Should Intellectual Property exist?

[Lexicus]

I have no problem being ignorant of the fine points of soviet cinema.

This is an odd way to spell "I"m making blanket pronouncements in complete ignorance of the subject matter because my brain is full of anticommunist propaganda that I was indoctrinated with for decades"

 

[Igaryd]

It shouldn't be completely abolished but needs to be re-tooled a bit, probably should be only able to be held by natural persons for the extent of their natural life for example.

In a fully communist future we won't need it, we'll realize insane productivity gains from the free sharing of technical and operational information.

The most basic of private property is your labor. The minute you get paid nothing for your labor you become worth nothing and so does that which you produce. and hence no one has ever been able to make a truly communist society work because no human being will ever admit his labor is without value. In the end every attempt at communism has crashed and burned within a year, The Pilgrims nearly starved, the 1st century Christians likewise. From the very beginning of humanity, there has been private property, That's my stone axe not yours. etc

 

[Akka]

Again - the perspective of notable critics, academics and artists in the medium of film must be given weight if we are going to have a conversation more meaningful than expressing our personal opinions on various films.

And from the perspective of these fine people, can you give us a comparative measure per capita of how many the communist block produced of timeless classics compared to the West ?

 

[Lexicus]

The most basic of private property is your labor. The minute you get paid nothing for your labor you become worth nothing and so does that which you produce.

Communism is exactly what allows the worker to own their own labor and the product of their labor. Under capitalism your employer pays a wage and steals the rest of the value, that's how capitalism works.

In the end every attempt at communism has crashed and burned within a year, The Pilgrims nearly starved, the 1st century Christians likewise. From the very beginning of humanity, there has been private property, That's my stone axe not yours. etc

"I"m making blanket pronouncements in complete ignorance of the subject matter because my brain is full of anticommunist propaganda that I was indoctrinated with for decades"

 

[amadeus]

This is silly logic. I am not going to engage with it further.

I think I was precise enough with my language so in this case the fault is on you for making an absurd extrapolation.

 

[NinjaCow64]

The most basic of private property is your labor. The minute you get paid nothing for your labor you become worth nothing and so does that which you produce. and hence no one has ever been able to make a truly communist society work because no human being will ever admit his labor is without value.

This is covered in basic Marxist theory. It is the capitalists who actually under value Labour. Boiling it down to a very simple example, every employee who does not work for themselves is expected to increase the amount of money that their bosses earn. They are paid some of, but not all of, the extra money that their bosses earn. If this was not the case then the bosses would be losing money on their employees. This means that capitalism systematically undervalues the value of the labour that the labourer produces and it is one of the many reasons that capitalism is immoral.

In the end every attempt at communism has crashed and burned within a year, The Pilgrims nearly starved, the 1st century Christians likewise.

The Pilgrims and the 1st Century Christians were not Communists.

From the very beginning of humanity, there has been private property, That's my stone axe not yours. etc

There is a distinction between private and personal property. I have no interest in your stone axe, nor your toothbrush.

 

[NinjaCow64]

I think I was precise enough with my language so in this case the fault is on you for making an absurd extrapolation.

If Lenin-Stalin degrades the quality of Soviet cinema then how does the incredibly racist policies of the United States not downgrade the quality of American cinema?

If I have misinterpreted your point I don’t think you were precise enough in your language.

And from the perspective of these fine people, can you give us a comparative measure per capita of how many the communist block produced of timeless classics compared to the West ?

My God! I didn’t every say that the Soviet tradition of film was superior to everyone else’s! I just was pushing back against the ridiculous claim that people living in the Soviet Union were incapable of producing high quality art, when this is clearly not true.

 

[Akka]

My God! I didn’t every say that the Soviet tradition of film was superior to everyone else’s! I just was pushing back against the ridiculous claim that people living in the Soviet Union were incapable of producing high quality art, when this is clearly not true.

The thread has been pretty chaotic with lots of back-and-forth and twisting words so I might get confused a bit here, but from what I (vaguely) remember, the original point was that the communist version of lack of intellectual property rights was conductive to a lower level of innovation, which was seemingly hotly debated.
So I'm asking : if (according to you) we can rely on notable specialists to gauge art, can you tell us what their ratings show about how the communist block actually fared per capita compared to the western block when it came to artistic production ?

 

[sophie]

The original argument, in its own words, was that China, Korea, and Russia were artistically bankrupt under communism. Which is just laughably false.

 

[NinjaCow64]

The originally argument, in its own words, was that China, Korea, and Russia were artistically bankrupt under communism. Which is just laughably false.

Yes, this is the argument I was railing against.

The thread has been pretty chaotic with lots of back-and-forth and twisting words so I might get confused a bit here, but from what I (vaguely) remember, the original point was that the communist version of lack of intellectual property rights was conductive to a lower level of innovation, which was seemingly hotly debated.
So I'm asking : if (according to you) we can rely on notable specialists to gauge art, can you tell us what their ratings show about how the communist block actually fared per capita compared to the western block when it came to artistic production ?

I don't think that this is a productive thing to measure because I don't think that "Who has the better film tradition, the East or the West?" is a useful question. I don't claim to know which one is better. But I will indulge you.

According to the BFI's list of top films of all time as ranked by critics, the Soviet film Man with a Movie Camera is the #9 best film in the world. They asked the same question to a group of directors and according to them the highest ranking Soviet film is Mirror at #8. If we go by simplistic rankings of "Which group had more films make the list?" then obviously the west wins, as the critics' #1 film is Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (which is French) and the directors' #1 film is 2001: A Space Odyssey.

However, the fact that the Soviets have a consistent showing on both of these lists shows that they have made significant contributions to the medium. These are clearly films that critics compare other films to, films that inspire directors across the globe. The idea that the Soviet Union was artistically bankrupt is utter poppycock.

 

[Lexicus]

My God! I didn’t every say that the Soviet tradition of film was superior to everyone else’s! I just was pushing back against the ridiculous claim that people living in the Soviet Union were incapable of producing high quality art, when this is clearly not true.

I would also add that there seems to have been some conflation of political authoritarianism and censorship in the Soviet Union with a system of public finance of the arts. There has been a lot of good publicly funded art in the US too, notably by artists who were funded by New Deal programs.

 

[Evie]

We also probably can't rely that much on notable specialists to gauge art, because while they are better about it than most, appreciation of arts is very much informed by cultural factors and phenomenons, and what art is perceived to be in a given culture at a given point in time, and tend to tell us as much about the culture of those that produced the art as about the culture of those who are judging the art.

 

[Crezth]

No one, it was a hypothetical troll post in response to the allegation that I had trolled. Context is key!

Context is key, man, or are you telling me you don't understand the context was that you injected yourself into a discussion about a nuanced point in soviet film to honk your nose and drive a little car around, and by the way, it wasn't hypothetical because you actually did post it! Trolling!

Now who is making stuff up? You.

Wrong.

A lot of countries went to war in the 20th century.

Ah and here we have a guy whatabouting capitalist war crimes. So the whole political spectrum gets to participate in this blinkers thing!

I think you’re making stuff up again. The discussion centered around censorship, which was real.

Wrong again! These posts have literally been made. Now everyone knows you're trolling.

 

[Igaryd]

And from the perspective of these fine people, can you give us a comparative measure per capita of how many the communist block produced of timeless classics compared to the West ?

Under communism you own nothing including your labor.

 

[Igaryd]

I think I was precise enough with my language so in this case the fault is on you for making an absurd extrapolation.

This is covered in basic Marxist theory. It is the capitalists who actually under value Labour. Boiling it down to a very simple example, every employee who does not work for themselves is expected to increase the amount of money that their bosses earn. They are paid some of, but not all of, the extra money that their bosses earn. If this was not the case then the bosses would be losing money on their employees. This means that capitalism systematically undervalues the value of the labour that the labourer produces and it is one of the many reasons that capitalism is immoral.



The Pilgrims and the 1st Century Christians were not Communists.



There is a distinction between private and personal property. I have no interest in your stone axe, nor your toothbrush.

