Dissecting John Stossel's Anti-Communist Lies

[22lcidw]

I recently read the "Three Body Problem" trilogy, written by Liu Cixin and translated from Chinese. I wrote a review on another forum.

In it, he describes a society about 200 years in the future when males have been completely feminized and that leads, indirectly, to the total domination of Earth by an alien civilization.

I type sounding terrible on this. All I ask is using sense. There are men nt giving any opportunity today to be given a good education let alone a top end job.

 

[busybee01]

Wrong.

Capistalism did not struggle to replace feudalism and chattel slavery. It replaced those outdated systems very quickly.

Unlike collectivist systems capitalism did not result in thr deaths of millions.

Communism and socialism on the other hand keep failing while slaughtering millions and yet morons still keep thinking they can make it work. They are doomed to failure and will never succeed

What we have today is not capitalism. We are seeing a massive transfer of wealth from everybody to the wealthy. This may very well end capitalism and it should end it.

 

[Red Front]

I've never liked the term capitalism. I like free markets. But if yo usay free markets and capitalism together, no, we don't have that. Not even close.

There's a tremendous problem with definitions and understanding in the electorate as to what kinds of policies we actually have. Which makes arguing over capitalism and socialism utterly useless. It's a useless exercise which avoids the more relevant terms of controversy.

What we have is a planned economy. We have economic interventionism. We have a belief in deficit financing. We have central economic planning by a central bank. We have inflationism. We have a welfare state. The whole Keynesian system is designed to fail. It rewards the rich and destroys the middle class.

It's foolish to label any of that free-market capitalism.

It is predictable, however, that socialists are gonna come along and contend that it's just soooo bad that what we need is socialism and eventually communism.

The problem is that we don't have free-markets, though. While the current monetary policy certainly should be rejected, since it is designed to ultimately fail and destroy the middle class, the electorate should not reject the cause of liberty and sound economics, because liberty and sound economics are not the problem. The problem, agaon, is that we do not have enough free-markets.

The free market is a fairy tale unicorn. Government is needed for a market to function at a national scale because without government regulation and infrastructure, you wouldn't be able to engage in commerce. Try having a market without an electric grid, roads, bridges, laws, courts, police, inspectors that make sure the restuarant doesn't have their food covered in cocroaches or the factory isn't dumping dangerous chemicals into the river..etc. You need government hence where is the self-regulating, functioning market that is solely dependent upon the so called invisible hand of supply and demand? That's a pink unicorn. Markets need governments.

What is the government? It can be nothing more than a social apparatus organized by the people to manage their large-scale socioeconomic civil affairs and projects. It's not inherently good, nor is it inherently evil, it's whatever we want it to be, especially in a democracy. Unlike private corporations, the government holds elections and we can have as much power and oversight over its functionaries and processes as we decide. Can we do that with a private company? Nope. People who claim to love liberty and freedom have no problem waking up in the morning and spending most of their waking hours in an absolute dictatorship, being told what to do. The workplace under capitalism is an absolute dictatorship. That's not the case in socialism.

In a socialist society, workers have more say on how the factory or production, in general, is organized and run. If you're a member of the communist party (which in a communist society, practically everyone over the age of 12 or 13 is eligible to join), you have a lot more say and power over the government and how society is run than we do here in capitalist-run America.

As technology advances, we're going to have to socialize and democratize production.

​

Do you want the billionaires, the ruling class in this country to own all of the technology? All of the patents and licenses, the facilities..etc? They own it and you and I will be reduced to compost because they don't need us to work for them anymore. What the socialists are saying is that we will all own the technology and the means of production. The facilities, the equipment, the machines, the self-driving vehicles, the robots, and the artificial intelligence. All of us own it together, collectively and we organize production to meet our needs, rather than for profit.

​

 

[Red Front]

Marx was a fool, and every one of his predictions failed. Go read another book.

Practically everything he said was on point and has come true, like clockwork. He never claimed socialism would replace capitalism in one generation or even in one century, so you're resorting to silly rhetoric.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Of course not, because I was born and raised here in the United States. It's illegal for me to live in a communist country, under American sanctions and threats of war. But anyways, why would I live in another country, when I can live here in the United States and do whatever I can to make it more socialist and communist?

Plenty of Americans live in China. Then again China isn't a Communist country. It just says it is.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

It is meeting all of its objectives in Ukraine, which is to secure the Donbas. But that's beside the point since Russia is no longer a socialist state as it was in Soviet times, so why even mention the current conflict in Ukraine? Russia is essentially fighting the US and NATO in Ukraine, due to the amount of support it has and continues to receive. When the ground freezes now in a few weeks, Russia is going to open a can on Ukraine. They're going to do what they should've done in February but didn't due to their policy to engage in a limited, controlled "military operation" to secure eastern Ukraine. All of that is over now and what we will be witnessing in the next few weeks is the full wrath of the Russian war machine.

It is meeting all of its objectives in Ukraine, which is to secure the Donbas.

Why did they give up the Ukraine in the first place?
And the rest of Eastern Europe?
Why did the Berlin Wall come down? To make it easier to spread communism to West Germany?

You never explained who won between East and West Germany from 1945-1990...........

Russia is essentially fighting the US and NATO in Ukraine,

I know. Russia versus Western capitalism. Beat us. Show us how it's done.

Russia is going to open a can on Ukraine.

Is that when they throw poorly trained, under equipped conscripts into battle?

All of that is over now and what we will be witnessing in the next few weeks is the full wrath of the Russian war machine.

Which Russian ships are gonna get sunk next? LOL!

 

[miketx]

Of course not, because I was born and raised here in the United States. It's illegal for me to live in a communist country, under American sanctions and threats of war. But anyways, why would I live in another country, when I can live here in the United States and do whatever I can to make it more socialist and communist?

Leave commie.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

We are seeing a massive transfer of wealth from everybody to the wealthy.

How are you transferring wealth to the wealthy? Why don't you stop?

 

[Natural Citizen]

The free market is a fairy tale unicorn. Government is needed for a market to function at a national scale because without government regulation and infrastructure, you wouldn't be able to engage in commerce. Try having a market without an electric grid, roads, bridges, laws, courts, police, inspectors that make sure the restuarant doesn't have their food covered in cocroaches or the factory isn't dumping dangerous chemicals into the river..etc. You need government hence where is the self-regulating, functioning market that is solely dependent upon the so called invisible hand of supply and demand? That's a pink unicorn. Markets need governments.

What is the government? It can be nothing more than a social apparatus organized by the people to manage their large-scale socioeconomic civil affairs and projects. It's not inherently good, nor is it inherently evil, it's whatever we want it to be, especially in a democracy. Unlike private corporations, the government holds elections and we can have as much power and oversight over its functionaries and processes as we decide. Can we do that with a private company? Nope. People who claim to love liberty and freedom have no problem waking up in the morning and spending most of their waking hours in an absolute dictatorship, being told what to do. The workplace under capitalism is an absolute dictatorship. That's not the case in socialism.

In a socialist society, workers have more say on how the factory or production, in general, is organized and run. If you're a member of the communist party (which in a communist society, practically everyone over the age of 12 or 13 is eligible to join), you have a lot more say and power over the government and how society is run than we do here in capitalist-run America.

As technology advances, we're going to have to socialize and democratize production.

​

Do you want the billionaires, the ruling class in this country to own all of the technology? All of the patents and licenses, the facilities..etc? They own it and you and I will be reduced to compost because they don't need us to work for them anymore. What the socialists say is that we all will own the technology and the means of production. The facilities, the equipment, the machines, the self-driving vehicles, the robots, and the artificial intelligence. All of us own it together, collectively and we organize production to meet our needs, rather than for profit.

​

My friend, you have much to learn. It's clear that you understand very little of what you're regurgitating. As always, people who participate in coercion understand very little of their role in it. And absolutely nothing of its consequence. We see the phenomenon quite a bit with this current generation of social justice warriors. The major malfunction in repeating the exercise is that your entire worldview needs to be ditched and reworked before you're even capable of understanding the terms of controversy relevant to the shortcomings in what you're regurgitating.

I'll break it down for you country simple. Government is force. Any philosophy which starts by idealizing government will always end by idealizing subjugation. Always.

It's why Marx never put any effort into revealing or even hinting how the state would 'wither away' after the 'dictatorship of the proletariate' commenced.

Marx's philosophy of ''from each according to his ability, to each acording to his need' has always appealed to underinformed and undereducated social justice warriors. Trustees in the foolish notion that their need should be decided and met by the theoretical omniscient, benevolent state. You're not new. Nor are the very shallow, cookie-cutter points you're regurgitating. We've had this discussion many, many, many, many times around here. It always ends the same way.

Communism has killed over a hundred million people in the last cenury alone. East Germans, for example, were told that the Berlin Wall was to keep fascists out. Except that border guards were only killing East Germans heading west. that's what happens when you submit to the notion of limitless power by rulers.

 

[BothWings]

Wrong.

Capistalism did not struggle to replace feudalism and chattel slavery. It replaced those outdated systems very quickly.

Unlike collectivist systems capitalism did not result in thr deaths of millions.

Communism and socialism on the other hand keep failing while slaughtering millions and yet morons still keep thinking they can make it work. They are doomed to failure and will never succeed

We STILL have feudalism. Corporations are the new lords, shareholders are the vassals and the rest are serfs. Just because it's achieved a different sort of internal balance as it did in medieval times doesn't really make it that much different fundamentally. Ordinary People are very much under the thumb of corporations these days. Corporations practically own governments now....even though that's not the OFFICIAL explanation (shhhh).

 

[Natural Citizen]

Capitalists run this Forum...

That's not exactly true, Leo.

Maude staff technically run this place.

Admins abandoned the place a long time ago.

You do have long-standing senior maude staff here who openly and unapologetically profess to be trustees and proponents in Marx's ideology of ''from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

While that's certainly a bit of a (humorous) conflict of interest given the platform is considered private property, I've asked that question directly on the open board.

 

[fncceo]

As a communist, I'm not against the type of market exchange that you just described provided it doesn't involve the exploitation of human labor. Markets don't equate capitalism, because they existed way before the first capitalist ever purchased the life of a human laborer for twelve or sixteen hours to operate his machines and produce products for a profit. You're confusing bartering and use value exchange with capitalism, which is a completely different relationship.

In the not too distant future technology will render capitalism obsolete and unworkable, due to the fact that without human labor the capitalist market collapses. All value in capitalism relies on human wage labor.

NO WAGE LABOR = NO PAYING CONSUMER = NO CAPITALISTS GENERATING A PROFIT.​

We are going to have to adopt a mode of production that isn't based on the pursuit of profits or capital accumulation. Within the next few decades, robotics, automated systems, artificial intelligence, self-driving autonomous vehicles, and a few other technologies will significantly replace human labor, hence it will become necessary for the public to take control of the technology and produce everything to meet their needs, rather than for a profit. The two options for those who live in the modern, industrialized world are techno-feudalism or high-communism (i.e. high-tech communism). The former will reduce the public to useless, worthless serfs and eventually to the compost heap. The later will empower the consumer by rendering the means of production theirs. It democratizes and socializes production.

​

In every dorm room BS session I've ever attended -- or their adult equivalent -- someone invariably brings up the utopian society of "Star Trek". Roddenberry came up with the idea that his fictional space-faring society would be beyond such things as money and Capitalism and focus on the development of the self. A fine notion, if not well explained as to how it works.

We can only get an insight into the workings of Roddenberry's utopian ideal from what he actually wrote into his series... for example.

In the TOS/TNG canon, Star Fleet is an elitist group that regularly decides planetary policy (despite being an unelected body) and withholds technology from others. Far from being "a group dedicated to the exploration of space", Star Fleet spends very little time actually exploring. Whenever they go "where no man has gone before", someone is invariably waiting for them.

When Star Fleet does come across an unknown phenomenon, it is typically by accident.

Star Fleet is very competitive. Only the most highly driven individuals can gain admittance to the academy and even then, social skills and your ability to ingratiate yourself with higher ups, not your abilities, are your only paths to promotion. Far from being a place for individual development, Star Fleet is a regimented society of souless automatons who believe only in "The Starfleet Way". Reginald Barkley is a highly competent, some claim genius level lower officer in Star Fleet. But, his social inabilities preclude anyone from wanting to work with him and he is barred from promotion. Even a genius like Wesley Crusher who is not only smarter than his fellow cadets but has significantly more experience with Star Fleet is unable to cope with the social aspects of Star Fleet Academy and does eventually resign.

Star Fleet's primary law, "The Prime Directive" (a law they frequently break for convenience's sake) prohibits Star Fleet from providing technology to civilizations that might provide competition to an already resource scarce Federation of Planets, even when that technology may save an entire civilization.

Star Fleet may operate on the principle of "No Capitalism", but the rest of the galaxy clearly does not. Star Fleet fights wars (in the name of The Earth) against other races for both territory and resources. So, despite replicator technology and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of natural resources, space faring races must continue to fight over them. Even in their own society, Star Fleet must deal with Capitalist miners for dilithium crystals and other necessities that they are unable to produce themselves. In the TOS/TNG universe, Star Fleet is constantly plying between plants for "trade negotiations", implying these planets do not live under post-scarcity Socialism but are free-dealing Capitalists.

The DSN/VOY canon further elaborate on this by showing Star Fleet operating among worlds where Capitalism is the only form of economic system and Star Fleet will regularly begin to trade with them.

 

[Red Front]

It is meeting all of its objectives in Ukraine, which is to secure the Donbas.

Why did they give up the Ukraine in the first place?
And the rest of Eastern Europe?
Why did the Berlin Wall come down? To make it easier to spread communism to West Germany?

You never explained who won between East and West Germany from 1945-1990...........

Russia is essentially fighting the US and NATO in Ukraine,

I know. Russia versus Western capitalism. Beat us. Show us how it's done.

Russia is going to open a can on Ukraine.

Is that when they throw poorly trained, under equipped conscripts into battle?

All of that is over now and what we will be witnessing in the next few weeks is the full wrath of the Russian war machine.

Which Russian ships are gonna get sunk next? LOL!

Your questions are full of false assumptions. The USSR was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which included Ukraine, and when it collapsed in 1991, after several years of Perestroika in the 1980s, Ukraine became an independent state. Yeah? Like what's the point?

You critique socialism in the USSR as if it its failures were exclusively due to some supposed inherent flaw in the system and that's where you're wrong. You fail to factor in the many obstacles and challenges forced upon the USSR and other socialist-run economies by the United States and its allies. The United States and other capitalist powers encircled communist Russia and did everything possible to destroy it. The US even invaded it in 1918 with 14 other nations. The Germans later invaded it with four million soldiers in 1941, under Operation Barbarossa. The Soviets lost nine million soldiers fighting Nazi Germany and 17 million civilians. Comparably, the United States lost 480 thousand people. The US wasn't invaded.

You also disingenuously ignore the fact that the USSR started out as a poor, under-industrialized agrarian society comprised of peasants in the early 20th century with an 87% illiteracy rate. In a little over 20 years, Russia became an industrial juggernaut rivaling the United States and Western Europe. Its ascendency was noticed, respected, and even praised by many American economists and experts. During the American great depression, thousands of American engineers and scientists moved to Soviet Russia and contributed to its development. Both Russian and Western engineers and scientists were gradually transforming Soviet Russia into a superpower, a nation that began just twenty years earlier.

Then it was invaded by four million Nazis. After WW2, the Soviets had to start again, in many ways, from scratch. By the late 1950s, the USSR was a world superpower rivaling the US in every way (economically, militarily, and technologically). The USSR was launching satellites and people into space before we were here in the US. This was after the devastation of WW2, when they lost most of their industrial base and had to rebuild. The history of the USSR doesn't undermine the claims of socialism, on the contrary, it solidifies and impressively validates them. The only way capitalism beats socialism is through sabotage, sanctions, embargoes, bombs, bullets..etc. This only works in the beginning but in the end, socialism will win.


The current conflict in Ukraine is due to the US expanding NATO into Eastern Europe and co-opting the Ukrainian maidan protests of 2014, which ousted Viktor Yanukovych the democratically elected president of Ukraine, who was friendly with Russia, with Petro Poroshenko, an ultra-nationalist/neo-nazi sympathizer who hates everything Russian. Why should the Russo-Ukrainians of the Donbas accept the authority of an American puppet regime in Kyiv that wants to eliminate the Russian language and every other vestige of Russian culture and history from Ukraine? The Ukrainians of Russian ethnicity in both Crimea and the Donbas decided to reject the coup regime and become part of Russia. Crimea and the Donbas are now part of Russia.

The Ukrainians signed on to the Minsk-2 agreements of 2015, then refused to implement it, continuing to shell civilians in the Donbas. So now Russia is going to fully resolve the problem with an all-out invasion of Ukraine. Putin is no longer fighting Ukraine with gloves on, trying to accomplish his objectives with as little damage to Ukraine's infrastructure as possible. What we are about to see now isn't just a "military operation" designed to take control of the Donbas. What we're going to witness now is an all-out war, with at least 400 thousand Russians invading much of Ukraine. The Ukrainian leadership is now going to be targeted and so is all of the nation's infrastructure. Now you're really going to see Russia at war.

 

[Unkotare]

Practically everything he said was on point and has come true, ......

Just flatly denying reality is not logical, kid.

 

[Unkotare]

This dopey OP has absolutely no grasp on logic, history, or reality itself.

 

[JWBooth]

 

[Soupnazi630]

We STILL have feudalism. Corporations are the new lords, shareholders are the vassals and the rest are serfs. Just because it's achieved a different sort of internal balance as it did in medieval times doesn't really make it that much different fundamentally. Ordinary People are very much under the thumb of corporations these days. Corporations practically own governments now....even though that's not the OFFICIAL explanation (shhhh).

Not even close.

You need to learn a lot more about history and feudalism

 

[Soupnazi630]

Practically everything he said was on point and has come true, like clockwork. He never claimed socialism would replace capitalism in one generation or even in one century, so you're resorting to silly rhetoric.

Wrong.

Every prediction marx made has failed and in fact the opposite has occurred

 

[ThunderKiss1965]

It's not how you start the race, it's how you finish it that matters. It took centuries for capitalism to replace chattel slavery and feudalism, and it will take time for socialism and then communism to replace capitalism. It's just a matter of time.

Yeah all you have to do is kill another 100 million or so and it will be great.

 

[ThunderKiss1965]

As a communist, I'm not against the type of market exchange that you just described provided it doesn't involve the exploitation of human labor. Markets don't equate capitalism, because they existed way before the first capitalist ever purchased the life of a human laborer for twelve or sixteen hours to operate his machines and produce products for a profit. You're confusing bartering and use value exchange with capitalism, which is a completely different relationship.

In the not too distant future technology will render capitalism obsolete and unworkable, due to the fact that without human labor the capitalist market collapses. All value in capitalism relies on human wage labor.

NO WAGE LABOR = NO PAYING CONSUMER = NO CAPITALISTS GENERATING A PROFIT.​

We are going to have to adopt a mode of production that isn't based on the pursuit of profits or capital accumulation. Within the next few decades, robotics, automated systems, artificial intelligence, self-driving autonomous vehicles, and a few other technologies will significantly replace human labor, hence it will become necessary for the public to take control of the technology and produce everything to meet their needs, rather than for a profit. The two options for those who live in the modern, industrialized world are techno-feudalism or high-communism (i.e. high-tech communism). The former will reduce the public to useless, worthless serfs and eventually to the compost heap. The later will empower the consumer by rendering the means of production theirs. It democratizes and socializes production.

​

I guess you don't think of labor camps as slavery. Every country controlled by communist had millions of people in forced labor.