The big problem is there is no evidence of any plan for violent insurrection. — NOS4A2

For fucks sake....

Oh yes, when nobody publicly says that they are going to attempt an insurrection tomorrow, it obviously wasn't an insurrection! Rhe storming of the Capitol Hill was a logical and obvious consequence to all the bullshit perpetrated earlier by Trump & the gang. It's no surprise that people who believe in Q-Anon bullshit do take these things seriously... when it's the biggest scam in history.

For example, the ex-Tweeter in Chief did tweet things like this one from last year December 26th:


Or this one:


Since the kidnapping plot of Gretchen Whitmer it's all quite evident where this is leading to. Or even with the pre-Trump era shooting of Gabrielle Gifford and others in 2011. Or the attack on the congressional baseball game in 2017 (where the targets were Republicans, btw). Those all were canary in the coal mine events showing just where things are going in Weimar America. But the person that increased most the polarization, the alienation and the vitriol, was President Trump.

Believe me, now for the terrorism part during the Biden years. Bombs blowing and that sort.

So happy that I and my family visited Washington DC and New York in 2019. I always remember the walk from our hotel in DC to the stairs of the Capitol Hill where the US Marine Corps Band was playing "patriotic" music in the warm summer night with a crowd of laid back Americans listening to the music. It felt so nice, relaxed and it reminded me how nice Seattle was in my childhood. Hope that America isn't lost yet.

Does this help? — Maw

Great, seems that you've found to copy paste the crucial part from Marx (I remember one Lizard brain berating me on an internet quote, but anyway).

OK, let's dissect what Marx says there above and especially this part:

but the cost of production, for its part, determines the oscillations of supply and demand — Maw

Even if Marx doesn't use the name "labour theory of value", I guess this comes close to it.
So how does the cost of production determine changes (oscillations) in demand? This is the basic question I have with the labour theory of value. Yes, I guess Marx doesn't start from the viewpoint of one transaction, but from an aggregate viewpoint, yet still this is left open.

Of course the problem here I guess is the antiquated theory from Ricardo that Marx uses, even if Marx refines this.

Yet a change in demand can perfectly happen without any link to the cost of production. This is modelled in neoclassical economics as simply the demand curve moving. (And that is btw was the Menger's point: if a diamond is just picked up by accident by a passer by (with no work) or is found after a large diamond mine operates for ages (with a huge amount of work), the price of the diamond is the same).

Well no, this is putting the cart before the horse. The upper limit cost of what the general consumer is willing to put up is only known in the last instance, i.e. the products have to be produced and in market for sale. — Maw

Yes. And there's a lot of products of which price can already be quite well known in the market when the capitalist makes the calculation to invest or not. If your planning to mine a natural resource or start a dairy, I guess the price of milk or the price natural resource is quite well known to you. One dairy or mine will likely not alter the price so much.

What you refer (if I understand again correctly) would be true in a product that has never been on the market, I guess. That is the case very seldom.

Is it about state controlled economies with just different degrees of control? — frank

Yes and no.

If you argue that Sweden is state controllled economy, then I guess the US is also a state controlled economy with it's resorting to using the Defense Production Act and subsidizing heavily various industries and companies. Yet I don't think anyone here thinks Trump's USA is socialist.

A good measure is if the government start nationalizing industries and starts rationing products. Let's look at for example Venezuela has done:

So not only oil production is nationalized (which is more like the norm today in many countries). Chavez himself went to nationalize either totally or certain companies from the steel industry, gold mining, telecom, electricity and agriculture.

Needless to say that Sweden hasn't gone in a similar way and nationalized industries with such fervor. Last time they had to do that was during the banking crisis in the 1990's, where state took an active role in rearranging the banking sector (unlike in the US). However there are and have been state monopolies in Sweden (System Bolaget for liquor stores or prior Apoteket AB for pharmaceutical retailers and so on). Yet that some industries or service have been deemed so important or so costly that the state takes responsibility of them isn't something only connected to socialism. For example, you can find state owned railways in many capitalist countries.

