building socialism in the US

[phuckphace]

it occurred to me that I haven't really expanded on the details of my economic plans, so here's a thread. hopefully these will prove workable & practical:


union reform - the few American unions still in existence are largely ineffective, corrupt behemoths that push partisan politics and waste money. they're still shilling for Obama even though he's a neoliberal traitor. unions in other countries like Germany, by contrast, are company unions who each have a representative on the company's board of directors. each individual company having its own union tailored to the interests of the workers? sounds great but that setup is banned in the US, at least until I take over. I'd break up all currently existing old unions and replace them with company unions. getting universal, effective union representation is the long-term goal here, also ties in with my minimum wage plans below.
minimum wage - we need to raise the minimum wage, but not equally across the board. a kid who bags groceries for a couple hours after school can live with $7.25/hr, and $16/hr. is reasonable for an adult over the age of 25. a hike needn't last forever, because those unions can get they collective bargaining on.
healthcare - employer-based health insurance needs to be killed off, and to do that there needs to be a single-payer system put in place. the lineup is: Medicare-for-everyone as a free option, and private practices could work like veterinarians do - cash up front for everything.

also need to do something about those corporate factory farms, think I'll break them up and sell/give them to Farmer Brown.

that's a start at least. plenty more to be done but just these things alone would make this country slightly less miserable.

[Jean Poutine]

a kid who bags groceries for a couple hours after school can live with $7.25/hr, and $16/hr. is reasonable for an adult over the age of 25. a hike needn't last forever, because those unions can get they collective bargaining on.

Okay, but then you run into the trouble of employers firing people as they age and as the wage they must pay them increases, especially with such a high disparity.

The courts often are pretty ineffective in matters of wrongful termination, even with strong unions and especially in "right to work" states. It's pretty easy for employers to catch someone violating a technicality then firing their asses over it.

[Vlerchan]

I'm with Jean. I'm not sure of the exact impact on such wide disparities in the minimum wage across age ranges but I can't imagine it would be good on older people.

[Sir Suomi]

Socialism?

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/90/ac/f1/90acf174eedfc59017c4d16cbc424ce2.jpg

[phuckphace]

Australia already does minimum wage in tiers by age. I'd imagine higher union representation would help avoid the scenarios given above.

[lliam]

phuckphace

Sorry, can't say anything about your agenda, but I often wonder, why Americans aren't still socialists.

I mean, according to the medias, I always hear'em praying and talking about Jesus very much. And as far as I know, Jesus was probably a very radical socialist (was a topic in our philosophy class yet).

Therefore, all Christians should also be fundamental socialists if they hasn't become traitors of their own faith.

[tonymontana99]

Socialism?! Heretics!

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh72/Shunt666/Liberty_Prime___Better_Dead_by_Goronguy.jpg

[phuckphace]

phuckphace

Sorry, can't say anything about your agenda, but I often wonder, why Americans aren't still socialists.

I mean, according to the medias, I always hear'em praying and talking about Jesus very much. And as far as I know, Jesus was probably a very radical socialist (was a topic in our philosophy class yet).

Therefore, all Christians should also be fundamental socialists if they hasn't become traitors of their own faith.

lliam

I'm not so sure. Jesus' teachings never struck me as overtly socialist, but then again that's kind of an anachronistic reading. we're completely removed from someone speaking in the first century AD, for starters. in any case his teachings explicitly warn against concerning oneself too much with the temporal, which some Christians have taken to the extreme and basically just sit around waiting to die so they can go to heaven. you won't find too many socialists in the "fuck this gay Earth" crew

[Microcosm]

Sounds like you're going to be feeling the bern in the 2016 election.

The minimum wage difference between different age groups sounds good, but it's not really feasible. I can see problems with that. For instance, people might complain about getting less money for similar jobs just because of their age.

On the other propositions, I agree with you.

[phuckphace]

time for an effort-post

wages are really only a small part of the picture. as I said before, wage controls would largely be a temporary measure until we can establish widespread collective bargaining.

