Comments by "Kim O\x27Brien" (@kimobrien.) on "Why Socialism Never Works: A Video Marathon | Marathons" video.

  1.  @investing4everyonevideos303  A millionaire is a nobody today. All you have become is a middle class fool who worships money.
    7
  2.  J J  He's on his way to being the next Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk nothing can stop him now!!!
    5
  3.  @investing4everyonevideos303  Did they let you read Leon Trotsky in the Soviet Union? Of course not he was Stalin's most voracious critic. He was the one old Bolshevik who was never rehabilitated and the NKVD murdered him in 1940 in Mexico City. Trotsky never went over to Hitler or Democratic Imperialism. I grew up during the cold war so does it make a difference if you have a nice home if its destroyed in a nuclear war? If their was no difference between the two systems why all the hostility and now that they are both capitalist why does the march towards nuclear war continue. Capitalism was born in nation states but must compete in the world market and it can't escape the Imperialist stage of history. It's not that the American capitalist haven't tried either. First with Wilson's proposal of a League of Nations and then with the United Nations and other international institutions like NATO, the World Bank and IMF. Was the end of the Soviet Union a victory for American capitalism or a defeat? Do those factories in the East now belong to the American Capitalist? Have they decisively defeated the trade unions? Or did the most corrupt like Yeltsin become the new capitalists?
    4
  4.  @tannhauser7584 I don't threaten people with death. I'm just warning you of the direction capitalism is headed. Capitalism creates a working class our class creates equality first in the political and economic sense but human beings aren't equal that is the second phase of communism where from each according to his abilities and to each according to his abilities comes in. The quote "best and brightest" from the elite universities with their student debt head to the financial sector to swindle the rest of us and that's is what capitalism is all about. It's a basic swindle where capital demands a return on investment for investors who do nothing but get rich. Capitalisms death toll is much higher when you use the same methods on the Imperialist Empires. Early deaths in Africa and India would easily out pace what happened in the Soviet Union and China. Cuba a small and relatively poor nation provides the world with Doctors while the US needs to import them
    3
  5. How about the 100,000,000 that were murdered by lead used as additive in gasoline. What's the moral record of fossil fuel companies?
    3
  6. Then expect to die in as a result of fascism and Imperialist war. We aren't individuals striving to succeed rather we are social animals who use social labor and tools to make a life for ourselves. We also produces a surplus which is passed onto successive generations.
    2
  7.  @tannhauser7584  I guess its time to stop wasting my time with someone who plays the hurt feelings, delusional and socialism never works card. Is Simon says you favorite game also?
    2
  8.  @jakk2631  Yes capitalist propaganda needs to be required brainwashing. Capital merely accumulates. As machines replace labor then the capital value rises and the labor needed to produce declines. Since the profit comes from our labor the rate of profit must decline.
    2
  9.  @smokinhalf  Capital only accumulates and it was the English capitalist economist Keynes who advised the British Capitalist to rob the workers with inflation of the money supply by watering gold. To keep the system going they must now keep printing money to continue to raise property values faster than wages. Its a totally unsustainable system that can only lead to hyperinflation if allowed to continue.
    2
  10.  @investing4everyonevideos303  End the US Imperialist blockade of Cuba. Stop trying to strangle the revolution.
    2
  11.  @investing4everyonevideos303  AOC is a Democrat a member of one of the two Imperialist ruling parties. She is the kind of "socialist" Lenin would call a traitor to the working class. You no doubt first learned how to steal for others and then they let you steal some for yourself. Now you sit back and tell us how successful you are!!! You don't change any of the facts about capitalist exploitation or why it must be overturned in a socialist revolution. Your proof is the same that can be found in Atlantic city or Las Vegas. At the end of the day most go home with empty pockets from the casino and no one every takes over the casino by playing the table games do they?
    2
  12.  @creman12  The road to socialism is paved by the class struggle. The working people need to take control of production with the trade unions and build a party based upon the trade unions independent of the capitalist parties to take control of government away from the capitalist in a socialist revolution.
