The same deluded theocrats who still cling to the myth of the "free" market and "invisible" hand are the same nut jobs that believe moses parted the red sea and there are 72 virgins waiting for you.
It's over. The American Christian Conservative ideology has been rejected by 90% of the world. Only the fascists who can still profit off of it,The willingly stupid and the stunningly dumb still cling to the myth someday the ghost of Reagan will trickle down upon you. Pathetic
Jesus was a socialist...GASP! Remember, he fed a crowd of thousands. He didn't line them up and ask for money, he just fed them. He healed the sick, even those with pre-existing conditions. And the one time he got mad, was when he chased the money lenders from the temple. So I always find it terribly funny hearing a person who at one moment yells about the free-market, and in the next sentence claims to follow the life of Christ. I believe he would call you a hypocrite..if I'm not mistaken.
@PrinceMyshkin22 Jesus was not a socialist.He believed in giving but HE CHOSE to give. No one forced him to do it. And those that surrounded him were not equal in wealth but equal in spirit. And the money lender thing showed his disdain for the manipulation inherent in centralized religions. You can say he was a communist.
Some people here are just revolting, i almost get sick from hearing what some of you say. Everyone isn't born under favorable conditions and you thinking it's your birthright to look down on them while drinking a capuccino or a vodka and taking a cigar is just...
"Do you think wealth should be distributed equally?" No. "Do you think everyone should have free healthcare?" No. "Do you think people without a job should be guaranteed a job" No. "Do you think we should use the wealth of the country for human needs instead of what is profitable?" (strawman) No. (then quickly say) "Well that is socialism." Yes. We know what it is. It is a shitty system.
@USTreasuryBond The thing that gets on my nerves the most is that both Zinn and Chomsky always dress up in a sweater like Mr. Rogers and talk about how capitalism has failed and how wealth should be distributed "equally". Yet they both get paid big bucks to speak. Chomsky almost doubled his speaking fee after 9/11. Rest assured that if they were told their speaking fee was going to be evenly distributed among the crowd they were going to speak to they wouldn't show up.
@mixmastermeeks "Rest assured that if they were told their speaking fee was going to be evenly distributed...they wouldn't show up"
Chomsky is a better "capitalist" than most of us are. He's managed to live off a Pentagon subsidy at his cushy MIT job for decades, make a pretty penny telling people how rotten it is to make money, live in an upscale neighborhood, and own a million-dollar vacation home.
But he dresses like a slob, so that makes him a good socialist I guess. ; )
@MillionthUsername And don't forget that he speaks about how intellectual property should be public property and free to all. Yet he copyrights his books. He also has published a few in his kids names in order to avoid taxes. He is like a socialist super hero. By day a cunning capitalist, making money off of books and all the stuff he supposedly is against, but at night he runs to a phone booth, pulls on a sweater and becomes "socialist man" and goes and talks to students.
@mixmastermeeks If he didn't do that people would be telling him to get out the country if he can't live by their rules. If he works with the current system whilst keeping an open dialogue and critique about it, he gets called a hypocrite. It's Catch 22. People like you can never be pleased. And goodness forbid a person who has more left leaning ideologies having to participate in a more right wing and capitalistic manner otherwise society will ostracise them even more.
@Yarrick2k5 Are you kidding? People would tell Chomsky to leave the counry if he didn't invest his money and protect his intellecutal poperty?First of all: so what? so what if they told him to leave the country. Is that where his princples end? If someone is gonna tell him to leave the country he acts in accordance to their beileifs. Wow, what a principled man. second: I love how you can determine what kind of people I am like. Out of one youtube post. I can determine that you, are a dumbasss.
@mixmastermeeks Your argument made little sense. When you live in a society you almost have to abide to it's rules and standards otherwise you get ostracised and shunned. You criticised him for selling books whilst the topics of his books can be a critique of the current system. I'm sorry i assumed it but you sound like someone who is difficult to please and cannot compromise. And calling someone a dumbass really doesn't help your argument. It kinda invalidates it.
@Yarrick2k5 "Communism brought modernization to many countries, and in places like N. Korea, China, and Myanmar,"
Dipshit, any attempt of "modernization" and industrialization by communists ended in a COMPLETE NIGHTMARE, you brain amputated monkey. Collectivization under Stalin, 14 mil. dead, "great" leap forward under Mao 45 mil. dead, NKorea 4 mil. dead, Pol Pot 4 mil dead.
Why actually dont leftists like you try with HISTORICAL FACTS??
@joaquinveyron You quite finished on your little tirade? I have no idea why you went on some inane rant. It doesn't even address my comment. My comment was simply about not getting riled up over something such as a person making money from books and lectures whilst the topic they may be discussing is an open critique of something like capitalism. So please, spare me the 'hurr durr liberals this and lefty that because you won't achieve anything with that sort of rude and contemptuous attitude
"who admires neoliberal policies of todays Chinese government."
Yes, because they BETTERED the lives of 100s of millions of Chinese, idiot, while CHinese lived in utter communist POVERTY and STARVED to DEATH in FAMINES, 45 mio. during 1958-.62 alone, fool!
"that is a bold statement "
Socialism ALWAYS ended up in DICTATORSHIPS, TERROR and UN-FREEDOM. There is no argument that it would be possible in FREEDOM. Freedom and socialism contradict each other.
Really?? Idiot, and you are suprised if I call you idiot, dimwit, dipshit????
If you are not able or willing to think for a second?? Socialism is per defintionem and by theoretic means the end of individual liberties. Therefore, socialism cannot be persued in a democracy/state of FREEDOM (of the individual) but only in a dictatorship, dimwit.
@joaquinveyron I live in Canada. While we have socialist health care policies, we still enjoy individual liberties which are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms....this Charter was highly influenced by the UN declaration of human rights. Perhaps you have spent too much time listening to political pundits and the main-stream media....especially with such a ridiculous definition of socialism. Furthermore, the individual freedoms which u like came from the workers movements 60s
@jmintube To decide to have a certain sector in public life socialized is not socialism, Europe to this respect is much more "socialistic", if you might want to call it this.
The backbone of the system is a genuinely capitalistic one. Otherwise, neither you in Canada, nor us in Europe (welll in the Western part at least) would be able to have an economy that is able to generate the wealth to finance a public health care system, which is much more inefficient than a private one.
@jmintube "freedoms which u like came from the workers movements "
All the benefits workers enjoy nowadays or not, if you want it or not, were only possible because of the ingredients of capitalism: competition. free entreprise system, free market, private property and entrepreneurship. All this generated the wealth in the first place to make better pay, benefits of the workers etc. possible in teh first place.
And now lets see how "well" workers were doing in "socialistic paradises".
very true and those movements (social welfare for all) is what will bankrupt us into oblivion and result in our children being burdened by tremendous government debt (those that voted that stuff in will get the benefits and others will pay for it)....have you ever head of costs/prices etc going down??
@riptide1111 there is no evidence to suggest that social welfare programs will lead to bankruptcy. Although we will become bankrupt nevertheless. Capitalism is a wonderous system of instability and re-distribution...the monetary system benefits only the wealthy. Please don't spew any more stupidity unless you plan to rationalize your arguments.
"Instead of a tiny minority taking all the wealth"
A tiny?????? A tiny???????????????????????? The living standards in particular of the "little man" were improved MASSIVELY through capitalism. If you dont care about FIGURES and FACTS, then why is it that everybody tries and tired to flee from COMMUNIST SHITHOLES to CAPITALISTIC countries???
"if you deleted all labour movements and trade unions"
???
Trade unions are organizations that are formed by voluntary agreement (or at least often) and they are the legitimate representation of workers. So what should be wrong with it??
It was not the labour movements or any sort of sociialistic policy that raised wages and bettered working conditions, it was the progress as a result of capitalistic competition, investment etc that made all this possible.
very true! this is bonkers that ppl think that unions etc think about anything more than raping as much money out of the system as possible (as do other institutions/industries - which is human nature based on the current system). unions breed inefficiency, redundancy, and unrealistic financial burdens in the face of mounting debt.
@mixmastermeeks LOL, get rid of the army and every thing to do with distribution of wealth. I bet you fucking hypocrite have even used the state run postal service and internet! HYPOCRITE!
@noprofitmaximierung Really? That is it. haha. I bet yo have used the postal service? Well the gov has had a monopoly on it for a long time. companies like fedex and UPS have been outdoing them for years. You live in a fantasy land my friend.
A moneyless,classless,stateless communities of humanity expressing our freedom in creative harmonious cooperation for a world that is so POTENTIALLY AND ACTUALLY nourishing. Capitalism in any form, Statist or Corporatist is the denial of our common humanity in a politically manipulated,tyrannical armed MARKET SYSYTEM of artificial scarcity that is designed to perpetuate the enslavement of the working class for material interest of the criminal ruling elite.
Please visit my channel for the unpopular truth about homosexuality.
A person does not need hatred or any kind of phobia in order to acknowledge important differences between heterosexual attraction / behavior / marriage / adoption and homosexual attraction / behavior / marriage / adoption. Even non-religious people know this.
Homosexual activists, with support from the media, have succeeded at framing themselves as noble victims; it's an effective way to push a social agenda.
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
@Grant691 Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. - Thomas Sowell. He said it better than I could. Howard Zinn was nothing more than a communist tool that was cannonized by the left for attacking Western Civilization. Other than sophmores in College, I know of no one who took him seriously.
Yes, he loses all his possessions upon death. He ceases to exist and the survivors can do as they will with his possessions. Charity does not make people feel good. Everyone is entitled to the resources of the world. Whether that is health care, food, shelter etc. The idea of "property" is a convenient excuse for the deliberate cruelty and irresponsibility of the ruling capitalist class.
No, people are not entitled to jobs. No, everyone is not entitled to healthcare. No, everyone should not give to the homeless. Charities take care of the poor in an efficient, loving, uncontrolling way without force or theft. Charity makes people feel good. Taxing the middle class i.e. the rich, will detract from charity and create MORE social issues for MORE people. Government has with very little variance, helped anyone except themselves.
@gluemoae I truly astonish myself sometimes with my miscommunication. I am completely against death panels. No one should interfere with my health care but me.
If we had a functioning education system, we wouldn't need so much charity. The fact that so many Americans, disproportionately minority, don't get a good education is the root CAUSE of all the social ills you moan and cry about.
when your neighbor is taken care of, YOU are safer and better off. When your neighbor doesn't have healthcare, that directly reduces YOUR security. You have a vested, selfish interest in making sure your fellow citizens are provided the basics of life.
@tristramshandy3 With regard to charity I was referring to health care not education. Vouchers would solve education system issues. Charter schools are an excellent example of the success that could be had by children if they were free to choose without regard to cost.
