this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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America is very close to being real market economy, that's why it sucks so much.
And that's why we have barriers to entry stifling competition lobbied for by the big players in said industry? Insulin is only the price it is because the government enforces the patent that says pfizer is allowed to have a monopoly on it, if other people were able to produce and sell affordable generics pfizer would have to drop their price or go out of business, but if you try the government comes, kidnaps you, and if you resist kidnapping, kills you.
Try to sell a product that the government decides you owe them money for: Weed? Jail. Moonshine? Jail. Weed in a legal state but didn't break off the 50% protection money to the government? Jail. Unlicensed insulin? Jail. Drawing of a mouse too close to a famous one? Jail.
The US has what is called crony capitalism, not free market capitalism. Free market ~~capitalism~~ economy is what the Agorists like SEKIII want (but they refuse to call capitalism arguing that "real capitalism" is crony capitalism and "free market economies" are not "capitalist" at all and is actually leftist in nature.)
Crony capitalism is just capitalism. The agorist free market capitalism is just starting the whole thing over under the mistaken belief that it’ll end up different.
Yes yes and communism will never repeat it's past mistakes because that wasn't real communism, I know.
I know you’re trying to use sarcasm, but communist countries don’t generally repeat the mistakes of other communist countries. They famously at least try to share knowledge openly with each other.
Hey at least millions of people die in new mistakes! Or is that all "western propaganda товарищ?"
what are you talking about? I can’t read cyrillic, what’s that last word?
If "they don't repeat old mistakes" (like communist china not starving Ukranians, for instance), millions of people still die (like communist china killing all the sparrows, for instance), but at least the despots killed all those people in a different way! The last bit is the usual refutation from lemmygradniks, that all of that never happened, as it was just western propaganda, and then I threw in the russian word for commrade for extra sarcasm.
You really gotta get out more if you haven't had those arguments with those crazy bastards, though they are on "your team" (at least the one you're defending, communism) so I'd imagine you don't argue with them often as it were.
The prc and ussr both had famines, yeah. One of the greatest tragedies of the sino soviet split is the lack of cooperation during the chinese one.
I don’t know what people told you, but there absolutely was a ton of misinformation about the soviet famine that got revealed once 1992 rolled around and the archives opened up. Turned out they had some terrible fuckups and bad luck but there wasn’t any deliberate starvation.
Communists argue about this stuff all the time, we just recognize people trying to understand conflicting information versus people trying to have a big fight or a debate. Part of the reason you get so much flak is because someone interested in learning how to understand conflicting information will gladly read a two hundred page analysis of a four hundred page historical text and discuss it openly while a person looking for a fight will call names and act like bringing up the famines is some gotcha that unmasks the internet communist for the scooby doo villian they are.
Long form holodomor denial? Good look lol. Now do the Armenian Genocide, and follow up with "that wasn't real communism" and we'll hit 'em all!
So you really think that the communists I talk to are usually genocide denialists because I'm clearly not communist and not interested in listening to pages of genocide denial, so the communists who aren't genocide denialists won't talk to me? Maybe that's the problem, but it isn't a "me" problem, it's a "communists who don't deny their atrocities" problem, they should again be "louder" than their "not numerous" compatriots. Every 50th (ykwim) one I get will actually admit those failings, but then they usually still want to kill a bunch of people now which I also sorta kinda have a problem with. Murder is wrong even if you dehumanize your enemy sufficiently and feel justified, self defense is one thing but that easily gets twisted from reality to fit their revenge fantasies, and I'm really just not about it.
I don’t know much about the armenian genocide, always thought that was the Turkish nationalists thing.
I don’t know who you’ve been talking to or what they’ve been saying. I do know that an astounding number of people who’ve written extensively on the famine calling it holodomor have turned around in the last twenty years, usually after seeing soviet records, and said “well, it’s not actually a genocide”.
