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 Capitalism with/in communism

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PostSubject: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 24, 2012 1:55 pm

This is an idea I generated from conversations between myself and Aleatory. The idea is that rather than seeing capitalism and communism as either extreme organizational forms or as opposing forms we might see these instead as able to be integrated into a cohesive whole structure. The most logical way this appears to me is a communist society 'as a whole' (e.g. with strong environmental and consumer protections and rights, equitable distribution of needed services such as healthcare and education, food and shelter available to all people, personal ownership subject to the greater good and the public trust, more public ownership and control over resources/capital) that also contains an internal 'capitalist core', a functioning market-place of economic activity that is capitalist in the sense of free-flowing capital and investment, production and distribution of goods and services with a degree of private ownership and control. This capitalist core would be contained by strong regulation and subject to limitations such as stringent anti-trust laws, caps on profit levels, and mandatory co-ownership of corporate entities between both management and workers.

Often modern thinkers focus on the idea that no sort of "reconciliation" can be made between capitalism and communism... for instance, Zizek's idea of "capitalism with a human face" as a mockery of the liberal belief that we can "humanize capitalism" through small reforms aimed toward things like worker's rights, environmental protection, greater social services, etc. I have tended to agree with this view, until recently. Now I feel more strongly that we CAN intergrate a capitalist and communist model, and indeed this seems like the only way forward.

As Aleatory has pointed out this capitalist core would not be capitalism properly speaking, but something different - there would be no limitless profitability for corporate or personal entities, no endless growth, the system would not be based upon an exponential-expansionary growth formula but instread on a balanced-expansionary growth model. Corporations would not be designated as persons, private ownership (of anything and everything) would always occur conditional to the public trust and benefit. But given even all this I still see how a basic capital-market system could exist, in the manner of slower, controlled growth, industry and other work partitioned in ownership among various interested groups, including both union-esque workers' organizations and private management, as a collaboration and subject to stong social/government rules of cooperation and the greater good. People could do business, buy and sell, create products and earn profits from these in such a system.

This also gets back toward the idea of fiat currency, especially digitized: money transacted digitally/instantly could flow far more freely (and does, as we see today) than under any other monetary system. Currency/money is an abstracted/symbolic form of human value. Fiat currency is able to create or destroy (economic, societal) value at a whim. In this way we do not need to regress to suturing our currency-value to a so-called "stable" objective anchor like gold, because such a currency is very limited in how it can be wielded and used. The highest form of values-abstraction is total symbolic valuation-as-capital, money that is literally "worthless" "in itself" but aquires its worth subjectively, as a function of its role in society as a whole.

In order to combat the stifling effects on productive growth and development/investment that communist rules and regulations might have on otherwise "free" capitalism society might form a hierarchy of economic 'tiers' of activity that are allowed certain profit models and levels of expansionary growth. If a certain necessary industry or sector of the economy (say, for example, computer chip production) were to begin to lag or falter under regulation or lack of sufficient competition or resource investment, this activity could be moved up the tier temporarily so that more capital flowed into it quicker (as it would be now more profitable to do this) and the industry would be given a "shot" of value (money). This could occur through market-driven investment or through government-driven creation or redistribution of capital. So the economic-productivity sector would still be large and central, and to a certain extent "free" to private ownership and directional control, with owners and higher-level workers (those with higher education or greater economic-productive usefulness) earning more money. This would occur under more strict laws, anti-trust, environmental and consumer protection, which would include strict bans of advertizing, especially to children or for harmful products. Society could also adjust taxation rates for corporations and individuals based on the degree to which that corporation or individual either contributes to or infringes upon/harms social goods and values (e.g. the environment, workers' rights, respecting profitability regulations and restrictions) in order to create direct incentives and disincentives that work to mediate between capitalist and communist forces.

In this way I can see how a society like ours currently could, and perhaps in some ways already is moving slowly toward such an integration, as expanding the "communist sphere" while shrinking the "capitalist sphere". Just putting more restrictions on the influence of money on society generally would work toward this end. Ultimately a certain balance could be achieved, through trial and error, where capitalist forces are contained within a communist framework of equitable distribution, universal healthcare/food/shelter, good and free education. I think this sort of balanced integration could assume any number of actual ratios of capital:communism, and would probably shift around in this ratio over time, tying to find the right balance.

I do not think we need to view capital or capitalism as "evil" or "unnecessary", but as a human construction that represents the thus-far highest peak of power-symbolizing and "will to power" in an economic-social sense. The problem isn't the system itself, but our unrefined and largely unconscious use of this system. Even fiat currency must be seen as a very powerful symbolic creation, a direct and highly potent means of creating and communicating-relaying-distributing our human value/s and valuations. Such a fluid medium of values-exchange must form a central part of any dynamic social system that seeks the level of self-control over itself that we must aspire to, if societies are to move forward into the future determined to tackle head-on global problems such as war, injustice, poverty, environmental decay, nuclear proliferation, slavery, poor education, and powerful technologies. Humanity must use all tools at its disposal, indeed must possess a will to use of such powerful tools as capital(ism) and fiat money represent. Thus far these tools mostly have been used poorly, to say the least. But we would be wise to look at the longer-term picture and see how relatively new these tools really are, and thus try to find ways of using them better, in more conscious and integrated ways, rather than trying to throw them out entirely. It is possible that a functioning communist organization would ideally even require a certain degree of internally-contained capitalism (China comes to mind, probably as the only example of an attempt at a sort of system I speak of here).
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 24, 2012 4:30 pm

There certainly is a lot of ground to support this. Perhaps rather a communism, or socialism, within capitalism, with the note that such systems already have existed in certain European welfare states, this again with the note that such states have been dependent on more aggressive and hardly social foreign politics.

What needs to be addressed to make any system truly workable is the thing Lacan names 'objet petit a' - the unattainable object of desire which is the fuel to the engine of capitalism, as it is of all excessive, super-utilitarian human behavior, anything that amounts to more than mere survival. Communism failed because humans do not have as their primary aim to simply stay alive, but prefer even to die in the attempt for something entirely unreasonable but at least 'special'.

The simplest way to enable such a dynamic within a socialist structure seems to be a division between basic necessities and luxury products and positions. Basic necessities could be reduced to collective shelters, a minimum of food, and arguably basic medical provisions. I would instinctively say that the more is excluded from the basic provisions, the stronger the force of production is fueled, the more fluidly the will to power is allowed to exert itself without causing damage to or corruption within the system. If the state keeps its provisions on a relatively poorly level, there is not much attraction in corrupting it.

A question is to which extent education would fall under the states provisions. The European welfare states of the 60/70/80/90's have had a very strong record in education if I am not mistaken. With the advent of privatization of universities and introduction of managers in schools their accomplishments have dropped dramatically, and in some countries have reached a level one would hope to be rock bottom at this point. Conversely, private universities in the US have for a long time attracted the most talented and ambitious students from across the world. Harvard-education can perhaps be qualified as an "objet petit a" -- even though it is not literally unattainable, it comes close enough. I may misunderstand Lacan, or simply need to find a term for the almost-unattainable.

In summa this position is: the highest values need to remain relatively hard to attain, the most common values may be freely provided. But this does not answer the entire question of how the will to surplus value - to value oneself relatively highly in the terms provided by society (!) - may be included in a system providing for basic necessities. What is basic, what is necessary, what is surplus? It seems preferable for all people to have a good education, and for all people to have access to quality healthcare... then again, what is quality healthcare? Certainly not the "healtcare industry" that we have now, and this is what in fact is so costly. At the ground of a a restructuring of the 'state' by rearranging priorities may, no must be required a more healthy conception of life and its requirements.

So if such a state were to come into existence, it would have to be constructed theoretically from the ground up, 'ground' here meaning a conception of being, root to all values and ethics.

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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 24, 2012 4:45 pm

The larger question must be how a being, a human being in particular, acquires its value to itself in relation to the state. I think that it is fair to say that the less help a being gets in acquiring the values required for it to sustain itself self-valuing, the more dynamic its self-valuing remains/becomes, and the greater its power to value its surroundings on its own terms, which has consequences for the state.

A state should never cast a shadow over the individual that is greater than the light it enables the individual to kindle by itself. When the state becomes a more powerful standard for valuation than the individual, it is doomed to bleed to death. Rome became great because it was Caesars Rome, and the Rome of other individuals who valued the state in their own terms and thereby transformed it. The state must be powerful, and object of pride, but a 'yin' to the (exceptional, strong) individuals 'yang'
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeThu Jan 26, 2012 8:04 am

Fixed Cross wrote:
The larger question must be how a being, a human being in particular, acquires its value to itself in relation to the state. I think that it is fair to say that the less help a being gets in acquiring the values required for it to sustain itself self-valuing, the more dynamic its self-valuing remains/becomes, and the greater its power to value its surroundings on its own terms, which has consequences for the state.
Coming really close to the Constitution of Rational Harmony.

Every governing body should represent an agreement between the individual and the state. That agreement should be that each optimally supports the other. The means to discern what is optimal is a longer story, but certainly not insurmountable.

And btw, the final resolution does happen to be a meshing of communism and capitalism.

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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeThu Jan 26, 2012 3:26 pm

“I do not think we need to view capital or capitalism as "evil" or "unnecessary", but as a human construction that represents the thus-far highest peak of power-symbolizing and "will to power" in an economic-social sense.”

I think the question here is not whether capital or capitalism is inherently evil (I don’t think a non-living entity can be said to be evil—with a few exceptions. As I see it, capitalism is no more “evil” than a volcano) but whether man’s predilection for greed is abatable when wielding such powerful systems. Contrary to an immense power like the atom bomb (which can only be used to destructive ends) capitalism is passive or neutral and as such, its representation in the complex web of modern economics is not its inherent nature buts its mirroring of our own. I think this is an interesting thought (which came up in our discussion re technos) since if my assertion is correct, it is man that needs to change as opposed to capitalism. Still, it remains my belief that man’s Achilles’ Heel is incontrovertibly his proclivity and susceptibility to greed. I think from that it follows that the system of capitalism, inasmuch as it’s the apotheosis of capital, entertains a definite hegemony over the modern human through appealing to those less-than-altruistic bits of the id.

I’d also like to explore how the equity would operate (and our faithful audience may be at a disadvantage, as this was not detailed too extensively in the op, but has been discussed between the two of us). For quite some time now I’ve toiled away with the merits of various socio-political systems against each other. Democracy, especially if entertaining utilitarian views, initially seems a prudent choice—and it often is. However democracy is, to be blunt, a glorified mob rule. There’s a story, the origin of which I can’t recall, where all decisions were made by a majority vote and those whose vote was opposed to the majority were executed. Eventually, there were but two individuals left. This is an overt reductio, but I think it serves a demonstrative purpose for the ‘majority rule’ of democracy and the ‘greater good’ of utilitarianism: we can certainly see the repressive/oppressive potential (ostentatiously exhibited in this country) of yet another passive/neutral system whose effect is entirely determined by the character of those who wield it. (I only use the example of utilitarian democracy here because of your response in our discussion.) So I still think that the most important question to be answered is what Fixed Cross asks: “What is basic, what is necessary, what is surplus?”—that “…if such a state were to come into existence, it would have to be constructed theoretically from the ground up, 'ground' here meaning a conception of being, root to all values and ethics.”

I agree for the most part with what Fixed Cross is saying in his post (I disagree with “why” communism failed and the actual value of privatized education—especially in the arts—as education rather than socio-political passwords for the societies of control), and indeed this would seem like what Capable is talking about (though inverted in the causa materialis, the causa efficiens is the same)—the integration of more communist/socialist concepts (specifically a redistribution of wealth/taxation to benefit the public) within an otherwise ‘capitalist’ system as opposed to capitalist practices (though here I think it is more accurate to sum up Capable’s aim by saying fiat money and capital flow structures, rather than capitalism in the traditional sense) integrated into an otherwise communist/socialist system. I think here with your mention of the welfare states (of which I am fond—especially France and Norway—as you may remember from the Amerika thread) we do see an extant working model that more or less meets the ends Capable is describing.

Still, getting back to that question of basic/necessary/surplus, I’d like to bring up the issue of habitual behavior destructive to health. Privatized insurance certainly has a bad reputation in the US—one that is relatively warranted—but I think exhibits huge pragmatic potential when applied only to voluntary destructive behavior which I think could be implemented as follows: Universal healthcare with amendment by penalty. At birth, you have a tabula rasa for your healthcare; any hereditary or otherwise pre-existing health concerns will not penalize your medical costs. So long as you lead a relatively healthy lifestyle (though I realize this asks “what is healthy?”), any medical treatment will be funded by taxation (i.e. tax dollars go to directly benefitting the population rather than the clandestine schemes prevalent in US taxes). Likewise, if you lead an unhealthy life (i.e. you smoke, drink more than three or so alcoholic beverages a day, have MacDonald’s as a dietary staple, etc.) you will be penalized and will have to pay a percentage of your healthcare proportionate to your voluntary risk. With a country like the US where three quarters (perhaps more now?) of the population is overweight or obese (in 2003, an estimated $75 billion in healthcare), 48.2 million smokers (an average of $150 billion in healthcare annually), 51.9% of the population drinking alcohol (including alcoholism—which can damage literally every organ in the body—and injuries while under the influence, estimated at $116 billion in 1983), etc., a non-penalized universal healthcare system would just be burning tax dollars. This of course is another issue of ethics (perhaps value ontology can eventually ‘solve’ such problems?); at what cost and to what ends do we defend personal freedom?
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeThu Jan 26, 2012 7:49 pm

I will combine the ideal that James has proposed with the last paragraph op Aleatory's text, the two bring together the fundamental concepts of radical Marxism and idealistic self-determinism.

If we are moving forward by the terms of an ought, if we propose a possible and desirable gain to which to direct man-kinds energies (being in terms of us who are reading this), it is sensible to hypothesize that the individual and the state should be in a relationship of maximized reciprocal profit. Without yet having a definitional logic of profit, I can still use this as a working axiom, a departure point from which to address the ideas of health as the concrete for of the ground-value, of which I have been talking the past months. This value is the logical origin of being wherefrom, whereby and whereto everything should be steered to both profit and become profitable, to others who seek to profit, and become profitable. Up until the twentieth century, value has been represented by property. First of ones body, then of material goods, land and finally other bodies. Bodies have so been reduced to quantities of effort. Slavery may perhaps be known as the ultimate consequence of the conception of property.

Logically, one can only own owns own health. One is the sole proprietor of it, the keeper of it as one is the knower. Therefore, doctors, healers, the medical sciences in practice are the most intrusive into the nature of being. With the introduction of the concept of healer, the concept of sickness has been deeper ingrained. In the past this must have been a necessary consequence of "plagues" and "demons". But with a transposition of the positive, material self-valuing to the position of profitable value to be understood mastered and developed, removing the positively negative notion of sickness-to-be-cured, into a simple condition of the existence itself.

Mankind can be turned around in one stroke removing the residu of relatively impure experiential value from the lens, or windshield, and by this I mean the religion of man as inferior to "God", and in this way I consider to be defined what "God" really means -- the incapacity of man to value himself. ("God" does not mean "one of the gods" or "a god" or "my god" - it means the one whose name shall not be spoken).

If the currency of sickness is removed and the currency of health is introduced, we will learn what "kung fu" really means. A misleading way of describing the discrepancy of our medical-physical knowledge-theory and our physical-ontological method.
In what ways can we conceive of being that it should be "treated"? Kant was confused and asked "how can pure knowledge be possible?" rather the question was: how can a fragment of knowledge be so accurate? The answer to this is precisely in this formulation. Science works by making a predictable effort. This predicable effort is measured so that it brings the predictable result directly. Thereby it defines the thing that is closest to the "immediate mind". Science is the truth for the one with the smallest attention-span, it is that which is completely obvious.

And if we look at science we see that it is completely obvious that it should work. What Newton has done is what an infant does with his object from the block-box, but rather than with a piece of wood or ceramic he did it with himself - with the human mind. The thought-move that created scientific method was to align the possibility of the reflecting and remembering mind (of which the obsessed alchemist that Newton was must have been extremely aware) with its immediate consequence on experience. He selects only that which does respond to a direct measurement. Hence, "pure knowledge" was born - what had in fact happened is that man peered through a maximizing-glass at a fascinating detail, and came so immersed in this stare that he created the electronic age, our communicating, our fixation on precision.

Nature may simply not be precise. The precise and conclusive 'thing' "Nature" might not literally exist. Fundamentally, the uncertainty principle of quantum-physics may simply be the laziness, inertness of the world; the reluctance to "exist" (be in the objective sense) of "the real", the endlessly improductive and frighteningly effective interference of self-valuings, versus the relentless effort of man to define its nature.



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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeFri Jan 27, 2012 3:16 pm

I see where you’re coming from with the “currency” of sickness v. that of health (and indeed I share a similar view towards criminology which I procured from Foucalt) but I’m not sure a ‘currency of health’ subverting a ‘currency of sickness’ is much more than a matter of semantics. That last sentence comes off a little pretentious, which is not my intent…I would just like a bit more of an explanation. The paradigm shift in health that I’m advocating is to primarily preventative medicine on the individual level with a reward/consequence system to reduce economic drag. I think this would conform well to the greatest mutual profit you speak of. Perhaps we are saying the same thing with different words?

Regarding the science issue, I have to disagree…but I’m not entirely sure my objections matter a great deal to the thread’s main topic, so I’ll leave it at that.
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeSat Jan 28, 2012 7:05 pm

Value is also a semantic issue. I agree that it is hard to draw hard conclusions from this reversal.
But the act is not so much about a reversal as of a redefinition of health. Instead of that which must be maintained, we observe is that with which we may experiment, do anything with, spend, increase, ruin, rebuild, - it is a strong form of expression from which we implement experience in our reality. Many of the greatest souls have experimented with their health - I am not sure if I want to share in an economy where the hospital industry determines who is worth support and who is to pay his debt. I want the economy to alter its objet-petit a, from the escapist notion of being of friend to the victor, to the notion of creating the firepit, preparing the ritual, the dance.

I share here a very deep rooted desire for irrational expenditure. I do not reject the tenets of rational thought, but I take them as a refined form of the 'tree of life', so to speak, the multilayered transposition and reinterpretation of the reality of the material toward the reality of the neuronetwork.

"Health" is a bow and arrow - one needs a crisis to acquire momentum. Shamanism is a form to induce voluntarily such a crisis, after one has been "initiated", which means to live through a crisis and find in it a meant to growth, of power, of momentum, of depth.

In order to be "gods" which means to have the courage to give meaning, we need to be aware that self-valuing is an uphill struggle once it is fully aimed at the exposition of itself unto becoming. Self-valuing is a burden, of course - that is why all sorts of drugs and entertainment are required. As I said the mask of reality is the form in which we interpret it. We can not see reality in its totality unless we step back, into Nirvana -a move not that difficult to make, but a first step to a life-embracing philosophy.

So yes I reject objective values as the terms of thought - instead I interpret the term "subjective" as what we have so far learned and understood of our observations. "Objectivity" meaning now simply interpretation experience in terms of objects. We move away from the idea that the world is simply-there - this is simply not the case. The world is compellingly-there, in the form of our needs, actions, passions and reflections. It is not otherwise than what we cling to as certain, what we release as irrelevant once we are in control.
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeSat Jan 28, 2012 7:21 pm

And this is precisely the opposition between capitalism and communism - former is the cruel struggle for having control and freedom from other control in general, the latter is the overcoming of being controlled moving to an excess of control. Communism is conceptual, capitalism is emergent, both are essentially ignorant of the space of control itself - we have no conception of being-there, Dasein, in either of the doctrines separately. We have not developed a concept of being at peace. I have personal hopes of a contact between the oriental and the islamic world, whereby a measure of reason can be permitted in the theatre of religion. We, as the west, have always needed to religious world to reflect on, to distance ourselves from - implicitly in removing-from religious valuing, man was selecting, refining it. This activity was testing on the intellect, and produced a thousand years of diligent conceiving of impossibilities as natural necessities. But this was a ll a mere distraction from being. In the coure of a million years, this last period of two thousand years may easily be forgotten. What we do next is what matters. To us, at least, not to anything else. Do we exist? What is required?




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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeSat Jan 28, 2012 11:52 pm

I don't think 'health' requires momentum; it's a relative state of being. Strictly speaking, the moment you are conceived, you begin to die--and since the dying individual is not considered healthy, one could make the argument that, regardless of any illness as accessory to the natural process of aging (or lack thereof), one is in a constant state of un-health from that initial moment of conception. Thus (again strictly speaking) health is false.

I have to wonder: why specifically favor 'irrational expenditure"? Is it a pro-[pensity/clivity] or a predilection (inherent or of conscious choice)? We may face an impasse via parallelism, since my impending statement would be, "I don't see a point in intentional irrationality." Maybe if you're a Discordian, but then you'd have a rational reason for irrationality and the resulting paradox to boot. Regardless, I don't see why my tax dollars should go to helping some behemoth that simply must stuff their face; to someone who consciously imbibes a substance known to cause damage to every organ in the body; to someone who consciously inhales carcinogens.

Also, do you really mean Islam, or middle-eastern? I can see reason in Daoism, Buddhism, Bushido, and even Shinto...not so much in Islam. Even Christianity at least attempted to act peaceful in the 'New Testament'. Quoting the Qur'ran at random: "'I am with you: give the believers firmness; I shall put fear into the hearts of disbelievers--strike above their necks and strike all their fingers.' That was because they opposed God and His Messenger, God punishes them severely--'That is what you get! Taste that!'--and the torment of the Fire awaits the disbelievers." What part of that exemplifies a reason absent in western religion?

Per "Do we exist?" I must say it is certain. 'Cogito, ergo sum' certainly has holes, but it's sufficient to prove the existence of a thinking entity to itself. If you didn't exist, you couldn't think. If we're going to look at our ultimate impact, one million years is far too brief. You must look towards the end of this universe's cycle--everything anyone ever does is ultimately futile. But I digress. We seem to be getting off topic.
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeSun Jan 29, 2012 1:20 pm

My last post does indeed cause a digression that is not justified by any meaningful content. I must object to your notion of permanent sickness, as 'dying' is by your definition equal to 'living' whereby 'death' would almost seem to mean 'life' - I can not support that.

Regarding the type of health that one ruins to rebuild it again, I refer of course to Nietzsche's concept of great health --

The great health. — Being new, nameless, hard to understand, we premature births of an as yet unproven future need for a new goal also a new means — namely, a new health, stronger, more seasoned, tougher, more audacious, and gayer than any previous health. Whoever has a soul that craves to have experienced the whole range of values and desiderata to date, and to have sailed around all the coasts of this ideal "mediterranean"; whoever wants to know from the adventures of his own most authentic experience how a discoverer and conqueror of the ideal feels, and also an artist, a saint, a legislator, a sage, a scholar, a pious man, a soothsayer, and one who stands divinely apart in the old style — needs one thing above everything else: the great health — that one does not merely have but also acquires continually, and must acquire because one gives it up again and again, and must give it up.

And now, after we have long been on our way in this manner, we argonauts of the ideal, with more daring perhaps than is prudent, and have suffered shipwreck and damage often enough, but are, to repeat it, healthier than one likes to permit us, dangerously healthy, ever again healthy — it will seem to us as if, as a reward, we now confronted an as yet undiscovered country whose boundaries nobody has surveyed yet, something beyond all the lands and nooks of the ideals so far, a world so overrich in what is beautiful, strange, questionable, terrible, and divine that our curiosity as well as our craving to possess it has gotten beside itself — alas, now nothing will sate us any more!

After such vistas and with such a burning hunger in our conscience and science, how could we still be satisfied with present-day man? It may be too bad but it is inevitable that we find it difficult to remain serious when we look at his worthiest goals and hopes, and perhaps we do not even bother to look any more.

Another ideal runs ahead of us, a strange, tempting, dangerous ideal to which we should not wish to persuade anybody because we do not readily concede the right to it to anyone: the ideal of a spirit who plays naively — that is, not deliberately but from overflowing power and abundance — with all that was hitherto called holy, good, untouchable, divine; for whom those supreme things that the people naturally accept as their value standards, signify danger, decay, debasement, or at least recreation, blindness, and temporary self-oblivion; the ideal of a human, superhuman well-being and benevolence that will often appear inhuman — for example, when it confronts all earthly seriousness so far, all solemnity in gesture, word, tone, eye, morality, and task so far, as if it were their most incarnate and involuntary parody — and in spite of all this, it is perhaps only with him that great seriousness really begins, that the real question mark is posed for the first time, that the destiny of the soul changes, the hand moves forward, the tragedy begins."
[The Gay Science, section 387]

I post this here as a counterweight to the idea that the state should interfere directly with peoples health in the conservative terms of obeying to certain ideals, as stimulating the perfect homeostasis. This can very easily grow into policies forbidding the consumption of any random product as long as some institution classifies it as "unhealthy". Such generalities are never correctly in place. And there is much room for abuse, as your own example of designating pizza as a vegetable demonstrates. I do, in short, not have enough faith in the institution of government per se that it could ever, in any shape or form, be trusted with such delicate subjects as the definition of health. Neither do I have any faith in governmentally controlled healthcare industry. I know of too many cases where governments banish truly effective medicine because it does not serve economic purposes. Rather I want to steer government away from such direct judging and controlling, and redefine concepts such as value and health in less judgmental-remedial (negative) terms. To understand where I come from consider the question whether life can be defined as at root willing survival or if to the will to survive/live another condition is required, namely, the value of life to itself.

But let us steer this thread back to its topic, and focus on the things that we do/might agree on as important to this topic -- such as for me these are the question of the meaning of individuality/exception/difference, the demarcation of surplus and necessity, the question of self-determination and reciprocal benefit between state and individual -- and yes, as far as I am concerned the difference between the fundamentally positivistic, man-based philosophies behind both communism and capitalism versus the elementarily negativist, anti-man based and therefore illogical and unworkable philosophy of Islam, to justify a synthesis of the former two against the notion of a dialogue with irrational, anti-physical, anti-Earthly theses that continue to disable human minds in large parts of the world.
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeMon Jan 30, 2012 7:10 am

Aleatory wrote:
I don't think 'health' requires momentum; it's a relative state of being.
Absolutely and uneqivicably false. Without momentum, nothing exists at all, and certainly not "healthily".

Aleatory wrote:
Strictly speaking, the moment you are conceived, you begin to die--
Again, seriously false and merely a left over socio-political mind game to get people to accept their death as a good thing.

Aleatory wrote:
Thus (again strictly speaking) health is false.
Think about that for a moment. Think about its converse, "thus sickness is false".
For what reason would anyone want you to believe that your state of heath is false yet your state of sickness is true?
To see reality more clearly, consider the converse of what you are told, then consider which if either really reveals anything of rational use.

Take care of what "truths" are spoken so as to favor the state at the expense of the individual.
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeMon Jan 30, 2012 12:16 pm

I began a new thread to discuss this tangent called "Health as Apparatus of Power".
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeMon Jan 30, 2012 3:33 pm

James S Saint wrote:
Aleatory wrote:
I don't think 'health' requires momentum; it's a relative state of being.
Absolutely and uneqivicably false. Without momentum, nothing exists at all, and certainly not "healthily"

Aleatory wrote:
Strictly speaking, the moment you are conceived, you begin to die--
Again, seriously false and merely a left over socio-political mind game to get people to accept their death as a good thing.
Whether or not that is anyones deliberate intention might be left open, but this is without a doubt the instinctive conclusion drawn from isuch thinking, so the threat of it is 100% real.

Quote :
Aleatory wrote:
Thus (again strictly speaking) health is false.
Think about that for a moment. Think about its converse, "thus sickness is false".
For what reason would anyone want you to believe that your state of heath is false yet your state of sickness is true?
To see reality more clearly, consider the converse of what you are told, then consider which if either really reveals anything of rational use.

Take care of what "truths" are spoken so as to favor the state at the expense of the individual.
Yes, exactly. Judge the tree by its fruits, judge a formulation by the type of thinking and acting it allows. Within these two phrasings are the seeds of two diametrically opposed philosophies, ethics, and politics. One of which we see implemented now by the industries moving toward defining every single aspect of life as some form of disease, for which a medicin needs to be bought.

I would be tempted to see this simply in terms of profit -- but given the state defining peoples "irresponsible behavior" as "costing tax-money", I can't help to notice that there is a strong ideological current at work as well, ridding people of their sense of being able to take care of themselves as they are, which is to say without being "corrected" by the state, "purged of bad behavior".

The state, in as far as it exists as a constant, is contained by a superior powerstructure, a legislation. A legislation is the manifest form of a philosophy. Philosophy rules all states, and states-people are but servants of the un-manifest king, a ruling thought. The ruling thought of todays states is one valuing (estimating) sickness over (as more real than) health and irresponsibility and reckless self-destruction over self-determination.

We do well to seek all of our solutions for the future outside of state-control, and focus on the principles that can develop into a legislation (or have already done so in the past) and seek to perfect these, so that legislation forged from them becomes more resilient to corrosion than the constitutions we've had so far in the west.




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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 31, 2012 8:27 am

Fixed Cross wrote:
We do well to seek all of our solutions for the future outside of state-control, and focus on the principles that can develop into a legislation (or have already done so in the past) and seek to perfect these, so that legislation forged from them becomes more resilient to corrosion than the constitutions we've had so far in the west.
The constitutions of any of the nations, especially that of the USA and states within, could be resurrected and brought to a far greater height than had ever been reached with a single amendment. Getting that amendment installed could be pretty tough, but once there, the rest is all natural consequence.

Install an amendment that obligates and confines any law to the limit of its stated specific purpose.

The more intelligent and rational thoughts in society would begin to bubble up to the top and displace the more self-interested secretive manipulating. Old laws would get replaced automatically by newer, more reasoned laws until no one could come up with any higher reasoning than what was already there.

Interestingly, this happens to be related to my new UBT project.
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 31, 2012 6:20 pm

Could you cite an instance of a law operating outside its 'stated specific purpose'?
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 31, 2012 6:24 pm

Aleatory wrote:
Could you cite an instance of a law operating outside its 'stated specific purpose'?

Try any of the amendments in your constitution.
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 31, 2012 6:31 pm

By the way, the whole communist theory is one big reaction to capitalism. The very term capital was coined by the biggest communist scholar.

Basically, capitalism is the gathering of production power via capital. You got the machines, you got the financing, you got the contacts. With the production of goods and services arranged around the accumulation of capital, the workers are not "compensated for their work" but "rented at a price below the actual value of their work." Logically, there can only be a limited number of capitalists, so to suggest common ownership of the means of production is not capitalism, but precisely communism. Capitalism: few control the means of production. Communism: the means of production are common property.

Communism is the perfect democracy for an industrialized economy.
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 31, 2012 7:22 pm

Pezer wrote:
By the way, the whole communist theory is one big reaction to capitalism. The very term capital was coined by the biggest communist scholar.

Basically, capitalism is the gathering of production power via capital. You got the machines, you got the financing, you got the contacts. With the production of goods and services arranged around the accumulation of capital, the workers are not "compensated for their work" but "rented at a price below the actual value of their work." Logically, there can only be a limited number of capitalists, so to suggest common ownership of the means of production is not capitalism, but precisely communism. Capitalism: few control the means of production. Communism: the means of production are common property.
I believe that no one can argue with this.

Quote :
Communism is the perfect democracy for an industrialized economy.
And that is precisely why, in the real world, with real humans who are all will-to-power, communism doesn't work. Enforcing equality doesn't work, because no one wants it. To phrase it in the most simplistic manner: The only way humans can be considered equal is by in their desire to be superior to one another, to be "special". This is meant to be addressed by the surplus-principle, the objet-petit-a, that I mentioned. We need to de delve into mans psychology to understand capitalism, we can not simply say that it works because some people are allowed to treat others unfairly.

I believe that this inequality itself addresses a profound human desire, or even a need. Equality means stasis, which means death. The right way would be to find the most effective measure of inequality. By most effective I mean allowing for the greatest dynamic of value-positing and -attainment


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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 31, 2012 7:39 pm

Pezer wrote:
Try any of the amendments in your constitution.
Then how does one make an amendment to make no amendments?
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 31, 2012 8:47 pm

Fixed Cross wrote:
Quote :
Communism is the perfect democracy for an industrialized economy.
And that is precisely why, in the real world, with real humans who are all will-to-power, communism doesn't work. Enforcing equality doesn't work, because no one wants it. To phrase it in the most simplistic manner: The only way humans can be considered equal is by in their desire to be superior to one another, to be "special". This is meant to be addressed by the surplus-principle, the objet-petit-a, that I mentioned. We need to de delve into mans psychology to understand capitalism, we can not simply say that it works because some people are allowed to treat others unfairly.

I believe that this inequality itself addresses a profound human desire, or even a need. Equality means stasis, which means death. The right way would be to find the most effective measure of inequality. By most effective I mean allowing for the greatest dynamic of value-positing and -attainment

Agreed.

Which is why I believe that trying to come up with a workable structure for groups of millions of people should be left to *after* the philosophers establish their own ground, discover their own possibilities. Otherwise, we are just recycling.
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 31, 2012 9:46 pm

Aleatory wrote:
Could you cite an instance of a law operating outside its 'stated specific purpose'?
The point was that currently laws are not accompanied by any stated specific purpose, thus today, almost all laws do not qualify.

An example of a law that would qualify might be, "This law AXY, for the purpose of balancing the economy within the next 2 years, is as follows..."

Merely due to that wording, every mind in congress is drawn to debate about whether the law is actually going to accomplish what it proposes and what alternatives might be able to accomplish it better. But in any case, after 2 years, that law is null as it no longer has purpose. Any proposed law that shows the ability to accomplish the purpose sooner tends to immediately displace the older law. Even that thought inspires rational concern as to what to do next, "what will be a supportable and dependable next step?"

In addition the record of the intent and results of such laws and the debates they brought provide horrendous foresight as each year goes by. It consequentially causes rational intelligence within the system of governance.

The reasoning as to how and why it would seriously resurrect a constitution gets into psychology, sociology, political stratagems, and so on and thus is very complicated to justify. As much as I wish someone would in this case, I seriously don't expect anyone to take me seriously. The subject is too complex except for those involved, who in the most part, would be afraid of such a change.
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 31, 2012 9:51 pm

Pezer wrote:
Which is why I believe that trying to come up with a workable structure for groups of millions of people should be left to *after* the philosophers establish their own ground, discover their own possibilities. Otherwise, we are just recycling.
As much as I would agree, I have to ask, "how would anyone [actually, honestly] know when that state was reached?"
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 31, 2012 9:54 pm

James S Saint wrote:
Aleatory wrote:
Could you cite an instance of a law operating outside its 'stated specific purpose'?
The point was that currently laws are not accompanied by any stated specific purpose, thus today, almost all laws do not qualify.

An example of a law that would qualify might be, "This law AXY, for the purpose of balancing the economy within the next 2 years, is as follows..."

Merely due to that wording, every mind in congress is drawn to debate about whether the law is actually going to accomplish what it proposes and what alternatives might be able to accomplish it better. But in any case, after 2 years, that law is null as it no longer has purpose. Any proposed law that shows the ability to accomplish the purpose sooner tends to immediately displace the older law. Even that thought inspires rational concern as to what to do next, "what will be a supportable and dependable next step?"

In addition the record of the intent and results of such laws and the debates they brought provide horrendous foresight as each year goes by. It consequentially causes rational intelligence within the system of governance.

The reasoning as to how and why it would seriously resurrect a constitution gets into psychology, sociology, political stratagems, and so on and thus is very complicated to justify. As much as I wish someone would in this case, I seriously don't expect anyone to take me seriously. The subject is too complex except for those involved, who in the most part, would be afraid of such a change.

No man, I take you very seriously. I think that is largely the nihilism of modern democracy: Different people with different interests making laws that don't aim at anything, but will make legal the things they each need made legal. The ones with the most people voting for them, etc...

This is how they control you without you realizing that they control you. "We are working for jobs!" says the news. "X pages of intrinsically detailed conditions for the illegality of Y, Z, etc..." says the written law.

You make a very serious point indeed.
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PostSubject: Re: Capitalism with/in communism   Capitalism with/in communism Icon_minitimeTue Jan 31, 2012 9:55 pm

James S Saint wrote:
Pezer wrote:
Which is why I believe that trying to come up with a workable structure for groups of millions of people should be left to *after* the philosophers establish their own ground, discover their own possibilities. Otherwise, we are just recycling.
As much as I would agree, I have to ask, "how would anyone [actually, honestly] know when that state was reached?"

When said group of people, having established their present goals, notice specific way-points reached. Plus whatever the unpredictable future holds in store.
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