Defending Socialism: A Logical Critique of Capitalism

Рет қаралды 3,629

Күн бұрын

Philosopher Scott Sehon joins Breht to discuss his new book "Socialism: A Logical Introduction". Together they analyze arguments in favor of capitalism, argue against them, and defend socialism as a superior form of socio-economic organization in the process. They discuss different definitions of socialism, social democracy vs. democratic socialism, have a friendly back and forth about the Soviet Union, the role of morality and values in political debate, wealth inequality and its deleterious impact on society, the contradiction within capitalism between free markets and monopoly formation, democracy v. markets, and much more.
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Пікірлер: 76

@Kitsun3-da-0 3 ай бұрын

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." - Hélder Pessoa Câmara (1909-1999), Archbishop of Olinda and Recife -

@CaptPeon 3 ай бұрын

One of my favorite quotes!! Keep up the good fight! ✊🏼

@Mattt5 2 ай бұрын

if you find you church to be a legitimate authority to speak on this issue, read Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical “Rerorum Nevarum.”

@markpellegrin417 3 ай бұрын

“Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system” Dorothy Day

@Summalogicae 3 ай бұрын

Excellent interview. Thank you for having a philosopher’s take as opposed to an economist, whose views I find are often less rigorous particularly about the ethical aspects of the consequences of policy. Prof. has published in the traditional topics of philosophy and his current publication here, a more general audience book, can actually make difference to people who don’t read about traditional philosophical topics. Thank you.

@gwynbleidd1917 3 ай бұрын

Yeah but it's not great if the author clearly still buys into a lot of anticommunist liberal propaganda.

@shabbirahmeddar7765 3 ай бұрын

Very informative programe.

@CastawayRY 2 ай бұрын

Loving the new logo ❤

@CaptPeon 3 ай бұрын

Great discussion! I shared this link with my comrades; sounds like a great resource for addressing capitalist rhetoric! People before profits! ✊🏼

@wappu_ 3 ай бұрын

What's the background music at the first part of the video? Kinda sounds like a remix of a traditional music from my country

@idonnow2 3 ай бұрын

The point about the scientific revolution is crucial. premodern capitalist structures predate the scientific revolution by actual millenia, there has been private property, commodity production for profit, commerce, financial services, and capitalist competition (even more intense than today since capitalists could employ mercenaries!) in Sumeria, Greece, Rome, ancient India and China, medieval Europe, the Islamic world, etc. so we have literal millenia worth of data of capitalism not being particularly tied to a dramatic rise in material welll being. Only the major paradigmatic shift in epistemological approaches to knowledge generation, known as the scientific revolution, could eventually bring about the sustained capacity of humans to iteratively improve and innovate on productive processes and to generate new categories of commodities. This is a necessary prerequisite to modern dynamic industrial capitalism, and clearly, the scientific enterprise was not born out of capitalism as a system of social relations, it was born out of the religious-intellectual establishment and its own distinct system of social relations that had nothing to do with commodity production for markets (though could be claimed to be VERY loosely connected through the practical interest in better astronomical models for better navigational tools which is tied to capitalist imperialist conquest and exploitation). Of course after the capitalist system took hold it coopted scientific development for its own purposes, which is why sometimes this deep interrelation can be misconstrued as a causal relation; undeniably a portion of the several scientific and technological innovations of the modern day came about in the interest of profits, but another larger portion wasn't, as the publicly funded modern educational intellectual establishment has been the primary motor of such developments, the military industry in particular is well known for having a keen interest historically in scientific and technological innovations that eventually seep into the capitalist consumer market. If anything, the current state of academia at several levels has been thoroughly compromised by profit incentives by drastically reducing quality standards, increasing costs of education, funneling areas of research towards only profitable ventures, and straight up becoming a marketing tool for commodities "approved by experts"

@CaptPeon 3 ай бұрын

Yowza, that's a long rant! 😆 I agree. Nearly every technological advance was made by publicly funded, not-for-profit research agencies (nearly all government funded). That's one of the many ways that capitalism hinders innovation; research is not profitable because it's a risky investment and even successful research projects don't yield products for years). Corporations are content to simply be the first to MARKET products once the government allows it. And THAT is another way that capitalists STEAL the profits from the workers, the researchers never get a portion of the profits from their labor! It's especially heinous because all of that research money came from the PEOPLE’S tax dollars yet they are promptly funneled into the hands of the corporations. Workers of the world UNITE!! ✊🏼

@idonnow2 3 ай бұрын

@@CaptPeon haha well i like ranting Capitalism has actually a particular form of relationship with technological investment, related to the price of labor. If wages are too high this encourages investment in innovations to replace skilled workers with a cheaper unskilled workforce, while low wages disincentivize innovation. It is argued for instance that one of the factors that aided in US industrialization was the easy availability of land making labor expensive (since obviously people would prefer to own land than be exploited in someone else's) encouraing mechanization. Similarly, western countries currently have a low level of productivity growth since neoliberal gutting of the welfare state and offshoring have greatly reduced the bargaining power of labor. Beyond this particular niche indeed capitalism has no incentive for long term innovation which might not yield profits for long periods of time if at all

@CaptPeon 3 ай бұрын

@@idonnow2 no worries, I tend to rant too. 😄 You touched on a main point of contention, so I'll elaborate. Mechanization reduces necessary labor time; productivity, for instance, has increased exponentially while wages have stagnated. If profits were not horded by the bourgeoisie then EVERYONE could work less without any loss in standard of life. Capitalism literally steals food from the mouths of babes and time/life from every potential worker. We could all work part time which would 1) reduce work time of current employees and 2) employ additional workers and STILL make a profit. Capitalism sucks!

@megaton179 8 күн бұрын

You can save the other eleven chocolate bars for later times, since chocolate keeps for a long time!

@TheViktorofgilead 3 ай бұрын

The philosopher says IF a system is more egalitarian and satisfies human needs better than another system without violating people’s rights, we should do that. And then you just moved on. It would have been very interesting to investigate the potential counter arguments to that. The one that immediately comes to mind is the claim that private property rights are human rights. There is a reason we had to fight a civil war to end slavery even though it was clearly the morally superior position. When people have built their life, wealth, and power on an immoral system they will fight to preserve that system. It’s worse than that actually, foreign actors all over the world who have invested in that system also have an incentive to protect the current paradigm with force. Remember domino theory? We were the country playing that card, it will immediately be played against us by every other nation state we helped capitalism capture.

@CaptPeon 3 ай бұрын

Ehh, kinda weak argument. If America relaxed it's grip on the empire in pretty certain that those countries would mostly flourish. They'd simply gain power over the infrastructure that the US empire already built to exploit local workers. It would probably trigger worker organization globally if we set the example; remember the Domino theory?

@alexdoerofthings 3 ай бұрын

Good

@marc-1661 3 ай бұрын

Really wanted to hear the guest more but the interviewer just kept expousing and narrating as opposed to asking and listening.

@mathew9851 3 ай бұрын

Music is unnecessary after at least 5 seconds of introduction

@presterjohn1697 3 ай бұрын

Where does Shein and Temu sit in this discussion?

@Aermydach 3 ай бұрын

Not really relevant to this discussion. There are other channels on YT that cover it. I would link them here but my comment will disappear.

@presterjohn1697 3 ай бұрын

@@Aermydach I think forced labor for private profit in a so-called Communist nation is quite relevant. China has a billionaire class that grows much faster than it's western counterparts at the expense of labor. Discussing Socialism and Capitalism in the abstract as a 101 course is fine but there are some stark realities being ignored here.

@noname-bu1ux 3 ай бұрын

@@presterjohn1697that's true, yes. China has been falling down a counter revolutionary path for fifty years.

@Summalogicae 3 ай бұрын

@@presterjohn1697One can only say so much in an intro book and follow up interview. Geez, can please everybody

@gwynbleidd1917 3 ай бұрын

@Aermydach it absolutely is relevant to the discussion, regardless if there was enough time to bring it up. China isn't socialist. MLs, MLMs, and I'm pretty sure most other types of marxists are in agreement on this, aside from trots and dengists.

@AudioPervert1 3 ай бұрын

Just to add some context here, in terms of looking up to the erstwhile Soviet Union and what-ever-socialism 1. The Gulag Archipelago founded by Lenin and expanded by Stalin is responsible for the death of more than 1.5 million people. Starvation and slavery of close to 14 million people during 1920-75. The communist regime ruthlessly imprisioned people, much like their counterparts in western democracy, when it came to public dissent. 2. What does socialism have to say about the Finite Limits Of the Earth and the current overshoot of everything currently. What does socialism have to say about the Limits To Growth itself?

@presterjohn1697 3 ай бұрын

What does Socialism say about BlackRock owning billions of shares in Temu and Chinese defense companies. If US (Capitalism) is genuinely at odds with China (Communism) how exactly is this possible. One of these systems is lying.

@noname-bu1ux 3 ай бұрын

1. False. These numbers have been proven as fabrications. The gulags were daycares compared to American prisons. -Maximum sentence: ten years -Prison affairs were managed by prisoners. -two weeks annual holiday at home -marriage allowed. -cabins for married prisoners -family stay with prisoners allowed -wages equal to common citizens -sending savings to family allowed -no prison uniform -no leg irons and handcuffs -common living. No cells. -freedom of movement within gulag area -awards, rewards and reliefs for prisoners. -education, music and theater available -80% cases decided by citizen courts -gulags were not cell-walled, barbed-wire buildings. -sentences revoked on good conduct. -employment after release -equal citizen rights upon release -prisoners allowed free speech and publishing newspaper. Meanwhile America has the largest prison population per average and per capita. American prisons are horrifically violent places where things are run by gangs and if you got a nice booty, your ass is a cigarette. Starvation: You must be referring to the Soviet Famine of 1932, which lasted two years, and was the last famine in the region. People put a lot of focus on the Soviet famine of 32 or the Chinese famine after the revolution. But what people tend to ignore is that famines were COMMON in these areas BEFORE the revolution, but after the the last famines, none of these places experienced famine since. It turns out that the Soviet and Chinese policy of feeding hungry people worked better than just working your serfs harder. Famines in China would claim a million lives once every ten years. Now they never happen anymore. Also after the Soviet famine, the CIA themselves recorded that the Soviets might actually eat better than the Americans. The DPRK famine in the 90s occured because of the 50 year American embargo intended to starve the Korean people at the time. The Soviet Union was their only strong ally and America helped illegally dissolve the USSR. In America, the homeless and hungry line our streets. The richest country on earth, but for who? 2. Socialism actually has a lot to say about the finite limits of earth. It is capitalism which is incapable of taking into consideration the finite plane of existence. Socialists actually have scientific terms for this. What Marxists realized about capitalism about a hundred years ago is that there is what they call a "tendency of the rate of profit to fall". A brief explanation: Capitalism is a competition, and to stay part of the capitalist class, you must make more every fiscal year than you did the last. This requires infinite growth, which is materially impossible. A communist is what we call a dialectical and historical materialist, which is a fancy way of saying we don't indulge in metaphysical fantasy. We are concerned with how the real world works. Liberal bourgeois economics (capitalism) fails to perceive the limitations of our material realm in relation to capital accumulation. Eventually, you run out of markets, laborers And resources and you just expand. Capitalism burns everything in its lust for growth and profit. Capitalism must expand by necessity. Like a cancer. A very good example was COVID. COVID shouldn't have been a problem. All it required was two weeks of shutting down the economy. Two weeks of quarantine, and that's it. America literally couldn't do it. Every business owner was panicking because they couldn't continue to make a profit, so many businesses went under. People in America are so addicted to consumption that you couldn't get them to quarantine themselves. People during the height of the pandemic were so horny to socialize, it was weird. Compare this to socialist Vietnam, where everyone stayed inside for two weeks, and the military/medical specialists handed out food and supplies. They had almost zero COVID before they opened their borders back up to tourists from places like America. Socialism is capable of shutting down an industry if it becomes redundant or even malignant. Under capitalism it becomes a wide political struggle. Each company is a political body itself.

@noname-bu1ux 3 ай бұрын

Don't drink the Kool aid

@presterjohn1697 3 ай бұрын

What does Socialism say about major US investment companies owning billions of shares in Temu and Chinese defense companies. If US (Capitalism) is genuinely at odds with China (Communism) how exactly is this possible. One of these systems is lying.

@Kitsun3-da-0 3 ай бұрын

Stalinism ≠ Socialism