Occupy Wall Street brought to light the people who are "working" minwage jobs at McDick's and demanding ~$15 an hour to flip burgers. I'm all for a living wage (hence the purpose of this thread) but these are the kinds of people I wouldn't even hire for zero dollars an hour. you can tell by looking at them that most are spending their sebbentwennyfive on weed and vidyagames, and doubling that sebbentwennyfive means double the weed and vidya. this is part of the reason I don't want an across-the-board hike; we need living wages going to the people who actually need them.

w.r.t. healthcare - Americans currently get (really shitty) basic insurance through their employers. companies have to spend millions on this racket in addition to the wages they're already paying. if we eliminated employer insurance or at least dialed it back hugely by introducing a universal system, this would in theory cut costs that could then support a wage increase among other things. health insurance is a huge scam and soaks up insane amounts of money.

health insurance companies are also entangled with the interests of Big Pharma. American doctors don't diagnose and then treat if needed, they'll "treat" a hypochondriac for a phantom illness so Pfizer and Merck get more skrilla. and guess where those costs go? I won't even touch on the legions of illegal immigrants who clog up the emergency room with minor illnesses (well I just did, but yeah.)

this is quite the rabbit hole, by the way. sometimes one is tempted to just throw up their hands and look into moving.

[KidWithTheHeadband]

Why not just survey people based on living conditions in order to determine financial need? (Granted, this would be in a perfect world where nobody would be discriminated against in order for a corperation to gain a profit.)

So college-age student X who lives on his own would earn an amount of cash that he could live on.

Whereas middle aged married man who needs X more amount of cash to support his family would earn more money based on his situation.

Heck, colleges all ready do this with things like financial aid. Why shouldn't full time jobs do the same?

My late night logic might not be too easy to follow. Sorry.

[lliam]

you won't find too many socialists in the "fuck this gay Earth" crew



This is consistent with my view that it generally can hardly be people who can be true representatives of any religion, doctrine, or any idealism even to 70%.

That's even applies to fundamentalists, who are only, let's say, to 5% real representatives of something whatever.

The lived reality contradicts always 99% of the idealism. That's is my oipinion so, whereby those values ​ are only placeholders.

I realized that when we had the Russian Revolution as a multidisciplinary subject in school. So-called Communists like Lenin forced a revolution in the name of poor workers and peasants, which would generally be content with just a bit more rights, fair pay and a halfway-filled belly.

This revolution in October revealed only a totalitarian regime, which was replaced from older one. Even nowadays you can Russians certify an inability to democracy, means, to be incapable to a self-reliant life. They have never learned to live such a life. But who really does?

That's even part of many people's life around the world. I maintain, even after over 50 years of democracy, eg Germans in their basic attitude are no real democrats.

Intellectually or mental we are far from being freed from the burden of about 2 millennia of domination by totalitarian systems.

So I've to confirm your statement that there are just a very few real socialists in the whole world. And I bet, they even don't know, they are some.

[Porpoise101]

time for an effort-post

wages are really only a small part of the picture. as I said before, wage controls would largely be a temporary measure until we can establish widespread collective bargaining.

Occupy Wall Street brought to light the people who are "working" minwage jobs at McDick's and demanding ~$15 an hour to flip burgers. I'm all for a living wage (hence the purpose of this thread) but these are the kinds of people I wouldn't even hire for zero dollars an hour. you can tell by looking at them that most are spending their sebbentwennyfive on weed and vidyagames, and doubling that sebbentwennyfive means double the weed and vidya. this is part of the reason I don't want an across-the-board hike; we need living wages going to the people who actually need them.

w.r.t. healthcare - Americans currently get (really shitty) basic insurance through their employers. companies have to spend millions on this racket in addition to the wages they're already paying. if we eliminated employer insurance or at least dialed it back hugely by introducing a universal system, this would in theory cut costs that could then support a wage increase among other things. health insurance is a huge scam and soaks up insane amounts of money.

health insurance companies are also entangled with the interests of Big Pharma. American doctors don't diagnose and then treat if needed, they'll "treat" a hypochondriac for a phantom illness so Pfizer and Merck get more skrilla. and guess where those costs go? I won't even touch on the legions of illegal immigrants who clog up the emergency room with minor illnesses (well I just did, but yeah.)

this is quite the rabbit hole, by the way. sometimes one is tempted to just throw up their hands and look into moving.
Yes the big limit on national health care is drug cost. Unless we define a monetary value of life, it won't last long the way drug prices look.

[phuckphace]

http://i.imgur.com/KXTsL7p.jpg

[dxcxdzv]

Once emperor of Europe I'll certainly need to instaure some kind of socialism. That make me sad.

But neh, socialism doesn't work. It can't defend itself against the other ideological agressions. c:


CA-PI-TA-LIS-M foreva'.

[Vlerchan]

Australia already does minimum wage in tiers by age. I'd imagine higher union representation would help avoid the scenarios given above.
On multiple occasions I've gone looking for the rates and I swear the Australian government are hiding them from me.

Would you be able to cite them?

[Stronk Serb]

image (http://i.imgur.com/KXTsL7p.jpg)

Spot on lol.

[phuckphace]

On multiple occasions I've gone looking for the rates and I swear the Australian government are hiding them from me.

Would you be able to cite them?

Buried in here somewhere. (https://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay/minimum-wages)

apparently there are several factors including age that determine someone's wage including these "awards" (no clue what that means) but that's probably the reason why there's no simple table of rates. perhaps @Gumleaf (http://www.virtualteen.org/forums/member.php?u=4187) can chime in here. I've had more than a couple Australians mention that the rate for youth is about ~AU$7 per hour, and for adults over 20 something like $15~. point being if you're a kid working part time to fund vidya you get paid nothing, but adults can pretty much look forward to stacking that skrilla, which is what I'd like to see here.

it actually seems like a pretty simple idea - tie wage rates to age - but it's never brought up in minwage discussions in the US. plans for a hike to a living wage are always met with shrieks of horror from lolbertarians who claim it will bankrupt businesses and/or drive up unemployment, which has yet to happen down under.

[phuckphace]

giving this a bump since I wanted to examine the morality statutes of mein hypothetical reich + how to make it last

I'm extremely interested in "disenfranchising the fools and the immoral" as JZ put it, in fact I think this is a critical prerequisite to making anything work. his posts have also convinced me that a meritocratic model similar to the one he proposes would be the best way to go.

until recently though, my plan to avoid giving degenerates any sociopolitical influence was to simply disenfranchise everybody + bigass gulag, but I realized eventually that that would only last as long as my regime itself. yeah I know, "duh!" so now I'm tasked with working out a long-game plan that will last at least 500 years (I am keeping the gulag though).

I like the idea of people in charge having a thorough and well-rounded education in the classics, and a round table of old men sending pervs to the gallows, like a secular, goyisch Sanhedrin sounds even better.
Judean Zealot Vlerchan

[Arkansasguy]

, Jesus was probably a very radical socialist

That's a rather odd conclusion given that he never said anything remotely socialist.

[Arkansasguy]

giving this a bump since I wanted to examine the morality statutes of mein hypothetical reich + how to make it last

I'm extremely interested in "disenfranchising the fools and the immoral" as JZ put it, in fact I think this is a critical prerequisite to making anything work. his posts have also convinced me that a meritocratic model similar to the one he proposes would be the best way to go.

until recently though, my plan to avoid giving degenerates any sociopolitical influence was to simply disenfranchise everybody + bigass gulag, but I realized eventually that that would only last as long as my regime itself. yeah I know, "duh!" so now I'm tasked with working out a long-game plan that will last at least 500 years (I am keeping the gulag though).

I like the idea of people in charge having a thorough and well-rounded education in the classics, and a round table of old men sending pervs to the gallows, like a secular, goyisch Sanhedrin sounds even better.
Judean Zealot Vlerchan

Meritocracies do not work as means of picking a head of state. The actual experience of meritocracies should evince this. The head of state should be selected in a manner that doesn't require him to convince others of his virtue, as that will tend to promote the arrogant.

[Vlerchan]

Buried in here somewhere.
That's where I'd looked and couldn't find it. Guess we'll just have to wait on gumleaf or someone.

"disenfranchising the fools and the immoral"
That sounds nice and all, but there's no reasonable path to doing it. It's more or less going to be impossible to get most of the population to disenfranchise themselves and that counts double when he argument being made is that these people aren't competent enough for a vote.

If it was to work it would need to be combined with some sort of economic programme that offers the impression of self-rule - guild socialism, maintained and managed beneath democratic centralism, for example - that gets advanced through counter-hegomonic institutions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_power). That can be set up so it disenfranchises undesirables as a default [so long as desirables found it].

That sounds awful difficult. Sure. But if you want to remove both the liberal and capitalist parts of liberal-capitalism you'll need to get creative.

---

Being honest at the same time I don't see reformism being helpful. It's had a historical ratcheting effect where the conservatives that get elected next drag things further to the right.

[..] thorough and well-rounded education in the classics [..]
I'd be a lot more comfortable with them even just understanding intermediate macro.

To each their own I guess though.

[lliam]

That's a rather odd conclusion given that he never said anything remotely socialist.


I guess, most likely he never knew the word "socialism".
But having no idea from something, doesn't exclude in this case, not to be a socialist by heart or such .

[Miserabilia]

Okay, but then you run into the trouble of employers firing people as they age and as the wage they must pay them increases, especially with such a high disparity.

The courts often are pretty ineffective in matters of wrongful termination, even with strong unions and especially in "right to work" states. It's pretty easy for employers to catch someone violating a technicality then firing their asses over it.

Australia already does minimum wage in tiers by age. I'd imagine higher union representation would help avoid the scenarios given above.

Lots of countries have the simply policy of a lower minimum wage for lower age/ teens. Yes you can get fired when you reach past a certain age, but this only happens in grocery bagging jobs anyways which isn't exactly the job an adult should be doing in the first place, atleast that's how it's like here.
For other jobs, an actual decent union should fix the problem.

[Arkansasguy]

I guess, most likely he never knew the word "socialism".
But having no idea from something, doesn't exclude in this case, not to be a socialist by heart or such .

So you admit he never said anything indicative of being a socialist? IOW it's something you made up on the spot?

[lliam]

So you admit he never said anything indicative of being a socialist? IOW it's something you made up on the spot?


I heard, it's also someone elses thoughts about Jesus and socialism ... IDK, seems generations before I was born. So, cause I'm not one of wisest, but even called wiseguy sometimes, I guess, there are some similaries between Jesus' life and the ideals of socialism. Actually ... at that English school I'm visiting now, I've heard similar versions of British classmates.


But let's face it a other way. J. C. is objectively seen just fiction. Therefore, if someone quotes J.C. has done this, believed that and prayed whatever ... it's the same made up on spot. I just brought up my impressions.

[Arkansasguy]

I heard, it's also someone elses thoughts about Jesus and socialism ... IDK, seems generations before I was born. So, cause I'm not one of wisest, but even called wiseguy sometimes, I guess, there are some similaries between Jesus' life and the ideals of socialism. Actually ... at that English school I'm visiting now, I've heard similar versions of British classmates.

Well the idea has no basis in anything he said.

But let's face it a other way. J. C. is objectively seen just fiction. Therefore, if someone quotes J.C. has done this, believed that and prayed whatever ... it's the same made up on spot. I just brought up my impressions.

Um, no. Jesus Christ was a historical figure. You can't just make up your own version of him on the fly.

[lliam]

Um, no. Jesus Christ was a historical figure. You can't just make up your own version of him on the fly.


Maybe the historical Jesus. But not fictional one from the Bible. And just about that last one's life I know in parts.

Also what I found on the Internet so far as so claimed historical facts convinced me to guess that there could've been one or more men whose lifes served as templates for the biblical Jesus. That no facts, that are possibilities.




But this thread isn't a platform for discussing about the fictional and the historical existence of Jesus.

This is about socialism in America.

As I said, my comment was a episode. An impression to a particular post far above. But feel yourself free, to convince me about those facts. Then please, not here, but via PM or in another thread.

[Arkansasguy]

Maybe the historical Jesus. But not fictional one from the Bible.

The Bible is the most extensive source of historical knowledge about him. If you (or some historical-critical dolt) think you know better, it's because you literally do not know what you're talking about (as opposed to the people who were there and thus did know what they were talking about).

[Miserabilia]

The Bible is the most extensive source of historical knowledge about him.

Just because there's a lot, that doesn't make it historical accurate. The bible is one of the most historicaly inaccurate sources I can imagine.
Having a lot of it doesn't make it more historicaly accurate, just more.
Eating a lot of shit doesn't make it taste like chocolate

[Arkansasguy]

Eating a lot of shit doesn't make it taste like chocolate

You would know, you had to get full of it somehow.

[Miserabilia]

You would know, you had to get full of it somehow.

Tru :rolleyes: