Is Marxism the opiate of the intellectuals?

disgusting

You can pretend it's not the truth but even bourgeoise intellectuals that don't actually want to change the system are generally at least somewhat versed in marxism. Anything else is just intellectually lazy.

I have no problem with that, but to imply all critiques of capitalism need Marxism is silly and steeped in its own dogmatism.

>You can't critique capitalism without stepping in some kind of marxist tradition

Sure you can, and non-Marxist socialists do that all the time.

There's a reason mixed economy welfare capitalism is the predominant political system in Europe, and it's not because of Marxist Communists.

>There's a reason mixed economy welfare capitalism is the predominant political system in Europe
Top fucking kek, I didn't know sanders posted on Veeky Forums.

Do you realize that Marx and Engels were co-founders of the workers rights movement? The shift towards "moderate", mass-party socialism took a few decades to really take place. Without the communists (at the time the word wasn't as charged as it is now) there would be no welfare-capitalism, at least not in the same form.

I'm just stating facts. It's got nothing to do with that SocDem Jew.

In America yes but in Europe a good portion of the mixed economy systems were started and inspired by the Third Reich.

Marxism is the opiate of the envious.

To anyone without ressentiment, it's pretty disgusting.

Well, not all critiques but if you want to fundamentally question the system. I'm not saying you have to literally quote Marx but he did the first and probably most comprehensive critique of capitalism in history, it's really hard to not re-iterate at least some of his concepts. Not to mention that ever leftist intellectual of the last 200 years has been influenced by Marx in some way.

>started and inspired by the Third Reich.

*Otto Von Bismarck and Imperial Germany, who in turn was inspired by the worker's movement that went on strikes and used welfare as a form of political appeasement to gain power

What? The nazis basically just copied certain concepts from the SPD and merged them in some kind of faux-socialism. It's true that the nazis started certain policies which we still use today, but without the communists, the nazis wouldn't have used any "socialist" policies.

>Americans

Living on welfare in Europe is living in poverty, the meagre pittance you receive is taxed straight back off you, meanwhile Italy and Finland are near total bankruptcy trying to support their public sector and pensions.

Reminder to everyone to source arguments.

>Living on welfare in Europe is living in poverty

Well, that's a completely different discussion isn't it?

I live in Northern-Europe, and our welfare is usually around 1000 Euros every 2 weeks, which is more than enough to survive on, depending of course on what kind of standard of living you had before you went on welfare.

You also have 25%+ youth unemployment and a 15% of your country's GDP is from a shadow economy.

But you did it Reddit :^).

Yeah, and 130% of USA's GDP is debt owned by China.

What the fuck is your point?

It's not because free trade or capitalism supports individual rights that it's good, it's the opposite : it's because there are individuals that free trade is necessary.

Indeed, I cannot ask for protectionism, as if everyone were to do so, there would be nothing left to protect from trade, since there would be no trade anymore, as everyone is preventing it via protectionist measures. Hence, only free markets are alright ; and it just so happens that free trade is the best economical system.

muh NAP

...

"Free" trade in the real world has never existed and is just a synonym for rich countries strong-arming poor countries, ask some third world countries about how "free" they are to trade. (Not that trade regulations will necessarily change that)

You can't oppose that principle : you cannot legitimately wish to hurt someone else without contradicting yourself, as, wanting yourself to be happy, you cannot abide by one rule, and yet deny that same rule for others. Therefore, no one can do violence to another, otherwise the maxim upon which that violence is done is contradictory both the other maxims you abide by, and in itself.

>You can't oppose that principle

I can and I do, all the time. Aggression is useful to stop people from causing harm in the world, regardless of whether that harm is someone committing murder and you defending yourself, or if it is a multi-national corporation literally polluting a river.

I never claimed we have perfect free trade in the West. We do not. And, free trade doesn't strong-arm poor countries ; everyone is better off because of it. It increases the live qualities of those in poor countries, like Mexico who go an increase of over 400% investments since NATFA, which translates to job for families who se earnings translate to their well-being, even if they earn slave-wages.