    2
  13.  @hennagaijin7856  All you prove is that your good at playing the capitalist casino game. I work hard I buy a lottery ticket i become millionaire see capitalism works. Did you drive your car on turnpikes only or did you drive it on government built highways?
    2
  14.  @hennagaijin7856  Das Kapital is Marx's effort to explain exactly how capitalism works from what money is to things like the declining rate of return on investment as capital replaces labor in production. To really understand economics you need to understand that its a whole system in motion and different players have different interests. That some one running a small contracting business is just a small player in the realm of what is going on. Any Rand never gets beyond her love for the industrialist. She put him up on a pedestal as a modern god. Same with John Galt an engineer who leads a bosses strike. You realize Ayn Rand received her university education and advanced study in Bolshevik Russia as women were not allowed in the University before the Oct Revolution. Communism is a movement not a new doctrine with its holy priests. Its the history of one classes the proletariat victories and defeats with the.other most important class in the modern world the capitalist class. Since 1917 we've held state power at least somewhere in the world even if not under the best leadership or the most favorable conditions. As you can see the end of the Soviet Union did not create a stable Imperialist world. The working class is bigger as a percentage of the worlds population than at any time in past history and none of the advanced capitalist countries are under the boot of fascism. Both the Social Democrats and the Stalinists labor aristocracy are weaker also. The world's production levels have still not returned to those of 2008.
    2
  15.  @schizoidman7916  Wages stopped following productivity in 1973. Only through class struggle can the workers improve their lot on life. Unpaid labor is the source of profits which is born out by the capitalists accounting books. Capitalist operate production to maximize profits not to meet demand. Only the capitalist government has the right to demand. They revise production goals based upon profitability and sales. Everything is planned out in advance as much as possible to avoid risk.
    1
  16. @Joe Green US Imperialism lost the cold war, the 2008 crisis, the defeat in Afghanistan and Putin's war destabilizing Europe prove that assessment to be true.
    1
  17.  @schizoidman7916  "Labor isn't only one portion of the cost of production." Capital of course is the other and to produce capital you need labor. So tell me again what is the other cost of production if it isn't human labor. Labor is need to produce and production is needed to survive. Al the machines and computers were built by labor intellectual and manual. On the capitalist books capital accumulates. He pays back the banker who does nothing but provide capital. You can see how unstable this system is ever 8 to 10 years when a crisis of production hits. Millions lose their jobs and businesses large and small go bankrupt. All because the system runs chaotically to meet not need first but profits first.
    1
  18. @Joe Green Sure the car dealership is not guaranteed to succeed but GM, Chrysler Goldman Sacs are too big to fail. The system is chaotic and profits for the wealthy take priority. It makes no difference how the profit is made and so war becomes just another way to make profits. Capitalist Government under Bush goes on a nation building spree in Afghanistan. End result 2.3 trillion invested, 100,000 dead, millions driven from their homes and the best politicians money can buy go into exile with bags of cash. How can you call that a working system?
    1
  19.  @samyoon7459  Everything the working people have was won in class struggle against the capitalists. Its the American Imperialist who entered Korea after the defeat of the Japanese Imperialists and proposed the division of the nation with Stalin which he had no right to agree too that.
    1
  20. The worship of money is what corrupts. That's why any Democratic Republic comes under control of the stock exchange. Stalin reversed the communists course of Lenin and Trotsky.
    1
  21.  @investing4everyonevideos303  Haitian migrants who arrive in Cuba are not deported. The end result of both world wars was to leave the US untouched by war due to geography. Don't argue that "Socialism in One Country" is impossible since your beating Stalin's dead horse. That's their theory that you can build Socialism in one country first and everyone should focus on that as opposed to the actual class struggle in their country. This is why the American Communist Party were the most loyal strike breakers during World War 2. When the War ended they had the vision of shaking the monopolists hands only to be tossed in prison for 5 years stretches'. Their war time strike breaking left them with few friends in the working class.
