/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.9161914]

Often when you make the argument that Socialism or Communism are murderous systems, Marxists say that Capitalism is far more murderous, often pointing towards Capitalist colonialism to prove their point.

What is a good counter-argument against this and are there any books about this subject that aren't ideologically driven?

[Anonymous No.9161925]

Unfortunately there is no counter argument. Capitalism - most pointedly, the late capitalism we experience now - kills millions, and the socialist revolution is overdue.

[Anonymous No.9161932]

>>9161914
>any books about this subject that aren't ideologically driven?

bacl to /pol/ and 'redpills' of objective truth

[Anonymous No.9161944]

>>9161932
>Back to /pol/
I'm not trying to win an argument for the sake of a far-right ideology against a Marxist one.

[Anonymous No.9161969]

>>9161914
Communists colonize too, but in a far more insidious manner:
See the whole fucking USSR as Russia and its colonies, and incidents like the Holodomor. One could argue that communism necessarily involves the elites (the nomenklatura) colonizing the masses for exploitation.

It's all hogshit, of course, and anybody willing to debate communism unironically from the side of the communists is not going to be convinced until they themselves are starving in a place where abundance was once theirs. People, of course, starve under capitalism as well, but typically, these people were starving to begin with. The key to arguing for capitalism is getting your opponent to realize that poverty is the natural state (as far as such things as "natural states" can exist), and that it disappears, in relative terms, with each passing year.

Colonialism is merely the natural evolution of international power. If one thinks that it's inherently evil, and that its effects will live on eternally in its victims, then one would have to also believe that the biggest sin committed by the colonizers was to not have simply genocided all places they wanted to colonize (The United States is not the perfect example, as *far* more Natives died to disease than any sort of extermination plot, but it remains the most successful colonial venture).

Unfortunately, your search is doomed. There cannot exist anything about ideology without ideological bias or purpose. That would be like writing a restaurant review without having a sense of taste.

[Anonymous No.9161983]

[Anonymous No.9161984]

>>9161914
The correct argument to make is that there's nothing wrong with mass murder. A real socialist embraces the holodomor instead of denying it or pointing to death tolls under capitalism.

[Anonymous No.9162060]

>>9161983
wtf I love hitler now

[Anonymous No.9162095]

>>9161983

This whole discussion is dumb for ignoring the historical aspect of both capitalism and communism. You can't conceive of either of those two things outside of the historical occurrence of their actual practice in the real world. To conceive of political systems are somehow just transcendent ideals, like blueprints for a society just floating around in the ether, is to conceive nothing but an empty, useless abstraction. The notion that there is a "real" and an "unreal" communism is as absurd as the notion that there is a "real" or "unreal" capitalism or feudalism or whatever.

In other words you shouldn't ontologize political or economic theory. It exists only as it is practiced, and then not as some stable, unified entity but as a practice or process. Hence we call the economy of both 18th Century Britain and 21st Century America capitalist, despite the fact they were vastly different economies. And we could just as well claim one of them more preferable to the other without making the ludicrous claim that the other was a "fake" capitalism.

[Anonymous No.9162137]

>>9161914
Every time you see one of those arguments, you can be absolutely sure they are being used because the stater does not know anything about economic sciences.

Read:

Tom Apostol Calculus 1
Economics Samuelson
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money - Keynes
Das Kapital vol 1 - Karl Von Mises

The last two do not be in that order. The first ones do.

[Anonymous No.9162138]

>>9161969
>The key to arguing for capitalism is getting your opponent to realize that poverty is the natural state (as far as such things as "natural states" can exist), and that it disappears, in relative terms, with each passing year.

This isn't really a strong argument, at least not against any sort of Marxism. Of course capitalism generally improves the material circumstances of (most) people -- hence Marx calling it the second most revolutionary force in history. The problem (for Marx at least) was that it's unsustainable, and so necessarily leads to communism.

