/liberty/ - Liberty

>>78654

Truly he is one of the best examples of Jews.

Also that thumbnail makes him look super old.

>>78654

nah you dont need to convince /liberty/ to support capitalism

Jesus, six minutes into his speech and he has to shill for Israel. He claims no one is asking for divestment from Iran or other countries and yet ignores the massive sanctions the zionist USA has placed on them for years.

Stopped watching right there.

>>78672

>I stopped watching in the introductory statement because he said something that hurts my fee-fees

Translation: I saved myself from embarassment because I don't want to hear his anti-commie facts

>>78672

I've noticed this with big benji. He had a speech where he was driving his circumcised dick up leftists assholes but went total ((())) near the end when he brought up the Charlottesville peaceful protesters (accusing only the whites) as being scumbags.

Oy vey ben, you lost me. And you were doing so good too!

>>78672

Capitalism means the right of Israel to genocide Palestinians.

>>78680

>Translation: I saved myself from embarassment because I don't want to hear his anti-commie facts

He's an idiot.

Around 8 minutes he says,

>"The Communist Chinese are still imprisoning millions and billions of people under repressive harsh rule."

Really? Billions of people in prison? What a fucking clown.

>"The statement of socialism is that your labor is owed to society."

Wrong. The classical idea of socialism was that man was entitled to the fruits of his own labor and that producers should have control of production not solely the capitalist.

>"The notion of socialism is that you do not own your own freedom. You do not own your own time, you do not own your own labor, you do not own your own work, you do not own the products of your own work. The basic notion of capitalism is that you own all of those things…"

Shapiro has never had a real job in his life. Under capitalism at no point does the worker own the products of his own work.

>"Capitalism is forced altruism."

No, that's not what capitalism is. Modern capitalism is not a system of barter in a state of perfect knowledge and perfect competition like Shapiro would have us believe.

>"Capitalism also happens to be the most efficient system for the distribution of wealth in the history of mankind."

False. Capitalism has repeatedly suffered from suboptimal distribution of wealth resulting in crises and intervention.

>"It is the greatest engine for [economic] growth in the history of mankind."

Even Marx admitted this.

>"It is the single greatest force for the empowerment of human beings in the history of mankind."

Whatever that means…

>"So, why is it unpopular after all this is said? It's unpopular because it's very easy to demagogue capitalism."

That's some nice circular logic right there. Capitalism is unpopular because it's unpopular.

>Jewish and Asian-Americans succeed in capitalism because they work hard

Their success has more to do with ethnocentrism and "taking care of one's own." The strength of social and family ties has a lot to do with success in any society. Groups that suffer from underachievement often have very low social cohesion. African-Americans, in particular, do not tend to form stable families or altruistic relationships. This is a point that nobody mentions. The idea that people succeed in capitalism based upon hard work is a huge myth. Anyone who has a regular job will understand that hard work doesn't earn you anything except a bigger workload.

>>78687

>Really? Billions of people in prison? What a fucking clown.

I don't think he meant prisons but the regime itself.

>Ben Shapiro destroys socialism.

So, when is my credit union going to fold, exactly?

I mean, it's been "destroyed." You'd think that would be a tangible, real-world effect.

>>78722

Voluntary associations aren't socialism, anon.

>>78687

How does capitalism cause crises? Can you provide proof of this suboptimal distribution?

>>78723

So, you're just making shit up, and then changing your story when convenient?

'k

>>78724

>He said imprisoning "millions" under repressive harsh rule

He said millions and billions. Watch the video.

>Writing books, selling them, being a journalist among other things are not considered to be "real jobs"? You do realize that by that token, among other factors, Marx himself never had a job either, right?

Address my actual argument. At what point does the worker, under capitalism, own the products of his labor? This is literally what Shapiro stated.

> Not really, that's false. It's usually these "distributions of wealth" and interventions that are actually the problems to begin with (see: the Great Depression, crash of 2008, so on so forth).

There have been panics and crashes in capitalist countries without central banks or large bureaucratic governments. The possibility for an economic crisis exists in any economy driven by commodity production. A crisis arises when the transformation of commodities into money breaks down, i.e. when circulation declines.

> I don't think you understand, he's saying that it's very easy to make an emotional argument against Capitalism then an actual legitimate argument that consists of evidence, facts, well thought out logic, etc.

The question being raised is why are people susceptible to arguments against capitalism? Shapiro says capitalism is unpopular because "it's easy to demagogue." If capitalism is truly a light unto the nations and a force of empowerment then why is it easy to convince them otherwise?

The terrorists hate us for our freedom, Billy.

>Mind you I don't even like this Neocon kike, but at the very least you could address his arguments properly.

Explain to me how a worker owns the products he creates under capitalism.

>>78725

>How does capitalism cause crises?

