Thread for issues and questions the "average" non-commie or liberal person would bring up/care about and how to answer them effectively without alienating them with rants of theory and obscure terms.
For example, how would Socialism/Communism solve:
- The housing crisis - Drug wars - Wage stagnation - Wars, especially in the Middle East - "How are you gonna pay for it?"
And other water cooler-type conversation that presents an opportunity to relate to people.
If this is more apt for the QTDDTOT thread, I'll gladly take it there instead.
What is the best way to answer the “how are you going to pay for it question”? I’m an American and the first thing I would think of saying is cutting the military budget down. Just look at it, it’s ridiculous. Even then, whether it is education or healthcare a person would probably say “IF WE DID THAT IT COULD WORK, BUT ONLY FOR X YEARS BEFORE IT BANKRUPTS THIS COUNTRY”. Obviously I think this is bullshit since a lot of industrialized countries have universal healthcare and cheaper education and they haven’t imploded.
Ironically, the US healthcare system is the most expensive in the world, precisely because it's private. Universal healthcare would actually be cheaper.
housing should be a 100% public industry. the only way to do this is by getting rid of ghettos. this can be helped by dealing with both the housing crisis, as well as stopping the rising unemployment rates ie fixing unemployment. See: Democracy at Work. workers co-ops eliminates the need for diesmployment. also labor unions for when new technology gets developed so corporations are pressured to reskill their employees rather than fire them. getting rid of the oil industry, so as to stop their influence in politics (especially the executive branch and congress) fixing the military budget.
Ryder Hernandez
I never would have thought of bringing this up, I guess I need to go and do some more research. Thanks for the infograph.
first step that has to be undertaken for leftists to meme is to abandon ms paint atleast use paint.net, it's still limited compared to other image editing software but it's a million times better than paint
Wyatt Harris
I think a Communist society should provide housing to people, but I don't think it would have to. Having more money and less building-effort being wasted on mansions and other dumb shit would help. We won't have them? Nothing good has came from the U.S. trying to hunt down drug dealers. They have shown themselves incapable. We could legalize these drugs, I suppose. Let the criminals be choked out by legal production. Or, by radically transitioning to a more equal society, we would eliminate the dependencies that create organized crime. Why be a dealer when you can work as a clerk for great pay with good hours? I mean, as long as society doesn't stop developing, that won't happen. "Wages" will be basically set for eternity at the number of hours people work, so as long as society keeps on advancing, the "wages" will buy more product. Seems obvious to me that the more the U.S. messes around in the Middle East, the more Middle Eastern people hate the U.S. No reason for a Communist country to be at war in the Middle East. No real reason for a Communist country to be at war, really. Kind of hard to convince people to join you when you shoot them, but maybe it would work, I don't know. None of this really requires money. But most material increase in people's lives will come from the correctly, equally distributed value among people. The value currently hoarded by Capitalists will be returned to the people that produce it, so no need to pay for anything. Literally just moving money around and setting society so it won't move back.
Zachary Taylor
Gimp has more features and uses the worker's license (aka GPL)
Henry White
When I was young, we used to hear about how technology was going to reduce everyone's work hours and do away with repetitive menial labor, while raising everyone's standard of living. Capitalism and competition instead of co-operation have made that impossible. As long as our economy is based on corporations competing against each other, instead of just producing the things we need and doing what needs to be done, there will be huge inequality and a race to the bottom.
-Construction of new housing tracts -Killing the drug lords and confiscation of their assets -New Socialist Payment system based on labour input -A re-evaluation of the necessity of force where it has been deployed -Income Taxes I do have my criticisms of this format, as without specification of which region, or what epoch, you are talking on a metaphysical plane
Owen Miller
what a corporate scam. we don't need income tax and we never did, it's uneconomic.
Ian Collins
The problem is our economies do not work to produce the things and outcomes we need, they work to make the ruling class rich. It is against the law for a corporation's board of directors to act in altruistic manner. They are there to make the shareholder's richer, period. This has an extremely negative effect upon the actual potential and wealth of a society. The working class fails to get many of the things they need not because we couldn't produce them, but because that is not what our economy is set up to do.
Nolan Price
Capitalism is a fatally flawed system. As technology reduces the need for a workforce, there is no mechanism to deal with people losing jobs and no longer being able to buy the things they need, and keep the economy from crashing. We need to stop looking to the ideologies of the past, and develop a new system.
Lincoln Flores
The first thing we need to keep in mind is that this planet has way to many humans on it to live sustainably. It looks like this problem may be handled for us soon, as we rush headlong into the climate apocalypse (yes, I know the word really means revelation, but you know what I mean). As our ecosystem falls apart, it is anyone's guess how many technology is going to be able to save. But there will have to be laws limiting the number of children couples are allowed to have, although this is still a taboo subject in the west. The survivors will have to make bringing the ecosystem back into some sort of balance amenable to human life their #1 priority. Worrying about how to 'pay' for things will no longer be a relevant concept. We will already be paying for the things of the last few generations. That will be the epoch, and I'll probably be talking FROM a metaphysical plane.
Nathan Sanchez
There's a lot of material to work with in people's everyday complaints at work and generally, if you're willing to become "that communist" in order to raise awareness that there are alternatives. For example everyone who works at big companies hates the pointless rules and the departments that exist to enforce them, or the new systems IT bought that are worse than the old ones. To that you can point out that people just acted rationally: you need a high paying job to have nice things, so if not enough of them exist you just make one up, and/or if someone questions the necessity of your position you invent a new project or problem to solve. Since we all have this incentive, the only way out is to create a system where people can live well without a high status job or even any formal job at all. Then the goal of work becomes doing meaningful things instead of self-preservation.
Kayden Nguyen
Fam, don't put the post number you're replying to in the title, simply either click on the post numbers you wish to reply to or place >> before each of them, as you can see in the various other posts in the thread.
Andrew Cooper
Yes, we do. How else do you plan to allocate products towards unproductive laborers? Income taxes are the simplest way and what Marx advocated.
Wyatt Brown
under the DoP probably, where all laborers already own the MoP under capitalism? corporate taxes.
Juan Phillips
You fucking leave. It's not rocket science. Its what all countries do when they end their war or occupation. And it would save tons of money leading into: By using the government to make money instead of just losing it by giving out 0% interest loans to bankers so they can charge the citizenry 25% interest. Also not losing money doling out money to criminal contractors who share their stolen funds with the corrupt politicians. More complex. It's all about purchasing power. So wage minimums must be tired to pricing limits. Going back to what I said about the government making money if they operated efficient business they could sell the well priced goods back to the people and offer discounts for those requiring assistance. Same things I just said. Government builds housing, offers good jobs, get's work down efficiently. Doesn't use contractors. Money goes out one door and comes directly back in the other instead of looping through private business and the struggles of taxing them the shit back. It's more direct so it's more efficient. End prohibition. All drugs were legal until we started a prohibition. It didn't work with alcohol it won't work with any other drug. We don't ban draino because it's poisonous, why should we ban some other substance that's less toxic just because people enjoy it? We don't even ban dust off for that matter even though people like to get high on that shit too.
Jacob Rodriguez
No, under communism. I mean in socialism/communsim.
