I think it would be a good expenditure of time and effort (well, not much effort, really) to try and determine where capitalism and socialism "are" in relative terms in the empire. We seem to have many different ideas as to what stage of development or how "evolved" the various 'sides' are in this war. What is the assessment of where anti-capitalism is and where do we have to go. Some people ask for a "plan", but how can one postulate on any kind of "plan" without understanding where we actually are?

I know, I know - it's a stupid question. I am prepared for that...

Don't say it's a stupid question, you know better than that. Obviously you've thought about it and want to hear from others, and that's a good thing. Please provide a post on how you see it.

As it stands, I think both capitalism and socialism are being (have already been) hi-jacked by those who wish to profit personally. I haven't noted any type of economy where vultures don't swoop in to feed. Capitalism fails and socialism takes its place, the vultures will feast. Socialism fails, whatever economy is next will have its own vultures. Any "plan" that doesn't involve eliminating vultures will only place us in the same place we are now, it'll just be a different type of economy under which to be servants.

but the discussions here have begun to trend toward "socialism-like" or "socialism-esque" solutions or directions. I think that socialism has been so propagandized in this country as to be almost unusable as a label. It seems to me to be related to what you said in another thread: "What is the definition of 'greed'?" or "Who defines 'greed'?" We can't talk about socialism to most workers (in my experience) because they are almost immediately turned-off by it - due to the over 100 years of effective propaganda. So we have to come to grips with where "socialism" is; how effective the labeling is; how to proceed and discuss the possible actions or solutions given the current memes at work against the best interests of the working class...

I am, probably, more anti-Capitalist than a lot of people (I know, very vague)

But I think we're going to end up with some version of a Socialized capitalism. After THAT maybe we can get rid of "the system" entirely, but with the programming Americans have been subjected to all these years, there's never going to be an embrace of socialism, no matter how positive it might be. The Repukes, of course, know this all too well and exploit it to their advantage at every opportunity.

I see what you're saying and could add more of which we both would likely agree, so I won't waste our time with that.

I tend to go in a different direction, and I mention this only for the sake of you understanding, not to hi-jack your thread in a direction you did not intend. Sometimes I believe that those who believe in socialism (in all its various forms), and/or those who lean towards Marxist theory, believe that socialism is in "the best interests of the working class...," but I'm not so sure the working class agrees. Now this is the time when having conversations with my socialist friends they tell me it hasn't been properly explained, that people have the wrong idea about what it really is, etc..., and maybe that's true. Then again, maybe it isn't true.

So while I understand your question, perhaps I should excuse myself from commenting. The diversity of individuals as to what they believe to be in their best interests is such a broad range, even among what would be considered those of equal economic status, that to try and provide possible actions and solutions would be something I would find to be difficult if not impossible to define. However, I do look forward to reading what others have to offer on the topic.

to speak for others. Incrementalism and bi-partisanship only seem to move us further right. Perhaps dems are just horrible negotiators, but we certainly aren't moving left in baby steps. I only see evidence of moving right.

Those labels are so 20th Century. We need some new ones, with new definitions.

I know I don't fit into any of those boxes. Nor do I believe after 50+ years on the planet that we are all created equal. What we need is a society that lets each person live to their fullest potential. A society that is based on what's best for everyone, not just the few at the top. But in order to create a better society that treats people more fairly we all need to get past politics and labels. It's about how we treat each other and how we live together.

In my offline life, I've been a member of a wonderful community of people whose main focus is playing and preserving old time music. We participate in a number of activities from Saturday night dances to week long music camps and most of it just happens. It just happens because people take personal responsibility to make sure their part of it happens. Some people are good at making music, some are better at cooking, some like to run things. We share, we play and we work together. Some how our events come together every year and we all have a great time. We don't have a lot of rules because we don't need them. To me, this is how the whole world should be. Maybe we just need more music?

equality of opportunity and some such jazz..

Problem for me is, I'm not trying to figure out what laws we should abide by or what rules should be "indelibyl imprinted on our hearts" or how we can codify "a better life/way of living"

I think that mans relation to man has nothing to do with how they treat each other on a personal level. There are plenty of elites who treat their man servants excellently. Plenty of people are very polite to the person who takes their order at McDonalds.

You're smart enough to know why I think you're talking bullshit here. Seriously, no offense. Its just that we part ways right here because "keep dancing, world!" isn't going to work while the whole world is burning

since the beginning of time. You think the guys dragging stones for the pyramids had a better standard of living? Life is hard. Life is unfair. And for most people life sucks. What else is new? But I do believe, half the battle is changing how people treat each other, because until we all make some fundamental changes in how we live our own lives, the world is going to keep on burning. Maybe you don't understand what I'm getting at? I'm talking evolution, not revolution. It has been in the self interest of the POB to keep all of the rest of us divided and as long as we play their games, they've got nothing to worry about.

but your conceptualization is the product of extreme flakiness and is completely remote from the crux of the problem

As long as one man can buy the labor of another, how does any amount of civics 101 lessons in "being nice to others" do a damn thing? THAT is how man relates to man, and you can't just wish it away. Its no conspiracy of elites or lack of enlightenment, its the way the world really works.

And 7 billion "personal revolutions" isn't the trick either

with buying the labor of another as long as the person providing the labor fairly compensated? As long as the rules of the game are clear and both sides are in agreement, how else would things get done in this world?

The problem is when the US gave corporations the same rights as citizens. All of a sudden you have a class of 'people' who will never die and whose only interest is to make as much money as possible for the elites who created these monsters, like Lockhead, AIG, Enron and the rest.

Of course since these entities control most of the money or means of attaining money, they're going to make sure the game is rigged in their favor and could care less about exploiting people and resources for the sake of making even greater profits. I don't think anything will change until we nullify the laws in this country, that gave the corporations their extraordinary power.

these relationships when things start out so uneven from birth? Of course people are going to agree when they have no other choice (ie were not born with a silver spoon in their mouth). Capitalism is a system that is inherently unfair because you don't get ahead without other people being pushed down, one way or another. Putting gloves on it doesn't make it any prettier.

These were my thoughts when I first studied economic and political theories in high school. But of course those aren't practical thoughts, and I was not a trust-fund baby. So for many years I was a fine capitalist and made myself a whole bunch of money. It's not that hard if you are white, college-educated, and obedient. Though we see with the current crisis that I also was lucky to be in my 20's during a boom period. Having children has changed my mind about just playing the game. It's a damned stupid and unfair game, and if intelligent adults don't speak out about it who will? Why do we defend a horrible system and resign our children to it?

but that's why I try as much as possible to buy from small, local businesses or individuals whenever I have a choice. When you're car breaks down are you exploiting the mechanic who fixes it, or are you paying a fair price for someone to do something you're not able to do yourself?

Fortunately, not everyone in the world is a greedy schmuck or there wouldn't be any nurses or teachers. Capitalism isn't the problem or any other ism, the problem is with greedy people who only care for themselves and every ism has more then their fair share of greedy assholes.

to charge whatever he would like to fix those breaks, and you are definitely going to have people who are willing to take advantage of that or not. The problem is a system that encourages people (financially) to take the low road and rip off others. The Wall Street bankers, for example, are seen as "winners" who "are not doing anything illegal". We praise that and call it "hard work". Never mind that the janitor cleaning their office may be much more intelligent or a better person, but didn't have the same chances to become a winner in life because he wasn't born with the trust fund to take him through college. How can it possibly be "fair" when we don't start on an even playing field, and how can it possibly be considered "moral" when the point is to make more money than others? Exploitation is encouraged and even revered. That doesn't point to a problem of a person here or there being greedy, that is a systemic problem.

that everyone has been subjected to for at least the last 120 years or so and work through or around it. A union electrician i know says it is all about personal responsibility and if you can couch your speech in terms of responsibility then a lot of working class folks will pick it up and not be so automatic in rejecting socialist ideas. I guess it is all in the approach - different persons at different places.

Valuation of time and effort is another place for thought. No one's skill or effort or time is more valuable than anyone else's. The stratification of wage and remuneration is obscene. These, I think, are places to go...

We are serfs and slaves; we are chattel. Now, I have heard people say, "Oh, you can't say we have it as bad as slaves and serfs!" But our masters don't have it as bad as slave owners and feudal lords did, either (it's called "progress" :) ). As long as capitalism remains the political/social/economic construct in which and by which we live our lives misery, murder, and mayhem is all we have to look forward to - and our children, too...

for one person to purchase the labor of another, the purchaser must be in a position to buy it and seller must be in a position such that he has only his labor to sell.

What laws would be nullified?

If the laws are nullified and replaced with 'good' laws that protect labor rights, how do we stop the concentration of money (and power) and make it impossible for those laws to be overturned and labor to be exploited again?

I have more questions, but I'll stop here for now :)

its not exactly true to say that we're serfs or chattel, because those are specific historical forms tied to concrete organizations of society, but "wage slavery" IS slavery, albeit of a different -- and more complete and final -- form.

Now comes a hard step: take what you say about capitalism and imperialism, and force yourself to follow the implications all the way through. If you've already done this, forgive me for being redundant but it tends to be a sticking point

As long as private property exists, as long as the division of labor that generates classes exists -- how does society overcome misery, murder, & mayhem? If your answer is "we don't" then you're on a powerful track. It not an easy one to adhere to however, nor is it easy to turn back once you go this route

I will try to outline it in simple form: as long as the means of reporducing social life for humans rests in private hands, it will only be employed socially so long as the "owner" is justly compensated under the logic of capitalism (and it DOES have it owns internal logic afterall)

The easiest example is wage labor: why would the boss hire you, calculate exactly how much your labor made him, and then pay you that amount? He wouldn't and he can't at least not as a productive enterprise -- the owner considers that charity not because he is personally an assbag (he likely is) but because that is what the unyielding logic of capitalism insists is true. After all, HE is the one who owns the means of production, right?

The above means that so long as there is private ownership, capital stays entrenched and with it all of the horror of wage labors. It means you can't simply install a different, "egalitarian" political system or "change the world by changing people's minds". It means you can't talk about "justice" as anything other than religious faith differently formulated: what justice is there in denying the owner the due owed him? By every "law" of the land, he is rightly and justly entitled to compensation. Can't change the law either, because every law respects the sanctity of private holdings and those automatically carry with them their due.

So where do we go from here..?

if you change the laws to no longe respect private property, then you've effected a socialist revolution, no? This reveals the entire endeavor for the parody it is: the laws exist to PROTECT private property.

