/lit/ - Literature

Capitalism has no higher order than profit.
If it can profit from destruction it will do so.

>>11004499
Pro: It killed a lot of communists.

If you approve of capitalism there's nothing that can help you.

>>11004541
Con: It killed a lot of everyone in general.
>>11004499
For Communism to even begin to make sense you need to have a pretty decent grasp of Hegel and Ricardo. From then on, it's decent, but I ultimately wouldn't call it a philosophy or an ideology at all because Marx avoids ethics like the plague.

>>11004499
Communism isn't a philosophy, it's a form of government.

>>11004557
Not a commie but lowkey agree; if you unironically say you "love capitalism" you're just never gonna make it intellectually

>>11004539
>Capitalism has no higher order than profit.
>If it can profit from destruction it will do so.
But communism is more than thinking capitalism is bad. The nazis thought capitalism was bad. The Iranian government thinks capitalism is bad.

>>11004563
No, no, no, no.
If you say "I love capitalist bipartidarian democracy" you're never gonna make it. You can make it while loving capitalism by going the Land route.

>>11004567
Nazis were the defenders of Capitalism in Germany, literally the big industrialists financed them. Thinking otherwise is not seeing the big picture.

>>11004579
If you believe this you don't know what capitalism is.

>>11004579
No, it's capitalists defending nazis.

>>11004557

capitalism is founded on the psychological exploitation of human desire, and is molded to reward greed at the expense of any true morality. Indeed, 'ethics' in our new day and age means simply dehumanizing others and justifying more imperial projects.
It moreover has completely demolished our relationship to one another and our sense of identity, which now cannot be separated from our relations to commodities.
anyone who defends capitalism does so because it is easier than admitting the severe, vastly pervading damage it has done on humanity.

>>11004600
What?

>>11004583
Capitalism doesn't involve personal freedom that's some retarded Austrian School/Chicago School (both of them supporters of dictatorships ironically enough) idea, for instance the USSR was State Capitalism because the working class was exploited and the surplus it produced was taken by the State Burocracy (new Capitalist class).

>>11004602
What a colossal faggot, and as always the communist ignores human nature. As long as there is one person who pretends to be a communist in order to assume power. Communism is predicated on the psychological exploitation of human belief in utopian ideals, just like Christianity.

>>11004600
That is probably the worst understanding of Historical Materialism I have ever seen.

>>11004606
>the USSR was State Capitalism because the working class was exploited
What?

>>11004608
You clearly have never read any of the foundational communist texts and are parroting off people who haven't either. It's amusing that you think you have anything to contribute.

>>11004608
>muh human nature
try harder

>>11004539
This is a fair critique of capitalism, but not an argument for communism, and it has been proven that communist government is just as if not more corrupt and short-sighted.

>>11004608
>human nature
The appeal to "human nature", assuming that is even a definable or universal thing, is a lazy attempt to shield capitalism against any form of criticism. "Human nature" isn't greed; and the idea of man as "self-serving" develops from historical constituents that support the capitalist system and coincide with its spread.

>>11004625
>it has been proven
lmao

>>11004631
>what is history

>>11004652
You don't know history, buddy.

>>11004611
What you read, that's why we say it was not actual Socialism, much less Communism.

>>11004687
But how would a state have anything to redistribute if it didn't get a hold of the surplus?

>>11004631
it has been proven. if you're seriously going to sit here in the first world on your computer and ignore the millions that died during collectivization, or purges, or from starvation after collectivization, or were simply erased from history... I don't know what to tell you except you're a willful idiot and I hope the commie government you install erases you too.

>>11004702
You're too emotional. That's not proof.

>>11004706
great counterargument, senpai

>>11004706
>ad hominem
>no argument
well i'm convinced take my property and all my labor

sign me up for that good life

>>11004499
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awrpUP7GmaU

>>11004558
>Marx avoids ethics like the plague
>Implying his whole philosophy isn't implicitly about justifying his ethics

>>11004714
There was no argument to counter.

>>11004562
this
fuck the ideologues ITT

>>11004745
>There was no argument to counter.

>>11004499
I tend to float around Social Democracy, Communism, and Utopianism so i don't know if my opinion holds for general Communists.
Communism has given us many privileges we enjoy today, some through government reforms, some through strikes, some through more radical actions. Things like a maximum of 8 hours a day (with overtime paid extra if one choses), no children working in factories and dangerous environments, minimum wages, etc, to name a few. It was once a radical idea that kids should not risk their health in a workplace and should instead go to school and learn to become what they want to be and this was opposed by the oligarchs in the world. Communism itself never wanted to take away your toothbrush and your computer only it wants to take away the wealth made by labour from individuals and instead allow said wealth to go to the wages, healthcare, infrastructure, etc.

A lot more can be said but i don't want to bore you.

>>11004693
ANON YOU NEED 1:1 RETURN FOR REAL COMMUNISM

>>11004499
i am from Bulgaria and have seen the aftermath of communism in my country . as an idea it is not bad ,but the leaders who were put in power are not the best

>>11004758
Things I did not learn from Victoria 2

>>11004702
>if you're seriously going to sit here in the first world on your computer and ignore the millions that died during the brutal extraction of materials to make your computers and phones you're a willful idiot...

>>11004755
What was it exactly?

