Both Capitalism and Communism are Scams

*THASF*

The Halo and Sonic Fan
Obozny
A leaked memo has shown that Bank of America hope that conditions for American workers get even worse:


The problem with capitalism is that profit maximization has nothing to do with assuring people a high quality of life. The capitalist ideal is to liquidate productive industries that pay fair wages and then use the windfall as gambling money. Capitalism creates disgusting incentives; there is far more profit to be had in selling someone a product a hundred times over the course of a decade than in selling it to them once. This means big pharma treats symptoms rather than researching cures, and Silicon Valley makes electronics that are obsolete and worn-down after a mere year of service. Pharma guys are on record saying that they're worried about the long-term profitability of gene therapy, because if someone gets a single-shot gene therapy to cure a chronic ailment, the drug company might lose, say, tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales for a drug that provides recurring revenue but doesn't permanently treat the illness.

The problem with communism is that it's not what it advertises itself as. It claims to be the expropriation of property from the rich to the poor, when actually, it's the expropriation of property from the middle class to the rich. The truly wealthy are never affected by communism. All their money is in offshore accounts and when they see commie revolutionaries coming, they flee the country with their ill-gotten gains. Communism has benefited the rich immensely, which is why they fund and support communists. A healthy middle class is against the interests of the rich; the middle class already have everything they need, and thus, they never strive to secure loans for big-ticket items. Rich people use communist revolutionaries to liquidate the middle class, so that when the country thus liquidated collapses back into capitalism many decades later, their descendants can return to lending money to poor people and extracting interest.

What has our current economy done? It has destroyed all the heavy industry in America and sent it overseas in the name of "free trade", leading to massive trade deficits that have extracted America's wealth, our treasure, and funneled it into totalitarian hellholes with teeny wages and no labor rights, forcing American workers to compete with people who will do their jobs for a tenth the money. Meanwhile, entrepreneurial capitalism in the US has been replaced by managerialism and Soviet-style committees. Entire cities have been structured around serving the employees of one or two mega-corporations, as though they were company towns. Colleges have graduated armies of managers, lawyers, journalists, and bureaucrats, and very few scientists and engineers. Much of our science is being done by H-1Bs who are funneling our discoveries, paid for with American taxes, back to their native countries. And, above it all, big stakes in all of these companies are owned by massive investment firms like Blackrock and Vanguard, who are using the trillions of dollars of assets they manage to strong-arm governments and investors into being more "socially responsible" through the ESG investing scam. Every time their global Ponzi scheme comes even close to failing, they simply print more money, defacing our currency and tearing value from our savings.

We need an economy that puts the needs of ordinary people first, above and beyond senseless super-profits. Everyone has a right to experience affluence if they work hard for it. Giant corporations and commercial banks must not be allowed to take our birthright, pocket it, and force us to eat bugs and live in pods.









 
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Simonbob

Well-known member
Nah, you're making a mistake, and it's a common one.

Capitalism is almost as utopian as Communism, but in a different way.

If I was going to sum up Capitalism, I would say Capitalism is when you keep your word, and there's no violence, even implied in your trades. When you go to a garage sale, get something good, for a price you and they like, that's Capitalism. That's about the limit of real Capitalism in our world, though.

That's it. Anything beyond that, isn't Capitalism. The moment the Govenment, any govenment, sticks it's nose in, it's not Capitalism. The moment the Corp you're dealing with has too much power imbalance, and is willing to use it? Not Capitalism.


There's very little actual Capitalism. It's mostly a mask for massive organisations, while they grab as much power as possible.
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
The problem with capitalism is that profit maximization has nothing to do with assuring people a high quality of life. The capitalist ideal is to liquidate productive industries that pay fair wages and then use the windfall as gambling money. Capitalism creates disgusting incentives; there is far more profit to be had in selling someone a product a hundred times over the course of a decade than in selling it to them once. This means big pharma treats symptoms rather than researching cures, and Silicon Valley makes electronics that are obsolete and worn-down after a mere year of service. Pharma guys are on record saying that they're worried about the long-term profitability of gene therapy, because if someone gets a single-shot gene therapy to cure a chronic ailment, the drug company might lose, say, tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales for a drug that provides recurring revenue but doesn't permanently treat the illness.
The things you describe are cases of cronyism more than capitalism, bordering on monopoly abuse - after all, that's what whole industries agreeing to, or otherwise forcing all competitors to sell inferior products at high prices is, and regulatory bodies and media that should be stopping that are often captured to enforce these conspiracies against the consumers. It's just as "capitalist" as the guild system sprinkled with privileges for various groups, organizations and social classes that was common in the the middle ages.
What's most commonly called "capitalism" is what was there for a time *after* that system got abolished.
What has our current economy done? It has destroyed all the heavy industry in America and sent it overseas in the name of "free trade", leading to massive trade deficits that have extracted America's wealth, our treasure, and funneled it into totalitarian hellholes with teeny wages and no labor rights, forcing American workers to compete with people who will do their jobs for a tenth the money.
Treason is treason, even if it gets paid for really well.
 