In other words changing the laws = abolishing the laws = taking control of the political system = overthrowing the State as it presently exists = struggle to the death

I was gonna get there eventually, I just wanted DYEW to do most of the work :)

talk, so I won't start singing "Eat the rich!" right now. I was watching a boxing match on tee-vee once and the commentators were discussing the scoring rules and how judges scored a fight. One of the commentators said (paraphrase, of course) "All scoring and rules of scoring are bullshit! You get any 10 year old kid and let him watch a fight; then at the end you ask him, 'Who won?' and he'll say, 'That one did.'"

Justice isn't complicated - we all know what it is. It has little to do with "laws" and should have everything to do with "creating" laws (but seldom does). I completely understand and accept that the bosses won't just says No mas!" (Sorry, this boxing thing is hard to shake :) ) They will have to be "escorted from the building", as it were. You see, the truth is, the Owners have been killing us forever (practically); they have no qualms about wiping out thousands of us, millions even. One hoary, old cynic I know told be not too long ago, that the Owners do not think that there are not enough jobs, they think there are too many workers. I think about that, a lot and it is kind of a worry...

The idea is to unite people around their common interest -- which does not really exist along "popular" lines but only on the line of class -- "We The People" actualy have a myriad of different interests depending on where we live, our personal situation, and innumerable variables

Nevertheless, WE all share a class interest that supercedes the rest, on the basis that we are ALL wage-slaves. Seizing power on that front is not merely about installing certain leaders, or about the current definition of "power" at all (which basically equates to how unhcecked given leaders are)

I think our service to this cause is multi-part: relentlessly pointing out the utter and sheer emptiness of society as it stands (its inhumanity if you will), trying to achieve/foster solidarity as much as possible under the circumstances, and working like all get out to build an independent political arm for workers. Of course that last is totally wrapped up with the first two.

For all the accusations of impracticality lobbed at me, its the only concrete plan I've heard mentioned on this site.

Parenthetically, we do eat the rich at the end though -- and I wouln't want to be the landlord on Judgment Day..

Your time and effort equal my time and effort. Let us say that you are a doctor and I am a ditch-digger. Justice would be that you come over to my home and set my son's broken leg and I will go to your home and dig your drainage ditch. We would then have a fair exchange for time and effort. At the end, I would have what I needed and you have have what you needed and neither of us would have any more than that. The problem comes in when you charge me more because you consider your time to be worth more than mine. The Owners think of their time and effort as so much more valuable than any of ours that they have to do almost nothing and spend almost no time, at all, to equal everything everyone of us does our whole lives!

Well, maybe this is just a jaundiced way of looking at it...

You do have a "concrete plan" and one I can deal with - I still think the primary problem we face is overcoming the programming, defeating the propaganda. Maybe as the collapse quickens this will be easier, but I don't think that the Owners are really worried much about "the collapse" and that worries me...

When the British upended the Asiatic "empires" they didn't pay them the same as they would someone living in the "home" countries but it was not a difference of valuation but circumstances, time and place. I know that doesn't speak to your point directly, but there is a relativism in "valuation" as you style it that is impossible to escape

More directly, social labor DOES have a valuation, it is the backbone of commerce and the workings of capitalist exchange. And you ARE paid commensurate with that in the sense that you receive pay equal to what you need to get up in the morning and come to work for the next 40 years while rearing the next generation to do the same. That pay scale varies from place to place and over time, but it is as "just" a rubric as any other and that is a big part of why it has to be blown up -- you can't argue against capitalism on terms set down by capital itself.

Gotta blow up the relation whereby one man lives on the labor of another which exists precisely because one man is FORCED to labor for another (this is wage-slavery defined)

a big part of the "deprogramming" is revealing life in the empire to be as blase and casually blank as it really is. As the ennui grows, more and more people are going to come to see that they believe in NOTHING. Not because we've stripped away all of their "illusions" (the premise along being sheer hubris) but because when they defensively reach out to latch on to what they truly believe, they grasp a handful of air.

Thats Chlamor in a nutshell, man -- hes giving us the crash course in how to go about the task at hand.

Everything thats true is wrong..

Steps to creative problem solving:

1. Identify the Problem: the example I use with my students is, in early September I look out the window and say "its snowing"... I then ask the kids what the problem is, generally they say snow, I ask then is there snow? they say no. I ask again what is the problem, and usually look out the window and exclaim with excitement this time, "Its snowing", and turn and say, what is the problem? At least one will say, you, the teacher, is lying, or crazy, or something (double purpose to get them to consider authority a little)

the other steps are:

2. Brainstorm solutions.

3. Select a solution.

4. Try it out.

5. Critique the result.

6. Adjust as needed, including going all the way back to step one if new problems are discovered...

So, according to this strategm, defining where we are is the first step and very far from stupid! Good question!

We lost.

Ain't no more Socialism. And it was "bad" when it was around. Where is the "Socialist Bloc" today? Where are the National Liberation Movements? Where is the militant Socialist or Communist Party which survives? Where is the Social Democratic Party that is not so compromised as to be irrelevant? What has happened to the labor movement? What happened to the hard fought knowledge of 200 years?

The end of ideology has arrived. No matter who you are, you have to accept liberal democracy. Capitalism is not the best way; it is the only way. Globalization, free trade, international wage competition, the destruction of entire populations and new ones conjured up in their place... what's not to like? No more OAUs and nonaligned and "self reliance". We have NGOs and the Gates Foundation and Bono and Madonna. No more is "Kalashnikov" the most popular children's name in the world. Now it's "Barak"... or "iPhone".

Everybody buys it... the right, the center, and the left... even the radical left. It is unity on a monumental scale. Every notable person is a philistine. Every word said is a lie... But, meanwhile, 90 million people will die in this "recession" without a peep and we are just starting.

I'd say things are looking up...

If we have to hit bottom before we begin the climb, then by god things look bright, indeed!

What else do they have? What else is there except for attempts at personal "escape". Whatever anybody "thinks", the shit is still the shit, as real as ever.

Sorry to answer your question so obtusely...

The 1886 case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations are "persons" having the same rights as human beings based on the 14th Amendment.

This is the ruling that doomed any chance America had of becoming a 'democracy', whatever that is.

There's lot's of things that need to be changed, but this is one of the big ones (along with legalizing cannabis). Take away the corporations 14th Amendment rights and their influence in the political process will be greatly diminished and their 'right' to spend billions lobbying Congress would be taken away.

I don't know about replacing laws? For the most part we have too many laws, that are too complicated, that the POB use to control people and don't have to abide by themselves. However, if you want to have law that protect labor rights and things like that, you've got to have a functioning government to enforce them. What do you think we should do to stop labor from being exploited? Certainly isn't going to happen with the current crew in power.

check any court doc, birth certificate, etc. a persons name will be in capital letters, as corps are.

We are all owned and traded.



The United States declared bankruptcy on 03/09/33. Then began taking out loans from the private, corporation, Federal Reserve.


People are being used as collateral


We should be fighting the cause not the systoms


For every corrupt government that falls at the hands of a revolutionary oppressed people two more will rise in its place EVERY TIME

that someone like a heart surgeon's, who has to spend years training and studying before even being allowed to cut open another human, should be paid the same has a ditch digger? Shouldn't there be levels of compensation depending on the skills and risks required for the job? I certainly think firemen and teachers should get paid more then worthless stock brokers, but we do live in an upside down world.

was the issuing of social security numbers. That's when every American was reduced to a series of numbers, that you could no longer do anything without.

that you don't need to rely on other people to meet your daily needs? Since I seriously doubt that you've reached that level of enlightenment, I would assume that you at least provide for own needs by some means of buying and selling services?

the thing we are questioning is the type of relationship & how folks treat one another (ie a very few controlling most of the wealth), not the fact that people have to rely on one another.

The relationship of one worker to another -- whereby we are just objects to be purchased and put to some use by each other -- is perhaps not so much uneven as it is alienating and inhuman

The uneven relationship is that of capitalist (buys labor) and worker (sells labor per force). This is a societal organization and not an directly an individual relation

Thanks for the catch, I fucked up

In practical terms, can you explain how that would be changed?

not unless there's a real financial collapse and the big corps go the way of the dinosaur, but most of us will probably be going down with them.

Unfortunately, I really don't see the people in this country changing anything until it's too late.

more than a ditch digger or a store clerk or a bus driver. It isn't the question of paying a surgeon as little as a "common laborer", it is the concept of paying the latter as much as the former. Why should a surgeon be paid more? Her learning is so extensive? Her big brain is just more valuable than that lowly lump of a stevedore? Elitism comes in all guises; if a person wishes to be a surgeon, then by all means that person should become one. But why this entitles that person to a higher pay, a higher class or a higher standard of living I just don't see...

It seems to me that, if we're for socialism then we're for a *socialized* production/allocation or distribution system automatically. Its not really for us to say exactly how it will be meted out anymore than the nascent bourgeoisie had the capacity to DETERMINE how wage valuations were made as they were

See, part of the idea of socialism is that classes are abolished and with it the divisions that form the latticework for class society to exist (and this is a decent analogy if I do say so myself -- that latticework simultaneously represents CRACKS in the framework)

If that is true then the division of labor has to at least change significantly..I am not exactly sure what it means to say it is *abolished*. Thats beyond me. But it sure as shit does mean no one has to go to factory hell everyday for 25-30 miserable years anymore.

So the nature or "work" is going to change in ways that are probably not easy to foresee if only because we can't really grasp in advance what the fully realized productive powers of the working class will look like. I know that the new is born in the ashes of the old, but insisting that is the only side of the equation doesn't allow room for the fact that a REVOLUTION has occured. And Revolution changes everything.

I realize thats not necessarily the answer anyone wants nearterm. But if a "socialist alternative" pops up in the next decade, isn't it going to be *obligated* to follow the patterns of the USSR at least to some degree?

The trouble I have with the question of allocation is two-fold

1. there is so much complexity that how can you sort out individual work except for an overbearing division of labor. Think about all of the 1000s of people playing supporting roles to allow that doctor to become a doctor. Think of the massive social infrastructure necessary for any of it to happen as it does. How do such "valuations" even get made and if they do, on what (non-profit) basis?

2. If we focus on allocation, we lose sight of production. That is what Marx always dwells on, what he says is fettered. The exploitation is in production not allocation as well. And, lastly, since the greatest of the productive forces is the working class itself, the question of where can go/what can we do is subsumed by the question of Where CAN'T we go and what CAN'T we do?

Take the crisis now: its not a crisis of consumption or distribution even though those are some of its nastiest symptoms on a global scale.

