They simplified it so it would be comprehensible for you, you dolt. They even wrote that at the beginning. If you really wanna get into the math, just read Das Kapital. Here’s a brief excerpt speaking about the price of linen
You are already engaged in a discussion, which you engaged by posting and then responding to posts. Your responses are then show. To be in bad faith, since you are not willing to interact with the argumens other users present in good faith. This is typical of you libs, but it is an unfortunate side effect that good and educating discussion gets drowned out by you uneducated idiots that think a link to Wikipedia means anything… Good education is drowned out by you smuglords that fail to realise civility is a two-way street. These snide comments you make are then further expounded by other snide idiots, which further muddies the waters and ruins discussion, it doesn’t seem like an effective strategy to me, because you get called out on it, that is what you all want to do and sadly the only thing that can be done in response is to not take you seriously until you either get too hurt that your idiotic comments results in similarly asinine responses or you get too hurt from the people calling you on your bullshit and you defederate PIGPOOPBALLS
I can’t really speak for a site - it’s users are not a monolith - but the general culture is that you are not owed a good faith discussion , if you clearly aren’t interested in one. If you look you’ll notice that when people ask questions they get them asnwered, but when they try to make gochas or they get embroiled in an argument, but then don’t respect the other well enough to respond to their queries, then it turns into shotposting. And why wouldn’t it? Why would I wanna spend energy validating some doofus that’s pretty obviously just trying to troll? Why would I validate someone’s opinion on something they obviously know nothing about, when I’ve shared sources and knowledge which they then disregard in order to continue knowing nothing?
Kid, Scandinavia is falling apart. It’s being hollowed out by neoliberal regimes like those that hollowed out the UK a few decades ago.
Even before being hollowed out, the place was far from perfect. There has always been homeless and exploited immigrants. One of the largest Scandinavian firms is Mærsk, which ships all over the world - mainly using underpaid labor.
None of the “good stuff” is paid for by these companies anyway - they’re just cheating with their taxes like anyone else - it’s paid for mainly by taxes of the lower and middle classes (when you’re wealthy enough you put your money in a tax haven). At that point it’s not “well regulated markets” it’s outsized taxes on the part of the population with least resources available to them.
Is it better than the us? Very much so, but it’s not even close to good
I still disagree with this statement, insofar as it makes it seem like Scandinavia is more reliant on the third world than any other imperialist country.
This statement makes it seem like if the us just did enough imperialism it’d finally get healthcare. That’s obviously not the case. It works as a shield for the American liberals to explain why they do not have healthcare.
The welfare state was a concession won by labour movements in Scandinavia. These concessions could be afforded due to the fact that the Scandinavian countries benefitted from empire - though such a benefit is not necessary for welfare to be present, as has been shown by the many aes states that provide services for their citizens.
Dismissing this victory of labour as “a product of imperialism” diminishes what we can accomplish. We should critique Scandinavia and be aware that those countries - like the rest of the west - benefit from empire. We should however not correlate the existence with a welfare state with participation in empire.
The largest Scandinavian companies don’t pay their taxes, the welfare state is primarily funded for by outsized taxes on the poor and the “middle class”. The upper classes in Scandinavia have been embroiled in countless tax fraud scandals.
It’s not to say that Scandinavia doesn’t benefit from imperialism or that the existence of the countries as they are now aren’t reliant on exploitation of the third world - they are.
It is to say that the statement “Scandinavia can only be the way that it is due to imperialism” implies that with sufficient imperialism the us would turn into Scandinavia (it wouldn’t) and that Scandinavia somehow does more imperialism than the us or other puppet masters.
Lmao they actually went on about Uyghurs and taiwan. They talked to an actual Chinese person and discounted their perspective that the Uyghurs weren’t being persecuted and the attitude of both the ROC and the PRC that there is one Taiwan lmao
this she relates to how many Uyghur people are "actually in power.
She would be more or less right, they Uyghurs aren’t being persecuted xinjiangahr.carrd.co or at least not how most libs seem to think of it. There is something to be said of the schools, but it’s a far cry from the accusations the west has thrown out (and then recanted because the accusations were lies).
She thinks Taiwan (and Hongkong) belongs to China because it has always historically belonged to China.
Well she would then be in agreement with both the official policy of the ROC and the PRC, so that would be pretty reasonable.
Or they can enjoy the fact that they have regulatory capture and change the regulations, as has been seen historically.
For practical observance: Denmark pays a wage to university students. The function of this wage is to make sure the students can focus on their studies, instead of having to have a job that demands time from them, which would lower the quality of education.
Students also need housing, which the private sector provides in the form of “student housing”, which requires you to be a student in order to live there. This “student housing” has a rent that is usually, approximately right around the student wage - thus meaning the student needs to take a job in order to afford things such as “food” and “electricity”. This state of affairs occured despite regulations.