Moaning about social ills is a waste of time. If my neighbor needed help, I would help. I agree making the world a better place comes from personal responsibility, charity, and community but only personally not collectively.
@jimprjayp I live in Arizona, a state that has more charter schools than any other. You should come visit some of them; that would change your view that charter schools are ANY more effective than public schools, with the fewest of exceptions. I worked at a charter school for over a year, and it was as bad as any public school I've ever been in.
The answers are rarely as easy as right wing pundits would have us believe.
@tristramshandy3 I don't know what area you live in but some of the charter schools are doing well. The SAT scores are some of the highest in the nation for both public and charter. You always have the choice to home school. If you're out of funds use the library and go to thrift stores for paper and pencils. Public schools are designed to fail. It's amazing kids learn anything at all in them.
@jimprjayp yes, some charters are doing well; but so are some public schools. You say public schools are designed to fail- and you are partially correct. The public schools in POOR areas are designed to fail; the public schools in rich areas typically do a good job.
Welcome to the class war- it starts and ends in the classroom.
Respond to this video... We home schooled our kids from k-12 but the public schools are excellent where we live now. People complain because of inane topics or because they spend all their time complaining and none of it working the system we have in place. Learn how to contact charities in your area so you can use them or help your neighbors or just people you meet who complain that information. The gov will not solve anyone's problems. They never have and by nature they never will. So you doit
@jimprjayp Also, 1 out of 7 Americans is on food stamps, 1 out of 5 American children lives in poverty. Doesn't seem like your "personal" charity is working very well,. Got any other solutions?
@tristramshandy3 One fact is, though I hate to say it and you definitely hate to hear it, but there will always be poor. Fact two, the people who donate to charities are strapped at the moment due to the bad economy and bad fiscal policies of the fed and the gov. Fact three, food stamps is the government feeding them with tax money from those who have jobs who could do more if they paid less in taxes. I've lived in poverty, in the US poverty is not what it is in 3rd world countries.
@jimprjayp there will always be poor; but our national rhetoric speaks of equal opportunity for all- which is nonsense. Kids in rich neighborhoods get good educations; kids in poor neighborhoods don't (with few exceptions).
@tristramshandy3 by poverty do you mean they can't afford nike shoes? or a computer, or three computers and a tv in every room? Cuz you're right charities won't solve that. Tell me how many starve to death in this country due to poverty and not abuse. Otherwise you're just spewing emotionally grabbing BS.
@jimprjayp by poverty I mean living paycheck to paycheck, never traveling, never owning a home, never having financial security. I'm glad they have nice shoes.
@tristramshandy3 by poverty do you mean they can't afford Nike shoes? or a computer, or three computers and a TV in every room? Because you're right charities won't solve that. Tell me how many starve to death in this country due to poverty and not abuse. Otherwise you're just spewing emotionally grabbing BS.
What I hate about capitalists is their amnesia. You say you hate corporatism (corporate welfare) yet you think businessmen make the best politicians (because they know "how to create jobs"). Where was Ayn Rand during the civil rights movement or World War II? I can tell you where Howard Zinn was. Ayn Rand was absent everywhere except her editorial page. Capitalist doublethink is astounding.
"progress as a result of capitalistic competition" Care to elaborate that?"
Hahahahahahh, to make it short and even comprehensible for a leftist dimwit like you who obviously ignores HISTORICAL and EMPIRICAL FACTS I make it quite clear to you. This is the result of the lack of competition in socialistic systems:
@perdondaris Republicans not necessarily conservatives want businessmen as politicians. Politicians should be from all walks of life. Anyone with a volunteer spirit should be a politician. Politics should be a charitable side job type of thing, like volunteering to coach your kid's soccer team. There should be term limits. It should NOT be a career and the pay should reflect that ideal. They should make so little that they don't want to do it forever.
Capitalism is corporatism. Capitalism is the management of society by a class of individuals irresponsible to society. The managerial class typifies capitalism. The managerial class operates businesses solely for the rulers. Capitalism, if left unfettered by labor unions and consumer advocates, results in an extremely stratified society much like feudal Europe. Capitalists do not oppose government--they oppose responsibility and equality. They are quite happy with a police state.
"hat socialism and etatism are not a priori partners, a"
You only say this bcs you are not able to think, obviously, like all leftists.
What do you think is the "state" or government?? It is an institutionalized process of forming and executing a political decisions. And here the political agenda is a socialistic one. Saying that socialism would be possible without a state is saying that you allow for the FREEDOM of the INDIVIDUAL, a state that leads to INEQUALITY, sth hated by commies
@joaquinveyron The state is an authority that maintains the private property which is a monopoly of the capitalist ruling class through violence. The resources of the earth belong to everyone. It is only abstractions which say it belongs to this person or that person or a collectivist capitalist organization (which is again an abstraction). Private property, like national boundaries, only exists in the minds of human beings. When an individual dies he loses all of his possessions.
@perdondaris "private property which is a monopoly of the capitalist ruling class through violence."
?????
Dimwit, are you reflecting your (non-existing) thoughts for a second are you just babbling like any leftist???
Dimwit, capital is not distributed by force or in a monopoly, but everybody can participate in a free market economy, by which he can have access to those resources.
Oh, let this ring in the ears of the Arabs, Venezoleans or/and any oil producing country. So, what you are saying is that their oil belongs to everybody and we should not pay money for it??
@perdondaris Great, now we can all live in your utopia with our rose colored glasses and special koolaid stands. This sounds wonderful in theory but has been proven over and over and over to fall flat on its face in practice. Why do you think East Germany and Russia collapsed? Why did China switch to capitalism? Is it working for them? Here's a hint: They own so many US bonds we might as well start learning Mandarin.
@perdondaris And no he doesn't lose his possessions at death. He should have the right to pass them on to family or whoever he so chooses. The fact that we are not all equal in abilities, stamina, or contacts is not to say we are not equal in our opportunity to create something from nothing. It is gov that takes away that equality from us. If I don't have to work and I can get the same pay, housing, and food as someone who does work why would I work? That's what happened to East Germany.
@joaquinveyron what is a "leftist"?! Everyone keeps throwing this word around...
Me, I'm an Anarchist-Communist, and I assume you are referring to me when you say "are not able to think." Lets test this. I'm the perfect subject, considering I'm as far left as one can go.
What is thought? Is it the ability to stick to one opinion and defend it with wildly shifting definitions and reasoning processes? This, if I might shift your semantic epithet, is how "rightists" like to argue politics.
@Abnihilius I think you think. That's why you concern me. Communism is honest socialism. It is power outright. A society without law is impossible at its worst and vulnerable at its best.
@jimprjayp Impossible, no. There have been enough anarchic societies in human history to consider it a very possible alternative to government. And only as vulnerable as a state is. A state provides only protection from other states, with no states there is nothing to protect from attack or declare war against. When one country has a successful revolution, the others around it follow in suit. Peace and Love.
@Abnihilius I disagree with you. I'm guessing your political portrayal of yourself puts you right smack in the middle of the scale. Anarchy is as far right as the scale goes. On the other hand communism is as left as the scale goes. So, I guess you defeat yourself. Your agenda is fail at all levels. Wow, you sure know how to contradict yourself.
@jimprjayp No. Read the Conquest of Bread. Anarcho-Communism is not a contradiction, in fact, the two ideas go HAND IN HAND. Look at it this way: if power isn't handed down vertically, then it is passed between we, the People, horizontally. Besides, if that is your argument, that anarcho-communism "contradicts itself" by taking from the right and the left, then you are mistaken: communism is on the left, sure, but anarchism cannot be understood as right or left. You are missing an analytic axis.
@Abnihilius Actually I was attempting humor. It is I, who is in the middle of the scale. I understand that it works, communism/socialism that is but only in small closed communities or diverse structured communities but to presume it can work overall is to dismiss live experiments of large open societies. And even though Russia, East Germany and China are technically closed they were large and open politically and they all failed miserably. I will read the book though. Thank you.
@jimprjayp Oh, I get it. A cell can form but a bear, fish, or tree is impossible! The Commune of Paris didn't last because--oh, that;s right, they were murdered. The Spanish Revolution didn't last beca--oh, they were all killed too! These societies "don't work" on a large scale because they are forced to not work. It's like building an airplane, throwing a wrench in the engine, and coming back to us saying we will never fly!
@Abnihilius These fat ugly FUCKs Kim ISung Ill and Kim Jong Ill are DEAD!!
Finally!
My sincere gratitude goes to our American friends. Thanks to them, the South Koreans enjoy capitalist FREEDOM and PROSPERITY, while thier NKorean compatriots have to suffer endlessly in COMMUNIST CONCENTRATION CAMP/SHITHOLE.
May Kim Jong Il/Sung Il BURN in HELL, where they belong!
@perdondaris That is an ignorant position. Government involvement in Capitalism is what causes corporatism, not through regulations as much as appointments of large corporations in oversight positions within the departments they are supposed to be guarding i.e. putting the fox in charge of the hen house. Can you spell Geitner? Who is the the head of the FDA? The congressional budgetary super-committee is collecting "donations" before going into closed committee negotiations. Criminal behavior.
What did Mises and Hayek do for a living? Were they farmers? Were they factory workers? Were they medical doctors? Were they scientists studying atoms? Were they ecologists studying plants, animals and ecosystems? I am not a Keynesian nor a Marxist (of any brand--Leninist, Trotskyist, Stalinist, Maoist etc.) who I will agree did exactly the same thing as Hayek. Prices and wages in the market are set by men not invisible hands. Supply and demand are psychology not hard science.
@perdondaris "who admires neoliberal policies of todays Chinese government."
Yes, because they BETTERED the lives of 100s of millions of Chinese, idiot, while CHinese lived in utter communist POVERTY and STARVED to DEATH in FAMINES, 45 mio. during 1958-.62 alone, fool!
"that is a bold statement "
Socialism ALWAYS ended up in DICTATORSHIPS, TERROR and UN-FREEDOM. There is no argument that it would be possible in FREEDOM. Freedom and socialism contradict each other.
The perpetual conflict that has plagued the human race since neolithic times will continue until the ideas of patriotism, capitalism and religion are extirpated and logged into the history books along with other atrocities civilization has since left behind like slavery and human sacrifice. Until then expect the same thing over and over with just different names for the same evils.
@perdondaris "It will have to be persued democratically "
Really?? Idiot, and you are suprised if I call you idiot, dimwit, dipshit????
If you are not able or willing to think for a second?? Socialism is per defintionem and by theoretic means the end of individual liberties. Therefore, socialism cannot be persued in a democracy/state of FREEDOM (of the individual) but only in a dictatorship, dimwit.
