Post Aa26ALFPvC6sk2NofY by vidar@m.galaxybound.com
(DIR) More posts by vidar@m.galaxybound.com
(DIR) Post #AZxODQhf7VKwzuLrIO by futurebird@sauropods.win
2023-09-20T11:19:51Z
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It’s not a public square until it is controlled by the public democratically. Anything less is a substitute, a stand in for The Big Conversation we probably should be having.The fears people have about “collective action for the common good” aren’t trivial. The potential for corruption, cheating and diversion of the public will to private whims is real. Too many people are more comfortable letting some powerful man tell them “I’ll take care of people like you” and screw the Big Conversation.
(DIR) Post #Aa25vhW0qfrpSZAFTU by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-22T05:27:27Z
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@vidar @Alon @futurebirdYeah, no. This is a lie that the far left in America loves to spread, but it’s a lie. Trying to directly compare parties across nations is fraught with difficulties, and winds up being a reflection of your criteria, not reality. For example, UHC is taken for granted in some parts of Europe, but so is anti-immigration.Every country is exceptional. Every system has to be tailored to the specifics of the country it’s in.
(DIR) Post #Aa26A1DyMr4SdlYNdo by futurebird@sauropods.win
2023-09-20T11:26:23Z
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The fragmented fake public square, is an obstacle to really getting anything big enough done. Maybe the maximal size of a human society that can act together is just not able to be that big. (I don’t really buy this) The social media problem and the inability to seriously face climate change problems are linked by common cause. Are we going to hope someone powerful will just fix it for us? That’s the current ‘plan.’ Are we really this terrified of what a real public square might produce?
(DIR) Post #Aa26A1ylYsV8ytRkZs by sarfeo@toad.social
2023-09-20T12:13:54Z
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@futurebird Religion managed to bind together (more or less) about a billion people each, with some fantasy stories. I'm thinking there must be a bigger story, that encompasses more people. But grounded in reality, and lifting us out of the dark future we're currently facing.
(DIR) Post #Aa26A2qeKXbRg0emZ6 by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-20T19:12:38Z
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@sarfeo @futurebirdLet’s rule out one possibility immediately: communism.
(DIR) Post #Aa26A3XBmNd9nwYks4 by sarfeo@toad.social
2023-09-21T17:40:04Z
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@TruthSandwich @futurebird why even mention it?
(DIR) Post #Aa26A4CJJUWXrTnay0 by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-21T17:40:47Z
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@sarfeo @futurebirdBecause that’s what “anti-capitalism” means.
(DIR) Post #Aa26A4vgamou8D1ph2 by sarfeo@toad.social
2023-09-21T17:56:54Z
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@TruthSandwich @futurebird says who
(DIR) Post #Aa26A5jJcGWEc8FT3A by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-21T17:58:37Z
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@sarfeo @futurebirdOk, I’ll call your bluff: what does anti-capitalism mean if not socialism? And what is socialism if not the path towards communism?
(DIR) Post #Aa26A6DRoEcc7aLX16 by sarfeo@toad.social
2023-09-21T17:58:35Z
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@TruthSandwich @futurebird "you can either eat scorpions or poo. there are no other choices in this universe"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
(DIR) Post #Aa26A6Pr46Xwk49RM8 by sarfeo@toad.social
2023-09-21T18:04:07Z
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@TruthSandwich @futurebird "bluff": why do you assume others have bad intentions? this is not twitter…anti-capitalism means "against capitalism". see my other response for details.
(DIR) Post #Aa26A7BMDUXn7ONNOi by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-21T18:05:40Z
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@sarfeo @futurebirdUh-huh, so you’re against one thing, which means you’re for an alternative. But you don’t want to say what it is.Thing is, we know. The alternative to capitalism is communism. If that’s not the alternative you intend, then it’s on you to provide an alternate alternative.
(DIR) Post #Aa26A9TVgyFkEGstyC by futurebird@sauropods.win
2023-09-21T19:17:35Z
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@TruthSandwich @sarfeo “The alternative to capitalism is communism.”Is this how you define communism? Was the whole world communist before capitalism started?
(DIR) Post #Aa26AADwuJOqYIbzM0 by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-22T03:00:59Z
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@futurebirdSorry, I didn’t see your toot in my notifications because I blocked sarfeo (for refusing to answer). I’ll respond now:Yes, in fact there were various economic systems that predated capitalism, and none of them were communism, but they featured all the same flaws that are currently ascribed to capitalism.That’s why I’m always saying that if you’re blaming capitalism for, say, greed or bigotry or environmental harm, you’re blaming the wrong thing.The blame belongs with the root economic causes, which are universal issues, not an aspect of any single system. It’s the fault of resource scarcity combined with human nature.So, for example, the colonialism that we’re still fighting the vestiges of happened under feudalism and mercantilism, not modern capitalism.However, we’re not going back to any of these historical systems, and there are no viable modern alternatives to capitalism.The USSR and China, for example, ran under a command economy and that was a huge failure.What actually works, and what you actually find in the real world, are mixed economies, which is to say regulated capitalism.Capitalism is terrible, but it’s better than everything else, so maybe it’s not so terrible. It’s the very best thing we’ve got for creating wealth. Of course, it needs some help with the distribution side, which is where taxation and regulation comes in.But we’re way past the point where we can take the idea of communism seriously. It’s been tried and it’s always failed, with no sign that it will ever do anything but fail again. It never even came close to working, not even a little, not even for a little while.If you’re curious, I wrote this blog post about the topic: https://truth-sandwich.com/2023/07/05/real-red-magic/
(DIR) Post #Aa26AB5pfyV9FPp1LE by vidar@m.galaxybound.com
2023-09-22T03:50:06Z
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@TruthSandwich @futurebird Feudalism was terrible, but at the time it was better than everything else that had been tried. That does not mean it'd have been valid to conclude "maybe it's not so terrible".I don't actually think it's very interesting whether or not people think socialism or communism can work. I think it's more interesting why people think capitalism can survive, and why they think capitalism is somehow unique in not having failure mode that will eventually end it.
(DIR) Post #Aa26ACGVJmdEsnp3c8 by Alon@mastodon.social
2023-09-22T04:06:01Z
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@vidar @TruthSandwich @futurebird What do you mean, better than everything else that had been tried? There were systems of free labor in medieval Europe contemporary with serfdom. There were so many peasants fleeing to cities with free labor that there were rules for how long lords had to fetch the peasants back (a year and a day). There were peripheral regions that never quite adopted manorialism and it was fine; Russia only went manorial as the Early Modern tsardom was reestablishing serfdom.
(DIR) Post #Aa26AD5uEfkTSDs6jY by vidar@m.galaxybound.com
2023-09-22T04:15:11Z
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@Alon @TruthSandwich @futurebird If you want an argument for why capitalism is better than anything before it that I fully agree with, read chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto. Marx was a massive fanboy of capitalism..He just expected it to eventually give way to something else, like every preceding system.
(DIR) Post #Aa26ADCHqwqvm0rCgC by vidar@m.galaxybound.com
2023-09-22T03:52:41Z
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@TruthSandwich @futurebird The survival of capitalism is predicated on one central thing: For it to survive capitalists must be *wrong*, and the competitive pressure of capitalism must *forever* continue failing to drive margins towards zero.Why? Because driving down margins towards zero in a system with private property inherently requires driving labour costs towards zero.As it happens, few people had as strong a belief in the "success" of capitalism as Marx in this respect.
(DIR) Post #Aa26AETL725TjBqKtk by Alon@mastodon.social
2023-09-22T04:21:20Z
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@vidar @TruthSandwich @futurebird Yeah, and he was wrong. Historiography marches on, and at this point historians don't even like talking about feudalism as a thing that existed. There were a lot of coexisting different systems in medieval Europe and while manorialism was the most common, it was deeply parasitic on revenue generated by urban market economies.
(DIR) Post #Aa26AFCMPe6FyouI4W by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-22T04:22:48Z
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@Alon @vidar @futurebirdExactly this.Communism predates Marx and it was a failure long before he ever put his stamp on it. It remains a failure.Marx was wrong: capitalism is not ever going to transition to socialism and then communism.We know he’s wrong because people tried to turn his theories in to fact. And they failed, failed, and failed.
(DIR) Post #Aa26AFzdSRW0RdxdsO by Alon@mastodon.social
2023-09-22T04:31:57Z
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@TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird Wait - none of what I'm talking about is communism. I don't think it really makes sense to speak of communism or socialism before the industrial era. The point of socialism was to replicate egalitarian communal structures at scale; that's not really a thing in a preindustrial society.
(DIR) Post #Aa26AGcz68zUPgN4D2 by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-22T04:38:22Z
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@Alon @vidar @futurebirdThat essay lists examples of attempts at communism dating back to 1800.
(DIR) Post #Aa26AHGKjqSyNimUXg by Alon@mastodon.social
2023-09-22T04:41:15Z
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@TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird Yeah, during early industrialization, in explicit reaction against it while still trying to have capitalist manufactures.(P.S. the "Sanders is a Russophile" line in the post is complete bunk; Sanders has supported weapons deliveries and other aid to Ukraine. Nor did he equate Democrats and Republicans - he caucused with Democrats throughout his tenure, and strongly endorsed Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.)
(DIR) Post #Aa26AHyI6Pd0a3Lb3g by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-22T04:48:09Z
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@Alon @vidar @futurebirdI’m sorry, no, that’s just not true.Sanders honeymooned in Russia and has allowed himself to be used for Russian propaganda at least as far back as the 1980’s. (See linked article.) His recent criticism is focused on the fact that Russia is no longer communist and is instead run by oligarchs. In other words, he loves Russia and wants to bring back the good old days.Sanders has recently carried water for Putin, arguing that he has “legitimate concerns about NATO expansion) while his allies (the JD’s) have voted against Ukrainian aid.As for endorsing Clinton “strongly”, that’s a lie. He claimed his loss was due to rigging and he had his surrogates pimp for spoiler Stein. (Receipts below.)Like I said, I’m not the first to recognize him as our Thalmann.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/world/europe/bernie-sanders-soviet-russia.html
(DIR) Post #Aa26AIVy5CZCGV6UYC by vidar@m.galaxybound.com
2023-09-22T04:57:37Z
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@TruthSandwich @Alon @futurebird It's quite telling when you first argue for regulated capitalism, and then get all worked up over someone who by European standards is a mildly centre-left (at best) social democrat.If you want to look at "somewhat functioning" capitalism, such as in Scandinavia, we all have economic systems far to the left of anything Bernie has pushed.
(DIR) Post #Aa26AKLPHRJ5wKB5Mm by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-22T04:59:35Z
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@vidar @Alon @futurebirdOh, please. I have no patience for the old “in EU, Bernie is a centrist” nonsense.He is, in his own words, a socialist. I’d call him a communist and he wouldn’t dispute that. With photos like the one below, he couldn’t.Sanders also loves to equivocate between social democracy (Sweden) and democratic socialism (Cuba), allowing him to be Heisenberg’s socialist.
(DIR) Post #Aa26ALFPvC6sk2NofY by vidar@m.galaxybound.com
2023-09-22T05:01:31Z
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@TruthSandwich @Alon @futurebird And yet what he doesn't actually push anything even close to as radical as Sweden or Norway.
(DIR) Post #Aa26ALvxN28aryHmyW by Alon@mastodon.social
2023-09-22T05:05:49Z
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@vidar @TruthSandwich @futurebird What are the features of Sweden and Norway that you're thinking of right now? Because (ignoring the existence of Anders Tegnell for a moment) I think of universal health care, free education, sectoral collective bargaining, high union density, and high taxes on the middle class. Main difference I see from Sanders is that he disagrees with the socdem-neoliberal compromises that cut taxes on capital income while leaving high labor incomes heavily taxed.
(DIR) Post #Aa26AMdujbId4IqtUW by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-22T05:08:48Z
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@Alon @vidar @futurebirdAmerican liberals are not neoliberals. Reagan was a neoliberal. Thatcher, too. We are modern liberals, which has nothing to do with neoliberalism, despite having that l-word in common.The DNC platform includes universal health care, but in a realistic form. Sanders is a populist, so he panders with empty promises, such as M4A and GND.
(DIR) Post #Aa26ANJ2GiC17q5jaS by Alon@mastodon.social
2023-09-22T05:11:47Z
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@TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird I'm not talking about the Democrats. I was @-ing Vidar, who's Norwegian, about neoliberal parties in the Nordic countries, like the Center Parties (originally farmer parties, since transformed into neoliberal ones), or the Liberal Parties (which are also neoliberal and generally to the right of the Center). Various compromises all over Scandinavia resulted in a system with low capital income taxation while keeping upper middle-class labor income heavily taxed.
(DIR) Post #Aa26ANsq7apgusqKOW by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-22T05:13:47Z
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@Alon @vidar @futurebirdI have a shortish blog post about Sweden and why they were able to get away with the sort of social programs that are lacking in America. Maybe it will address your points.https://truth-sandwich.com/2021/01/09/why-arent-we-sweden/
(DIR) Post #Aa26AOeLGypXID4GR6 by Alon@mastodon.social
2023-09-22T05:19:17Z
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@TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird It's a bad blog post and you should feel bad. So many words that could be summarized as "you can't have social democracy in a multiracial country." But that, too, is just false. For example, it's notable how the increase in inequality in Sweden in the peak era of neoliberalism happened *before* mass immigration. The voucherization of the school system did not come about because of racism; at the time, the Sweden Democrats weren't even in the Riksdag.
(DIR) Post #Aa26AROV4KwNnwg9ey by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-22T05:25:23Z
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@Alon @vidar @futurebirdEveryone’s a critic. Don’t worry; my self-worth is not dependent upon the statements of Internet randos with a solid history of being wrong.Sweden’s commitment to strong social programs is under attack by right-wing populists, fueled by a hostile reaction to immigration.
(DIR) Post #Aa26ASEFxuLCOStUKe by Alon@mastodon.social
2023-09-22T05:27:39Z
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@TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird Can you not explain Sweden to a Norwegian and a former resident of Sweden? The truth is that the left *always* thinks the social safety net is under attack. One of the things that most infuriates me about the radical left today is that in a time of falling inequality thanks to full employment, it instead chooses to make Thatcherite arguments for why inflation is immoral.
(DIR) Post #Aa26ASRj9p7H4FCFKS by Alon@mastodon.social
2023-09-22T05:22:36Z
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@TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird And what since mass immigration, starting in the 2000s? Well, after the 2014 election, there was a cordon sanitaire agreement to keep the Sweden Democrats out of power. It lasted until 2022. The Liberals and Moderates broke it - and immediately after they did there was such massive voter backlash that the polls over the last 10 months have shown an all-left majority, which Sweden last had in the 2002 election.
(DIR) Post #Aa26ASwDKTVEanSaqe by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-22T05:29:12Z
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@Alon @vidar @futurebirdThe Sanders people here are embracing (a broken version of) MMT precisely because it promises the ability to print endless amounts of money without risk of inflation.
(DIR) Post #Aa26ATiQRE4F0K15zk by Alon@mastodon.social
2023-09-22T05:33:20Z
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@TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird Some are, yes. But the main of American left-populist media (say, the Prospect, which published Lee Harris's Putinist screeds for way too long) instead talks about greedflation.
(DIR) Post #Aa26AUXTNQttYdtrYu by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-22T05:41:24Z
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@Alon @vidar @futurebirdThey do both.Intercept and Jacobin are probably the worst offenders, if you’re looking at far-left propaganda mills.
(DIR) Post #Aa26AVG8hMd5nAnXBQ by Alon@mastodon.social
2023-09-22T05:43:29Z
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@TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird Yeah, Guillotine specifically is very special and keeps running those Ukraine's-Jewish-president-is-a-Nazi articles. They are also not Bernie Sanders. (The Intercept is a mixed bag, because a lot of its anti-liberalism is just outright right-wing, like those "antifa kills grandma" pieces. And then separately there are all the people there who want the place to be more normal and less Greenwaldian.)
(DIR) Post #Aa26AVwg9Cenv6hVUO by TruthSandwich@qoto.org
2023-09-22T05:46:23Z
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@Alon @vidar @futurebirdYou can be forgiven for thinking the far left’s anti-liberalism is right-wing, because it uses so many of the same talking points, but it’s not. It’s just that the far left is barely distinguishable from the far right due to their shared populism. This is the horseshoe that you’ve probably heard about.The far-left Justice Democrats are anti-Ukraine as is the far-right Republican Party. It’s the liberals who are pro-Ukraine.