• Wanderer@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Well that’s just bullshit. Markets have brought more people out of poverty than anything.

      • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Lib - “Markets make everything cheaper, which is good.”

        Leftist - “But if there is a labor market, won’t that make labor cheaper?”

        Lib - “Yes, and that is good.”

        Leftist - “How is that good?”

        Lib - “It leads to more profits.”

        Leftist - “But why is it good to have more profits?”

        Lib - “Because a good country is when corporations make profits, and the more profits the corporations make, the gooder the country is.”

        • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Love to spend insane amounts of resources on creating a phone that has the same tech and capabilities as all the other phones, but I can’t just get access to their research and they can’t just get access to mine.
          Love to spend insane amount of time working up a cure to covid, but I can’t share my research with others and they can’t share it with me, yay this is awesome.
          Love to spend insane amount of resources working out how to make people want to buy a sugary drink and then spend even more to make them want to buy my drink specifically.
          Love to build empty houses and love to create 1.21 times more food than we need.
          Love to do all this as the world is burning and people are starving.
          Capitalism is the most efficient distribution of resources

        • wewbull@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          Kid: “Mommy, what’s a strawman?”

          Mother: “Take a look a this post here. See how they speak for both sides of the argument?”

          Kid: “Yes, they’re arguing with themselves.”

          Mother: “Exactly, and they can make their opponent say what they want.”

          Kid: “That seems like an easy way to make your argument look good”

          Mother: "Yes. It’s like fighting someone who can’t put up any resistance. They could be made of straw. A strawman. "

          Kid: “Oh, I see.”

          • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            You didn’t engage with their argument, but good try nonetheless. It’s nice to see you cling to a fallacy rather than engage in good-faith discussion of an argument clearly illustrated for you to relate to.

            • wewbull@feddit.uk
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              1 year ago

              There is no point in engaging with someone playing such games. They’re not going to be convinced when they’re already putting words in the opposition’s mouth.

              • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                They’re not going to be convinced

                A good faith discussion is not about convincing another, but instead about having an open exchange of information.

                They’re not going to be convinced when they’re already putting words in the opposition’s mouth.

                They’re illustrating a point which you failed to engage with. In no way did it put words in your mouth. The fact that you choose to be insulted by the way they decided to illustrate that point rather than engage with them in good faith says a lot more about you.

                To reiterate: You didn’t engage with their argument, but good try nonetheless. It’s nice to see you cling to a fallacy rather than engage in good-faith discussion of an argument clearly illustrated for you to relate to.
                Do better.

        • trailing9@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Leftist - “But if there is a labor market, won’t that make labor cheaper?”

          A third person - "Not necessarily. If the demand for labor is bigger than the supply then markets make labor more expensive.

          Leftist - " How is that possible? "

          A third person - " There are various ways. Workers could start more cooperatives or invest their savings in new companies"

          Leftist - “But why should I care about markets when it is easier to change the political system?”

          A third person - “Is it easier?”

          • Mog_Pharou [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Damn this third person never heard about the reserve army of labor, the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, and like all of American history showing the hollowing out of working class power. JUST INVEST YOUR NON-EXISTENT SAVINGS INTO NEW COMPANIES ITS SO EASY. And please how will your worker coop survive in this hellscape with a bourgeois state over it? It will be outcompeted and swallowed immediately by corporations who have no qualms over worker or environmental rights. This isn’t china, Huawei (a worker coop) is villified and attacked at every turn here. xigma-male You know maybe you have a point, let’s be more like China.

            • trailing9@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Does the third person argue that it is easy or does the third person only argue that it is easier than the alternatives? How easy would it be to run a revolution or just to establish a socialist party?

              What is the third person missing about the reserve army of labor? To me, it seems that reducing the reserve army of labor is their main argument.

              What the third person doesn’t mention is that there is a tendency to spend all possible income. The housing market shows that most people use reduced interest rates to increase their offer to outcompete somebody instead of sticking to their limits.

              Are skilled workers willing to share their increased income with the poor? San Francisco has huge social problems even though many workers have a huge income.