The holodomor was the famine you doofus. It was also not an action taken deliberately by the Soviet government, and historians and scholars agree that the holodomor didn’t target Ukraine specifically - it was instead a famine that.hit the Soviet Union as a result of years of war. Do you not know your hostory?
Right now, the whole world has, through various efforts, has solved the global food production issue.
Right now millions are starving, despite there being more than enough food.
You still haven’t answered the question.
That the soviets and china managed to solve this aspect of it too is not a win for socialism, especially given the mass starvation that accompanied their efforts, but I see (and correct me if I have misunderstood) you and others holding this up as some kind of tenuous proof of superiority.
That the soviets and the Chinese managed to eliminate famine in a region that had been plagued by famine since history could account for it, is not an immense accomplishment? Cope. It most certainly is, especially when you bring up the discussion of starvation.
Social inequality and the denial of what I believe are basic human rights (food, housing, safety, access to healthcare, and freedom of expression), OTOH, are a continuing problem world-wide.
Issues that the soviets and the Chinese made far greater dents I to, than anything modern capitalist governments do.
am much more interested in efforts here - both local, regional, and global.
So again, since you care so much about famines, and the current system has constant famines despite ha ing more than enough food available, and the soviets and the Chinese managed to eliminate famine, what system do you support? You surely cannot be a capitalist, since so many people are starving to death every day in capitalist countries. Millions are starving in the us alone. What do you think should be done?
I have yet to call you a name or make an assumption - I’ve pointed out the actions you’ve taken. “You smuglords” clearly being in the plural. Please work on your reading comprehension.
If you think having your behaviour pointed out to you is “name calling” consider wether you’re just a piece of shit.
Also again you refuse to engage with argument presented to you. Since you refuse good faith discussion, why do you think you deserve anything other than ridicule? You’re clearly a moron
Force is not the primary, way or even secondary, that capitalism is maintained, it’s division and diversion.
Get it thru your dense head: Division and diversion, arrests, lies all of these things can only be, because they are insured by the backbone of state-monopolized violence. How is this so hard to get? No one is saying that tanks are.out in the streets every day, the point is that there is an implicit knowledge that the oppressors can always turn to violence - or force - to maintain the status quo.
“I’m as left as they come” lmao. Dawg you’re a capitalist, you’re a liberal. Learn your terminology.
But, you see, I also believe in democracy. It’s slow, but it’s a noble idea where citizens are able to decide who governs over the country, and have a say in policy shaping. I personally like being able to vote and go on protests. If the people of Taiwan want to vote, let them vote. It’s their lives.
Yeah me too, which is why I’m against a military dictatorship installed by the United States, existing on an island where it murdered millions of indigenous people to exist as a possible launch-board for future invasions despite the fact that the will of the people on the island and off it overwhelmingly supported and supports unification. It’s this weird thing I like called “doing things despite the United States being against it”
Yeah and then you wrote “in either case, I agree” as in you think it would be better to have Scandinavians, than whatever you have now, which is why I ask what you mean by that?
Social democrats are also in favor of capitalism, which again means you’re a liberal.
I was just reading Adair Turner’s articles on how financial growth might in fact take rent on the real economy rather than deliver economic value, what is called “unproductive financialization”, I think you might be interested in reading around this idea.
Are you trying to show leftist credentials or something? This is hilarious. Why would I be interested in yet another economist speculating how finance capital will influence the material world?
m also against the military dictatorship installed by the United States anywhere outside of the United States, but we’re talking about China and right now we’re going into whataboutism territory and I’m going to disengage.
So first off you’re abusing the disengage rule. It is not a “get the last word” magic spell, but instead a rule existing in order to make the site more welcoming for neurodivergent comrades. It is clearly stated that you must post “disengage” and nothing else.
Secondly: whataboutism is a concept introduced by CIA stooges in order to frustrate discussion. It is not “whataboutism” to introduce context relevant for a discussion. What actions the Chinese government takes are influenced by the historical and material context that give birth to them. This is the reason for introducing these facts to the discussion.
Thirdly: Even if whataboutism was a real thing, you choose to focus on this I stead of the arguments which have been put forth that relate to the discussion at hand. If you cannot relate to or engage with the arguments, do some self-crit and consider why that might be.
Fourth: Keep your condescending faux-friendliness to yourself you piece of shit
I mean, no? The USSR had a successful revolution and was almost defeated by the white army. The Paris commune was crushed by the forces of capital, Salvador Allende was murdered by capital, Cuba barely survived its infancy or the fall of the Soviet Union, COINTELPRO has crushed many nascent movements as well as the BPP, the government of Iran was couped as well as many others.
