I saw this list on Reddit and thought I’d post it here:
Nazi’s Caught Dressing As BLM Protestors To Instigate Riots https://bipartisanreport.com/2020/07/27/nazis-caught-dressing-as-blm-protestors-to-instigate-riots/
White supremacists pose as Antifa online and instigate violence https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/george-floyd-protests-antifa-twitter-white-supremacists-far-right-racist-a9544276.html
Gov Walz: Organized Groups Now Using Protests to ‘Break the Back of Civil Society’ https://heavy.com/news/2020/05/gov-walz-organized-groups-now-using-protests-to-break-the-back-of-civil-society/
Police: Richmond riots instigated by white supremacists disguised as Black Lives Matterhttps: //www.wsls.com/news/virginia/2020/07/27/police-richmond-riots-instigated-by-white-supremacists-disguised-as-black-lives-matter/
Mystery ‘Umbrella Man’ Vandal From Minnesota: Police Say He’s A White Supremacist Instigator https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/07/28/mystery-umbrella-man-vandal-from-minnesota-police-say-hes-a-white-supremacist-instigator/#1b39787f48ee
Trump’s words show that yes, he has encouraged violence https://www.ajc.com/news/national-govt--politics/trump-words-show-that-yes-has-encouraged-violence/7sIekwrBayVArwRRmZf6HI/
‘No Blame?’ ABC News finds 54 cases invoking ‘Trump’ in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blame-abc-news-finds-17-cases-invoking-trump/story?id=58912889
Were white supremacists following Trump’s advice about dealing with protesters? https://www.newsweek.com/trump-told-white-supremacists-attack-protesters-so-they-did-650622
AgreeableLandscape☭
He/him. Chinese born, Canadian citizen. University student studying environmental science, hobbyist programmer. Marxist-Leninist.
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Cake day: December 4th, 2020
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Mirrored from Reddit, not my work. Source: https://teddit.net/r/InformedTankie/comments/hg2qu4/why_even_a_free_market_is_doomed_to_fail/
“its not capitalism! its Corporatism.” “its not the market, its regulation.” we hear these 2 sayings all the time, but lets see what would happen using history and raw data to see what will happen if conservatives and libertarians got there dream of laissez-faire. i will give my case on why the “free market” would fail.
Business will do anything, i mean anything to get out of head to head competition. with a super competitive market, whatever you sell so does your competition, that means lower and lower profits. Why do you think branding exists?
Natural Monopoly:
Merging and simple competition:
Firstly i hope many people know why monopoly is bad, at least capitalist monopolies. Many people like to claim there would not be any monopoly in a free market but this is demonstrably false:
After the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 politicians were excited to see many new competitors and thus improving the airline industry. the opposite happened, although competition did flourish and many new competitors hit the market it was a matter of time till the companies started merging, thus eliminating competition and the rest ended up going bankrupt. And there was even more Airline companies before deregulation. Many people don’t realize, companies don’t want competition and will do anything to assure competition is eliminated, whether this be buying competitors, merging, out performing them based on scale (smaller companies give better quality the richer company can easily temporarily do better) and even other forms of sabotage. this is very general and simple, but competition has winners.
Utility monopoly:
this one is simple for several companies to run sewer systems, power lines, etc is simply inefficient resulting in a very common and natural monopoly.
Resource monopoly:
A resource monopoly occurs when a company has control of a scarce or location specific resource.
Yes, not as widespread but still very possible for example: ALCOA—the Aluminum Company of America controlled almost all the supply of Bauxite. No other companies could produce enough Aluminum to compete.
Another example is DeBeers who had control over the production of diamond in most of the 20th century.
taken from socialisci:
Intimidation and barriers to entry:
Businesses have developed a number of schemes for creating barriers to entry by deterring potential competitors from entering the market. One method is known as predatory pricing, in which a firm uses the threat of sharp price cuts to discourage competition. Predatory pricing is a violation of U.S. antitrust law, but it is difficult to prove. Now imagine no law against it.