Sorry, a bit of confusion there. I mean globalism has destroyed so much. It’s not the great success story overall, i.e. American jobs, sweat shops, etc. — Brett

Yet one cannot deny that countries like China or India do have benefitted from the current era of globalization. The US has been the loser here, and we can see it now in the current situation the country is in.

Explain what about them? In an absolute monarchy the monarch effectively owns everything. — Pfhorrest

That would be owned by the government in a democracy. Not that there isn't private property. I think that people in Brunei, Monaco or Saudi Arabia do have private property.

It strikes me as unnecessarily risky though, to hope that when things get really bad, someone will step in in time. — Echarmion

Of course. When we look at the history of nearly all Western nations, there have been those critical times when a socialist revolution was possible. Let's not forget that Germany indeed experienced after WW1 brief revolts.

That depends on what you understand by "socialism" — Echarmion

I think a good divide would be with social democracy and with the more communists and marxist-leninist. Social Democratic ruled Sweden is quite different from Cuba (or Venezuela) are quite different.

"It" being that only leftists argue for economic reform and welfare? I'd agree with you. — Echarmion

Yes, this was what I was meaning.

. Of course the success of globalism is a lie. — Brett

Apart from seriously diminishing global povetry, but who cares about little things like that.

Bismarck is not perhaps the best example you could pick here, since the reason he added the "drop of socialist oil" to the mix was to avoid a socialist revolution. — Echarmion

Actually that was the reason and which shows that politicians that supported a monarchy can still see the needs of the people and react to social issues before they turn into open revolution.

But that doesn't mean there isn't always the inherent danger of unrestrained capital accumulation leading to unrestrained power. I think the struggle between welfare, unions and regulation on the one side and the profit motif on the other is hard to overlook. — Echarmion

Yet doesn't unrestrained socialism lead to unrestrained power? Look at history.

And I simply don't buy it.

Where I live, which has the so-called "Nordic model", has an capitalist free market system, yet might look like to people in the US as socialism. Still, the country is capitalist. Here the welfare model is promoted by the right also, no political party has here as it's intension to demolish the welfare state. So I don't really by the argument that the right or conservatives are against welfare state and that the only ones arguing for it is the left or capitalism inherently leads to unrestrained power. It simply isn't true.

And trade unions? Trade unions don't have to believe in a socialist ideology. They are there just to promote the interests of the employees towards the employer. It's quite reasonable. What isn't reasonable is not to have trade unions and then think that all employers would behave decently. Perhaps if you are part of the workforce that is highly sought after, you can get a great deal, but if there many people to replace you, look out!

To give an example why trade unions are non-political: the vast majority (likely 99%) of officers in the Finnish army belong to their own trade union, which is part of the academic trade union. And none, literally none of them is a leftist. During the 20's and the 30's the Communists tried to infiltrate the Finnish Army (on the belief that they could do it just like they had infiltrated the Russian Imperial Army). They had no success, not even one person, which is pretty dismal. Again these issues aren't things just pushed by the left.

Capitalism is the concentration of ownership of capital in relatively few hands. — Pfhorrest

Capitalism is the ownership of industry is held in private hands. Private ownership doesn't lead to that. For example, land ownership hasn't concentrated into relatively few hands, there are lot of small landowners in every country. Competition leads to larger producers being more efficient than smaller ones and the most likely situation is an oligopoly situation where there are a few large companies which dominate a large part of the market, but a huge portion is made up of a vast amount of small companies with niche segments of the market. Perhaps here one should make a difference between capitalism and market economy.

Ownership of something is just is having rights in it, and vice versa. If the public has rights to the profits of industry, e.g. if taxation is legitimate, then that is in effect (even if ot in name) at least partial public ownership. — Pfhorrest

And how do you explain absolute monarchies then? Hobbes? How much different is the state actually if it's a monarchy or a republic? The postman is the same postman even if the monarchy is overthrown and is replaced with a republic.

Nowadays in a post-agricultural economy there is capital other than land, which is not subject to exactly those same old feudal laws. But if it is legitimate for the state to tax the proceeds from that capital, then the state in a practical sense owns an interest in it, regardless of the words used in statutes to describe that relation. — Pfhorrest

For the state it's not only an issue of checks and balances, it's also interested in it's own power.

It's a movement that considers every economic theory had something useful to say and that economist should be aware of all of them. — Benkei

With that I can agree with. Any economic theory that gets support usually have a point and a kernel of truth in them. And what is obvious is that real economic policy and real economic structures don't follow the pure ideological theories, but are a mixture of many.

And Marx talking about the obvious problems in the 19th Century societies does have a point. I'm not saying that Marx as a philosopher would be unimportant. What I was saying that his economic theories haven't been so successful as neoclassical economics and there is a reason for this, even if Marxian economics is taught in various universities around the World. When I was in the university, Marx was taught to us in several courses while for example Austrian school economics was only covered in a voluntary study group by a small group of students, which I unfortunately turned down when asked to join. That tells a lot, actually.

I remember a professor in the university telling that Marx also made the prediction that the proletariat might not focus it's efforts on creating a communist revolution, but simply to demand more pay. Looking at the labor movement in the West, that is the way it went. What is notable is that capitalist societies in the West did make an effort to improve the situation. If someone like Bismarck introduces the first social-welfare legislation to counter the socialists demand, who actually is then behind the improvements, Marx or Bismarck?

Marx wrote about the limitations of treating supply and demand as an economic law as it was the predominant bourgeois economic theory in his own time (e.g. Say, Bastiat) — Maw

Say and Say's law isn't part of the economic theory of supply and demand on which modern mainstream economics is based on. I'm not familiar with what Bastiat has said on this.

Value for Marx in his Labor Theory of Value is determined by socially necessary labor time in a given society — Maw

Which doesn't take into the account of demand in the equation. That simple.

But let's think about the brief example within Menger's quote using Marx's actual analysis and see why the former's criticisms is so absurd. Menger asks why the consumer should care about the productive origins of a commodity in regards to price (which Marx would call commodity fetishism). Fair enough, but what about the capitalist? In order to have a product in market she has to have a labor force comprised of wage laborers who require monetary compensation (and also require reproduction, i.e. they need to minimally feed, clothe, and shelter themselves and begin the working day again). She will additionally need the raw material along with the machine(s) or other technology that the laborers will use in producing her commodities. Likewise, the raw material requires wage laborers to extract and distribute to producers, as do the machines which need laborers to be build. — Maw

And here what you have described the market mechanism of both supply and demand tell far better what is going to happen.

Because if those costs the capitalist faces, the proletariat she has to keep alive at the bare minimum to gather those raw materials and to produce the good, is only one part of the equation. How many are willing to buy that good and for what price is needed and is absolutely crucial. If the costs are so high that only an eccentric millionaire can buy the good and is indeed willing to buy the good at the price that covers the capitalists costs and gives her a reasonable profit, then not much good will be produced. If that doesn't cover it, then the good won't be manufactured in the first place. No production, no proletariat working for the capitalist, no capitalist, actually. Only people doing some other stuff. If at a lower price more people are willing to buy the good, the capitalist might prosper more.

This just shows how more in line with reality is the supply and demand model to the Marxian model. The idea that the work put into the production is a one sided model which doesn't take into account how the market mechanism and pricing works.

If that private ownership were truly considered complete and sacrosanct, then the taxes that fund the social programs of a welfare state would rightly be considered theft. — Pfhorrest

I don't think that industry being owned privately means this "complete and sacrosanct" libertarianism you talk of. The kind of Ayn Randian libertarianism in the US isn't any kind of natural consequence or end result of capitalism, it is just one result that has happened in one specific country, which has a multitude of reasons why it has gone the way it has. The idea that if you have capitalism, then you social programs and welfare state is considered theft is just quite bizarre.

In short, who owns the industry and trade doesn't define everything in a society nor does it define how the society holds itself together. There are many other issues here as every society has developed from a past version of itself that existed prior modern capitalism.

If the laws of the land hold it justified and right for the state to confiscate some of the wealth of those private owners for the benefit of all of society, that is in effect saying that the people as a whole, represented by their democratic state, have some rights in that wealth, i.e. a stake in it, a bit of ownership of it. — Pfhorrest

Well, actually no.

It's simply called taxation.

And people are and have been perfectly OK with taxation for millennia to fund the state. And that state can be a monarchy, an Empire, a theocracy or whatever. People have understood that if you are going to have something like armed forces to defend the society, that obviously costs something. That libertarian individualism you refer to is a quite recent idea in the history of nations and them taxing their people.

A welfare state is a counterbalance to capitalism, keeping its excesses in check. Without one capitalism would eat itself alive. — Pfhorrest

I think people understand that societies made up of capitalists are far more complex than that. Let's remember that capitalism is private ownership of trade and industry while the classic definition of socialism is ownership of these by the community. Modern social democracy doesn't strive for that anymore, just to "curb the excesses of a market economy", hence just to regulate capitalism, in my view.

And also here is the crucial question: even if trade and industry is in private ownership, why cannot social cohesion and solidarity still prevail? A society is far more complex than just trade and business. There are many other bonds people have with each other than that. The counterpart might not be socialism, but perhaps social cohesion.

SSU says things like Marx has been proven wrong because supply and demand explain the economy better and yet thinks to be taken seriously. — Maw

The issue with Benkei was about Marx's value theory of labour. That actually has to do with supply and demand. Marx apparently wrote a lot else more, which isn't proven right or wrong by this.

As Carl Menger said way back in his time about the theory:

There is no necessary and direct connection between the value of a good and whether, or in what quantities, labor and other goods of higher order were applied to its production. A non-economic good (a quantity of timber in a virgin forest, for example) does not attain value for men since large quantities of labor or other economic goods were not applied to its production. Whether a diamond was found accidentally or was obtained from a diamond pit with the employment of a thousand days of labor is completely irrelevant for its value. In general, no one in practical life asks for the history of the origin of a good in estimating its value, but considers solely the services that the good will render him and which he would have to forgo if he did not have it at his command...The quantities of labor or of other means of production applied to its production cannot, therefore, be the determining factor in the value of a good.

Here the laws of supply and demand are a far better model.

The fate of conservatism is to be dragged in a direction not of its own choosing. The tug of war between conservatives and progressives can only affect the speed, not the direction, of politics. Because they cannot alter change, and due to a fondness for authority and order, conservatives are often the hand-maiden of socialism, insofar as compromises and appeasement have led to greater state control (See Bismarck and the foundation of the modern welfare state). This control has not only served to hinder the rise of socialism, but also any path to liberty. — NOS4A2

Then again look at present social democracy in Europe. Not hardly the movement that would have as it's agenda of doing away with capitalism. Yet social democracy is the actual movement that has prevailed and been very successful in the West, not totalitarian communism. The simple reason is that if something works and people are happy with it, then any political movement has to go with it and just bite it's tongue, however much the thing goes against their core ideology. Hence it's not so one sided as you think.

Yes we can! Bush signing Medicare part D in 2003, hence even Republicans are totally capable of enlarging the welfare state.

What if the corruption is part and parcel of capitalism though? A capitalist system allows an ever accelerating accumulation of wealth. This is in a way what everyone in a capitalist system ultimately strives for - not just to be rich, but to get exponentially richer. — Echarmion

If capitalism would be so all encompassing greed, how do you explain then that even with capitalism many countries do have a lot of social cohesion and are just fine with things like the welfare state. Bismarck wasn't a leftist, but he went on with social-welfare legislation.

Have you been living under a rock the past 12 years? Marxist economics has been vilified for years. — Benkei

Carl Menger lived from 1840 to 1921, hence this isn't anything new. Marxist economics has been questioned right from the start and rightly so.

Like any theory about human action it's flawed but it's definitely experiencing a revival since 2008. — Benkei

Well, Marxists have allways said that it has experienced a revival. I thought Neo-Marxian economics was a big thing in leftist circles in the 1970's and 1980's with guys like Paul Sweezy.

The way forward is heterogenous economics and Marx is part of it. — Benkei

Explain a bit more what you mean by this, if you have the time.

Nuclear fusion will never be a viable power source on earth. — counterpunch

Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that.

I'll get back to you when it is...

In any case, there was a time when I valued these views; I still do, though not as I once did. But now it seems a repository for bigotry, jingoism, nationalism and is anti-science and anti-reason. — Ciceronianus the White

First, don't let the populism of Trump distract you here. Just because the GOP in America is in chaos doesn't mean that conservatism around the World is in chaos and has been defeated by right-wing populists. That's a false narrative, which naturally is eagerly upheld by people from the left.

Just ask yourself, which conservative leader has been in power in the West for the longest?

Angela Merkel.

Of course the Trumpist doesn't even realize that the German chancellor is from a conservative party, just as the typical American leftist today abhors the actual social democrat leaders in the West (of whom Tony Blair was actually the prime example). Yet it's telling that the moderate left and the moderate right are totally sidelined as focus is given to the populists in the media.

But what are the real power structures? The political division in the European Parliament tells something about the true power balance in the EU. And which is the largest faction? The EPP, center-right as it is known. And btw Angela Merkel's party belongs to the EPP, just like the local Conservative Party Kokoomus from here (whereas the UK Tories belonged to the ECR).



In my view the idea that conservatism has lost to right-wing populism simply isn't true. Conservatism hasn't fallen into jingoism, nationalism and anti-science reasoning. It's one narrative promoted by those who oppose conservatism.

I don't think nuclear fusion can work in earth gravity. — counterpunch

?

You mean H-bombs don't work or what? I assume you mean something else. Nuclear fusion can be done...it just typically uses more energy that it creates, if I have any idea about physics (which might not be so).

Jackson first achieved fusion when he was 12, just hours before he turned 13 on Jan. 19, 2018. His achievement was affirmed by representatives of the Open Source Fusor Research Consortium on Feb. 2

What is Trump doing with his new found free time? — Benkei

Yes, he is likely missing those 88 million followers that he had on Twitter. (I guess the 51 people he followed aren't so much missing him)

Without Twitter, he is missing something:


Trump is now going to Texas to see his much beloved wall. 400 miles of it. And visit the Alamo. I think after the forced on him talk, which he barely could make through reading from the teleprompter, Trump will get to be back himself tomorrow.

All he needs is to see his fanatic supporters, and off he goes...

I totally agree with your argument on the importance of energy. That is crucial. The most abhorrent and lunatic ideas are those that assume that there are too many people and the solution we have to go back to some time that the person in his or her fantasies thinks is optimal.

Also I agree with that the solution is higher living standards, as that has and will curb population growth. Also more wealthy people, not those on the brink of starvation, will happily preserve nature. Even if the poorest do understand what is happening, what can you do if you haven't anything else and the immediate problem is how to feed your family today and tomorrow? What has happened now in Asia, would be far more than welcome to happen in Africa.

In terms of "big picture" stuff we probably agree; if the world had limitless clean energy that everyone could access, our greatest existential threats would be solved. — fdrake

And when we get fusion reactors to be so efficient that they can compete perfectly against other energy sources, I am certain that there will many of those that are critical of the new technology, distrusting the "science" and being fearful about it's effects. Perhaps that the fusion reactor will explode as a hydrogen bomb. Heck, at least it will cause cancer or something!

(Besides, think about the bureaucracy and the red tape with all these countries involved:)

Although to be honest the US is probably a lost cause due to how money is married to politics there to an extent not possible in some of my favourite countries (Nordics, Germany and the Netherlands). — Benkei

This is the unfortunate bind in the US. Even if a net corporations would have tried to be impartial and would have upheld freedom of speech values, they likely would face even bigger wrath from the DNC and the incoming administration. Some YouTube or Twitter wouldn't be exactly favorites of the democrats if they would have allowed Alex Jones et al. use their platforms right up to last Wednesday. Americans simply don't consider any corporation to be impartial, but twist the narrative to what they want to portray.

The simple reason is the vitriolic nature of the two-party system. Those favourite countries you mentioned have political systems that, at least for now, have the ability during times of extreme duress (severe terrorist attack, large scale natural disaster etc.) to come together and reach a consensus. Hopefully this won't change.

Anti-terrorism is... bad? — Kenosha Kid

Yes, for those who see violence and extra-parliamentary action as the key to get things done in a democracy.

Yet of course anti-terrorism usually doesn't solve the underlying problems, but it can do away with fringe movements that basically have no larger support than a cult would have.

The real question is if still the legal system prevails. I think one example is the UK and it's "Time of Troubles": when known terrorists can live their life freely, either after their jail sentences or when the authorities cannot represent enough evidence for a conviction. That happened in the UK with the Provisional IRA.

I think you're right in regards to Weimar. There is an eerie similarity between the treatment of those involved in the protest and those involved in the Reichstag fire. It makes me wonder if Democrats and their GOP enablers are using the "insurrection" conspiracy theory as a pretext to remove civil liberties, particularly against their political opponents. — NOS4A2

NOS, now you are only showing that Weimar-mentality. You just assume that they will use events as a pretext to remove civil liberties and and attack their opponents. This is the attitude discourse of a conspiracy theorist and a populist.

Just try to think from another point of view:

How about the more obvious case: that they (the US political elite) are deeply humiliated just how the US politics now looks to the whole World and demand a stop this. It was their offices that were ransacked. They had to flee from an angry mob. This didn't happen on the West Coast in Portland. And as they don't understand how grave the underlying current of distrust is, they don't see that people will see their response as, well, like you do. But mark my words, the politicians will react. And the distrust will be just reinforced.

I'm pretty sure that most Trumpers would censor people on the left given the chance. They'd justify it in terms of public safety too. — five G

I think the Trump crowd accept fringe views because they think that comes with freedom of speach. But yes, they wouldn't allow anyone they consider a public safety issue around (starting from ISIS).

I must confess that I'm personally a little paranoid about this kind of thing. — five G

You are totally correct to be paranoid. For starters, ECHELON is (was) of similar age than I am. And I'm not a youngster anymore.

Actually, it's not inconceivable the FBI will start asking sites like ours for IP addresses. — Baden

That is totally true. So stick to your Guidelines, Baden. Really.

Here's the thing with the FBI and others: they actually are not partisan in this and will go and observe ALL possible kind forums, from pro-life to pro-choice, from antifa to the right wing militias and to animal-rights sites or libertarian sites. Pro-Trump sites now? You bet. And a philosophy forum would be a typical place to check, because heck, you have computers and algorithms to do that. It's not that a physical person employed would have to follow the stuff, so the cost isn't so high.

I support terrorism.

Long live Zohra Drif. — Brett

Well, the way things are going, we might get bomb attacks also in our local cafeterias where you drink your sustainable fair-trade herbal tea and me my cafe latte. But hey, Zohra looked sexy especially in the movie "the Battle for Algiers" (which is a great film about urban terrorism).



Or at least you get the government search engines to note that the user "Brett" on the site "Philosophy Forums" says "he supports terrorism" and that is then put to a huge database to be used possibly in the future.

but if it's annual number of registrations — counterpunch

It is, cars are registered just once.

Anyway, as Baden is closing this thread and there might be another better thread to discuss just what to do with the global economy to address climate change, it might be good end with comments more along the lines of this thread.

One of the basic things for a forum like this is to represent different opinions and that those differences in opinion are discussed on the higher intellectual level than with the typical vitriol and ad hominem attacks, which your average social media discourse descends to. A central question is the role of the government and the role of the markets. Your answer above, , shows obviously that you have thought about the issue, but firmly believe in a top down lead manner for the change to come. I think it is one of the most important arguments that divide the left and the right.

While I agree as a conservative that markets have their problems and the market mechanism cannot take care of everything in the society (as anarcho-capitalists believe), the mechanism can do a lot and has done a lot. The failure of Soviet style centralized planning shows this, yet one should also remind that the Chinese, who (at least the leadership) firmly believe that they are communists, have done well just by partly using the market mechanism. Yet transformations that basically nobody saw coming in the government and couldn't be planned ahead happen with the free market system. And this is crucial. Economic history has showed so many times that with innovations and new technological breakthroughs that lead to new industries cannot be pre-planned centrally, but are usually done by some eccentric hobbyists at start.

That is a startling transformation from ...none, to not quite none - and it only took a decade! — counterpunch

And that's how in reality transformations happen. (Except that electric cars have been around since the time of the combustion engine.) And btw it is a transformation as in Germany annually roughly about 3 million cars are sold. From nothing to every tenth one is a dramatic change, counterpunch.

Besides, If you look just how long horse drawn wagons and the early cars roamed the streets together, that did take a while. In the US the transformation was very rapid, yet globally it was another thing as personal cars were a luxury for a long time:

I'd extract carbon from the air before I'd trash 47 million cars, impose massive infrastructure costs on the taxpayer/consumer, add huge energy demand to the national grid, and destabilize fossil fuel geo politics. — counterpunch

Adding massive costs to the taxpayer/consumer will decrease demand, so where do need the huge energy demand on the national grid?

And just what do have in mind with destabilizing fossil fuel geopolitics? Start a civil war in Saudi-Arabia and have the US attack Iran and Venezuela?

The dark side thereof is now on display. — jorndoe

What is on display is just how the American political system is descending into Weimar style politics as both extremes of the American political spectrum have at last found the street as the perfect place for their extra-parliamentary activity. After Trump's incitement to walk on Capitol Hill to show strength, the loonies will be just more emboldened and more confident that they were right in their claims that the ruling elite is there to get them.

After this comes likely the real terrorist groups like Europe had in the 1970's and 80's or the "lone nut" activists, who know the best way to be successful is to keep it all in your head.

We just have to get them to change what kinds of cars and energy they sell. The auto industry is already swinging heavily into hybrid or full electric vehicles. "Oil companies" are already rebranding themselves "energy companies" and investing in alternatives. It's just the smart thing to do, since one way or another oil's days are numbered. — Pfhorrest

And that happens with consumers choosing electric / fuel cell electric / hybrid vehicles with competition among the car manufacturers driving the costs down of these "alternative" fuel cars.

That's it. Markets can do something useful.

(What that transformation actually looks like)

I was trying to think of left-wing anti-Trump lackeys (meaning Biden lackeys?) that were comparable to Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Judge Jeanine, Shapiro, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, etc. and came up with a video from The Young Turks. — praxis

Good example. I remember Dave Rubin was part of the TYT team and then left them. Of course now Rubin went all in with Trump and sided with the election fraud argument, which just tells how difficult it is for these political commentators not to slide down the slippery slope themselves.

The worst of course are the conspiracy-buffs like Alex Jones. They don't believe in any way there being impartial journalism and they themselves push the most classical propaganda ever once they side with something.