*THASF*

The Halo and Sonic Fan
Obozny
The things you describe are cases of cronyism more than capitalism, bordering on monopoly abuse - after all, that's what whole industries agreeing to, or otherwise forcing all competitors to sell inferior products at high prices is, and regulatory bodies and media that should be stopping that are often captured to enforce these conspiracies against the consumers. It's just as "capitalist" as the guild system sprinkled with privileges for various groups, organizations and social classes that was common in the the middle ages.
What's most commonly called "capitalism" is what was there for a time *after* that system got abolished.

The brief period of entrepreneurial capitalism after the industrial revolution and up into the late 20th century that created huge prosperity for ordinary people was a glitch. In the end, the most successful accumulators of capital will always seek to form massive trusts and assign vast armies of people to manage their assets and profitably extract rents without creating any additional value for society. Any time such trusts are allowed to form, they will, without fail, abolish the workforce and productive industries to save money. Capital will become increasingly virtualized and self-referential, unconnected to any physical goods. The managers of such a system will behave as if they are comparing the values of assets on a desert island. This is exactly what we've seen, by the way; trillions of dollars in paper-shuffling that produces no additional goods nor satisfies any particular human needs.



People need to read James Burnham's The Managerial Revolution, Samuel T. Francis' Leviathan and Its Enemies, and Michael Lind's The New Class War. The material conditions we are seeing are not an accident. They are by design. We are being impoverished on purpose.

Entrepreneurial capitalism doesn't exist anymore. It was replaced by managerialism decades ago. When people are rooting for a nebulous "capitalism" that rewards human ingenuity on an individual basis, they're describing something mythical that doesn't really exist and hasn't existed for ages. The "guilds" we have today are many, many times more pernicious than medieval guilds, because they're completely entwined with state bureaucracy, they use our schools to brainwash young people with the values of managerialism, and they strive for both omnipresence and invisibility.





Through what Adam Curtis described as "hypernormalization", they have created an artificial, simplistic world to act as a pacifier for ordinary people and make them easier for the invisible managerial class to manage. In this simplified world, the Cold War never ended and capitalism is still opposed by communism. In reality, neither the idealized communism nor capitalism exist per se. They are merely thought viruses to keep people under control. Managerialism is the reality.

Or, in short:

 

Simonbob

Well-known member
So.....

When we say "You're complaning about something that isn't capitalism, so please don't call it that." and you respond by saying, long form, "It's not capitalism, but I'm going to complain about capitalism anyway", I think I'll just leave it at that.


Although, I will point out, the places where they try for Communism are much, much worse than those where the culture reaches for Capitalism, because much as the "Elite" try to own everything, there are limits to that power.

As long as the base has something that kinda-sorta resembles capitalism, things still shamble along.


Being the power addicts that they are, those "Elite" are continualy reaching for more, and slowly breaking that that holds them up. This, I should point out, is normal.

There's a reason why Empires fall.
 

*THASF*

The Halo and Sonic Fan
Obozny
So.....

When we say "You're complaning about something that isn't capitalism, so please don't call it that." and you respond by saying, long form, "It's not capitalism, but I'm going to complain about capitalism anyway", I think I'll just leave it at that.

Managerialism is wearing capitalism like a skin suit. The point I'm trying to make is that people are showing blind loyalty to something that presents itself as capitalism, and which they think is capitalism, but it's actually managerialism wearing capitalism's skin like the bug wearing Edgar's skin in Men in Black.

In other words, localism, entrepreneurial capitalism and bourgeois institutions have been supplanted by globalism, committees, supranational institutions, et cetera.

There's no point in average people having any loyalty to a system that is so disloyal to us.

Although, I will point out, the places where they try for Communism are much, much worse than those where the culture reaches for Capitalism, because much as the "Elite" try to own everything, there are limits to that power.

As long as the base has something that kinda-sorta resembles capitalism, things still shamble along.


