/lit/ - Literature

>>8486744
but he's a gormless, limp wristed quivering pansy with no new thoughts in his head why would you

oh

explain to me what's wrong with this quote

>>8486752
its not exactly an uncommon idea

>>8486752
He said inequality is a problem to be addressed.

https://youtu.be/Myf8Pk9NrlQ

'EAD LIKE A FUCKIN' ORANGE

inequality is the biggest fucking meme issue
protip: it's never going to change

>>8486932

Yup. It is the eternal white whale of the naive liberal.

>le meme "comedians are the philosopher's of today"
put some effort OP, you might just go to reddit an copy any random comment next time

i like russel brand, he is a cool guy, his interview with norm macdonald was fun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_UmOhdgqkc

>>8486752

/lit/ is just supremely bitter that he's a rockstar and a sexgod who gets to play the role of public ""intellectual"" with thoughts that are as trite as /lit/s own.

redpill me on history & humanities /his/

>>8486938
Break down what you mean, at face value it doesn't make sense.

>>8486752
Nothing, it's a simple idea backed by experience. The conclusion has a kernel of ideology but it's not all that bad.

>Inequality
>bad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK9q3wC3Nwo

Believing that inequality is bad can rightly be called the 'last boss' of being blue-pilled.

Also, if you get your philosophy from a comedian, don't be surprised when it turns out to be a JOKE.

>>8487039
So talk about it. All he's saying is he finds the culture of silence around it suspicious.

>>8487062

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX_gUQeZcB8

>>8487080
>culture of silence around inequality
what reality do you operate in

>>8487100
The reality where I'm posting in a thread about a particular quote. Yourself?

That's what he's complaining about to my mind: whether he was rich or poor when he tried talking about inequality people more or less told him to shut up.

>>8486744
>Wear V For Vendetta mask to be anonymous
>Take it off for news cameras
???

>digest a thesaurus while pinging off your head
>now qualified philosopher

>>8486938
What's the antithesis though?

Ridding our country of degenerate inferiors and rising to become the absolute greatest superpower ever?

>>8486950
>sex god
LITTLE

>>8486932
Seriously? Remember the 1950s: high taxes and fiscal/monetary policies that aimed at full employment policies... it's like people don't realize there actually existed a world before neoliberalism. All you need to do is implement old fashioned policies that don't only servicing all accumulated wealth stored in the form of intangible speculative financial assets and real-estate values at the sake of the majority who don't capture any of those gains.

>>8487208
That's a small peepee.

>>8487208
>>8487239
Hey guys, he's a show-er, not a grower.

Just as communism fucks things up due to being incompatible with human nature, high inequality can be seen as inevitably fucking things up in the long term because politicians can be bribed to do awful shit.

>>8487208

Cocaine is severely vasoconstrictive, and will make your dick shrink.

But that's still tiny.

>>8486744
Parklife!

>>8486932
>implying it's not changing in the opposite direction right now
Pure ideology. I'm not even memeing.

>>8487301
it isn't

>>8487311
it is

>>8486945
>i like russel brand, he is a cool guy
go to bed brand

>>8487289
kek

>>8487301
it actually isn't. patriarchy is slowly dying, but not changing in the opposite direction. it certainly won't die in our time, and to fight it and claim instant equality is retarded on every level, starting biologically. i'm against sjw and feminazi and demanding equality in areas which it's impossible. equal pay and to judge based on merit gets a pass, it's necessarily individualism vs instilled stereotypes(which aren't necessarily wrong. see: heuristics)

>>8486752
There isn't anything wrong with it, but it's nothing interesting about it.

>>8486744
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbVNZUHeg6o

>>8487383
I was talking about economic inequality, as was Mr Brand.

>>8487462
i can see these issues in the middle east but i can't in europe and the US. can you show some stats or something

>>8487414
lol is this what britain looks like nowadays?

>>8487414
The best thimg about that video was the link at the end to a video about Preston walking out of Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

>>8487465
https://www.oecd.org/social/OECD2014-Income-Inequality-Update.pd

>>8487233
Nobody paid the highest tax bracket, faggot. The US was only wealthy because we were the only country with non-bombed industry in the world.

>>8487481
where's the inequality in this

>>8487208
You don't got the stones to show off your stones, big man

>>8487478
The link didn't work but I assume it's about the 10% on top of the food-chain and such. I hope you know if you see the ideas solution to this issue would be socialism starting with redistribution of wealth. Here I'm neutral. However, I initially meant inequality between the sexes at an economical level. (forgive me, it's an unfair preconjecture due to my excessive arguments with feminists in real life)

>>8487620
>The link didn't work
Ad an f to the end.