Consider a large airline that provides most of the flights between two particular cities. A new, small start-up airline decides to offer service between these two cities. The large airline immediately slashes prices on this route to the bone, so that the new entrant cannot make any money. After the new entrant has gone out of business, the incumbent firm can raise prices again.
After this pattern is repeated once or twice, potential new entrants may decide that it is not wise to try to compete. Small airlines often accuse larger airlines of predatory pricing: in the early 2000s, for example, ValuJet accused Delta of predatory pricing, Frontier accused United, and Reno Air accused Northwest. In 2015, the Justice Department ruled against American Express and Mastercard for imposing restrictions on retailers who encouraged customers to use lower swipe fees on credit transactions.
In some cases, large advertising budgets can also act as a way of discouraging the competition. If the only way to launch a successful new national cola drink is to spend more than the promotional budgets of Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola, not too many companies will try. A firmly established brand name can be difficult to dislodge.
Violent cycles:
Instability would be a plague of Free market advocates whilst the USSR had no recessions besides maybe a downturn during the war, the USA had 50 recessions, let me say that again, 50 recessions. This is some proper stability my friends. i mean ffs free market policies caused the 2008 financial crisis.
the whole idea of competition is instability, tons of new competitors and tons of businesses going out of business. a super packed industry is ideal for quality and lowering of prices (as i’ve shown there’s many problems with this) but this creates violent cycles of job instability, job loss, etc.
Resource allocation:
Yes the usual market forces will be there but so will the crushing poverty worldwide. but without any real government aid to other nations we should expect things to be much worse. It is not profitable to sell food to 3rd world nations, but they are good cheap labour so under a worldwide libertarian type system expect some crazy inequality and unequal exchange.
principles needed to have a “Free market”:
(credit to Reddish_vp)
- Rational agents;
- Monoatomic enterprises;
- Homogenuos products;
- No barriers to entry or exit the market;
All of those items are purely theoretical and each have a whole world of problems of their own.
Profit and Waste
its quite simple, a company runs on profits, capitalism runs on profits and if you do not keep coming back to buy there product there not making any money thus fail. this practice which is called planned obsolescence is very common, wasteful and exploitative.
The made to break motive started mainly in the 1930s with the pheobus cartel at a time when the average light bulb could last up to 25,000 hours! but then all companies were commanded to only allow a max of 1,000 hours of life to increase demand. this is a prime example of the wastefulness caused by capitalism. if this is not fixed this wasteful and disgusting trait of capitalism will worsen the lives of many as life grows more unsustainable. these are not just numbers, these are finite resources that with proper allocation and correct production could better the lives of everyone whilst keeping world sustainability.
Excerpt from TBS: “advertisements each and every day whose sole purpose is to convince us to keep on shopping under the promise that doing so will make our lives better. Through advertising, companies have managed to make us confuse our needs with our wants, thus making us desire to acquire things that we don’t truly need, so that we can fill in their pockets by emptying our own.” this quote will remain crucial to the following points and crucial to this whole post in general.
Not too long ago apple was fined for deliberately slowing older phones so people buy the new ones.
W: another example, inkjet printer manufacturers employ smart chips in their ink cartridges to prevent them from being used after a certain threshold (number of pages, time, etc.), even though the cartridge may still contain usable ink or could be refilled (with ink toners, up to 50 percent of the toner cartridge is often still full). This constitutes “programmed obsolescence”, in that there is no random component contributing to the decline in function.
other examples/ways items are made to break:
Nylons: not nearly as quality as they use to be.
Consumer Electronics: the case of apple deliberately slowing older phones and as shown below the tricks like placing the most sensitive part next to the hottest part on the circuit.
Cars: Vehicles that mere made before world war 2 were still being driven in the 60s. but this is not profitable, so companies created plans.
- “routinely discontinue parts that could otherwise be made available for repairs.”
