My point was that his assertion that Marx didn’t judge Engles for being a capitalist isn’t really meaningful as they didn’t ideologically conflict at the time. There wasn’t an ideological divide between a capitalist and workers, as workers hadn’t developed a stratified class consciousness.
The PRC has been increasing state ownership over time and is restructuring the economy. It can’t just push a button and wipe the entire private sector away overnight. I would like to see sources of forced labor though.
I would like to see sources claiming state ownership has meaningfully increased over time, as the increased disparity in wealth seems counter intuitive to that claim.
Source for forced labor in China.
I’d like clarification on what you mean by Imperialist tactics and wanting every country to be Russia, that stands directly in contrast to the stated ideology of the USSR and appears to be fairly ahistorical.
Ahh, so examine internal contradictions…but don’t actually call them contradictions.
It depends on what era and region you are talking about. Stalin was a supporter of communism in one country, as opposed to Mao who urged each country to adopt communism with characteristics unique to each culture.
A large part of the split between Trotsky and Stalin occured over how to handle the CCP during the Japanese invasion. Stalin wanted to make a deal with the KMT and later turn on them, Trotsky wanted to aid the budding CCP in their fight against imperialism.
When talking about the spread in eastern Europe, the Soviets implemented programs to replace languages and culture.
In Korea the Soviets disappeared the socialist leader of Korea who was paramount in fighting off the Japanese, because he wanted control of the country to be transferred back to Koreans and for unification to begin ASAP. He was replaced by the Kim family, who they had trained in Russia.
Or we could just take a look at how the Soviets treated the non Slavic people withing the USSR. Whom are overwhelmingly more impoverished and have historically had the wealth of their land extracted to support the Slavic population. As well as being drafted for wars at a tremendously higher rate than their Slavic counterparts.
Do you have some numbers we can follow with respect to the claims of Imperialism?
What numbers do you speak of that magically determine how imperialist a nation is?
This is false, more of production is owned by the state now than it was previously. There is steady progress towards more collective ownership, without disentangling from the global market.
Source?
said disparity is increasing, yes. However, the state has full ownership of 17 of the 20 largest companies, and 70% of the largest 200. Banking, railways, mining, energy, and more are near totally controlled by the CPC.
Soo if the state “owns” the majority of the businesses, yet wealth disparity is growing at breakneck speeds, and the workers still don’t have the same protections as some place as dystopic as America… What does that say? Something isn’t adding up here.
Either the government is purposely creating a bourgeois class on purpose… Or the meaning of ownership is inherently different than what you are implying.
There is a bourgeois class, yes, and this will need to be confronted, but they do not hold more power than the CPC.
You could make the same argument about American bourgeois.
It can’t be a leap, the next mode of production emerges from the previous. We see this with the CPC gradually increasing ownership of various sectors.
And what has that ownership meant for the people who “own the means of production”? What influence does the average worker in China have that surpasses the level of influence of a worker in Detroit? It seems that ownership just enriches the bourgeois with ties to the government now.
Sure, that’s the direct lesson the USSR taught the CPC with its collapse. The world depends on China for production and thus can’t openly attack it.
Which is just another barrier lifted that you say precludes them from actually transitioning to a socialized economy.
It has coupled with an increase in worker ownership, like I said the CPC has been steadily increasing state ownership, especially in the last decade or so.
Is that worker really worker ownership…? One would think that you may increase your own working conditions or pay if you collectively owned the factory you worked at.
How exactly do the workers own the productivity when theres still a management class that capitalizes on the work you produce at the factory you “own”?
Engels was a literal Capitalist. Ideologically he was a Communist, yes, but Engels was a literal factory owner and businessman.
Right… But my point was there’s not an ideological difference between Marx and Engles as you implied in your statement.
when they tried to jump to Communism under Mao and the later Gang of Four, they ran into massive issues because the Means of Production weren’t developed enough.
That’s legitimate reasoning for a pre industrialized china, much less so when modern China is basically the production capital of the world.
I don’t think there is a legitimate excuse for the modern wealth disparity, the large transient work force, or the use of forced labor currently happening in China.
Like it or not, the USSR collapsed due to trying to stay isolated from the West, which legitimately led to dissatisfaction towards the lack of consumer goods.
The USSR didn’t collapse because they were isolated from the West, leading to dissatisfaction towards the lack of consumer goods. They collapsed because they still utilized empirialist tactics to expand their holdings.
