Not really

-no one ever showed me why a dictatorship for the proletariat would be for the proletariat (adjacent to human nature, since there’s the assumption that they wouldn’t be) -a dictatorship for the proletariat would never wither away because its existence ensures the existences of an oppressor and oppressed, on top of never being able to tell when its intended job is completed -humans don’t want to sacrifice control (absolutely human nature, but I want to list it here as well just to list all my arguments) -governments aren’t exclusively the tool of oppression for the use of a separate class -if governments are purely oppressive, granting them control over media is always bad -in a society on the brink of becoming a post-class society, control over the press would be the perfect tool to perpetuate idea that more oppression is needed (again human nature adjacent, since there’s the assumption that governments would want to do that)

If my argument were entirely based on my idea of human nature though, what part of human nature am I wrong about?

I’ve read everything in both those links and either I didn’t understand it or it was plainly contradictory and bad.

First, I never saw any reason that the group of people who make up the new government would serve the people. Not once was there a reason that a dictatorship for the proletariat would actually be for the proletariat. In fact, it seems like the exclusive role of the government is to oppress somebody, and the proletariat’s a really easy target. Even if you and all your friends pick up arms, overthrow the government, and try to set up a state that acts in the interest of the people, your new government is going to be made up of people who act in their own self-interest, and the interests of the government as a whole will reflect that.

The idea of the state withering away, as I understand it, is based on the idea that the state is an instrument of oppression by one class against another, and when a classless society emerges, the state will lose its purpose and role and then slowly vanish. BUT the very fact that there is an oppressive state (that’s busy oppressing the remnants of capitalism) means that there’s a class divide (rulers and ruled, oppressed and oppressed, that whole shebang). Thanks to the immeasurability of when the capitalists have been defeated (Lenin stated that he couldn’t know by what practical measures the defeat of capitalism will be known) the oppressive state is going to stick around indefinitely, oppressing more and more people.

In simpler terms, there’s some dictator in charge of the dictatorship of the proletariat (or at least, there are high ranking members in it). During the extinguishing of capitalism, this dictator will have lots of power and authority granted to him by the people. He won’t want to lose it. This man will do everything in his power to maintain total domination for himself forever. He will create imaginary threats, oppress people, frighten them, manipulate narratives, concentrate more power, punish insurrection, whatever it takes. If he doesn’t, someone who will will take his place. This is human nature, the human nature you see in the bourgeois.

Secondly, the idea that the state is created by one of the two classes to oppress the other is either not true or a self-fulfilling prophecy. Was Genghis Khan a false mediator? The state exists because people in pre-history had really big armies and wanted to control people to obtain wealth and power for themselves. It turned out that people being alive and prosperous was really helpful for that, so states started supporting that, so people often submitted. This isn’t the bourgeois creating a state to adjudicate disputes between them and the proletariat in the former’s favor, it’s just militaristic (or perhaps political or social) conquest.

I had lots of other problems with both the articles you linked, especially the article from Liberation School, but I don’t really want to write a full paper on the errors of communism.

Instead, let’s bring it back to the idea of freedom of the press. If the state is a purely oppressive tool used by one class to oppress another, a state-controlled press is bad. It doesn’t matter who you’re oppressing, or who you’re claiming or actually doing it in the name of, it’s bad because the result is truth is thrown out in favor of manipulation.

In a post-class society (I don’t think that this is possible, but that doesn’t matter right now) you actually would have a free press, because there’s no government or state restricting it, and this would be great. However, something like this wouldn’t come about through state oppression and control of the media. In fact, this dictatorship for the proletariat having power over the news ensures that there’ll always be stories about the new, evil things capitalists are doing that your loving dictator needs more money and authority to squash.

They might not like it but it’s what happens anyway. I don’t have many examples off the top of my head, but I do know of at least one YouTuber who gives updates on geopolitics.

Governments are a separate organization of people with its own goals and motives. Sometimes those goals align with those of companies (either particular ones or just large companies in general), sometimes they align with the people, and sometimes they align with those of ducks.

If you assume that every organization must necessarily be part of either the bourgeoisie or proletariat, and you assume that organizations in those classes all share all their interests, then a governments interests necessarily align with those of a class, but this isn’t very enlightening. It’s much more useful to view the government as a self-interested organization whose goals may or may not align with any particular group or individual.

If government interests don’t inherently perfectly align with those of a particular class, you’ve got to be pretty careful when giving them power. There is no such thing as a dictatorship of the proletariat (at least, not a stable one) because as soon as you have a dictatorship, the government no longer needs the proletariat. If there is any alignment of interests left at all it is only by coincidence.

Even if you had an extensive democratic system, all that does is incentivise some government officials to sometimes appear like they share interests with some of the people. It doesn’t actually change governments interests.

uh, why? It seems like a free market economy is exactly where a free market press would work. Companies might buy news companies, but thanks to no government interaction, other news companies can pop up, make money because they deliver a service people want, and then grow.

It’s a little more complicated to argue that the free market is good for the consumer (though it can be done), but it’s pretty easy to argue that government is self-interested and power-hungry.

Firstly, history. Nearly every government ever has been populated with people concerned with their own power. Even since the popularization of democracy, governments were still incredibly corrupt and did not operate out of a love for the people. All democracy really does to alleviate a government’s self-interest is make charisma more important during election cycles, which doesn’t do anything to shift the government’s interests.

The people in the government are the same type of people as CEOs and people who run multi-billion companies. Whether they’re put in power by military force, by elections, or by people willingly giving them money for a good or service in return, they are all people who are 100% acting in their own self-interest collecting as much wealth and power as possible. The only thing that elections do is make it so that sometimes, some government officials have to appear to be good (or appear not as bad as their opponent).

That’s way easier if the press is under the government’s control though. Now, the government could imprison anyone who doesn’t talk about how nice the president is to puppies for at least an hour. Or, less drastically, they could revoke your press license if you say that the things the president is saying is wrong (and then fine or imprison you if you deliver news without a license).

In a free press though, even if all the major news sources are owned by the same people (which is a good point and probably to some extent true, though I don’t know to what extent), there’s nothing stopping new people from popping up and delivering what they believe to be honest, unbiased news. That won’t be the only type of person who pops up, and it’ll be exploited a lot, but the possibility of a good news source exists now.

I saw this quote earlier today and responded to it there, but I’ll also comment here.

If the press is not free, it means the government owns it. This means that they’ll use it to manipulate narratives and take control. This is bad because the government is exclusively self-interested and evil. It will not hesitate to perform the worst acts imaginable to secure wealth and power.

The best model for the press (at least, that I can think of) is a free market press. One where people freely and continuously choose which press they’d like to support and the more support a news company receives, the more people it can deliver news to.

Yes, there’s a risk that the press is bought and bribed, but it’s a guarantee with a government controlled press (in that case, the government is the one to buy the press).

Without government involvement, people can hear both sides of the story and the possibility for new, unbiased journalists exists.

I guess I can’t imagine a better system.

If people want propaganda there’s literally nothing that could stop that.

Sure, every major news outlet is biased, but people can read what a variety of outlets have to say and synthesis the truth from that (there was an AI that did that a while back that was pretty cool) or people could much smaller sources (even one person) that’s good at research that they somewhat trust and get their news there. The important thing is just that the government doesn’t interfere and everyone’s free to say whatever they want.

I don’t like that news sources are corrupt, but they have so much power and influence that someone’s going to figure out a way to bribe them no matter what.

Are you opposed to freedom of the press? Because what that gets you is press that exclusively peddles whatever the government (which is evil and seeks total domination and control) wants. Perfect for totalitarians in exactly the same way Lenin is saying a free press is perfect for the bourgeoisie, except to a far greater extent.

You might also argue for no news at all, but that also seems like an opportunity for the government to craft any narrative they want.

The best solution is to keep the government out of it and allow people to choose whichever news source they want. Allowing people to provide financial support to sources they like could even help that source grow and reach new people. The result is a flexible, continuous, and democratic system of determining which news source best satisfies the interests of the people. This is just applying capitalism to the news.

Granted this isn’t a system without its issues, but those issues can be handled by people realizing one source is corrupt and switching to another. The issues in other systems (which are really the same issues, corruption and biases) are entirely uncontrollable and without solution.

I might have the wrong definition of fascism, but I typically think of it as extreme government overreach and control. Capitalism, however, needs a free market and free-will exchange, both of which government restrict.

If you wanted to argue that capitalism inevitably devolves into fascism you might be able to, but I suspect that any economic system would just as easily devolve to fascism.

In order for capitalism to devolve into fascism, you’ll have to corrupt the government (otherwise there’s no way to override free will exchange). However, what exists in capitalism that makes this easier/provides additional incentives for this? Every system with a government will have powerful people who want to manipulate the government for more power.

Remembering your playthrough of Nier Automata be like

That’s a remarkably interesting link, thanks for sharing.

This has confused me before, is there only one wind tunnel or something? Why on earth is testing time restricted? Can they not build more tunnels? Is there a safety reason it’d be bad to test the aerodynamics of the car a lot?

1. Employee and employer isn’t the only thing in an economy, and competition in other areas is very fruitful for everyone.

2. As for this area, yes, there’s a pressure to try to exploit workers, but you can’t exploit them too much or they won’t work for you, competitors will steal them, they’ll go off and found their own business, they might even form unions to apply extra pressure on you. There are lots of competing forces here.

Wouldn’t all the problems with a monopoly be 100 times worse when done by the government? You remove any potential for competition, government officials would still act in their own self interests (as they always have and always will), the government maintains their power through military force, there are no laws or legislations to stop them, it’d control everything it possibly could, and any objections are met with legal punishment.

I’m no fan of monopolies, but a totalitarian government (which is what every government strives for) is much worse.

Capitalism is all about mutually beneficial, free-will exchange. When you engage in a transaction, it’s because you believe what you are giving up is worth less to you than what you are receiving, otherwise you wouldn’t engage in the transaction.

It’s pretty bold to say that there’s no evidence for him.

For starters, the claim that he existed is rather unextraordinary. That he was the messiah might be extraordinary, but just that a dude with that name who did some of the same things isn’t too remarkable. This means that we don’t need a ton of strong evidence. Compounded with the fact that he was (if he existed) poor, and therefore it’s not expected that he’d leave much evidence, we need hardly anything to say the man existed.

Since there seems to be a consensus by experts that he existed, and since neither of us are experts (probably, I don’t actually know about you), you need to either present a reason to be skeptical of those experts or present evidence contradicting their claim.

I’m not able to filter through everything Josephus and Tacitus wrote, interpret it in the intended context, and judge it’s validity. Thus I need to trust other people’s findings.

If you could show that these experts are unreliable (perhaps they’re religiously motivated, though I think secular historians agree), then we could start from scratch and the burden of proof would be on people claiming the man existed.

One valid use of government power is punishing people who murder, and I’m not exactly sure what power cartels have outside of that.

I googled it and the Wikipedia page said they’re inherently unstable, but I don’t know how reliable that is.

In any case, I don’t see how my second example isn’t a cartel itself. All the bread companies are colluding to set the price of bread artificially high. The problem is there isn’t much to stop new competitors (or to stop members defecting).

I think everything I said applies to stupid people as well.

There’ll always be people who need to rely on charity, but if even a guy in a wheelchair can make a good living and has more opportunities than he can count I’d say that’s a really good sign.

If one company decided that the average bread should cost 50 bucks then I’m going to buy someone else’s bread and that company loses a lot of money.

If every company decided that the average bread should cost 50 bucks, that’s an extraordinary opportunity for a new competitor to come in with reasonable prices.