Right now there's none of that -- in a capitalist-run corporation. You have no say, no input, no vote. You can complain to your manager if you want to, but good luck with that. You have no access to corporate boardrooms, no representation on the board, no vote for the board, and so absolutely no say in the major decisions of the company in which you work and produce profits for. — Xtrix

You know, Xtrix, I'm not a great fan of labour unions. I don't even belong to one (which was looked with much resentment in one academic workplace).

Yet the simple fact is that some labor presentation IS CRUCIAL. Just as labor laws are essential for the whole system to work.

I always take the example of the active military officers in the Finnish Army. Nearly all of them (well over 90%) belong to a trade union. And they truly, really truly, ARE NOT LEFTISTS. There was a huge outcry in the 1960's when an openly social democrat guy tried to get into career officer course. He wasn't let in (as military officers cannot be party members, only when they retire). The Soviet Union (and it's Finnish Communists) tried to infiltrate the Finnish Army after 1919 onward. Never had any luck, even if the Russian intelligence services are awesome otherwise. Hence being part of a labor union isn't a left / right issue. Even some libertarians understand that. Unfortunately this a major problem in the US.

Hence the labor union issue, or basically the labor movement, isn't a leftist issue. It's simply a rational issue.

Without any collective bargaining the employer and the owner can treat employees as pig shit. Not that all do that, but some surely will if they are given the opportunity.

In so far that you have a too complex of a democratic process, only a few people will understand how it works. — thewonder

Democracy to work sets actually high standards to the people.

Working in a cooperative does seem very much preferable to me than working elsewhere. Alas, though, and I am sure that I have some rather mythic notions in this regard, I don't live in a Nordic country, and, so, will have to figure something else out. — thewonder

Well, what is so wrong with a having a company where the workers own the shares of the company? In the end if you want, you can sell your shares. I think the major criticism about current corporations is that ownership has been institutionalized in such a way that

I think here in the discussion it should be worth mentioning that in economic theory, the theory of a business or a company, is basically something totally similar to a service you buy. The contract with the person is just far more than one single transaction. And that's basically it. The alternative for any company, be it a corporation or a cooperative, is that you simply buy the service, the work, from individuals and not have any company. Because a company is nothing else but an complex contract.

It's not about taking a collective vote if I decide to use the bathroom or exercise discretion in my role. It's not about getting rid of division of labor. It's not about abolishing managers, or coordinators, or departments, or CEOs/presidents, or paying everyone the same amount of money, or anything like that.

It's about giving everyone a vote for leadership positions and having workers elect the board of directors rather than investors. — Xtrix

And you really think that is the silver bullet?

There would also be many worker council meetings (like staff meetings) where everyone voices their opinions, etc. — Xtrix

At least here there are. I think many of these issues seem to be basic issues that ought to be covered by labor laws. Starting from the fact that workers are heard about things concerning their jobs and salary as one entity too.

There are some considerations to ponder here, namely that you are bound to only have a few people who truly understand the democratic process — thewonder

Why? What do you mean by "you are bound to only have a few people who truly understand the democratic process"???

Once an organization grows to a certain size, there does seem to be a need to elect delegates, of which, one-member, one vote, seems to be the tried and true method. — thewonder

At least we agree on this.

I should, perhaps, point out that, for all of the extensive knowledge, feuds, partial alliances, revelry, and disdain that I have for the Anarchist fringe, I do have a fairly limited experience within actual Anarchist organizations, and, so, this is all really fairly speculative, as it's mostly just based upon what I've read online here and there from various parties for various reasons. — thewonder

Good to be honest here. Because many times things that seem OK on paper, when you think of them theoretically, miss the crucial element of the actual people and how they come along with each other. That naturally depends on a variety of things as people can be very different and just one individual in a group can either make it work or make it to brake up.

I would contend that, even Amazon, though it would probably look a lot different, can be run as a pure cooperative. Perhaps, that is a point of contention that we can discuss, however? — thewonder

Sure. But as in my country there are large and well performing cooperatives, I'm of the view that in the end the normal day-to-day functions of a cooperative aren't so different from a corporation. Naturally the whole discourse and activity around the company stock doesn't exist, yet they look quite the same.

I'm talking about safety nets, what does having their career ahead of then have to do with safety nets? — Isaac

Ummm....that you have a career ahead of you obviously means that you don't need a safety net for so long? For crying out loud, how difficult is it for you to understand that a 16 year old is poor, doesn't get the highest pay and often can be out of work, but that actually has been quite normal? Because usually sooner or later generations have found a job and made a career in something.

During the 16-24 period usually people study and many don't work during that. The simple fact is that without tertiary education it's hard to find great job opportunities. Is it so incredible to understand that people who have summer jobs then are part of the year unemployed?

You speculating about the motives of employers doesn't change that. — Isaac

Again the motives of employers are not speculation, but a fact.

The duration of unemployment has nothing to do with the financial cushioning to withstand it. — Isaac

I don't know what you are talking about here, because this doesn't make any sense.

This debate is simply very moronic and going nowhere.

Had we merely waged a counter-terrorist operation against Al-Qaeda, that could also have been an effective strategy. It probably would have been the most sensible thing for the United States Military to have done. — thewonder

How about treating the whole thing as you did treat the previous World Trade Center bombers? To make it a police matter. To get finally the FBI hunt them down from Pakistan. And to put them into an ordinary jail in the US? Osama bin Laden been put into prison like the previous terrorist, which actually were relatives to some of the 9/11 terrorists (such small cabal we are talking about).

How impossible would that would have been?


Quite impossible, I guess. Americans wanted, demanded, and had that 20 years war.

The neocons are not in the current administration. But, it looks like you are right and even now American foreign (and others) policies are shaped by the logic of phantasmic and imagenary achievements. What makes it possible and even necessary? Likely, in the US there is no
place for a neutral and independent position that allows to make weighted and qualified judgements. That is why the narative of building a self-sustainable Afghan government
and military has been so persistent. — Number2018

This is so true.

Current administrations cannot avoid the utterly fucked up situations that the previous ones have put them. What seldom is talked is how slavishly Obama continued the Bush era War on Terror even with increasing the drone attacks all over.

The problem is that on many times when these generals and policy experts are interviewed, they are extremely rational, sound and totally aware of reality. So what happens? Why we get these insane ideas of going into Iraq to get the WMDs and it will be a cheap war and the we don't have to put much effort in nation building? How can the US get things so wrong when in the end many of the leading persons are quite intelligent?

I think the reason is this twisted delusional political discourse that is totally separated from actual reality: It's about getting the bad guys. It's "restoring democracy". It's these ideas that you have to invade and occupy a country because a small cabal of terrorists were financed by people that stayed in the country.

This simplified political rhetoric will simply avoid issues like what are the reactions of neighboring countries? How does the actions of the US play into the domestic politics of the country? Above all, when you have the hammer, the US armed forces, every problem looks like a nail. It's so easy. There aren't limitations in military interventions as other countries have: you have the SEAL team on stand by, the CIA armed drones in the air, the Submarine with the cruise missile just out at sea. Hence it's so easy.

Do you have any evidence of this difficulty, or are you just guessing? — Isaac

Did you even read what I said? Basically it's about making every decision collectively...or having the ordinary system where somebody in the organization decides by him or herself certain questions.

I am guessing you didn't even read it carefully what I wrote.

Again, do you have any evidence, or are you just guessing? In the UK, 50 year olds have, on average, 10 times the savings of a 20 yr old; they're three times more likely to own their own house; and since both get the same unemployment benefit, the 50 yr old is significantly better off. — Isaac

A lot.

Yet just really first think what you just said above. Talk about not understanding the reality behind the statistics.

So...OMG! Somebody that has been working for 20+ years or so has more savings than someone who has just left or is even still staying at the parents home? I really don't have to guess that: it's OBVIOUS that this is the case in ANY country. That people that have a job will have more savings after decades of work? And that's your counterargument???

(And likely no, they don't get the same unemployment benefit as those typically have some link to the salary paid. At least here it's not so.)

Of course you utterly fail to recognize that somebody who is 20 years old has his whole work career in front of him. Not so with someone that will retire in few years. Statistics show quite well that it's the oldest segment of the workforce who faces PERMANENTLY losing their jobs doesn't reach your mind. And when you need to cut back the workforce, which would you as an employer start if two persons are qualified: the one who has a lower salary and far more work years ahead of him or the one that has a higher wage and will have to be replaced sooner? You really don't have to guess which they will choose.

In 90's economic depression Finland endured the hardest hit industry was the construction business. By statistics 50 000 lost permanently their jobs and this from a population of 5 million. And yes, they were usually the oldest in the workforce. After years of not hiring anybody, the new jobs went to a new generation.

Yet let's have those statistics, because you assume I'm just guessing. Simply to put it, age discrimination is quite obvious, an issue I'm really not just guessing:

In the United States, 20% of workers are aged 55+. That’s one fifth of the entire working population that is made up of people in the last ten years of their careers. These are also the people with the most working knowledge and experience. Half of people aged 55-64 are currently employed, meaning that a significant number of people who are younger than the expected retirement age have already left the workforce.

Nearly half of people aged 55-64 exit and re-enter the workforce during that age period. Between 1998-2014, an average of 13% of older employees were forced into retirement. It takes Baby Boomers approximately 46 weeks to find a new job. It takes the average person 43 days to find, interview for and start a new job. With 1 in 5 workers age 40+ reporting not getting at least one job due to age discrimination, it’s no wonder it takes older employees longer to find a job.

So why is this?

Paul Rupert, of Respectful Exits, suggests — persuasively — that the problem emanates from our free-enterprise roots. The predominant business model in this country is still an industrial one where companies view employees as “human capital,” he says. “It’s a sad phrase, but companies view their workforce the same way they view their capital equipment. You buy it, you assume it has a certain shelf life, and then you get rid of it and replace it with a new model.”

Then if you like unemployment statistics, lets look at those who are permanently or long-termed unemployed, those that have basically dropped out of the workforce, and how age correlates with them.

Stats from my country, Finland:

One-half of the unemployed aged 60 to 64 were long-term unemployed. In this age group, long-term unemployment was almost equally widespread in all levels of education. One quarter (25.2%) of all unemployed persons at the end of 2019 were long-term unemployed, that is, had been unemployed continuously for at least one year. Long-term unemployment was the more common the older the unemployed were.

Then from the UK:

According to an analysis of unemployment data from the Office for National Statistics, conducted by digital community Rest Less, three in 10 (30 per cent) of unemployed over-50s have been out of work for at least 12 months, while a fifth (20 per cent) have been out of work for at least two years.This compares to a fifth (20 per cent) and 8 per cent of unemployed under-50s respectively.

Stuart Lewis, founder of Rest Less, said the analysis showed that older people out of work were “more prone to long-term unemployment” than other age groups in the same position. He warned that the UK risked creating a “lost generation of unemployed over-50s forced into an early retirement they neither want nor can afford”.

“Too often, highly skilled workers in their 50s and 60s suffer from age discrimination in the recruitment process, often being told they are ‘over qualified’ – a concept that simply doesn’t make sense,” Lewis said.

And the US (from this year):

Since March, over half of jobseekers ages 55 and older have been categorized as long-term unemployed. In July 51.6 percent of workers ages 55+ were long-term unemployed compared with 34.8 percent of jobseekers ages 16 to 54.

I think that's enough of stats, but I could go on and on.

Now when we take into account that many Americans don't have savings and the country doesn't have a welfare safety net, then hope you understand who is in more peril when a economic slump comes around: the 20 year old or the 50 year old worker that get laid off. But perhaps it's too difficult.

