3 ms·

So let's be real for a sec: if one cannot even rhetorically accept that there's a yawning chasm between Stalinism (bad! awful! really shit! which you have to sa

So let's be real for a sec: if one cannot even rhetorically accept that there's a yawning chasm between Stalinism (bad! awful! really shit! which you have to say because otherwise people think you're a goddamn tankie!) and capital-uber-alles (let's ask the untold generations left in its wake?), what do you envision contributing to a discussion?

pjc50 6y ago
People don't want a discussion, they want a dichotomy they can throw rocks at.
- eropple 6y ago
  I mean, I am a rock-thrower. Granted, I'm a rock-thrower for anodyne maybe-don't-leave-the-poor-to-starve social democracy because it has a track record of working pretty well. "Let's get real amped up for mild and reasonable chaaaaaange!" is a weird place to be, admittedly.
- yourapostasy 6y ago
  I responded to the original flamebait, but couldn't post once it got flagged. But I'm willing to discuss the following originally directed to that now-flagged post. The currently-implemented economic model must compete in the marketplace of practices like any other model. Whether you call it capitalist or any other moniker is orthogonal to whether the model works for its participants with respect to raising children at replacement rate. If the majority of participants find it uneconomic to have children, that's not an indictment of the participants if they want to freely consent to experiment with different economic arrangements, some of whom might want to experiment to see if it yields more children, some who are in it for other reasons. It just simply means the current model has simply priced itself out of its market for "economic models that encourage having children". Majority of participants have no leverage on changing the model out of proportion to their voting power. So no "blame" or "responsibility" to assign to them. Supply and demand. There is no demand for children based upon the costs imposed upon participants. Ergo, no supply. If other economic actors want an increased supply of children, then it is on those actors to do what is in their power to raise the price offered until the market clears. If the price clearing involves a different economic arrangement, then the market has spoken.

pjc50 6y ago

People don't want a discussion, they want a dichotomy they can throw rocks at.

eropple 6y ago
I mean, I am a rock-thrower. Granted, I'm a rock-thrower for anodyne maybe-don't-leave-the-poor-to-starve social democracy because it has a track record of working pretty well. "Let's get real amped up for mild and reasonable chaaaaaange!" is a weird place to be, admittedly.
yourapostasy 6y ago
I responded to the original flamebait, but couldn't post once it got flagged. But I'm willing to discuss the following originally directed to that now-flagged post. The currently-implemented economic model must compete in the marketplace of practices like any other model. Whether you call it capitalist or any other moniker is orthogonal to whether the model works for its participants with respect to raising children at replacement rate. If the majority of participants find it uneconomic to have children, that's not an indictment of the participants if they want to freely consent to experiment with different economic arrangements, some of whom might want to experiment to see if it yields more children, some who are in it for other reasons. It just simply means the current model has simply priced itself out of its market for "economic models that encourage having children". Majority of participants have no leverage on changing the model out of proportion to their voting power. So no "blame" or "responsibility" to assign to them. Supply and demand. There is no demand for children based upon the costs imposed upon participants. Ergo, no supply. If other economic actors want an increased supply of children, then it is on those actors to do what is in their power to raise the price offered until the market clears. If the price clearing involves a different economic arrangement, then the market has spoken.