/lit/ - Literature

>>6269426
[citation needed]

>>6269429

i think this is a serious question that should be considered more than it is...

>>6269429
It isn't needed. Now more people than ever are not hungry and live well. It's pretty obvious.

why are libertarians so autistic, even though the free market should have weeded out autists years ago?

>>6269439
so what happened in 1950 to make capitalist standard of living go sky high? it's ironic that the collapse of colonialism coincides with 1950: chinese revolution, partition of india, dien bien phu, cuban revolution, etc. all in that decade or so...which means the common leftist "critique" that capitalism makes the west wealthy because of imperialist exploitation is quit wrong

>>6269442
You could argue that that's more due to industrialism than capitalism. Capitalism certainly is a great contributor to industrialism, but one can exist without the other.

>>6269453
On the contrary, the free market favors the intelligent autistic type over the bohemian happy go lucky type.

>>6269460
not really though, because countries like russia and china that industrialized under state control, "feudal factories" or whatever. didn't expand nearly as rapidly as free market capitalism...

>>6269459
also worth noting, japans economy grew as much as the west despite being "demiliterized" after WW2 which means the "military spending results in growth" is fake, especially since that would make paranoid regimes like hussein's iraq and north korea big growth economies, but that's not the case

>>6269439
>inflation adjusted
>1700
I see you know sweet fuck all about inflation cuntface.

>>6269459
Nobody knows for sure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_economic_expansion

>>6269460
A country can industralize but it will remain a backwards shithole if it isn't capitalist (see : USSR)

Because they see through Spirit of Capitalism, which allows them to reject the free market ideology so many poor, naive souls fall victim to.

>>6269426
>Why are leftist ideas so popular among intellectuals


they like to take a peak outside the 1st world , white privilege bubble

>>6269477
It's just a graph I downloaded after 5 seconds of googling. It should be painfully obvious to anyone with an IQ above room temperature that capitalism has brought the greatest prosperity humanity has ever experienced.

>>6269477
are you really proposing that we can not adjust for inflation as far back as the enlightenment?

>>6269483
>they like to take a peak outside the 1st world , white privilege bubble

you mean to peak at places like China, who has raised 100s of millions out of rural poverty and into a global middle class in less than a generation? cool

People don't like arguing for the status quo.

>>6269483
It's funny, I take a peak at India and China and can see how fast these economies are growing thanks to free market capitalism. But then I take a peak at Venezuela and Cuba and feel sorry for the hardships their people are enduring.

>>6269461
if you're so intelligent, why can't you get laid?

>>6269500
we're talking about capitalism not gettinpussyism

>>6269500
>you're a virgin!!!
typical leftist response.

>>6269506
You are a virgin though.

>>6269504
because free market capitalists and getting pussy are completely unrelated?

>>6269504
is that why free market capitalists can't get any?

>>6269478
Russia went from a feudal society to a world super power, the ussr was hardly a backwards shithole.

>>6269459
>so what happened in 1950 to make capitalist standard of living go sky high?

1) The Soviet-Style societies were all, all, wage labour societies where capital existed and reproduced itself in the expanded form. Value existed: they were capitalism.

2) The reason why first world living standards increased post 1935 is three-fold:
2a) The commodity bundles used to calculate living standards for consumer prices have been consistently doctored, and a wide variety of consumer items that are capital intensive were unavailable prior to 1935 (personal automobiles, radios, television-sets, walk in warmer dryers). Forcing these commodity bundle sets back prior to 1935, which this graph does, is ludicrous.
2b) First world social democracy became a credible threat in 1919, and the "roaring 20s" solution of wage increases ala the 1880s was viewed as a failure. The post-war increase in living standards was a buy-off, and a one time buy off. This buy off also, in terms of the late point in the turning point, occurred in relation to the very existence of the Soviet-Style societies. If another style (with different owners) of capitalism is possible, or post-capitalism is possible, then for fucks sake keep them fat and pliant so they don't choose that. The downturn in first world wages from 1990 is indicative of this element.
2c) GDP per capita is a gross product. The increase in OCC means that far more capital will be outlayed per worker, without this resulting in consumption necessarily. Using a total social product graph to make claims about wages is fucking cretinous.
3) "Imperialism" is about a relationship between controllers of capital, not about 19th century style direct imperium. "British India" was mostly soft control until the late 19th century, and was more profitable under soft control. Since 1950 soft control has been the standard for what marxists call "imperialism." Doesn't mean the imperialist buy-off thesis is correct though. See Wallerstein if you're interested.

