments and economic relations are ultimately social arrangements, and for initiating a movement that slaughtered perhaps 100 million people in less than a century.

We don't have a tally for capitalist casualties, but it is certainly higher over the last three centuries. We do know that great numbers of people were slaughtered for sport, entertainment, and religious reasons over the centuries. But our moral and humanitarian standards have changed and the communist death toll must be counted against some very real accomplishments.

The bottom line is that the communists proved that centrally planned command economies just don't work very well.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

The sheer number of people killed by governments under communist rule will likely put people off any further experiments in that direction.

If you look at an autocratic State run by a Communist Party -- China-- they're not actually at all interested in "communism". its not even an ambition given lip service.

I don't think people are enough taken with the irony that a nation of 1.3 Billion people is run by a Communist Party that is ostensibly devoted to Marx, Engels and Mao-- but they have absolutely no interest in it at all.

Its like someone with a religion that they don't really believe in, but they go through the motions because "that's the way we do things here".

[charliels531]

Originally Posted by Hertz

I'm frustrated with this time, I wish I was born in the middle of last century! I have mental relief in this forum, without this place I'd end up in the asylum fo sure.

I was born in the middle of the last century, that period laughingly referred to as the Cold War. Starting with Kindergarten, I knew that when the sirens went off, we had 20 minutes to live.

[Roubignol]

Just read the book of David Graeber: "Bullshit jobs". Description here

On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.

In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a fifteen-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.

Neoliberalism imposed by Thatcher and Reagan is a destruction of freedom.
Both imposed alienation.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Just read the book of David Graeber: "Bullshit jobs". Description here

Neoliberalism imposed by Thatcher and Reagan is a destruction of freedom.
Both imposed alienation.

I love Graeber's work, but if you dig into it, he's hyperbolic. A lot of what are termed "bullshit jobs" are what respondents interpret as "meaningless busywork" -- typically gathering and checking of data and metadata.

So, for example, Graeber cites all the various forms that teachers have to fill out-- lesson plans and so on-- time not spent teaching. Teachers think of this as a waste. But gathering data is essential to improving productivity; the most productive enterprises all get that way because they are intensely data hungry.

Put another way: think about trying to develop a new drug. There's the chemistry, there are the doctors, there are the patients. That looks like "the real work"-- but in fact, in order to tell what _actually_ works, as opposed to "I think it works"-- you have to do a huge amount of what feels like meaningless busywork.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

I love Graeber's work.

How can you love Graeber's work and fighting Anarchism?

That's my conception of life. Money is a tool of domination. Debt is million kilometers away from my Catholic education and Buddhist philosophy of ascetism.

I read American philosopher like Bookchin, European ones like Marx, Kropotkin, anthropologist like Graeber, Christian Anarchist like Tolstoi or George Orwell, listen to Noam Chomsky, read Buddhist monk like Matthieu Ricard, was educated to follow the speeches of Jesus Christ.

Capitalism is what fought all these thinkers and authors, because this system is harmful and crazy.

Graeber said in a French radio that he was ostracized by your government since he fought Capitalism from his movement called "Occupy Wall Street".

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

I love Graeber's work.

How can you love Graeber's work and fighting Anarchism?

That's my conception of life. Money is a tool of domination. Debt is million kilometers away from my Catholic education and Buddhist philosophy of ascetism.

I read American philosopher like Bookchin, European ones like Marx, Kropotkin, anthropologist like Graeber, Christian Anarchist like Tolstoi or George Orwell, listen to Noam Chomsky, read Buddhist monk like Matthieu Ricard, was educated to follow the speeches of Jesus Christ.

Capitalism is what fought all these thinkers and authors, because this system is harmful and crazy.

Graeber said in a French radio that he was ostracized by your government since he fought Capitalism from his movement called "Occupy Wall Street".

Originally Posted by deepsepia

So, for example, Graeber cites all the various forms that teachers have to fill out-- lesson plans and so on-- time not spent teaching. Teachers think of this as a waste. But gathering data is essential to improving productivity; the most productive enterprises all get that way because they are intensely data hungry.

Put another way: think about trying to develop a new drug. There's the chemistry, there are the doctors, there are the patients. That looks like "the real work"-- but in fact, in order to tell what _actually_ works, as opposed to "I think it works"-- you have to do a huge amount of what feels like meaningless busywork.

But Graeber doesn't only point what called Harari "dataism". He also pointed that there are tons of people working 40 to 50 hours per week, producing ... bullshits in offices and being really efficient during 15 hours per week.

We have robots for those jobs.

If "common" people are unable to distance themselves from a money reference, why don't give us all a "universal income"?

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

How can you love Graeber's work and fighting Anarchism?

I love the work because he's systematically exporing what people think about their jobs. That's really worthwhile. It doesn't have anything to do with being for or against anarchism. Most of the "bullshit jobs" that Graeber speaks of are essentially bureaucratic . . . its clear enough that its no fun to be a bureaucrat, but its also clear that its tremendously useful for the nation. Well run countries have high quality bureaucracies-- many of them occupied doing things that look boring.

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Graeber said in a French radio that he was ostracized by your government since he fought Capitalism from his movement called "Occupy Wall Street".

Not sure what he's referring to, there. He's an anthropologist-- the "bullshit jobs" stuff is a sideline for him. His primary work was the anthropology of Madagascar, but he's had a sideline in economic stuff as well-- I very much liked his book "Debt: the first 5000 years", really original work.

The problem with Graeber is that he has no training in business or economics, so he's got a lot of critiques, without caring much about "how do things work"

[ShutUpLutz!]

Originally Posted by charliels531

I was born in the middle of the last century, that period laughingly referred to as the Cold War. Starting with Kindergarten, I knew that when the sirens went off, we had 20 minutes to live.

I was born, sort of near the middle of the last century, and we had one of those sirens on a pole on the grounds of my elementary school and it would go off once a month at some random time and no one spazzed out or panicked when it did, it was more annoying than anything else. I've read on other message boards how all the kids who grew up in the 79's and 80's lived in constant fear that Reagan would push the button or of nukes in general. That was news to me and I grew up outside the city (Washington DC) that probably had the most nukes targeted on it, besides Moscow. I was never afraid or fearful and neither were my parents.

Because we were smart and educated.

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by ShutUpLutz!

I was born, sort of near the middle of the last century, and we had one of those sirens on a pole on the grounds of my elementary school and it would go off once a month at some random time and no one spazzed out or panicked when it did, it was more annoying than anything else. I've read on other message boards how all the kids who grew up in the 79's and 80's lived in constant fear that Reagan would push the button or of nukes in general. That was news to me and I grew up outside the city (Washington DC) that probably had the most nukes targeted on it, besides Moscow. I was never afraid or fearful and neither were my parents.

Because we were smart and educated.

It was long ago and we were clueless little kids in the 1950s. It seems to me that the fear of imminent nuclear war was greatly reduced after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The leaders put in safeguards and it was obvious that neither side wanted to preside over a smoldering ruin of a country.