Spokesperson

People are struggling for democracy and freedom on the streets of NYC, Chicago, Denver and in numerous other cities across North America: https://occupywallst.org/ 190 kb image removed 170 kb image removed 108 kb image removed Nobody Can Predict The Moment Of Revolution

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and ownership you get complete collapses like those in the Baltic states or Iceland where the productive sector has been replaced by thin air.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.

Communism is introduced after a stage of world socialism and after technology allows it by reducing labor time to almost nothing. The USSR was building socialism and at the same time a defense against external and internal counter-revolutionary threats. You have to remember that the US, UK, Poland and a dozen other countries invaded Russia during the civil war to stop the revolution and liberation from spreading. No socialist country has ever claimed itself to be communist. The USSR was not unsuccessful, but the counter-revolution was successful. People had better lives in the USSR, and that's all that matters. If that means that you limit some exploiters' right to make profits off other people's work that's completely fine. They have better health care than the US, but yes they have a hard time importing patented US medicine. Despite all that, their performance indices are better than the US ones, and americans actually go there for treatment. And apart from that Cuban doctors are helping people from all over the world by being present on humanitarian missions world wide. Cuba has more medical personnel in foreign countries than any other country or health organization. It's remarkable for such a small country, imagine what the US could be under socialism. The Miami-cubans are just the old upper class that fled and that still has claims on public property, rather than being put to justice. The US dreams of installing them to power again, but it's natural to see why the cuban population is against that. Militia and regular units fought off their invasion force. So now the US can only resort to terrorism. They harbor terrorist training camps in Florida, and terrorist who have bombed cuban airlines like Posada Carilles. Tourists get shot from the sea and people disembark to blow hotels up. War against terrorism is utter bullshit. The US is the only country in the world apart from nazi-germany that has been found guilty of terrorism in an international court. (Case vs Nicaragua).

The people Stalin supposedly terrorized support him, still. Same goes for the USSR, a huge majority supports it. In Romania people support Ceausescu and think that communism is a good thing. This isn't 1991 anymore, things have changed. The grass wasn't greener on the other side, and the stories of the private department of propaganda called media get hollower and hollower. You live in a fairy tale, you can't just wish that socialists didn't exist, it's like wishing away all the people that collect the owners' profits. Without them there would be no capitalists, because who would work for them? The people you support kill and have killed millions, so why are you arguing about the 40ies when your economic system and people who support it are responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths? A number that continues to grow for every day? USA got the leading role in the world after the second world war where former superpowers decimated each other to dust. Capitalism has existed for a little more than 200 years. Feudalism existed for almost a thousand years and slavery a lot more than that. Marx never predicted any exact dates, that would be completely unscientific. He just observed the general tendencies and internal logics of the systems. The USSR was no attempt at communism. It was a good attempt at socialism, but unfortunately the counter-revolution succeeded eventually. Not all slave revolts, peasant uprisings or revolutions throughout history were successful. But they grow in frequency and strength until the oppression is overthrown or forced to step back through other means. Baader Meinhof? No, I'm not an anarchist. The capitalists are not the problem, capitalism is. Individuals or individual traits are not to blame, the system is.

Castro is and was elected numerous times (with a little more than 80% of the votes). Cuba has an elected parliament and elected congressmen, but no parties run in the elections as they only have elections based on personality. Their elections are more democratic than those in western democracies, but of course have no illusions about it being a proletarian dictatorship. You don't pay for it, people who produce goods do. It's better for people who can buy hospitals and sell "healthcare" but it isn't better for common people as can be seen throughout the world. No, that isn't thanks to capitalism. Capitalism is just a superstructure on the the underlying technology. Once technology reaches a certain step in history different ways of organizing the labor will emerge with it. Capitalism was once promoting new technology, but today it's inhibiting it. Capitalism itself doesn't generate wealth, it distributes it. Technology has improved and if the standard of living hadn't increased with it, it would be remarkable. The standard of living was and is improving in the socialist world as well, growth isn't tied to capitalism. The record of growth is held by USSR under Stalin. From mud to space in a couple of decades, while defeating one of the worlds leading capitalist industrial powers almost single handedly. Without guns the oligarchs wouldn't stay in power, nobody would produce surplus value for them voluntarily. Society is all about the people in it, and if capitalism was created by people, we can also dismantle it and create something else that benefits humanity as a whole. Capitalism is not a sustainable economic model and it will eventually crash through its own internal contradictions. The choice is not between more capitalism and socialism, it's between barbarism and socialism.

People who are against free health care are pretty brainwashed. Free health care does not mean that someone works for free, it means that you don't have to pay for it. Through free health care Cuba has better health care standards than the US. Beaten by a third world country! The free market has failed, and countries with more regulations perform better up to the point where planned economies perform best compared to countries with comparable background. Free healthcare means healthcare for all irrespective of their wealth (i.e. even people who work can afford it, not just people who steal other people's work legally). Free education has made Cuba have more doctors per capita than many European countries, and it has made it the country with most university graduates per capita in the world. Is it a myth? Not at all. Does it benefit society? Undoubtly. But Milton and you other neo-liberals would prefer a different kind of system that lets owners exploit the majority. Free education and free health care is democratic, and shows that we aren't stuck in the stone age. People have the right to food and somewhere to live as well, because it lies in their interest. However, there are people who gain from the current system (not you Milton-supporters) that don't want that to happen. They want to keep their rights to oppress and exploit. There are loads of money, more than ever before, we can afford it all, however, a fraction of humanity takes away what the rest of it produces and calls it its own with the help of the protection given by police and military (and of course their loyalists so called "Milton supporters", a new incarnation of peasants who supported kings and queens against their own best interests). Productivity has increased enormously, but real wages haven't. The difference has been acquired as profits by a couple of owners (at a record high). While society keeps less and less money these guys acquire more and more which ultimately ends up in a corporate oligarchy. Dr. Richard Wolff has a series on the financial crisis and its causes. Profits vs wages: There's a lot of money which can be used to introduce reforms like free healthcare so people who actually work can live good lives. What is the solution to these crises? In the short term it would be to tax all labor-free income at levels close to confiscation, and in the long term to democratize the economy to not end up in a situation where a few parasites control it and society as a whole.