            • trailing9@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              If the capitalists expanded their workforce to Africa, South America and Asia, and the middle class was temporary happy with consuming slightly increased wages instead of seeding competition in those countries, then they hadn’t cared about markets.

              The middle class always has the breathing room down to consuming as little as the poor. If they don’t use it to control markets, how are they going to maintain a socialist or communist system?

    • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Markets have brought more people out of poverty than anything.

      Yes, just like the Irish people who were “helped” by the free market in the 1840s. Or the Indian people who were “helped” by the free market in the late 1800s. You might be interested in this book by the late, great Mike Davis which completely refutes your ideas with hard evidence that the free market can be used (and has been used) as a tool of genocide: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7859

    • forcequit [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      The maoist uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry

          • Joe@discuss.tchncs.de
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            1 year ago

            If only the dead could argue their case…

            I think it is important to take a critical look at past tragedies and mistakes, and work hard to avoid them in the future. Unfortunately I fear that many people would repeat them if given the opportunity and it served their idealogical and/or selfish interests, unless it was more convenient to do the right thing.

            • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Yeah I also think we should look at the past and the present in order to create a better future, which is why I say one famine once is better than constant famines like we have now. How many millions die of hunger each year? How many have died at the hands of capitalism? How many are dying? While we have food available. This isn’t even to count for the famines that were enacted on purpose like those the british did in Ireland and in India.

              Meanwhile both the USSR and China managed to eliminate famine in regions that had been plagued by it since history could account for it. Were the countries perfect? Far from it. Pretending that they are somehow worse for eliminating famine while people are starving in countries with food on the shelves is ridiculous.

              • Joe@discuss.tchncs.de
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                1 year ago

                They eliminated famine in their own borders … after causing famine in their own borders. Congratulations, I guess?

                International efforts to deliver food aid to those most in need are typically hampered by war, not by a lack of food. Real supply & demand issues caused by poor yields, conflicts & other supply chain disruptions often drive up prices which hits the poor the hardest, but we haven’t had a global food shortage in a long time.

                • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Both imperial Russia and Qing China were plagued by frequent famines, I don’t see how it is damnng that the PRC and the USSR had a famine in their early years of existence (after they’d fought long and drawn out wars), when they then never had famines again.
                  There a millions of people starving in the us today, in Europe, in africa, in south America, in the middle east, in India. There is more than enough food, but somehow these capitalist countries have millions starving. The us has kids missing lunch in school, despite food being available in cafeterias.
                  If one famine once in a region that used to be plagued by famines is too much for you, what does this ever-present famine then mean to you? What system do you suppose we make use of? Surely you cannot be a capitalist, since you are so staunchly against people starving

                  • Joe@discuss.tchncs.de
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                    1 year ago

                    There are A LOT of problems out there, I agree. There is, however, a difference between destroying a country/regions ability to produce essential and strategic goods (like food, which has very immediate effect) through reckless decisions by authoritarian regimes (then throw in the Holodomor for fun), and inequality & a lack of social safety nets.

                    Right now, the whole world has, through various efforts, has solved the global food production issue. That the soviets and china managed to solve this aspect of it too is not a win for socialism, especially given the mass starvation that accompanied their efforts, but I see (and correct me if I have misunderstood) you and others holding this up as some kind of tenuous proof of superiority.

                    Social inequality and the denial of what I believe are basic human rights (food, housing, safety, access to healthcare, and freedom of expression), OTOH, are a continuing problem world-wide. I am much more interested in efforts here - both local, regional, and global.

            • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              I think it is important to take a critical look at past tragedies

              Those who care more about past tragedies than current tragedies don’t care at all. They’re just looking for some excuse to feel self-righteous.

            • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Why should they? You do not engage with any of the responses of substance. When you choose not to engage in good-faith discussion, why you believe you deserve anything other than ridicule?

