Petrol posted:Well I don't think I was "strawmanning" him, if we really have to use the reddit language of rhetoric.
The strawman thing was more directed at others than you, and most of the point was that it was a venerable catchphrase intended to highlight the fact that getfiscal is a living legend and newbs are newbs
Petrol posted:He was asked why he thought DPRK is a rightist dictatorship and he responded with stuff about what he'd read about the grey economy. If DPRK is a rightist dictatorship then its entire state structure and ideology is a farce, right?
it's possible that i'm projecting but i didn't/don't see him using those words anywhere. speaking for myself, i really don't think this sort of political manicheism is a useful way of looking at states. it's perfectly possible to have a nation where a power elite undemocratically sets the bounds of discourse and political action but allows democratic processes some level of authority within those boundaries. for example, the united states of america
getfiscal posted:The argument Huey is making is that the grey economy has to be small because the attempt to suppress certain types of petty trading (including currency reform) did not produce dramatic effects outside that petty trading. In reality it had a temporary suppression in a certain kind of cash trading (which is essentially the same as when in major cities you see people lay out wares on a blanket which they can pull up if police come). But the argument isn't that the market is complementing state ownership so much as it is deeply entwined with it in a more or less criminal way, which is how it is able to operate in a more-or-less sustainable way. Huey is depending on neoliberal ideas of how markets operate to assume they need radical autonomy from the state. In China, for example, there was a period in the 1990s when some military leaders became enormously rich because the military has massive investments in various key sectors which were in turn politically favoured in various ways. I mean if we can identify that as a criminal practice in Egypt then why not China and Korea?
I'm not sure what kind of system you are claiming NK has here. Is it a system in which certain goods are centrally planned but others are officially traded on a 'black market'? To whom? What goods? What is the purpose of such an arrangement?
Are we talking ISIS selling black market oil, diamond smuggling in the Congo, or crony capitalism as in South Korea? These are very different things and I have no idea what the significance of Chinese elites enriching themselves is to the idea that NK, under sanctions and without trading partners, formed a military backed black market economy. You are coming at this from a socialist angle but I don't understand how such a system could be maintained for more than a brief period in a centrally planned system (even if only the commanding heights are planned) in light of all the data I have given showing rapid and stable economic growth.
Most importantly, I have no idea how one would even prove such a system exists, it seems that this claim has come from the aether. But I'm not trying to dismiss you, I genuinely don't fully understand what kind of system you're describing since I have never heard black markets in NK as something the state endorses.
getfiscal posted:Huey has said he thinks China has a capitalist economy in the past but he might have changed his mind on that.
I have changed my mind, oddly enough it was Ernest Mandel who made realize that if we can define capitalism as a political economic structure we can do the same with socialism (along with a healthy dose of Michael Robert's blog posts on China and crow reminding me of Lenin's Tax in Kind). So I am now more of the opinion that China (and NK) are socialist but are regressing towards stagnation and the danger of capitalist restoration. Not because they aren't moving towards communism and direct democracy or whatever but because Chinese and North Korean economic growth are at the expense of sustainable, socialist development. Dunno if that makes me not a Maoist anymore, I have no interaction with maoism irl so I can't tell the difference between the former anarchists turned maoists who populate the internet and real maoists who care about reality.
Edited by babyhueypnewton ()
thirdplace posted:it's possible that i'm projecting but i didn't/don't see him using those words anywhere. speaking for myself, i really don't think this sort of political manicheism is a useful way of looking at states. it's perfectly possible to have a nation where a power elite undemocratically sets the bounds of discourse and political action but allows democratic processes some level of authority within those boundaries. for example, the united states of america
the problem, as I tried to highlight, is even for the defenders of North Korea (whatever that means) the evidence is scant. we can barely tell whether the economy is growing or collapsing, let alone how functional the political system of the DPRK really is. the onus is always on communists to defend against anti-communist slander, and tbh in this thread there is probably more attempting at finding such evidence than you will see anywhere outside of the North Korean intranet. I don't doubt GF has read some books/articles that gave him a picture of NK that he feels satisfied fits reality, unfortunately as we have seen in the Grover Furr thread even sympathetic historians like Getty have to be meticulously deconstructed to remove anti-communist biases let alone the many garbage academic books that come out from CIA press.
