Comments by "Chompy the Beast" (@chompythebeast) on "Will Life Be Better Under Socialism?" video.

"Who cares" about human misery? Clearly not those posting on YouTube, justifying avoidable human misery by the sheer scale of it. I'll grant you though that your interest in concrete change is a very good one, and it is also very Marxist of you, very much in line with Dialectical Materialism. For that, however, you'd need to turn to something more substantial than a 15 minute YouTube survey. There is an entire body of Theory out there, so much that I couldn't recommend all of it. But a really good introduction to the words and policies of an actual revolutionary leader can be found in Thomas Sankara's speeches, which are collected in a great little book titled We Are the Heirs of the World's Revolutions: Speeches from the Burkina Faso Revolution, 1983-1987. Since they're speeches he gave addressed to his people, they go into some detail about specific plans the Revolution did implement, and the editors even put in some statistics about the country before and after the Revolution, showing substantial growth in things like literacy and life expectancy and substantial curbing of things like infant and maternal mortality and deaths by treatable diseases. Understanding how so much can be achieved even in one of the absolute poorest places on earth and in our own Postmodern Era no less should open one's eyes to (among other things) the immense potential being squandered in places like the United States, with all of its resources and influence, and how that potential could be tapped and allowed to flourish under socialism. If you want more nitty-gritty, number-heavy looks at historical or proposed revolutions, those exist in numbers too, but it's not exactly written for a general audience once you get that deep into the science. For history more related to socialism and how capitalism has fought against it, however, Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism is a book I'd recommend to anyone, and his Against Empire gives a great look at the United States in particular. And if you really want some dry reading, there are plenty of scientific papers of note that have been published regarding revolution and socialism, covering any revolution or government you could ask for. But it's just as easy to get that information from the footnotes of texts meant to be read by a general audience, such as the ones above. Anyway, long reply, sorry bout that, didn't have time to make it shorter. Have a good week
6
Workers invent, ownership steals, and communists are armed in greater percentages than fools who insist on being looted by strong men. Please read even a scrap of theory before weighing in with petty threats and apologies for the worst of humanity's crimes
5
Um, would you care to elaborate?
4
Sure, I guess people dying of preventable disease in the West had more brands of detergent to shop between. Citizens of Burkina Faso had their life expectancies increase by over a decade in the 4 years of Thomas Sankara's Marxist-Leninist government before he was assassinated by the West. Your anecdote does nothing to discredit Socialism as a whole
4
Citation please. On what grounds? What material, definable aspects of their societies are improved, and by how much? Are they improved for everyone, or are you appealing to former Warsaw Pact bourgeoisie, who would obviously do better under an exploitative system?
4
Why, so you can argue point by point why each doesn't matter or doesn't count in your eyes? So that you can point out the Soviet Union collapsed in the 20th century, 30+ years of innovation ago? Did you watch the video and its opening explaining how neither -ism invents anything itself, only workers do? Besides, virtually the entirety of Socialism's history as a scientifically-explained field lies within the Modern and Postmodern Eras, so your qualification is sort of redundant unless you're explicitly trying to disqualify innovations from roughly the 90s onward (the Postmodern Era)
4
7:49 There. Again, watch the vid before you try your rhetorical games in the comments
4
Let's make it happen, comrade. Nothing is inevitable unless we insist otherwise
3
This is a cliche take that is routinely mocked for its lack of substance. Care to elaborate? Care to explain how murder, exploitation, and greed are somehow more human than love, compassion, and generosity? Care to explain how everyone having their needs met will somehow cause more conflict than pitting people against each other with lethal stakes?