There are no magic superstitions of socialism. The reason I engage in this internet logomachy is that I never had the chance to rebut the words of the ignorant, arrogant boors whose lectures I had to suffer through. It is cathartic--a means of evacuating the poison of bad ideas that the human race has suffered centuries over. Patriotism, religion and capitalism are historical atrocities for the individual and the communities individuals live in.
@perdondaris "Instead of a tiny minority taking all the wealth"
A tiny?????? A tiny???????????????????????? The living standards in particular of the "little man" were improved MASSIVELY through capitalism. If you dont care about FIGURES and FACTS, then why is it that everybody tries and tired to flee from COMMUNIST SHITHOLES to CAPITALISTIC countries???
No, that isn't superficial thinking. A few people derive benefits from the work of others without producing anything themselves. These people are called capitalists, priests, generals and politicians. They manage things into the ground and then blame the folks who are paying for the mistakes (the working class) for the crisis their management caused.
@perdondaris I agree politicians, and government as a whole, produce nothing of value - they are parasites on the productive members of society. I also agree that the military class and their profession (war) are also a net drain on society. (i.e. the "product" of war is destruction and waste) The superficiality of your thinking comes into play when you conflate capitalism with the corporatist warfare/welfare state.
@gergenheimer "if you deleted all labour movements and trade unions"
???
Trade unions are organizations that are formed by voluntary agreement (or at least often) and they are the legitimate representation of workers. So what should be wrong with it??
It was not the labour movements or any sort of sociialistic policy that raised wages and bettered working conditions, it was the progress as a result of capitalistic competition, investment etc that made all this possible.
The greed of businessmen is the same as the greed of governments. Capitalism is competition. War is capitalism with guns. In capitalist societies the business class is the government. The war on drugs serves capitalism in that businessmen are able to make sure their workers are serfs. The FBI serves capitalism by breaking up protests against capitalist institutions. The CIA serves capitalism by destroying threats to business. Religion serves capitalism by preaching subservience to business.
I could write a book, nay a 1,000 page epic, on the stupidity of capitalism, religion and patriotism. But they have already been written. It would only be updating Jack London's The Iron Heel. America's wars are no better (morally and rationally) than the Crusades, the Thirty Years War, the Spanish American War etc. America's capitalist society is no more moral or rational than Egypt under the pharaohs or Mexico under the Aztecs. History never repeats itself. It just never changes.
There is a concept you may have heard of called "capitalism is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor". That is only if you believe that "socialism" is government interference in the economy. Capitalism needs government. The market is not a vacuum between the power of government and citizens choosing between good and bad products. The government sanctions good and bad for the capitalist class by protecting them from lawsuits. I hate capitalism because "free enterprises" lie.
@AngeliqueEU Capitalism is failing because people realize it is a fraud. People are not going to buy health insurance after President Perry repeals Obamacare because they know they cannot trust the health insurance companies because of preexisting conditions. Health insurance companies will go bankrupt. The banking system will collapse when people remove their savings from the banks. Wall Street will collapse because nobody invests. Government will collapse when soldiers and policemen mutiny.
@perdondaris You need to research how our healthcare industry got to the point it is at today - you are blaming capitalism for the deficiencies of the corporate cartel managed-care system we have now - how do you think this system came to be? Government caused this mess, dating back to the wage and price controls of WW2, the HMO Act of 1973, (Yes, government created the HMO system), coverage mandates, prohibitions on selling insurance across state lines - this was not a creation of the market.
@perdondaris it doesn't prove your point - businesses are only able to circumvent competition and consumer demand by enlisting the agent of sanctioned violence - government. In other words, the corporate cartel in healthcare and all of its associated ills (lack of competition, high prices, etc.) can only persist because of government coercion. So, rather than blaming the "greed" of corporations, why not focus your attention on the agency that forces you to accept this situation - government.
Call it what you like if you don't share and let the rich people even get richer and the working-poor (wages have not come up for some years now = turning a lot of people into working poor) and the poor cannot have shelter (appartment/house) and/or enough food for their children ... what a Nation of people you are then?
@funfsinn14 Hayek, Mises, Rand etc. lived in ivory towers. Economists are the most unreliable prophets. Which isn't surprising considering they're purpose is creating and destroying castles in the sky and being lackeys for the powers that be. Give me a scientist who can use a shovel over some college professor who thinks he is hot shit because he is paid by a think tank.
@perdondaris totally incorrect - do your homework - Mises and Hayek didn't live in "ivory towers" - both of them were harsh critics of the interventionist, Progressive, warfare/welfare states that became dominant during their era - and their careers suffered for it. By contrast, J.M. Keynes, who was a staunch supporter of interventionist, command-and-control economics, lived a life of wealth and privilege as a reward for being a lapdog of the ruling elite.
@gergenheimer "we can end poverty through a redistribution of wealth f"
Disphit, what is your PROBLEM?? Cant you READ, THINK or jsut LOOK UP FACTSS????
Idiot, if you remove the very economic incentive to work and strive for success by redistributing wealth, then this wealth is NOT BEING created, which was the case in 100 PERCENT of all COMMUNIST SHITHOLES!! Got it???!!!!
Name me only ONE eample where this WORKED! or ONE argument why it should!!
@perdondaris I don't stoop to trying to discredit people's ideas through character assassination. Neither do I attempt to look at any great thinker as a 'prophet' and neither should you be using that qualification. While there are many, what i like to call, "court" historians, economists, philosophers etc., I think it is simply ignorant to assert that any of those thinkers were that at all.
Regardless, I am forced to repeat myself: I simply wonder what Zinn would say about the Fatal Conceit.
"means of production into the hands of the workers"
You want to have a saying in the company you work for??? Buy yourself shares of the company!!
") and not necessarily into the hand of a socialist state.""
Ah, really?? Now, lets imagine all means of production are owned by "workers" (what about farmers, non-workers, children, etc. here??? by the way?) ... and by which mechanism would you think do they make the strategic decisions?? And how would you call this kind of proces?? STATE!
@joaquinveyron farmers ARE workers. And whatever-the-fuck a non-worker is, tell it to get off its lazy ass. Children work their heads as students.
What "strategic decisions" whould have to be made in an egalitarian stateless society? Really? Think about it. "Oh, where do we put the extra bricks left over from this house we built?! OH GOD SOCIETY IS FALLING APART!" or, "Joe is knitting much faster than I am... Oh no! Who will fire me?!" or, "Hey! That woman is smoking c-c-cannabis!" State, derp.
We will never have socialism in this country because the people here are so braindead stupid that they don't bother to read about what it is. I have given up on this moronic hyper-religious dumbass sister-fucking country. They will soon enough get the fascism they so deeply crave and deserve.
@purpurpledog8 Take the time to read some credible history (i.e not Howard Zinn) and learn some sound economic theory and you will have a revelation about the truly disgusting, anti-human nature of socialist ideas. When I graduated from college, I was a borderline communist. As I grew older, I learned more history, and within the last few years, I've discovered economics. I learned a simple lesson - any system like socialism that promises a 'free lunch' is not to be trusted. Educate yourself.
@gergenheimer It's funny but I have had the exact opposite experience. And not from reading books or newspapers either. I actually lived in a socialist community. It wasn't a free lunch either. Everyone worked and contributed and everyone reaped the fruits of their own labor. It was the best experience of my life and I'm going back. But I have also lived and worked in the capitalist world. It was Hell every day. People stabbing each other in the back. Why? Ignorance, arrogance, greed and lying.
@perdondaris Socialism can function in small, voluntary communal arrangements, where life is very simple and the scale is small. If it gives you satisfaction to live a simple agrarian lifestyle, I say do what makes you happy. Unfortunately, a complex, industrial economy cannot persist under a socialist paradigm, because without a nexus of consumer-driven prices to guide resource allocation, economic decisions are arbitrary. I suggest Mises' "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth".
@gergenheimer That is the only way society can work. Otherwise you have a domineering bureaucratic regime with rulers out of touch with the ruled. Our complex industrial economy is collapsing. It is unsustainable--like a meth user who is consumed by his addiction. It is not about a command economy--which is what capitalism is also: your boss tells you what to do, governments set the parameters of enterprises and maintain private property and bankers and soldiers dictate government.
@perdondaris our complex industrial economy is collapsing because we have forgotten how it came into existence. As a society, we came to believe that prosperity was not only a foregone conclusion but a birthright, - that everyone can afford to live at the expense of someone else, and we have the "right" to spend and consume to our heart's content, without ever having to save and produce. My boss is not my master - I can, and have, told bosses to go to hell - try telling the IRS to go to hell.
@perdondaris I can tell you with certainty that the system you've lived under is not Capitalism - the U.S. hasn't had anything remotely like a capitalist economy in 100+ years. Ever since the Progressive era, government has burdened the voluntary sector of our society with an ever-increasing barrage of regulations, price & wage controls, mandates, tariffs, make-work projects, and - worst of all - our fractional reserve banking system and fiat paper currency. This is not Capitalism.
@gergenheimer Yes, America is a capitalist country. The government does not burden capitalism with regulations. Those regulations save lives. Some regulations are bad obviously (like the war on drugs and some wrongheaded environmental laws that can be changed). But if you ignore a problem it isn't going to disappear. Libertarians are ostriches--you stick your head in the ground and hope the market or "god" fixes it. That philosophy has never worked.
@perdondaris America is not remotely capitalist. There are MASSIVE amounts of regulations on every aspect of American business, especially the biggest job creators - small business. You obviously have never tried to start your own business, otherwise you would know this. Add to that huge taxes, seizure of property, nullification of contracts, eminent domain, etc. Capitalism is based on property rights, voluntary contracts, sound money and a working price system, none of which exists in the U.S.
@gergenheimer Paper currency is part of capitalism just like the numbers on the board on Wall Street. Currency only has a real effect on the world through the judgements of men. Money is just paper. Gold is just a shiny metal. You can't eat it, you can't use it as fuel--you can only trade it for goods. It is an abstraction which men agree to. If men cease to believe gold has any value then it no longer does have any value.
@perdondaris no society on earth has ever adopted an unbacked paper currency by organic, free-choice in the marketplace - it has always been imposed by government decree. Therefore, paper money is not an inherent feature of capitalism, but an inherent feature of Statism. By contrast, hundreds of cultures adopted gold and silver as money through the natural workings of the market, not because these metals are "magic", but because they possess properties that make them well-suited as monies.
@gergenheimer Plenty of societies have existed without paper money--heck they've existed without markets also. The value of money is imposed by government decree. Paper money does not even belong to the holder in the legal sense. It is the property of the government. Now if you were to say no nation-state existed without money you would be correct. Nation-states, however, have existed for only a very tiny blip of human history.
