Early 1900's Communism, Marxism, Fascism (This will be new info to most)

[Husseinisdoingfine]

The Scandinavian and Nordic countries don't have suffice amounts of worker or community ownership or representation, not even enough to be considered social-democratic, they're just welfare states. Proper social democracy would mean something like, workers having a certain amount of representation on the corporate board.

And social-democracy doesn't fix the contradictions of capitalism (read: use value vs exchange value, or, Social production vs. private appropriation) n'or the imperialism. Northern European countries can be so wealthy because the rest of the world is not.

I read a book about this called; Imperialism in the 21st century, by John Charles Smith.

 

[Schizophonia]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Cuba is a total disaster today. Watch some vidoes of vloggers visiting Cuba.

It's a Caribbean island with no resources, which has always been poor and under American embargo since the 50s, obviously it's poor. You have to compare it to Central American countries to be relevant; Nicaragua, Belize etc which basically have no infrastructure outside their capital and rich enclaves. The objective of a communist country is also automatically to avoid prostitution in various ways (labor law, legality/tolerance of psychoactive products and prostitution...) to attract foreign capital as the Far Eastern countries have been able to do in various ways.
Thailand got richer by having a military junta that tolerates drug sales and mass prostitution; well yes it works but it probably wasn't really Che Guevara's plan.

This proportion of the capitalist system to move wealth towards the countries which prostitute themselves the most to big capital, by the logic of competition, geopolitical issues etc; is already described by Trotsky and it is what motivated, if we can put it like that, his idea of permanent revolution.
 

Quote

That talking point about doctors is BS. Cuba has no medicine for doctors to do anything.

Once again you are a good well-fed, white, democrat American who is unaware of the extent to which he is favored by power relations of which he is visibly unconscious of.

We are talking once again about a third world country, which has gone through a civil war, which is under embargo, and which has managed to make its population fully literate, created the largest cigar industry in the world, and has become one of the countries with the most people skilled in medicine (in proportion), even if there is "no medicine" (infrastructure).
 

It's like a millionaire kid with lots of free time making fun of his poor neighbor who has to work because he only got a "C" or "B-".

Edited Thursday at 11:21 PM by Schizophonia

[Leo Gura]

@Schizophonia You're overlooking the elephant in the room: Marxism/socialism/communism is a stupid fantasy.

[JTL]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Cuba is a total disaster today. Watch some vidoes of vloggers visiting Cuba.

That talking point about doctors is BS. Cuba has no medicine for doctors to do anything.

@Leo Gura is not a huge factor for all this the U.S? they have been hell bent on destroying Cuba for 60 years. btw, Ihave you stopped posting on the blog, miss your posts  

Edited Thursday at 11:59 PM by JTL

[Leo Gura]

26 minutes ago, JTL said:

is not a huge factor for all this the U.S?

Again, overlooking the elephant in the room.

Marxism has failed in every place it was tried. You can't blame all of that on the US, although Marxists will certainly try.

[Terell Kirby]

Despite leftist assertions that Marxism/communism is end all be all-the central question becomes: can democracy flourish under such a system?

Fascism, Marxism and Communism of 20th century were the same in that they fundamentally anti democratic. People fail to see this. It’s hard for me to take serious any intellectuals that hold these ideologies sacred while benefiting from the fruits of being in a functional democracy (which we are on the verge of losing in US and Western Europe).

Marxist and Communist ideologues are fools at the end of the day in that they are neither critical thinkers, nor system thinkers. They operate of group think and cultural fads. It’s time to come to grips with the truth of how corrupt the ideologies are and how they have failed.

This is not an endorsement of technocratic centrism and western liberalism in any way- they deserve critique as well. However, some systems will be the foundation and springboard to elevating global systems and economies over lessers ones. You can’t use Soviet style Marxism and Communism as a launch pad- it will devolve into corruption, totalitarianism and authoritarianism as in Stalins case. It’ll even devolve into full blown fascism ironically.

We need to start asking the question of how we both protect our democratic institutions while at the same time taking them to the next level. A lot of it has to do with oligarchic influence corrupting our democracies. This will not be solved by Marxist revolution of any sort, but something higher and more conscious.

Edited yesterday at 01:06 AM by Terell Kirby

[Davino]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Cuba is a total disaster today. Watch some vidoes of vloggers visiting Cuba.

That talking point about doctors is BS. Cuba has no medicine for doctors to do anything.

Cuba is a disaster, but they do train among the best doctors in the world. I personally know Cuban doctors and they tell me all education is money-free for all (you can even pick your degree and there are no mark requisites) and of high quality in Cuba. They barely could eat meat (the state only gave soy, because it's cheap vegetal protein) and they were forced to emigrate to have a decent life.

My point is that yes Cuba is a disaster but the user's point on doctors and education is not BS, it really is accurate, but certainly cherry picked. And you know that education is probably one of the few tangible good impacts communism has had and it links nicely with why intellectuals are attracted to this ideology.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Davino said:

but they do train among the best doctors in the world.

So what? Those doctors live like dogs. A Cuban doctor makes less money that an Uber driver. It's pathetic.

Cuba is shit. Stop making excuses for it.

[Novac08]

@Davino

In modern medicine, training without access to technology isn’t really training — doctors can’t be “world-class” without labs, imaging, and medicines. On education, Cuba doesn’t join PISA or any independent tests, so all we have are government-reported numbers, which are, err, questionable. And honestly, just listen to Cubans on YouTube — it’s hard to conclude you’re hearing a highly educated society.

 

 

Edited 21 hours ago by Novac08

[Schizophonia]

@Leo Gura

You're not looking for the truth; you want to be right.
That's why you haven't contradicted my arguments, except for "Cuban doctors are poor."
Well yes, compared to a rich country, where doctors are in addition to that entitled to use their position of power to overcharge their patients, they are poor.
But the countries of Eastern Europe/the Balkans, South America, even more so Central America, and some African countries are very poor, even though they are capitalist countries with access to the global market. According to your reductionist theory, they should be much richer "since capitalism creates wealth."

You also say that "all Marxist experiments have failed," when only a handful of countries have become communist, the majority of which were poor or very poor at the outset.
Russia was a very unequal country with a level of industrialization close to the Middle Ages and under the Communist Party, despite the initial poverty of its population and infrastructure, the First World War, the Civil War, the embargo by Western countries after the Civil War and beyond, ethnic diversity, the sometimes polar climate, the Second World War, and isolation from the international market after the Second World War; it still became the second world power.

The same goes for China; Mao made some really stupid mistakes, like the Great Leap Forward, which caused a famine, or trying to kill birds to prevent them from eating crops, lol. But that's Mao, not "Marxism," and despite everything, he still managed to create a state somewhat free of the widespread corruption of Nationalist China, and began the industrialization of the country.
Today, China has once again become a market economy with special economic zones, but it's extremely statist and Marxist-inspired; and today it's the second-largest economy in the world.

France also experienced its golden age of growth and purchasing power, known as the "30 glorious years," shortly after the Second World War; and this corresponded to a semi-planned economy as a compromise between the Communist Party, which had won the legislative elections, and the opposition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_French_legislative_election

Edited 19 hours ago by Schizophonia

[Leo Gura]

15 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

Well yes, compared to a rich country, where doctors are in addition to that entitled to use their position of power to overcharge their patients, they are poor.

No. Cuban doctors are poor relative to other Cuban professions. You can literally earn more money as a delivery boy in Cuba than as a doctor. A Cuban doctor cannot afford to buy a single carton of eggs.

There is nothing positive about Cuba's style of government. The medical system in Cuba is miserable.

Healthcare should be expensive because: 1) health is worth a lot, 2) doctors invest a lot in their education and work a lot, 3) mistakes in this field are deadly and costly.

Doctors who cannot afford a carton of eggs is nothing to be proud of.

Edited 19 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Kid A]

38 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

Marxist-inspired

That's only in language and symbolism today. China is one of the world's most unequal countries. Don't fall for the propaganda. 

[Schizophonia]

46 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No. Cuban doctors are poor relative to other Cuban professions. You can literally earn more money as a delivery boy in Cuba than as a doctor. A Cuban doctor cannot afford to buy a single carton of eggs.

I asked ChatGPT and Cuban doctors still earn more than the national average, so no, a delivery man probably doesn't earn more than a doctor.

46 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

There is nothing positive about Cuba's style of government. The medical system in Cuba is miserable.

Once again, you can't get your American frame of reference out of your head.
You have to ask yourself which country's population has the best care: Cuba, or other countries with a similar socioeconomic history, even if it's hard to quantify.
Everyone would rather be Cuban with lymphoma than Nicaraguan with lymphoma; because at least there are plenty of doctors and it's free.

Today, Cuba is one of the poorest countries with the highest life expectancy, at 79 years on average.
This is higher than the United States (74 years), and Cubans live longer than Americans.

46 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Healthcare should be expensive because: 1) health is worth a lot 

No, it's not true. Doctors and surgeons make huge profits because they're in a position of power.
First, the doctors; in France, and it's probably the same in most countries, there's a cartel of veteran doctors and academics who organize to prevent access to education from being made easier (scholarships, the number of students selected and trained, the same duration, etc.) in order to maintain the high salaries of existing doctors.
There's also the profit from mutual insurance companies. In France, they're fairly regulated and inexpensive, but those in the United States are more expensive and more conditional; because they're businesses.

The United States spends a larger portion of its budget on healthcare than France, even though healthcare in France is very inexpensive because hospitals are an industry.
Depending on the sector, the average salary in the United States ranges from $250,000 to €500,000; it's absolutely enormous, and no one deserves a salary that high, even after 7/8 years of study.

When you earn half a million dollars, you're profiting from human misery, that's all.
As a general rule, when you earn a lot, you can have a lot, because there are people who can't meet their needs even though they work.

46 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

2) doctors invest a lot in their education and work a lot,

Already responded.

46 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

3) mistakes in this field are deadly and costly.

Yes, and if you work at McDiabetes, if you're not careful with your hygiene, you could accidentally kill someone.
You could say that about any job, actually.

46 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Doctors who cannot afford a carton of eggs is nothing to be proud of.

