Posts by MeanMrMustard

85

“Monkey this up”...

by minimus in

jw
friends

that expression is a no-no now.

it is racist and hateful.

some people just need to get the monkey off their backs..

MeanMrMustard

@em1913:

If you feel this is pointless, then you don’t have to respond.

You say that you are looking at capitalism “in practical application.” Fine, alright. Then you should to be able to write a sentence or two, it doesn’t have to be long, and tell me how this occurs.

Define capitalism. I did it for you, so now your turn. Then, write a couple of statements showing *how* and *why* capitalism ITSELF is racist.

Note: this is still my *original* question to you.

If you like, you can use the example of the black codes. In your previous post, you encouraged me to go look it up more - because they really, really, really were an extension of capitalism.

No - that’s now how this works. YOU made the positive claim. I could go off for hours and research it, and when I come back with the same objection, you’ll simply say I need to look more. Nope. It’s your claim, your example, and it doesn’t show structural racism in capitalism. If you want me to think otherwise, try writing something. You’ve written long posts of almost pure BS and conjecture so far. How about a little focus... just one statement, one paragraph that actually answers my question.

85

“Monkey this up”...

by minimus in

jw
friends

that expression is a no-no now.

it is racist and hateful.

some people just need to get the monkey off their backs..

MeanMrMustard

I remember quite clearly, my 9th grade history teacher.... looked so much like a frog. Even the way he cut his hair accented the look. I mean it was freaky. He was Puerto Rican. Is that racist?

85

“Monkey this up”...

by minimus in

jw
friends

that expression is a no-no now.

it is racist and hateful.

some people just need to get the monkey off their backs..

MeanMrMustard

@em1913:

No, capitalism doesn’t “use” racism. Capitalism is a system of private property and free voluntary exchange, it doesn’t “use” racism in any way. You cite many examples of racism, and all are true. No debate there. And those examples are historical, no debate. But you seem to completely and utter misapply them to an economic system, and then conclude the most ironic things.

For example, you cite the “black codes”. You could have just as easily cited the Jim Crow south too. These things actually happened, and they were horrible. But they were laws enacted by government. The black codes were a set of *laws*. That has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism. Those are good examples of racist individuals grabbing the power in government to force their racist conception of the world onto everyone. A good question to ask is: why did they feel they needed to enact laws to accomplish their goals if in fact the racism was already “baked in” to the economic system? In reality, markets tend to beat away racists, as they quickly become economic losers.

What about slavery? Slaves were used, for all sorts of things, before it was abolished - all true. But it wasn’t because it’s baked into capitalism itself. These were people that thought less of other races independent of the economic system. How do we know? Because we see slavery under all sort of economic structures.

And that, is the great irony here. The greatest fundamental principle of capitalism is private property rights. You own yourself and your labor. It was this very principle that pushed for the ultimate abolition of slavery. And yet... yet... you advocate for the system that would give ultimate power to a centralized authority, a system that you have shown by your own examples to give you the exact result you reject!

A few words about economics and faith: I believe here you also mischaracterize the situation. If you advocate for a general theory of something - that is you claim you figured out how something works and you have a universal principle worked out, and then someone comes along and thinks for a few minutes and starts listing ways your principle fails, it has nothing to do with faith. It is simply someone being shown to be incorrect.

85

“Monkey this up”...

by minimus in

jw
friends

that expression is a no-no now.

it is racist and hateful.

some people just need to get the monkey off their backs..

MeanMrMustard

Good Lord, more Morphs Law in action.

Go here to brush up on Morphs Law:

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/4739524539187200/morphs-law

I don't agree that the good Austrians proved anything, except to those already inclined to accept those beliefs.

You said this in your previous post, and it is perfectly OK, in my opinion, to say. But what follows this statement is more of the same crap that appears in earlier posts. It’s fine to disagree. But it’s not fine to poison the well and claim that anyone who may have a disagreement, including those in the past, are just like a bumbling JW at the door. The moment you say, “I think XYZ and everyone who disagrees is just like the JWs or any cookie-cutter cult,” you’ve lost it.

Not an argument.

Notice: you still haven’t justified your original statement, mainly that capitalism is racist. You went off on the labor theory of value, but this doesn’t help you in this regard.

You say you stand by the labor theory of value. Fine, but that’s where it ends then, unless you want to concede that discussing it wouldn’t be like a JW bumbling through the reasoning book at the doorstep.

85

“Monkey this up”...

by minimus in

jw
friends

that expression is a no-no now.

it is racist and hateful.

some people just need to get the monkey off their backs..

MeanMrMustard

Cop out.

Morphs Law

edit: I see you have edited your post and added more. I’ll respond later. Originally it was one sentence.

85

“Monkey this up”...

by minimus in

jw
friends

that expression is a no-no now.

it is racist and hateful.

some people just need to get the monkey off their backs..

MeanMrMustard

Gee, I've been Fisked. I just don't know what to do.

“Fisked”? Is that commie for “opposed on a forum”?

I don't have any problem with being called a Marxist. I'd suggest "Wage Labour and Capital" for a good exploration of how worker exploitation functions -- some of it is a bit dated, obviously, but the explanation of labor power and how it's bought and sold as a commodity for less than its actual value in a marketplace that's heavily weighted on the side of the purchaser is still quite accurate.
(This is the point where you pull out Adam Smith or Murray Rothbard, or the insufferable Mr. Hayek, or even Ayn Rand, and start quoting them to me. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is like being a Methodist rolling her eyes on the stoop while a JW is trying to look up references in the Reasoning book.)

Right. Good job comrade. In your last post, you said that opposition to your view comes from Exxon (or Exxon-like) backed think-tanks mischaracterizing your ideology as “COMMIE!”, as if that causes the masses to run for the hills. It tends to do that given the sheer body count emanating from that worldview. You didn’t want to deal with anyone bringing up the obvious and rational questions surrounding communism. So you dismiss the natural and rational line of thinking as conspiratorial.

It’s the same move here. You know damn well that people like Rothbard and Böhm von Bawerk have systematically taken apart the labor theory of value. You know damn well that von Mises buried socialism with the calculation problem. Hayek was just icing on the cake. So what do you do? After stating the labor theory of value is correct as a proof for the exploitation within capitalism, you then proceed to state that the rational and logical next step ( those economists that have shown the labor theory of value to be bull shit ) are just like a JW stumbling at the door step. (Morphs Law)

Given these moves, It seems obvious why someone might peg you as a commie.

As for white privilege, the board software has twice deleted my explanation of it, and I couldn't possibly fathom why. So I am allowed merely to say that it's something you, personally, Mean Mister M yourself, have no control over -- it's the way the entire social mechanism reacts to you because you are not The Other. "White privilege" is why a white person -- any white person -- can throw up their arms and say "well *I* never had any white privilege." Because they've never had to live their lives on the other end of that equation -- they've never truly been The Other.

I call BS here. I seriously doubt the board has automated software deleting posts. Above, you are just claiming the existence of some mysterious “otherness” for non-whites. It’s out there like a fart in the wind... and the only people that can smell it are non-whites. Give me a break.

That's the best explanation for that that I can give you that the board censorship algorithms will allow me to post. If it's not enough, and you're still not convinced it exists -- and I already know that you aren't -- well, That's Your Privilege.

And there we go. If I oppose your view, well, it just shows how much white privilege I have.

As for the historical rundown you don'[t seem to like, well, I was simply pointing out that Trumpie populism didn't just pop out of a hole in 2016. It's been with us in one form or another for a very long time.

The above statement reaffirms that you are “simply pointing out that Trumpie populism” is equivalent to all the groups you enumerated. I reject that grouping.

I could have gone back even further, thru the Southern Agrarians of the early 20th Century, back to the original Populist nativists of the late 19th Century and even back before the Civil War to the Know-Nothing movement. That this chain of thought has included some extremely unpleasant people and groups is no fault of mine. It is as it was. The burning cross and the night rider are parts of the populist heritage in America that the current populist movement has yet to fully confront, and if you'll pop over to a certain social media platform called "Gab," you'll see just how deep this particular rabbit hole goes.

“Yet to fully confront”?? Good lord.

There has, incidentally, over the last eighty years, been a particular effort on the part of capitalist think tanks, foundations, and trade organizations, starting with the National Organization of Manufacturers in the 1930s, to actively promote certain views about recent American history in order to keep the working class divided and disoriented, and it's interesting to see how well that strategy continues to work.

Restating it doesn’t make it true, or even convincing.

Those talking points Brother Hannity honks out on the radio don't just fly out of his own furiously-churning brain. His followers, and those of his colleagues, ought to take a careful look at just where it's all coming from before they draw any conclusions.

What are the talking points? I don’t listen to Hannity’s show.

As for the claim that the WN/Kluxer/Fascist types are on the left side of the spectrum, well, I guess I better check my copy of the Klan Kloran for the part where they call for worker ownership of the means of production. Hmm. Not seeing it. How about Mein K. Hmm, not seeing it. As a matter of fact, Krupp did pretty well for itself during the war, but they had a system where the means of production owned the workers. That must be where I'm getting confused.

If you are going to have a continuum, then it should behave like one. We start on the left where with authoritarian ideologies, and work our way right. Authoritarianism goes down... down.... down... getting farther away now, this is looking good and then suddenly: we are back to authoritarianism. It’s more bull shit. It’s not a continuum. Now, I would much rather be nuanced, but hey, if we are going to do the left/right continuum then it should work like one: the authoritarians on the left, which includes groups of people that do not agree that humans have fundamental rights just from existence, like the white nationalists. That view of rights is what feeds the atrocities.

85

“Monkey this up”...

by minimus in

jw
friends

that expression is a no-no now.

it is racist and hateful.

some people just need to get the monkey off their backs..

MeanMrMustard

I think you miss my point. I don't think there *is* a "left" in the sense that you're using the word, except in the minds of those who need there to be one to use as a rhetorical strawman. It's just cheap talk-show jargon. Leftist political thought runs a very broad gamut and many left factions take very different approaches to the same issues. My own views are far removed from those of any Clintonite, either of the Bill stripe or the Hillary stripe -- I consider Clintonism to be reactionary -- and yet to the Fox News crowd we're all "the left." As if.

This has come up on the forum a few times now. Of course there is nuance. But if we are going to use “left” and “right” like a continuum, then it should work like a continuum.

That being said: facists and the KKK types, including white nationalists, are on the left. Their ideologies line up with that side of the continuum.

85

“Monkey this up”...

by minimus in

jw
friends

that expression is a no-no now.

it is racist and hateful.

some people just need to get the monkey off their backs..

MeanMrMustard

"Capitalist science" is a thing.

Really? What is it? It is in “scare quotes” so it obviously can’t be good. Is it different from just plain ol’ Capitalism?

If it's good for Exxon, it's good for the planet, and if it isn't good for Exxon, it's obviously MADE UP FAKE NEWS BY COMMIES. There are entire corporate-funded think tanks that do nothing all day long but pump out talking points to "prove" that this is the case.

To prove everything needs to be for Exxon?

As far as the claim that "the left teaches that every white person is inherently prejudiced" goes, well, no.

Excellent. So there is no such thing as “white privelege”?

What it does teach is that capitalism uses and has always used the doctrine of "white supremacy," either overtly or coded, to keep the working class divided in America.

Nonsense. Capitalism makes no judgment along racial lines. You must be talking about something else.

The use of racism is structural, and is not dependent on the beliefs or actions of any particular individual.

I don’t buy it. Show how the very structure of capitalism - that is, free market voluntarism - is structurally racist. When we talk about price theory, or profits and loses, supply and demand, or even how Keynes was a moron - how exactly is that structurally racist?

"Whiteness" in this sense has less to do with skin color than with a figurative carrot of privilege dangled before a certain segment of the working class to ensure that it does not cooperate and find common cause with other segments of that class.

And you wonder why people might assume you are a commie? You’re floating right around Marx here. You might as well have said that the history of the world is that of class struggles....

"We're like you and you're like us, we're really on the same side against Them, " say the capitalist class to these workers, even as that class continues to exploit them as severely as it exploits the "not white" segments of that class.

How does an entrepreneur exploit the worker he/she hires? Seems like a mutually beneficial arrangement to me.

But the "white workers," like faithful dogs groveling for table scraps from their masters, just wag their tails and bark on cue.

White workers, and any other group of workers are being exploited ... but on the sly?

This strategy has been very successful over the past two hundred years, whether pitting white against black or "white" against other ethnic groups -- Jews, Italians, Irish, Chinese, etc. -- who have been put in the position of "not white" by the social structures of a given period.

You skipped the part where the globalists want everyone to believe the world is a spinning ball, but it’s really flat! Flat !!! *sigh*

We see it today in the way the immigration issue is presented -- the foreign "others" posing a threat to the way of life represented by Real 100 Percent Americans.

What?

That was the basic thesis offered by the KKK in the 1920s, by the Coughlinites, the Liberty Leaguers and the America Firsters in the 1930s and 1940s, the Christian Crusade against Communism (changing the initials doesn't change the pronunciation) and the Birchers in the 1950s and 60s, the Nixon Southern Strategy and the Willis Carto/Liberty Lobby crowd in the 1970s, the Reaganite Neocons in the 1980s, the Buchananites of the 1990s, and so on down to Brother Trump and his friends today. The honking and quacking from the right today is nothing but old wine in new bottles.

Yep, here we go. Looks like you get on board with the “left” or else you are just like the KKK. Of course! It’s so obvious. It couldn’t be about economics at all. Or culture. Or fundamental rights...