>>6269515
is that why you are a marxist? because you think you will get laid after the revolution? no, you'll still be an introverted autistic fuckwit. see the movie "enemy at the gates" it was after the revolution but the blond studly sniper still fucked the nerdy book guys bitch, and so it will be with you...

>>6269513
no u :^D

>>6269520
the threat of the USSR was greatly exaggerated by the military industrial complex to justify spending...much like ISIS is today. the USSR was always flimsy as shit and only won WW2 because they threw millions of "workers" in front of hitler's tanks.

>>6269426
>>6269442

Speaking of poverty and capitalism, this just came to my head and I'm hoping I can bounce it off you, /lit/.

Isn't it true that fast food, with cheap prices, inferior meats and flavor enhancement chemicals, is actually an industry that takes ingredients that in the past would be discarded, and makes them edible and available to the poor? What I mean is, for all the shit the industry takes, isn't it true that obesity caused by lack of willpower in the individual is a better issue for our society to have to deal with as opposed to the involuntary problem of starvation? We are not too far removed from Depression-era hunger. Fast food came along not long after that.

Fast food is food for poor people, and you should stay away from it if you can afford better options. Honestly though, the fact that we can now make inferior food products taste better, and thus make them distributable, has probably saved more than a few lives.

Am I just completely retarded? I just thought of this so I might be.

>>6269520
Russia pre-bolshevik revolution was a bigger power than russia post-bolshevik revolution.

>>6269548
rich leftists hating on fast food just goes back to those puritanical bourgeois groups that would try to help the poor by scolding them, there's a long tradition of that, just now it's some vegan who only eats organic produce in $200 skinny jeans telling the fat lady waddling down the street in a mcdonalds shirt that she should stop eating the dollar menu, it's really a kind of conspicuous consumption..."oh look at me i can afford 12 bucks for a sandwich" but wrapped up in patronizing terms

>>6269483

Leftist intellectuals are some of the most self-absorbed narcissists on the planet. They'd rather write papers on the minutia of some social justice shit then actually help the poor and dispossessed

>>6269439
>>6269484
It should be obvious to "anyone with an IQ above room temperature" that any series that grows as a percentage of the previous value will look like an exponential function and therefore your graph shows nothing. On the other hand leftists don't deny that capitalism was a great source of prosperity.

>>6269555
In what sense? Economic? No. Political? No. Military? No.
>i don't like leftist so i must rewrite history

>>6269484
>It's just a graph I downloaded after 5 seconds of googling. It should be painfully obvious to anyone with an IQ above room temperature that capitalism has brought the greatest prosperity humanity has ever experienced.
No it shouldn't. It is a complex evaluation. Read Wallerstein for starters on why it isn't a straight forward evaluation.

You know those recurrent famines in capitalism? The ones happening while food is available?

>greatest prosperity

You know, forced starvation isn't normally considered prosperity. Nor is being unable to afford rent.

>>6269489
Yes. The price series are dubious, the commodity bundles are artificial, and commodity bundle construction after 1950 is so highly politicised that inflation has functionally no meaning.

Let's assume we solved the "political" problems of inflation for a second. We could reliably construct inflation series back into the mid 19th century. Prior to that we simply don't have sufficient density of wage labour to accept that the price series we're able to shonkily reconstruct are representative of actual consumption in any form.

>>6269584
>You know those recurrent famines in capitalism? The ones happening while food is available?

actually, no, i don't know those recurrent famines in capitalism.

>>6269426
Inertia. Seriously.

>>6269600
I assume then that you're pig fucking ignorant.