    1
  22.  @investing4everyonevideos303  You missed Governor Wallace's (D) "Segregation Now Segregation Tomorrow and Segregation Forever." You want to divorce the capitalist from their rotten two party politicians. You have to close your eyes to all the rotten inventions that they created to use to defend their riches with war. It was just to much to listen to Nixon (R) condemn the four killed by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State. Nixon ran on a platform of "Peace with Honor" he ended his presidency telling us "That people have to know that their President wasn't a crook." You prove nothing but ignorance of American and world history by pointing at other countries.
    1
  23.  @investing4everyonevideos303  You already asked and I answered that question. We don't move to a special communist country because that is not how you advance the socialist revolution. What's is important is we tell the truth about world history and the class struggle. Good or Bad. That can be seen by reading our Press starting in 1928 with The Militant that is now available on line. Your basic agreement is you came from the Soviet Union and life was hard there but since I came here things are better for me. Some how the experience of a single Individual proves what Marx and others have said wrong. Since most of what has been written by Marx and his followers about economic trends pertains to groups and not individuals you might just as well say that the lottery winner proves we can all be lottery winners.
    1
  24.  @investing4everyonevideos303  No we talk about and participate in the class struggle and point a path forward. Most importantly we tell the truth good or bad. Now that you here do you recommend that the rest of the world come here to make American capitalism even greater? Some how I don't think that the American capitalist are very enthusiastic about more immigration. They spent 2.3 trillion dollars nation building in Afghanistan which resulted in millions of refugees and 100,000 dead and a collapsed puppet regime of the best people Yankee dollars could buy. All the hangers on to US Imperialism including the NATO allies were shocked when the US Imperialist withdrew without consulting them.
    1
  25.  @investing4everyonevideos303  Because life doesn't work that way for people who become revolutionaries. Its like asking Trotsky why did you let Stalin win the decisions of the politburo when you clearly had the loyalty of the Red Army. Trotsky responded that to do so would require agreements that would need to be kept and he had no desire to become a Bonaparte. I had a job as a radar antennae technician where I had learned some programing skills. I could have stayed but not without satisfying the DOD security cops. I had no desire to become a fink for a soft job even with all the benefits of education paid by the company.
    1
  26.  @investing4everyonevideos303  You spent your time siting in a chair on weekdays pushing buttons. Thinking what a smart guy you must be. You think I never washed dishes, shoveled silage or worked outside in the cold, heat and dark? Or worked overtime or came in when called on the phone during a snow storm. I count myself lucky to be alive considering some of the hazards on the jobs I've done. People like you think we all have some special sort of secret welfare funding that lets us spend all day doing nothing all our lives like you do. Well that's just not true. I work with electricity as my trade and most people are afraid of an open breaker box never mind working with live wires. I know how to test if a wire is hot using my bare fingers. I've worked in a rolling mill where red hot steel goes up in the air like ribbon candy and overhead cranes constantly move carrying slabs, coils or scrap. We work turns which we change hours every week. I've climbed utility poles with hooks and ladders using a bucket is child's play. The only thing a capitalist risks is his money we risk our lives everyday just to keep the lights on and the computer or phone connected. You know what the call the management in a mill "Pink Elephants."
    1
  27.  @Ston247  Class struggle is the road to socialism. They workers will need to defend themselves from fascist attacks upon the trade unions, minorities, jews and political meetings.
    1
  28. Now you have the American imperialists spending 2.3 trillion in Afghanistan killing 100,000 and creating millions of refugees and the best politicians money can buy.geting out of dodge with bags of cash.
    1
  29.  @freedomworks3976  Getting all the socialist to leave so the workers have no leaders to fight the capitalist system. Sounds like the CZAR sending everyone to Siberia. The American capitalist use to need immigrants because so many went west to be free peasant farmers. Now they don't know if they want immigrants or don't want immigrants.