>>11004608
Christianity has been around for far longer than capitalism, and a lot of the basic tenants of capitalist society is founded on the beliefs they have.

>>11004766
the question was not whether capitalism was evil, it was whether communism has been proven equally if not more corrupt and short-sighted than capitalism. and it has. try to keep up, brainlet.

>>11004777
According to what metric is capitalism less corrupt and short-sighted? History? You must be joking.

>>11004764
I myself don't play games like those too often (except for Hearts of Iron with my friends) and i was on occasions hard-right, sometimes ancap, sometimes just a Stirnerist Egoist, but my most comfortable spot is a Social Democratic stance and i have to confess that i might be biased because i live in Canada, i have a terrible condition, and i have been taken care for by my government (i hate the Liberal party though). Reading all kinds of things from the Revolutionary Era and the Victorian Era has driven me to the left based more on compassion than on economic knowledge.
>>11004777
nice numbers

>>11004782
counting out a measure of suffering is pointless, retard. i would say they are equally good at grinding workers into bone meal for cannibal bankers and crushing the human spirit.

>>11004499
Since when is communism a philosophy?

>>11004777
Name one (1) communist society under marx's definition of communism.

Hint: the USSR does't count.

>>11004567
They critiqued capitalism while gleefully engaging in that system. The Nazis were elevated to success upon the shoulders of German business, and the term "privatization" was created to describe Nazi economic policy.

Communism is the only means of abolishing capitalism and all that entails -- not only private business and competition, but also wage labor and monetary value.

>>11004784
I hope you read Germinal

>>11004782
communism has killed more people. capitalism is responsible for all of the great technological advances of the last two centuries

>>11004791
>counting out a measure of suffering is pointless
for you

>>11004794
Name one purely capitalistic one...

>>11004798
>capitalism is responsible for all of the great technological advances of the last two centuries
Is "technological advancement" the metric you use to gauge a system's merit? Because if so you're a moron.

>>11004798
>communism has killed more people
What are the numbers?
>capitalism is responsible for all of the great technological advances of the last two centuries
You'll have to explain this one.

>>11004794
pic related, it's you.

>>11004799
Maybe. I think it is pointless to try to estimate which has caused greater harm. Trying to quantify suffering on such a scale is dehumanizing... exactly the sort of thing oligarchs would do.

>>11004693
The state doesn't redistribute surplus it confiscates from workers, instead individual communities pool together their unused resources and use them to solve collective problems.

A state framework would only manage resource distribution between communes, for instance to deliver surplus food products to arid communes that can't produce their own food.

>>11004802
Literally every nation in existence. It doesn't matter if it's not an ancap, mad max-style dystopia, the mode of production is still capitalistic.

>>11004809
>Trying to quantify suffering on such a scale is dehumanizing
how convenient for you to say

>>11004809
But it literally wasn't.

>>11004815
convenient for whom? for the dead? or for you, who seems to be without any kind of argument and has resorted to ineffectual, contentless jabs

>>11004809
>anyones who argues with me is a commie jew

>>11004824
nice strawman.

>>11004716
There's no use arguing with someone who is so emotional. It isn't an ad hominem, it's an observation that you aren't in a proper state of mind to actually discuss anything.

If you really want a defense of Communism go read a book, you're literally on /lit/, not everything should be spoon-fed to you.

And I'm not a communist; I don't feel like playing devil's advocate right now

>>11004823
It's convenient for the /lit/ nazi-supporting capitalist.

>>11004809
Collapses unless it's China which is a superpower which is surpassing the USA. And with all that said, even that SOCIALIST country is not real socialism. It's basically authoritarian capitalism.

>>11004825
I wish you knew what a strawman argument is.
also this>>11004827

>>11004827
i'm not emotional at all. i'm just stating the facts that communist governments of the past and present are horrific, inhuman, and just as if not more corrupt and short-sighted than capitalism. it's not necessarily a feature of the philosophy but rather of mankind. but millennial communists don't understand that; they think they can make the formula work, but it never ever will.

I am 0% mad btw. stop with the textbook strawmanning.

>>11004836
Shouting history is not stating facts, anon. And communism isn't a philosophy, no matter how much you want it to be.

>>11004792
Marxism can be considered a philosophical tradition, because Marx had a PhD in philosophy, but it's really more of a historical-sociological framework

>>11004833
>"anyone who argues with me is a commie jew."
i never said that. it is a false representation of my position created expressly to be condemned and, by association, myself with it. also known as a strawman. i wish you knew what those were.

>>11004842
okay well i'm still waiting for you to take my property and my labor, anon. go for it. sign me up for that good life.

>>11004845
Marxism can be considered a philosophical tradition. But communism?

>>11004802
Any nation in which the prevailing mode of production involves mass production of commodities for sale is capitalist.

If you disagree with this definition because you read Von Mises or whatever, that's fine. But understand what we as Marxists mean when we speak of capitalism.

>>11004846
You said commie and jew was coming, even newfags would know this.

>>11004794
Every modern country in like, 5, 10, maybe 20 years i guess.
>>11004797
Not yet but thanks for the rec

>>11004850
>i'm still waiting for you to take my property
that's because you're a moron

>>11004499
Commies been doing a pretty good job of playing Trump (and the GOP) like a violin.

>>11004852
Communism is the hypothetical mode of production described by the Marxist tradition.