It's not the same : those people themselves break the rule, and therefore act in a contradictory fashion. It is only legitimate to act upon the same rule they are as to show them the ultimate conclusion of their contradictory behavior. Since they themselves wished they lived in violence, they surrender any and all right they had to not receive it proportionally to the amount that they wished they could use.

I wouldn't call Mexico a third world country, have you looked at some the trade deals with african countries? We just export the crap we don't want and in return provide some loans and raid their natural resources. Free trade has for example completely decimated the african clothing industry.

Yeah but you see, polluting a river isn't considered violence under the NAP, and neither is charging 50000 dollars for a cast because you broke your leg, hence the NAP is inefficient at fixing social problems of that kind.

Yes, third world countries often benefit from advantages in trade agreements per the WTO, and it creates a lot of exports towards them. But that means a lesser price for the exported goods, and it could mean a creation of jobs otherwise not available to them.

This is the perfect answer.

It's a bit lazy since that applies to any poltical ideology that isn't entirely focussed on pragmatism.

Never said I was an idiot like Ayn Rand. And charging 50000 for a cast (under the American system), is a form of violence, since the medical industry benefits from privileges and protectionism, which artificially increases the price of their services. The market is often the most efficient solution, and it is too in that case.

> and it could mean a creation of jobs otherwise not available to them.

But jobs are destroyed because their local economy can't keep up with the globalized market and the economies of scale. Also, a lot of times the imported goods are luxury goods which just go to the local upper class which gains their wealth by exploiting the rest.

>which artificially increases the price of their services

Nice evasion, but the point is that anyone could charge that price in a completely free market as well.

>muh trickle down economy
Let the 3rd world countries feast on the leftover crumbles from the bread you just made with their resources and still feel like you're morally superior.

No, not anyone could just charge what they wanted, because free markets allow for innovation and competition. If you ask for a price that is not at the equilibrium, you'll be out of business, because your competitors will to have a higher part of the market. You have an incentive as a business to make profits. Asking high prices or unreasonable prices won't make you profits. Therefore, if you do such practices, you'll lose money, so you won't.

Yes, but you were talking about textile goods, whose production is dirt cheap for anyone but third world countries. That the wealthy in third world countries gained their wealth through illegitimate means is another subject.

>You have an incentive as a business to make profits. Asking high prices or unreasonable prices won't make you profits.

Forming a cartel with backroom-deals which aren't regulated and then asking unreasonable prices because people don't have a choice will give you even bigger profits.

Trickle down economy is a meme which no economist supports. Literally, no economist. Free trade =/= trickle down economy. You seem to assume that wealth is a zero sum game, but it's not ; you can create wealth. Everyone gets richer under free trade. You can't deny that. Anyone today is richer than a serf in 12th century France.

Also, most statistics on the wealth of poor people in third countries are not complete, because they do not take into account the value of their land, house, etc. because they don't own it (because of unjust laws), even though they have owned it for generations, and work it as if they owned it.

Exactly this, the final stage of an uregulated capitalist market is monopolies.

Thread should have ended here.

Ah I see.

So why can't poor inner-city kids go to Harvard then, if your thesis is correct?

This isn't free trade and should be harshly punished. I literally said that was part of the reason the medical industry was bad.

>Yes, but you were talking about textile goods, whose production is dirt cheap for anyone but third world countries.

How does that change my point that jobs are lost because they can't keep up? And third world countries can't keep with anything that isn't down to manual slave labour or natural resources.

Communism takes it to an extreme though in that it doesn't just want different laws; communism wants an utter upheaval of the fabric of society and really of human nature itself, in the transformation of which is salvation from the hell of capitalism that they use as a proxy for their own unhappiness.