    1
  30.  @freedomworks3976  Labor produces all value. The capitalist is the one who demands a free lunch. You don't earn anything by investing. The only purpose money serves in capitalism is as an accounting system. A system that becomes crisis ridden as the goal is to produces the biggest profits and pay the lowest wages. Capitalism is a crisis ridden system that is based in nation states but operates in a world market. The Imperialist national ruling classes are to greedy to ever share production on a world scale. What that means is war by the ruling classes to maximize profits for their group of capitalist nations.
    1
  31.  @JohnSmith-bs9ym  Capitalism requires the protection of private property by police and military violence. The road to socialism is paved by the class struggle. Build the Trade Unions and support the strike with solidarity.
    1
  32.  @countlessbathory1485  The Capitalists national Imperialist greed is responsible for the two world wars which were Imperialist slaughters organized first by the Imperialist nations. Stalin was no more a Communist than Republicans are for Repubics. Class struggle is why the working class has what it does the capitalist give nothing without a fight. I don't own any private property which I can use to exploit others like the monopolists. We have a right to strike and block the entrance of strikebreakers. Your only goal is to pay the lowest wage and impose the most oppressive conditions to make the biggest profits and even then a lot of what you do with the profit is to drive up the value of fictitious capital which can only collapse creating the next economic crisis. Then when a crisis occurs your to big to fail companies demand wage cuts and government bailouts. Bankruptcy reorganization is just another way to make the workers pay for your profit crisis and the decades long decline in the rate of profits. A private army of fascist goons is what the capitalist find as cheaper when their property is threatened by socialist revolution. Hitler's NAZI's were the saviors of German capitalism.
    1
  33.  @countlessbathory1485  First the "not real socialism" is well documented as the split in the Communist Party of America in 1928 with the Trotsky's supporters forming the Communist League of America. Kotkin is merely a bourgois Professor. Trotsky was co leader of the Revolution with Lenin. Everyone with a brain knows Hitler was anti Marx and anti Bolshevik. Doesn't make a difference what Hitler would rant about he was appointed Chancellor of German by General Hindenburg on adive of von Pipen and all the capitalist deputies voted for the enabling act giving Hitler dicitoral powers. The German bosses wanted Hitler to destroy the trade unions and organize production for the ambitions of Imperialist war. Private property was untouched and profits secured. All you and your bourgois professors want is to define capitalism out of its crimes including those of the class collaborationists Social Democrats and Stalinist leaders for whom capitalism is considered progressive. Capitalism developed in nation states and it is characterised in the Imperialist stage by the private ownership of big capital monopoly in production and banking capital with foreign investments and then super profits extracted with the help of imperialist military force. When capitalism enters a revolutionary crisis the owners then turn to fascist gangsters and a Fascist government of the gangsters. Marxist theories are all public so to say fascism is based in marxism is merely to say the fascists see their system as a way to achieve the goal of their bosses. One might just as well accuse American conservatism of being a branch of Marxism since James Burnham was an ex communists co founder. A fascist coup d eta is not the same as a though going social revolution which the coup d eta is meant to behead. Capitalist exploitation doesn't occur at the point of sale rather it occurs when the capitalist uses his power as an employer to enforce his profit maximization goals upon his production workers. The workers are paid the lowest wage and work the longest hours at the fastest pace to achieve the biggest profits. Only by banding together in trade unions can the workers fight back against this exploitation.
    1
  34. They teach nothing but the worship of the bosses and their government central bank monetary policies.
    1
  35. The Stalinist's lied through their teeth. While talking socialism they were always preparing to take the country back to capitalism. The most corrupt became the new capitalist in the East. The trade unions remain in tact and for that reason the popular revolutions were a defeat for Imperialism and its collaborators the Stalinist counter revolutionaries. .
    1
  36.  @michaeloxlong  Giving more and more privilege's to officials can only lead back to capitalism. Nazism was the result of the failure of the German revolution it was brought about when the capitalist conservatives turned to Hitler's thugs as a way to save German capitalism. Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President General Hindenburg after negotiations with von Papen and NAZI party officials were given command of the police. Next the Reichstag with all its Communist and many Social Democratic deputies denied their seats with all the capitalist parties and NAZI's voting for the enabling act giving Hitler the power to rule by decree. Hitler is real capitalism the industrialist saved their property and their profits only to lose the war to the Soviet Red Army.
    1
  37.  @schizoidman7916  We still live in the Imperialist stage of capitalism since US Imperialism was unable to win the cold war. Maybe you don't like or want war and fascism but that's the ultimate goal of the national capitalist ruling classes fighting for markets and profits. They have no other way to arbitrate international trade disputes.
    1
  38.  @jacobshort6528  The road to socialism is paved with the class struggle not voting machines.
    1
  39.  @jameseverett4976  Capital produces nothing. All it does is accumulate and demand a return on investment. Its based on a free lunch for do nothing investors. It's an unsustainable system. Banks need to keep lending and the government needs to keep printing money otherwise the whole system would collapse. It can't avoid entering into decline and the capitalists are divided into nation states but they compete in the world market. This can only lead a march towards Imperialist War and Fascisms. Only Socialism and National self determination for the poor nations can solve theses problems.
    1
  40.  @TKOdarkshadow  That's the reason to organize into unions and make the bosses cut hours with no cut in pay and to hire more workers who will then be paid simulating more production. Make every job a union job.
    1
  41.  @josiahallenswife6899  Basicly Prager says, "I live in big house, watch wood burn in a fireplace so this means capitalism is wonderful."
    1
  42.  @hennagaijin7856  My father ran a small contracting business, I told him to put my mom on the payrole for Social Security purposes. Instead they invested in an IRA. The IRA was gone in no time because the business had to be shut down for because my dad could no longer make contracts. Then my dad passed away and my mom spent the rest of her life in postage stamp housing for the elderly. Had they put her on the pay role They'd of paid more tax up front but come out way ahead of any investing scheme.
    1
  43.  @hennagaijin7856  If you going to invest in anything it should be your own business and not something you buy in the market. You second best investment is social security tax. All those company pension plans and IRA schemes aren't worth a hill of beans. Lets say i set up a laundromat. The very next thing is to learn how to repair the machines instead of hiring a company contractor. To run a successful small business it needs to be in a niche market its best if its something that requires a skill most people don't have and can't easily learn. Something that won't easily be replaced with new technology. .
    1
  44.  @hennagaijin7856  Investing is gambling. Its the promise of something for nothing. How long do you think banks can keep lending and expecting back more than they lent out? They have no choice but to keep the printing presses running. Inflation favors the owners of property. Keep those presses running becuase your getting rich. Capitalism demands a free lunch for the capitalist who wants back more than he invested. Government debt is never canceled as bad debt like that wasted on war production and destruction. So we are going to pat back that 2.3 trillion invested in the Afghan war. You see even the thoery of the capitalist losing on bad investments doesn't apply when your government debt or a bank or company to big to fail.
    1
  45.  @hennagaijin7856  It is gambling and like gambling those who can count cards have an edge in black jack. Not surprising at all because most small businesses fail. My brother didn't want the business and I was in no position to take it over so it just closed. Big companies wanted to drive my father out but only a secret source of products made his business possible. When your in business the first thing you learn is you have no real friends. Everyone is out to screw each other. He use to have to stop work on jobs to get other contractors to pay him.
    1
  46.  @hennagaijin7856  I can tell you now you'll understand a lot more about economics if you read Das Kapital than taking economics in college.The joks is that when an MBA starts at a big company they have to retrain them becuase everything the teach in business school is just so much propaganda. On Wall Street they call pension funds dumb money because they real money is all made by inside traders that don't get caught. So like Isaid how is it not gambling unless you have inside information. You have all theses firms who have this or that strategy or system. In the end its like playing musical chairs where someone doesn't get a chair when the bear market hits.
    1
  47.  @hennagaijin7856  Putin has decided he's Peter the Great and has attacked Ukraine. Now tell me how well capitalism is working in Eastern Europe and Russia. This is shaping up to be a full scale war not a few tanks rolling in for a change of bureaucrats. Same with the US just a few months ago they withdrew after 20 years of NATO imperialist "nation building" only to leave behind billions in arms having spent 2.3 trillion, killed 100,000 and created millions of refugees in one of the poorest countries in the world. Now Germany has decided to invest in a bigger military. You can't have peace among nations when each country has a greedy capitalist exploiting class. So right now Putin's actions give Biden a chance to grandstand and lets not forget Putin is Yeltsin man who took Bill Clinton's advice. Trotsky once said of Stalin "..he was unable to think abstractly..." Since Fidel Castro and Che Guevara lead a new communist movement that developed out of the 26 th of July movement and not the old Stalinist PSP. Cuba has avoided the Stalinist counterrevolution. Much like the American revolution was able to avoid what came after the English revolution which was the restoration of the monarchy and the posthumous executions.
    1
  48.  @Argonhubert  Capitalist starts in nation states and develops the world market in both combined and an uneven way. This is what produced the European Empires who went to war to redivide the capitalist world amongst themselves. The socialist revolution must advance across the world before any talk about creating communism can be made. The world war signaled the end of capitalisms productive and progressive phase. The world's labor movement needed to be cleansed of the stalinist cancer before we can advance. At first the neo liberals ideologies of American Imperialism thought the Chinese Stalinist would be part of their alliance of Western European capitalist thieves. Today it is clear that the CCP is just advancing it own version of capitalism in an effort to take at least some of the world market away from the American Imperialists. In China have come to see China has created a brand new working class and the Chinese capitalist want their share of the world market. With capitalism unable to maintain living standards in the United States the ruling class is begining to fear the working class at home and enter into trade war against its world market competition.
    1
  49.  @alexmukets6769  Overcentralization is a neoliberal myth. The true problems were carried over from the Stalin era and never properly dealt with by the party leaders. Lenin was the first to realize their was something wrong with him. He wanted him out of his post as General Secretary saying he was too rude had too much power and wasn't sure he would always use it wisely. Lenin died before he could open a fight to have him removed and then Trotsky tried and he would also fail.
    1
  50. Capitalism gave up nothing without the class struggle. Class struggle is the road to socialism. Once the capitalist Empires had divided the world among themselves they began fighting with each other in world war. In the Russian Empire things got so bad that cannibalism returned. Women textile workers lead the February revolution.
    1
  51.  @loubieloujones5698  You've had 30 years of capitalism in Eastern Europe and what do you have now but a Putin who thinks he's Peter the Great invading Ukraine. Bill Clinton did all the advising to Yeltsin and Gorbachev. Those guys were the product of Stalinism. Trotsky said of Stalin that .".the man was incapable of abstract thought..."
    1
  52.  @willnitschke  I never said end fossel fuels tomorrow. The dangers of lead were know when the use of the additive was begun. Both the scientist and the oil companies lied about it see "The man who accidentally killed the greatest number of people in history." Tobacco companies lied about the safety of their product for years also. Lieing for short term profits done constatly by capitalist companies. Capitalism creates a ruling class just like past societies. These people demand profit. Their most important product isn't their spoiled brats at elite liberal universities or PragerU but us the industrial workers.
    1
  53.  @roofkorean2067  Is it? I suppose PragurU doesn't exaggerate or cover up the crimes of Western Imperialism. Fourteen Imperialist Armies invaded the Soviet Union including the US/UK. The capitalist nations destroyed themselves in two world wars.
    1
  54. You can't regulate the greed out of capitalism you can only abolish it in the class struggle with the trade union and the labor party. The workers must prepare to defend the trade unions from the inevitable release of the fascist bandits.
    1