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Discussion Socialism Discussion Thread

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Jimmy Joe said:
Y'all recommend some reading if I felt nourished by The Conquest of Bread? I know Kropotkin's an anarchist but we're part of the same fmily
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I would suggest Nikolai Bukharin's Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology as a good introduction to Marxism.
 
Thank you to you both, though I am familiar with a few socialist texts; I should have specific that I'm looking for anarchist work, preferably something written in the past twenty years
 
Branduil said:
Even if capitalism and socialism could theoretically co-exist, capitalism would never allow it. Capitalism always resorts to fascism to protect itself. I don't know how you can look at the last two decades and not see that.
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BINGO!

Too few people ever seem to realize that. Congrats!
 
Brock Reiher said:
I think it would be a good idea to look into these things first, or at least ask, if you're going to make a post like that. Bartering with chickens in 1000 BC isn't capitalism fwiw
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I guess I’m a bit too late for that poster but I tried to explain socialism in posts 660 and 712. I’ve had a long history of interest and investigation into socialism and I check in here regularly to see if I might have any relevant thoughts to share. And yeah, there is plenty more to discuss.
 
Someone shared this article on cohost. It suggests AI could take the role of consultancy firms in helping corporations to concentrate their power and wealth, and discusses some other problems that AI could make worse. Quite long but I found it a good read.

www.newyorker.com

Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?

As it’s currently imagined, the technology promises to concentrate wealth and disempower workers. Is an alternative possible?
www.newyorker.com www.newyorker.com
 
neil said:
Someone shared this article on cohost. It suggests AI could take the role of consultancy firms in helping corporations to concentrate their power and wealth, and discusses some other problems that AI could make worse. Quite long but I found it a good read.

www.newyorker.com

Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?

As it’s currently imagined, the technology promises to concentrate wealth and disempower workers. Is an alternative possible?
www.newyorker.com www.newyorker.com
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This is a topic that I've discussed at length elsewhere, part of which was facilitated by the book Automation and the Future of Work by Anton Benanav. His book focuses most squarely on more physical automation tasks, like factory assembly lines and whatnot, but I personally found it a compelling read and can at least partly address the AI issue.

In my read of the book, Benanav seemed to suggest that fears of automation have regularly preceded forward momentum on socialist thinking (Marx was partly preoccupied with automation's potential to disrupt social order and disadvantage the proletariat prior to writing his most-known works).
But capitalism demands consumerism, now moreso than ever, thus it demands waged human labour. Capital has already iced a large number of automation solutions because they acknowledge that shrinking demand for labour would be catastrophic to consumerism and is thus bad for business.
What automations do still make it past the capitalists are those that allow them to ask more of their employees by making greater efficiencies through technology and open up new professions, because that also typically meant that it opened up more avenues for consumerism. AI could make massive efficiencies to labour, but I've not seen a convincing case that it can replace the workers it displaces through the creation of new jobs/industries as has been the case in the past. Even as capital abuses them, it needs wage workers.
 
neil said:
That is an interesting point!
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Yes. And yet capitalism must seek continually increasing markets, sales, and profits. It must continually funnel money from the pockets of consumers (99%) into both the corporate coffers and the pockets of the rich.
 
I'm relatively new to Famiboards...I wonder, why is there not a politics thread? There was talk of a politics thread in the earlier pages of this thread but i can't find a politics thread anywhere. I'd be interested in reviving it: we could discuss politics, economics, history and news to our hearts content.

(Also, i'm not a Socialist btw, i'm just stopping by for this question :p)
 
Dutchie said:
I'm relatively new to Famiboards...I wonder, why is there not a politics thread? There was talk of a politics thread in the earlier pages of this thread but i can't find a politics thread anywhere. I'd be interested in reviving it: we could discuss politics, economics, history and news to our hearts content.

(Also, i'm not a Socialist btw, i'm just stopping by for this question :p)
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You’re probably better off asking here if you want to set one up
famiboards.com

The ST |ST| Volunteer & Coordinate & Collaborate on StarTopics

why post it late? it comes out March 30/31st so that's when the thread should go live anyone who hasn't seen it shouldn't go in there and find out in a review thread if they should, if that's what they would be talking about in a movie thread without having seen it, imo^^ Incredible late reply...
famiboards.com famiboards.com

This thread is pretty much dedicated to a specific line of political discussion so is less about general news and economics. Even then it gets people wanting to use it to advocate for things diametrically opposed to its ethos.
 
