Economic crisis
Mar 19 2008 15:48
#92
Quote:
The myth of 'neo-liberalism' is going to be brutally exposed
The myth only exists in the minds of the chattering milieu in the first place. You're knocking down targets that you've set up yourself. There is no false consciousness, it's projected onto the working class by communists.
Mar 19 2008 15:48
#93
<DP>
Mar 19 2008 19:26
#94
Cardan considered himself a communist once, before discovering that America should be supported against Russia as the lesser evil.
Mar 19 2008 20:59
#95
Alf wrote:
Cardan considered himself a communist once, before discovering that America should be supported against Russia as the lesser evil.
I don't believe in that, but i am inclined to believe that fascism/stalinism in britain would be a step back from liberal democracy. i think personally that should be recognized.
Mar 19 2008 21:02
#96
Quote:
The myth only exists in the minds of the chattering milieu in the first place. You're knocking down targets that you've set up yourself. There is no false consciousness, it's projected onto the working class by communists.
This is not true. While the word neo-liberalism isn't in common usage, everyone and his dog is eager to talk about how important it is to apply market logic due to its supposed efficiency. Indeed, our friends the Parecon boosters certainly base their politics around the claim that "socialism failed because markets are more efficient allocators of resources". It is reasonable to expect that the "efficiency of markets" will take a hit with this crisis. But bourgeois ideology is spread so thick these days that this reasonable expectation may not come pass. I can already imagine numerous commentators claiming that the crisis was a result of "corporate socialism".
Red
Mar 19 2008 22:18
#97
Quote:
This is not true.
Please comrade. The Parecons have founded their entire mode of thought on petit-bourgeois "solidarity". They represent precisely the chattering milieu to which I referred.
Quote:
Cardan considered himself a communist once, before discovering that America should be supported against Russia as the lesser evil.
That the absurd notions of minor celebrity philosophers have some bearing on the situation constitute one of many magical beliefs characteristic of communism in both its Victorian and contemporary forms. A bureaucratic tendency, a glut of words on who-said-what or who-thought-that, dovetailed into a quasi-religious deference towards a mythological historical determinism. It’s not a question of dissecting ghostly emissions, comrade, but of earthly cinematic action.
Mar 19 2008 22:18
#98
Also,
This is a good article describing how manipulated present economic figures and news are. Points from the article - if there is a 3% hidden inflation rate, then a zero growth rate actually means a 3% decline in GDP - a severe recession. Just as much, a reasonable interpretation of the "household survey" would imply a 9% unemployment rate, also quite severe.
In ways, one could say we're entering something like a "crisis in the ability of the bourgeois to conceal the crisis".
Red
Mar 19 2008 22:21
#99
Oh come on. No-one even pretends figures aren't manipulated to suit the presenter's agenda. It’s as if communists mistake indifference for mystification. There really is no great real world that is revealed only to Marxists, it’s a group hallucination brought on by your shared psychological aversion towards “exploitation”.
(Sorry for the cheeky edit).
Mar 19 2008 23:41
#100
RedHughs wrote:
Indeed, our friends the Parecon boosters certainly base their politics around the claim that "socialism failed because markets are more efficient allocators of resources".
I'm not at ALL a Parecon supporter, but this is just dishonest bullshit. Parecon supporters are explicitly anti-market, and they claim that markets create various inefficiencies. If you're going to make a criticism, make a real one rather than this useless cutting down of strawmen.
(Whether or not what they propose is in fact a market is a legitimate issue, but even if it were proved that it is, it would not make your statement true, since your statement is about what the Parecon people say.)
Mar 20 2008 00:23
#101
Red earlier wrote: Indeed, our friends the Parecon boosters certainly base their politics around the claim that "socialism failed because markets are more efficient allocators of resources".
Mikus: I'm not at ALL a Parecon supporter, but this is just dishonest bullshit. Parecon supporters are explicitly anti-market, and they claim that markets create various inefficiencies. If you're going to make a criticism, make a real one rather than this useless cutting down of strawmen.