Shit, its getting late on the East Coast so excuse moi if this post is a little hinky

allocations and valuations, time allotments and valuations will be "conditioned" (that was for you ;) ) by the needs and requirements of the society and will not reflect what I consider ideal. All that being the case, and nevertheless, "I think" that there "should" be no hierarchy of valuation placed upon the time, effort and skill of workers. When someone says that a "doctor" must be paid more than a "common" laborer what is being said? What is being said is that the "doctor" is a more valuable person than the "common" laborer. I reject that. It may be an "impractical" rejection, but I have been impractical before. I understand that a society may "perceive" the need to create a hierarchy of labor worth, but that doesn't mean that I consider it "ideal". I think that most of the arguments for a value hierarchy in labor is circular reinforcement of privilege and nothing more. Just my two cents... (how's that for valuation?)

every janitor should be making $20/hr. You can induce some homorrhages just by saying that simple statement

I agree with you 100% on what you wrote, I was more speaking to the fact that there is something off about the question people are posing. Restated in the way I hear it most commonly: why would anyone become a doctor if they were making the same as a clerk?

There are so many implicit attitudes wrapped up in that little bundle, I don't think you can "answer" the question by talking about how people might be paid in the future.

What they are really SAYING (the posing as a question is more of a vehicle for them to claim stuff -- its like Jeopardy or something) is that people are motived by prestige, self-aggrandizement, and self-interest and, in the last, fear of the boss. On top of that, if you take those "incentives" away then you are commiting the ultimate sin of governmentally/societally sanctioning sloth..nay, ENCOURAGING sloth. It strikes me as quasi-religious even. And we all suffer for it of course -- this is the reason that socialist countries were so blah and insipid and dehumaninzing and nothing at all like the pastoral, vibrant West.

Turns out they don't "believe" in the ol' Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) at all. Or maybe they do and the PWE was always about bearing your chains gladly.

That is why I was trying to come at the question from a different angle entirely.

Whenever someone says something like, "But a doctor might SAVE YOUR LIFE!!!!" I just get sort of misty-eyed and say, "Have you ever seen a really well dug drainage ditch? I mean one that is a work of art as well as a needed bit of landscaping? It is a beauty to behold. And let me tell you, in mosquito season you will be glad that ditch was dug and dug well!"

If I had been before the Bastille on July 14th, 1789, I would either have been with the Reds of the Midi or with the "rabble" throwing stones at their "betters". It is where I am from...

Something the red-baiters always like to throw up is the wages doctors receive there. "It's an outrage!"

A while back you posted a piece about how Cuba was raising the pay of managers because they couldn't get enough people to do that work for regular wages. Changing a society wholesale might take some time. The Cubans considered an expedient, an experiment subject to change. Of course, Cuba being a socialist society surrounded by hostile capitalist is not an ideal example but it gives us an idea of what the process might look like.

"What's wrong with those Cuban doctors, working for peanuts?"

They are socialists.

That is why I'm here, and I'm sure many others would agree. You do put yourself at risk (to some degree at least) anytime you go against the establishment and most of us realize that. But consider where we are right now. We have self-described "leftists" voting for a conservative monster like Obama, and expressing gratitude for a "health care plan" which is little more than protecting the insurance industry. More than half of our entire budget is defense, and that defense budget is greater than all of the other countries put together. And democrats are defending it! We have gotten so far right in this country most of us don't even know what leftists are anymore. Even on this board we have "leftists" defending capitalism. It boggles the mind.

written here over the last couple weeks, I came to realize that we all had "niced" ourselves right out of business. When someone says, "Only nonviolence works". We have got to say, "Yes, it works for our enemies and against us." When someone says, "All solutions are personal solutions". We have got to say, "But if the solution is personal ONLY, then it means nothing, at all."

I don't want to be ugly with anyone - I will try to be polite, but I will not "let things go" any longer. They have gone too far as it is.

This week as we note the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, I would like to ask the "personal solutions" bunch about the Reds of the Midi. The Reds were a force of hundreds of revolutionary soldiers who marched (in forced marches) from Marseilles to Paris to relieve the people of Paris and confront the royal army. By the time they got to Paris in July of 1790, they were trained, drilled and ready. They called their officers "Citizen Captain" and Citizen Commander" and they were called "Citizen Sergeant" and "Citizen Soldier". They were poor, peasant workers and foreigners and country boys they picked up along the way. They gave their lives and beat the royal army, took the Bastille, and liberated Paris. What were these men's "personal solutions"? When the Reds were storming the Bastille and other royalist strongholds the royal army was trying to bring up horse-drawn caissons of artillery and the "rabble" of Paris threw themselves into the streets and stopped the caissons with their bodies and blocked the artillery from attacking the Reds. What were these "rabbles" "personal solutions"?

Sorry, I get a little emotional. I am all for personal improvement and advancement, but not at the expense of everyone else...

true and I never meant my words to be taken that way, (I am absolutely not talking self-improvement here)but it is a fact there is no political solution, never was, never is, never will be.


If it is as you write, the solution, then why are we replaying that "storming the Bastille" over and over and over. Your solution would have ended the problem, but the problem continues, as it will. It will never end.

Everyone will die, they will always die, so why live? Working toward a more just, a more decent society - for everyone - will take everyone working all the time. There are no utopias, no golden ages right around the corner, none of that. We have to grow our food to eat. Every year, we have to grow our food to eat. We will never get to the point where we don't have to grow our food to eat. It doesn't mean we just stop growing food, because we will just have to do it again - not if we want to eat.
A more just and equal society takes diligence and work and that diligence and work never ends, never...

diligence and work and that diligence and work never ends, never...


absolutely true, no arguement from me, just that I don't see that diligence taking the form of politics (as usual)

But if there are wolves tearing around the village, killing and eating everyone and anything they can get their teeth on, you can't just sit snug in your hut and hope they go away. You are going to have to put the fiddle down and go kill some wolves. Now if that don't take politics, I don't know what does...

the fiddle is playing, which signifies exactly that (and that smell IS something burning, but not in the kitchen)

But, have it your way. We just won't agree on this!

:ciao:

and I ask this with all due respect, why are you hanging out on political message boards?

Am I allowed to comment on what I see as a process? I can not post here because I believe it is a process, an evolving process, but a final solution? NOPE!

I haven't seen anyone talking about anything but processes and historical situations. Where are these posts?

The OP talked about "development" not answers...
:shrug:

Reply #54: SLAD if you don't see politics as the answer,


TBF

Member since Aug 04th 2008
232 posts
Wed Jul-15-09 11:55 AM
In response to Reply #50

and I ask this with all due respect, why are you hanging out on political message boards?

You know, you kind of move the goal posts a lot. In another post you were saying that politics wasn't your bag because nothing was ever finished, everything had to be done over and over again - kind of like a "process" - just sayin'...

this man has killed more wolves with his banjo, then anyone ever will with a gun.

http://rockforward.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/pete-seeger.jpg

I bet he would say what we DO to help the poor and the working-wounded is more important than our "inner peace"; maybe even one comes from the other...

but, yeah, he never said politics was unimportant

(not that I would know, whatwith my lifelong aversion to hippies and all..;))

EDIT: just so this is not taken as a joke post, I will add that I saw a retrospective of Seeger on TV recently. I thought he was a little squishy overall (especially in his dotage) but think about it: we'd *kill* to have one Pete Seeger right now. And thats taking his mumbo about singing the world a lullaby as part of the package.

You got a strong urge to tie some flowers in your hair, don't ya? It's OK, man, flowers are, like, soft stars in your hand...cool...
:bong:
:gimmeakiss:
:rose:
:smoke:

I never said that either.

IF A REVOLUTION COMES TO MY COUNTRY
(HEAR THE THUNDER! HEAR THE THUNDER!)

If a revolution comes to my country
Let me remember now
I mean if bloody conflict rages
I better learn right now
How to catch and skin and cook a rat
How to boil a soup from weeds
And especially learn how to share
Oh, hear the thunder. . .

If a revolution comes to my country
Let me remember now
I mean if civil war breaks down everything
I better learn right now
How to sleep ten in one room
How to keep dry outside when it rains
And especially learn how to share
Oh, hear the thunder. . .

If a revolution comes to my country
Let me remember now
There'll be sickness, epidemic
I better learn right now
How long to boil water safe to drink
How to recognize gangrene
And especially learn how to share
Oh, hear the thunder. . .

If a revolution comes to my country
Let me remember now
Old dollar bill, you won't mean much
I better learn right now
What in life has true value
And, oh, if we'd only learn to share
There'd be no more need for revolution
Oh, hear the thunder. . .

If a revolution comes to my country
Let me remember now.

thread is confusing. Don't want to say you said something you didn't!

The conversation hasn't advanced from his opening statement anyway

As I read it he is indeed saying politics is unimportant (or perhaps antiquated/obsolete/archaic thinking maaaan)

is the amount of time a person has spent to be able to do something. I could learn to dig a fairly decent ditch in probably a couple of hours. I would take me at least a few years to be able to develop the skill to do open heart surgery. So if someone spends lets say 40 hours a week for 2 years to learn open heart surgery, doesn't that person deserves to be compensated for that time? Or should everyone just go get a GED and dig ditches since in your world, they would get paid the same has everyone else?

BTW: If you ever have a heart attack, maybe you should get the ditch digger to fix you up?

while the doc went through medical school (at no cost). Different kinds of hard work. The doctors I know (some of whom are very close friends) became doctors because that's what they wanted to do, not for money.

Do you think no one would become a doctor if it didn't mean they were gonna be better off financially than 99% of the world?

I suppose your hypotheticl heart surgeon is self-taught? He didn't enjoy any societal benefits whatsoever in his predestined path? As though both came to the fork in the road and simply chose to take different paths but with equal opportunity to go either way

I've never gotten it really..even one uses doctors as as their example. GPs do like next to nothing for a living. I mean, seriously?

Gotta ask DY..how comes it that you idenifty so much with the (putative) interest of the "medical professional" but the day laborer is just part of some unrefined mass of humanity that you'd just as soon scoff at as stand with?

The disdain is dripping from what you write and I don't get it. I mean, if you're rich, cool. But if not, whats the story.

Becuase I Do Wonder..

that all the old labels are obsolete and it was time to create some new ones. Most of the old political labels carry too much baggage and have lost their original meaning over time. Just look how ballistic people go over the word communist. Not that there is anything wrong with the concept of communism, it's just the applications of it that have sucked for the most part. Same with democracy, socialism, and the rest. Besides, what do all these 'labels' do except further divide people into nice little boxes, where they can waste their time defending their ideologies, while the POB continue to get away with murder?

At least in this country? Not to mention the cost of malpractice insurance that they all have to carry now a days, which of course the ditch digger doesn't have to worry about. There is a big difference between doing a job that can result in permanent injury or even death if you screw up and one that doesn't.

No, I don't think that no one would become a doctor unless they can become rich, as a matter of fact, most doctors I know live okay but most are not super rich by any means. But instead of trying to compare apples and oranges, let me try a different example.

When this man played piano he was paid thousand of dollars for a concert.

http://www.osw.com/photo/images/Ray_Charles.jpg


Should all piano players be paid the same?

http://www.mercynavan.ie/content/uploads/1/Piano_player.jpg

and avoid them like the plague, but since so far I've been blessed with good health, I've been able to avoid seeking their services for the most part.

However, I use to work in pediatric research, so the medical field is one that I know a bit about. The MD that I worked for was the one who figured out that if you fill a preemies lungs with gas, that their chances for survival were greatly increased. The result of his work is that 1000's of children that have been born since have a much greater chance for survival then they did before. I think that people who make such breakthroughs deserve to be rewarded.

I think that the people I worked with back in the 80's when AIDS was first diagnosed and no one knew yet how it was spread, but were willing to risk their own lives to continue working with at risk patients deserve to be compensated for the putting their lives on the line in order to do their job. It was a scary time to work in a high risk clinic with babies who pee, puke and drool all over you and I have nothing but respect for the people who didn't even blink at the risk.

I'm a she.

before I tuck in after cleaning up puppy playground (boy were they BUSY today!)...

Under socialism, education, to include postgraduate, is free. My parents paid not one dime for their medical education, all they had to do was pass the demanding entrance examination.

Malpractice insurance? It's a totally different animal in Europe where they don't clog the courts with frivolous lawsuits. That's a very American phenomenon.

Don't forget, and this is a beautiful result of socialized education, in Europe doctors don't need to make astronomical sums like in the US. Even if you pay a doctor out of your pocket, the costs are low. Malpractice insurance runs approximately 600 Euro a year. It's not even malpractice insurance as we know it here but more of an extra tax placed on doctors and medical facilities that goes into a national compensation fund.

If you bring a case forward, you don't go to a trial by jury but present your case to a government medical review board. The whole thing works a lot like workers comp. You can get a lawyer if you want but you the patient get most of the money which is a huge discouragement for ambulance chasing.

You have to think outside the box here. Forget everything you know about how we do it here and look at things all over again.

And they're not even Socialist. For a real Socialist system, look to Cuba and where Chaves is headed with Venezuela.


Real quick too... "Should all piano players be paid the same?" It's not about money... It's about everyone earning enough to meet their basic needs.

Watch Kid come and correct me if I'm wrong but I seem to recall that not even Marx advocated the same salary for everyone. It had to do with your needs. Civil servants with families for instance, get paid more than civil servants with no family.

My understanding is that you still get to bargain in the labor market; supply and demand come into the equation too.

Ask yourself this question though... Isn't the labor of the garbage collector who keeps the rats away from your house as important as the labor of the doctor who treats you when you come down with bubonic plague? Doesn't one work as hard as the other?

Pretend there's a huge loaf of bread up there. Why should a few people get huge chunks while the rest go hungry? Isn't the labor of the guy who ground the wheat as important in creating that bread as the guy who baked it? Or as the guy who carried that wheat from Iowa to New York? Or the guy who designed a pretty package for it? By what right does one claim a larger chunk? His larger appetite? His greed to store a thousand loaves of bread in the attic? Not the best examples I I know but my mind is mush right now.

On edit. Sorry for all the typos. Tonight was not the night to tackle this.

In hypothetical world where people are compensated more evenly, med school is free for those who want to be doctors and seem to show the needed skills to get into med school. Malpractice insurance is not in the picture, not the way it is now anyway.

But I'm confused now by something you've said.

You say doctors become doctors to become rich, but they don't really make that much money...well, I don't understand.

No one is gonna make thousands of dollars per concert. People will be fairly compensated for their work and the difference between the richest and the poorest will be vastly smaller than it currently is.

I don't want to get much more specific about hypothetical future-socialist-world because that's not how it works, but it goes roughly like this:

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need

in my first post to this thread. I was just using an example of how I think the world 'should' work based on a world that I actually live in, when I'm not banging my head against a wall. The way the traditional music community functions is about as socialistic as you can get. Maybe it's because most of the people in this community, don't play this kind of music in order to make money, no less become rich. As the saying goes, 'don't quit your day job.'

However, again with the words in my mouth. Where did I say doctors become doctor to become rich? Of course, there's people in all walks of life whose only motivation is to make more money, but most doctors are not greedy assholes making buckets full of dough. How much do you think the docs in the AIDS clinics make? Not that much. But they usually get paid more then the receptionist. But my argument is with Dhalgren who continues to insist that there's no difference between the surgeon and the ditch digger and they should all be paid the same. Even you admit that Marx doesn't agree with that either.

I would hate to rely on a drainage ditch you learned to dig in a couple of hours for mosquito control around my apartment building - just sayin'...

I reject the false hierarchy constructed by apologists that says the "harder" something is "to do" the more money the person doing it should get. Or that the longer it takes to learn the more a person should be paid. There is this artificial construct called "compensation", and compensation means whatever it is that anyone using the term wants it to mean. "Compensation" is a device that the Owners use to make servants accept what they are doled out. As I asked in an earlier post, what is the value of someone's time and effort? You are saying that five, six, seven years of school put in by the doctor is somehow more valuable than the years the "common" laborer put in as an apprentice, as a helper, as a C mechanic an so forth. I am not saying that I think the Owners are going to start paying workers fair and equal pay. I am saying that the valuation of time, skill, and effort is skewed by class distinctions and control considerations. You can defend that skewing as being the correct and just circumstances for wage distribution; I think it is just an aspect of the heel between our shoulder blades.

Everyone gets all weak in the knees whenever anyone talks about equality of pay and wealth distribution, because they have vested interests in the way wealth is shared out now - the defenders may not even realize what they are doing (exactly). The idea that everyone performing a service or performing a task of labor should be paid the same amount is like some form of blasphemy or worse. For some reason the inequality of wealth distribution is a gigantic sacred cow!

Moo, baby...

:banana:

She (sorry, DY) is saying that some people are just smarter, more industrious, more talented, etc. Now that is not just a natural observation of gradations in the human species -- some people can hit a baseball like a motherfucker, others ain't breaking the Mendoza line in 1000 years..we get it

But DY is saying that the "superior" people ought to be privileged, ought to be the ones accorded the most preference and consideration societally and in law and so on. This line only goes to one place:

"I worked hard to earn what I have..so why should *I* dig my ditch when I can get a peon like you to do it for me?"

And here we are.

my mistake for not taking note before

Sorry :(

I don't think you will find anywhere where I have. This is what "I" think. You think that some people's time and effort are more valuable than others' time and effort. I don't think that, I think that everyone's time and effort are equal. You are judging the value of labor based upon the product of that labor, I am valuing that labor based upon the time and effort of the Human Being performing the labor. That, I think, is the difference (at least I hope it is the difference)...

"No, I don't think that no one would become a doctor unless they can become rich"

Not enough coffee :dunce:

Of course there is a difference between a surgeon and a ditch digger. However, I don't believe that one is more important than the other in terms of their contribution to society, not in any absolute sense. If everyone decided to become surgeons and no one decided to be a ditch digger the community would be kinda screwed.

I've worked as an office monkey in a doctor's office (with 8 docs - specialists), and I've shoveled cow shit for a living. The ditch digger (or shit-shoveler) has as much of a right as a doctor to want a nice TV or good camping gear or a golf habit or whatever non-necessity they are into (ie the things you can get if you are paid more). I think getting up at 5am day-in day-out, to bring in the cows for milking in the frozen rain and shovel cow shit when your back hurts takes as much skill (albeit a totally different skill requiring less formal training) as a surgeon.

I think your example of the music community is a pretty good one. And I think, in general, music should be valued more than it is. Mike uses the farming community as another good example - shared equipment, I'll help you bale your hay and you'll help me..I've seen that kind of cooperation in my brief farming experience. Among farmers with very little in common other than farming.

Dhalgren in post #42 explains pretty well - I don't think he (?) "continues to insist that there's no difference between the surgeon and the ditch digger" ...that may be construed as putting words in his mouth? It's not that there's no difference, it's that one should not be considered worth more or valued more than the other in a material sense. I think. Heh.

you are focusing on the relatively well-off, asserting their privilege and demanding that we guarantee you that their privilege will be maintained before you will talk about anything else

This goes to pot two ways: we ain't the "guarantors" of anything #1, and #2 you're wanting to debate hypotheticl scenarios under entirely different hypothetical social relations but you only want to debate them from the prevailing viewpoint of today

Worse, from all outward appearances you are trying to reinforce and even impose that prevailing viewpoint on the hypothetical..before anyone even states the hypothesis

I agree with you. How do we judge the skills of a teacher, for example, against those of a lawyer. Capitalism says we judge based on what the market will bear. In a socialist society we wouldn't have those constraining definitions that allow others to define our worth.

I've worked in preschools vs. law offices. You'd be hard-pressed to argue that an attorney works harder than a teacher. Define hard work. Because they stayed in school longer? I'd hardly define that as hard work and I spent plenty of years in school. I'm actually thinking about going back again at the moment (and at this advanced age!) because I sure enjoy learning more than sitting in an office. Plus there are more windows - I kind of hate little rooms with no light. That's just me. :)

Perhaps because of how we're raised here, and the generations of this being ingrained. People seem to have a hard time thinking outside the constricts of capitalism - we barely have words for it sometimes.

I was just asking you a question. No need to get upset.

Shes taken "answer" -- meant in the context that politics is the only way of answering/addressing the question at all -- and falsely interpreted it as an expression of "THE ANSWER" a la the sudden and final "solving" of the "problem"

Its a meaningless distinction/contortion meant to mask what she is truly up to and allow her to continue to blithely state that "politics is unimportant"

(and not very well). Citizens have such a hard time conceptualizing social or mental or economic constructs that are worker oriented. No one seems able to look at situations from any position except from that of the wealthy, the Owners.

I mean, just look at DYEW's statement up thread where she says she could learn to dig a "good" ditch in a couple of hours. She really believes that because she has never dug a ditch, she actually thinks that it is just sticking a shovel in the ground and throwing over the dirt.
But that isn't even the point, there is a genuine disdain for labor in this country and it comes through in even the most caring and gentle and lefty of persons (which I know DYEW is) - they don't even realize they hold this disdain. It comes out in every statement, almost in every word...

and our public educational system is pretty good at teaching the propaganda. Everything is always from the owners' perspective, including how we wiped out Native Americans and imprisoned Japanese citizens during WWII. They even go so far as to use the word "internment" rather than "imprisoned" to rationalize the process.

There is no political solution - there are no political answers to questions that are not political questions.

What is the "problem" that politics can never fix? How can you argue against the political ideas expressed by others, when you don't think any political ideas are worthy of consideration?

