Ask A Red V: The Five-Year Plan

[Azale]

EDIT: Solved via the magic of private messaging!

 

[ReindeerThistle]

I stand with Richard Cribb. And I agree with what he says. But this is Cheezy's thread, which he inherited from Cribb and they are both personal friends of mine.

So, Ask or Answer a Red question. Lead by example.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

And I have worked very hard to make this a place where communists of many different stripes can give a variety of perspectives to curious threadgoers. This isn't a party, there is no line to be toed, no correct thought, save that of actually advocating for socialism (for which some of my contributors have been ejected from this thread before, let it be noted).

It is unbecoming that this sort of dirty laundry would be aired in public. But since it began in public I'm going to end it in public. We don't have to agree, but we do have to get along in this thread. Consider this a call for civility from all contributing parties toward other communists and socialists in the future. It's uncomradely behavior to do otherwise. Our cause is bigger than personal disagreements and old resentments, but if you simply must make your opinion of someone else known, use a PM. If anyone cannot rise to that simple standard, then this is not the thread for them.

If we might finish with this quote from a great American socialist: "Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today." Something all of us could do to remember sometimes.

 

[Gary Childress]

I was doing some skimming through Google this evening looking for a comparison of prison rates among countries and came across this:

I'm not aware of any attempt to systematically compare imprisonment rates for all the world's sovereign states throughout history, and compiling such a list would be a daunting task. (Fax me those Sumerian jail records, would you?) But Stalin's Soviet Union, with its huge network of forced-labor camps, would surely be near the top. I've seen widely varying figures, but let's use the conservative Britannica number of five million prisoners in the Gulag in 1936. That works out to more than 3,000 per 100,000. The record holder, though, is undoubtedly Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge: the regime forced virtually the entire population into labor camps or prisons during the late 1970s, killing as many as two million of the country's six to seven million people.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns...ed-states-lead-the-world-in-prison-population

Lately I've seen some attempts to put Stalin in a more favorable light. I really have to wonder to myself if such attempts are really objective or not. Clearly communists would like to vindicate their cause from the reputation that has been assigned to it through various regimes which have called themselves "communist". In a sense people have put their reputations on the line that they need to defend.

At the same time, it would certainly be nice to think that there is an alternative society to the one we currently have in the US where millionaires are bailed out by tax payers while millions of average people lose their homes.

Of course libertarians argue that communism means "big government" and that it is "big government" that ultimately bailed out Wall Street, that if the market had been left alone there would have been no such bail out.

Sometimes I wonder if there is any real way to sift through all the BS out there to find out what is truth and what is not? It seems that anyone can find just about anything somewhere out there to justify just about anything they happen to believe in. And it's not like any of us has the luxury to be able to read and verify everything under the sun to determine what is true and what is false. Ultimately we all have to narrow our searches to what is manageable for us.

I guess my question for our panel of reds is: how do you know that you are onto the right thing? What is it about communism that rings true?

 

[Hygro]

I think comrade Hygro is active here,not only being glib as below, but sometimes posting things of value, so to be pedantic it is still 3:3.

Hah! Glib but sometimes valuable, by Mr. R. Cribb? I'll take it.

I suppose my role in this thread is to deal with folks who appeal to economics as the disproof of Marxianism.

You might of course say that this is also a problem for social sciences in general; but I am not knowledgeable enough in regard to psychology or economics to be able to have a qualified opinion on that.

It is.

Social sciences ultimately study what people do. What people do in our loosely pro-science culture is affected by what we learn, particularly what we learn from social science.

So then a social science makes a claim, but can't account for what happens when that claim is known and factored in, and then renders itself obsolete by making that claim.

This is why any social science if it wishes to remain useful after each epoch (which I strongly suspect can be tied to pop-culture trends, of which we are down to 7 year cycles*) needs to update itself. Not coincidentally: by sometimes going partially back to the basics. I don't think any macroeconomist who doesn't have a complete and thorough understanding of the General Theory has any professional credibility whatsoever. But it was also the moment "we are all Keynesians now" that Keynesianism lost credibility until the East Asian financial crisis of the 90s.

i.e. That the moment policy was enacted because it followed the identity rather than garnering the identity because of what it does, it stopped working. That moment came when the theory was overwhelmingly successful.

What's my point?