>>11004860
>"jew was coming, even newfags would know this."
my sides are currently in orbit kiddo. that is the very definition of a strawman, and most certifiably not an argument. pls to go read a book or something instead of posting thanks. this is your last (You) until you come at me with an actual argument that don't include you putting words in my mouth.

>Communism is about morals guys, it's just the right thing!
>Commie states instantly devolve into free-for-alls of theft and mistrust as the omnipotent government tortures to death random civilians to keep fear sowed
I just wish first-year philosophy students would accept that it's possible for things to look better on paper. They claim to care about the poor, yet hundreds of millions of the poor killed by commie regimes is something they'll happily sweep under the rug if it means they can keep flexing their Hegel references and Marx memes.
I've come to believe that any communist or defender of communism aside from edgy larpers are seriously mentally ill individuals who actively seek the suffering of those they deem lower than them (since 99% of internet commies are upper class white kids who think for some reason they'd be a special exception to the "murder all boujie" thing)

>>11004866
Yeah, but it's an ideology.

>>11004868
You don't know what a strawman argument is.

>>11004865
How do you mean?

Is this "Putin is a communist" bullshit?

>>11004872
I'm pretty sure you're projecting, anon.

>>11004758
>Communism itself never wanted to take away your toothbrush
The ideology itself may not, but how many times does the ideology have to turn into "n-not real communism" with mountains of corpses in its wake before people realize it might not be such a great idea to keep trying something with a 0% success rate and 100% famine/genocide rate?

I dunno. The philosophy itself doesn't seem shit, depending on your moral basis. It's like how Nazi mystic shit can make a certain sort of sense if you're Himmler.

Communism in practice though is usually a failure unless we talk about places like Yugoslavia or Vietnam.

oh also tfw syndicalism is ded

>>11004887
>0% success rate

Communism worked in places where there were a bunch of nationalities that would've split the place apart otherwise.

Russia was probably better off under communism (even if the Ukraine and Baltics weren't) and so was Yugoslavia.

Sometimes to create something eggs get broken. Like America. Or really any country in the course of history.

>>11004499
Communists are a great example of taking men as they want them to be rather than as they are. If everyone in the world was a selfless, perfect beacon of moral good, then communism would work. But since humans are an imperfect species, we need an imperfect system (capitalism).

>>11004499
Don't forget when reading these comments. Communism is stateless. It can only be stateless and Marx called state ownership anti-socialist.

>>11004807
waiting for numbers

>>11004896
> Sometimes to create something eggs get broken

The 'eggs' in the case of communism are millions of lives

>>11004904
is tens of millions enough for you? or do you need more dead citizens before you condemn a system of government?

>>11004499
Good idea in theory, but it will never work.

>>11004911
The 'eggs' in the case of Spanish colonists or Nazi Germany was also millions of lives.

Shit happens. I feel like it's a developed world thing to treat human life as sacred when in reality thousands of "shitskins" die every week.

I'm not really arguing that communism is the best system, but it did achieve its goals .

>>11004913
Where did you get that figure, seriously?
What about the capitalist death count?

>>11004885
I'm not. Dig into "commie twitter". The subreddits. Clubs at a college.
These people are just general misanthropes and freaks trying too hard to be shocking. Calls for people they don't like to be killed, "when the revolution comes I hope I get to be the one to gulag X and Y lmao", schizophrenic tier delusions about how anything resembling an actual revolution would work (I saw one tranny saying he'd be spared and taken into the ruling class because of his "uniform design skills"). These are people who have allowed shock and irony to consume them until "um yeah I support an ideology that killed hundred of millions, you mad bro???" becomes them.
A hammer and sickle icon is the rich 19 year old's equivalent of calling people niggers on Xbox live.

>>11004913
Capitalism in India from just 1947-1979 killed 100 million people.

>>11004911
hmm compared to capitalism, which needs hundreds of millions to constantly be near death, requiring impending scarcity at every level, and covering everything over with the clean and friendly commodity.
We are all guilty of this. Do we realize how many people are working as slaves, or perhaps killed themselves constructing our very computers? Or how many people died in conflicts to control and collect the metals that went into them?
Capitalism's most sickening trick is to hide all its casualties, to distance the product from any context.

>>11004941
>I'm not. Dig into "commie twitter". The subreddits. Clubs at a college.
>These people are just general misanthropes and freaks trying too hard to be shocking. Calls for people they don't like to be killed, "when the revolution comes I hope I get to be the one to gulag X and Y lmao", schizophrenic tier delusions about how anything resembling an actual revolution would work (I saw one tranny saying he'd be spared and taken into the ruling class because of his "uniform design skills"). These are people who have allowed shock and irony to consume them until "um yeah I support an ideology that killed hundred of millions, you mad bro???" becomes them.
>A hammer and sickle icon is the rich 19 year old's equivalent of calling people niggers on Xbox live.
Have you ever read Marx?

>>11004941
>thinks social media is an actual representation of anything
You may be too far gone.