The Pilgrims and the 1st century tried a system where in everything was held in common. the land and everything else it failed utterly.

Sorry no the value of something in this case your labor can never have a value less than zero. History shows clearly that a capitalist will always pay you more for your labor than a communist who thinks it is his by right.

 

[Igaryd]

Further note there is not now nor has there ever been a communist country. In fact according to Karl the very notion of a communist country is an oxymoron. Every supposedly communist revolution has found itself stuck at the misnomered stage dictorship of the proletariat which to date winds up as either a government run oligarchy as in the Soviet Union or straight up military dictatorships as in the current communist china and North Korea. The historical record in fact suggest that as long as you insist on using human beings as the basis for your communist utopia it isn't ever going to happen

 

[NinjaCow64]

Sorry no the value of something in this case your labor can never have a value less than zero. History shows clearly that a capitalist will always pay you more for your labor than a communist who thinks it is his by right.

Patently false. lmao.

 

[Crezth]

Further note there is not now nor has there ever been a communist country. In fact according to Karl the very notion of a communist country is an oxymoron. Every supposedly communist revolution has found itself stuck at the misnomered stage dictorship of the proletariat which to date winds up as either a government run oligarchy as in the Soviet Union or straight up military dictatorships as in the current communist china and North Korea. The historical record in fact suggest that as long as you insist on using human beings as the basis for your communist utopia it isn't ever going to happen

Generally speaking, this stuff is just propaganda from capitalists who want to keep their workers on a leash. Sharing what we produce is inhuman - but murder and slavery, well that's just human nature! Yeah, that's why we have laws. "Utopia" is not on the table, and most socialists are well aware of that.

Two things:

1. Those states called themselves "socialist" which was in their view completely copasetic with their communist ambitions.

2. As the great Kwame Ture said, "Karl Marx did not invent socialism, socialism is there for all to see." It does not begin and end with what he thought.

 

[Akka]

The originally argument, in its own words, was that China, Korea, and Russia were artistically bankrupt under communism. Which is just laughably false.

What would be your criteria for a regime to be artistically bankrupt ?
I mean, art will manage to exist under many form whatever the context, but I guess we can agree that some contexts are more favourable to art than others. What would be the measure ?

I don't think that this is a productive thing to measure because I don't think that "Who has the better film tradition, the East or the West?" is a useful question. I don't claim to know which one is better. But I will indulge you.

According to the BFI's list of top films of all time as ranked by critics, the Soviet film Man with a Movie Camera is the #9 best film in the world. They asked the same question to a group of directors and according to them the highest ranking Soviet film is Mirror at #8. If we go by simplistic rankings of "Which group had more films make the list?" then obviously the west wins, as the critics' #1 film is Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (which is French) and the directors' #1 film is 2001: A Space Odyssey.

However, the fact that the Soviets have a consistent showing on both of these lists shows that they have made significant contributions to the medium. These are clearly films that critics compare other films to, films that inspire directors across the globe. The idea that the Soviet Union was artistically bankrupt is utter poppycock.

You haven't humored me, you're just again quoting one or two movies as evidence. That's precisely the very opposite of what I was asking.
I can accept the argument that per capita production isn't an adequate measure, at which point I'm going to refer to the question above : what would be an adequate one ?

 

[Remorseless1]

This is covered in basic Marxist theory. It is the capitalists who actually under value Labour. Boiling it down to a very simple example, every employee who does not work for themselves is expected to increase the amount of money that their bosses earn. They are paid some of, but not all of, the extra money that their bosses earn. If this was not the case then the bosses would be losing money on their employees. This means that capitalism systematically undervalues the value of the labour that the labourer produces and it is one of the many reasons that capitalism is immoral.



The Pilgrims and the 1st Century Christians were not Communists.



There is a distinction between private and personal property. I have no interest in your stone axe, nor your toothbrush.

A distinction between private and personal property? Do enlighten me. Private property is, by definition, personal. And using economic terminology, personal property is private property. So please demonstrate the distinction. Maybe we should outlaw property completely. No one owns anything, everything can be used by anyone at any time.