Their failed push into Afghanistan was the final blow, but the Soviet Union had already been spending way too much of their national budget on the military, siphoning away from the robust social safety networks they built in the 60’s.
Russia didn’t want communism in every country, they wanted every country to be Russia, and thus communist. This of course didn’t track well with the East or the West, leading to the schisms between the USSR and the communist East.
It maintains a Dictatorship of the Proletariat over Capital,
But does it? Marx described a dictatorship of the proletariat as workers mandating the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers’ councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership.
Now one would assume that if workers controlled the means of production, then they would have more direct control of their working conditions and pay than somewhere like the United States. We would also hope to see a steady progress towards collective ownership, however in recent history we have seen more and more production being privatized, not nationalized.
The bourgeoisie exists, but has been kept no larger than can be drowned in a bathtub, in terms of power relation to the CPC, so to speak.
I’m sorry, but cracking down a few billionaires that step out of the party line is not the same as keeping some small enough to “drown in a bathtub”. 1% of the country owns a third of the wealth of their nation, and as you say the disparity is not shrinking.
When analyzing something, it isn’t sufficient to take a present-day snapshot, you must consider its history, its relations to other entities, its contradictions, and its trajectory.
Yes, and now let’s look at modern China under the lens of dialectical materialism. We’ve gone through some of the history already, and can both agree that the transition to collective ownership requires a certain level of productivity to achieve.
What is that amount of productivity required, and if modern China isn’t productive enough to make that particular leap…who the hell can?
As far as relationships go, China is one of the most globalized nations in the world. When compared to the USSR, who actually achieved a modest level of collective ownership…modern China is one of the most popular nations in the world.
Last but not least, contradictions and trajectory. Which I’m grouping together, as their current trajectory seems to contradict the entire purpose of a communist government in the first place. Industrialization has improved the quality of life in the country, but if that isn’t coupled with an increase in a workers control of the means of that production, how is that different than a industrialization in a capitalist nation?
Engels was a Capitalist, was Marx hypocritical for keeping Engels as his closest friend and ally? No. Class reductionism is dogmatic, we must analyze correctly.
Not to belittle your point, but calling Marx a socialist and Engles a capitalist is a kin as calling Jesus a Christian who’s disciples were Jews.
You can’t be a lone socialist, and people tend to wildly extrapolate on what Marx would have thought of modern economics.
Roman ideas of Just War were very Italic
You stated the origin of the concept of just war is Roman, not that the justifications they utilized were “italic”. Moving the goal post.
in response to you denying that contemporary societies didn’t act in naked self-interest much of the time.
Again, my rebuttal was that societies justify their actions within their own cultural framework. Your claim was that Rome was the only empire who were commiting to just wars.
Holy fucking shit, literally in my first comment
Ahh so this was a subjective comparison the whole time… And you’ve just been dramatically pedantic with all of your claims. Great…
Please point out where I said the Han didn’t have a strong conception of just war.
“How many quotes will it take from societies not veiling their self-interest and, in fact, taking great pride in their naked self-interest, would it take to change your mind?”
“Yes, it absolutely is me, in response to you denying that contemporary societies didn’t act in naked self-interest much of the time”
“Here’s one briefly covering the very Roman origins of the concept of Just War and the contrast with Greeks and other civilizations of antiquity,”
If you weren’t trying to imply that Romans were unique in justifying their wars, then why did you have a problem with the rebuttal of “all cultures justify their wars from within their own cultural framework”? Why did you freak out when I gave examples of religious wars in ancient mesopotamia?
You’re just being academically dishonest and moving the goal post out of pure pigheadedness.
I’ve spoken to some dumb fucking cunts. But you’re the stupidest this month, easy.
Lol, so spicy… Maybe try going outaide and touching some grass?
And now you’re demonstrating an utter inability to differentiate between the actions of soldiers and the actions of the polity.
Lol, by that logic America wasn’t responsible for the My Lai massacre… If soldiers keep doing it and aren’t dissuaded or stopped, then it’s an implicit policy.
but that they saw less need to create elaborate justifications for participating in what was a common behavior of society at the time. largely the same way - largely sans justification
Ahh, so now we’re creeping away from the claim “very Roman origin of Just War”?