I understand how it feels to hear someone say that an atrocity is made up or deserved. Maybe we both have the same holocaust denying uncle. The difference here is that one was confirmed explicitly in record and the other was not.
It’s real disheartening seeing people try that buffoonish no true scotsman garbage but what can you do. Nothing derails a head full of steam over wages like six hundred words on the gonzolites.
Tbh I'm not sure why they usually deny that one either, but for some reason they are commonly linked when I find those people in the wild, honestly I was hoping you could tell me lol.
You do indeed seem different, even though I'm still not sold on the whole "holodomor wasn't a genocide" thing, but still you're not the same as them at least, so that's cool.
If you get a chance, read wheatcrofts responses to his own damn book years of hunger. He’s no commie and speaks fluent russian and was one of the important people involved in figuring out the archives after the ussr fell.
When he came out and said something to the effect of “it might have been uncaring murderous stalinist policy but it doesn’t rise to the level of genocide” the whole western historical community did a spit take.
Better yet, stop engaging in polemic with communists and just read history and theory instead.
Ah ok, I'll read that, but imo that sounds like "it might have been light genocide, but it wasn't real genocide™" so far.
Still my point stands though, them simply saying that "the holodomor is western propaganda" without then saying "it was just murderous and uncaring stalinists" sounds like denial, especially if they then don't continue with "and it was bad" but rather "and Stalin was the best." Whether or not that denial is "genocide denial" or "murderous uncaring stalinist denial" matters little to me.
I've read some, albeit not everything and I never will, as I prefer individual liberty to collectivism personally and that is a difference too fundimental to overcome. Agorists are alright, I prefer their approach.
Is a light genocide like when they use aspartame instead of hfcs?
When people say the holodomor is western propaganda they are saying that there was no genocidal famine because there was no genocide. They aren’t saying it because they love stalin but because a bunch of historians came around and said “actually there’s not evidence for a genocide”.
The word holodomor means (and I’m paraphrasing here because meaning has changed over time) “genocide famine”. The term was popularized in the west by radio free europe. So if the word can’t be true and it was a cia talking point that’s your western propaganda.
Tbh I wouldnt lead with that because you have to basically drag someone kicking and screaming to it and they’ll still insist you perform the litany of rejecting stalin immediately afterwards.
I don’t suggest you read communist theory to change your mind, but because you’re obviously not interested in trading slogans with people and probably would get more out of it than the people that plow through capital thinking it’ll make them smart.
If nothing else, read state and revolution. It’s super short and pokes some hundred year old holes in anarchist thought that still bug em today.
Well, is there a trans genocide in the US like the Trans people are claiming? Would you call it a genocide if the racists in America decided that areas with a majority black population should be the ones to starve because of a murderous and uncaring president?
Yeah, you maybe. Or if so they should say that instead of "it's western propaganda, stalin did nothing wrong he was the best" but they don't.
Whatever your opinions, downplaying the severity and hand waving away "murderous and uncaring" isn't a good look, it sounds like Trump supporters dude. "Stalin could kill a man in Times Square and still get elected president."
Oh, so you're suprised people who don't support murder and genocide would expect you to not like your murderous uncaring cult of personality? Yeah, me too. Just shocked I tell ya. C'mon dude be real, "it was just murder and uncaring" is not the W you think it is, they know that, I know that, and deep down I think you know that.
Alright, I'll give that one a read, thanks.
Generally speaking, again: I don’t know who you’ve been talking to or what they’ve said, the push against holodomor isn’t to downplay the extent of death, depravation or suffering. The only thing people are trying to say is that it wasn’t a genocide because it wasn’t a series of decisions that explicitly targeted the ukranian population for eradication.
Just so we can stop retreading this ground: there is no downplaying happening here. A bunch of scholars say that there isn’t evidence for a genocide. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t absolute desolation. In some ways the extent is expanded because we can now include the rest of the volga and kazakhstan, which is the real nightmare but never got the kind of traction ukrane did.
No one thinks it’s a win to have a famine where millions died.
The argument for a trans genocide is based on systemic targeting for eradication and shouldn’t be compared to the famine because one is an event that happened nearly a hundred years ago with an extensive (and evolving) historical context and understanding and the other is something happening right now.
Without equal levels of applied scholarship and a precise framework for analysis, comparing the two ends up being that sort of suffering Olympics vernacular that classier people call crass and I tend to just call shitty.
Another book worth checking out is stalins world. It’s not written sympathetically by any means.
The Ukranian Holodomor was the direct result of Stalin's (and/or his people) actions. When your country has dictatorship, the economic system is kind of doesn't matter, everything happens not because of the economic system but because of the will of the dictator.
The main pillar of both socialism and communism is workers collectively owning the means of production, this is directly contradicts to the autocracy that was USSR.
If you think that China had famine because of communism, you should think that North Korea has famines because of democracy, because they call themselves Democratic Republic.
Lol, what utter bullshit.
Pfizer doesn’t have a monopoly on insulin, it’s primarily produced by Eli Lilly (who were the first), Novo Nordisk and Sanofi.
„The government“ also doesn’t „enforce“ patents, companies have found a way to make small changes to drugs to keep them perpetually patented. The recent price drops of insulin in the US are the *result of government intervention *.
Please do get lost with you Alex Jones r/conspiracy drivel, thx.
You mean the cheap kind you can get at walmart, or the fast acting stuff everyone complains about being expensive? I mean, I don't think anyone is claiming that the cheap atuff is too expensive, they're always talking about the fast acting kind or so they say, so that's what I'm talking about too, since I was directly referencing people complaining about expensive insulin, you see.
Nonetheless, though I may not be super up on which megacorporation holds patents for which drug, and in essence they're all exactly the same to me since they operate the same way in terms of patents, the fact that corporation "A" holds the patent instead of corporation "B" is a nonfactor, just replace the name in your head. Hit f12 and edit it if you really lack the imagination to just insert the correct corporation and keep reading.
The government doesn't enforce patents, eh? Ok, so what specifically happens if you start selling shit patented by "a corporation of your choosing?" Pinkertons? Well maybe if we're talking about 1800s Wells Fargo, or current WOTC, but that is rare. No unless I'm mistaken it's usually "court" which unless I'm mistaken is part of "the judicial branch" of "our government."
Face it, the government and corporations being in bed is not only "a bad thing" but is just as much a fault of "the government" as "the corporations." Hating one is only hating half the problem.
Yes. That's how capitalism operates. There is nothing in capitalist system that prevents monopolies from happening, in fact they kind of encouraged. And patent system is as capitalist as it gets. It was born as an answer to a question "how do we collectively insure that companies can own everything they want to own", and the government exists to enforce the rules that rich people and companies want to have (getting back to lobbying). If you get rid of the government, you will get cyberpunk corporate wars, and then when people will get tired of that, they will come up with the same government-like structure.
That's how crony capitalism works, free market capitalism is free from such bounds by definition. Monopolies could also form without the government but they clearly form with the help of those government regulations allowing them to do so as well, see: basically the entire medical industry. We have the worst of both worlds, tbh either socialized healthcare or an end to the racketeering scheme we call the medical industry by freeing the market (things like removing drug patents to make the market competitive and lowering price, etc) would he better than this crony capitalist bullshit we have now. Patents are again antithetical to free market capitalism, that is literally part of what is referenced by "free" in the term. Proponents of free market capitalism ignore patent and IP laws entirely or think they should be limited to a short period (typically 15-20y with no renewal depends on who you talk to).
The right wing, climate change denying, Heritage Foundation is not a reliable source. That's nowhere near an unbiased analysis, but an opinion piece. No one can seriously believe the US to be less "free market" than like half of western Europe.
That's like asking the North Korean government to create an index of democracy.