New
Sep 20, 10:06 PM
#51
Their Economic books don't have the economic theory (it's like a taboo for them; no one should ever ask such a thing). They print money to fight inflation, which is completely absurd. They are pumping out dollar emissions like there is no tomorrow, and the majority of that money doesn't even go into the real sector; it immediately goes into the financial sector for money speculators and the stock exchange to draw attractive numbers that have nothing to do with the real economy. Seriously, this shit is not even interesting to study; the sad part is it infested the entire world. Trump, instead of taking mindless walks with "King" Charles, should do some serious economic reforms and fire everyone from the current Federal Reserve (I mean, he still got that "You're fired!" thing, right?). |
Sep 20, 11:48 PM
#52
Auron said: Regardless of the threshold for poverty one chooses, fewer people are living in it than in the past. As a person who is currently living in South Korea as well as speaking Korean near natively, this is a very uncomfortable comparison for a couple of reasons. First, old people poverty rate is too high in South Korea due to privatized education being the norm and it's 1 of the many reasons for the downfall of the birth rate. Second, people live to near death working conditions for the sake of home ownership and to maintain a relatively high standard of living beyond their abilities and connections. Third, this is 2023 stat when the South Korean economic decoupling of China and Russia was applied as a condition, so currently the standard of living in Seoul, Busan, and other places are taking a steep nose-dive for the past 2-3 years. People often forget that the high standard of living in South Korea for close to 2 decades mostly came from bountiful trade with China and Russia. South Korea got a new president who is pro-North Korean around June of this year mostly due to the collapsing standard of living inspired by the whole manufactured anti-Chinese and anti-Russian attitudes. Fourth, there is now a social consensus these days within South Korea to treat North Korea as a legitimate entity due to diplomatic pressures from China and Russia. And fifth, comparing South Korea and North Korea economically is only a tip of the iceberg and it's only a "feel good" measure that doesn't tell anything about South Korea or something beyond South Korea. As a person living in South Korea who also works with a person born, living, and working in Japan (no Japanese citizenship due to jus sanguinis law), I recently noticed that there is a huge anti-American sentiment these days brewing up in both South Korea and Japan mostly due to unsolveable economic conflicts. Anyway, people who want to feel superior of their particular reasons by using both Koreas as an example really don't know anything about what is happening in the eastern part of Asia, including Southeast Asia. If anybody wants to truly understand the current atmosphere of economy on a global scale, don't get any news from G7 countries (the regime north of the USA or America's hat or Canuckistan, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US) and get news from BRICS countries. It's simply according to the fact that the world is no longer dictated by Western Europe and the English-speaking part of North America. North Atlanticism is officially dead. |
Sep 21, 4:05 AM
#53
@Freshell Oh, don't take it to heart, I didn't mean to offend you and I have cut out that harsh paragraph. You say I should give you examples of other successful systems. Well honestly, where am I supposed to get them? Attempts outside of capitalism are few, and real implementations even fewer - and nearly always entangled with some monstrous political regime that undermined any chance of judging the economics on their own merits. Of course, your position is strong, since de facto we really only have one global system that functions today - and yes, a great deal of effort went into discrediting or dismantling alternatives. The one partial exception I can recall is early Soviet industrialization, when Western - including American - firms supplied machinery, engineers, and know-how. Not to build the Gulag, of course - that horror was Stalin's own invention - but to help erect the factories, railroads, and power plants that made his regime viable. And credit where it's due: that economy, despite repression and inefficiency, fought off Hitler, stretched from ocean to ocean, put the first satellite into orbit, and survived for decades. Whatever its flaws, it wasn't a trivial achievement - it took a half-century of combined strain, both internal and external, to bring it down. So, returning to the one economic model that really works globally: you say it's pointless to criticize it, but I say it's just as pointless to glorify it. To my eye, the system is decaying into bureaucratic infighting and entrenched oligarchy: concentration of power keeps growing, access to opportunity for the lower strata keeps shrinking, capital manipulates public opinion, launches needless wars, and pushes whole nations into crises whose consequences are hard to measure. Yes, you can order sneakers in one click and praise Bezos - leaving aside the fact that they are stitched together in low-wage factories in Asia, then delivered by couriers working under grueling conditions, often with no realistic prospects for security or advancement. Maybe that's why so many lack stable families - and meanwhile we import labor from regions we have helped destabilize, congratulating ourselves on "democracy" while quietly staffing the lower rungs of our innovative, doubtlessly "efficient" economy. Yes, capitalism does foster innovation - your example with chips is a good one. But it often feels like we are just inventing new beads to swap for cheap labor. We no longer ship slaves in the holds, but the