Who's Afraid of Socialism?

[georgephillip]

The market informs the capitalists how to use their resources. In essence we are all part of the decision in a capitalist system. That really wouldn't change under a socialist system of production.

Democracy at work is a wonderful step forward and should help to alleviate some of the social issues caused by capitalism.

Bringing democracy to the workplace would solve many of our problems:

Most adults spend at least half their waking lives in the workplace, yet capitalism requires them to suspend their democratic ideals in return for a regular paycheck.

There Is An Alternative.
Democratizing the Workplace through “Worker Self-Directed Enterprises”

I do enjoy Wolff's regular Economic Updates on youtube.

The term "Marxian economist" is an oxymoron.

Richard D. Wolff - Wikipedia

"Richard David Wolff (born April 1, 1942) is an American Marxian economist, well known for his work on Marxian economics, economic methodology, and class analysis.

"He is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York.

"Wolff has also taught economics at Yale University, City University of New York, University of Utah, University of Paris I (Sorbonne), and The Brecht Forum in New York City..."

"Wolff earned a BA magna cum laude in history from Harvard in 1963 and moved on to Stanford—he attained an MA in economics in 1964—to study with Paul A. Baran.

"Baran died prematurely from a heart attack in 1964 and Wolff transferred to Yale University, where he received an MA in economics in 1966, MA in history in 1967, and a PhD in economics in 1969.

"As a graduate student at Yale, Wolff worked as an instructor.[1] His dissertation, 'Economic Aspects of British Colonialism in Kenya, 1895–1930',[10] was eventually published in book form in 1974.[11]"

Your point? He's a con man. So-called "Marxian economics" is a hoax.

Have you bothered to read any of Wolff's work?

http://ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/Contending-Economic-Theories-Wolff.pdf (P. 133)

"Marxian theory is a class theory.

"Its originality lies not in claiming that classes exist; people have said that for thousands of years and used class to understand their societies.

"Marx’s originality lies in how he understands and defines class, then derives his notion of exploitation, and finally shows how class and exploitation influence people’s conceptions, perceptions, and actions.

"Marxian theory concludes that class exploitation occurs at multiple sites in modern society and that our politics, literature, family structures, sports, television programing, religions, and incomes are all complexly shaped by exploitation."

"Of particular relevance to this chapter, we will explain how prices, incomes, wealth, and so on, are shaped by class exploitation."

 

[georgephillip]

Which institution do "the people" use to organize labor and allocate resources? In capitalism a few very rich people make these decisions that affect millions of stakeholders.

Socialism expands the pool of decision makers far beyond the boardroom; do you actually believe the richest members of society are entitled to decide what to produce, who to produce for, and where to produce?

Which institution do "the people" use to organize labor and allocate resources?

The market informs the capitalists how to use their resources. In essence we are all part of the decision in a capitalist system. That really wouldn't change under a socialist system of production.

Democracy at work is a wonderful step forward and should help to alleviate some of the social issues caused by capitalism.

Bringing democracy to the workplace would solve many of our problems:

Most adults spend at least half their waking lives in the workplace, yet capitalism requires them to suspend their democratic ideals in return for a regular paycheck.

There Is An Alternative.
Democratizing the Workplace through “Worker Self-Directed Enterprises”

DERP

{
“Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for twenty years. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. There were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to run the factory. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody—almost everybody—voted for it. We didn’t know. We thought it was good. No, that’s not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need.

“We voted for that plan at a big meeting, with all of us present, six thousand of us, everybody that worked in the factory. The Starnes heirs made long speeches about it, and it wasn’t too clear, but nobody asked any questions. None of us knew just how the plan would work, but every one of us thought that the next fellow knew it. And if anybody had doubts, he felt guilty and kept his mouth shut—because they made it sound like anyone who’d oppose the plan was a child-killer at heart and less than a human being. They told us that this plan would achieve a noble ideal. Well, how were we to know otherwise? Hadn’t we heard it all our lives—from our parents and our schoolteachers and our ministers, and in every newspaper we ever read and every movie and every public speech? Hadn’t we always been told that this was righteous and just? Well, maybe there’s some excuse for what we did at that meeting. Still, we voted for the plan—and what we got, we had it coming to us. You know, ma’am, we are marked men, in a way, those of us who lived through the four years of that plan in the Twentieth Century factory. What is it that hell is supposed to be? Evil—plain, naked, smirking evil, isn’t it? Well, that’s what we saw and helped to make—and I think we’re damned, every one of us, and maybe we’ll never be forgiven …

“Do you know how it worked, that plan, and what it did to people? Try pouring water into a tank where there’s a pipe at the bottom draining it out faster than you pour it, and each bucket you bring breaks that pipe an inch wider, and the harder you work the more is demanded of you, and you stand slinging buckets forty hours a week, then forty-eight, then fifty-six—for your neighbor’s supper—for his wife’s operation—for his child’s measles—for his mother’s wheel chair—for his uncle’s shirt—for his nephew’s schooling—for the baby next door—for the baby to be born—for anyone anywhere around you—it’s theirs to receive, from diapers to dentures—and yours to work, from sunup to sundown, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it but your sweat, with nothing in sight for you but their pleasure, for the whole of your life, without rest, without hope, without end … From each according to his ability, to each according to his need …

“We’re all one big family, they told us, we’re all in this together. But you don’t all stand working an acetylene torch ten hours a day—together, and you don’t all get a bellyache—together. What’s whose ability and which of whose needs comes first? When it’s all one pot, you can’t let any man decide what his own needs are, can you? If you did, he might claim that he needs a yacht—and if his feelings are all you have to go by, he might prove it, too. Why not? If it’s not right for me to own a car until I’ve worked myself into a hospital ward, earning a car for every loafer and every naked savage on earth – why can’t he demand a yacht from me, too, if I still have the ability not to have collapsed? No? He can’t? Then why can he demand that I go without cream for my coffee until he’s replastered his living room? … Oh well … Well, anyway, it was decided that nobody had the right to judge his own need or ability. We voted on it. Yes, ma’am, we voted on it in a public meeting twice a year. How else could it be done? Do you care to think what would happen at such a meeting? It took us just one meeting to discover that we had become beggars—rotten, whining, sniveling beggars, all of us, because no man could claim his pay as his rightful earning, he had no rights and no earnings, his work didn’t belong to him, it belonged to ‘the family’, and they owed him nothing in return, and the only claim he had on them was his ‘need’—so he had to beg in public for relief from his needs, like any lousy moocher, listing all his troubles and miseries, down to his patched drawers and his wife’s head colds, hoping that ‘the family’ would throw him the alms. He had to claim miseries, because it’s miseries, not work, that had become the coin of the realm—so it turned into a contest between six thousand panhandlers, each claiming that his need was worse than his brother’s. How else could it be done? Do you care to guess what happened, what sort of men kept quiet, feeling shame, and what sort got away with the jackpot?

“But that wasn’t all. There was something else that we discovered at the same meeting. The factory’s production had fallen by forty percent, in that first half year, so it was decided that somebody hadn’t delivered ‘according to his ability.’ Who? How would you tell it? ‘The family’ voted on that, too. We voted which men were the best, and these men were sentenced to work overtime each night for the next six months. Overtime without pay—because you weren’t paid by time and you weren’t paid by work, only by need.

“Do I have to tell you what happened after that—and into what sort of creatures we all started turning, we who had once been humans? We began to hide whatever ability we had, to slow down and watch like hawks that we never worked any faster or better than the next fellow. What else could we do, when we knew that if we did our best for ‘the family,’ it’s not thanks or rewards that we’d get, but punishment? We knew that for every stinker who’d ruin a batch of motors and cost the company money—either through his sloppiness, because he didn’t have to care, or through plain incompetence—it’s we who’d have to pay with our nights and our Sundays. So we did our best to be no good.

“There was one young boy who started out, full of fire for the noble ideal, a bright kid without any schooling, but with a wonderful head on his shoulders. The first year, he figured out a work process that saved us thousands of man-hours. He gave it to ‘the family,’ didn’t ask anything for it, either, couldn’t ask, but that was all right with him. It was for the ideal, he said. But when he found himself voted as one of our ablest and sentenced to night work, because we hadn’t gotten enough from him, he shut his mouth and his brain. You can bet he didn’t come up with any ideas, the second year.

“What was it they’d always told us about the vicious competition of the profit system, where men had to compete for who’d do a better job than his fellows? Vicious, wasn’t it? Well, they should have seen what it was like when we all had to compete with one another for who’d do the worst job possible. There’s no surer way to destroy a man than to force him into a spot where he has to aim at not doing his best, where he has to struggle to do a bad job, day after day. That will finish him quicker than drink or idleness or pulling stick-ups for a living. But there was nothing else for us to do except to fake unfitness. The one accusation we feared was to be suspected of ability. Ability was like a mortgage on you that you could never pay off. And what was there to work for? You knew that your basic pittance would be given to you anyway, whether you worked or not—your ‘housing and feeding allowance,’ it was called—and above that pittance, you had no chance to get anything, no matter how hard you tried. You couldn’t count on buying a new suit of clothes next year—they might give you a ‘clothing allowance’ or they might not, according to whether nobody broke a leg, needed an operation or gave birth to more babies. And if there wasn’t enough money for new suits for everybody, then you couldn’t get yours, either.

“There was one man who’d worked hard all his life, because he’d always wanted to send his son through college. Well, the boy graduated from high school in the second year of the plan—but ‘the family’ wouldn’t give the father any ‘allowance’ for the college. They said his son couldn’t go to college, until we had enough to send everybody’s sons to college—and that we first had to send everybody’s children through high school, and we didn’t even have enough for that. The father died the following year, in a knife fight with somebody in a saloon, a fight over nothing in particular—such fights were beginning to happen among us all the time.

“Then there was an old guy, a widower with no family, who had one hobby: phonograph records. I guess that was all he ever got out of life. In the old days, he used to skip lunch just to buy himself some new recording of classical music. Well, they didn’t give him any ‘allowance’ for records—‘personal luxury’ they called it. But at the same meeting, Millie Bush, somebody’s daughter, a mean, ugly little eight year old, was voted a pair of gold braces for her buck teeth—this was ‘medical need’ because the staff psychologist had said that the poor girl would get an inferiority complex if her teeth weren’t straightened out. The old guy who loved music, turned to drink, instead. He got so you never saw him fully conscious any more. But it seems like there was one thing he couldn’t forget. One night, he came staggering down the street, saw Millie Bush, swung his fist and knocked all her teeth out. Every one of them.

“Drink, of course, was what we all turned to, some more, some less. Don’t ask how we got the money for it. When all the decent pleasures are forbidden, there’s always ways to get the rotten ones. You don’t break into grocery stores after dark and you don’t pick your fellow’s pockets to buy classical symphonies or fishing tackle, but if it’s to get stinking drunk and forget—you do. Fishing tackle? Hunting guns? Snapshot cameras? Hobbies? There wasn’t any ‘amusement allowance’ for anybody. ‘Amusement’ was the first thing they dropped. Aren’t you supposed to be ashamed to object when anybody asks you to give up anything, if it’s something that gave you pleasure? Even our ‘tobacco allowance’ was cut to where we got two packs of cigarettes a month—and this, they told us, was because the money had to go into the babies’ milk fund. Babies was the only item of production that didn’t fall, but rose and kept on rising—because people had nothing else to do, I guess, and because they didn’t have to care, the baby wasn’t their burden, it was ‘the family’s.’ In fact, the best chance you had of getting a raise and breathing easier for a while was a ‘baby allowance.’ Either that or a major disease.

“It didn’t take us long to see how it all worked out. Any man who tried to play straight, had to refuse himself everything. He lost his taste for any pleasure, he hated to smoke a nickel’s worth of tobacco or chew a stick of gum, worrying whether somebody had more need for that nickel. He felt ashamed of every mouthful of food he swallowed, wondering whose weary nights of overtime had paid for it, knowing that his food was not his by right, miserably wishing to be cheated rather than to cheat, to be a sucker, but not a blood-sucker. He wouldn’t marry, he wouldn’t help his folks back home, he wouldn’t put an extra burden on ‘the family.’ Besides, if he still had some sort of sense of responsibility, he couldn’t marry or bring children into the world, when he could plan nothing, promise nothing, count on nothing. But the shiftless and irresponsible had a field day of it. They bred babies, they got girls into trouble, they dragged in every worthless relative they had from all over the country, every unmarried pregnant sister, for an extra ‘disability allowance,’ they got more sicknesses than any doctor could disprove, they ruined their clothing, their furniture, their homes—what the hell, ‘the family’ was paying for it! They found more ways of getting in ‘need’ than the rest of us could ever imagine—they developed a special skill for it, which was the only ability they showed.} - Atlas Shrugged

/lit/ - Literature - Search:

You can say that, but it doesn't change that what she wrote in Atlas Shrugged, has happened in real life. So you can say she is full of crap until you pass out.... doesn't change the fact that she has been proven right over and over again.

You can say that, but it doesn't change that what she wrote in Atlas Shrugged, has happened in real life. So you can say she is full of crap until you pass out.... doesn't change the fact that she has been proven right over and over again

The Virtue of Stupidity: A Critique of Ayn Rand and Objectivism

You can also say her cult of Objectivism appeals more to religious bigots than anyone who's seriously searching for objective reality.

 

[bripat9643]

Bringing democracy to the workplace would solve many of our problems:

Most adults spend at least half their waking lives in the workplace, yet capitalism requires them to suspend their democratic ideals in return for a regular paycheck.

There Is An Alternative.
Democratizing the Workplace through “Worker Self-Directed Enterprises”

I do enjoy Wolff's regular Economic Updates on youtube.

The term "Marxian economist" is an oxymoron.

Richard D. Wolff - Wikipedia

"Richard David Wolff (born April 1, 1942) is an American Marxian economist, well known for his work on Marxian economics, economic methodology, and class analysis.

"He is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York.

"Wolff has also taught economics at Yale University, City University of New York, University of Utah, University of Paris I (Sorbonne), and The Brecht Forum in New York City..."

"Wolff earned a BA magna cum laude in history from Harvard in 1963 and moved on to Stanford—he attained an MA in economics in 1964—to study with Paul A. Baran.

"Baran died prematurely from a heart attack in 1964 and Wolff transferred to Yale University, where he received an MA in economics in 1966, MA in history in 1967, and a PhD in economics in 1969.

"As a graduate student at Yale, Wolff worked as an instructor.[1] His dissertation, 'Economic Aspects of British Colonialism in Kenya, 1895–1930',[10] was eventually published in book form in 1974.[11]"

Your point? He's a con man. So-called "Marxian economics" is a hoax.

Have you bothered to read any of Wolff's work?

http://ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/Contending-Economic-Theories-Wolff.pdf (P. 133)

"Marxian theory is a class theory.

"Its originality lies not in claiming that classes exist; people have said that for thousands of years and used class to understand their societies.

"Marx’s originality lies in how he understands and defines class, then derives his notion of exploitation, and finally shows how class and exploitation influence people’s conceptions, perceptions, and actions.

"Marxian theory concludes that class exploitation occurs at multiple sites in modern society and that our politics, literature, family structures, sports, television programing, religions, and incomes are all complexly shaped by exploitation."

"Of particular relevance to this chapter, we will explain how prices, incomes, wealth, and so on, are shaped by class exploitation."

I don't need to read any of his work to know that he's a fraud. Marx was a fraud, which means he's a fraud. As I said previously, the term "Marxist economist" is an oxymoron.

For example, the term "exploitation" is meaningless in terms of economics. Anyone who uses it is a politician and a demagogue, but not an economist.

 

[bripat9643]

The market informs the capitalists how to use their resources. In essence we are all part of the decision in a capitalist system. That really wouldn't change under a socialist system of production.

Democracy at work is a wonderful step forward and should help to alleviate some of the social issues caused by capitalism.

Bringing democracy to the workplace would solve many of our problems:

Most adults spend at least half their waking lives in the workplace, yet capitalism requires them to suspend their democratic ideals in return for a regular paycheck.

There Is An Alternative.
Democratizing the Workplace through “Worker Self-Directed Enterprises”

DERP

{
“Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for twenty years. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. There were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to run the factory. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody—almost everybody—voted for it. We didn’t know. We thought it was good. No, that’s not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need.

“We voted for that plan at a big meeting, with all of us present, six thousand of us, everybody that worked in the factory. The Starnes heirs made long speeches about it, and it wasn’t too clear, but nobody asked any questions. None of us knew just how the plan would work, but every one of us thought that the next fellow knew it. And if anybody had doubts, he felt guilty and kept his mouth shut—because they made it sound like anyone who’d oppose the plan was a child-killer at heart and less than a human being. They told us that this plan would achieve a noble ideal. Well, how were we to know otherwise? Hadn’t we heard it all our lives—from our parents and our schoolteachers and our ministers, and in every newspaper we ever read and every movie and every public speech? Hadn’t we always been told that this was righteous and just? Well, maybe there’s some excuse for what we did at that meeting. Still, we voted for the plan—and what we got, we had it coming to us. You know, ma’am, we are marked men, in a way, those of us who lived through the four years of that plan in the Twentieth Century factory. What is it that hell is supposed to be? Evil—plain, naked, smirking evil, isn’t it? Well, that’s what we saw and helped to make—and I think we’re damned, every one of us, and maybe we’ll never be forgiven …

“Do you know how it worked, that plan, and what it did to people? Try pouring water into a tank where there’s a pipe at the bottom draining it out faster than you pour it, and each bucket you bring breaks that pipe an inch wider, and the harder you work the more is demanded of you, and you stand slinging buckets forty hours a week, then forty-eight, then fifty-six—for your neighbor’s supper—for his wife’s operation—for his child’s measles—for his mother’s wheel chair—for his uncle’s shirt—for his nephew’s schooling—for the baby next door—for the baby to be born—for anyone anywhere around you—it’s theirs to receive, from diapers to dentures—and yours to work, from sunup to sundown, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it but your sweat, with nothing in sight for you but their pleasure, for the whole of your life, without rest, without hope, without end … From each according to his ability, to each according to his need …

“We’re all one big family, they told us, we’re all in this together. But you don’t all stand working an acetylene torch ten hours a day—together, and you don’t all get a bellyache—together. What’s whose ability and which of whose needs comes first? When it’s all one pot, you can’t let any man decide what his own needs are, can you? If you did, he might claim that he needs a yacht—and if his feelings are all you have to go by, he might prove it, too. Why not? If it’s not right for me to own a car until I’ve worked myself into a hospital ward, earning a car for every loafer and every naked savage on earth – why can’t he demand a yacht from me, too, if I still have the ability not to have collapsed? No? He can’t? Then why can he demand that I go without cream for my coffee until he’s replastered his living room? … Oh well … Well, anyway, it was decided that nobody had the right to judge his own need or ability. We voted on it. Yes, ma’am, we voted on it in a public meeting twice a year. How else could it be done? Do you care to think what would happen at such a meeting? It took us just one meeting to discover that we had become beggars—rotten, whining, sniveling beggars, all of us, because no man could claim his pay as his rightful earning, he had no rights and no earnings, his work didn’t belong to him, it belonged to ‘the family’, and they owed him nothing in return, and the only claim he had on them was his ‘need’—so he had to beg in public for relief from his needs, like any lousy moocher, listing all his troubles and miseries, down to his patched drawers and his wife’s head colds, hoping that ‘the family’ would throw him the alms. He had to claim miseries, because it’s miseries, not work, that had become the coin of the realm—so it turned into a contest between six thousand panhandlers, each claiming that his need was worse than his brother’s. How else could it be done? Do you care to guess what happened, what sort of men kept quiet, feeling shame, and what sort got away with the jackpot?

“But that wasn’t all. There was something else that we discovered at the same meeting. The factory’s production had fallen by forty percent, in that first half year, so it was decided that somebody hadn’t delivered ‘according to his ability.’ Who? How would you tell it? ‘The family’ voted on that, too. We voted which men were the best, and these men were sentenced to work overtime each night for the next six months. Overtime without pay—because you weren’t paid by time and you weren’t paid by work, only by need.

“Do I have to tell you what happened after that—and into what sort of creatures we all started turning, we who had once been humans? We began to hide whatever ability we had, to slow down and watch like hawks that we never worked any faster or better than the next fellow. What else could we do, when we knew that if we did our best for ‘the family,’ it’s not thanks or rewards that we’d get, but punishment? We knew that for every stinker who’d ruin a batch of motors and cost the company money—either through his sloppiness, because he didn’t have to care, or through plain incompetence—it’s we who’d have to pay with our nights and our Sundays. So we did our best to be no good.

“There was one young boy who started out, full of fire for the noble ideal, a bright kid without any schooling, but with a wonderful head on his shoulders. The first year, he figured out a work process that saved us thousands of man-hours. He gave it to ‘the family,’ didn’t ask anything for it, either, couldn’t ask, but that was all right with him. It was for the ideal, he said. But when he found himself voted as one of our ablest and sentenced to night work, because we hadn’t gotten enough from him, he shut his mouth and his brain. You can bet he didn’t come up with any ideas, the second year.

“What was it they’d always told us about the vicious competition of the profit system, where men had to compete for who’d do a better job than his fellows? Vicious, wasn’t it? Well, they should have seen what it was like when we all had to compete with one another for who’d do the worst job possible. There’s no surer way to destroy a man than to force him into a spot where he has to aim at not doing his best, where he has to struggle to do a bad job, day after day. That will finish him quicker than drink or idleness or pulling stick-ups for a living. But there was nothing else for us to do except to fake unfitness. The one accusation we feared was to be suspected of ability. Ability was like a mortgage on you that you could never pay off. And what was there to work for? You knew that your basic pittance would be given to you anyway, whether you worked or not—your ‘housing and feeding allowance,’ it was called—and above that pittance, you had no chance to get anything, no matter how hard you tried. You couldn’t count on buying a new suit of clothes next year—they might give you a ‘clothing allowance’ or they might not, according to whether nobody broke a leg, needed an operation or gave birth to more babies. And if there wasn’t enough money for new suits for everybody, then you couldn’t get yours, either.

“There was one man who’d worked hard all his life, because he’d always wanted to send his son through college. Well, the boy graduated from high school in the second year of the plan—but ‘the family’ wouldn’t give the father any ‘allowance’ for the college. They said his son couldn’t go to college, until we had enough to send everybody’s sons to college—and that we first had to send everybody’s children through high school, and we didn’t even have enough for that. The father died the following year, in a knife fight with somebody in a saloon, a fight over nothing in particular—such fights were beginning to happen among us all the time.

“Then there was an old guy, a widower with no family, who had one hobby: phonograph records. I guess that was all he ever got out of life. In the old days, he used to skip lunch just to buy himself some new recording of classical music. Well, they didn’t give him any ‘allowance’ for records—‘personal luxury’ they called it. But at the same meeting, Millie Bush, somebody’s daughter, a mean, ugly little eight year old, was voted a pair of gold braces for her buck teeth—this was ‘medical need’ because the staff psychologist had said that the poor girl would get an inferiority complex if her teeth weren’t straightened out. The old guy who loved music, turned to drink, instead. He got so you never saw him fully conscious any more. But it seems like there was one thing he couldn’t forget. One night, he came staggering down the street, saw Millie Bush, swung his fist and knocked all her teeth out. Every one of them.

“Drink, of course, was what we all turned to, some more, some less. Don’t ask how we got the money for it. When all the decent pleasures are forbidden, there’s always ways to get the rotten ones. You don’t break into grocery stores after dark and you don’t pick your fellow’s pockets to buy classical symphonies or fishing tackle, but if it’s to get stinking drunk and forget—you do. Fishing tackle? Hunting guns? Snapshot cameras? Hobbies? There wasn’t any ‘amusement allowance’ for anybody. ‘Amusement’ was the first thing they dropped. Aren’t you supposed to be ashamed to object when anybody asks you to give up anything, if it’s something that gave you pleasure? Even our ‘tobacco allowance’ was cut to where we got two packs of cigarettes a month—and this, they told us, was because the money had to go into the babies’ milk fund. Babies was the only item of production that didn’t fall, but rose and kept on rising—because people had nothing else to do, I guess, and because they didn’t have to care, the baby wasn’t their burden, it was ‘the family’s.’ In fact, the best chance you had of getting a raise and breathing easier for a while was a ‘baby allowance.’ Either that or a major disease.

“It didn’t take us long to see how it all worked out. Any man who tried to play straight, had to refuse himself everything. He lost his taste for any pleasure, he hated to smoke a nickel’s worth of tobacco or chew a stick of gum, worrying whether somebody had more need for that nickel. He felt ashamed of every mouthful of food he swallowed, wondering whose weary nights of overtime had paid for it, knowing that his food was not his by right, miserably wishing to be cheated rather than to cheat, to be a sucker, but not a blood-sucker. He wouldn’t marry, he wouldn’t help his folks back home, he wouldn’t put an extra burden on ‘the family.’ Besides, if he still had some sort of sense of responsibility, he couldn’t marry or bring children into the world, when he could plan nothing, promise nothing, count on nothing. But the shiftless and irresponsible had a field day of it. They bred babies, they got girls into trouble, they dragged in every worthless relative they had from all over the country, every unmarried pregnant sister, for an extra ‘disability allowance,’ they got more sicknesses than any doctor could disprove, they ruined their clothing, their furniture, their homes—what the hell, ‘the family’ was paying for it! They found more ways of getting in ‘need’ than the rest of us could ever imagine—they developed a special skill for it, which was the only ability they showed.} - Atlas Shrugged

/lit/ - Literature - Search:

You can say that, but it doesn't change that what she wrote in Atlas Shrugged, has happened in real life. So you can say she is full of crap until you pass out.... doesn't change the fact that she has been proven right over and over again.

You can say that, but it doesn't change that what she wrote in Atlas Shrugged, has happened in real life. So you can say she is full of crap until you pass out.... doesn't change the fact that she has been proven right over and over again

The Virtue of Stupidity: A Critique of Ayn Rand and Objectivism

You can also say her cult of Objectivism appeals more to religious bigots than anyone who's seriously searching for objective reality.

ROFL! That's funny considering the fact that she was an atheist. Religious people don't like Rand. That's why Marxists don't like her. There is no subject of religious worship more venerated than Karl Marx.

Your article is horseshit, of course. Mostly what it does is misstate what Rand believed.

 

[francoHFW]

Read a history book, you have no idea what you're talking about. I was a teacher stupid. Lenin was the most democratic ever? This is totally ridiculous.

You really are the most historically illiterate person on the planet.

You promote Marxism and Leninism but literally don't know even the first thing about them. Do you know what a "Soviet" is you fucking illiterate? A soviet is a council to govern. The early USSR established soviets all the way to the neighborhood level. One had to be a proletarian to serve on a soviet, the middle class was forbidden, But beyond that the soviets had all power, including having people shot or sent to Gulags. The soviets assigned housing, and as I already state, but you're too fucking stupid and dishonest to grasp, they also refused housing to middle class people. The soviets assigned what work one would do. Doctors and lawyers were sent to work in mines and farm labor placed in charge of factories, all a system of revenge for the middle class doing better.

{Socialism has to be democratic and cannot exist until the overwhelming majority of the worlds workers understands the concept and wants to organise for its inception . Democracy is nothing more than government of the people , by the people , for the people this in effect would mean and end to government as every individual the world over would be able to take part in the control of social arrangements if they so wish .} - Vladimir Lenin

https://www.quora.com/Lenin-said-th...-Sanders-and-his-goal-of-democratic-socialism

Learn some history, you ignorant moron

Actually, dunce, I have a master's in history a lot of 20th century.of course lenin ruled from the top and the Soviets took orders and watched people. Saying that Lenin was really Democratic is idiocy. That was Soviet propaganda. People figured it out and then smart people stopped calling communism socialism. It is a right-wing thing. right wing propaganda Loves confusing socialism and communism and Marxism and now Nazism even. No connection to reality at all. Now everyone outside the GOP bubble Of BS knows it.

 

[francoHFW]

Read a history book, you have no idea what you're talking about. I was a teacher stupid. Lenin was the most democratic ever? This is totally ridiculous.

You really are the most historically illiterate person on the planet.

You promote Marxism and Leninism but literally don't know even the first thing about them. Do you know what a "Soviet" is you fucking illiterate? A soviet is a council to govern. The early USSR established soviets all the way to the neighborhood level. One had to be a proletarian to serve on a soviet, the middle class was forbidden, But beyond that the soviets had all power, including having people shot or sent to Gulags. The soviets assigned housing, and as I already state, but you're too fucking stupid and dishonest to grasp, they also refused housing to middle class people. The soviets assigned what work one would do. Doctors and lawyers were sent to work in mines and farm labor placed in charge of factories, all a system of revenge for the middle class doing better.

{Socialism has to be democratic and cannot exist until the overwhelming majority of the worlds workers understands the concept and wants to organise for its inception . Democracy is nothing more than government of the people , by the people , for the people this in effect would mean and end to government as every individual the world over would be able to take part in the control of social arrangements if they so wish .} - Vladimir Lenin

https://www.quora.com/Lenin-said-th...-Sanders-and-his-goal-of-democratic-socialism

Learn some history, you ignorant moron

Actually, dunce, I have a master's in history a lot of 20th century.of course lenin ruled from the top and the Soviets took orders and watched people. Saying that Lenin was really Democratic is idiocy. That was Soviet propaganda. People figured it out and then smart people stopped calling communism socialism. It is a right-wing thing. right wing propaganda Loves confusing socialism and communism and Marxism and now Nazism even. No connection to reality at all. Now everyone outside the GOP bubble Of BS knows it.

and I am in no way anything but what you call a Democratic Socialist, and what everyone around the world called a socialist. Only you people hold out with your cold war stupidity. Without BS propaganda the GOP has nothing pure lies. Snap out of it. You are a disgrace.

 

[francoHFW]

As in the dictatorship of the proletariat, for example?

Fascist franco doesn't know what that means.

Neither does dblack.

It's true. I find most marxist slogans bewildering. It doesn't help the every advocate has their own pet vision that bears little resemblance to the others. Look at this thread. You, franco and george have completely different ideas of what socialism means. There's some commonality, notably a disdain for personal freedom and blind faith in democracy, but outside that you guys can't seem to get on the same page. And I sure as hell have no interest in helping you sort it out.

I'm afraid their meaning of socialism is confused like most Americans... It is the bastion of democracy and Cold War beliefs after all. And besides that now they have the GOP propaganda machine everywhere. A whole new set of facts LOL to confuse people with.

 

[georgephillip]

From May, 1949:
"Why Socialism?"

Monthly Review | Why Socialism?

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil.

"We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules..."

"Production is carried on for profit, not for use.

"There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an 'army of unemployed' almost always exists.

"The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job.

"Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence.

"Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all.

"The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions.

"Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before."

Why Socialism? - Wikipedia

Einstein believed the profit motive in conjunction with competition among capitalists produced unnecessary cycles of booms and busts, inevitably leading to selfishness instead of cooperation.

Seventy years later, he's still correct.

 

[bripat9643]

From May, 1949:
"Why Socialism?"

Monthly Review | Why Socialism?

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil.

"We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules..."

"Production is carried on for profit, not for use.

"There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an 'army of unemployed' almost always exists.

"The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job.

"Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence.

"Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all.

"The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions.

"Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before."

Why Socialism? - Wikipedia

Einstein believed the profit motive in conjunction with competition among capitalists produced unnecessary cycles of booms and busts, inevitably leading to selfishness instead of cooperation.

Seventy years later, he's still correct.

As an economist, Einstein was a great physicist. This just goes to show why people should stick to speaking on subjects they understand.

 

[georgephillip]

From May, 1949:
"Why Socialism?"

Monthly Review | Why Socialism?

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil.

"We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules..."

"Production is carried on for profit, not for use.

"There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an 'army of unemployed' almost always exists.

"The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job.

"Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence.

"Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all.

"The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions.

"Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before."

Why Socialism? - Wikipedia

Einstein believed the profit motive in conjunction with competition among capitalists produced unnecessary cycles of booms and busts, inevitably leading to selfishness instead of cooperation.

Seventy years later, he's still correct.

As an economist, Einstein was a great physicist. This just goes to show why people should stick to speaking on subjects they understand.

How well do you understand Einstein's economic thought?

Would you consider this claim of his accurate?

"I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time.

"It concerns the relationship of the individual to society.

"The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society.

"But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence."

Monthly Review | Why Socialism?

 

[bripat9643]

From May, 1949:
"Why Socialism?"

Monthly Review | Why Socialism?

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil.

"We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules..."

"Production is carried on for profit, not for use.

"There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an 'army of unemployed' almost always exists.

"The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job.

"Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence.

"Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all.

"The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions.

"Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before."

Why Socialism? - Wikipedia

Einstein believed the profit motive in conjunction with competition among capitalists produced unnecessary cycles of booms and busts, inevitably leading to selfishness instead of cooperation.

Seventy years later, he's still correct.

As an economist, Einstein was a great physicist. This just goes to show why people should stick to speaking on subjects they understand.

How well do you understand Einstein's economic thought?

Would you consider this claim of his accurate?

"I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time.

"It concerns the relationship of the individual to society.

"The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society.

"But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence."

Monthly Review | Why Socialism?

What does that have to do with economics?

 

[georgephillip]

From May, 1949:
"Why Socialism?"

Monthly Review | Why Socialism?

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil.

"We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules..."

"Production is carried on for profit, not for use.

"There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an 'army of unemployed' almost always exists.

"The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job.

"Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence.

"Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all.

"The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions.

"Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before."

Why Socialism? - Wikipedia

Einstein believed the profit motive in conjunction with competition among capitalists produced unnecessary cycles of booms and busts, inevitably leading to selfishness instead of cooperation.

Seventy years later, he's still correct.

As an economist, Einstein was a great physicist. This just goes to show why people should stick to speaking on subjects they understand.

How well do you understand Einstein's economic thought?

Would you consider this claim of his accurate?

"I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time.

"It concerns the relationship of the individual to society.

"The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society.

"But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence."

Monthly Review | Why Socialism?

What does that have to do with economics?

Why Socialism? - Wikipedia

"Einstein predicted that under such a capitalist society, political parties and politicians would be corrupted by financial contributions made by owners of large capital amounts,[3] and the system 'cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society'".

 

[Andylusion]

The market informs the capitalists how to use their resources. In essence we are all part of the decision in a capitalist system. That really wouldn't change under a socialist system of production.

Democracy at work is a wonderful step forward and should help to alleviate some of the social issues caused by capitalism.

Bringing democracy to the workplace would solve many of our problems:

Most adults spend at least half their waking lives in the workplace, yet capitalism requires them to suspend their democratic ideals in return for a regular paycheck.

There Is An Alternative.
Democratizing the Workplace through “Worker Self-Directed Enterprises”

DERP

{
“Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for twenty years. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. There were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to run the factory. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody—almost everybody—voted for it. We didn’t know. We thought it was good. No, that’s not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need.

“We voted for that plan at a big meeting, with all of us present, six thousand of us, everybody that worked in the factory. The Starnes heirs made long speeches about it, and it wasn’t too clear, but nobody asked any questions. None of us knew just how the plan would work, but every one of us thought that the next fellow knew it. And if anybody had doubts, he felt guilty and kept his mouth shut—because they made it sound like anyone who’d oppose the plan was a child-killer at heart and less than a human being. They told us that this plan would achieve a noble ideal. Well, how were we to know otherwise? Hadn’t we heard it all our lives—from our parents and our schoolteachers and our ministers, and in every newspaper we ever read and every movie and every public speech? Hadn’t we always been told that this was righteous and just? Well, maybe there’s some excuse for what we did at that meeting. Still, we voted for the plan—and what we got, we had it coming to us. You know, ma’am, we are marked men, in a way, those of us who lived through the four years of that plan in the Twentieth Century factory. What is it that hell is supposed to be? Evil—plain, naked, smirking evil, isn’t it? Well, that’s what we saw and helped to make—and I think we’re damned, every one of us, and maybe we’ll never be forgiven …

“Do you know how it worked, that plan, and what it did to people? Try pouring water into a tank where there’s a pipe at the bottom draining it out faster than you pour it, and each bucket you bring breaks that pipe an inch wider, and the harder you work the more is demanded of you, and you stand slinging buckets forty hours a week, then forty-eight, then fifty-six—for your neighbor’s supper—for his wife’s operation—for his child’s measles—for his mother’s wheel chair—for his uncle’s shirt—for his nephew’s schooling—for the baby next door—for the baby to be born—for anyone anywhere around you—it’s theirs to receive, from diapers to dentures—and yours to work, from sunup to sundown, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it but your sweat, with nothing in sight for you but their pleasure, for the whole of your life, without rest, without hope, without end … From each according to his ability, to each according to his need …

“We’re all one big family, they told us, we’re all in this together. But you don’t all stand working an acetylene torch ten hours a day—together, and you don’t all get a bellyache—together. What’s whose ability and which of whose needs comes first? When it’s all one pot, you can’t let any man decide what his own needs are, can you? If you did, he might claim that he needs a yacht—and if his feelings are all you have to go by, he might prove it, too. Why not? If it’s not right for me to own a car until I’ve worked myself into a hospital ward, earning a car for every loafer and every naked savage on earth – why can’t he demand a yacht from me, too, if I still have the ability not to have collapsed? No? He can’t? Then why can he demand that I go without cream for my coffee until he’s replastered his living room? … Oh well … Well, anyway, it was decided that nobody had the right to judge his own need or ability. We voted on it. Yes, ma’am, we voted on it in a public meeting twice a year. How else could it be done? Do you care to think what would happen at such a meeting? It took us just one meeting to discover that we had become beggars—rotten, whining, sniveling beggars, all of us, because no man could claim his pay as his rightful earning, he had no rights and no earnings, his work didn’t belong to him, it belonged to ‘the family’, and they owed him nothing in return, and the only claim he had on them was his ‘need’—so he had to beg in public for relief from his needs, like any lousy moocher, listing all his troubles and miseries, down to his patched drawers and his wife’s head colds, hoping that ‘the family’ would throw him the alms. He had to claim miseries, because it’s miseries, not work, that had become the coin of the realm—so it turned into a contest between six thousand panhandlers, each claiming that his need was worse than his brother’s. How else could it be done? Do you care to guess what happened, what sort of men kept quiet, feeling shame, and what sort got away with the jackpot?

“But that wasn’t all. There was something else that we discovered at the same meeting. The factory’s production had fallen by forty percent, in that first half year, so it was decided that somebody hadn’t delivered ‘according to his ability.’ Who? How would you tell it? ‘The family’ voted on that, too. We voted which men were the best, and these men were sentenced to work overtime each night for the next six months. Overtime without pay—because you weren’t paid by time and you weren’t paid by work, only by need.

“Do I have to tell you what happened after that—and into what sort of creatures we all started turning, we who had once been humans? We began to hide whatever ability we had, to slow down and watch like hawks that we never worked any faster or better than the next fellow. What else could we do, when we knew that if we did our best for ‘the family,’ it’s not thanks or rewards that we’d get, but punishment? We knew that for every stinker who’d ruin a batch of motors and cost the company money—either through his sloppiness, because he didn’t have to care, or through plain incompetence—it’s we who’d have to pay with our nights and our Sundays. So we did our best to be no good.

“There was one young boy who started out, full of fire for the noble ideal, a bright kid without any schooling, but with a wonderful head on his shoulders. The first year, he figured out a work process that saved us thousands of man-hours. He gave it to ‘the family,’ didn’t ask anything for it, either, couldn’t ask, but that was all right with him. It was for the ideal, he said. But when he found himself voted as one of our ablest and sentenced to night work, because we hadn’t gotten enough from him, he shut his mouth and his brain. You can bet he didn’t come up with any ideas, the second year.

“What was it they’d always told us about the vicious competition of the profit system, where men had to compete for who’d do a better job than his fellows? Vicious, wasn’t it? Well, they should have seen what it was like when we all had to compete with one another for who’d do the worst job possible. There’s no surer way to destroy a man than to force him into a spot where he has to aim at not doing his best, where he has to struggle to do a bad job, day after day. That will finish him quicker than drink or idleness or pulling stick-ups for a living. But there was nothing else for us to do except to fake unfitness. The one accusation we feared was to be suspected of ability. Ability was like a mortgage on you that you could never pay off. And what was there to work for? You knew that your basic pittance would be given to you anyway, whether you worked or not—your ‘housing and feeding allowance,’ it was called—and above that pittance, you had no chance to get anything, no matter how hard you tried. You couldn’t count on buying a new suit of clothes next year—they might give you a ‘clothing allowance’ or they might not, according to whether nobody broke a leg, needed an operation or gave birth to more babies. And if there wasn’t enough money for new suits for everybody, then you couldn’t get yours, either.

“There was one man who’d worked hard all his life, because he’d always wanted to send his son through college. Well, the boy graduated from high school in the second year of the plan—but ‘the family’ wouldn’t give the father any ‘allowance’ for the college. They said his son couldn’t go to college, until we had enough to send everybody’s sons to college—and that we first had to send everybody’s children through high school, and we didn’t even have enough for that. The father died the following year, in a knife fight with somebody in a saloon, a fight over nothing in particular—such fights were beginning to happen among us all the time.

“Then there was an old guy, a widower with no family, who had one hobby: phonograph records. I guess that was all he ever got out of life. In the old days, he used to skip lunch just to buy himself some new recording of classical music. Well, they didn’t give him any ‘allowance’ for records—‘personal luxury’ they called it. But at the same meeting, Millie Bush, somebody’s daughter, a mean, ugly little eight year old, was voted a pair of gold braces for her buck teeth—this was ‘medical need’ because the staff psychologist had said that the poor girl would get an inferiority complex if her teeth weren’t straightened out. The old guy who loved music, turned to drink, instead. He got so you never saw him fully conscious any more. But it seems like there was one thing he couldn’t forget. One night, he came staggering down the street, saw Millie Bush, swung his fist and knocked all her teeth out. Every one of them.

“Drink, of course, was what we all turned to, some more, some less. Don’t ask how we got the money for it. When all the decent pleasures are forbidden, there’s always ways to get the rotten ones. You don’t break into grocery stores after dark and you don’t pick your fellow’s pockets to buy classical symphonies or fishing tackle, but if it’s to get stinking drunk and forget—you do. Fishing tackle? Hunting guns? Snapshot cameras? Hobbies? There wasn’t any ‘amusement allowance’ for anybody. ‘Amusement’ was the first thing they dropped. Aren’t you supposed to be ashamed to object when anybody asks you to give up anything, if it’s something that gave you pleasure? Even our ‘tobacco allowance’ was cut to where we got two packs of cigarettes a month—and this, they told us, was because the money had to go into the babies’ milk fund. Babies was the only item of production that didn’t fall, but rose and kept on rising—because people had nothing else to do, I guess, and because they didn’t have to care, the baby wasn’t their burden, it was ‘the family’s.’ In fact, the best chance you had of getting a raise and breathing easier for a while was a ‘baby allowance.’ Either that or a major disease.

“It didn’t take us long to see how it all worked out. Any man who tried to play straight, had to refuse himself everything. He lost his taste for any pleasure, he hated to smoke a nickel’s worth of tobacco or chew a stick of gum, worrying whether somebody had more need for that nickel. He felt ashamed of every mouthful of food he swallowed, wondering whose weary nights of overtime had paid for it, knowing that his food was not his by right, miserably wishing to be cheated rather than to cheat, to be a sucker, but not a blood-sucker. He wouldn’t marry, he wouldn’t help his folks back home, he wouldn’t put an extra burden on ‘the family.’ Besides, if he still had some sort of sense of responsibility, he couldn’t marry or bring children into the world, when he could plan nothing, promise nothing, count on nothing. But the shiftless and irresponsible had a field day of it. They bred babies, they got girls into trouble, they dragged in every worthless relative they had from all over the country, every unmarried pregnant sister, for an extra ‘disability allowance,’ they got more sicknesses than any doctor could disprove, they ruined their clothing, their furniture, their homes—what the hell, ‘the family’ was paying for it! They found more ways of getting in ‘need’ than the rest of us could ever imagine—they developed a special skill for it, which was the only ability they showed.} - Atlas Shrugged

/lit/ - Literature - Search:

You can say that, but it doesn't change that what she wrote in Atlas Shrugged, has happened in real life. So you can say she is full of crap until you pass out.... doesn't change the fact that she has been proven right over and over again.

You can say that, but it doesn't change that what she wrote in Atlas Shrugged, has happened in real life. So you can say she is full of crap until you pass out.... doesn't change the fact that she has been proven right over and over again

The Virtue of Stupidity: A Critique of Ayn Rand and Objectivism

You can also say her cult of Objectivism appeals more to religious bigots than anyone who's seriously searching for objective reality.

You seem to think that selecting a larger text size, somehow magically creates credibility to what you type.

You remind me of the guy that hasn't had a date in his life, but buys a sports car. Trying to compensate for something there sparky?

Regardless.... I don't understand why you keep posting stuff, that I don't care about. No matter how big your font size is, and no matter how many lame links you post.... the fact remains that we have seen Atlas Shrugged play out in real life. Rand was right. (not on everything, but on economics, she was right).

 

[georgephillip]

Bringing democracy to the workplace would solve many of our problems:

Most adults spend at least half their waking lives in the workplace, yet capitalism requires them to suspend their democratic ideals in return for a regular paycheck.

There Is An Alternative.
Democratizing the Workplace through “Worker Self-Directed Enterprises”

DERP

{
“Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for twenty years. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. There were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to run the factory. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody—almost everybody—voted for it. We didn’t know. We thought it was good. No, that’s not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need.

“We voted for that plan at a big meeting, with all of us present, six thousand of us, everybody that worked in the factory. The Starnes heirs made long speeches about it, and it wasn’t too clear, but nobody asked any questions. None of us knew just how the plan would work, but every one of us thought that the next fellow knew it. And if anybody had doubts, he felt guilty and kept his mouth shut—because they made it sound like anyone who’d oppose the plan was a child-killer at heart and less than a human being. They told us that this plan would achieve a noble ideal. Well, how were we to know otherwise? Hadn’t we heard it all our lives—from our parents and our schoolteachers and our ministers, and in every newspaper we ever read and every movie and every public speech? Hadn’t we always been told that this was righteous and just? Well, maybe there’s some excuse for what we did at that meeting. Still, we voted for the plan—and what we got, we had it coming to us. You know, ma’am, we are marked men, in a way, those of us who lived through the four years of that plan in the Twentieth Century factory. What is it that hell is supposed to be? Evil—plain, naked, smirking evil, isn’t it? Well, that’s what we saw and helped to make—and I think we’re damned, every one of us, and maybe we’ll never be forgiven …

“Do you know how it worked, that plan, and what it did to people? Try pouring water into a tank where there’s a pipe at the bottom draining it out faster than you pour it, and each bucket you bring breaks that pipe an inch wider, and the harder you work the more is demanded of you, and you stand slinging buckets forty hours a week, then forty-eight, then fifty-six—for your neighbor’s supper—for his wife’s operation—for his child’s measles—for his mother’s wheel chair—for his uncle’s shirt—for his nephew’s schooling—for the baby next door—for the baby to be born—for anyone anywhere around you—it’s theirs to receive, from diapers to dentures—and yours to work, from sunup to sundown, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it but your sweat, with nothing in sight for you but their pleasure, for the whole of your life, without rest, without hope, without end … From each according to his ability, to each according to his need …

“We’re all one big family, they told us, we’re all in this together. But you don’t all stand working an acetylene torch ten hours a day—together, and you don’t all get a bellyache—together. What’s whose ability and which of whose needs comes first? When it’s all one pot, you can’t let any man decide what his own needs are, can you? If you did, he might claim that he needs a yacht—and if his feelings are all you have to go by, he might prove it, too. Why not? If it’s not right for me to own a car until I’ve worked myself into a hospital ward, earning a car for every loafer and every naked savage on earth – why can’t he demand a yacht from me, too, if I still have the ability not to have collapsed? No? He can’t? Then why can he demand that I go without cream for my coffee until he’s replastered his living room? … Oh well … Well, anyway, it was decided that nobody had the right to judge his own need or ability. We voted on it. Yes, ma’am, we voted on it in a public meeting twice a year. How else could it be done? Do you care to think what would happen at such a meeting? It took us just one meeting to discover that we had become beggars—rotten, whining, sniveling beggars, all of us, because no man could claim his pay as his rightful earning, he had no rights and no earnings, his work didn’t belong to him, it belonged to ‘the family’, and they owed him nothing in return, and the only claim he had on them was his ‘need’—so he had to beg in public for relief from his needs, like any lousy moocher, listing all his troubles and miseries, down to his patched drawers and his wife’s head colds, hoping that ‘the family’ would throw him the alms. He had to claim miseries, because it’s miseries, not work, that had become the coin of the realm—so it turned into a contest between six thousand panhandlers, each claiming that his need was worse than his brother’s. How else could it be done? Do you care to guess what happened, what sort of men kept quiet, feeling shame, and what sort got away with the jackpot?

“But that wasn’t all. There was something else that we discovered at the same meeting. The factory’s production had fallen by forty percent, in that first half year, so it was decided that somebody hadn’t delivered ‘according to his ability.’ Who? How would you tell it? ‘The family’ voted on that, too. We voted which men were the best, and these men were sentenced to work overtime each night for the next six months. Overtime without pay—because you weren’t paid by time and you weren’t paid by work, only by need.

“Do I have to tell you what happened after that—and into what sort of creatures we all started turning, we who had once been humans? We began to hide whatever ability we had, to slow down and watch like hawks that we never worked any faster or better than the next fellow. What else could we do, when we knew that if we did our best for ‘the family,’ it’s not thanks or rewards that we’d get, but punishment? We knew that for every stinker who’d ruin a batch of motors and cost the company money—either through his sloppiness, because he didn’t have to care, or through plain incompetence—it’s we who’d have to pay with our nights and our Sundays. So we did our best to be no good.

“There was one young boy who started out, full of fire for the noble ideal, a bright kid without any schooling, but with a wonderful head on his shoulders. The first year, he figured out a work process that saved us thousands of man-hours. He gave it to ‘the family,’ didn’t ask anything for it, either, couldn’t ask, but that was all right with him. It was for the ideal, he said. But when he found himself voted as one of our ablest and sentenced to night work, because we hadn’t gotten enough from him, he shut his mouth and his brain. You can bet he didn’t come up with any ideas, the second year.

“What was it they’d always told us about the vicious competition of the profit system, where men had to compete for who’d do a better job than his fellows? Vicious, wasn’t it? Well, they should have seen what it was like when we all had to compete with one another for who’d do the worst job possible. There’s no surer way to destroy a man than to force him into a spot where he has to aim at not doing his best, where he has to struggle to do a bad job, day after day. That will finish him quicker than drink or idleness or pulling stick-ups for a living. But there was nothing else for us to do except to fake unfitness. The one accusation we feared was to be suspected of ability. Ability was like a mortgage on you that you could never pay off. And what was there to work for? You knew that your basic pittance would be given to you anyway, whether you worked or not—your ‘housing and feeding allowance,’ it was called—and above that pittance, you had no chance to get anything, no matter how hard you tried. You couldn’t count on buying a new suit of clothes next year—they might give you a ‘clothing allowance’ or they might not, according to whether nobody broke a leg, needed an operation or gave birth to more babies. And if there wasn’t enough money for new suits for everybody, then you couldn’t get yours, either.

“There was one man who’d worked hard all his life, because he’d always wanted to send his son through college. Well, the boy graduated from high school in the second year of the plan—but ‘the family’ wouldn’t give the father any ‘allowance’ for the college. They said his son couldn’t go to college, until we had enough to send everybody’s sons to college—and that we first had to send everybody’s children through high school, and we didn’t even have enough for that. The father died the following year, in a knife fight with somebody in a saloon, a fight over nothing in particular—such fights were beginning to happen among us all the time.

“Then there was an old guy, a widower with no family, who had one hobby: phonograph records. I guess that was all he ever got out of life. In the old days, he used to skip lunch just to buy himself some new recording of classical music. Well, they didn’t give him any ‘allowance’ for records—‘personal luxury’ they called it. But at the same meeting, Millie Bush, somebody’s daughter, a mean, ugly little eight year old, was voted a pair of gold braces for her buck teeth—this was ‘medical need’ because the staff psychologist had said that the poor girl would get an inferiority complex if her teeth weren’t straightened out. The old guy who loved music, turned to drink, instead. He got so you never saw him fully conscious any more. But it seems like there was one thing he couldn’t forget. One night, he came staggering down the street, saw Millie Bush, swung his fist and knocked all her teeth out. Every one of them.

“Drink, of course, was what we all turned to, some more, some less. Don’t ask how we got the money for it. When all the decent pleasures are forbidden, there’s always ways to get the rotten ones. You don’t break into grocery stores after dark and you don’t pick your fellow’s pockets to buy classical symphonies or fishing tackle, but if it’s to get stinking drunk and forget—you do. Fishing tackle? Hunting guns? Snapshot cameras? Hobbies? There wasn’t any ‘amusement allowance’ for anybody. ‘Amusement’ was the first thing they dropped. Aren’t you supposed to be ashamed to object when anybody asks you to give up anything, if it’s something that gave you pleasure? Even our ‘tobacco allowance’ was cut to where we got two packs of cigarettes a month—and this, they told us, was because the money had to go into the babies’ milk fund. Babies was the only item of production that didn’t fall, but rose and kept on rising—because people had nothing else to do, I guess, and because they didn’t have to care, the baby wasn’t their burden, it was ‘the family’s.’ In fact, the best chance you had of getting a raise and breathing easier for a while was a ‘baby allowance.’ Either that or a major disease.

“It didn’t take us long to see how it all worked out. Any man who tried to play straight, had to refuse himself everything. He lost his taste for any pleasure, he hated to smoke a nickel’s worth of tobacco or chew a stick of gum, worrying whether somebody had more need for that nickel. He felt ashamed of every mouthful of food he swallowed, wondering whose weary nights of overtime had paid for it, knowing that his food was not his by right, miserably wishing to be cheated rather than to cheat, to be a sucker, but not a blood-sucker. He wouldn’t marry, he wouldn’t help his folks back home, he wouldn’t put an extra burden on ‘the family.’ Besides, if he still had some sort of sense of responsibility, he couldn’t marry or bring children into the world, when he could plan nothing, promise nothing, count on nothing. But the shiftless and irresponsible had a field day of it. They bred babies, they got girls into trouble, they dragged in every worthless relative they had from all over the country, every unmarried pregnant sister, for an extra ‘disability allowance,’ they got more sicknesses than any doctor could disprove, they ruined their clothing, their furniture, their homes—what the hell, ‘the family’ was paying for it! They found more ways of getting in ‘need’ than the rest of us could ever imagine—they developed a special skill for it, which was the only ability they showed.} - Atlas Shrugged

/lit/ - Literature - Search:

You can say that, but it doesn't change that what she wrote in Atlas Shrugged, has happened in real life. So you can say she is full of crap until you pass out.... doesn't change the fact that she has been proven right over and over again.

You can say that, but it doesn't change that what she wrote in Atlas Shrugged, has happened in real life. So you can say she is full of crap until you pass out.... doesn't change the fact that she has been proven right over and over again

The Virtue of Stupidity: A Critique of Ayn Rand and Objectivism

You can also say her cult of Objectivism appeals more to religious bigots than anyone who's seriously searching for objective reality.

You seem to think that selecting a larger text size, somehow magically creates credibility to what you type.

You remind me of the guy that hasn't had a date in his life, but buys a sports car. Trying to compensate for something there sparky?

Regardless.... I don't understand why you keep posting stuff, that I don't care about. No matter how big your font size is, and no matter how many lame links you post.... the fact remains that we have seen Atlas Shrugged play out in real life. Rand was right. (not on everything, but on economics, she was right).

"What Happens When You Believe in Ayn Rand and Modern Economic Theory
The reality of unfettered self-interest"

What Happens When You Believe in Ayn Rand and Modern Economic Theory - Evonomics

 

[bripat9643]

DERP

{
“Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for twenty years. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. There were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to run the factory. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody—almost everybody—voted for it. We didn’t know. We thought it was good. No, that’s not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need.

“We voted for that plan at a big meeting, with all of us present, six thousand of us, everybody that worked in the factory. The Starnes heirs made long speeches about it, and it wasn’t too clear, but nobody asked any questions. None of us knew just how the plan would work, but every one of us thought that the next fellow knew it. And if anybody had doubts, he felt guilty and kept his mouth shut—because they made it sound like anyone who’d oppose the plan was a child-killer at heart and less than a human being. They told us that this plan would achieve a noble ideal. Well, how were we to know otherwise? Hadn’t we heard it all our lives—from our parents and our schoolteachers and our ministers, and in every newspaper we ever read and every movie and every public speech? Hadn’t we always been told that this was righteous and just? Well, maybe there’s some excuse for what we did at that meeting. Still, we voted for the plan—and what we got, we had it coming to us. You know, ma’am, we are marked men, in a way, those of us who lived through the four years of that plan in the Twentieth Century factory. What is it that hell is supposed to be? Evil—plain, naked, smirking evil, isn’t it? Well, that’s what we saw and helped to make—and I think we’re damned, every one of us, and maybe we’ll never be forgiven …

“Do you know how it worked, that plan, and what it did to people? Try pouring water into a tank where there’s a pipe at the bottom draining it out faster than you pour it, and each bucket you bring breaks that pipe an inch wider, and the harder you work the more is demanded of you, and you stand slinging buckets forty hours a week, then forty-eight, then fifty-six—for your neighbor’s supper—for his wife’s operation—for his child’s measles—for his mother’s wheel chair—for his uncle’s shirt—for his nephew’s schooling—for the baby next door—for the baby to be born—for anyone anywhere around you—it’s theirs to receive, from diapers to dentures—and yours to work, from sunup to sundown, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it but your sweat, with nothing in sight for you but their pleasure, for the whole of your life, without rest, without hope, without end … From each according to his ability, to each according to his need …

“We’re all one big family, they told us, we’re all in this together. But you don’t all stand working an acetylene torch ten hours a day—together, and you don’t all get a bellyache—together. What’s whose ability and which of whose needs comes first? When it’s all one pot, you can’t let any man decide what his own needs are, can you? If you did, he might claim that he needs a yacht—and if his feelings are all you have to go by, he might prove it, too. Why not? If it’s not right for me to own a car until I’ve worked myself into a hospital ward, earning a car for every loafer and every naked savage on earth – why can’t he demand a yacht from me, too, if I still have the ability not to have collapsed? No? He can’t? Then why can he demand that I go without cream for my coffee until he’s replastered his living room? … Oh well … Well, anyway, it was decided that nobody had the right to judge his own need or ability. We voted on it. Yes, ma’am, we voted on it in a public meeting twice a year. How else could it be done? Do you care to think what would happen at such a meeting? It took us just one meeting to discover that we had become beggars—rotten, whining, sniveling beggars, all of us, because no man could claim his pay as his rightful earning, he had no rights and no earnings, his work didn’t belong to him, it belonged to ‘the family’, and they owed him nothing in return, and the only claim he had on them was his ‘need’—so he had to beg in public for relief from his needs, like any lousy moocher, listing all his troubles and miseries, down to his patched drawers and his wife’s head colds, hoping that ‘the family’ would throw him the alms. He had to claim miseries, because it’s miseries, not work, that had become the coin of the realm—so it turned into a contest between six thousand panhandlers, each claiming that his need was worse than his brother’s. How else could it be done? Do you care to guess what happened, what sort of men kept quiet, feeling shame, and what sort got away with the jackpot?

“But that wasn’t all. There was something else that we discovered at the same meeting. The factory’s production had fallen by forty percent, in that first half year, so it was decided that somebody hadn’t delivered ‘according to his ability.’ Who? How would you tell it? ‘The family’ voted on that, too. We voted which men were the best, and these men were sentenced to work overtime each night for the next six months. Overtime without pay—because you weren’t paid by time and you weren’t paid by work, only by need.

“Do I have to tell you what happened after that—and into what sort of creatures we all started turning, we who had once been humans? We began to hide whatever ability we had, to slow down and watch like hawks that we never worked any faster or better than the next fellow. What else could we do, when we knew that if we did our best for ‘the family,’ it’s not thanks or rewards that we’d get, but punishment? We knew that for every stinker who’d ruin a batch of motors and cost the company money—either through his sloppiness, because he didn’t have to care, or through plain incompetence—it’s we who’d have to pay with our nights and our Sundays. So we did our best to be no good.

“There was one young boy who started out, full of fire for the noble ideal, a bright kid without any schooling, but with a wonderful head on his shoulders. The first year, he figured out a work process that saved us thousands of man-hours. He gave it to ‘the family,’ didn’t ask anything for it, either, couldn’t ask, but that was all right with him. It was for the ideal, he said. But when he found himself voted as one of our ablest and sentenced to night work, because we hadn’t gotten enough from him, he shut his mouth and his brain. You can bet he didn’t come up with any ideas, the second year.

“What was it they’d always told us about the vicious competition of the profit system, where men had to compete for who’d do a better job than his fellows? Vicious, wasn’t it? Well, they should have seen what it was like when we all had to compete with one another for who’d do the worst job possible. There’s no surer way to destroy a man than to force him into a spot where he has to aim at not doing his best, where he has to struggle to do a bad job, day after day. That will finish him quicker than drink or idleness or pulling stick-ups for a living. But there was nothing else for us to do except to fake unfitness. The one accusation we feared was to be suspected of ability. Ability was like a mortgage on you that you could never pay off. And what was there to work for? You knew that your basic pittance would be given to you anyway, whether you worked or not—your ‘housing and feeding allowance,’ it was called—and above that pittance, you had no chance to get anything, no matter how hard you tried. You couldn’t count on buying a new suit of clothes next year—they might give you a ‘clothing allowance’ or they might not, according to whether nobody broke a leg, needed an operation or gave birth to more babies. And if there wasn’t enough money for new suits for everybody, then you couldn’t get yours, either.

“There was one man who’d worked hard all his life, because he’d always wanted to send his son through college. Well, the boy graduated from high school in the second year of the plan—but ‘the family’ wouldn’t give the father any ‘allowance’ for the college. They said his son couldn’t go to college, until we had enough to send everybody’s sons to college—and that we first had to send everybody’s children through high school, and we didn’t even have enough for that. The father died the following year, in a knife fight with somebody in a saloon, a fight over nothing in particular—such fights were beginning to happen among us all the time.

“Then there was an old guy, a widower with no family, who had one hobby: phonograph records. I guess that was all he ever got out of life. In the old days, he used to skip lunch just to buy himself some new recording of classical music. Well, they didn’t give him any ‘allowance’ for records—‘personal luxury’ they called it. But at the same meeting, Millie Bush, somebody’s daughter, a mean, ugly little eight year old, was voted a pair of gold braces for her buck teeth—this was ‘medical need’ because the staff psychologist had said that the poor girl would get an inferiority complex if her teeth weren’t straightened out. The old guy who loved music, turned to drink, instead. He got so you never saw him fully conscious any more. But it seems like there was one thing he couldn’t forget. One night, he came staggering down the street, saw Millie Bush, swung his fist and knocked all her teeth out. Every one of them.

“Drink, of course, was what we all turned to, some more, some less. Don’t ask how we got the money for it. When all the decent pleasures are forbidden, there’s always ways to get the rotten ones. You don’t break into grocery stores after dark and you don’t pick your fellow’s pockets to buy classical symphonies or fishing tackle, but if it’s to get stinking drunk and forget—you do. Fishing tackle? Hunting guns? Snapshot cameras? Hobbies? There wasn’t any ‘amusement allowance’ for anybody. ‘Amusement’ was the first thing they dropped. Aren’t you supposed to be ashamed to object when anybody asks you to give up anything, if it’s something that gave you pleasure? Even our ‘tobacco allowance’ was cut to where we got two packs of cigarettes a month—and this, they told us, was because the money had to go into the babies’ milk fund. Babies was the only item of production that didn’t fall, but rose and kept on rising—because people had nothing else to do, I guess, and because they didn’t have to care, the baby wasn’t their burden, it was ‘the family’s.’ In fact, the best chance you had of getting a raise and breathing easier for a while was a ‘baby allowance.’ Either that or a major disease.

“It didn’t take us long to see how it all worked out. Any man who tried to play straight, had to refuse himself everything. He lost his taste for any pleasure, he hated to smoke a nickel’s worth of tobacco or chew a stick of gum, worrying whether somebody had more need for that nickel. He felt ashamed of every mouthful of food he swallowed, wondering whose weary nights of overtime had paid for it, knowing that his food was not his by right, miserably wishing to be cheated rather than to cheat, to be a sucker, but not a blood-sucker. He wouldn’t marry, he wouldn’t help his folks back home, he wouldn’t put an extra burden on ‘the family.’ Besides, if he still had some sort of sense of responsibility, he couldn’t marry or bring children into the world, when he could plan nothing, promise nothing, count on nothing. But the shiftless and irresponsible had a field day of it. They bred babies, they got girls into trouble, they dragged in every worthless relative they had from all over the country, every unmarried pregnant sister, for an extra ‘disability allowance,’ they got more sicknesses than any doctor could disprove, they ruined their clothing, their furniture, their homes—what the hell, ‘the family’ was paying for it! They found more ways of getting in ‘need’ than the rest of us could ever imagine—they developed a special skill for it, which was the only ability they showed.} - Atlas Shrugged

/lit/ - Literature - Search:

You can say that, but it doesn't change that what she wrote in Atlas Shrugged, has happened in real life. So you can say she is full of crap until you pass out.... doesn't change the fact that she has been proven right over and over again.

You can say that, but it doesn't change that what she wrote in Atlas Shrugged, has happened in real life. So you can say she is full of crap until you pass out.... doesn't change the fact that she has been proven right over and over again

The Virtue of Stupidity: A Critique of Ayn Rand and Objectivism

You can also say her cult of Objectivism appeals more to religious bigots than anyone who's seriously searching for objective reality.

You seem to think that selecting a larger text size, somehow magically creates credibility to what you type.

You remind me of the guy that hasn't had a date in his life, but buys a sports car. Trying to compensate for something there sparky?

Regardless.... I don't understand why you keep posting stuff, that I don't care about. No matter how big your font size is, and no matter how many lame links you post.... the fact remains that we have seen Atlas Shrugged play out in real life. Rand was right. (not on everything, but on economics, she was right).

"What Happens When You Believe in Ayn Rand and Modern Economic Theory
The reality of unfettered self-interest"

What Happens When You Believe in Ayn Rand and Modern Economic Theory - Evonomics

Socialist propaganda. The authors starts lying about Rand right off the bat.

 

[bripat9643]

From May, 1949:
"Why Socialism?"

Monthly Review | Why Socialism?

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil.

"We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules..."

"Production is carried on for profit, not for use.

"There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an 'army of unemployed' almost always exists.

"The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job.

"Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence.

"Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all.

"The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions.

"Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before."

Why Socialism? - Wikipedia

Einstein believed the profit motive in conjunction with competition among capitalists produced unnecessary cycles of booms and busts, inevitably leading to selfishness instead of cooperation.

Seventy years later, he's still correct.

As an economist, Einstein was a great physicist. This just goes to show why people should stick to speaking on subjects they understand.

How well do you understand Einstein's economic thought?

Would you consider this claim of his accurate?

"I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time.

"It concerns the relationship of the individual to society.

"The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society.

"But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence."

Monthly Review | Why Socialism?

What does that have to do with economics?

Why Socialism? - Wikipedia

"Einstein predicted that under such a capitalist society, political parties and politicians would be corrupted by financial contributions made by owners of large capital amounts,[3] and the system 'cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society'".

He "predicted" something that had been going on for 200 years? What's funny is your naive belief that such corruption doesn't occur under socialism. All we have to do to see the flaw in that argument is look at the experience of Venezuela, the USSR and communist China.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Actually, dunce, I have a master's in history a lot of 20th century.of course lenin ruled from the top and the Soviets took orders and watched people. Saying that Lenin was really Democratic is idiocy. That was Soviet propaganda. People figured it out and then smart people stopped calling communism socialism. It is a right-wing thing. right wing propaganda Loves confusing socialism and communism and Marxism and now Nazism even. No connection to reality at all. Now everyone outside the GOP bubble Of BS knows it.

You must have gotten that masters from a Cracker Jack box. My DOG knows more history than you.

You are historically illiterate.

 

[Uncensored2008]

and I am in no way anything but what you call a Democratic Socialist, and what everyone around the world called a socialist. Only you people hold out with your cold war stupidity. Without BS propaganda the GOP has nothing pure lies. Snap out of it. You are a disgrace.

You are a Stalinist, pure and simple.

 

[Uncensored2008]

I'm afraid their meaning of socialism is confused like most Americans... It is the bastion of democracy and Cold War beliefs after all. And besides that now they have the GOP propaganda machine everywhere. A whole new set of facts LOL to confuse people with.

Oh, and what do you think the meaning of socialism is, Comrade?

All that is good?

 

[bripat9643]

Actually, dunce, I have a master's in history a lot of 20th century.of course lenin ruled from the top and the Soviets took orders and watched people. Saying that Lenin was really Democratic is idiocy. That was Soviet propaganda. People figured it out and then smart people stopped calling communism socialism. It is a right-wing thing. right wing propaganda Loves confusing socialism and communism and Marxism and now Nazism even. No connection to reality at all. Now everyone outside the GOP bubble Of BS knows it.

You must have gotten that masters from a Cracker Jack box. My DOG knows more history than you.

You are historically illiterate.

It's sad that this traitor ignoramus was allowed to teach his filth to children.