@perdondaris I think you misread my comment - yes, plenty of societies have existed without paper money - and a huge proportion of those societies naturally evolved gold and/or silver to be their money. Unbacked paper money has never been chosen in the marketplace, always in the halls and palaces of government.
@gergenheimer Property rights only exist as abstractions. The value of money is also an abstraction. The price system is another abstraction. All of these abstractions are only agreements. The market does not exist. It is an agreement that humans make with each other. I never trusted economists. They spend all of their lives thinking up abstractions. The price of goods is based on agreement and is variable. Prices are not fixed by supply and demand because of human ignorance of supply.
@perdondaris You are absolutely correct that the value of money and the price system are abstractions, now you need to consider the ramifications of that truth. In a free market, producers use prices (and profits) as a variable signal of their success at satisfying consumer wants, and consumers use prices as a gauge against their subjective values - each person chooses their actions based on their own values as measured against the organically-derived nexus of prices in the economy.
@perdondaris You are also correct that "the market" is an abstraction, it is not a real thing - it is a semantic construct that serves as a proxy for the sum of voluntary actions of individuals. But it is important to realize, therefore, that the State is also an abstraction, serving as proxy for the coercive actions of some individuals against others. I happen to favor the abstraction that promotes voluntary cooperation, as opposed to the abstraction of arbitrary force.
@gergenheimer There are free lunches. I have had free lunches. People get free lunches all of the time. Heck if you win the lottery (or get rich by another fluke of fortune like inheritance) you have free lunches for the rest of your life. The reason institutions like governments and churches are anti-socialist is because the people who run those organizations own everything. The conservative economists just provide concepts to alleviate the consciences of their employers.
@perdondaris you are engaged in superficial thinking, not sound economic reasoning. If you are given a "free" lunch, that is only possible because someone else exerted the effort to create it, and "free" to you, simply means that someone else, somewhere, bore the cost for you. You see, causality is a stickler like that - everything that is consumed must first be produced - even "free" lunches must be paid for by someone - the magical superstitions of socialism can't alter reality.
Who is disagreeing?? Since when do you call ignoraing, distortioning FACTs to disagree??
I do not fancy red China. Certainly not. China is good eample what NEOLIBERAL reforms do for the people: under Mao the GDP per capita was 100 € p.a., 45 mio. STARVED to DEATH 1958-62 alone. Thanks to MARKET reforms, the CHinese GDP and income increased 60 times fold!!!, 1.3 bn. Chinese have enough to eat. 450 mio. live in relative prosperity now.
The best solution is Distributism (see wikipedia) which is equidistant from both capitalism and socialism. It seeks to break up monopoly which concentrates capital and power in too few hands and to encourage the widest possible ownership of private property to individuals beyond all centralist models.
@0rbis2010 I agree, but the only distinction between Distributism and left socialism or participatory economics is that distributism evolved from Catholic schools of thought like liberation theology.
@jolow2 .wow zinn is an idiot.How easy to completely disregard a whole lifetime of work in a single sentence. Complete failures and nobodies like you do nothing in any field, who havnt got a clue aboutt he works or ideas of zinn, and just diminish a man by calling him an idiot.This idiot fought in ww2,if not for your complete lack of common sense or intelligence,at least respect him in that way,one of the few things you mouth breathers are good for.
Wow, so I am an idiot for disagreeing with Zinn? He IS an idiot, I don't care if he had 3 lifetimes to perfect his idiotic dribble. You don't even know a smidgen of who I am but yet you seem to have all the answers like the idiot. I have no respect for people who get cheap laughs from an audience of mush minds.
When some think of socialism, they immediately envision the Soviet Union, or other "Stalinist" "communist states". What it actually was was a top-down, centralized approach to socialism. What this led to was a society in which an unelected bureaucracy owned and controlled the means of production. Which isn't communal ownership of property - it's more like a system of state capitalism. Bottom-up approaches to socialism, like the Paris Commune, are the answer to human liberation.
Once the means of production and the wealth of the owning class seized, counterrevolution becomes impossible. Private ownership of the means of production becomes impossible. The exploitation for profit of one person by another becomes impossible. In such a world, where society is stateless, classless, with the means of production in the ownership and democratic control of workers - this is communism.
Capitalism is a system where the means of production (businesses, resources, land - productive property in general) are privately owned, operated for a profit extracted from the unpaid labor of workers. Socialism describes a society in which the means of production are commonly owned and democratically controlled by workers, where a state may exist in order to suppress counterrevolution against the workers. An example of counterrevolution would be the invasion of Vietnam by the US.
Howard Zinn was full of shit. I don't even need to listen to him that much to figure it out. Sure America is an empire, and has always existed to exploit people. Sure civilization is the domestication of man. But somehow the tenure of liberal college professors like Zinn and Chomsky are not privilege, or property. Somehow socialism is not a system of exploitation, even though in every country where it is practiced, just like capitalism, it results in exploitation. How can it be otherwise
No,of course you don't need to listen.Because no matter how long you would listen,it would inevitably be useless,since shit-heads like you are too hopelessly stupid to ever learn anything
@JasonDamisch Zinn and Chomsky were/are anarchists, with some albeit reformist tendencies. They were both highly critical of the State socialist societies you refer to.
@agapeiron They're both posers who use "anarchism" to defray criticism against them. They always push socialist doctrines and support socialist policies. You can see Zinn here praising the increase of taxes. He gets the audience to laugh by feigning shock at "oh, that's socialism? That's good!" Chomsky even made millions being subsidized by the Pentagon, so he has even less credibility than Zinn who never really reached Chomsky's exalted social parasite hypocrite status.
@JasonDamisch .you dont need to listen because you are yet another poison int he us democratic system.You dont read the views properly,are quick to give your own worthless opinion and brand people whatever you deem fit.Mouth breathers.....
Im an anarchist. Big ups to my main man Howard Zinn. I live in Chicago but didn't go to this. Him and Chomsky r great men but I like Zinn alot more. Rip Howard Zinn.
indeed, they took Poland (or at least half of it) along with some of the Baltic States in 1939, invaded Finland in the late 1930s, retook Belarus, took into its fold the areas of Central Asia that are today Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyztan, and invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s to prop up a puppet Marxist government.
As Lenin told his followers in regard to their Internationalist Duty to the World Proletariat: "Probe with the Bayonet..."
Socialism is *only* when workers collectively control the means of production & the wealth their labor creates. Don't let media tell you otherwise!
BlackMath1977 6 days ago
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The same deluded theocrats who still cling to the myth of the "free" market and "invisible" hand are the same nut jobs that believe moses parted the red sea and there are 72 virgins waiting for you.
It's over. The American Christian Conservative ideology has been rejected by 90% of the world. Only the fascists who can still profit off of it,The willingly stupid and the stunningly dumb still cling to the myth someday the ghost of Reagan will trickle down upon you. Pathetic
krevice 1 week ago
Republicans, generally speaking, suffer from extreme mongolism.
00govan00 2 weeks ago
Jesus was a socialist...GASP! Remember, he fed a crowd of thousands. He didn't line them up and ask for money, he just fed them. He healed the sick, even those with pre-existing conditions. And the one time he got mad, was when he chased the money lenders from the temple. So I always find it terribly funny hearing a person who at one moment yells about the free-market, and in the next sentence claims to follow the life of Christ. I believe he would call you a hypocrite..if I'm not mistaken.
PrinceMyshkin22 1 month ago
@PrinceMyshkin22 Jesus was not a socialist.He believed in giving but HE CHOSE to give. No one forced him to do it. And those that surrounded him were not equal in wealth but equal in spirit. And the money lender thing showed his disdain for the manipulation inherent in centralized religions. You can say he was a communist.
firestrings272 1 week ago
This man makes me proud to be an American!
krevice 1 month ago 3
Some people here are just revolting, i almost get sick from hearing what some of you say. Everyone isn't born under favorable conditions and you thinking it's your birthright to look down on them while drinking a capuccino or a vodka and taking a cigar is just...
ffsboom 2 months ago
"Do you think wealth should be distributed equally?" No. "Do you think everyone should have free healthcare?" No. "Do you think people without a job should be guaranteed a job" No. "Do you think we should use the wealth of the country for human needs instead of what is profitable?" (strawman) No. (then quickly say) "Well that is socialism." Yes. We know what it is. It is a shitty system.
mixmastermeeks 3 months ago
@mixmastermeeks hahaha I agree. People like him and Chomsky are fucking brain dead
USTreasuryBond 3 months ago
@USTreasuryBond The thing that gets on my nerves the most is that both Zinn and Chomsky always dress up in a sweater like Mr. Rogers and talk about how capitalism has failed and how wealth should be distributed "equally". Yet they both get paid big bucks to speak. Chomsky almost doubled his speaking fee after 9/11. Rest assured that if they were told their speaking fee was going to be evenly distributed among the crowd they were going to speak to they wouldn't show up.
mixmastermeeks 3 months ago
@mixmastermeeks I know, it is hillarious. Chomsky isn't even Chomskyish, practicing linguistics at NON-SYNDICALIST MIT for 44 years LMAO....
USTreasuryBond 3 months ago
@mixmastermeeks "Rest assured that if they were told their speaking fee was going to be evenly distributed...they wouldn't show up"
Chomsky is a better "capitalist" than most of us are. He's managed to live off a Pentagon subsidy at his cushy MIT job for decades, make a pretty penny telling people how rotten it is to make money, live in an upscale neighborhood, and own a million-dollar vacation home.
But he dresses like a slob, so that makes him a good socialist I guess. ; )
MillionthUsername 3 months ago
@MillionthUsername And don't forget that he speaks about how intellectual property should be public property and free to all. Yet he copyrights his books. He also has published a few in his kids names in order to avoid taxes. He is like a socialist super hero. By day a cunning capitalist, making money off of books and all the stuff he supposedly is against, but at night he runs to a phone booth, pulls on a sweater and becomes "socialist man" and goes and talks to students.
mixmastermeeks 3 months ago
@mixmastermeeks If he didn't do that people would be telling him to get out the country if he can't live by their rules. If he works with the current system whilst keeping an open dialogue and critique about it, he gets called a hypocrite. It's Catch 22. People like you can never be pleased. And goodness forbid a person who has more left leaning ideologies having to participate in a more right wing and capitalistic manner otherwise society will ostracise them even more.
Yarrick2k5 3 months ago
@Yarrick2k5 Are you kidding? People would tell Chomsky to leave the counry if he didn't invest his money and protect his intellecutal poperty?First of all: so what? so what if they told him to leave the country. Is that where his princples end? If someone is gonna tell him to leave the country he acts in accordance to their beileifs. Wow, what a principled man. second: I love how you can determine what kind of people I am like. Out of one youtube post. I can determine that you, are a dumbasss.
mixmastermeeks 3 months ago
@mixmastermeeks Your argument made little sense. When you live in a society you almost have to abide to it's rules and standards otherwise you get ostracised and shunned. You criticised him for selling books whilst the topics of his books can be a critique of the current system. I'm sorry i assumed it but you sound like someone who is difficult to please and cannot compromise. And calling someone a dumbass really doesn't help your argument. It kinda invalidates it.