bargain remains disturbingly similar. Yes, general prosperity has risen. But is that solely capitalism's doing? Human well-being has always tended to rise during long periods free of upheaval - that's just human nature, as you rightly noted, to strive for better. And GDP, of course, is a slippery yardstick. In advanced economies it's dominated by services - and what's really the difference if a haircut costs $5 or $50? I have personally seen plenty of poor Americans and very few poor Germans - and that's despite spending only two weeks in the US versus half a lifetime in Germany. Yet GDP per capita insists the US is far ahead. How's that, exactly? And I had to smile at the example of USAID, kindly mentioned by dear Auron. Ironically enough, this genuinely useful program was designed in a spirit closer to social solidarity - and it has repeatedly been cut back or "restructured" under the banner of market discipline. Funny, isn't it? PS: You don't expect academic essays from me, do you? Haha. |
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. |
Sep 21, 6:08 AM
#54
Freshell said: I'm afraid you're much more patient on this topic than me at the moment! What we see is that the pro capitalist side tends to bring in data and evidence while the anti capitalist side only brings up abstract theories and excuses. "I've heard this propaganda before" - does not proceed to rebut said 'propaganda' "Read books by 'real' economists" - does not proceed to quote some or name any "Something something imperialism/exploitation" "Something something fiat currency" Good work though. :p Auron said: Seems like a rather uncharitable way to read his post. Especially given that it is almost always the anti-capitalist side that will not bring anything concrete and mostly abstract theorizations without empirical backing or analytical soundness, as is shown in this thread by multiple users with the last being you. What seems more likely is that he believes status quo is not the optimal way in which capitalist economic system can manifest, but that it is still much better than what is being proposed. Most people who agree with most policies should nevertheless not believe it it to be the optimal state of affairs and that we can't improve on it, that is very unlikely to be the case. This is one of the textbook mistakes I see the anti side making. They see some problem going on in the world and immediately make the hasty inference of it being on account of the economic system that exists in x,y,z countries (the countries they dislike of course), whereas the truth is that suffering is the default human condition. In the absence of an economic system, such as pre-historic populations, life is mired with immense suffering. In the presence of an economic system, this can be alleviated, to a higher or lower extent depending on the efficacy of the system. It just happens to be that certain systems alleviate it to a lot better degree. Regardless of the threshold for poverty one chooses, fewer people are living in it than in the past. In no other context would you consider showing something bad going on in the world somewhere to be an undermining of an idea. "If this foreign aid program is so good, then why are many people dying of malaria still?", "If this criminal rehabilitation program is so good, why are there still recidivism?", "If this green energy deal is so good, how come we are not net zero yet?" It's just the most rudimentary boring analysis devoid of any sense. If only our interlocutors could be so logical as to take heed when they have been vanquished, the entire conversation would be rendered moot. thewiru said: What the actual fuck, this is one of the best comments I've read on MAL. That's why I summoned him. hehe. He tends to make the same points as me, but in a more polite and detailed manner. XMGA030 said: I know. I was mocking it, in case that wasn't clear. What I don't know is what your position is really supposed to be. You recognize the severe problems of the current situation while you lecture us on the goodness of capitalism. So is this just one of those "take the bad with the good and shut up" things? If that's the case, well, what the fuck ever. I'm not interested. I thought I made myself clear. Perhaps you wouldn't be so confused if you read what I said! It's quite the opposite: as I continually insist, I favor freedom and oppose wealthy elites abusing the power of the state to attack the very principles the US and capitalism were founded upon: life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. In another thread you mentioned intending to read Ayn Rand's works. That relates to my libertarian views. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-libertarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market#Capitalism "One needs to provide a better system or he's not allowed to point out the flaws in this one." There's your whole stupid argument in essence. I never said or suggested that. You have an alarming reading comprehension problem. What I said is that if you are going to call something bad, logically that must mean you know something better. In other words, something can only be bad if there is something better to compare it to. If you have nothing better to compare it to (you could even simply imagine it), there is no basis for calling something bad. You can point out flaws in all sorts of good and bad things, but that is beside the point. As for my whole argument...how would you know what it is when you refused to even read what I said? It is your arguments (or lack thereof) that have been witless, resorting to strawmen and other logical fallacies. I tore them apart one by one and you didn't even notice...then you had the audacity to say I'm the one who doesn't notice I'm supposedly hundreds of years behind the times. lmao... Exhumatika said: You don't even need to prove anything to him. This