[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Strummer', '
')
Actually, it's you who doesn't know what you are talking about. I did live in a communist country, I grew up in the 80s in the former Czechoslovakia, and I can assure you there's plenty of people who feel quite nostalgic. As an illustration, here's the election results of the Czech Communist party:

[dissident]

The transition after 1991 of the ex-USSR was characterized by the looting of state assets by connected insiders (e.g. Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, etc.) and the opening of borders to unregulated competition from foreign products and services which helped drive the economy into the ground. A full on transition to a 3rd world toilet economy. The drunk idiot Yeltsin let various shock therapy witchdoctors screw over Russia as he busily taxed the gross revenues of Russian companies (not their profits) forcing them to cheat to survive and allowing the mafia to flourish through blackmail. Yeltsin's regime also propped up the currency to an insane degree so that at one stage the government bonds had a 150% interest rate.

In 1998 the house of cards crumbled, the Russian currency experienced a massive devaluation which put up a natural import barrier that allowed Russian companies to actually make money selling their products. This allowed them to re-tool and make their products more competitive so that when the inflation adjusted exchange rate restored to less favourable levels foreign imports did not drive them out of business. No western country or Asian tiger practiced free trade during their development phase. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan were all protectionist when their industry was starting out. You only adopt free trade when your industry is mature and can compete. The shock therapy witchdoctors in Russia drank the koolaid of Harvard "academics" such as Jeffrey Sachs. It's funny, I recall Sachs giving an interview on the CBC where he was touting the "success" of the Bolivian shock therapy experiment when discussing what wonders it would do for Russia. Well, they succeeded in Bolivizing Russia, that's for sure. So excuse millions of Russians for being "nostalgic" for what they had before 1991. It's not nostalgia, it's recognition that they were screwed over by their government and the crooks who got rich from stealing public assets. Khodorkovsky was not some Carnegie. The "robber barons" of the gilded era USA grew industries and companies from scratch. The gangster oligarchs in Russia just stole existing infrastructure and mostly ran it into the ground. (Look up the takeover of the Apatit fertilizer company by Khodorokovsky during the 1990s, which filled a quite a few graves with contract killing victims).

The proper transition to capitalism would have been to at the very least not prop up the roubel. No free trade policy should have been pursued at all. The taxation system should have been rational and not just extortion. If the government could not make money on corporate profits, it should have been taxing imports. The taxes would have created conditions for domestic companies to actually be profitable. All the yapping about efficiency of Soviet enterprises is a load of bollox. These enterprises should have at least had a fair chance to re-tool and change their business models before being swamped with lethal levels of imports. The only reason that imports were affordable was because the roubel was being artificially maintained. If it was not propped up and properly floated there would have been a restoring feedback which would act to suppress excessive imports.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'I')t's been mentioned here already that capitlism is an economic system, not a social system.

[Strummer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'I')ncredible! And what do you think is the basis from which the economy is given effect if not social relations, in this instance, capitalism. Capitalism occupies all spaces from family to church. To look at one component of the bigger picture in isolation whilst bemoaning another component, the damage caused is missing out the complete picture.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '
')The definition is wrong. Capital is distinguished from other forms of wealth by the presence of labour value and the presence of the basis for accumulation, private capital. Any mode of value adding other than this involving the communalisation of value but in a nation form is a variant of revolutionary socialism, which achieves its natural form in a global context.

The presence of the market grants capital the additional component Marx's critique highlighted as it's ultimate death knell, the magnification of that labour value by increasingly greater forms of non-tangible assetising, the basis for the regular crises in capitalism as capital takes on an increasingly casino like quality. A quality that leads to the marginalisation of labour, its pauperisation and eventual conflict.

This half baked notion that an imperfect revolutionary socialism was a form of capital was precisely why the ranks of Marxists are in disarray. If they would take the time to read and contemplate the nature of capital, we would be spared the circles capitalists run around us.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Strummer', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'I')ncredible! And what do you think is the basis from which the economy is given effect if not social relations, in this instance, capitalism. Capitalism occupies all spaces from family to church. To look at one component of the bigger picture in isolation whilst bemoaning another component, the damage caused is missing out the complete picture.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ralfy', 'T')he point that the "definition" is wrong is illogical because there are several definitions of the phrase.

From what I remember, Marx was not so naive as to imagine a "perfect" revolution right away or nothing at all. Rather, a revolution would involve workers taking over the means of production first.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '
')
One has to learn to distinguish between the revolution or taking control of the means of production and ownership of the means of production. Dealing with the latter, where the workers own the means of production (revolutionary socialism), the resulting social relations (not that different to property relations in tribal societies) renders the existence of capital nil. Where the bourgeoisie prevail albeit in a socialised net, this is bourgeoisie socialism.