A lot of people show their true colors and say they are against democracy. They rather have a minority of capitalists ruling over them than being part of the rule themselves. Sure, some people are like that but eventually, just like all countless times before, those kind of lackeys will be dealt with by the united force of the masses that are longing for freedom and a life in dignity. Why? Because the interests of the capitalists don't represent the interests of the working people.

That's correct. Value is however determined by society as a whole. So if it takes one person a day to create a chair it won't be more valuable than one produced by another person in half a day. The value is defined as an average value taken over all of society. A less skilled worker will be poorer, because he's inefficient. Yes, if you abolished all tools and technology (not that it is possible or even realistic because it's more or less an irreversible process) the labor required for society to create a computer from scratch would be greater and thus its value would be higher. You want to reduce the labor it takes for you to create a product to be able to offer lower prices to sell your products at. And the competitors don't want to be lacking behind. Technology reduces the value of products, but at the same time it also undermines capitalism itself, because there will be a point where you have less and less employees and higher unemployment, i.e. less purchasing power. Having less laborers also means that there are less profits, because profits are generated by buying labor power at a price lower than the value it creates.

As long as they both have use value their value is equal, and that's why the unpopular toy likely will go out of business. Price will be set by supply and demand as usual, but if you are forced to sell a toy under its value you will get bankrupt eventually. The "real" value is important for the understanding, just like quarks are when it comes to atoms, or DNA to cells. The use value doesn't define the price, it just says that the product fulfills some person's needs. "Saving your money for thirty years and buying a company with it isn't "taking value other people created." It's a smart use of money. Moreover, you don't need to buy a company to be rich. There are plenty of people who invest their money in things like housing and stocks that earn wealth without running a business themselves. Even a simple savings account can amount to a substantial sum over time if you make enough money in your job. Look at doctors, for example. They aren't business owners, but they have plenty of money." It all gets down to how you define rich, but yes you're right. Some people can get rich by chance, but the essence of this system is that not everyone can get rich even if they try to. Labor is not rewarded, ownership is. "Of course investments create wealth. If a company invests in new machinery that allows them to create more products with less human labor, value is created. How is it not? " No, that's the point. The less human labor the less the value will be. If you automatize something to the point where (almost) no labor is needed at all (someone still has to build the machines) the products produced will have little to no value and you will be unable to make profits of them, because others will end up having the same machinery. Cell phones took 30 mins to assemble earlier, today that process can be counted in seconds. The value of cell phones has decreased and so has their price. It is not the investment that creates value, that's a unique property of human labor. You can invest as much as you want, but someone has to perfom the work. Sticks are not made into chairs through gambling. You're asking the right questions and they are all answered in a more comprehensive way in the first chapters of Das Kapital. I think that would be of interest to you. @karensman: I have no words. Unions are one of the most important things there is. But it will just get too much to discuss that in this topic too. You should watch Matewan in any case: See if this is something for you "create a colapse of our system. " Your/Our system is collapsing, and they aren't really causing it, they are highlighting the causes. They are trying to do something about it

People can pay whatever they want, that doesn't change a thing. The price depends on supply and demand, but will find an equilibrium roughly corresponding to the value at perfect competition. The time it takes for society to produce something (and its sub-components) is in that case the factor behind the price. You know a little about the theory, but you haven't actually studied it completely. You have a couple of misconceptions/don't know enough. Marx separates what people commonly mean by "value" in spoken language into three parts. He's dissects the atom and finds quarks. The subjective part of that atom is called "use value" and that's mostly what "micro economists" deal with. But what's called "value" is completely objective. Just like people win on lotteries some people actually turn into capitalists. But as your example shows, you don't get rich by working, you get rich by taking value other people created. It's just like a tax, but it's private. Owners take approx 35% (depending on the country) of what you produce. Just like gambling doesn't create value, investments don't, only human labor does. Why would anyone hold anyone back in socialism when you actually don't have to give away your work to some owner who enjoys police protection.

Very interesting. You can play your cards right and earn a lot of money, just like in a casino. However, you only redistribute wealth, you don't create it. Those who actually CREATE value don't get to keep it, they never get rich. You can only get rich by owning other peoples work, the more the better. If a lot of people make money for you it's a piece of cake. It's time for people who work to claim what's theirs. There is absolutely no need for parasites. ---------- Post added at 05:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:07 PM ---------- I'm not sure what you mean. But you mention taxes. I'm against high taxes, I'm not a reformist that tries to make slavery less "unfair". I'm not trying to improve the conditions of slaves. I want to abolish slavery to begin with, then we can discuss what a fair distribution is. But of course I prefer the high-tax Scandinavian model to the hardly-any tax US one.