Yarrick2k5 3 months ago
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@Yarrick2k5 "Communism brought modernization to many countries, and in places like N. Korea, China, and Myanmar,"
Dipshit, any attempt of "modernization" and industrialization by communists ended in a COMPLETE NIGHTMARE, you brain amputated monkey. Collectivization under Stalin, 14 mil. dead, "great" leap forward under Mao 45 mil. dead, NKorea 4 mil. dead, Pol Pot 4 mil dead.
Why actually dont leftists like you try with HISTORICAL FACTS??
joaquinveyron 3 months ago
@joaquinveyron You quite finished on your little tirade? I have no idea why you went on some inane rant. It doesn't even address my comment. My comment was simply about not getting riled up over something such as a person making money from books and lectures whilst the topic they may be discussing is an open critique of something like capitalism. So please, spare me the 'hurr durr liberals this and lefty that because you won't achieve anything with that sort of rude and contemptuous attitude
Yarrick2k5 3 months ago
@Yarrick2k5 I just did it the "communist" way: I shared my wisdom and the obvious FACTS with everyone :-) . Your comments were not addressed by mine.
joaquinveyron 3 months ago
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"who admires neoliberal policies of todays Chinese government."
Yes, because they BETTERED the lives of 100s of millions of Chinese, idiot, while CHinese lived in utter communist POVERTY and STARVED to DEATH in FAMINES, 45 mio. during 1958-.62 alone, fool!
"that is a bold statement "
Socialism ALWAYS ended up in DICTATORSHIPS, TERROR and UN-FREEDOM. There is no argument that it would be possible in FREEDOM. Freedom and socialism contradict each other.
joaquinveyron 3 months ago
"It will have to be persued democratically "
Really?? Idiot, and you are suprised if I call you idiot, dimwit, dipshit????
If you are not able or willing to think for a second?? Socialism is per defintionem and by theoretic means the end of individual liberties. Therefore, socialism cannot be persued in a democracy/state of FREEDOM (of the individual) but only in a dictatorship, dimwit.
When do leftish idiots like you start to THINK???
joaquinveyron 3 months ago
@joaquinveyron I live in Canada. While we have socialist health care policies, we still enjoy individual liberties which are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms....this Charter was highly influenced by the UN declaration of human rights. Perhaps you have spent too much time listening to political pundits and the main-stream media....especially with such a ridiculous definition of socialism. Furthermore, the individual freedoms which u like came from the workers movements 60s
jmintube 3 months ago 7
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@jmintube To decide to have a certain sector in public life socialized is not socialism, Europe to this respect is much more "socialistic", if you might want to call it this.
The backbone of the system is a genuinely capitalistic one. Otherwise, neither you in Canada, nor us in Europe (welll in the Western part at least) would be able to have an economy that is able to generate the wealth to finance a public health care system, which is much more inefficient than a private one.
joaquinveyron 3 months ago
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@jmintube "freedoms which u like came from the workers movements "
All the benefits workers enjoy nowadays or not, if you want it or not, were only possible because of the ingredients of capitalism: competition. free entreprise system, free market, private property and entrepreneurship. All this generated the wealth in the first place to make better pay, benefits of the workers etc. possible in teh first place.
And now lets see how "well" workers were doing in "socialistic paradises".
joaquinveyron 3 months ago
@jmintube
very true and those movements (social welfare for all) is what will bankrupt us into oblivion and result in our children being burdened by tremendous government debt (those that voted that stuff in will get the benefits and others will pay for it)....have you ever head of costs/prices etc going down??
riptide1111 2 days ago
@riptide1111 there is no evidence to suggest that social welfare programs will lead to bankruptcy. Although we will become bankrupt nevertheless. Capitalism is a wonderous system of instability and re-distribution...the monetary system benefits only the wealthy. Please don't spew any more stupidity unless you plan to rationalize your arguments.
jmintube 2 days ago
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"Instead of a tiny minority taking all the wealth"
A tiny?????? A tiny???????????????????????? The living standards in particular of the "little man" were improved MASSIVELY through capitalism. If you dont care about FIGURES and FACTS, then why is it that everybody tries and tired to flee from COMMUNIST SHITHOLES to CAPITALISTIC countries???
A kingdom for a lefty with BRAINS!!!
joaquinveyron 3 months ago
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"if you deleted all labour movements and trade unions"
???
Trade unions are organizations that are formed by voluntary agreement (or at least often) and they are the legitimate representation of workers. So what should be wrong with it??
It was not the labour movements or any sort of sociialistic policy that raised wages and bettered working conditions, it was the progress as a result of capitalistic competition, investment etc that made all this possible.
joaquinveyron 3 months ago
@joaquinveyron
very true! this is bonkers that ppl think that unions etc think about anything more than raping as much money out of the system as possible (as do other institutions/industries - which is human nature based on the current system). unions breed inefficiency, redundancy, and unrealistic financial burdens in the face of mounting debt.
riptide1111 2 days ago
@mixmastermeeks LOL, get rid of the army and every thing to do with distribution of wealth. I bet you fucking hypocrite have even used the state run postal service and internet! HYPOCRITE!
noprofitmaximierung 3 months ago
@noprofitmaximierung Really? That is it. haha. I bet yo have used the postal service? Well the gov has had a monopoly on it for a long time. companies like fedex and UPS have been outdoing them for years. You live in a fantasy land my friend.
mixmastermeeks 3 months ago
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Communism is the goal.
Revolution is the way.
Poverty is the bilss.
Idiocy is the must
platipot 3 months ago
the early christian church had a form of organic socialism within their community.
Spillers72 4 months ago
@hihellohowareyou1000 Obviously!
Abnihilius 4 months ago
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A moneyless,classless,stateless communities of humanity expressing our freedom in creative harmonious cooperation for a world that is so POTENTIALLY AND ACTUALLY nourishing. Capitalism in any form, Statist or Corporatist is the denial of our common humanity in a politically manipulated,tyrannical armed MARKET SYSYTEM of artificial scarcity that is designed to perpetuate the enslavement of the working class for material interest of the criminal ruling elite.
arzoyan 4 months ago
Sorry Howard Zinn...Owe Bama didn't do a 'little' spending.
AroundSun 4 months ago
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Please visit my channel for the unpopular truth about homosexuality.
A person does not need hatred or any kind of phobia in order to acknowledge important differences between heterosexual attraction / behavior / marriage / adoption and homosexual attraction / behavior / marriage / adoption. Even non-religious people know this.
Homosexual activists, with support from the media, have succeeded at framing themselves as noble victims; it's an effective way to push a social agenda.
lightandbeautiful 4 months ago
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Google "The Case Against Howard Zinn". HIs true Communist tool past finally exposed.
Gaius8666a 5 months ago
What a moron! It is shocking that anyone ever took that guy seriously.
Gaius8666a 5 months ago
@Gaius8666a Ah yes, the moron that went at an Ivy League school and a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University.
Grant691 5 months ago
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@Grant691 Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. - Thomas Sowell. He said it better than I could. Howard Zinn was nothing more than a communist tool that was cannonized by the left for attacking Western Civilization. Other than sophmores in College, I know of no one who took him seriously.
Gaius8666a 5 months ago
@Gaius8666a I agree
AroundSun 4 months ago
Yes, he loses all his possessions upon death. He ceases to exist and the survivors can do as they will with his possessions. Charity does not make people feel good. Everyone is entitled to the resources of the world. Whether that is health care, food, shelter etc. The idea of "property" is a convenient excuse for the deliberate cruelty and irresponsibility of the ruling capitalist class.
perdondaris 5 months ago
He would do well to read Mises
mjbarrowful 5 months ago
No, people are not entitled to jobs. No, everyone is not entitled to healthcare. No, everyone should not give to the homeless. Charities take care of the poor in an efficient, loving, uncontrolling way without force or theft. Charity makes people feel good. Taxing the middle class i.e. the rich, will detract from charity and create MORE social issues for MORE people. Government has with very little variance, helped anyone except themselves.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
@jimprjayp So perhaps we should organize death panels to decide who get health care and who don't?
gluemoae 5 months ago
@gluemoae I truly astonish myself sometimes with my miscommunication. I am completely against death panels. No one should interfere with my health care but me.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
@jimprjayp Yeah, I get that. But what about people who can't pay for their own health care? People who are too sick to work etc.?
gluemoae 5 months ago
If we had a functioning education system, we wouldn't need so much charity. The fact that so many Americans, disproportionately minority, don't get a good education is the root CAUSE of all the social ills you moan and cry about.
when your neighbor is taken care of, YOU are safer and better off. When your neighbor doesn't have healthcare, that directly reduces YOUR security. You have a vested, selfish interest in making sure your fellow citizens are provided the basics of life.
tristramshandy3 5 months ago
@tristramshandy3 With regard to charity I was referring to health care not education. Vouchers would solve education system issues. Charter schools are an excellent example of the success that could be had by children if they were free to choose without regard to cost.
Moaning about social ills is a waste of time. If my neighbor needed help, I would help. I agree making the world a better place comes from personal responsibility, charity, and community but only personally not collectively.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
@jimprjayp I live in Arizona, a state that has more charter schools than any other. You should come visit some of them; that would change your view that charter schools are ANY more effective than public schools, with the fewest of exceptions. I worked at a charter school for over a year, and it was as bad as any public school I've ever been in.
The answers are rarely as easy as right wing pundits would have us believe.
Have a nice day.
tristramshandy3 5 months ago
@tristramshandy3 I don't know what area you live in but some of the charter schools are doing well. The SAT scores are some of the highest in the nation for both public and charter. You always have the choice to home school. If you're out of funds use the library and go to thrift stores for paper and pencils. Public schools are designed to fail. It's amazing kids learn anything at all in them.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
@jimprjayp yes, some charters are doing well; but so are some public schools. You say public schools are designed to fail- and you are partially correct. The public schools in POOR areas are designed to fail; the public schools in rich areas typically do a good job.
Welcome to the class war- it starts and ends in the classroom.
Have a nice day.
tristramshandy3 5 months ago
Respond to this video... We home schooled our kids from k-12 but the public schools are excellent where we live now. People complain because of inane topics or because they spend all their time complaining and none of it working the system we have in place. Learn how to contact charities in your area so you can use them or help your neighbors or just people you meet who complain that information. The gov will not solve anyone's problems. They never have and by nature they never will. So you doit
jimprjayp 5 months ago
@jimprjayp Also, 1 out of 7 Americans is on food stamps, 1 out of 5 American children lives in poverty. Doesn't seem like your "personal" charity is working very well,. Got any other solutions?
tristramshandy3 5 months ago
@tristramshandy3 One fact is, though I hate to say it and you definitely hate to hear it, but there will always be poor. Fact two, the people who donate to charities are strapped at the moment due to the bad economy and bad fiscal policies of the fed and the gov. Fact three, food stamps is the government feeding them with tax money from those who have jobs who could do more if they paid less in taxes. I've lived in poverty, in the US poverty is not what it is in 3rd world countries.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
@jimprjayp there will always be poor; but our national rhetoric speaks of equal opportunity for all- which is nonsense. Kids in rich neighborhoods get good educations; kids in poor neighborhoods don't (with few exceptions).
tristramshandy3 5 months ago
@tristramshandy3 by poverty do you mean they can't afford nike shoes? or a computer, or three computers and a tv in every room? Cuz you're right charities won't solve that. Tell me how many starve to death in this country due to poverty and not abuse. Otherwise you're just spewing emotionally grabbing BS.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
@jimprjayp by poverty I mean living paycheck to paycheck, never traveling, never owning a home, never having financial security. I'm glad they have nice shoes.
tristramshandy3 5 months ago
@tristramshandy3 by poverty do you mean they can't afford Nike shoes? or a computer, or three computers and a TV in every room? Because you're right charities won't solve that. Tell me how many starve to death in this country due to poverty and not abuse. Otherwise you're just spewing emotionally grabbing BS.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
What I hate about capitalists is their amnesia. You say you hate corporatism (corporate welfare) yet you think businessmen make the best politicians (because they know "how to create jobs"). Where was Ayn Rand during the civil rights movement or World War II? I can tell you where Howard Zinn was. Ayn Rand was absent everywhere except her editorial page. Capitalist doublethink is astounding.
perdondaris 6 months ago
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"progress as a result of capitalistic competition" Care to elaborate that?"
Hahahahahahh, to make it short and even comprehensible for a leftist dimwit like you who obviously ignores HISTORICAL and EMPIRICAL FACTS I make it quite clear to you. This is the result of the lack of competition in socialistic systems:
watch?v=Cu8I4tKkuZ4
watch?v=7O2zaG5yhP8
/watch?v=4GtDyZVg56k
This what you get in CAPITALISM:
watch?v=9qKmhiyCf54
watch?v=ywWrzA-P5_s
Are you getting the idea?? :-)
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
@perdondaris Republicans not necessarily conservatives want businessmen as politicians. Politicians should be from all walks of life. Anyone with a volunteer spirit should be a politician. Politics should be a charitable side job type of thing, like volunteering to coach your kid's soccer team. There should be term limits. It should NOT be a career and the pay should reflect that ideal. They should make so little that they don't want to do it forever.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
Capitalism is corporatism. Capitalism is the management of society by a class of individuals irresponsible to society. The managerial class typifies capitalism. The managerial class operates businesses solely for the rulers. Capitalism, if left unfettered by labor unions and consumer advocates, results in an extremely stratified society much like feudal Europe. Capitalists do not oppose government--they oppose responsibility and equality. They are quite happy with a police state.
perdondaris 6 months ago
"hat socialism and etatism are not a priori partners, a"
You only say this bcs you are not able to think, obviously, like all leftists.
What do you think is the "state" or government?? It is an institutionalized process of forming and executing a political decisions. And here the political agenda is a socialistic one. Saying that socialism would be possible without a state is saying that you allow for the FREEDOM of the INDIVIDUAL, a state that leads to INEQUALITY, sth hated by commies
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
@joaquinveyron The state is an authority that maintains the private property which is a monopoly of the capitalist ruling class through violence. The resources of the earth belong to everyone. It is only abstractions which say it belongs to this person or that person or a collectivist capitalist organization (which is again an abstraction). Private property, like national boundaries, only exists in the minds of human beings. When an individual dies he loses all of his possessions.
perdondaris 6 months ago
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@perdondaris "private property which is a monopoly of the capitalist ruling class through violence."
?????
Dimwit, are you reflecting your (non-existing) thoughts for a second are you just babbling like any leftist???
Dimwit, capital is not distributed by force or in a monopoly, but everybody can participate in a free market economy, by which he can have access to those resources.
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
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@perdondaris "
"resources of the earth belong to everyone"
Oh, let this ring in the ears of the Arabs, Venezoleans or/and any oil producing country. So, what you are saying is that their oil belongs to everybody and we should not pay money for it??
Ok, if you say so :-)
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
@perdondaris Great, now we can all live in your utopia with our rose colored glasses and special koolaid stands. This sounds wonderful in theory but has been proven over and over and over to fall flat on its face in practice. Why do you think East Germany and Russia collapsed? Why did China switch to capitalism? Is it working for them? Here's a hint: They own so many US bonds we might as well start learning Mandarin.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
@perdondaris And no he doesn't lose his possessions at death. He should have the right to pass them on to family or whoever he so chooses. The fact that we are not all equal in abilities, stamina, or contacts is not to say we are not equal in our opportunity to create something from nothing. It is gov that takes away that equality from us. If I don't have to work and I can get the same pay, housing, and food as someone who does work why would I work? That's what happened to East Germany.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
@joaquinveyron what is a "leftist"?! Everyone keeps throwing this word around...
Me, I'm an Anarchist-Communist, and I assume you are referring to me when you say "are not able to think." Lets test this. I'm the perfect subject, considering I'm as far left as one can go.
What is thought? Is it the ability to stick to one opinion and defend it with wildly shifting definitions and reasoning processes? This, if I might shift your semantic epithet, is how "rightists" like to argue politics.
Abnihilius 5 months ago
@Abnihilius "I assume you are referring to me when you say "are not able to think." "
Yes, I am. 100 points for the candidate.
songunactivist 5 months ago
@Abnihilius I think you think. That's why you concern me. Communism is honest socialism. It is power outright. A society without law is impossible at its worst and vulnerable at its best.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
@jimprjayp Impossible, no. There have been enough anarchic societies in human history to consider it a very possible alternative to government. And only as vulnerable as a state is. A state provides only protection from other states, with no states there is nothing to protect from attack or declare war against. When one country has a successful revolution, the others around it follow in suit. Peace and Love.
Abnihilius 5 months ago
@Abnihilius I disagree with you. I'm guessing your political portrayal of yourself puts you right smack in the middle of the scale. Anarchy is as far right as the scale goes. On the other hand communism is as left as the scale goes. So, I guess you defeat yourself. Your agenda is fail at all levels. Wow, you sure know how to contradict yourself.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
@jimprjayp No. Read the Conquest of Bread. Anarcho-Communism is not a contradiction, in fact, the two ideas go HAND IN HAND. Look at it this way: if power isn't handed down vertically, then it is passed between we, the People, horizontally. Besides, if that is your argument, that anarcho-communism "contradicts itself" by taking from the right and the left, then you are mistaken: communism is on the left, sure, but anarchism cannot be understood as right or left. You are missing an analytic axis.
Abnihilius 5 months ago
@Abnihilius Actually I was attempting humor. It is I, who is in the middle of the scale. I understand that it works, communism/socialism that is but only in small closed communities or diverse structured communities but to presume it can work overall is to dismiss live experiments of large open societies. And even though Russia, East Germany and China are technically closed they were large and open politically and they all failed miserably. I will read the book though. Thank you.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
@jimprjayp Oh, I get it. A cell can form but a bear, fish, or tree is impossible! The Commune of Paris didn't last because--oh, that;s right, they were murdered. The Spanish Revolution didn't last beca--oh, they were all killed too! These societies "don't work" on a large scale because they are forced to not work. It's like building an airplane, throwing a wrench in the engine, and coming back to us saying we will never fly!
Abnihilius 5 months ago 17
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@Abnihilius These fat ugly FUCKs Kim ISung Ill and Kim Jong Ill are DEAD!!
Finally!
My sincere gratitude goes to our American friends. Thanks to them, the South Koreans enjoy capitalist FREEDOM and PROSPERITY, while thier NKorean compatriots have to suffer endlessly in COMMUNIST CONCENTRATION CAMP/SHITHOLE.
May Kim Jong Il/Sung Il BURN in HELL, where they belong!
Only a dead commie is a good commie!
joaquinveyron 2 months ago
@perdondaris That is an ignorant position. Government involvement in Capitalism is what causes corporatism, not through regulations as much as appointments of large corporations in oversight positions within the departments they are supposed to be guarding i.e. putting the fox in charge of the hen house. Can you spell Geitner? Who is the the head of the FDA? The congressional budgetary super-committee is collecting "donations" before going into closed committee negotiations. Criminal behavior.
jimprjayp 5 months ago
What did Mises and Hayek do for a living? Were they farmers? Were they factory workers? Were they medical doctors? Were they scientists studying atoms? Were they ecologists studying plants, animals and ecosystems? I am not a Keynesian nor a Marxist (of any brand--Leninist, Trotskyist, Stalinist, Maoist etc.) who I will agree did exactly the same thing as Hayek. Prices and wages in the market are set by men not invisible hands. Supply and demand are psychology not hard science.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris "who admires neoliberal policies of todays Chinese government."
Yes, because they BETTERED the lives of 100s of millions of Chinese, idiot, while CHinese lived in utter communist POVERTY and STARVED to DEATH in FAMINES, 45 mio. during 1958-.62 alone, fool!
"that is a bold statement "
Socialism ALWAYS ended up in DICTATORSHIPS, TERROR and UN-FREEDOM. There is no argument that it would be possible in FREEDOM. Freedom and socialism contradict each other.
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
The perpetual conflict that has plagued the human race since neolithic times will continue until the ideas of patriotism, capitalism and religion are extirpated and logged into the history books along with other atrocities civilization has since left behind like slavery and human sacrifice. Until then expect the same thing over and over with just different names for the same evils.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris "It will have to be persued democratically "
Really?? Idiot, and you are suprised if I call you idiot, dimwit, dipshit????
If you are not able or willing to think for a second?? Socialism is per defintionem and by theoretic means the end of individual liberties. Therefore, socialism cannot be persued in a democracy/state of FREEDOM (of the individual) but only in a dictatorship, dimwit.
When do leftish idiots like you start to THINK???
