Russian Tensions
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Dave Spart wrote – ““In the Soviet Union for example state enterprises were required by law to generate profits or could be penalised if they did not.”
Entirely different to capitalist profits which are for the capitalist or paying out in dividends to investors. Do read more”
Can I suggest you start your reading here:
“The people of Britain are worried about the cost of fuel and the cost of living generally, but “in a revolutionary mood”? There was more chance of a revolution kicking off about the football (soccer to you) being cancelled for Liz’s funeral!!”
I see you’ve made an art out of rationalizing away the fact you do no revolutionary work despite claiming to be a Marxist. Didn’t Marx say the point was to change the world? Bojo’s Brains says, wah, wah, socialists are shit, nothing’s ever gonna change, I’m gonna type away on the internet wah, wah, wah! What a joke. Didn’t Lenin say that society is three skipped meals away from revolution? That time is a comin. But Bojo’s Brains will be like, wah, wah, the revolutionaries are shit, they’ll never change anything, they’re not pure like me, wah, wah!
“He then criticises us for not joining up in his imaginary revolution!”
No, I criticised you for not organising an anti-NATO demonstration.
“Yet Dave Spart is unwilling to get off his backside and volunteer for the “anti nazi crusade” that Putin is undertaking in Ukraine.”
You are a member of a socialist party are you not? If your party does not agitate for revolution during times of capitalist crisis what the fucking hell use are you? Lol!
DS – I didn’t say we didn’t do revolutionary work, we are active in lots of different ways, organising, spreading socialist ideas, countering anti socialist ideas (like yours), being active in our unions, discussing ideas with fellow wage slaves, etc. etc. etc.
The revolution, when it comes, will not be created by the comic opera activities you suggest and certainly not be created by prediciting the end of captitalism whilst trying to usher in state capitalism.
We prefer to go with the advice that Engels himself wrote in 1895 –
“And, finally, the newly-built quarters of the large cities, erected since 1848, have been laid out in long, straight and wide streets as though made to order for the effective use of the new cannon and rifles. The revolutionary, who would himself select the new working class districts in the north and east of Berlin for a barricade battle, would have to be a lunatic.
Does the reader now understand why the ruling classes, by hook or by crook, would get us where the rifle pops and the sabre slashes? Why, today, do they charge us with cowardice because we will not, without further ado, get down into the street where we are sure of our defeat in advance? Why are we so persistently importuned to play the role of cannon fodder?
The gentlemen are wasting their importunities as well as their provocations all in vain. We are not quite so silly. They might as well ask of their enemies in the next war to face them in the line formation of Frederick II, or in the columns of whole divisions a la Wagram and Waterloo, and with the old flint-and-pan gun in hand, at that. The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act. That much the history of the last fifty years has taught us. But so that the masses may understand what is to be done, long and persistent work is required, and it is this work that we are now performing ”
Changing the subject slightly, regarding that “go fund me” page, do you want me to set it up for you?
“Yeah, Trump is/was a capitalist, Putin isn’t. Is your thinking so limited you cannot envisage a world leader who isn’t a businessman? The Forbes article is for credulous smooth brained chumps.”
___________________________________________________________________Nice attempt at evasion TS. I didn’t say Putin is a businessman in the sense of being involved in a business. I said he was a capitalist and a member of a tiny exploitative parasitic capitalist class. That has a somewhat different meaning not least because not all businessmen (particularly small businessmen) are capitalists. You don’t have to rely on just Forbes to confirm Putin’s staggering personal wealth. It is a universally acknowledged fact. Google it and confirm for yourself. Here in Spain he is a part owner of a massive villa complex somewhere in the Costa Del sol
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“I’ve never once apologised for Russian capitalism. Money where mouth is. Quote me doing so.”
______________________________________________________________________Bollocks. You are very clearly a craven supporter of the imperialist ambitions of the Russian capitalist state vis a vis the Ukranian capitalist state. Virtually every single one of your contributions on this thread is evidence of this! You side with Russian capitalism against its commercial rivals
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“Erm, he’s a capitalist and a communist? You sound a bit confused. Which is it?”
