Philosophical Vegan Forum

Charles Darwin
British naturalist famous for establishing his theory of evolution that all species evolved from a common ancestor.

Charles Darwin had sympathies with communism, he made this known when Karl Marx sent him a copy of Capital and Darwin wrote back thanking him with the words "I believe that we both earnestly desire the extension of knowledge".

Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence
Two prominent British advocates for women's suffrage. They were arrested and imprisoned in 1912 for conspiracy following demonstrations that involved breaking windows, even though they had disagreed with that form of action. They were later ousted from the WSPU due to their opposition to violent forms of protest. Frederick Pethick-Lawrence was a member of the Labour party, and was, for a brief period in time, the Leader of the Opposition.

W.E.B. Du Bois
African-American historian and civil rights activist who founded the NAACP. Throughout his life, he championed socialist causes and blamed capitalism as the primary cause of racism.

Albert Einstein
German-American Theoretical physicist best known for his theory of relativity.

"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate (the) grave evils (of capitalism), namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society."

Helen Keller
American author who was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree. She was a member of the American Socialist Party and the IWW who campaigned for women's suffrage, labour rights, socialism and antimilitarism.

Alexander Oparin
Brilliant Soviet biochemist who developed the theory of the origin of life from carbon-based molecules in primordial soup. He became the "Hero of Socialist Labour" in 1969, and was awarded the "Lenin Prize" in 1969. His views on the origin of life as "a flow, an exchange, a dialectical unity" fit Marxism greatly.

Nye Bevan
British Labour Party politician famous for the founding of the NHS, a socialist institution designed to provide medical care free at point-of-need to all Britons.

Nelson Mandela
South African Anti-Apartheid revolutionary who was greatly influenced by Marxism and joined the banned SACP and also attended many communist rallies.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
African-American Baptist minister who fought for civil rights in the 1960's-era segregated United States. He spoke out many times against capitalism and for democratic socialism.

"Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system."

"And one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy."

"This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor"

"You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism. There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.

Many opponents of MLK also put up billboards purporting to show him at a communist training camp, but the authenticity of them ought to be taken with a grain of salt.

Yuri Gagarin
Soviet cosmonaut and the first man in space. Upon returning to earth, he was considered a communist hero of the Soviet Union, and said "Circling the earth in the orbital spaceship I marvelled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world!! Let us safeguard and enhance this beauty-not destroy it." He recognized how capitalism was destroying the planet with its exploitation of the working class and there was a need for world socialism. The fact that the first man in space was a communist shows undeniably the great things socialism has done for the world.

+Lenin

EquALLity wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2017 12:48 pm+Lenin

I didn't take you for a Leninist.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2017 2:09 pm

EquALLity wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2017 12:48 pm+Lenin

I didn't take you for a Leninist.

I'm not a communist, haha. I just like Vladimir Lenin. He overthrew the oppressive czar, got Russia out of WWI, and once he saw that War Communism (communism, used during the Civil War) wasn't working he allowed some capitalist elements in society with the NEP. He wasn't really a communist by the end. He also was against Stalin.

Too bad he died. :/

Henry George. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George

Not really a socialist, but he inspired many socialist reformers. Liked by socialists and libertarians alike. He basically asks the same questions as Marx but answers them far better.

inator wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2017 6:06 am Henry George. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George

What a very reasonable compromise:

Wikipedia wrote:His writings also inspired the economic philosophy known as Georgism, based on the belief that people should own the value they produce themselves, but that the economic value derived from land (including natural resources) should belong equally to all members of society.

And hell yes:

Wikipedia wrote:Henry George is best known for his argument that the economic rent of land (location) should be shared by society. The clearest statement of this view is found in Progress and Poverty: "We must make land common property."[43][44] By taxing land values, society could recapture the value of its common inheritance, raise wages, improve land use, and eliminate the need for taxes on productive activity. George believed it would remove existing incentives toward land speculation and encourage development, as landlords would not suffer tax penalties for any industry or edifice constructed on their land and could not profit by holding valuable sites vacant.[45]

That's the problem with modern property tax; it's ultimately regressive because it keeps the poor from improving their properties and living conditions for fear of being taxed out of home, and discourages development of more dense and affordable housing (adding rooms, income property, etc.) since it's an enormous gamble.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2017 2:14 am That's the problem with modern property tax; it's ultimately regressive because it keeps the poor from improving their properties and living conditions for fear of being taxed out of home, and discourages development of more dense and affordable housing (adding rooms, income property, etc.) since it's an enormous gamble.

Spoken like The Economist in "Why Henry George had a point":
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-value-tax

Most taxes—on profits, value-added or income, say—dampen and distort economic activity by changing incentives on the margins. Property taxes on the value of buildings penalise improvement and are hard to assess.

Also:

Unlike profit, you cannot massage land away or move it to Luxembourg. If you do not pay, it can be seized and sold. Though nobody likes extra taxes, new land-value levies could be matched by cuts in other taxes, especially those paid by poor people.

Rich people tend to own a lot of land, poor people very little. For that reason it wins favour with economists who worry about inequality, such as the Nobel-prize winner Joseph Stiglitz. He argued in a recent paper that land and housing, rather than the distribution of income and productive capital, are the key to a fairer economy. When public investment improves the value of a site—for example by building a new road nearby—the benefit comes back to the community in the form of higher tax receipts, rather than ending up as a windfall in the pockets of the owners. Taxing the unearned income that landowners enjoy should curb the boom and bust cycle in land prices. Environmentalists like it because it limits urban sprawl: better to build upwards than outwards. [...]

A few difficulties of putting it into effect are mentioned:
1. Opposition from the landowning lobby;
2. Some categories of land that would be hit especially hard;
3. The valuation of land may be tricky.

Nothing that can't be mananged by slowly phasing it in, if there's enough political will.

^What does he mean by the public owning the land, but the people privately owning the work on the land? If that's what he saying.

EquALLity wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2017 11:40 am ^What does he mean by the public owning the land, but the people privately owning the work on the land? If that's what he saying.

It means you own the value that you create yourself, but you can't own natural resources like land. You can rent a piece of land from the community, and then own whatever you produce on that land or whatever property you build on it.

If the value of the land increases - for example by someone else building roads and investing in urban development in the region - then you don't get to profit from that value increase that you've contributed nothing to. You'll have to pay higher rent to keep the land. So the extra revenue from development goes to the public fund, not into your pockets. *

If the value of the land goes up, that's also an incentive for you to invest and improve your property, so that it's worth it to pay the high land rent. You won't be able to hold on to the land if you're not putting it to good use.
And if you do invest in your property, you won't be taxed extra for the improvements (property value isn't taxed). So that's a double incentive to improve the property on your land and to use it well.

* Edit: Since all members of the community should benefit from natural resources equally, any surplus public revenue from the land value tax - or other taxes related to natural resources, like a tax on pollution - can be returned to the people through a basic income.

inator wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2017 6:20 am A few difficulties of putting it into effect are mentioned:
1. Opposition from the landowning lobby;
2. Some categories of land that would be hit especially hard;
3. The valuation of land may be tricky.

Like farm land. This could even discourage investment into infrastructure. Let's say I spend a lot of money building raised beds, irrigation systems, and growing perennials... then some asshole builds a road, and my land rent goes up so high I can no longer sustain a business producing food on this land I have invested in. I could lose all of that work and my life's savings. I can't even sell the land and profit off it, because it would all have to be torn down and I don't own the increase in land value.

How can this be solved?