Thread: Marxism Leninism

Originally Posted by Crocodile

Originally Posted by Ramil

The main point of gold is that it isn't bound to GDP of any particular country.

Ha-ha, that's funny. So, you're saying that gold mines are equally distributed across the world? In reality, some countries would be able to issue their gold money for cheaper than the others. And some countries won't be able to issue their currency at all! And that would be unfair again.

Nobody really can do anything about the world's being unfair. Gold isn't just lying underfeet free to take. Nowadays the cost of extraction can be higher than the current price for gold.

And then all kinds of strange questions would start, like what would be the value of the raw gold?

If anything was measured in grams of gold I can always say that 1 gram of gold is worth 1 gram of gold. It's a joke, of course.

The raw gold (as any other raw material) would be regulated by the supply and demand, but as soon as someone would put it under the press and stamp a coin, it would then be regulated by the amount of the goods and services it could be exchanged for.

But every measuring system needs a reference. We know that the International Bureau of Weights and Measures keeps references for everything we might need except money (i.e. the reference value). It has always been gold (traditionally). And the value of paper money has once been fixed.
With what should I compare the value of $1?

let's move towards something like "WTO currency". Does that sound compelling?

Piece of paper is still piece of paper, no matter who gave it to you.
Well, ok. Let's take world's real sector's GDP and issue currency with the nominal value of .0000000001%. Every central bank of every state should be granted a right to issue banknotes proportionally to the real GDP of that country. No interest is applied.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Gold isn't just lying underfeet free to take. Nowadays the cost of extraction can be higher than the current price for gold.

And that's why [in part] the real money is not even the paper, but temporary mutual agreements between countries and financial institutions, stored in the form of electro-magnetic impulses on the very cheap media. So, that the media is totally irrelevant and the true meaning of the money is revealed. It's nothing but a temporary agreement depending on the situation.

Originally Posted by Ramil

But every measuring system needs a reference. We know that the International Bureau of Weights and Measures keeps references for everything we might need except money (i.e. the reference value). It has always been gold (traditionally). And the value of paper money has once been fixed.
With what should I compare the value of $1?

And we're back to square 1. We seemed to be in agreement that the value of something (gold, paper, food) fluctuates depending on the circumstances in the time of the exchange. $1 worth as much goods and services as someone else is willing to give you out for at that time. The reference of 1m is good enough to measure distance in the desert, but even the load of gold won't convince a thirsty man in that desert to give up on his last portion of water and die. This world is relative.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Well, ok. Let's take world's real sector's GDP and issue currency with the nominal value of .0000000001%. Every central bank of every state should be granted a right to issue banknotes proportionally to the real GDP of that country. No interest is applied.

I'm willing to talk in that direction as long as we have our mutual agreement on the previous gold/paper/money/value topic. The complications and injustice (the parties should be in agreement, remember?) associated with the gold money are much worse than the interest (the gold is not evenly distributed, the gold is an exhaustive resource, and so forth). The gold was good some time back as nothing else was more convenient to carry the valuable agreement.

When I was talking about gold I was talking about something more real than paper that's all. Even considering all the disadvantages of the gold standard I'm still thinking that it is still better than the worthless paper we all call money now.

The idea of fractions of GDP (real sector's GDP) as money has visited me only just now so I don't have anything more to say now, still, on the second thought, it might prove rational after all.

If the world had been using the gold standard we would not be in a recession right now, with a very unclear outcome...

It's undeniable, even to their biggest supporters, that the financial institutions in the US and to some degree UK are pretty much rotten...

The interesting thing is whether anything is going to happen to change things, or if we are going to continue on the same course, increased LENDING against the future...

Since this is a thread about Marxism perhaps one might speculate that development in world finances is what will bring about world revolution for real, maybe giving birth to a sort of a futuristic Marxism if/when capitalism collapses... Perhaps somebody will re-interpret Marx / Lenin for modern conditions...

Didn't Marx actually say that countries had to be industrialised before the revolution would happen sponteneously....? While in fact, the revolutions that DID happen, happened in largely NON industrialised countries, and not entirely spontaneously. Not as Marx had "predicted" and scripted for.

Well now practically everywhere is industrialised.... But people are too addicted to TV, junkfood and celebrity gossip to care about politics and how the world is actually run. That might change if the financial system collapses.

Maybe Marx will make a comeback for this exact reason?

Wow, the cappies have reached parity. 13/13.

Originally Posted by mishau_

Wow, the cappies have reached parity. 13/13.