______________________________________________________________________Duh. Putin is about as much a “communist” as Trump, or Erdogan, or Orban or any other obnoxious right-wing capitalist politician. Where do you get such a dumb idea from that I somehow imagined Putin was a “communist”, eh?
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“Rubbish. Monetarily sovereign governments can literally print money into existence. Citizens need said money to pay their taxes. The government can employ all the now “unemployed” people and hey presto, the government is fully functioning. No capitalist enterprises necessary whatsoever. Read some modern monetary theory.”
______________________________________________________________________Perhaps with this fantasy economics that you seem to espouse you might care to explain why, in that case, do governments feel the need to levy taxes on businesses that, after all, provide them with the bulk of their revenue. From memory about 60-70 per cent of government revenue in the EU comes from taxation, the rest from government borrowing and other sources…
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“In the Soviet Union for example state enterprises were required by law to generate profits or could be penalised if they did not.”
Entirely different to capitalist profits which are for the capitalist or paying out in dividends to investors. Do read more.
____________________________________________________________________Yes, there were differences between soviet state capitalism and western capitalism as far as the disposal of the economic surplus – surplus value – was concerned. This is not denied. The soviet capitalist class exercised collective de facto class ownership of the means of production via their stranglehold on the state machine rather than through de jure individual ownership as in the west. However, this difference is secondary and superficial. Profit is profit – the monetary form of surplus value signifying the exploitation of workers via the system of wage labour. It doesn’t matter whether profit is generated via a western corporation or a soviet state capitalist enterprise. It represents the same thing. You are confusing the thing itself with the different mechanisms for appropriating profit which are historically contingent
More quotes from the dead. No one gives a flying fu#× about your damn quotes.
Protests don’t change anything? Nothing at all? Never a dumber thing has been written on these threads. Well done, you get another participation trophy.
Not my words DS, the words come from Fred Engels, you may have heard of him, you know, Karl Marx’s long term collaborator.
Still no word from you on the “go fund me” page. The button just needs to be pressed.
When you get to the front line, you might want to wear your brown trousers, I’m sure you’ll find them useful.
Robbo, I can’t match your declamatory style in speaking of the capitalist state. If you can’t accept that there
is a fundamental difference between the aggressor and the victim of aggression, or between the conqueror and the conquered, the oppressor and the oppressed, with regard to conflicts between capitalist states, then there’s nothing I can say to take this discussion further. However, there is one thing I would like to ask in case I have misunderstood you. When you say that “the most pacific and isolationist capitalist state is founded upon the aggression of class rule etc.” it leaves me thinking that perhaps your views regarding differentiating an aggressor state from a victim state would not apply if the victim state were a democratic state like, say, the UK. I was thinking retrospectively of the case of those working class airmen who fought against and eventually defeated Goering’s Luftwaffe over the UK in 1941. And from what I have read from military historians, that ended Hitler’s plan to invade Britain.The Nazi state would clearly fit your description (re Russia and Ukraine) as a “corrupt, revolting, authoritarian, rightwing capitalist regime.” But not even your extreme distaste for all capitalist states could have you believe that the UK state in 1941 was morally on a par with Nazi Germany. I’m sure you don’t. So how would you regard the war fought in the air by British workers in the Battle of Britain? Do you think they fought a “just war”? Or do you think they were mere cannon fodder for the British capitalist state (as you views otherwise suggest)? (AAJ would say I think that they should not have fought because no war can justify the spilling of a single drop of working class blood, but this is a pacifist view, not a socialist one specifically).
PGB, sure I can accept that there are some differences between various capitalist states – that some are more democratic in the bourgeois meaning of the term – although in the case of Ukraine and Russia there is precious little to choose between them. However even if Ukraine was a genuine democracy in this sense, I would still not be inclined to take sides in what is after all a fundamentally capitalist squabble. I do not endorse the lesser evil argument
‘One cannot have civilization without authoritarianism or probably even a society for that matter.’
This is by far the most revealing of all of the TrueScotsman’s pontifications. It reveals how trapped he is within bourgeois ideology without the merest glimmer of socialist consciousness. He will never understand this but I use it as evidence that the left can be just as reactionary as the right.The left has supported a bunch of reactionary governments, dictators, and leaders, they can compete with the right-wingers, and in some places, they are the winners. The third world is the best example where they have supported all kinds of backward and reactionary leaders and dictators. Hollywood does not have enough Grammy to give to them
“Nice attempt at evasion TS. I didn’t say Putin is a businessman in the sense of being involved in a business. I said he was a capitalist and a member of a tiny exploitative parasitic capitalist class.”
