Thread by @crassconscious

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Hmm.. “17 or antifa.” Two groups which you consider ignorant and crazy, which lets you conveniently dismiss my entire argument without having to debate it, right? 😉
Alright, since this is an ad hominem attack, I’ll address it. Let’s get ready for a bit of reading, homie.

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC First, I’m not 17, I’m in my 30s. What do you define as antifa? Do you mean a person who detests fascism and is willing to resist its spread by any means necessary?
By that definition, I am an antifascist, and I hope you are, too. Defending fascism is obviously indefensible. 2/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Fascism hates and kills based on race and ethnicity. Pure and simple. That is the entirety of that ideology, so I hope that we can agree that fascism has no place in society, and should never be tolerated (since to tolerate it is to defend that hateful ideology), 3/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC And we already agree (I hope) that fascism is indefensible, cause why would anyone ever defend hate?
Or did you mean “ski masks and protests” by “antifa?” Because I never did that, and I have no plans to. In that case, the answer would be no, I’m not. 4/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Phew, okay, so we got through the ad hominem attack. Now let me tell you about my education.
I have a background in historical materialism and sociology. I’ve done comparative analyses of capitalist and socialist economies, so I can say I know what I’m talking about. 5/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Let’s break it down: Capitalism encourages the extraction of resources for private profit. Such profit is the ultimate aim of capitalism, to the exclusion of all others, in cases of conflict. Meaning, if it’s profit or environment, or profit or workers welfare, profit always wins

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Every. Single. Time.
Now, a resource is defined as either inanimate, (trees, oil, etc) or the labor used to process it into goods. Labor in the service industry is also a resource, since it’s the labor that creates value/profit for the owner of the capitalist enterprise.

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Therefore, capitalism is understood as an economic system where private enterprises use resources to extract value for their own enrichment, to the exclusion of all conflicting concerns.
Of course, we must also agree that profit must grow at an expanding rate. 7/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Every capitalist theorist agrees on this, so let’s just take it as fact.
What happens when one can’t grow that rate any more under normal conditions? (These are the conflicts I mentioned).
One has to start trimming expenses. Cheaper materials, cutting wages, etc. 8/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Let’s remember, profit is #1. Everything else must be secondary according to the most concurrent capitalist theorists.
Ethics come second. Workers come second. Environment comes second. Health comes second.
This is why govt. regulation is needed.

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC If capitalism was ethical, regulation would be unnececessary, because enterprises would place the welfare of others before their profits.
But since we have a ton of regulatory laws on the books, it means that enterprises have regularly acted in an unethical manner.

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Is it the fault of the enterprise or of capitalism? Well, we’ve established that according to modern capitalist theory, profit is #1. Therefore, enterprises were just following their capitalist nature when they breached ethics.
So,logically, capitalism is by nature unethical /11

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC We now have our first conclusion. Capitalism is an unethical system because it places profit above the welfare of the people which it supposedly serves, i.e. the public.
Now let’s consider socialism,which encompasses communism and all economies which put social welfare first 12/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Socialism is an economic system which places the welfare of the society above private profit. This usually, but necessarily, includes some kind of minimum wage/UBI and planned economy.
Hold on, don’t we have minimum wage here? We do, because minimum wage is a socialist policy 13/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Socialism can further be understood as an economy where resources are used and given according to need. Those who can provide more, do so, and those who need more are given more. This is oversimplified, but it is also the essence of socialism. 14/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Communism, which you mentioned, is an economic system meant to transition from a profit-based (capitalist) to a need-based (socialist) economy. It is therefore a part of and a subject to, not separate from, socialism.
15/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC I should add that we are talking strictly about economies here. None of these are political systems or governments.
Both capitalism and socialism deal strictly with the economy, so let’s not confuse economic and political systems (democracies, theocracies, plutocracies, etc.) 16/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Now, let’s consider the two: capitalism, we already proved, is unethical because it places profit above human welfare.
But if socialism places human welfare before profit, wouldn’t that make it the opposite of unethical?
Isn’t socialism by its nature, then, ethical? 17/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC So now we have our second logical conclusion, following directly from the first.
Since ethical economic systems place human welfare above profit, and socialism does exactly that, that makes socialism, by its very nature as an ideology, ethical. 18/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Now let’s look at history. In pursuit of profit, capitalist enterprises have enslaved human beings, thrown children in factories, forced workers to work 14-hour days in dangerous conditions which killed workers either through accidents or work-related disease 19/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC And when workers attempted to assert their rights to work reasonable hours in reasonably healthy conditions, the owners responded with firings, violent strike breakups, scabs, and repeated murder of striking workers. This is all 19th c. American history, free to read anywhere 20/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Capitalist enterprises have also lobbied politicians and donated to their reelection campaigns with the strict design to roll back regulatory laws, laws concerning their duties to their workers, and environmental laws, and have brought us catastrophic climate change danger 21/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC All these things they have done in pursuit of their profits. These are just facts. Black and white. Every one of these accusations is self-evident in the historical record, the record which we, the capitalist society of USA, have written about ourselves.

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Now let’s consider the history of socialism.
Our first socialist economy worth mentioning is the USSR.
When the bolsheviks took power in 1917, most Russians lived on ~rubles/mo. Immediately, while Russia was broke from war and famine, they raised minimum wage to 400 rubles/mo

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC This was the amount that everyone took home. Every factory worker, govt worker, even Lenin and co. took home the same amount. Suddenly, everyone had shoes and food to eat.
They were all still dirt-poor, but everyone now had at least enough to feed and clothe themselves 23/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC How did that happen, you wonder? They took the money from the wealthy, aristocrats, factory owners, people who got rich off the backs of people so poor they couldn’t feed themselves, people who acted in the same profit-first manner,following the unethical nature of capitalism 24/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC But wait, what about Stalin, the civil war, and the Bolshevik reign or terror, you ask?
Well, Western capitalist powers funded Gen. Mededev, a capitalist proponent and anti-Bolshevik, to wage a civil war against the Bolsheviks. 25/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC In the ensuing civil war, the Bolshevik party left its socially-libertarian views and became increasingly authoritarian in its governance (makes sense since they were at war). Afterwards, this authoritarian stain never left it, and caused massive atrocities,which are indefensible

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC After Lenin’s death, the party was in the hands of Stalin, a megalomaniacal psychopath and authoritarian dictator. Stalin kept the facade of communism in the USSR while concentrating power in himself, even killing all other prominent bolsheviks in the attempt. 26/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC I will never defend Stalin or the atrocities committed by the bolsheviks. I will point out that these are the actions of an authoritarian government led, in its most famous period, by a psychopath and his adherents, and have nothing to do with the economic system which they used

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Take Cuba, China, DPRK, or any example you wish. All authoritarian, repressive govts. which used a revolution intended to bring about socialism to concentrate power in themselves and enrich themselves at the expenses of the people. Acting, suspiciously, like capitalists 27/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Hell, right now, we have an increasingly-authoritarian government in power which engages in cash-grabbing, represses human rights and attacks the freedom of the press. So is our government becoming more socialist?
No, of course not. That’s silly.

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Our government is acting like authoritarians, power-obsessed individuals, do.
So you see, your issue isn’t with socialism, but with authoritarianism. Socialism is inherently socially-libertarian, in theory, aim, and practice. 28/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC That makes sense, since its primary concern is with the welfare of individuals within the society, and therefore the society as a whole.
But why, you might ask, do socialist societies seem to always have authoritarian leaders?
I say that is a false equivalence. 29/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC Let’s consider all the authoritarian capitalist leaders who seized power in a revolution. There were/are many nations in Africa, South America, and Asia who fit that bill. People there suffer just as much or more as the people living in authoritarian socialist nations. 30/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC See,it’s not that socialist revolutions lead to authoritarianism or repression.Revolutions which install an authoritarian leader do,and there are just as many capitalist revolutions are there are socialist.
The “socialism begets authoritarianism” argument therefore makes no sense

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC We are then left with one metric to judge by: the aforementioned ethics, whereby we have already proven that socialism is more ethical, therefore better for the individual, than capitalism.
31/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC We’ve never had a truly libertarian socialist democracy, so we’ve never had a true socialist society to compare to western capitalist societies, and judge which works better.
I know only one thing: that capitalism is destroying our workers, our society, and our planet. 33/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC The signs are all there. We have the best version of capitalism we’ve ever had. The market is doing better than ever. GDP is highest it’s ever been. Yet there is more income inequality, more suffering, and more rapaciousness than ever. What does that tell you? End/

@ohferchristsake @EStringBlues @cenizal1 @funder @AOC P.S. if you even made it this far, person who challenged me, or anyone who actually read it all, thanks. I hope I gave some food for thought, and I hope we can debate more.
In good faith, and God bless,
Mr. Garbage Chicken