- ” confirm to a strict yearly cycle of model releases, often introducing purely cosmetic changes from one year to the next.”
- “retire popular models and bring out something new every few years, making it harder to fix older vehicles.” (instead of “sticking with hits and standardizing them over time, which would better support a repair aftermarket”)
Cars today, for many, are seen as a fashion accessory and statement. It has become common for people to buy the new model of a car, even if the one they own is in great shape, and still has years to live.
Mirrored from Reddit, not my work. Source: https://teddit.net/r/InformedTankie/comments/hfgup4/analysis_of_hong_kong_the_second_most_free/
Archive:
according to the heritage foundation (a conservative think tank) Hong Kong is ranked number to and in other rankings is ranked number 1 in economic freedom and how they go about classifying these nations is i quote:
"We measure economic freedom based on 12 quantitative and qualitative factors, grouped into four broad categories, or pillars, of economic freedom:
- Rule of Law (property rights, government integrity, judicial effectiveness)
- Government Size (government spending, tax burden, fiscal health)
- Regulatory Efficiency (business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom)
- Open Markets (trade freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom)"
so lets see how this mostly “ideal capitalism” serves the people.
first of all Hong Kong has one of the biggest wealth disparities and is still growing (image source). Hong Kong’s gap between the rich and the poor is at its widest in nearly half a century.
rich Hong Kong people live here (image source) all whilst a typical Hong Kong resident lives here (image source), some nice economic freedom. if you want a good illustration of average living space look here:
Nearly one in five people living in poverty. With a minimum wage of $4.82 an hour. again, some nice economic freedom.
all whilst it has the The longest working hours in the world, and even with the best counter arguments still have some of the longest working hours in the world.
They also boast the highest rent prices in the world.
The average home in Hong Kong also costs 20 times the median salary:
It would take the average Hongkonger today more than 18 years, using all their salary, to buy a flat of less than 500 square feet, according to the affordability survey by Demographia.
Average living space for Hong Kong’s poorest residents same as that of prisoners
Corporate tax in Hong Kong is among the lowest for major global cities. but it helps nobody but the rich. the largest wage increase was when a statutory minimum was put in place.
Hong Kong’s about half of Hong Kongs flats cost 70% of the median income.
recently Hong Kong hit its highest poverty level in a very long time. very nice economic freedom.
The top 10 percent in Hong Kong earn 44 times more than the lower 10 percent in the city.
Hong Kong came dead last for customer ‘smiling index’. this my friends is what its like being a clog in a machine. excerpt from scmp:
“Having to spend an average of nine hours a day at work, on top of three hours commuting between her home and the office, Chow, who is in her 40s, still manages to see the brighter side of life.”
this was a small analysis using a bit of resources but it goes to show even being the the “second most free nation” doesn’t really make anyone anymore happy, or improve the standard of living compared to countries with heavy intervention. my next post will be on Singapore, the most “free” place on earth.
Mirrored from Reddit, not my work. Source: https://teddit.net/r/bernieblindness/comments/hdiha0/resources_to_help_bernie_supporters_understand/
I’ve replaced www.youtube.com URLs with yewtu.be, and www.reddit.com with teddit.net. They are open source YouTube and Reddit webclients respectively, for better privacy. Just switch the domains back if you want undo this and get back to the vanilla YouTube link.
TODO: Archive all the Google Drive/Docs stuff too.
NOTE: if you have any good resources please link them in the comments so i can add them to my personal list ive been building.
im giving a decent list of free Marxist books/resources for everyone’s use. i compiled this for the comrades who cannot afford to buy/order such books and for learning for everyone. This list should not be credited too much to me, a lot of the resources come from other comrades hard work and compiling and hours of researching, i found much here but most credit should go to everyone else who compiled/made/created these resources (some writing is even pasted from other comrades posts). i recommend the youtubers first.