Already responded.

[Schizophonia]

43 minutes ago, Kid A said:

That's only in language and symbolism today. China is one of the world's most unequal countries. Don't fall for the propaganda. 

I'm not in favor of the Chinese model; I used it as proof that a country with a very strong state could become the world's leading power.
I also used the case of France.

China has high inequality because it's a huge country where wealth is concentrated in certain cities/provinces, particularly special economic zones on the coast.
So you have very wealthy areas like Shenzhen, with lots of wealthy and skilled people, and the further west you go, the poorer and more rural it becomes.
China is the size of Europe; it's a gigantic and multiethnic country.

[Daniel Balan]

1 hour ago, Schizophonia said:

I asked ChatGPT and Cuban doctors still earn more than the national average, so no, a delivery man probably doesn't earn more than a doctor.

Once again, you can't get your American frame of reference out of your head.
You have to ask yourself which country's population has the best care: Cuba, or other countries with a similar socioeconomic history, even if it's hard to quantify.
Everyone would rather be Cuban with lymphoma than Nicaraguan with lymphoma; because at least there are plenty of doctors and it's free.

Today, Cuba is one of the poorest countries with the highest life expectancy, at 79 years on average.
This is higher than the United States (74 years), and Cubans live longer than Americans.

No, it's not true. Doctors and surgeons make huge profits because they're in a position of power.
First, the doctors; in France, and it's probably the same in most countries, there's a cartel of veteran doctors and academics who organize to prevent access to education from being made easier (scholarships, the number of students selected and trained, the same duration, etc.) in order to maintain the high salaries of existing doctors.
There's also the profit from mutual insurance companies. In France, they're fairly regulated and inexpensive, but those in the United States are more expensive and more conditional; because they're businesses.

The United States spends a larger portion of its budget on healthcare than France, even though healthcare in France is very inexpensive because hospitals are an industry.
Depending on the sector, the average salary in the United States ranges from $250,000 to €500,000; it's absolutely enormous, and no one deserves a salary that high, even after 7/8 years of study.

When you earn half a million dollars, you're profiting from human misery, that's all.
As a general rule, when you earn a lot, you can have a lot, because there are people who can't meet their needs even though they work.

Already responded.

Yes, and if you work at McDiabetes, if you're not careful with your hygiene, you could accidentally kill someone.
You could say that about any job, actually.

Already responded.

The Marxist propaganda intensifies! And the worst part is, that I agree with everything. Hell yea!

Nothing will prevent Willy.

[Daniel Balan]

2 hours ago, Kid A said:

That's only in language and symbolism today. China is one of the world's most unequal countries. Don't fall for the propaganda. 

Like the west doesn't experience similar levels of inequality. That's a weak strawman of China. 

[Daniel Balan]

3 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

 

Today, China has once again become a market economy with special economic zones, but it's extremely statist and Marxist-inspired; and today it's the second-largest economy in the world.

France also experienced its golden age of growth and purchasing power, known as the "30 glorious years," shortly after the Second World War; and this corresponded to a semi-planned economy as a compromise between the Communist Party, which had won the legislative elections, and the opposition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_French_legislative_election

This Marxist spits some uncomfortable truths. Although I'm against Socialism and Marxism, I think the west should experiment more with the idea of a semi planned economy. It proved time and time again that it works amazing, hell even providing more prosperity to the people than a free market economy. I think what my brother Willy is saying here is a very sound and truthful critique in regards to free market economies.

I think the best model is when the economy is a hybrid between free market and centrally planed economies. 

This is sound reasoning in my eyes.

NOTHING WILL PREVENT WILLY.

[Kid A]

37 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

Like the west doesn't experience similar levels of inequality. That's a weak strawman of China. 

The point was that China isn't Marxist, despite pretending to be.

[Daniel Balan]

Just now, Kid A said:

The point was that China isn't Marxist, despite pretending to be.

China has a hybrid economy, but Willy is right, it is very statist and has a strong government that dominates the economy. Although this is not marxism, it surely it is more related to Marxism than to our corrupt neo liberal status quo. Somethin that we should learn to experiment with, not just double down on neo liberalism.

And calling China corrupt is a strawman. The corruption may be higher but the west is not too different, the only difference is that in the west we have stronger courts and the corrupt people usually go to jail while in China you only go to jail if you are not well connected in the communist party. The corruption argument is silly. We have tremendous corruption here too. Also the little people here are as wage enslaved as the little people in China. Here the difference is that the little people have access to Netflix and WWW internet.

[Davino]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

So what? Those doctors live like dogs. A Cuban doctor makes less money that an Uber driver. It's pathetic.

Cuba is shit. Stop making excuses for it.

It is so but we still have to be truthful and accurate. Cuba overall is horrible but some corners are good and we cannot deny that either, because it would lower our understanding.

I don't deny it's overall shitiness nor I deny the few good parts that system has. That is what you did, you omitted the detail to give consistency to the overall truthful point, but there's such an exception, don't be sloppy and shrug your shoulders with the so what.

Probably education is one of the few things that works in Cuba, let's not take them that.

Edited 15 hours ago by Davino