isn't about me. It's about anyone substantiating their own assertions. He lives in the fairy tale. Quote my exact words and demonstrate how I have been wrong about anything. I've been proving you wrong this entire time, so I'd say you're the one living in a fairy tale. Even in the US, the population's income is significantly less than their expenses. Just this reason alone explains why this system is completely broken as hell. Only around a fourth of Americans spend more than they earn. However, spending can apply to luxury purchases and the like rather than only essential living expenses. It can also involve debt like credit cards. Even some among the wealthy can spend more than they earn. You seem to be implying all these people are broke and on the brink of homelessness, but that is not the case. As for "significantly less"...I'm going to need you to cite sources with data on that. You will also need to explain how any of this somehow means an economic system is "broken as hell" in light of how I just explained it doesn't mean that at all. Exhumatika said: Don't make me laugh, the average US household... Since you don't seem to get it, I'll elaborate. The average household income in the US is around $140,000. The median is around $80,000. If you aren't familiar with the meaning of these, here's a quote. "The median is the middle value in a dataset, whereas the average (also known as the mean) is the sum of all values divided by the number of values. The median is less affected by outliers, while the average can be skewed by extreme values." Over half of all US households earn over $80K per year. Many earn vastly more than that. There are about 24 million millionaires in the US. So your claim that "the population's income is significantly less than their expenses" is patently absurd. You're in Russia, right? This is a bizarre point to make when reportedly nearly half of Russians don't earn enough to cover basic expenses. The hybrid market/command economy there is clearly not working as well. The US economy is roughly 15 times larger than Russia's (by nominal GDP) too. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/almost-half-russians-say-salary-does-not-cover-basic-spending-survey-2023-10-23/ Exhumatika said: Their Economic books don't have the economic theory (it's like a taboo for them; no one should ever ask such a thing). Who is they, exactly? Which books? Have you read them? Which books do have "the economic theory"? Have you read them as well? They print money to fight inflation, which is completely absurd. Expanding the money supply is one of the primary causes of inflation. No one with even the most basic knowledge of the topic believes printing money fights inflation. (It fights deflation.) They are pumping out dollar emissions like there is no tomorrow, When you say dollar emissions, is that a synonym for printing money? (This is the second time I've asked.) and the majority of that money doesn't even go into the real sector; it immediately goes into the financial sector for money speculators and the stock exchange to draw attractive numbers that have nothing to do with the real economy. Not quite. I'll just have AI school you on how this works, because there's no way I'm typing up the same thing myself. "The idea that the majority of newly created money goes to the financial sector and bypasses the "real economy" is a common critique of modern monetary policy, but it is an oversimplification of a complex process. New money enters the economy through both financial and "real" channels, and the effects on the real economy are debated. In the modern economy, most money is not physically printed currency. Instead, it is created digitally by the central bank and by commercial banks when they issue loans. When a central bank, such as the Federal Reserve, increases the money supply, it typically does so by buying financial assets, like government bonds, from commercial banks through a process known as open-market operations. When a central bank buys bonds from a commercial bank, the central bank credits that bank's reserve account with new funds. These reserves are a form of new money in the financial system. The primary way that new money from central bank action enters the real economy is through commercial banks. When banks have more reserves, they are in a better position to make new loans to individuals and businesses, who then use that money for spending and investment. The financial sector acts as an intermediary, channeling money to the real economy, but it also creates money for its own activities. A significant portion of the new money created can remain within the financial sector, where it is used to buy financial assets, such as stocks and real estate. This can inflate asset prices, creating a wealth effect for asset holders without directly boosting wages or consumption in the wider economy. Speculation in financial markets, driven by the search for higher returns, can cause financial sector numbers to detach from the fundamental strength of the real economy. While some financial speculation serves the purpose of price discovery, excessive speculation can destabilize markets and divert capital from productive, long-term investments. The "real" vs. "financial" debate: The distinction between the "real" and "financial" sectors is blurred. A rising stock market, while partly driven by financial activity, can also encourage business investment and hiring. However, the benefits of rising asset prices are often disproportionately captured by a small portion of the population. Economists have differing views on whether newly created money effectively stimulates the real economy or primarily inflates the financial sector. Proponents of quantitative easing (QE), where central banks buy large quantities of assets to inject money, argue that this stimulates real economic activity. By lowering