The Pitters' Place

To achieve her aims we essentially need to abolish private ownership of property and implement a state controlled central market for all goods and services.

Which, every single time it's been implemented, ends up with the same "wealth in the hands of the elite, everyone else impoverished' model uncontrolled capitalism leads to, only that wealth is secured through political and military "who you know" system rather than economic function.

OpiateOfTheMasses wrote:

Cinemachinery wrote:

You need to regulate capitalism or it will eat everything in its path. You want less intrusive laws? Well tough shit because what I'm learning from privileged white men posting here is that progress comes at the expense of ethnic cleansing and injustice towards minorities

Holy fucking balls I said I can't imagine what intrusive laws would be required, not that I want "less laws". Jesus christ.

I think we've kinda established this...

To achieve her aims we essentially need to abolish private ownership of property and implement a state controlled central market for all goods and services.

Shouldn't be too radical, really.

Umm.. no.
That's state-capitalism. I think I established I'm against capitalism.

Dr_Liszt wrote:

OpiateOfTheMasses wrote:

Cinemachinery wrote:

You need to regulate capitalism or it will eat everything in its path. You want less intrusive laws? Well tough shit because what I'm learning from privileged white men posting here is that progress comes at the expense of ethnic cleansing and injustice towards minorities

Holy fucking balls I said I can't imagine what intrusive laws would be required, not that I want "less laws". Jesus christ.

I think we've kinda established this...

To achieve her aims we essentially need to abolish private ownership of property and implement a state controlled central market for all goods and services.

Shouldn't be too radical, really.

Umm.. no.
That's state-capitalism. I think I established I'm against capitalism.

No it's not. It would be the People (the State being the representation of the People) owning the property and controlling it for the good of the People. Not to try to make a profit. And not to try to benefit a very limited number of people who happen to own that resource.

Massive difference.

How else could it possibly work?

Even if everyone spontaneously decides to forgo the primary goal of every business since the dawn of time (i.e. to increase the wealth of its shareholders) and focus on making the world a better place instead, you'd still need people to organise it, to co-ordinate what the will of the People is, what's best for the People, etc, so representatives for the People would need to be appointed and they would effectively become the State and in turn would effectively take control of those assets.

No matter how you dress it up, you get to the same result.

Cinemachinery wrote:

To achieve her aims we essentially need to abolish private ownership of property and implement a state controlled central market for all goods and services.

Which, every single time it's been implemented, ends up with the same "wealth in the hands of the elite, everyone else impoverished' model uncontrolled capitalism leads to, only that wealth is secured through political and military "who you know" system rather than economic function.

Ah - I'm not saying that it's a system that's got any sort of proven track record of working. (Quite the opposite)

Which is why when I mentioned it before I reminded her before to start with the building of the "re-education camps" to have a fighting chance of getting it to stick for a while.

Reading this thread, and reading a bit about gentrification, there's not much I could say that others haven't said already (especially OpiateOfTheMasses and Cinemachinery); except maybe one thing:
Gentrification is not new.

Structural changes in demographics of a city/region have happened since the existence of humanity. Or at least since the first aqueduct was built.
The last massive change I can think of was during the first industrial revolution, when factories and mines were built and the working class started to form.

Today, at least in the so called first world, heavy industry is less prevalent than high-tech industry; and this means new changes. High-tech makes money (like IT); people who earn money can afford nice buildings and want to live in cities; house owners seize the opportunity and renovate their houses, the new wealthy people move in - voila, you have gentrification.

But apart from government regulations who forbid asking for exorbitant rents, there is one mechanism that will ensure that the rents don't rise too much: The law of supply and demand.
Example: In the city of Leipzig, East Germany, after the German unification, investors started to renovate buildings, which meant that they asked for higher rents. But, surprise surprise, there wasn't that much demand for the expensive buildings (because there weren't that many jobs in Leipzig yet), so lots of buildings stayed unrented. Result: The prices for houses went down. And then, people started to move in, created new jobs. Prices now are rising again, and Leipzig is growing.

In other expensive cities where the rent is extremely high, like in Munich, some people prefer to commute from cheaper places to Munich than living in Munich. Which will not change unless prices for rent in Munich go down.