PixelKnight said:
You’re probably better off asking here if you want to set one up
famiboards.com

The ST |ST| Volunteer & Coordinate & Collaborate on StarTopics

why post it late? it comes out March 30/31st so that's when the thread should go live anyone who hasn't seen it shouldn't go in there and find out in a review thread if they should, if that's what they would be talking about in a movie thread without having seen it, imo^^ Incredible late reply...
famiboards.com famiboards.com

This thread is pretty much dedicated to a specific line of political discussion so is less about general news and economics. Even then it gets people wanting to use it to advocate for things diametrically opposed to its ethos.
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Okay, thanks. I'll go check it out!
 
Dutchie said:
I'm relatively new to Famiboards...I wonder, why is there not a politics thread? There was talk of a politics thread in the earlier pages of this thread but i can't find a politics thread anywhere. I'd be interested in reviving it: we could discuss politics, economics, history and news to our hearts content.

(Also, i'm not a Socialist btw, i'm just stopping by for this question :p)
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I think people are referring to the politics thread on Era.
 
Ozeiyo said:
The right wing has wone most of the key cities and regions in Spain and we are going to be fucked and there is nothing we can do.

Hope y'all are doing better.
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With the Biden administration literally doing nothing about everything and what little they do, it's effectively being "We hear you, we see you, we support you.", outlook not good!
 
Ozeiyo said:
The right wing has wone most of the key cities and regions in Spain and we are going to be fucked and there is nothing we can do.

Hope y'all are doing better.
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If only. 13 years of Tory rule here in the UK has fucked us royally, the Labour opposition who will most likely win the next election are austerity-loving authoritarian neolibs who have purged the Left. They are likely to paper over the cracks at best and just continue what the Tories were doing at worst

Oh, and every major party in the UK either just flat-out hates trans/NB people or has a sizable contigent of TERFs, aided and abetted by a fanatically transphobic media.

It's pretty bad.
 
Ozeiyo said:
The right wing has wone most of the key cities and regions in Spain and we are going to be fucked and there is nothing we can do.

Hope y'all are doing better.
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Thoroughly depressing, I was in Madrid on the weekend, such a cracking city but why on earth do they want the kids of fking Franco to govern?
 
Zellia said:
If only. 13 years of Tory rule here in the UK has fucked us royally, the Labour opposition who will most likely win the next election are austerity-loving authoritarian neolibs who have purged the Left. They are likely to paper over the cracks at best and just continue what the Tories were doing at worst

Oh, and every major party in the UK either just flat-out hates trans/NB people or has a sizable contigent of TERFs, aided and abetted by a fanatically transphobic media.

It's pretty bad.
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Sounds like pretty much every Western European socialist/socialdemocrat/labour party in the last 30 years. The transphobia in Spain is less pervasive than in the UK, though. For now.
Armoured_Bear said:
Thoroughly depressing, I was in Madrid on the weekend, such a cracking city but why on earth do they want the kids of fking Franco to govern?
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It works for them, I guess. And also, they're winning the culture wars by a lot.
 
Ozeiyo said:
The right wing has wone most of the key cities and regions in Spain and we are going to be fucked and there is nothing we can do.

Hope y'all are doing better.
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At this point, hoping for an unholy PSOE-PP coalition for the next general election, but prepared to deal with way worse.

At least I live in a relatively "safe" place all things considered.
 
Tangerine_Cookie said:
At this point, hoping for an unholy PSOE-PP coalition for the next general election, but prepared to deal with way worse.

At least I live in a relatively "safe" place all things considered.
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Jesus does this suck. A GroKo style government was very much a possibility in the 2010s and it was by far the most hated option, and now it almost seems like a blessing. We have lost so much and so quick that it's staggering. Anyways, we have 2 months -thanks perrosanxe- to turn things around and be stuck with the lesser of two evils until, eventually, people get sick.

I also live in a "safe"/ish place -but my family doesn't. Then again, I think that reading these results there are no actual safe spaces. Fascism is a very real threat, and no one is really safe from having them pop up in every city hall and every parliament.
 
crepuscule said:
Perhaps the fact that Kate Forbes got 48% of the vote in the SNP's leadership contest. Kinda destroyed the facade that the SNP is fundamentally a progressive liberal party. It is a coalition of Scottish Nationalists of every flavour including transphobes.
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www.gendergp.com

What does Humza Yousaf’s leadership as First Minister of Scotland mean for the Transgender Community?

Scotland has voted for its new first minister: Humza Yousaf. We discuss what his leadership will mean for the trans community.
www.gendergp.com www.gendergp.com
 
Armoured_Bear said:
www.gendergp.com

What does Humza Yousaf’s leadership as First Minister of Scotland mean for the Transgender Community?