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
There are no magic superstitions of socialism. The reason I engage in this internet logomachy is that I never had the chance to rebut the words of the ignorant, arrogant boors whose lectures I had to suffer through. It is cathartic--a means of evacuating the poison of bad ideas that the human race has suffered centuries over. Patriotism, religion and capitalism are historical atrocities for the individual and the communities individuals live in.
perdondaris 6 months ago
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@perdondaris "Instead of a tiny minority taking all the wealth"
A tiny?????? A tiny???????????????????????? The living standards in particular of the "little man" were improved MASSIVELY through capitalism. If you dont care about FIGURES and FACTS, then why is it that everybody tries and tired to flee from COMMUNIST SHITHOLES to CAPITALISTIC countries???
A kingdom for a lefty with BRAINS!!!
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
No, that isn't superficial thinking. A few people derive benefits from the work of others without producing anything themselves. These people are called capitalists, priests, generals and politicians. They manage things into the ground and then blame the folks who are paying for the mistakes (the working class) for the crisis their management caused.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris I agree politicians, and government as a whole, produce nothing of value - they are parasites on the productive members of society. I also agree that the military class and their profession (war) are also a net drain on society. (i.e. the "product" of war is destruction and waste) The superficiality of your thinking comes into play when you conflate capitalism with the corporatist warfare/welfare state.
gergenheimer 6 months ago
@gergenheimer "if you deleted all labour movements and trade unions"
???
Trade unions are organizations that are formed by voluntary agreement (or at least often) and they are the legitimate representation of workers. So what should be wrong with it??
It was not the labour movements or any sort of sociialistic policy that raised wages and bettered working conditions, it was the progress as a result of capitalistic competition, investment etc that made all this possible.
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
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@perdondaris "Im a democratic socialist "
Hahhahahahaha, "democractic socialism" thats somewhat like bitter sweet, sour sweetness, pacifist terrorist, abstinent drunkard :-)
I pay you 100.000 € if you are able to eplaine WITH ARGUMENTS how to persue comm8unist/socialist goals WITHOUT
1) POVERTY; FAMINES, INEFFICIENCY, but PROSPEROITY
2) TERROR; FORCE; DICTATORSHIPS; but FREEDOM
:-) :-)
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
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@perdondaris
"Im a democratic socialist "
Hahhahahahaha, "democractic socialism" thats somewhat like bitter sweet, sour sweetness, pacifist terrorist, abstinent drunkard :-)
I pay you 100.000 € if you are able to eplaine WITH ARGUMENTS how to persue comm8unist/socialist goals WITHOUT
1) POVERTY; FAMINES, INEFFICIENCY, but PROSPEROITY
2) TERROR; FORCE; DICTATORSHIPS; but FREEDOM
:-) :-)
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
The greed of businessmen is the same as the greed of governments. Capitalism is competition. War is capitalism with guns. In capitalist societies the business class is the government. The war on drugs serves capitalism in that businessmen are able to make sure their workers are serfs. The FBI serves capitalism by breaking up protests against capitalist institutions. The CIA serves capitalism by destroying threats to business. Religion serves capitalism by preaching subservience to business.
perdondaris 6 months ago
I could write a book, nay a 1,000 page epic, on the stupidity of capitalism, religion and patriotism. But they have already been written. It would only be updating Jack London's The Iron Heel. America's wars are no better (morally and rationally) than the Crusades, the Thirty Years War, the Spanish American War etc. America's capitalist society is no more moral or rational than Egypt under the pharaohs or Mexico under the Aztecs. History never repeats itself. It just never changes.
perdondaris 6 months ago
There is a concept you may have heard of called "capitalism is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor". That is only if you believe that "socialism" is government interference in the economy. Capitalism needs government. The market is not a vacuum between the power of government and citizens choosing between good and bad products. The government sanctions good and bad for the capitalist class by protecting them from lawsuits. I hate capitalism because "free enterprises" lie.
perdondaris 6 months ago
Capitalism is failing because of GREED!!!!
AngeliqueEU 6 months ago
@AngeliqueEU Capitalism is failing because people realize it is a fraud. People are not going to buy health insurance after President Perry repeals Obamacare because they know they cannot trust the health insurance companies because of preexisting conditions. Health insurance companies will go bankrupt. The banking system will collapse when people remove their savings from the banks. Wall Street will collapse because nobody invests. Government will collapse when soldiers and policemen mutiny.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris You need to research how our healthcare industry got to the point it is at today - you are blaming capitalism for the deficiencies of the corporate cartel managed-care system we have now - how do you think this system came to be? Government caused this mess, dating back to the wage and price controls of WW2, the HMO Act of 1973, (Yes, government created the HMO system), coverage mandates, prohibitions on selling insurance across state lines - this was not a creation of the market.
gergenheimer 6 months ago
@gergenheimer You are only pointing that businessmen control the government. Thank you for proving my point.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris it doesn't prove your point - businesses are only able to circumvent competition and consumer demand by enlisting the agent of sanctioned violence - government. In other words, the corporate cartel in healthcare and all of its associated ills (lack of competition, high prices, etc.) can only persist because of government coercion. So, rather than blaming the "greed" of corporations, why not focus your attention on the agency that forces you to accept this situation - government.
gergenheimer 6 months ago
@AngeliqueEU That is like saying cancer is failing because it is killing the patient.
perdondaris 6 months ago
Call it what you like if you don't share and let the rich people even get richer and the working-poor (wages have not come up for some years now = turning a lot of people into working poor) and the poor cannot have shelter (appartment/house) and/or enough food for their children ... what a Nation of people you are then?
Right things are like this in the USA ... .
let the poor starve the rich people think!
it's their own fault .... isn't it????
No healthcare ... DIE !!!!
that's the USA
AngeliqueEU 6 months ago
Another one bites the dust.... now it's just Chomsky that's left, and he'll be pushing up daisies in a few years too.
TheGoldenKing20 6 months ago
I wonder how he'd respond to the problem with socialism that Hayek pointed out, the fatal conceit. Look it up
funfsinn14 6 months ago
@funfsinn14 Hayek, Mises, Rand etc. lived in ivory towers. Economists are the most unreliable prophets. Which isn't surprising considering they're purpose is creating and destroying castles in the sky and being lackeys for the powers that be. Give me a scientist who can use a shovel over some college professor who thinks he is hot shit because he is paid by a think tank.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris totally incorrect - do your homework - Mises and Hayek didn't live in "ivory towers" - both of them were harsh critics of the interventionist, Progressive, warfare/welfare states that became dominant during their era - and their careers suffered for it. By contrast, J.M. Keynes, who was a staunch supporter of interventionist, command-and-control economics, lived a life of wealth and privilege as a reward for being a lapdog of the ruling elite.
gergenheimer 6 months ago
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@gergenheimer "we can end poverty through a redistribution of wealth f"
Disphit, what is your PROBLEM?? Cant you READ, THINK or jsut LOOK UP FACTSS????
Idiot, if you remove the very economic incentive to work and strive for success by redistributing wealth, then this wealth is NOT BEING created, which was the case in 100 PERCENT of all COMMUNIST SHITHOLES!! Got it???!!!!
Name me only ONE eample where this WORKED! or ONE argument why it should!!
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
@perdondaris I don't stoop to trying to discredit people's ideas through character assassination. Neither do I attempt to look at any great thinker as a 'prophet' and neither should you be using that qualification. While there are many, what i like to call, "court" historians, economists, philosophers etc., I think it is simply ignorant to assert that any of those thinkers were that at all.
Regardless, I am forced to repeat myself: I simply wonder what Zinn would say about the Fatal Conceit.
funfsinn14 6 months ago
"means of production into the hands of the workers"
You want to have a saying in the company you work for??? Buy yourself shares of the company!!
") and not necessarily into the hand of a socialist state.""
Ah, really?? Now, lets imagine all means of production are owned by "workers" (what about farmers, non-workers, children, etc. here??? by the way?) ... and by which mechanism would you think do they make the strategic decisions?? And how would you call this kind of proces?? STATE!
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
@joaquinveyron farmers ARE workers. And whatever-the-fuck a non-worker is, tell it to get off its lazy ass. Children work their heads as students.
What "strategic decisions" whould have to be made in an egalitarian stateless society? Really? Think about it. "Oh, where do we put the extra bricks left over from this house we built?! OH GOD SOCIETY IS FALLING APART!" or, "Joe is knitting much faster than I am... Oh no! Who will fire me?!" or, "Hey! That woman is smoking c-c-cannabis!" State, derp.
Abnihilius 5 months ago
We will never have socialism in this country because the people here are so braindead stupid that they don't bother to read about what it is. I have given up on this moronic hyper-religious dumbass sister-fucking country. They will soon enough get the fascism they so deeply crave and deserve.
purpurpledog8 7 months ago
@purpurpledog8 Take the time to read some credible history (i.e not Howard Zinn) and learn some sound economic theory and you will have a revelation about the truly disgusting, anti-human nature of socialist ideas. When I graduated from college, I was a borderline communist. As I grew older, I learned more history, and within the last few years, I've discovered economics. I learned a simple lesson - any system like socialism that promises a 'free lunch' is not to be trusted. Educate yourself.
gergenheimer 7 months ago
@gergenheimer It's funny but I have had the exact opposite experience. And not from reading books or newspapers either. I actually lived in a socialist community. It wasn't a free lunch either. Everyone worked and contributed and everyone reaped the fruits of their own labor. It was the best experience of my life and I'm going back. But I have also lived and worked in the capitalist world. It was Hell every day. People stabbing each other in the back. Why? Ignorance, arrogance, greed and lying.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris Socialism can function in small, voluntary communal arrangements, where life is very simple and the scale is small. If it gives you satisfaction to live a simple agrarian lifestyle, I say do what makes you happy. Unfortunately, a complex, industrial economy cannot persist under a socialist paradigm, because without a nexus of consumer-driven prices to guide resource allocation, economic decisions are arbitrary. I suggest Mises' "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth".
gergenheimer 6 months ago
@gergenheimer That is the only way society can work. Otherwise you have a domineering bureaucratic regime with rulers out of touch with the ruled. Our complex industrial economy is collapsing. It is unsustainable--like a meth user who is consumed by his addiction. It is not about a command economy--which is what capitalism is also: your boss tells you what to do, governments set the parameters of enterprises and maintain private property and bankers and soldiers dictate government.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris our complex industrial economy is collapsing because we have forgotten how it came into existence. As a society, we came to believe that prosperity was not only a foregone conclusion but a birthright, - that everyone can afford to live at the expense of someone else, and we have the "right" to spend and consume to our heart's content, without ever having to save and produce. My boss is not my master - I can, and have, told bosses to go to hell - try telling the IRS to go to hell.
gergenheimer 6 months ago
@perdondaris I can tell you with certainty that the system you've lived under is not Capitalism - the U.S. hasn't had anything remotely like a capitalist economy in 100+ years. Ever since the Progressive era, government has burdened the voluntary sector of our society with an ever-increasing barrage of regulations, price & wage controls, mandates, tariffs, make-work projects, and - worst of all - our fractional reserve banking system and fiat paper currency. This is not Capitalism.