The specific causes can be varied. In general, the crisis is a breakdown in the circulation of commodities. Marx called this the metamorphosis of commodities in which commodities are sold for money. The money is then reinvested to produce more commodities. This process is profit-driven. But this circulation isn't optional. It needs to occur. A failure to sell results in a failure to pay for expenses. Eventually one's credit will dry up and then the crisis comes to a head since one can no longer keep the chain going. The cascading failure of firms to maintain operations results in economic decline.

Now, thinking this over, I would argue there are two important factors that make crises both more likely and more difficult to overcome in a capitalist economy. The first factor is the necessity of increased specialization to maintain economic growth. This allows economic development but also makes it more complicated resulting in a division of labor divided thousands and thousands of ways. The second factor, building off the first, is the increasingly capital-intense nature of production and the near necessity of concentrating capital in such a way that capital-intense investment can be managed and sustained. In the long run, capital tends to accumulate into fewer and fewer hands.

This concentration of capital reduces the demand for the typical commodities being circulated and disrupts the complex chain of production first in one sphere then another. And then the crisis erupts. The result of which is greater concentration of capital as the smaller and less competitive firms are now absorbed by others.

>Can you provide proof of this suboptimal distribution?

Honestly this isn't something we can prove on an imageboard since it deals with systems too complex to easily summarize. But to avoid dodging the question I'd point to the conflicts of interest created by a system of private property & profit which attempts to control large socially-operated means of production. Basically, there is often a conflict of interest between owners and workers, and also between those two groups and managers. It can lead to funny situations in which company leadership pushes for stock buybacks to drive up the value of shares which not only enriches them but improves their performance bonus. Meanwhile, investment in operations is cut to a minimum with the understanding that those who benefit from this policy won't be the ones suffering if the business fails.

>>78722

>>78734

/thread

>>78742

>dat webm

That's pretty funny is there more of his cartoons?

>>78734

Credit Union's are not socialist anymore than a nonprofit NGO is.

>>78775

>Credit Union's are not socialist

The. Exact. Definition.

>anymore than a nonprofit NGO is.

…well, that's not socialist. So you got that one right.

>>78777

Socialism

>a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Credit Union

>a nonprofit-making money cooperative whose members can borrow from pooled deposits at low interest rates.

>the. Exact. Definition.

What did you mean by this?

>What did you mean by this?

Hmm. You tried. I'm impressed.

Socialism is all about stakeholdership, and is definitionally horizontal. As a result of the former, it's also accidentally about proprietorship.

A credit union has no proprietor (proprietorship), but is run by the members (the stakeholders) on a one-person, one vote basis, regardless of account size. (horizontal).

That's… exactly the definition. Admittedly, some of the higher forms eschew horizontal stakeholdership for a mix of absolute consenus and splitting, forking, and reforming organizations, or just not even having them, wherein all parties are associated, temporarily, on the basis of wanting to do the same thing, but… we won't bother you with the "space socialism" end yet. :)

Take virtually any stock corporation, disassociate financial stake from voting stake, and you've got socialism. A credit union, or mutual insurance company, does that.

The situations which come closest to your definition (and whoever decided to try to redefine ancom as "the most authoritarian possible form of socialism" needs to be whipped with boiled lasagna noodles) is the hybrid worker-consumer coop. Usually, such entities are considered to be owned 50-50 by a workers' coop and a consumers' coop, each of which is itself one-member-one-vote.

"Non-profit" NGOs, otoh… I have never heard of one where the volunteers, or the served community, get a voice, and are usually devoted to lining the proprietors' pockets.

The definition you dug up is waaaaayy off the authoritarian deep end. It's about stakeholdership, and generally, a large swath of the parties listed therein aren't stakeholders, which is considered impermissably authoritarian by most of the major schools of the left - except MLs, which are publicly documented as an anti-leftist movement, anyway, and generally full of shit.

>>78782

> if I redefine socialism to mean something much nicer, literally anything can be socialism

Ayyyyy

>literally anything

Not quite, no.

>>78742

>he could have said that, but that still doesn't really change the point.

He did say that. Maybe you should watch the video before whiteknighting for Ben Shapiro.

>This isn't really an argument, it's just a vague statement which doesn't make a lot of sense and seems to reference a hypothetical Keynesian scenario which doesn't really happen in a free market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States

"doesn't really happen" = happened repeatedly in history.

> There's a multitude of reasons for this: why do people believe […]

Your argument is fine and I won't dispute it. My point is that Shapiro uses circular logic. He also uses shifting definitions, bad rhetoric, and insinuated that the university was somehow discriminating against him despite the fact it allowed him to get free publicity for himself by giving a speech on public property. He's a dishonest prick and deserves to be mocked.

>Unless you mean the actual product of his labor […]

That's exactly what Shapiro said. It was a statement so stupid it needed to be called out.