Me: “Romans had a concept of just war, and placed a relatively high value on that concept for their time and in comparison to their contemporaries.”
Lol, “How many quotes will it take from societies not veiling their self-interest and, in fact, taking great pride in their naked self-interest, would it take to change your mind? Or is that a lost cause?” This you?
So now that we’ve confirmed that Romans weren’t unique, the argument is how much more value the Romans placed on this compared to other contemporary societies…?
some long fucking diatribe trying to link the sacking of a city with the idea that the Romans didn’t have an idea of just war, despite the fact that it is not relevant either as a data point or as an assertion of standing policy
Lol, man that single example has you fuming! It was just an example I provided because of your flabbergasted response of “what”.
I see you’re not mentioning the other source that spoke about how the Han, who were contemporaries with the Romans, justified their wars.
But hey, being a little drama queen is certainly a way to get your point across, not a good way. But you do you.
Do you think the civil wars and revolts you linked to occurred… without justification?
The first example I gave is a scenario where a city was raised without justification. There are plenty of examples on the list I gave you of soldiers destroying cities because they were previously occupied by a rival general. The justification for the civil war isnt the justification used to attack a city who’s crime was only being occupied by an armed force
Here’s one briefly covering the very Roman origins of the concept of Just War
The etymology of a phrase isn’t the same as originating the very idea of justifying a war. In the chapter about the ancient world the first sentence runs counter to your summary. It states that the iliad was the first western writing to pose the conflict based on contingency instead of nature.
Here’s one covering the importance of justifications for war in Roman culture and its origins](https://www.jstor.org/stable/43936674?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents)
Again, this is explaining the origins of what a just war is to the Romans, it’s not saying that justifying wars was unique to or invented by the Romans.
None of your Citations claim that Romans were the only people justifying their conquest. Nor do they make any arguments claiming that the Romans invented the concept of justifying conflicts.
The problem with making giant sweeping claims is that it only takes one Example to counter them.
But, you know, fuck all those, they’re reliant on the writing of elites and ethnic authors. What the fuck do they know?
Lol, no they’re pretty decent papers, they just don’t make the claims you assume they do.
I think you’re conflating the codified concept of the Roman “just war” with the concept of justifying wars in general.
Which is kinda hilarious, because Rome had a far eastern counterpart that was active during the same periods and had very similar problems with “barbaric” neighbors. There are plenty of examples of the Han Empire justifying their own wars for nearly the same exact reasons. I just think you have a extremely eurocentric view of history.
do you think the First Gulf War wasn’t waged on ideological grounds…?
You’re considering intervening in an invasion of oil rich Kuwait a war fought on ideological grounds?
Do I have to outline why stealing idols is different from religiously justified wars, or is naked theft a justification in your mind?
My dude, the gods of mesopotamia were thought to be literally represented by their idol. In their belief, stealing an idol was the same thing as stealing their god.
This you?
Yes, I’m still rebutting your wild claims…
Me: “Give me your criteria for valid sources and I’ll gladly provide them.”
Lol, you provided a source to begin with, you just claim to have sources that agree with your argument. How about a paper over the topic of your claim?
Wow, yes, clearly I am the one being unreasonable. Excuse me while I go fetch a dozen quotes so you can say something brilliant like “Well, those were the ELITES, of COURSE they would say that” or “Well, that’s a ROMAN source, of COURSE they would say that” or “It’s just one/two/ten/twenty quotes, you can’t just extrapolate from that!” You know, things you’ve already fucking said. Things I’ve literally quoted you fucking saying.
How performative, very dramatic. I’m not asking for dozens of quotes, I asked for one. Your interpretation of a few primary sources aren’t enough to draw sweeping conclusions. How about any modern historian covering the topic?
Primary sources of ancient authors are important, but they require a surrounding body of contextual evidence to support any theory based on them. That’s why historians work with people like archeologists and anthropologists to explain interpretation of historical writings.
Salty is when I outline why the incident doesn’t say what you think it does and you have no actual response to that. Okay. Fantastic.
Salty and delusional…what a catch.
War without cause is when there’s a revolt or civil war, and the more revolt or civil war there is, the less justification is used for it"?
Lol, I we were talking about justifications, not “war without a cause”.
Dictatorship is when you say something that contradicts my assertion" - A Very Brilliant Commenter, apparently
Nope, just when people declare they can determine if cultures are similar or not based on a whim.
How many quotes will it take from societies not veiling their self-interest and, in fact, taking great pride in their naked self-interest, would it take to change your mind? Or is that a lost cause?
Well you haven’t give men any quotes, even if you had isolated quotes aren’t exactly enough to even make a reductionist claim that the Romans were the only people justifying their conquest.
Enough time to easily show that ideological concerns were major
What ideological shift occurred between the time of the first and second gulf war? You are honestly claiming that the bush administration wasn’t motivated by things as simple as consolidating power under the administration, or even things like halliburton getting tens of billions of dollars?
Holy shit. We’re really just applying the casus belli of much later periods to antiquity, because it ‘feels right’, huh?
Lol, you’re saying going to war over a God’s will only happened after the Romans? You do know some of the earliest recordings of wars occured in ancient mesopotamia utilizing capturing the idols of gods as a pretext.
okay, so we’re changing our argument from “It was only the Romans who wrote about the matter!” to “All pre-modern writing is untrustworthy!”, cool cool cool.
I never claimed that it was only the Romans…that’s your argument which I am rebutting.
I am saying that sources need to be examined within their historical context.
Why would I fetch anything without criteria for what would be regarded as a valid counterargument? I’ve done this stupid fucking dance with too many fucking people to count
Ahh yes, everyone else is the problem…not me, the only common denominator.
bizarre preconceptions about the past and have no interest in re-examining them, who freely dismiss any evidence given and delight in pissing away time and effort.
You’ve literally not given any evidence. I’m the only person in this particular argument who’s used sourced material.
A city during the first civil war in almost 100 years was looted by out-of-control troops hailing from the other side of the Empire against their commander’s orders and was roundly condemned by the histories", clearly, you have proven that the Romans loved looting their own cities for no reason.
Lol, so salty that I provided a source despite your baffled “What?”
There are plenty of examples of similar events throughout the history of Rome.
Roman legal influence in the West through some 1500 years, and let me fucking tell you, that’s a very far cry from being culturally similar
I forgot I was talking to the dictator of cultures… I so glad you could make that opinion of your official.
Obfuscated self-interest" was specified.
Right, But you also claimed that other societies at the time didn’t do the same…
My point was that all societies thinly veil their self interest.
justification for the illegal invasion of Iraq wasn’t to ‘spread freedom’, it was a (false) allegation of violation of international law regarding possession of WMDs.
Lol, a bit of a pedantic argument. It and Afghanistan were obviously marketed as a stand for “freedom” at the time.
What self-interest was fulfilled by invading Iraq? Ideology was a bigger factor there than any conception of national self-interest.
You’re asking what self interest the Bush administration had for invading Iraq…? How much time do you have?
Because the Greeks and the Persians wrote of their own motivations in largely the same way - largely sans justification.
First of all, Persians and Greek often justified their conquest via the gods, or nationalism.
Secondly Motivation and justifications can be the same thing depending on the social mores of the society.
Lastly, you are utilizing examples of societies where the only people who were writing within the historical context were part of the ruling structure. Thats akin to getting acess to the email of Dick Cheney’s actual motivations for invading Iraq vs the story they told the media.
What evidence would you accept? How much should I fetch for you?
Any would be a good start?
What
During the year of 4 emperors Cremona was occupied by vitellian troops, they battled an army outside Cremona led by Antonius and lost. Cremona immediately surrendered and was subsequently raped and pillaged for no good reason.
“Antonius then attacked Cremona, which surrendered. Cremona was sacked and then burned by the victorious troops over four days; many residents were raped, murdered and robbed.[3] Antonius was embarrassed by the episode and forbade the keeping of Cremonans as slaves, resulting in many being murdered by their captors to evade punishment.[4]”
Edit: accidentally skipped your first claim
believing that we’re culturally similar to ancient peoples is an incredibly dangerous and distorting way to view the past.
This is kinda ridiculous considering that our legal and political bodies are highly influenced specifically by the Romans, who were in turn highly influenced by the Greek and Persians.
You have to remember that the pre-modern period was still very much a time of naked self-interest
As opposed to now? I think believing we are inherently different than ancient people is a byproduct of how we record and review historical context.
When the US invaded Iraq, it was professing to “spread freedom”. A couple decades later and it’s pretty apparent that freedom was a pretext to fulfill thinly veiled self interest.