>Recent famines in Africa include the 2005–06 Niger food crisis, the 2010 Sahel famine and the 2011 East Africa drought, where two consecutive missed rainy seasons precipitated the worst drought in East Africa in 60 years.[36][37] An estimated 50,000 to 150,000 people are reported to have died during the period.[38][39] In 2012, the Sahel drought put more than 10 million people in the western Sahel at risk of famine (according to a Methodist Relief & Development Fund (MRDF) aid expert), due to a month-long heat wave.[40]

>>6269576
And why is it exactly that some countries grew as a percentage of the previous value, while others did not? Ever ask yourself that?

>>6269580
Economic, no, but then again soviet russia was disastrous in terms of consumer goods. You could argue that a person in imperial russia had more to eat than in soviet russia.

Political, of course. Soviet Russia was completely isolated until ww2, and even post-ww2 its relations with other countries were very cold.

Military? Yes. Imperial Russia was considered one of the best militaries in the world. The red army most mostly made up of underfed peasants.

>>6269620
sounds like those economies are agricultural not capitalist, cool try tho

>>6269620
>Sub saharan african countries
>examples of capitalism
You're trolling, right?

>>6269634
No, friend. You're playing a very public NTS and you've just been called on it.

>>6269629
M—C…P…C'—M'

Or perhaps you're going to assert that England wasn't capitalist in the 18th century now, and assert such an atypical definition of "capital" that you're entering the same faecal NTS territory that your friend is already drowning in, face down in their own shit.

>>6269638
>public NTS
what the fuck does that mean?

>>6269653
it's some jargon he pulled out of his introduction to macroeconomics textbook probably...check him out, a "leftist" who studies free market econ and will go work for some big bank after he graduates telling everyone how much capitalism sucks, teee fucking heee to that

>>6269659
this post >>6269651 is even more incomprehensible. Kudos to anyone who manages to decrypt it.

>>6269671
well that's not as mysterious as it looks, just the standard little pseudo scientific equations economists whip up to make it look like their shit isn't just an alchemical farce...M is like total GDP or money supply or some shit, C is like "rate of circulation" or whatever and P is probably population...economics "math" is mostly bogus stuff like that, except for guys using fourier transforms on stock charts to try to time the market and transmute paper into gold

>>6269653
>>6269659
>>6269671
>>6269692
Fuck off back to /pol/ if you don't read material which is basic for this conversation.

>>6269703
the conversation is why is capitalism so great and why is communism such a failure, then some nerd tried to punk everyone with some lame algebraic equations he lifted from das kapital or something

>>6269709
>>>/lit/
>I don't read
Seriously, fuck off back to the other place.

>>6269703
Your refusal to explain your abreviations is a perfect example of your intellectual dishonesty. You don't try to give an honest argument : you try to obsfucate using unknown abbreviations and then criticize your opponent for not understanding them.

Tldr: kill urself.

>>6269626
>And why is it exactly that some countries grew as a percentage of the previous value, while others did not? Ever ask yourself that?
All did retard. Pic related, the graph of an imaginary country growing 0.05% per year.

>Political, of course. Soviet Russia was completely isolated until ww2, and even post-ww2 its relations with other countries were very cold.
Are you seriously arguing that imperial russia had more external influence than soviet russia? You're so fucking retarded. They basically controlled the communist parties in most of the world, intervened in internal affairs everywhere, were central protagonists in every major event of the century, etc. Not to mention they had a hold of half of europe. Struggling to get de jure recognition until WW2 is pretty irrelevant, escpecially considering they still managed to get de facto recognition and early treaties with germans (rapallo), brits, etc.

>Military? Yes. Imperial Russia was considered one of the best militaries in the world. The red army most mostly made up of underfed peasants.
Imperial russia was a joke, and the WW1 shows this pretty clearly. They couldn't handle a smaller german army that had to fight on two fronts. They were unable to use modern fighting equipment, of using the trains to deliver resources effectively, of assigning effective military leaders, of mantaining internal order, etc.

You're defending claims no historian would make, i'm not even sure why i'm even responding.

>>6269478
>Nobody knows for sure.
Are you kidding? The whole purpose of war is to make more industries and technologies to create economic growth. War is one of the biggest spurs to architectural, engineering, and cultural achievements thus far. This is an unfortunate reality, ever since Darius had gotten the Ionians to make the legendary bridge across the Danube.

