• LanyrdSkynrd [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    “Communism = abolish currency” is a common belief among Americans in my experience. It’s because they think capitalism is when you’ve moved past the barter system. And because their only understanding of communism is that it’s opposed to capitalism, they arrive at “Communism is when no money”.

    Sabine Hossenfelder, a presumably well educated person, had an incredibly dumb video titled something like, “Capitalism is actually good”, where almost the whole thing was equating capitalism with having currency as a means of exchange.

    • Sodium_nitride
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      22 hours ago

      Communism = abolish currency is not an incorrect way of viewing communism. It’s just incomplete.

    • Pili [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      1 day ago

      Sabine Hossenfelder, a presumably well educated person, had an incredibly dumb video titled something like, “Capitalism is actually good”, where almost the whole thing was equating capitalism with having currency as a means of exchange.

      Smart people who have a high degree of eductation in one field, often wrongly think they have a strong understanding of subjects they haven’t or barely have studied. I noticed the same thing with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

    • Aquilae [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 day ago

      Sabine Hossenfelder, a presumably well educated person, had an incredibly dumb video titled something like, “Capitalism is actually good”

      Which is ironic considering the many other videos where she critisises academia for things can be boiled down to capitalism

      • vovchik_ilich [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        20 hours ago

        My favourite is one of her videos criticising academia, where she says “I, as a woman who got into science due to positive discrimination, am against positive discrimination”. Like, removed, you wouldn’t have been hired as a scientist if it weren’t for that

  • keepcarrot [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    In a really really round about way, he’s right, but its also because housing is free, food is free etc etc. so what would you seriously be using money for? Hoarders get the wall, obviously

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    Once again the presumption that most people I see with a cutesy cartoon version of their face as an avatar is likely a fucking ghoul continues to be reinforced.

    EDIT: I intended, but failed to convey, that that meant “out in the internet wild.” Pretty much everyone on Hexbear that actually sticks around is a comrade.

  • 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    I feel it prudent to point out there’s a reason many scientific discipiles discern whether something has a value of zero or null

  • SSJ3Marx [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago
    1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
    2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
    3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
    4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
    5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
    6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
    7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
    8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
    9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
    10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

    Doesn’t mention currency once in the section on specific political aims.

    • BashfulBob [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      2 days ago

      Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

      A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

      Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

      All of this functionally exists in the context of currency. Rents are traditionally paid in currency. Taxes are collected as currency. Inheritance involves transfer of currency as an asset.

      These three reforms drastically reduce the access bourgeois capitalists have to currency as a consequence of implementation. And they would be deflationary as a policy, reducing the cost of goods and services by eliminating the costs associated with the middlemen that gatekeep their transfer.

    • dead [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 days ago

      You misinterpreted that quote. The quote is prefaced with “Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production;” and “These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.” The list that you posted is a list of conditions recommended by Marx to happen before communism. It is not a list of political aims of communism. It is a description of conditions needed to facilitate a revolution to do communism. Then afterward it says,“If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.” It says that these conditions would allow the proletariat to do a revolution to become the supreme class. It is a list of recommended prerequisites, not descriptors of political aims of communism.

      The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

      In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

      This is a different quote from the Manifesto. Currency is money. Marx defines money in Capital as a commodity which can be broken up to represent values of other commodities. Private property is property that you don’t use, property that is used to extract profits. Commodities are objects which are created by labor for the purpose of being exchanged for as part of extracting profit. Commodities are a form of private property. Currency is a form of private property. Private property must be abolished.

      The OP is correct to say that communism has a goal to abolish currency, but incorrect in the means. The capitalist class will be abolished. The exploitative wage labor mode of production will be abolished. Goods will be made based on need rather than being made for the purpose of exchange.

  • Owl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    no, the point of communism is to abolish the other kind of currency - ban all news and discussion so people are forced to look to the past or future and nobody is living in the moment

  • le cat@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    piss off. i looked over your posts and it’s all crap to rile people up.