Do you necessarily think communism would benefit your life?

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As to the Greece/Spain/Portugal incident. If they establish a Marxist-Leninist state, I will put my foot in my mouth. The best I can expect from the situation there is another social democratic one.

A workers revolution is much more likely there than in Cambodia or Congo.

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The standard of living in the global north are due to the imperialism it reaps from the global south, without that imperialism, it's standard of living would doubtlessly decline. Hence it has little interest to create socialism that isn't inherently imperialistic.

How exactly would the SoL in the first world decrease though?
Would people lose their cars or houses, or what?

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Dude, a good part of the Third World is dying out of poverty and disease despite, and even partially because of, the First World.

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Yes. But i don't think that the situation would have been better without any "first world" in the first place.

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First World "aid" is doled out because of the foreign interests that it has in exploiting the labor of the people it aides.

The US doesn't have a single company in North Korea.

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Most of the underdevelopment in the world is a direct result of colonialism and neo-colonialism, which chose and governed which colonies could industrialize, and which were resource pits.

I disagree. China would have still been a shithole had they not opened the country to imperialist investment.
Anyway,there was this guy from Africa on S-E and he explained to you that there was basically nothing there before the British (etc.) came.
viewtopic.php?f=107&t=48901&start=20

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That is a horrible twist of the causal relationship here. Why do you think they're hungry and sick in the Third World, Loz?

Because they don't have functioning industry or agriculture.

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Because of the actions of the first world. Global capitalism? Example: Angola

What? Angola is one of better African states. It has started cooperating with China a lot and the country is improving.
Angola exports materials, the Chinese build roads and hospitals and so on in Angola.

Loz wrote:

A workers revolution is much more likely there than in Cambodia or Congo.

Why do you think this? Congo and Cambodia have had revolutions in the past.

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How exactly would the SoL in the first world decrease though?
Would people lose their cars or houses, or what?

production without imperialism would decrease in the short term. iPods, computers, McDonalds, etc would significantly decrease in production. The Global North won't have revolution until it is reproletarianized after economic suffocation from people's war.

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EDIT:
Yes. But i don't think that the situation would have been better without any "first world" in the first place.

Horseshit. Underdevelopment and shitty conditions are the direct result of imperialism and colonialism, and continued by neocolonialism. Read some Fanon.

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The US doesn't have a single company in North Korea.

it has hegemonic interest in North Korea to keep companies in other potentially dissident countries.

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I disagree. China would have still been a shithole had they not opened the country to imperialist investment.
Anyway,there was this guy from Africa on S-E and he explained to you that there was basically nothing there before the British (etc.) came.
viewtopic.php?f=107&t=48901&start=20

China was the most powerful country in the world for centuries. British imperialism is what turned it into a shithole. Economic improvements under Mao were the first forward steps that China ever took. Deng's reforms may have increased the GDP of China, but the rural population standard of living has suffered severely as a result.

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Angola exports materials, the Chinese build roads and hospitals and so on in Angola.

Angola defied US imperialism in its borders for years. That's why it's not shit, like Mobutu's Zaire, which allowed US intervention.

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Why do you think this? Congo and Cambodia have had revolutions in the past.

What? When did Congo have a revolution? Che went there but his colleagues spent most of their time time drinking and chasing women.
And Cambodia had a "revolution", led by Pol Pot and Co.

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Production without imperialism would decrease in the short term. iPods, computers, McDonalds, etc would significantly decrease in production.

How do you know this?

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The Global North won't have revolution until it is reproletarianized after economic suffocation from people's war.

Ok.

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Underdevelopment and shitty conditions are the direct result of imperialism and colonialism, and continued by neocolonialism.

I don't see how Africa would have been any better today had Europeans never set foot on in.
Also quote the relevant sources if you wish to argument.

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it has hegemonic interest in North Korea to keep companies in other potentially dissident countries.

What? Elaborate please, i'm not getting you.

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China was the most powerful country in the world for centuries. British imperialism is what turned it into a shithole. Economic improvements under Mao were the first forward steps that China ever took. Deng's reforms may have increased the GDP of China, but the rural population standard of living has suffered severely as a result.

It's not British imperialism that made China bad, but the fact that China was still feudal while the rest of the world was progressing into the industrial age.
That's what Roy just said to me.

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Angola defied US imperialism in its borders for years. That's why it's not shit, like Mobutu's Zaire, which allowed US intervention.

Nigeria (and so on) has also allowed US imperialism, and it's still way better than Angola.

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How do you know this?

Because we're not gonna get the stuff without imperialism? That is glaringly obvious.

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I don't see how Africa would have been any better today had Europeans never set foot on in.

People didn't starve there before we came.

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Because we're not gonna get the stuff without imperialism? That is glaringly obvious.

What stuff? How do you know this?

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People didn't starve there before we came.

What? What "we"? Who are this "we"?

Are you saying that there we no famines in Africa before colonialism?

While the abundance of consumer shite would drop probably slightly, itd just be made here, by free citizens. Besides luxury consumption is fuelled by debt, not wages these days.

As an aside, since patent laws would not exist, we'd see an explosion in gadgets, inventions, software and improvements, as the barriers of property are dismantled.

You're not thinking about investment criteria for innovations that may cost far too much for the supposed benefits.

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What? Angola is one of better African states. It has started cooperating with China a lot and the country is improving.
Angola exports materials, the Chinese build roads and hospitals and so on in Angola.

True for today but prior to this it was a colonized country that never even received the bare minimum back from its oppressor. Usually there is at least some development that occurs in a colonized country. Angola was left in the dark and didn't even receive bare minimum such as medical care while other colonized countries did by their colonizers. You point out its doing well now which is great I'm just pointing out the suffering it endured. For a while it was one of the worst. The reason for its troubles was Imperialism. Even from the beginning when the Portuguese presence arrived, factions started forming to sell slaves and earn gifts or prizes from the imperialists. So their presence from the very beginning started trouble. As soon as "we" set foot there (I guess he means light skinned people ) it meant trouble. The rest is history!!!

Mabool wrote:

Because we're not gonna get the stuff without imperialism? That is glaringly obvious.

Why is it so obvious? The price of raw materials and manufactured goods from the Third World will go up, yes.

A)If the price of foreign manufactures goes up enough, it'll become more cost-effective to manufacture locally. That'd re-industrialize the West. It might well be the Fifties all over again: Mass consumer-industrial production, high employment, rising wages, momentous inflation... They could afford a rise in the price of raw materials, because profit margins are usually large.

B) If the West decide to import manufactures instead, things get uglier: They'll either have to raise prices or assume a sharp drop in the profit ratio. If wages are rising anyway, they'll just raise prices. If they face a demand slump, many will go bankrupt, adding to unemployment, chilling wages and "embiggening" the demand slump that was the problem to begin with. This may or may not spark a socialist revolution. The West may decide to change course and re-industrialize anyay before they actually collapse, so we're back to A)

Western capitalism might survive the end of neocolonialism for fifteen years or so. Then it'd enter a '70s crisis all over again. They might pretend to recover for another decade or so through financial cheating and bubble-mongering, and then they'd inevitably reach the next meltdown. (Capitalism enters major crises and depressions every 15/30 years anyway)

Yes, Third World Revolutions can contribute to, or even cause, crises in capitalism. Yes, they might eventually acquire the means to support First World revolutions when they happen. Third World Revolutions (any revolution, really) makes other revolutions more likely, that's why historians call'em revolutionary waves. But they don't make them impossible.

You probably can't re-proletarianize western workers, 'cause they never ceased to be proletarians to begin with. They've got higher wages than their Third World counterparts mostly because of the higher level of economic development (the material conditions), partly because they've been able to force such concessions from the bourgeoisie (or the bourgeoisie has considered them acceptable tradeoffs, or both), partly because their consumption is needed to keep a market economy going, and only partly because imperialism allows First World economies access to cheaper commodities.

Third Worldism is a simplification.

Loz wrote:

What? When did Congo have a revolution?

It didn't. But it did start to nationalize industry and drift towards the Soviet Union when the US backed Mobutu's coup. Also, Che's attempts at a revolution were more manifested than you give them credit for.

Loz wrote:

And Cambodia had a "revolution", led by Pol Pot and Co.

And France, UK, etc didn't have revolutions. Your belief that the First World is going to have revolution is simply not backed by evidence. The establishment of socialism in Eastern Germany was imposed. First World socialism will probably be brought about similar to this.

Loz wrote:

How do you know this?

The cost of materials and resources will skyrocket. I've cited the exportation of Coltan multiple times. Coltan is too expensive to extract from Canada or Australia, so it's extracted from the DRC for cheaper, which funds a civil war within the borders. Without imperialism, Coltan prices would skyrocket due to rising wages in a nationalized industry not reliant on forced labor. Apply this same argument to REM (rare earth minerals), gold, textile, and industrial production. I've told you and others the same thing time and time again. I'm in no mood to continue this part of the discussion. Read our past conversations if you feel so inclined.

Loz wrote:

I don't see how Africa would have been any better today had Europeans never set foot on in.
Also quote the relevant sources if you wish to argument.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney. A stagnant population, environmental exploitation and strip mining, purposeful underdevelopment, etc. You're argument sounds incredibly like "white man's burden." What is your explanation? Africans are dumb?

Loz wrote:

What? Elaborate please, i'm not getting you.

US has hegemony in an international unipolar world. This hegemony gives it a big stick in places like Bolivia and Egypt, where it has vested interest in the products or resources they can extract from these countries. The US uses neo-liberal ideology to justify it's conquest morally, so its "aid" to North Korea looks moral on the outside, while its intentions are really to continue hegemony over weaker diplomatic ties.

Loz wrote:

It's not British imperialism that made China bad, but the fact that China was still feudal while the rest of the world was progressing into the industrial age.
That's what Roy just said to me.

The British Empire controlled the Chinese economy through joint-stock companies starting in the late 1600's, before the Industrial Revolution. It extracted resources from China rather than industrializing it. What's your explanation? China was too dumb to industrialize despite the fact that it invented combustable gun powder? No, imperialism led to underdevelopment.

Loz wrote:

Nigeria (and so on) has also allowed US imperialism, and it's still way better than Angola.

Nope, Nigeria is torn by ethnic and religious strife which was created by colonialism. The Hausa and Yoruba peoples existed separately before the British forced them together. Hausa chiefs were made "governors" over the Yoruba, leading to increased ethnic tension. The third dominant ethnicity in Nigeria, the Igbo, was an ethnicity completely invented by the British (it didn't start appearing in British documents until the 1930's), the conversion of Yoruba to Christianity by foreign missionaries intensified ethnic/religious conflict, and the Igbo are deemed inferior by the other two groups. Post-colonial ethnic violence is a result of colonial occupation. Today, the oil money is centered in the cities by a handful of oil barons, most of them being European, and the Boko Haram, Izala, and IMN militant groups terrorize local populations, fueled by imaginary ethnic and religious conflict. Nigeria Sucks.

runequester wrote:

While the abundance of consumer shite would drop probably slightly, itd just be made here, by free citizens. Besides luxury consumption is fuelled by debt, not wages these days.

No, the price of resources, not just wages, is too expensive without the utilization of imperialism. Coltan runs for 160 dollars a pound even with the DRC as the main supplier. Your cellphone would likely cost thousands of dollars. Your computer would cost as much as a corvette.

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A)If the price of foreign manufactures goes up enough, it'll become more cost-effective to manufacture locally.

Not about local manufacturing. It's about resource cost for certain resources which cannot be acquired locally. Nobody will buy a "domestic product" because it will still be fragging expensive. Like fragging expensive. Like 200 times the price it is now.

KlassWar wrote:

They'll either have to raise prices or assume a sharp drop in the profit ratio

Not if they prevent wages from rising, which they've been able to do for years. Many corporations get their resources through the utilization of slave labor. If they keep countries torn apart, they don't have to pay more for stuff, that's why they fund militants.

KlassWar wrote:

Western capitalism might survive the end of neocolonialism for fifteen years or so.

Neocolonialism won't end until capitalism does. Because capitalism is dependent on imperialism. The only way that Western Capitalism will end is through Third World revolution and global people's war choking out imperialism and ergo, capitalism.

KlassWar wrote:

You probably can't re-proletarianize western workers, 'cause they never ceased to be proletarians to begin with. They've got higher wages than their Third World counterparts mostly because of the higher level of economic development (the material conditions), partly because they've been able to force such concessions from the bourgeoisie (or the bourgeoisie has considered them acceptable tradeoffs, or both), partly because their consumption is needed to keep a market economy going, and only partly because imperialism allows First World economies access to cheaper commodities.

They don't have an interest in revolution, because they will no longer have access to the cheap commodity field and their standard of living will drop. Seriously, have you been following this conversation at all?

KlassWar wrote:

Third Worldism is a simplification.

One-liners are not statements of fact. Get over yourself.

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No, the price of resources, not just wages, is too expensive without the utilization of imperialism. Coltan runs for 160 dollars a pound even with the DRC as the main supplier. Your cellphone would likely cost thousands of dollars. Your computer would cost as much as a corvette.

The DRC is a big supplier, but its only 13% of the worlds tantalum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan

Australia accounts for almost as much, and Brazil double.

Besides, we'd find other solutions. You can make capacitors with different materials. You can make different or cheaper computers. And well, you can have more expensive computers if need be.

And in the end, who cares. People are in the streets about lack of healthcare, crushing student loans and crushing unemployment, not because they can't afford a laptop.
The senior citizen that shot himself in Greece a few days ago didn't do so because he couldn't afford an iphone. He did so because he couldn't afford food.


Yeah, standards of life might not stay the same. You know what? Standards of life have been plummeting for years now, and it isn't turning around.