Bottom line: Even if there was no regulation on rent, house owners couldn't raise the price for their houses or rent indefinitely; because they'd find no customers.
But still it's a good thing to have regulations; it ensures that changes don't happen too fast.

OpiateOfTheMasses wrote:

Cinemachinery wrote:

To achieve her aims we essentially need to abolish private ownership of property and implement a state controlled central market for all goods and services.

Which, every single time it's been implemented, ends up with the same "wealth in the hands of the elite, everyone else impoverished' model uncontrolled capitalism leads to, only that wealth is secured through political and military "who you know" system rather than economic function.

Ah - I'm not saying that it's a system that's got any sort of proven track record of working. (Quite the opposite)

Which is why when I mentioned it before I reminded her before to start with the building of the "re-education camps" to have a fighting chance of getting it to stick for a while.

phe de replieeed. I wanted to post right below you!

It's called socialism because you socialize and redefine private property so that instead of profit going to one direction, the worker owns it directly, It's worker democracy, worker power, worker ownership. Governments always always legislate for the elite, that's why most socialists are also in favor of decentralization. Has this ever happened in the so called socialist countries? No.

Again, I have no idea what sort of intrusive laws would be necessary to keep upper income development from moving into and displacing lower income areas. Yours is an easy sentence to type but the "how to" is just unimaginable. While working on your capitalism model to see wealth spread equally among everyone (again: how?) how do you keep Starbucks from opening in [insert lower income neighborhood} and raising the nearby rent? Or keep a higher income family from purchasing a home, improving the property and raising the local rent?

That's why I said give representation to the neighborhoods so they can decide. Why does Starbucks get to decide your life?

But (and this is going to sound really patronising, but it's not intended that way) you're young. And if the young can't be idealistic and want to rail against the machine and change the world then there's no hope for any of us. I'm older and more cynical. I'm allowed to make deals with the Devil…

^The truest truism of truthiness posted on this thread.

phe_de won this thread too.

That guy's unstoppable.

Phe_de is capitalism.

CashRules wrote:

But (and this is going to sound really patronising, but it's not intended that way) you're young. And if the young can't be idealistic and want to rail against the machine and change the world then there's no hope for any of us. I'm older and more cynical. I'm allowed to make deals with the Devil…

^The truest truism of truthiness posted on this thread.

Young idealists have more imagination and spark change, while older "pragmatists" have carved out a comfortable place within the status quo and resist change.

OpiateOfTheMasses wrote:

Cinemachinery wrote:

To achieve her aims we essentially need to abolish private ownership of property and implement a state controlled central market for all goods and services.

Which, every single time it's been implemented, ends up with the same "wealth in the hands of the elite, everyone else impoverished' model uncontrolled capitalism leads to, only that wealth is secured through political and military "who you know" system rather than economic function.

Ah - I'm not saying that it's a system that's got any sort of proven track record of working. (Quite the opposite)

Which is why when I mentioned it before I reminded her before to start with the building of the "re-education camps" to have a fighting chance of getting it to stick for a while.

State-capitalism has been tried, not socialism, and the only countries that we can judge on that are the USSR and China, since Cuba and North Korea have blockades, so it's like and Venezuela is really not too different from Latin America, I know the U.S hates it, but I don't know why, makes no sense to me since it's a worthless country with attractive women, that's all there is to it.

And even then the soviet system managed to transform Russia from a feudal poverty ridden system to a country competing on the spacial race in like 30 years. China is still a huge ass corporation running really strong, and Cuba manages to beat half of all latin america in development indexes, so it's just proof that capitalism ran from the state, is just as shit, as capitalism ran privately with government regulations.

EDIT: Just to tell you, Cuba with state-capitalism, blockades and being on the terrorist watch managed to beat Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil and Haiti, with their traditional capitalist systems, many of them being cold war's "right fronts" (Like Guatemala). Possibly tying with Costa Rica, Uruguay and Argentina.

That's basically, almost all of Latin America, so in my opinion, I don't see "the failure" in the Cuban system and the things they experience is not worse than what happens in all of the region.

"It's a worthless country with attractive women. That's all it is."

