Відео

"complex societies collapse all the time", this is true, the fact is, the more complex a society is, the more fragile it is, because the increased specialisation and interconnectedness of a complex economy leaves it vulnerable to any major disruption. The more complex, the more keystone aspects are involved. Remove a keystone, the whole structure collapses and because it was all so specialised like a finely tuned machine, it doesn't recover. Oil dependence is one such keystone in our system, so is global trade. War with china would take the whole system down as they not only produce all the goods, but most of the parts that are used inside western produced goods. Many of these parts are ONLY produced in china. Massive degrowth due to mass infertility, capitalism can't survive shrinking profits for extended periods. There are just so many ways it can happen, many of which are inevitable on long enough time scales.

this is an important discussion, one of the propaganda talking points supporting capitalism is that there is no alternative except soviet style communism which is worse. People have a hard time imagining that we could invent a new replacement to capitalism, which utilises our newest technology, the internet, automation, AI, to produce extremely high efficiency compared to capitalism or market based approaches.

Such a forward thinking message Vlad! Great clip!

The situation of parties and unions is the situation of any strongly centralized structure. Robert Michels wrote, around 1911, a book ("Political Parties") in which he analyzed how any centralized structure turns into a mafia and called this tendency "the iron rule of oligarchy". For their decentralization, it should be specified in the law that allows their operation that any decision must be taken with the approval of the majority of members, their management having only the role of coming up with proposals to solve various problems

In the current situation (oligarchy = decisions are taken by a few without asking the consent of the citizens), when those who are elected do not have the obligation to respect their electoral promises, in fact the elected elect the voters and not the other way around. In other words, you can see from the polls how many citizens will vote for certain ideas and promote them to enter the Parliament. The only concern would be to make the respective ideas known to as many citizens as possible and to give the impression that you are serious and intend to implement them. That's what all parties do. Voting is just a brick in the wall of democracy and even by voting it can be manipulated because in one round of voting you have one result, in two rounds you have another result, and if you give points to each preferred candidate it is a different result. Then it is a gross lack of understanding of the democratic mechanism to accept that once a candidate has been voted, he can do whatever he wants just because he was voted for. Outside the sphere of politics, the world proceeds differently. A company boss, when he has a problem to solve, will consult several specialists and choose one of the proposed solutions. If the chosen solution does not produce satisfactory results, he will change it quickly, because no one is a reader in the stars and only practice can validate the chosen solution, but it is important to be able to immediately change something that does not work. The manipulation works precisely because there is no immediate responsibility of those elected, only in 4 or 5 years, during which they pursue their own interests. If we could at any moment change or block their decisions when we are not satisfied with their actions, then the strategy of the elected would be different, that is, they will try to perform and will no longer be able to choose the easy way, to manipulate. It can be seen from the speech of the elected that they argue to win and not to solve problems. When you argue just to win, you don't take into account the competitors' arguments and try by all means to discredit the other competitors. And the energy put into play will be all the greater the more you have to earn after you get into office.

Democracy is when those who make decisions on your behalf have the duty to ask for your consent first. Today's republics are actually modern oligarchies where the interest groups of the rich are arbitrated by the people, that is, you can choose from which table of the rich you will receive crumbs. The "fatigue" of democracy occurs when there is a big difference between the interests of the elected and the voters, thus people lose confidence in the way society functions. As a result, poor and desperate citizens will vote with whoever promises them a lifeline, i.e. populists or demagogues. The democratic aspect is a collateral effect in societies where the economy has a strong competitive aspect, that is, the interests of those who hold the economic power in society are divergent. Thus those whealty, and implicitly with political power in society, supervise each other so that none of them have undeserved advantages due to politics. For this reason, countries where mineral resources have an important weight in GDP are not democratic (Russia, Venezuela, etc.), because a small group of people can exploit these resources in their own interest. In poor countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, etc.) the main exploited resource may even be the state budget, as they have convergent interests in benefiting, in their own interest, from this resource. It is easy to see if it is an oligarchy because in a true democracy laws would not be passed that would not be in the interest of the many. The first modern oligarchy appeared in England at the end of the 17th century. After the bourgeois revolution led by Cromwell succeeded, the interest groups of the rich were unable to agree on how to divide their political power in order not to reach the dictatorship of one. The solution was to appoint a king to be the arbiter. In republics, the people are the arbiter, but let's not confuse the possibility of choosing which group will govern you with democracy, that is, with the possibility of citizens deciding which laws to pass and which not to. The solution is modern direct democracy in which every citizen can vote, whenever he wants, over the head of the parliamentarian who represents him. He can even dismiss him if the majority of his voters consider that he does not correctly represent their interests. It's like when you have to build a house and you choose the site manager and the architect, but they don't have the duty to consult with you. The house will certainly not look the way you want it, but the way they want it, and it is more certain that you will be left with the money given and without the house. It is strange that outside of the political sphere, nowhere, in any economic or sports activity, will you find someone elected to a leadership position and who has failure after failure and is fired only after 4 years. We, the voters, must be consulted about the decisions and if they have negative effects we can dismiss them at any time, let's not wait for the soroco to be fulfilled, because we pay, not them. In any company, the management team comes up with a plan approved by the shareholders. Any change in this plan must be re-approved by the shareholders and it is normal because the shareholders pay.

This is a comment for the Algo boost!

I did learn something Vlad! Great video!

Join your local revolutionary communist international branch ✊

Looking forward to watching this clip. Intriguing title!

this is hilarious considering Trumps reelection, lmao.

DonaldMusk "belongs" to a network. I quote "belongs" because it is the key word. He is not superhuman; entropy does not fall into his heart to disappear. He is a normal CEO; he is rich because his companies "chose" to make him that way. Shareholders are higher turnover than workers in the base of the corporate hierarchy. You can't fight collectives through collectivism. You have to cut fossil fuel workers loose, and delicense an oil major.

🔮

First with a comment for the Algo boost!

We did something close to this in my union's bargaining platform last year: Asked all our members for their "wish list" for the new contract. Similar suggestions were merged, and the membership was then asked to rank their top picks. The highest-ranked ideas became our bargaining platform.

Amazing review!

There is another alternative and that is economic system based on exchange of energy since everything you do or make cost you enerhgy. The cold standart was the most closest thing to it because it cost a lot energy to extract it due to it being rare . But even better would a hydrogen economy. Hydrogen can then be used directly or exchanged for good and services.

Great idea! .. But rather than directly suggesting policies, I think we should use something like FB that knows us (our true needs and our true political opinions) better than we know them ourselves .. to avoid developing policies that are against our own interests (ie. policies that we just _think_ we want - or are manipulated to think we want) ..

Thank you for promoting this initiative. This is a great idea to promote citizen concerns and highlighting individual opinion above capitalist interest. I will do my best to share your video.

Are you saying that having all the data available will make people like union leaders less inclined to strike behind the scene deals?

Go Vlad! The future is Degrowth!

The Death of Stalin. I just watched that movie a couple of days ago!!!!! That movie was NOT funny in the least. It claimed to be funny. It was a historical drama.

Possession of property is a mental fiction. A thief merely changes in their mind the ownership of a thing from someone else to themself. The majority of a society must agree in our minds to support the mental fiction of the possession of property and how it is defined. We can just as easily support the mental fiction of communism. That is why it is necessary for capitalism to subvert democracy and why democracy is necessary for socialism. Everyone who does not benefit from capitalism, everyone who is exploited by capitalism, everyone who is harmed by capitalism (the majority) has every reason to vote democratically against capitalism or to vote against capitalism's interests which are driven by ONE RULE, the cost (risk)/benefit analysis. NOT morality. NOT the legal code. NOT what is ethical. NOT what is good for the society it operates in. NOT what is good for the market. NOT what is good for the economy. NOT what is good for the company long term. The greater capitalism is regulated, the healthier it is for itself and the society it operates in, because it has no inherent boundaries. The nature of competition is that the one who escalates most wins. If you have a basketball sport and you remove all rules, players will start shoving and tripping to win, then they will start punching, then they will start bringing clubs, then guns. Competition without rules independent of its operation and coming from a source above the competition will always become destructive, not constructive. The whole idea of viewing society and life as a hierarchical competition (a game) is antithetical to reality and the reality of a thinking species. We can always think of new ways to win a competition destructively which voids the legitimacy of life as a competition of the mental fiction of possession. A bear always has limits placed on it by REALITY. It can only have a hunting territory relative to its ability to defend and limited to its only being in one place at a given time. It's population is limited only to the available food supply in reality. It can't speculate on fictional food supply futures. It can only kill intruders legitimately weaker than itself. It can't leverage kill its superior competition. it can only eat so much food itself. It can only live so long, not forever like the mental fiction a corporation. When it makes mistakes, IT SUFFERS FOR IT. A corporation cannot suffer. We can make the mental choice not to live in a game but to live in reality where people and the health of society (however a society chooses to define that democratically) is why we live, not live for a score in a mental fiction game that avoids all liability for destroying society.