>>8487177

It's Russel Brand dude, be real

>>8487208

Confirmed for not having ingested DRUGS EVA

>>8487680
Thank you, it looks so obvious now. Isn't it ridiculous that our countries fight for their survival and strategic strength even though the people are poor and weak? In such times I pray for a Muslim Caliphate. What options pop for you?

>>8487700

O N THE L I S T
N

T
H
E

L
I
S
T

Your name begins with an H, correct?

>>8487728
No, what are you talking about?
Soft spot for Muslims too? They fit me well, however, it is a great and difficult religion.

>>8487754

Your words are as little whipping weeds. A hive of honey to an MMMM hungry bear, correct.

Tell what is difficult, for you.

>>8487754

You think Yahweh too harsh or evil too strong?

>>8487821
They need are, but what's a loud mouth to a deaf ear?
>>8487829
Just not catchy enough.

>tfw the post-war boom and subsequent rise of middle class was an anomaly, but is used to justify neoliberal economic policies and dismiss any alternatives

i used to fall for the free market meme myself.

Anyone here interested in Distributism?

>>8487841

You need Anare indeed friend.

It is not a catchphrase, nor a gimmick, nor do I ask for your pay, so take it, it's yours.

>>8487846
>i used to fall for the free market meme myself.
>Anyone here interested in Distributism?


>i used to fall for the free market meme myself.
>i used to fall for the free market meme myself.
>i used to fall for the free market meme myself.
>i used to fall for the free market meme myself.
>i used to fall for the free market meme myself.
>i used to fall for the free market meme myself.

Worldwide pedophile ring

>>8486744
It's framed as "I'm right, and you unique person are also right, while everyone is wrong."
Most people who will hear him saying this agree with him, and when you preach to a choir like that it's really just him making himself feel good, and trying to make fans feel good, like they have the right opinion, even though the statement lacks an opinion.
The end part about not wanting to address inequality because it's a real issue furthers this.
>it's a problem and we see that but everyone else is wrong and corrupt
It's vague. An insipid statement framed as a brave stance.
>people said
>they say
>we have to stand up for (insert people you feel are oppressed) because (insert people you feel are oppressive) are being an assholes.

>a man walks on a stage
>the crowd hushes
>Anticipation rises
>"bad stuff is bad"
>the crowd goes wild, women orgasm, children speak there first words, cripples walk.

>>8488410
fuccing epic, this shit going on r/4chan

>>8486924
are nige

Total equality is impossible. Prove me wrong

>>8488418
Thanks anon, guess I'm the best living philosopher.

>>8488424
not to mention ill advised. true equality would suck, like that vonnegut short, Harrison Bergeron, where everyone is artificially gimped to make everyone essentially equal, graceful people afflicted with heavy weights to make them stumble, smart people given helmets that make loud noises to stop them from having a train of thought that's too long.. equality is only as good as the possibility of raising the lowest people to the height of the highest people, and since it's easier to gimp the highest people, equality would inevitably reduce our shining stars to the same trash as the rest of us.

REI

http://mundusmillennialis.com/
http://mundusmillennialis.com/
http://mundusmillennialis.com/

>>8486752
inequality isnt bad, it may even be good

>>8488447
>vonnecuck
cuck

>>8488486
What the fuck am I reading?

>>8486752
Theres nothing really wrong with it, its just said by a person who probably isn't making any efforts to correct this problem he brings up.

>>8488424
true equality is possible but our entire lives would be boring and straight forward. If everyone was equal in the sense that everyone is worth the same as another and has the same necessities being met all the time then everyone would just be born, get everything they need all the time, learn everything everyone else does, mentally retarded people would probably be aborted immediately, careers would probably work in the same way they do now except anyone can be anything as long as they try as everyone is on equal ground. This sounds horrible.

why would you want equality lol

>>8489139
>This sounds horrible.
No, it sounds hilarious.

>>8487119
Certain people (nerds, mostly) just love to shit on Russel brand regardless of what he's saying. See: this thread.

>>8488447
I'm not convinced true equality can exist in a sense, but at the same time we also have a really shitty language around inequality that means we can't even point to certain issues. I'll post some shit from some papers if I have the time later.

>>8487208
That's my cock on drugs too. It ain't much longer when I'm sober.

>>8486752
Depends on his definition of inequality

>>8486761
/Thread

>>8486752
Inequality isn't inherently wrong. Instead, it should be a focus to make sure everyone has enough. It isn't a zero sum game.

>>8487233
Post WW2 was such an anomaly in human history. All industry except for Americas had been blown away. The middle class was completely unique to this time and place in human history and likely will never be repeated.

