The rule of capital and its rapid accumulation is to be further counteracted, partly by a curtailment of the right of inheritance, and partly by the transference of as much employment as possible to the state. As far as the workers are concerned one thing, above all, is definite: they are to remain wage labourers as before. However, the democratic petty bourgeois want better wages and security for the workers, and hope to achieve this by an extension of state employment and by welfare measures; in short, they hope to bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable... the democratic petty bourgeois want to bring the revolution to an end as quickly as possible.
Engels, To Free Trade Conference at Brussels (1847)
Under the freedom of trade the whole severity of the laws of political economy will be applied to the working classes. Is that to say that we are against Free Trade? No, we are for Free Trade, because by Free Trade all economical laws, with their most astounding contradictions, will act upon a larger scale, upon a greater extent of territory, upon the territory of the whole earth; and because from the uniting of all these contradictions into a single group, where they stand face to face, will result the struggle which will itself eventuate in the emancipation of the proletarians.
The real reason why there is no Milton Friedman today is that liberals realize social welfare is the most effective way of preserving capitalism and Krugman/DeLong types are conspiring against the communist revolution by advocating reformist policies.
Because Rhizzone is entirely made up of center-leftists pretending to advocate Juche Communism, your efforts to expand the welfare state only advance liberal goals. This is why you should not follow the welfarist line in "austerity versus stimulus" or "global warming" debates at all. Marx and Engels would be disgusted with you. If you were true revolutionaries you would favor reduction in social programs to strengthen worker's revolutionary consciousness.
ummm anyone who would prefer ideological purity to actual meaningful objective improvements to the lives of the world underclass is dumb; you are an idiot; close this shitthread
Tell that to Marx and Engels.
ChairmanMao posted:close this shitthread
well, that's a side issue anyway. the 70s demonstrated pretty well that beyond a certain point this putative class compromise becomes an unavoidable trap for capitalism in that form; profits collapse and it has to discipline
But the cuts since the 1970s have fallen heavily on public investment (eg infrastructure underfunding) and financial regulations that raise productivity and the rate of profit. Productivity-enhancing government services raise the rate of profit and slow the progression of history toward communism.
This is why the current generation of liberal economists place so much emphasis on science spending and energy infrastructure to slow the fall in ROP.
jools posted:well you did post a pretty fat false dichotomy up there yourself man
oh yeah man i'm perfectly aware of the inherent contradictions of social democracy
that said i doubt any one of us (commier-than-thou posturing aside) would be opposed to any expansions of the welfare state under almost any circumstances if they were to actually happen (lol)
okay man how does history work. is there some kind of button that gets hit when the profit rate hits a certain low that switches everything over to communism?
Of course. Claiming otherwise is anti-scientific.
At the very least you should oppose public investment where it raises economic growth and the rate of profit. That's a no-brainer.
mustang posted:okay man how does history work. is there some kind of button that gets hit when the profit rate hits a certain low that switches everything over to communism?
Of course. Claiming otherwise is anti-scientific.
At the very least you should oppose public investment where it raises economic growth and the rate of profit. That's a no-brainer.
i'm confused. do you think we're fighting capitalism, or the bourgeoisie?
i'm confused. do you think we're fighting capitalism, or the bourgeoisie?
I thought you were just sarcastic liberals fighting neither, but if you're a Marxist you'll fight both.
If you support public investment you're implying it's possible for common interests to exist between the bourgeoise and working class, which is utterly counterrevolutionary.
(we're fighting the bourgeoisie. capitalism is, wait for it, a mode of production, the idea of fighting a mode of production seems a bit like the idea of fighting christmas, or farting)
That's some revisionism right there. You've really pulled it off though. You've effectively rendered yourself a Zizek-style social liberal.
It was so much more interesting in page 50 or so when people were all about what a class traitor Chavez was.
like, the hard problem is the whole seizure-of-political-power thing, Building Socialism (which is the process that actually "fights" capitalism) is comparatively easy...
But liberal programs are still a form of capitalism. Unless you're going to pull out some Mises.org bullshit about how the world is split between "government" and "private sector" and public roads "build socialism".
Public investment, roads and bridges are just there to serve capitalist enterprise and prevent their rate of profit from collapsing as it otherwise would have.
ChairmanMao posted:god i love eating pussy, its really fun
me too. whats your technique
babyfinland posted:ChairmanMao posted:god i love eating pussy, its really fun
me too. whats your technique
is my technique
."technique" is for craftsmen, i'm an artist