Because they are poor and the State doesn't fund universities (or funds them in a wrong way). I don't see the problem with this. Community college exists just for that reason. You literally prove my point. You go to Harvard because they have ''prestige'' (which is akin to monopolistic competition) and because employers often act irrationally based on that prestige. It's not because the education at Harvard is better than at your community college. Quantum physics remain the same everywhere you go.

>Everyone gets richer under free trade. You can't deny that.
Yes I agree, but I also think using that as a justification of the current economical system is extermely black and white. The distribution of wealth and rescources in the world is extermely skewed even if everyone is better off.

Civilazation has been around for like what, 3000 years? Capitalism has been around 300 years. We managed to get by without capitalism just fine for 2700 years. I don't buy buy the argument that a non-capitalist society (doesn't necessarily have to be communist) goes against inherent human nature.

But then you agree with me that prices can be irrationally inflated, based on no legitimate economic reason at all, so a bone cast can actually cost 50000 dollars under specifically irrational circumstances.

It's still a social problem that can't be fixed by adhering to the NAP.

>It's not because the education at Harvard is better than at your community college.
You don't think private universities that have way more rescources than a state driven community college can offer a better educational program?

They don't lose jobs since the jobs are re-localized in these third world countries (comparative advantages). What they lose is their industry, since it isn't as efficient as the industries of the richer countries. What this means is not loss of jobs, but job creation, more often than not. Manual labor makes these country richer. That's why I cited Mexico as an example, because it's literally what happened. They got the manufacture jobs from North America, but lost part of their service industry and agricultural industry. The result? More investment for them, more jobs, and wealth creation overall. Even if you're an African country, you get richer from free trade, even if at a slower rate.

Wealth gets created because people have incentives to create it ; if you redistribute too much to fix the inequality, wealth won't be created as much, as you'll reduce the incentive, which means there won't be wealth creation anymore, and even fewer people will get rich, those who already have the money. Having tax rates above a certain threshold (30%ish) will have negative impact on the price of goods, which gets felt by the poor more than the rich (since the poor use most of their money), and prevents them from getting richer. It's a self-defeating maxim.

Some people act irrationally, but overall, the average act rationally, even if each individuals has some biases, which might explain why some industries succeed while others fail. Yeah. But you can't force people to believe what you want them to believe, so there's not much you can do outside of pointing it out.

Also, I never claimed the NAP could solve problems. It doesn't. It's a maxim by which we must act if we wish to be moral.

Actually, I don't, no. The reason is that the subject is the same. The periodic tables of elements doesn't change based on where you study. If anything, community college might be somewhat better because there are less students in classes, which means you get to spend more time with the professors. Also, don't forget most professors at Harvard might have begun teaching in a community college or still are.

>It's a maxim by which we must act if we wish to be moral.

Yeah but it is designed to create a just society, e.g a society that actually solves problems, and there's a monumental amount of problems that cannot be solved by adhering to it.

I mean, just take for example the tragedy of the commons, which is a classic example of where something like the NAP would just fall on it's knees flat, because it would be in every individuals interest to allow their animals to graze on a field, even in the face of the fact that if everyone does the same, there would be no field left to graze on.

It's completely shallow to suggest this current system is anywhere near the ideal when we have an extreme overproduction based on the consumer market we have in the west while there are people in other parts of the world that can't even get enough resources to survive.

Besides, most of the resources these universities have are spent on research and not the students, unlike community colleges who have an incentive to spend it on the students to compete with their private counter-parts.

Yeah, the tragedy of the common requires State involved, and I don't see how it goes against the NAP. The tragedy of the common (as a consequence of absolute unregulated trade) is the result of a contradictory maxim which needs to be fixed so that it doesn't end in a contradiction.

Also, being just, simply means that you are just. It isn't supposed to provide any solution. If a solution, albeit good in its consequences, is unjust it mustn't be adopted. Like Kant pointed out, being moral doesn't mean being happy in the slightest.

You are operating from the maxim that creating wealth is inherently good, which I (and modern marxism) don't agree with. We are creating so much wealth which is unneeded and just polluting the planet and in creation of that wealth a large percentage of the population is being exploited in unfullfilling labour.

Tyrannical governments don't invalidate free trade. Also, what overproduction? A free market doesn't waste resources, because it means wasted profits ; the production is consumed. Outside of protectionism, I don't see any overproduction problems (like supply management in Canada/US)

Do you realize that like half of the food of industrialzed countries is being wasted? We just throw away half of the shit we buy even though it still works. The planet is literally being filled with waste. That's not to due protectionism, that's inherent to capitalism.

ust look at the projected changes in our whole ecosystem to see that overproduction is one of the worlds biggest problems.

zerowasteeurope.eu/2014/04/and-the-best-waste-performing-country-in-europe-is-estonia/

One! fucking person in an industrialzed country produces half a ton of waste a year. If you don't think that's insane I don't know what is.

theguardian.com/global-development/2013/dec/14/toxic-ewaste-illegal-dumping-developing-countries

Another article just on waste from electronics.

Wealth is by definition good (in the sense that it makes people happy or at least gives people pleasure), not that it's morally worth anything.

Wealth =/= money. Money is a proxy by which we measure wealth, it is not wealth. You are wealthy if you have a family which brings you happiness, perhaps even wealthier than someone who has millions upon millions of dollar, but no family. It's just that you can't calculate the happiness generated from having a family. There's no way you can oppose wealth creation.

Moreover, the market creates new solutions to problems, which help people have better lives. You have countless drugs to cure you if need be, something which you didn't have 200 years ago, where if you go sick it was pretty much good luck.

Also, what exploitation? Free trade doesn't exploit people, tyrants do, and most third world countries live under one.

The agricultural industry upon which the food industry is mainly based is one of the most protected industry in the west. The WTO has a whole section of exceptions just for agricultural goods which allow you to violate basic free trade principles. The reason you see agricultural goods being dumped is because of supply management, not free trade.

Uh, the production of wealth in an economic sense means the production of material goods. I realize it's not the same as money but your idea about wealth being about happiness is ridiculous in a discussion about econimics.

I consider being poor when the wealth exists but isn't fairly distributed exploitation.

opiate of the pseud more like
sounds smart enough that you can use it to outmaneuver most plebs but it's simple enough that the 110-120 IQ BA of Arts class can understand it
t. member of this class and Political Economy student

These seem like State-funded recycling programs, which would explain why they aren't efficient, as there's no incentive to uphold them and there's no competition on the subject. I'm all for a carbon tax, and the like, to promote the internalization of the costs of productions and for the advancement of innovative business practices based on less waste, but you can't just force them to be green through the State.

Also, the article from the guardian literally talks about illegal and unjust practices.

To add, the production of weapons and military equipment is generating wealth. Do you think they make people happy?

What's to stop all the business from colluding?

Yes? How is that even a question, do you realize how many jobs are dependent on that manufacturing.

No reliable economist will say wealth is just material goods. Wealth is what you subjectively desire. People desire love, care, etc. These are forms of wealth. Friedman literally talks about a marriage market, and love seems far away as a material good as I can think of.

The reason wealth is measured by money, is because, like Posner says, it's just the easier way.

Also, why is wealth not distributed fairly under free trade? People work for who they want, people are free to set-up their businesses, etc. It's only normal they get the benefits from their production.

Absolutely, Marxist-Dialectics = $cientology-tier voodoo

The State and its duty to render justice. Just like what stops a murderer from killing you.

Well, I don't see the problem of producing arms, as long as it is to support justice, and not unjust regimes like Saudi Arabia. If arms are used justly, then they only hurt those who deserve it, and it creates happiness, yes. I'd rather my police officer be armed, than not.

Marxism has evolved beyond the point where it can be connected with orthodox Marxism-Leninism, it just denotes a tradition. Modern thinkers fundamentally reject key doctrines like historical materialism. Hell, this isn't a new development, it started as soon as the bearded duo got popular. Is a reform socialist a Marxist?

no. just no.

