Questions for the surprisingly far right CFC population

[Perfection]

I don't either. The permanence of liberal capitalism is not guarantee by a failed experiment in central planning. The failure of the Soviet model only proves that the Soviet model was not build to last forever, not that liberal capitalism is.

What is absurd about the modern world is that we think we have reached the end of history, while knowing full well that our predecessors believed the same thing. They naively assumed that all historical societies more or less resembled their own, to a more or less perfect degree depending on the rhetorical intentions of the chronicler; fundamental social change seemed impossible because there was no sense that it had ever occurred before, at least, not since a time when gods and heroes walked the earth. But we today know full well that societies change, that the only constant rule of human society is change, but we imagine that this rule no longer applies to ourselves, that through our cleverness and efficiency we've opted-out of history, and whatever change there is left in the world will be deliberate, rational and pre-mediated in accordance with existing expectations and values. This is absurd on the face of it.

My defense of capitalism is more limited than stating that it is or ought be an end-of-history scenario. I'm stating that it has proven itself to be more productive than planned systems, and that it ought not be abandoned unless we can demonstrate a superior system. Furthermore, I also believe that capitalism can be made amenable to leftist goals, so it is an asset more than an impediment.

Who said anything about burning anything down?

I believe OP's "Thing 3" is a clear call for the disestablishmemt of current power structures.

 

[Kozmos]

"Why don't you people have any have constructive ideas?"
"We have lots."
"I meant ones that I already agree with."

It's not good enough to have great ideas. Ton of great ideas are floating around, vote on beliefs, but implement betting markets for methods. How do you put the policy into place, realistically? For example, majority would prefer single-payer in the US, but when you add the qualifier that taxes would have to be raised, support drops like a rock.

 

[Commodore]

"Why don't you people have any have constructive ideas?"
"We have lots."
"I meant ones that I already agree with."

That's not what I said at all though. But hey, whatever makes you feel better about yourself...

 

[Camikaze]

but that in practice, liberal "reformers" hardly reform anything, and when they do, those reforms are very quickly repealed, sometimes by people of the same political party and ideology as the original reformer!

Given the progress that has been made in the last, say, century, this strikes me as at least a superficially dubious statement. Does it find any empirical support?

 

[Sommerswerd]

And why do you think that is? Maybe it has something to do with idealist reformers instituting policies that look good on paper, but utterly fail when put into action.I'd be interested in hearing the alternative as well. That's probably my biggest problem with all the various "social movements" out there today. They all do a hell of a lot of complaining and protesting about all the flaws of our society, but we never hear many realistic solutions from the complainers (key word in that statement being "realistic").

Ideas about implementation is one obstacle, but personal responsibility for implementation is an even bigger one.

"Why don't you people have any have constructive ideas?" "We have lots." "I meant ones that I already agree with."

There is some of that, but there's also:
"Why don't you people have any have constructive ideas?"
"We have lots."
"So you start implementing your idea in your own life and prove it's feasible."
"Well I can't be bothered with that, it's too inconvenient/unrealistic."
"I see... well I agree, me neither."

It's not good enough to have great ideas. Ton of great ideas are floating around, vote on beliefs, but implement betting markets for methods. How do you put the policy into place, realistically? For example, majority would prefer single-payer in the US, but when you add the qualifier that taxes would have to be raised, support drops like a rock.

The issue is always that its much easier to come up with ideas about what other people should do. Its much more challenging to implement those ideas in your own life. A person who wants to save the environment and wants "policies" in the abstract is going to have a harder time giving up their plastic cellphone and laptop, and their fossil fuel burning transportation.

I mean as a parent I have no choice but to embrace the utility of hypocrisy, but I recognize that people who are not my children are only going to let me get away with so much hypocrisy before they start rejecting my ideas.

 

[inthesomeday]

Thread is again going off base quick although I suppose it was my own fault for thinking that people would be willing to just answer my question.

Oh well I guess I'll address some of these questions.

It seems as though we've at least gotten to a point where people are willing to admit there are problems afoot for the most part.

Except Perfection, who asserts that capitalism has resulted in better productivity. Now, I maintain that this is impossible to compare because I don't believe that Communism has ever been practically applied in the real world (a statement which I expect I'll have to defend vigorously after this post) but for the sake of argument I'll look at the Soviet Union, who I nonetheless cringe to call Communist. If your measure of a successful economy is productivity, and you simultaneously hold the erroneous belief that the USSR was communist, then I suggest you don't ignore the fact that the USSR was superior in industrial output to the US, and that the policies put in place by the """""""""Communist""""""""" Josef Stalin are directly responsible for this economic growth. "But," you protest, "Those same policies killed millions!" And I agree completely! Which is a problem so much more endemic to capitalism-- industrial progress at the expense of human rights and life. Which brings us back to square one.