If you want to argue against that position you can't just state what is already accepted, that capitalism is better than anything which came before it. You have to show either that capitalism is sustainable (which would be quite a tall order), that it isn't in danger of collapsing anytime in the near future (and so capitalism is good enough for now), or else that the collapse of capitalism doesn't necessarily lead to communism (which desu it probably doesn't).

[Anonymous No.9162164]

>>9162137
Additionally;
Marxism on overall is pretty much right, if you consider it's axioms to be true and no one seriously try to refute it, Axioms that people usually do not no.

The more important ones being: No state intervention and a industrial context in which machines are nothing more than super efficient tools. "Tools" having the most basic meaning possible. i.e. super hammers.
Not a computer controlled production line that requires a team of phds to operate.

[Anonymous No.9162165]

Mao killed hundreds of millions under communism. Just one example.

Soviet Union, modern China, etc

[Anonymous No.9162181]

>>9162137
Those are significantly outdated texts. Economists nowadays have long moved on from Keynesian economics, and certainly from Austrian economics.

And in any case economics is fundamentally descriptive and empirical, and so of limited use to political theory, which is (necessarily) prescriptive. Which is not to say it's useless -- it's just to say that anyone who thinks the findings of economists determine politics understands neither politics not economics.

Also anyone who thinks economists are all of one mind knows nothing about economics.

[Anonymous No.9162211]

>>9162181
Keynesian theory is essentially what handled the recession you moron. That and a severe case of government bailouts.

[Anonymous No.9162231]

>>9162165
>Mao killed hundreds of millions

wat. the highest estimate I've seen from an actual historian is 80 million, but most put him somewhere around 50 million.

[Anonymous No.9162232]

>>9162181
>Those are significantly outdated texts.
I will assume you did not include Apostol on that.

Samuelson is not outdated it's still the mostly used introductory book on economics in most universities.

Keynes provided the best alternative model to the inexorable end of capitalism predicted by marx and addressed the problem of cyclic depressions.

>Economists nowadays have long moved on from Keynesian economics
They have not. Keynesian economics is still the basis of modern econometrics.
Despite the neo-classical and neo-keynesian memes. That no one in academia really takes seriously.

If you want to say someone made Keynes history your best bet is Schumpeter.

>and certainly from Austrian economics
You realize that was a joke right?
Das Kapital is by Karl Marx, I wrote Karl von Mises as a joke.
His name was actually Ludwing Von Mises.
I would never recommend Austrians unless the person explicitly asks for it.

>And in any case economics is fundamentally descriptive and empirica
So is every field of knowledge.

>and so of limited use to political theory
I agree that economics is not all there is to political theory.

Political theory is basically concerned with how to do things given a set of political constraints. I don't know if that's what you mean by prescriptive.

>anyone who thinks the findings of economists determine politics understands neither politics not economics
Agreed.

[Anonymous No.9162252]

>>9162211
Keynesian economics is a hell of a lot more than austerity.

but you will also note that nearly all economists now believe austerity has failed to deal with the recession. so probably not the best example to pick there.

[Anonymous No.9162258]

>>9162231
I meant a quarter of hundreds of millions minus a few plus many divided by 1 and other additions. My mistake. But with Mao, Stalin, and modern China, I'd say it's hundred millions or more just from those.

[Anonymous No.9162266]

>>9162232
>>And in any case economics is fundamentally descriptive and empirica

>So is every field of knowledge.

not this bullshit again

[Anonymous No.9162272]

>>9162095
You wouldn't say there is a vast difference between the high barrier to entry, warlike, ship focused environment of 18th century mercantilism with today's capitalistic economy? I mean, some forms of money became obsolete. Commodity money is hardly used at all anymore.

[Anonymous No.9162279]

>>9162252
>austerity
That's not how Keynes solved cyclic depressions.

He actually purposed greater taxation of the rich to enable the government to invest in education and infrastructure.

>>9162266
Which field of knowledge is a priori then?

[Anonymous No.9162300]

>>9162258
>But with Mao, Stalin, and modern China, I'd say it's hundred millions or more just from those.