Cassius Clay wrote:

CashRules wrote:

But (and this is going to sound really patronising, but it's not intended that way) you're young. And if the young can't be idealistic and want to rail against the machine and change the world then there's no hope for any of us. I'm older and more cynical. I'm allowed to make deals with the Devil…

^The truest truism of truthiness posted on this thread.

Young idealists have more imagination and spark change, while older "pragmatists" have carved out a comfortable place within the status quo and resist change.

That x 100

Derived Absurdity wrote:

Cassius Clay wrote:

CashRules wrote:

But (and this is going to sound really patronising, but it's not intended that way) you're young. And if the young can't be idealistic and want to rail against the machine and change the world then there's no hope for any of us. I'm older and more cynical. I'm allowed to make deals with the Devil…

^The truest truism of truthiness posted on this thread.

Young idealists have more imagination and spark change, while older "pragmatists" have carved out a comfortable place within the status quo and resist change.

That x 100

My only gripe here is that "young people" aren't so much railing against the system anymore so much as posting on social media about the system and thinking they're actually doing something. You see a scad of people posting about the topic covered by a NOW chapter event, sharing it on FB with a "FUCK YOU IF YOU DON'T AGREE! WE NEED CHANGE!" then you never see any of those posting show up at an actual event to do anything. That's just the older people.

Social media is, all too the often, the new opiate for protest. Makes you feel good. Mostly does nothing.

I think you people should be active on the black lives matter movement. I would if I could.

Cinemachinery wrote:

Derived Absurdity wrote:

Cassius Clay wrote:

CashRules wrote:

But (and this is going to sound really patronising, but it's not intended that way) you're young. And if the young can't be idealistic and want to rail against the machine and change the world then there's no hope for any of us. I'm older and more cynical. I'm allowed to make deals with the Devil…

^The truest truism of truthiness posted on this thread.

Young idealists have more imagination and spark change, while older "pragmatists" have carved out a comfortable place within the status quo and resist change.

That x 100

My only gripe here is that "young people" aren't so much railing against the system anymore so much as posting on social media about the system and thinking they're actually doing something. You see a scad of people posting about the topic covered by a NOW chapter event, sharing it on FB with a "FUCK YOU IF YOU DON'T AGREE! WE NEED CHANGE!" then you never see any of those posting show up at an actual event to do anything. That's just the older people.

Social media is, all too the often, the new opiate for protest. Makes you feel good. Mostly does nothing.

^The truest truism of truthiness posted on this thread.

I'd also add that in other than "demanding change" - they very rarely spell out exactly what the change is they want and how they realistically expect it to work, so even if "the powers that be" listened to them there's no clear action for them to take.

A couple of disingenuous old pragmatists have been spotted.

FFS, it's this what people call the white bubble?

"Young people complaining on the internet never do anything. I know cause I see everything and I'm everywhere."

"I like shitting on the value of social media by setting up false binaries. It's either 'real work' or empty feel-good whining on the internet. Concern trolling? What's that?"

"There's no value in having a conversation about the ethical problems with a system if you can't present a precise/perfect solution or replacement for the system you have a problem with. Shut your mouth."

"I have trouble thinking outside the box not just because I lack imagination, but because I don't really want to that much since I'm pretty comfortable with the way things are."

-Old pragmatists, 2015

They are also ignoring the fact that there are millions of movements and places in resistance all over the globe.

Maybe not in the UK and Europe in general because those fuckers don't need the change, they'd gladly smash any sort of movement that comes to disadvantage them, the only example I can think of is the German volunteers helping the Syrians. Most of them also young people. But it's something.

So the whole "No one is doing aneetheeeng!!!" is complete bullshit.

Dr_Liszt wrote:They are also ignoring the fact that there are millions of movements and places in resistance all over the globe.

Maybe not in the UK and Europe in general because those fuckers don't need the change, they'd gladly smash any sort of movement that comes to disadvantage them, the only example I can think of is the German volunteers helping the Syrians. Most of them also young people. But it's something.

So the whole "No one is doing aneetheeeng!!!" is complete bullshit.