Essentially the logical reasoning I'm proposing is:

"Productivity is the measure of economic success."

1. Has Communism ever been applied?
"No = " then how could you know that capitalism is more "productive"?

-or-

"Yes = "
2. I assume you mean by PRC, USSR, Vietnam, Cuba. These places experienced industrial booms like no other upon adoption of "Communist" policies. Typically they were able to reach industrial output per capita and, in the case of USSR and PRC, gross, that at least matched the leading capitalist manufacturers (USA, West Germany, UK.) This is even in spite of the fact that western powers would usually sabatoge the infrastructure of any country that attempted "Communism" well before it was able to develop independent capitalist industry.
"You're right! Communism is superior!"

-or-

"But at what cost? The human life loss and suffering was way too much to justify the industrial growth like this."
3. Agreed. That's the whole problem with capitalism. If we consider the USSR and PRC as communist, though, then we must accept the reality that this "communism" is simply more efficient at churning out industry at the expense of human life.

 

[Cheetah]

It seems as though we've at least gotten to a point where people are willing to admit there are problems afoot for the most part.

I think everyone can agree that there are problems. The issue is more about what the problems are, what's the reasons behind them, and how we can best solve them.

I'd like to interject that your focus on Capitalism vs Communism seems to focus too much on economics as a measure of success, even as you point out the human costs involved.

I will easily grant you that no Communist states (if TF will allow me to talk of such a concept) have existed. However, I will argue that any attempt at implementing Communist theory in practice, on a state level, will inevitably lead to a totalitarian, despotic dictatorship, and with a great amount of human suffering included.

While it is true that Capitalist states can lead to lots of suffering, it has been shown to be possible to moderate and alleviate the worst such excesses, to such a degree that it becomes quite acceptable. This is more of less exactly what Social Democratic Capitalist states have done, as exemplified by the Scandinavian countries and others.

In essence, the economic argument between Capitalism and Communism concerns which one produces the most effective and efficient economy. The social/liberal (maybe a better term I can't think of atm?) argument concerns which one brings the most individual freedom and rights.

It is possible that they're equal on the economic argument, though I would think the total evidence favours Capitalism. On the social/liberal argument however, Communism loses completely to Capitalism, as all tried examples have devolved into oppressive tyrannies.

A completely unchecked laissez faire Capitalism will create productivity, but also a lot of problems. Social Democratic Capitalism fixes many of these problems, but there are, of course, more to work on. Inspiration can be gotten from Socialist/Communist thought, but those systems are not desirable as a whole.

 

[Kozmos]

Thread is again going off base quick although I suppose it was my own fault for thinking that people would be willing to just answer my question.

Oh well I guess I'll address some of these questions.

It seems as though we've at least gotten to a point where people are willing to admit there are problems afoot for the most part.

Except Perfection, who asserts that capitalism has resulted in better productivity. Now, I maintain that this is impossible to compare because I don't believe that Communism has ever been practically applied in the real world (a statement which I expect I'll have to defend vigorously after this post) but for the sake of argument I'll look at the Soviet Union, who I nonetheless cringe to call Communist. If your measure of a successful economy is productivity, and you simultaneously hold the erroneous belief that the USSR was communist, then I suggest you don't ignore the fact that the USSR was superior in industrial output to the US, and that the policies put in place by the """""""""Communist""""""""" Josef Stalin are directly responsible for this economic growth. "But," you protest, "Those same policies killed millions!" And I agree completely! Which is a problem so much more endemic to capitalism-- industrial progress at the expense of human rights and life. Which brings us back to square one.

Essentially the logical reasoning I'm proposing is:

"Productivity is the measure of economic success."

1. Has Communism ever been applied?
"No = " then how could you know that capitalism is more "productive"?

-or-

"Yes = "
2. I assume you mean by PRC, USSR, Vietnam, Cuba. These places experienced industrial booms like no other upon adoption of "Communist" policies. Typically they were able to reach industrial output per capita and, in the case of USSR and PRC, gross, that at least matched the leading capitalist manufacturers (USA, West Germany, UK.) This is even in spite of the fact that western powers would usually sabatoge the infrastructure of any country that attempted "Communism" well before it was able to develop independent capitalist industry.
"You're right! Communism is superior!"