Pretending line capital does not have immense power is silly. Pretending we do not exist in a society wherein left movements are routinely hinted, crushed, suppressed, destroyed or subverted is naive and silly.
Every single revolution was long and drawn out, the victories precarious and hard-won. It’s not a cake-walk. And even then it is impressively idealistic to go “the people united are indivisible” because yeah sure, but that unity has never been available. Reactionaries are a thing, fifth columnists are a thing. The Bolsheviks and Mensheviks fought each other, the makhnovosts and soviets fought each other, China and Vietnam waged war against each other.
You gotta accept the reality of the world you’re in, and work from there. I would suggest reading Engels “On Authority”
Tell you what, you’ve come across as snide, dismissive smug and completely uninterested in an actual discussion, instead maintaining the superiorty of your own belief, and purely working towards convincing me on what is right.
But I’ve been in this thread quite a bit, I’m a bit on hair trigger, so I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and come back to you in a little while.
You’re right, I called you a name last time and I’m sorry. That completely invalidates all the arguments put forth.
You and some other hexbears seem to throw around the term “libs” as an insult whenever someone doesn’t agree with you, and often prematurely.
Rehashing the same tired debunked argument time and again does get tiring. “Reverting” to calling you a lib is a way of highlighting the many thought-terminating cliches being spit out as a result of being uncritically enmenshed in propaganda.
I also think that you have developed your own “common knowledge” in relative isolation, and often have trouble explaining/justifying it outside of the hexbear community.
My experience is quite the reverse. Every time I interact with one of your opinions you revert to the same tired arguments using the same tired long-debunked “facts” - When you actually use facts. Most of the time you refuse to engage with the arguments put forth in the discussion you’re having. Instead you choose condescenstion. You do this because you believe yourself to be correct and me to be misinformed - I simply haven’t heard of the holodomor or whatever. I was once like you, but then I started investigating the things I thought I knew about. Consider wether you might be misinformed about things you consider to be true. Consider why you are misinformed on these things. Consider who misinformed you. Consider what you can do to work against this misinformation. Consider why you react as you do with people whose beliefs stride against your perception of reality. Consider why those people have those beliefs despite us all learning those simple things you hold to be true.
My experience of hexbear is that of a vibrant community sharing knowledge and critiquing each other when that knowledge is lacking or wrong. This leads to a community that shows humility towards learning new things, as well as staying critical towards that which it believes to “know”. You do not experience this humility because you come in as an outsider expecting your tired long-since-debunked beliefs to somehow have any relevance or novelty. They are not new, they are not insightful and they have been shown time and again to be wrong. Which is fine - we’re all wrong. The “bad habit” you experience is people being sick of arguing with obviously wrong libs that refuse to engage with new knowledge.
Asking questions is good, but posturing as if you are the purveyor of divine knowledge to be shared (and that knowledge being wrong) leads to you meeting the attitude you’ve met
I will continue to encourage people to explain or argue their case. I will also continue trying to be open and inclusive, and advocating for dialogue.
I am glad to hear that that is what you think you are doing. I would encourage you to investigate how you interact with those you disagree with, and reconsider how you are creating dialogue
You come into this with an ahistorical “point” about famines. There is no humility or invitation to an open dialogue, you are clearly being condescending and smug.
Your “point” gets argued by me in the way that I point out that famines were eliminated. Instead of engaging with this argument, you once again choose condescention talking vaguely about “if the dead could argue their case” and then vague speak of looking at past tragedies. I engage with this point and agree, which leads me to reiterate my argument - One famine once is better than constant famines. Once again you choose smugness and condescention instead of engaging with the argument. You the try to change the discussion to one of food aid? Instead of relating to the one that was present. This is so far typical bad-faith behaviour. You once again return to the question of starvation.
I then once again point out how historically famine had been an issue, and it was eliminated. I then point out how famine and starvation is still an issue in capitalist countries. You do not engage with this point, instead handwaving “there are a lot of problems” and you try to downplay the achievement by writing a lie (famine has been solved) which also still doesn’t answer any of the questions I’ve asked. So far you’re still being condescending, I’ve yet to call you a name.
I respond to every one of your arguments and point out how you are going against historical consensus on what happened in the soviet union wrt the famine in the soviet union. I refrained from pointing out how you’ve engaged in “double genocide theory” which was pushed by nazis to downplay the holocaust. I am however tired of your condescention and your tired arguments, so I am curt and I finish off with a rude picture.
You have yet to respond to this post, yet you continue the same argument elsewhere with both me and other users. It is clear you are not interested in a good-faith discussion. If you were you would have answered my questions, related to the arguments and asked questions where you were unsure. You didn’t.