3
@CassieAngelica Every systemic change came from Revolution. We did not gradually loosen the shackles of Old Empire or Monarchy, they were smashed. It means nothing that more Revolutions "fail" than "succeed" in the face of the fact that only Revolutions have ever found success at all. Check out Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution? for a clear explanation of the folly of Reformism: It works about as well Appeasement worked against the Third Reich, and we know what was ultimately required to win that battle. What you are saying underneath everything else is that, ultimately, you prefer to doom the world to its present status quo rather than risk a threat to the benefit you presently enjoy within it. By rejecting revolution and hanging your hat on some nebulous slow change without any actual way of achieving it, you are saying that you're comfortable enough with the status quo to prefer it to the transitional difficulties which are undeniably required to improve it. You are, it seems, as are many in the West and especially America, a profiteer of (bourgeois, settler-colonial) Revolution already. That is why you do not seek the tribulation of further Revolution. If you were pressed harder against the wall, you would inevitably conclude that fighting back is your only and final option. Perhaps if you had greater empathy for those who do not share your benefit, but then again, this is why the so-called "white moderate" is genuinely the greatest stumbling block to change in the modern world. Just ask Martin Luther King Jr. about it, read his Letter From A Birmingham Jail: You may find he's calling out most of the people in your life, as I did
3
@apoc519 Why would it be good for working people to continue to have their surplus value extracted in some sectors but not others? If capital exists at all, it will consume all sectors, it cannot be segregated. It sounds to me like you're concerned that socialism will kill the innovation that comes from competition, which is a common misconception that Hakim actually has a video about, a video which he actually refers to and links here in this vid. Competition can be good, but at the megacorp or societal level, it is more often than not merely wasteful. Multiple parties each spending immense resources not just to create a product but to beat their opponents to market with it inherently creates multiple times the waste: It would be better if resources were focused just on one entity and the market motivation was entirely removed, cutting resource consumption down immensely. And as for the concern that only the market and its pressures can breed innovation: That is addressed in this very video around 7:49, which provides several products that were created first under socialism, thus proving that innovation is not stifled by lack of the market, but on the contrary, it is actually allowed to reach its full potential. Competition of some kind, however, is inevitable. A wrench with a more ergonomic grip is in natural competition with an otherwise equal wrench with a less comfortable grip, for example, and that will remain true under any -ism. Likewise, the desire to improve the wrench will be present so long as wrenches are being used, no matter what the economic models of the future may be. It is both scientifically and historically demonstrable that the market is not the only nor even the optimal impetus for innovation, and that's something that Marx himself writes extensively about in Capital
2
You go on about what you're "forced" to do under socialism when you live in a country whose police is literally the #3 most funded military organization on the planet (and your imperial military is #1), in a country with the highest incarcerated population in the world. You focus entirely on capitalist finances and project them onto a system that will simply not require you to squirrel away money for things like education or healthcare or even most rent. In short, your concerns are all very real under capitalism, and far less so under socialism. And you also seem to selectively care about the use of force, perhaps only as it applies directly to you so long as you keep your head down and continue to toe your boss' line. "Fuck you, I've got mine" is a trash philosophy, but even it will be better gratified for 98% of the human population under socialism
2
Buddy, "bargaining power" with whom? Ownership that will no longer exist? A "Free Market" that will be abolished? Besides, you're literally talking about desiring your position at the top of the totem pole where you can take in more than your fellow carpenters as if that's sympathetic. Competition will be easily outmoded by cooperation
2
@DeoMachina Funnily enough, the Thai food explosion around the world in the last couple decades is actually Thai government policy. They have three tiers of restaurant models, each at different price points, and they actually fund Thai people to emigrate and open restaurants using those models abroad. They even use machines to "taste test" the food like Pad Thai in order to ensure consistency, McDonald's style. The program has been a resounding success, it seems. There's a whole lot more to that story if you're interested, but the entire program was deliberately created for government propaganda and the "creation" of a "Thai cuisine" and a greater "Thai identity". Pretty fascinating stuff
2
1) Untrue, Lenin decriminzalized homosexuality at a time when nobody else was doing that (Stalin later reversed the choice). 2) Social issues of the 21st century being applied to the 20th will make everyone look bad, as if the USA's cops and their violence didn't literally spawn the International Pride movement. 3) Solidarity and intersectionality are compatible with socialism in a way they simply aren't with capitalism
2
@CassieAngelica Fair enough on my assumptions. Setting them aside: Left disunity is a problem, but the right is clearly not 'unified' either, they're just coalesced under the present status quo. The problem you identify is not endemic to leftist politics but to the politics of subversion in general. Naturally, there are going to be many proposed solutions to a problem of such magnitude. But equally naturally, they will not all be equal in all ways. Practically speaking, only Revolution has been historically or can be scientifically demonstrated to achieve what it is we seek to achieve. Reforming capitalism will never lead to the replacement capitalism, it will only make a "cuddlier, friendlier" capitalism at best, and even then, all we're talking about there is concessions to the petite bourgeois in relatively wealthy countries, never to the wage- and more literal-slave labor of the majority of those nations or the planet as a whole. Seeking reform is to doom us all, especially the lowest of the low, with hollow promises backed by absolutely no theory, no praxis, no power. Reformism is a lullaby for the damned, an opiate for the masses to fill their heads with nothing but ideals that will never see the light of the world by their own means. At least Revolution has an undeniable chance, if executed in due manner and time: Reform has not been demonstrated to possess that possibility. After all, if Reform worked, why has it not happened? Reformists are burdened with explaining why concessions made to the working class been rolled back of late, rather than accelerated. Don't you understand the violent force that maintains the present capitalist hegemony? Don't you see how frequently they use that violence? To pretend violence doesn't achieve anything and to discredit Revolution that way is to be in denial, and indeed, it is even to apologize for the violence that befalls us on a daily basis. For the truth is, Revolution has not "failed" in recent days as often as it has due to mere left disunity, it has done so because it is met with extreme violence from the right: It is met with not reform, but counter-revolution. Again, I see that you were talking about reading more theory with the other person in this thread. I recommend once more Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution?, where she outlines this more-than-a-century-old debate as well as anyone has ever done. Her words have only been proven more true over time. Rather than reinventing the wheel engaging in ancient debates, it is better to at least come to those debates armed with the wisdom of the giants on whose shoulder we stand. Otherwise we're just engaging in myopic, self-aggrandizing, and (for the sake of actual change) rather pointless squabbles in the dark, when we could instead shed much more light on such important discussions as this one. In the end, it seems, we both want real change, so let us start from there and arm ourselves with all means we can in order to actually achieve it
2
That's just Capitalism, and no. This kind of "middle ground" point sounds wise to people who know very little about given subject. The middle ground between fascism or capitalism and anything is an embarrassingly fascist or capitalist place to argue for
1
Look at the military and the police, in America, the #1 and #3 largest military organizations on the entire planet, and realize that the blood they draw is in defense of Capitalism already. No, they will not give in without a fight, but if that's all it takes for you to let them keep killing and exploiting, you're not a pacifist who hates violence, you're a coward who embraces it
1
@kestis958 At this point I leave this decade-old joke pfp up just to give an easy exit for those who care to use it as a convenient excuse to dismiss what I say without actually having to engage with it. I find it saves both parties a modicum of time and headache. Still, the point stands: People who claim to hate 'violence' always seem to have infinite patience for even extreme violence so long as it supports rather than subverts the violent status quo. I wonder why that might be?
1
@kestis958 Kestis my friend, you have stumbled onto one of the fundamental and core debates that has gripped socialists since the days of Marx: Reform or Revolution? Woefully, I must report that Reform alone simply does not work. It has never worked. The USA has the world's 3rd most funded army in its police: That army isn't going to roll over to "reform", and the powers that be aren't going to just give up when they have that much force to back their authority. And since the USA also has the world's largest incarcerated population, it is clear they are not afraid to use that force. This isn't me being pessimistic, it's unfortunately been demonstrated time and again. However, not all Revolution is bloody: The Burkina Faso Revolution did not require a single shot. Yet, of course, the counter-revolution 4 years later that saw Thomas Sankara murdered by a Western backed-coup certainly did. So you see: Even in socialist experiments' destruction, even in their "failure", (counter-)revolution, not reform, always plays a role. But if you're finished with soaking in takes on the greatest issue of our age in YouTube replies, I would recommend you check out the relatively short book Reform or Revolution? by Rosa Luxemberg. It's still considered one of the greatest treatises on this debate ever penned, and her words have only proven more and more correct with the passage of history. In her examinations of the merits and demerits of both methods of abolishing the Tyranny of the Bourgeoisie, you'll probably conclude as she did, especially with the 20th century now behind us, that the world is already run by extraordinary violence, and that asking nicely alone will never bring that to an end, even if not all Revolution need be as violent and protracted as, say, the American Revolution. Si vis pacem, para bellum, as they say, and to put it another way: If you desire peace, seek to end the violence already embroiling the working world
1
There's a great vid by Luke Correia here about AI voice acting, and whether that is likely to replace real voice actors. In short: His conclusion is that most people who both make and consume art still intrinsically value the human input. AI-created art is a replacement for no art at all, not a replacement for actual artists
1
No.
1
@apoc519 Ah, the old "human nature" argument, because I guess I'm to believe murder and theft are more human than love and community, even though instances of the latter vastly outweigh the former. And the "authoritarian" argument too, you're pulling a few of the common ones out. In a way, that's good. For, friend, if you live in the USA, you are forced to pay for the world's #1 and #3 most funded military organizations, with the cops being the latter. If you live in the USA, you live in the country with the largest incarcerated population on the entire planet―yes, even more people behind bars than in China, with its one party rule and one billion more citizens. What indeed do you think all of that violence, all of that force, all of that authority is for? Every single nation which will shoot you if you get too close to overthrowing it is "authoritarian" by definition. Which is to say, every state is authoritarian. The United States, again, has a second army larger than any outward-facing army on earth but for one. That police army has literally no targets but the very people they force to pay their bills. There is no honest way to deny the fact that the United States is is at least as "authoritarian" as any other nation state on the planet. Likewise, if you literally do nothing because you "don't