Introduction to socialism:
Richard Wolff: Introduction to Marxism
The difference between personal and private property
Books:
Reform or revolution by Rosa Luxembourg https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/
How Europe under-developed Africa by Walter Rodney https://archive.org/details/HowEuropeUnderdevelopedAfricaByWalterRodney/page/n1/mode/2up
Unequal exchange: The prospects of socialism https://web.archive.org/web/20170919180937/http://snylterstaten.dk/english/unequal-exchange-and-prospects-socialism-communist-working-group
Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism https://archive.org/details/FundamentalsOfMarxismLeninism
Das Kapital by Karl Marx https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.124455/page/n5/mode/2up
The communist Manifesto by Karl Marx https://archive.org/details/ComManifesto/mode/2up
Its not over: Learning from the socialist experiment https://www.ebookphp.com/its-not-over-learning-from-the-socialist-experiment-epub-pdf/
Economic problems in the USSR by Josef Stalin https://archive.org/details/economicproblemssocialismussrstalin
The Myth of Capitalism Reborn: A Marxist critique of Theories of Capitalist Restoration in the USSR https://archive.org/details/TheMythOfCapitalismReborn/page/n53/mode/2up
Killing hope: US military and CIA interventions since World war 2 https://archive.org/details/pdfy-q0ULBH2DJICRS3Vg/mode/2up
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm
Imperialism The Highest Stage Of Capitalism By Lenin https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.3317/mode/2up
The State and Revolution by Lenin https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm
Wage Labor and Capital https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/wage-labour-capital.pdf
Marxism and Feminism https://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/1979/marxism/ch12.html
Economics for dummies, to help people understand capitalism but be wary, it is semi pro capitalism https://archive.org/details/EconomicsForDummies/_/mode/2up
The great conspiracy against Russia by Michael Sayer and Albert E. Kahn https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/great-conspiracy-against-russia.pdf \
Towards a new socialism by W. Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu//~cottrell/socialism/_book/new/_socialism.pdf
Socialist political Economy https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/
Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of communism (an absolute must read for Marxists-Leninists) https://eastsidemarxism.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/michael-parenti-blackshirts-and-reds-rational-fascism-and-the-overthrow-of-communism.pdf
Late Victorian Holocausts by Mark Davis (how the introduction of capitalism causes famine) https://archive.org/details/latevictorianhol00dav/_wbr
Anti Communism: Who benefits from it? by Vladimir Mshvenieradze. it reveals just how prevalent anti-communism was and still is. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-V4quceAKK9bXVaOEx0Nm4xXzQ/view
Youtubers and Youtube Videos:
Hakim (Marxist-Leninist youtuber) https://yewtu.be/channel/UCPPZoYsfoSekIpLcz9plX1Q
TheFinnishBolshevik (Marxist-Leninist youtuber) https://yewtu.be/channel/UCCvdjsJtifsZoShjcAAHZpA
Every anti-communist argument debunked https://yewtu.be/watch?v=MjwL1mSrPLA
Benji (Marxist-Leninist youtuber) https://yewtu.be/channel/UCDG87s/_QtD4YrIamqb9k5WQ
DemocraticSocialist01 (Marxist-Leninist youtuber) https://yewtu.be/user/MrReco12
ComradeSloth (Marxist-Leninist youtuber) https://yewtu.be/channel/UCZtETWkXOblKAN5V1GUfnyg
Tovarisch Endymion (Marxist-Leninist youtuber) https://yewtu.be/channel/UCTG-iJm0HtjWVOAwN8sA4Xg
Spooky Scary Socialist (Marxist-Leninist youtuber) https://yewtu.be/channel/UCl/_A/_42M6kvjH8Gr-rwfCUw
Capitalism is destroying us, socialism is not an option https://yewtu.be/watch?v=CVpV%5C_wVYOEg
How capitalism is theft https://yewtu.be/watch?v=GFEzJovH2yo
Resource document pages and Archives:
A complete Marxist archive https://www.marxists.org/
Venezuela myths debunked: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FgJdjKwWHow6Yy1-zmiiwxX/_DDgaF8kHkmVohkL/_Yew/edit?usp=drivesdk
The basics of Marxist-Leninist Theory https://archive.org/details/basics/_of/marxist//_leninist/_theory
Massive document page debunking anti socialist lies by Albamc35 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rRBtOd7tCPwJgXNy4m1PLvDnPrbMcn6yMe7mVIIHZfA/edit