>>11004896
>Russia was probably better off under communism
Cannibalism, gulags, night-raid executions of random innocents is better than class divide?
>Sometimes to create something eggs get broken. Like America.
Ah okay so you're just being Coldsteel here

>>11004887
>how many times does the ideology have to turn into "n-not real communism" with mountains of corpses in its wake before people realize it might not be such a great idea to keep trying something with a 0% success rate and 100% famine/genocide rate?
Everytime autists chimp out and demand socialist policies to be implemented in environments not fit for socialist policies. When every attempt to setup a socialist state is in extremely unfortunate situations with anarchy and war ravaging all the lands, sometimes due to miscommunication, reactionary war, foreign armies invading, etc. The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was one of the closest to the perfect state albeit the police subversive actions which were warranted due to, once again, foreign powers.

>>11004931
Educate yourself on a subject before you try to argue a position.

10-12 million in the collectivization, at least a few million more in the Great Purge, the Holodomor famine which killed up to 10 million. Tens of thousands disappeared by secret police. Is that enough? And I've already admitted that capitalism isn't better. In fact I'm using capitalism as a point of comparison for communism's brutality. In case it isn't clear, I'm not OP.

>>11004955
how is it not?

I'm not a fucking liberal so I don't give a shit about muh free discussion. All the convincing you need will be provided by the Cheka.

>>11004970
>taking things at face value
Is this the power of /lit/ capitalists?

>>11004969
>"We don’t say that the US government kills the huge number of infants who die because of the rotten policies here that yield a shocking rate of infant mortality for a rich country. [...] If you’re interested in an expert analysis you should look at the studies by Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen, the world’s leading specialist on famines and a specialist on Asia as well, some of it with his colleague Indian economist Jean Dreze. All very public, but ignored. Sen charges the Chinese government with a political crime for the horrendous Chinese famine, which he estimates at much higher than 20 million. The reason is that the totalitarian state made it impossible for information to flow from the provinces to the center, so that by the time there was any government reaction, it was too late. He compares the situation to India. Once the British left, India had no more of the hideous famines that killed 10s of millions of people under British rule. The reason was that Indian capitalist democracy provided relatively free flow of information. He then proceeds with further information that explains why his work is ignored. He shows that from independence in the late 40s until the end of Maoist rule, Indian policies led to 100 million extra deaths as compared to China. As he and Dreze put it, every 8 years democratic capitalist India put as many skeletons in its closest as China did during its years of shame (the Great Leap). That too is a political crime. But we wouldn’t say that democratic capitalism “killed” 100 million people in India – and if the study were extended worldwide the toll would be colossal."

>the people in this thread defending communism are supposed to be the 'well-read, smart ones'
god damn what a tragedy

>>11004955
Then how's le revolution supposed to happen if its ideology's biggest proponents are kids only espousing it to be shocking on Twitter?

>>11004977
>Say something
>Don't mean it

>>11004985
>if I pretend I won, I won!

>>11004962
It's edgy but true. To recap the cold war, America supported people like Ngo Vieh Diem to stop Ho Chi Minh from taking over Vietnam.

And besdes, Russia was better off in terms of power projection under the USSR than the state it's in now. It used to be a superpower which could compete with the likes of the USA and China.

Now it's a regional power at best trying to reclaim its lost glory.

>>11004836
see my post >>11004836
>"communist governments of the past and present are horrific, inhuman, and just as if not more corrupt and short-sighted than capitalism. it's not necessarily a feature of the philosophy but rather of mankind. but millennial communists don't understand that; they think they can make the formula work, but it never ever will."

Stop trying to tell me capitalism is bad. I know.

>>11004983
meant >>11005004 for you

As much as commies love to copy and paste bricks of text, none of them can answer questions as basic as "where's the motivation to work?", "isn't masses of poor plus a few all-powerful oligarchs just another (even worse) form of class division?" or "if communism requires global presence, how is every state supposed to magically flip the switch at the same time?"
They'll scream JUST READ MARX IT'S ALL THERE as if Marx's communism was anything more than "it would be cool if this happened in a utopian future"

>mfw OP asked for texts which give a solid defense of communism and first world /lit/ kids sperged out instead

/thread

>>11004994
what?

>>11005023
>>mfw OP asked for texts which give a solid defense of communism
No he didn't

>>11005021
the motivation to work is you’ll get executed if you don’t

>>11005023
>OP asked for texts
OP didn't desu

>>11005028
well he should have to keep the thread from being deleted :^)

>>11004625
>This is a fair critique of capitalism

It really isn't because there is no profit in destruction.

>>11005023
Communist texts are easy to find desu.
Das Kapital, Lenin, Mao, and various socialist movements all have their literature.

Just Google or DuckDuckGo some famous commie name and you'll be able to see a piece of literature on the issue

>>11004998
I'm not claiming America's history isn't fucked
It's easy to think in terms of chessboard power moves until you're watching your family get shot and kicked into a ditch. Capitalism is responsible for deaths as well, but it's only with communism that atrocities are committed for the sole sake of communism.

There's an inordinate amount of doublespacing and greentexting going on in this thread.

>>11005032
If there is no profit in destruction then it is a very good critique of capitalism, which seeks profit.

>>11005032
um bro do you know how many dollarinos government cronies make when multi-million dollar weapons systems are made to go boom over poor people's heads? and how many field grade officers are one step closer to that magnificent lone star? and how many election ad blurbs are written for those who hold the power of the purse?

i said it's a fair critique, not that it is a fair practice. wew you kids.

