Spokesperson

It really doesn't matter what you call it. You can call it value or X. X is still valid, well defined and objective, and this X makes the rest of the economic theory clear and puts things in place. As I said it works just like quarks in relation to the atom. It's complete stupidity to refuse to analyze the deeper relations of nature or economics because of ideology not approving of it. All bourgeois economic theory is politicized and just a bad attempt at justifying a system of oppression. It has failed at everything. When values mysteriously appear out of speculation and ownership you get complete collapses like those in the Baltic states or Iceland where the productive sector has been replaced by thin air. Production is the only factor that creates value, the people who produce things make it possible for people to work as doctors or teachers. Without them there are no resources for the non-productive sectors. Resources aren't scarce under communism. That's the point. ---------- Post added at 06:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:27 PM ---------- I agree.

It has nothing to do with imperfections, socialism is a stage in itself only related to communism as feudalism is to capitalism. The countries were socialist, not communist. Nobody had the intent to create communism in a couple of decades and nobody claimed their countries to be communist. (In fact that would be a contradiction). Futhermore, there can't be communism in just one country. The system arises only after a world revolution and after a sufficient development of technology.

Speech by Bob Avakian, chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party of America "Imagine a new society"

Real wages are inflation adjusted wages, so it tells you how much you can buy in a given period of time. The graph is clear. Productivity has increased but those who create the goods don't get an increased share of it. The share holders do, and much of that growing amount of money ended up in banks for the workers to lend which led to the financial crisis. Not only do workers work many of hours per day for their owners (after they've worked an amount of time corresponding to their wage), but they also have to borrow the value/money they produced themselves. There is both objective and subjective value, you just decide to neglect the underlying mechanisms behind value and put all factors into one term. That's not science, that's a liberal dogma, because if you do it otherwise you can't justify capitalism (unless you close your eyes). Liberal economic theories are not scientific or even empiric, they have shown to be false over and over again, just because they by dogma can't analyse the subject in an unbiased and scientific way due to political considerations. Marx has showed that there is meaning behind separating and dissecting the value concept and it's been successful. That's movie/schoolbook communism, and not the point with communism. In communism there is no economy, and the concept is completely realistic seen to increased levels of automatization. Sure, thousand of years ago no one would ever have imagined the current type of society and technology. But in fact all pre-communist societies are just constituting a transient period of human history.

There's only one stable system and that's communism, which is why it's the end of history. Now I'm not talking about movie socialism which some people here confuse for communism. Socialism isn't state less while communism is. "At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution." Productive forces ("refers to the combination of the means of labor (tools, machinery, land, infrastructure and so on) with human labour power." i.e simplified: technology). Material conditions are necessary for changing ideas and bringing forth a revolution. If we see a growing amount of protests we can also draw the conclusion that the level of technology is beginning to clash with capitalism as a concept. It is not by mere chance that groups like anonymous initiated this. That's how Marx envisioned the general trend in the most developed countries (but as we know the theory wasn't complete - Lenin extended it and introduced the concept of the weakest link in the chain (which would be South America today)).

As a general note, some people here have grave misconceptions about basic terminology, but I don't blame them. It's meaningless to argue about it, but sadly it will be impossible to discuss more high-level subjects without it. It's like we speak completely different languages. The private monopoly of information/private propaganda department is to blame for causing this confusion. Snafu is right about social democracy though. Social democracy today is not the social democracy of the 19th century (which I don't think people here refer to). There never was a German reunification, just an annexation. As the poet used to say "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows". Some people don't care about why the wind blows but they still act accordingly. It doesn't matter if people understand the whys or hows as long as they can see what's in their interests and how to enforce it. I don't believe that any significant number of people who protest around the world read Marx or Lenin (but still a lot of people have opinions on those matters, it's just as if they reviewed a movie they never saw). Just like with slavery and feudalism, capitalism would collapse without some kind of armed force enforcing the laws of the minority of owners. It doesn't matter if certain individuals are idle, I'm not saying all would seize the opportunity. A revolution may not be around the corner, but it gets closer every day as it's an inevitable event in human history. This is not the end of it, even though it is the normal thing for non-thinking people to believe throughout it. This isn't about "evil", "greed" or "unfair", it's about objective interests. There is no universal good or bad, just different interests. And as owners and workers have an antagonism going, there's no stability in capitalism without the use of force. The purchasing power has in fact not increased significantly since 1974 (in manufacturing). But you can see that the productivity has.