>Is a reform socialist a Marxist?

Well, they are if they don't reject historical materialism and it's method.

But reform socialists are clearly more interested in harnessing the power of capitalism for their own ends, just like everyone else it seems to me.

"Wealth" is a purely unscientific word that means pretty much noting beyond what you want to impute into it and should be avoided as much as possible. When most "economists" today talk about "wealth creation" they are simply referring to inflation of stock and real-estate prices to redistribute spending power towards the holder of these assets.

Also the pharmaceutical industry is a gigantic scam, most drugs being developed are just to cure diseases which are purely the result of modern living conditions which wouldn't be a issue if people just lived and ate healthier. Also billions of dollars are being waste towards false hopes trying to find cures to stuff like cancer which is fundamentally impossible... we know what causes a lot of this cancer but people won't change their lifestyles.

The whole notion that keeping people alive indefinitely is a good thing means in the not so distant future we may be forced to have gigantic buildings filled with unconscious zombie like corpses being keep alive on machines.

I guess if you naively believe in Says law (i.e. if supply creates its own demand, there is no problem of insufficient effective demand and overproduction) overproduction isn't possible... but this just shows you have a naive grasp of the importance of effective demand, credit, prices, and investments. You seriously need to study heterodox business cycle theories if you want to see were you're getting things wrong. Veblens business cycle theory in "The Theory of Business Enterprise" shows how the continued decline of profit margins which is embedded in real world economies has to result in a lower capitalization leading to general liquidation and a financial disaster.

unilibrary.com/ebooks/Veblen, Thorstein - The Theory of Business Enterprise.pdf

When you have a private for profit weapons industry which capitalizes off of warfare it's going to be in their interests to promote conflict. Notions like "justice" are cute but they don't maximize return on investment for share-holders.

Try reading "The political economy of U.S. militarism" by Ismael Hossein-zadeh if you want to see how fucked up this whole industry is:

kritisches-netzwerk.de/sites/default/files/Ismael Hossein-zadeh, The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism, Palgrave-Macmillan 2006, 303 pages_32.pdf

It's not because a term is unscientific, that it doesn't refer to a reality. I didn't say anything contrary to what you stated. Wealth is measured with things we can actually measure, like GDP, and not with things that are difficult to measure (or impossible), like feelings of fulfillment, and the likes.

And on the pharmaceutical industry, it's not all a scam, but, yes, some part of it is ; because, again it's not free trade. It's protectionism and lobbys at their finest. They re-arrange the laws to suit them, especially intellectual property related laws. The point though, is that honest competition and innovation creates solutions to medical issues. There's no denying we have better drugs now than 200 years ago, where you could be prescribed opium to cure all sort of mental illnesses.

Moreover, if people live unhealthy lifestyles, what's wrong with that? They made their choices and feel the consequences of those choices on their bodies ; they allow for a market to solve their problems, which creates jobs and wealth. What's wrong? If people want to research a cure for cancer, what's wrong? They can invest their money where they desire. And I don't see why a cure couldn't be something possible, although I'm not versed in medicine.

Life is a good thing, and if retirement homes need to be created, again, it means a new market and new business opportunities. I, again, don't see what's wrong.

Yes, I ''believe'' in Says law (it's not a matter of belief, it's scientifically true) ; but this doesn't exclude that other variables might change things, I don't deny that ; but, in the same way, from an ideal point of view, Says law is absolutely true. Overproduction shouldn't happen. And financial disasters are necessary for an economy to stay healthy, like Schumpeter pointed out : because it shuts down those who are already well-established, it levels the playing field, and allow for those who can bring innovations to compete fairly. If you prevent those, you prevent the possibility of long-term free trade. That's why you shouldn't bail out corporations, even if the shareholders really want you to. Otherwise, you stagnate your economy, and prevent the benefits of free trade from being truly seen.

