Comments by "Thurso Berwick" (@thursoberwick1948) on "The Soviet Economy, Explained" video.

The entire world seems to be being pressed into similar ideas today. Bad economic mismanagement, appeal to emotions, repressive laws masquerading as "safety" etc.
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@Yura135 We don't have a proper market economy in the west anymore. The government can shut things down at a whim and employs discriminatory taxation and even environmental tactics against smaller businesses and the general masses.
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A sick social experiment by true believers.
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@OliverFlinn ... it's also not a binary choice between two abusive and materialist systems as KM claimed.
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"Malicious compliance" — Oh yes, I am afraid this is more evident by the day.
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@lh2738 Environmental processes don't always work to human time. If you remove water from an artesian well, for example, the effects can tun up decades or centuries later. The effects of British industry during the Victorian era and pre-WW2 are still ongoing a century later or only just being repaired. And I agree with you. Much more could have been done to repair the Aral Sea in post-Soviet times. But cotton fields are more profitable.
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@OliverFlinn Whataboutery is not a defence.
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@OliverFlinn I don't support systems that are inclined to kill or imprison me. Let alone ones that see us solely as economic units. And yes, that was classic whataboutery.
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@cicik57 Cheap labour will soon be surplus to requirements... after automation is complete. That means billions of unemployed vs a few thousand very rich people. They know the odds are not good.
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@jaf378 The west has come to mirror it, and mutated forms of the same ideology are prevalent in western education systems. I was reading an Open University book on English literature from thirty years ago the other night and it was noticeable that many of the contributors were coming from that angle, notably Terry Eagleton... there were other historic figures such as Theodor Adorno and Franz Fanon quoted in the text who came from that angle too.
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@blondezeke6640 Slavery was around before capitalism. It will likely be around after it.
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@cicik57 Thing is that what I'm talking about recently ISN'T the market economy but quite the opposite. Raw capitalism is an ugly beast, but we are being forced through the so called "Fourth Industrial Revolution" just now by most governments. The only Industrial revolution which apparently requires worldwide gaslighting and censorship.
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@cicik57 These people are incredibly superficial in some respects. They can buy up superior intellects, but they are driven by the primitive instincts of greed and lust for power.
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@blondezeke6640 Materialism is death.
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Their entire history in a nutshell. It often became better when it moved away from its "ideals".
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@cicik57 It is not my phrase. I didn't come up with it. But governments around the world have passed legislation to enable it and push it. It has its own Wikipedia article, but it is very one sided, and does not list the other implications of this project or indeed whether it is a genuine Industrial Revolution in the first place.
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@umanarquistacomfome7985 The governments of the world work in tandem. Did you not notice that in 2020? Marx was no prophet.
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@linesided It happens again and again. We allow it to happen. Right now we have some people begging the ruling class to protect us from "misinformation" which beggars belief.
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@johnmackenzie3871 Really? All of Europe west of Russia is bending over backwards to import new people. Even Japan is starting to do it.
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They were lucky being Jewish... it was a lot easier to emigrate.
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The causes were Soviet, with delayed effect. Lake Chad is similar.
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@blondezeke6640 Oh I do mate. You're using a 19th century German as a kind of prophet who thought in terms of heavy industry using large numbers of people. Thing is that he's never fully dealt with sentient machines, automation, the virtual world, let alone genetic engineering, or the ability to hack the human mind. When Neuralink is wired up to your brain, you really won't care about any of this. You should also NEVER trust any philosophy which treats humans as soulless automata as yours does. That makes you and I expendable and our suffering meaningless.
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@blondezeke6640 You think K.M. is infallible. Artificial intelligence and sentient machines renders that philosophy completely obsolete. That is nowhere in his books. It's out of date. His philosopjy also sees humans as dispensable which is why it's caused so much bloodshed and suffering to create a pipedream. There will be no need for a proletariat in the near future since no one will do manual labour nor even be needed to make or repair machines. Yes, I've read more Marx than I've cared to. Very dry. Interesting interpretations of the past, useless on the future. He was also extremely racist as was Engels. I can't even quote the relevant pasages as YT will block them.