I watched this shift occur among young liberal intellectuals in the late 60's and early 70's. Suddenly politics was seen as not worth being involved in, not effective at changing anything, not the way to fix what was really wrong - which was vaguely defined as people being too mean and too insufficiently enlightened. Everyone set off on personal spiritual journeys to discover the truth. Nothing wrong with that, though it is available only to a relative few and is certain to not change social conditions - which have steadily gotten worse since people started on those journeys and ridiculed anyone who didn't.

Historically religion has dealt with the "real" problems - mankind's corrupted or fallen nature, the need for improvement on the spiritual plane. The Catholic Church says that there is no political solution, for example. We need to ask "to which problem?"

Politics deals with power and resources - who has access and who does not. History is replete with examples of political solutions to those problems.

There is nothing wrong with people abandonment politics and seeking the truth elsewhere and cultivating spiritual values. However much confusion results when that masquerades as politics - the anti-politics politics. We have had an odd situation over the last 30 years or so. We have the religious right - and extreme right wing political movement disguised as religion, and liberalism - a New Age spirituality disguised as a left wing political movement. Endless confusion has been the result. I think both have run their course now. None of it makes any sense to younger people.

Stop obeying them and start violating them. That is how it has always worked.

If we can watch every poor person like a hawk 24 hours a day - and we do - so that they do not do any little tiny thing that could be remotely "illegal" and possibly anti-social, you don't think we can reign in the few stealing everything from us?

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose.

The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.

The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.

But the labels are useless because they don't represent anything anymore. A new label won't help an empty package.

The media divides people into nice little boxes. No reason that we need to. None of the labels represent any ideologies - they either represent power, as in Libertarianism - concocted up from whole cloth for the benefit and at the bidding of the wealthiest people in the country, for the purpose of advancing their power and resources grab. No ideology there. Or they are prejudice - as in "Progressive" - a grab bag of feelings and preferences on various issues. Even Socialism is not so much an "ideology" - a belief system - as it is the ongoing effort and struggle to expand the principles of democracy and the Rights of Man into economics.

They are not merely labels when we know what they mean. They are nouns identifying real things.

the meanings of these labels have been so twisted, that few people know their real meaning any more. Why do you think the POB worked so hard to dumb down America? And why they spend so much time and money turning words like 'liberal' that in the past had a positive meaning (at least where I grew up - NYC) into one of the dirtiest words in the language.

However, anytime there's been a major social change that group has earned their own label from the Bolshevik's, to the Wobblies, to the hippies. Don't know what the next social movement should be called, but it certainly needs to be something new that people can identify with and rally around because without lot's of people on board and for a cause that can unify them to demand fundamental changes in this country, it's never going to happen.

who couldn't even figure out what sex I am, you sure seem to think you know a lot about what I think or meant. You have no clue who I am, what I've come from or what I've been through. But you don't really want to know any of that, it might shatter your illusions about me.

Yes, it is true some people are some people are just smarter, more industrious, more talented. They don't even necessarily all go together. Some of the smartest people I know are also the laziest.

Where did I say that the ditch digger shouldn't earn a decent standard of living, free health care and the guarantee of a place to live? Where did I say that any doctor or anyone for that matter should earn obscene amounts of money? I actually think that there should be salary caps. There's no such thing has a financial 'adviser' whose worth 50 mil a year. But there is a difference even among ditch diggers between the guy who does a good job and the one who does a bad job, do you think that the one who did the job wrong deserves the same compensation has the one who did it right?

I could not disagree more with this: "the way the traditional music community functions is about as socialistic as you can get." I have been intimately involved with traditional music since I was a child, and toured and performed for decades. At one time it was entirely blue collar and farmers. Starting in the mid to late 1970's, it was invaded by hordes of relatively upscale educated suburbanites and they completely destroyed it in all ways. It became extremely hierarchical and aristocratic - not even democratic.

They took the money out if it. They dominated all of the venues and refused to pay people - "music should be free and we should all be free spirits tra la la" or some shit. They didn't need the money. They had solid corporate professional careers.

This was a great travesty, Back in the late 60's we had a list of a hundred or so farmers who could call square dance. We could ring one up when we needed a caller and played dances all over the Midwest - for rural blue collar people just had it had always been. The gentrification and domination by this new "peace and love" bunch hurt a lot of people. "Aren't we special? We play for free!"

The people who dominated traditional music over the last 30 years are scabs. No other way to put it. Why would anyone pay for a musician when so many would play for free? And then! Claim high moral ground for doing it!!!

I have played hundreds and hundreds of elder care facilities and poor churches, by the way, and hundreds of benefits. But they got a professional, and I could do that because I was charging the other presenters and promoters a fair rate.

They figured that since they personally weren't making any money (they didn't need to) then it was non-commercial. What a bunch of hooey. They became a whole new market for sleazy pop culture, glitzy over-produced so-called "traditional music" as more and more upscale people got "into it" without having the vaguest clue what it was they were into, and the record companies made a mint off of that gullible crowd.

All of this drove the old timers away, hurt them financially, and delivered the last crushing blow to traditional music and traditional dance.

giving my time and energy for free to promote, house, feed, and transport working musicians, to get accused of being a scab. I've run folks clubs, concert series and even put on a few festivals and I rarely have ever ask someone to perform without paying them something. At this point in my life, I've cut way back but I still put on a couple of house concerts a year, again at my own expense and usually the performer, especially if they have a CD to sell, can make $500 to $1000 on a good night.

Sorry, if you're experience turned into such a sour one, but there's a lot of old guys that I know who got rediscovered by us scabs and hopefully we helped make their lives a little better and helped to preserve their memory and their music.

I have stayed in too many people's homes when I was on the road and accepted their generosity to call you a scab. My apologies.

We probably know each other. Remember a sort of impulsive and opinionated guy whose bark was much worse than his bite and who was actually pretty nice? I am really sorry, my rant was uncalled for.

House concerts are great I think - good for you. Was just talking about those with a friend. Yes, we always did $1000 or more in CD sales.

I was talking about part-timers taking gigs away from pros by charging little or nothing. No "my experience" did not turn into a sour one, but the influx of hobbyists and the impact that had on work angered many of us at the time. The various things that you are describing are some of the things that we have all had to do to adjust to the changing environment. I appreciate what you have done and do.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.


on edit: changed the title from "good for you" which was sincere but could be taken as sarcastic to "my apologies."

What is the thing, the phenomenon, or the idea that the term was created to identify?

"Don't know what the next social movement should be called, but it certainly needs to be something new that people can identify with and rally around because without lot's of people on board and for a cause that can unify them to demand fundamental changes in this country, it's never going to happen."

Well said, and I agree.

If we can see politics as being about economics and power, the path to having people identifying with and rallying around a movement is much shorter.

giving them more rewards for intelligence, industry, and talent (I guess you will be the one defining those terms?). If we could put half as much time working together as trying to knock each other down (through these false constructs) we might actually accomplish something against our wealthy owners. Do you see the divide and conquer techniques? These are diversions to keep us from ever focusing on what is really important. That financial advisor and ditch digger aren't going to look much different standing on the unemployment line. Which seems to be where most of us are headed if we can't get through the fog and decide to work together here.

we probably know a lot of the same people and I'm sure you're very nice. Apology accepted. :)

I have to say though, I was surprised at your reaction. Whew! I certainly appreciate your frustration. It's a topic I've discussed with many working musicians. Trying to make it doing this stuff is hard enough and it's amazing how many people just expect people to come and play music for their events for free or for next to nothing and I am old enough to remember the first great folk scare and the second one. There was one year at Brandywine, like a zillion people showed up. One of my friends said, 'don't worry, they'll all be gone next year.'

But I'm surprised at your reaction to what you call 'hobbyists'? Some of the best of them, like JP Fraley and Ralph Blizzard, who made their living in other professions, would technically be considered hobbyists. (I know this isn't what you meant, but I'm just playing devil's advocate here). Besides, how would anyone ever become a pro if they don't start somewhere? For most people, the only way to get experience is to play for free. Shouldn't there be room for both in the world? And I know things will never be the same has what went before, but I bet the generation before us felt the same way about us.

We can discuss it in more depth as time goes by.

Doesn't the idea of buying and selling labor require us to see human beings as a commodity on the "open market?"

Things have been gotten done in this world without the buying and selling of labor.

The "rules of the game" were clear and both sides were in "agreement" under slavery before the Civil War.

While what you say about corporations is true, with or without corporations (or government or politics as far as that goes) the wealthy would have their way, until and unless we resist them.

You are making a religious, or at least a spiritual argument. "Until people become better, everything will suck."

I cannot help noticing that humans have survived and prevailed. "Life is hard and unfair, and things have always been bad" simply contradicts the story of the human race - successfully cooperating and building communities, improving conditions for living, and building and creating things. Humans have prevailed and succeeded because people have ignored those who say it is always the same, things will never change, life sucks, it is all futile, and human nature must be radically altered or else we will always be living in hell, because of people who went ahead in spite of those discouraging ideas.

The story of the human race is the story of the successful overcoming of the things that you say are inevitable and inescapable.

Let's leave the business of remaking people and improving human nature where it belongs - in the domain of religion and spirituality. Unlike tyrants, control freaks and religious fanatics, I like humans and human nature just the way they are. That is why I want to see the shackles removed. Improve the conditions so that people can fully be the way they already are, don't try to change humans to adjust them to the horrendous conditions. Even if you could convert 99% of the people to some new "treat everybody better" belief system (I think that already happened actually) that won't atop the 1% from preying on the rest of us the way that they are now. Converting all of the slaves to a "turn the other cheek" philosophy does not impede the masters in any way.

Above all, let's stop blaming the people for the conditions they are forced to endure.

That is the only way you can imagine things?

The American Revolution was to overthrow the de facto rule by the British Crown Corporations (the King made for a better scapegoat in the actual documents.)

Of course we can, and will overthrow tyranny. We always do. We would not be here otherwise. ("We" meaning "people" here.)

Why not?

Even in fairly recent Anglo-American history there was an ethic that those born with greater skills were obligated to train more, and were obligated to be in service to others and were not expected to cash in on their skill and training. That idea is very recent. People once saw it as a privilege to be able to study and train, and accepted that this incurred a debt that was repaid by humbly serving the people, and did not think in terms of climbing some status ladder and feathering their own nest.

"Smart people should get more" is a very modern idea, and I think the practical political purpose for that is to decapitate the working class by giving status and material well-being to smart people so they will side with the ruling class. We are "house Negroes" in other words - siding with master over the field hands in exchange for some status, comfort and perks. It is a morally depraved and politically reactionary position. Why defend that, let alone use it as an argument against left wing ideas?

Why shouldn't all musicians be paid the same? God what a better world that would be.

:rolleyes:

Ushering in Marxism? Kicking Capitalism to the door?