Being the power addicts that they are, those "Elite" are continualy reaching for more, and slowly breaking that that holds them up. This, I should point out, is normal.

There's a reason why Empires fall.

Communism is the same thing. It's managerialism, but when it turns against the people, culls the herd, and expropriates property from the middle class.

Capitalism and communism, as we know them today, are both hand puppets worn by the managerial class when they need to convince the masses to pick a side.

Consider the irony of all of this. You have lots of conservative and right-wing folks who are saying that they're committed capitalists, while Fortune 500 companies are pouring millions of dollars in donations into openly Marxist activist groups. Think about what that means for a second.
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
Managerialism is wearing capitalism like a skin suit. The point I'm trying to make is that people are showing blind loyalty to something that presents itself as capitalism, and which they think is capitalism, but it's actually managerialism wearing capitalism's skin like the bug wearing Edgar's skin in Men in Black.

In other words, localism, entrepreneurial capitalism and bourgeois institutions have been supplanted by globalism, committees, supranational institutions, et cetera.

There's no point in average people having any loyalty to a system that is so disloyal to us.
The people who are showing any loyalty to the status quo absolutely hate capitalism and are very open about it. The people who openly fanboy for free market capitalism do that in between demanding for 90% of the institutions, organizations and laws that make the cronyism work to be outright disbanded or at least cut from public funding, with only glee for the managerial sinecure "job" market armageddon this would imply.
 

*THASF*

The Halo and Sonic Fan
Obozny
The people who openly fanboy for free market capitalism do that in between demanding for 90% of the institutions, organizations and laws that make the cronyism work to be outright disbanded or at least cut from public funding, with only glee for the managerial sinecure "job" market armageddon this would imply.

As they very well should.

Billionaire CEOs are highly dependent on the managerial class to manage their assets, simply because the complexity of asset management has grown beyond what any one person can handle, but this has led to the entrenchment of the managers as a pseudo-class. The uber-wealthy have used this to their advantage, positioning the professional-managerial class as middlemen and gatekeepers. While the managerial class pretend to care for our wellbeing, they are making us dependent on a complex and bloated welfare state while actually pulling up the ladder to true prosperity.


This brings us to the debate about the New Class, also known as the professional and managerial class. To the populist right, the rhetorical purpose of the New Class is to identify an economic base for globalism and the liberal elite. To the populist left, it is the supposed economic basis for neoliberal technocracy. The theory has seen four major waves in its history: first in anarchist critiques of Marxism, then in Trotskyist analysis of the USSR, before being picked up by neoconservatives and socialist critics of the New Left. In the past five years, it has finally experienced a revival among populists of all stripes.

This should come as no surprise; the culture of educated professionals is highly visible in our elite institutions. These people are the Beltway thinkers, the punditry, the liberal intelligentsia, the libertarian think-tankers, the Brooklyn podcasters, the business school frat bro executives, the NGO lobbyists, the heads of corporate HR, the New York Times columnists, and the San Francisco start-up financiers. They are an amorphous mix of everything ordinary people are supposed to despise about how our system works. What they have in common, besides participating in elite institutions, is simple: they are college-educated and engaged in intellectual labor.

But while their cultural impact is salient and distinct, the question whether they actually constitute their own economic class is often overlooked. This leaves the analysis fundamentally incomplete. If the New Class is in fact a distinct economic entity, then any current set of ideas surrounding it is, to some extent, merely a reflection of its current interests. In order to not be fooled by changing circumstances, we would have to understand the enduring basis of its power. On the other hand, what if it has no basis in economic reality at all? In that case, we would be dealing with a cultural phenomenon which needs explaining. If the New Class only exists in the realm of ideas, then it is something of a spook. It might reflect a real identity or a cultural dynamic, but the real power structure beneath all this is something else entirely.

The educated professionals have formed something of a eunuch caste, mentally castrated and without a tangible future. Our colleges exist as centers to perform this mental castration on each generation, promoting a select number of people to the managerial elite so that they can, in turn, keep the herd in line. To keep them from feeling empathy for the cattle they manage, they are blackmailed by the fear of loss of licensure and demotion to the powerless serf class.

This has, in turn, given rise to scientism and the clerisy of credentialed experts, who prescribe moral values to the citizenry the same way priests and religions once used to, except in a secularized and allegedly "rational" way.



This mode of social control has been augmented by the application of psychological studies to managerial practices.



The managerial class do not believe that human beings have a right to self-determination. What they believe is that they ought to have the tyrannical power to prescribe behavior to everyone. They will go to any lengths to achieve this, including Machiavellian gaslighting, making people think they have choices and agency in the political and economic and social spheres when they do not.

Accordingly, people who rise high in the bureaucracy tend to have Dark Triad traits, including manipulativeness, inflated self-worth, sociopathy, et cetera, because these traits are ideal for a manager who is increasingly called upon to take a scalpel to the public the same way a brain surgeon might.

We need to end the Fed, and while we're at it, clear out a whole lot of NGOs that act as subversive, seditious institutions.
 
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Marduk

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As they very well should.

Billionaire CEOs are highly dependent on the managerial class to manage their assets, simply because the complexity of asset management has grown beyond what any one person can handle, but this has led to the entrenchment of the managers as a pseudo-class.
The wealthy have employed people to do parts of their managerial work for them since civilization exists. They even used to get fancy titles. The difference is that back then it was their money that paid for them, and it was made absolutely clear who do they work for.
While the managerial class pretend to care for our wellbeing, they are making us dependent on a complex and bloated welfare state while actually pulling up the ladder to true prosperity.
That kind of thing is quite different and exists independently of billionaire CEOs. Think NGOs, quangos, "caring" government institutions, activists and so on. CEOs only follow the trend since it's around and they can profit, or at least dodge the bullets.
The educated professionals have formed something of a eunuch caste, mentally castrated and without a tangible future. Our colleges exist as centers to perform this mental castration on each generation, promoting a select number of people to the managerial elite so that they can, in turn, keep the herd in line. To keep them from feeling empathy for the cattle they manage, they are blackmailed by the fear of loss of licensure and demotion to the powerless serf class.
Your colleges are full of themselves regardless of what any private business does, that's part of the problem. And the mention of the power of licensure is another. That's a whole lot of proverbial pie for government bureaucrats to share, which certainly makes them naturally lean towards more regulated society in all aspects, rather than less, how convenient.
Infinite growth of government regulation in depth and scale? Not exactly a kind of political trend that is popular with those who support capitalism to say it lightly, or the right in general.
This has, in turn, given rise to scientism and the clerisy of credentialed experts, who prescribe moral values to the citizenry the same way priests and religions once used to, except in a secularized and allegedly "rational" way.
Yup. The important part is that if not for government recognized and enforced power of licensure and similar legal favors less discussed but very practically significant, everyone would be free to ignore the clowns clowning around in the background, recognizing their opinions for what they are, sometimes stupid opinions.
There is also a "soft power" approach to this, aka large media companies acting as unofficial marketing arm of all sorts of government and private institutions if they feel like it.
Accordingly, people who rise high in the bureaucracy tend to have Dark Triad traits, including manipulativeness, inflated self-worth, sociopathy, et cetera, because these traits are ideal for a manager who is increasingly called upon to take a scalpel to the public the same way a brain surgeon might.

We need to end the Fed, and while we're at it, clear out a whole lot of NGOs that act as subversive, seditious institutions.
And that's just a start.
 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
Communism and (pure, true, libertarian/ancap) capitalism are both abstract concepts.
Humans are more more complex both on a personal and an individual level for some abstract theory to govern their lives completely.
However, capitalism is not as totalitarian as communism, we have seen a lot of variations of it mixed with other political systems.

Communism on the other hand, as the legendary science fiction writer Cordwainer Smith "Tries to be All Things to All men."

That can not work, it has never worked and it inevitably dies or turns back to a capitalism, democracy and populism/in-group preference scoped to a "nation state".

Capitalism is not inherently globalist, it does not mandate class x over class y, it just shows that people can do better by self-interested cooperation based around resource barter.

Yeah, it has its problems, but it actually lets people from different social and ethnic groups work together and be mutually beneficial to each-other, in stead of raid each-other for fur hides, shiny rocks, slaves and water rights and dung.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
Capitalism is great, but you have to use the government to break up the BIG companies in order to make sure that cronyism doesn't run roughshod like it is now.

Government must regulate the bigguns from eating all the competition or just forcing them under. If it doesn't then it will only help to crush innovation and development.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
I see a system that will last a few decades more but one that is ultimently doomed.

Probably, though even if capitalism as we think of it stops existing, history has proven you don't need an ideological fixation with it for private trade and commerce to survive and thrive. (See Phoenicia, Carthage, and the Italian merchant republics for examples, especially since America has an entrepreneurial culture of its own, even though the bureaucratic-managerial complex created by corporate oligarchs and power-hungry politicians has stamped it out lately. :()
 

Cherico

Well-known member
Probably, though even if capitalism as we think of it stops existing, history has proven you don't need an ideological fixation with it for private trade and commerce to survive and thrive. (See Phoenicia, Carthage, and the Italian merchant republics for examples, especially since America has an entrepreneurial culture of its own, even though the bureaucratic-managerial complex created by corporate oligarchs and power-hungry politicians has stamped it out lately. :()

The idea of capitalism is that life is complex and that that we should cut down production and other services into smaller more manageable chunks and then have them compete the losers get kicked out of the market and things improve incrementally. This is a good idea.

The problem is that humanity tends to go full retard on ideas and things go sideways.

I look at todays world and its over complexity and I see it as pretty much doomed expecially with an out of touch managerial class that has firmly gotten high on their own propaganda. It cant last and wont last, but I am hopeful for something less retarrded in the future when I'm a very old man.
 

Marduk

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Capitalism is great, but you have to use the government to break up the BIG companies in order to make sure that cronyism doesn't run roughshod like it is now.

Government must regulate the bigguns from eating all the competition or just forcing them under. If it doesn't then it will only help to crush innovation and development.
The problem here is that ironically regulation, especially after the bigguns get done doling out their political donations, is something that inherently hurts small businesses more than big ones. After all, for a fraction of a percent of their budget, they can afford hundreds of top lawyers, some of them full time, to help them find most optimal ways to be compliant with all the regulation or lead several lawsuits over the less convenient elements of the regulation.
Meanwhile, for a fraction of a percent of their budget, many smaller businesses can afford a few hours, or few dozens of hours, of one lawyer, maybe.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
The problem here is that ironically regulation, especially after the bigguns get done doling out their political donations, is something that inherently hurts small businesses more than big ones. After all, for a fraction of a percent of their budget, they can afford hundreds of top lawyers, some of them full time, to help them find most optimal ways to be compliant with all the regulation or lead several lawsuits over the less convenient elements of the regulation.
Meanwhile, for a fraction of a percent of their budget, many smaller businesses can afford a few hours, or few dozens of hours, of one lawyer, maybe.
Oh yeah, I'm well aware. I've worked with many small businesses over the years as well as had one of my own. I completely get how the Corps setup laws to make it harder for small businesses to comply and still succeed.
 

TheRomanSlayer

Unipolarity is for Subhuman Trogdolytes
To be honest, I often hear a guy like E. Michael Jones say that it’s not really capitalism vs communism as the struggle, but rather the clash of labor based economics vs usury based economics. The very controversial nature of the concept of a Central Bank is the epicenter of various anti Semitic backlashes, with the Rothschilds as the usurious enemy.
 

Simonbob

Well-known member
There was a long period in history where the only major faction who were allowed to make money via lending were the jews.

Under both Christianity and Islam, it's not allowed, although it's not taken seriously any more. Islamic banks, so I hear, have a complex set of fees that just happen to match what it would cost if they had interest.


I can see why. You can make money with money, but in the process, you damage those making actual goods and services.
 

*THASF*

The Halo and Sonic Fan
Obozny
To be honest, I often hear a guy like E. Michael Jones say that it’s not really capitalism vs communism as the struggle, but rather the clash of labor based economics vs usury based economics.

A producer-centric economy is intrinsically better than one based around high finance, because it results in products that people can actually use, instead of just shuffling paper. The idea that people can be rewarded a pittance in wages for producing all the goods and services needed by society, while watching people sitting around in wing-backed chairs collecting billions of dollars for doing absolutely fuck-all, is maddening on the face of it. People wage-slave for years and years and have nothing to show for it, only to be demoralized by the wealth and power of indolent robber-barons. This is a social ill.

Not to mention, in a plutocracy, the latter group will inevitably have more political power and representation than the former, which means they’ll be able to warp rules and regulations to funnel even more of society’s value into their pockets.

Why should the people who contribute the least labor to the economy have an overwhelming say in how that economy is run and for whose benefit? Every time these sons of bitches lose a gamble, they simply have the Fed print more money, deface our currency through inflation, and keep lining their pockets. Who does this benefit, really? If you have this much wealth inequality, where people can’t even afford to buy homes or start families, then society will break down.
 

Lord Sovereign

Well-known member
The accumulation of capital for its own sake isn't very good, but you are falling into a lefty word trap. "Capitalism", like "Nationalism" are examples of that classic Enlightenment tradition of putting names to truly ancient concepts.

Capitalism is a posh word for bartering. It is no recent invention and hardly a scam.
 

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