His main criticism is that they are not socialist at all. They are capitalist states, which is correct. They are more specifically social democracies, like Norway or China, except with even more state ownership. The same basic capitalist process that Marx describes is present in Cuba, the only notable differences are lack of competition between capitals and price-setting by the state, both of which has resulted in economic inefficiency.
The main argument from MLs is that these states have made improvements in the standard of living of people. But not only has private capitalism brought more people out of poverty faster, MLs are only praising state capitalism rather than socialism.
The second argument from MLs are that these states represent a transitional period to socialism, and this somehow makes it necessary to have exploitation, repression and all other things that these states do. This is opportunism of the highest order, it brings an easy excuse to justify any amount of exploitation because "productive forces bro".
Imagine naming yourself after Marx and having these kinds of takes.
When did you figure out how much of “first world” nations’ development can be attributed to capitalism being a more effective mode of production from important things like industrialization, colonialism, and literal genocide to seize resources? The extent to which you can quickly attribute that material development to capitalism would combine all of those things into one: “first world” capitalism as practiced through international extraction and violence.
Industrialization is capital accumulation. Colonialism is expanding markets and exporting capital. It's all capitalism. Capitalism is the mode of production that encompasses all these things. Are you having some kind of petty-bourgeois delusion of "pure capitalism"?
Heavily subsidized by the United States for decades and decades because they were developing more poorly than NK. Even that wasn’t really working to achieve the desired effect until the embargo on NK and the fall of the USSR.
So subsidizing makes it not capitalism? The total aid to SK was $35 billion over decades. USA exports more than that to SK every year. Subsidizing helped, but the real reason for SK's development was their initial protectionism, strong state support and intelligent industrial policy. Taiwan followed similar developmental policies. Ignoring all that and handwaving their economic success to US subsidies is like ignoring the real efforts of the SK and Taiwanese people in their economic success.
And what do you mean "c'mon" for Japan? Japan was a capitalist country through and through. Being a socialist doesnt mean you stick your head in the sand about capitalists track record of economic growth.
These countries are only those that managed to get to first world status. There are others which didnt develop too much, but still made massive successes in economic growth and poverty reduction, like India, Mexico, Botswana, Mauritius, many EE-EU countries, Thailand, Vietnam etc.
China was already developing pre-Deng, with life expectancy way up. Dengism is not “development due to capitalism” in the sense that I’m sure you mean to talk about, which is “capitalism being a more effective mode of production” historically. It’s based on a very specific strategy of doing capitalist things to gain entry to international markets, essentially allowing large sections of the economy to be subservient to capital in order to avoid the worst of those external forces I mentioned. It’s not hard to see that this is more capitalist than most socialist countries’ compromises, but it’s also incredibly simplistic (and wrong) to say “China developed because capitalism effective”.
Chinese economy was capitalist pre-Deng and capitalist post-Deng, the major difference being state-ownership and mixed-ownership. You havent actually explained why Dengism isnt just capitalism, you're just saying its simplistic to say so without any explanation. Instead of throwing words at me and hoping I'll buy your bullshit, try to form logical and consistent arguments.
Socialism is the inversion of the class dynamic from being capitalist-dominated to being worker-dominated.
Therefore China is capitalist.
There’s plenty of arguments to be had regarding the status of China as a project that is achieving or on a trajectory to achieve that inversion, but dismissing it as merely capitalist because private ownership exists is to misunderstand the basics of socialism. And there’s no need to try and head me off about social democracy.
Lol China literally is a social democracy. You're right, we can have plently of arguments about the future trajectory of any nation, and that is mostly fruitless because we cannot predict the future. We can talk about the present, which is that China is a capitalist country, its economic success is due to capitalism, they openly talk about furthering "reform and opening up", they are committed to a free and open world market even more than the USA, and that they engage in worker repression and prevent formation of independent trade unions.
Literally not what capitalism means.
Right, commodity production and money has nothing to do with capitalism, Marx never identiified them as the fundamental aspect of capitalism.
Right, commodity production and money has nothing to do with capitalism, Marx never identiified them as the fundamental aspect of capitalism.