As much as I hate incrementalism, the only other possibility is Revolution, but for that, you'll need to convince the large majority of people, whether rich or poor, smart or not-so-smart, that your ideas are worthy. I don't think a dishwasher should have the same economic credit that a doctor gets. At the same time, I don't think the doctor should have special rights or that the dishwasher should be denied any. But there should be recognition of stratification of abilities and the value of those talents. How would that work in a communist/socialist system?

At the minimum putting up a decent resistance.

The "value" question is where we part ways. I most certainly do not see the doctor as being more important. Everyone has skills, and those skills are things we are born with (or have the aptitude/intelligence to develop - also things we are born with). Luck of the genes, and also luck depending upon what we are valuing in society in the moment. I know it's a rarity to think that some animals are not more special than others. I'm comfortable viewing it differently than you do.

compensation for labor and "rights"? The idea that one person's time and effort are intrinsically more valuable than another person's seems to me to be indefensible and pertains directly to "rights".

You would have to say that the "product" of that time and effort is more valuable and therefore you will compensate the person producing the more valuable product more than the other person. But what makes one product of time and effort more valuable than another?

After the garbage piles up for two weeks ya cannot help but understand the value of sanitation worker's labor.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/627.png

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need

to deal with the resulting diseases that such a situation could cause if left unchecked.

We are not charged with perusing the buffet table of possible political positions to assume, and then choosing our personal favorite.

Politics is an ongoing struggle. It is already happening.

Saying that "the only other possibility is Revolution" is using a core reactionary argument that has nothing to do with reality and is merely used to frighten people and discourage them from fighting back against the ruling class. Revolution is a function of the degree of resistance from the ruling class, not some "choice" we select or advocate.

The "you will need to convince the large majority of people, whether rich or poor, smart or not-so-smart, that your ideas are worthy" line of argument is reactionary as well. The notion that selling people on or converting people to new beliefs is a prerequisite for social change is something that exists in the imagination of relatively upscale intellectuals. It is a game - they say that they need to be convinced (and by extension, so do the masses which is presumed then to be even more difficult than convincing the intellectuals would be) as a tactic to derail discussions and distract people. They will never be convinced, and they work overtime to make sure that the questions are never put to the general public.

Once again the John Lennon school of political thought is expressed here - "you say you want a revolution, well we'd all love to see the plan."

The idea that somehow people should be stratified according to the value of their talents, and that socialism threatens this, is another highly reactionary argument. There was a time not so long ago when there was a shared ethic among doctors and other professionals that their skill and training obligated them to be of greater service to the community, to give more, not to take more in the way of material rewards and status.

Modern liberalism is permeated by a sense of entitlement to status and material rewards for those with professional skills or intellectual gifts. This is the way in which they are bought off and co-opted into being spokespersons for the ruling class, and their frantic drive to protect and defend their own privilege and entitlement becomes the foundation for their reactionary thinking. Defending the ruling class has become the side of the bread upon which their butter is spread.

This so corrupting and compromising and miserable, that I would think that all intellectuals would gladly throw off the shackles of being "house Negroes," apologists for the rulers and the wealthy and powerful few. The price extracted - morally and intellectually - is far too high for the paltry status and privilege sand comfort that we get in exchange.

You are defending the master's house and property in exchange for a small room in the cellar, and for being relieved of the drudgery of the field work. Your body may not be worked to rack and ruin, but your mind and soul belong to someone else. Meanwhile your brothers and sisters in the field are crying out, and you are deaf to their voices.

All I'm asking for is three cogent paragraphs on the subject.

I'm not talking about people's potential. I think everyone could be a doctor. I also think that people are perfectly capable of being happy doing relatively meaningless work. The question I have is how can you free the minds of, I would guess, 70% of this country who believe that capitalism is the bee's knees and socialism is bad bad. How do you undue that training? WHat is a socialist argument going to tell these people that they'd be willing to hear?

Achieving socialism, I would suspect we could do away with these stratifications. But, aren't we all Americans talking about what we want to do here? In our system, this is where we are. How do you get people to change all of that?

I think everyone has the right to health care, freedom of association, freedom of choice (all choice), and freedom of movement.

any progress?

I see you post a hundred articles here (with very few responses in most cases) Are people going to listen? Ever? Standing in front of the WHite House was an act of utter futility (I've been guilty of the same from time to time) WHat's the use chlamor? It's not good enough to be happy and it's not bad enough for people to rise up. Is one tiny bit of progress at a time a real victory?

good work! :applause:

Now you are just grabbing for any insult you can think of to use. I take that to mean that you have no rebuttal.

are not inherently superior to everyone else.

How to market socialism? That's a different subject. I would think the basic thought of food, shelter, health care and jobs for everyone would be a powerful motivator. You're right that there's been a lot of brainwashing from the media, but at some point people realize they're unemployed, losing their houses, and no one is helping them.

compensation and rights by saying we aren't living in a socialist system, I take it to mean that currently you think that the disparity in levels of rights are just 'the way it is', to paraphrase?

You "think everyone has the right to health care" - but they don't, currently. "Association"? Nope. "Choice"? Nope. "Movement"? Nope.

So what is your response to the fact that because of the current system the poor and the working class, the vast majority of "citizens" have none of these rights?

That is what this is all about, I think. That is what is meant by the question: "Whose side are you on?" If something needs to change, who will change it? What should be changed? How? When? Etc...

"How do you get people to change all of that?" We all have to start by trying our best to know what we are talking about, I think. And to try and make sure that when we hold a belief or an opinion, it has been well thought out and is not just another product in the Owners' interests. The enemy is clear, we are the ones who have to wash the mud from our eyes...

It took me a little while to fully understand that this process is honest and open and not meant to do anything but clear the thinking processes. To get us all working in the same direction - hopefully forward...

Should everyone have the same right to vote? Should all votes count the same? Or should smarter or more talented people get more votes?

The political Left means extending the principles of democracy into the economic sphere. You may disagree with applying the same standards to economics that we apply to electoral politics, and so be it, but don't then pretend that you stand to the Left of center politically.

This is not so radical, and it is not "socialism" that you are opposing, but rather you are arguing against anything and everything even vaguely to the Left. Listen to FDR, for example. He disagrees with you.

A Rendezvous With Destiny
Franklin Roosevelt
June 27, 1936

Philadelphia is a good city in which to write American history. This is fitting ground on which to reaffirm the faith of our fathers; to pledge ourselves to restore to the people a wider freedom; to give to 1936 as the founders gave to 1776 - an American way of life.

That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy - from the eighteenth-century royalists who held special privileges from the crown. It was to perpetuate their privilege that they governed without the consent of the governed; that they denied the right of free assembly and free speech; that they restricted the worship of God; that they put the average man's property and the average man's life in pawn to the mercenaries of dynastic power; that they regimented the people.

And so it was to win freedom from the tyranny of political autocracy that the American Revolution was fought. That victory gave the business of governing into the hands of the average man, who won the right with his neighbors to make and order his own destiny through his own government. Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

Since that struggle, however, man's inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution - all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem for those who sought to remain free.

For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.

There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small-businessmen and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.

It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor - these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small-businessmen, the investments set aside for old age - other people's money - these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities.

Throughout the nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

An old English judge once said: "Necessitous men are not free men." Liberty requires opportunity to make a living - a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They granted that the government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

The brave and clear platform adopted by this convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.

But the resolute enemy within our gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we will fight for them.

http://www.austincc.edu/lpatrick/his2341/fdr36acceptancespeech.htm

...


Yes, indeed.

"The resolute enemy within our gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we will fight for them."

[div class="excerpt"]Is one tiny bit of progress at a time a real victory?[/quote]

What does 'victory' look like to you?

If I tell you that I read everything Chlamor posts, and I learn something from it and it changes how I see the world around me, and I engage someone else in that discussion, is that 'rising up' to you?

Or do I need to pass a Pitchfork Purity Test.

that we question each other as much as anyone else. That is how we all learn.

besides, your horse is so high up I can barely see you on it

And, purity? It seems to me that the "purity" demand is coming from the new socio-communo-clique on the board.

more than we question each other's arguments

that's some wonderful thinking that you didn't harp on until recently

Frankly, I think all of us know that the system is rotten and there need to be some fundamental changes. But the system of governance is "we the people" so that's where it has to start. Most people in this country will reject any pro-socilaist or pro-communist argument out-of-hand. How does one start to change these things?

Well, thank you Mikey! My eyes are open! I have seen the light! :rolleyes:

opportunity - which, until recently, I have seldom had. If you look closely at my posting history you would see that. Identifying the "Owner class" as the enemy does not take "wonderful thinking" just honesty and interest. You may identify with and support the Owners and that is fine, but I don't think that you are in the exalted position of knowing what "people of this country" will and won't reject (even if you know them to be 'sheeple' as you have said before). Also, I do not believe that you believe that the US Empire's "governance is "we the people"" If you do believe that, why on earth would you haunt boards like this? Are you just here to show the flag that is waving over the corpses of Afghan and Iraqi children? To support the people who are killing Pakistani women and children via remote-control drones and paying Israelis to murder Palestinians? If "we the people" are the rulers, as you say, then "our" government is doing exactly what "we" want it to - right? Like withhold health care from millions of American children? Throw tens of thousands of workers out of jobs every month? Throw tens of thousands of kids into prison because they were born in the wrong class and with the wrong skin? "We the people" sure do suck, huh...?


"How does one start to change these things?"

Well, first off, we have to stop pretending we know everything before we even begin...

Those are two of the most common smears used against the political Left through the years.

First, anyone who is educated, knowledgeable and persuasive must not be genuine working class, must not be struggling, and is therefore some sort of poser not to be taken seriously. Of course anyone who is not educated, knowledgeable and persuasive or who is struggling is dismissed for those reasons.

Secondly, we have the "purist" charge, a close relative of the "doctrinaire" and "ideologue" smears. Of course were the leftist not consistent or did not stand fast on principle then they would be attacked on that basis. You will be attacked for being a purist AND for not being a purist. Crazy.

You have no way to know who is struggling and who is not, and people don't talk about that lest they be vulnerable to the "loser" smear and discredited that way.

The "purist" charge means nothing, and is always dragged out as a last ditch effort by those opposed to the Left whenever leftists have successfully made their point.

it is you who is looking for purity in political terms

And I have no way to know who's struggling and who isn't? So what makes you so sure?

What is wrong with "lofty rhetoric?" What makes something "lofty rhetoric?" Does that mean "effective arguments?"

I know who is struggling and who isn't because they tell me.

What does "looking for purity" mean and how are people here doing that? Are you sure you don't mean "clarity?" A desire to eliminate confusion and obtain clarity could be perceived, or characterized with some plausibility, as a demand for purity.

But why are we to simply assume that by saying that someone is using "lofty rhetoric" and demanding "purity" that they can therefore be dismissed? Could not that be used against anyone at any time? Why is it only leftists who are attacked in that way?

Do you deny that the arguments you are using here are common arguments that have been used against the political Left for decades? Why would you want to use them against people here, and then having used them why would you be surprised when people assume that you are arguing against the Left?

and many don't agree

You are looking for purity in your socialist plans. Please tell me what changes you are effecting while squatting on your mushroom.

Yes, as a matter of fact I am the arbiter of what is truth.

You know, I never did mushrooms.

That sounds a bit patronizing. Did I miss something in the context?

I worked in a number of factories in my early years, and though steelworking is not for me, most of those I worked with who chose to make it their career loved it. I mean they could hardly imagine a better job. Twenty years later I don't believe that any of those who still have factory jobs would say they would have done anything different.

If there is misery in their lives, it does not come from working in a factory unless they happen to have an asshole as a boss.

For starters, the United States is not the only place with factories..

When I first came here the place was full of factories. People even subcontracted to factories with drill presses in the living room of their public housing estates. I knew factory owners and their main concern was extreme labor mobility. They could lose their whole labor force in a day if a factory opened across the street offering 25 cents an hour more. I thought this was the perfect example of capitalism working.

Then in the 90s the factories moved north across the border to Guangdong Province on the Mainland, where labor was plentiful and cheap. The people who had been working in the factories in Hong Kong lost their jobs and in many cases found themselves too old for retraining for office jobs. No other job they could get could compare with their old factory jobs. It was the kind of work they liked, they were good at it and they made a decent wage, better than in the service jobs they got next if they were lucky. Thy could even have their own business, subcontracting to factories and put the whole family to work at the presses or sewing machines. It looked pretty crude to a Canadian but I was also impressed with their industriousness.

More recently, the same thing has happened in Guangdong province. The government started enforcing the minimum wage, and then the economic meltdown in the US and Europe destroyed exports. With the closure of about 40,000 factories, workers who had migrated from farms in the north to comparatively far better paying jobs in the factories in Guangdong Province have had to go home. This has been nothing less than a complete disaster for them and their families up north. Working as a wage slave was infinitely preferable to eking out a bare subsistence on the family plot. Working in the factory they were able to send enough money home to build cement homes and feed their families.

Yes, I visited factories in the early 90s where not a single worker appeared to be over 16 and the foremen rode them like slaves, but things changed ten years later as labor became relatively scarce and factories had to compete for workers.

I have a friend who works in a factory in Canada. He tried working as an entrepreneur for years, always having to worry about money and has never been so happy now that he is working in a factory and a non-unionized one at that. The owners treat their employees fairly and they (employees) all seem to take great pride in the fact that the products they make are exported around the world. They brag about it.

Some people love working with steel, wood, cloth, whatever. For them working in a factory is the ideal job. So you can call them wage slaves, depending on your perspective, but that's not how they see themselves in general, happily.

(in my woefully imperfect way) is the difference between "labor" and "conditions". Most everyone (Herr Marx included) do not distinguish between the two; so that, often, when someone "denigrates" labor, they are actually talking about the conditions under which the labor is performed - not the "real" labor, itself. Now, I will grant that with Capitalism the difference between labor and conditions is forcefully rejected. And with Marx, his Hegelian background won't allow for any distinctions between labor and condition (system/method), but to me that is the very nature of working class suppression and oppression. The factories are a "living hell" and the lives that these factories and their owners force the working class into are also a "hell". That everyone seems to be trapped in this "matrix" of "this is the bast we can do" does not change this...

It's great that you're impressed with the industriousness of people working for less than minimum wage, their good fortune in being forced off their land and landing jobs until minimum wage laws were being enforced.

I'll bet you think the Mexicans who come to the US, after being forced from their homes, only to end up in some poultry processing plant working at some of the most dangerous jobs are industrious, too.

Do you really think that repetitive stress and other chronic workplace injuries don't exist? Do you really think that people don't suffer long term injuries (that may not appear for years) from working around chemicals?

Sure, some people like working with tangible materials. So, what? Whether they prefer to work in a sweat shop than a restaurant, says nothing about the conditions of work in either. You think you're replying to a "dignity or hierarchy of labor" argument. You're not. What you're arguing is that the international working class needs more shitty jobs, "created by owners treat their employees fairly" and we should be happy and proud about getting one. You're right about one thing:
"I thought this was the perfect example of capitalism working."

The factories that I have worked in and visited are not a "living hell" by any stretch of the imagination. I have visited factories in China with 5000 girls sitting in rows with a foreman pacing the row ready to pounce on anyone who looked up, but the girls, their faces away from the foremen are smiling and giggling, passing secrets along the line as they work with incredible dexterity, and seemingly generally enjoying themselves, if body language is any clue.

I have visited factories large (e.g. Ford, John Deere) and medium sized throughout the US in the unionized north and non-unionized south, as well as mainly unionized Canada and I have never seen the "living hell" you speak of.

Perhaps you are referring to conditions in the UK during the Industrial revolution, or in some current US sweat shops and abattoirs?

Those Negroes sure sang pretty, and sure seemed to have fun, and the food was great and they got to work outdoors doing the farmwork they loved. WTF?

"I have visited factories in China with 5000 girls sitting in rows with a foreman pacing the row ready to pounce on anyone who looked up, but the girls, their faces away from the foremen are smiling and giggling, passing secrets along the line as they work with incredible dexterity, and seemingly generally enjoying themselves, if body language is any clue."

It's hard for me to get your point.

I never said that anyone was forced off their land. I said only they could make many times more working in factories in the south than they could farming their plots of land in the north.

Why would you say "Do you really think..." Did I say that injuries did not happen? Where?

Why do you assume that all factories are sweat shops? Have you even worked in a factory or even visited one?

You say I'm arguing that the working class needs more shitty jobs. Where did I say that?

You're a strange one.

As much as you might want it to.

Dhalgren,
We talked about the first part of your post either earlier in this or in another thread. As I recall, a few of us made stabs at what tasks a job would required, but generally that it's a pretty abstract discussion at this point. I quite agree, that there is nothing inherently denigrating about labor or work; and that work exists as a condition of modern Capitalism (at least here in the US and as a condition of imperialism in other places).

But, the real meat of your post is:
"That everyone seems to be trapped in this "matrix" of "this is the bast we can do" does not change this..."

It is first and last resort of people like FP above. As Maggy said: "There is no alternative."

Is there something wrong with you? Can you not make a point without making up shit?

curt wasn't even responding to you.

of this "panglossian" mindset in regards what amounts to mass forced labor! 5000 "girls" "giggling"? Good god! This is where the "conditions" of the labor become so identified with the actual labor - in the parts that the apologists refuse to see. "Everyone" is happy to set up a drill press in their living room so that they can moonlight and make enough money to live! Everything is beautiful in today's Capitalist paradise! I think FP took a wrong turn on the "freeway"...

No, I don't think those people are industrious, I think they're desperate. The survivors of a massacre of their compadres by US imperialists.

Internationally, the transformation of agriculture from substinence to cash crop farming, and the migration of manufacturing work to ever cheaper sources of labor, forced tens of millions of people off their lands and into urban and manufacturing ghetto areas.

Workplace injuries commonly don't present themselves for years even decades after the fact. Someone can enjoy their job up until it kills them.

More shitty jobs, you said it here:
"This has been nothing less than a complete disaster for them and their families up north. Working as a wage slave was infinitely preferable to eking out a bare subsistence on the family plot. Working in the factory they were able to send enough money home to build cement homes and feed their families."

These people would have greatly benefited from more shitty jobs, right?

You're not strange at all.

Am I to ignore that because it was in the third person?

that factory conditions in today's capitalism are good. They do not need to be changed. Now, you couched that in the "factories are not living hells" argument, going on to laud the thousands of factories you have "toured" all over the world. Right.

You also say that somehow (it isn't really clear how) you know that all of these workers just love their factories and wouldn't change for anything.

I don't believe in "hell", but I have worked in factories and none of them was a place I wanted my son or daughter to work - and I am no enemy of labor...

I am not apologist for this. I was arguing that even here, among the worst examples of factory conditions, it was not a "living hell" and in the many medium and large factories I visited in the US, conditions are far from hellish and even quite pleasant.

Surely you don't mean what you said. Saying that they are not industrious is the same as saying they are lazy.What the hell is with that?

I did not imply that conditions are good and that they did not need to be changed. I did not speak of thousands of factories. I did not say all over the world. I spoke only of Canada, the US, Hong Kong and China.

Why do you find it necessary to distort what I have said? What can possibly be the point?

If you cannot even be honest about what I have said, do you have any honest purpose in discussion?

I have worked in factories, several of them, and I would not want my kids working in any one of them. Now, are there some factories that are better workplaces than others? Sure. Some plantation owners treated their slaves better than others, so what? If someone said, "Plantation slavery was hell." Would you start a litany of examples where plantation slavery was not actually 'hell'? You are either missing the point or ignoring the point. Working conditions, are dictated by the owners - and are not within the control of the workers in this country (and in many others, to varying degrees) - that condition, in and of itself, is "hell". That you do not see that this almost complete lack of self determination is an intolerable condition, just points back to the panglossian nature of your position. and don't give me that old saw, "The workers can go elsewhere to work." The condition of no self determination would be the same...

It isn't the desire to work hard that motivates people to leave their friends and families, and their histories, behind, and migrate to where ever capital decides to set up shop.

"It was the kind of work they liked, they were good at it and they made a decent wage, better than in the service jobs they got next if they were lucky. Thy could even have their own business, subcontracting to factories and put the whole family to work at the presses or sewing machines. It looked pretty crude to a Canadian but I was also impressed with their industriousness."

Industriousness doesn't mean cleverness in playing against a stacked deck, and it sure doesn't mean making the best of exploitation. If it means the harder you have to work to survive and reproduce social life, the more industrious you are, then you win.

Curt is telling you that the prevailing sentiment that drives them into factories isn't their personal industry but their complete immiseration and desperation.

You're not getting it..you're say that while its technically true that they are wage slaves working in terrible conditions, it will get better over time because thats how capitalism works. And if it doesn't get better its because capitalism wasn't allowed to work becaues business dried up.

What is your point? That maybe one day workers in Hong Kong could enjoy a lifestyle on a par with some American workers? So the fuck what? They are wage-slaves in Hong Kong, they are wage-slaves in America.

How you gonna change that? If you can't change it, how you gonna stop business from drying up again or moving to the mainland again and again and consequently driving all those "happy" factory workers right back into poverty and immiseration?

Its called anarchy of production and you seem to be acquainted with it. And you must then realize that workers can't possibly have any security while industry produces in that manner.