Well, there's clearly an ignorance-knowledge dialectic in play in which being ignorant of the knowledge makes the knowledge true, and knowing the knowledge creates ignorance of what is true. It's not inescapable--it just means that we need to recognize that there's no permanence or absoluteness in social science analysis. But there is value in updating old categories of interpretation be they Taoism, Marxism, price-theory economics, or jousting.



*About the length of a business cycle, a 2-term president's time in office, the waist-height of pants, or most important: the time in-between Daft Punk albums.

 

[amadeus]

That is how I view China-bashing, DPRK-bashing, etc., when it comes from the "left" supposedly "revolutionary" position.

(1.) Do you believe that North Korea is presently a socialist state?

(2.) Do you believe that North Korea bashing is unjustified, and if so, why?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I suppose my role in this thread is to deal with folks who appeal to economics as the disproof of Marxianism.

I think you do a fine job at that. But also this:

It is.

Social sciences ultimately study what people do. What people do in our loosely pro-science culture is affected by what we learn, particularly what we learn from social science.

So then a social science makes a claim, but can't account for what happens when that claim is known and factored in, and then renders itself obsolete by making that claim.

This is why any social science if it wishes to remain useful after each epoch (which I strongly suspect can be tied to pop-culture trends, of which we are down to 7 year cycles*) needs to update itself. Not coincidentally: by sometimes going partially back to the basics. I don't think any macroeconomist who doesn't have a complete and thorough understanding of the General Theory has any professional credibility whatsoever. But it was also the moment "we are all Keynesians now" that Keynesianism lost credibility until the East Asian financial crisis of the 90s.

i.e. That the moment policy was enacted because it followed the identity rather than garnering the identity because of what it does, it stopped working. That moment came when the theory was overwhelmingly successful.

What's my point?

Well, there's clearly an ignorance-knowledge dialectic in play in which being ignorant of the knowledge makes the knowledge true, and knowing the knowledge creates ignorance of what is true. It's not inescapable--it just means that we need to recognize that there's no permanence or absoluteness in social science analysis. But there is value in updating old categories of interpretation be they Taoism, Marxism, price-theory economics, or jousting.

A great article! Thanks a lot for posting it. I particularly enjoyed that he took journalists to task for uncritically publishing scientific-sounding nonsense as if it were fact (and which its readers will accept as fact).

*About the length of a business cycle, a 2-term president's time in office, the waist-height of pants, or most important: the time in-between Daft Punk albums.

(1.) Do you believe that North Korea is presently a socialist state?

Are you asking him specifically, or all of us?

I don't. I don't think Juche Ideology is socialist in the slightest.

However, I think their country's path is something its citizens should be deciding, not foreign powers. I do not support involvement by other countries in their affairs, so long as those affairs don't involve those other countries.

(2.) Do you believe that North Korea bashing is unjustified, and if so, why?

Most of it is unfair. The country is cut off from most of the world, beset by natural disasters, surrounded by enemies who want to see it collapse, and friends who want to use it as a pawn, and then blamed for the consequences of these things. The North Korean regime has many faults, but there's a difference between positive criticism, which seeks an understanding of a problem and tries to correct it, and negative criticism, or "bashing," which is not helpful and doesn't aim to be helpful, but hurtful and unproductive. I'm not saying that all positive criticism must be directed towards strengthening the regime; the very act of criticism implies that you think the subject is wrong. But negative criticism is attacking for attack's sake, aggression, bullying, and the beating down of another. To see such a tiny country, powerless to resist such treatment, beset by the great powers of the world, is pathetic. It's the dynamic of playground bullies and their scrawny prey. Any attempt at positive criticism must begin by addressing the causes of problems, it is not merely pointing at something and saying it's bad. That's what bashing is, it's not interested in solutions. I am, so I think DPRK bashing is unjustified. Criticism of it is not.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I don't think that North Korean authorities have use for any kind of criticism.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Which authorities do?

 

[Lone Wolf]

Well, that's the point!

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I wasn't suggesting we put our thoughts in the DPRK Peoples' Suggestions Box.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

I was doing some skimming through Google this evening looking for a comparison of prison rates among countries and came across this:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns...ed-states-lead-the-world-in-prison-population

The stats are consistent with yhe Bureau of Justice reports. It is also WHAT people are in prison for and for how long they are incarcerated. The US uses the guise of "penitence" but really practices punishment. Long sentences.

On top of that, companies can use prison labor, so they lobby for mandatory minimum sentencing to get a captive workforce.

And most convictions are plea-bargained because poor people in the US have no access to a proper legal defense.

We say "There are no millionaires on death row... and no poor senators."

I guess my question for our panel of reds is: how do you know that you are onto the right thing? What is it about communism that rings true?

Thanks for asking.

Half of my lineage is old money south (no slaveholders in my family, though.) and the other half (upper middle income) working class north. So, I grew up seeing both sides of the employer/ employee dialectic.

I started, and still do, work for the poorest workers, but it was when I started asking why they were poor when I started learning about first, the systemic nature of poverty -- that this system is rigged. Then I learned about class: the wealthiest of the owning class had rigged it. Then I learned about what kind of organization could end it: a Communist Party... of by and for the working people.

Theory and practice... praxis... is what led me to Communism.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

(1.) Do you believe that North Korea is presently a socialist state?

Yes. Worker control of means of production, social solutions to social problems and political education to reinforce it.

(2.) Do you believe that North Korea bashing is unjustified, and if so, why?

From the left, revolutionary circles, bashing is unjustified. Some Reds bash it in the same manner as non-Red liberals and conservatives alike. Even when I present first-hand "western" accounts of the happy demeanor of the DPRK citizens and their healthy patriotism and adherence to the principles of international proletarian solidarity, I am attacked for it.

To this, I quote Fidel:

Only the closest alliance among all the progressive forces of the world will provide us with the strength needed to overcome the still-powerful forces of imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism and racism and to wage a successful fight for the aspirations to peace and justice for all the peoples of the world.

From "Speech to the Fourth Conf. of Non-Aligned Nations, Sept 7, 1973.

 

[classical_hero]

So you don't think that it is possible that the people a being brainwashed to be that way? I mean would you want to live in North Korea? Considering that it is the only country that still has concentration camps, it doesn't sound all that nice to live in, especially if you dare to have a different opinion of the great leader.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

So you don't think that it is possible that the people a being brainwashed to be that way?

No

“Brainwashing”, as popularly understood, does not exist or is of almost zero effectiveness. The belief stems from American panic over Communism post-Korean War combined with fear of new religions and sensationalized incidents; in practice, “cults” have retention rates in the single percentage point range and ceased to be an issue decades ago. Typically, a conversion sticks because an organization provides value to its members.

I mean would you want to live in North Korea?

No... I don't speak the language and they already have socialism... why live off of their successes? I have work to do in the US.

Considering that it is the only country that still has concentration camps, it doesn't sound all that nice to live in, especially if you dare to have a different opinion of the great leader.

US has prison labor for private profit... more Nazi than Nazis.

2,000 Americans die in prison annually before their sentence is up...

I have work to do...

 

[classical_hero]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/22/north-korea-rejects-un-report-crimes-against-humanity

Even the UN is considering putting the North Korean government up for Crimes against humanity, that is how bad the situation is for average citizens. Here are some sktches of the conditions in the camps.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/slideshow/2014/02/20/haunting-sketches-show-horrors-hermit-kingdom/?intcmp=related#/slide/sketch1noko

About the deaths in prison, they are often a result of murderers killing while in prison, meaning that they are proof of what I was talking about. A dead murderer cannot kill again.

EDIT. I am actually terrified you consider North Korea a success.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Okay... this is Ask a Red...

But, seriously, do you think a [typically] powerless UN statement (The UN has no intention of bringing charges. Don't forget, they had NO effing case with Milosevic and he ended up suspiciously dead in prison...), with drawings backed up by FOX "News," is going to convince me to criticize and denounce a socialist republic, especially one that has the support of China, Cuba and the G77 and non-aligned movement?

I thought I made my determination clear.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

So you don't think that it is possible that the people a being brainwashed to be that way?

No more than every person living in a society is "brainwashed" into thinking and acting how the rest of society does.

I mean would you want to live in North Korea?

No, as I said it is a state beset by enemies and isolated from the planet. But this isn't a contest of vacation paradises.

Considering that it is the only country that still has concentration camps, it doesn't sound all that nice to live in, especially if you dare to have a different opinion of the great leader.

The United States has more prisoners per 100,000 people than North Korea does.

 

[Traitorfish]

The United States has more prisoners per 100,000 people than North Korea does.

However, the mortality rate in North Korean prisons is considerably higher than the United States, which may skew the numbers just a tiny bit in their favour.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I didn't say they were pleasant places, I was combating the "zomg North Korea imprisons everyone!" trope at work, when in fact it is less (or roughly the same amount) of their population as the United States does.