(Part 3) Top products from r/socialism

>Sure, so long as saying that an exchange can be mutually beneficial but not necessarily without a clear "winner" and clear "loser". Even if one benefits one can do so while at the same time reaping much fewer and much more insignificant benefits as their contractual partner.

If it is mutually beneficial, it simply is beneficial for both parties. If the opportunity cost is already taken into account, there really is no loser. Thinking otherwise is basically nothing more than jealousy or envy. Even if one of the traders benefits more, it doesn't change the fact that you are better off than before, too. (Not to mention that the trader who benefits more is almost certain to face competition that will balance the exchange rates. But let's not get sidetracked.)

>If each party only ever partakes in activities where equal values are being exchanged, then where does profit come from?

"Equal values" is a tricky phrase. For a simple example, assume you are good at baking cakes, and your friend is good at fixing bicycles. You have a broken bicycle, and your friend's birthday is approaching. If you fix your own bike, and your friend bakes his own cake, it takes three hours for you both. If you exchange services, the end result is the same, but it only takes one hour. You both saved two hours, which is a net profit.

>If excess value is being extracted from the exchange by one or more parties, then where does this value come from?

In the cake/bike example, it came from the efficient use of resources. Your friend who was skilled in bike fixing got to use his skills. As I've emphasized before, life is not a zero-sum game. Value can be created.

>By "reading and book on economics" what do you mean?

I felt like there were some basic but important issues that you weren't aware of, which were derailing the conversation. The major issue was the non-zero-sum nature of economics. I was also distressed by the context where you mentioned inflation a few posts back, and your question about the reasons for playing poker. To me, these simply looked like the usual mistakes people make before taking a basic economics course or reading a low-level book on the subject.

I did not have any specific book in mind, as I suppose most introductory books contain similar material. McGraw-Hill Economics is a safe bet.

I certainly agree that SNAP is an inadequate program for dealing with hunger in the US. I doubt you'll find many democratic socialists singing the praises of any means-tested public assistance programs. I'd much rather we universalize the program and ensure that every person, regardless of income, has access to food. That would be much better then what we have now. And then what would be even better then that would be to socialize the means of production and distribute food and other necessities entirely on the basis of need.

But we live in the world we live in now, and when conservatives attack working-class families by proposing to strip funding for the program entirely, I think it's the obligation of the Left, and just decent people in general, to defend against those attacks. 47 million people depend on SNAP to help them with food every month. Do we really just want to throw them to the dogs? Oh no wait, I bet the answer is we just somehow go straight into a revolution. How does that work exactly?

This part was pretty amusing:
>The most popular myth among the Left is the argument that the EBT and similar programs were “won by the struggle of working people”. This utter bullshit is either described as the direct fruits of the workers movements’ own effort or as a concession to that movement. In the first variant of this argument, the working class is said to have directly fought for programs like EBT because it wanted to have its subsistence managed by the state. In the second variant of the argument, the capitalists were forced to concede programs like EBT in order to stave off working class militancy.

>Not one person on the Left has ever advanced a single piece of evidence, based on the actual historical record, to support either of these claims.

Before saying that no one has ever advanced any evidence to support these claims, it might help your credibility if you actually did some research to find out if that's true. Shockingly, it's not. There's an entire wealth of research on the development of the Welfare State that supports the theory that the Welfare State is directly tied to the struggles of unions and Labor parties. It's called Power Resources Theory:
>Power resources theory begins with the realistic premise that political power is very unequally distributed in a capitalist democracy (Korpi 1983). Business, owners and managers have far more power because they control the means of production and thus the delivery of economic resources to the population. Ultimately, the default organization of markets becomes favorable for business, which triggers the exploitation of workers and subsequent economic insecurity in the broader population. Business has an interest in maintaining this default organization, and so exerts its influence to maintain a minimalist welfare state. In this default position, the working class and the poor have very little political power.

>To alter power relations, the working-class and poor must bond together and attract some of the middle class (Hicks 1999). Then, organized class-based political action in the workplace and elections can result (Korpi 1983). Workers can strike and interrupt the ability of business to make profits. More effectively, the working-class and poor, allied with parts of the middle class, can support Leftist political parties (Huber and Stephens 2001). When in office, these parties can push for an expansion of the welfare state to protect workers and the poor, and guard against the economic insecurity that is inherent in capitalism. Thus, Leftist political actors representing the working class and poor may influence the state in order to institutionalize egalitarianism. Given these foundations, power resources theory suggests two relationships between Leftist political actors and poverty: channeled and combined (Brady 2003b; see esp. Korpi 1983:187, Figure 9.1). Both imply Leftist politics are interrelated with the welfare state.

