Oddbean

I think his point was to demonstrate lack of internal consistency, and I think he's being facetious to try to demonstrate that the theory around it is a bunch of inconsistent corner case justifications and there's no rhyme or reason to any of it. I am asking honest questions, but I am doing so to try to understand *your* reasoning, not to understand communism, I already thoroughly understand it. And I'm hoping, in having to articulate answers to my questions, you'll understand it more clearly and come to the same conclusion I did, that it is senseless. I don't like to do the usual thing where I shit on people, I like to have sincere discussion and maybe I learn something and maybe other people do. I am always open to the possibility that it isn't senseless and that I am wrong. Explaining it to people while claiming you don't agree with it is like explaining the rationale behind astrology while claiming you don't agree with it; if you don't agree with it it is because it makes no sense to you at all. It's really impossible to explain methodically or rationally something that doesn't make any sense.

I haven't been making judgments, though, so the only insight you've managed to gain into my reasoning is the depth of my understanding of communism. You ask questions, I do my best to guess what a communist would say. The ideology may be flawed, but it's fairly coherent. Having some flawed logic doesn't make it utterly incomprehensible, and even if we don't agree with the conclusions it draws, it sheds light on the grievances people held or hold, and it prepares you to make your own informed judgment. I don't care how anyone feels about communism, I'm just tired of not being able to have nice things like healthcare because people don't understand that politicians and news pundits are lying to them when they call it communism to stop businesses from literally price gouging you to death.

Oh I'm with you, I am very upset about all this stuff going on on society also. We share grievances with the way things work right now. But I think I know what causes them and what the solutions are. The cause isn't capitalism, it's government manipulation of markets, and the solution isn't communism, it's the opposite. Remember when people could afford to go to the doctor? That was when people just paid the doctor for services like any other merchant. Same with education. It is only after governments got involved and these inefficiencies were created and insurance and guaranteed loans and stuff were made inseparable from the industries via regulation that we find ourselves in this situation. You can see the same thing with housing, withinimum square footage requirements and stuff like that, basically any unaffordable thing that people need is unaffordable because of regulations protecting incumbents and preventing new entrants from competing.

well said. mister_monster does not seem to be engaging in good faith. Funny, because that is also something Marx says is necessary to maintain capitalisms hold over the poor - lying and cheating is the fastest way to get rich.

you won't read marx because you don't agree with it? Most wealthy capitalists understand exactly what marx says in Das Capital and agree with him. Those are the capitalists who are very rich BECAUSE they understand t capitalism and the declining rate of profit etc. Marx describes capitalism as it is. Thats useful for communists and capitalists alike.