-or-

"But at what cost? The human life loss and suffering was way too much to justify the industrial growth like this."
3. Agreed. That's the whole problem with capitalism. If we consider the USSR and PRC as communist, though, then we must accept the reality that this "communism" is simply more efficient at churning out industry at the expense of human life.

Citations would be helpful. I'm doubtful communism was more successful, considering massive technology theft was priority of the KGB throughout its history and MSS today in China.

 

[timtofly]

Communism will never work, is that not the logic why it failed in the USSR? It will never change human nature which is still the major problem with capitalism. Economic freedom does not change human nature. Only humans can change human nature by the force of their will. If the goal of communism is to remove economy as a motivation to change human nature it will never work. Capitalism offered some humans a chance to be happy, even if it was at the expense of others, but subjugation of other humans does not necessarily need an economy. The point was capitalism drove humans to make things better. Communism was an effort to lift human nature to the status of the definition of economy itself. If we could equalize human nature there would be no need for economy, but we would all be equal contributors to society. As historically noted the best way to do that is to eliminate 90% of humans on earth.

 

[Traitorfish]

My defense of capitalism is more limited than stating that it is or ought be an end-of-history scenario. I'm stating that it has proven itself to be more productive than planned systems, and that it ought not be abandoned unless we can demonstrate a superior system.

That's fair. But, as I said, it's naive to think that this sort of deep social change occurs because people have decided that it should, that one system supplants another because it is a Good Idea, and that a majority have been won to that opinion. That's never how it's worked in the past; mostly, change happens, and then people convinced themselves it's a Good Idea after all, and even then a lot of them will still keep insisting that it's a Bad Idea, perhaps a majority, but the change remains, because history doesn't work in reverse.

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention, and I tend to think that the same applies to human societies as much as steam engines or microprocessors. The question is not whether Atlantis can stand another few golden spires, but whether we notice the waves on the horizon.

Furthermore, I also believe that capitalism can be made amenable to leftist goals, so it is an asset more than an impediment.

And they call me the utopian.

"Why don't you people have any have constructive ideas?"
"We have lots."
"So you start implementing your idea in your own life and prove it's feasible."
"Well I can't be bothered with that, it's too inconvenient/unrealistic."
"I see... well I agree, me neither."

Consider, alternatively,

"Why don't you people have any have constructive ideas?"
"We have lots."
"So you start implementing your idea in your own life and prove it's feasible."
"We do not have access to the means or resources to implement these ideas, except through large-scale collective action."

And that, in my experience, is more usually how this sort of discussion flows.

That's not what I said at all though. But hey, whatever makes you feel better about yourself...

It's an interpretation. You should give yourself enough credit to believe that you posts have enough substance to allow that.

It's not good enough to have great ideas. Ton of great ideas are floating around, vote on beliefs, but implement betting markets for methods. How do you put the policy into place, realistically? For example, majority would prefer single-payer in the US, but when you add the qualifier that taxes would have to be raised, support drops like a rock.

I actually agree with that: as I said up-thread, change tends to happen despite human planning, not because of it. My point was only that the qualifier "realistic" is essentially a way of the speaker granting himself an absolute veto on other people's opinions, hardly conductive to the sort of free and open debate we all pretend to be very much in favour of.

Given the progress that has been made in the last, say, century, this strikes me as at least a superficially dubious statement. Does it find any empirical support?

Most of that progress was made between 1945 and 1960, and 1935 and 1970 at the most generous, in the space of a generation or two, and much of it is now being undone in the name of economic rationality. That's not to deny that the progress occurred, or that progress may occur in future, but it is to say that progress is not an inherent feature of the system, simply a thing that may occur in some circumstances.

Citations would be helpful. I'm doubtful communism was more successful, considering massive technology theft was priority of the KGB throughout its history and MSS today in China.

The Soviets were hardly the first people to practice industrial espionage. Savvy operators always take the path of least resistance, it's simply that in a system of effective patent laws- and if the West is ineffective, it is in being overzealous- the path of least resistance is often finding another way to the same problem. The Soviets and the Chinese did not find themselves so burdened and, dutiful students of Western capitalism, took every shortcut available.

Marxist-Leninists may have propounded the virtues of hard work for hard works' sake, but that doesn't that it's true, or that the leadership was dumb enough to believe it.

 

[Ryika]

Consider, alternatively,

"Why don't you people have any have constructive ideas?"
"We have lots."
"So you start implementing your idea in your own life and prove it's feasible."
"We do not have access to the means or resources to implement these ideas, except through collective action."

