1 Maja - Pochód, Labour Day in Old Poland

I hope there's no more "Pochod 1-Maja" in Poland anymore.

The Left organizing some parades but nearly nobody attend. Generally very few people celebrate this occasion, for majority this is simply a free day. It would be good if this free day would be replaced for some other holiday.

May Day was established by the 2nd Internationale as a commemoration of the massacre of striking workers in Chicago by the police. It was appropriated by Soviet regime who hijacked communist ideas and was nothing more than a brutal dictatorship. Wouldn't it be for the Labor Unions most of us will live in poverty being degraded to the extension of the machine. For the capitalist the average price of labour is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer.

It is a mistake to associate this holiday with, so called, Communist Regimes of the past. It should be a day of unity of working man, a day of unity.

Still spreading this nonsense in XXI century? How many times socialism must collapse and cause miseries?


Socialists are known from causing divisions and antipathy among society. There is no unity of working man, the is no unity of "evil capitalists", this is false and treacherous demagogy which provoke only social tensions.

I think will have to repeat myself: USSR and satellites were not socialist regimes, possibly at the very beginning of the 1917 revolution this was an idea but it quickly degenerated. I should be expected, after all Communism is as close to other religions (Catholicism for one) as one can get, they are corrupted when gain power. That's why well organized religions stay away from governing. Wielding influence from the shadow is equally effective and it does not force pragmatism.

What most remember and base their opinions on is the last years of these regimes when in Poland evolved to cleptocracy.
For examples of socialism one should look at the Scandinavia.

but those are the true ideals of communism. look into marx and lennin.


it seems to me that capitalism isn't fairing much better right now either.


seems to me that the capitalists are the ones staring wars though.


yup. communisms too.

Unity of capitalists is against basic definition of capitalism. Capitalists form ad hoc associations and assumption is that these will be not permanent.
Unity of the working man is indeed idea of any Labour movement as the only levarage of working man. There is no other, the only thing working man brings to the market is his labour, would workers be forced to compete against each other, the price of their labour will drop to the level of subsistence. I assume you live in America, you may observe one of the strongest and best organized union AMA and how well members of this union are doing. You may also choose to fool yourself thinking that possessing some unique and in demand skill will guarantee you high wages. If you are one of the few lucky ones be aware that someone is looking very hard to either eliminate need for your skill, bring replacement, take your job somewhere else, or take need for this skill somewhere else. If you think that being self employed provides you security you are mistaken as well, the above reasons apply as well.

"yup. communisms too."
UN "index of happiness" (or similar name) lists Scandinavian as the countries providing the best standard of life.

is that why they drink so much?.?.?

They did run the country using communist model of economy, this was a disaster. Sure they were not very idealistic however Menshevicks are to large extend responsible for helping them to gain the power. Whether they would be idealist or not, we already know that this does not work and this is everything what we need to know about this ideology.


Please follow them!


This is a myth, avoiding paying taxes is a "national sport" in Sweden, recently we could read about Swedish ministers employing people illegally. M. Moore made a film about health system and praised Norwegian model while our Norwegian member here wrote that we should not trust him. Socialists need such legend thus they make up Scandinavian model. Scandinavian countries became socialist already when they were wealthy and currently they waste their wealth. Simply late technological progress allows them to rule longer but soon they will collapse anyway. One cannot be wealthy forever if he waste its resources only.


Where do you see this capitalism? In euro-socialist Europe or the US which follow their model?


What is so great? Communism was illogical before and always remain illogical.


Wrong, he bring his money.


Competition is a key of technological progress which constantly raise standard of living of average family. Competition cause not only smaller wages but also smaller price of produced goods that all those people need. At the times when the US was a capitalist country Americans owned more cars per capita than people in socialist Europe exactly because cars were cheap.


I live in Poland.


This is simply your obsession.

Indeed, the fault was in application and not in an idea. Here capitalism has great advantage being utterly pragmatic. Communism has a bit in common with religion and religions are not doing well when governing.


I did see that film, it is for a made for uneducated audience. "Sicko" is to shake up people, one can say a propaganda piece not a documentary. It served it purpose. For little I know people in the US spend way more on health than in any other country in the world and have more than one fifth of population uninsured. Half f all bankruptcies are caused by illness related medical bills. When I visited US years ago (in 1970s)I found very poor dental condition in many of the young working in the factories. My mother was teaching at the medical school in Boston (that's why she was here) after some years she passed required licensing exams and started to work as a pediatrician in private clinic, she quit her job in disgust after less than a year and returned to Poland, saying that what they do was criminal. She was a member of AMA at that time.


