It’s not a secret, we know who the billionaires are that are funding this madness, but the only people that could put a stop to it, are the ones benefiting from them.
It makes sense if they’re pulling out of the stock market entirely, in that case it’s just settling the books. Any other reason is to manipulate the price. The whole stock market is a house of cards controlled directly by a few self-titled elites though, so chicanery is literally built in and always was.
I agree. I could live with it if it were merely a way to defer taxes, but the U.S. has something called the stepped-up basis. This allows people to inherit stocks without paying tax on the capital gains. The wealthy can live their whole lives without paying any tax. Both stock buy-backs and the stepped-up basis severely undermine the stock market and tax system.
I am an MBA and agree that buybacks are fine. The problem is toxic anti-capitalism from my perspective. People are not really educated well on these topics. I find your comment funny that an army of accountants come to explain things and help everyone understand the nuances and why this is needed, but all the experts are somehow shills.
It’s not like capitalism is doing itself (or the 99%) any favors. When it’s blatantly clear that the ultra rich and short-term profit seeking are responsible for a lot of world problems (extreme pollution, climate change, corruption, being essentially immune to most laws), being “toxic anti-capitalist” is a natural step.
That was probably more valid before WW2. Afterwards, it’s mostly government (military) spending and financing that really funded the innovations we’re using today, at least regarding computers and electronics
The modern PC was developed in a garage. Linux was a pet project. Uber and many other companies was funded by the previous success of another app. The owner sold StumbleUpon to eBay for $75M then used that money to make a killer rideshare app. SpaceX, Tesla, Streaming media. I beg to differ on whether most innovation is government funded. There are thousands of entrepreneurs that prove you wrong on that point.
The USA version of a modern PC, overseas the brits were fiddling with their own versions. It was only possible because the govt spent loads of money financing companies into creating electronics. If not for the USA govt needs and the competition arising from that, its unlikely Silicon Valley would be what it is today, and Steves Wozniak and Jobs probably wouldn’t have access to cheap chips.
Linux was a pet project
Of a university student, not an entrepreneur, and something he did because he didn’t want to pay for a license of MINIX, not for financial gain.
Uber
Is a piece of shit that just tacked together existing technologies and abused a completely unregulated space to grow and dominate the market.
SpaceX
Wouldn’t exist if the USA gov’t didn’t get its shit together after the initial successes of the URSS’s space program. Look how long it took until private companies began bothering with space without direct funding from a government.
There are thousands of entrepreneurs that prove you wrong on that point.
Most of them relying either directly or indirectly on the shoulders of gov’t funded innovation that likely wouldn’t have happened otherwise, especially any company dealing with space. The internet would either have taken longer to develop or be much different without the ARPA Net as a forerunner, for instance. Most of its innovation afterwards came from universities, not entrepreneurs. More often than not, entrepreneurs take existing technologies and find a way to profit on top of them.
Pricing together existing technologies to create new innovations is exactly how things have always worked. We stand on the shoulder of giants. It is the reason why many discoveries happen simultaneously in different parts of the world. Because the latest understanding and tools available make the next innovation possible. Saying that Uber is shit for making a GPS enabled app that can act as a commissioned merchant service is like saying anyone that uses AWS is a bad company because they don’t host their own servers. SpaceX filling in a government void is a great entrepreneur story and puts the scope on how significant government overspending is. The internet would have come about even without ARPANET. University labs were already messing around with these systems and were all working towards transmission protocols.
abused a completely unregulated space to grow and dominate the market
And I didn’t even mention how they began fucking their “partners” (drivers) after their place was consolidated. Not too different from what Amazon did for years to grow into “the” online marketplace despite competition.
When I said that capitalism doesn’t do itself any favors, the reasoning was mainly that. Any innovations or “innovations” are beside the point when the companies and people with a certain amount of money can simply bend the rules to their will. The Microsoft antitrust case in the late 90s became a nothingburger. FacebookMeta after the Cambridge Analytica scandal turned into nothing. Amazon can probably buy its way out of a possible antitrust suit, which is still “being considered”. There’s a reason people joke about “finger wagging” and “wrist slapping” being the biggest punishment the rich ever get
Sorry for the late reply. Busy week being a slave to the system. Need to work hard to play hard though.
Uber did exactly what it should have. It tapped into a blue ocean, creating a brand new vertical in a stale market. This is capitalism at its best, bringing something innovative and useful into the world.
They never presented the gig economy as a career path. It’s a side hustle. Anyone complaining that they can’t feed their family off it is missing the point. It was meant to be something that you do with your car in between jobs for some extra spending money.
I agree that we have an issue with those in power not enforcing market regulation. Plato predicted this too. These are not new concepts by any means. He also said that redistribution of wealth doesn’t work either. His utopian society was a bit wired though. I don’t like the part where no one owns anything.
If anything we need a reset of congressional term limits. That alone might help get more interesting people into politics.
I agree. They need to do a reverse split if they want to change the shares in circulation.
The idea was a company could show faith by buying their own stock. Now ceo pay is tied to factors associated with the stock that can be manipulated by buying it back.
The IBM bro Ginny made millions while the company shrunk by manipulating the stock.
I don’t care what a ceo makes. I do care what they do. If they’re only focusing on themselves, I care.
If I’m being honest, I don’t understand this angle. Why are stock buybacks immoral or wrong? Isn’t it simply using extra cash in a company to buy back stock from shareholders? With the same demand and reduced total stock, of course the price is going to go up. But the total market capitalization remains the same. I don’t understand why this is somehow wrong. Can someone help me out?
Because executive pay is largely given in shares, so it incentivizes the leadership to invest funds in buy backs to inflate the price of the very shares they own instead of investing that money into employee pay or other company centric initiatives.
The other reply is correct regarding the macro effects of the practise. The more immediate issue is that it allows shareholders to avoid paying dividend taxes. So they can effectively defer paying taxes until they realise any capital gains. This is a huge benefit, as the present value of money is worth much more than the future value of money. However there is an even larger benefit in the U.S. Dependents can inherit stocks at the current price and avoid paying any capital gains tax. This is called the “stepped-up basis.” It’s an insane tax loophole. Together stock buy-backs and the stepped-up basis allow the ultra wealthy to pay little to no tax, ever. They take out perpetual loans to pay for living expenses, guaranteed against their holdings.
It’s very obviously is. Stock buybacks aren’t allowed almost anywhere else in the world for a reason. It just leads to terrible behavior. This coupled with insanely low effective corporate tax rates means companies horde capital and do buybacks instead of doing other activities that are more economically beneficial to the country. Like increasing worker pay…
The free market is one idea, but how about legislation to force insurance companies to pay out for illnesses that natural born human beings get and stop screwing Americans.
The free market is supposed to be about competition, that’s why basically every industry in the US is made up of 3-5 mega corps that collude together to fuck Americans.
Insurance industry is like a 500m sprint where every runner has agreed to only walk. Hence nobody has better service, no innovation, costs are high and customers lose out.
This is not meant to be dismissive but this maybe the best paying job for ops area/experience. They may not have the means to get a better job. While I understand the need to actually contribute to society. Starving to achieve that isn’t going to help anyone.
You mean because money reigns above all people who have none will take jobs they normally wouldn’t because they’re fucking starving???
Almost like we should take care of the poor so they won’t have to take these parasitic jobs (which are created by parasitic people at the top not the bottom) and can survive???
Take your “altruistic” bullshit somewhere where people can survive comfortably on the bare minimum.
And since those places barely exist outside of small areas I would say please hold your breath. That way at least a piece of shit dies instead of someone who performed the crime of being born poor
I’d starve before harming others like that, and on more than one occasion in life I’ve opted the course that was more damaging to myself because of that reason. Pity you’re too selfish to say the same. I’m going to go ahead and block you though because you’ve shown me clearly that I don’t want to read anything you have to say, so thanks for that at least. Good luck with figuring out how not to be human garbage.
It’s one thing to ask someone to make a sacrifice for a cause, it’s another to tell someone to starve themselves, and potentially their family, to death if they are completely unable to get a job which doesn’t require them to work for someone who is a leech on society. At least attempt to understand the context.
Most jobs do nothing to actually help society. Our society is not designed towards the benefit of the many but towards the generation of capital. Those sometimes overlap, but usually they don’t.
Man people really set up the strawmen here. Congress has literally said it’s about foreign influence, not about protecting children. It has absolutely nothing to do with kids. It has to do with China influencing the citizens of the United States to do things that are beneficial to China, against the interests of the US government.
It’s not a ban, if China gives up control of the app to a United States entity then there’s no problem. It has absolutely nothing to do with protecting children.
Who are they worried China is going to influence? Children, right? If it’s adults, that’s almost more insulting, they think we don’t deserve to be able to see all sides of an argument and are too stupid to discern fact from fiction. We may as well dispense with free expression entirely at that point because the government can just say “you’re too stupid to read this and we’re worried you’ll be influenced, so you can only read the books we’ve pre-approved for you”
It is every American’s right to think freely, to speak those thoughts to others, and to have others have the opportunity to hear those thoughts whether or not they are “good influences” according to govt. It is wild how easily people are willing to throw that right away for fears of “foreign influence”. What’s next, banning TV shows from foreign countries because they might “corrupt our culture”? Banning books with subversive topics because they will “give people bad ideas”?. This is how the road to fascism begins.
Who are they worried China is going to influence? Children, right? If it’s adults, that’s almost more insulting, they think we don’t deserve to be able to see all sides of an argument and are too stupid to discern fact from fiction.
Yeah fam, you and me are definitely way too smart to ever be manipulated by military units whose sole job is to effectively manipulate large swaths of the population.
The answer is everyone. They’re worried about anyone and everyone, because they do it also.
Good point. We are all vulnerable to manipulation and should only read content that is approved by the US Govt. Anybody who breaks this rule should go to jail. That is for our safety ✅
Yeah they’re clearly here because they think they have no chance of getting manipulated, that they’re better than others, or even that they think this is some sort of free speech thing. Sorry bud, that’s not how it works. The government routinely bans things that cause foreign influence, it’s just usually not at this scale and not something people are addicted to and use as their news.
Is there any chance that the fact you’re lemmy.ml user might be an indication that you’re not looking at this completely objectionally? I’m not for the ban either but that doesn’t mean I can’t be honest about the reasons for it.