>>8490103
You could say Britain industrialsing but keeping free trade before that was also an anomaly, there's always a top dog and someone doing something different.

>>8486752
He regularly says we need to appropriate the wealth of bankers and "share it" while being a millionaire wanting to keep his millions.

How am I the only one to post the great orator of our time?

>>8486752

People becoming wealthy isn't an inherently immoral act, and morally attacking the creation of wealth itself has catastrophic effects on society. Russel may not be demonstrably hypocritical or bitter, but he is a fool who spouts opinions on shit when he should really be keeping his dumb ass mouth shut.

>>8490182
The guy stands in an empty room talking to a camera and he still stumbles over his lines.

>>8490196

U wut m8?

He has hours of discussion every week on his call in show and on his prepared videos he's remarkably articulate considering how few cuts there are and how long he talks for.

>>8488447
fuck i hate americans

I don't care about equality. I care about freedom.

Politics is literally and unironically divided between people who want to be left alone, and people who just can't fucking leave people alone.

> Philosopher

Fucking retard

>>8490229
>Americans invented inequality
It's sort of scary how many brainwashed moonbat teenagers think this. Just goes to show how malleable the human mind is, the weak ones I mean

>>8490103
What you're hand-waveing away as an "anomaly" was actually the logical result of the deployment of the Fordist mode of accumulation throughout most of the Western world and Japan which was based upon high wages and large public capital formation by governments to lower the overhead expenses for private business. Finance capital was neutered at this point in time and this allowed industrial capital to rapidly develop the productive forces at the expense of the shrinking power of the creditor class and their rentier incomes. The Fordist mode of accumulation differed radically from the more primitive Taylorist mode of accumulation being deployed today by Asiatic state capitalist regimes based on low wages and export oriented growth, as opposed to domestic consumption, where most of the profit is stolen by the financial elite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_economic_expansion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure-based_development

https://www.chicagofed.org/~/media/publications/economic-perspectives/1988/ep-may-jun1988-part2-aschauer-pdf.pdf
Government spending and the "falling rate of profit"... good article from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago admitting that statist intervention is necessary to offset the internal dynamic of capitalism: the tendency for the rate of profit to fall

Things today are becoming so bad that mainstream financial institutions are warning of the rapid growth of the lumpenproletariat as a result of neoliberalism
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/a-164-year-old-idea-helps-explain-the-huge-changes-sweeping-the-world-s-workforce
>Today's modern parallel to porters, tinkers, and the "ruined and adventurous offshoots of bourgeoisie," might well be the growing mass of Uber Inc. drivers, temporary contractors and angry white men: the "Trumpenproletariats," according to a new note by Macquarie Group Ltd. analysts.
>Whichever name one chooses to describe the sweeping structural changes taking place across the world's workforce, they are undeniably upon us — borne out in persistently low labor productivity, the stubborn decline of manufacturing, and growing global income inequality.
>Macquarie Analysts Viktor Shvets and Chetan Smith use Marx, and data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), to highlight the extent to which the U.S. workforce is shifting towards the modern equivalent of Lumpenproletariat — in other words, how people are moving toward more transitory occupations. Unlike their 19th century forerunners, however, the 21st century Lumpenproletariat may prove more bitter, and less boheme.

>>8490280
Americans didn't invent inequality, but they seem to be some of the front runners when it comes to glorifing it. And it's pretty cringe to see someone use a vonnepleb short stort as proof that egalitarian socities don't work.

>>8490280
Are you implying you aren't equally weak and moldable? And haven't been?

>>8486752

He is a rich celebrity who is virtue signaling to curate a specific public image. Nothing wrong with the quote itself but most people who possess half a brain are very suspicious of the intentions of 'public intellectuals' like this guy (can we even call him that if his "ideas" amount to reciting hollow platitudes?).

>>8490318
Isn't the use of virtue signalling as a phrase inherently itself virtue signalling

>>8490311
>but they seem to be some of the front runners when it comes to glorifing it.

Brits are way worse. The entire culture, even poor people see "social mobility" as an actual real concept, and not just a capitalist propaganda tool.

>>8490311
>they seem to be some of the front runners when it comes to glorifing it.
it used to be the norm
egalitarian ideology is an anomaly, not the end point of society as some seem to think it is

>>8490323
why would a culture that praises inequality also praise social mobility?

>>8490324
>egalitarian ideology is an anomaly

In written history, and even then somewhat. For the majority of human history it's been just the opposite. Your norm has been simply just the blink of an eye in the span of human history.

inequality =/= inequity.

say you have 2 people, one has $10 the other has $1000. brand's argument is that the person with $1000 has done something immoral to have so much more than the guy with $10. in actuality the guy with $10 is in his predicament based on his character and has nothing to do with the guy with $1000

>>8490332
Because they praise wealth and industriousness too?

>>8490333
yes I'm sure we will revert to primitivism any day now

>>8490341
These things don't matter to a leftist, because they consider the system to be based on hierarchy and inequality, not on the actions of a specific individual.

>>8490319

Not as far as I can tell. Especially not on an anonymous internet forum. It's a way of describing an observed behavior. You can call someone out for virtue signaling without doing so yourself (e.g. neo-nazi calling out a sjw).

>>8490341
>rich people dindu nuffin
>we need more tax cuts for dem trickle downs

fuck off, shlomo

To call the belief in substantial human equality a superstition is to insult superstition. It might be unwarranted to believe in leprechauns, but at least the person who holds to such a belief isn’t watching them not exist, for every waking hour of the day. Human inequality, in contrast, and in all of its abundant multiplicity, is constantly on display, as people exhibit their variations in gender, ethnicity, physical attractiveness, size and shape, strength, health, agility, charm, humor, wit, industriousness, and sociability, among countless other features, traits, abilities, and aspects of their personality, some immediately and conspicuously, some only slowly, over time. To absorb even the slightest fraction of all this and to conclude, in the only way possible, that it is either nothing at all, or a ‘social construct’ and index of oppression, is sheer Gnostic delirium: a commitment beyond all evidence to the existence of a true and good world veiled by appearances. People are not equal, they do not develop equally, their goals and achievements are not equal, and nothing can make them equal. Substantial equality has no relation to reality, except as its systematic negation. Violence on a genocidal scale is required to even approximate to a practical egalitarian program, and if anything less ambitious is attempted, people get around it (some more competently than others).

>>8490343
That wasn't the point. The point was it is doubtless that within the span of a hundred thousand years, (just imagine the great span of time that would be), language would have been doubtless invented in at least a way. We know that cultural ideas were shared among many peoples by the time of the observable paleolithic.

Doubtless these things were tried, and yet by the time we have the recordable paleolithic we see evidence of far more egalitarian groups. It is only when culture exploded again, with the rise of agriculture and living off grain did this stop. And even then cultures fractured further and further, one kingdom conquers another etc. All highly volatile.

It's more to suggest that balancing the needs of many aren't needed for purely emotional reasons, as types like you suggest through strawman, but material because the emotional exists and you won't get rid of it. In the end all societies reach points where resources become dry and this inevitably becomes the way of things, it's learned.

I see this within the frame of post-scarcity time.

>>8490360
Straight from the dark enlightment

>>8487233

Retard detected. Commies have been pushing tax+spending upward for decades, entirely to the detriment of the country.

>>8490361
unnecessary amount of words to simply say that cavemen were relatively more egalitarian (we were talking about ideology not praxis but we'll pretend otherwise)
it's a meaningless argument

>>8490370
Yes but the point is that the taxes are cuts for the rich, and most of this spending isn't distributed equally, most of it going into military spending or social security for retirement.

>>8490361
>>8490372
There's no way anybody can possibly know if cavemen were more egalitarian.

>>8490372
>unnecessary amount of words to simply say that cavemen were relatively more egalitarian

No I argued why that was the case. When culture was existing for over a thousand years, there would obviously be less need for fighting. Therefore, because of simple unagricultural means, needs would have been able to be met more easily. For cultural ideas to be spread as they observably are, not helping that they all point to this direction. Failure to comply on the level you suggest, would have meant fracturing within the community itself would have meant death for the most part. This might have become a basis for their spirituality.

It's interesting to think spiritual tradition otherwise, occurred into the agricultural revolution.

>>8490375
I could tell. It's fairly simple, and currently anthropology more or less agrees on it; during the observable paleolithic at least.

>>8490383
>I could tell. It's fairly simple, and currently anthropology more or less agrees on it; during the observable paleolithic at least.

The fact that they agree on it doesn't make axiomatically true. The American Psychological Association also agreed that homosexuality was a literal mental illness not 50 years ago.

>>8490383
what's the point of this information though?

>>8490391
>The fact that they agree on it doesn't make axiomatically true

When it comes to culture and society what is exactly materially true? Most of it isn't, it's ways to influence others emotionally this way or that so society tends to stay structured and perpetuate itself.

>>8490398
An argument that culture during the last, let's use five centuries, isn't entirely the human conditio. It's a small frame of reference and in order to look for large scale conclusions about it in toto, you would have to look at trends of it within larger frame of time. And that's what I'm doing, it's what you were arguing as well. I just see the data and disagree with your point, it's evident that this happened more recently and is the cultural after effects of what I'm talking about that crossed the Neolithic-Bronze Age cross.

>>8490408
the original point was that egalitarian ideology is a recent anomaly, not that relatively egalitarian societies are

>>8490412
>>the original point was that egalitarian ideology is a recent anomaly

And what if it is? The use of the word anomaly in this sense is loaded. It holds negative connotations with looking at observable data and coming up with conclusions that come counter to other's ideology.

>>8490408
>Most of it isn't

Exactly, and yet we hear countless statements from anthropologists that paleolithic man was somehow equal because the concept of private property didn't exist, and they had sexual non-possessiveness.

Which is something they cannot possibly know to be true just by digging up bones in a forest.

>>8490341
You're completely ignoring the question of how funds are accumulated and take the income distribution as inherently legitimate. Mainstream economics claims incomes have to do with productivity, not "character", meaning the second guy is 100 times more productive.
The notion that empirical differential rates of accumulation have to do with productivity differences based on some quantifiable notion of productivity is complete bullshit and was torn apart during the Cambridge capital controversy, rates of accumulation in the real world has more to do with connections and networking based upon power relations.

>>8490370
spending =/= investment... real serious government investment and public capital formation hasn't happened in like over 50 years.

Government spending has increased under every president because it's structurally necessary. Republicans like Reagan and Bush are the most notorious for rapidly increasing SPENDING. No president can ever decrease spending.

>>8490417
>Which is something they cannot possibly know to be true just by digging up bones in a forest.

Good thing it isn't. I doubt you have the grounds to speak on anthropological issues since you aren't even aware of how these conclusions were come to. There is good reasoning behind it that's especially visible in the frame of time culturally going into Neolithic to Agriculture. Sure this is probably not "universal", but the fact of the matter is that there were cultural trends long standing and then noticeable change that seems to acknowledge it is not mere coincidence.

>>8490370
>>8490424
p.s. you should really read The Fiscal Crisis of the State by James O'Connor (1973) a great work of Marxian political economy
http://bookzz.org/md5/7FE136B565E0B666B015B502D5F37068
> Fiscal Crisis of the State refers to the tendency of government expenditures to outpace revenues in the U.S. in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but its relevance to other countries of the period and also in today's global economy is evident. When government expenditure constitutes a larger and larger share of total economy theorists who ignore the impact of the state budget do so at their own (and capitalism's) peril. This volume examines how changes in tax rates and tax structure used to regulate private economic activity. O'Connor theorizes that particular expenditures and programs and the budget as a whole can be understood only in terms of power relationships within the private economy. O'Connor's analysis includes an anatomy of American state capitalism, political power and budgetary control in the United States, social capital expenditures, social expenses of production, financing the budget, and the scope and limits of reform. He shows that the simultaneous growth of monopoly power and the state itself generate an increasingly severe social crisis. State monopolies indirectly determine the state budget by generating needs that the state must satisfy. The state administration organizes production as a result of a series of political decisions. Over time, there is a tendency for what O'Connor calls the social expenses of production to rise, and the state is increasingly compelled to socialize these expenses. The state has three ways to finance increased budgetary outlays: create state enterprises that produce social expenditures; issue debt and borrowing against further tax revenues; raise tax rates and introduce new taxes. None of these mechanisms are satisfactory. Neither the development of state enterprise nor the growth of state debt liberates the state from fiscal concerns. Similarly, tax finance is a form of economic exploitation and thus a problem for class analysis. O'Connor contends that the fiscal crisis of the capitalist state is the inevitable consequence of the structural gap between state expenditures and revenues. The state's only way to ameliorate the fiscal crisis is to accelerate the growth of the social-industrial complex. In his new introduction, O'Connor describes The Fiscal Crisis of the State as "the product of a unique combination of personal, intellectual, and political experiencesà." He goes on to explain the origins of his theory and the consequences of The Fiscal Crisis of the State. He answers the question "is there a fiscal crisis today?" and discusses changes in fiscal policy since the '60s and '70s. James O'Connor is emeritus professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

>>8490373

Yeah all this retarded diatribe again...

Taxes for hard working and productive people sky rocket, while the mega rich (eg, Bill Gates, Soros, GMS, people in with the Fed, much less than 1%) with government connectionslaugh their ass off all the way to the bank.

Taxes are usually raised on mid-high earners (50-150k range) and they're the ones who get hit hardest by corporate taxes and the ones who are most important to the economy and overall productivity.

>>8490428
>People literally didn't even have writing so there's no way you can know how their cultural system functioned
>Yet I'm going to claim I know how their society worked

Yeah, no. I don't buy it.

>>8490424

Government taxing for "investments" is retarded as shit. We call that communism and it's garbage bruh. Pull your head out of the 20 century and look at some fucking history books bruh.