              • Joe@discuss.tchncs.de
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                1 year ago

                I engage with an upvote. If there’s something more to be said, I’ll say it. An unfortunate side effect is that those good comments get drowned out by nonsense initiated by … hexbears, and then further upvoted by hexbears. It doesn’t seem like an effective strategy to me, but if that is what y’all want to do, you can. It will probably lead to more of the same, along with more complaints, instances defederating, and personal user & instance blocks.

                • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  You are already engaged in a discussion, which you engaged by posting and then responding to posts. Your responses are then show. To be in bad faith, since you are not willing to interact with the argumens other users present in good faith. This is typical of you libs, but it is an unfortunate side effect that good and educating discussion gets drowned out by you uneducated idiots that think a link to Wikipedia means anything… Good education is drowned out by you smuglords that fail to realise civility is a two-way street. These snide comments you make are then further expounded by other snide idiots, which further muddies the waters and ruins discussion, it doesn’t seem like an effective strategy to me, because you get called out on it, that is what you all want to do and sadly the only thing that can be done in response is to not take you seriously until you either get too hurt that your idiotic comments results in similarly asinine responses or you get too hurt from the people calling you on your bullshit and you defederate PIGPOOPBALLS

                  • Joe@discuss.tchncs.de
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                    1 year ago

                    And now you turn to name calling and making further assumptions about me? Sigh.

                    There are threads that end with good comments or arguments, either because they are solid (eg. class struggle is never ending) or funny. They don’t need me to pat them on the head.

        • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          If we were talking amongst ourselves you’d be right but here we’re responding to a liberal OP who doesn’t know what words mean and purposefully worded their intent to avoid the word “capitalism”

        • RuthlessCriticism [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Obviously it is a counterfactual but no serious leftist would say that China without market reforms wouldn’t have eradicated poverty, and moreover done it faster and more completely. The seeds of poverty alleviation were planted during the Maoist era; improvement in health, education improvement, and industrialization.

          • jabrd [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            To corroborate your point you can just look at life expectancy in rural communities to see that it rose steadily throughout the Maoist period and then froze during the Dengist reforms

    • Krause [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      Did you know that China is responsible for 75% of the global poverty reduction over the last 40 years?

      Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below $1.90 per day – the International Poverty Line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty– has fallen by close to 800 million. With this, China has contributed close to three-quarters of the global reduction in the number of people living in extreme poverty. At China’s current national poverty line, the number of poor fell by 770 million over the same period.

      https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience

      https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/e9a5bc3c-718d-57d8-9558-ce325407f737/content

      • wewbull@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        Do you know how China got such a huge poverty by the 1980s? Do you know how China got the wealth to start impacting it’s poverty?

        Hint: the CCP took power in 1949. The Maoist era ended 30 years later, and massive economic liberalisation reforms started.

        China today is a world trade powerhouse governed by an elite class (The CCP) with the proles given just enough to keep them where they are. It’s lifted them out of poverty, but it is the shining example of a totalitarian capitist state. If anybody thinks the proletariat have power in China, and it is therefore a socialist state…or that it’s classless with no elite and a communist state… well… You need to talk to some Chinese people.

        • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          You need to talk to some Chinese people.

          You mean the Chinese people that overwhelmingly.support the CPC and their government? Ok

          • wewbull@feddit.uk
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            1 year ago

            Yes, even those ones. I’ve met a few and the stories they tell send shivers down my spine. They think they’re telling me good thing about their country, and I listen respectfully. However, it sounds like being caged in a zoo. The keepers provide your essentials, but you have no freedom.

        • Krause [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          Glad to see Liberals busting out the good old “it’s not real socialism!!111!!” to cope with China’s success :’)

    • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      No it hasn’t, socialist agitation in the teeth of capitalist opposition did that

      Without it westerners would still be working 16 hour days seven days a week without any safety nets while dying of lead poisoning

    • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      AHAHAHAHAHHAAHA HAHAHAHHA AHHHH HAHAH.
      Oh wait you’re serious? That’s even funnier.
      Tell me where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?
      The recent decades trend of people being lifted out of poverty is solely due to China. America has more and more starving people, homeless and working sick.