gergenheimer 6 months ago
@gergenheimer Yes, America is a capitalist country. The government does not burden capitalism with regulations. Those regulations save lives. Some regulations are bad obviously (like the war on drugs and some wrongheaded environmental laws that can be changed). But if you ignore a problem it isn't going to disappear. Libertarians are ostriches--you stick your head in the ground and hope the market or "god" fixes it. That philosophy has never worked.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris America is not remotely capitalist. There are MASSIVE amounts of regulations on every aspect of American business, especially the biggest job creators - small business. You obviously have never tried to start your own business, otherwise you would know this. Add to that huge taxes, seizure of property, nullification of contracts, eminent domain, etc. Capitalism is based on property rights, voluntary contracts, sound money and a working price system, none of which exists in the U.S.
gergenheimer 6 months ago
@gergenheimer Paper currency is part of capitalism just like the numbers on the board on Wall Street. Currency only has a real effect on the world through the judgements of men. Money is just paper. Gold is just a shiny metal. You can't eat it, you can't use it as fuel--you can only trade it for goods. It is an abstraction which men agree to. If men cease to believe gold has any value then it no longer does have any value.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris no society on earth has ever adopted an unbacked paper currency by organic, free-choice in the marketplace - it has always been imposed by government decree. Therefore, paper money is not an inherent feature of capitalism, but an inherent feature of Statism. By contrast, hundreds of cultures adopted gold and silver as money through the natural workings of the market, not because these metals are "magic", but because they possess properties that make them well-suited as monies.
gergenheimer 6 months ago
@gergenheimer Plenty of societies have existed without paper money--heck they've existed without markets also. The value of money is imposed by government decree. Paper money does not even belong to the holder in the legal sense. It is the property of the government. Now if you were to say no nation-state existed without money you would be correct. Nation-states, however, have existed for only a very tiny blip of human history.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris I think you misread my comment - yes, plenty of societies have existed without paper money - and a huge proportion of those societies naturally evolved gold and/or silver to be their money. Unbacked paper money has never been chosen in the marketplace, always in the halls and palaces of government.
gergenheimer 6 months ago
@gergenheimer Property rights only exist as abstractions. The value of money is also an abstraction. The price system is another abstraction. All of these abstractions are only agreements. The market does not exist. It is an agreement that humans make with each other. I never trusted economists. They spend all of their lives thinking up abstractions. The price of goods is based on agreement and is variable. Prices are not fixed by supply and demand because of human ignorance of supply.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris You are absolutely correct that the value of money and the price system are abstractions, now you need to consider the ramifications of that truth. In a free market, producers use prices (and profits) as a variable signal of their success at satisfying consumer wants, and consumers use prices as a gauge against their subjective values - each person chooses their actions based on their own values as measured against the organically-derived nexus of prices in the economy.
gergenheimer 6 months ago
@perdondaris You are also correct that "the market" is an abstraction, it is not a real thing - it is a semantic construct that serves as a proxy for the sum of voluntary actions of individuals. But it is important to realize, therefore, that the State is also an abstraction, serving as proxy for the coercive actions of some individuals against others. I happen to favor the abstraction that promotes voluntary cooperation, as opposed to the abstraction of arbitrary force.
gergenheimer 6 months ago
@gergenheimer There are free lunches. I have had free lunches. People get free lunches all of the time. Heck if you win the lottery (or get rich by another fluke of fortune like inheritance) you have free lunches for the rest of your life. The reason institutions like governments and churches are anti-socialist is because the people who run those organizations own everything. The conservative economists just provide concepts to alleviate the consciences of their employers.
perdondaris 6 months ago
@perdondaris you are engaged in superficial thinking, not sound economic reasoning. If you are given a "free" lunch, that is only possible because someone else exerted the effort to create it, and "free" to you, simply means that someone else, somewhere, bore the cost for you. You see, causality is a stickler like that - everything that is consumed must first be produced - even "free" lunches must be paid for by someone - the magical superstitions of socialism can't alter reality.
gergenheimer 6 months ago
@gergenheimer "who disagrees with you is an idiot."
Who is disagreeing?? Since when do you call ignoraing, distortioning FACTs to disagree??
I do not fancy red China. Certainly not. China is good eample what NEOLIBERAL reforms do for the people: under Mao the GDP per capita was 100 € p.a., 45 mio. STARVED to DEATH 1958-62 alone. Thanks to MARKET reforms, the CHinese GDP and income increased 60 times fold!!!, 1.3 bn. Chinese have enough to eat. 450 mio. live in relative prosperity now.
joaquinveyron 6 months ago
THATS SOCIALISM!!!!!!
xtremelygoodlookin 7 months ago
@babayabadabadu
Oh, wow, now THAT is a statement worthy of your intellect! lol
Zinn's followers are MORONS, and Zinn remains a nut job.
jolow2 8 months ago
The best solution is Distributism (see wikipedia) which is equidistant from both capitalism and socialism. It seeks to break up monopoly which concentrates capital and power in too few hands and to encourage the widest possible ownership of private property to individuals beyond all centralist models.
0rbis2010 8 months ago
@0rbis2010 I agree, but the only distinction between Distributism and left socialism or participatory economics is that distributism evolved from Catholic schools of thought like liberation theology.
DeePhlat 7 months ago
Zinn is an idiot and so are his kool aid drinkers
jolow2 9 months ago
@jolow2 Cool opinion, bro!
kingofqwerty 9 months ago
@jolow2 .wow zinn is an idiot.How easy to completely disregard a whole lifetime of work in a single sentence. Complete failures and nobodies like you do nothing in any field, who havnt got a clue aboutt he works or ideas of zinn, and just diminish a man by calling him an idiot.This idiot fought in ww2,if not for your complete lack of common sense or intelligence,at least respect him in that way,one of the few things you mouth breathers are good for.
laudrup90 8 months ago
@laudrup90
Wow, so I am an idiot for disagreeing with Zinn? He IS an idiot, I don't care if he had 3 lifetimes to perfect his idiotic dribble. You don't even know a smidgen of who I am but yet you seem to have all the answers like the idiot. I have no respect for people who get cheap laughs from an audience of mush minds.
jolow2 8 months ago
When some think of socialism, they immediately envision the Soviet Union, or other "Stalinist" "communist states". What it actually was was a top-down, centralized approach to socialism. What this led to was a society in which an unelected bureaucracy owned and controlled the means of production. Which isn't communal ownership of property - it's more like a system of state capitalism. Bottom-up approaches to socialism, like the Paris Commune, are the answer to human liberation.
markjones8913 11 months ago
Once the means of production and the wealth of the owning class seized, counterrevolution becomes impossible. Private ownership of the means of production becomes impossible. The exploitation for profit of one person by another becomes impossible. In such a world, where society is stateless, classless, with the means of production in the ownership and democratic control of workers - this is communism.
markjones8913 11 months ago
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@markjones8913 "Once the means of production and the wealth of the owning class seized, counterrevolution becomes impossible."
Don't count on it, pinhead. People tend to get a bit uppity when someone steals their property.
MillionthUsername 8 months ago
Capitalism is a system where the means of production (businesses, resources, land - productive property in general) are privately owned, operated for a profit extracted from the unpaid labor of workers. Socialism describes a society in which the means of production are commonly owned and democratically controlled by workers, where a state may exist in order to suppress counterrevolution against the workers. An example of counterrevolution would be the invasion of Vietnam by the US.
markjones8913 11 months ago
Howard Zinn was full of shit. I don't even need to listen to him that much to figure it out. Sure America is an empire, and has always existed to exploit people. Sure civilization is the domestication of man. But somehow the tenure of liberal college professors like Zinn and Chomsky are not privilege, or property. Somehow socialism is not a system of exploitation, even though in every country where it is practiced, just like capitalism, it results in exploitation. How can it be otherwise
JasonDamisch 1 year ago
@JasonDamisch "Somehow socialism is not a system of exploitation"
"just like capitalism, it results in exploitation."
Except one system is benefiting a majority instead of the very few.
donnyforte2 11 months ago
@JasonDamisch
No,of course you don't need to listen.Because no matter how long you would listen,it would inevitably be useless,since shit-heads like you are too hopelessly stupid to ever learn anything
watayapupuya 10 months ago
@JasonDamisch Zinn and Chomsky were/are anarchists, with some albeit reformist tendencies. They were both highly critical of the State socialist societies you refer to.
agapeiron 9 months ago
@agapeiron They're both posers who use "anarchism" to defray criticism against them. They always push socialist doctrines and support socialist policies. You can see Zinn here praising the increase of taxes. He gets the audience to laugh by feigning shock at "oh, that's socialism? That's good!" Chomsky even made millions being subsidized by the Pentagon, so he has even less credibility than Zinn who never really reached Chomsky's exalted social parasite hypocrite status.
MillionthUsername 8 months ago
@JasonDamisch .you dont need to listen because you are yet another poison int he us democratic system.You dont read the views properly,are quick to give your own worthless opinion and brand people whatever you deem fit.Mouth breathers.....
laudrup90 8 months ago
Why they laughing for? Idiots besides zinn he has a brain but no theory
bloody1110 1 year ago
I wonder if it is the collective's job to abolish heterosexuality?
JasonDamisch 1 year ago
@JasonDamisch
Mental health professionals are available for you. Just ask for help.
tad0026 1 year ago
Its been a year now and still its hard to believe he's gone.
Great stuff...
Unulithrill 1 year ago
Im an anarchist. Big ups to my main man Howard Zinn. I live in Chicago but didn't go to this. Him and Chomsky r great men but I like Zinn alot more. Rip Howard Zinn.
Ratm4life 1 year ago
indeed, they took Poland (or at least half of it) along with some of the Baltic States in 1939, invaded Finland in the late 1930s, retook Belarus, took into its fold the areas of Central Asia that are today Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyztan, and invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s to prop up a puppet Marxist government.
As Lenin told his followers in regard to their Internationalist Duty to the World Proletariat: "Probe with the Bayonet..."
Consrvatev 1 year ago
@ManicStreetStevO What? When did he die?
MikeSkiera 1 year ago
@MikeSkiera yeah, he died back in February-ish
Consrvatev 1 year ago
@Consrvatev Well that sucks. I have a first edition of APHOTUS. By far the best history I have ever read.
MikeSkiera 1 year ago
Aquafina: the preferred water of Howard Zinn
Nicetry75 1 year ago
class!! love it
jammatoonarmy 1 year ago
Good...finally...he's dead.
Now rest in piss...
ASentinel2 1 year ago