And that, in my experience, is more usually how this sort of discussion flows.

I don't even understand how those discussions are important. That's just a general discussion about nothing really.

The important discussions start with:
"You have suggested this specific idea, these are the problems I see with it: <A, B and C>. Can you tell me how you'll avoid them?"

In my experience, the further you go into idealist and/or ideologue territory, the less often those questions will actually be answered with practical solutions, and the more often answers devolve into "It'll work out, you just have to trust me there". Some people just seem to be incapable of accepting that a flawed system might still be the best system we have and instead just build a vision of a system in their head that is utterly unrealistic.

The state of "We do not have access to the means or resources to implement these ideas, except through collective action." is usually not even applicable, because the conceptual framework itself has flaws that haven't been ironed out yet.

 

[Kozmos]

I don't know, from my view change happens alongside human planning. Sometimes we compensate well, mostly not due to various cognitive biases and exhaustion. A project starts with great ideas and a lot of energy, but during implementation, people get tired of false starts, blind alleys, constant pivots, compromises, mission/feature creep and just really want to get it over with. After a decade of such work you kind of get allergic to seemingly unrealistic proposals. I still like them, because new is always more interesting than the same old, but I want to hear good ways on how to sell it to the people/market/investors. It's all about the pitch.

The Soviets were hardly the first people to practice industrial espionage. Savvy operators always take the path of least resistance, it's simply that in a system of effective patent laws- and if the West is ineffective, it is in being overzealous- the path of least resistance is often finding another way to the same problem. The Soviets and the Chinese did not find themselves so burdened and, dutiful students of Western capitalism, took every shortcut available.

Marxist-Leninists may have propounded the virtues of hard work for hard works' sake, but that doesn't that it's true, or that the leadership was dumb enough to believe it.

Oh for sure, work smarter not harder, but I'm talking about once they caught up on the baseline. Soviets and Chinese innovate too, but nowhere on the scale of the West and that is largely due to system design.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Thread is again going off base quick although I suppose it was my own fault for thinking that people would be willing to just answer my question.

Oh well I guess I'll address some of these questions.

It seems as though we've at least gotten to a point where people are willing to admit there are problems afoot for the most part.

Except Perfection, who asserts that capitalism has resulted in better productivity. Now, I maintain that this is impossible to compare because I don't believe that Communism has ever been practically applied in the real world (a statement which I expect I'll have to defend vigorously after this post) but for the sake of argument I'll look at the Soviet Union, who I nonetheless cringe to call Communist. If your measure of a successful economy is productivity, and you simultaneously hold the erroneous belief that the USSR was communist, then I suggest you don't ignore the fact that the USSR was superior in industrial output to the US, and that the policies put in place by the """""""""Communist""""""""" Josef Stalin are directly responsible for this economic growth. "But," you protest, "Those same policies killed millions!" And I agree completely! Which is a problem so much more endemic to capitalism-- industrial progress at the expense of human rights and life. Which brings us back to square one.

Essentially the logical reasoning I'm proposing is:

"Productivity is the measure of economic success."

1. Has Communism ever been applied?
"No = " then how could you know that capitalism is more "productive"?

-or-

"Yes = "
2. I assume you mean by PRC, USSR, Vietnam, Cuba. These places experienced industrial booms like no other upon adoption of "Communist" policies. Typically they were able to reach industrial output per capita and, in the case of USSR and PRC, gross, that at least matched the leading capitalist manufacturers (USA, West Germany, UK.) This is even in spite of the fact that western powers would usually sabatoge the infrastructure of any country that attempted "Communism" well before it was able to develop independent capitalist industry.
"You're right! Communism is superior!"

-or-

"But at what cost? The human life loss and suffering was way too much to justify the industrial growth like this."
3. Agreed. That's the whole problem with capitalism. If we consider the USSR and PRC as communist, though, then we must accept the reality that this "communism" is simply more efficient at churning out industry at the expense of human life.

If your position is to dismiss the USSR as the modern example of Communism at work, and declare that the USSR wasn't really Communist so it doesn't count, then would you also accept the counter-argument that the USA is not really Capitalist (as it has many communist policies/institutions at its core) and as such can't be used as a metric for the "performance" of Capitalism?

Consider, alternatively,

"Why don't you people have any have constructive ideas?"
"We have lots."
"So you start implementing your idea in your own life and prove it's feasible."
"We do not have access to the means or resources to implement these ideas, except through large-scale collective action."

OK but isn't that just a fancy way of saying "We can't do it cause it's not realistic/convenient"?