Um...there are plenty of protests in the UK

There are quite a lot of protests in Europe. Just a few days ago there was a massive protest in Berlin of over 250,000 people led by German trade unions to oppose the TTIP. Mostly young people, I think.

Yeah but the UK protests you hear about are about boob jobs and porn.

But is nice to know the spoiled bratts Europeans are doing something.

Dr_Liszt wrote:Yeah but the UK protests you hear about are about boob jobs and porn.

Well, yeah, that's the problem. These types of protests don't get a lot of coverage. A lot of people don't hear about them. And that makes some people think that no one's bothering to do anything.

Dr_Liszt wrote:Yeah but the UK protests you hear about are about boob jobs and porn.

But is nice to know the spoiled bratts Europeans are doing something.

I find that offensive

Derived Absurdity wrote:

Dr_Liszt wrote:Yeah but the UK protests you hear about are about boob jobs and porn.

Well, yeah, that's the problem. These types of protests don't get a lot of coverage. A lot of people don't hear about them. And that makes some people think that no one's bothering to do anything.

Oh I forgot about France's one against Air France. That one was good.

Cassius Clay wrote:"Young people complaining on the internet never do anything. I know cause I see everything and I'm everywhere."

"I like shitting on the value of social media by setting up false binaries. It's either 'real work' or empty feel-good whining on the internet. Concern trolling? What's that?"

"There's no value in having a conversation about the ethical problems with a system if you can't present a precise/perfect solution or replacement for the system you have a problem with. Shut your mouth."

"I have trouble thinking outside the box not just because I lack imagination, but because I don't really want to that much since I'm pretty comfortable with the way things are."

-Old pragmatists, 2015

You're right. Angrily proclaiming that things are shit is an effective way to get things to change to something better even if you don't really know what that "better" is (or if you do, you've decided not to tell anyone for some reason). After all there is no merit it trying think through a solution before tearing down the existing system, is there? What could go wrong?

And all the "old pragmatists" were never young idealists themselves, so they never tried to change anything themselves so they couldn't possibly be speaking from any sort of experience or be trying to help you in any way. Nope. They have always been part of the problem and their only goal is to try to crush you. Mainly for shits and giggles really. No other reason.

Dr_Liszt wrote:Yeah but the UK protests you hear about are about boob jobs and porn.

But is nice to know the spoiled bratts Europeans are doing something.

I mean, within the past few weeks, there have been protests against austerity and benefits cuts, against arms dealing, against NHS cuts, and to show support for migrants and protest for Cameron to allow more migrants asylum, but okay!

aels wrote:

Dr_Liszt wrote:Yeah but the UK protests you hear about are about boob jobs and porn.

But is nice to know the spoiled bratts Europeans are doing something.

I mean, within the past few weeks, there have been protests against austerity and benefits cuts, against arms dealing, against NHS cuts, and to show support for migrants and protest for Cameron to allow more migrants asylum, but okay!

Pretty much this. Just because a government of 650 middle class, rich people is doing fuck all about it doesn't mean the "spoiled bratts Europeans" aren't trying

The problem with the protests in Europe is that they are still very pro system.

The one DA talked about and the one in France have more weight because is against the economic power. I'm sure there are real protests in the UK.

And did you guys really got offended by my "spoiled bratt" comment?

I wasn't offended, I just thought that you didn't necessarily know what you were talking about.

Well you do rarely hear of revolutionary or resistance protest in Europe aside from Spain. Because why would they?? They just hate the benefit cuts. Once the cuts are removed problem over.

But I'm sure people are protesting against private jails or there must be anti war movements. Or union protests like the one DA talked about. Those are the ones the media doesn't talk about.

Also I have used Iceland as an example of the perfect hands down protest that actually overthrew their government.

So I know not all of you are doomed.

^Third-world Marxist

CashRules wrote:

These nuts on your chin.

Cassius Clay wrote:^Third-world Marxist

Pretty much.

Dr_Liszt wrote:Also I have used Iceland as an example of the perfect hands down protest that actually overthrew their government.

So I know not all of you are doomed.

Iceland has a population of 320,000 people. They're hardly an example to real countries with real populations

And they are all cousins too.

But do you want me to count Europe or not?