>I don't think the chair maker has much use for a few hundred chairs, but he does have use for the money his boss pays him for the production of those chairs.

I don't think the boss has much use for a few hundred chairs, but he does have a use for the profit he earns selling those chairs.

>>78723

Capitalism without starvation wages isn't capitalism. Boy, making up our own definitions is fun!

>>78788

>No one specializes for economic growth, they do it to get money themselves. Apparently making better, cheaper things concentrates wealth rather than helps others save.

I guess you missed the whole point about production becoming more capital-intensive and how competition results in firms being absorbed by others over time. I could list other points, but your reading comprehension needs work.

>>78794

You missed the whole point about concentration having an equal and opposite dispersion in the hands of the buyers.

>>78795

1. The argument is about capital, not "wealth."

2. Both capital and commodities can be considered forms of wealth.

3. Buyers/consumers receive commodities but not the corresponding unit of capital used to create them.

4. Commodities are dispersed, capital is not.

>>78737

I can agree that Shapiro is terrible at arguing. I'd advise no Leftist to take him seriously unless they want to get called out for taking on an easy target to discredit everyone else by default. It's kind of like making fun of Sanders being unable to do basic math when being told to explain how his budget balances (other than LMAO JUST PRINT IT) and then claiming an absolute victory over Socialsim.

>>78722

Credit unions provides credit, but credit, being financial input, is not a means of production (unless you waiver from Marx definition and include it as an instrument of labor).

>>78734

What story am I changing? Socialism is advocacy for the government imposing certain regulations, and a credit union is a voluntary organization. As long as you're not trying to force other people into adopting your system I really don't give a shit whether or not you store your money in a co-op .I actually do myself, because the savings account gets better interest rates and I'll choose the cheapest most effective product in the market.

>>78796

The reason to buy things is that it's cheaper than to make it. The buyer saves money and makes other things instead. The buyer does not gain money as a direct result of the transaction, but does so indirectly.

>>78750

>Eventually one's credit will dry up and then the crisis comes to a head since one can no longer keep the chain going. The cascading failure of firms to maintain operations results in economic decline.

How does the failure of a firm initiate the crisis? How does the "chain" of recirculation of profit and production end? I don't see how this results in a cascade of failure for an entire economy.

>The first factor is the necessity of increased specialization to maintain economic growth.

How does this factor increase the probability of a crisis?

>This concentration of capital reduces the demand for the typical commodities being circulated

How so?

> It can lead to funny situations in which company leadership pushes for stock buybacks to drive up the value of shares which not only enriches them but improves their performance bonus. Meanwhile, investment in operations is cut to a minimum with the understanding that those who benefit from this policy won't be the ones suffering if the business fails.

Buybacks occur either:

1. To free up unused equity, so I don’t see how this cuts investment in operations where the equity will not be used for this regardless whether a buyback occurs or not.

2. Reduce the cost of capital because there are less dividends to pay shareholders. With a reduction in this cost, means profit can be reinvested into operations.

3. Increase equity without issuing more shares if the shares are undervalued. In this case, the equity could be reinvested into operations.

Given the above reasons that I mentioned, I don’t see how there is a conflict of interest between worker/management/owner when all parties benefit, as shown by the above mentioned results. Nor do I see how this creates a suboptimal distribution.

>>78799

>credit, being financial input, is not a means of production

Very true.

Luckily, socialism gives a damn about the MoP only incidentally at best; it is a philosophy of self-regulation without external proprietors, and is not directly an economic philosophy… despite an excessive amount of effort being put into a focus on business governance historically.

>>78801

>Socialism is advocacy for the government

No.

Props on choosing socialist banking systems, though. ;)

>>78782

>disassociate financial stake from voting stake

I.e., disassociate the consequences of your actions from the actions themselves.

>>78840

> So voting is socialism now? Is the United States and most of the Western world socialist now as well?

Yes and no, respectively.

Depose all elected and employed officials and run everything by the initiative process, and you might get there. Similarly, jury trial is outright socialist (two members of the community appeal to a soviet of twelve to solve their problems), but jury trials as they are NOW (a government authority, the judge, tells twelve people to side with a government accuser) are not.

>Socialism is about the seizure of the means of production from the 'capitalist class' and an allocation of said resources to the 'working class'.

…and my credit union has no goddamn external proprietor and is run by the people themselves.

Wierd, huh?

Your definition there is dead wrong; a retail outlet has no means of production, but can be run horizontally by the employees. A neighborhood has no MoP as such, but can be run by the residents… but, it's derived from socialism enough that we can see that this still fucking fits. There ain't no capitalist class over us, the people organize themselves.

Your entire post is the equivalent of "Rothbard isn't capitalist because capitalism means raep, nao" and you STILL fucked that up.

>>78853

>I.e., disassociate the consequences of your actions from the actions themselves.

So… when's my credit union going to collapse, bitch?

You spout all these stupid words and bold arguments-by-assertion. When's it going to hit the real world? Next century? The century after that? A millenia from now?

You keep ranting about how the sky is green, I'll keep dealing with the actual, tangible real world and watching your bullshit fall flat.

This thread is made far more hilarious by the historical fact that mutual-credit banking ('muh credit union') was invented by kropotkin because, socialism.

>>78869

>kropotkin invented the credit union

TOP KEK!!!

>>78871

IKR? I mean, Proudhon was totes before the bread book, so Krop wasn't the first. Advocated it, but wasn't the first.

…then again, Proudhon was ALSO socialist, so, same outcome.

>>78872

Robert Owen's work in cooperative manufacture and trade might be viewed as a pre-Proudhon example, though he didn't get into banking specifically.

Then again, Owen was also a socialist.

>>78797

I regret watching the Shapiro vid. I didn't know who he was before and, like the dumbass I am, I wanted to listen to alternate perspectives. His comments on socialism aren't even what offended me. It was his fundamental dishonesty in saying that anyone who wants to divest from Israel is motivated by pure anti-Semitism. The irony is that when Bernie Sanders tried to shill for Israel in a room full of leftists they shouted him down.

>>78839

>imprisoning millions and billions etc

I concede the point.

>Not really, again, we can go through individual incidents and talk about what happened and why it doesn't fit your narrative (I even gave a few examples) […]

Literally look at any example of the business cycle that occurred in a market without a central bank or heavy government intervention. It's that easy. If you want to argue that government intervention caused all of those examples then the burden of proof lay with you - not me. And besides, this line of argument will go far beyond what either of us can reasonably expect to prove here. If I point to specific examples it can always be said, "but that was due to government intervention!" And because a government existed and had some kind of regulatory or tax policy at the time it will be used as evidence of government involvement even though the capitalist system has always existed within the overarching framework of state-society. The arguments will devolve into No True Scotsman and the goalposts of the debate will shift back and forth until someone gets tired and leaves.

>His use of the word "demagoguing" was completely fine

Shapiro's statement was problematic because of it's circular logic, not semantics. Concede the point.

>products of labor vs wages etc

Shapiro said something clearly false and you tried to muddy the waters by mixing up wages and products. Concede the point.

more later.

vid related

>>78883

I guess the tripfag changed his tripcode, I thought I had him filtered.

>>78882

>. If you want to argue that government intervention caused all of those examples then the burden of proof lay with you

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States

Are you goping to tell us that debasement of currency, trade restrictions, and the insolvency of national banks are not government causes?

>>78899

>debasement of currency

This one needn't be.

Similarly, though rarer, trade restrictions on Jews were run by party thugs rather than the government itself in the early Nazi days.

>>78892

>He stated that it was "easy to demagogue" capitalism, which effectively means that it's far easy to create emotional arguments and formulate tension

Yeah?

>against

Oh.

You realize that you posted this in the "there is no alternative to capitalism because a goddamn straw man" thread? Check the top post?

Lenin and ML states ARE the model of capitalism for the Left (read, anarchist+). They are also AN accurate one, albeit hopefully not the only one.

Considering the top post… while what you say is true (and in case anyone missed it : what you say is true) you… probably posted it in the wrong thread.

>>78806

I'm going to start a new thread for this. I want to get more than one perspective on the theory of crises and this thread is not the best place for it.

>>78884

No, you probably just deleted cookies. The video is anti-Bernie, by the way.

>>78892

I've already made my points several times over. Other anons can read them. There's no need to keep rehashing the same things especially when it's evident based on your replies that you didn't even watch the video being discussed. Bye.

>>78906

>I'm going to start a new thread for this.

I'm looking forward to this.

>>79114

Pretty sure that's what >>78908 was. The timestamps check out.

>>79115

I doubt it. There is no explanation provided in that thread on how capitalism causes crises, nor do I see any of my points addressed. Also, the lack of tripfagging.

Ben is still a jew and deserves to die

>>79243

go back to /po/ you fucking neetsoc trap lover

>>79118

That's the thread I mentioned. I didn't use a trip or a flag when making the thread because it would have been distracting when beginning a discussion. Also, my internet access is limited right now so I've hardly been on 8chan at all. I will attempt to address those points, though.

>>78683

I wanna have the right to genocide Israelis

>>79247

nah I'll stay right here

>trap lover

project much?

>>79592

>cycle repeats

What cycle? Real communism, according to lefties, has never been tried. And communism has only come about recently enough to have been implemented a few times.

>>79599

Don't pretend like you don't know how it is. You're assuming lefties are logical and that they learn from their mistakes, but they don't and they will keep trying again and again and even after a million years and a million attempts they still wouldn't have found their mythical "real communism".

>>79599

Well, the US patent office makes the schematics of the means of production open to all… 'bout as close as it comes, though.