Yes, but you can't truly know what people will do with weapons. You can't prevent their production because some part of the military would want to use them unfairly. You can't know if they would want to universalize a contradictory maxim or not. They are innocent until proven guilty. Besides, I'm not an advocate for US militarism ; I'm opposed to it, it's disasters after disasters, but you can't decide the future guilt of someone based on his past actions, only his past guilt.

>Also, why is wealth not distributed fairly under free trade? People work for who they want, people are free to set-up their businesses, etc. It's only normal they get the benefits from their production.

The distribution of "wealth" today is largely just the result of capitalization off of [intellectual and physical] property titles not actual production. Production and work really has very little to do with "wealth" distribution in practice. Marx and most of the classical economists [Smith, Ricardo] didn't really bother to analyse "wealth" distribution much because they were interested in the process of industrial production and profit/wages instead of rentier incomes which they thougth would probably be legislated out of existence in the future [obviously that didn't happen because of the global Anglo-American ruling class].

Interestingly St. Simon in 1821 [in his Du système industriel] outlined an industrial system that was to be based mainly on equity financing (i.e. stocks) rather than debt (i.e. bonds and bank loans). The idea was to make industrial banking a kind of mutual fund, so that claims for payment (e.g. the value of savings) would rise and fall to reflect the economy's actual earning power.

The forms of industrial banking that developed in Germany and central Europe in the late 19th century differed from the short-term parasitic Anglo-American collateral-based trade credit and mortgage lending system... but ever since World War I global financial practices have been more extractive than productive and based upon the degenerate Anglo-American model of parasitism.

Rent-seeking is not encouraged in most countries. In Canada, despite it's overtly bad economic polices, rent-seeking corporations are penalized for their attitudes with higher taxes (which are paid back to the corporations if they enact dividends or produce wealth).

Rent-seeking is not an immoral behavior, but should not be encouraged since it is by nature parasitic ; it should be penalized, though not outlawed, through taxes, because such behavior is based upon abusing the law (a State service).

Also, I don't get the problem with loans. It allows people with little to no actual wealth, to create some wealth even though they started with nothing. Few people would have houses weren't it for banks, as few people could afford them without mortgages. Mortgages are a service, and aren't rent-seeking. If you're a bank you deal with risk, you need to invest your money into people or corporations that actively produce things, otherwise you won't get your investment back. It's not, at least in principle, parasitic. Certainly, certain banks abuse their powers and seek rent, but it doesn't mean the practice of loans is bad. Also, loaning isn't mutually exclusive with setting up mutual funds.

And you haven't said why such redistribution under free trade is unfair (i.e. immoral).

It looks like you have been sucked in to much by the public relations industry. It's always important to remember what it means to maximize share-holder value in actual concrete practice. You have no idea what extent business strategy can go to unless you study how real world corporate sabotage works and how business manufacturer demand for their products. If you want to maintain a happy naive liberal outlook on how the world works don't bother.

Also Says law only makes sense in a barter economy, it has absolutely no basis in a monetary/credit economy. In the real world firms have actual budget constraints which Says law doesn't take into account... when business enterprises face financing constraints, the scale of output that a firm can achieve is limited by its internal sources of finance combined with the quantity and terms of its external sources. The link between the former and the latter is the assessed value of the firm's collateral. The firm's history of profitability and reinvestment, the assessed value of which is summarized as the value of the firm's collateral, thus enters into the determination of its financial capacity, which facilitates and limits what it can undertake in terms of production.

what a plebian understanding of morality. Just because a conclusion is unintuitive to your leftist mind, it is 'shitty'? Sad!

Then tell me, show me where you think I'm wrong on shareholders. I am mostly a Kantian classic liberal, and you might say I'm naive, but, as I said, I'm talking from an ideal point of view. Economic models work, I don't see how anyone could deny that, it's mathematically correct.