The case for Marxism-Leninism https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uOAy23Rouv/_Mg14/_NgcEOm-K19ragMTlB03RV7Td01Q/edit
Another document page debunking lies against socialism https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gxwhh-vdeB–47HM-20cEVRC9eAMhrapbNf0Sk8VSOs/edit
massive right winger fact sheet https://socdoneleft.github.io/stinky/_rightwinger/_factsheet.html#public_healthcare
Socialist archive https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/index.htm
Huge socialist book archive https://archive.org/details/@ismail/_badiou
Huge Marxist-Leninist archive https://neodemocracy.blogspot.com/
Huge soviet archive and pro socialist articles https://northstarcompass.org/
Mirrored from Reddit, not my work. Source: https://teddit.net/r/InformedTankie/comments/hnc2cr/capitalism_is_unsustainable/
a study published in nature found that the world western level quality of life cannot be sustained at all. and not even developing nations can sustain there quality of life.
one word, Capitalism.
made to break:
its quite simple, a company runs on profits, capitalism runs on profits and if you do not keep coming back to buy there product there not making any money thus fail. this practice which is called planned obsolescence is very common, wasteful and exploitative.
The made to break motive started mainly in the 1930s with the pheobus cartel at a time when the average light bulb could last up to 25,000 hours! but then all companies were commanded to only allow a max of 1,000 hours of life to increase demand. this is a prime example of the wastefulness caused by capitalism. if this is not fixed this wasteful and disgusting trait of capitalism will worsen the lives of many as life grows more unsustainable. these are not just numbers, these are finite resources that with proper allocation and correct production could better the lives of everyone whilst keeping world sustainability.
Excerpt from TBS: “advertisements each and every day whose sole purpose is to convince us to keep on shopping under the promise that doing so will make our lives better. Through advertising, companies have managed to make us confuse our needs with our wants, thus making us desire to acquire things that we don’t truly need, so that we can fill in their pockets by emptying our own.” this quote will remain crucial to the following points and crucial to this whole post in general.
Not too long ago apple was fined for deliberately slowing older phones so people buy the new ones.
the resources used to make iphones are deemed critically low yet they have the audacity to break phones so people buy new ones? absolutely repulsive.
W: another example, inkjet printer manufacturers employ smart chips in their ink cartridges to prevent them from being used after a certain threshold (number of pages, time, etc.), even though the cartridge may still contain usable ink or could be refilled (with ink toners, up to 50 percent of the toner cartridge is often still full). This constitutes “programmed obsolescence”, in that there is no random component contributing to the decline in function.
other examples/ways items are made to break:
Nylons: not nearly as quality as they use to be.
Consumer Electronics: the case of apple deliberately slowing older phones and as shown below the tricks like placing the most sensitive part next to the hottest part on the circuit.
Cars: Vehicles that mere made before world war 2 were still being driven in the 60s. but this is not profitable, so companies created plans.
taken from RTP:
- “routinely discontinue parts that could otherwise be made available for repairs.”
- ” confirm to a strict yearly cycle of model releases, often introducing purely cosmetic changes from one year to the next.”
- “retire popular models and bring out something new every few years, making it harder to fix older vehicles.” (instead of “sticking with hits and standardizing them over time, which would better support a repair aftermarket”)
Cars today, for many, are seen as a fashion accessory and statement. It has become common for people to buy the new model of a car, even if the one they own is in great shape, and still has years to live.
Unavailable/high cost spare parts: underproduction of a spare part leads to no availability of said part. but they will offer this *new* part that costs much more than the old part but its now the only choice you got.