One of the advantages of actually looking up the data rather than just guessing is that you don't end up talking shite. — Isaac

Even better is to understand what you are talking about.

Seriously.

Are you implying that those are difficult to answer? — Isaac

Actually, yes. If everything would have to be decided that way.

I should image most large corporations are quite accustomed to making a few tricky decisions. — Isaac

And I think many organizations, not just corporations, are indeed accustomed to make a lot of tricky decisions... with committees, specific teams or groups, leaders or (ghasp!) managers making those decisions.

I have no idea how this is related to what I said. — Isaac

Let's look at what you said then:

Whatever the organisation, the lowest paid bear the cost of decisions made because they're the ones with the least safety net if things go wrong. — Isaac

And what I replied is that usually the lowest paid in any organization is a trainee, an intern, the most junior employee. Or do you refute that?

And that these have the least safety net, well, they likely are the youngest people in the workforce and hence have their work career well in front of them. Actually those who really need a safety net are people who are far less to end up with a new job. Those are people with narrow work experience and close to retirement. Let's say you have been a coal miner for the last 40 years and five years from retirement, think how easy it is to pick a new job when the coal mine is shut down (along with many others like you out of work). Compared your situation to a person who just graduated from school and for some reason worked at the coal mine for some months? Likely his or her salary was lower than yours.

Most towns reluctantly gave direct participatory democracy up when village / city populations became too large. It's one thing for less than 100 people to attend a town meeting; 1000 people attending becomes too cumbersome. — Bitter Crank

And take it up to 10 000, 100 000 and million, then again you have different mechanics taking over. Representation becomes the norm and organized representation through political parties emerge. The issues get quite abstract: it's not about the old tree that might fall down next to the road 5 km form here. It's about services in general.

Your point? — Isaac

There are simply practical reasons why we have formed our organizations to have leaders.

If you then say, "Nope, from now on the leaders and managers are just "team members" along with everybody else and everybody together has to make the decisions", what do you think will happen? So... you vote? Or do you have to have a consensus? On what matters? Just for starters, when is someone in the workforce capable doing a decision on his or on her own?

Whatever the organisation, the lowest paid bear the cost of decisions made because they're the ones with the least safety net if things go wrong. — Isaac

There are far more lousy or mediocre enterprises than those that go bust. And likely in any organization the lowest paid is the young trainee or intern. Perhaps he or she isn't at the age of 20 or less isn't in the same position in the job market as an over 50 year old with only specific and narrow job qualification and experience.

(6) Would anyone say that a corporation is run democratically?

Truly interested in answers. — Xtrix

Especially in Sweden there is a thing they cherish and it's "företagsdemokrati" implemented also in the workforce rather than just taking note of stakeholders as Economic Democracy is mainly about (even if the workforce is one stakeholder).

But there's a problem.

Democracy works basically if everybody also shares the responsibility of the actions. If voters choose bad politicians, they in the end will feel it. That is extremely hard to do in a workplace. Hierarchic organizations have managers and leaders and they usually bare the brunt of the decision making as...they are the managers and leaders. If a Cooperative grows to be large enough, the only rational decision is to have an elected body that supervises the actions of the management. Everybody simply cannot decide with a vote on every issue! Hence in real life, not the ideological fairy tale castle where these structures of companies are larger than life issues, big Cooperatives function quite as big Corporations. Many wouldn't notice the difference in ordinary life between the two.

Hence the Swedish företagsdemokrati model can easily fall into the trap of being just this enormous grandstanding scheme where business is done as usual, but in order to make the appearance that everybody is making the decisions and everybody has his or her equal input, a lot of time is spent on workforce meetings. Sometimes it good, especially if any kind of feedback from the workforce doesn't exist earlier. Listening to stakeholders might be a good idea. Yet in some technical question it's simply hypocrisy to assume that the young intern and the 30-year professional have equal say.

Simply put it, some organizations are hierarchical because of practicality, not because of ideology. There can be this class issue in some societies which decrease the performance of the organization as leaders aren't team leaders but more like higher caste masters who have servants. Yet some have top-down structures simply exist to coordinate the actions of everybody.

Democracy isn't an answer to everything, it works extremely well in some areas, not on others. Hence one should be careful just how to implement it. Practical thinking is far better than just ideological perseverance.

Had the United States truly believed that they could establish a veritable Liberal democracy within Afghanistan, they may have been able to sway the Afghan populace so as to effectively secure an emergent state that could have protected itself from the Taliban for long enough for their organization to dissolve, not that any Western nation has a right to go around nation-building as such. It is because of the cynical self-interest in waging the conflict that we will eventually have to consider it as a loss. — thewonder

Remember what the first policy was when the US invaded Afghanistan: It wasn't there for nation building. It was there only to get Osama bin Laden (who fled to Pakistan). And then, during the crucial time after, the Bush was interested in Afghanistan, it was busy invading another country.

I've come to the conclusion that American policy made sense only when there was a strong counter force, basically the Soviet Union, that made Americans to think twice about what they would do. Americans had to actually think about what would be the countermove done by the USSR. This actually put some sense into it's actions. The last "sane" foreign war was how older Bush created a grand coalition to respond to Saddam's Iraq annexing Kuwait. Then the US went to the UN, did asked from the USSR if it would be OK, gathered muslim nations like Egypt, Syria, Morocco, the Gulf States. ABOVE ALL, listened to it's Arab allies! It didn't march into Baghdad. The hubris hadn't taken over.

And from there onwards it has been an absolute disaster. American foreign policy deciders came punch drunk of the easiness of doing whatever and absolute idiots full of hubris as the neocons erased away everything what was left of a rational and cautious foreign policy. Nothing did matter anymore. What were the actual political situation on the ground in these countries? How would other nations react? That was totally meaningless. The US could do whatever it wanted and it went on into this crazy binge of being a bully. Making alliances simply wasn't anymore the goal, it was either you are with us or you are against us. Moronic stupidity overwhelmed everything. Because, why not? Nobody cared. There were no backlashes. War on Terror, war against a method. And once Bush the younger made it so, no President couldn't escape the trap as everything was already FUBAR.

Now that the second and the third largest city has fallen and both the US and UK are sending troops to evacuate their embassies, the case seems to be clear. The Afghan National Army is simply collapsing. What is telling is that the non-Pashtun North has been taken by the Taleban, the basic support region of the "Northern Alliance", the place where the current Pro-US administration had it's roots. Without that the collapse is quite understandable.

It's easy to criticize the US; but, let's not loose track of Iraq, which was a spectacular victory for the US, yet with casualties estimated in a million people. — Shawn

Spectacular victory? How can you state Iraq being a spectacular victory? The Iraqi government wants the US out. It basically has Iran backed militias as part of it's armed forces.

Even the Iranians have made missile strikes into US bases during the Trump era.

Have you followed the situation there? Just a quick Google-search brings up news articles like this FROM THIS SUMMER:

June 28, (CNBC) The Biden administration said Sunday’s “defensive precision airstrikes” targeted weapons storage facilities in Syria and another location in Iraq.

“The targets were selected because these facilities are utilized by Iran-backed militias that are engaged in unmanned aerial vehicle attacks against U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby wrote in an evening statement.

BAGHDAD/AMMAN, July 7 (Reuters) - U.S. diplomats and troops in Iraq and Syria were targeted in three rocket and drone attacks in the past 24 hours, U.S. and Iraq officials said on Wednesday, including at least 14 rockets hitting an Iraqi air base hosting U.S. forces, wounding two American service members.

While there were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks - part of a wave targeting U.S. troops or areas where they are based in Iraq and Syria - analysts believed they were part of a campaign by Iranian-backed militias.

Iraqi militia groups aligned with Iran vowed to retaliate after U.S. strikes on the Iraqi-Syrian border killed four of their members last month.

What is the spectacular success if the US is now basically fighting parts of the Iraqi military?

One of my favorite photos: an Iraqi Hezbollah fighter posing with their American M1 Abrams tank. Do note the Iraqi flag behind the yellow Hezbollah flag. Tells how fucked up the whole situation is.


I think there are genuine reasons for criticism for US foreign policy and the way it's fighting these wars in the Middle East. Biden hasn't made anything better in a situation that has been, well, a disaster after Bush had this great idea to invade Iraq and basically abandon Afghanistan. To say it's not fighting a war simply doesn't cut it. And to get Peace deal, there simply has to be an incentive to stop fighting and opt for peace. No side has opted for peace when the war's objectives are just in their grasp and seem to be easy to obtain.

About 12 years ago, The International Institute for Strategic Studies
in London has developed a cynical strategy of withdrawal from Afghanistan. It could be divided into
tribal and religious fractions. Then, the US could choose one of the sides and benefit from managing
a controlled civil war and anarchy. So, what is going on there can become an invitation for the next
Power (China) to get involved. — Number2018

That's unlikely. The Chinese are fine with just putting their own muslims, the Uyghurs in concentration camps. And there are high mountains between Afghanistan and China, so the idea of a huge influx of Taliban to China is absurd.

Has anybody seen the The War Machine? I think it portrays extremely well just how the US has handled this war (even if it likely takes some artistics freedoms). Out of sight, out of mind.

Russia has been having joint military excersizes in Tajikistan near the Afghan border. They are worried about the Taliban spreading to the Cental Asian countries.

Here's an informative news clip from Russia Today explaining the Russian view very well:

Large-scale wargames have been held in Tajikistan, bringing together soldiers from three former Soviet republics to practice targeting enemy combatants and securing the border with neighboring Afghanistan, as the US withdraws.

A video of the equipment. Training seems very Russian.

I was still typing. — thewonder

I was indeed too!

If we want to continue, then I guess another thread may be more correct. Still climate change is worth a thread...even if one has said everything there is to say (at least by one's own thinking).

I'll guess I'll end my remarks with this:

Good summary. But notice that it follows a very distinct line. Because the line is about more like different groups among the communists and the anarchists. I'm not an ardent supporter of social democracy, but I think it has had more impact on our lives than Marxism. Why?

Because there are things like workers rights and the building of the welfare state, like with the government of Clement Attlee creating an extensive system of social welfare (including a National Health Service). Or the Fabian Society in UK. Or the SPD in Germany. Francois Miterrand in France.

That kind of socialism, the social democratic type and not the revolutionary type has had an effect in our own societies.

They had you read Marx in university? I know you're not in the US, but I can guarantee you didn't go to an American university. Glad to hear. — Xtrix

Of course. Something as important as Marxism ought to be naturally taught in an university. And the assistant professor was a Marxist, actually. He made his best effort to teach just what Marx had in his mind. Far better than the brief introduction I got in philosophy at the gymnasium.

I'm sure Russia was a shithole and the US was much nicer. — Xtrix

It wasn't a shithole. Russians as people are really great and friendly. When they have a guest, they really treat you very well. Here people try to be "decent" and just give you something modest in order not to "show off". But they, the Russians, didn't believe at all in the system. I remember that I wanted to go a Lenin museum we walked by in the City Center. I remember the expression of the girl from the family and her reply: "Uuuhh...OK, let's go". Even if she was a pioneer (or something) and could then visit my country.

On the other hand, Seattle was nice in the start of the 1980's.

You're just mistaken. I would fault you for being unwilling to learn and listen, however. — Xtrix

Personally I'd hold such views to the math & logic section in PF. There it can be so.

Let's get back to the topic.

you do as a certain disservice when you fail to recognize the distinctions between what I guess that I'll call the "authoritarian" and "libertarian" Left. — thewonder

Actually, there is a "libertarian" left. They are the social democrats, parties like the Labour party in the UK. And they have been very successful politically, opposed to the communists in Western democracies.

Perhaps it's one thing to have an academic or philosophical debate about socialism and then have the situation were people actually implement it in reality. Then the question really is, are they OK with any of the "Old" institutions, or is everything out and in with the new. If so, that everything old has to go, what then to do with those who oppose such reform. I think there goes the real divide: not in words, but in actions by with we should make the difference between "authoritarian" and "libertarian".

Right -- it's hilariously funny for those with a shallow understanding of the socialist tradition and who apparently have never read a word of Marx. — Xtrix

Actually I was taught Marxist economics in the University. Along with mainstream economics, perhaps I should add.

But I guess you never did visited East Germany or the Soviet Union. I had opportunity to do so, even lived for a short time with a Russian family in Moscow during the Gorbachev era. Pretty interesting to compare that experience to the few years I was in the US as a child.

Be just in your fantasies about what "true socialism" is and rewrite history to what you want it to be.

If there is not 'a highly controlled and organized fighting force as "The Taliban"', how can you explain
their success? — Number2018

Just as I can explain the success of the "Mujahideen" when the Najibullah regime collapsed in Afghanistan. In the end they did take Kabul. When a government collapses, you don't have to have an large, organized and tightly controlled army to take over.

Let's take for example the rapid success of the ISIS in Northern Iraq. There the soldiers were from the South, mainly Shias in Sunni territory. Once when the officers fled, nothing else for the soldiers to do than flee also: not worth anything to kill themselves for nothing. The interesting part is that those fighters who then took control of large cities and regions didn't know they were actually ISIS.

Yet if the World sees everybody as "the Taleban", then it doesn't matter so much for the Taleban leaders. They firmly can talk on behalf of everybody. It's their problem only after they take power.

And why the current Afghan government's military is so demoralized and helpless? — Number2018

Well, that's what you get when an army has corrupted high ranking officers pocketing the salaries of non-existent soldiers and troops that are high on drugs. If you look at any documentary about the ANA (Afghan National Army), it's quite miserable. The actual difference now is that the Taleban don't hide their faces to the news media (they aren't been tracked) and a lot of the equiment they use is American. That wasn't so five years ago. The Afghan National Army is collapsing now.

I am using "The Taliban" to refer to the entire loosely affiliated set of Afghan insurgents, more or less to avoid having to list any number of particular political factions within the region. — thewonder

This is how it should be viewed. I agree.

Perhaps, the Afghan military is more capable than I am estimating, but, I think that the American estimates for the fall of Kabul, within one to three months, are nothing but accurate. There's an entire generation of Afghans who grew up believing that civil rights could be established within their country. They thought that the West was going to build schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. None of that is going to happen. They need to figure out how to leave the country as soon as possible. — thewonder

The fall of Afghanistan would have serious consequences. It could be well the end of the US as a Superpower and the beginning of it being just the Largest Great Power.

The saying that Great Powers go to Afghanistan to die is so tempting.

can't you just let the council communists have their venerable Rosa Luxembourg? — thewonder

I have no problem with that. Besides, people contradicting themselves isn't anything new.

Yet if people start saying that Marxism-Leninism wasn't socialism or mainstream socialism, then I oppose that argument. That is the worst kind of rewriting of history. The next phase would be to argue that the USSR was actually capitalist. And noboby, NOBODY, has tried to implement true Marxist theories into reality.

Of course, with mainstream socialism (in the West) one could argue to be talking about social democracy, not communism. That would have a point. But I don't think that people here are making that argument.

The Taliban will live, fight, and die for their beliefs. Without some form of humanitarian catastrophe, they will continue to fight and they will eventually win. — thewonder

Ok,

I think just first we have to think who we are talking about when we talk about "the students", "The Taliban".

Because in truth I don't think there is a highly controlled and organized fighting force as "The Taliban". How many of them are local militias, smugglers, groups controlled by some warlord that has been deemed to part of the Taliban? It simply seems an easy term to call every insurgent. I'm very sceptical about the idea that all of the fighters now fighting the Afghan government share the same beliefs and ideology and follow the same leaders. Some things are quite easy to understand: to fight the foreign invaders, to reinstate Sharia law and have an Islamic state. And that where it ends, basically.

I am sure that the group formed with the assistance of the Pakistani Intelligence Services that was called "The Taliban", that took a large part of the country decades ago, isn't the the same organization now. A proper question is how close is the "Taliban" to the "Mujahideen" fighters that opposed the Soviets and the Pro-Soviet Afghan regime? Once the Pro-Soviet regime fell, anarchy prevailed.

I think the worst outcome is that they indeed take control of Afghanistan...and then it's a pariah state that nobody wants to have any relations with. And the outcome can be similar anarchy as in the 1990's.

In my view, you’re yet another victim of years of indoctrination on this matter. So much so that it seems ludicrous to suggest the USSR and China aren’t in line with mainstream socialist thinking at all (which is true). — Xtrix

I think you are living proof of how shallow and nonexistent historical knowledge is and how people pick just what they want to hear. Because I don't think you are trolling. Oh yes, USSR and Communist China weren't mainstream socialist thinking!

That is hilariously funny.

First and foremost, of course, is to actually read Marx. But then Rocker, Bakunin, Luxemburg, etc. — Xtrix

Let's do that!

Here's Rosa on the Soviet Revolution, Lenin and the Bolsheviks:

The Russian Revolution represents the most tremendous event to have occurred during the world war. Its outbreak, its unprecedented radicalism and the effect that it continues to exert give the lie to the rhetoric employed zealously by official German social democracy as an ideological cover for German imperialism’s campaign of conquest when this campaign was initiated—i.e. the rhetoric according to which it was the mission of German bayonets to overthrow Russian Czarism and to liberate its oppressed peoples. The revolution in Russia has assumed an enormous scale; its far-reaching effects have convulsed all class relations; it has enveloped all social and economic problems; and it has made consistent progress since the initial stage of the bourgeois republic, such that the overthrow of Czarism remains a mere brief episode and is virtually reduced to a trifling significance. All these circumstances clearly demonstrate that the liberation of Russia was not the work of the war and the military defeat of Czarism, that it was not to be credited to ‘German bayonets in German fists’—contrary to the pledge thus formulated in a leading article in Die Neue Zeit under Kautsky’s editorship. Instead they show that the liberation of Russia had deep roots in Russia itself, and that internally it was fully ripe. The military adventure of German imperialism under the ideological cover provided by German social democracy did not bring about the revolution in Russia—on the contrary, this military adventure initially interrupted the revolution for a period following the latter’s first storm surge in the years from 1911 to 1913, and served to create the most adverse, abnormal conditions for the revolution following its subsequent eruption.

* * *
Lenin’s party was thus the only one in Russia that had a grasp of the true interests of the revolution in this initial period—it was the element which drove the revolution forwards, being in this sense the only party to pursue a socialist politics.

This also explains how the Bolsheviks, who at the beginning of the revolution constituted a minority that was ostracized, slandered and hounded on all sides, were led within the briefest period of time to the forefront of the revolution and were able to rally under their banner all the genuinely popular masses—the urban proletariat, the army, the peasantry—alongside the revolutionary elements within democracy (i.e. the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries).

The actual situation in which the Russian Revolution found itself came down within a few months to the following alternative: victory of the counter-revolution or dictatorship of the proletariat—i.e. Kaledin or Lenin. Such was the objective situation which very soon arises in every revolution once the first intoxication has evaporated; in the Russian case, this situation resulted from those concrete, burning questions—the question of peace and that of land—for which no solution was to be found within the framework of the ‘bourgeois’ revolution.

Here the Russian Revolution has merely confirmed the basic lesson of every great revolution, whose vital law can be formulated as follows: the revolution must either press forward very rapidly and decisively, tearing down all obstacles with an iron hand and setting its goals ever further ahead, or else it will very soon be cast back behind its weaker starting point and crushed by the counter revolution. In revolution there can be no standing still, no running on the spot, no settling for the first goal that happens to be achieved. And those who attempt to apply the homespun wisdoms gleaned from the parliamentary battles of frogs and mice to revolutionary tactics merely demonstrate that the psychology of the revolution and its very vital law are utterly alien to them, and that all historical experience is to them a book with seven seals.

* * *
Lenin, Trotsky and their comrades have fully accomplished all that a party could possibly muster in the hour of revolution in the way of courage, forcefulness of action, revolutionary far-sightedness and consistency. The Bolsheviks evinced the revolutionary honor and cap acity for action that was so entirely lacking in western social democracy. Their October uprising not only actually rescued the Russian Revolution, it also salvaged the honor of international socialism.

Soo... tells us that USSR was "non-mainstream socialism" and we (or I) should read, among others, Rosa Luxembourg. Well, after reading that praise of Lenin and the bolsheviks above from Rosa Luxembourg herself, I think it's obvious that one of us doesn't know history, or what people actually wrote, and in this case it isn't me.

The EU was rejected as undemocratic by Europe’s largest economies, Russia and England. — Apollodorus

Russia rejected the EU as undemocratic? ? ? When? Who? Must have been Vlad who has said that. Yeah, he's so worried about democracy.

Germany which was under enemy military occupation was ordered to join. — Apollodorus

By whom? The Rockefellers?

France was pressured to join. — Apollodorus

Again who?

So according to you, who pressured Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman to go on with the idea of integration and common markets? Again the Rockefellers?

Have you ever contemplated that after such ruinous wars starting with the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and then continuing with World War I and World War II, all wars that left France in ruins and the two last ones with Germany too, that the political elites of both countries would finally, after millions of dead, come to the conclusion that there has to be another path forward than the adversarial, bellicose position that had lead to prolonged adversity and such calamity for so long?

Because the truth is the politicians like Monnet, Schuman, Adenauer, Bech, Beyen, De Gasperi didn't need to be pressured by some above entity (Bankers?) to work for European integration. They genuinely wanted something else than the environment that had brought so much death and destruction to their countries. Even Churchill favoured European integration and had the clear mind to have the UK to stay out of it (which now doesn't look like a bad idea, actually).

Oh yes, I bet bankers loved the idea. You can obviously find the Rockefellers, and of course the (ghasp!) Rothchilds, to having been in favor of European integration. Yet bankers are just ONE reason among others. But to argue that it was the bankers that did everything, were the most important reason is simply biased and wrong. To forget that EEC and the European integration process had it's roots in a continent that had experienced two diabolical wars that obviously killed fervent nationalism and the last jingoist in Western Europe for a while is simply an error.

So, Taliban is back mostly in Afghanistan. Anything new changed or is it same old? — Shawn

Very possible that a similar thing that happened with South Vietnam or more similar equivalent, the collapse of the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan, is now taking place in Afghanistan. The US is already getting Afghans that have worked with them to safety. Things look bleak for the US. Another lost war I guess.

First it was half a year, now it's to estimates like these, that the government may fall eveb in a few weeks:



These kind of statistics just tel how bad it is:

Turns out what you mean by it is very strange indeed, at least for anyone who's familiar with the intellectual tradition, if you equate socialism with the USSR or China. — Xtrix

Wow.

Who would equate socialism with the USSR and Communist China (or Cuba, Venezuela or North Korea)? :roll:

What is this branch? Where can I get me some? Sounds successful and popular. — Jingo7

Actually too successful for many eager leftists.

You don't know them?


Have ruled Sweden forever, basically. Our prime minister here belongs to this movement. The parties of the rose.


Have you heard about AOC?

Those leftists.

Simply repeating "market mechanism" ad nauseam means absolutely nothing. — Xtrix

And if you don't understand how socialism worked in Soviet Union or China...

I have no idea what you're talking about here. — Xtrix

Seems so. And that's why you use socialism and communism as synonyms.

This is completely irrelevant. It's also anecdotal. — Xtrix

Hardly. Price fixing simply doesn't work. What else is central planning that replaces the market mechanism?

So I'll repeat: government interferes all the time, on every level. There's no denying this. Whether this interference works out well or not is another question. — Xtrix

If you assume that having rules and legislation is "inteference", then I guess your idea that governments interfere all the time on every level is true.

Yet how typically people understand government interference, there is a huge difference between classic socialist countries and modern mixed economies.

But I see where this is going with you: whatever happens that's good is capitalism, whatever happens that's negative is communism. — Xtrix

Communism hasn't simply not worked. Marxism-Leninism didn't work. Maoism didn't work. Juche-ideology still doesn't work.

Besides, when you disregard the most successful and most popular branch of leftist thought (which is SO typical nowdays), then this is quite irrefutable.

Not by any stretch of my imagination, but, if they want to fund us, we might consider letting them build some of micro-nations or whatever. — thewonder

Just to make the surprising note that not all anarchism is leftist. And basically they are against nations, just like anarchists are.

I knew we would need boosters as it evolves but I truly expected to be sending kids to school without mandatory masks but that is not the case. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

One doctor who I know said something that I agree with, unfortunately.

"Likely we will start getting annual vaccinations for COVID as we get annual vaccinations for the flu. Some will take them, some will not (just as with flu vaccines)."

Masks will asked to be used for a while... until people don't wear them anymore. Some likely will and some places limitations and regulations will continue. Likely in few more years we are back in the ordinary. The scare of dying to Covid will last for just so long until it's the new normal.

(Influenza regulations back during the Spanish Flu)

Anarchism is a political philosophy and it can more or less be simply defined as "libertarian socialism". — thewonder

Would anarcho-capitalism be included in that definition?

The Rockefelllers also profited from Arabs and Iranians depositing their oil dollars in Rockefeller banks. By 1978, Iranian deposits with Chase alone exceeded $1 billion. — Apollodorus

Actually, the issue goes far further than just the Rockefellers.

That Saudi-Arabia sells it's oil in US dollars and uses American companies is one important issue for the whole status of the US dollar as the reserve currency. This was especially crucial for the US when it went off the gold standard. If you can buy oil with the money your central bank can create, that is one reason that the US has had the ability to be such a Superpower and fight all the wars it has fought.

Naturally Iran is out of this picture now after their famous revolution.

The big IPCC report— pretty sobering. — Xtrix

Living basically as north as Alaska is, the collapse of the Gulf stream would have an effect here. "Nicest" outcome would be just hotter summers and colder winters. Oh well, Anchorage isn't so bad.

The ocean current responsible for western Europe’s temperate climate could be at risk of collapse due to global warming, according to new research.

Scientists at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research found the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, could have reached a point of “almost complete loss of stability” over the last century. The AMOC is a system of ocean currents that acts like a conveyor belt carrying warm surface water from the tropics to the North Atlantic where it cools and sinks to the lower depths of the ocean. This colder water gradually moves southward several kilometers deep, before warmer ocean temperatures eventually pull it to the surface and the process begins again.

The Gulf Stream, the current of warm water flowing from the tip of Florida across the Atlantic toward Europe, is part of the AMOC and makes western Europe significantly warmer than it would otherwise be. Research has found the AMOC has “two distinct modes of operation” — strong and weak — and if it were to flip from its current strong mode to weak, it could have huge ramifications for the climate.

Lead author Dr. Niklas Boers said it could trigger “a cascade of further transitions” in other key components of the global climate system, such as the Antarctic ice sheets, tropical monsoon systems and the Amazon rainforest.

Take your housing example. The government doesn't "usually" interfere? What's "usually"? Of course they do -- nearly all the time. How? — Xtrix

There is a perfect example of this from my own country. The government brought in price controls in the 1970's which basically crushed the rental market and basically made a structural over demand for rental homes. My great aunt remembered being as a land-lord that people were so desperate that they even sent the first monthly payment through mail. In the 1990's if you put an announcement in the paper, you would start getting phone calls right from the morning with 40 to 100 calls daily. The demand was far more than the demand and public housing was only for the most poor or unemployed and basically didn't do anything to counter the demand.

Then the government deregulated the market. No caps for prices, total freedom in the writing of rental agreements. And what happened? Companies sprang up that rented flats and a lot of supply for rental homes appeared. Now if you put an announcement up, you'll get a couple of inquiries. And unlike with the housing prices, the rental prices have gone up only modestly basically with inflation. Suddenly a supply has emerged that wasn't there before. And this is what many don't understand at all from the importance of a market mechanism.

Furthermore, there are some instances of "free markets" throughout the world and throughout history. Maybe Egypt or Greece? Even there it's dubious. — Xtrix

Actually, modern Egypt is the perfect example why people are poor and stay poor in Third World countries: when a normal working family cannot get a loan to buy a house, no wealth is created when they have rent all their life a home. And once when people are poor and stay poor, there isn't that important domestic demand that would create jobs and growth.

Or we could start with slavery in the US. — Xtrix

And the US got rid of it in the 19th Century. Obviously not an inherent part of capitalism.

Last famines in Western Europe were in Ireland and Finland, actually, in the 19th Century. Yet the Chinese and Russians saw famines in the 20th Century directly because of the implemented socialist programs. The famine because of the Great Leap Forward killed an estimated 30 to 55 million people. North Korea has seen famine in our lifetime in the 1990's and likely even in this Century. What is common to all is the implementation of socialist central planning that really didn't work. Even North Korea has had to veer of from strict socialism. So it's a bit different, really.

As far as economic growth, China beats us by far in GDP. — Xtrix

When you start from far poorer state, naturally growth is far more rapid. Let's remember that the US nominal GDP is larger than China's GDP, even if China has three times more population.

Well, if you are a Finnish farmer living on EU subsidies then I suppose you would take a pro-EU stance. — Apollodorus

Finnish farmers actually got earlier more subsidies. I think the largest simple reason is that Finland without being attached in any way to the West would feel very precarious with Putin next door.

As shown by its name, the project was about coal and steel. — Apollodorus

And if you look at the EU budget in the past, basically it was largely an agricultural assistance program. But it morphed to something else.

The British took the money but refused to join the ECSC and its successor EEC on the grounds that it was unacceptable for the UK economy to be “handed over to an authority that is utterly undemocratic and is responsible to nobody”. — Apollodorus

Hence there was the EFTA, don't forget that. And UK got out from the EU, so nothing new here.

The whole Marshal Plan and associated European unification were a Rockefeller project. — Apollodorus

You seem to stick to one narrative. Even if the bankers did there part, the idea that it's only them, no other things happened, no other agents, players and motivations were not involved, etc. simply doesn't cut it.

Then came the oil crisis of the early 1970’s, also largely engineered by the Rockefellers, — Apollodorus

Now you go to full tinfoil-hat territory. Yeah, obviously the Rockefellers created OPEC and started the Yom Kippur War...

ssu, despite not adding quite enough drama to the First and Second Congo Wars, which resulted in, according to Wikipedia, 5.65 to 6.25 million casualties, seems to have some good ideas. — thewonder

Well, since the US wasn't involved, the conflict went largely unnoticed. And people will note that millions didn't die in the actual fighting, just in the famines caused by the collapse of a very fragile economy. But it is a reminder that conflicts were millions can die can and do happen.

"Government controlled capitalism." That's state-capitalism, which is the only capitalism that exists. It's what exists in the United States as well. Government direction and interference on every level. No "free market" fantasies. — Xtrix

The government doesn't interfere all the time and everywhere. Housing prices, the prices of taxi cabs and many other prices are usually left alone. The vast majority of companies and corporations are privately owned. The Western Mixed-Capitalism model is really different from China.

There is a difference when you compare China to other countries:


For example in the UK, you do have the occasional partly-owned BP, but otherwise...

Actually they worked just fine, by many metrics. They also had plenty of problems -- major ones. The United States has plenty of problems, too. — Xtrix

Let's start with the famines in the US. How many have there been thanks to US economic policy been inflicted to the American people?

Classism and racial prejudice (in every direction) serves extremely well to keep the the overwhelming majority of working people divided against themselves. And it isn't just prejudice. Class interests are real.

Putting an end to racism, exploitation, class divisions, and so on would break many of the pylons on which the structure of ruling class power rests. It would also break boundaries which various groups have erected around themselves. We could have a people's revolution; that doesn't seem likely. Even less likely is the Ruling Class shooting themselves in the head. Not going to happen, — Bitter Crank

Well said, Bitter Crank.

And I guess because there is social mobility upwards and also downwards, then the color of your skin is the last refuge for this division. Your observation also reinforces my thinking that the political discourse in the US is to divide and rule.

I don't believe that a classless society exists; I also don't believe that a society without deeply ingrained biases exists. — Bitter Crank

It surely not doesn't, because what we intend for the society to be is a meritocracy. And that results also in a class society. The question is if there is enough social mobility.

As far as I can tell, there is no national intention of putting an end to racism. There is plenty of lip service for the idea; there are numerous programs; there are all sorts of initiatives to nudge people towards being nice to one another. — Bitter Crank

Well, those don't work. The success has been basically that now a white racist will look over his shoulders before uttering the n-word.

We could have a people's revolution; that doesn't seem likely. — Bitter Crank

I agree with you. The US would be ripe for a unifying movement and one emerging would be theoretically possible, but I think it's unlikely. What is more likely is that you will have radical movements on the left and on the right that then will absolutely hate each other. In public debate poignant commentators who annoy the other side will be cherished. Yet it's not a debate when you don't listen to the other one. And what else those in power now could hope for? Other than they don't instill the divide into violence on the streets.

The US of course will go it's own way. All I can say that the Nordic model of "Folkhemmet", national home, has at least worked in the past as it has been alliance with the social democrat movement and the conservatives: the conservatives understanding that the welfare of the working class and the poor are very important and the social democrats understanding that the capitalist system has merits too. The real power in a left-right alliance is to have the ability to agree on few basic important issues and then let the less important details be the center of the political fight and heated political debate. When policies get to the level of agreement as the US supporting Israel (lousy example, but you get the point) then things happen. Here the parties are at their throats, as typical, but when it comes security policy and Russia, suddenly they are in unison. Naturally they don't openly admit it.

No, you are a well-traveled urban sophisticate, and if you are not urban then you are urbane. — Bitter Crank

Lol. Well, something like that. We don't have diversity training. Yet. I assume it will come here too.

"Spoiled identity" can be a savage experience. It has happened to me once or twice. One of the good things about our rootlessness is that one can uproot and plant one's self somewhere else fairly easily. One need not be forever stuck with the spoiled identity. — Bitter Crank

Race taxonomies are a pseudoscience as agreed on this thread, so "spoiled identities" do happen. All those "diversity workshop leaders" have to get their jobs! At least there are women and sexual minorities among the white Finns in the workplaces.

As Finns have lived in the same place for literally thousands of years, that identity based on language and your family roots is really hard to be transformed. At least for the US there is an identity that everyone can be an American. Finland along with other Nordic countries are struggling with this as there hasn't been such an option to become one earlier in the national myth. My wife, even if she has dual-citizenship now, thinks that she will be never be accepted here. And she doesn't like so much Finns in general (hopefully at least there's one exception). I just pick on her sometimes that I have darker skin than she has.