don’t think Batman makes Nolan any less prestigious.

I don’t either, but the critics that love art house movies prob do.

The reception of it appears to be, but prob only because Coppola is seen as more prestigious by critics because he never made a batman movie.

and she’s definitely not touching herself for any other reason.

How dare you, the ancients weren’t tainted with the same levels of sexual proclivities found in modern society. They weren’t just grooming those boys because they just wanted to fuck them, they were engaging in pedagogy, not pedophilia! It’s why all my twink TA’s are underclassmen, someone must teach the youth. - every male art history teacher

The professional reviews are hilariously mixed, I’m pretty sure Coppola unwittingly made a movie that also serves as a litmus test to see how pretentious and up your own ass you are.

The honest reviews are basically, this made no sense, I don’t know what he was thinking. The positive reviews can be boiled down to “if you have to ask, you’re not sophisticated enough to understand”.

Right now Brent Crude is just 71.28. Oil prices are going down.

Yes, and as soon as it gets cold oil the price of oil will rise once again. It’s not like countries are divesting from fossil fuels any time soon.

Additionally Russia does not have the technical ability to fix all of the refineries that Ukraine has been blowing up nor do they have the ability to fix all of the upstream production problems being created.

Russia isn’t a technologically deprived nation, and they have one of the largest oil producing and refining operations in the world. They may not be able to repair the damages with imported parts as they would have 5 years ago, but refining tech isn’t exactly a new science, or particularly complicated.

Productions of raw products is dropping fast](https://ycharts.com/indicators/russia_crude_oil_production)and those declines are going to both continue and accelerate.

If you examine that chart for the year it seems bad, but if you just click on the scale of 5 years, it’s pretty much just average. The important thing to look at is exports, which have been rapidly increasing.

O&G is not going to be propping up Russia’s economy for much longer.

I think that’s a bit optimistic given that the West is hesitant to actually enforce the embargo, and are equally hesitant to divest from the fossil fuel sector.

We just don’t have the spine to actually give an ultimatum of “you can do business with the US, or you can do business with Russia” to countries like India or China. That would be putting the interest of the nation and democracy in general, before the interest of private profit.

The Russian economy cannot handle the strain of the war, and they can’t keep the economy up by being at war.

Unfortunately, the collapse is very slow. Their national wealth fund is currently their bread basket, and that is maintained by their energy exports. With the price of oil being so high, they should be able to sustain their current economy for a couple years at least. There will be shortages, especially in areas where they were reliant on imports.

However, from what I’ve read, oil would have to drop to around $60 a barrel to spur an economic collapse swift and bad enough to make the war unsustainable. That or the EU and US would actually have to militaristically enforce the energy embargo.

Yeah… It kinda seems like he planned to amputate his penis before hand and was utilizing the shrooms as a diy analgesic.

I don’t have any history of psychosis, but I have been dosed with too many shrooms before. In my experience, getting from under my blanket of fortitude would have required more mental acumen than what the mushrooms permitted.

I don’t think I could have thought to apply a tourniquet, or remember to put my dismembered penis in a jar of ice unless I had prepped everything before the stuff kicked in.

It’s insane how many Russians have volunteered to die for a few thousand dollars, for the past year. But allegedly it’s getting way harder to get volunteers for the Russian military.

This is mainly a byproduct of transitioning to a war time economy. Before the mobilization they had a fairly large labour glut, now that they’ve geared to war time production they’re having labor shortages.

The detrimental aspect to this transition is that they’re going to have to rely on conscripts for their soldiers as they were already experiencing a really harsh population decline.

The most dangerous part of this whole war won’t come for Russia until the war ends, regardless of victory or defeat. Their population decline coupled with the retooling of their domestic economy isn’t something that can be undone without major consequences. So they’re either going to have to continue the war footing to maintain their economy, or face an economic collapse similar in scope to the USSR.

Lol, not everything is a logical fallacy…

If I had made the original assertion and then moved my position on the matter… That’s moving the goal post.

When someone disagrees with the underlying premise of your assertion, it’s just a rebuttal.

In 2023, Sarkozy’s attempt to appeal the decision was denied and he has been banned from holding public office for three years and but will still have the option of serving his sentence from home with an electronic bracelet.[182]

A slap on the wrist ten years after you’ve retired isn’t going to persuade anyone not to do crime for a bunch of money and power.

My dude, nothing in that blog supports your claim.

First of all, it’s talking about the metallurgy of the 16th century and after, which is after Japan had imported blast furnaces. Secondly, it ignores the amount of labour needed to actually produce refined steel from iron sands, which ultimately dictates the quality of the finished product.

This isnt a debatable topic, any steel made from iron sands before modern electromagnetic sorting contains a large amount of impurities when compared to steel made from rock ore.