A so called free market does not lie in the interest of companies that have achieved monopolies. And despite of that you get an oligarchy or more precisely a plutocracy of capitalists that has to be protected through a monopoly of force exercised by a police force. Who would give away labor voluntarily? Completely free markets are dope dreams. Capitalism and all class societies rely on violence. BS, that's some irrational stereotype you got from some movie or story about bad uncle Stalin who ate shot children. Where did you get that from, you're just making up things without thinking about what you're saying.

Completely free markets are not possible and not even desirable. If you leave a market to itself without regulations the constituent agents will abolish it themselves anyway through cartels and monopolies (as has been the case so many times before). (Temporary) Laissez faire is good for some companies/capitalists as it will strengthen their market position at the expense of other companies while the latter prefer regulations. You're just picking sides in an internal dispute within the ruling class.

Hey come on, what else happened in the 60ies? Students were shot point blank at protests, or murdered in their beds like bright young people like Fred Hampton. Political assassinations targeted against the opposition occured from month to month. Do you think we have that climate today? Are all right-wingers supporters of political assasinations just because they re-elected those governments??? Also, the weather underground were anarchists like Baader Meinhof in Germany. They targeted individuals rather than the system itself. If the democracy movement is to be successful the influence of anarchists has to be reduced, but as a starting point all kinds of people will have to work together until some kind of elected popular congress can take charge of the movement. Good documentary about the Weather Underground, you get a bit more nuanced view than you would in corporate (anti everything anti-corporate) documentaries: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV7GSff4fIA

Very good points, it's important that that kind of ideas get influence in the movement. "The whole idea of this group think, the consensus, it essentially leads to paralysis. /.../ This is not effective, we saw it in the 9-11 truth commission. Their main concern is the subjective experience of going to the meeting for the person. This can't be the main focus, the main focus is the outward projection of the vital ideas, that society needs to get out of a life and death crisis." There has to be leadership that can organize and utilize the full potential of the masses.

Protests spread to many other cities. San Francisco:

"Unemployed father of three" Legal crimes against human rights lead to other crimes. People have needs and capitalism denies people from fulfilling them due to the built in inefficiency called unemployment. As capitalism is an abstract concept he just lost it over the next frustrating thing he encountered. That's where an ignorant working class ends up, fighting each other over nationality, race or religion. Instead of playing games he could've been organizing with others who share his situation.

It's called trade.

It doesn't matter very much who's elected (and in order to elect some of them you need to get past corporate interests, which you can't unless you are elected already - so it's an impossibility). Individuals like Obama and Bush are just representatives of the systems they are part of. They are front figures, by switching front figure you won't change the system. As a leftist I like much of what Ron Paul says, but he's naive. He forgets that power isn't only exercised by the government. Where there's no government, there are oligarchs and corporations that rule and nobody elected them (not even in a phony way). Look at Egypt or other similar countries. There were no revolutions there, just revolts, because all they did was to kick out some front figures. However, the system is still the same, and nothing changed. We don't need any revolts, we need a revolution. We are the people, and this is supposed to be a democracy. But we the people end up getting arrested after having been set up by the police.

New York Times Blatantly Edits Article About Occupy Wall Street To Protect Police (IMAGE) http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/01/new-york-times-blatantly-edits-article-about-occupy-wall-street-to-protect-police-image/ Semper Fi: Marines Coming To Protect Protesters On Wall Street http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/01/semper-fi-marines-coming-to-protect-protesters-on-wall-street/ “I’m heading up there tonight in my dress blues. So far, 15 of my fellow marine buddies are meeting me there, also in Uniform. I want to send the following message to Wall St and Congress:I didn’t fight for Wall St. I fought for America. Now it’s Congress’ turn. My true hope, though, is that we Veterans can act as first line of defense between the police and the protester. If they want to get to some protesters so they can mace them, they will have to get through the Fucking Marine Corps first. Let’s see a cop mace a bunch of decorated war vets.