People commit crimes and do wrong things, I agree. Individuals commit murder or rape. Corporations and shareholders can also have dubious practices. But, that's why the State renders justice. If the State doesn't do its most essential job, then obviously things won't work out.

I don't see how Says law only works in a barter economy, as anything can be used for a proxy of value (money). The model works perfectly fine. If you've done mathematics, you know I'm not wrong, look up Walras laws. I even believe Mill said something close to it. It shows that budget constraints mean the values of excess ive demand must sum to zero.

Canada's whole [non]economy is based upon rentier incomes and natural resources. Canada isn't even an independent nation state it's a total joke controlled by the globalists in The Business Council on National Issues which is a shadow government composed of an executive committee of 150 top CEOs - for managing the common affairs of Canada's corporate elite. Justin [a.k.a. neoliberalism with a human face] Treadu is fully subservient to the same interests who controlled the Harper regime e.g. the C.D. Howe Institute, the Fraser Institute, and the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. The second the housing bubble implodes Canada the whole house of cards will come crumbling down.

To a firm loan-capital is more vunerable than risk-capital because interest payments from past investments may lead a firm into bankruptcy. A state bail-out is always the last resort for loan-capital. Nationalization of an undertakening transforms the stakeholders into creditors entitled to a fixed rate of interest. Control is taken from shareholders and given to another entity however the capital costs will remain. The two-fold character of labour causes the general contridiction of capitalism but a crisis of overproduction brings out the contridicton between loan-capital (money existing outside the production process) and industrial capital (directly involved in the production process).

Harper had different economic policies from Trudeau, but both are equally as bad. If you think Canada is not indepenent, and controlled by globalist, why do we have a tax rate (combined) of over 50% from the richest? Why do we penalize rent-seeking? Certainly, some loobies are influencial, but we are still independent. And Justin Trudeau is no where near liberalism. If he was, he'd lower the tax rates, destroy the supply management system, remove tax credits and certain welfare programs, deregulate many markets (we couldn't, until recently, sell ugly vegetables), etc. Trudeau is not a liberal.

The causes of financial crises isn't free trade, it's unregulated speculation not based on the reality of production.

Free trade has been around since the dawn of civilization.

>Then tell me, show me where you think I'm wrong on shareholders. I am mostly a Kantian classic liberal, and you might say I'm naive, but, as I said, I'm talking from an ideal point of view. Economic models work, I don't see how anyone could deny that, it's mathematically correct.

Anything which is mathematically consistent is obviously going to be empirically incorrect since trying to graft fictitious math laws onto the real production process, which develops according to its own dialectical laws. The rate of real technological development and or when nature gives you a crop failures don't care for your mathematical interest claims on profit.

The economy is a nonlinear process and isn't mathematically modellable.

Trudeau is just servicing a different sector of the elite... when you're deficit financing someone is capturing those private gains. Harper was a failure in every goal he set out... no pipelines were built, Trudeau is the only one who can get this done... that's why Bay Street put their confidence in him.

This- marxists are pseudointellectual edgy teens with degrees in unemployment who want to use the state to steal from other people. Of course, the inherent failures of any socialist system eventually happen, as they eventually run out of stuff to steal.

It's shoplifters: the political ideology

There's no ''dialectical'' magic. Dialectics don't have real predictive power, don't explain anything concretely and aren't falsifiable. It's clearly non-scientific. Mathematics allow for all of the above when used in economics. They explain why minimum wages are bad, they can show why the price is what it is and why it is not otherwise, they can predict (albeit ''fuzzily'') the rise or fall of interest rates. It's not because there are a lot of variables, that model don't work. They approximate the truth and in that, they do an amazing job.

Trudeau, like Harper is an empty leader. He has no sound economic policies, no real cultural policies, doesn't care for diplomacy, etc. He just takes photos. And the people elected him, not Bay Street. Bay street didn't come knocking on my door for my vote. People voted for Trudeau because he looks good and Harper was ''mean''. Simple as that.