Even during WW2 the Japanese had a hard time producing high quality steel even with the use of blast furnaces, because the iron sands contains a large amount of titanium.

This blog which falls over itself trying to engage in revisionist history, can only claim that the quality was “perfectly fine”…not good.

That’s not true, no matter how many times you make that unsupported claim.

You are conflating the elemental molecule of iron with the finished product of an alloy of carbonized iron aka as steel.

Yes, there isn’t a molecular difference between the iron found in sand vs the iron found in rock ore. However, the medium in which you harvest your iron and how you’re able to heat that iron, dictates the quality not your final product.

Lol, my dude. No one is claiming that modern japanese steel is of poor quality.

Im speaking of the time period contemporary with the accusation. You know, how arguments typically work…

Do you think the guns Japanese Samurai used were made from steel refined from sand?

Just pointing out this one because it’s funny. Yes, a lot of the early firearms made in Japan were still made from iron sand (Satetsu). Which was the main source of iron in Japan until the 16th century.

The framing of this question is important. Are we evaluating effectiveness? Loyalty to Marxism itself? Simply looking for points of divergence? I’ll assume you are more interested in the benefits of SOEs, and whether or not they are loyal to the Marxist idea of Socialism, you can correct me if I’m wrong on that.

I would say it’s important to evaluate all of these points as a whole. I think evaluating certain aspects of a system under a microscope without equating how it’s supposed to function tends to divert attention from the purpose of the hierarchical system to begin with.

The fact that SOEs are profit driven does not mean that they are guided by Bourgeois interests.

I don’t know if it means they’re automatically guided by bourgeois interest, but I would also hesitate to claim that just next it’s an SOE it’s immune from creating class stratification. My fear is that an increase of wealth disparity is an indication of a new mode of class stratification.

Assuming the CPC is in fact a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (and we must do so for this argument to not spiral into endless discussions again, we can absolutely revisit this as its own argument if you wish), then this is an example of a Proletarian managed market economy, which is different from Social Democracy where the State acts in the interest of the Bourgeoisie.

Not that I want to spiral into endless discussion again , but I think framing the argument where we must assume a dictatorship of the proletariat has occurred isn’t a logically sound way to question the effectiveness of any hierarchical system.

You are correctly identifying that there is a contradiction at play. The benefits of the market economy are in rapidly developing the productive forces and educating the working masses in how to manage and run production. This is where Historical Materialism comes in, the CPC can’t beam information into everyone’s brains and mind control them. Instead, market forces result in syndicates and monopolization of Capital, which is dominated and manipulated by the CPC. As the markets develop themselves, they increasingly make themselves easier to directly manage and operate from above. Imagine a million competing factories in earlier Capitalism, and compare it to the era of monopoly Capitalism where a dozen companies practice their own planning, then imagine there is an entity pulling the strings, letting them grow, then seizing them in proportion to their growth.

I understand the benefit of a centralized economy, my main fear is that systems of hierarchical control are self reinforcing. Hierarchical systems stabilize over time as you utilize them for their intended purpose. If we take a look at the purpose of a profit driven SOE, it’s still to create capital. Now that capital is being controlled by the state, but simply putting that under a stricter hierarchy doesn’t mean that the system is going to change its inherent purpose.

If we assume that the CCP continue to nationalize private organizations until 100% of the production value is being controlled by the state, does that mean the purpose of the hierarchical system is going to change? There will still be people attempting to reinforce the hierarchal system they have been judged upon their entire careers. People have risen to places of power by reinforcing the system of profit, and they will try to protect the system that they excelled at.

I’m not an anarchist or anything and don’t agree with a lot of his hot takes, however if you’re interested Murray Bookchin’s analysis on hierarchy is pretty impressive.

I try to treat those who treat me with respect with respect in kind.

An unfortunate rarity now a days. Thanks for keeping it classy.

According to whom?

The reason why Japanese iron is inferior is because of the source of the iron itself, they utilized iron sand instead of rock ore. Rock ore can be made up to 90% ferrous material while the iron sand contains as little as 2%.

This means when you smelt your source material into blooms of iron and slag, the blooms made from sand iron were much smaller. Instead of utilizing a single bloom to make a sword, the Japanese had to work several blooms together. Which is much more labour intensive, and can lead to a lot of imperfections in the final product.

This is why katanas were made out of so little material, and had to be handled with care. They were much more fragile pieces than similar swords made in Korea and China at the time.

Plus, the Japanese developed their iron working much later than their mainland contemporaries, as they never independently invented furnace technology. The technology for furnaces was imported, most likely from the Korean peninsula.

Fair enough, however I would like to point out that my responses have been direct responses prompted by questions and statements originated by you and the person you were originally responding to.

But I agree that we may benefit from narrowing our topic to a more specific field of discussion. I would be interested in knowing how you feel a profit driven SOE is inherently different from a private company.