You can learn more about this non-evidence in books such as The Democratic Class Struggle, The Transition from Capitalism to Socialism, and Old Age in the Welfare State: The Political Economy of Public Pensions. More non-evidence can be gleaned from a google search of the term Power Resources Theory. Best of luck on your education!

I'm gonna go against the tide here and recommend that you don't read the older books written by Marx, Engels, etc., and find books that discuss socialism today. Here are some I would recommend:

• A Brief History of Neoliberalism from David Harvey, a Marxist political economist, is pretty good in terms of giving a cursory overview of modern capitalism
  
• Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-Technology Capitalism is a fantastic, under-appreciated book that talks about capitalism and socialism in the context of modern First World societies oriented around technology and the service sector. It also devotes a whole chapter to discussing the origins of socialist thought via Marx, 18th century debates about socialism, and so forth. Well-written and easy/fun to read.
  
• Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction is possibly my favorite book ever. It does a great job of pointing out how socialism/marxism were key to Third World struggles in the 20th century and how the Third World developed and utilized socialist/marxist theory and practice to fit their own local situations. An overall fantastic book that really brings home how socialism is not a monolithic, Eurocentric theory, but something that has a great deal many currents and competing schools of thought.

> Then is a corporation a state?

No, because it doesn't meet the definition. There are no elections. The general will doesn't decide the law.

> Except that's the historical role of anarchism and it seems like you're expending a lot of mental energy and conversing with people who have a track record of manufacturing history trying to preserve mere semantics.

You're saying the historical role of anarchism has been about anti-hierarchism?

> Well some might, but syndicalism was originally of the un-anarcho variety.

I'd like to see that again. Some things, I think, cannot be supplied by the private sector, like health care and law enforcement. Nor should they, however egalitarian their composition.

> Well except anarchists aren't like machines set to oppose target "state" the state imposes itself on others without their consent and then at best becomes the vehicle for subordination.

But, like I told them, you have to understand this conception of statism is a hangover from the period of monarchs and empires which were meant to be permanent. There was no ill intent, just a lack of perspective. We have that perspective now that they lacked.

> The point behind a lot of anarchism is a critique of institutional incentives, that institutions tend to want to expand that appointing representatives runs into the principal-agent problem.

Agreed. That's why you have to explore the different views of the initiative in public (state) policy. For the Many or the Few: The Initiative, Public Policy, and American Democracy by John G. Matsusaka is a really good insight into this. It explores the relationship between representation and the initiative, if there must be one. It also explores the principle-agent problem.

Plugging Michael Honey's wonderful Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers. Excellent book about black and white labor in the South and how business and city government worked to divide workers to keep unions out of the city.

Some things to help you along:

1. Welfare recipients include active duty military personnel. This very short $3 book is by a US Marine who talks about the financial struggles of being on active duty.
   
   
2. The Communist Menifesto - a very short book that will show you that while Communism is rotten to its core, it was actually the first through the gate with PUBLIC SCHOOLS and CHILD LABOR LAWS, and about 70 years before the USA. Like a broken clock, it was right twice.
   
   ​
   
   Hope that helps.

It's disheartening that you've delved into name-calling here. If it continues, I will not respond.

Historical Jesus shows up in the Bible (though he is also occluded by ahistorical narrativization and theology - I suggest the Jesus Seminar's The Five Gospels if you want an introduction to the topic; I still refer to it frequently.) and thus your juxtaposition of "historical Jesus" and "Biblical Jesus" was laughable. Hence "lol."

I was certainly not "trying to instigate a fight" by pointing out that Jesus was far more radical than he is given credit for, being that this is a subreddit for other radicals who would be generally predisposed to agree with me/ enjoy the description. The one "instigating the fight" here is you, but nice attempt to gaslight.

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn is good, although it talks more about the history of labor and oppression in the US than about what socialism itself is. Still, it's quite eye-opening, and this was the book that turned me.

