Has the left been right all the time?!

[Dachs]

Depends where you go, doesn't it? World-systems theory and all that.

ew macrohistory

I prefer to deal with facts, thank you

 

[Traitorfish]

No, it disproves the entire socialist analysis of capitalism. The old mantra about the rich stealing from the poor, particularly. The rich don't steal from the poor, they steal from each other. And the socialist analysis completely fails to notice that rich people donate extensively to both the Democrats and Republicans--and those two parties have very different policies regarding rich people.

The Insight: Different groups of rich people compete against other groups of rich people. Environmental legislation makes a huge profit for green industries and manufacturers of expensive hybrid cars. The ban on incandescent light bulbs makes a huge profit for manufacturers of flourescents--and also a huge profit for companies that supply really nasty dangerous chemicals such as mercury for the making of flourescent light bulbs. Carbon taxes make nuclear power plants more profitable--one more way environmental laws are backfiring. Banking regulations to prevent another Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac work to the profit of foreign banks who are not subject to the regulations (as I've said many times in other threads--businesses simply move to wherever the noose is loose).

Government is not in the pocket of "the rich". Different factions of rich people compete against each other.

Have you actually read anything in the way of Marxist theory, or...?

ew macrohistory

I prefer to deal with facts, thank you

Well, I suppose somebody has to.

 

[BasketCase]

I can't steal from Mr. Monopoly and the Tramp at the same time? Anyhow, the 'rich steal from the poor' angle of capitalism critique has been done to death and there are other, far better critiques of it.

So, we agree then? That the "rich stealing from the poor" angle is malarkey?

Have you actually read anything in the way of Marxist theory, or...?

Doesn't matter. Am I right, or not?? If not, why not? It's all about the "why".

 

[Traitorfish]

So, we agree then? That the "rich stealing from the poor" angle is malarkey?

Who is actually making that argument?

 

[Ajidica]

So, we agree then? That the "rich stealing from the poor" angle is malarkey?

That line of thought can be developed and clarified to better represent the situation. The old days of Zacharias going up to people and demand they hand over all their cash or their firstborn son and prettiest virgin daughter aren't around anymore. At least not in a developed country. We don't see Mr. Monopoly going up to the Tramp with a gun in his hand.

 

[BasketCase]

So, is that a yes or a no? (we don't see Mr. Monopoly walking up to the Tramp with a gun in his hand--Mr. Monopoly walks up to the TRUMP with a gun in his hand )

Who is actually making that argument?

That doesn't matter either. Is the argument true, or not? The answer has nothing to do with who made it.

 

[GamezRule]

He never said it wasn't true. He said it's overused.

 

[Ajidica]

So, is that a yes or a no?

My answer is "Quit reducing critiques down to their basest and most inaccurate form, and then pretend the result is something I believe".

He never said it wasn't true. He said it's overused.

My main criticism is innacurate. If someone makes the argument that the Roman Empire collapsed through moral decay, then I would ask them to clarify. If they clarified 'moral decay' as the increasing number of civil wars, combined with outside forces and changes in the patronage system then they would be right. However, once you introduce all those caveats, then 'moral decay' is misleading at best, and downright wrong at worst. Same with the 'rich people stealing from poor people is capitalism' argument.

 

[Traitorfish]

Doesn't matter. Am I right, or not?? If not, why not? It's all about the "why".

It's impossible to say, because you're critiquing a position that doesn't actually exist, or at least not one that's a significant enough strain of socialist criticism for me to have encountered. You may as well ask me if you're correct in asserting that the Giant Invisible Spaghetti Monster has eight noodley appendages rather than seven.

That doesn't matter either. Is the argument true, or not? The answer has nothing to do with who made it.

No, or at least not as you seem to imagine it. It's possible that what we're hearing is a regurgitated version of something more sensible, but I honestly couldn't say.

 

[Ajidica]

You may as well ask me if you're correct in asserting that the Giant Invisible Spaghetti Monster has eight noodley appendages rather than seven.

Everybody knows His Noodliest has nine noodley appendages. Anyone pretending otherwise is a revisionst, bourgeois, imperialist, reactionary scum.

 

[Traitorfish]

Everybody knows His Noodliest has nine noodley appendages. Anyone pretending otherwise is a revisionst, bourgeois, imperialist, reactionary scum.

Orthodox tyrant! The Octotentacularians will have our day yet!

 

[Ajidica]

Trotskyite fool! You will spend the rest of your life counting trees!

 

[Traitorfish]

That... Sounds like an enjoyable way to spend one's retirement! Thank you!

 

[GamezRule]

Aww guys, Maoist communist is best communist!

 

[Ajidica]

That... Sounds like an enjoyable way to spend one's retirement! Thank you!

Darn. Perhaps Great Zombie Comrade Stalin will open up the salt mines where your only tool is made from fellow traitors.

Anyhow, back on topic. What other trite 'critiques' of Capitalism are we hive mind lefties supposed to follow?

 

[Ayatollah So]

Liberal Robert Reich said home loans were thrown at people who couldn't afford them and that reality was hidden until the housing bubble burst. That was not an unregulated market, Angelo Mozilo and Countrywide, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd, were not libertarians operating within a free market.

The traveling salesmen pitching a "free market" were in fact delivering something a little different. And that was a bummer. Just like they did the last time we bought it, and the time before that ... the solution is obvious. All we need to do now is buy into the latest "free market" proposals, and this time, surely, it will be different!

Just because you're big on freedom and what not doesn't mean that those whose standard you are in practice advancing give a damn about them.

Politics looks, to a rational but not very politically astute observer, like a many-dimensional space. But it turns out that most of the movement happens along a very few dimensions, or even mostly just one. Like a train car resting on an east-west track, moving the system to the north, or down into the ground, turns out to be surprisingly difficult.

It's not like if you support 1 regulation (for example Glass-Steagall), you are bound by law to support every other regulation that has ever existed. My god.

What!? No black-and-white thinking? Sacre Bleu! My FSM!

 

[Leoreth]

Most of those criticisms by the left are way off base; the left is correct only in that some things are going wrong in the world today, but they're completely wrong about why things go wrong. It's all about the "why".

Take Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for example. The left is always pointing to those knuckleheads as a failure of capitalism. And they're wrong. That's capitalism working the way it's supposed to work. When a business does something stupid, it's supposed to crash. The mortgage and banking crises are not failures of capitalism, they're successes of capitalism. They're the Laws of Evolution: businesses that are smart and invest their money wisely, are successful. Businesses that are not and don't, get eaten for lunch.

I agree most of the left who point at the financial crisis and say with smug grin "we knew it" actually didn't know anything. Random criticism of capitalism doesn't constitute a foreseen crisis.

I also agree that when a system is set up that rewards enterprises for risks that turn out successful, it should make them take the responsibility if it fails.

But if the fact that the decision of single risk-heavy corporations can bring down the whole economy is how "capitalism is supposed to work", it really begs the question if we want it to continue that way.

 

[GamezRule]

According to BC, capitalism working the way it's supposed to work means that many people suffer because a few rich people do stupid things. Doesn't sound like a good system to me, like most oligarchies.

 

[Ramius75]

The Rights were all Lefts once ...

 

[Traitorfish]

I agree most of the left who point at the financial crisis and say with smug grin "we knew it" actually didn't know anything. Random criticism of capitalism doesn't constitute a foreseen crisis.

"I told that you if you ran blindfolded through a forest you'd hit a tree." "Yes, but you didn't say which tree, so it doesn't count".