Actually try reading Marx. The existence of commodities and money does not mean capitalism exists. Capital is created in very specific circumstances
"The historic conditions of its existence are by no means given with the mere circulation of money and commodities. It [capitalism] can spring into life only when the owner of the means of production and subsistence meets in the market with the free laborer selling his labor power." (Capital, Vol. I, International ed., p. 170.)
"In themselves money and commodities are no more capital than are the means of production and of subsistence. They want transforming into capital. But this transformation can only take place under certain circumstances that center in this, viz., that two very different kinds of commodity-possessors must come face to face and into contact; on the one hand, the owners of money, means of production, means of subsistence, who are eager to increase the sums of values they possess, by buying other people's labor power; on the other hand, free laborers, the sellers of their own labor power and therefore the sellers of labor.... With this polarization of the market for commodities, the fundamental conditions of capitalist production are given. The capitalist system presupposes the complete separation of the laborers from all property in the means by which they can realize their labor. As soon as capitalist production is once on its own legs, it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a continually extending scale." (Capital, p. 714.)
If workers do not meet owners of production in a free market to sell their labour power as a commodity and instead are allocated work via a central planning directive to workplace that is state owned and nationalised that's not capitalism and capital has not been created as much you'd like it to be. If the direct producers, the workers, are not divorced from the means of production, and if consequently neither these means nor labor power function as commodities, then no survivals of "bourgeois right," nor any amount of other inequities and injustices, can allow of such a society being properly termed capitalist.
Inversely, if the direct producers have been separated from the means of production, and consequently both labor power and means of production are exchanged as commodities, then no amount of social welfare benefits, no nationalizations, no statutory curbs on excess profiteering, no ameliorative measures whatever can conceal or modify the capitalist character of such a society.
You can call it camels, heavy petting or circus clowns but you can't call Socialist societies that existed that organised under those principles capitalist
Also money had a very different function under Socialist countries. You couldn't buy the means of production for one no matter how much you saved up
Ok explain to me what is Industrialization according to your own interpretation of Marx. I'll try not to laugh.
Actually try reading Marx. The existence of commodities and money does not mean capitalism exists. Capital is created in very specific circumstances
Ah the famous "socialist commodities" of Stalin.
“The historic conditions of its existence are by no means given with the mere circulation of money and commodities. It [capitalism] can spring into life only when the owner of the means of production and subsistence meets in the market with the free laborer selling his labor power.” (Capital, Vol. I, International ed., p. 170.)
Cuba has laborers working for a wage with which they buy goods on the market. According to this definition by Marx, Cuba is capitalist. Do you read your own quote spam?
If workers do not meet owners of production in a free market to sell their labour power as a commodity and instead are allocated work via a central planning directive to workplace that is state owned and nationalised that’s not capitalism and capital has not been created as much you’d like it to be. If the direct producers, the workers, are not divorced from the means of production, and if consequently neither these means nor labor power function as commodities, then no survivals of “bourgeois right,” nor any amount of other inequities and injustices, can allow of such a society being properly termed capitalist.
Cuba famously does not produce commodities, what is sells on the world market and in its own markets are simply socialist commodities. This proves that Cuba is not capitalist. Money is not money when you cant buy capital with it because the state already owns all capital. Money stops being money when Amazon and Walmart merge and start owning the entire country.
There is no cure to Stalinist revisionism. Luckily, the Dengization of "socialist" states is helping to improve the standard of living in those countries.
Of course they produce commodities in order to be sold on the world market, how the hell else would they survive? What pie in the sky ultraleft anprim bullcrap is this?
If youre not a fan of extensive foreign trade, then prehaps you would like Juche? Or is nothing that currently exists or has any chance to exist soon good enough for you?
I know youre banned now and wont see this, but i need to say it: leftcompride, get out of the armchair for bit and recconect with reality for a few, i think it will do you some good.
Commodity exchange existed a hell of a long time before capitalism, and it probably will for a while afterwards too. Capitalism is just the commodification of basically everything, though most importantly the commodification of labor power and the means of production (especially land).
