In my experience there is no such person. Keep in mind, every person in Cuba works for the state. And you get paid regardless of the amount or quality or work you perform.
Well, if you follow Lenin’s theories there never has been a communist state, since no imperialist state evolved to socialism and then communism.
But the second part of your quote here: “monopolies produce cheaper/better consumer goods while paying a fair share of taxes to the state”, are you serious? A monopoly, by definition, means that there are many buyers but only one seller. There is absolutely no incentive in such a system to produce ‘cheaper/better consumer goods’, quite the opposite.
It sounds like you understand neither Lenin or monopolies.
Fair enough - just curious if such people did exist in Cuba, full of energy and ideas and such. In fiction, they tend to get ignored or crushed.
Now, now. We’re only talking about my pamphlet, Imperialism. Who’s this Lenin guy again?
And I agree. Please go back to my post for the context of what you’ve just quoted of of context.
It sounds like you do understand them but don’t like that Lenin did also.
That is the most incoherent response I have read in this thread so far. Are we discussing Lenin or not?
Let me refer you to an earlier post of mine
No we are not discussing Lenin or Leninism. I’m trying to limit this discussion to his 1916 pamphlet Imperialism and it’s relevance to the situation in which we find ourselves today.
Until I read this pamphlet, well to be honest, I’ve really only read the Preface and Chapter V, both cited in my OP, had you asked what I knew of Lenin I’d have agreed with most of you here, a Marxist theorist whose theories have been disavowed by most and who, in implementing them laid the basis for the USSR, the most oppressive and murderous state the world has ever seen. Good enough?
That does not change the fact that he saw corporate imperialism for what it was and what it is today.
There is no ranting about revolution in Chapter V. Here he’s assembled a few public record statistics (banks, oil, rails, electricity) and shows, to my satisfaction and based on my own experience of it today, that when it comes to corporate imperialism, he knew what he was talking about.
So, you have read one chapter in one pamphlet that Lenin wrote and you now know that he really knew his imperialism? I hope this doesn’t violate the rules of this forum, but that is asinine.
There is no possible debate on this subject in which you can engage. Simply put you are uninformed on this subject, your interpretation of Lenin’s thought is incorrect. I and others who are familiar with the subject at hand have tried to explain to you why you have no idea what you’re talking about, and you have ignored everything said about it.
It seems to me you are not looking to debate, you’re only looking to have someone come in and say what a clever observation you have made. In that case you should have opened this thread in MPSIMS or IMHO.
Even Lenin didn’t believe his own BS, in the preface of this pamphlet, which you admittedly have not read, he writes:
“It is painful, in these days of liberty, to re-read the passages of the pamphlet which have been distorted, cramped, compressed in an iron vice on account of the censor. That the period of imperialism is the eve of the socialist revolution; that social-chauvinism (socialism in words, chauvinism in deeds) is the utter betrayal of socialism, complete desertion to the side of the bourgeoisie; that this split in the working-class movement is bound up with the objective conditions of imperialism, etc.—on these matters I had to speak in a “slavish” tongue, and I must refer the reader who is interested in the subject to the articles I wrote abroad in 1914-17, a new edition of which is soon to appear. In order to show the reader, in a guise acceptable to the censors, how shamelessly untruthful the capitalists and the social-chauvinists who have deserted to their side (and whom Kautsky opposes so inconsistently) are on the question of annexations; in order to show how shamelessly they screen the annexations of their capitalists, I was forced to quote as an example—Japan! The careful reader will easily substitute Russia for Japan, and Finland, Poland, Courland, the Ukraine, Khiva, Bokhara, Estonia or other regions peopled by non-Great Russians, for Korea.”
In other words, don’t read this pamphlet if you want to know what Lenin thinks, he wasn’t writing what he thought, only what he thought he could get away with saying.
Gee, I wonder what he might have said in 1916 about govt involvement in corporate imperialism w/o the threat of censorship? Do you know?
While he may, as he states, have regretted having to have condensed things a bit (thank God he had some brevity imposed on his prolix) he did, however in the last sentence (which you failed to quote) recommend his work to the reader.
I concur.
Hope you’re stlll hanging in there. Before I get specific, please tell me about the “IT” you got.
IOW, what the fuck am I talking about, in a 100 words or less, IYHO? If we happen to be talking about the same “IT”, I have a plan. 
YES! In fact I do, and so would you if you’d read more than one chapter in this one pamphlet!
Start here:
The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899)
What Is to Be Done? (1902)
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (1904)
Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Social Revolution (1905)
Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1909)
The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914)
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916)
The State and Revolution (1917)
The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky
“Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)
Don’t get me wrong, I consider all these to be crap as well, but at least they flesh out his thoughts and will give you better context.
Good job! I suggest some harmless diversion. Knitting?
Seems you’re not interested in serious discussion. We’re done.
if you equate “IT” with Global Corporate Kleptocracy and you realize that corporate controlled govt regulation here merely sets the legal ground rules for corporate engagement around the world, continue reading, or not.
- Education.
Useful education needs to be global in scope but it must begin here in the good old USA where there is still some chance that turning out a million Americans on the White House lawn peacefully protesting our govt’s subversion to the Corporate Kleptocracy could actually put a dent “IT”'s day. Or just a million avg Joes walking out of work for a week. There’s that [del]“S”[/del] word, again.
If you want to know why it must begin here, take a look at Greece. Unhappy with Goldman Sachs’ unabashed rape of their country, the activists swing a few clubs, get shot down and Hey, business as usual.
But HTF do “we” educate and whom?
I started with myself but what about Joe 6pac?. How do you reach the unreachable?
He’s your avg jerk, can’t afford to take a day off from work, is happy with good prices on things he doesn’t need and vainly hopes for peace if the price is within reason. Raise your hands.
It’s really a populist thing. Just putting some stick about (here)! I love Ian Richardson.
It’s not his fault - the yellow beams of social crime blind him with the audible capitalist anarchy monopoles.
So if the masses are unreachable, because overall they’re tolerably satisfied with their lot in life (full bellies [extra extra full, really], 270 channels on cable, all the internet porn they can eat, and so on), then what?
And how is there a corporate kleptocracy if the oligarchs already own everything worth stealing?
Marx predicted that the proletariat would be increasingly immiserated as the capitalists appropriated more and more excess value, until they literally had nothing to lose by revolution. Except the Joe Sixpacks and Jane Punchclocks of 2010 America live in decent houses, have tons of cheap food, clean water, and so on. They aren’t starving and shivering wretches, in fact they’re fat and distracted. It’s all very Brave New World, not 1984. So just because you can imagine how much better off everyone would be without the Oligarchs, there’s no hope for change because change requires the masses to be enraged. Except the Oligarchs aren’t interested in making the masses miserable and enraged, in fact the opposite.
So there you go. Marx was wrong, the masses aren’t being ground into the dirt, and so we’ll continue to muddle along.
First, Adhay says ‘See, Lenin was right! He’s a genius’
Then, posters show (abundantly) how Lenin was wrong.
Then, Adhay says ‘Forget about the entire rest of his works. Lenin was right about monopolies!’
Posters show how Lenin was wrong about monopolies.
Adhay sticks his fingers in his ears and insists he’s right and we just don’t understand.
Very amusing.
Nothing like a sense of humor, I say, but please don’t Capitalize adhay.
The “tolerably satisfied” are those with heads above water at this moment in “IT”'s glorious history. The Oligarchs step on heads and appear to walk on water in our eyes. George Washington and GW Bush say so.
Stipulated.
Stipulated. I prefer BNW to 1984 myself. However, I fear it’s a meaningless distinction.
Nonetheless, all the fruits of plans of mice and men seem to end up in corporate pockets. Or is this just me?
… with heads three feet up each others asses until we wake up to the machinations of “IT”.
Thanks Lemur866 for a thoughtful perspective.
Let’s be quite clear. Your assertion that people who disagree with you (such as myself) think that “whatever their imperfections, monopolies produce cheaper/better consumer goods while paying a fair share of taxes to the state”, is what we like to call a strawman. Nobody thinks that. We think that 1) monoplies haven’t actually taken over yet, and 2) even if they have, monopoly-controlled industries would work better than when the government controls all the industries - and gosh, guess what, history shows us to be right about that! Communism doesn’t work. Actually to be precise true communism doesn’t even seem to be achievable in colonies larger than a few thousand, and you get oppressive totalitarian dictatorships instead, which is just wonderful.
As for your railing about the corruption and ineffectiveness of our current overly capitalistic american society, there are two ways to take it - either you’re presenting it as being negative in comparison to an alternative system, or you’re you’re just raliing against it for the sake of complaining. All the evidence is that you’re doing the former - the unnamed dude who wrote the pamphlet in question had an idea for an alternate system in mind. In fact, that alternate plan colors the writings themselves. And that alternate plan doesn’t work.
So when you ask “How’s that been working out for you?”, my flat answer is “Better than communism. Especially better than Leninistic communism.” Seriously, there is no better way to make capitalism look good than to cite communism’s arguments against it, because we know exactly where those arguments lead.
Also, what does your username mean? I see it and think “pig latin for ‘had’.”
No…FWIW, you aren’t the only one out there that thinks this way. Tragically, there are plenty more where you came from, and many of them have been thinking this way for a lot longer than you have, since seemingly you only recently stumbled onto Lenin.
Probably why our standard of living is so low, with folks barely above starvation level. It’s a shame that there just aren’t any good centrally planned and controlled economies left in the world worth mentioning, to be sure. But when the Oligarchs get together, what’s a peasant or worker to do…
Oh, you know, IT isn’t so bad depending on which part you are associated with. Personally, it’s put bread on my table and clothes on my kids backs, plus a bit extra that I managed to sneak past my corporate masters. Of course, it depends on which parts of IT you are in…
Er, what?
-XT