Don't believe it! Half of the commies would change their vote if they ever left the "West". They are just "wannabe" commies!

Woooooh.. Are you automatically a "communist" just because have reservations about some aspects of international finance and have some very basic familiarity with Marx? McCarthy....

I don't care if you think I'm a Communist or a "wannabe" or anything else..... Being one is neither illegal, nor immoral. But for the record, I've never voted for them, or even for the Social Democrat party.

An intro to Marxism is on the school curriculum in many countries, including mine. Not a proof of "communist" sympathies, just of education. Lots of people who are not communists are familiar with the works of Marx and believe that he had some valuable points even if they don't sign up to the "communist manifesto".

And who can blame working class Russians for having some sympathies to the left? Not everybody happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right skills in the 1990s, I guess, plus many people might feel loyalty to the ideals.

Marxism as philosopical and/or economical theory is one thing. Political marxism is a completely different one since it's a cult. "The teaching of our party is eternal because it's right".

Speaking about Russian sympathy, it's a complicated issue.

Originally Posted by Ленивец

"The teaching of our party is eternal because it's right".

The original had it "omnipotent".

<<The only difference between Marxism and Marxism-Leninism is the addition of Lenin's statement that "Imperialism is the final Stage of Capitalism". >>

That's not a single difference. There is al least another one. Marx asserted that countries with the most developed capitalism would have had a Socialist revolution. Lenin changed this, saying that less-developed countries like Russia could have had it first.

<<What does this mean (explain in few words as if to a fourteen year old)? >>
AFAIR, the theory was:

1. Very few of initially small economic agents will survive capitalist free competition. By certain time
the survivors will have eaten up all the others and will have become large monopolies. No more free competition after that.

2. Those monopolies will have no space to increase sales since there will be no competitors' share. New markets will remain only overseas.

3. Those monopolies will be constantly reducing workers' salaries in the need to decrease costs.

4. So, the monopolies will be killing the demand, will have no means to increase sales, therefore capitalism reaches the point it cannot progress anymore. At the time the working class situation reaches the worst state. Moreover, there are wars for new markets, cheaper raw materials. Bang! Meet the Socialist revolution!

The original had it "omnipotent".

Thanks, I stand corrected.

Originally Posted by Ramil

So if you control the production of money you rule this world. [...] Federal reserve prints money then gives it to banks and governments. Virtually everyone on this planet directly or indirectly is owing money to the Federal Reserve.

Ramil, I stumbled upon an article: http://www.1-sovetnik.com/articles/article-709.html
Is that what had influenced your thinking?

Originally Posted by Ленивец

1. Very few of initially small economic agents will survive capitalist free competition. By certain time
the survivors will have eaten up all the others and will have become large monopolies. No more free competition after that.

2. Those monopolies will have no space to increase sales since there will be no competitors' share. New markets will remain only overseas.

3. Those monopolies will be constantly reducing workers' salaries in the need to decrease costs.

4. So, the monopolies will be killing the demand, will have no means to increase sales, therefore capitalism reaches the point it cannot progress anymore. At the time the working class situation reaches the worst state. Moreover, there are wars for new markets, cheaper raw materials. Bang! Meet the Socialist revolution!

Points 1-3: I see some parallels to the USA recently...
But the people there seem to largely think that Socialism = Communism = Everyone lives in the "Gulag"..... Thanks to the 'free press' there, etc. There would only be a revolution there if the nobody realised it was Socialist...

Small business exists in the USA. It's a fact. But Americans have little idea what the real Socialism is, I agree with this point of you.

Henry Ford I rose his workers payments, and those could afford buying the cars - a move Marx & Lenin failed to forecast. And the governments used elements of socialism - wealth redistribution like welfare system, public works to find the way out.

Originally Posted by Crocodile

Originally Posted by Ramil

So if you control the production of money you rule this world. [...] Federal reserve prints money then gives it to banks and governments. Virtually everyone on this planet directly or indirectly is owing money to the Federal Reserve.

Ramil, I stumbled upon an article: http://www.1-sovetnik.com/articles/article-709.html
Is that what had influenced your thinking?

This article simply repeats the obvious. There are thousands of similar articles.
My thinking started to form up more than 10 years ago when I was still a student. It appeared strange to me that the amount of printed dollars didn't even correlate to world's GDP not to mention the GDP of USA and everything had clicked together when I finally found out that the Federal reserve is a private capital company.

Originally Posted by Ramil

It appeared strange to me that the amount of printed dollars didn't even correlate to world's GDP not to mention the GDP of USA and everything had clicked together when I finally found out that the Federal reserve is a private capital company.

Interesting... I would really like to validate the former part of that statement. Well, I know the world's and the US's GDPs. I would like to know the amount of printed US dollars that are circulating in the world. My understanding is that you might have that info (as you were able to analyze the correlation), so would you be kind enough to share it? Are you talking about the US public debt or something like that?

"An accumulated governmental deficit over several years (or decades) is referred to as the government debt. Government debt is usually financed by borrowing, although if a government's debt is denominated in its own currency it can print new currency to pay debts. Monetizing debts, however, can cause rapid inflation if done on a large scale."

As to the latter part, I think we discussed it earlier, and I mentioned that the Federal Reserve has both governmental and somewhat private parts: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/ ... _10_3.html I recall, you preferred to name all the governmental parts "the puppets" and so you could theoretically present the FR as "totally private", but, as you remember, our opinions differ on that.

OK. It's very hard to estimate the world's money supply in dollars, but I estimate it is no less than $50 trillion (since the external debt of any country according to WCF is denominated in US dollars). (This figure is only a 'first approximation').


The US's money supply (MZM) in 2009 was around $9.5 trillion (We're not speaking of cash only here). (http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MZM?cid=30) remove M1 (around $1.4) for the considerations below

The US's GDP is estimated to be around $11.5 trillion (the overall one, I deliberately ignore the fact that the real sector comprises no more than 20% from that figure). (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/fed ... _10_k.html)

What we can see is that nearly 100% of US's GDP is just money stock (MZM - M1 - around $8 trillion, Investments DO count when they calculate GDP). No, of course there are real assets and they DO comprise the major part of the GDP, but according to these figures there are only two possible options: either there's nothing in US but money OR American money worth much less that we expect them to be.

So, my estimations are the following:
Real US's GDP is $4 to $5 trillion (and this is my optimistic estimation .
US's money stock is $7.5 to $9.5 trillion.

The international trade contracts are customary denominated in the US dollars. This puts additional burden onto the FR since the WCF still refuses to introduce any additional currency.

* Real GDP is reduced because I don't take into account the goods and services with 'virtual added value' (so called brand-names, goodwill and other cr@p. In reality these assets are worth $0, the same with so called 'Inernet capitals', also the real-estate value is denominated and the liquidity of investments is reconsidered).

Originally Posted by Ленивец

Henry Ford I rose his workers payments, and those could afford buying the cars - a move Marx & Lenin failed to forecast. And the governments used elements of socialism - wealth redistribution like welfare system, public works to find the way out.

Ok but hasn't the USA been living largely off:

1) Cheap labour in South America / Asia - particularly in such countries where they have more or less installed a pro-US government and/or actually have a military presence..

2) Credit (loans from other countries) and the power of the dollar and their ability to "create money" out of thin air - just by printing more dollars....


Common sense must dictate that these two factors won't be able to work in conjunction to help the USA forever.

There is no "divine law" that says that an American industrial worker should have a better standard of living than a Chinese industrial worker. Or that an American dentist should have 3 cars, two houses and annual holidays in the Caribbean.. While an Indonesian dentist has one house, one car..etc!

The USSR for example didn't really exploit third world countries as far as I know, and it didn't play the credit / loan / money printing game either... I think that would have been against pretty much all of its' policies...

I guess one of its' major stratic fault was that it thought too much of the future glorious vision of Communism while forgetting to consider that normal citizens compared their lives to what they knew about capitalist countries.

Ok, so let's use your approach "as-is" again, but for the year 2006.

1. The MZM in 2006 was $7 Trillion (http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MZM?cid=30)
2. The GDP in 2006 was $14 trillion (https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... os/us.html)

That makes the figures much better even with the approach you applied. You happened to pick a bad year, and the 2006 was far from being the best for the US economy.

Also, the way you reduce the GDP is totally up to you and does not match the reality. The "virtual added value" does count as people are willing to exchange their hard work (=services) for those items under normal conditions. Also, not only the real assets matter. If you buy a house, you still have to pay the agent and the lawyer fees, and you wouldn't get the house otherwise. Those services are real (under normal conditions) and they cost money. I think the source of your confusion might be the "very liberal" way the GDP is calculated by the US. And I would agree with you that the US government might be trying hard to blow their own horn and sell their currency for a couple of cents more, but that does not mean "there's nothing but the dollars".