In my opinion so long as the company’s structural hierarchy and it’s inherent purpose remains the same or similar, there’s not really going to be a meaningful difference in how the workers are treated. For example, don’t really see how the workers have seized any more of the means of production than a worker for a company that offers stock options.

There’s still just as much opportunity and motivation for exploiting workers. There’s still an inherent profit motive that spurs the worst aspects of capitalism. Even if we propose that there could be less destructive competition due to the states monopoly of production, the fact that these SOE are publicly traded still means there’s a competition of capital acquisition. These SOE still have to make sure they invest a significant amount of their excess production value back into the organization to ensure their stock increases in value next year.

Thank you for your time, it’s pleasant knowing you can still get into the nitty and gritty with someone you don’t 100% see eye to eye with, and not have it break down to name calling. Cheers.

Additionally, disparity rising is perfectly in line with state ownership increasing, the private sector has rising disparity and the overall wealth is increasing.

So you’re saying state ownership is a response to increased disparity, yet the increase of state ownership hasn’t been effective at controlling the disparity.

Thanks for linking, though it does reference Adrian Zenz, a fascist that claims to be sent from God to punish China. No, I am not exaggerating.

An ad hominem? I see this response a lot about anything having to do with the uyghur population. Even if some of the information referenced was gathered by a fascist, that doesn’t mean the information itself is flawed.

The haber process was invented by a literal Nazi and we still utilize it to produce nitrogen. Whatever his motivations, the information he gathered has all been verified by reputable journalists to originate from internal part communications or publicly released information.

Imperialism for Marxists is specifically referring to the process of Financial and Industrial Capital being exported to other countries for hyper-exploitation for super-profits.

You don’t speak for all Marxist, and Marxist don’t get to redefine terminology to exclude themselves from valid criticism. Even if everyone accepted this definition of imperialism… What do you call it when you violently expand your territorial holdings with ethno national intent?

What do we call it when they transfer entire nationalities to places like Kazakhstan to extract the wealth to support the Slavic population? It’s a complete cop out to think that redefining a term to muddy the waters is meaningful despite the end results being tragically similar.

Workers do have protections, much better than Americans in many instances.

Source?

The private sector disparity is rising as happens with Capital accumulation. It also isn’t at “breakneck speeds,” you’re going to have to describe what that entails.

The share of China’s national income earned by the top 10% of the population has increased from 27% in 1978 to 41% in 2015, nearing the U.S.’s 45% and surpassing France’s 32%.

Similarly, the wealth share of the top 10% of the population reached 67%, close to the U.S.’s 72% and higher than France’s 50%.

Finally, the bourgeoisie in China exists purely alongside private development, you can read Xi and Deng’s statements. Foreign Capital was brought in to rapidly industrialize, which has factually happened.

Then why is wealth disparity still growing? If SOE have nationalized the majority of production, how is the disparity continue to grow?

Well, it’s because SOE are still profit driven… A nationalized business that still has profit motive isnt inherently different from private organization, especially considering that most of these SOE still have a significant amount of shares being publicly traded.

How is creating wealth for the state and share holders different from creating wealth for a capitalist and share holders for a workers perspective. There still an inherent motivation to maximize profits at the expense of their own workers.

Large safety nets, large public infrastructure projects, rapidly improving real purchasing power, there’s even workplace democracy. Simply saying “it seems as though xyz” and gesturing isn’t an argument.

Simply stating there are “Large safety nets, large public infrastructure projects, rapidly improving real purchasing power,” isn’t an argument. Especially considering there’s widely available reports of workplaces ignoring these guilines without retort. On top of that nearly a third of their workforce lacks the protections outlines by the state as they are migrant workers who dont work full time for a single employer.

As far as real estate purchasing power… I think we both know the extent of their issues within the real estate market.

I don’t really have any criticisms about the majority of their large infrastructure projects, that’s an area I think theyre ahead of the rest of the world, however id hardly say that’s a byproduct of “workers owning the means of production”. I’d say that’s more a byproduct of a more centralized government .

Real wages are rising. Additionally, what on Earth is a management “class?”

Yes, real wages are rising. But is that a product of industrialization or socialism? Every nation that industrializes sees a rise in wages, that’s not inherent to workers seizing the means of production. What’s strange is that real wages and disparity are rising in eerily similar patterns as western nations.

what on Earth is a management “class?”

Are you being purposely obtuse, or just can’t make the leap in deduction? What do you call a class of people whos job is to represent capitalist in the actual workplace? People whom don’t participate in ownership, but work on behalf of the owners to maximize their profits at the behest of the capitalist?