interest rates and encouraging banks to lend, QE can boost business investment and consumer spending, leading to job creation. Critics suggest that the low-interest-rate environment created by monetary policy encourages excessive debt and risk-taking without leading to significant real-world investment or growth. They argue that the primary beneficiaries are financial institutions and asset owners, leading to increased wealth inequality. The effects of monetary policy are highly dependent on economic context. During periods of low demand and high unemployment, monetary stimulus is more likely to activate unused real resources. However, when the economy is at full employment, creating money risks fueling inflation rather than boosting production. In summary, the notion that new money goes directly and exclusively into speculation is inaccurate. The process is more complex: New money is created by central banks digitally, not by printing cash for government spending. This money is introduced into the economy through financial institutions, not directly into the real sector. Commercial banks act as intermediaries, channeling reserves into loans for consumers and businesses. The effects of this process on the real economy are a subject of ongoing debate, with critics pointing to the risk of financial bubbles and supporters highlighting the potential for stimulating investment and employment." Seriously, this shit is not even interesting to study; It would appear you have admitted to not studying it. the sad part is it infested the entire world. It's difficult to agree or disagree with such a vague statement. Trump, instead of taking mindless walks with "King" Charles, should do some serious economic reforms and fire everyone from the current Federal Reserve (I mean, he still got that "You're fired!" thing, right?). The Federal Reserve employs approximately 24,000 people. Firing so many would be reckless. I agree reforms should be made, but nothing that drastic. I find it amusing that you keep telling Americans to mind their own business...then turn right around and give us commands on how to run our country. LoveYourSmile said: By no means I want to participate this conversation, but this statement sounds like you stand for some ideology disconnected from its practical implementation. That's problematic. The practical application of a free market is, in fact, not the very opposite of a free market. In a free market, no one would be able to use (and abuse) the power of the state to prevent others from competing with them, force taxpayers to pay for their business operations via subsidies, have the government bail them out when their business fails, and so on. The core of your pro-capitalism argument is "look, capitalism worked". At the same time, the core of your anti-*ism argument is "look, *ism never worked and led to some stagnation or - worse - tyranny". If I wanted to argue, I could simply say we lack relevant data for the comparison, because alternative models have never been implemented properly (esp in the modern word), always experienced external pressure and isolation etc. How many more millions need to suffer and die before you have enough data to notice socialism doesn't work? *facepalm* In Marxist theory, socialism/communism is lauded as the workers owning and controlling the means of production. (Some Marxists also emphasize that communism would be a stateless, classless society. But that's nonsense, because even if anarchy could be attained, it would either turn into its own government or be invaded by another government...and there will always be classes of people because people excel at different things, have varying interests and ambitions, etc.) In reality, it inevitably ends up being the state controlling everyone's lives. (It's a trivial matter to predict that outcome even in hypothetical terms.) It is inherently tyrannical because the only way to implement those (terrible) collectivist ideas is totalitarianism. It has been tried dozens of times around the world and failed miserably. Get over it. Nordic-style nations with social safety nets are still capitalist market economies. All nations have mixed economies, so you could say it's a matter of extent. What worked nicely 50 years ago may not work now, Care to cite relevant examples? and the *flaws* of our capitalism implementation (such as *billions* of people globally still not being able to fulfill even their basic needs such as safety, freedom, housing, education and healthcare, ecology etc) may suggest we are doing something wrong. My contention is that one thing we are doing wrong is not embracing capitalism enough. Markets tend to do a better job of fulfilling human needs and desires. (And having the government provide everything for you is the best way to lose your freedom.) The world didn't face dramatic challenges for maybe 70-80 years, yet we still have half of its population living in slums. Now even mighty Americans cry more and more they are living in slums - funny, right? Without capitalism, the number living in slums would be far higher. In some areas and instances, they live in slums because they have not implemented capitalism much or at all. Your blind faith What blind faith? We've been spitting facts and now you're treating us like some cult. and stubborn resistance Resistance to what? Tyranny? ;) looks like ignorance to me. Not in a sense of being unable to overwhelm opponent with charts and articles, but it a sense you don't see the obvious thing: if everything was that great as you picture it to yourself, people wouldn't complain. People will always complain. Even the poor of today live lives beyond the wildest dreams of kings from the past. I mean, by vigilantly defending status quo, you don't help much. I vigilantly defend liberty, which is oftentimes at odds with the status quo. Your examples of successful developed