I don't mind

At least unlike you I actually fucking read books and documents

GG @zerodegreec, you just advanced to level 1!

@Throttles it's just wrong. marx wasn't wrong about everything, i love his complex system proto-analysis. labor is basically a 70-90 watt input, what really gives us 'excess value' is the addition of energy, petrochemicals or similar. The Georgists were on the right path analyzing the land value and agriculture, but they didn't make the leap that it was the free solar energy that gave us the additions

likewise, petrochemicals are, roughly speaking, stored solar energy, nuclear fuel is a freebie from previous supernovae, etc. An economic theory that is based in reality has to respect thermodynamics

Labor without energy is a corpse; Machines without energy are sculptures

the 'labor' contribution to value is on non-commodity value preferences expressed by consumers(of any type) in the rationing function, so the british classical school paradox trap was another huge mistake marx draw from, but that's all he knew

later on in life he sort of recognized it and was trying to learn calculus so he could do some numerical analysis of his intuitions on what we now call complex analysis, but to get there you have to really respect the split between micro and macro, which is hard to do when steeped in this idea of macro being scaled up micro, whcih is necessarily CANNOT be, simply from an accounting pov

marx was sort of getting out of it, but the labor theory of value is really stuck in that micro/macro trap because labor IN THE SPECIFIC and labor IN THE GENERAL are going to be very different, by necessisty of any double-entry bookkeeping-style analysis of the real economy. This is why the Austrian-types are correct when they do labor econmics saying that, on one level, unions are essentially economic warfare organizations AGAINST other workers, not necessarily the capitalists

that's incomplete, but the gist is correct. if they had used double-entry book keeping to model multiple firms , they could have done a better job with it, but i dunno if the Marxist labor types would have accepted it, since i rarely see any accounting stuff in their work, even from the scientific socialists like COckshot etc

Good economics must respect accounting rules, similar to how they must respect thermodynamics, or you are modeling a fantasy world

@Boo

I agree a lot of what people in the west learn about the USSR is bullshit. I've read all of Grover Furr's stuff, and does a pretty thorough job of it.

You don't really need to read Furr's books but it is still good material

I read them and the books he is criticizing, Bloodlands, etc

I've also been reading some of the stuff coming out of Vietnam as they have relaxed their press and historian access

Right. But really I don't find much of a point in arguing about history these days. I focus more on the Philosophical and Sociological aspects

So I just avoid them usually

They are related because most people aren't that theoretical; they get their ideas based on 'what history teaches us'

If they have bad history in their heads, what comes out of their mouths will be equally bad or worse

No I get that part but many others have already answered those questions so I would rather just direct people to those sources

Rather than repeat myself over and over again

what sources would you point qwasi too, for example, since he repeated over and over what is basically a historical argument, pointing out the relative conditions of socialist countries

Or what somebody might suggest comparing West versus East Germany?

Grover is a good example so is Kotkin

I'd mostly stick to documents really

The Finnish BOlshevik dude on youtube does a pretty good job with that format, but in general I find mose of the attempts along those lines fall apart when they leave the realm of historical analysis

I know Finnish Bolshevik but I don't watch too many of his videos

He seemed well read when I talked to him

But again I don't wanna argue for historical events that have no meaning when it comes to philosophy

https://twitter.com/wendellpotter/status/1206623259698974724

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

ok here

here

yep

i got my sources

ok

i have proof

he has his sources

that socialism

works