Friday, October 26, 2018

Richard Wolff takes on Jordan B. Peterson

Richard Wolff is clearly very angry here, but he is very articulate. Would the 'mighty ' and big mouthed Jordan Peterson have the guts to take up Richard Wolff 's challenge for a debate. I doubt it, because he has too much to lose as his rhetoric is built on hot air,  do it's easy to disassemble Jordan Peterson 's arguments.

What annoys me, is that Jordan Peterson says his position is not political, as if he is stating some universal truth, but his arguments are clearly old fashioned right wing rhetoric. Nothing new here.

For instance, he comes up with a load of nonsense about how men should be men and woman should be women, and he runs Jungian psychology therapy groups for men to discover their true manhood. But Jungian therapy is proven rubbish and is not very affective. Jung 's insight might be interesting, but his therapy is bad.

I can remember the Buddhists near me running mens retreats where only men were allowed so they could talk about men's issues, they said, and I used to think, how boring, I like having the women around. So, I never went on one of these retreats, I stayed behind instead and chatted up the lovely Buddhist women that they had abandoned. I was in tune with my manly nature, or instinct, it seemed, as I knew where I preferred to be.


Prof. Wolff responds to Jordan Peterson's assertions about Marxism.




15 comments:

Bob Roddis said...

This Wolff clown is the dumbest of the dumbest. Of course Marxism and government central planning of the economy lead to death camps. For those of you (all of you?) who can't read long books with no pictures, "The Road to Serfdom" was also published as a short comic book. What happens if you don't agree with "the plan"? How do you know that the guy in charge of "the plan" isn't a sociopath?

https://fee.org/articles/the-essence-of-the-road-to-serfdom-in-cartoons/

Socialists have already slaughtered 100 million people. Let's do it again!

Quiz: What does "Ingsoc" refer to?

Kaivey said...

Hmmm, but capitalism has created millions of serfs in the US and all over the world. A pure capitalist system is no more natural to mankind than a pure socialist one.

Kaivey said...

I've just had a quick look and the book was clearly written for children, not adults.

This is what gets me about libertarians, they actually believe that getting rid of government will get rid of the psychopathic dictators, but books, like Road to Serfdom, were designed to talk ordinary people into giving up their hard fought for democracy, so the elites can rule without restraint again. In other words, they can rule as they always did, while the rest of us become serfs. So, the Road too Serfdom is actually a con. A swiz.

What the elite have done, is to capture the government, but the professional middle classes, who run the middle government, can still give them problems, like trying to impose environmental regulatons. And professionals, like Ellen Brown, expose their banking systems as scams. So, the elite would still like to banish the government, which is why they fund libertarian groups.

A truly democratic government is what the elite fear most. Then they will have no power.

Bob Roddis said...

The libertarian (Rothbard, Hayek Mises) detailed analysis of history shows that the alleged problems of "capitalism" are problems caused by government intervention, not strict enforcement of rules against the initiation of violence. Rigorous prohibition of the initiation of violence would make slavery and serfdom impossible. Calling interventionism "capitalism" is fraudulent.

Magpie said...

Violence, violence, violence!

Bob, I thought it was a chief libertarian tenet that peaceful, civilised dialogue should replace the initiation of violence.

Why is that being denied to Wolff or, for that matter, this blog? Isn't it violence when you vociferously disrupt, barking like a mad dog, otherwise peaceful proceedings? Since when is slander a part of civilised dialogue?

----------

But, never mind that, Bob. I don't want to put pressure on you.

Let's go to what you like and you like pictures, Bob, yes? Well, here's some pictures you should see. They aren't cartoons or part of an inevitable prophecy that never materialised, like The Road to Serfdom. They are photos, taken by real people from real people. That's how otherwise civilised men, free-marketeers like yourself, exported real-existing capitalism (not the fantasy kooko-land version that only exists in your "mind") to Africa:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/blog/11297

I can produce an endless succession of photos like those, Bob, so one doesn't have to tax one's imagination.

----------

It doesn't take too much imagination to figure how a sociopath or psychopath looks like, Bob. We can tell.

This guy was one:

https://www.google.com/search?q=william+edward+hickman+photo

You know who was in love with him? This other socio- psychopath:

https://www.thoughtco.com/ayn-rand-sociopath-who-admired-serial-killer-3975225

----------

If one pays attention and is observant (and people sometimes aren't), it's not that hard to tell when someone is violent, unhinged, disrespectful, intolerant, fond of lies.

So, either you go back to your medications or you keep the leash firmly in place, for here is the profile of someone who doesn't seem entirely sane (not necessarily criminally insane... yet).

https://www.blogger.com/profile/17263804608074597937

Magpie said...

Incidentally, Bob, I had completely forgotten that you also like figures of the "pulled out of one's ass" variety. Apologies for that. Here's a conservative compilation of my own I produced a while ago:

https://aussiemagpie.blogspot.com/2013/08/mark-harrison-and-whig-history.html

Enjoy.

Bob Roddis said...

Magpie:

It was Warren "Hut Tax" Mosler who celebrated violence-backed government money inflicted upon the poor Africans. Are you going to deny that?

And I posted the King Leopold horror pictures eight years ago on my Flickr page. None of that has anything to do with "capitalism" and you sure can't pin that violence on me or the Rothbardians.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_roddis/5066625414/in/dateposted-public/

Bob Roddis said...

The main dispute Rothbardians have with Rand is that Rand and most of her followers were and are ardent Zionists. Rand was actually a Russian Jewish woman named Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum who chose a pen named that sounds like a Nordic man. As staunch supporters of Israel and, perhaps for other reasons, they fail to support the private property rights of people that they do not think are "rational" or modern, like the Palestinians. There are no excuses for land theft from libertarians.

Rothbard mocked Rand and her supporters endlessly and I know of no strong supporters in the libertarian movement.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/murray-n-rothbard/understanding-ayn-randianism/

Magpie said...

Now you are really scaring me, Bob. Please, please, for the love of God, tell me you are actually joking:

t was Warren "Hut Tax" Mosler who celebrated violence-backed government money inflicted upon the poor Africans. Are you going to deny that?

I mean, really? Like, seriously? As in Warren I of Belgium?

----------

I suppose this may be too subtle a distinction, but there is a difference between reality and fantasy, Bob. Good night and don't forget your medication.

Bob Roddis said...

I just dreamed this. It can't be true, right:

The following is not merely a theoretical concept. It’s exactly what happened in Africa in the 1800’s, when the British established colonies there to grow crops. The British offered jobs to the local population, but none of them were interested in earning British coins. So the British placed a “hut tax” on all of their dwellings, payable only in British coins. Suddenly, the area was “monetized,” as everyone now needed British coins, and the local population started offering things for sale, as well as their labor, to get the needed coins. The British could then hire them and pay them in British coins to work the fields and grow their crops.

https://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf

Magpie said...

Are you for real, Bob? Do you really intend to defend your delusion of "King Warren I of Belgium"?

----------

But let's have it your way, Bob.

I pay taxes. I don't particularly enjoy it, but I pay. If I didn't, the Government could garnish my wages, or could force me to pay from my meager savings. They would probably add a fine. Failing to pay, I could go bankrupt. Although in over 50 years of life, I haven't seen this happen, ever, I suppose people could go to jail. Maybe even I.

I'll suppose you, too, Bob, pay taxes (you do, yes?).

Now tell me honestly, Bob, when you pay taxes, do you feel the same pain those people felt when they had their hands/forearms chopped off? You can imagine those people felt pain, can you not?

Is paying taxes as crippling to you as losing their hands was crippling to them? Again, I ask that of you and of those who are reading, because, frankly, I can't feel it that way.

----------

I am asking you to place yourself in their shoes. Either that or show us the stumps where your hands used to be.

There's a difference between your Humpty Dumpty definition of "violence" and what violence actually means in the real world, Bob. For some reason, you seem unwilling or incapable of appreciating that.

----------

Let me explain the point of this exercise. You claim any taxes, like the Hut tax, are as "violence-backed" as those Leopold II imposed in the Congo. Thus, "King Warren I of Belgium".

You would like us to believe we all are in the same situation as those wretches. Well, you can't force me to claim that and I am pretty sure most everybody reading this would agree with me. So, if we are not in that situation, this leaves you as the only claimant to victimhood.

It is you the one who claims to be in the exact same position as those people murdered and mutilated in Congo.

I say you are either deluding yourself or trying to bullshit us.

That, too, is violence. You are doing violence to truth, to reason, to decency, and to intelligence.

Moreover, you demonstrate a troubling lack of empathy. Must I explain what that suggests?

Magpie said...

Somehow, I was reminded of Croc Dundee: "You call that a knoife, this is a knoife". :-)

Kaivey said...

In a libertarian society, who will pay to clean the streets? The poor will say they have no money, and lots of other people who have money will say they also have no money. Other people will say that they don't have the money right now and to see them later. The cost will fall on a few who will probably refuse to pay if lots of other people won't pay. Did Hayek ever think about this?

Greg said...

Bob

How can a society have... “strict enforcement of rules against the initiation of violence”... without a strong govt.?


I suppose all these hard working freedom loving libertarians would all just call off work for the day to form a posse and take care of whoever was violating their sacred rules.

Cooper said...

Bob, if you ever listened to Richard Wolff, you’d know he’s never advocated for a planned economy. He makes the case that workers’ cooperatives are the engine that could transform the society, i.e. democracy in the workplace.

He does however often make the mistake or assuming taxes fund government spending.