>>6269718
but your little acronyms contributed nothing to the conversation so maybe u should gtfo

>>6269720
I've supplied a full definition of capital, while challenging my interlocutors to do so. I'm still waiting for them to respond. Strange that in a thread dedicated to a subject they have no comprehension of what that subject is, or basic texts and representations relating to that subject.

>I don't read, therefore you're wrong.
Fuck off to the other place.

>>6269732
sounds like you don't even understand the shit you read since you can't explain it lol

>/lit/ - literature

>>6269722
>All did retard. Pic related, the graph of an imaginary country growing 0.05% per year.
Really? It seems to me that China and India didn't grow much. Doesn't it?

>Are you seriously arguing that imperial russia had more external influence than soviet russia?
Yes.

> You're so fucking retarded. They basically controlled the communist parties in most of the world, intervened in internal affairs everywhere, were central protagonists in every major event of the century, etc.
I'm not denying that Soviet Russia didn't hold a lot of power, especially after ww2. I'm just saying that history has been unfair towards Imperial Russia which it portrays as some sort of lame duck, when in truth it remained, even in its sickened pre ww1 state, one of the major world powers.

>Imperial russia was a joke, and the WW1 shows this pretty clearly. They couldn't handle a smaller german army that had to fight on two fronts. They were unable to use modern fighting equipment, of using the trains to deliver resources effectively, of assigning effective military leaders, of mantaining internal order, etc.
Imperial Russia didn't fare any worse than soviet russia during ww2. The only reason soviet russia didn't crumble was Stalin's complete disregard for the lives of the soviets, and a steady supply of ressources courtesy of the americans.

>You're defending claims no historian would make, i'm not even sure why i'm even responding.
Yes, of course, Russia was a minor irrelevant power before it was saved by the commies...

>>6269692
Wrong.

>>6269629
>>6269720
I'm not him but i'll explain what i think he's saying. He says that money (M) buys capital (C) which turns itself into more capital(C') through a productive process (P). He's basically saying that that's the basis of capitalism and being agriculture based is irrelvant.
He's right, there's an international division of labour under capitalism, and pretending the agricultural countries aren't capitalist is stupid. You also show how little you know about what you are talking in every post, read more and come back.

>>6269759
>I'm not him but i'll explain what i think he's saying. He says that money (M) buys capital (C) which turns itself into more capital(C') through a productive process (P). He's basically saying that that's the basis of capitalism and being agriculture based is irrelvant.

come on you fucking retard even marx, no, especially marx, knew that agriculture is not capitalism, otherwise we would have had capitalism since 15,000 BC

>>6269759
>money (M) buys capital (C) which turns itself into more capital(C') through a productive process (P)

this is why economics is so corny, every economist has different definitions of letters, so just dropping M C and P into a thread with no context shows you probably haven't read shit

>>6269726
Well, considering that countries which got annihilated during the war (germany and japan) rebounded pretty well, I'm sure there are other reasons for the post-war booms observed in the western world.

>>6269732
>I've supplied a full definition of capital,
No you haven't, you have just given acronyms without explaining them.

>while challenging my interlocutors to do so
You didn't challenge anybody, just spouted insults.

You're so devoid of any intellectual capabilities that you're forced to feign intelligence with arrogance and obsfucation.

Pic related, it's you.

>>6269768
Marx explicitly talks about ground rent being a form of profit, and makes extensive use of historical examples of 18th century English capitalisation in land. He clearly differentiates this from societies where land does not act as capital.

I think you've not read a single economics text in your entire life. I hate to say this, but maybe you ought to start with Weber's sociology. And stop browsing the other place.

>>6269777
Money and capital are the same thing you god damn retard, C = commodities in Marx, kill yourself you tryhard fuckwit

>>6269758
>Really? It seems to me that China and India didn't grow much. Doesn't it?
I don't know how can i explain myself more clearly. Those countries grew, even if less than others, and a long term graph would show an exponential growth. It's basic math, there's no point in discussing this.

>blah blah
So what you are basically saying is that you think that historians belittle imperial russia so you feel the need to make ridiculous claims on the opposite spectrum to compensate for it. I'm not going to bother.