We can have a debate about evidence and there is truth and falsehood. I tried to show how truly pathetic the evidence used to slander NK really is. But this is for our own benefit, on the level of hegemony defending NK will never be able to fight against the 'common sense' of bourgeois propaganda.
getfiscal posted:aerdil posted:also it's not like we would watch the diplomat from finland discuss its parliamentary political system and assume everything out of his mouth is a lie we shouldn't even bother listening to
Well when I watch Canadian political debates I very often do believe what they are saying is a lie that I shouldn't even bother listening to, and I post about that a lot, like stuff the Canadian military says about "degrading and defeating ISIS" by bombing tractors.
well yeah and i thought about that the moment i typed it out lol, but what i meant is that you wouldn't assume by that that the entire political structure of finland or canada is a complete fraud and illusion. (maybe i'm running into the same trap here) okay, to a certain ideological extent it is a complete fraud and illusion, there's undue influence from elites and oligarchs as is the reality in a capitalist regime (those positions are mostly filled by elites and oligarchs), but it's not like bureaucrats and politicians just sit around all day pretending to legislate while the real work gets done in the upper echelons, which is what is implied about the DPRK's political system. as in elected positions are able to wield influence and power outside the direct purview of the plutocratic reality, thanks to the contradictions in class struggle.
certainly the Kims wield undue influence in the DPRK political structure, but to call it a "rightist dictatorship" requires some actual evidence when compared to how the DPRK describes itself.
getfiscal posted:It sucks so bad, it makes me sick, don't ever become a troll. I accidentally let it out in class one day and someone started crying.
secret origin of the rhizzone poster
babyhueypnewton posted:According to the latest CFSAR, the food production for the year 2012 to 2013 was 5.07 mMT of grain equivalent. This corresponds to 95% of the estimated grain requirement of the DPRK for that year.
babyhueypnewton posted:A further observation that can be made is that Pyongyang is much less dependent on inter-Korean trade as a source of foreign currency than Seoul apparently believed.
It's almost like these Juche guys are self-reliant
Ufuk_Surekli posted:fuck racists
don't care about the downvotes
Catchphrase
Btw I have seen many photos of huge Kim murals and statues all over the DPRK. So While I dont believe the propaganda about North Korea and think, thats all crazy bs and maybe it's not os bad there, and they know what theyre doing, I also dont believe the Kims are just noobs with "1 vote" or w/e. Best case scenario they're royal figureheads like the Queen
babyhueypnewton posted:crony capitalism as in South Korea
Please never use the phrase 'crony capitalism'. It's a capitalist term designed to rebrand the most obvious and egregious failures of capitalism as a deviation. Even worse, it came to prominence in the wake of the "Asian financial crisis", as an updated version of the 90s orientalist mythology of "capitalism with Asian values" - incidentally, another racist concept to add to the pile of those repeated by Zizek for questionable rhetorical effect (and by 'questionable' i mean 'your rhetoric look like a dishrag and the racism doesn't help'):
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/slavoj-zizek-greatest-threat-to-europe-is-it-s-inertia-a-1023506.html posted:Žižek: China, Singapore, India or -- closer to us -- recently Turkey don't augur well for the future. It's my belief that modern capitalism is developing in a direction in which it functions better without a fully developed democracy. The rise of the so-called capitalism with Asian values in the past 10 years at the very least raises doubts and questions: What if authoritarian capitalism on the Chinese model is an indication that liberal democracy as we understand it is no longer a condition for, and driving force of, economic development and instead stands in its way?
Wait, this isn't my forthcoming zizek effortpost. Sorry to derail.
ilmdge posted:Best case scenario they're royal figureheads like the Queen
My understanding is its something like this. They found it easier to get people on board for a transition from a strict Confucian feudal society to a socialist one if they used a royal type figurehead. I would imagine they haven't looked at eliminated this due to the constant state of crisis and external threat situation
ilmdge posted:"Pak Chooie Unf" is an old SA catchphrase.
it was very hard not to downvote the post specifically because of this. d&d level Old Meme Refs are way more offensive than casual racism
Ufuk_Surekli posted:EmanuelaBrolandi posted:Other than "we don't know and cannot" any position is bullshit. We are not the people of Korea's comrades no matter how much we want to be
I know you are dismissing the western propaganda, and I get the sense that we are arguing from a fairly similar position, but I do want to let you know in earnest that this statement is not accurate
obviously they don't pick up the phone when the CIA rings, but the WPK actively communicates and co-ordinates with communist and workers' parties abroad. your party (if you are in one) can take an active stance in dismissing racist propaganda against Korea. actual living, breathing WPK personnel stationed in foreign countries will gladly meet and talk to other communists, share advice and friendship, hang out, speak at your events
this probably can't happen in the continental United States for obvious reasons, but it happens right now in Europe. they treat questions about unicorn-discovery and execution by wild-dog-pack with about as much respect as that sort of shit deserves, but if you're prepared to treat them like human beings you can have comrades from the DPRK right now, if you want. The WPK believes in and actively practices international proletarian solidarity, they welcome the comradeship of foreign communists
i don't see why you don't see that this is not any more convincing than cia propaganda either. an official tool of state x said thing, therefore, ... really?