Red: Hmm, if you read statement that you quoted, you might notice that I don't make any claims as to what Parecon proposes. My point is that their justification for their position is that markets are more efficient than central planning. Parecon's rhetoric leverages the modern faith in markets by describing prices as an information distribution mechanism. They go on to say that we need to take this supposed efficiency of a pricing mechanism and put it at the service of self-managed enterprises - though they also propose further bureaucratic entities to keep everything equal and self-managed and all.
Mar 20 2008 00:51
#102
So by "socialism" you meant central planning by a bureaucracy? If so, then okay, I have no dispute with you're statement but it's a bit weird to see "socialism" used in this way by an avowed communist. And in that case, the statement is simply true. Capitalism was far more efficient than the central planning of the Soviet Union. (And if you think that the Soviet Union was state capitalist, then just make my statement say "Market capitalism was far more efficient than the state capitalism of the Soviet Union.")
Mar 20 2008 01:20
#103
Red wrote:
Indeed, our friends the Parecon boosters certainly base their politics around the claim that "socialism failed because markets are more efficient allocators of resources".
Mikus wrote:
So by "socialism" you meant central planning by a bureaucracy? If so, then okay, I have no dispute with you're statement but it's a bit weird to see "socialism" used in this way by an avowed communist. And in that case, the statement is simply true. Capitalism was far more efficient than the central planning of the Soviet Union. (And if you think that the Soviet Union was state capitalist, then just make my statement say "Market capitalism was far more efficient than the state capitalism of the Soviet Union.")
Uh, rather obviously no. I simply say that the rhetoric of Parecon (and other radical-liberal) ventures is based around the popular belief that "socialism" failed because it was based on central planing. Parecon looks at "Central Planning" as one system and "The Free Market" as another. The Free Market Fails because it "produced efficiently" but doesn't produce for the public good. "Central Planning" failed because it didn't produce efficiently and was authoritarian. They obviously leveraging popular beliefs about what socialism is. I am not expressing my own position what socialism really is - notice the quote marks and my describing this as a claim.
As far as efficiency goes, I would agree that the system of the former Soviet Union was much less efficient for peace-time consumer commodity production (it was quite effective for some other things like the initial industrialization of the USSR and fighting WWII). I just wouldn't accept the conclusion that prices are "information mechanisms". Yes, they make noises about being anti-market but I still see their approach as attempting to salvage market logic (prices) and uses popular beliefs about what is efficient in this effort.
Still, as Alf says, if a full-blown depression comes out of this financial meltdown, markets will likely start to look less efficient than previous claims about them.
Red
Mar 20 2008 01:29
#104
So are you actually disputing the claim that socialism (i.e. the USSR) failed because market capitalism was more efficient?
If there is a full-blown depression, all that will happen is the working class will be beat down more than it already has been in the last 30 years or so. The working class is mostly under the sway of bourgeois ideology, is not organized even into class fighting organizations, and therefore will not be able to even hint at threatening the bourgeoisie's power. The best we can hope for, in my opinion, is to use this as an opportunity to regroup, in order to get the working class in a stronger position to start from when the boom returns (if it indeed does without major war). But most of the communist left seems to be basing all of its activity around either recruiting workers (or rather students, in most cases) into their particular sects, or the vague hope that the working class will engage in some kind of spontaneous communist revolution. So prospects do not look too good.
Mar 20 2008 01:34
#105
And I should mention that where Parecon fundamentally falls down is that they don't imagine a world without wage labor and commodity production - their "anti-market" price-based self-management is essentially a complex bureaucratic effort to reconcile wage labor and commodities with the "public good". They are essentially developing a "third system" which they can compare quantitatively with the Market and central planning. Naturally they can calculate how much more "public good" they produce than either of their competitors - thus I would see their considerations of efficiency to be symptoms that they aren't aware of the possibilities of a qualitatively different system. But this is a different topic.
Red
Mar 20 2008 01:50
#106
Quote:
So are you actually disputing the claim that socialism (i.e. the USSR) failed because market capitalism was more efficient?
In what form are you making it?
I'd describe this statement as something of a crude simplification. The USSR wasn't particular economically efficient but a lot of other system have been inefficient and keep chugging along - Iran and Saudi Arabia aren't particular efficient and continue to this day. The USSR had the problem that it's regime had come into existence as the ideological enemy of Western capitalism so it couldn't just become a client state or reach some other accommodation. In that context, its less efficient system for individual commodity production certainly hurt it.
I would note that a good portion of China's economy is still state managed and that nation is doing quite well -if the US is "market capitalism" then a modified version of "socialism" is beating the pants off it (with help from the world's largest corporations but with further help from price control and centralized allocation of some resources).
So I do think that the statement "socialism failed because market capitalism was more efficient" is quite a simplification.
As far as what will happen with the crisis beginning, I will withdraw any predictions.
Red
Mar 20 2008 09:39
#107
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
Mar 20 2008 12:52
#108
fear not, the bourgeoisie have turned to astrology!
Mar 20 2008 12:57
#109
I thought they already had done that back in Reagan's day!
Mar 20 2008 13:12
#110
well, you know, nothing changes, capitalism is timeless etc etc 
Mar 20 2008 13:14
#111
You know, I got one of these Telegraph things about Seddon's new Lean System's Thinking book. Have you spotted the innocuous "advertisement" notification buried in the body of the text? I wonder how much a Telegraph webvert costs.
Mar 20 2008 14:30
#112
well, you know, nothing changes, capitalism is timeless etc etc
Are anti-decadence jokes timeless, or decaying more and more?
Mar 20 2008 14:38
#113
i don't think a materialist analysis of anti-decadence jokes can be separated from the prevailing conditions of the epoch, tbh
Mar 20 2008 16:35
#114
MalFunction wrote:
(been reading naomi klein's "the shock doctrine - the rise of disaster capitalism" apart from suggesting that capitalism could be nicer, there's a lot of information about how economic crises were engineered for political purposes and to institute attacks on working class power and standards of living. not finished the book yet - it's a long read - but worth getting in paperback when it comers out in that format.)
Pretty terrible book -- Klein's about as daft as they come, IMHO.
Mar 20 2008 16:47
#115
Demogorgon303 wrote:
The economic crisis (like war, etc.) can provide a stimulus for class struggle
Shock Communism?
Mar 20 2008 17:29
#116
Quote:
Shock Communism?
Eh?
Mar 20 2008 17:37
#117
Demogorgon303 wrote:
Quote:
Shock Communism?Eh?
You know, the notorious methods of "disaster-communism"?
Mar 20 2008 19:03
#118
Ha ha. Love it. Nice posts.
Mar 20 2008 19:15
#119
Quote:
You know, the notorious methods of "disaster-communism"?
You'll have to enlighten me.
Mar 20 2008 19:23
#120
Let's just enjoy the moment for a bit first.
Agreed. The myth of 'neo-liberalism' is going to be brutally exposed; and what stands behind it is another variety of state capitalism, which is the real programme of all the 'alternative worldists'.
The language being used by the media today reveals the justified fears of the ruling class. The bourgeoisie is running out of 'policies' and it's hard to see what the next 'bubble' is going to be.
Again and again the media are talking about the 'worst thing since the Depression' and this is not an exaggeration. We may not see a sudden slump as in the 30s but the doped 'growth' of the last few decades is certainly creating the material for a whole series of catastrophes.
However, as Demogorgon said, the fact that these catastrophes are an entirely 'unnecessary' product of a social relation emerges much more clearly in the economic crisis than in the ecological sphere, and translates rapidly into attacks on working class living and working conditions, thus creating the basis for major developments of class consciousness.