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  • So I say somewhere else that one shouldn’t bother with this comic because its assumptions are flawed, but let’s point out exactly how because otherwise Marxists will live in the flawed understanding that their pov is unchallenged or inherently correct.

    — the alien assumes for some magical reason a property cannot be owned, specifically a factory. A factory is not a natural product of the world, there’s not tree growing factories. Someone put in an investment to create it, and the work they allocate in that factory is a recoupment of that factory building investment.

    — the workers obey “pieces” of paper because that’s what society decided is civilized behavior. The alternative is one where a factory owner decides to kill people for trying to take what’s theirs, or the workers decide to kill the factory owner to take over. Either way, there is violence and bloodshed.

    Marxist believe, for whatever magical reasons, that the violence will stop once they seize the means of production. But why should it? Why wouldn’t another subgroup of Marxists constantly want to challenge the committees who want to run that specific factory? The answer is that without a rule or agreement (piece of paper), various groups will constantly try to seize what they think should be theirs.

    — the alien believes that agreeing to work with someone is slavery. Here I have two things to say: 1) for someone who doesn’t want to work, then any kind of work will appear to be slavery, and that’s not a a capitalism problem, that’s a self actualization problem for some people. 2) in reasonable economies, people have choices for places to work, or unions which ensure that employers cannot abuse them, or laws which ensure protections.

    The fact is simply this, whenever two people interact, they will have disagreements. We make laws to not kill each other over those disagreements. If you want to experience what it’s like living in an authoritarian state, try living in china or Vietnam. Rule of law means little or nothing in such places, whereas in democracies you can still get some recourse via the courts, or via regulations. Have kleptocrats and oligarchs ruined democracies, yes definitely.

    — being a larger class doesn’t necessarily mean anything in violent conflict. I think any philosophy which relies on violent conflict to achieve its goals is tacitly admitting that it cannot win the hearts and minds of people via ideas alone.

    Edit to say, I have a busy day ahead so I wont be responding lol, but doesn’t mean I agree or don’t want to challenge this vapid Marxist pov

    And once more: lol @ downvoters constantly butthurt that their Marxist pov is challenged

    • [A bunch of embarrassingly ignorant nonsense.]

      And once more: lol @ downvoters constantly butthurt that their Marxist pov is challenged

      • You're just mad because I'm so smart I can challenge your century and a half of sociological theory despite having never engaged with it.

    • what an amazing word salad you got there champ

    • I want to point out that Marxists don't believe Marxism is "inherently correct" or "unable to be challenged." Marxists tend to be confident in the usefulness of Marxism as a tool for analysis because it has proven its handiness. If parts of Marxism were to be proven incorrect, those would be dropped and the new theory adapted. That's the strength of the Dialectical Materialist method of learning, which is similar to the scientific method but built-in to Marxism as a concept. Either way, on to your main comment.

      For point 1, you talk about why the concept of ownership of, say, a factory is foreign. Your point misunderstands theirs. The belief in a societal concept of "ownership" is separate from the actual, real world mechanisms at play. What is "morally correct" doesn't guide society, starving people don't refuse to steal bread because of morals. The reasoning behind ownership is punishment by the state for not respecting it.

      For your second, it's pretty clear that these contracts heavily benefit the owners of the contracts at the expense of those who don't. You are correct in saying that without the State, the workers would simply take the factories, but this wasn't because "society" decided it, but the owners of Capital in the first place.

      Your point on Marxism is a strawman. Marxists believe administration, laws, and government are necessary, but that over time as the economy is publicly owned and planned there will cease to be real class distinctions, and thus the "State," the elements of government that exist purely for class oppression, would wither. Laws would still exist along with public service workers, but would play different roles to how society is run today with heavily millitarized police forces and massive armies between hard borders.

      Your next point, the third outlined, is nihilism (and chauvanism towards the end). When presented with the case that holders of Capital have far more power than those without, you sidestep that equation and say any labor is slavery. Instead of grappling with the presented idea of equal ownership and thus more even power dynamics, you choose to not engage at all or even consider it. This is nihilism.

      The second part of your third point, the ability to choose where you work, is already a part of Marxist thinking and is in place in Vietnam and the PRC, which you allude isn't possible. Moreover, you make an appeal to democracy while avoiding tackling the imbalance of power between factory owners and workers, a society with equal ownership is inherently more democratic as the voices of the people are more equalized.

      Your final point, the "reliance on violence" rather than "hearts and minds" applies more to liberalism than Marxism. In an inherently violent, imbalanced system like Capitalism, the violence is systemic and daily. The appeal to "hearts and minds" is to quell opposition to this daily violence. No Marxist wants violence, but Marxists accept that revolution is necessary to move beyond this industrialized system of violence.

      The reality of Liberalism is violence and Imperialism, from murdering 1 million Iraqis for the pursuit of profits to dropping napalm and Agent Orange on the Vietnamese for daring to go against the US-dominated world marketplace to dropping more tons of bombs on Korea than the entire pacific front of World War 2, Liberalism dons the mask of "winning hearts and minds" for its public while slaughtering without care innocents to the tune of millions.

      You don't have to reply, but you can feel free to. I have my own criticisms of the comic, the Aliens certainly would have gone through similar economic systems before reaching their current, likely Communist Mode of Production and therefore would understand the Capitalist (unless they failed to write down their history, which is unlikely as well), but I don't think your critique is good either.

      • ..as a tool for analysis because it has proven its handiness

        If you mean, China then most would agree that their success is a natural consequence of intense competition, and not necessarily of their economic system of choice. When you run a country like an army, then it’s very likely to get good results. Yes, the people there have recourse via law (against each other, not the state), and freedom to decide where to work, but that freedom is limited when there are no natural mechanisms to create sources to direct productivity. Many new grads are jobless or underemployed.

        you talk about why the concept of ownership of, say, a factory is foreign. Your point misunderstands theirs. The belief in a societal concept of “ownership” is separate from the actual, real world mechanisms at play. What is “morally correct” doesn’t guide society, starving people don’t refuse to steal bread because of morals. The reasoning behind ownership is punishment by the state for not respecting it.

        So you say Marxist don’t believe moral superiority and then come out with this lol? Why isn’t owning moral good? If you give resources to acquire something, then why shouldn’t it be yours? The reason why Marxists insist on state ownership of means of production is because they fear losing control and power. The people don’t and wont own anything, just as they don’t in China or Vietnam.

        In an inherently violent, imbalanced system like Capitalism, the violence is systemic and daily.

        The problems are due to centralization of power and control. That’s why regulations protect everyone, including the wealthy and powerful. That’s why monopolies are dangerous to freedom.

        The reality of Liberalism is violence and Imperialism, from murdering 1 million Iraqis for the pursuit of profits to dropping napalm and Agent Orange on the Vietnamese for daring to go against the US-dominated world marketplace to dropping more tons of bombs on Korea than the entire pacific front of World War 2, Liberalism dons the mask of “winning hearts and minds” for its public while slaughtering without care innocents to the tune of millions

        You cant seriously say that Marxist nations won’t do asshole things to each other. This is magical thinking again. The problem is greedy people will always preserve themselves and their power, that’s what Stalin did. That’s what Lenin did. That’s what Marx would have done, if he had gotten the chance.

        I am not saying the world is perfect right now. I am saying I don’t want to fool myself into thinking that creating a different hell is better than trying to make the current place less hellish.

      • I would like to offer a few counter-counterpoints.

        Property rights are indeed enforced by the state under a threat of violence, but I would say that someone needs to own the factory: workers, the state, or the capitalists, so if the state(or a different institution) did not ensure stable ownership, people would just use violence to take what they can: the economy can not work under such chaotic conditions, as meaningful decisions needs stable expectations.

        I would not say that capitalism benefits capitalists at the expense of the workers. Just because capitalists are profiting from the labour of workers, does not mean that this state of things is undesirable for workers, since the profits are then reinvested and so used to improve the economy. I would say this is a sensible arrangement: the economic power is wielded by the people that are relatively competent and driven and have incentives to do well. It has proven it's efficiency.

    • Good thing the communism understander from .world is here to explain Marxism to us.

    • try living in china or Vietnam. Rule of law means little or nothing in such places

      Criminal gangs rampaging through the country side because their jails are relatively empty? Plenty of private property and GDP growth. Tough to do in mad max world.

      It is not marxist to not praise only having laws to protect extortionist oligarchs.

    • Thank you for tasking the time to respond to this instead of just giving it a disappointed downvote and moving on, you're a better citizen than I am.

    • There's no magic involved, the comic assumes a lot of things and you chose to assume the wrong ones for it to make sense.

      It contraposes the rational modeling of modern economists to its illogical effects.

      The alien assumes a property cannot be owned because it in fact can not be owned. You can say you own the statue of liberty but if there's no consensus you will have no particoular agency toward it. This applies to trees themselves even if there are tree growing trees.

      the workers obey “pieces” of paper because that’s what society decided is civilized behavior.

      That's the point.

      The alternative is one where a factory owner decides to kill people for trying to take what’s theirs, or the workers decide to kill the factory owner to take over. Either way, there is violence and bloodshed.

      Congratulation, you do get the comic. That's what the aliens are saying, why don't the many worker take the place from the single owner.

      Then you go on bringing forward your personal opinion about "obvious facts of life" which are old, trite, wrong and unworthy of my time.

      • The alien assumes a property cannot be owned because it in fact can not be owned.

        Why? If someone pays for the resources to build it, then who owns it? If the labor could build it to begin with, then why didn’t it? Then labor could be the owner. But if labor relies on resources to build mechanisms of productivity, then it’s fair to say that those who build the mechanisms are justly due some compensation for their input.

        We already tried armed conflict over resources, the pieces of paper were what we decided was a better alternative.

    • Not only that, it insists on this 1800s argument/fantasy about factory workers. In an age and economy where 70% of people work in the services sector.

      I seized my means of production. Or rather, bought them on Amazon. Same for lawyers, accountants, mechanics, electricians, plumbers, cleaning people, photographers, gardeners, painters...

      • it insists on this 1800s argument/fantasy about factory workers. In an age and economy where 70% of people work in the services sector.

        It insists nothing of the sort. It makes no difference whether one labors for manufacturing industry wages or service industry wages. Either way one is proletariat, selling one’s labor to the bourgeoisie for survival.

        I seized my means of production.

        Congratulations, you are now petit bourgeois.

    • Inb4 "you dont understand communism" and then you say "how am i wrong" and they say "heres some titles of topics and books that prove you wrong" and you say "why cant you explain how it applies to this situation?" And they say "if people behaved selflessly..." and you say "but people are selfish" and they say "you are brainwashed by captialistic values" and then you both get tired of typing and move on.

192 comments