In the US cars are necessity, after 6PM cities are empty and dangerous, people live in the suburbs. In Europe for many, cars are less needed and more expensive.

Not having anything to do with the topic, but it is sheer idiocy for Poles to have that many cars, requiring great sacrifices to buy, keep, and run. Presently this huge number of cars is causing a great harm to US economy and world environment, and there seem to be no solution to this problem.


I am very glad that some thinking people still do. Hope that you will stay, after all one has some obligations toward his home. Would you be a capitalist in your hart you will move to the place where you will be better paid and it most likely would not be Poland.


It is reality. Manufacturing is not moving to China or not unionized Alabama because of the nice vistas and weather, they find a cheap labor there. Biotechnology research is also moving to China for the last five years, engineering mainly to India. While I am now talking about US (I am not much concerned about their well being), what worries me is the future of Poland. First of all how to stem flight of talent and than to find a niche to assure decent life for the future (similar to the investment in software development Ireland did). Here I think that, while historically justified, hate toward Russia makes little sense today and Poland should serve as a conduit between Russia and EU. Unfortunately politicians thrive on hate. I may be biased here my mother was Russian (grandparents run away in 1921 from revolution), on the other hand my father spent from 1947 to 1954 in the labour camp in Siberia (for belonging to the illegal armed organization sentenced in Kielce to death 1946, than commuted to life, sent to Siberia where Soviet court lowered sentence to 15 years of hard labour without right of correspondence)

lol.. us does not follow any eu models.


actually it's highly logical and based on honesty that's why it didn't work. it takes highly civilized peeps to make it go.. sweden is very close to communism. closer then you obviuosly think it is.


actually he's dead on.


lol. that is absolutely not true in most cities.

Yeah, that's why the population in places such as the 5 boroughs of NYC is about 10 million. The whole remaining 1/2 million commutes. Many by train, such as NJ Path train or Long Island RR.

You have no idead what you're talking about.


If you live in smaller localities (not large cities) that's when you need as many cars as adults in the family because the inter city communication is generally poor, while within large cities it is not so bad.


Sure. Poland was a "conduit" before. Remember "transfer Ruble".
Enough is enough.

Wrong, in communism everything was wrong.


I prefer to call myself an economic liberal. Nobody have mentality of stoke exchange manager at work. While everybody aim is to archive the highest level of satisfaction which is not always linked with money.


This is your obsession because you think about it all the time, however as I wrote earlier competition must be.


Of course they follow, adopt more and more socialistic solution. Someday they will replace NAFTA to NAU like in Europe.


You confuse some things. Pure logical reasoning leads to such conclusion that if something doesn't work it means that this is illogical. Also lack of honesty was not the reason of communist defeat. Communist ideology tells us about collective interests of different social classes, while people in fact don't think in such categories, they are individualistic. Thus they prefer private property over state property. Communist concept of the state is based on complete denial of economy, logic is replaced by demagogy.

Sweden is socialist not communist and I can only repeat that they became socialist already when they were wealthy.

I was there in mid 1970s for the first time I was in Manhattan, I stayed at the hotel somewhere near the Time Sq., not knowing the danger because of the time change I did go for a walk at night. There was absolutely nobody on any of the streets before reaching 42nd and very few people there. Burglar alarms ringing everywhere. Next day I was told not to venture outside at night and I never did. Later I was going to the Lincoln Center several times and every time when I was living about 10PM there were only homeless sleeping on the heat vents and nobody else. This places were bustling and crowded at day time and war zone like at night. This is an impression I have, I haven't been there since, it's possibly changed. It was dangerous in Newark NJ, in Philadelphia even Penn campus was not safe, Washington DC north east, LA Watts, and even San Francisco Tenderloin.

About commuting, it seems that you live in NY, to some extend you have public transportation. But this luxury does not exist in most US cities. And more and more are spending more and more time in their cars. To be able to afford luxury of living in the single family house (sheer idiocy in my opinion) many spend over two hours commuting to work and back.

Unfortunately progress reached Warsaw now and friends are terrified that I am still walking at night.


It only said about common interest of proletariat (with the exclusion of lumpen-proletariat). Marx mentions briefly about common interest of aristocracy, but this class had no real power and he did not considered it to be a real enemy (it is quite interesting that even Soviet rulers were never very aggressive toward aristocracy. They killed some but ignored and let live or leave many). Marx specifically pointed out that there are no permanent associations or interests of bourgeoisie (Lenin - "capitalists will sell us a rope on which we will hang them") .

lol.. u'd feel differently if you had it. i feel quite the opposite; i think it's awesome and i wouldn't want to live any other way.


i'm too tired right now but u're the one confusing things and thus your logic is flawed. you also assume a few things that aren't true. true communism has never actually happened yet, anywhere in the world. i'll leave you to ponder that and maybe you will figure out where you're off. :)

"TheState is the form in which the individuals of a ruling classassert their common interests."
Karl Marx, Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, p 223

You can argue about amount of their common interest according to Marx but he definitely saw such common interest.


Just say that people prefer public property over private property. This is practically closing argument :)

no man, i actually agree with on that last part to most extent. there are people that are very willing to live in a real commune type of environment and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

my point is that your logis skips a step or two. you assume that everything was done correctly (or in accordance with the theory) but that surely doesn't seem the case. lenin did it one way, joe did it another, kruschev tweaked a thing or two.. etc.. sure seem like Putin is actually striving for communism as much as any of his predecessors if not more then they did.

ah and as to sweden, if you'd actually read Marx you would find out that what S is doing is exactly the way to communism.

If you agree then you should also agree that this theory is useless. While those "few" who would agree would really find out whether they like it later.


I never wrote anything like that, experiment with economic model failed thus all theory failed.

no, i don't think it's useless. it's a definitely counterbalance to the crazyness we see right now. commies days will come again.


tht's what you wrote before and you're wrong and so is your logic.. the model failed because the steps weren't folowed.. simple logical science man..

Yeah communism is counterbalance to socialism.


Unfortunately for all of us. Then communism will collapse again and new people like you appear saying that this was not true communism. Endless circle of craziness.


I already proofed earlier that communist theory is illogical, you are just unwilling to accept reality. If you read Marx, read also criticism of Marxism. Von Mises in "Human Action" often pointing out communism nonsenses from logical perspective without emotions.

ok, you may want to look into the definition of logic as you seem to be missing that part too or something.

That's almost 40 years ago :))


It did. People actually walk around 130th street in Manhattan. White people. Wome. With lap dogs, not Rottweilers.


I don't, but I did.
I have lived in the US about 8 years so I don't know "most US cities", I wonder if you do. Among the cities where I lived, NYC, Baltimore, MD, Cincinnati, OH, Buffalo, NY, Jersey City NJ and vicinity. Based on my experience, most US cities do have usable public transportation.


It takes about 20 minutes by train to get from Great Neck, LI to to Manhattan. People in Great Neck certainly can afford a few cars per person in a family.

Commuting from Northern NJ to NYC takes between 10 and 30 minutes (depending on the locality).


My view is somewhat similar, except that communism would have failed even if the steps were followed. One thing communists neglected to consider was that they dealt with people, not machines.

Besides, Marx didn't give one bit of crap about the so called equality and the working class. The fvcker, even though invited numerous times, didn't set his foot in a factory. Not once. All he did was spent capitalist's (Engels) money to further his own career. That's about all that Marx was good at.

there are plenty of examples where communism works very well. don't even consider the status quo in your thinking; you may play with the word itself. ;)

In some respects it did, but I'm not sure if I could give an example of a country where it does across the board. Could you?

no country. that's the whole kicker with it, imho. play with the word itself.

and it really should have been works/worked.

Yeah, it should have :)

It was years ago, but I can not see commuting getting any easier, with some exceptions (I stayed in Bethesda, MD and it was a long drive to downtown DC, now there is a metro there). Not long ago was traveling through LA and 80 miles on Hwy5 took 3.5 hours. Many years ago I had to be in Santa Monica for a meeting at 10AM, I had to leave San Diego at 4AM to make sure to get there on time.


Not long ago I was in San Diego, there are some who commute to work there from Murrieta, even with commuter lanes it takes not less than 1.5 hours each way (2hrs on Fridays). People schedule their days to avoid traffic. Hwy. 5 north of San Diego is packed solid from 7AM till 7PM. The same is in the San Francisco Bay area. If this the paradise awaiting us in and near Warsaw I am not ready for it.

Some say that it is mostly in California, but because of climate I would not be able to survive anywhere east of Denver.

yeah, in cali it's nuts man.. what's wrong with the climate east of denver? it's pretty awesome here to tell you the truth. i wouldn't want to live anywhere in the south though.


commune.