HAVE to do anything", what happens to you in America? Poverty? Homelessness? Starvation? Being treated as a prime target by not only your neighbors but the heavily-armed and violent police? You have the "freedom" to become a statistic in the United States as much as anyone ever did in the USSR. I am apologizing for neither―why do you insist on apologizing for one but not the other? Edit: I misread you initially, I see that you think under socialism, everyone will suddenly just become lazy or something. Setting aside the fact that the USSR was the world's #2 economy and that labor forces are always greatly amplified under worker's states as a historical fact, this argument strikes me as itself naive of human natures: As if productivity is hateful to the human animal, and we'd all just stop doing anything the second we didn't feel a gun to the back of our heads. Well, even if that is true, no society could function without effort from its members, so such indolence would immediately provide the pressure you're talking about naturally. But it wouldn't even be necessary to twist people's arms: Look at how hard the world already works for scraps! If conditions and rewards were improved, that would be an incentive to continue, not the opposite. If you're arguing that people need to kept starving like watch dogs in order to best perform, then I have to ask, what is it you really want from life? Would you wish for such an existence yourself? If so, ah, why? The truth is, friend, it isn't about authority. It isn't even about violence. It's about whose authority, whose violence. It is human nature to hate violence, to hate exploitation, as much as it is to commit them. Arguing that capitalism is more aligned with humanity because it appeals to the worst in it and empowers a global oligarchy of the most cruel of wolves in our midst is a very strange position to occupy, and an extraordinarily pessimistic one I think, far more so than any optimism I may be evincing. But if you research what Marx really said, he himself despised idealism. Dialectical Materialism now underpins virtually all of the social sciences today, from anthropology to linguistics to archaeology, etc. It is a scientific framework, not a naive and nebulous dream. And just like those social sciences, the science of socialism is likewise founded upon those principles. The issue you and I are having right now is that you have not availed yourself of that science, so it seems to you as hopeless as the propaganda we've both grown up with would paint it. But I assure you, if socialism was such a phantom, such a hopeless lost cause, then it would not have led to the Revolutions that it has, and it would not continue to be the greatest fear of the Capitalist class to this very day. Keep challenging. Keep asking questions. I promise you, nobody is more scrutinizing of socialism than an educated socialist. If you keep up this inquiry and allow yourself to set aside prejudice more and more as you go, eventually you will come to some of the the same logical conclusions as billions have before us. Don't let anyone tell you genuine inquiry into these subjects is a bad or foolish thing, my friend. Keep it up, and have a good week
1
@apoc519 Dude. This is a paraphrase. You really think you can understand socialism and dispel your litany of prejudices against it in under 3 paragraphs or something? Not to mention your entitled attitude to the effort I've freely shared with you. The Manifesto is a short 30 pages and was read by poorly educated coal miners across the world in the 1860s. If you're not even gonna put in that much brain power, you're just refusing to cooperate, and nothing I can do can change that: You've got your prejudices and your ignorance, and you feel entitled to spread them, but you also don't feel you have any obligation to actually deal with the serious issues you're engaging with when someone responds. Remember, friend: It takes but a thoughtless second to tell a lie, and a considered hour to dispel it. This is how bite-sized propaganda of the kind you seek exploits the mind already bent in prejudice towards it. Kinda bums me out how petulant and rude you're being in response to my good-natured effort. Guess you're right, I am too much an optimist sometimes. I just don't think you're very aware of the impact of your words, Paul, my friend
1
@vit968 FULLY-AUTOMATED L U X U R Y GAAAY, SPAAAACE, COMMMMMMUNISMMMMM! It's fun to practice saying it at full volume like a boxing announcer
1
Um, what? lol This is what happens when your knowledge of a subject is 100% bullet points from its opponents
1
At this point it feels like he's deliberately avoiding that topic. I can't remember a Hakim vid where I didn't see multiple people asking for this specific thing to be discussed. Maybe he doesn't have much to say about it? Maybe he doesn't link those things in his head?
1
Americans have the most incarcerated population on earth and are forced upon threat of such incarceration with funding the world's #1 and #3 most funded military organizations, who kill and loot and enforce capitalist authority both within and without the continental empire that they committed genocide to colonize. You know more of robbery than liberty
1
Profit is a concept that cannot be abolished. Extraction of surplus value, however, canand should be abolished. We will all profit from greater innovation, greater access to healthcare, greater empowerment. Well, the bourgeoisie won't, but they're a minority of villains whose class the Revolution will justly render extinct
1
@Creezusz Correct. I was using the word "profit" in the way that I sensed OP was using it, not in the Marxist, scientific sense of the word. There are many people raised by the Red Scare who hear Marxist rhetoric and assume that benefit to the individual will itself be threatened and abolished in some sort of collectivist nightmare. On the contrary, of course, in the absence of Marxist profit, the benefit of production falls the producers and to society at large
1
It is frankly too uncommon, but to the point you're making, it has been the scientific and logical conclusion since Dialectical Materialism was outlined and penned. It is not, however, inevitable: It will only come abour through Revolution, which means conflict with the ruling class, which means that the closer we get to success, the more we will be labeled "terrorists"
1
It should be possible to create automated machines which consume a comparable amount of energy to maintain as do the human laborers who would otherwise have to operate it. Also yeah, renewable energy which capitalists refuse to fully explore because too much supply would mean too little profit. But not everything will be automated all at once in any case
1