>>11005024
>Commies post edgy and misanthropic shit
>Response is "that's pretty fucked up"
>Incoherent "umm ackchyually I was being ironic/exaggerating/shocking and didn't mean what I said"
>Profit
Hiding behind "semi-irony" is a cowardly way of sloughing off actual debate

>>11005023
Is this what american education looks like?

>>11005042
capitalist countries start wars and overthrow democratically elected governments for private profit

who here is actually rich

>>11004998
Russia's not a superpower because it lost a lot of land, resources and people. It has nothing to do with the economic system. Also literally every ideology is responsible for atrocities and it's unfair to single out capitalism.

>>11005050
Why is it wrong to seek profit?

>>11005042
>only with communism that people are killed solely for the sake of communism
What is Nazism? What is Monarchy? What is a Nationalist Dictatorship?

I feel like people love to use anti-authoritarian arguments against communism when they'd be more morally consistent just arguing against authoritarianism.

>>11005064
I'm not singling out capitalism, i'm just defending communism.

>>11005058
What about the USSR killing and overthrowing democratic politicians in the eastern bloc after "liberation?"

>>11005071
they did that too

>>11005067
>Why is it wrong to seek profit?
Not him but: it isn't. But too often seeking profit is the first goal, even before what should be the prime directive of an organization. Witness this in commercial news industry that sells sensationalism over honest information, to the detriment of the people and the state. Or in healthcare, which is hyperinflated by government sanction to the detriment of the people and the state.

t. burger

>>11005078
So then it's completely ludicrous to single out capitalist countries like that?

>>11005081
I should expand on this and say those prime directives in those industries in particular are held to be solemn oaths. The hippocratic oath for one, which places the patient before all other considerations, and the sacred responsibilities of the press in upholding the 1st Amendment for the good of the people. We're falling apart.

>>11005058
Profit, as sick as a motive as it is, is still a motive.
Where's the sense in "let's start a communist regime so we can kill people to strengthen our communist regime so we can better kill people to further strengthen out communist regime"?
Unless you admit that communism's actual aim is and always has been good old power and control for its leaders via exploitation of the poor and their resources, making it no better than capitalism.

>>11005067
If you read you'd have understood anon didn't imply that.

>>11005090
I’m not saying it’s better than capitalism, but committing atrocities for profit is no better than committing them for ideology

>>11005081
If all you're is that it's wrong for companies to mislead others with their advertising then I would agree with you but what does that have to do with the rightness or wrongness of seeking profit? Who cares if that is somebodies primary motive so long as they're not lying to each other in their advertising? I have no idea what the hell it means for healthcare to be "hyperinflated by government sanction."

>>11005092
He did though. He responding to a post saying "capitalism has no higher order than profit" was a good critique of capitalism so he must think there's something wrong with seeking profit.

>>11004627
Heck the whole argument goes against the proponents of it. If people were completely self-serving they wouldn't support capitalism in the first place.

>>11004499
>"First, the fact that labour is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He is at home when he is not working, and when he is working he is not at home. His labour is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labour. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it."

Marx's revolutionary ideas were retarded, but tell me he wasn't on to something here.

>>11005096
>so he must think there's something wrong with seeking profit
Geez, what kind of paranoid thinking is this?

>>11004539
What is this anon's definition of 'order'? There are many facets of economics to analyze. It is very unlikely that things economically useful to others cause destruction, but when it is so that's what the government is there for.

The Ricardian LTV is wrong, also, for many different reasons. Ricardo himself stated principles regarding productive efficiency and tariffs that were also wrong.

The whole book is wrong. Interesting, but wrong.

>>11005095
Capitalism-driven competition is responsible for 100% of the technological and medical breakthroughs of the last good while. Corporations don't sink millions into R&D out of the goodness of their heart.
"Gotta break a few eggs", right?

>>11005113
>What is this anon's definition of 'order'
it doesn't matter much desu

>>11005106
That doesn't make any sense at all. If you think that capitalists primarily seeking profit is a problem how does it not follow that profit is a problem? Can you articulate any way at all this could be considered paranoid thinking?

>>11005096
>I have no idea what the hell it means for healthcare to be "hyperinflated by government sanction."
in america, the government has legislated how the healthcare industry should be run. it is called obamacare, and it has made big pharma, lobbyists, and friends of lobbyists in government absolutely wealthy. in other countries where the press is not controlled opposition, it's called corruption.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/health-insurance-industry-rakes-in-billions-while-blaming-obamacare-for-losses-110116.html
>Consider UnitedHealth, the nation's largest health insurer that is leaving the marketplace next year. UnitedHealth claims that Obamacare has reduced its 2016 earnings by $850 million. While they might have $850 million less than they wanted, UntedHealth’s profits are still soaring.
>In fact, UnitedHealth announced record-breaking profits in 2015, followed by an even better year this year. In July 2016, UnitedHealth celebrated revenues that quarter totalling $46.5 billion, an increase of $10 billion since the same time last year. And company filings show that UnitedHealth’s CEO Stephen J. Hemsley made over $20 million in 2015. To be fair, that is a pay cut. The previous year, in 2014, Hemsley took home $66 million in compensation.

>>11004868
God I want to rape that little faggot so bad.

>>11005118
I’m saying profit isnt a justification in and of itself. That’s why we have laws and regulations. There’s a difference between inventing automobile or Personal Computer, and overthrowing governments and installing dictators, to drive down wages

>>11005133
anon please, adults are talking.

>>11005132
Do you think this problem of government regulating healthcare is a product of "hands off" or laissez-faire economics? That may seem like a stupid question but there is a lot of confusion among leftists and I just want to see where you're at.

>>11005132
The overall function of insurance, high academic costs, and general social pressures make the cost of healthcare high. Not 'obamacare'. I won't say it isn't a factor, of course, but we could just benefit from public healthcare, and the transition would probably save money, overall, if done correctly.

>>11005126
Well utility and whatever he is defining are different things. I made this argument in a Mill thread the other day, but economic utility is very rarely harmful at all, it's just a means of exchange. Now if an institution is harmful, that's the reason we have government.

And if your complaint is about money in politics, to be honest with you, I think that's because you live in an ohclocracy that passes itself as a democracy. What you need is centralization of control.

>>11005127
Not him but it's a good critique in the sense that it's an apt description.

>>11005118
100% wow very impressive

>>11005133
>Average communist is a gay pederast
Surprise surprise!

>>11005113
>that’s what the government is there for
what are bribes

it’s not just the capitalism that is bad, but also democracy. Merit based dictatorship with an regular dictator evaluation system would be the best imo.

>>11005146
i'm not a leftist. i think it is a problem IN AMERICA. we as a people were not prepared for this, were very divided about adopting it, and the pharma and insurance industries gleefully stepped in to make everything easy for us. so unless you are of a designated special victim class (illegal immigrant, black, hispanic, etc) we get our pockets turned out. the government-controlled prices force companies to adjust prices elsewhere and in the tug of war overhead has increased and with the business plan redesign prices overall have increased. it's a bad scene, and the idea that government should be able to command citizens to purchase a product from a list of providers or be penalized is absolutely wrong. medicine used to be affordable when i was a kid. people went to doctors less often, and there were fewer insurance options, but pretty much everyone could afford to have a kid or have routine care. it's not so now.

t. male hispanic who is above the poverty line and lives in texas

>>11004499
>Convince me your (communist) philosophy isn't absolute horseshit.
>Everyone starts convincing him capitalism is bad
Well no shit, but why is communism a better alternative? So far it seems commie systems collapse faster than capitalist ones.

>>11005152
>government legislation guaranteeing citizen-customers will be given over to insurance companies (or they get the stick!) has not had a dramatic effect on healthcare prices, simply due to demand increase or because of gouging
pic related, it's you.

>>11005171
It's not the system but the culture. I would agree that we need more centralized leadership as I said here
>>11005152

But to be honest with you saying anything beyond that is childish. Trust me, most of the people on 4chan are childish, they only want transition to specific government systems, which is nothing. Terms are nothing, culture and social mechanics are everything.

>>11005181
they collapse faster because of predatory capitalist intervention >>11005058

>>11005197
>t.

>>11005184
It's a factor, which I said in that post. Obamacare is a republican-introduced bill which is effective at doing its job: promoting business. Surprise, surprise.

>>11005213
No surprise at all friend.

>>11005181
It is better because workers have greater control over their own labor, and benefit directly from it rather than be exploited for surplus value.

>>11005152
And this is the same poster as here again

Actually specifically, if there were to be an intellectual push to break up the current powers that be, a nice aristocracy could be supplanted that would be based on intelligent, and inherent goodness. This leadership would be much better than the current, but would take a good deal of political push to make it happen.

>>11005221
okay i'm willing to believe this, but how does a communist corporate compete against capitalist dogs in a capitalist state? they still have to turn a profit. the only example that comes to mind is Costco, but I don't remember the specifics of their setup. and they don't make anything anyway, they're just slap a markup on merchandise and keep it moving.

>>11005234
this is the second half of the point i was thinking of here>>11005241. it seems to me the only way forward out of capitalism is its complete annihilation. commie kids please don't get any ideas.

>capitalism is a great system

>>11005253
Because it is.

>>11004562
He is refering to Marxism you retard.

>>11005258
not him but: it's pretty good.

like democracy, it works best at the lowest levels. once you're up there among the angels of Federal/NATO/EU, the will of the people is no longer accurately represented and democracy breaks down.

>>11005241
>communist corporate compete against capitalist dogs in a capitalist state
we must completely dismantle the capitalist system

Communists are retards that have to resort to "human nature" for all their arguments. Guess what retards? human nature isn't real

>>11005266
ok winona, how do we do that.

>inb4 black blocs busting up starbucks

What is my actual motivation to work in a commie society?

>>11005271
That's the question, really. I don't have an answer. It seems a vanguard party just becomes another higher class.

>>11005276
you'll be able to bang lithe worker girls who earn their pay turning wrenches and shit instead of getting obese sitting at a desk and answering a phone.

actually... i don't know. supposedly everyone has to be unionized maybe? a collective? and then we agree how to split stuff, like on a pirate ship? and then when everyone is on board we go out and make a product and then sell the product to people... and if nobody buys it we starve I guess?

>>11005259
It's a /pol/ thread you dolt, OP was baiting.

>>11005276
Whats the motivation to work under capitalism? having enough finances to support your lifestyle?

Under communism there is enough goods already to accommodate that and you won't be forced into work you don't enjoy doing. We won't be as much as a hyper production society but the point is that we don't need to be because it doesn't benefit people.

>>11004539
Ahem, capitalism has brought you a comfortable life. Kind of hypocritical to speak out about it if you are enjoying all what came along with it. Grow up/

>>11005303
>you won't be forced into work you don't enjoy doing.
uhm anon. almost nobody enjoys work. that's why it's called work. your dream system is falling apart.

>We won't be as much as a hyper production society but the point is...
and this is how you will not succeed. because some other nation in africa is going to be capitalist and they are going to eat your lunch.

>>11005264
I just appreciate the fact that I can go start a business if I have enough money and maybe succeed.

>>11005307
>enjoying computers is for apologists of capitalism only

>>11005340
>replying to normiebook-tier posts

>>11005303
But I want to live somewhere nicer and bigger

>>11005311
People like feeling accomplished with comes with work. If you loved metal working and you made beautiful products for people to enjoy you would take pride in work and want to continue. There are a lot of cases like less desirable jobs that I don't really understand how communism will handle but someone will probably step in and do it for the good of the community.

>>11005350
Sometimes you need to get your hands dirty, anon.

>>11005303
>Under communism there is enough goods already to accommodate that and you won't be forced into work you don't enjoy doing

Anon, no. Ignoring the fact that you assume that under communism there would be unlimited amounts of everything, lets look at the terms you just used. Forced into work, Now capitalism doesn't force anyone into anything, its free game. You can work the job you want to work and make a living doing what you want to do if you drive yourself towards it, usually. However, under communism if you're proposing that no one needs to do any of these mundane jobs, such as delivery drivers, factory workers, etc then why would anyone do this? There is no one on the face of this earth who, if they had everything they needed taken care of for them, would volunteer to work in a warehouse, be an underwater welder, a crab fisher, or any of these jobs that benefit society. It's unrealistic and I don't know the exact statistic or the exact numbers so this is coming out of my ass but the number of people who love to work I'd imagine are very very slim. This is very anecdotal but at every job I've ever worked, the number of people who wanted to work were 1 in maybe every 15 people and usually I was that 1 person. Communism is built on unrealistic expectations and a disassociation with reality and the common people.
>>11005311
This guy is right but I disagree philosophically on work, work doesn't have be awful, work can be seen as a positive experience. Its all perspective when it comes to this, work is sometimes very rewarding.

>>11005357
You can if thats what you want in life. The community distributes homes to those accordingly to what they want. Not everyone can have beachfront property but those whose life goal is to might be given it.

>>11005371
There already is enough stuff produced for everyone. Its not about creating unlimited amounts. Capitalism forces you to work for the basic finances to support yourself, most people work jobs they hate (as you or the other guy said no one actually likes work). There is no reason people would just stop doing the mundane jobs if they feel accomplishment in doing them. You can say Communism is based on unrealistic expectations but that just your own projections that have no basis in reality. Communism is literally inevitable, its history.

>>11005363
>Hmmm I can be in education forever because thats my goal or clean septics
>BUT MUH COMMUNITY

>>11005303
>you won't be forced into work you don't enjoy doing
Not any more than you already have. Some jobs are less inherently attractive than others. Thus they tend to come with better perks. Coal miners and garbage collectors, for instance, have pretty sweet gigs considering the cost of their training is negligible. Meanwhile, other jobs, like picking vegetables, are taken by outsiders who are willing to work for less than you are because they still get a better deal than they would get if they hadn't immigrated.

Every socialist state has implement wage labour and/or slave labour, because some jobs need to get done and systems of incentives need to be in place. Wage labour is driven by want of reward. Slave labour is mostly driven by fear of punishment.

>>11005374
The problem with this is that more people would want to live the good life than people who do not. Ultimately, who decides who gets what? Which grand leaders will pick and choose which people get what and on what metric or standard? In this system what stops people from wanting it all and what stops people from becoming angry upon seeing that their neighbor, who is no better or worse than they are, is getting a huge mansion house while they have to live in a 300 square foot apartment, is it going to be that the person getting the mansion volunteered for a terrible or dangerous job, or is this person a doctor or lawyer? Is your idea just capitalism with a bigger emphasis on leaders taking the reigns and picking and choosing based on their own personal preferences?

>>11004996
cringe desu, i would never stoop so low to argue with mutt troglodytes that grew up without actually seeing what communism does to society

>>11005402
>Is your idea just capitalism with a bigger emphasis on leaders taking the reigns and picking and choosing based on their own personal preferences
I think anon was suggesting that the people who want beach houses get to decide what happens with the beach houses, for example.

>>11005392
>There already is enough stuff produced for everyone.
Except there isn't. This is just a fact that there is not a long term abundance of resources.
>Capitalism forces you to work for the basic finances to support yourself
This is the problem. Force. People should not be literally forced to work. If you don't want to work, you should be able to say "I'm not gonna" and live with that choice and the results of that choice.
>most people work jobs they hate
Yeah, because most people are either dealing with the consequences of their choices or working towards something greater and in the meantime taking jobs that aren't exactly their first picks. People like the idea of being able to start up businesses and build from the ground up. Its the foundation of Capitalism in America. Foreigners love it and they use it all the time, Foreign people come over, work as cab drivers, etc for months and years, save up, open a business, and boom they're in a higher economic state than they've ever been in, thats Capitalism and its beautiful. Having the option to try and succeed.
>There is no reason people would just stop doing the mundane jobs if they feel accomplishment in doing them.
Most people don't feel accomplishment in doing mundane jobs was my point and the demand that would be created from everyone being able to have what they want or need would create a need for these mundane jobs in a much higher demand than has ever been seen before, the supply you would need to create would be tremendous and would require forcing or somehow coercing people into doing these mundane jobs and with that would come an even greater dissatisfaction with life because now instead of having a couple hundred people forced to be burger flippers or delivery drivers you would now need a couple million people to be burger flippers or delivery drivers because these would be seen as wants and needs by the people who can now have what they want and need. With this you would see the standard of living go down because while everyone has things, there had to be someone who got you those things or prepared those things for you and that person more than likely was forced to be there or coerced into being there which ultimately makes them unhappy.
>You can say Communism is based on unrealistic expectations but that just your own projections that have no basis in reality. Communism is literally inevitable, its history.
Communism has never worked. Capitalism works for the most part.

>>11005392
>most people work jobs they hate
source?

I'm a commie, I think transitioning to a planned economy is the best long-term strategy for an advanced industrial society. Cockshott's idea of computational planning appeals to me the most, and I don't generappy support anarchist movements or anything that doesn't involve a state, it seems like a bunch of unworkable pipe dreams. The only remotely stable socialist economy was the USSR, I think we need to start from there and improve on the model. Contemporary Marxist-Leninists usually have the most sophisticated analysis of the flaws in the system and why the socialist movement disintegrated, but almost nobody reads them so we're left with Trotskyist garbage narratives about everything going to shit after Lenin.

>Live in the place that hyper produces everything including food
>Or the one that totally makes just enough for everyone

Hmm hard choice

>>11004962
>Cannibalism, gulags, night-raid executions of random innocents is better than class divide?

for most people. yes.

pinochet executed more people and imprisoned more political opponents than the USSR did from 1953-1991 and a lot people, including a lot of chileans, will readily tell you that his rule was "worth it"

>any flaw in a capitalist market economy is due to external factors like the State, and if we remove those factors we'll have the perfect stable mechanism just as promised by the prophets of classical liberalism
>any flaw in a socialist economy is completely due to factors inherent in the idea of socialism and completely destroy it credibility, we should never speak of it again, every implementation of socialism leads to conditions in pre-industrial Russia

literally every argument against liberals online
how are they still on this level of level of ideology

The problem with communism is that every brainlet since Lenin has treated Marx like the Messiah and his notes about the future as some infallible code of historical law
Historical materialism is just science masquerading as religion, the product of idiots like Lenin who were too egotistically short-sighted to care about anything but their own fucked up view of reality
>mfw Lenin couldn't read Marx for shit and doomed the 20th century to Stalin's might because he blindly stuck to his idiotic idea of forcing Russia through capitalist-industrialization on the blood of the peasants instead of just fucking jumping straight socialism

Actually reading the works of the Revolutionary Trio unmade me as a Communist. MLM "Marxists" are just as bad as fascists

>>11004913
>>11004868
Who*?

>>11004583
>it isn't capitalism when big business affects the government

A question to the earnest commies on this thread, do you actually have an ideological opposition to Nationalisms? I'm not talking about Nazi idiocy but the vast range of nationalisms that have had varying degrees of sympathies and alignment towards the collectivism of Communist movements.

>>11005481
>implying there aren’t fluctuation in personal taste that destroy that equilibrium.

It’s a good thing you aren’t talking about communism

>>11005585
Hell no. The concept of working with the State to build a movement that eventually renders it obsolete was Marx's whole argument to begin with. Nationalism can be great as long as it remains stripped of Nazi racism and isn't undermined by the bourgeois like the New Deal was
If Commie's would stop dropping to their knees at the altar of Marx and actually put his critique into practice we might get back to Rousseau's original point about the pay-off of entering into a civilization that makes men more miserable than in nature and critiquing bad institutions without thinking we need to burn the entire thing down first. The State should be the juror over the Commons and used to foster a society of individually enterprising individuals instead of mass conformity through fear and police states
pic related, the rotten core that kills any civilization is its own masses

>>11005663
and as pseudo-intellectual as that image comes off as, let's face it, there's nothing else in this life but killing time and fucking in-between birth and the grave

>>11005673
t. pseudo-intellectual

>>11005680
fascinating anon
10/10 response, tell me more

>>11005680
>no you

>>11004994
Is this your first day on 4chan?

>>11005663
i enjoyed that pic, it is generally correct about corporations destroying identity, except in those places which never had any identity to begin with. which is pretty much everywhere in the US that isn't 150+ years old.

except the bit about squatters. fuck them. drug-added dutch anarchists, able-bodied white hobos living in filth. it's not even about "muh property values," just principle.

>>11005723
It's a pretty poor reading of the Situationsits to begin with, the contemporary city is far more complex and interesting to study than that facile monologue

>>11005021
give more reward for who work but cap it at 3x-5x the universal income granted by the state to everyone

>>11005767
True, but then it's from here so what do you expect
It reads like a cursory reading of Debord at best and a comment on the Situationists without any consideration for '68 at its worst, really
Any recommending reading on them besides the obvious, anon? Jeremi Suri's book on '68 has been my go-to for a while

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