 

[Lord of Elves]

EDIT: It's just not worth it

 

[Leoreth]

"Why don't you people have any have constructive ideas?"
"We have lots."
"So you start implementing your idea in your own life and prove it's feasible."
"Well I can't be bothered with that, it's too inconvenient/unrealistic."
"I see... well I agree, me neither." The issue is always that its much easier to come up with ideas about what other people should do. Its much more challenging to implement those ideas in your own life. A person who wants to save the environment and wants "policies" in the abstract is going to have a harder time giving up their plastic cellphone and laptop, and their fossil fuel burning transportation.

That's the sort of ideology that tells people to stop watering their lawn during a drought while the real reason for water scarcity is large agricultural corporations depleting ground water for profit.

It tries to prevent solutions to collective problems that can only be solved through collective action by rephrasing the problem into individual moral decisions. People who want to fix systemic problems are always asked to "lead by example", even though usually leading by example does not address the problem at all, and is generally ignored or even ridiculed.

 

[Farm Boy]

Which one is doing that again?

 

[Honor]

Why are production/wealth/success/progress/etc an indicator of being "better" at all? That is not the point of communism. "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." It is about balance, and freedom from the oppression of competitive systems. It is not designed to outproduce capitalist systems. It is designed to reduce human suffering. It was never fully realized, and what was realized did not last. The people in the end were not content with the mere reduction of their suffering, because after a few generations they were no longer aware of such suffering. They wanted more.

This is probably going to end up following a wave-like pattern where communist-like (socialist, social democratic) societies keep emerging and de-emerging. Maybe in the end, the world will decide to converge toward a less competitive way of life.

 

[Traitorfish]

If your position is to dismiss the USSR as the modern example of Communism at work, and declare that the USSR wasn't really Communist so it doesn't count, then would you also accept the counter-argument that the USA is not really Capitalist (as it has many communist policies/institutions at its core) and as such can't be used as a metric for the "performance" of Capitalism?

Both the USSR and USA represent different forms of capitalism. One predominately state-driven, one predominately market-driven, but neither absolutely so. It's not a case of proximity to Platonic ideals of capitalism or communism, but simply how these societies functioned.

OK but isn't that just a fancy way of saying "We can't do it cause it's not realistic/convenient"?

No, it's a fancy way of saying that humans live in societies for a reason.

All societies, even capitalist ones, are a way of pooling resources. It's unreasonable to expect people to act as if that isn't true, as if it's possible for individuals or even small groups to replicated complex societies, let alone prefigure new forms of complex society, using only those resources in reach of that individual or small groups. If the individuals or groups in question represent the more dispossessed members of a society, those with the least access to or power over the collective resource-pool, it becomes all the more absurd.

In my experience, the further you go into idealist and/or ideologue territory, the less often those questions will actually be answered with practical solutions, and the more often answers devolve into "It'll work out, you just have to trust me there". Some people just seem to be incapable of accepting that a flawed system might still be the best system we have and instead just build a vision of a system in their head that is utterly unrealistic.

I agree. However, I don't agree that the realist/idealist scale maps to the capitalist/socialist scale. There is nobody so utopian as those who insist, against all precedent and against all evidence, that capitalism will solve the crises of work, debt and ecology, if only we give it a chance.

 

[Ryika]

Oh, I don't think it's a scale where there's one end with realists, and one ends with idealists. I think, like on most political scales, the realists are somewhere around the center, depending on the issue somewhat shifted to the the left or the right (but usually the left), and then after a certain point, the further outwards you go, the more crazy people get. The only real difference between the extreme ends of both sides is that one side calls for non-action and believes (almost?) religiously extend that the system of capitalism, if left alone, will deliver exactly what we need, while the other side calls for radical reform without a clear plan for a better system.

 

[Perfection]

That's fair. But, as I said, it's naive to think that this sort of deep social change occurs because people have decided that it should, that one system supplants another because it is a Good Idea, and that a majority have been won to that opinion. That's never how it's worked in the past; mostly, change happens, and then people convinced themselves it's a Good Idea after all, and even then a lot of them will still keep insisting that it's a Bad Idea, perhaps a majority, but the change remains, because history doesn't work in reverse.

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention, and I tend to think that the same applies to human societies as much as steam engines or microprocessors. The question is not whether Atlantis can stand another few golden spires, but whether we notice the waves on the horizon.

Are calling me out on saying what we as a society ought do or ought not do?

How are we supposed to have public policy discussion without it?

Is it wrong to say "we ought to have a carbon tax to fight climate change"?