countries don't endure critique imo, because that prosperity is built on top of exploitation of the poor Explain how it's exploitation. Capitalists made investments (and in some cases worked hard for years) to create new jobs. They took on the risk of making that happen, and thus are entitled to benefit from it. They offered people the opportunity to have those jobs, who voluntarily signed up for them in exchange for an agreed upon payment. (Which is a heck of a lot better than nothing.) Anyone is free to seek employment elsewhere if they are not pleased with the terms of that prospective job. (They can also be freelancers or start their own businesses.) Oh, and FYI, it's not only poor people who have jobs. There are more than a few high-paying jobs, after all. Many businesses only have highly paid employees. - yes, thanks to global chain, we moved that horror far away from our borders, but cut your Switzerland and Norway from cheap Asian labor, and you will see what you will get, haha. Cheaper labor is not necessarily less moral. It can be caused by factors like developing economies, a lower cost of living and labor costs, and a larger supply of workers. At any rate, nations are not as reliant on foreign labor as you seem to think. Ofc I won't argue with you factually, that's exhausting and really pointless to do here. Just some food for your thoughts. Have you not been arguing "factually"? LoveYourSmile said: You say I should give you examples of other successful systems. Well honestly, where am I supposed to get them? Attempts outside of capitalism are few, and real implementations even fewer - and nearly always entangled with some monstrous political regime that undermined any chance of judging the economics on their own merits. I assure you, it is no coincidence that this other system (what was it called again? hmm...) reared its head via monstrous regimes so often. But even the UK, India and Israel tried socialism...and abandoned it (before it was too late) because of how poorly it went. Of course, your position is strong, since de facto we really only have one global system that functions today - and yes, a great deal of effort went into discrediting or dismantling alternatives. The one partial exception I can recall is early Soviet industrialization, when Western - including American - firms supplied machinery, engineers, and know-how. Not to build the Gulag, of course - that horror was Stalin's own invention - but to help erect the factories, railroads, and power plants that made his regime viable. And credit where it's due: that economy, despite repression and inefficiency, fought off Hitler, stretched from ocean to ocean, put the first satellite into orbit, and survived for decades. Whatever its flaws, it wasn't a trivial achievement - it took a half-century of combined strain, both internal and external, to bring it down. You mean...it was financed by capitalism? ohoho... So, returning to the one economic model that really works globally: you say it's pointless to criticize it, but I say it's just as pointless to glorify it. To my eye, the system is decaying into bureaucratic infighting and entrenched oligarchy: concentration of power keeps growing, access to opportunity for the lower strata keeps shrinking, capital manipulates public opinion, launches needless wars, and pushes whole nations into crises whose consequences are hard to measure. You're making a good argument for freer markets. Thanks for contributing to the cause! :] Yes, you can order sneakers in one click and praise Bezos - leaving aside the fact that they are stitched together in low-wage factories in Asia, then delivered by couriers working under grueling conditions, often with no realistic prospects for security or advancement. Maybe that's why so many lack stable families - and meanwhile we import labor from regions we have helped destabilize, congratulating ourselves on "democracy" while quietly staffing the lower rungs of our innovative, doubtlessly "efficient" economy. If you don't like that business model, you are free to create a new one. You may find it more challenging than you expected. Yes, capitalism does foster innovation - your example with chips is a good one. But it often feels like we are just inventing new beads to swap for cheap labor. We no longer ship slaves in the holds, but the bargain remains disturbingly similar. Know what else is similar to slavery? Typing up responses to those who repeatedly demonstrate to lack a fundamental understanding of an ever-expanding assortment of topics. You can draw similarities between anything. So what? If you have a problem with cheap labor, you are free to start a business and pay your employees whatever amount satisfies your sense of generosity. You may find it more challenging than you expected. Yes, general prosperity has risen. But is that solely capitalism's doing? Human well-being has always tended to rise during long periods free of upheaval - that's just human nature, as you rightly noted, to strive for better. Of course it's not the sole reason, but it is a major factor. And GDP, of course, is a slippery yardstick. In advanced economies it's dominated by services - and what's really the difference if a haircut costs $5 or $50? I have personally seen plenty of poor Americans and very few poor Germans - and that's despite spending only two weeks in the US versus half a lifetime in Germany. With personal freedom comes personal responsibility, and that's not for everyone. If you want the government to take care of you like you're some sort of helpless puppy, there are plenty of more suitable nations for that. But if you seek liberty, there's nowhere like the US. Yet GDP per capita insists the US is far ahead. How's that, exactly? That's obviously because there is higher economic activity in the US. There are tons of wealthy people here too. And I had to smile at the example of USAID, kindly mentioned by dear Auron. Ironically enough, this genuinely useful program was designed in a spirit closer to social solidarity - and it has repeatedly been cut back or "restructured" under the banner of market discipline. Funny, isn't it? I suggest watching this video entitled The Dark Truth Behind USAID. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUOwPcfc1MM BilboBaggins365 said: Anyway, how did you guys get into this fucking debate, off Wiru's veiled thread, which is just another why don't people treat otaku culture respectfully thread. I assumed you read the thread. People started bashing capitalism without making any valid critiques, so I called them out on it. Then I refuted their points, but they refused to acknowledge it. (One admitted to not even reading my reply.) Every time I proved them wrong, they just ignored it and made additional assertions that were either false, misleading or irrelevant. Rinse and repeat. At least now the conversation is getting a little interesting with more people chiming in. |
SmugSatokoSep 21, 7:12 AM
Sep 21, 6:45 AM
#56
XMGA030 said: did anyone else TL;DR the above load of crap? How would you know if it's a load of crap if you didn't even read it? lmao. I posted nothing but facts, fool. |
Sep 21, 9:36 AM
#57
@SmugSatoko Haha, I feel I'm a bit engaged today. I won't dissect your reply line by line, but you are mixing up economic models, political systems, and historical context to reach conclusions that suit you. Things like famines under Mao and Juche, often attributed to some proof of socialism's failure, were more of the result of authoritarian isolation and disastrous policies. So, where are you millions of socialism's victims, may I ask? Meanwhile, America's homeless and the so-called "white trash" get written off as losers who failed to find their place in some brilliant system, how convenient. Exploited labor, sweatshops, kids in mines - waved away as "just the way the world works" too. Always circumstances, never responsibility. Your jokes about the puppy waiting for scraps don't touch me, I'm not the one. I see people where you see failures, and I try to be less greedy than instinct suggests. Even as a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist - which I am - you end up thinking about responsibility, about a world where dignity outweighs profit. And let's be honest: profit isn't the sole engine of initiative. Some people are simply wired for it, others not. I have never cared much for wealth, for instance - I enjoyed the game itself. And I know many people like that. Put us in a Soviet design bureau, and we would have built them an aircraft instead of a business. Circumstances shift, initiative finds its path. And yes, social democracy works. We see it in Scandinavia, in Germany, and maybe soon in Poland. Not Lenin and Marx, but an evolutionary model inside a market economy. Here in Germany, that "American Dream" of suburban life with a neat house and a white fence is already the reality for most. Honestly, we are laughing at how stuck you are in clichés. Come here - you'll be shocked at the contrast. You see the world as an animal brawl for survival. I would rather see it as Breakfast at Tiffany's, that's it. |
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. |
Sep 21, 10:03 AM
#58
LoveYourSmile said: Things like famines under Mao and Juche, often attributed to some proof of socialism's failure, were more of the result of authoritarian isolation and disastrous policies. China's famine was a result of an extremely bad agricultural policy, so it wasn't about socialist economy being the fault here. North Korea's famine was a result of the collapse of the USSR that led to the complete stall of importation of Soviet-made fertilizers, so it wasn't about socialist economy being the fault here. But people in the West really want to convince others that they were the fault of socialist economy, which is totally missing the point in the first place. These people don't want to study how average Leninist political system works, they also additionally don't want to study how Western colonial powers destroyed most of Asia or Africa, even indirectly today. I personally think that advocating for freer market is merely another representation of Western imperialism in the 21st century. But I digress. At least thank goodness that the North Atlanticism (the prevailing force of dominant post-WWII economic and diplomatic bloc) is defunct. We are indeed gradually living in a multi-polar world right now. LoveYourSmile said: You see the world as an animal brawl for survival. I would rather see it as Breakfast at Tiffany's, that's it. Correct. The world doesn't need to be viewed with an adversarial point of view. I see the whole world like a big messy concert area where a single cleaning lady has to clean and organize the messes all by herself for days and at the same time not offending, or not expressing violence in this case, the remaining audience who are too drunk and weak to go home. Some entity, despite its small capacity and abilities, needs to micromanage some aspects of the world without violence and definitely without any expression of hostility. Exactly why do people who advocate the "Western way of life" or "more free market" have to make adversarial expressions to people who slightly disagree with them? I want to know. Edit: I don't like the whole idea of Social Darwinism. The mantra "the survival of the fittest" disturbs me very much. Anyone can laugh at me and I reasonably deserve it for what I'm going to say. I prefer "the survival of the most harmonious" instead. |
MalchikRepaidSep 21, 10:13 AM
Sep 21, 10:13 AM
#59
Reply to MalchikRepaid
LoveYourSmile said:
Things like famines under Mao and Juche, often attributed to some proof of socialism's failure, were more of the result of authoritarian isolation and disastrous policies.