>>8490440
You're arguing that human beings are predictable in your own way, and they acted your way, except when people look to trends in the past with what we have you don't buy it. That's hypocritical. You are just as eager to look to paleolithic people and assume ideology, worse with no frame of reference to the information and evidence. I've been extremely kind to not beat you over the head with it, but if you would like to respond again I'll assume it's a question you're asking

>>8490442
Taxation is just a form of demand management by the state it has little to do with the ability of the state to invest or rate of public capital formation. Investment isn't communism its a category of political economy, communism is the overcoming of political economy and its basic categories such as wages, profit, rent, interest

>>8490442
Solid argument.

>>8490453
No, I am arguing that anthropologists cannot know anything about the culture of a society that has only left behind woolen clothes and skeletons, and yet they claim to know something about it, which seems to me to be pure conjecture based on nothing.

>>8490462
>No, I am arguing that anthropologists cannot know anything about the culture of a society that has only left behind woolen clothes and skeletons,

But they didn't. That's what I'm saying you mong. They left behind artifacts which seriously imply certain trends, and the time span and commonality of these artifacts, across Eurasia, point to them being long standing beliefs from a previous point in time very long ago. It would have to be in order for it to be that common, that spread out. It would have to of been one of our first cultural periods of growth from some time in the paleolithic we don't know about. Norm was norm and it all implies that tribes had to worry about social divisions, especially because the context of the artifacts themselves directly acknowledge this.

Not only this interesting phenomenon, but the fact that during the agricultural revolution as belief changed, it became more changed to highlight ways of growth different than just surviving that became exploitative. They had all the resources and needed to grow, so other cultures grew to compete, and ideology began to spread counter than what use to be. And this caused conflict, the Near East was in constant flux politically.

The place being relatively calmer being the European Mediterranean and Egypt, it not being coincidence the one in flux was between the two. Especially post-contact.

Simply other cultural means we still have today existed and was changed from paleolithic and neolithic contexts. I doubt how you could even disagree with this. If there wasn't, there wouldn't be noticeable change

>>8490460

>government controlling production isn't communism
>centralized planning isn't communism

>>8489105
AUTISM

>>8490460

Also this idea of taxation as demand management is pretty funny.

>hey comrade, there's pretty high demand for skilled and productive workers these days
>there is, how about we tax the shit out of productive and skilled work to disincentize skilled and productive work and keep supply low
>excellent idea comrade

Inequality is a total red herring. It's poverty with an accusation.

>>8490583

It's the politically minded intersection of incompetence and jealousy.

remember when Capital in the 21st Century was gonna blow the doors off of inequality?
it's a meme my dudes

>>8490590
Explain

>poor people should be entitled to the fruits of other people's labor

This meme needs to die

>>8490309

Cut government spending down to 15 percent of the national income and everything else will fix itself.

>>8486752
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3bos-z8Cng

>>8490433
>a great work of Marxian political economy

>>8486744
>poor people are poor for no reason

lolwut

>>8490598

Incompetent people fail in society and become jealous of the fruits of the productive castes labour. Instead of striving for personal growth and following suite on the path of increasing their own productive potential, they instead get get jealous and mad and throw a fit and start voting for retarded socialist measures that drag all of society down.

>>8490615

>prosperity is the default state of existence for a human being

>>8490569
Walmart or the federal government can own all assets and productive resources but that would merely make them the sole monopolistic capitalist. Investment by its own logic couldn't exist under any form of communism since talking about profitability or a return on investment wouldn't make any sense without the notion of waged labour.

>>8490575
What's the purpose of taxation today if not demand management? The government doesn't need to tax anyone to get their own fiat currency that they print to spend back.
Ever since the monetarist ideas of Milton Friedman spread central banks across the globe use their control of the money supply to create unemployment and try to prevent wage inflation and maintain the yield-value of financial assets...full employment causes a profit squeeze on corporations and causes wages to increase at the expense of profit. It's called the Phillips curve and every central banker understands.

>>8490618
>this is what libtards believe

you speak as if everyone has an equal chance wherever they are born

>>8490618
>Incompetent people fail in society and become jealous of the fruits of the productive castes labour.

But the richest are largely not productive in the slightest at this point. The people you are referring to have dyansties of wealth in order to reach that peak wealthiest.

The social model of chaos plus culture tradtional comes first, is inevitably and ironically, the easiest to succumb as a system. You don't get political volatility because of evil jealous people, you get it from nothing more than the fact that you cannot blame individual people for acting out how this always happens. Capital in the way it is currently relies on a kind of instability, and when it does fractures become more self evident and things become more vague.