You shouldn’t have to personally defend yourself or this post. They want to censor your speech the same way the government wants to censor Tik Tok. So much for liberal personal freedoms.
The problem that many people have with this argument that “China is going to influence us” isn’t that we are immune to influence, its that the argument sounds extremely hallow when our own native social media manipulates the absolute shit out of us already… like what is China going to do that our own country isn’t already doing.
This is the argument you hear from people on tiktok about why they don’t care about the governments concern.
Well that and how its kind of disgusting how completely unified the house is in this bill, but couldn’t give a shit about wealth inequality, corporate ownership of residential housing, rampant inflation, rising homelessness, school shootings.
Yep. Unfortunately both the left and right in the US seem to have free speech in their crosshairs one way or another. The right with “don’t say gay”, their book bans, and war on drag, the left with the TikTok ban, wanting the government to be able to define and regulate “misinformation” on social media, etc. The long-term protectors of free speech like the ACLU have even done a pivot away from free speech cases because they perceive them as unpopular.
Congress has literally said it’s about foreign influence
Which is also a lie. The likes of Twitter, Facebook and Google are just as beholden to foreign governments such as the fascist regimes of India, Israel, Myanmar and others. They pay the people in Congress a lot more in legal bribes, though, so they can basically get away with anything.
It’s not a ban, if China gives up control of the app to a United States entity then there’s no problem.
Imagine the uproar if China demanded that Google stopped being a US military contractor…
What the whole thing is about is empty symbolic rhetoric and xenophobia in an election year and oppressive measures to go with it.
Google was blocked in China in 2014 for refusing to censor search results. Now search results are censored and must go through their Hong Kong subsiduary. The last part is what the US Government is asking for TikTok to do right?
China already bans and censors loads of apps and websites already so I don’t think looking at what they do in this instance is a good idea.
China did that. We criticized them for it. Now we’re turning around and doing it. “We should get to do it because insert dictator here does it” isn’t a great argument.
Okay. Which part of what I written makes you think that? I thought my second paragraph was enough to say China doing things is not a reason to do things.
Imagine the uproar if China demanded that Google stopped being a US military contractor.
China is actively demanding that all Chinese companies excise American hardware and software from their technology stacks. They know that they can’t divorce a US tech company headquartered in the US from the US intelligence agencies, so it is the next best option. This is colloquially known in China as “Delete A” or “Delete America”. Who is being xenophobic again?
Ok, China is a bad example, except as what not to do.
As you pointed out yourself, this bill is Congress acting like the oppressive Chinese government rather than the liberal democracy the US likes to pretend to be.
If Facebook could be considered a nefarious conspiracy (or at least subservient to the powers engaging in said conspiracy), why is it unbelievable that TikTok could also be?
Because Facebook has been PROVEN to knowingly allow widespread coordinated election tampering (Cambridge Analytica, for example) and steering users towards far right pages and groups,
Tiktok is only SUSPECTED based on association with China and furthermore has a much smaller user base and therefore less impact if they DO run election influence campaigns like Facebook does.
The US could, if there was the political will, hold Facebook accountable for this because Meta is an American company. The US would not be able to hold a non-American company accountable in the same way. I do not see a conflict between wanting Meta held accountable for allowing things like Cambridge Analytica to occur and not minding the US taking proactive action on TikTok.
Is the US unable to hold Tiktok accountable or is it/should it be allowed to dictate the ownership of Tiktok?
I’d argue it’s neither. The US is perfectly within their rights to enforce US laws within the US, including towards companies not based in the US. That’s literally what being a sovereign nation means.
As for forcing the change of ownership of a company that hasn’t been found guilty of anything but SUSPICION based on ASSOCIATION, that’s some banana republic demagoguery nonsense designed to make right wing voters think that politicians up for re-election are “tough on China” and centrists think they’re “standing up for democracy”.
It’s not “proactive”, it’s oppressive and unjustified.
Is the US unable to hold Tiktok accountable or is it/should it be allowed to dictate the ownership of Tiktok?
I was wrong, TikTok has a US subsidiary, so accountability can been enforced. I was under the mistaken impression they didn’t, so operating on the assumption that any accountability action would be functionally unenforceable.
The difference being that this is about protecting sensitive data like trade secrets, in a complex ecosystem that is impossible to fully oversee. Many western governments have banned Huawei from 5g network components for the same reason and that is solid reasoning.
But with TikTok it is a very different story. Nobody needs to use it. People are using it voluntarily. In regards to steering people to bad content through its algorithm, it is no different from Facebook or Instagram. The argument @Viking_Hippie made is valid.
It is not about preventing foreign or private influence that his harmful to the citizens. It is about controling that influence.
It is not about preventing foreign or private influence that his harmful to the citizens. It is about controling that influence.
No, it is about preventing foreign influence on citizens. The fact that some level of control (or more accurately accountability) can be exerted by the US government on companies like Meta is true but unrelated. If ByteDance was a company in the EU we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Its worth adding, TikTok in China (it’s called something else, I’m blanking) is entirely controlled on the state and there is absolutely no way that it would be permitted to host any political discussion or advocate mass action not approved by the state. Their “Hey call your congressman” stunt was the most idiotic PR move ever, because they demonstrated that this company is willing and able to leverage the userbase in the US in ways that would never be permitted in “West Taiwan”.
I was with you until you childishly suggested that the rightful rulers of China are an imperial dynasty rather than the will of the people. It’s like calling America West England and claiming Charles is the rightful ruler because you disagree with the Vietnam War.
But yeah china would never allow free expression on their version of tiktok but let’s ban free expression because china does is a bad argument. Let’s make choices based entirely on merit and circumstance.
No. But that’s not the point. America’s government allows foreign aid interests to buy land and other property in America. Should they ban all of it, even if it crashes the economy?
Damn straight they should. No foreign entity should own any American land. Same goes for Canada too, with the obvious problem being their housing crisis caused by foreign real estate investment.
I think Americans need to absorb a bit more global context about the left-right spectrum. I see people saying that policies like universal health care, access to abortion, basic worker rights and affordable education are “far left”. Most of the proposed policies of the left in the US are centrist in the rest of the Western world. Unless you are advocating for a Communist regime along the lines of the Soviet Union or Maoist China, you aren’t really “far left”. Similarly, unless someone is advocating for a fascist dictator state, we should probably not call them “far right”. Of course, that is what Trumpists advocate for, so they really are far right!
We’re “not allowed” to. The concept of comparing our politics to elsewhere around the world is chastised. “It’s not the same here!” “They have a longer history” “they share a common culture!” (far right for “skin color”)
Any excuse under the sun to keep the right as being viewed as closer to “center” and to misrepresent centrist policies as “far left” so we get no progress and all the arguments.
It’s really interesting how the right has embraced moral relativism on a case-by-case basis. Often it is a strategy to quarantine/localize ideas, so as to avoid the need to reconcile them to any broader worldview.
It’s also a strategy for insulating ideas and events from history that they want to shelter from criticism, like criticizing slavery, theocracy, monarchism, etc. I’ve seen real cases in the wild where criticism of slavery was dismissed as “presentism”, as inappropriately imposing present day moral values.
I’ve noticed that too and found it counterintuitive. The other thing is free market economics. I would expect conservatives to embrace moral traditionalism and economic intervention but currently it’s the opposite…
There are quite a few actual leftists on Lemmy. I don’t think they’re confused and as the meme suggests, they’re rather vocal.
Meanwhile Trump and other far right people have tried to brand liberals as “radical left” which is just silly, but a lot of news sources seem content to parrot alt-right rhetoric. One thing the Republican Party has always been good at is poisoning the well.
Those terms are so vague and have so different meanings to a lot of people that I often avoid using them… I recently read the idea that egalitarian=left // strong hierarchy=right and it kinda makes sense, but it’s still quite debatable
Generally it’s better to separate views by who supports them, and who they benefit. Leftists tend to support the Proletariat, whereas rightists tend to support the bourgeoisie.
I’m not sure its that easy nowadays, when lots of freelancers and self-exploiters struggle while being considered bourgeoisie. Or at least, not “proletariat”. The lines are not as clear as they used to be.
If you’re working five days a week for a living, you’re not really a part of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie are the business owners, not the business managers and assistants. At best, a freelancer with no employees under them would be petite-bourgeoisie. You wouldn’t graduate to the bourgeoisie until you have a few employees under yourself, who take care of the day-to-day operations.
A lone freelancer is just a step away from an employee, with none of the legal protections. Hire a manager to run the day-to-day op, and employees to do the grunt work, thus freeing yourself up to sit back and collect profits. Then you would start to be the bourgeoisie, because you only need to check in to ensure everything is running smoothly and occasionally sign some new contracts. The majority of your time isn’t being spent at work for someone else.
Except there are a ton of right wing positions that don’t benefit anyone except the politicians who use them to keep their supporters angry and afraid. I’d go so far as to say left wing policies are primarily about helping people and right wing policies are primarily about hurting people.
Reactionary proletarians are victims of bourgeois culture wars, it’s the fascist anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT rhetoric that serves as a distraction. That doesn’t make the GOP a Worker party even if some workers vote for the GOP.
Left vs Right isn’t about Democrat vs Republican, but class interests and dynamics.
Council communists and Anarchists generally qualify for far-left status. (Or, differently put, council communism is methadone therapy for Marxists who don’t yet dare make the jump to syndicalism).
authoritarianism and far-left are mutually exclusive.
You’re correct, believing that “authoritarian” is a well defined or meaningful term and not just a snarl word created during the cold war to equivocate communists and Nazis is incompatible with being far-left
The first use of authoritarian is in 1852, in the writings of AJ Davis apparently. Here’s the quote:
1856 A. J. Davis Penetralia 129 Does any one believe that the Book is essential to Salvation? Yes; there are many externalists and authoritarians who think so.
Authoritarian was also increasing in usage well before the cold war, beginning around 1910 or so. An example from Nationalism and Culture by Rudolf Rocker, written in 1933:
Nietzsche also had a profound conception of this truth, although his inner disharmony and his constant oscillation between outlived authoritarian concepts and truly libertarian ideas all his life prevented him from drawing the natural deductions from it.
That’s a thoroughly modern use of the word authoritarian, written almost 15 years before the start of the cold war. Authoritarian is used to describe those who support hierarchial systems of government. That’s the short and sweet of it, perhaps not a perfect dictionary definition but it illustrates the distinctive bit. Auth-left ideologies get equivocated with fascism because there’s an undeniable ideological throughline between the two, no matter how much they hate each other.
"The working class […] cannot be left wandering all over Russia. They must be thrown here and there, appointed, commanded, just like soldiers […] Compulsion of labour will reach the highest degree of intensity during the transition from capitalism to socialism […] Deserters from labour ought to be formed into punitive battalions or put into concentration camps.’
Trotsky wrote that. It may not be 1:1 but the similarities between his ideas and those.of fascists are pretty obvious.
All of this, written before the cold war. Tell me again how authoritarian is a made up word that serves only to slander “communists”?
Thank you for the detailed background on that. People often resort to No True Scotsman claims to disavow bad elements from the group they support, or better yet toss them to their rivals. But honestly the more an entity is pulled away from center along the authoritarian/liberal axis, the less meaningful any left/right distinction becomes.
I just wanted to clarify, I’m not an authoritarian. I’m an anarchist. And the left/right distinction still does matter very much along the authoritarian/libertarian axis. I don’t think much of auth-left ideologies but I hold them in much better regard than fascists. There are similarities, but they are no where near the same. And liberalism is a center right authoritarian ideology
On Authority is one of my absolute favourites because it’s so ludicrously bourgeois. “Oh, you Anarchists”, quoth Engels, “All you amount to is saying that a stone falls down when let go, and that having to hold it up so that it doesn’t fall down, to have to bow to that authority, is oppressive”.
Maybe, Friedrich, your workers don’t mind dealing with the necessities and physical processes of yarn and cloth manufacture, what they mind is not being able to fire your ass for saying excessively over-reductive shit like that.
On Authority is one of my absolute favourites because it’s so ludicrously bourgeois
Are you really saying “Engels was bourgeois, therefore the argument he’s making is bourgeois”? lol
“All you amount to is saying that a stone falls down when let go, and that having to hold it up so that it doesn’t fall down, to have to bow to that authority, is oppressive”.
Tell me how you haven’t read it even more. Because he’s actually concluding:
When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the following: Yes, that’s true, but there it is not the case of authority which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted! These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.
Read the paragraphs directly before: Engels refers to “arguments as these”, so we can safely assume that the example he gives there is representative. What’s his example? Safety in railway operations.
That, indeed, is not a job for a delegate, a person chosen by council to represent the council in a bigger council, a political position which comes with no authority, but one of a safety commissioner, a person who was entrusted with, granted authority, by a council to enact necessary safety procedures for the common good. The railway safety commissioner would be choosen by the railway workers. Someone they trust to be a stickler to details and procedure.
Both, btw, are recallable on the spot should they abuse their positions, or turn out to not be suitable for other reasons.
This is not a mere “changing of names”, the tasks are completely different in character and the levels of authority could not be any more different. What Engels seems to be incapable of conceiving is that an e.g. city council doesn’t have authority over a neighbourhood council. That the delegates the neighbourhood councils choose come together in a city council and then precisely not dictate to the neighbourhood councils what they’re supposed to do. That’s your brain on hierarchy.
So, yes, Engels concludes that he’s right. And thereby proves that he either a) didn’t understand what the anti-auths were telling him or b) didn’t care, as authoritarians are prone to do when challenged on the necessity of there being rulers.
As to “labour cannot be organised without hierarchy” in general: It’s long been proven false. There’s a gazillion of examples in which it has done. There are, right now, armies out there operating without hierarchy that are fighting both Cartels and ISIS, very successfully so. If armies can be organised like that, surely it does work for ice cream factories. Stick to materialism, please, your idealist claim doesn’t become true by repeating it.
That, indeed, is not a job for a delegate, a person chosen by council to represent the council in a bigger council, a political position which comes with no authority, but one of a safety commissioner, a person who was entrusted with, granted authority, by a council to enact necessary safety procedures for the common good.
granted authority
authority
?
This is not a mere “changing of names”, the tasks are completely different in character and the levels of authority could not be any more different. What Engels seems to be incapable of conceiving is that an e.g. city council doesn’t have authority over a neighbourhood council. That the delegates the neighbourhood councils choose come together in a city council and then precisely not dictate to the neighbourhood councils what they’re supposed to do. That’s your brain on hierarchy.
So how can you organize anything if noone tells anyone what to do? People just suddenly know? How is that supposed to work? Who decides the level of authority? Another authority?
a) didn’t understand what the anti-auths were telling him
Literally changing the name of “authority” to “granted authority”. You only changed the name of things. Engels is making the argument on the materiality of authority. That even if the authority is granted, it’s an authority. He is referring to whatever makes the organization happen as authority (even when granted).
And says that without this (authority) organization is impossible. Which makes sense.
b) authoritarians are prone to do when challenged on the necessity of there being rulers.
So how can you organize anything if noone tells anyone what to do? People just suddenly know?
You talk to other people and agree on a plan of action? Have you ever, in your life, interacted with people?
That even if the authority is granted, it’s an authority.
One example doesn’t even grant any authority: A delegate has no authority.
If you OTOH now try to pull semantics and say “but by being convinced by other people of a joint plan of action, they have authority over you”, or “A delegate has the authority to do as they’re told by their council” then you’re doing the “holding up a stone thing”: You make authority such a broad term that not just organisation, but physics itself is impossible without it. Or, in different words: It’s playing dumb. You hear what Anarchists are saying, including their definitions of authority, of distinguishing power-to against power-over, and say “but the stone has authority over you that’s silly”!
You talk to other people and agree on a plan of action? Have you ever, in your life, interacted with people?
Yes but than the plan of action takes form of authority. Which is the point that Engels makes.
One example doesn’t even grant any authority: A delegate has no authority.
Then noone is required to take the delegate serious. The delegate enjoys no authority and there’s no organization happening as everybody is free to do whatever th fuck they want.
holding up a stone thing”: You make authority such a broad term that not just organisation, but physics itself is impossible without it.
Only when you take it in in bad faith, because we’re talking about people and not inanimate objects (stones). The definition of anarchists is just another social construct that basically describes authority…
Yes but than the plan of action takes form of authority. Which is the point that Engels makes.
It is an extension to the libertarian notion of authority that Engels makes.
Suppose you and your comrades are are at a party conference in another city, and, in a wild bout of anti-authoritarianism, you’re talking among yourselves which restaurant to go to instead of following party orders. Maybe it’s just an oversight, the responsible buerocrat didn’t do their job. Anyway the obstacle is not insurmountable, the choice is not very contentious, some people have preference, one’s a vegan, but in the end you all agree that Mexican is a perfectly fine choice.
Then, out of nowhere, a KGB agent appears saying “Now it would be a shame if someone changed their mind about eating Mexican and would need to be sent to Gulag, would it, after all, we can’t have a decision without subsequent imposition of authority”.
Then noone is required to take the delegate serious.
The delegate is taken just as serious as the council they represent. They are, after all, the representative of that council. If you ignore what the delegate says, you’re ignoring what the council says. But the authority is that of the council, not of the delegate.
The definition of anarchists
Council communists have a compatible definition, btw. It’s only Bolsheviks and their descendants who disagree because they can’t stand workers actually having a say in things, see the Trotsky quote before. That is authoritarianism. You can’t declare it away by playing semantic games.
Suppose you and your comrades are are at a party conference in another city, and, in a wild bout of anti-authoritarianism, you’re talking among yourselves which restaurant to go to instead of following party orders. Maybe it’s just an oversight, the responsible buerocrat didn’t do their job. Anyway the obstacle is not insurmountable, the choice is not very contentious, some people have preference, one’s a vegan, but in the end you all agree that Mexican is a perfectly fine choice. Then, out of nowhere, a KGB agent appears saying “Now it would be a shame if someone changed their mind about eating Mexican and would need to be sent to Gulag, would it, after all, we can’t have a decision without subsequent imposition of authority”.
Basically you’re arguing against the state, which we sure both want. The abolishion of class society, meaning one class is not subjugating it’s will on another, be it capitalist or a socialist state bureaucrats.
I think that without a state you cannot abolish the existing forces that give rise to class society as it’s not a even playing field between labour and capital. You need a form of authority to make the reorganization of political economy possible.
The delegate is taken just as serious as the council they represent. They are, after all, the representative of that council. If you ignore what the delegate says, you’re ignoring what the council says. But the authority is that of the council, not of the delegate.
authority is that of the council
authority
How are you not aware of what you’re saying? Do you want me to do an anarchist caricature of going to the restaurant like you did in your example? Only the proper application would be of the building the restaurant and how noone likes to do the actual work of building it as everyone is free not to do it. There’s no authority. If you tell me that the hunger is the authority im going to laugh
Basically you’re arguing against the state, which we sure both want.
You are aware that communism, too, not just anarchism, is a stateless society?
(Side note: In the ole socialist definition of “state”. Both still qualify for the modern political theory definition of state which bogs down to “a people, a territory, a type of governing system (organisation)”. Gotta be careful with that one it often gets confused).
I think that without a state you cannot abolish the existing forces that give rise to class society as it’s not a even playing field between labour and capital.
Indeed, without state power labour would have the upper hand. You saw that in the Russian revolution where workers very quickly formed soviets and kept things running. Then the Bolsheviks re-established state power, deliberately destroying horizontal worker organisation with hierarchical structure, and everything went to shit.
Then, going back a tiny bit:
The abolishion of class society, meaning one class is not subjugating it’s will on another, be it capitalist or a socialist state bureaucrats.
How do you envision a state without state bureaucrats?
Only the proper application would be of the building the restaurant and how noone likes to do the actual work of building it as everyone is free not to do it.
How do you come to the conclusion that nobody likes building things? Doubly so if there’s a couple of people around who like cooking for the community who could really use a nice place to provide their services?
There’s actually interesting modern polls around this, made in the context of UBI: The overwhelming majority say that if they received UBI, they’d still be working about as much. Maybe get another job, maybe cut down hour a bit, maybe take a sabbatical to do learn a new trade and switch there, but overall the wheels would keep churning at about the same speed. Meanwhile, the same overwhelming majority, when asked what other people would be doing, said “they’d stop working”. That kind of mind-bug is a mixture of capitalist realism and hierarchical realism, the notion that people need to feel the whip to be motivated to be productive. That without imposition of force, humanity as we know it would cease to exist: We’d lose our zest, our creativity, our ambition, our love for one another, everything. That humanity is an inherently asocial species, held together by the powers that be. That we need to be domesticated to be ourselves.
If lifespans doubling within a few decades, and a backwater, feudal failed state becoming a global super power constitutes “going to shit”, then I sure wouldn’t mind seeing some shit around here.
A superpower which doesn’t exist any more, it was torn apart by its own lack of productivity and internal contradictions.
The industrialisation went quickly, true, but heavy industry was the only thing the Soviet Union ever got remotely good at, its state apparatus failed to incorporate advances made elsewhere, heck it was so bad that the GDR started its own chip programme because the Soviets wouldn’t and they needed chips to stay competitive in the market of industrial machinery. Did you know that in the 80s VW Wolfsburg was full of GDR-built machines? They used the proceeds to buy things that are necessary to keep Prussians happy and not rebelling, such as coffee (I’m being absolutely serious here coffee was a big political issue in the GDR).
Meanwhile, rapid increases in lifespans and living standards aren’t exactly rare because it’s not actually that hard to get half-way decent when you start from a point of utter destitution.
The USSR did achieve nothing special in that regard, and definitely nothing special enough to justify the abuses that come with their approach.
A superpower which doesn’t exist any more, it was torn apart by its own lack of productivity and internal contradictions.
Yeah, you’re right; it didn’t attain divinity and immortality, so it was basically a failure. Might as well have stayed feudal.
Meanwhile, rapid increases in lifespans and living standards aren’t exactly rare because it’s not actually that hard to get half-way decent when you start from a point of utter destitution.
Actually they are, you don’t see that kind of rapid increase in capitalist countries almost ever, while it’s the norm for communists.
The USSR did achieve nothing special in that regard
Lol, ok
and definitely nothing special enough to justify the abuses that come with their approach
K. Looking forwards to seeing you meet your own standards on this one.
You are aware that communism, too, not just anarchism, is a stateless society?
Yes. Are you aware that communists in socialist states handle political economic forces to achieve this, but are faced with significant capital forces that tries to work against it, thus creating contradictions?
In the ole socialist definition of “state”
I use the “Monopoly on violence” definition (similarly in wider meaning, as with authority)
Then the Bolsheviks re-established state power, deliberately destroying horizontal worker organisation with hierarchical structure, and everything went to shit.
They just did it for fun, wasn’t like there was fascist and imperialist forces right?
How do you envision a state without state bureaucrats?
Democratic centralism, but it will have beraucrats until the state abolished capitalist force. The party bureaucrats debate internally and acts in unison. You can freely join the party. It’s deliberate to keep non marxist/people that think capitalism is good, outside. It’s based. Read “What is to be done” from Lenin.
How do you come to the conclusion that nobody likes building things?
Not what Engels or I am saying? The “decision” or the process, the organization around building things requires authority e.g. architect, safety inspector etc.
Doubly so if there’s a couple of people around who like cooking for the community who could really use a nice place to provide their services?
Yes? And after they formed the decision they are bound by it. Giving it authority. It’s this abstract that Engels is referencing
UBI
A social democratic solution, that keeps the economic base capitalist but creates a welfare state.i.e. here take the money and fuck off. do was we say
Also once you have the political will to implement UBI you could just build housing. UBI also comes at the cost of consolidating various social spending in order to create more dependency and have only one front of negation to deal with as a capitalist
Are you aware that communists in socialist states handle political economic forces to achieve this, but are faced with significant capital forces that tries to work against it, thus creating contradictions?
Oh yes if your 5-year plan failed of course that’s because the Rothschilds don’t want you to succeed. Couldn’t be because the plan was shit.
I use the “Monopoly on violence” definition (similarly in wider meaning, as with authority)
There’s no monopoly on violence in Anarchism.
Democratic centralism.
Have you actually read Lenin. That’s not a method to organise a society, it’s a method to organise a party. All it basically bogs down to “Once the party has made a decision, party members are to stop arguing and get to work implementing it”. It has numerous problems when it comes to de-facto centralisation of power, as well as inability to address and correct decisions that were, or have become, wrong.
The “decision” or the process, the organization around building things requires authority e.g. architect, safety inspector etc.
That’s literally the authority of the shoe-maker. Being a specialist and therefore trusted to make expert decisions is not the same as having power over people. Anarchists freely bow to the shoe-maker when it comes to matters of shoe production, but not when it comes to where to walk with them.
Yes? And after they formed the decision they are bound by it. Giving it authority. It’s this abstract that Engels is referencing
No they’re not bound by that decision. There’s plenty of reasons why one would want to change their mind.
A social democratic solution, that keeps the economic base capitalist but creates a welfare state.i.e. here take the money and fuck off. do was we say
It takes power away from capitalists by giving the labourer the option to walk away from job offers they don’t like. It is not a total overhaul of the system, true, but you should be able to appreciate the juicy irony of fighting capitalist power with market mechanisms.
Also once you have the political will to implement UBI you could just build housing.
People need more to live than housing, also, you’re being paternalistic. “Here, live in this place, eat this stuff”. What if I want to take the same amount of resources and live in another place, and eat different stuff?
Oh yes if your 5-year plan failed of course that’s because the Rothschilds don’t want you to succeed. Couldn’t be because the plan was shit.
Why the fuck are you making anti-Semitic statements? Why are you equating capitalist forces with “Rothschild’s”?
As far as I now the soviet union went from feudalism to a space traveling nation. Similarly the rise of China is impressive af. Cuba despite it’s sanctions and restrictive access to world markets has a higher life expectancy than the US. etc.
How many anarchist non-state states exist? Rojava? Tell me how their dealing with capitalist imperialist forces is going
There’s no monopoly on violence in Anarchism
Idc. I tell you how I use the term. It ssimilarly a wide category that encompasses disciplinary measures inside anarchist organization.
authority of the shoe-maker
Brother in Christ why are you so dense about this and not taking Engels Argumentation and exploring what he could’ve meant and try to view from that lense (not necessarily having to adopt it)
People need more to live than housing, also, you’re
Agree and it’s the socialists states duty to serve these interests
being paternalistic. “Here, live in this place, eat this stuff”.
I agree UBI is paternalistic. The state will tell you how much you get to spend and need to use for living.
Why the fuck are you making anti-Semitic statements? Why are you equating capitalist forces with “Rothschild’s”?
Nah I’m more side-jabbing at Soviet antisemitism, dunno whether you share it it’s not a universal. Could’ve just as well said Deutsche Bank as far as the argument is concerned. “Oh no the filthy capitalist pigs invested into semiconductors we’re falling behind, they’re exerting authority over us” give me a break no they’re not your planners have their heads up their asses and missed the train.
higher life expectancy than the US.
Yeah saying “we’re better off than the US” is just as convincing as American saying “we’re better off than Haiti”. Darn low bar. Do better.
not taking Engels Argumentation and exploring what he could’ve meant
Why do you demand that of me, but not of Engels? Why isn’t he exploring what anti-auths could have meant instead of putting up a strawman? Also I did try to interpret Engels in a way where he doesn’t argue against a strawman but then the text makes even less sense.
I agree UBI is paternalistic. The state will tell you how much you get to spend and need to use for living.
Which is less paternalistic than giving you goods instead of money. In one case you can consume those goods, in the other you can choose which goods you consume. You can forego expensive food for a while to save up for canvas and paintbrush, if you so please. You can choose whether you spend the money included for purposes of recreation to travel to a metal concert, the opera, or a beach bar. You can choose to spend that recreation money on better food or a new hammer, if you so please.
Is it anywhere close to usufruct? No, of course not. But it’s still miles better than “work for a boss or starve”, or “work for a boss or don’t get to choose your meal”. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Anti-semitism like stopping the holocaust, but ok go off king
Could’ve just as well said Deutsche Bank as far as the argument is concerned. “Oh no the filthy capitalist pigs invested into semiconductors we’re falling behind, they’re exerting authority over us” give me a break no they’re not your planners have their heads up their asses and missed the train.
What no theory does to a mf
Yeah saying “we’re better off than the US”
Do you even read? I said “Cuba despite it’s sanctions and restrictive access to world markets has a higher life expectancy than the US” Qualitative different statement
Why do you demand that of me, but not of Engels?
Because he’s dead?
Why isn’t he exploring what anti-auths could have meant instead of putting up a strawman? Also I did try to interpret Engels in a way where he doesn’t argue against a strawman but then the text makes even less sense.
“Strawman is when you use a definition that encompasses mine”
Which is less paternalistic than giving you goods instead of money
It’s paternalistic still? The economic base is capitalist and has a welfare superstructure. The undemocratic relation between worker and employer is not resolved and you get no say in how much you get.
Is it anywhere close to usufruct? No, of course not. But it’s still miles better than “work for a boss or starve”, or “work for a boss or don’t get to choose your meal”. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Sure, but once you have the political will to make UBI a reality, the huge amount of money you’re basically taxing off of the rich can be spent more ressourceful
“Strawman is when you use a definition that encompasses mine”
It is if you expand the definition of fruit to encompass things that cooks would never call a fruit, and then call caprese a valid fruit salad. There’s a reason I led you down that road in the other thread.
The undemocratic relation between worker and employer is not resolved and you get no say in how much you get.
The employer also doesn’t get a say. The citizen overall, though, does get a say (in liberal democracies at last), as to how large the universal allowance is. The Labourer outnumbering the employer in the liberal democratic process thus gives an overall tilt towards the labourer, the ability to ensure that it’s large enough to be able to tell bosses “Shove it, I quit”.
Sure, but once you have the political will to make UBI a reality, the huge amount of money you’re basically taxing off of the rich can be spent more ressourceful
On what? Housing? People spend it on housing. They can pool it into cooperatives, no issue there regarding economies of scale.
It is if you expand the definition of fruit to encompass things that cooks would never call a fruit, and then call caprese a valid fruit salad. There’s a reason I led you down that road in the other thread.
It is if you expand the definition of salad… how are you not understanding this??
Anti-auths don’t have any issues with caprese We do have issues with fruit salads, though.
…or something along the lines I lost track of the isomorphism it could be that we don’t have issues with fruit salads but have issues with caprese. But you’ll get it, eventually, as long as you stop confusing stuff by equivocating.
Wasn’t sure if that was a legitimate question or just another example.of the usage of authoritarian. But if it was a question, I’ll leave this video. It’s an anarchist critique of on authority. Short answer, yes. It is possible to have organization without an authoritarian structure
05:22 Acknowledges that argument that Engels is making is that “anything is authoritarian”
05:28 Acknowledges that Engels has a very broad definition of “authority”
06:20 Builds a strawman by giving a context “Engels existed around the time of the industrial revolution”, reading the paragraph about steam boats, etc. and is 0740 using it to suddenly drastically narrows the definition of Engels down to mean “technological development is authoritarian”.
10:15 At 10:45 correctly explains the point that Engels is making and copes hard with the fact that Engels indeed questions the entire political theoretical understanding of authority lol
12:00 correctly understands that the point is that “Anti-Authoritarians want to change society” and if Engels can prove that organization without authority is impossible, it will mean that he will be able to show this deep contradiction
13:55 He builds another strawman by claiming that Engel’s argument is “Steam is an authority” and not the actual argument that the organization of labour inheretly requires authority and in a society without capitalism the production process would take authorties place (i.e Steam)
14:50 Another strawman where he claims that “hunger would be authority” in an ancient hunting times, instead of the organization of how the hunt would take place
This is so dumb i don’t want to continue and its so long wtf Pure ideology, that video was such a waste of time
The entire point of the video is Engles misunderstood what constitutes “authority” in a libertarian framework. He created an overly broad conception of authority and proceeded to (poorly) attack that. If you’re going to critique an ideology you should at the very least have an understanding of what the core concept your criticizing means. Engles made some shit up, put that in the mouths of anarchists and acted like a little piss baby about it. How on earth did you get 15 minutes into the video and not pick up on that very obvious point?
Pure ideology? You’re hilarious. Like y’all haven’t been sucking at the teat of Marx well past the point of his half baked ideas being useful. It never occured to you geniuses that maybe there was a bit more at play than capitalism and anachronistic conceptions of class warfare? Marx’s ideas of power and complex systems are overly simplistic at best, and Engles is a bourgeois pig that somehow deluded your big “scientific socialist” brains into thinking he was one of the good ones. But go ahead and tell me how childish authoritarian conceptions of authority are righ and how I’m a big dumb guy for thinking otherwise
The entire point of the video is Engles misunderstood what constitutes “authority” in a libertarian framework.
He’s not misunderstanding what constitutes authority. He is giving a broad definition and proves the existence of authority after abolition of capitalism by referring to the organization of labour.
minutes into the video and not pick up on that very obvious point?
Because the “obvious points” are made with strawmen (see comments above)
Pure ideology? You’re hilarious. Like y’all haven’t been sucking at the teat of Marx well past the point of his half baked ideas being useful. It never occured to you geniuses that maybe there was a bit more at play than capitalism and anachronistic conceptions of class warfare? Marx’s ideas of power and complex systems are overly simplistic at best, and Engles is a bourgeois pig that somehow deluded your big “scientific socialist” brains into thinking he was one of the good ones. But go ahead and tell me how childish authoritarian conceptions of authority are righ and how I’m a big dumb guy for thinking otherwise
He’s proving the existence of authority (with a definition thats wide/encompasses the libertarian framework).
He’s not using that definition anywhere in his article.
If you know think about going for the “but Engel’s definition is broader, therefore, his argument is still valid” boy oh boy I suggest you study logic. That’s not how widening and narrowing works.
Say, cooks. They say: “These things are fruits, and with them we can make fruit salads”. Botanists say “These things are fruit, our category is wider, it includes tomatoes, therefore, you can make fruit salad with tomatoes”.
Say, cooks. They say: “These things are fruits, and with them we can make fruit salads”. Botanists say “These things are fruit, our category is wider, it includes tomatoes, therefore, you can make fruit salad with tomatoes”.
Ok I can see where the problem is. You don’t know how narrowing and widening works.
Fruit in fruit salads describes the salad. It’s the qualifier. The proper application would be:
Botanist says:" These things are fruits. We have tomatoes, etc. I can make fruit salad". Cooks ways:“A fruit salad is a type of salad. I have noodles I can make noodle salad. I use a wider definition of salad which encompasses fruit salads, noodle salads and a bunch of others”
Fruit in fruit salads describes the salad. It’s the qualifier.
Indeed, it is a qualifier. A qualifier that the botanists widened. When they said “you can make a fruit salad with tomatoes” they used their definition of fruits, but the narrower definition of cooks for “fruit salad” (there’s no botanical definition of “fruit salad”, it’s a purely culinary term). Thus, we have a category error.
On the narrowing side that category error is generally not present, say, you can narrow down “fruit” to “tropical fruit” or “temperate fruit” and still get perfectly valid fruit salads made from those narrower categories. Heck you can narrow it down to “banana” and get a fruit salad, even if it may be a bit bland.
Indeed, it is a qualifier. A qualifier that the botanists widened. When they said “you can make a fruit salad with tomatoes” they used their definition of fruits, but the narrower definition of cooks for “fruit salad” (there’s no botanical definition of “fruit salad”, it’s a purely culinary term). Thus, we have a category error.
Yes we have a category error because you made it The botanist is narrowing down the category of salads by qualifying it to be fruit salads.
On the narrowing side that category error is generally not present, say, you can narrow down “fruit” to “tropical fruit” or “temperate fruit” and still get perfectly valid fruit salads made from those narrower categories. Heck you can narrow it down to “banana” and get a fruit salad, even if it may be a bit bland.
Yes you’re right in this example the qualifier is tropical that narrows down fruits. In the previous example we talked about fruit salads. The category being salads.
The botanist is narrowing down the category of salads by qualifying it to be fruit salads.
The cooks made a statement about fruit salads, not salads in general. It is not under contention that caprese is a salad and includes tomatoes. It’s also not a fruit salad.
The cooks made a statement about fruit salads, not salads in general. It is not under contention that caprese is a salad and includes tomatoes. It’s also not a fruit salad.
Well duh, it’s because you made an error, you made the cook say it for some inexplicable reason in your thought experiment and I’m pointing it out to you.
The statement of the cooks, “these are fruits, we can turn them into fruit salad” is perfectly accurate. There’s no error in there. In my example it’s the botanists which make the mistake by widening the definition of “fruit” without double-checking whether that widening changes their understanding of “fruit salad” to become something different from what the cooks were saying.
In my example it’s the botanists which make the mistake by widening the definition of “fruit” without double-checking whether that widening changes their understanding of “fruit salad” to become something different from what the cooks were saying.
Indeed, you made the thought experiment and build this error into it (aka Strawman). I corrected the conversation to show how to correctly apply widening and narrowing in regards to “fruit salads”
What you should’ve done instead is apply it to Engels’s widening of the term “authority” to mean things that don’t fit into a fruit salad, any more.
Ok let me do it now since youre dense: Authority encompasses “granted authority”. Granted is the qualifier. Authority is the category. Authority being defined as:
Authority, in the sense in which the word is used here, means: the imposition of the will of another upon ours; on the other hand, authority presupposes subordination. Now, since these two words sound bad, and the relationship which they represent is disagreeable to the subordinated party, the question is to ascertain whether there is any way of dispensing with it, whether — given the conditions of present-day society — we could not create another social system, in which this authority would be given no scope any longer, and would consequently have to disappear.
If something is granted it’s not imposed. Those two things are mutually exclusive. If Engels was honest in his argument he’d have used “imposed authority” to characterise what anti-auths were criticising, not the general “authority”.
When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the following: Yes, that’s true, but there it is not the case of authority which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted! These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.
Exactly. I like to keep things simple and boil things down to authority. I’m the only one allowed to define me, and I don’t have the right to define others. If everyone has absolute freedom to be what they are, then by design no one has the right to define, exploit, marginalize or otherwise or oppress them. if anyone was oppressed, not everyone would have absolute freedom. Then on top of that we put societal contracts. “Here’s a time period of my labor, would you trade it for that thing you have”. "I’d like to give some of my extra things so that more people can have good things [taxation] “Here’s consent, how about you?” “I go by [pronoun].”
Anarchism -> Maximum freedom for all Hierarchism-> Maximum freedom for the one on top.
Smarter people than me have talked about the nuances for ages so as I said, I like to simplify things. Fullyautomatedspacegayluxurycommunism ftw!
What if I want to use my absolute freedom to oppress someone else? What if I use my absolute freedom to build a structure that blocks the view of the mountains from my neighbors, who love the view? Whose freedom should get oppressed to solve that?
While I would say that graph is more correct than the two-dimensional ones, many of us are fed in the west. (As a social libertarian/anarcho communist) I make the point that I don’t believe authoritarians actually qualify significantly for any form of left or right. They are all about their authority primarily and doing what they wish to do. They will resort to any rhetoric or means to achieve their goals they think will serve them. Whether it is left or right.
Case in point Hitler, who is closely associated with fascism which is considered nominally right-wing. Absolutely aped the terminology and rhetoric of early 20th century socialism. Till it didn’t serve him anymore. China who is more or less The Golden child of ml activists is more state capitalist than they are State communist. Because it suits those in power.
The graph more accurately might look like a deformed Dorito. Authoritarians being fluid and centrist. Not committed to being left or right. On the right side gradually sloping down through libertarians into capitalists/liberals on the far right. Somewhere neutral between authoritarian and actual libertarian. But the more true libertarian you trend the more left you absolutely trend. That’s for sure.
At least online, it seems like the only Americans who call themselves far left agree those are all centrist positions. It’s only “centrists/progressives*” (moderately far right Americans) and other flavors of far right who still often dont generally call themselves far right (trump enthusiasts, alex jones types, proud boy types) who label basic things like universal health care a far left idea or just call it impractical atm.
*I feel like 10 years ago, people who were at least moderately left were the main people using this term, but in the last few years, people right of center have been using the label to try limit progress by pretending they’re just trying to be practical/realists about what can actually be done.
To be “on the left” at minimum you need to be totally opposed to the capitalist system.
From there, there are many ideologies to choose from whether authoritarian (like Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, Stalinism, etc.) or anti-authoritarian: mutualism, communalism, one of the many strains of anarchism, etc.
Also if you’re authoritarian I’d say it’s questionable whether you’re still on the left.
If you believe that “authoritarian” is a well defined or meaningful term and not just a snarl word created during the cold war to equivocate communists and Nazis, I’d say it’s questionable whether you’re still on the left.
You’re half right. Americans as a whole don’t need to absorb context, but American conservatives do.
The rest of us are well aware of what’s going on. There are democrats in our government that are pretending to be against “socialism”, but they are old and these clearly dated policies aren’t going to last.
I get the feeling most of that nonsense was just fear mongering to force Biden into office instead of Bernie four years ago.
Nah, American “left” liberals definitely need to learn that there’s a while spectrum of political beliefs to the left of them, and that anti-capitalism exists in general
I wonder who is doing this voting? Oh, it’s people who live in the areas we can’t afford to live in. And capitalists add lobbying power to those voters selfish interests.
Go to/watch any planning or proposal meeting and watch the pearl clutching and nimbyism. I think you know this but you want to demand “studies” instead of engaging in good faith.
In the United States at least, your local government’s public hearings for new housing developments kinda begs to differ.
People will demand the homeless be eliminated from their area while simultaneously opposing development of housing or shelters for the homeless in their area.
So maybe you’re right though: they don’t hate the apartments more, they simply can’t make up their mind on which they hate more.
I think it’s more so that people don’t want an apartment complex built in their backyard, not that they are opposed to them being built in an area where there is proper infrastructure
Well there’s considerable difference between an apartment complex in a suburb not designed for heavy traffic and less developed areas where there’s room for expansion for infrastructure.
We can’t expand roads in my area, either for an extra lane (which I know is a sin) or for buses because it would be right up on houses at that point.
However, just a few miles down the road on the main drag, there’s undeveloped land that would be perfect. Build it there.
When I say “backyard” I mean literally in your backyard. Instead of name calling and downvoting, have a fucking conversation and ask in a respectful manner what somebody means. Stop being a douche because you automatically assume somebody who thinks slightly differently than you is wrong.
I wasn’t being mean spirited with my original comment, it was a legitimate question. Whenever I hear people say something like “I don’t want that!” I like to find out why. It’s just curiosity. Sorry if it came across mean.
Well articulated. I’m not from the US, but I’ve seen housing developments go sideways when they built four 10-story blocks (not in somebody’s back yard, but in an area without proper infrastructure) and after 1000ish people had moved in there were 1 hour long queues just to get out of the complex because there was only one road with one lane per direction. And the only bus stop was not really reliable.
This was not built in the middle of the city because of land availability (and huge prices even if there was land available - you’re near the metro and tram and a bus stop? pay 50% more. oh, you’re near a park too? pay 50% more on top of that). Should we just tear down old buildings in low density areas in the city to make room for big blocks? Some might be worth tearing down because of age and overall condition, but good luck getting people to move out.
I agree but want to say everyone jumps to homeless. There are a ton of normal people that are suffering from high rent, lack of options, etc. We need to think about way more than homeless.
Most people think homeless as jobless, etc. But when we have people with entirely ok jobs that can’t afford rent (see people living in their cars), addressing basic normal housing addresses both for a startling amount.
Aside from zoning laws, there’s the lack of a unified federal intervention. This prevents any one area from addressing the local homeless issue because any area that takes steps to address it will consequently absorb more homeless individuals from other places in the country. For example, if a city in California develops a program to house any homeless individuals, then homeless individuals from other cities and states will be more likely to go to said city to get housed. Even worse, there are states that would actually pay for their transportation. What would happen is that either the city would have to solve a much larger homeless problem as new homeless move into town, or the initial wave of homeless people will be house while the new arrivals and homeless will stay homeless, leaving a continued homeless problem.
Sure they do. Look at all of the posts from my neighbors on Facebook and Nextdoor every time a developer tries to build an apartment building instead of a single family home in our neighborhood.
We’re not building homes, we’re not focussing on density. But apparently our elected officials have no problem letting people set up shanty towns. Where do you think the priorities lay?
Why is this shit always communist vs capitalist, like we’ve only got 2 answers avaliable. You fuckers never set foot in a communist country and worship this shit
Fucking communist countries have killed how many millions of their own citizens? Don’t really think showing a picture of some buildings is enough to prove that they actually solved any issues. They may have solved those issues for some who were lucky enough to get an apartment, but don’t be a hexbear and pretend they housed everyone.
And no, I don’t want a response with a link about hurr duer capitalism bad, yeah I know, but I live in capitalism so I already know that.
I’m still confused and alarmed that the only alternative brought up is communism, not socialism. So far as I know, the core difference is transfer of power - one is peaceful, one is violent.
So in communism, your home might be six feet underground because “It is necessary to achieve the revolution, comrade.” Absolutely zero chance of a leader that wants the best for their people, apparently.
Real socialism leads to communism. I want to call what I am advocating for as cultural marxism, but unfortunately that term has antisemitic connotations, while also perfectly encapsulating the gradual shift in the publics perception of Marxist ideology I am advocating for with memes such as this. I am not advocating for a violent revolution, but I wont deny the fact that when the powers that be make a peaceful revolution impossible, a violent revolution is inevitable.
You’re also taking a snapshot of the most regulated industry in the US. Building high rises is illegal in huge swaths of urban areas. Before we say the free market isn’t providing an answer cab we actually try it? I’m talking removing exclusionary zoning, speeding up the permit process and reducing the power of local action committees, and reforming the broken heritage process that’s used by rich people to keep their areas from densifying.
Nationalise essential needs and create State corporations, let capitalism have fun with non essentials. If don’t care if private producers make wine or funky clothing or big houses, the government should make sure everyone has food to eat, basic clothes to wear and a place to live.
On that last part, buildings with 8 living units or more should be ran by a non profit State corporation, charge people based on the cost of maintenance and the salaries required, send a check if people were charged too much at the end of the year.
You left out, healthcare, education, higher education, and Internet access. While we are covering basic human rights, let’s make sure we cover all the basic human rights.
Outside of internet access these things are already nationalised in first world countries (I know exactly what’s implied by what I’m saying). I didn’t feel the need to enumerate every single thing.
State corporations are private companies whose profit go to the government instead of an owner or investors. The place in North America that has the cheapest electricity is Quebec and that’s because it’s a State corporation producing it, it still makes billions in profit that is then reinvested by the government.
So no, free markets isn’t necessary. Heck, the free market is what makes it so the US government is the one that spends the most per capita for healthcare even if it only covers part of the population.
Socialism is Worker Ownership of the Means of Production. There sre many, many forms, such as Anarcho-Syndicalism, Marxism-Leninism, Democratic Socialism, Market Socialism, Libertarian Socialism, Anarcho-Communism, Council Communism, Left Communism, and more.
Communism is a more specific form of Socialism, by which you have achieved a Stateless, Classless, moneyless society. Many Communist ideologies are transitional towards Communism, such as the USSR’s Marxism-Leninism or China’s Dengism and Maoism.
Whether by reform or Revolution, the form doesn’t change.
Holy shit. That makes so much sense as to why I hated those books as a kid. Thanks for that insight. I knew something wasn’t working properly in Earthsea.
The problem is that a leader who wants the best for their people isn’t sufficient to actually achieve that. What you need is for everyone to be making decisions about what’s best.
It’s simple… If you convince the communists that the capitalists are trying to destroy them, (and vice versa), they fight each other, distracting them from the real enemy: the 1% with enough money to directly influence the folk that make the rules that keep them in the 1% club. We’re fighting culture wars so we won’t fight class wars, my friend.
The 1% exist in every form of government, my friend. Billionaire capitalists == Russian Oligarchs. The name changes based on the audience, but the idea is money influences politics. The folk with the most money to do so are the 1% who actually rule, not the interchangeable talking heads who take their money to live a comfortable life acting as the mouthpiece (or scapegoat) for that group.
Couple things: tiered income would likely exist in early stages of Communism, and certainly in almost all forms of Socialism. Marx makes it exceptionally clear that both intense and skilled labor are represented as condensed unskilled labor.
Either way, there are examples of anti-capitalism. Chiapas and Rojava are more Libertarian Socialist. There’s also countries like Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos, who appear to be attempting to reject Capitalism still and still operating on some basis of Marxism-Leninism Socialism. China relies on Capitalism as their dominant mode of production, but claims to be Socialist by 2050, though that remains to be seen.
The nations you think of as “Communist” are typically Communist in ideology, but are building towards it through Socialism. Just as Feudalism gave way to Capitalism, so to do Marxists believe Capitalism is a necessary stage before Socialism, which is a necessary stage before Communism.
Exactly! This is exactly what I’m saying. The 1% is still the 1% calling the shots… No matter where they are or what you want to call the type of government they influence.
Yes, so you’re proving the Communists and Socialists in this thread correct. Across all Capitalist systems, the bourgeoisie are still the ones calling the shots. Therefore, a better system would be a more decentralized, worker owned system, perhaps along the lines of Socialism or Anarchism, to reach an eventual state of Communism in the far future.
What exactly do you take issue with Socialism, Communism, and Anarchism here? You appear to be advocating for a more top-down system like Capitalism, than a bottom-up system. Your argument appears to uphold your criticism.
Oh! I see. No…I’m only saying the minute you start talking any “-isms”, you trigger feelings of tribalism that exist in all of humanity. We want to be on the “good team”. No one wants to be on the bad team, and that feeling is what the Uber wealthy uses to keep us busy. Debating all of the “-isms” is the problem. Let’s figure out how to take care of the masses so basic human needs are met, allowing humanity to prosper, and figure out what the hell to call it later. Otherwise, we just quibble over semantics and nothing gets done.
I mean absolutely no offense by this, but that’s a load of Utopian bullshit.
People use “-isms” not to divide into tribalism, but to describe methods and structures. If you can identify problems with modern, Capitalist society, calling it “Capitalism” is not meant to divide anyone. Similarly, the various leftist strategies, such as Marxism-Leninism, Anarcho-Communism, Council Communism, Market Socialism, Anarcho-Syndiclaism, and so forth, are all different proposed ways of tackling the same problems.
How do you propose people move towards a solution if nobody knows what the fuck everyone else is doing?
First…I love this discussion. Thank you for it. It’s what made me love Reddit in the early years, and why I’m so enamored with Lemmy. Secondly…You make an excellent point; one I can’t refute. I don’t know how we move towards a solution without having a way to succinctly describe an ideologic structure. I just hate how partisan the world becomes, and how much the media plays off of it to help the fuckers in charge sell ads, or maintain power, wherever you live and whatever ism you subscribe to. Maybe all I’m doing is just missing the point and muddying the waters…
You’re starting to get it. You should read Manufacturing Consent, by Noam Chomsky. He describes the very mechanisms by which the bourgeoisie use the media to control the people into doing their bidding.
You should really read a copy of the Communist Manifesto, i dont think you are muddying the waters, you are merely trying to look through the clouds of sentiment that have been stirred up in front of you your whole life.
Do you think the Russian oligarchs, who by the way pen a FAR larger portion of the Russian economy than their American counterparts, appeared from nowhere after the collapse of the Soviet Union? The Soviets had an extremely wealthy and influential elite
The 1% are the Capitalist and they are trying to defeat the Communists and surpress/continue to exploit the Prolitariat with every tool at their vast disposal. The folks in the comments defending Capitalism are all members of the Prolitariat brainwashed into thinking they are down on their luck Millionaires.
Look… It’s all tribalism, in the end. We can argue semantics, but doing so it’s exactly their point. It keeps us busy with pedantry, while they continue to enjoy their wealth from on high. I am not educated enough to debate the pros and cons of each group, but I am intelligent enough to smell an attempt to distract me from the point. To know there’s some sleight of hand fuckery happening right in front of my face.
Yes you are intelligent, and so close to getting it, the cultural warfare bullshit is all a distraction to keep you from noticing the class warfare being waged against the working class by the 1% who continues to rob value from us to horde weath far beyond our comprehension. I cant recommend Marx’s writings enough, there is so much slight of hand fuxkery going on and it SHOULD rightfully piss you off!
Bruh if I HAD to be right I would still be a devoted Libertarian simping for the free market. I love being proven wrong, its how people and ergo society are supposed to evolve and grow.
What ideology is it, again, that champions working class people to take their power back? It’s certainly not right wing.
If you think the world is fucked because of the greed of the 1%, and you want those people to pay for their crimes through class war, you’re communist.
Lol no, I do not say. No ruling class. No government. That’s communism.
It’s bonkers to me that you talk a big talk about class and class conflict, yet are opposed to left wing politics. Where do you think those terms come from?
What’s even more bonkers is that you seem to think communism has never said anything about the 1%, when that is the biggest problem communists won’t shut up about!
I don’t think you know what projection is. The comment I replied to literally said that the 1% and class are the problem, and that communists are distracted. Couldn’t be more off base.
It’s simple… If you convince the communists that the capitalists are trying to destroy them, (and vice versa), they fight each other, distracting them from the real enemy: the 1% with enough money to directly influence the folk that make the rules that keep them in the 1% club. We’re fighting culture wars so we won’t fight class wars, my friend.
What ideology is it, again, that champions working class people to take their power back?
That sounds like a free market to me. When people have the power to determine their own fate, and how they engage with others for economic coordination.
When everyone has the ability to choose how they engage, that’s called a free market. The economic system based on free markets is called capitalism.
A free market means zero regulation, so I hope you like drinking poison because “ain’t no gubmint telling me how to bottle my soda!”
When people have the power to determine their own fate, and how they engage with others for economic coordination.
This requires kicking capital out of the economy. That would be defeating capitalism.
When everyone has the ability to choose how they engage, that’s called a free market
No, it’s called voluntary participation. Free markets inevitably trend toward monopolies and concentrations of power, because the supply side is not held to any standard.
The economic system based on free markets is called capitalism.
And look where it’s gotten us - with a 1% bleeding the rest dry.
Fucking communist countries have killed how many millions of their own citizens?
Bruh, centuries of capitalist exploitation of its citizens and treating them like a disposable commodity would like to have a word on the whole 'citizens killed by their own country' topic.
How many thousands or millions of citizens die yearly because they can't afford to live in this fucked up system?
Lmfao not at all, the dude literally said whataboutisms are the only arguments for Communism, so i linked him a copy of Das Kapital. Unfortunately you clearly lack the reading comprehension to consume it.
None? People don’t starve to death in western countries. And where they do the issue is lack of infrastructure. A communist government couldn’t conjure the resources needed to build that out of thin air either.
None? People don’t starve to death in western countries. And where they do the issue is lack of infrastructure.
"This thing doesn't happen, and when it does, it's not the fault of capitalism itself" is a monumentally stupid argument. Especially when talking about the homeless population, which absolutely does have people that starve.
A communist government couldn’t conjure the resources needed to build that out of thin air either.
And the capitalist economy chose not to build it because it wasn't profitable, or after it was built, it was too expensive to be used.
Bullshit it doesn’t happen in the west. 12.8% of US households were considered food insecure in 2022, with 5.1% of that being considered to have VERY low food security(Source). Over 20,000 Americans died of malnutrition in 2022, more than double the number in 2018(Source).
There’s also nearly 30 vacant homes for every 1 homeless person in the US, so there’s plenty of room, too. Nobody needs a 2nd home when over half a million people don’t even have one.
Maybe you should have actually read that article before linking it. It discusses in detail the reasons for malnutrition being an issue, and none of those reasons is being unable to afford food. The problems are typically due to age and diseases.
In the west, the main cause of malnutrition isn’t a lack of calories, but a difficulty in access (from availability or price or other factors) to healthy foods with the required nutrition for a healthy life or from an excess of certain nutrients. This is often manifested as conditions such a obesity and type II diabetes. So malnutrition does impact people in the west.
Where is your great communist country ?? Oh wait, it’s not there. It doesn’t exist and it never will. Capitalism works. Not perfect but it works. Your idealized version of communism is great but so is my idealized version of capitalism where everyone has a shot at the American dream!
saying that “people don’t starve to death in western countries” without understanding in the slightest the actual harms of food insecurity and how it leads to death is a very accurate representation of the scientific ignorance and sociopathic lack of empathy that capitalism supporters bring to the table in these kinds of discussions a hundred times out of a hundred
You’re so dense. I’m not advocating or simping got capitalism here. That’s what I’m trying to communicate, but you’re too fucking dense to even see that when I lay it out.
Both are bad. Just because I say these turds who worship an imaginary and propagandized version of communism are dorks doesn’t mean I’m arguing in favor of capitalism. For fucks sake learn to read
You are 100% correct in your assertion, my anti Mario sex toy friend, and I love your passion. I worry that the minute you call someone’s intelligence into question, they’ll take a defensive posture and stop thinking critically. Critical thinking is what we need more than anything else in this world right now. That’s what’s in short supply. It’s why the news is constantly being flooded with new things, and why there are so few media outlets that don’t have a slant. If I can get you outraged at team blue, or team red, or team US, or team THEM, your anger overrides your reason and you stop thinking about who benefits from the distraction provided by us arguing over whatever this new bullshit thing is we’re arguing over. Hopefully that last statement makes sense.
Not to mention all the fascist militaries supported by the US that regularly engaged on mass murders of “communists”. Indonesia, brazil, chile, south korea, south vietnam, etc… Ultimately they dont care, they just want to discredit communism by whatever means possible.
Except there isn’t. we tried that then the capitalists bought the weaker willed politicians and used them to undermine any regulation. Capitalism is a cancer and must be excised as such.
We literally have. Look at the massive literacy, life expectancy, and political rights increases under literally every single communist government compared to what came before them instead of comparing them to some utopian ideal that capitalism compares even less favorably to.
life expectancy, and political rights increases under literally every single communist government
Are you not aware of the massive incarceration, labor camps, starvation, conscription, etc?
Have you read about the Battle of Stalingrad? Do you seriously not know the stories of how life expectancy and political rights were totally and utterly squashed many times by communist governments?
Are you not aware of the massive incarceration, labor camps, starvation, conscription, etc?
Are you aware the gulags never reached the same scale as the current US prison system? Are you aware that under the Soviets and under the CPC previously periodic famines under the previous governments stopped after initial industrialization?
I will leave you with this quote, ironically about a liberal revolution against monarchists
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
Right. Communism vs capitalism is just more centralization. There are plenty of decentralized options to balance things as too much centralization, no matter the political system leads to corruption.
That is the death of capitalism. That’s capitalism (based on free markets) devolving into oligopoly (based on regulatory capture and tightly-restricted markets).
Capitalism doesn’t last any better than any other institution. It degrades into something else. The thing it degrades into is a centrally-controlled market, similar to what you find in socialism.
Agreed. Whether it is Capatalism, Communism, Socialism, democracy, dictatorship they all have centralizion in them even if their intent is otherwise. We need to support more decentralized services and governance as it balance the poor and returns it to the people. We just need more people to get on board, it it seems like we prefer to give our power to power hungry companies and regimes instead. Not saying we need to have zero centralization as it has its place, but it needs to be kept in check and the only to force to do so is decentralization. But it is all so much more complicated and above the human condition to manage. Hopefully AI will be able to help for better or for worse.
This is not “one or the another” situation, communism is the next qualitative stage in development of society. It solves the primary contradiction that we experience in capitalism, that is socialized production being privatized by individuals, aka capitalists.
You can’t just declare communism by signing a document, because it is a process of development in which small quantitative changes in production (socialism) lead to a qualitative change (communism), thus to achieve the communism stage you have to achieve a certain level of development.
This is why China is considered a communist country by marxists-leninist even though qualitatively it is a capitalist country. They are actively working to develop communism, this can be clearly seen throughout their rhetoric (i.e. “The Governance of China”) and their material results.
The problem with China being that it’s authoritarian, not that it’s capitalist or communist. There’s no choice other than the Communist Party, so when the party is wildly corrupt, you have no recourse at all short of revolution. And we all know what China does to counter-revolutionaries.
And that is a problem to whom? Every single state is authoritarian, the question is whose interests are they protecting.
China is clearly a dictatorship of the proletariat and they use authority to protect the interests of the proletariat. Yes, sometimes their policy is wrong and does harm but ultimately they work to improve their policies, governing is a learning experience after all.
It’s a problem because people don’t feel like stakeholders when they don’t have a say and can’t participate in their system of governance. This in turn means that they aren’t incentivized to willingly participate and have to be forced or indoctrinated, both of which are violations of human rights.
People that want to participate in politics can join the CPC, in fact it has more than 100m official members. Also inside the CPC there are several factions with differents views, so no its not a monolithic entity.
One party where a basic platform is defined and differences are expressed vibrantly on top of that is better than two parties that brand themselves as different but only offer a couple of aesthetic differences and concessions to keep people mad at the opposing party and not the underlying structure
…You’re really saying that one party where you have no functional choice is better than a multi-party system, just because you think that Republicans and Dems are too alike, while ignoriing the plethora of other parties that not only actually exist in the US, but hold office at local and state level?
One party with multiple functional approaches that get whittled down through democratic consensus is more democratic than being told to pick between two relatively similar options. There is more of a gap between liberals and Maoists in the CPC, both of which hold power in office, than there are between the democrats and republicans.
friend. You’re so worried about a one party system because you’re thinking of American parties. You know how Mike Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders are both ran under the same party? In a proper single party state there’s more range than that.
People don’t have much recourse in the US either. The two party system just obfuscates that reality. I’d actually argue that because revolution is the only alternative to the communist party in China, the government has to be more responsive to citizen demands than the US.
What does “authoritarian” mean? Shouldn’t we reserve that word for the country with the largest police force, biggest military, and the highest prison population per capita in the world?
fucking communist countries have killed how many millions of their own citizens
Most of these articles cite the Black Book of Communism, which goes to absurd lengths to inflate the death toll of Communism, for example counting all the millions of nazi and soviet soldiers killed on the eastern front as victims of communism, counting the entire death toll of the Vietnam war, and even counting declining birth rates as deaths due to communism.
Noam Chomsky used the same methodology to argue that, according to Black Book logic, capitalism in India alone, from 1947–1979, could be blamed for more deaths than communism worldwide from 1917–1979.
It’s even worse than that. Most Lemmy commies are aggressive sectarians who cling to a very particular form of the ideology, while rejecting all forms of moderate leftism and Marxist revisionism. It’s extremely obnoxious, and their bizarre, outdated philosophy is a primary reason why people are skeptical of leftist politics.
I don’t know what I did wrong, but the bug must be somewhere in HelloWorldExampleClassForTutorialBuilderFactory.HelloWorldExampleClassForTutorialBuilderFactory(StringBuilderFactory myHelloWorldExampleClassForTutorialStringBuilder, int numberOfTimesToDisplayHelloWorld)
Lmao idk if “most” even holds up in fiction. Even the “good” cops in fiction tend to perform illegal searches, abuse suspects, break the law in countless ways to get the bad guys. How many times have we seen the “good guys” stymied by their inability to search a home but one turns to the other and sarcastically says “oh I think I heard someone scream for help lol” kicks down the door?
Sometimes they have a conscience but I’d call very few fictional cops “good”
I’m pretty sure they shoot innocents a lot less. But I’m in it for the entertainment, not because they follow the law.
Interestingly, in Elementary they call out your issue of always finding probable cause to enter a home. They end up in court over it. It’s still basically hand waved off with them asking if they are being called liars and if they have proof. But they aren’t even cops, they are consultants, so I’m not sure probable cause even applies. Seems more likely they shouldn’t be able to do shit unless they suspicion of imminent danger.
That’s “okay”, though, because we, the viewers, often know that the suspect is guilty. The cops still come off as good (and smart, with good intuition as well) because we know for certain that they’re doing the “right” thing.
As a society, we don’t want to teach people that it is EVER acceptable for the authorities to break rules/laws. They already have power. Why should they go free after breaking the rules meant to control their reach? At the least, they should get charged and go to trial by jury. Ideally, those juries should then convict in all but the most benign cases.
I remember at least a couple old shows had the good old ‘sheriff’ or whatever break some rule and then had to pay for it. And they did, and good guys accept that despite meaning well, they had done wrong and should have followed the law.
If you ask society at large to accept that breaking the rules is ok THIS time because this time is special and our guy is working for Team Good, then our society starts to allow that in all kinds of stupid real-life situations and you end up with criminal cops, politicians, and all manner of officials. Worse, you might end up with random citizens who think it is ok to break the law just because their leader tells them to.
You nailed it. That’s why I put “okay” in quotes. Those laws exist for a reason, and lionizing cops who break the law only teaches the public to accept that lawbreakers are okay if they’re on Team Good.
Unfortunately, what the government calls “good” and what you and I call “good” are often different things.
This is why I loved the Nero Wolfe tv show so much; they taught valuable lessons (like don’t let a cop in without a warrant and be wary of the FBI) and the cops were much more realistic, even if still more or less good guys.
Fictional cops rarely have any ethics. Quite famously, they ignore people civil rights or liberties when they “know” that person is guilty.
It’s like the male lead of a shitty romance novel acting super creepy, abusive, and rapey, but it’s okay because it’s fiction and they always luck out and the woman is into it.
Which is why most cop shows function as authoritarian propaganda. They show an idealist fairy tale version that nonetheless creates this aspirational image of cops in mainstream culture. It gives cover to the true cop culture. Just like villains in movies are always just a bad apple that is corrupt and once eliminated all is well, when in real world the rules of the system is what breeds corruption. It’s not meant to be, but it acts as authoritarian propaganda.
I love cop shows, they are my guilty pleasure, but one needs to be aware that this is fairy tale.
Which is why most cop shows function as authoritarian propaganda.
Exactly!! I mean why else do you think Law & Order:SVU has been on the air for like fucking 30 seasons? Its not because of Ice-T’s incredible acting ability, thats for sure…
I had this as a bumper sticker on my electric car Chevy Volt a few years ago. Hehe. I got a lot of laughs and comments about it when pumping gas, or parking.
Edited for clarity about why I would need gas for an electric car.
The engine only helps to power the drive train in mountain mode. Otherwise it charges the battery, which drives the electric motor. The Volt is a pretty awesome car. I would still be driving it if I didn’t need something more rugged, or could afford two separate vehicles. But I loved owning it. I even took it on a long distance trip over the mountains and it did great! I barely had to put gas in the thing unless it was freezing outside and I had a lot of driving to do that day, or for long-distance trips. The first year I owned it I only put gas in it twice, and the gas tank is only 9 gallons.
90s: corporations make everything plastic and disposable while people are told to recycle
It’s worse than that: the plastics industry tells us to recycle – even going so far as to plagiarize the recycling symbol into the resin identification codes – despite knowing from the beginning that recycling plastic was mostly never going to be a viable thing. They did this purely to shift blame to consumers because the only way their business model worked was to not be held accountable for their waste.
Recycling was actively brought forward as a solution by the oil companies to push the blame of plastic use onto consumers.
So while recycling rare metals is always valuable, plastic is definitely not. Almost all plastic gets buried in landfills, and the only way to make this not happen is to not make products with plastics.
By creating and marketing plastic recycling as a solution that the consumers must take onto themselves, it allowed them to rake in profits by moving everything to cheap plastic alternatives.
We are now literally made of microplastics as a result.
What I don’t understand is why burning plastic waste and using the generated heat (for example for district heating) is not discussed more often. I think recycling offers very little benefit over simple burning of plastics due to the amount of oil still being burned everywhere compared to the amount of oil used for plastic production.
I guess I’m surprised we don’t do it but we all know that burning plastic is gonna end up directly in the lungs of some poor people who have to live by the pollution factory
If you don’t need to, don’t produce something. Chocolates don’t need to be all individually wrapped inside of yet another wrapper. Transport should be mostly by public and active transport (though we also need better city planning to help enable this), and private motor vehicles can, at this point, mostly be converted to the less-polluting EVs. That kind of thing.
If it’s been produced, rather than throwing it away, find ways to reuse it. Coke should be taking in glass bottles, washing them, and putting more coke back in it, rather than producing new bottles all the time.
If something has been produced and cannot be reused, we should try to find ways to recycle it. You’re right that recycling is bad, but that’s mainly true of plastics. Glass and paper are far more easy to recycle, if collected effectively. Which is also why the move from glass and paper products to plastic is such an environmental disaster, brought on because companies don’t want to spend the larger cost of producing those products, or collecting them in to effectively recycle the glass.
This is absolutely right. It’s reductive of me to say that recycling is bad for the environment; intentionally reductive.
People generally have a very hard time absorbing the fact that plastic recycling is a scam, so it’s hard to start nuanced to actually get the point across.
But you definitely nailed it. I would argue that if it was reduce, reuse, revolt, the environment would be in a much better place.
Great, seeing a picture of a trans man has made me aware of the existence of trans people, and therefore, according to GOP logic, it's only a matter of time before I become trans myself and have to fucking go bra shopping.
Not if you become a part of the itty bitty titty committee. As a current member who was once a Biggus Tittus in the past, I can say with confidence that bras are a tool of oppression and you couldn’t pay me to wear them again.
Ugh this. I hate it so much, in fact, that when I finally (FINALLY) found one that actually, really fit, I spent almost €800 on bras, just to buy a bunch of them and prevent the necessesity to go bra-shopping. Plus, I checked recently and they still have them, so I’ll just order a bunch more and be done for a while again.
I mean, sometimes I look in the mirror and think ‘well, I guess they look nice’ but god, breasts really are more trouble than they’re worth. Especially in summer. And especially if you don’t have like a ‘standard’ size.
Hopefully. But it feels like we do this very often. We get a drug or something else that does this or that and is touted as being the best at this and then a few years later we announce that it was a horrible decision and has harsh consequences. Cigarettes, plastic, trans fats, so many dietary trends…
I’d love to try it but I’m skeptical just for this reason. Hoping not to hear in a decade that all these people developed the same type of cancer or some other horrible ailment.
But what you’re describing is just how science works in a world where we’re trying to make discoveries quickly due to our lifespans only being around 75 years compared to the billions or millions or thousands of years for everything else existing.
As long as we continue making discoveries along the way, this is progress. It sucks that we keep getting things partially wrong sometimes, like with asbestos, but we’ll eventually get it right as long as we keep following the process.
The examples given are not problems with science and time-scales. They are examples of the corrupting influence of money. Companies push their product as being fantastic, and deliberately cripple any science that would challenge their profits. Cigarettes are probably the most famous example of this.
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