Here's another good one on him "debunking" socialism. Why haven't there been VRs attacking him?
youtu.be
"IT WASN'T REAL CAPITALISM"
Nolan James
Jason Bennett
These guys would like to have a word with you.
memes aside, I know that necessary deductions from labor are technically a tax on labor output which was literally what Marx suggested in CotGP, but the DPRK and Albania were the only states in history that abolished taxes by bourgeois standards
Eli Johnson
VRs? Virtual realities?
Justin Russell
Video responses
Landon Lee
Do you know why though? It seems so roundabout to me for an ML state to have taxation instead instead of deductions from labor to fund stuff like healthcare, education and pensions.
Wyatt Bailey
At some point ye just gotta throw out the whole fuckin' nation.
Mason Lee
Camden Davis
You either have taxes like Cockshott suggests, or you undervalue labour and subsidize popular things like food and dwellings. So either direct taxation or indirect taxation of broad offset of values by multiplying values of everything by a number slightly larger than one is a way to ensure that aggregate output of society reaches those who are unable to contribute in any way, such as the chronically ill, the children, the elderly who are unable to work.
Offsetting this by squeezing profits out of hugely productive industry to pay back for all the other inequalities is shoddy mathematical trick that has always bitten the people in the back. Cockshott speaks about this causing the lack of incentive to innovate the industry, to lessen the work load by introducing mechanization and automation.
Samuel Lilley written in this in his book Automation and Society, where he explores latest advances of soviet automation in engine piston manufacturing. Citing this as a one plant build in automation in mind from scratch. This indicates an order was placed for this thoroughly automated factory. Organic demand for automation arising from the decision and request of factory organizing comittees or managers was not present.
In fact the factory bureaucrats were hesitant to innovate and automate as it might endanger the money flow towards wages. This was mostly discussed in criticism of factory management by everyone who ever saw it while living under the communist party rule of bureaucrats and nomenklatura. But one thing is to be given to those politicians. They did not let people fall to the bottom of incredible poverty and drug abuse. Everyone was given a rightful place in society's production which ensured material well being. Today the material well being is not a right but a privilege.
Of course I would very much welcome if I had more credit to actually be able to make this criticism. For example wikipedia article on Albania states that before starting university, students had to work for a year in industry or agriculture (productive sectors). If I were to do this now I would be incredibly happy. Capitalism is so perverted that even being economically exploited is a privilege. And how it commodifies everything, even the caretaking and counceling. The psychological effect of affirming being valued by society by participating in social production and having it evaluated fairly and not being reduced into mere number in profit making scheme does wonders.
If that flag is unironic, then I am really impressed. Good post.
Evan Moore
Good fucking post lad.
David Clark
The thing is, the highly-profitable industries of the USSR were typically light-industries. Allowing profit to dictate where investments should be made implies the absolute domination of the law of value over production and also a move backwards to the planning of production by profitability i.e. a return to capitalism.
The Soviets didn't just use profits from light-industry to engage in cheap food populism but also to invest in heavy industry that produced low/no profits or even operated at a loss. But this wasn't merely about the Soviets loving steel but was about the fact that better means of production would improve productivity overall was tied to heavy industry.
And think about it, how profitable was the Soviet nuclear industry? The nuclear industry is a low-profit industry today under capitalism. Imagine how it must've been when the Soviet Union was a trailblazer in nuclear power in the 1940s and 1950s.
The Soviet space program and space industry wasn't profitable at all at least in a direct sense.
One of the things the Khruschevites did when they came to power was try to "fix" the problem profitable industry subsidizing unprofitable but usually more advanced industries. I think that it has to be counted as a major advantage of socialism that it can fund unprofitable but socially desirable enterprises, furthermore while capitalist governments can do these things they are also limited by both bourgeois class interests and a system of financing that forces them to pay interest on anything they spend above their annual tax revenue.