>Instead of striving for personal growth and following suite on the path of increasing their own productive potential, they instead get get jealous and mad and throw a fit and start voting for retarded socialist measures that drag all of society down.

You are naive if you think personal individual growth matters more than statistics. It is far far far more complicated than this. Far more fatalistic and far less idealistic. Anyone who knows history well enough knows this.

>>8490309
Post-war industrial development was fostered by the destruction of capital in the Great Depression/WWII, the development of technologies/innovations by wartime governments which later flowered into consumer applications, and the unchallenged economic hegemony (and heavy military spending) of the U.S. over an expanding/rebuilding world market. Finance capital was firmly overseeing this process (IMF/World Bank). It wasn't random or really an "anomaly", but it was a conjunction of underlying forces allowing a middle class to float up on its wave, not a calculated decision to favor industrial and productivity growth for the sake of it. In the same way, the transition to neoliberalism reflected a necessary (for capital) adjustment to the natural and inevitable collapse of that conjunctional opportunity (ie, falling profits due to an oversaturation of capital relative to labor, ie rising organic composition).

>>8486761
>>8487039
tards

>>8490370
Gee, was it the commies that made that huge upward thrust which just so happened to coincide with WWI and WWII, the expansion of a centralizing imperialist U.S. state, and the post-war era? The trend's been almost flat since the fucking '80s. The big thing sucking up revenues now and increasingly in the future is Baby Boomer entitlements, that precious voting bloc more committed to anti-communism than any cohort in modern history.

>>8490623

It is. If it wasn't your genetic line would be long gone.

>>8490634
>profitability or a return on investment wouldn't make any sense without the notion of waged labour.

Not true even in the slightest. Even full Communist states use currency and need to keep productivity high. RoI applies to anybody using resources to build shit to a productive end, eg building anything. Obviously communists still build shit so RoI calculations are extremely important, and in fact historic Communist countries have had legions of government workers trying to juggle efficiency and returns on investments in a gigantic and ineffective struggle.

>>8490638

No I don't, I'm saying socialism is dumb and toxic to society as a whole, not that everyone is born with equal status in life. They obviously aren't, and yes life can be unfair. Boo fucking hoo.

>>8490648
>But the richest are largely not productive in the slightest at this point. The people you are referring to have dyansties of wealth in order to reach that peak wealthiest.

Income mobility has actually increased to the highest it's ever been in recent years, thanks to all the rags to riches computing entrepreneur millionaires and billionaires.

>You are naive if you think personal individual growth matters more than statistics.

I never said this either. Look at the statistics if you want, look at the success rates of Communist and Socialist states. They're obviously dog shit and it's obviously a failed ideology.

Uber-white Scandinavia is a bit of an exception, but ultimately they grew under a relatively free market, stagnated under dumb ass Socialism and are now drowning in shitskin muzzies. They had something good going and completely ruined it. Top kek, fucking retard Swedes, shouldn't have let 80 IQ lesbians and malevolent Jews run your country.

>>8490718

Yeah the boomers are so commited to anti-Communism that every country they've ran has seen a continual increase in taxing+spending during their hayday and every country wherein they're in power now has seen a huge shift towards Communist thought.

Those tax+spend hippy boomers sure hate Communism. Top kek.

>>8490318
how can you ever speak about anything considered good without taking part in so called "virtue signalling"?

Hint: you can't

it's a post-postmodernist world, you don't need 200 layers of irony anymore to hint at believing in something

>>8490719
>thanks to all the rags to riches computing entrepreneur millionaires and billionaires.
So the two Steves and... er...
Is Woz a millionaire or billionaire btw?

>>8490732

The point of virtue signalling is you support ideas you don't really understand or agree with solely for social standing. The honest pursuit of ethical or moral behaviour isn't an element of what people people are referring to when they speak about virtue signalling.

>>8490736

Yup. In the entire computing boom of the last 25 years 3 people have made fortunes for themselves.

This is level of intuitive thinking at which Commie scum sit.

>>8490634

What the hell are you talking about? Governments create inflation in order to cover their lavish spending. Inflation is an invisible form of taxation that no one has to vote for. It was Keynes and his ilk who advanced the idea of using inflation to bring down real wages and stimulate employment. Of course, this only works in the short term; in the long run, it creates more unemployment than existed before.

>>8490754

Keynes was such fucking cancer.

How can anybody take his garbage seriously?

>>8490749
3 people? Do you think the 2 Steves isn't Jobs and Woz?

Obviously Bill Gates has an incredible fortune but it was by no means rags to riches. The majority of silicon valley millionaires and billionaires came from comfortably middle class backgrounds and made ridiculous amounts of money.

