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CA renter
Participant[quote=The-Shoveler]I would definitely agree we need to raise the incomes at the lower levels to make up for the last 20 years of suppression but I would not call that Socialism, just a fair wage act, there is a huge difference between the two.[/quote]
Actually, there is not a huge difference. Socialism is based on giving power to the workers — those who create value and capital. Contrary to what people hear from right-wing media, socialism is not about giving money to lazy people…that would be capitalism, as the fruits of productive labor are directed to the capitalists who don’t have to labor for a living. Socialism is, first and foremost, about empowering workers.
ParticipantStephen Hawking is a socialist (this post of his exemplifies socialism), as was Albert Einstein, among many other notables.
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Prof-Stephen-HawkingStephen Hawking[S] 4159 points 5 days agox2
[Question posed to Professor Hawking: -CAR]
I’m rather late to the question-asking party, but I’ll ask anyway and hope. Have you thought about the possibility of technological unemployment, where we develop automated processes that ultimately cause large unemployment by performing jobs faster and/or cheaper than people can perform them? Some compare this thought to the thoughts of the Luddites, whose revolt was caused in part by perceived technological unemployment over 100 years ago. In particular, do you foresee a world where people work less because so much work is automated? Do you think people will always either find work or manufacture more work to be done? Thank you for your time and your contributions. I’ve found research to be a largely social endeavor, and you’ve been an inspiration to so many.
Answer:
If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.
Comment
by u/Prof-Stephen-Hawking from discussion Science AMA Series: Stephen Hawking AMA Answers!
in scienceParticipant[quote=no_such_reality][quote=paramount][quote=no_such_reality] Nor am I aware in his work where people come up with a surgeon and janitor making the same.[/quote]
How else would one eliminate class warfare?[/quote]
Estate taxes so wealth isn’t passed generationally? Direct taxation of wealth (assets) and not income? Class isn’t having money or not, class is a level of privilege.
Keep in mind Marx lived during Dickenesque London, died about the beginning of the Gilded Age. Child Labor, no real safety concerns for workers, seventy hour work weeks were the norm. A few decades later, Ford was considered radical in raising wages to attract workers to the assembly line.[/quote]
A steeply progressive income tax where ALL forms of wealth are taxed equally is the best way to prevent gross wealth and income inequality. The reason for the rich getting wealthier at an accelerating rate over time is because of passive “unearned” income. Tax that income appropriately, and the wealth never gets to the point that it becomes a major problem.
And there is nothing wrong with making good money if one truly earns it, nor is there anything wrong with accumulating wealth and passing it on to your heirs. The problem arises when the wealth disparity reaches such a point that the masses never have a chance to catch up, eventually having to beg for their basic necessities and perform whatever tasks their masters want, for whatever wages their masters desire to pay, because they have no other choice.
Participant[quote=no_such_reality][quote=FlyerInHi][quote=ltsdd]
Isn’t that enough proof there that marxism is shit?[/quote]It’s shit for people who got swept away.
In the big scheme, the revolutions in Russia and China were just changes of dynasties. If they get established and are able to smoothly hand power over time, they will just become like us.[/quote]No, whether the red revolution in Russia, Maos Revolution or the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the socialist upheavals resulted in something more akin to feudalism than socialism. I suspect what Marx was driving at looks more like Norway and not what most think of for communism. Nor am I aware in his work where people come up with a surgeon and janitor making the same.[/quote]
+1, NSR.
Participant[quote=ltsdd][quote=FlyerInHi]
Russia, China, Vietnam now do have billionaires and ownership in a capitalist sense. But that’s capitalism, not communism.[/quote]Isn’t that enough proof there that marxism is shit?[/quote]
No, it’s proof that corruption is shit. Those countries are not truly socialist countries. They are/were under the control of a dictatorial regime…that’s the complete opposite of socialism.
Any type of economic system will fail if corruption becomes rampant. But there is only one system that can reasonably contain corruption and that’s socialism. With capitalism, wealth and power are concentrated. When wealth and power are concentrated, corruption will be endemic, whether it’s a capitalist system or a “communist” system.
In a true socialist system, the hierarchy is relatively flat, and those who have are in more powerful positions are accountable to the masses. This helps prevent the power/wealth inequality that drives corruption and better ensures the well-being of the majority of the population.
ParticipantWe bought the one that can flush a bucket of golf balls. No problems in the 3+ years we’ve owned it, and it’s never clogged on us while our other toilets have gotten stopped up.
Since it’s a rental and you really don’t want renters to call you in the middle of the night to unclog the toilet, go for the toilet that will flush everything down nearly every single time. You won’t regret it.
Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.” Karl marx.
Sounds like a tea party dude.[/quote]
+1
Participant[quote=paramount][quote=CA renter]Yes, he was largely right. He’s one of the greatest economic philosophers in history. Like him or not, he was brilliant.
I’ve found that the **vast majority** of people who put down Marx and/or his theories have never actually read Marx. Most haven’t read Adam Smith, either.[/quote]
Is it brilliant to theorize that a brain surgeon and a janitor should be paid the same? No, and that’s essentially what Marx claims.[/quote]
No, of course they shouldn’t be paid the same. I know that some really radical communists would say that everyone should be “paid” exactly the same (different economic systems might use different mediums of exchange), irrespective of their contribution to society, but the vast majority of socialists, and many/most communists would agree that people could be compensated unequally, as long as it’s within reason and justifiable in some way.
While some would claim that our labor market in the U.S. is a “free market,” it’s not. Here, those who control money flows determine how those resources are allocated. It’s not about compensating those who provide the greatest benefit to society, it’s not about transferring the money that the end consumer is willing to pay for a particular good/service directly to the people who provide that good/service (the employer is the middleman who skims a portion of every transaction), and it’s not about who works hardest or who is most intelligent. It’s about the unequal ownership of capital, and the unjustifiably outsized rewards for the owners of capital that were created by those who labor for a living. That’s what Marx was opposed to. He believed that those who create the capital in the first place (workers) should be the ones to reap the greatest share of the surplus value that they’ve created.
Without labor, there is no capital. Labor precedes capital in every case. Even when one considers natural resources, the only way to extract value from those resources is to mine/grow them, assemble them, package and distribute them, etc. That all requires labor. Even land is worthless until workers build roads, ports, buildings, etc., or plant and harvest food from the land.
Marx correctly pointed out that unbridled capitalism ends in only one way: a relatively small group of very wealthy and powerful men at the top will own essentially everything, and everyone else must spend their entire lives working for these owners because the only “capital” they own is their labor, which has to be exchanged on a perpetual basis for life’s basic necessities.
Marx was right:
ParticipantYes, he was largely right. He’s one of the greatest economic philosophers in history. Like him or not, he was brilliant.
I’ve found that the **vast majority** of people who put down Marx and/or his theories have never actually read Marx. Most haven’t read Adam Smith, either.
ParticipantPure consistency, dedication, and integrity…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxRCnwqUrc8&feature=youtu.be
Participant[quote=ltsdd][quote=CA renter]It was pretty clear in this video that she was putting up a fight and resisting arrest. [/quote]
Try having someone pressing their knees on your head, neck or chest and let me know if your instinct is to “resist” or not.
And watch the video again. Didn’t see much of a resistance there until after the second cop showed up. The video panned away but I am pretty sure the action of the second cop is the main reason why “she was putting up a fight” – on her belly, btw.
The second cop that showed up and charging in like rambo made what looked like a routine arrest into a worse situation.[/quote]
Agree, the second cop looked like he was experiencing “roid rage.” Even the way he drove in reverse at a high speed next to a park where children are playing showed that he wasn’t thinking straight. But we also don’t know how the call came in. Did the first cop say that he was struggling with someone who was violent? We just don’t know. Until we do, it’s all conjecture.
ParticipantDo you honestly believe they just started beating her up for no reason? Sorry, but I’m not buying that (though I do believe it happens on occasion, and fully support termination and jail time for the perpetrators). Even reading the story, it’s clear that there are a lot of pieces missing from the story. They just gloss over a lot of transition points.
ParticipantWe’ve had many interactions with the Carlsbad PD. With the exception of one loud-mouthed, aggressive jerk, they were all exceptionally professional and well-mannered. They were so nice, we were actually shocked by their behavior.
In one instance a friend’s young child called 911 from a park phone without telling anyone (the other kids came up and told us about it after he had made the call). Up in L.A., the cops come down hard on the parents when something like this happens. But the Carlsbad police officer who responded to the call saw that the boy was freaking out — he thought he was going to jail — and gave a public education demonstration to the kids, showing them all the gear they wear and answering questions the kids had, etc., instead of threatening and berating us. He was **amazing** in the way he handled everything. And that was just one incident; we’ve had others that were also very positive.
I agree with meadandale and blogstar. We are only shown a video of what happened after-the-fact. She might be a middle-aged white woman driving a minivan with two kids in it, but that doesn’t mean she’s a model citizen. It was pretty clear in this video that she was putting up a fight and resisting arrest. We really can’t make a determination based on this short snippet of a video. We need to see and hear the entire story in order to make an informed judgment.
ParticipantAgreed.
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