There is nothing problematic with decentralizing the economy some and allowing people to engage in production using only their own labor and what meager means of production that they own and realizing the value of their labor via sale on the market.
I dont see how to get around this issue, other than either just not instituting any legal framework for this economic activity and letting the black market run rampant or somehow magically getting rid of money at the flick of a hand.
For these reasons it looks like the Cuban people and state made the right call by extending legal frameworks and thus protections to people who were otherwise falling through the cracks.
Because thats exactly what was happening: people sometimes werent able to suppprt their family just off of the sales from their farm through the coop or from their wages from state employment (big surprise when you're sanctioned to hell and back theres not much money to go around), and thus they had to independantly labor as freelancers to support themselves.
Thankfully they have a state that at least even pretends to care about its people and thus it empowered these workers by providing a legal framework and protections for them as self employed persons.
As long as they are not facilitating the employment of laborers by private capitalists in order to reap their surplus value in the form of profits, or allowing people to own whole apartment complexes, engage in private usury, etc. i really dont see any major problem.
Theres definately a lot to be done, but it looks like Cuba has done a pretty decent job of balancing the tightrope it was placed on, and is not succumbing to either full liberalization or insane adventurist ultraleft bullshit.
Since you said you're being serious, I'm going to try to actually engage on this point. Those nations developed due to a number of factors: investment from the west (who obtained their capital to invest through colonialism and the post WW2 economic boom), outright colonialism in the case of Singapore, and/or being a puppet for US interests in the region with a dictatorship in exchange for US investment. And I know what you're going to say, that's all part of capitalism right? And you would be correct. So why doesn't every country adopt these policies? For a very simple reason, in order for those countries to make these gains other countries have to be exploited under a capitalistic system. Many countries in Africa have attempted neoliberal market reforms and made massive attempts to attract investment from the west, but to no avail. That is because these are the countries being exploited under the current capitalist system in order for the west, and the countries you mentioned, to "prosper".
But not only has private capitalism brought more people out of poverty faster, MLs are only praising state capitalism rather than socialism.
Holy fucking shit just go ahead and deepthroat the boot
Capitalists call living on 1$ a day as "not poverty" according to capitalist institutions like the US owned World Bank and Imf while the UN states to live a basic dignified life you need 7 dollars and if you took China off the map in the last forty years poverty has increased worldwide even according to their shitty definitions
Maybe read a book before spraying your diarrhoea round the globe
Except the 2 countries that made the most dramatic shift in poverty reduction: Soviet Union under Stalin and China under Mao where they double the life expectancy of their populations within 20 years without capitalism existing
Wtf no. Even the worldbank/IMF are saying that the decades of cooked up poverty reduction stats are complete bunk. China is the exception, so even you do want to consider it capitalist, you cannot attribute its successes to capitalism in general, as most countries it touches are undeveloped through brutal exploitation and resource extraction.
Do you live on the same planet as I do? What are the wealthiest countries on the planet. Which economic system do they use? Which economic system do "emerging" economies use?
They can start by not exploiting their workers. They can end their misguided state capitalist policies. They can actually give power to the working class instead of repressing them.
His main criticism is that they are not socialist at all. They are capitalist states, which is correct. They are more specifically social democracies, like Norway or China, except with even more state ownership. The same basic capitalist process that Marx describes is present in Cuba, the only notable differences are lack of competition between capitals and price-setting by the state, both of which has resulted in economic inefficiency.
The main argument from MLs is that these states have made improvements in the standard of living of people. But not only has private capitalism brought more people out of poverty faster, MLs are only praising state capitalism rather than socialism.
The second argument from MLs are that these states represent a transitional period to socialism, and this somehow makes it necessary to have exploitation, repression and all other things that these states do. This is opportunism of the highest order, it brings an easy excuse to justify any amount of exploitation because "productive forces bro".
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Imagine naming yourself after Marx and having these kinds of takes.
Industrialization is capital accumulation. Colonialism is expanding markets and exporting capital. It's all capitalism. Capitalism is the mode of production that encompasses all these things. Are you having some kind of petty-bourgeois delusion of "pure capitalism"?
So subsidizing makes it not capitalism? The total aid to SK was $35 billion over decades. USA exports more than that to SK every year. Subsidizing helped, but the real reason for SK's development was their initial protectionism, strong state support and intelligent industrial policy. Taiwan followed similar developmental policies. Ignoring all that and handwaving their economic success to US subsidies is like ignoring the real efforts of the SK and Taiwanese people in their economic success.
And what do you mean "c'mon" for Japan? Japan was a capitalist country through and through. Being a socialist doesnt mean you stick your head in the sand about capitalists track record of economic growth.
These countries are only those that managed to get to first world status. There are others which didnt develop too much, but still made massive successes in economic growth and poverty reduction, like India, Mexico, Botswana, Mauritius, many EE-EU countries, Thailand, Vietnam etc.
Chinese economy was capitalist pre-Deng and capitalist post-Deng, the major difference being state-ownership and mixed-ownership. You havent actually explained why Dengism isnt just capitalism, you're just saying its simplistic to say so without any explanation. Instead of throwing words at me and hoping I'll buy your bullshit, try to form logical and consistent arguments.
Therefore China is capitalist.
Lol China literally is a social democracy. You're right, we can have plently of arguments about the future trajectory of any nation, and that is mostly fruitless because we cannot predict the future. We can talk about the present, which is that China is a capitalist country, its economic success is due to capitalism, they openly talk about furthering "reform and opening up", they are committed to a free and open world market even more than the USA, and that they engage in worker repression and prevent formation of independent trade unions.
Right, commodity production and money has nothing to do with capitalism, Marx never identiified them as the fundamental aspect of capitalism.
Great argument.
The Marx understander as logged on
Actually try reading Marx. The existence of commodities and money does not mean capitalism exists. Capital is created in very specific circumstances
If workers do not meet owners of production in a free market to sell their labour power as a commodity and instead are allocated work via a central planning directive to workplace that is state owned and nationalised that's not capitalism and capital has not been created as much you'd like it to be. If the direct producers, the workers, are not divorced from the means of production, and if consequently neither these means nor labor power function as commodities, then no survivals of "bourgeois right," nor any amount of other inequities and injustices, can allow of such a society being properly termed capitalist.
Inversely, if the direct producers have been separated from the means of production, and consequently both labor power and means of production are exchanged as commodities, then no amount of social welfare benefits, no nationalizations, no statutory curbs on excess profiteering, no ameliorative measures whatever can conceal or modify the capitalist character of such a society.
You can call it camels, heavy petting or circus clowns but you can't call Socialist societies that existed that organised under those principles capitalist
Also money had a very different function under Socialist countries. You couldn't buy the means of production for one no matter how much you saved up
Ok explain to me what is Industrialization according to your own interpretation of Marx. I'll try not to laugh.
Ah the famous "socialist commodities" of Stalin.
Cuba has laborers working for a wage with which they buy goods on the market. According to this definition by Marx, Cuba is capitalist. Do you read your own quote spam?
Cuba famously does not produce commodities, what is sells on the world market and in its own markets are simply socialist commodities. This proves that Cuba is not capitalist. Money is not money when you cant buy capital with it because the state already owns all capital. Money stops being money when Amazon and Walmart merge and start owning the entire country.
There is no cure to Stalinist revisionism. Luckily, the Dengization of "socialist" states is helping to improve the standard of living in those countries.
Of course they produce commodities in order to be sold on the world market, how the hell else would they survive? What pie in the sky ultraleft anprim bullcrap is this?
If youre not a fan of extensive foreign trade, then prehaps you would like Juche? Or is nothing that currently exists or has any chance to exist soon good enough for you?
I know youre banned now and wont see this, but i need to say it: leftcompride, get out of the armchair for bit and recconect with reality for a few, i think it will do you some good.
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oh come on.
"Producing commodities for sale is not capitalism. Capitalism is only when bad rich man doesnt pay you." - Karl Marx.
Commodity exchange existed a hell of a long time before capitalism, and it probably will for a while afterwards too. Capitalism is just the commodification of basically everything, though most importantly the commodification of labor power and the means of production (especially land).