Kristen Ross' book should be good on this topic:

http://www.amazon.com/May-Its-Afterlives-Kristin-Ross/dp/0226727971

I'd personally start with a few videos, then work your way into literature. The literature I suggest below is intentionally easy to read.

• Howard Zinn - Marx in Soho, as played by Brian Jones
  
  
• Richard Wolff - Crisis and Openings: Introduction to Marxism
  
  
• Marx is Back - Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Zero
  
  
• Vivek Chibber - Capitalism and the State
  
  
• David Harvey - The Crises of Capitalism
  
  
• Slavoj Zizek - short explanation of ideology from the film The Pervert's Guide to Ideology & Violence
  
  
• Debate between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault on the topic of Human Nature
  
  
• Ranjeet Brar - Dialectical Materialism
  
  Literature by Marx and Engels:
  
  
• The Principles of Communism & Manifesto of the Communist Party
  
  
• Wage Labour and Capital & Value, Price and Profit
  
  
• The Paris Commune (from The Civil War in France)
  
  
• Socialism: Scientific and Utopian
  
  I guess somewhere around here you can start reading Marx and Engel's other works, with Capital being your priority. Where you go after that is up to you.
  
  Some interesting literature:
  
  
• Oscar Wilde - The Soul of Man Under Socialism
  
  
• Albert Einstein - Why Socialism?
  
  
• Eric Hobsbawm works on history - The Age of Revolution, Capital, Empire and Extremes
  
  
• Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell - Towards a New Socialism
  
  
• Noam Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent & Hegemony or Survival
  
  
• Bertell Ollman - Dance of the Dialectic
  
  
• David Harvey - Brief History of Neoliberalism and Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism
  
  
• Robert Biel - The Entropy of Capitalism
  
  
• Christian Fuchs - Digital Labour and Karl Marx
  
  
• Alain Badiou - Philosophy for Militants
  
  
• Julian Assange - The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire

We read all of Hegel: Reason in History in highschool as an introduction to Hegelian thought. It was a fairly accessible read. Maybe an excerpt from that would be good for beginners?

Edit: sorry I meant to say we read this exact translation in the link above.

> Could the USSR/PRC at any point really be described as socialist, and not "state capitalist" (or similar)?

i would suggest you remove this question. half of the conversations here end up with people claiming that the ussr was state capitalist - one more is not (i respectfully propose) necessary.

on topic, this was an interesting book.

you should read this book https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Years-Psychotherapy-Worlds-Getting/dp/0062506617

http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-Military-Interventions-II-Updated/dp/1567512526

Pick this up OP. It's probably the most indepth and sourced book on US military interventions and atrocities.

Made me think of this: http://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Built-Hell-Extraordinary-Communities/dp/0143118072

From Taking The Risk Out of Democracy by Alex Carey.

James Loewen's Lies My Teachers Told Me does a good job treating the subject (as well as tackling several other myths in American history). I'd recommend giving that a read.

General histories of the United States from a Native perspective are a good place to look. Something like this, which I haven't personally read, looks promising.

This also looks interesting, but again, I haven't personally read it yet.

Beyond that, there's not a whole lot written on the war, although I do have a few fairly brief articles that I've found that challenge the typical patriotic account of the war:

http://www.pbs.org/wned/war-of-1812/essays/native-nations-perspective/

http://www.earlyamerica.com/early-america-review/volume-4/federalist-opposition-to-the-war-of-1812/

http://www.warmuseum.ca/war-of-1812/explore-history/the-native-american-war/

http://www.wiltonbulletin.com/799/war-of-1812-holds-ke-to-native-americans-qbanishmentq/

Did I say it depended on their tolerance? There was always antagonism between the two, but there was never combination of impetus, opportunity, ammunition and cause as the post-war period following the Second World War. Once FDR was dead, Truman had taken the vice presidency over Wallace and the Cold War began. It was a confluence of events that allowed them to divide and conquer, first by striking the Communist Party, then the socialists, and so on. Dr. Wolff explains this here and here. So too does A People's History of the United States, and The Untold History of the United States. I recommend both those books.

Killing hope is an absolute must read. You can't really have a grasp on how many countries the USA has ruined without reading this

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-C-I-Interventions-II-Updated/dp/1567512526/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500405284&sr=8-1&keywords=killing+hope

America: The imperialism of ignorance.

This ones brilliant. It details a lot of the countries it invaded while also explaining the wider context.

https://www.amazon.com/America-Imperialism-Ignorance-Foreign-Policy/dp/1849541043/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500405339&sr=8-1&keywords=imperialism+of+ignorance

Show them the science, their brains don't live in reality, reasoning is hard. Chomsky is great for removing your parents bullshit.

Science on reasoning, reason doesn't work the way we thought it did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

Get them to read some books, or better yet you read them and pick out the details.

The real news:

http://therealnews.com/t2/

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X/

http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Government-Surveillance-Security-Single-Superpower/dp/1608463656/r

http://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446/

Look at the following graphs:

IMGUR link - http://imgur.com/a/FShfb

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

And then...

WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap

http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-haiti-minimum-wage-the-nation-2011-6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkNKipiiiM

Free markets?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349

The 9 trillion dollar bank bailout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVjz1OyBJCc

Libor scandal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libor_scandal

http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Illusion-Literacy-Triumph-Spectacle/dp/1568586132/

"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.

In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."

Important history:

http://williamblum.org/

Historical inaccuracies in a Hollywood movie? Never!

>Germany controlled some 36 percent of European wealth by 1940, while the Soviet Union possessed about 28 percent (see Table 3.3). In the spring of 1940, Germany conquered Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and Norway and immediately began exploiting their economies, adding to its wealth advantage over the Soviet Union.^65 The Wehrmacht then invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, and within six months Germany controlled nearly all Soviet territory west of Moscow, which was prime real estate. By late 1941, the Soviet Union had lost territory that held 41 percent of its railway lines, 42 percent of its electricity-generating capacity, 71 percent of its iron ore, 63 percent of its coal, and 58 percent of its capacity to make crude steel.^66 In the spring of 1942, the Nazi war machine further extended its reach by driving deep into the oil-rich Caucasus region. The Soviet Union lost roughly 40 percent of its national income between 1940 and 1942.^67 Germany appears to have held more than a 3:1 advantage in economic might over the Soviet Union by 1942 (see Table 3.4).

>Despite Germany's profound advantage in latent power, the Soviet war economy amazingly outproduced the German war economy over the course of the war and helped shift the balance of power in the Red Army's favor. As described earlier, the Soviet Union produced 2.2 times as many tanks as Germany and 1.3 times as many airplanes between 1941 and 1945. What is most astonishing is that the Soviets even outproduced the Germans in the early years of the war, when German control of Soviet territory was at its peak and the Allied bombing campaign was having barely any effect on the German war economy. The Soviet Union, for example, produced 24,446 tanks in 1942; Germany produced 9,200. The ratio of artillery pieces for 1942 was 127,000 to 12,000 in the Soviets' favor.^68 This asymmetry in weapons production eventually led to a significant Soviet advantage in the balance of ground forces. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Soviets had a slight advantage in number of divisions - 211:199 - the key indicator of military strength. By January 1945, however, there were 473 Soviet divisions and only 276 German divisions, and the average Red Army division was far better equipped with weapons and vehicles than the average Wehrmacht division.^69

>How did the Soviet Union manage to produce so much more weaponry than a much wealthier Nazi Germany? One possible answer is that the Soviet Union spent a larger percentage of its available wealth on the military than did the Third Reich. But in fact Germany devoted a slightly larger percentage of its national income to defense than did the Soviet Union. The German advantage in defense spending over the Soviets in 1942, for example, was 63 to 61 percent; in 1943, it was 70 to 61 percent.^70 The Allies' strategic bombing campaign might well have hurt German war production in the last months of the war, but as noted above, the Soviet Union was turning out greater numbers of weapons than Germany long before the bombing campaign began to have any significant effect on German output. The Soviet effort was also helped by the U.S. Lend-Lease program, although that aid accounts for only a small percentage of Soviet output.^71 The main reason that the Soviet Union produced so many more weapons than Germany is that the Soviets did a much better job of rationalizing their economy to meet the demands of total war. In particular, the Soviet (and American) economy was far better organized than the German economy for mass producing weaponry.^72

[Source.]
(http://books.google.com/books?id=lDzCD_C_ipoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=John+Mearsheimer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EYHYU4PyFMKPyASh5YHgBA&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=soviet&f=false)

See also:
Accounting for War: Soviet Production, Employment, and the Defence Burden, 1940-1945 by Mark Harrison

The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze