Not a true Scotsman, eh? The same argument can be applied to the current capitalist system, too. Some libertarians in fact do so when saying that the problems we see with capitalism don't actually arise from free markets but from precisely the state intervention in those markets that's supposedly meant to alleviate these problems.
> and the most advanced countries (Sweden, Norway, etc.) are all putting in place a mixed socialist/capitalist system.
It's called social democracy or social market economy. It's still largely a free market capitalist system because the means of production for the most part are privately owned.
> Not to mention the fact that much of communist writing with regards to capitalist failure is extremely "on point", even today.
Like many people being lifted out of poverty in the last decades? Like the average person having a much easier life than the average person just a hundred years ago?
That's not to say there are no problems in a free market system at all but it's not all doom and gloom. Quite to the contrary, free markets overall have been tremendously beneficial to the development of mankind.
Yes, the number of people living under the international poverty line has halved since 2000, however:
a) The international poverty line is currently set to $1.25. This means that, e.g. someone who makes $1.26 a day would be counted as "above the poverty line"... which is very much not the same as "not poor".
b) And more importantly, there is no reason to assume that the fact that people are marginally less poor today, than in 2000, is thanks to free market capitalism, rather than despite it.
In fact, there is another metric of financial well-being, than wages, or absolute or relative poverty: inequality. And that one is _rising_. And has risen steadily throughout the last century. Only in this case we can be very secure in the knowledge that it is the result of free market capitalism- because that's exactly what leads to ever smaller minorities hoarding ever larger portions of the world's wealth.
You have to define 'not poor' somehow if you want to measure poverty and do something to alleviate it. The definition of 'not poor' intended by measures such as the poverty line is: The basic needs are met.
> b) And more importantly, there is no reason to assume that the fact that people are marginally less poor today, than in 2000, is thanks to free market capitalism, rather than despite it.
So, what alternative explanation other than free markets do you have?
> In fact, there is another metric of financial well-being, than wages, or absolute or relative poverty: inequality. And that one is _rising_.
That's a common fallacy. I'm not poor just because Bill Gates is rich beyond all means.
Inequality is just that: Inequality. It could be an indicator of financial well-being but it's not sufficient proof someone or a large part of the population is poor.
Socialist policy today is often obsessed with the idea of inequality, which is a shame because in many cases financial inequality at least might not be the true underlying problem that needs to be solved.
I consider increasing inequality not so much a problem in terms of current poverty but as to continued economic prosperity and subsequent improvement of living conditions: If wealth is concentrated at a few corporations or people, possibly inherited through generations, that means that capital is less likely to be invested in new, risky businesses but instead will be lying around accruing interest.
1.26 a day is 37.8$ a month. I don't know about you, but in all of the places I know, such a person would barely be able to afford food, let alone shelter, replacement clothing, petrol and insurance for travel (or public transport -- in many places public transport would be four days worth of work for such a person at least).
> So, what alternative explanation other than free markets do you have?
The increase of social welfare safety nets.
> Socialist policy today is often obsessed with the idea of inequality, which is a shame because in many cases financial inequality at least might not be the true underlying problem that needs to be solved.
Of course it isn't, much of it falls down to social class and identity politics -- which is another debate for another day.
You can't simply apply rich industrial country standards to that. $1.25 is a global average (which by the way lately has been increased to $1.90). In developing countries $1.26 might be enough to get by.
> The increase of social welfare safety nets.
Those safety nets for the most part again only exist in industrialised countries. The reduction of poverty in recent decades however is accounted for mostly by developing countries, which typically don't have that kind of system.
No, accuracy. If there's a raft with "YACHT" scribbled on it in permanent marker, and you call it a yacht, and I correct you that it is, in fact, a raft, then my correction is not an example of the No True Scotsman fallacy. To date, there haven't been any 'true' communist states. For that to be so, the workers would have had to hold the power. It is trivial to prove that in most self-professed communist countries, the workers have not held the reigns of power.
For example, in Mao's China only 11% of the communist party consisted of working class people. In Cuba, the working class never held power -- it was a revolution solely of the upper echelons (Actually, the way the revolution was performed was quite clever, I'd advise you to read about it, it's quite a marvel of strategy :)). In the USSR, for a short time, the workers held the reigns, however this was quickly made not the case. And -- to paraphrase Cliff -- if the state truly consisted of and gave power to the workers, the workers would have fought against the destruction of it.
> It's called social democracy or social market economy. It's still largely a free market capitalist system because the means of production for the most part are privately owned.
Yes. It took some of the materials from communism and bolted it on to capitalism so that the roof doesn't fall down every 20 years.
> Like many people being lifted out of poverty in the last decades? Like the average person having a much easier life than the average person just a hundred years ago?
Really? From the UK all I can see is the literacy rates getting worse and worse in either country, people being driven into unspeakable amounts of debt by private universities and bank bailouts, and Americans dying of silly things like Type 1 Diabetes just because they couldn't afford enough medicine.
Just because things are "getting better", doesn't mean that things aren't bad -- in fact, it's an open admission to that fact. Nor does it mean that under an alternate system things would be worse.
> Quite to the contrary, free markets overall have been tremendously beneficial to the development of mankind.
On the contrary, "free markets" of the current ideation have only existed for about a hundred years or so. Just because something is a market doesn't mean that you can jam it into the capitalist Free Market slot. I'd advise you to read Ellen Meiksins Wood "The Origins of Capitalism" for an academically correct view on this.
While this is true the question is: What does 'the workers holding the reins of power' even truly mean? Why didn't that state last longer in communist systems where it initially was the case (I suppose both the Paris Commune and the short-lived Soviet Republic in Germany after WWI are additional examples)?
These affairs or definitions tend to be more gradual than we commonly think. For example, we usually take for granted that both the US and France have been democracies since the late 1700s. However, by today's standards they weren't (France in particular) because they hadn't universal suffrage and excluded large parts of the population from political participation.
> Really? From the UK all I can see is the literacy rates getting worse and worse in either country, people being driven into unspeakable amounts of debt by private universities and bank bailouts, and Americans dying of silly things like Type 1 Diabetes just because they couldn't afford enough medicine.
Those are certainly urgent problems but not necessarily ones that are entirely driven by poverty:
Literacy rates drop because education systems are insufficiently funded and don't keep up with societal changes.
Rampant university debt and bank bailouts are symptoms of a crony capitalist system that has politicians and corporations collude in order to extract value from society (i.e. rent-seeking).
People dying from type 1 diabetes is a symptom of a dysfunctional healthcare system, which in rich countries is less a question of poverty but one of ideology.
The true epidemic is type 2 diabetes, though, which is caused by malnutrition and obesity (which in turn in rich countries indeed are linked to relative poverty).
Living in one of them it all to often feels like they are rolling back that system.
Come on, we can do better here than the tired old “not real communism” argument.
it just means that we didn't have the right data, or perhaps we need a new analysis
Ah yes, always followed by “it will be different next time”. How many millions more have to die?
Capitalism is a race to the bottom where the poor countries in the world are being put under the thumb. You don't have to look very far. Just look at all the CIA ops the USA has conducted in the 20th century, e.g. Allende.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Spain#1936_Revolu...
There are a ton of efforts, both from state-actors[1], NGOs[2] and individuals, seeking to eradicate extreme poverty worldwide. It is not apparent that it is "fixing itself with capitalism" or that any of the previous actors think it is going to happen.
> trickle-down effects actually exist
Citation Needed because trickle-down economics has been shown to increase inequality and not increase the quality of life for those in poverty.
> Yes, capitalism needs regulation, but it is a lie to say that the entire approach is doomed to be a race to the bottom.
Why is it a lie?
[1]: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/data/oecd-internati...
[2]: https://data.oecd.org/drf/grants-by-private-agencies-and-ngo...
That's interesting, but what is the proportion of middle-class individuals to the rest of the population, in Jordan? If there's 100 kids able to play Diablo 3 in Jordan, while every other kid their age can't afford a computer, then Diablo 3 is not a very useful metric of anything.
Jordan is one of the richest countries in the region btw.
I fundamentally disagree with a left-right x-axis; we're missing out on authoritative-liberty. Hence politicalcompass.org provides a better framework.
Some of these bandaids are authoritarian, some are liberal. For example, trademarks, patents, copyright each grant power to one or more individuals (ie. a minority) over a vast majority. Here, the free market is being regulated by the government. We consider it part of capitalism.
[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/the-new-economic-mode...
Your thoughts on seasteading, even as a hypothetical?
This in and of itself speaks volumes. If it were truly a viable system it could start in one country which would quickly outstrip all others in technology, culture, industrial production, quality of life for its citizens... Then all other countries would gladly follow.
But they knew from the very beginning that people who could vote with their feet, would flee that system. Countries that restrict people from leaving know perfectly well that they are doing something evil.
Instead, following your startup idea, we should foster worker co-ops, which already exist today and are compatible within existing nations. One example is the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
For a capitalist, this vision is like blaming the engine for the direction the car is taking.
I didn't say it did. I pointed out that if you're going to insist that mass murder under a few decades of communist regimes = real communism, then mass murder (and genocide and slavery) under centuries of capitalist regimes = real capitalism.
> Communism [...] invents all kinds of counter measure ( one of them being the revolution, and « temporary » dictactorship).
Communism did not invent revolution or dictatorship.
It is not of the same nature.
And yet I seem to have done it.
> People blaming communism makes a lot more sense
You're entitled to your opinion.
> because it does deal with what the political regime should be (once again, a dictatorship).
Since you persist in arguing about "dictatorship" instead of communism, I don't see any point in continuing this.
Edit: instant downvoter I think you missed one of my posts; here's a link to make it easier:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16034997
Feel free to check out my comments page and obsessively downvote others you may have missed, if any.
You'll probably argue that this kind of dictatorship isn't to be understood in the common sense, but judging by the various communists thinkers that refer gladly to violence, as well as its historical examples, i'd say the difference aren't that clear.
I don't have to. Your own link says so in just the second paragraph:
Dictatorship of the proletariat is different from the
popular notion of 'dictatorship'Both slavery and imperialism have had a long history before capitalism. Capitalism exists in circumstances with no plausible relationship to slavery or imperialism.
It annoys me because this dialectic is so obviously wrong.
Are you even disagreeing with me?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_socialism [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
You could also ask: How many millions more have to die before we overcome capitalism?
Actually, it has a very concrete definition. The only thing that's flexible is where will communists move the goalpost when another downside or systemic problem is pointed out.
Free people will never care about millions of their "comrades" the same way the can care about their 100-200 closest social connections.
The thing is, communism didn't really exist to fall in the first place, and the most advanced countries (Sweden, Norway, etc.) are all putting in place a mixed socialist/capitalist system.
Also, dialectical materialism didn't necessarily fail just because a set of predictions were made with it didn't come true, it just means that we didn't have the right data, or perhaps we need a new analysis. Not to mention the fact that much of communist writing with regards to capitalist failure is extremely "on point", even today. Indeed, much of it feels like it could have been written yesterday. Dialectical materialism remains a tool of science, however limited it may be, and so should be considered as one.
Also, I think you're mistaking "doom" for "actionable movements". People are actually mobilizing to fix the problem of race (mostly within America, I might add -- while racism is a problem elsewhere, you don't tend to see as much violent resistance to fixing it as you do in the American systems). Just like people are mobilizing to fix Climate Change and much of the problems with uncontrolled late-stage capitalism.