There is nothing problematic with decentralizing the economy some and allowing people to engage in production using only their own labor and what meager means of production that they own and realizing the value of their labor via sale on the market.
I dont see how to get around this issue, other than either just not instituting any legal framework for this economic activity and letting the black market run rampant or somehow magically getting rid of money at the flick of a hand.
For these reasons it looks like the Cuban people and state made the right call by extending legal frameworks and thus protections to people who were otherwise falling through the cracks.
Because thats exactly what was happening: people sometimes werent able to suppprt their family just off of the sales from their farm through the coop or from their wages from state employment (big surprise when you're sanctioned to hell and back theres not much money to go around), and thus they had to independantly labor as freelancers to support themselves.
Thankfully they have a state that at least even pretends to care about its people and thus it empowered these workers by providing a legal framework and protections for them as self employed persons.
As long as they are not facilitating the employment of laborers by private capitalists in order to reap their surplus value in the form of profits, or allowing people to own whole apartment complexes, engage in private usury, etc. i really dont see any major problem.
Theres definately a lot to be done, but it looks like Cuba has done a pretty decent job of balancing the tightrope it was placed on, and is not succumbing to either full liberalization or insane adventurist ultraleft bullshit.
Since you said you're being serious, I'm going to try to actually engage on this point. Those nations developed due to a number of factors: investment from the west (who obtained their capital to invest through colonialism and the post WW2 economic boom), outright colonialism in the case of Singapore, and/or being a puppet for US interests in the region with a dictatorship in exchange for US investment. And I know what you're going to say, that's all part of capitalism right? And you would be correct. So why doesn't every country adopt these policies? For a very simple reason, in order for those countries to make these gains other countries have to be exploited under a capitalistic system. Many countries in Africa have attempted neoliberal market reforms and made massive attempts to attract investment from the west, but to no avail. That is because these are the countries being exploited under the current capitalist system in order for the west, and the countries you mentioned, to "prosper".
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Holy fucking shit just go ahead and deepthroat the boot
Capitalists call living on 1$ a day as "not poverty" according to capitalist institutions like the US owned World Bank and Imf while the UN states to live a basic dignified life you need 7 dollars and if you took China off the map in the last forty years poverty has increased worldwide even according to their shitty definitions
Maybe read a book before spraying your diarrhoea round the globe
Did I say poverty has stopped existing? I said that wherever poverty has decreased, it is due to capitalism, even in China.
Except the 2 countries that made the most dramatic shift in poverty reduction: Soviet Union under Stalin and China under Mao where they double the life expectancy of their populations within 20 years without capitalism existing
:LIB:
Wtf no. Even the worldbank/IMF are saying that the decades of cooked up poverty reduction stats are complete bunk. China is the exception, so even you do want to consider it capitalist, you cannot attribute its successes to capitalism in general, as most countries it touches are undeveloped through brutal exploitation and resource extraction.
Try actually reading Marx? Even he says that countries have to establish capitalism before they can get to socialism.
that's like the main thing he got wrong. There were no succesful revolutions in Germany, France or England, but there were in feudal Russia and China.
Source on that wild claim?
Do you live on the same planet as I do? What are the wealthiest countries on the planet. Which economic system do they use? Which economic system do "emerging" economies use?
The US has the most wealth on earth and homeless people.
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Okay.
Cuba #1 (Serbia has no data) with 0 homeless per night.
US has 17 per 10k.
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How is pointing out that wealth absent a conscience does nothing to improve material conditions for the average person "fixating on random stats"?
What good is wealth when you don't take care of people?
Cuba is a poor Island nation stuck under the thumb of the largest military and economic empire on Earth. What exactly would you have them do?
They can start by not exploiting their workers. They can end their misguided state capitalist policies. They can actually give power to the working class instead of repressing them.
Okay but how.
its simple just dont do exploitation. Its that easy, bro, just dont exploit things ever bro, just have socialism bro.
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Liberalism is when you defend capitalist states because they have red flags. Not when you criticize them.
"Why isnt Raul pressing the socialsm button?" :LIB: