TFT snippet #5

Good day, sorry if there are mistakes, first post after years reading the forum.

I think runsforcelery may be using the Taiping rebellion in the 19th century as templete for the rebellion in Harchong. It is thought to be the deadliest war before WWII, btw. 20 and 50 million people died in the 13 years it took the Chinese Imperial government to crush the rebellion.


One unrelated question: I really enjoyed At the Sign of Triumph. I have always wondered whether RFC took as base the American Civil War with breech-loading and more developed metallurgical technologies, or WWI without the internal combustion engine, (given the end of the war in Safehold, I lean towards WWI). In any case, a really well thought and enthralling book and technological grounding.

Randomiser wrote:

Randomiser wrote:Northern oil trees - Oh dear. Upwards of 15,000 men caught in this narrow roadbed with an impenetrable forest fire raging around them. Ouch! One feels sympathy for the poor soldiers.

Winter Glory is just the embodiment of "fat and happy".

As a simple security measure, the ammunition for all those rifles will have been sent with a different convoy, won't it?

<snip>

runsforcelery wrote:Just as matter of curiosity, if the rifles are being sent to mate up with a field force which has no rifles yet (and thus no ammo for the nonexistent rifles it doesn't have) why wouldn't a peacetime convoy with a powerful escort be used to send the needed ammo to the same force at the same time? Be kinda pointless to issue them all those nice, short, clumsy spears without any ammunition to shoot out of the spear shaft, wouldn't it?

1) I was reminding readers that you would have ensured an ammunition supply for the serfs

2) I was encouraging reflection on how complacent the government was in assuming that it was peacetime and their convoy was perfectly safe. (Sporadic uprisings have been popping up for quite a while)

3) I was anticipating the response of many of the Aristocracy in blaming the ministers (Aristos who would, of course, have done exactly the same thing themselves)

4) I was indulging in a bit of Shadenfreude (What does it say about a culture that it has such a word in its language, anyway?)

In other words, I was mostly having fun, but from North Wind Blowing's POV your comments are perfectly reasonable and business as usual.

Oops.

Was really tired and completely missed the irony! Well, that, and I'd just spent the day fending off some really . . . less than stellar comments in an email from an irate reader who just knew he had a better grasp of my characters' internal logic than I do. I guess that sorta just splashed onto the way I read your post.

Sigh.

"A quibble. Capitalism controlled by Kleptocratic Oligarchs will be comparable to socialism."

It will actually be the complete opposite of Socialism.

Socialism grew from the workers fight to get away from Klepto-Oligarchs.

But as a typical American you conflate Socialism with Comminism. But you have taken it even further.

You are conflating it with the Klepto-Oligarchs in Russia and China who left actual Communism behind decades ago.

But at a more fundamental level.

Capitalism is an economic system.

Socialism is a socio-political system.


You were actually almost right in your quibble.

Capitalism controlled by Kleptocratic Oligarchs will be comparable to socialism controlled by Kleptocratic Oligarchs.
Because of the Klepto-Oligarchs. Because once they take control, the -ism doesn't matter. It's just a system for them to abuse to control the wealth and masses.

Socialism is a socio political system that enshrines the legal structures enabling public ownership of wealth. Not complete public ownership of communism, but limited public ownership in all the current flavors of socialism. Like most Americans, I understand what that means. Democratic Socialism is the limited public ownership of wealth described by confiscatory taxes limiting the return owners have to use to increase their wealth. If the government taxes income generated by assets sufficiently, the "owner" has limited use of those assets which impinges on what the owner can do with those returns. That's what I said in my post.

That sort of limitation on free markets and voluntary exchange is what I was discussing.

Annachie wrote:"A quibble. Capitalism controlled by Kleptocratic Oligarchs will be comparable to socialism."

It will actually be the complete opposite of Socialism.

Socialism grew from the workers fight to get away from Klepto-Oligarchs.

But as a typical American you conflate Socialism with Comminism. But you have taken it even further.

You are conflating it with the Klepto-Oligarchs in Russia and China who left actual Communism behind decades ago.

But at a more fundamental level.

Capitalism is an economic system.

Socialism is a socio-political system.


You were actually almost right in your quibble.

Capitalism controlled by Kleptocratic Oligarchs will be comparable to socialism controlled by Kleptocratic Oligarchs.
Because of the Klepto-Oligarchs. Because once they take control, the -ism doesn't matter. It's just a system for them to abuse to control the wealth and masses.

There's no 'limited' in the public ownership under socialism.
There's also no mandatory or complete either. (Which is the biggy under actual communism. The people MUST own. Actually, the biggie under the Lenninist form is that the people must own via their agency, the state. Which is a perversion of the communism of Marx imo. But I digress)
So it looks like you don't know what that means.
You are argueing from the "Greed is good" school of economic management and unable to see the problems associated.

Here's a hint. The wrongness of "Greed is good' is one of the foundation points to the Safehold series.
The wrongness of "Fuck society, I got mine", a central theme.
The very points that you are advocating Peter.

Annachie wrote:There's no 'limited' in the public ownership under socialism.
There's also no mandatory or complete either. (Which is the biggy under actual communism. The people MUST own. Actually, the biggie under the Lenninist form is that the people must own via their agency, the state. Which is a perversion of the communism of Marx imo. But I digress)
So it looks like you don't know what that means.
You are argueing from the "Greed is good" school of economic management and unable to see the problems associated.

Here's a hint. The wrongness of "Greed is good' is one of the foundation points to the Safehold series.
The wrongness of "Fuck society, I got mine", a central theme.
The very points that you are advocating Peter.

Please. The people own wealth, but they don't control it in communism and socialism. Government controls the wealth. That's my point, the difference between oligarchs and government controling wealth is non existent; a small cadre of folks controls the wealth. Argue defintions all you want, the effective reality is the same.

Your arguing over irrelevant defintions is th socialists version of asking how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. Socialism is vastly more inefficient than a free market operating on voluntary exchange. That's the primary point of this conversation. Please add to the conversation rather than simply venting your spleen.

PeterZ wrote:
Please. The people own wealth, but they don't control it in communism and socialism. Government controls the wealth. That's my point, the difference between oligarchs and government controling wealth is non existent; a small cadre of folks controls the wealth. Argue defintions all you want, the effective reality is the same.

Your arguing over irrelevant defintions is th socialists version of asking how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. Socialism is vastly more inefficient than a free market operating on voluntary exchange. That's the primary point of this conversation. Please add to the conversation rather than simply venting your spleen.

The government controling wealth is not Socialism. It is Oligarchy.

Free market operations is neither socialist, nor anti-socialist.

Btw, the USA is currently not a totally free market economy. Never has been, never will be. There's no such beast.

We're not discusing irrelevent definitions, except in so far as you don't actually seem to know them.

Which was my original point.

Which is why I think you're wrong about Harchong.

Annachie wrote:

PeterZ wrote:
Please. The people own wealth, but they don't control it in communism and socialism. Government controls the wealth. That's my point, the difference between oligarchs and government controling wealth is non existent; a small cadre of folks controls the wealth. Argue defintions all you want, the effective reality is the same.

Your arguing over irrelevant defintions is th socialists version of asking how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. Socialism is vastly more inefficient than a free market operating on voluntary exchange. That's the primary point of this conversation. Please add to the conversation rather than simply venting your spleen.

The government controling wealth is not Socialism. It is Oligarchy.

Free market operations is neither socialist, nor anti-socialist.

Btw, the USA is currently not a totally free market economy. Never has been, never will be. There's no such beast.

We're not discusing irrelevent definitions, except in so far as you don't actually seem to know them.

Which was my original point.

Which is why I think you're wrong about Harchong.

How is voluntary association and voluntary exchange an exercise in greed? How is relying on privately owned wealth to create more goods and services for the benefit of all an exercise in I got mine F you?
How does your assertions tie to my erroneous estimate of what is going on in Harchong? My comments about Harchong do not require either socialism or capitalism. My comments revolve around free markets and voluntary exchange. You got into irrelevant definitions of socialism. Those comments really don't contribute to this discussion. Neither do my responses, so I'll quit.

PS. Marion-Webster definition
Definition of socialism

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

It appears that word doesn't mean what you think it does.

PeterZ wrote:How is voluntary association and voluntary exchange an exercise in greed? How is relying on privately owned wealth to create more goods and services for the benefit of all an exercise in I got mine F you?

Because capitalism are not aimed toward benefit of all. Its aimed for getting maximum profit from "voluntary exchange". And by definition, capitalism are both ineffective and inequal. Ineffective - because when a lot of private owners compete for customers interest in similar kind of goods, it automatically lead to overproduction and waste of resources. And overproduction, if could not be vented externally, led to eventual crisis.

Inequal - because capitalism could not exist in a situation of equality. It required cheap resources and open markets, otherwise the profit would be lost. The current situation - when the minority of the "first world" consumed the majority of resources while leaving the majority of planet population in dire need - is a clear demonstration, how "well" capitalism worked in global therms.

For example, a lot of goods consumed by First World are produced in Third World because the population here are very poor and workforce are wery cheap. What would happens if those nations decided to improve the quality of their peoples lives? The cost of their production would rise (because if the owners wanted to have their own share of profit the same, and the workers wanted to be paid more, the cost would inevitably rise)

And when the cost for First World customers would rise, what would said customers do? Start to buy at higher prices thus helping to balance inequality by decreasing their own wealth, so, say, african workers could have a decent lives?

No. They would find another provider (who did not worry about needs of his workers) or start a local production (because if import prices became higher, there are no reasons to import at all). Or they stage a coup and force the original provider to abandon his pro-worker policy. Thus the inequality is self-supporting in capitalism.

In short - the free market is all about profit, NOT about helping to solve inequality. Any "solution to inequality" could be implemented only as long as they are profitable. Under no condition the rich capitalistic nation would limit its peoples wealth to help the other peoples without any profit.