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First World socialism will probably be brought about similar to this.

Can't wait for the Cambodian Red Army to liberate Berlin.

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The cost of materials and resources will skyrocket.

Proof? Sure,if Congo disappeared one day the costs of resources would probably rise.
You have yet to prove that this would make imperialism die out.

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A stagnant population, environmental exploitation and strip mining, purposeful underdevelopment, etc. You're argument sounds incredibly like "white man's burden." What is your explanation? Africans are dumb?

What's my explanation for what?
There was litteraly nothing in most of Africa before colonization. Japan was a feudal shithole before the West forced it to open its borders.
Also read Marx and Engels.

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The US uses neo-liberal ideology to justify it's conquest morally, so its "aid" to North Korea looks moral on the outside, while its intentions are really to continue hegemony over weaker diplomatic ties.

I don't care if it's "moral" or not,the fact is that DPRK is kept alive (among other things) thanks to US aid.

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The British Empire controlled the Chinese economy through joint-stock companies starting in the late 1600's, before the Industrial Revolution. It extracted resources from China rather than industrializing it. What's your explanation? China was too dumb to industrialize despite the fact that it invented combustable gun powder? No, imperialism led to underdevelopment.

"
No, the British had no significant presence in China untill the early 1800's, and there was no resource extrction either, China exported silk, tea, and porcelain to the West, while importing very little British textile products, leading to huge trade deficit on the part of the British, which the British tried to balance with opium, the Qing court tried to ban opium, and it led to the Opium War. China's feudal peasant army, which had the habit of fleeing upon the sight of bayonets, was no match against the professional British soldiers.

China failed to industrialise because the highly centralised feudal state and the predominantely agrarian society inhibited the development of a large class of merchants, while the relatively low level of external threat until the 1800's discouraged the Qing court to pursue dvancements in military technology."
Roy

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Nope, Nigeria is torn by ethnic and religious strife which was created by colonialism.

Ok, it didn't have ethnic strife before colonialism.
Also, it's still better than DR Congo by all criteria.

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No, the price of resources, not just wages, is too expensive without the utilization of imperialism. Coltan runs for 160 dollars a pound even with the DRC as the main supplier. Your cellphone would likely cost thousands of dollars. Your computer would cost as much as a corvette.

Source?

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There was litteraly nothing in most of Africa before colonization.

Yeah, we Europeans like to think that, but that's really ignorant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Africa

I was actually quoting a guy from Africa.

viewtopic.php?f=107&t=48901&start=20

I would not gain anything under communism infact I would lose more than I would gain. I would lose ownership of my home which I have worked hard for. My beloved camaro which I poured a ton of money into. Just to name afew things.

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I would lose ownership of my home which I have worked hard for. My beloved camaro which I poured a ton of money into. Just to name afew things.

No you wouldn't.
Why do you think so?

Menor wrote:

I would not gain anything under communism infact I would lose more than I would gain. I would lose ownership of my home which I have worked hard for.

That's highly unlikely: How many homes do you own?

I've never heard about communists expropriating folks' regular place of residence (except to build infrastructure over it, but they can do that to you under capitalism as well).
Unless you've got a mansion, mind ya: Then it might get expropriated and turned into some administrative building or collective housin'. 99,9% of folks don't own mansions to begin with, anyway. Do you worry about your vacation home (if any)? Don't. Do you know which was the country with highest vacation home ownership in the entire fragging history? If you guessed the US of A, you're dead wrong: It was the USSR: Millions and millions of Soviets had their own dachas to spend summer vacation in.

As for the cars, the commies don't want your car, either: If we expropriate and collectivize the car industry, we can make our own cars, so we don't need to piss off people expropriating their cars either.

The notion that "commies will take away your homes and your cars" is capitalist propaganda to scare the proles off Socialism.

If you think you own your home, stop paying your mortgage and property taxes, then send us a postcard with your new address

No you wouldn't.
Why do you think so

Yes I would. I dont own no million dollar home. But I do own three houses and about to buy a fourth soon.

If you think you own your home, stop paying your mortgage and property taxes, then send us a postcard with your new address.

I pay no mortgages on any of them. As for taxes I dont mind paying them as they are used for schools road repair and other services.

So please tell me what I would gain under communism. I see nothing but lose from it. I would not have been able to start my business and then sale it for a small profit to a much larger company. Could I have done this under communism no. Ownership is not allowed.

Source
Lenin's Collected Works Vol. 27, p. 293

communist manifesto
In communism private ownership is not allowed.

Edited for typo

If you've read Lenin etc, you also know that "private ownership" has nothing to do with personal possessions