>>8490778
Because it Works Pretty Well(tm)

>>8490754
>in the long run, it creates more unemployment than existed before.
I always enjoyed this aspect.

>>8490740
>The point of virtue signalling is you support ideas you don't really understand
so most ideas most people believe

>or agree with solely for social standing.
I agree that there may be a problem with celebrities fighting for causes, but I still think "virtue signaling" is a useless term, just call them hypocrites like we've always done

heck, if you expand a bit the definition of "virtue" and apply it to the different virtues different groups value, "virtue signaling" is almost the only thing we all do all day when saying something or even when we don't say something.

>>8490778

>WE WUZ KEYNES N SHIIIET

Government today is a lot like government in the 1930s, spend-happy, expansion-minded. Any theory that purports to justify vast public expenditure will be popular among those who believe in government intervention and government control. It should be obvious enough why government bureaucrats are on favor of more spending.

>>8490781

>if they aren't going from literally poverty levels to literally billionaires they don't count for the purposes of economic mobility

>>8490787

Are modern economies your definition of doing well? We're in an age of hyper acceleration of technology and we have better communications and connectivity than ever before. We should be in an age of unprecedented growth, yet we're sitting on stagnation or trivial growth across the entire Western world.

Wealth redistribution and Communism or growth and prosperity. Pick one or the other. Can't have both.

>>8486744
What does inequality mean at all? There'll always be people better at doing something and thus wealthier, it's not inequality itself but the living standard of the poorest members of the society that matters.

>>8490719
>Not true even in the slightest. Even full Communist states use currency and need to keep productivity high. RoI applies to anybody using resources to build shit to a productive end, eg building anything. Obviously communists still build shit so RoI calculations are extremely important, and in fact historic Communist countries have had legions of government workers trying to juggle efficiency and returns on investments in a gigantic and ineffective struggle.
All you're proving is those "communist" regimes utilized the same typical accounting practices as would be utilized capitalist by any private corporation today which is true but says noting more than they were practising a form of inefficient state monopoly capitalism which fell victim to the exact same issues as if you gave full monopoly control of the economy to any corporation today.
There would be no "return" to any investors in a true communist economy. Production wouldn't be regulated by the logic of capitalistic economic investment decisions but managed by the producers themselves without account to any notion of monetary profit or loss. There would only exist technical issues not financial constraints.

>>8490754
Inflation is the result of many different factors, government is just one.
From chapter XV of The Limits of the Mixed Economy by Paul Mattick (1969):
http://www.kavoshgar.org/book/MK/MMK_15.htm
>The depreciation of a national currency makes capital not only more profitable but also more competitive internationally. However, as the power to devaluate is given to all independent nations, the devaluation of money in some countries leads to devaluation in others. In the end, it will again be the real capital structure, and not the money structure, which determines the relative competitive capacities of different nations.
>...Inflation is then another form of subsidization of big business by government. It is merely one of the techniques by which income is transferred from the mass of the population into the hands of government-favored corporations.
>...inflation is the means by which the non-profitable character of government-induced production by way of deficit-financing finds its partial compensation in higher prices.
>In a deflationary depression, production declines because part of the producible commodities cannot be sold profitably, thus preventing the realization of profits and their transformation into additional capital; whereas in an inflationary depression production continues, despite its lack of profitability, by way of credit expansion.

>>8490820
The global economy entered into crises with the emergence of neoliberalism and its lack of ability to generate real investments. The financial sector and real-estate has done great but that doesn't translate into real investments or meaningful growth, we've been living off the technological advancements from the abnormally high levels of uneconomic investments spurred in the 50s/60s by state intervention.

>>8486744

>Man who tells everyone voting isn't important in the last GE
>Tries to get everyone to vote Labour cunts in the last couple days after they pay him
Nope, he's an absolute bellend.

>>8490995

>uneconomic investments
>uneconomic investments
>uneconomic investments
>uneconomic investments
>uneconomic investments

>I have 85 iq and parrot rehetorric while lacking any means to even understand what I'm saying.

>>8491029
Investment is a business term it's not an industrial concern. Outside of the context of a property regime it has no logical basis. There exists oil reserves and other such natural resources which would need to be managed by those that use them with some form of quantitative analysis but ROI wouldn't be of any real value. Investors are mere holders of paper claims on tangible/intangible assets which they capitalize upon.

>>8491059

But they still need to use resources efficiently, which is the entire point of investment managers and terms like RoI and really all of capitalism in general.

You can't just drop all that and pretend like everything will be fine and dandy afterwards, because it won't. Your bias is huge and you're ignoring the real value that these things add to the economy.

>>8487208

>that tiny thing got to penetrate Katy Perry's holy sanctum