Elsewhere someone points out your absurdity and idiocy by responding your condescending ahistorical “famine” comment with a “gottem”. You ask if that’s a joke - thereby implying you think your comment in any way deserved to be validated, despite the fact that we’ve now all seen that it was right to disregard you and your opinions.
I point this out and I refer to your type of person with a derisive name - Indirectly calling you a name. This then becomes the crux of your new argument, instead of - once again - actually engaging in the arguments put forth in the discussion you’re having. It is clear you are not willing to engage in an exchange of knowledge of opinions, instead looking for quick and easy ways to post smug and condescending comments.
Now we are here, you will have learned nothing. You will at best engage with the name calling or - once again - me making “assumptions” about you. Assumptions that have so far been proven true.
With this behaviour you’ve engaged in, why do you think you deserve anything other than ridicule?
Wow you managed to engage with one single point! Very good, though you still haven’t answered my question. You also keep to debating the holodomor, as if I disagree there was a famine or something? I don’t, we agree there was a famine. Answer my question.
It’s also neat to see you continue to engage in holocaust denial by way of peddling double genocide theory. At no point did the Soviet government deliberately take actions with intent to starve it’s population, implying this - and thereby equating it with the holocaust - trivialises the holocaust, as well as spreads misinformation about historical events.
Did the soviets make mistakes? Yes, many. Did the Soviet government intentionally starve it’s citizens? No.
This is not a debate about the long-since debunked “deliberate” famine where Stalin personally went around with his big spoon and ate all the grain. What made the famine worse? If you are interested in such a discussion I’d recommend actually looking into the data and the historians interpretating it first. This thread has good and approachable information an excerpt:
You’re talking about the Nazis which were the people that perpetrated the holocaust. We think it was good to use violence, you seem to think otherwise. What did you think should’ve been done to stop the holocaust?
The poste is about the Nazis - the people that made use of concentration camps in order to perpetrate q genocide. How is this not relevant to a discussion about nazis?
You’re talking about the Nazis. Your post was about nazis, people are responding talking about nazis. The discussion is clearly about nazis, which comes as a result of you framing the discussion about nazis. If you didn’t want it to be about nazis, but I stead your perception that leftists label political opponents “nazi” as a way to otherize them and justify political violence, then you should’ve argued that point instead.
Do better, learn what words mean.
I’d argue Spain wasn’t a good example, since it fell to the forces of reaction.
I know I’m being reductive and I appreciate your input, but I’m just trying to say that while there are many ways to approach the question of how society should be economically structured, it must be anchored in the material reality of what threatens your society, what opportunities and weaknesses and opportunities it has. I also gotta be honest that it is not a discussion that really interests me, as it is quite far from ever being relevant to me.
The discussion is interesting to me only insofar as to understand why the existing socialist countries are structured as they are. If you haven’t already seen it I’d like to refer you to this short excerpt from one of Michael Parents Talks youtu.be/uThpIDlfcBQ?si=OHOPASxctMMemkNG
Why would you feel threatened about violence against nazis?
And again: Do you think we shouldn’t have fought the Nazis? You still won’t answer the question
A good faith discussion is not about convincing another, but instead about having an open exchange of information.
They’re not going to be convinced when they’re already putting words in the opposition’s mouth.
They’re illustrating a point which you failed to engage with. In no way did it put words in your mouth. The fact that you choose to be insulted by the way they decided to illustrate that point rather than engage with them in good faith says a lot more about you.
To reiterate: You didn’t engage with their argument, but good try nonetheless. It’s nice to see you cling to a fallacy rather than engage in good-faith discussion of an argument clearly illustrated for you to relate to.
Do better.
Is that your actual answer? That’s all you think that happened in 2014? I’m asking because it’s pretty impossible to gauge wether you’re being a smug idiot or just an idiot right now.
Getting an answer out of a lib really is like pulling teeth, you’re completely incapable of good faith discussion. Why is it so hard for you to answer a simple question? Why do you refuse to just engage in good faith with those that respond to you? Are you incapable of being a smugh shitheel?
You said Russia didn’t unilaterally invade Ukraine, because of what happened in 2014.
I’ve so far said nothing about wether or not Russia invaded Ukraine. I’ve literally only asked you about what happened in 2014. So far you’ve failed to answer.
Now you’re just projecting and insulting me instead of explaining what you mean
Yeah, like you’ve been doing all the way through. Answer the question.
I know what happened in 2014,
Then tell me. Why is it so hard to just answer a question? What happened in 2014?
New WHO chief scientist backs China fact-finding mission to examine COVID origin (fortune.com)
What is the biggest lesson that employment has taught you? (lemmy.ml)
Lemmy might, MIGHT have a small bias towards the left (lemm.ee)