A corporation is a mental fiction allowing owners infinite profit while incurring zero responsibility.

The idea that capitalism runs on "growth" means it runs on expansion, which is also one of the pillars of fascism.

Capitalism is not imoral. It is amoral. It produces whatever the consumers want. If the consumers want whiskey and cigarettes, capitalism will produce whiskey and cigarettes. If the consumers want Bibles, capitalism provides Bibles. Capitalism provides both fresh fruits and vegetables; and home-delivered McDonald's. There are many ways in which our current system is not capitalist. I notice this is what everyone on the modern left does: they define captialism as the current system, and the describe the current system as if they were talking about capitalism. This is confused, and puts the cart before the history. Perhaps we need new terms: "free market capitalism" vs "government-corporate capitalism". The government-corporate capitalism is our current system in which the expansion of big firms is protected by the government through centeal banking policy, protectionism, barriers to entry for new firms, bailouts, easy money, inflation, etc. etc. But when actual free market capitalists propose policies that would end these cancerous growths, such as ending the federal reserve, left wing thinkers protest just as much as Keynesians. Very strange!

Bună, Vlad. Cum crezi că ideile de degrowth ar putea să „crească” în condițiile în care, cel puțin aici în România, observ că mulți oameni devin din ce în ce mai individualiști? Poate că acest lucru are legătură cu perioada comunistă, dar se îmbracă într-o nuanță americană, unde transportul public este văzut ca un simbol al comunismului, iar politicienii abuzează de promisiuni, promițând din ce în ce mai multe drumuri și șosele. Nu cred că un politician care ar promite piste de biciclete ar avea șanse să câștige alegerile

Minor correction: the doctrine of discovery was a papal bull rather than an act of a king. And it leads to us living on stolen land. The way we treat First Nations reminds me of the story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" By Le Guin (files.libcom.org/files/ursula-k-le-guin-the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas.pdf)

Hierarchies even protect themselves through common language. An obvious feature of these structures is conspiracy, and yet people low in the hierarchy are perfectly brainwashed into calling honest criticism of the structure "conspiracy theory." This term gets pushed by the "elites" and the rest of us end up doing their work for them. We simply label things a theory and dismiss real relationships of power as theory, which in many people's minds has come to mean untrue. I appreciate your efforts in looking at these terms in new ways! The better we understand these structures and systems, the better we can start to dismantle them

The choice is Capitalism or Democracy. You get one, not both.

what's your take on modern monetary theory

1:50 xD

A comment for Algo boost!

not sure - these days money is made through cost of living arbitrage or immigration industry. maybe also property speculation and taking advantage of inflation by borrowing wast amount of money.

It must be based on a society which produces our neads befor our wants ,Capitalism does not ,

Thank you!

Imperial mode of living eh?

I don’t need motivation to use my bike it’s way more fun than a car. But the system of bike lanes and footpaths that I have are not there for most people.

Algo boost!

Freedom is like power, it is a zero sum game, you can only get more by taking it off someone else. Everybody lies about freedom because it is ultimately about selfishness.

Fraser Institute, Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, and the whole think tank industry are unfortunately not only super well funded (by rich people, wonder why) but also have enormous access to politicians. It's sad that most neoliberal minds don't see this. They spread propaganda falsely accusing previously so-called Social Democratic countries (which are nothing more than just basic welfare states in decay, governed by Third Way parties) of being Socialist and the reason why growth and prosperity isn't widespread. We need to fight Neoliberalism ideas as hard as we can ! Thank you for your contribution to the debate! 🙏

Greed is insatiable. It should be restrained when it causes needless suffering.

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. Kris Kristofferson.

Hello Vlad! I have just came accross your channel and I am captivated by your videos! Have you ever thought of producing such content in our native language? I feel like romanian online space is lacking seriously in educational content on the topics you approach. Not to say that there aren't left leaning voices on romanian youtube but the most vocal ones like Faiăr or Zlăvog lack tremendously when it comes to theory and, in my view they are just whitewashed neo liberals. Thank you for your work!

Should be called "lets tell the truth about freedom."