Things like famines under Mao and Juche, often attributed to some proof of socialism's failure, were more of the result of authoritarian isolation and disastrous policies.
China's famine was a result of an extremely bad agricultural policy, so it wasn't about socialist economy being the fault here. North Korea's famine was a result of the collapse of the USSR that led to the complete stall of importation of Soviet-made fertilizers, so it wasn't about socialist economy being the fault here.
But people in the West really want to convince others that they were the fault of socialist economy, which is totally missing the point in the first place. These people don't want to study how average Leninist political system works, they also additionally don't want to study how Western colonial powers destroyed most of Asia or Africa, even indirectly today.
I personally think that advocating for freer market is merely another representation of Western imperialism in the 21st century.
But I digress. At least thank goodness that the North Atlanticism (the prevailing force of dominant post-WWII economic and diplomatic bloc) is defunct. We are indeed gradually living in a multi-polar world right now.
LoveYourSmile said:
You see the world as an animal brawl for survival. I would rather see it as Breakfast at Tiffany's, that's it.
You see the world as an animal brawl for survival. I would rather see it as Breakfast at Tiffany's, that's it.
Correct. The world doesn't need to be viewed with an adversarial point of view. I see the whole world like a big messy concert area where a single cleaning lady has to clean and organize the messes all by herself for days and at the same time not offending, or not expressing violence in this case, the remaining audience who are too drunk and weak to go home. Some entity, despite its small capacity and abilities, needs to micromanage some aspects of the world without violence and definitely without any expression of hostility.
Exactly why do people who advocate the "Western way of life" or "more free market" have to make adversarial expressions to people who slightly disagree with them? I want to know.
Edit: I don't like the whole idea of Social Darwinism. The mantra "the survival of the fittest" disturbs me very much. Anyone can laugh at me and I reasonably deserve it for what I'm going to say. I prefer "the survival of the most harmonious" instead.
MalchikRepaid said: collapse of the USSR that led to the complete stall of importation of Soviet-made fertilizers Sounds like their problem is related to socialism. On another country, but it is. |
Sep 21, 10:20 AM
#60
Sasori56483 said: Sounds like their problem is related to socialism. On another country, but it is. That's the problem of diplomacy and very bad decisions from a minority of people, actually. USSR was collapsed due to the totally dysfunctional state of the Politburo from numerous social issues and socialism was never the blame. Well, South Korea sort of experienced this 3 years ago when the country economically decoupled from China and Russia, then the standard of living largely collapsed. But nobody in South Korea blames Western democracy or the market-oriented economy for this. They blame the previous pro-American president who has an IQ of a toaster and he was impeached this year in 2025. Now he's rotting in prison, and it's not just because of his pro-American policies. Plus, nobody in China right now is blaming the "great" democracy and capitalism for the recent collective economic downturn in many Western countries. They instead blame the leaders who don't recognize the changing world thinking that the world is stuck the 1990s. |
MalchikRepaidSep 21, 10:28 AM
Sep 21, 10:41 AM
#61
Thread locked for being a controversial topic. Casual Discussion Rules 7: Controversial/sensitive topics liable to incite rule violations (trolling, flaming, abuse) are no longer allowed. This includes, but is not limited to, topics which:
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