Scotland has voted for its new first minister: Humza Yousaf. We discuss what his leadership will mean for the trans community.
www.gendergp.com www.gendergp.com
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I'm aware that Yousaf's leadership supports trans rights. But the very article you linked lists the bigoted beliefs of the woman who recieved 48% of votes from SNP members. So the current leadership isn't transphobic but the same cannot be said for the party as a whole.
 
crepuscule said:
I'm aware that Yousaf's leadership supports trans rights. But the very article you linked lists the bigoted beliefs of the woman who recieved 48% of votes from SNP members. So the current leadership isn't transphobic but the same cannot be said for the party as a whole.
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No party membership is 100% free of bigotry, fact remains that the party under the current and previous leadership is pushing pretty hard for trans and other minority rights .
 
Armoured_Bear said:
No party membership is 100% free of bigotry, fact remains that the party under the current and previous leadership is pushing pretty hard for trans and other minority rights .
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If it were like 10% voting for her maybe I could agree with your sentiment but nope. 40% first preference and 48% second preference indicates SNP has a massive bigotry problem.

I'm glad of the good the current SNP leadership is doing but saying the SNP does not contain a sizable contingent of TERFs as you did in response to @Zellia's original post is false.
 
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In fairness, as British political parties go, I suppose 'only slightly less than half of us voted for transphobia' is actually stunningly progressive.
 
I supported SNP when I lived in Scotland (although I couldn't vote), but the circumstances around Sturgeon leaving as a leader so directly after the cross-political opposition to aspects of the gender recognition bill did leave a sour taste in my mouth. The party leadership is mostly doing fine things but I feel like the party itself should've backed Sturgeon up better. That being said, I don't live in the UK anymore so I'm not as into the nuances of the discussion as I was when I lived there.
 
Chaotic Neutral said:
I supported SNP when I lived in Scotland (although I couldn't vote), but the circumstances around Sturgeon leaving as a leader so directly after the cross-political opposition to aspects of the gender recognition bill did leave a sour taste in my mouth. The party leadership is mostly doing fine things but I feel like the party itself should've backed Sturgeon up better. That being said, I don't live in the UK anymore so I'm not as into the nuances of the discussion as I was when I lived there.
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What a difference a few weeks makes, pretty sure we have some of the nuance figured out now.
 
Always weird to try and argue against mergers and acquisitions in a gaming forum because everything gets labeled as console warrior despite there being numerous evidences of those kind of business moves resulting in a worse deal for everyone involved besides the wealthy behind the scene.
 
Adulfzen said:
Always weird to try and argue against mergers and acquisitions in a gaming forum because everything gets labeled as console warrior despite there being numerous evidences of those kind of business moves resulting in a worse deal for everyone involved besides the wealthy behind the scene.
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Normally I'd agree, but with the ABK acquisition in particular, since ABK's labour force and their associated labour unions being behind a major acquisition for what feels like the first time ever... it's forced me to take a nuanced position on that M&A in particular.

And so long as we remain in capitalism where the practice of consolidation will inevitably continue, the best thing we can do in the meantime is get behind the idea of limiting acquisitions to only those that empower labour instead of diminish it as has historically been the case, while still presenting objection to the idea of corporate consolidation on principle. And since we're talking about capitalists here, that means we'd still be against 90% of M&As or more, so... no harm in that distinction, really.
 
God damn, I forgot the provincial election was just last year, we've still got three more years of the Tories.
 
Started listening to Blowback for the first time and I'm getting mad about the Iraq War all over again
 


Letting the workers vote on practices within companies feels like the way forward and he gives a good example of where it worked well.
"Technofeudalism" is a new term to me but the way the world is nowadays, it feels like the correct term.
 
I actually look to Argentina more than the Netherlands for “most disgusting political outcome of November 2023”. Decades of political pressure to crush any politics further to the left than the Justicialist Party had left no opportunity for a galvanizing alternative to that party that wasn’t far right. And Argentina is now in the ultimate “finding out” moment now that they’ve elected Javier Milei, Captain Ancap himself. Woe be to Argentina. Perhaps the only silver lining to this outcome is we can talk down to ancaps ever harder than we already are within our right to when he puts Argentina into the shitter.
 
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Depressing. Was really, really worried about this outcome and it happened. Can't even joke about moving because France (arguably already there), Germany and Belgium are all going to end up voting for fascism in the next couple years too. I'm dooming pretty bad but it's just a bleak outlook.
 
hologram said:
We don't actually have to wait until next year! It's already awful!
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624VIR9.jpg
 
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