Dr_Liszt wrote:And they are all cousins too.

But do you want me to count Europe or not?

I don't care what you count. Your country is almost as invalid to the world as Iceland

We have resistance protests that end up with people getting killed.

Dr_Liszt wrote:We have resistance protests that end up with people getting killed.

Yeah, difficult to bring about a revolution if you end up getting yourselves killed in the process

Yeah, but you guys could actually carry on the revolution and you don't because you are more concerned about boob jobs.

Dr_Liszt wrote:Yeah, but you guys could actually carry on the revolution and you don't because you are more concerned about boob jobs.

I'm actually more concerned about making enough money to afford to keep a roof above my head. We can't all live in huge mansions in rich neighbourhoods

Yeah... well... shut up.

OpiateOfTheMasses wrote:

Cinemachinery wrote:

Derived Absurdity wrote:

Cassius Clay wrote:

CashRules wrote:

But (and this is going to sound really patronising, but it's not intended that way) you're young. And if the young can't be idealistic and want to rail against the machine and change the world then there's no hope for any of us. I'm older and more cynical. I'm allowed to make deals with the Devil…

^The truest truism of truthiness posted on this thread.

Young idealists have more imagination and spark change, while older "pragmatists" have carved out a comfortable place within the status quo and resist change.

That x 100

My only gripe here is that "young people" aren't so much railing against the system anymore so much as posting on social media about the system and thinking they're actually doing something. You see a scad of people posting about the topic covered by a NOW chapter event, sharing it on FB with a "FUCK YOU IF YOU DON'T AGREE! WE NEED CHANGE!" then you never see any of those posting show up at an actual event to do anything. That's just the older people.

Social media is, all too the often, the new opiate for protest. Makes you feel good. Mostly does nothing.

^The truest truism of truthiness posted on this thread.

I'd also add that in other than "demanding change" - they very rarely spell out exactly what the change is they want and how they realistically expect it to work, so even if "the powers that be" listened to them there's no clear action for them to take.

Too late. I've been caught out pointing out armchair activism while white. I wasn't actually referring to people on this forum, but those in my community.

But... you know... white. So.... yeah.

I'm still trying to figure out how the lack of action following armchair FB arguments relates to "pragmatism".

From my perspective, complaints about armchair activism sound quite a bit better coming from people who are actual activists who are legitimately frustrated by it, than from people who are not activists. My opinion is, if you haven't actually done any activist-ing, you have zero right to complain about perceived lack of activism from others and it definitely sounds like concern-trolling.

I don't know what you've done but I'm willing to bet 90% of the people who complain about armchair activism have never done anything of significance themselves and are just concern-trolling.

From my perspective, complaints about armchair activism sound quite a bit better coming from people who are actual activists who are legitimately frustrated by it, than from people who are not activists. My opinion is, if you haven't actually done any activist-ing, you have zero right to complain about perceived lack of activism from others and it definitely sounds like concern-trolling.

I utterly agree.

I don't know what you've done but I'm willing to bet 90% of the people who complain about armchair activism have never done anything of significance themselves and are just concern-trolling.

Probably. You're taking a sort of passive swipe at me there but I've had this conversation before - I don't get involved with any action so I can list it later on a forum like I'm unlocking badge achievements or proving my "cred". This is no skin off of my nose at all - my complaint comes from first hand experience - if you choose not to believe that it's all good; it's a pretty mundane gripe.

I'm not sure what "concern trolling" is supposed to be anymore - I thought it was supposed to be someone who won't support some movement or notion unless certain "criteria" are met.

No swipe intended. Apologies.

I always considered "control troll" to be someone who pretends to care about some issue while in reality attempting to undermine it through loaded questions and such. So someone who complains about armchair activism while pretending to care about the issue in question but is in reality just using the problem as an excuse to make fun of or undermine the issue and people who care about it would be "concern trolling". I'm not saying you do that. But a lot of people do.

A good recent example is some people making fun of Bernie Sanders supporters for claiming the media is conspiring against Sanders in favor of Hillary, with the pretense that they just want Sanders supporters to not come off as crazy, while in reality they're just doing so to make Sanders supporters look bad in favor of Hillary.