I think the best way is to simply listen to them as you listen to RT or other news media. They are journalists, and when covering some third nation / third party stuff they do their job applying good journalism. Yet when the issue is Putin or Russia or things on Putin's agenda, they won't utter any criticism and will very smartly promote the agenda. Similarly Al Jazeera English is a great news channel from the Middle East, if you just remember that any story about Qatar or that has a Qatari agenda won't be impartial.

No one was talking about fraud in 2016. — Xtrix

Except Mr Trump himself. The election then was going to be rigged, remember?

He was repeating all the same lines before that how rigged the election was going to be (if he lost). There was even the same debate if he would accept defeat in 2016. What's new?

This seems rather vital to the fascist mindset, but it's difficult to empathise with someone who would say, "Yeah, if he shot someone at random I'd support that". It's an extremely common mindset so I would like to understand it, however evil it seems to me. — Kenosha Kid

Perhaps start from jokes done with bad taste?

France has a long tradition of demonsrating in the streets, since their much beloved revolution. The US hasn't had that tradition for a long time, yet I think, unfortunately, it will be the new normal for you now.

I just remember from my childhood how festive and cheerful US elections were when I lived in Seattle. There wasn't the somber mood as in Europe. Now that I think has changed.

Well, the debate has moved many pages from this, but I'll reply.

Seems to me that 21st century society is facing 19th century problems while using antiquated 20th century economics as a solution. — Maw

Yeah, you can say that, yet society isn't transforming from a feudal society as it was in the 19th Century. Modern middle class is a bit different from the classes of 19th Century. Above all, history of the 19th and 20th Century has also answered many issues, if we just want to look at our history. Yet one part where economics is now truly lost is in monetary economics, that I agree with. It doesn't make any sense of the insanity now upon us (with the economy in recession and asset inflation making the stock market going into all time highs and the central banks printing a lot of money).

Adam Smith institute? Well, what I meant is that apart from Economics 1.1 lessons, economists don't refer typically to Smith as Marxist economists to what Marx has written.

I wouldn't class strong economic control as a defining part of fascism. — Echarmion

I would, because it's part of the ideology. Fascists just loath plutocracy, nearly as much as communists do.

(I assume what Mussolini thought about the role of capitalism in a fascist state matters.)

China is drifting towards fascism under Xi, I don't know enough about the internal politics to judge how far it is on that way. — Echarmion

Learn about it. I think Xi is a perfect example of someone who is an successful autocrat, starting from little things as he abolished term limits for himself. (Trump would be the unsuccessful autocrat).

There's threads about that, as you know, Benkei.

Economists like Menger and others have far earlier shown how flawed the theories are, but the most obvious example is the little if meaningless impact of Marxian economics in current economics. Sorry, but markets and the market mechanism of demand and supply work far better to explain economic issues. Not a dubious theory based on "labor" making the value of something. What it is useful is for ideological leftist politics and not much else, actually. Especially with economics or with economic planning it simply isn't useful.

And anyway, the fixation on going through again and again the writings of the19th Century philosopher with a religious zeal and the utter lack of referring to later Marxian economics shows how dead actually the school is. We simply don't refer to, with similar zeal, to the writings of Adam Smith or Pareto and do understand that even if they did have good insights, their views are quite antiquated as the economy and the society has moved on from the 19th Century. And of course, the utter demise of the communist experiments IS proof just how wrong the economics is, because the theories surely were tried to be put into practice.

But that hardly matters as it's basically a religion and ideology than a scientific theory.

And anyway, I'm not so sure how much modern day leftism has to do with Marx anymore.

And how do you define fascism?

What in the part of the definition of being "a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition" does China differ according to you? Italy under Mussolini had still capitalism only "with a strong state". The difference for Mussolini and the Italian fascists was that the capitalist system was strongly controlled and lead by a strong government.