When the Gauls and Germanics went on raids, their thinking wasn’t “Dohohoho, time to commit some CRIMES”, but rather, “This is the way the world works, I’m taking an opportunity”, the way that a merchant might eye a good deal
How exactly are we determining this? Thats probably what the Romans thought of the Germanic tribes and the Gauls, but we don’t exactly have a lot of primary sources from the people we’re talking about. Of course the empire is going to boil down their enemies motives while guiding their own.
The Romans, if you will, saw there as being an additional ‘barrier’ of a need for justification to go and murder and plunder their enemies without the slightest hint of conscience - typically
I don’t really see any evidence of this… Most of their justifications were just to convince others in the ruling class to get on board with one person’s or a groups personal vendetta or get rich quick scheme.
The Romans didn’t really need a justification to rape and pillage their own cities, let alone others.
I mean, doesn’t every society attempt to morally justify their wars of conquest within the framework of their own social mores?
I can’t exactly think of a society who thought of themselves as evil for expanding their holdings…
I can vouch for reolink, they have fairly straight forward nvr with decent cameras for the money. Been using their poe nvr system for around 5 years now and have never had an issue with it.
But Spartan women weren’t that bad off, compared to other places in antiquity
We also white wash Spartan history pretty dramatically. Yes, Spartan women who were citizens were better off than their Athenian counterparts. However, that’s not saying much when you consider spartan citizens were a fraction of the population of Sparta.
The vast majority of women in Sparta were helots, and were subject to chattel slavery. I don’t think you can claim that Spartans cared about gender equality when they had an entire social class made up of the bastards produced by raping their slaves.
Depends on the plastic, you can safely heat most polypropylene and polyethylene based plastics. If it’s putting off noxious fumes then it probably has urethane, styrene, or vinyl in it.
The worst plastic to overheat that I’ve worked with is kydex. Even though it’s most common application is as a thermoplastic, if you over heat it the stuff off gasses hydrogen chloride.
This isn’t going to be accurate, it’s ignoring a key aspect of the heat that will be generated, friction. When designing materials for prosthetics we have to be aware of how much friction occurs between the material and skin. If the amount of friction is too great, the material can create enough heat to damage tissue.
The formula for the skin friction coefficient is cf=τw12ρeue2, where ρe and ue are the density and longitudinal velocity at the boundary layer’s edge.
Tbh, I would love to see it. But our railway infrastructure is dog shit atm, and we wouldn’t be able to expand the network fast enough to accommodate something as luxurious as a railway hospital until much later.
My first goal would be to expand the network to the point where cars are unnecessary for the vast majority of my citizens. This would both increase rail traffic to acceptable levels and help alleviate the unnecessary healthcare cost and harm of motor vehicle accidents.
Become my peon, every peon gets healthcare and can apply to drive an electric train. Me -2024
I too have thousands of reasons why I shouldn’t be in charge of a country, however I do have one good pitch.
My appointment to dictatorship would be guided solely by autism. I guarantee my powers will only be focused upon my two fixations that deal with the general public, trains and healthcare.
If made supreme leader I will not only make the trains run on time, there will be more trains, more hospitals, we would even have trains that can take you to your job at the hospital. I would shape the perfect world for me, and vicariously a more efficient and safer world for you.
Demand Me for dictator 2024
Command Senior Chief
The person who came up with the scheme is also the most senior NCO on the ship. All the enlisted people in charge of monitoring that activity knew, they just knew not to ask questions.You would be surprised how much pull an E-8 or E-9 has in the military.
According to the Regan administration perhaps, but not according to intelligence agencies from several European countries.
Again, a reductionist interpretation. There’s been a lot of conspiracies over the years due to so many groups initially claiming responsibility. However the trial held in the UK and a recent one in 2020 both point to the same culprit.
I think you may be talking about the bombing in Germany.
Either way, the point is that Gaddafi has sponsored over 15 violent paramilitary groups in other people’s countries. Not exactly going to be winning a lot of friends on the global stage by doing that.
This is not what stable leadership looks like …
I think the first sentence is probably enough to make anyone not afflicted with a eurocentric brain want to palm some face.
I think excusing it as a “not serious” statement is dangerous, as a lot of people even on Lemmy won’t second guess it.
The belief that the west is the origin of all science and culture is surprisingly pervasive, especially in the tech industry.