this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023

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Waiting For the Fall (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, outsourcing does not spread wealth globally. In fact, the very opposite of that is happening in practice.

If we take just one country, China, out of the global poverty equation, then even under the $1.90 poverty standard we find that the extreme poverty headcount is the exact same as it was in 1981.

The $1.90/day (2011 PPP) line is not an adequate or in any way satisfactory level of consumption; it is explicitly an extreme measure. Some analysts suggest that around $7.40/day is the minimum necessary to achieve good nutrition and normal life expectancy, while others propose we use the US poverty line, which is $15.

It’s interesting that you argue for isolation when communism usually is a global approach.

I'm not arguing for isolationism at all. I'm arguing for the country to leverage its own resources and labour to meet its needs without relying on exploitation of other countries. In fact, this has to be the foundation for any sort of public ownership where the workers own the means of production.

That’s the exploitation I was hinting at. You want to keep ‘your’ resources instead of sharing them with the world.

That's not what exploitation is.

But even if you do, look at China’s history to know the problems that will come with that strategy.

The problems of having constant and consistent improvement of standard of living for its population without suffering economic crashes every decade as seen under capitalism?

Do you remember the end of the text? That virtualization will make any revolution unnecessary. If you want communist relations, you better come up with something new if you don’t want to find a new way to have working cooperatives.

The text simply explains the mechanics of financial capitalism which led to deindustrialization of the west. I do not have to agree with every single conclusion it makes. I don't have t come up with anything new because I'm perfectly happy with the kinds of relations USSR, Cuba, or China managed to achieve. I see these as a real and tangible improvement on relations in western societies under capitalism.

Nobody is stopping you from implementing your cooperativist utopia, but I'm simply explaining to you that it's an unlikely outcome in practice. You can do what you want with that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If native Americans claim every land taken by capitalists, how much is left for communism?

For China, you have to know that they burned their blue water navy before European traders arrived. Their choice of isolation is the origin of their past losses. That was the context of my argument about the problems of isolation.

You cannot expect to have a communist revolution in America with the world just watching.

I don't get your argument about communist relations in China. If China hasn't increased extreme poverty headcount, how is that good enough?

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

if native Americans claim every land taken by capitalists, how much is left for communism?

I have no idea what that's supposed to mean to be honest. Why would Native Americans taking back the land be somehow at odds with communism. have you ever talked to a Native American person, their ideas are very much aligned with what communists want.

For China, you have to know that they burned their blue water navy before European traders arrived. Their choice of isolation is the origin of their past losses. That was the context of my argument about the problems of isolation.

Nobody is talking about any isolation here except you.

You cannot expect to have a communist revolution in America with the world just watching.

Again, nowhere did I say anything of the sort. However, it's up to the people of each country to figure out how to make their system work for the majority. Nobody is going to solve America's problems for it.

I don’t get your argument about communist relations in China. If China hasn’t increased extreme poverty headcount, how is that good enough?

I don't understand what this sentence means. China is the only place in the world where any meaningful poverty reduction is happening and they have lifted over 800 million people out of poverty.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is implicit isolation when resources should remain the same for American workers. When you have global communism, resources would be shared which means there is significantly less available.

But when capitalism collapses, will there be communism or will there be wars redistributing resources? That's what I meant with the expectation that the world will not just watch.

The Chinese reduction of poverty, I got that wrong. I thought China kept their number of people in extreme poverty. But since they reduced that number, how is that article an argument against the spread of wealth by outsourcing? China receives most of the outsourcing and thus received most of the wealth. Other countries just increased their population which keeps the number of people in powerty the same.

From my point of view you are stuck in a desire to keep capitalism as bad as possible so that the communist revolution happens as soon as possible. But capitalism isn't the single source of evil and actually has positive outcomes.

Take that outsourcing text. It tells you that capitalists don't want to invest into capital intensive businesses, which is funny by itself. We started with cooperatives that should issue bonds. Don't you see the opportunity that capitalist could support cooperatives to run those businesses?

I know, I should do it myself. But I am more the capital relations kind of person which makes it very difficult for me to run a cooperative. All I can do is tell you that there is an opportunity.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 1 year ago

There is implicit isolation when resources should remain the same for American workers. When you have global communism, resources would be shared which means there is significantly less available.

No, there's no implicit isolation here. What's being said is that local industry should be preferred. You don't seem to understand even the very basic concept of what communism is or how it works. Communism is when people living on the land share their labour and resources for common benefit. Global communism simply means that majority of the world follows the same model.

The reason production should be local is because people doing the work are working in their own interest and for their own benefit by virtue of owning the means of production.

But when capitalism collapses, will there be communism or will there be wars redistributing resources? That’s what I meant with the expectation that the world will not just watch.

As, I've repeatedly explained above, communism isn't a necessary outcome of capitalism collapsing. The other obvious alternative is fascism as it happened when there was a capitalist collapse in Germany in 1930s.

China receives most of the outsourcing and thus received most of the wealth. Other countries just increased their population which keeps the number of people in powerty the same.

China increased its wealth by focusing on productive activity in China. This has little to do with outsourcing. If outsourcing was the main reason standard of living in China is improving then we'd see that happening in every other country the west outsources to, yet the opposite is happening.

From my point of view you are stuck in a desire to keep capitalism as bad as possible so that the communist revolution happens as soon as possible. But capitalism isn’t the single source of evil and actually has positive outcomes.

I've repeatedly explained to you above that the very mechanics of capitalist relations are what leads to poor conditions under capitalism. You can read this book from Ray Dalio, who is a very successful capitalist discussing this if you don't trust the communist perspective.

The mechanic is not complex, and it's well illustrated by the game of monopoly. Everybody starts with equal opportunity, and as the game progresses through capitalist competition a single player ends up with all the resources. This is precisely what we see happening in the real world. Successful capitalist enterprises grow by outcompeting the rest, and this results in capital concentration.

On top of that, capitalism produces crashes roughly once a decade as we saw with Y2K crash, then 2008 crash, and now the current crash. During each of these crashes there's a rapid wealth transfer to the top as well. People lose savings, homes, and property because they can't make ends meet, and those people who own significant capital end up buying up the assets people are forced to forfeit. So, when a crash happens majority becomes more poor and in a worse position to weather the next crash. Eventually things get to the point where people simply don't have much to lose and violence starts.

Take that outsourcing text. It tells you that capitalists don’t want to invest into capital intensive businesses, which is funny by itself. We started with cooperatives that should issue bonds. Don’t you see the opportunity that capitalist could support cooperatives to run those businesses?

I don't think you understood what the article was actually saying which is that financial capitalists want to minimize their risk and maximize their profits. Investing in real productive industry is both risky and expensive. You have to build factories, buy machinery, hire workers to operate it, and so on. This is a big initial investment, and if it doesn't work out you're stuck with a big loss. On the other hand, investing in ephemeral industries like software development is a very low initial cost, you just hire a few guys with laptops. You can invest in a whole bunch of these startups, and if one of them makes it big then you get a huge return. This is the silicon valley model. Not only that, but the company doesn't even have to have a viable business model. It's a pyramid scheme in practice because you just need the company to have a high valuation when the IPO happens and cash out. This is how we end up with companies like Uber that aren't actually profitable and have no path towards being profitable, but are valuated at billions of dollars.

I know, I should do it myself. But I am more the capital relations kind of person which makes it very difficult for me to run a cooperative. All I can do is tell you that there is an opportunity.

So that you're saying is that you don't actually believe in what you're saying enough to put your money where your mouth is.