Except that he’s not a capitalist or a member of the capitalist class. He’s a politician. Exactly the same garbage was spouted by the imperialist press regarding Qadhafi and Fidel Castro. The idea being that since national resources were the property of the state that meant they were the property of the leader. Smooth brained dupes fall for the same drivel every single time.
“That has a somewhat different meaning not least because not all businessmen (particularly small businessmen) are capitalists.”
Hold on, so Putin is a small businessman yet the richest man in the world? Honest question, Robbo, do you have a learning disability?
“You don’t have to rely on just Forbes to confirm Putin’s staggering personal wealth. It is a universally acknowledged fact.”
Lol. That’s a fallacy known as argumentum ad numeram/ the bandwagon fallacy. If you can find a large enough number of people who believe something, it must be true. It’s a logical fallacy. What makes something true is not how many people believe something but evidence. And BS vomited up by the corporate press is not evidence. It’s slander.
“Google it and confirm for yourself.”
I have Googled it and linked to the article that provides actual evidence supporting my claims. You, on the other hand, have not.
“Here in Spain he is a part owner of a massive villa complex somewhere in the Costa Del sol”
Provide evidence for this claim. Even if true, and I’ve no reason to believe it is, simply having investments does not make one a capitalist.
“You are very clearly a craven supporter of the imperialist ambitions of the Russian capitalist state vis a vis the Ukranian capitalist state.”
So no evidence supporting your claim then? I thought so.
“Virtually every single one of your contributions on this thread is evidence of this! You side with Russian capitalism against its commercial rivals”
You are a liar. Alan, can he just tell lies about me like this? Have Robbo support his libelous claims against me with evidence or I’ll take my bat and ball and go home!
“Duh. Putin is about as much a “communist” as Trump”
Lol. So why did you write “comrade” Putin? That is a clear attempt to associate him with the Soviet Union. Is it really possible to be so dim?
“Perhaps with this fantasy economics”
It’s not a fantasy. It’s how money has worked since its inception. The fact that you don’t understand this very basic fact is on you not me.
“why, in that case, do governments feel the need to levy taxes on businesses that, after all, provide them with the bulk of their revenue.”
Taxes primarily ensure that the currency has value and reduce inflation. They are also a mechanism by which to regulate inequality. Local governments are financed by taxes but monetarily sovereign federal/national governments aren’t.
“From memory about 60-70 per cent of government revenue in the EU comes from taxation”
Member states in the EU are not monetarily sovereign Robbo. Perhaps you shouldn’t comment on topics you know nothing about.
“The soviet capitalist class”
Lol. There was no “Soviet capitalist class” except in the fever dreams of infantile, extreme left fanatics.
I don’t know how reliable these figures are (or could be under the circumstances) but if they are, they offer sone hope, with a quarter wanting negotiations to bring the war to an end as soon as possible — higher for women and for those living in the fighting zones.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/403133/ukrainians-support-fighting-until-victory.aspx
This sounds as if it might offer sone hope too from the point of view of bringing the killing and destruction to a quicker end, but then it could be just another politician’s promise:
Those USA politicians are just trying to get votes from the voters, and to make opposition to the government to win the Midterm election and the presidential election, they are playing the good boys games, but they have always approved big budget for wars in a few hours.
They are the same baseball players from the same dugout.
They also approved war budgets for Donald Trump and approved bombardments.
They all have bloods in their own hands including the so called democratic socialists.
This is going to be a long war, and the USA wants to finish the job that they started in 1989-1991, they are trying to kill two birds with one shot, to defeat Russia and to stop China expansion thru Europe
“This is going to be a long war, and the USA wants to finish the job that they started in 1989-1991”
No, it isn’t going to be a long war. Not from now anyway. The Ukrainians are almost spent. The west has run out of weapons to send. The Russians are out of patience. Soon they’ll completely knock out Ukraine’s electrical grid and begin a massive offensive. The Nazis in Kiev are just about out of time.
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