Whether or not they reach out the idea that a political group in East Asia and one in NW Europe could have the same actual (edit:strategic) goals is preposterous
International solidarity between a country fighting colonial occupation and a place where they protest about having to pay a fee to register for college.
Edited by EmanuelaBrolandi ()
Ufuk_Surekli posted:is now the best time, strategically speaking, for communist parties to assist their bourgeois governments by developing and endorsing elaborate conspiracy theories about the internal democratic function of other, more successful communist parties. or should we band together internationally to resist capitalism and imperialism, rather than second-guessing each other because our own capitalist-controlled governments/medias told us to
I just wanna say before I go to bed that i think you mean tactically not strategically. Assisting bourgeois or nationalist factions is a temporary tactical solutions to a greater problem of strategy (class war)
Ufuk_Surekli posted:the DPRK, or at least some people in the DPRK, don't appear to agree with the conclusion of your post - the WPK is actively soliciting assistance, fraternity and communication with non-hostile overseas left forces. we can speculate a lot about whether its a disingenous marriage of convenience, although that seems a bit insulting given that the WPK has said nothing to suggest that. should western leftists therefore reject these solicitations on the off-chance that they're secretly a sham, or on the belief that we can never possibly work together or help each other, or god forbid actually be friends, because of where we were born
I think it's material conditions not where we were born but point taken. OTOH there's people I know who made their company source 80% recycled cardboard and think theyre helping to saving the world. Solidarity real or not feels good and I'm sure any DPRK person would love to have an Amerikkkan out their hand on her shoulder knowingly and say, "I respect you and your country," but that meeting doesn't imply actual common goals and struggles. A diplomatic attaché to Lesotho probably feels enthused about it like their machinations effect material reality but...
EmanuelaBrolandi posted:IMO accusing an actually existing communist country of revisionism or something is absurd. Communism is Venezuelan, Indian, Chinese, Cuban, Korean, Vietnamese. Any attempts by people like us, the least communist people in the history if humanity, to theorize about revisionism etc is garbage
the idea that by virtue of being first worlders we should refrain from adopting the principles of anti-revisionism may seem like a gesture of humility but in truth this is a chauvinism that denies the real theoretical contributions of revolutionary movements in the global south. this is the assertion that we in the developed world should refrain from accepting and adhering to the contributions of revolutionary leadership from lenin to mao tse-tung
it's retreating into subjectivist idealism to assert that efforts at building socialism can only be perceived through an open discursive acceptance of formally declared allegiances. this sort of banal permissiveness treats revolutionary initiatives in the developing world as an undifferentiated mass while ignoring the fundamental marxist insight that developed and coherent frameworks for understanding and differentiating the conditions material reality emerge as the product of revolutionary praxis
i have so little tolerance for a vacuous third worldism that symbolically lends allegiance to third world revolutionary movements without taking seriously their consciously elaborated theoretical perspectives and distinctions
blinkandwheeze posted:the idea that by virtue of being first worlders we should refrain from adopting the principles of anti-revisionism may seem like a gesture of humility but in truth this is a chauvinism that denies the real theoretical contributions of revolutionary movements in the global south. this is the assertion that we in the developed world should refrain from accepting and adhering to the contributions of revolutionary leadership from lenin to mao tse-tung
it's retreating into subjectivist idealism to assert that efforts at building socialism can only be perceived through an open discursive acceptance of formally declared allegiances. this sort of banal permissiveness treats revolutionary initiatives in the developing world as an undifferentiated mass while ignoring the fundamental marxist insight that developed and coherent frameworks for understanding and differentiating the conditions material reality emerge as the product of revolutionary praxis
i have so little tolerance for a vacuous third worldism that symbolically lends allegiance to third world revolutionary movements without taking seriously their consciously elaborated theoretical perspectives and distinctions
I remember the first time I wrote sentences in a human tongue
Ufuk_Surekli posted:the possibility that you and person you have never met, in a country you have never seen, have more in common with one another than either of you do with local capitalists who happen to share your history, language, skin colour, or live in the same city as you.
But not a possibility so...