Vulnerability to wear and tear: examples are the fact some electronics most sensitive parts are exposed to the hottest part on the circuit. but it is not limited to the previous example.
Warranty: many do not bother to keep a receipt, it gets lost, etc. but its not limited to that, especially if the repair can take months. also cases of having to send it to the manufacturer with out-of-pocket expenses.
these are just a few examples of ‘made to break’ or planned obsolescence. this is widespread, considering the fact this system relies on profit and demand.
Overproduction and waste:
relevant comment by u/jbid25
Taken from TWC:
Most things as i’ve shown are made to break but general wastefulness and environmentally safe procedures are not widespread.
use it and lose it is the western philosophy. We way overproduce, and discard just about everything we use instantly. we dont care what items they are whether it be tossing our old tv in the trash to getting groceries with plastic bags. we waste a lot, some has to do with the fact things are not made to last but it also has to do with the fact capitalism is ecologically inefficient in production.
taken from TG:
“A record 54m tonnes of “e-waste” was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21% in five years, the UN’s Global E-waste Monitor report found. The 2019 figure is equivalent to 7.3kg for every man, woman and child on Earth, though use is concentrated in richer nations. The amount of e-waste is rising three times faster than the world’s population, and only 17% of it was recycled in 2019.” this is unsustainable, almost nothing is being done about it. These are precious resources in a finite planet these are not just numbers. we need a more efficient system that systematically deals with waste and we need to systematically deal with how we dispose of things. decades and capitalism has not fixed it. this all gets back to the original study, the world cannot sustain its living standards BECAUSE OF CAPITALISM. capitalisms inabilities to deal with these billions of tonnes of precious finite resources being wasted and dumped. but the study only dealt with current statistics, the thing is we can create a more efficient economy, a planned economy with proper technology, organization and planning so we can give everyone a decent standard of living on a finite planet.
its simple. its not profitable to allocate resources for ‘free’ so there dumped.
a staggering 2.9 trillion pounds is wasted every year, this is enough to feed the entire world.
taken from here:
The amount of trash generated by the UK could fill Britain’s largest lake, Lake Windermere, in just 8 months.
We used to get through 500 million plastic bags every week in the UK – amounting to billions of bags and thousands of tonnes of plastic. Sadly, each bag will take between 500 and 1,000 years to decompose in landfil
At Christmas, as much as 83 square kilometres of wrapping paper will end up in UK bins when it could have been recycled instead. That’s the same size as Sunderland!
The number of disposable nappies each baby gets through weighs the same as a family car
Humans now buy a million plastic bottles a minute. Most of this plastic ends up in the ocean. By 2050, the ocean will contain more plastic by weight than fish.
It’s not just what goes in the bin that counts as waste – water can be wasted, too. A single leaky tap in your house can waste as much as 5,000 litres of water a year. If we all fixed our dripping taps we could supply 120,000 people with a day’s worth of water.
Nine-tenths of all solid waste in the United States does not get recycled.
Landfills are among the biggest contributors to soil pollution – roughly 80% of the items buried in landfills could be recycled.
Although 75% of America’s waste is recyclable, we only recycle around 30% of it.
A single recycled plastic bottle saves enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 4 hours. It also creates 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution than would be created when making a new bottle.
Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as it takes to burn it.
It only takes 5 recycled plastic bottles to make enough fiberfill to stuff a ski jacket.
Motor oil never wears out, it just gets dirty – and it can be recycled.
Over 11 million tons of recyclable clothing, shoes, and textiles make their way into landfills each year.
Glass bottles take 4,000 years to decompose.
Glass, like aluminum, is infinitely recyclable – without any loss in purity or quality.
the above list is very small and only highlights a few things but i hope this gives everyone an idea of what is going on.
The United States throws out the amount of office paper it would take to build a 12-foot wall from Los Angeles to New York City (2,794 miles).