As I have said, it pays to read Capital and understand this distinction. This understanding will spare us the stupidity of running a system that purports to be socialist today, is cutting welfare tomorrow and bailing out the bankers the day after.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ralfy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '
')
One has to learn to distinguish between the revolution or taking control of the means of production and ownership of the means of production. Dealing with the latter, where the workers own the means of production (revolutionary socialism), the resulting social relations (not that different to property relations in tribal societies) renders the existence of capital nil. Where the bourgeoisie prevail albeit in a socialised net, this is bourgeoisie socialism.

As I have said, it pays to read Capital and understand this distinction. This understanding will spare us the stupidity of running a system that purports to be socialist today, is cutting welfare tomorrow and bailing out the bankers the day after.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '
')
Theres been a lot of confusion surrounding this area. One has to remember that Marx saw his analysis as an objective science. In other words, Capital, the volumes, merely analyse capital. Elsewhere in his works, he offers his opinion on what people should do with this knowledge:

1 He talks about the characteristics of capital. Its fundamental characteristics, the fact that it has to constantly ripple social relations in order to refresh its market, the relentless quest for accumulation, the gradual shift to a casino economy, the tendency to cycles of crises/boom, the globalistion process that captures even the obdurate parochial (think racists, would be luddites, petty nationalists, small businessmen...all fall prey to the globalist compulsion inherent in capitalism) and of course, the resourcing quandry. He touches very briefly on the planet (just one sentence and you have to look for it and think deeply about its meaning. But in there we warns about the risk to the planet.)

2 Elesewhere he talks about the dialectical method and what it offers mankind...specifically workers who, in not having a vested interest in the system. can use the dialectic to free themselves from wage slavery. He cautions however, about bourgeoisie socialism, reformists and other opportunists. Of all the leaders, I suspect Castro understood Capital the best (as well as Lenin and Stalin...hence they are brutalised and hounded in a bid to make what they led appear a shambles. Never mind. The objective forces of material dialecticism are still the final arbiter.

More topically given what the site deals with, we are in a crisis subject to forces that tick away quietly in the background. How we respond to this crisis will determine whether we enjoy the planet for a prolonged period or not.

edit: Mao was probably the worst crook to lead a mass uprising. Unsurprisingly, he is being feted as the face of modern China by capitalists. Bastard struck a deal with Nixon and fiasco of fiascos, China props up the capitalist with slave labour. Hardly surprising given the rubbish he put the Chinese through only to make them into the drones he had planned for them all along. And you still get numbskulls who follow this cretin's teachings

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ralfy', 'F')WIW, I agree with all of the points you raised above.

[radon1]

By the way, Pol Pot was bitterly condemned by the USSR, and was portrayed as some sort of a western mercenary. His party wasn't even the communist party of the country, he championed a nationalistic cause, Khmer Rouge, which had nothing to do with marxism.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('radon1', 'B')y the way, Pol Pot was bitterly condemned by the USSR, and was portrayed as some sort of a western mercenary. His party wasn't even the communist party of the country, he championed a nationalistic cause, Khmer Rouge, which had nothing to do with marxism.

[KaiserJeep]

Twaddle. Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, and Stalin are all genocidal Marxist butchers.

[radon1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'T')waddle. Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, and Stalin are all genocidal Marxist butchers.

[dissident]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'T')waddle. Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, and Stalin are all genocidal Marxist butchers.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'T')waddle. Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, and Stalin are all genocidal Marxist butchers.

[KaiserJeep]

I do happen to believe in the oil peak. I don't blame Capitalism. I blame basic human nature, in fact the same behavior that began about 3000 BC when humans extended the tribe structure into villages and clans. That is the earliest form of Capitalism and the earliest Capitalists were herders, farmers, blacksmiths, bakers, brewers, etc.

In other words, they were tradesmen. The earliest venture capitalist was the local banker or money lender. The basic structure of Capitalism was present in 3000 BC, the only thing that changed past that point was the scale. The technology of warfare enabled the extension of the largest geographical unit from a village to a country, and enabled the scale up of tribal conflicts to (eventually) World War.

In other words, Marx got it wrong, he confused results with cause. The net results are pretty much the same except that if you accept the twaddle published by Marx, you believe in a safety net that does not actually exist. Which is a foolish self-deception because it requires humans to act against basic self-interest, to place the collective good above even the family structure. It will never happen. We will all either live or dies as Capitalists.

Which is as on-topic as it is possible to be, by one who does not share your foolish delusion.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'I') do happen to believe in the oil peak. I don't blame Capitalism. I blame basic human nature,

[radon1]

Kaiser, your point about capitalism's reliance on the basic human nature is a very valid one. Greed, fear, and hierarchy all have billions years of history and as such are tried and tested and very reliable. Communal forms will likely have to rely on human conscience, which is very recent and thus fragile and unreliable. But the alternative to those communal forms is sliding to archaisms such as feudalism or even barbarism (was discussed on this forum in detail a year or so ago).

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'I') do happen to believe in the oil peak. I don't blame Capitalism.
I blame basic human nature, in fact the same behavior that began about 3000 BC when humans extended the tribe structure into villages and clans. That is the earliest form of Capitalism and the earliest Capitalists were herders, farmers, blacksmiths, bakers, brewers, etc.