I believe the 100 million is quite controversial. I believe there a row when the black book of communism came out and the editor in his forward insisted on a death toll of 100 million, to which the book's contributors later claimed their work didn't support.

[Anonymous No.9162312]

>>9162272
>You wouldn't say there is a vast difference between the high barrier to entry, warlike, ship focused environment of 18th century mercantilism with today's capitalistic economy?

Huh? That's exactly what I said in my comment. That they are different.

[Anonymous No.9162324]

>>9162095
>You can't conceive of either of those two things outside of the historical occurrence of their actual practice in the real world.
It doesn't follow that every future communist 'effort' will yield the same disastrous results as the ones of the 20th century. To assert that you'd have to prove that there is something inherent in the idea of communism that causes it to manifest itself in such a degenerated manner. (I know you're not arguing this, it's just some broken logic I've seen elsewhere and want to mention.)

[Anonymous No.9162338]

>>9162279
>Which field of knowledge is a priori then?

are you fucking with me? math and logic are both uncontroversially understood to be a priori.

and ethics, while not a priori, is definitely not descriptive or empirical. and philosophy generally is not empirical. beyond that political science/theory, while often empirical, is not fundamentally empirical, but also makes normative claims.

[Anonymous No.9162354]

>>9162252
>austerity
That's not exactly what I meant, although close to it.

Essentially when a major financial institution lowers its interest rate what follows is a proliferation of fiat currency. This idea, while not being absolutely novel, certainly was in an overall sense for an indication of an improvement in the economy. However interesting this may be, Keynes notes a COUPLE methods of improving the economy in his book, and this is fundamentally something people at large fail to realize

1) lower the interest rate
2) lower the money wages

This is important, because when people reference 'Keynesianism' they focus on the first and never the second remedy. And yet, the second remedy, while removing some inflated wages from causing even more severe inflation in the economy, is not at all politically popular. Just a side note.

Lowering the interest rate under Keynesianism necessarily raises investment, but if it doesn't raise the level of investment above the marginal efficiency of capital, it may not be all that effective, and the investment rate has a tendency to be 'sticky' below the marginal efficiency of capital. It's not the best method, but it's the methodology that makes lowering the fed funds rate equate in a large measure to 'Keynesianism', a system which is so much more than just that. The method and system developed shows you that the solutions proposed by Keynes will be effective as a remedy to the economy. This is the system and methodology that brought us to modern economics. This is the methodology that incorporated buying stocks of goods during cyclical highs to buffer the inevitable slump that would occur to the company as a result of seasonal fluctuations, The New Deal.

This methodology was imperative in guiding economic policy, and it still is. So for you to say that lowering the interest rate to increase investment is not Keynesianism is wrong, but it's also not the whole picture.

Also, to the guy who recommended Keynes and Marx, Keynes fundamentally differs with Marx's ideas so just so you know those different analytical systems of thought, despite how simplistic you want to make it sound, just are not compatible at all.

[Anonymous No.9162360]

>>9162354
If you want a socialist that Keynes preferred, look into Silvio Gesell, his work is largely a reaction to Marxist thought anyway.

[Anonymous No.9162368]

>>9162312
Yes but is mercantilism capitalism?

[Anonymous No.9162375]

>>9162338
Using the platonic theory of forms you could understand mathematics and geometry to be derived from our conception of the universe and perception in its idyllic form. In other words, there is an argument for math being derived a posteriori, and if you use this argument it is easier to prove that mathematics is discovered, not created.

[Anonymous No.9162376]

>>9161925
hahahahahahahahaha

[Anonymous No.9162397]

>>9161914
No, a Marxist would say that socialism/communism are not murderous because a socialist/communist society has never existed.

[Anonymous No.9162402]

>>9162368
That depends who you ask I suppose. Marx certainly called the 18th Century British economy capitalist. But in any case if you prefer you could compare the political economy of early 20th Century America (which as far as I know is uncontroversially called "capitalist") to the contemporary American economy.