Just because people don’t utilize the same internalized diction accepted in your particular political ideology, doesn’t mean the information isn’t valid. That’s just asking for discourse based purely on semantic reasoning.

statement was that Marx was not a hypocrite for befriending Engels, a factory owner, not that they had different views.

Right, but you you said it in reference to class reductionism… Which doesn’t really make sense as there wasn’t an established stratified class consciousness at the time.

I honestly don’t have a problem with Communism, I think Marx was brilliant and dialectical materialism is probably one of the most important ideas of the millennium. Im just not as optimistic about the contemporary implementations of it, and I think it’s important to point out the internal contradictions of past and current states for future attempts.

I constantly see people talking about the importance of addressing internal contradictions, however when anyone points out something like rising disparity or soe having profit motive, I tend to just get knee jerk reactions that are usually based in logical fallacy.

I think you and most Marxist who reflexively defend the contemporary CCP from valid criticism would benefit from a different perspective from someone once very engaged in the party. This isn’t a liberal perspective but someone who is upset at the liberalization of the modern CCP.

From Victory To Defeat: China’s Socialist Road and Capitalist Reversal

by Pao-yu Ching

My point was that his assertion that Marx didn’t judge Engles for being a capitalist isn’t really meaningful as they didn’t ideologically conflict at the time. There wasn’t an ideological divide between a capitalist and workers, as workers hadn’t developed a stratified class consciousness.

The PRC has been increasing state ownership over time and is restructuring the economy. It can’t just push a button and wipe the entire private sector away overnight. I would like to see sources of forced labor though.

I would like to see sources claiming state ownership has meaningfully increased over time, as the increased disparity in wealth seems counter intuitive to that claim.

Source for forced labor in China.

I’d like clarification on what you mean by Imperialist tactics and wanting every country to be Russia, that stands directly in contrast to the stated ideology of the USSR and appears to be fairly ahistorical.

Ahh, so examine internal contradictions…but don’t actually call them contradictions.

It depends on what era and region you are talking about. Stalin was a supporter of communism in one country, as opposed to Mao who urged each country to adopt communism with characteristics unique to each culture.

A large part of the split between Trotsky and Stalin occured over how to handle the CCP during the Japanese invasion. Stalin wanted to make a deal with the KMT and later turn on them, Trotsky wanted to aid the budding CCP in their fight against imperialism.

When talking about the spread in eastern Europe, the Soviets implemented programs to replace languages and culture.

In Korea the Soviets disappeared the socialist leader of Korea who was paramount in fighting off the Japanese, because he wanted control of the country to be transferred back to Koreans and for unification to begin ASAP. He was replaced by the Kim family, who they had trained in Russia.

Or we could just take a look at how the Soviets treated the non Slavic people withing the USSR. Whom are overwhelmingly more impoverished and have historically had the wealth of their land extracted to support the Slavic population. As well as being drafted for wars at a tremendously higher rate than their Slavic counterparts.

Do you have some numbers we can follow with respect to the claims of Imperialism?

What numbers do you speak of that magically determine how imperialist a nation is?

This is false, more of production is owned by the state now than it was previously. There is steady progress towards more collective ownership, without disentangling from the global market.

Source?

said disparity is increasing, yes. However, the state has full ownership of 17 of the 20 largest companies, and 70% of the largest 200. Banking, railways, mining, energy, and more are near totally controlled by the CPC.

Soo if the state “owns” the majority of the businesses, yet wealth disparity is growing at breakneck speeds, and the workers still don’t have the same protections as some place as dystopic as America… What does that say? Something isn’t adding up here.

Either the government is purposely creating a bourgeois class on purpose… Or the meaning of ownership is inherently different than what you are implying.

There is a bourgeois class, yes, and this will need to be confronted, but they do not hold more power than the CPC.

You could make the same argument about American bourgeois.

It can’t be a leap, the next mode of production emerges from the previous. We see this with the CPC gradually increasing ownership of various sectors.

And what has that ownership meant for the people who “own the means of production”? What influence does the average worker in China have that surpasses the level of influence of a worker in Detroit? It seems that ownership just enriches the bourgeois with ties to the government now.

Sure, that’s the direct lesson the USSR taught the CPC with its collapse. The world depends on China for production and thus can’t openly attack it.

Which is just another barrier lifted that you say precludes them from actually transitioning to a socialized economy.

It has coupled with an increase in worker ownership, like I said the CPC has been steadily increasing state ownership, especially in the last decade or so.

Is that worker really worker ownership…? One would think that you may increase your own working conditions or pay if you collectively owned the factory you worked at.

How exactly do the workers own the productivity when theres still a management class that capitalizes on the work you produce at the factory you “own”?

Engels was a literal Capitalist. Ideologically he was a Communist, yes, but Engels was a literal factory owner and businessman.

Right… But my point was there’s not an ideological difference between Marx and Engles as you implied in your statement.