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samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
1) Economics is cyclical (1b) and as such regulation is needed to prevent tragedies)

2) austerity doesnt work

As a rejection of neoclassical (neoliberalism) thought, yeah, of course I agree with it. Where I disagree is with 1a). Capitalism is cyclical and trends towards collapse under Marxist critiques, (the so-called tendency of the rate of profit to fall), because profit is achieved by intensifying exploitation and there is a cap to this (the total labor pool of the world, the physical limits of human tolerance, etc). It is self destructive rather than emancipatory. For example, there's no form of capitalism where we're all capitalists. Some will be owners, some will be workers. The workers ultimately always answer to the owners. The case where everyone is a owner is, ironically, just socialism, aka people owning the "means-of-production" for themselves with the outputs of those MoP given over to no one but themselves.
 

Kirblar

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
30,744
To be fair, the 2 basic principles of Kynes that Kirblar covered already are basically inarguable and anyone from the center to the left should "believe" them
It's not like everything is settled- there's tons of debate out there, but there are big electric fences that get you zapped and ignored if you go out of bounds.

A big economic challenge for the next Presidential admin that's been getting a lot of discussion on econ twitter the past 5 years is that it appears very likely we've been overshooting inflation goals and undershooting unemployment goals, in large part because we were way too slow to catch on to the population slowdown here in the states that's mirroring Japan. A big reason for lower inflation rates is because of the aging population, and what we thought was an abnormal economy in Japan actually appears to be our inevitable future right now. https://www.stlouisfed.org/publicat...-quarter-2018/why-inflation-so-low?print=true

Sanchez_fig3.jpg

My problem with economic orthodoxy (neoclassical or Keynesian) is that, from an armchair perspective, it's plain most people don't want to admit that capitalism creates, and in many ways incentivizes its own bad actors, which they then blame for capitalism's failures.

A common rebuttal towards communism is that "people are bad innately". Setting aside the philosophical nature of that claim, they are just as bad under capitalism, but capitalism supporters think we can regulate the economy to such an extent as to stamp out most bad actors. Which is curious because they won't extend the same line of thought towards communism, that we can stamp out bad actors to reach a more-or-less stable equilibrium.
A gigantic problem with communism is that under a communist system, business and government are explicitly the same thing, and without even touching on the market issues that creates (Blockbuster dying is an example of a good thing! that's not really possible if the businesses are state controlled because the state can't die) that consolidation of power brings with it enormous problems, both in terms of a lack of innate check/balances and safety valves and means to redress concerns- a reason the emoluments clause exists.
 

SaveWeyard

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,540
A gigantic problem with communism is that under a communist system, business and government are explicitly the same thing, and without even touching on the market issues that creates (Blockbuster dying is an example of a good thing! that's not really possible if the businesses are state controlled because the state can't die) that consolidation of power brings with it enormous problems, both in terms of a lack of innate check/balances and safety valves and means to redress concerns- a reason the emoluments clause exists.
The state doesn't exist in a communist society. You're missing the very basic definitions here and arguing against things you've made up in your head.
 

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
That's why some of us are gun-ho about direct democracy. The point is to decentralize power as much as possible, not necessarily because it's a panacea to representative ills.
 

Suiko

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,931
Social contracts.

Municipal level justice (under some models of municipalism).

The elimination of scarcity to also reduce bad actors to a bare minimum.

What a fantasy land you people live in...

Assuming we can get rid of scarcity, what makes you think there won't be greed?

It's so much like Libertarians in that it's making so many assumptions about human behavior, and human behavior is not only sometimes difficult to predict, but so very often irrational.
 
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SaveWeyard

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,540
So, what prevents bad actors from bad acting?
Why are you not a bad actor in the current system? What compels someone to be a bad actor? Where does greed come from? What does greed mean in a society where property doesn't exist? These aren't idealistic, fantastic, utopian questions. They're foundational to our conceptions of society.
 

Kirblar

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
30,744
That's why some of us are gun-ho about direct democracy. The point is to decentralize power as much as possible, not necessarily because it's a panacea to representative ills.
The problem is that Democracy's a terrible, horribly inefficient system for a large number of things when it comes to resource management. Capitalism is very much not perfect, but the self-interest at the heart of it is what allows it to work as an economic engine.

That distrust of humanity is really at the core of the politics of someone like Elizabeth Warren. She's a hardcore capitalist. She also doesn't trust the players in the game not to try to rig it for themselves. Nimbyism shows off the sorts of regulatory capture problems inherent in the systems quite well- you have existing owners/investors lobbying governments to make it illegal for others to enter into the market so that their investments aren't threatened.
The state doesn't exist in a communist society. You're missing the very basic definitions here and arguing against things you've made up in your head.
A stateless society is a made-up thing that exists only in people's heads. A police/military force for internal/external defense of the populace are basic societal necessities.
 

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
That distrust of humanity is really at the core of the politics of someone like Elizabeth Warren. She's a hardcore capitalist. She also doesn't trust the players in the game not to try to rig it for themselves.
So do I. The problem is, for me, that capitalism directly empowers greed and incentivizes game-rigging. I don't know how you get over that. I can only assume you consider it a necessary evil to reap the benefits of market capitalism.

In the case where we both distrust "the players", you say "well, we need to regulate them and it'll be okay" and I say "qui custodiet ipsos custodes?"
 

Kirblar

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
30,744
So do I. The problem is, for me, that capitalism directly empowers greed and incentivizes game-rigging. I don't know how you get over that. I can only assume you consider it a necessary evil for the benefits of market capitalism.
We're born, we reproduce, we raise children, we die. (collectively speaking) Some people will try and hoard resources for themselves or their family. Some will actively try and harm others because they are sociopaths and actively enjoy it.

Every system will empower these people because these people are attracted to power, wealth, and/or cruelty. You can't stop those people from existing, the question is how your system handles their inevitable existence.
 

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for regulation. It's just that I think regulation is kind of like treating cancer by surgerically removing tumors. It's a necessary part of long-term treatment, but it's not a cure.
 

Deleted member 3896

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,815
At the very least socialism, or some of its proponents, derails threads. It's like no one wants to discuss it in the appropriate spaces.
It's true. Some folks insist on making the Democratic Primary thread the socialist knitting circle despite the number of times being asked not to do that.

Thanks for keeping us up on Williamson, btw. DVR'd her town hall last night. Looking forward to giving it a watch!
 

Kirblar

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
30,744
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for regulation. It's just that I think regulation is kind of like treating cancer by surgerically removing tumors. It's a necessary part of long-term treatment, but it's not a cure.
That's just it. There is no cure. It's an eternal disease (though one where future generations may be less shitty because of less lead poisoning.)
 

Frozenprince

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,158
That's just it. There is no cure. It's an eternal disease (though one where future generations may be less shitty because of less lead poisoning.)
So then we should all just die.

Seriously, if human beings are so irreparably doomed to slaughter each other and that there is no betterment of society beyond the bounds of making a profit, if the eternal system is that it is designed for some people to ALWAYS be on the bottom rung with nothing but the sweet embrace of finality and death to look forward too. Then what are we even doing.

You've a profoundly depressing and nihilistic view of humanity.
 
Oct 31, 2017
4,333
Unknown
It's true. Some folks insist on making the Democratic Primary thread the socialist knitting circle despite the number of times being asked not to do that.

Thanks for keeping us up on Williamson, btw. DVR'd her town hall last night. Looking forward to giving it a watch!
Yup. It's almost like it's organized. Like unwanted solicitors with their foot in the door.

Marianne's Town Hall was exciting. Her answers to reparations, Israel-Palestine, and how she would debate Trump were great.
She's so charismatic and genuine.
It really gave her a boost in mentions on twitter. Hopefully that translates to donations and a showing in the better polls.
 

Frozenprince

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,158
Who cares? The conversation will be over soon enough when something else of note happens related to the primary that people want to talk about more.
Also, there literally is no "appropriate" avenue to talk about things where you either A) get engagement and B) exist in the first place on a discussion forum.

You don't want people to talk about left wing politics then don't allow the left wing to exist, as it stands now Bernie Sanders DESCRIBES himself as a socialist, Bernie Sanders is running for President in the Democratic Primary.

If you don't want to talk about it, don't engage the people that talk about it. It's not hard.

Yup. It's almost like it's organized. Like unwanted solicitors with their foot in the door.

Marianne's Town Hall was exciting. Her answers to reparations, Israel-Palestine, and how she would debate Trump were great.
She's so charismatic and genuine.
It really gave her a boost in mentions on twitter. Hopefully that translates to donations and a showing in the better polls.
Aren't you lovely.
 

Deleted member 13364

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,984
Yup. It's almost like it's organized. Like unwanted solicitors with their foot in the door.
lol yes it's all a big conspiracy theory to turn this thread into a socialism OT. It couldn't possible be that it's a natural conversation to come from Pelosi saying socialism isn't the future of the party in a thread about the presidential candidates who will help shape the future of the party.
 

Deleted member 3896

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,815
Yup. It's almost like it's organized. Like unwanted solicitors with their foot in the door.

Marianne's Town Hall was exciting. Her answers to reparations, Israel-Palestine, and how she would debate Trump were great.
She's so charismatic and genuine.
It really gave her a boost in mentions on twitter. Hopefully that translates to donations and a showing in the better polls.
That's great to hear. Do you think she'll make the debates? I kicked her a few bucks a while back but it looks like it's been an uphill battle to hit 65k. Maybe her polling will tick up post town hall?

I do find weirder lovely. One of my fave posters in the thread :)
 

brainchild

Independent Developer
Verified
Nov 25, 2017
9,478
It has become much more of a hard science in the past few decades as the information age has progressed. And that change has blown up a lot of libertarian ideas about how the world's economies function alongside the socialist ones.

I think this is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen you say. Economics is a social science, and subsequently a soft science, and arguing otherwise makes you look incredibly ignorant. Some of you people really are too emotionally invested tribalism if you can make statements like that without a hint of jest.
 

Frozenprince

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,158
There's an OT for socialism in the hangouts, seems like the best place to discuss it for anyone interested.
We aren't talking about theory here except on the broadest level, nobody goes into an OT that isn't firmly of the belief of said thing which is why they are not conducive to discussion at all, and again, there is a self described socialist running for President and the Centre wing of the Democratic party is constantly mentioning Socialism.

If you don't like it, don't read it, stop constantly complaining about discussion happening in a discussion forum that you can easily ignore instead of creating a "derailment" of it yourself.

But no, a mod will be here shortly to tell us "fuck off to filthy commie land filthy commies" and you'll get your wish regardless and can go back to talking about twitter polls again.
 

Prodigal Son

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,791
We aren't talking about theory here except on the broadest level, nobody goes into an OT that isn't firmly of the belief of said thing which is why they are not conducive to discussion at all, and again, there is a self described socialist running for President and the Centre wing of the Democratic party is constantly mentioning Socialism.

If you don't like it, don't read it, stop constantly complaining about discussion happening in a discussion forum that you can easily ignore instead of creating a "derailment" of it yourself.

But no, a mod will be here shortly to tell us "fuck off to filthy commie land filthy commies" and you'll get your wish regardless and can go back to talking about twitter polls again.

this. socialism is relevant to the conversation about the primaries. unless its derailing discussion or undermining our ability to discuss other issues i dont see why we'd stop the conversation artificially
 

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
I think this is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen you say. Economics is a social science, and subsequently a soft science, and arguing otherwise makes you look incredibly ignorant. Some of you people really are too emotionally invested tribalism if you can make statements like that without a hint of jest.
I don't really distinguish between "hard" and "soft" like this anymore. However, I will say that as much as mainstream economists want to appear as "hard" as possible and ground their field in data, it doesn't change the inhererent nature of economics being the study of how humans behave and interact. Mathematical rigor in theory does not translate directly to objective outcomes in practice, because economic study tends to inform policy and policy is ultimately inter-human relations and the governance thereof.

Psychology is undergoing/underwent a similar shift from Freudian psychoanalysis to behavioural to cognitive and now neuro-cognitive, but until the point where we have infinite computing power such that we can simulate a human brain (or the amalgam market movements of hundreds of thousands of people), there will never be 100% equivalence between data and practice.
 

Tracygill

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
1,853
The Left

Kenneth P. Vogel
@kenvogel

NEW: @TomSteyer, a multi-million $ donor to @AmProg, is not pleased about @thinkprogress' video critiquing @BernieSanders: "I will use my voice on CAP's Board of Directors to discourage any such attacks on any candidate seeking the Democratic nomination in the future."

AhdKUXm.jpg

I did not expect Tom Steyer to side with Bernard on this issue but will this have any impact on CAP's future work. I doubt it but maybe I'm wrong.
 
Oct 31, 2017
4,333
Unknown
That's great to hear. Do you think she'll make the debates? I kicked her a few bucks a while back but it looks like it's been an uphill battle to hit 65k. Maybe her polling will tick up post town hall?


I do find weirder lovely. One of my fave posters in the thread :)
I'm holding out hope that the combination of the town hall, her book and her celebrity friends now starting to show support will bring it over the threshold for donations.
Then there is overcoming the next hurdle and the number of Dems in the race now since the stage is limited to 20. Would really like to see her included in those early state polls(the ones that count) and making a showing in those.

Even if she doesn't make the debate stage she might still stay in the race.
 

Deleted member 4346

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,976
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for regulation. It's just that I think regulation is kind of like treating cancer by surgerically removing tumors. It's a necessary part of long-term treatment, but it's not a cure.

Warren is really good with calling for heavy regulation under capitalism. I agree though, that's only a part of the cure. If you combine regulation with socializing large segments of the economy (health care, college, child care) I think you start to see real progress in combating the rampant wealth inequality in today's America. But the Nordic model should only be a stepping stone to ending capitalism altogether, because it relies on further inequalities in the developing world to sustain itself.

Anyway, bringing it back to the 2020 presidential election, I wish there were a candidate who combined Bernie's democratic socialism with Warren's desire to curb vulture capitalism, and who was younger.

Yup. It's almost like it's organized. Like unwanted solicitors with their foot in the door.

Look, it's the "red scare" argument again.
 
Oct 25, 2017
2,899
Ontario
Yup. It's almost like it's organized. Like unwanted solicitors with their foot in the door.

Marianne's Town Hall was exciting. Her answers to reparations, Israel-Palestine, and how she would debate Trump were great.
She's so charismatic and genuine.
It really gave her a boost in mentions on twitter. Hopefully that translates to donations and a showing in the better polls.

It's almost like capitalism is dooming us all to ecological collapse and who is the american president has a lot of bearing on exactly how bad and how fast the effects of that collapse are going to be.
 

Kirblar

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
30,744
So then we should all just die.

Seriously, if human beings are so irreparably doomed to slaughter each other and that there is no betterment of society beyond the bounds of making a profit, if the eternal system is that it is designed for some people to ALWAYS be on the bottom rung with nothing but the sweet embrace of finality and death to look forward too. Then what are we even doing.

You've a profoundly depressing and nihilistic view of humanity.
There are a lot of decent people. But you're always going to have rapists, serial killers, con artists, xenophobes, etc. and how you deal with their inevitable existence as they try to manipulate the system to their advantage is critical, because those are the people much more likely to actively seek power, wealth, status, etc. relative to everyone else. Trump is unfortunately a perfect example of this.

It's a realistic view, not "depressing". The point is to make life less shitty for everyone and to make things a better place for future generations, hopefully without us burring out the planet before the sun does. I view a world where you have an interconnected web of people working at jobs for other people that allow them to earn money for themselves that they use to receive goods and services from other people as a good thing. And no, I don't think you can completely eliminate rungs- but you can make the bottom rungs far less awful to live on.
I think this is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen you say. Economics is a social science, and subsequently a soft science, and arguing otherwise makes you look incredibly ignorant. Some of you people really are too emotionally invested tribalism if you can make statements like that without a hint of jest.
You think this makes me sound ignorant because you're ignorant on what I'm talking about. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-08-02/how-economics-went-from-philosophy-to-science

This isn't tribalism, this is "in 1980 almost no papers were testing against hard data or using experimental trials, in 2017, almost half were.
 

Deleted member 31817

Nov 7, 2017
30,876
Imagine getting mad at people for discussing specific policy positions for specific candidates and then expanding on them so people can have arguments and disagreements on political systems as a whole... in a political candidate thread.

Reporting for derailment? What? It's not like it was a one sided discussion or completely off topic.


Also economics is technically a soft science but it's also the closest "hard science" for social sciences.
 

Bronx-Man

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
15,351
Ah shit, we've been caught red-handed. Too late now though, this thread has been claimed in the name of the USSR.



anigif_enhanced-5284-1427679713-17.gif
 

Deleted member 3896

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,815
I'm holding out hope that the combination of the town hall, her book and her celebrity friends now starting to show support will bring it over the threshold for donations.
Then there is overcoming the next hurdle and the number of Dems in the race now since the stage is limited to 20. Would really like to see her included in those early state polls(the ones that count) and making a showing in those.

Even if she doesn't make the debate stage she might still stay in the race.
I totally forgot about the 20 candidate limit. I'm still baffled about Hickenlooper.
 
Oct 31, 2017
4,333
Unknown
User Banned (1 Week): Antagonizing Other Users and Thread Derailment

Kirblar

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
30,744
The whole "someone announced a month ago, they're fading!" thing is nonsense. It's 2 months and change til the first debate. Biden is going to be endorsing soon. The reason Pete's all over media is primarily because he's saying yes to interviews. Beto's working his crazy ground schedule. Harris is doing her thing in between her weekdays on Capitol Hill. We're not gonna see a lot of movement until the field starts winnowing, and that's going to take a while, and it'll start with the debates.
 
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