>>6269789
Friend, if you don't know the central reproduction schema, and you're busy claiming Africa isn't incorporated into capitalism, I don't need to explain shit to you because you have read nothing, nothing at all.

>>6269759
You misunderstand, we were saying that the famine was due to agricultural failure and not failure of capitalist policies (in opposition to the holodomor, for example, which wasn't due to agricultural failure but due to policy failure)

>>6269768
>explaining others marx
>after not knowing what M C P meant
you get dumber with every post

>>6269804
Ha, you have finally accepted to stoop to my lowly level to give the significance of your acronyms. How gracious of you.

And no, substinance farmers in Africa are not integrated into capitalism.

>>6269792
>I think you've not read a single economics text in your entire life. I hate to say this, but maybe you ought to start with Weber's sociology.
> economics text
>Weber's sociology
>economics
>sociology

dude, the harder you try the funnier you look, keep going buddy lol

>>6269807
dude, you do realize Marx is a minor Ricardian and that many many people have used MCP for other shit? you seem a bit autistic if you think everyone has there head up Marx's ass as much as you, especially in the 21st fucking century, get real, holy shit

this guy is clearly a religious marxist who uncritically accepts everything from marx as true gospel despite marx being of little interest to real economists. i always feel said for people who think they are atheists but guzzle the slave morality out of marx's balls

>>6269828
>mentions marx after proving he doesn't know shit about marx
>point it out
>omg marx is irrelevant nobody cares
:^)

ITT: anti-intellectualism

It's not okay to have strong opinions about people when you haven't read them.

>>6269815
Guess what dickhead, its cashcroppers who starve.

>>6269816
If someone can't grasp the difference between form and content in relation to agriculture and capital they need to start with sociology.

>>6269832
>[agriculture is necessarily not capitalist, non agriculture is necessarily capitalist].

Please continue.

>>6269499
I hope you also look at those societies and see they're growing because there's a massive amount of poor people who can be exploited and resources to be drained. Very little of what's being accrued trickles down to the population and, I don't know about India currently, but China's economy is fucked and likely to collapse in the next 12 months.

>>6269548
Are you really trying to make fast food into some kind of altruistic endeavour? You must be an American teenager.

>>6269426
because it's not a contradiction to coherent radical leftism

Why is nobody discussing the Bretton Woods Conference and the effect it had on the US economy post-war?

>>6270235
because some dude posted a chart showing the massive growth across the industrialized non-communist world...i mean the esablishment of the federal reserve was big for america (so they no longer had to rely on private banks like jp morgan to be the defacto central bank) and of course bretton woods helped cement american dominance...but explain why japan went sky high at the same, even after being nuked and demilitarized

>>6270235
Governments and only very, very few academic economists have come to understand what it means to live in a world with truly sovereign currencies not tied to gold or other ritualistic and irrational constraints.

>>6270235
Because the upswing in wages and production was visible from 1938. Formalisation isn't substance. More Braverman, Johnston-Forest for you.

>>6269426


why do you presume 'uplifting people from poverty' is the ultimate object?

>>6269565
Just because some bourgeois reformists parrot intellectuals as a hobby doesn't mean that the dialogue is irrelevant.

Fast food is fucking terrible for you, and it is undoubtedly an exploitation of the poor. There are poor rural and ghetto regions where the only food cheap and available is fast food or from Wal-Mart. Diet has a huge effect on energy and attitude, not even mentioning the disease and disorders you can get from eating fast food regularly.

Saying that fast food is a benevolent institution is fucking ridiculous, especially when healthy, high quality food could be had in surplus for the entire global population if resources were used efficiently.

>>6270248
>but explain why japan went sky high at the same, even after being nuked and demilitarized
You're obviously unaware of the remilitarisation of Japan during the Korean war.

>>6270272
people in america are free, if they want to spend their little check on a big mac and a 40oz soda instead of a big of leaves and roots, that's their choice. if poor people wanted fresh produce every "farmers market" would be in the hood not in some upscale soccer mom neighborhood

>>6269426
arguably
statisticly no tard