My point is just that while an abstract political theory might seem like a stable entity, in practice capitalism (or any other -ism) is always historical and always changing and so resists any kind of rigid ontologization.

[Anonymous No.9162417]

>>9162338
>the decadence of /lit/

>math and logic

Both well known to be empirical and proved to be empirical for more than one century.

You can develop any logical system/algebra/geometry/analysis from any set of axioms and any result will be as valid and any other one. As has been proven by many mathematicians in many different ways. David Hilbert, Bertrand Russell(yes, that's right) and Kurt Gödel being the most remarkable ones.

So, if euclidean geometry was a priori, any other thing you could come up with would be a priori too. Which would lead us to the conclusion that all knowledge is a priori, not the platonic sense but in the sense that you were born knowing everything.

>and ethics, while not a priori, is definitely not descriptive or empirical
It is, I can't even think of why you would consider otherwise.

>philosophy generally is not empirical
See the argument on logic above. You can come up with any set of axioms and the result will be as consistent ans any other one.

>political science/theory, while often empirical, is not fundamentally empirical
What exactly is not empirical?

[Anonymous No.9162430]

>>9161914
>>>/his/

and stay there

[Anonymous No.9162438]

>>9161914
who painted this? really tickled my dasein

[Anonymous No.9162450]

>>9162417
Additionally;
You not only would be born knowing everything but it would be a contradiction with the definition of a priori, that is some knowledge with empirical applications that was not obtained empirically. You could easily construct a geometry that has no application in real life and it would be as a priori as the euclidian one. Hyperbolic geometry for example.

[Anonymous No.9162451]

>>9162375
>Using the platonic theory of forms you could understand mathematics and geometry to be derived from our conception of the universe and perception in its idyllic form. In other words, there is an argument for math being derived a posteriori

I mean, you'd first have to defend platonic idealism from it's numerous, well known faults. But in any case if you are "discovering" maths in transcendent platonic ideals, you're still not discovering them in experience -- you're discovering them in ideas.

Alternatively you could discover the sum of 1983463 and 3894562 by finding that many apples and adding them together and observing the result, but that's not how mathematicians go about their business. On the contrary the offer a priori (and thus apodictic) proofs. Which is much less time consuming and much more reliable.

[Anonymous No.9162471]

>>9161914
I was thinking about this the other day too, and here's my solution:

1. Realize that socialism and communism are inherently oppressive. Ideally, under those systems, men are forcibly made equal, weather they are supported by the state or suppressed by it. More often, it is the latter. Historically, any rebellion, or even dissent is forcibly put down, and the people are not free, and closely monitored.
>See: USSR, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuala, China

2. Produce evidence that, while painful, capitalism produces works that minimize suffering. Ask where was the USSR's industrial revolution? Goods were produced cheaper than ever, leading to a net benefit.
Where is China's medical technologies? Their Polio vaccine?
Hell, Cuba still uses ancient cars, and Venezuelans are literally starving.

Capitalism leads to innovation, which leads to a better society, and helps a greater number of people.
>look up celebrities who donate millions of dollars.

[Anonymous No.9162473]

>>9162402
I see what you're saying and I actually agree to a certain level. There will always be fundamental systems in check. So when John Maynard Keynes, for instance, write his General Theory, he asserts this book can be retroactively applied, to past systems. And successfully does, as well. He makes the argument that Adam Smith under as far back as mercantilism, and much more further back than that (Keynes was extremely well read on this), fundamentally misunderstood what was going on. And that's part of what makes the unbelievably conceptually dense book The General Theory so fundamentally important. The frameworks has massive sets of independent and dependent variables going on at any given time, meaning that you aren't left with binary situations like 'if the interest rate goes down, wages go down(George)/up(Ricardo)'

[Anonymous No.9162487]

>>9162451
I posit that Euclid never asserts nor denies his axioms are a priori or a posteriori, what say you.

[Anonymous No.9162496]

>>9162471
*sniffs*

[Anonymous No.9162501]

>>9162417
This is unbelievably stupid. Literally no logician or mathematician believes math or logic is empirical. I don't know why you think logic being deductive is evidence of it being empirical (and thus not actually deductive). Trust me it's not.

And no one besides Sam Harris believes ethics is empirical. And he's not a philosopher. Nor does he offer a coherent argument. I mean, it's quite simple. Statements about the way the world ought to be are not statements about the way the world is. Duh.

[Anonymous No.9162514]

>>9162487
I have no idea what Euclid thought about his axioms. But I also don't understand the relevance of what Euclid thought about his axioms.

[Anonymous No.9162588]

>>9162473
It's agree that there are things fundamental or universal or essential to any given constellation of social relations (such as a political system) -- I'm not arguing for a completely relativist historicism. But I think whatever there is that's universal exists only in the historical and contingent. Sort of like "human nature" as a universal only ever exists as it is shaped by social relations, such that while human nature certainly exists, you never actually find it abstracted from it's actual, contingent existence in society. We can try to subtract what is contingent from what is natural and universal, and that might be useful for the empirical sciences, but what we are left with is ultimately only an abstraction.

[Anonymous No.9162599]

>>9162514
Mathematical thought is just a process developed by the methods Euclid created. Your 'set theory' is not possible without the progress and development of geometry and arithmetic from the time of Euclid to Ibn Al-Haytham

[Anonymous No.9162605]

>>9162501
>Literally no logician or mathematician believes math or logic is empirical.
Ask me how I know you do not study mathematics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Euclidean_geometry#Discovery_of_non-Euclidean_geometry

>Bernhard Riemann, in a famous lecture in 1854, founded the field of Riemannian geometry, discussing in particular the ideas now called manifolds, Riemannian metric, and curvature. He constructed an infinite family of geometries which are not Euclidean by giving a formula for a family of Riemannian metrics on the unit ball in Euclidean space. The simplest of these is called elliptic geometry and it is considered to be a non-Euclidean geometry due to its lack of parallel lines.

You can create any geometry, with any sets of axioms and it will be as valid as the euclidean geometry.

Since "a priori" means something that has empirical applications but was not empirically learned, this leads us to a contradiction. Where you could create geometries that are contradictory between themselves but perfectly consistent.

You can also go by the Gödel incompleteness way. Any logical system has a dichotomy between completeness and validity. If your a priori knowledge is applicable to the empirical world, it's wrong. If it's not applicable, it does not fit the definition of a priori.

>I don't know why you think logic being deductive is evidence of it being empirical
I didn't say that.

>And no one besides Sam Harris believes ethics is empirical.
Ok, so will not have any problem in showing me a ethics axiom along with a demonstration of it's a priori nature.

[Anonymous No.9162611]

>>9161969
>and incidents like the Holodomor
Stopped reading here.

[Anonymous No.9162619]

>>9162599
Not the person you were talking to.

You mean it's not possible in a historical sense?

Because set theory was formalized exactly to have mathematics build on top of it.
Which didn't succeed and lead to the creation of class theory.

[Anonymous No.9162623]

>>9162605
>Since "a priori" means something that has empirical applications but was not empirically learned, this leads us to a contradiction. Where you could create geometries that are contradictory between themselves but perfectly consistent.
And also geometries that have no empirical application at all.

[Anonymous No.9162634]

>>9162588
That institutions change and develop is certain, and by the way certain economists are obsessed with this fact. Ludwig Von Mises is absolutely obsessed with the idea that institutions define economic progress, but their limitations are clearly definable in any circumstance. It's why his Theory of Money and Credit is transferable to today, because it's simply an exercise of logic through economic. institutions. In the case of Keynesian economics, we assume there is a rate of consumption, a rate of investment, an independent interest rate set by financial institutions and a dependent volume of employment, determined by the surrounding circumstances of the economy. These variables have been in motion since time immemorial. It is hard to note a time period when these haven't existed.

