¤ milky moon ¤

as I already said for the average KB fan profile elsewhere, general points are the most stupid things in the world.

no I am not eating some broccoli, it makes you fart

I must have missed the part of Capital in which Marx calls upon workers of the world to eat broccoli.

Seriously, though, this is based on a sample of less than a hundred people, so it's not to be taken seriously. The pleasurable take-away is that we're all respectably far-left, in the terms of contemporary representative democracy, in which being far-left doesn't imply much at all aside from a general attitude of scepticism towards neoliberalism.

Hello! I Just got an account and I can say that I am indeed a communist, so that's at least one more data point

Thank god the sample size is only 27--as of this posting, from the link in the OP.

The other reason not to take this too seriously is that I doubt anyone responding in this thread appreciates what Communists were, are and wish to be.

Thank god the sample size is only 27--as of this posting.

The other reason not to take this too seriously is that I doubt anyone responding in this thread appreciates what Communists were, are and wish to be.

-------Edit01----------------------------

Jordan~ wrote:... Seriously, though, this is based on a sample of less than a hundred people, so it's not to be taken seriously. The pleasurable take-away is that we're all respectably far-left, in the terms of contemporary representative democracy, in which being far-left doesn't imply much at all aside from a general attitude of scepticism towards neoliberalism.

I'm sorry, Jordan~, that I didn't read the above thoroughly before I posted a response.

I am very curious about "neoliberalism". Please tell me your meaning of that word. I've never seen that.

I should say that I'm impressed that you modified "democracy" with "representative".

(I'm not working up to asking you to lend me $100.)

r-enter-ested wrote:I am very curious about "neoliberalism". Please tell me your meaning of that word. I've never seen that.

I'm surprised you've never encountered the term before; it's been something of a buzzword, particularly in the social sciences, since the '90s. It's basically Austrian school/Chicago school political economy, often opposed to Keynesianism as well as to anticapitalist political economy. It's the political and economic theory which provides the rationale for most of the contemporary world's policymaking: deficit reduction, tax reduction, (therefore, austerity), free trade, privatisation, deregulation, and so forth. It's come under devastating critique from academics of basically all political stripes.

Thank you Jordan~. I asked as I need to know such things. I don't spend any brain-time with economics and I am not familiar with any formal anti-Keynesian efforts, though there is much anti-Keynesian opinion expressed in my moribund, Capitalistic country.

r-enter-ested wrote:Thank you Jordan~. I asked as I need to know such things. I don't spend any brain-time with economics and I am not familiar with any formal anti-Keynesian efforts, though there is much anti-Keynesian opinion expressed in my moribund, Capitalistic country.

The stuff that's going on in Greece right now, which is sort of the extreme of the political situation in most of Europe, basically centres on voters' rejection of the neoliberal approach to the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008. In Greece, a referendum was held in which voters ultimately rejected the terms of their debt renegotiation with their creditors due to its neoliberal stipulations: deficit reduction strategies were demanded aimed at 'protecting innovation and not slowing job creation', i.e. exempting the rich from contributing to the repayment proportionally through taxation, and reducing public spending.

(Note that this is one of the major critiques of neoliberalism: it's basically market imperialism imposed through debt dependency. Contrary to their claims, neoliberal policies do not win out due to their inherently greater efficiency on a political marketplace; in most of the world, they've been imposed by international financial institutions in return for bailouts: populations are held at ransom until their governments acquiesce to creditors' demands, such that the IMF, the World Bank, etc., and Western state creditors effectively set up a puppet government. The view of politics implied by the neoliberal narrative about the spread of neoliberal policies - the notion of a political marketplace, in which systems of government compete and the most efficient survive - is part of a wider neoliberal 'governmentality', a critical theory jargon word meaning the mentality conducive to subjection under a particular mode of government, and the organised means of its inculcation: a good neoliberal subject understands everything in terms of market logic, and a good neoliberal government pursues policies that make such a view of the world compelling, in the sense of compulsory for survival/success.)

The previous Greek government had agreed to similar conditions, with devastating results for the majority of the Greek people, leading to Syriza's election (as a vehemently anti-austerity coalition).

'Anti-austerity' is basically anti-neoliberal. Neoliberal vs. anti-neoliberal is becoming a particularly salient dichotomous differentiator between political parties in much of Europe: the last British general election saw the anti-austerity Green Party increase its share of the vote substantially from 265,000 in 2010 to 1,157,000 in 2015 (though they still only secured one seat in parliament because of the First Past the Post electoral system). In Scotland, the Scottish National Party - also espousing an anti-austerity line - experienced an unprecedented ascendancy. In 2010, they won 6 seats; in 2015, they won 56 seats out of 59 total in Scotland, becoming the third largest party by a large margin, despite losing the independence referendum campaign in 2014 (by a fairly narrow margin).

Though the Conservative Party ultimately won an overall majority - they secured 98 more seats than Labour - it should be noted that they only had 2,000,000 more votes (11,334,000 vs. Labour's 9,334,000). Anti-austerity parties* won 12,126,000 votes altogether, such that they would have been able to form an anti-austerity coalition in a proportionally representative parliament.

* Counting Labour as anti-austerity, reluctantly and tentatively, as they're very softly anti-austerity: they espouse continuing deficit reduction strategies, while the other parties advocate Keynesian deficit spending, but with quite vague promises to reduce the impact on 'ordinary working people'.

Thank you Jordan~.

I have been spending most of my board-time at the Evolution Fairytale forum and there is a thread about the EU financial crisis named, "Democracy As The Cause For The Eu Crisis", which thread attempts, I believe, to blame the crisis on giving people a vote via some form of self-rule.

Jordan~ wrote:... neoliberalism: it's basically market imperialism imposed through debt dependency. ...

Can you define your use of the term "market imperialism"? Does it mean, simply, any imposition upon a market or the specific imposition of debt-dependency?

r-enter-ested wrote:Thank you Jordan~.

I have been spending most of my board-time at the Evolution Fairytale forum and there is a thread about the EU financial crisis named, "Democracy As The Cause For The Eu Crisis", which thread attempts, I believe, to blame the crisis on giving people a vote via some form of self-rule.

Jordan~ wrote:... neoliberalism: it's basically market imperialism imposed through debt dependency. ...

Can you define your use of the term "market imperialism"? Does it mean, simply, any imposition upon a market or the specific imposition of debt-dependency?

Market imperialism refers to neither of those; instead, it refers to the imposition of a market, or a market governmentality - i.e. a form of organisation, and the kind of subjectivity conducive to it, which operates according to the assumption that the rules of classical economics will spontaneously result in an optimal equilibrium - on a sphere or domain of life in which it was not previously present, whether that domain is clearly 'economic' or not. More specifically, the form of it practised in the name of neoliberalism generally seeks to minimise state, religious and 'cultural' (by which is generally meant traditional, non-market) influence over a particular domain of social life.

For instance, neoliberal market imperialism would demand, in exchange for credit from international bodies, foreign aid, etc., the dismantling of traditional monopolies over the production of certain goods held by a non-market, 'public' body through state action - the state is allowed to have influence only to minimise the influence of other non-market agencies. If agriculture in a particular region, for example, was controlled by tribal leaders who had the final say in who owns land and how products are distributed, creditors would insist on the 'liberalisation' of the agricultural sector through state asset purchases/seizures and resales/redistributions. To give another example, if traditionally an economically significant product - something which constitutes a substantial proportion of regional income - were controlled (for ritual, religious, or whatever, reasons) by a particular phratry, or even family, they would demand that any legal recognition of such a monopoly be withdrawn.

The effect is often the destruction of existing, more or less stable mechanisms for production and distribution, followed by an often chaotic and ruinous transitional period, end when either the old system adapts to the new framework imposed - finding loopholes, or a way to continue to function within the new order, somewhat modified - or people accept the market governmentality. In either case, effectively debtor states - which, because they were a product of foreign intervention and cannot yet function without international support, because their vital infrastructure has collapsed due to disaster, or for whatever other reason, cannot continue to exist viably without credit and aid - are used as intermediate agencies to impose credit markets upon a population they previously did not reach.

For example, consider a situation in which a traditional system of land rents and tenures controlled by a small, monopolistic group of influential local people (chiefs, elders, or whatever) is dismantled through the purchase by the state (perhaps compulsory), division and resale to numerous former tenants of large tracts of arable land. As fields are divided and sold off to farmers who possess no means of making them productive without the support of their former patrons, those farmers become dependent upon credit instead, such that they end up retaining no more of a share of the value they produce than they did under the old system (this being lost to their creditors as interest), and additionally lose the social (and cultural, lest we forget that such things are important in their own right) support previously provided by their client-patron relationships and the communities structured thereby. The market is imposed on a new province, and its most powerful participants reap the rewards, in much the same way as a colonial empire imposes its rule on a new dominion, the difference being, chiefly, that the means whereby control over social structure is seized are predominantly financial.

More briefly, another example could be the 'marketisation' of a formerly non-market domain - privatisation of state healthcare, say, or the introduction of a points and tariffs system and other mechanisms into an educational system to the effect of creating market-like competition between schools.

phratry?

That's not my response to the content. You've sent me to the dictionary!

And, I believe, my head is spinning because you are using words tied to concepts that I know have been a result of the socialized, medicine-non-market that was post WWII Britain.

Can you appreciate how these terms have been twisted?

Would your head explode if I introduce two words?

Supply

Demand


"neoliberal market imperialism"

I think I have read a very insidious attack on free market Capitalism.

A critique of the ideology of Smith's invisible hand. There is no invisible hand, there are many powerful and visible hands.

Jordan~ wrote:A critique of the ideology of Smith's invisible hand. There is no invisible hand, there are many powerful and visible hands.

Are you implying that Smith wrote about an "invisible hand"? Do you think I believe in "invisible hands"?

A critique is not an "insidious attack".

I have stated clearly--perhaps not--that I am unfamiliar with, have spent little time studying, Economics. My time has been spent attempting to determine whether there is a best system for political and economic associations. There are those who have decided that free markets are too destructive. Some of them believe that a socialistic or communistic system is a desirable alternative.

My method is to look at the instances of such theoretical systems as they have appeared and evaluate the result, for those which have ended, or state of "progress" for those on-going.

What usually happens after a revolution is "won"? The winners take over the country and establish their versions of dictatorship or tyranny.

For me and so far, human-nature understood within the full width and depth of history leads me to believe that the form of government established after the American revolution has been the best. The American economic associations manifest within this form.

For me, the results of Psychology and Sociology can provide framework for understanding human-nature and Philosophy provides a foundational framework for understanding everything we contemplate.

If we can't agree on this thing I call human-nature, then we have no basis to discuss subjects that should be informed by human-nature.

Do you agree?

r-enter-ested wrote:For me, the results of Psychology and Sociology can provide framework for understanding human-nature and Philosophy provides a foundational framework for understanding everything we contemplate.

If we can't agree on this thing I call human-nature, then we have no basis to discuss subjects that should be informed by human-nature.

Do you agree?

I'm convinced, from years of studying anthropology and archaeology, that there is no such thing as human nature, unless by 'human nature' you mean the bare, elemental necessities of having a human body: the need for shelter, food, to breathe, and so on. We've spent centuries trying to isolate the universal from the tremendous diversity of human behaviour, and failed again and again. What you're calling human nature, I would call a very historically limited and specific governmentality.

oh god i miss your posts Alex

Jordan~ wrote:

r-enter-ested wrote:For me, the results of Psychology and Sociology can provide framework for understanding human-nature and Philosophy provides a foundational framework for understanding everything we contemplate.

If we can't agree on this thing I call human-nature, then we have no basis to discuss subjects that should be informed by human-nature.

Do you agree?

I'm convinced, from years of studying anthropology and archaeology, that there is no such thing as human nature, unless by 'human nature' you mean the bare, elemental necessities of having a human body: the need for shelter, food, to breathe, and so on. We've spent centuries trying to isolate the universal from the tremendous diversity of human behaviour, and failed again and again. What you're calling human nature, I would call a very historically limited and specific governmentality.

I do not "mean the bare, elemental necessities of having a human body...".

I doubt that you don't know what I mean. It is human nature to which I point as evidence that humans prefer free markets to either Socialism, Communism or Marxism.

I do know what you mean, of course. What I said was that the thing you're calling human nature doesn't exist; or, at least, it's certainly not common to all humans, and it certainly has nothing to do with nature.

I do know what "does not exist" means, I can assure you.

It's the relativist in you who can't acknowledge the variation: how can there be "human nature" with all the variation in human behaviour?

It's very simple really, as simple as counting 1, 2, 3. It's called the normal distribution and bell-curve for the general shape of the graphical representation of the distribution.

The normal distribution that you refer to is grossly skewed in favour of Western Europeans in the last 250 years. It is not a normal distribution at all, it is a treatment of global history as if it consisted exclusively of French and British history from 1750 to the present day. The title "The Road to Serfdom" says it all: there is a clear and explicit concern to link the definitive political dichotomy of late modernity to that of all pre-modern eras (i.e. the vast majority, by literally a hundred thousand years, of the human past).