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@blondezeke6640 Here's the rub: we won't be needed in the near future . All it takes is some giant artificial disaster and all of us die out except the select few. They can do this by a variety of means, many of which I can't describe on here due to to algorithms. Our numbers will be lowered and the remainder rounded up. We'll be gone and a few thousand will be left living it out in their palaces, their only "workers" a few robots and computers and possibly a handful of us peasants kept for "pleasure." Billions of us are dispensable to them. They don't need us, and are open about the need to "cut carbon". There can be no workers' paradise or revolt when all the workers are gone. They don't need us to acquire capital or produce like they used to. Soon they won't need us at all. By the way both KM and FE are very disparaging about the development of non-white peoples. You keep presuming that I have either not read this stuff or "misinderstood" it... which is much what a religious person would say if someone came out with an interpretation of their scriptures that their priesthood hadn't approved.
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@blondezeke6640 I'm not "nihilist". Unlike you, I don't believe humans are just machines. However there are those who do, and if the whole transhumanist show gets on the road, then your theories will be as meaningless as mediaeval philosophers discussing how the supposed celestial spheres. The bourgeois vs proletariat binary is an increasingly dated concept as AI comes in and (manual) labour disappears. There are predictions that could happen by 2040 or 2050, if not earlier. These apply as much to modern capitalism as Communist theory: First step: stop thinking of people as economic or social units, and see them as capable of things that can go beyond mere economic production. Art and culture are sterile if tied purely to such a philosophy. Second step: admit that if the rights of individuals are abused, then so are the collective's, because there is no collective or mass without individuals. Third step: admit that absolutism, and the inability to look at points of view other than your own, inevitably leads to tyranny. You have no right to micromanage the lives of others. Fourth step: there is no "inevitable" flow to human history, we can be back to the Stone Age or extinct by the end of this century. Fifth step: the idea that the end justifies the means will also lead to cruelty and murder. If you condone that or commit atrocities, they will be with you until your dying breath. I suspect this is wasted on you. But try thinking outside the box, that may be what saves us.
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@blondezeke6640 Full transhumanism is much further off, but it will be an accelerating process when it happens. We can already engineer genes and produce biological and nano- weapons. Wouldn't take much to release a few to get rid of the proletariat question, while the uber-bourgeoisie sit out the trouble. There will be no wealth gap after such a scenario. Digi-currency will be one of the steps towards eliminating that, and then the proles can be got rid of too. Private property may cease to exist but not in the terms you think of. A few thousand can live in palaces or virtual reality. This is more likely under current circumstances than some united proletariat overthrowing them in some sudden heroic struggle. Even if that happens there is no evidence that the state will wither away. Funnily enough the state is more likely to wither with automation than authoritarian rule.
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@blondezeke6640 Nope, that's not what I'm saying. You think I'm endorsing some of the trends I'm pointing out. You are not free if those in power can grab what little you have even if it is under the guise of "fairness". It is quite easy for most of the human race to be eliminated without any real blow to those who rule us already. We are already surplus to requirements which is why our living standards are being reduced. They will use "fairness"; the environment or any excuse to do so. Many people will help them but as the saying goes, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". Both Marxism and capitalism are materialistic dogmas, which lead to death and false hope. If we want a better future we need to move AWAY from materialism not into it. Marxism offers nothing more transcendent than capitalism, in fact it is its bastard child.
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@blondezeke6640 As someone once said insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over and expecting different results. Yet this is what Marxists do. Humanity is in VERY deep trouble if it does not escape from materialism. Marxism, like capitalism, is entirely materialistic.
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@blondezeke6640 Yet you're going to try the same thing over and over because you think it will work eventually. And you need to take over the entire world so that it can be tried out yet again on a global scale. If someone in a book from the 19th century told you that you could nail jelly to the wall "under the right historical and economic conditions"... would you keep doing it hundreds of times just to be sure?
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Well the last part is true. They abused the population which created resentment among workers and affected productivity
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