We're all wage-slaves and we're here to talk about what to do about it. You wanna tell us how capitalism "works" if you just give it enough time and look on the bright side and squint real hard and think happy thoughts and..

Bullshit buddy

just by saying "I didn't say that!" You said repeatedly that workers liked factories and would not change occupations even if they could. That thousands of "girls" mashed into, what to me sounded like, a sweatshop where actually happy and "giggling". Now explain how that is not an "implication". This old shit of coming back and trying to change what you have said when someone calls you on it is not going to work. If I have misunderstood you, explain how, otherwise, stop blowing smoke.

I said that you couched your apology in the "factories are not hells" argument, but the sentiments you expressed were clear - capitalism is not bad.

If I am wrong, straighten me out.

Thats your fucking advice. If you don't think its the best we can do, you sure as hell don't seem to have much problem with it

but it wasn't forced labor because they would get upset if their hours were cutback and there was even occasional laughter so, hey, it might as well have been motherfucking Chuck E Cheese sans the cardboard pizza.

I think you must own a sweatshop or two to be this fucking whack

This is the second time you said you wouldn't want your kids doing factory work. What would you have them do that is so much better, or any better?

So what if you don't like factory work. Plenty of people do, and since you say you worked in factories you know that. There's no need to put them down by calling them slaves. It is terribly patronizing.

You say conditions are dictated by the owners. That is not entirely true. Conditions in US factories are dictated by government regulations such as OSHA regulations as far as I remember. They may also be dictated by union or employment contracts. And small factory owners do not always have a say in conditions. Whatever their competitors do, they are pretty much forced to follow to compete. Many are hanging by a thread and do just what is necessary to survive.

The lack of self determination is not intolerable at all. Most people prefer to work for a salary rather than take the risks involved with being an entrepreneurship. This does not make them slaves in the sense of plantation slavery that you mean.

Although it seems to me that he was referring to certian points you are making rather than you as a person.

It looks to me that, in this subthread, you are somehow implying through anecdotes that factory work in general isn't all that bad, and you seem to be defending the status quo. You seem to be trying, through anecdote, to indeicate that people are not, in fact, working 25-30 years in factory hell. If this is not the case, then please clarify. Because there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. And even if 'factory hell' is a bit of hyperbole on Kid's part, it seems pretty apparent that many people working in factories in this world are working in pretty bad conditions, and often with little pay or benefits or job security of any kind. Are there exceptions? Yes. But the trend right now is moving toward conditions getting worse, pay and benefits getting worse.

Maybe it would help if you would clarify what you are trying to get at, instead of providing anecdotes which the reader is left to interpret themselves? What is your point, other than using personal anecdotes to demonstrate exceptions?

And before you ask - yes I have been inside several factories, and technically speaking I even worked in one for a week about 10 years ago. I'm lucky enough to have lots of options - most of the workers there did not and were working for $7 an hour with no benefits. Right here in the good ole U S of A.

I said I would not want my kids working in the factories I worked in. If you are honest you will acknowledge this. But I don't suppose you will. So you think that the Owners are somehow different than the government? Really? You don't think that the US government works for the owners? Really?

"The lack of self determination is not intolerable at all. Most people prefer to work for a salary rather than take the risks involved with being an entrepreneurship. This does not make them slaves in the sense of plantation slavery that you mean."

I was unsure before, but now I am convinced - you are full of shit. And an abject apologist for the oppressive class. I am sure you will do well in your future - I agree with the sentiment up-thread, you probably own sweatshops...

The latter is possible, but I think hes just putting on evasive maneuvers

or thinks he is...

to discredit what other people are saying, but not being explicit about the argument he is really making, thus leaving it up to the reader to interpret what arguments the anecdotes are supposed to make. Then of course he can deny that he ever implied such a thing.

So I will ask him again here, since he will likely ignore my post above, what point ARE you trying to make?

Is that clear enough?

I don't understand why you too insist on attributing to me things I didn't say or imply. What is the point? I don't get it.

You: "You're say that while its technically true that they are wage slaves working in terrible conditions, it will get better over time because thats how capitalism works."

When/Where did I say it will get better over time? Why do you say that?

If not a 'living hell', how would you characterize factory work in general? Not your anecdotes, but as a major part of the global industrial and economic system, what words would you use?

he is making it personal and thereby skewing the discussion. We are talking "Class" and he is talking "me", so it is no wonder there is no connection...

And as if cursing somehow makes your point stronger.

:hahaha:

And I used anecdotes to help explain why I say that.

And by the way, I did not ignore your post.

I think you'll find any such generalization worthless, whoever makes it.

When I point out that you are wrong you keep going.

Stop putting words in my mouth and there is room for discussion.

Clever.

Really? You don't see a point in characterizing the methods of production of all the things people make throughout the world; the things that we rely on in our daily lives? You don't see a point in studying that in an objective attempt to understand it? You think it's worthless to understand the working conditions of the people performing the labor?

Wow. Since you think such a discussion is worthless I won't bore you with my response although it's all over this thread and others throughout the forum if you change your mind.

I guess if I choose to I can just go to all the pretty, happy places in the world and pretend the rest don't exist, and then by anecdote I can make the case that the world is a pretty and happy place, and thus discussion of politics and economics and inequality is useless.

Too bad all those pretty, happy places are shrinking by the minute.

Too bad I saw this graph today about how the rich are getting even richer and the poor are getting even poorer than ever before:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/meganmonkey/saez07.png

I didn't say the discussion was worthless, though I find the name-calling and foul language to be a bit questionable.

I said any generalization about what working in a factory is would be worthless. Especially in a sentence. Or a paragraph? Perhaps a book? Where to start?

Good luck.

I'm not going to much besides copy & paste a couple of articles, this is what hell looks like:

NIOSH Safety and Health Topic:
Traumatic Occupational Injuries


Each day, U.S. workers suffer injury, disability, and death from workplace incidents. On average, 15 workers die each day from traumatic injuries. Overall, 5,400 workers died in 2007 from an occupational injury and more than 4 million workers had a nonfatal injury or illness. In the private-sector alone every day, we see 11,500 nonfatal work-related injuries/illnesses with more than half of these injuries/illnesses requiring a job transfer, work restrictions, or time away from the jobs as a result. Among all workers, not just the private sector, 9,000 workers are treated in emergency departments each day, and approximately 200 of these workers are hospitalized. In 2004, this resulted in an estimated 3.4 million nonfatal injuries and illnesses among civilian workers that were serious enough to be treated in hospital emergency departments.

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/injury/

Workplace injuries down, Labor Department reports
By Press Associates
31 October 2006
WASHINGTON - The rate of workplace injuries and illnesses declined slightly in 2005, the Labor Department reported. But buried in the report were several qualifications to the data.
The Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reported virtually the same number of injuries and ailments as it did in 2004. But the rate dropped by 0.2 cases per 100 workers because workers toiled more hours.

And while the survey counts injuries and illnesses that forced workers to miss time from the job, or to have their work life changed--such as being barred from heavy lifting--it does not count long-term illnesses that develop after years at work or afterwards, such as asbestosis, black lung disease, mesothelioma and other cancers.

BLS reported 4.6 cases of non-fatal workplace injuries and illnesses per 100 private sector workers last year, down from 4.8 cases per 100 workers in 2004. “The rate resulted from a total of 4.2 million nonfatal injuries and illnesses in private industry workplaces during 2005, relatively unchanged compared to 2004, and a 2 percent increase in the number of hours worked,” BLS added.

Virtually all of the data showed injuries, not illnesses, with a total of 242,500 reports of new on-the-job illness last year. But BLS said that understates illness.

“The survey measures the number of new work-related illness cases that are recognized, diagnosed, and reported during the year. Some conditions--for example, long-term latent illnesses caused by exposure to carcinogens--often are difficult to relate to the workplace and are not adequately recognized and reported. These long-term latent illnesses are believed to be understated…In contrast, the overwhelming majority of the reported new illnesses are those that are easier to directly relate to workplace activity--for example, contact dermatitis or carpal tunnel syndrome,” BLS said.

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?article_1_97

I will word this carefully so you can't accuse me of name calling (although I make no promises about foul language)...

You are behaving in a way consistent with serious intellectual dishonesty in this thread. In fact, it almost appears as though your behavior is that of someone who is deliberately trying to sidetrack a discussion.

That said - I can't help but wonder why you choose to participate in discussions that you find impossible to have in a forum such as this? Is there no middle ground between subjective phrases like 'living hell' and writing an entire book?

Been to Detroit lately?

Factories:


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/meganmonkey/Motor-City-Industrial-Park.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/meganmonkey/pd2275447.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/meganmonkey/dd-factory1218.jpg

Living Hell:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/meganmonkey/610x-3.jpg

Oh wait, he froze to death in the bottom of an abandoned warehouse elevator shaft so I guess he's not living anymore...


Did I miss the giggling girls somewhere?

That shows that mining, ag and fishing, construction, transportation and public utilities and wholesale trade are all worse than manufacturing in terms of fatal industry rates and that manufacturing is not that far above government and retail trade.

As far as injuries are concerned, construction and ag forestry and fishing are more dangerous than private industry, which I suppose includes manufacturing, wholesale and retail.

In terms of anxiety, stress, and neurotic disorders, operators fabricators and laborers (12.5%) were far below tech sales and admin support (39.9%) and managerial and professional specialties (23.6%) and even slightly below service (14.1%).

So how does this show factory work to be more hellish than other occupations?

how much could all of those working conditions be improved if the profits went to improving safety rather than lining the pockets of the ownership who rarely even gets their hands dirty?

I disputed a single term. And then was attacked with a fair amount of viciousness from all angles.

And you accuse me of trying to derail the thread for responding?

After being misquoted time and time again you accuse me of intellectual dishonesty?

Goodbye.

It shows that most wage slavery takes place in hellish conditions, including factories.

to discredit everything else someone else was saying, and have continued to avoid clarifying your position. In my second post to you on this thread, I attempted to deflect attention from those 2 words that bother you so much and bring the conversation around to something more definable and you have thwarted that effort in a dozen not-very-creative ways.

If you choose to leave go right ahead but don't pretend it's anything but your choice.

From my angle, it looks like you are leaving because you either can't or won't present your arguments in any substantial way (ie beyond anecdotes) and you don't like being called out on that by 3 people at the same time. If you have a strong point of view, lay it out for us. Defend it. But don't use this crap about you'd have to write a book to even talk about this. It's a cheap way out, man.

This first post takes one phrase out of context from the post you are responding to.

This post is a distortion and misrepresentation of what the other member said, and also not relevant to what the other member said.

froze this whole thread when you said 'hold on there'!

:)

I was thinking the same thing. I hate that.

The last time I said that to the Free Press, they locked out their workers.