So it fundamentally becomes a deal of how broadly you want to define things. If you look at things at a superficial level, you lose some level of analysis in the lack of details, for instance, the term 'production cycle' is ill defined in Austrian economics because it is never actually discussed what is implicit. It is just a broad concept to explain a broad theory based on the observations of institutions, what you seem to want to do.

Keynes, despite having a book full of equations, manages to explain broad theoretical concepts which relate to each other in a beautifully definable way, empirically supported no less.

[Anonymous No.9162648]

>>9162619
My point is, without the development and progress of Euclidean geometry, which may have been developed a posteriori from the idealization of forms, you are dealing with no set theory at all, nothing which cannot stand without the foundation which made it possible.

In this sense, due to causality and teleology, you could say everything we consider mathematical is simply an element of something we discovered, not created, in civilization's incipient stage.

[Anonymous No.9162664]

>>9161914
Marx said himself that the only way for communism to exist was through violent revolution
Communism is inherently violent

[Anonymous No.9162666]

>>9162648
If I understood you correctly, I disagree.
Set theory was developed exactly to not depend on any other mathematical axioms.
So it does not directly depend on the euclidean axioms.

But yes, the development of euclidean geometry helped to establish the framework in which set theory was possible.

[Anonymous No.9162671]

>>9162664
He did not. He only said that the end of capitalism was inexorable.

What you are talking about is Lenin.

[Anonymous No.9162677]

>>9162664
Young Marx thought that, but later in his life he changed his opinion, and tried to promote a non-violent revolution.

[Anonymous No.9162686]

>>9162666
Okay, Satan

How is this
>So it does not directly depend on the euclidean axioms
Compatible with this?
>But yes, the development of euclidean geometry helped to establish the framework in which set theory was possible
??????????

I mean the only issue here is 'directly', but if something is only possible through the development of something else, then it is dependent upon the axioms of that hypothesis.

That other anon is currently quoting the Riemann system of mathematics and saying this THIS has some groundwork for a posteriori development.

So tell me again how mathematics is a priori and not a posteriori

[Anonymous No.9162689]

>>9162686
NOT compatible, rather.

[Anonymous No.9162710]

>>9162686
I mean directly in a more strict sense.
Set theory has no common axiom with euclidean geometry.

I didn't read all your posts but you cannot deduce set theory is a priori just because euclidean geometry(assuming it to be a priori) helped develop it.

But by your last post I suspect we are talking about different things and I should have read everything before giving my 50 cents.

>That other anon is currently quoting the Riemann system of mathematics and saying this THIS has some groundwork for a posteriori development.
I'm that anon.

>So tell me again how mathematics is a priori and not a posteriori
I can tell you anything, but this one specifically would simply be false.

[Anonymous No.9162731]

>>9162710
>you cannot deduce set theory is a priori just because euclidean geometry(assuming it to be a priori
I thought your argument was that set theory was a priori and I am the one stipulating it to be a posteriori.

lol please go back and reread posts.

[Anonymous No.9162744]

>>9161914
did you ever hear about the story of tom ogle?

[Anonymous No.9162765]

>>9162731
Given the enormous amount of ignorance in this thread, I feel the need to as if I'm shitposting along a fellow mathematician.

[Anonymous No.9162770]

>>9161914
There is no counter argument. Even the falsest, most bloated body count of communism is a drop in the bucket compared to their economy.

[Anonymous No.9162780]

>>9161983
How mentally retarded do you have to be to think this makes any sense?

[Anonymous No.9162796]

>>9162258
>>9162165
The definition of a useful idiot. Read a book for once, child.

[Anonymous No.9162804]

>>9162796
Xhe did. The Black Book of Communism. And that's the problem.

[Anonymous No.9162814]

>>9161925
Eschatology really is another intersection between christianity and socialism. Morons.

[Anonymous No.9162838]

>>9162804
Good point.

Please read books by people that actually know what they're talking about.

>>9162814
Moron.