This is really just a very specific type of socialism, as indicated by Lenin being here; an authoritarian who killed other socialists. This is about ML.
The first and last panels are right, but, for example, according to this post Anarcho-Communists don’t exist. They don’t believe in “evolving to a point” as the third panel says, they believe in jumping straight to that point. Also, Libertarian Socialists wouldn’t really be fond of “elected committees” controlling things, as the second panel talks about; maybe electing people into leadership positions inside of a company/cooperative, or maybe even having unions make those decisions, but nothing above that.
They included a picture of Picard too, should I assume this is ML-utopianism and just shut down listening completely?
Also, I’m an anarchist and don’t believe in “jumping to the point.” We’re not all teenagers with no concept of how societies work. We’re opposed to the State and any form of imposed hierarchy. That I’m opposed to the State today doesn’t mean I don’t vote or that I’m just waiting around for the spirit of Good Anarchism to posses every person on Earth suddenly.
Like any reasonable person with an ideology, I make plans to spread my ideas to more people over time. The capitalist state isnt going to auddenly collapse into anarchy and if it did it woukd be terrible because other parts of the collapsing state are going to form monarchies, fascist authoritarian fortresses, and many other balkanized microstates. It would be the worst possible outcome for anarchists!
No, our goal is to enact socialism. Then to whither away the state apparatus into communism. Then to whither away the global hierarchy in favor of self-determination and negotiation.
In no universe do serious people think: Step 1: destroy all governance. Step 2: ???. Step 3: Anarchist utopia.
Good comment. Whether Marxist or Anarchist, goals must be built towards, and cannot be vibed into existence.
(Said the dude from .ml)
I really don’t mean to be rude, but both you and the other user seem to have no concept of anarchism. I mean, what you said straight up makes no sense. Marxists and AnComms both have the same end goal, so what do you think the difference between them is?
Anarchist societies and groups exists and have existed throughout history; they didn’t have to be “build towards” by taking control of the government first.
And please don’t be telling me why you like or don’t like anarchism; I’m arguing about what it is. Whether you like or think is viable is an entire different conversation.
(Said the dude from .ml)
I really don’t mean to be rude, but both you and the other user seem to have no concept of anarchism.
Downvotes are likely because of both of these statements. Judge people by their actions, not by where they come from. I’ve seen Cowbee consistently acting civilly and in good faith here and elsewhere, including interactions that I’ve had with him. And that’s in the face of frequent ad hominems, like the thinly veiled one that you put in parentheses.
I don’t see eye-to-eye with him or other M-Ls on a lot of things, especially as I’m roughly an anarcho-syndicalist. But that’s really no reason to be rude. Try some positivity and you might build more bridges.
you and the other user seem to have no concept of anarchism.
This is a bit puzzling as both seem to be describing forms of anarchism. There are a multitude of different variations. Could you perhaps expound a bit on what form of anarchism you are meaning? Can you share any extant anarchic societies that you are aware of that are members of the global community? From my knowledge and experience, anarchic communities without agreed, intentional direction frequently implode either from external pressures (ex. capitalist or M-L military intervention, state actor infiltration) or personality conflicts.
It was just a tongue in cheek comment based on .ml being known for having a lot of tankies, which are not usually very friendly to anarchists; it was not meant as an insult.
As for anarchist societies that are part of the global community, that’s a bit of a Herculean task since no state will ever want to acknowledge a stateless society; but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. For a current one, you can look to the Zapatistas, which I’ve heard about but admittedly don’t know much about; and for other ones, you can look at the anarchists in Catalonia during the civil war, and Korean People’s Association in Manchuria around the same time.
Catalonia was stuck between Franco (supplied by Nazis and Mussolini, even officers) and the Republicans/communist party (supplied by the USSR, even officers), and not only did the Nazis and USSR take plenty of other territories, but before the war the Republicans, which were liberal, had won elections; so it can’t be claimed it failed because they were anarchists (and non-Soviet socialists and communists), especially with how well they did for a while with so few resources.
Manchuria was also caught between Imperial Japan and communist Korea, and finally fell with the Japanese invasion. Japan not only conquered Korea (which was obviously not all anarchist), but also a lot of other territory and killed a lot of other people, so the failure cannot be attributed to anarchism then either.
Good examples and getting at what my point was. External forces (generally capitalist but also the Red Army did its fair share) continually besiege anarchic societies. Without alliances and reaching societal critical mass, anarchic (and other socialist and/or communist) societies are too vulnerable to interference. Rojava (different SDF) has already seen some of this with efforts to undermine their position having already taken place (ex. Trump’s government negotiating some disarmament then abandoning then to Turkish artillery/airstrikes).
It was just a tongue in cheek comment based on .ml being known for having a lot of tankies, which are not usually very friendly to anarchists; it was not meant as an insult.
Lemmy.ml obviously leans heavily Marxist, but I also pick it because it has a lot of federation with other instances. I have another account on another instance if I want to just chill out with Leftists of all stripes, under the same username, so I can pick what I want at the time.
I do want to point out that it is normally Anarchists picking fights with Marxists, not the other way around. This is down to Anarchism generally being seen favorably by Marxists, just disagreeing on the idea that vertical organization must be opposed and that there must be Means/Ends unity. This is because Marxists are Dialectical Materialists.
Anarchists, however, see any amount of vertical organizing as bad in and of itself, so you see lots of anti-Marxism among Anarchists. While Marxists generally see Anarchists as having a noble goal with less realistic chances at success, Anarchists tend to see Marxists as better than Capitalists, but ultimately still advocating for an “oppressive” system. This is where “tankie” and “red-fash” usually comes in, while the absolute harshest slur for Anarchist is “Anarkiddie,” and it’s reserved for new leftistd picking Anarchism because they are disgruntled with their current system, but are also in alignment with the western narrative surrounding Marxism and Marxist movements. It’s condescending, and I don’t do it because it’s sectarian nonsense that reduces Leftist cohesion, but it’s a stark contrast to the way some Anarchists percieve Marxists.
As long as you enter Marxist spaces without attacking Marxism, you’ll likely see no trouble even advocating for Anarchism, but the reverse is rarely true. Some few Anarchists even accuse some Marxists as betraying Marxism, as though Marx were an advocate of Anarchism, which any amount of reading can readily disprove entirely.
I do think reading about a meeting between Lenin and Kropotkin is extremely valuable. In this transcript of the meeting, Kropotkin and Lenin show calm, mutual respect and Kropotkin himself describes his aged heart as warmed by the October Revolution, but tries to advocate for a more cooperative-focused approach, while Lenin takes a more hardline stance in favor of protecting the nascent Socialist society. They leave the meeting in disagreement, but on friendly and respectful terms.
Well, firstly, I think .ml doesn’t just lean heavily Marxist, it leans heavily Marxist-Leninist, which is different; secondly, it specifically has a lot of tankies, which is the specific thing I pointed out. Not sure why you would want to equate yourself with that, being that tankies usually refers to people who defend repressive, imperialist, genocidal, actions of madmen. The origin of the word is to describe British communists who defended the use of tanks against protesters in the Hungarian Revolution, and is also colloquial used to describe people who defend Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Kim Jung Un, and their regimes, and more recently to describe people whose views often are based on just being anti-west, to the point of supported the fascist state of Russia, for example. So again, I’m not sure why you’re equating yourself with that, but just remember you were the one to put on the shoe, I didn’t force it on you.
And I’m sorry, but the idea that it’s usually Anarchist picking fights with others is ludicrous, but it actually is the perspective that I expect from tankies, because for a tankie the idea of “leftist unity” is to fall in line with tankie values, and to kill or imprison anyone who does not fall in line. Marxists and MLs in general far outnumber anarchists in online spaces, and one thing you can often see is tankies and MLs in general bursting into anarchist discussions, and being anything less than civil. I have seen anarchists advocating for anarchism in anarchist communities that were in a ML instance or website, get flooded with comments from MLs. You can even be banned in .ml by just being critical of Russia or China; given that anarchists will always be critical of the state, I don’t really see how you can in good faith claim that “you’ll likely see no trouble even advocating for Anarchism”.
Historically, I find your comment even more revisionist. The USSR not only killed and imprisoned anarchists, but it also refused to support anarchists and other socialists in Catalonia during the revolution, and eventually took control of Catalonia - done by the Spanish Communist Party, which was serving USSR interests and even Russian officers - and began prosecuting them, for no reason other than that they had fought in the POUM against fascists, instead of serving under the communist party. The Korean People’s Association in Manchuria also suffered a lot of attacks at the hands of the Korean communists, who nowadays lead North Korea. And of course, there’s also the Black Army of Ukraine, that merely wished to see itself independent of the USSR; but of course, for MLs the right of self-determination goes out the window when MLs are the ones trying to subjugate you. All of this, is where the term “red-fash” comes from.
I also don’t really remember seeing an anarchist be that critical of Marxists, as I have of MLs, which are different; I’m not sure why you keep trying to merge the two into one, as there are plenty of people who think of themselves as Marxist but not ML, and others who are ML and think Lenin evolved Marxists ideas a lot and that Marxists are essentially living in the past and haven’t read enough theory.
In short: MLs, and tankies specifically, have historically heavily persecuted anarchists and wanted them dead, but asking for people to fall in line or be shot is not fucking “unity”. Not so different from when Liberal politicians ask for left unity by getting leftists to vote for them while making no compromises, but at least they are less likely to take you to a prison camp or shoot you in the head.
I’m really not interested in having a conversation with someone who is interested in sweeping all of this under the rug and pretend that anarchists just get prickly about MLs and tankies purely based on theory, and who wants to equate Marxists, MLs, and tankies as being all the same. I’ve even met MLs who distance themselves from tankies, but you claim to be a Marxist and still choose to run defense for them. Well, that’s your choice, but don’t complain when you get pegged for one, which is definitely how I see you now, and I really don’t have in interest with talking with you anymore after this.
Marxists and AnComms both have the same end goal, so what do you think the difference between them is?
They do not. AnComms want horizontalism as the end goal, Marxists want central planning and elected councils. Anarchists believe all hierarchy to inherently be an issue, while Marxists don’t, and rely on central planning as a core concept for economic organization. I read both Anarchist and Marxist theory, despite being a Marxist, because Anarchists do make good points from time to time that can be adapted and learned from.
My point here is that Anarchists and Marxists are united against Capitalism and Imperialism, but Anarchists are also against verticality with respect to organization, while Marxists are not, which is the drive in conflict when it does exist between the two groups.
Anarchist societies and groups exists and have existed throughout history; they didn’t have to be “build towards” by taking control of the government first.
Anarchism doesn’t just happen or fall into place. How do you believe the US, for example, will arrange itself into horizontal networks of Mutual Aid? By building them up. You seem to have no concept of Anarchist praxis in the modern era, you can’t vibe Anarchism into being.
And please don’t be telling me why you like or don’t like anarchism; I’m arguing about what it is. Whether you like or think is viable is an entire different conversation.
Absolutely, I don’t intend to engage in dogmatic sectarianism. Anarchists are my comrades against Capitalism and Imperialism, and if an Anarchist movement was spearheading the revolution, I would fall in line and support that mass movement, because only a mass movement can enact change.
They do not.
Marxists are communists, for whom the end goal is a stateless, moneyless, classless, society. What do you think stateless means?
AnComms want horizontalism as the end goal
And as the process. Which is what separates them from other communists.
Anarchism doesn’t just happen or fall into place. How do you believe the US, for example, will arrange itself into horizontal networks of Mutual Aid? By building them up. You seem to have no concept of Anarchist praxis in the modern era, you can’t vibe Anarchism into being.
Building them up through grassroots movements. They don’t happen by taking control of the government and creating “elected committees” who then “plan production”, which is what the comic talks about doing (even adding a picture of Lenin), and which the other user - and you by extension - defended.
Marxists are communists, for whom the end goal is a stateless, moneyless, society. What do you think stateless means?
Good question. Marx specifically referred to the State as the mechanisms within government by which one class asserts its power, not the entire government. Engels elaborates on this, and explains the “whithering away” of the state:
“The proletariat seizes from state power and turns the means of production into state property to begin with. But thereby it abolishes itself as the proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, and abolishes also the state as state. Society thus far, operating amid class antagonisms, needed the state, that is, an organization of the particular exploiting class, for the maintenance of its external conditions of production, and, therefore, especially, for the purpose of forcibly keeping the exploited class in the conditions of oppression determined by the given mode of production (slavery, serfdom or bondage, wage-labor). The state was the official representative of society as a whole, its concentration in a visible corporation. But it was this only insofar as it was the state of that class which itself represented, for its own time, society as a whole: in ancient times, the state of slave-owning citizens; in the Middle Ages, of the feudal nobility; in our own time, of the bourgeoisie. When at last it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection, as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon the present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from this struggle, are removed, nothing more remains to be held in subjection — nothing necessitating a special coercive force, a state. The first act by which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — is also its last independent act as a state. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies down of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not ’abolished’. It withers away. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase ’a free people’s state’, both as to its justifiable use for a long time from an agitational point of view, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency; and also of the so-called anarchists’ demand that the state be abolished overnight.”
This is not the Anarchist definition of the State, best described as a monopoly on violence. For Anarchists, elected councils are examples of vertical hierarchy that ought be opposed, as compared to Marxists who see it as a necessary tool for administration. This is the transformation from “the government of people” to the “administration of things,” ie government and councils and committees exist to fulfill managerial roles, while Anarchists seek full horizontalism and avoid managerial roles as they believe them to lead to corruption and coercion.
Think Star Trek vs. The Disposessed.
And as the process. Which is what separates it from other communists.
Yes, I am familiar with Means/Ends Unity. I may disagree with the importance of it, but I am not here to promote infighting or sectarianism, I am here to explain Marxism.
Building them up through grassroots movements. They don’t happen by taking control of the government and creating “elected committees” who then “plan production”, which is what the comic talks about doing (even adding a picture of Lenin), and which the other user - and you by extension - defended.
Yes, you build up Anarchism, a network of horizontal structures, from the bottom up. You build up Marxism by building dual power via councils, unions, and other democratic structures that can replace the Capialist state. These are separate concepts with similar but distinct goals.
Yes, you build up Anarchism, a network of horizontal structures, from the bottom up. You build up Marxism by building dual power via councils, unions, and other democratic structures that can replace the Capialist state. These are separate concepts with similar but distinct goals.
Right, but so it seems we agree? This post’s explanation of socialism excludes anarchism, among other forms of socialism, which was my criticism. It only focuses on ML, but titles itself “What the heck is Socialism?”
Perhaps I expressed my self wrong at some point, or misinterpreted something, but that’s the point I was trying to make from the start.
Also, I’m an anarchist and don’t believe in “jumping to the point.
[…]
No, our goal is to enact socialism. Then to whither away the state apparatus into communism. Then to whither away the global hierarchy in favor of self-determination and negotiation.
Then, by definition, you’re a Marxist, you’re literally summarising Marxist theory. Anarchists don’t believe in going through that middle step.
In no universe do serious people think: Step 1: destroy all governance. Step 2: ???. Step 3: Anarchist utopia.
If you want to see how an anarchist revolution works, go look up Catalonia and the CNT-FAI, Anarchist Ukraine or the Zapatistas.
Then it sounds like you’re not really an anarchist, much less AnComm 🤷
Care to explain what the difference between a communist and an anarcho-communist is, then? Communists, such as ML, are the ones who believe in slowly eroding the state, anarchists believe in side stepping the state and growing from grassroots movements. That’s sort of, ya know, the entire difference?
Anarchist groups exist and have existed through history, and they don’t typically believe in “destroy all governance”, they believe in, like I said, growing from alternative, independent, grassroots movements.
Sounds like you are just a communist, which is fine, but you’re not an anarchist.
ML would be about a vanguard party. That kind of elected council with central planning can happen without it. That vanguard party is where ML goes all wrong and tends to devolve into cult-like behavior. Edit: and not just the big one’s in Russia/China/N. Korea. Lots of smaller ML groups devolve into cult-like behavior, too.
I do agree, though, that the second panel is still too specific. There are many ways to organize the workers, and that second panel is far too narrow.
It is very clear that it’s about Socialism, so leaving AnComms out is fair.
Vanguard politics consistently lead to a new different hierarchy that is just as bad as the current hierarchy is my problem. Leninism just sucks. The peers who said he sucked were right. Leninism leads to Stalinism, Maoism, Pol Pot, etc. When people try to scare the shit out of us by acting like socialism is more dangerous than capitalism we have Lenin to blame for thinking anyone could have the strength to wield power without being depraved by it.
Hierarchical societies just don’t work. And I won’t apologize for saying Bolshevism sucks and isn’t even really communism, its just a more weirdly shaped version of colonialism
This is the conclusion I’ve come to since reading the State and Revolution. The people who are capable of overthrowing the current system aren’t likely to be the same people capable of keeping true to an approach that’s legitimately socialist. There are problems with reformism as well, as it can result in an endless series of small concessions to distract from an equally endless series of measured power grabs.
If I take what I read of Marx and Engels as likely to be accurately predictive, my conclusion has to be that the circumstances they’re discussing haven’t occurred yet. Basically, Lenin jumped the gun with his support of imposing a revolution and a dictatorship of the proletariat. The power structure it creates is too centralized to achieve its goals.
This would suggest to me that if Marx and Engels are correct, a spontaneous and universal proletariat uprising is probably still down the road somewhere. Basically, we see hints at this state reflected in the microcosm of revolution, but have yet to see the circumstances that cause an actual change of prioritization and autonomy rather than simply a changing of the guard.
AnComms are socialists, though. As are communists, and all anarchists who are not AnCaps, but those aren’t even really anarchists.
Socialism is just about workers controlling the means of production; how you get there, the styles and forms of leadership, and all other things, are where all subgroups differ. The same way that in capitalism you can have Soc-Dems, Liberals, Libertarian Capitalists, Fascists, etc.
AnComms are under the socialist umbrella, but the comic isn’t delving into every single thing that’s under that umbrella, because it’s not 600 pages long.
Right, instead is it’s delving specifically into ML and making it sound like that is specifically what socialism is; it’s not. And it sounds like you agree, so… I really don’t get what your point is. Sounds like you’re arguing for the sake of arguing.
Genuine question. How would a transition to socialism work in practice?
Eating the billionaires and “nationalizing” publicly traded companies is the easy part. Saying “you can still possess your car” is also easy. The hard, and ultimately unpopular, part is everything else in between. Summer cottage? Family farm? What happens to pensions/retirement savings, land ownership, inheritance, small businesses, the apartment your are renting out to pay for your own rent…
Yeah, I know, these things tend to be out of reach for younger folks these days, precisely because of hyper wealth concentration. So with billionaires and mega corps out of the picture, the question still stands.
I’m not a proponent of socialism due to the whole ‘state’ aspect, but I’d say universal healthcare and unconditional UBI would be the actual first steps toward the moneyless and stateless goal put forth in this comic.
Wealth tax and taxing inheritance. You know it works because the capitalists flee the fucking country as soon as you inplement it (or rather before, when they buy information from a corrupt official or legally from a politician).
So then how is that supposed to work? Tax something that can walk across the border tomorrow?
The capitalists subverting liberal democracies like this is precisely one of the reasons we call them dictatorships of the bourgeoisie. Fortunately, since absolute democratic control should be held by the people, we can just seize their assets for the public through exit taxes, but they will find ways around these as well, so preferrably retroactively.
Now, this would surely tank foreign investment capital in our countries and people might say that is going to “ruin the economy”. However, national control over resources is a necessary step in combatting global economic imperialism, and even though Western economies would suffer somewhat, it is precisely because they are on the top of the food chain of exploitation and frankly deserve to.
The majority of people should see a rise in material conditions and in freedom, as this makes them free to own their means of production and enjoy the fruits of their labor.
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How would a transition to socialism work in practice?
Decade by decade, have more things be run by the government rather than for-profit enterprises.
For example, in the 2020s, the US could transition to a Swiss-style healthcare system. In that kind of system, everybody would have insurance provided by a private company, but the most basic plan would be very cheap and offered by every company, and there were subsidies available so nobody in the country was uninsured, no matter what their financial situation. The US could also have a government owned bank that operated out of every post office that provided extremely basic banking services with zero fees. Private banks would still be able to compete with that, but they’d have to compete on extra services that the government bank didn’t offer.
In the 2030s you could tackle education and housing. All state-owned universities could offer education with a $0 tuition and all textbooks available digitally for free. Maybe for some majors you’d have to agree to provide some public service to offset the cost of that education. Like, a doctor might have to agree to serve for 5 years in a remote area that typically doesn’t have good medical coverage. Or, a lawyer might have to spend 5 years working as a public defender. For housing, the government could buy and own housing. Any citizen could get an apartment and pay a low monthly rent directly to the government. Subsidize that rent so that if someone couldn’t afford to pay any rent, they could still live there. Private homes could still exist, and would be more spacious and more luxurious, but everybody would at least be able to start with something decent.
Then you could tackle transportation. Tax private vehicles and use that to fund public transit. As transit got better, fewer and fewer people would feel the need for the luxury of their own vehicle, but those who did could continue to subsidize public transit for the rest (instead of the current situation where cities subsidize drivers).
Then you could look into food. Maybe everyone gets the equivalent of food stamps. Maybe instead of throwing money at private farmers to grow corn, making corn so cheap that it’s almost free, resulting in awful things like high fructose corn syrup in everything, the government could be responsible for some basic crops, and allow private farmers to grow specialty things / luxuries.
Media would be easy – just set up something like the BBC but for the US. Most other countries in the world have something similar.
Bit by bit, just chip away at all the for-profit things and allow the government to either take it over entirely, or to provide a bare-bones version that was available to everybody, while allowing people to keep running their own private for-profit ones that offer a more luxurious experience for people who want to pay more.
have more things be run by the government rather than for-profit enterprises
Who has these things happen and how?
The small business part of the transition is “easy” (or at least, not any harder than maintaining a capitalist business), people have been and are currently doing this already. They are known as worker-owned cooperatives, and are often extremely liberating to those who make the effort. Depending on the industry (and the government you live under), it’s not even that difficult, roughly on the order of forming a freelancing agency. There are also entire organizations dedicated to assisting with corporate transition to cooperative structure.
Here are some good examples of resources in the US to start learning that process:
Summer cottage? Family farm?
One fairly straightforward plan is the nationalization of housing. If you own and occupy your primary residence, you may stay. If you have a secondary residence, you can keep it as a vacation home. If you own more than that, they’re going to go to the state. Pick two. If you’re a renter, and you occupy that place, it’s now yours. Anytime someone is moving, the government has the right to first refusal, which it will always utilize. Effectively, the governments buys the house back each time, and then sells it again to someone new. If you die your home can go to a family member/designated person. No one may more than 2 homes, no one may sell a home to another individual directly, though the transfer/sale of a home to a specified individual can be arranged through the government. All rents/mortgages are income based, and payments end after 5 years.
Cuba has done this fairly successfully. Yugoslavia had a similar system. No, it’s not the best system imaginable, nor is it super popular with the
fucking leechesowner class, but it’s viable, doable, and simple enough to set up while insuring that all people may be homed.This is also the way it works in Singapore, where you essentially lease an abode for life
Do you have personal experience with it there? If so, how do you like it?
The way I heard it explained that made the most sense is personal vs private property. If it’s something a person uses regularly. Personal property. Otherwise public property that can be leased short term for production and business use. But never owned by a large parasitic business/corporation that will horde resources and foul the land with no concern for others.
the government has the right to first refusal
the transfer/sale of a home to a specified individual can be arranged through the government
And time and time again this has lead to people in the government abusing this power and assuring for themselves and their families a completely different standard of living than the rest of the population. I’ve lived in a socialist country and the end was not pretty.
It sounds great on paper and has proven great on small scales (with the option to leave the community if you want), but on larger scales human nature always messes things up.
Human nature? Which part of human nature? Humans are multifaceted. Also, there has never been an example of socialism in practice, even moderate social democracy that secured domestic mineral and oil resources for its own people, that hasn’t come under direct attack, invasion, embargo, sanction, etc., by western capitalist powers. It usually isn’t human nature messing things up, its direct capitalist imperialist intervention.
Also what model of human nature are you using? I prefer the dialectical construction of Benedict Spinoza in his book Ethics, have you ever considered what you mean by it or where you picked it up from? I see a lot of hand waving about human nature from people, but no description of what it actually is. How do you know you aren’t using a flawed concept in your determination?
Sure, so let’s try nothing, because the current system works so well. I mean, what with us having solved homelessness, having equality, and fixing the climate, I can’t imagine why we should do something different.
I understand that you’ve had a bad experience, and I also understand that the real world examples of nation states claiming to be socialist have been less than ideal, but, as a species, we have to decide what is more important, because we’re running out of time. I’m not a Soviet fan boy or a tankie, I’m an anti authoritarian, libertarian socialist. But it’s a bit like the US election right now. I don’t like Kamala, but I’ll take her over Trump, and continue to work outside of that to achieve my actual goals. I don’t like state socialism, but it’s better than what we’ve got. If the biggest problem with socialist states has been corruption in the upper echelons of power, then that is excellent real world data to draw from when we considering alternatives to both our current system and the experiments of the past. Strict transparency, more citizen involvement, less concentration of power. Sure, again, not my ideal system, but it’s something better. We have examples to draw from, both in failures and successes. Yugoslavia had a lot more personal freedoms than the USSR, and a strong focus on worker cooperatives. Cuba has managed to create one of the best healthcare systems in the world with shoestrings and belt buckles. The USSR gives us an example of just how quickly progress can be made in areas like industrialization, crucial information that could help us in the transition to renewable energy. The US and Western Europe have created citizenry that are unwilling to accept, at least in theory, authoritarian, iron-fist control. We absolutely can create something that blends these philosophies, but it is imperative that it’s focus be on the creation of an egalitarian society that works towards ending tyranny, which includes the tyranny of workers, and seeks to solve the climate crises. We do not have a choice if we want to survive the next few decades.
Sure, so let’s try nothing, because the current system works so well.
Not where I was going with it. There are definitely a lot of things that should be done, especially in the US, which I wouldn’t even call socialist, just common sense (like universal healthcare). But you can’t tell people “you’re not all equal” and suddenly they all believe it. That’s why most socialist countries were also authoritarian. Maybe over many generations of progressive change things can go differently.
Most socialist states have been authoritarian because most of them of were authoritarian before their socialist movements. They are a product of their own cultures. In addition, most are authoritarian because they’re attempting to recreate the successes of the Soviet revolution, and using their system as a baseline.
Also, my first paragraph in that comment was aggressive and I apologize for that. I should have come better than that. But the fact remains, socialism is not the problem. Authoritarianism is. They’re not one and the same, nor is one required for the other.
Genuine question. How would a transition to socialism work in practice?
Generally, Leftists believe it can only happen via revolution. The general idea is to organize and build dual power, so that when an inevitable revolution arises, the working class is already organized and can replace the former state.
Eating the billionaires and “nationalizing” publicly traded companies is the easy part. Saying “you can still possess your car” is also easy. The hard, and ultimately unpopular, part is everything else in between. Summer cottage? Family farm? What happens to pensions/retirement savings, land ownership, inheritance, small businesses, the apartment your are renting out to pay for your own rent…
You’re working off the mindset of maintaining Capitalism and piece-by-piece Socializing it, which is not what Leftists generally propose.
I suggest reading Critique of the Gotha Programme, if you’re genuinely interested.
Generally, Leftists believe it can only happen via revolution.
I’m an outsider and I don’t really know much about Leftist thought. I’m curious what the general belief among Lefists is for why this revolution hasn’t happened? (In the capitalist West that is?)
Marxists believe it is due to Imperialism, also known as Unequal Exchange. Western Capitalist countries export the vast bulk of their poverty to foreign countries with cheaper labor to make a wider proportion of profit, similar to the idea of countries functioning as Bourgeoisie and Proletarian.
Whether you agree with Lenin’s analysis of the State and Revolutionary methods, I have yet to find a Leftist that disagrees with his arguments in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
What we are seeing is an increase in Anti-Western sentiment among the Global South, as conditions deteriorate and expropriation increases. As this revolutionary pressure builds, the weakest links pop, so to speak, weakening Western Hegemony and driving their own Proletariat closer to revolution.
Marxists believe it is due to Imperialism
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “imperialism” here but regardless, what is the solution to imperialism according to Marxists?
I elaborated on it later, it’s the concept of exporting the bulk of industrial production to foreign countries to super-exploit for super-profits.
Imperialism defeats itself in much the same way Capitalism does, it increases in severity and exploitation until a boiling point is reached, and the country in the Global South moves towards domestic production and nationalization of their resources and products, rather than serving as an outsourced factory for wealthy Capitalists abroad.
I don’t think we’re communicating. I asked what Marxists’ solution to imperialism is. I can’t see any solution in what you’ve written here.
What do you specifically mean? I just said Imperialism defeats itself, and people in the Global South can act against it by protecting their own production and resources.
The exact plan is something that would be developed based on the political-economic situation that led to the revolution in the first leave and the needs that arose. There can be no perfect prescription because one cannot predict the exact situation we will inherit.
Immediately following revolution in the Russian Empire, the Bolsheviks had to fight a war against invading capitalist forces and domestic capitalist revanchists. They implemented forms of fatm collectivization that were largely restorative of traditional practice but without feudal lords and while also attempting to industrialize. This went less efficiently than needed so they adopted the NEP, then abandoned it for further central planning once its purpose was fulfilled. They ensured housing for all, placed doctors, cafes, and housing at factories, invested heavily in infrastructure and education, promoted women as part of the workforce and larger society against patriarchal attitudes, and prepared for the inevitable further invasion by capitalists, this time the fascists. They built based on their ability to control the means of production by and for those who work and based on the conditions they faced. They faced poverty, landlordism, a poor level of industrialization and infrastructure, joblessness, external military threats, etc. They implemented many policies over time attempting to work around hurdles, most of them imposed by capitalist countries trying to destroy them.
In China, they faced an even greater level of landlordism, of petty landowners that would routinely exercise inordinate control over people’s lives and abuse them. China was even poorer than the Russian Empire, being a colonized country forced to subjugate its economy to foreign capitalusts. China had to fight a war against Japanese invaders and developed in the context of not just a liberatory nationalism but a betrayal of the communists by the KMT. They similarly had to industrialize, to deal with poverty, to deal with foreign aggression from capitalists that promptly encircled them and instituted sanctions. They achieved transformatiobs never before seen, of skyrocketing life expectancy, an end to famines, industrialization without stealing through colonialism.
When revolution comes to your country, what state will it be in? Will you have to kill neofascists that started a civil war? Will you need to rebuild a militant labor movement? Will there be an economic underclass most poised to contribute and then make demands of the transition?
Basically, when the working class has a liberatory victory, it can now more directly demand change. What changes will be a product of what is needed for the working class’s own interests. In Cuba many villages had no doctor and essential medical care required a group of people to carry the sick for a day or more. So they built hospitals and trained doctors. They now have the best medical system in the world for a country with their size and wealth.
Anyways with that said I’ll try to answer your specific questions.
Summer cottage?
lol who cares? A second home in a country full of homeless people!? I cannot be asked to care. Most likely it will be ignored because socialists are far too kind.
Family farm?
If you live in a rich, Western country these no longer exist. Farms are large agribusinesses owned by companies. Pappy had to sell his farm to them in the 70s and 80s.
What happens to pensions/retirement savings
These are numbers on a spreadsheet that are currently held by a bank or government. Their purpose is to guarantee retirement. During any real revolution the banks in question will be seized and repurposed, possibly even abolished depending on conditions, as they are the organ of society most antagonistic to us. There is no guarantee that the accounts will have anything in them nor that the government would have had any legitimacy to guarantee retirement before we won. They will try to take the money and run. They don’t care about your pension, lol. It’s just capital for them to lend out and make profits from.
Traditionally, socialists have simply guaranteed retirement via the state. An actual guarantee. And because socialists have also traditionally made so much of life available at no or low direct cost to the individual (housing, healthcare, transportation, food), this mostly just means you get to live your life exactly the same but just don’t have to work.
land ownership
If the socialists are competent they will make the state the owner of all land and then figure out how to use previously corporate land for the public good and find a reasonable compromise on personal land. But it really depends on the conditions of revolution. Is land reform a revolutionary promise? What land and for what purpose?
inheritance
Should probably be largely abolushed but this also depends on the revolution. Nobody is coming for granny’s keepsakes but you don’t get to inherit the slave plantation.
small businesses
This is a term used for tax purposes in certain rich Western countries. It’s not really meaningful for when to expropriate and plan, for example. Many industries should not even exist, they are parasitic, and this includes many small businesses. Smart socialists will not make decisions based solely on a tax bracket aside from needing to be practical about how to allocate transitions and planning resources. For example, China institutes more control over businesses as they become larger, both via government oversight and worker control.
the apartment your are renting out to pay for your own rent…
If you’re doing that you’re a financial idiot lol. Much better for the state to allocate your housing and keep you away from such decisions.
Socialists have traditionally guaranteed housing via various mechanisms, starting with building enough of it and ensuring it exists where people should be for economic activity. Connect it to transit, make it available bear industry and retail, etc.
Yeah, I know, these things tend to be out of reach for younger folks these days, precisely because of hyper wealth concentration.
Basically everything you mentioned is out of reach for the vast majority of humanity due to the capitalsti system. You’re describing things that only the petite bourgeouis in impeeialist countries even think about. This us a very small number of privileged people even in those countries.
So with billionaires and mega corps out of the picture, the question still stands.
It doesn’t stand at all, you are just unfamiliar with two centuries of working class political struggle and geopolitics. This is understandable, as Western educations do their very best to ignore most of it and misinform about the rest. One of the things they teach is the cartoonish impracticality of socialist systems that they describe with fanciful and false stories, basically fairy tales to appease reactionary capitalists that promote such propaganda in the first place and, for example, dictate what textbooks the Texas Board of Education buys and therefore the content in classrooms nationwide.
The untold reality is that socialists are actually very practical and realistic people that build from the needs of the wider working class and have traditionally tracked commodity prices and investments and military funding allocations and run and led worker revolrs and run and led wars of liberation. We are practical to a fault and endeavor to understand the world as it is and what is needed to liberate ourselves from an oppressive system and offer a vision of: what if we built this world for ourselves and not bankers or a noncorporeal profit-generating machine?
I’m not a socialist, but what I advocate for is explicitly postcapitalist.
Some postcapitalist policies include
- All firms are mandated to be worker coops similar to how local governments are mandated to be democratic
- Land and natural resources are collectivized with a 100% land value tax and various sorts of emission taxes etc
- Voluntary democratic collectives that manage collectivized means of production and provide start up funds to worker coops
- UBII’m not a socialist
All firms are mandated to be worker coops
Pretty sure that qualifies as socialism for most people. Welcome onboard, my friend!
Some people think so. That doesn’t make it a good academic definition. You get into the shitty definition of socialism that Dr. Wolff mocks:
“When the government that’s a lot of stuff, that’s socialism. And the more stuff it does, the more socialist it gets. And when it does a reeeeeal whole lot of stuff, then that’s communism”
The academic definition would be the systems of the historical Eastern Bloc countries or a hypothetical society that has somehow completely abolished commodity production
How do you define socialism?
Rhetorically, it doesn’t matter how I define the term. It matters how people use it.
The way I would define it is either the systems of historical Eastern Bloc countries or a hypothetical society that has somehow completely abolished commodity production
True, it does not matter for your point. I was just interested. Thanks for your answer.
It works by encouraging union and co-ops, actually punishing companies that break laws, and providing social safety nets. Basically everything this comic points out.
So by “encouraging”, I take that to mean a mixed system? I’m all for the Nordic model. I think a hard-line approach is ultimately too disruptive and unpalatable to a majority of people’s current personal situation, and I feel like it’s important to communicate that for buy in.
What is unpalatable to the people current personal situation tho? The problem is you are already seeing it from a capitalist point of view where you think most people have something to lose.
First, your second house or small business are not means of production.
Second, most people dont have a summer cottage, most people dont have a family farm, most people dont have land ownership, most people dont inherit shit, most people dont have apartments they are renting, most people dont have small business.
Most people have nothing to lose and everything to gain when we talk about people owning their workplace. If you think otherwise you are overstating what most people own, which is close to nothing. What most people think of is the idea that if they work hard enough they will someday have that apartment to rent, that summer house, that big money their sons will inherit, which for most of earth’s population is just bullshit.
Give it a few generations.
A mixed system which starts with changing the most socially egregious examples is probably the only politically viable transition; lots of people fear disruption, and it takes time and proving to them that the changes are beneficial.
I’d suggest beginning with something like Corbyn’s Labor had proposed; if a capitalist business is sold or fails, the workers are given first right of refusal and a govt loan is given for them to purchase as a worker cooperative.
The problem is that capitalists will not tolerate a system that is made to remove them over time, and they will fight you to the death to keep you from passing reforms like that, as seen by Corbyn’s campaign being sabotaged from all angles.
While I do agree these people exist, most people are some mixture of benefiting from, and being harmed by the status quo. To erode support for a mode of production takes both fighting those who are directly against your class interests, and convincing the majority of people that their class interests align with your actions. Often those who feel the most precarity under the current system are it’s most ardent defenders, simply because their afraid of loosing what little status they have eked out for themselves.
Corbyn was sabotaged both by people who rightly saw him as a threat, and by those who didn’t see the benefit he could bring them.
My point is that convincing people is not enough, because the system at base being plutocratic does not just mean the poorer suffer, but that the levers of power are controlled by the rich, so democratic efforts at revolutionary reform (such as would make the system not plutocratic) are doomed to fail from the outset.
I’m all for the Nordic model
The sad thing about the Nordic model is that it relies on wealth and labour extraction from poorer countries as much as the rest of capitalist countries do. Being on the upper side of unequal exchange (I beg you to read on unequal exchange, even if only the Wikipedia article), makes it very nice for some lucky few in Europe / North America, and very hard for the rest who aren’t on the upper side.
What happens to pensions/retirement savings
These are still paid. Socialism is concerned with the means of production, not what amount to bank accounts.
land ownership
If it’s a personal residence, it’s cool. If it’s a business’s privately-owned land, it’s up for grabs if the local community has a better use for it
inheritance
See the above distinctions. Money is secondary and personal property is fine, private property is liable to be taken.
the apartment your are renting out to pay for your own rent
Either the cost of your rent is dramatically reduced or your housing is turned into some type of cooperative, so there’s no need to exploit someone else to make rent.
I would like to encourage you to read Engels’ “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”.
When socialists say they want to collectivize private property, they use a meaning of private property which equates to “means of production”, or “capital”. The goal is that there won’t be owners of capital earning money simply by employing other people to work the capital and stealing a part of what they produce (surplus value).
In your example, summer cottages and family farms aren’t means of production, so there’s no reason to redistribute them. Pensions and retirement were guaranteed to everyone even in the USSR, where women retired at 55 and men at 60, so I can guarantee socialists want you to have a pension. Small businesses that employ other employees would have to be collectivized eventually, which could mean that the owner simply becomes one normal worker in the business, working alongside the previous employees instead of above them. Regarding the apartment, you don’t need to rent out an apartment if the rent of your apartment costs 3-5% of your income (as was the case in the Soviet Union). Land ownership and inheritance are a bit grey. Obviously nobody wants to collectivize your nana’s wedding dress, or your dad’s funko pop collection. Obviously we would want to collectivize if you inherit a big factory, or 20 flats that your mom rented out. For things in the middle, it becomes a bit more grey, so there’s no easy answer. I bet everyone would agree that uprooting people isn’t generally a good thing.
The others have given more concrete examples, so I’ll skip that and simply say that contradictions are resolved through practice. As in we can talk about the problems and solutions all day, but it only when we start to actually make the changes, do we create and engage with the problems and develop solutions in response.
Translation:
“You know, it’ll just buff out bro we build the bridge in front of us as we walk across it bro”
Is what humans have always done. Capitalism has so many contradictions, we have entire legal and regulatory systems and social programs in place to make it viable, and governments still have to bail it out with our tax dollars every 10 years or so.
It is really funny (read: not funny but sad) that you think our current system is working. This post has such big “I have not thought about this at all and am out of ideas” energy that I can’t engage with it seriously.
Do you own a summer cottage right now? What percentage of people do? Will not owning that cottage impact anyone’s life in a meaningful way?
But yea, sure, let’s have a few hundred people own more wealth and thus influence than the rest of the world as a whole! It’s the best way to make sure the people a step or two below those few hundred get to have a summer cottage! This really makes society the best it can be!
family farms are practically non-existent (i admire romanticism lol). Pensions get paid, land is not owned, homes inheritance is on the right-of-first-refusal of undefined-length lease, small businessman become paid position in agreement with employed workers, rent is asset depreciation no more no less. You can afford asset depreciation on 200 million mansion? 50 people together probably can
A worker coop is an example of joint self-employment. The workers are not employees, and the employer-employee relationship is abolished in worker coops
So it’s all nice in theory, but I have questions…
the workers own their workplace
Based on previous discussions, I understand the commonly proposed model here would be a workers’ collective of some sort. People involved in the collective’s production share the proceeds - we made N number of tractors and took them to market and received X value units; we spent Y value units in the production process, so we can distribute (X - Y) value units among the members of the collective. The workers own the equipment and infrastructure used by the collective and share responsibility for production. If a worker moves from workplace A to workplace B for whatever reason, they cease to share in the proceeds and responsibility of workplace A’s collective and take on the responsibilities of workplace B’s collective and share in its proceeds.
(Aside: What if X is smaller than Y? Should members then add back the difference for the next production cycle, so production materials can be procured?)
Let’s look at the (X - Y) part a bit more closely. This defines the benefit that members of the collective derive from the enterprise, so they are collectively incentivised to make the difference as big as possible - to benefit themselves rather than a capital owner. Let’s assume that all collectives can procure production materials equally with no supply and demand market forces (unlikely). Let’s further assume that the market value for the goods produced is fixed (questionable, but OK). So anyone involved in producing tractors pay the same number of value units for raw materials and components and can only ever sell tractors for the same number of value units as everyone else. This means that an individual collective is heavily incentivised to reduce the raw materials needed per tractor (production efficiency), make better tractors than other collectives (market attractiveness), or increase the number of tractors they take to market in a given time period (increased production). Each collective, and ultimately its members, thus stand to benefit from having the most skilled tractor builders, innovative tractor designers, and an all-round hardworking membership. A more successful collective would draw more workers with such beneficial traits and become even more successful in the process. It would also be in the interest of the collective to either push out members that do not contribute according to their full ability, or reduce their share of the proceeds. The former would result in some workers not being accepted into any collective after a while and thus not contributing to any production, the latter in performance-based remuneration that creates societal inequality.
Congratulations! You just created market forces in the labour market that will have winners and losers.
a.k.a the means of production
Can someone explain to me what this means in today’s world, beyond factories making physical goods (such as tractors) using physical machines and manual human labour?
production is then planned by elected committees
There are some details missing here. Who elects these committees - workers, or society in general? What are the requirements for being electable for such a role? How are these committees held accountable for failures? Do they plan production at a society-wide level, each in a specific industry, or down to regions or specific production facilities? Do they serve only a planning role, or are they also responsible for execution?
What checks would be in place to prevent professional popularity contest participants (those we call politicians at the moment) from adopting a facade of ideological purity and getting elected on popularity rather than merit? How would they be insulated from outside influence by those affected by their decision making? Do we really need more tractors, or do they still have friends in Worker’s Collective 631 that makes tractors?
Congratulations! You just created a managerial class (at best) or just the usual corrupt cabal that run things to their own benefit.
increases productivity as workers are more happy and committed
That’s a big assumption. Anyone have any data from wide sampling across multiple industries to support this as a long-term sustained effect?
work to better ourselves and humanity
If you replace “humanity” with “our close community” this might be realistic. I don’t think the “and humanity” has ever happened at a macro level.
Based on previous discussions, I understand the commonly proposed model here would be a workers’ collective of some sort. People involved in the collective’s production share the proceeds - we made N number of tractors and took them to market and received X value units; we spent Y value units in the production process, so we can distribute (X - Y) value units among the members of the collective. The workers own the equipment and infrastructure used by the collective and share responsibility for production. If a worker moves from workplace A to workplace B for whatever reason, they cease to share in the proceeds and responsibility of workplace A’s collective and take on the responsibilities of workplace B’s collective and share in its proceeds.
This is Market Socialism, not Marxism. Marxism is what is depicted in the above graphic. Marxists aim to satisfy the needs of the whole using the production of the whole, not just competing cooperatives.
Can someone explain to me what this means in today’s world, beyond factories making physical goods (such as tractors) using physical machines and manual human labour?
All Capital, ie everything used in the commodity production process. If your aim is to get into the weeds about what is considered Capital, edge cases can be decided by committees.
There are some details missing here. Who elects these committees - workers, or society in general? What are the requirements for being electable for such a role? How are these committees held accountable for failures? Do they plan production at a society-wide level, each in a specific industry, or down to regions or specific production facilities? Do they serve only a planning role, or are they also responsible for execution?
The society in general is the workers. Requirements can be decided by the people. These committees are held accountable via election, and a recall election can be held at any time. There are multiple rungs of planning, from society wide to regional to facility levels, with committees for each. They can serve planning and execution, as workers participate.
What checks would be in place to prevent professional popularity contest participants (those we call politicians at the moment) from adopting a facade of ideological purity and getting elected on popularity rather than merit? How would they be insulated from outside influence by those affected by their decision making? Do we really need more tractors, or do they still have friends in Worker’s Collective 631 that makes tractors?
Recall elections. Why would producing more tractors in collective 631 benefit that collective if the goal is to satisfy the whole from the whole?
Congratulations! You just created a managerial class (at best) or just the usual corrupt cabal that run things to their own benefit.
Managers are not a class, they are an extension of the workers.
That’s a big assumption. Anyone have any data from wide sampling across multiple industries to support this as a long-term sustained effect?
Yes, across numerous studies worker participation in steering companies has resulted in higher satisfaction and stability.
If you replace “humanity” with “our close community” this might be realistic. I don’t think the “and humanity” has ever happened at a macro level.
You’re arguing against a chimera of random mish-mashed ideas from several different strains of Socialism that argue for different forms as though they are one and the same.
This is Market Socialism, not Marxism. Marxism is what is depicted in the above graphic.
The graphic with the big caption “SOCIALISM”. But fair point on me not addressing the specific implementation suggested with the presence of the Marx and Lenin characters.
If your aim is to get into the weeds about what is considered Capital, edge cases can be decided by committees.
Well yea, the devil is in the detail so it can’t just be waved away. The “commodity production process” still implies physical goods made from physical resources and that it’s the production facilities and resources that should be seized. (Side note: this assumes all the underlying resources are present within the area controlled by the proletariat.) Not seen any ideas proposed beyond that, but perhaps I’m not hanging around in the right places… Hopefully the committees will have people available that can figure it out after the fact?
Requirements can be decided by the people. These committees are held accountable via election, and a recall election can be held at any time. There are multiple rungs of planning, from society wide to regional to facility levels, with committees for each. They can serve planning and execution, as workers participate.
Yea, you’ve clearly never worked in a “design by committee” or “management by consensus” situation. Nothing ever gets done, and when some decision is finally made on anything it tends to be the shittiest common denominator option that thinly and evenly spreads the collective responsibility. Not the best option, but the one that everyone can kind of agree on and thus be collectively accountable for. The exception might be when a very small number of people that are agreed on an end goal and share the same vision for reaching it work together. But I assure you, that does not scale - even if people are in full agreement on the end goal.
Why would producing more tractors in collective 631 benefit that collective if the goal is to satisfy the whole from the whole?
Because human beings.
Managers are not a class, they are an extension of the workers.
Fair point. I guess I was a bit caught in the popular narrative where managers are the enemy of the workers.
Yes, across numerous studies worker participation in steering companies has resulted in higher satisfaction and stability.
Of course, and I’m a fan. I’m not disputing that places where extensive consultation happens with the people responsible for delivering are nice places to work at. But that consultation process is usually very closely managed and the ideas to take forward are cherry picked to give enough “they listen to me” feel good vibes, while also not interfering too much with the business’ priorities. Really taking the inputs of large employee groups seriously on the things that matter cannot happen outside of an adversarial setting, because the interests of the worker and those who benefit most from their labour are fundamentally in conflict. The point I’m rambling towards is that I doubt there are studies that looked at situations where employee inputs in decision making (beyond window dressing) was sustained over very long periods of time at a scale relevant to what you envision. (There are exceptions, but only in small groups of highly-aligned people in a horizontal structure that are deeply vested in the success of the venture.)
You’re arguing against a chimera of random mish-mashed ideas from several different strains of Socialism that argue for different forms as though they are one and the same.
I guess you’re right on that, yes. The thing is that I’ve been thinking about details like these (and many more) for at least 25 years (beyond “edgy teenager” or “social media fad” or “my parents are fascists” stages), since I would prefer that the fruits of my labour (to at least some degree) benefit other people rather than feed a system that heavily incentivises the shittiest parts of human beings and is also inherently cruel. Over the years I’ve also read pretty widely on this topic - from the purist theoretical ideologies to the practical compromises to the counterpoints to the criticisms. (Hell, I even lived in what was basically a workers’ collective for almost a year, but it only worked because it was a small community of ~100 people with close social and familial ties.) So in my mind the lines between specific flavours of socialism are pretty blurry these days, while the common fundamental challenges keep standing out.
What truly frustrates me is the constant arguments about which is the best flavour, while ignoring how to actually realistically practically progress towards something better. Spending the day fighting about which flavour of ice cream to buy instead of figuring out how to get to the ice cream shop on the other side of the city in the first place.
That, and I am yet to see something proposed that doesn’t completely ignore predictable human reactions or result in some degree of authoritarianism. (Nordic-flavour (kind of but not really) Market Socialism is perhaps the closest to something that might work, but it also heavily relies on a fairly homogenous society with a culture that sees value in the interests of that society over total individualism.)
You’re not liberating literal serfs that never knew personal agency from a literal monarch. You’re trying to get people that are exploited by a system while also benefitting from it to willingly abandon that system for something that might be better (if it worked) or might not be - the plans for the “something” are fuzzy at best so who knows. The details matter, and interrogating the details is not reactionary behaviour.
Congratulations! You just created market forces in the labour market that will have winners and losers.
Yes. Market Socialism (which would have supply and demand and competing worker-owned firms) doesn’t solve everything. I advocate for it because I think it’s a good, achievable medium-term goal that would be a vast improvement over what we have now. Something we could see in my lifetime. Once we get things there, workers are in a better position to advocate for further changes, like dumping money altogether.
However, there’s plenty of people who think we should jump right past that and into the Anarco-Communist end goal.
achievable medium-term goal that would be a vast improvement over what we have now
Yup.
people who think we should jump right past that and into the Anarco-Communist end goal
Well good luck to them on getting that done in any society with a reasonably functional democracy.
One of the ideals of being a cooperative is “cooperation among cooperatives” as dictated by the Rochdale Principles. So by definition worker co-ops shouldn’t be competing with each other. Instead consolidation of corporations to force a sort of cooperation to increase profit we’ll ideally have worker cooperatives working with producer co-ops for example.
Not entirely sure the implications of supply and demand market forces but I imagine its a step up from our current system. We’ll have democratically controlled work places where workers dictact the direction of supply and not necessarily for the sole purpose of increasing profits. In any case what I think we need is a new systematic way of measuring the growth of an economy in conjunction with worker co-ops.
That would likely happen on its own. If the UAW took over everything at Ford and GM, they would likely merge the companies, because why not? Even in industries where unions don’t straddle companies like that, it’s only a matter of time.
But that happens after they take over.
Is that Lenin or Louis CK in the second panel?
Lenin.
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We’ve been having market capitalism and IA for YEARS, why are we still having less and less buying power, life expectancy, healthcare access and so on?
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Because decay is a natural state of the universe.
Everything socialism wants can be accomplished with market capitalism, AI, and UBI. We just need to get rid of the idiot religious folks voting against their interest (“oh no! trans people make baby jesus cry!”) and get rid of the liberals who want make government bigger and bigger and bigger (“Let’s put a tax on filling out the form! And make a new waiting period for something!”), and then we’d finally have a functioning society.
Why billionaires will let that happens under capitalism if that benefits them? You can’t fix capitalism, it works perfectly for people that owns the capital.
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wtf you talking about the world is bigger than republican and democrats and you have countries where religion is not that big with signs of the problems of late stage capitalism.
You can’t have all people smart in capitalism without free good education, if education is a commodity the poor people become ignorant and easier to manipulate by the people who own the capital and they will manipulate them to vote for what is best for the capital. You can remove religion and the same problem will continue, you only solve people voting with the ass with education and that is really difficult within capitalism, like I said before billionaires will not let that happens.
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Trusting pure socialism to not accidentally starve its people through inept and lazy government decisions is like buying a PC with Windows 11 and hoping you won’t see ads because you trust the closed source code.
To clarify here, your example is what actually happens under capitalism. Literally, not figuratively. F(L)OSS is pretty anarchic/communist in nature.
Everything socialism wants can be accomplished with market capitalism, AI, and UBI.
Hypothetically, maybe, however, the current hyper-commercial capitalism shows no signs of allowing UBI or passing on any benefit from AI and other automation to workers. There’s been a complete disconnect between productivity and worker compensation since the 70s, with the capital class pocketing every penny of the difference.
ooo. i like a lot of what you’re saying, except that i think the market capitalism part should be less vital. i’m more in favor of a resource based economy which is overseen by AI. markets would become more of a hobbyist endeavor. some people need to have a little bit more than others and can’t help but express their type A personalities, so the markets are there for them to feel like they earned a little more than other people, but without the ability to become billionaires.
Also, UBI seems like a transitional phase solution. in a well regulated resource based economy, currency eventually becomes a vestigial appendage. i mean, it’s just a middle man of exchange now, and we’re only exchanging things because we can’t figure out how to distribute necessary commodities and incentivize people. i believe in a resource based economy where almost all needs are met and education in humanities is emphasized, people will be happy to do their 2.5 hours of weekly labor to keep a utopian system running.
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We just need to get rid of the idiot religious folks voting against their interest
How do you propose doing that? Murdering them en masse?
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Why are you saying that?
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Well, people, including political leaders are corrupt, so this would never be practically possible, since people would just abuse the system and hoard resources, as always.
News flash, people have been abusing the system and hoarding resources for a while
I think that’s their point.
We currently live in a system where the owner class (capitalists) makes several times what you do and horde it, while you can barely afford to live.
I really don’t understand how your main criticism of a system where the workers make the decisions and take the profits, is that the workers might also horde the relatively smaller amounts that they produced. It’s still several times better than what we have now.
I just ment to say, nothing will change, no matter the political system.
How?
The difference is that, in socialism, hoarding resources is illegal and prosecutable, whereas in capitalism it’s legal and encourage. Corruption is only defined when it touches the public institutions. Every behaviour that you’d consider corrupt in the public sector, is obvious common practice and even encouraged in the private one.
In the public sector, hiring an acquaintance or family member based on trust is illegal and punishable. In the private sector I’ll hire whoever I want for my company.
In the public sector, having a service done for your company such as a renovation of the office, if you hire based off friendship or trust, you are punished, you’re supposed to be efficient and impartial. In the private company it’s expected that you’d hire your friend to do the renovation.
In the public sector, lowering the wages of the employees to higher your own, is so obviously corrupt that it barely ever happens at all, and when it happens it’s absolute scandal. In the private sector we just call it “labour is paid based on your replaceability”.
The list of behaviours that we’d find corrupt and morally reprehensible (and legally punishable) in the public sector, and totally fine in the private sector, is endless. Can’t complain about corruption in the private sector when there’s not such thing, amirite? At least I’d want a system in which corrupt people are prosecuted and not applauded.
Well, that is true.
I would love to see a policy where there is a variable tax rate on companies based on employees satisfaction.
If a company has a largely unhappy workforce they would be taxed most of their profits.
If a company has a extremely happy workforce then it can reduce the taxation rate below the standard rate. And employees can still vote on this 2 years after termination.
It incentivises companies to invest more in the employees wellbeing, and punishes companies that take practice in unsustainable hiring and mass layoffs later.
If it is unavoidable that a company needs to downsize, they would be incentivised to help employees find new employment.
I’m sure there is a large issue I’m not seeing with this but I’m pretty fond of the idea.
There is a simpler way to do this, and it’s a worker cooperative. Workers own the business and they democratically decide what the business does. There is no separation between the leadership and the workforce. Maintaining that separation will always result in conflict because the interests of the owners will never be the same as those of the workers.
How is that simpler?
It sounds way more complex to logistically set up a system like that. Best case is a lot of regulation needed, worse case is a complete overhaul of the economy.
It already exists. See for example Mondragon
The major issue is that it has to compete on a global market that’s exploitative.
100% agree with the exploitative global market.
Also, that was an interesting read and a great example of an ideal company’s practice.
Though it was a bit vague on where the start up funding came from. Which is what I was most curious about (and my main reason I consider the practice complex to implement)
Mondragon seems to be founded by a generous man that created the company from the ground up with these principles in mind, but unfortunately most people with the resources to this kind of business do not have such great ideals (and for the most part, they have these resources because they don’t have them and thus exploited workers)
How would a business take off the ground in this scenario without a selfless benefactor?
Also it’s a much different beast to convert an already established company like amazon and convert that to the same system. Mainly in that the owners and shareholders do not want to give up their investment for nothing.
What are the options then? Steal the company from the amazon investors in spite of the capital they invested to the company? Or pay them off?(would be expensive if going by market value)
Stealing would still be dystopian. I have no love for amazon investors, but imagine a lovely small family-owned business that invested all their life savings into it, before being taken from them because they hired some teenagers to help them for the summer.
It’s complex, and not likely compatible with the current economy (unless the rich bastard’s hearts grow 3 sizes large), but it would be nice if this business type was more widespread.
I consider the tax rate suggestion a good way to integrate the employee vote with capitalism. it still “survival of the fittest” but the “fittest” would be a profitable company that looks after it’s employees.
Yeah, it’s not an easy problem to solve. As someone who is mainly versed in the socialist tradition I view class conflict as the primary impedement to social progress. And any system that incorporates competition will, in my view, generate class conflict. It’s all or nothing: you can’t have a cooperative structure operating within a competetive framework.
In practical terms, this has meant a lot of different things over the past few centuries. Nobody has found the correct answer. In the present system, the first step is unionization and increasing class consciousness among the labor force. The second step is coordinated action via targeted mass action (think cross-industry work stoppages that disrupt production and logistics). Essentially you cripple the owner class at large by disrupting their profits and force them to make concessions. You could have a gradual move towards cooperative ownership by forcing down the ratio of CEO to average worker pay. You could force the passage of the types of tax reform that you are arguing for. You could force the passage of social welfare reform.
But ultimately this movement would have to be worker-led, because the ruling class will always invent new ways to entrench themselves in power. John Maynard Keynes referred to the “euthenasia of the rentier class”. In other words, they would humanely pass into the dust bin of history because they would no longer exist as a class, because the workers would not tolerate them.
It surprises me so that any functioning democracy isn’t automatically socialist.
Kewl story bro
Lenin wasn’t a socialist. He was a transparently dishonest fraud who built a cult of personality. The best thing you can say is that he failed because if the results were a success, Lenin was a monster.
That’s not how he was described by anyone who was alive at the time except for business men who lost their investments in tsarist Russia, but keep believing in spooky ghost stories.
Tankie Detected.
What are you? A Trotskyist? A Liberal?
Wow, you think those are the only options?
Tankie Detected.
It was a serious question, but it seems you are unable to abstain from childish retorts.
Not a tankie btw, not even a communist of any tendency
I don’t belive you; I think you’re a liar, because you didn’t ask a neutral question; you gave notoriously terrible options.
Too cowardly to be upfront about your own politics huh? Doesn’t matter, you’ve already been identified as a liberal by someone you blocked for defending Marxism.
A NATO-Anarchist, anti-Marxist, at least from what I gathered before they blocked me for defending Marx. Someone who stans Western Hegemony and constantly decries Marxists.
Even Trotskyists like Lenin.
To the people downvoting this: please ask yourselves whether you’ve read anything Lenin wrote, or read any non-anticommunist article or book on the Russian Revolution and Lenin
Showing to us all you haven’t studied the figure of Lenin in an honest way in your life.
Lenin dedicated most of his life (in exile from the tsarist regime for doing so) to study, write on, and agitate against, the issues of the masses. He was openly against becoming a personality cult, he maintained his democratic ideals until the moment a civil war broke and terrorist attacks started to kill members of the party and attempted to kill him, and if you read any of his writings it’s patently obvious that he’s obsessed with the well-being of the working class.
any of his writings
Both Napoleon and Hitler
wrotehad other people write of them that they had the best intentions for true respective populaces. However in practice it turned out they used them as cannon fodder.Hitler had famous writings detailing his ragingly racist and antisemitic views, and committed holocaust against specific ethnicities and nationalities out of Aryan-supremacism.
Napoleon was a militarist nationalist whose life was purely a militarist endeavour. He pursued violent expansionism out of patriotic fervor.
Comparing Lenin, a lawyer who escaped the autocratic regime of his homeland and spent a life in exile examining Marxist texts on how to improve the life conditions of people, to either Napoleon or Hitler, shows you have absolutely no idea of the values Lenin valued and promoted, you haven’t read one single of his texts, and you’re speaking purely out of anti-communist sentiment that’s been ingrained in your brain.
I’m not comparing their politics, but making the point that the self proclaimed ideologies of leaders may be embellished or different from the practice.
Saying that Lenin in theory had the week being of people in mind is rather moot if I’m practice he didn’t give many shits about the people and only tried clinging to power regardless of the suffering his people went through.
And now you’re proving you don’t know anything of the history of the russian revolution. The only event you can point of “authoritarianism” during the Russian Revolution and Lenin’s life, is the red terror. By any reasonably account, the red terror was very measured and not arbitrarily applied, and it happened in the context of a civil war against monarchists in which 14 nations including England, France, and Italy, sent troops and agitators to the Russian Socialist Federation of Soviet Republics, with numbers comparable to that of the oppression by the republicans towards fascists in the Spanish civil war.
Do you know why you’ve never heard (unless you’re Spanish) condemnation of the repression against fascists during the Spanish civil war? Because the reds lost. The only good leftist for you anticommunists is the leftist who dies to fascism, like Salvador Allende. As soon as a communist revolution triumphs, you declare it a perversion and oppressive regardless of the history.
I know of the Spanish Civil War, I studied history. I’d even identify as leftist. I’m only staunchly anti-authorithorian. Hence me opposing Franco in the Spanish revolution. Just like another person whom you might hate a Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell).
I mean I respect Stalin as a theoretician, but actions speak louder than theory. And like my main point; people’s own writings are only maybe proof of intention, but practice shows the commitment to those and most autocrats tend to be quite loose with them.
Now moving the goalposts to Stalin. The great terror was unnecessary, harmful, excessively cruel and unjustified, and overall a disaster that should never have happened.
I know of the Spanish Civil War, I studied history. I’d even identify as leftist. I’m only staunchly anti-authorithorian. Hence me opposing Franco in the Spanish revolution.
Ok, now, why did Franco win the war? What if the republicans, instead of “ohhh evil Franco! We got you! Don’t try to plot a coup again, ok? Please!”, they had actually organized before the coup and repressed the fascists that needed repressing? What if Salvador Allende instead of being just the best democrat, had imprisoned or murdered the fascist opposition? What if we could have avoided decades of fascism as the USSR managed to do? Assuming you support the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, do you realize that you’re only supporting the leftists that lose, and that as soon as leftists take control, you categorize it as authoritarian?
While Lenin was a flawed leader, and did some shady shit in the name of revolution, I don’t think it’s fair or honest to call him a fraud. Man was literally imprisoned because of his beliefs. Not saying we should follow him religiously like some people do, he definitely made mistakes. Now if this was Stalin we were talking about I could understand.
He was imprisoned for what he wrote about. His actions tell me that he was not a socialist, and that’s what matters. He held an election, immediately enacted violence to change the outcome, immediately dismantled the socialist power structures that were in place, purged people who didn’t agree with him, and acted as an autocrat.
Anyone who thinks Lenin was a socialist is ignorant of history.
Edit: I can’t actually see who replied to me because I blocked them 😂 tells me what I need to know about the people arguing with me.
immediately dismantled the socialist power structures that were in place
That’s insanely ahistorical. The socialist power structures that were in place, existed precisely BECAUSE of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. And soviets had a very high degree of government control all the way up until the death of Lenin. You’re seriously mistaken about this
The 1% cry about it way less than the 40+% of absolute troglodytes in this country who think of themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires and love their tacky prophet Donnie the douche
Market socialism also exists, just to remind everyone.
If you Google “define socialism”, you’ll get a sentence saying socialism is when tve means of production are owned OR regulated by the people.
So you can still have what we have right now, no need for any sort of fundamental change, except proper regulation, meaning actually good labour laws and proper taxation for the wealthy.
Finland and other Nordics are arguably market socialist.
And yes, I know how many will disagree. Here in Finland, less so.
Finland and other Nordics are arguably market socialist.
Absolutely not, they are Social Democracies. They are not progressing towards more worker ownership, but less, Capitalism still drives the system and the bourgeoisie still drives the state.
By any reasonable dictionary (as well as classic definition), capitalism is defined by private property of the means of production. Socialism is defined by common/social ownership of the means of production, not “regulation”. What you call “market socialism” is just regulated capitalism.
Nothing wrong with having any position, and we should strive for what’s best instead of trying to correspond to certain terms, but what you suggest is not socialism.
And I kinda hate it when we move the goalposts, especially with American politician calling literally any bit of social policy “socialism”. No it’s not, and classics have outlined it very, very clearly.
No it isn’t.
Capitalism doesn’t have a monopoly on privately owned businesses.
“By any reasonable definition” you seem to mean “this is what I think for some reason I’m not even entirely sure of, and I’m too lazy to even Google what you said”.
Now see, which should I believe, the actual consensus of the literature on economics and political philosophy… or some random dude online who’s rhetoric of “byaah no no that’s just capitalism socialism is communism” I’ve seen literally thousands of times?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_ownership
However, the articulation of models of market socialism where factor markets are utilized for allocating capital goods between socially owned enterprises broadened the definition to include autonomous entities within a market economy.
Cooperatives, while not being owned by a single private person, are still held by private people.
You can cry all you want but capitalism isn’t synonymous with market economy.
Well regulated capitalism is just socialism. Capitalism strives for the least regulation possible, because it enables maximising profits, which actually is the definition of it as a political ideology. Striving for more capital.
Here’s something which will rustle your jimmies even more.
You know we Nordics are social democracies right?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism[1]
Social democracy has been described as the most common form of Western or modern socialism.[11][12]
In the 21st century, it has become commonplace to define social democracy in reference to Northern and Western European countries,[39] and their model of a welfare state with a corporatist system of collective bargaining.[40] Social democracy has also been used synonymously with the Nordic model.[
You seem to cite Wikipedia as your favorite source. How about opening articles on capitalism and socialism before you go any further?
This should help you get up to speed before you accuse me and all others of making stuff up.
Wikipedia has sources, as you well know.
You’re not making a point. I did. I quoted specific parts of specific articles, backed by verifiable sources.
You can’t fight it, because you’re just a kid pretending to understand the thing you couldn’t even be bothered to Google before opening your ignorant mouth about it, and now you feel shame when someone shows you how wrong you were, by quoting specific parts which specific claims, again, backed by credible sources.
Your reply “no but uh it’s like Wikipedia so it’s like bad and look here’s the article to capitalism. What? No I’m not gonna make an argument, I’m feeling ashamed and I’m gonna pretend saying CAPITALISM really loud will win tve argument”
Yeah, like I said, I’ve seen that literally thousands of times.
Generations of socialists have been critical of social democracy. Generations of capitalists have been saying that social democracy is the closest we will ever get to socialism. So who should I believe, the western consensus of capitalist academia, beholden to big money donors for research grants, or the most brilliant, brave and capable intellectuals of the past 200 years, such as Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, DuBois, Lenin and (for a bit of Nordic flair) Pannekoek?
Because what is the Nordic model really? A huge part of the Nordic economy is defense contractors, which means your social democracy is paid for with mass death, imperialism and immiseration. Also, as a member of the western hegemon, Nordic countries enjoy the fruits of neocolonial exploitation of Africa, Asia, South America, etc., not very socialistic to prop up a class of war mongering rich, even if they pay marginally higher taxes than elsewhere.
This debate has existed for a long time, but to socialists it is settled. The Wikipedia entry for the Gotha program of 1875 calls it “explicitly socialist.” And even by today’s standards, it was and would be fairly progressive; calling for workers rights, universal sufferage, etc., but to many of the members of the first socialist international it was controversial because it relied on an upper class of politicians and business men to administer the social reforms. Karl Marx wrote his “Critique of the Gotha Program” tearing apart every point of the short document as another form of class rule, and even created some problems for his socially a connected partner Friedrich Engels by calling Ferdinand Lasalle, a popular reformer, politician and architect of the Gotha program, “a petty dictator in waiting.” He could not have known that Lasalle was in fact conspiring with von Bismarck to enact a plan of social democracy that would serve as a cover for a new regime of class domination that would undercut the socialist movement with moderate reforms, while making the working class beholden to the political/economic upper class.
These reforms can be taken away over time, which we are seeing in European social democracies over the last 40 years; leaving only the naked coercive competitive drive of capitalism to govern all social relations.
And like, I’m an American, my country is the imperial epicenter for neocolonialism imperialist expansion, bourgeois decadence, exploitation and immiseration (for now.) My experiences with people from Nordic countries who I have met have been overwhelmingly positive. Your social democracies are superior to our laissez faire capitalism, they make more sense, are more stable and less subject to natural instability cycles inherent to the system. Nothing is cut-and-dry, there are blended forms of political and economic organization, just like there are blended classes, and new forms are always emerging as history marches. If you want to believe that your social democracies are an island within capitalism, that’s mostly true! But to a socialist, it is not socialism. Quoting a Wikipedia article at us when most of us are acutely aware of how it is used by businesses and governments to shape our remembrance of history and the ideas with which we use to shape the world, comes off as incredibly weak and unconvincing, especially when so many of us spend years studying independently, having discussions and organizing our communities. You can quote wikipedia but it will never convince a socialist. I hope you become more mindful of where you are getting your information and whom that particular interpretation of facts serves. Spoiler alert! Its the owners of private property, the means of production, which have always shaped history and defined the classes and antagonisms inherent to them.
After reading this, i now understand less about socialism.
Is a planned economy an inherent part of socialism? That seems like the biggest red flag (lol) in this comic. All sorts of incentive mismatches there.
“Democracy at work, too” is like the biggest pitch for socialism, “government deciding what businesses can exist” is the biggest pitch against. A tightrope to walk, for sure.
Is a planned economy an inherent part of socialism? That seems like the biggest red flag (lol) in this comic. All sorts of incentive mismatches there.
For Marxists, absolutely. Marx heavily critiqued the profit motive and the dangers of producing to fulfil greed instead of need. For Syndicalists, Market Socialists, etc? Perhaps not.
“Democracy at work, too” is like the biggest pitch for socialism, “government deciding what businesses can exist” is the biggest pitch against. A tightrope to walk, for sure.
Workplace democracy is an improvement, but Marxists will argue insufficient alone in combatting class society.
What’s your issue with Central Planning, other than vibes?
What’s your issue with Central Planning, other than vibes?
I’m not a theorist obviously, but it seems like it’s inherently going to be a limited number of decision makers who can’t possibly know everything, and they become a bottleneck to business creation at best, a corruption machine at worst. I know I wouldn’t trust the government of half (or more but my point is, Republicans) the current US states to decide what business are allowed to exist.
I know the retort is of course that we have corruption now, but I’d think if we’re theorizing, there’s a better way to reduce extant corruption than introducing a new vector for even more corruption. And there’s a way to harness the power of people starting small businesses freely without letting those businesses become unregulated behemoths.
Like just set the criteria you would be telling the Central Planning Authority to prioritize, and do that with regulation. Set an ownership tax so that as a business gets bigger the ownership moves away from the founder and into the public trust.
I’m not a theorist obviously, but it seems like it’s inherently going to be a limited number of decision makers who can’t possibly know everything, and they become a bottleneck to business creation at best, a corruption machine at worst. I know I wouldn’t trust the government of half (or more but my point is, Republicans) the current US states to decide what business are allowed to exist.
Advocates of Central Planning advocate for rungs, not just 5 dudes and some excel spreadsheets. There would be factory level planners, local planners, regional planners, state planners, country planners, and international planners. Nobody will know everything, but they will know their own areas inputs and outputs.
I know the retort is of course that we have corruption now, but I’d think if we’re theorizing, there’s a better way to reduce extant corruption than introducing a new vector for even more corruption. And there’s a way to harness the power of people starting small businesses freely without letting those businesses become unregulated behemoths.
Why would it be more corrupt? Why do you believe Small Businesses are fine? Markets themselves inevitably result in those unregulated behemoths, it’s better to have a cohesive whole that is thoroughly regulated and democratically controlled.
Like just set the criteria you would be telling the Central Planning Authority to prioritize, and do that with regulation. Set an ownership tax so that as a business gets bigger the ownership moves away from the founder and into the public trust.
I recommend reading Wage Labor and Capital for more information on why the Profit Motive and Capitalist Production itself to be bad.
That sounds like Market Socialism by another name.
Market Socialism has competing cooperatives, not central planning.
Why would it be more corrupt? Why do you believe Small Businesses are fine?
It’s more concentrated power. The opportunity for more corruption. Sure, they could be philosopher kings at first but having the control means someone can have the control corruptly.
I don’t necessarily believe all small businesses are fine, but their interests compete with each other, and they’re small, by definition. And we already have regulations that apply to all businesses, there is democratic control in some sense. So I’m not worried about how the corruption of one small business owner would warp society or national interest.
Markets themselves inevitably result in those unregulated behemoths,
I agree with this premise and then not the conclusion. Inevitably, all behemoths were once small businesses. But is the correct intervention to stop the small businesses from forming in the first place, or to prevent the ones that get big from utilizing that size in an asocial way? You could socialize businesses of a certain size, for example. You could set rules for worker-elected board members, or whatever.
It’s more concentrated power. The opportunity for more corruption. Sure, they could be philosopher kings at first but having the control means someone can have the control corruptly.
Why does that mean it cannot be accounted for democratically?
I don’t necessarily believe all small businesses are fine, but their interests compete with each other, and they’re small, by definition. And we already have regulations that apply to all businesses, there is democratic control in some sense. So I’m not worried about how the corruption of one small business owner would warp society or national interest.
Nothing is static, they will eventually grow into monopoly and corruption.
I agree with this premise and then not the conclusion. Inevitably, all behemoths were once small businesses. But is the correct intervention to stop the small businesses from forming in the first place, or to prevent the ones that get big from utilizing that size in an asocial way? You could socialize businesses of a certain size, for example. You could set rules for worker-elected board members, or whatever.
The correct path is to avoid the problem entirely via Socialism.
What’s your issue with Central Planning, other than vibes?
billions dead of starvation every time its been attempted
Amazing.
You do know starvation rates lowered over time every time central planning has been put in place, right? You do know Capitalist countries also plan, correct?
It’s not, just read about Anarcho-Syndycalists, or Anarcho-Communists, to get different perspectives.
This is post is about ML specifically, only really the first and last panels are about socialism in general.
Why would a democratically planned economy be a bad thing? How is it more democratic that capitalist owners decide which businesses can exist, rather than the people collectively decide so?
My concern is that I cannot see a democratically planned economy implemented in a way which doesn’t sacrifice individualism of people .
Democracy isn’t strictly “freedom” on its own, but it is a powerful tool to protect our “individual freedoms” by ensuring our leaders act in our best interests.
But unless everyone has the exact same mind set that means that the majority will always drown out the minority and so the minority voices will be forced to conform to what the majority want.
We are mostly like-minded in things like what should be crimes/punishment/rights/etc(but note this wasn’t always the case): but everyone has individual preferences, like colour of shirt, a specific brand of food, video games, etc which means they need an economy where products can be created by individuals rather than decided by the majority.
If 51% of people think wearing a t-shirt with a cute dog on it is a stupid waste of time then that t-shirt doesn’t get made, and so the 49% people that did like the shirt lose out.
Also if 99% of people wanted the garbage collected, but no one wanted to work there, what happens then? Is someone forced to work there? That would be extreme, instead maybe there is more incentive to work there with more pay, but then what if lots of people wanted to work there due to this incentive who would decide who works there and therefore who owns the company?
Hyperbolic examples I know but i hope you see the point I’m trying to make.
Capitalism despite all it’s flaws can allow a single person the chance seek funding to provide a good or service and if deemed profitable (either through high demand or cheap production) then the product gets made. People can also seek the obscure products they want rather than what’s popular.
Your comment comes from a very flawed and limited understanding of what democratic planning of the economy could be. “51% of the population decided to wear a blue shirt so only blue shirts are made” isn’t at all a good representation of the possibilities of democratic planning of the economy.
Look at Amazon. Amazon is already an insanely big centrally planned economy. They have at their disposal the best engineers and computer scientists that enable such central planning that makes them an indestructible behemoth of efficiency. As soon as one client so much as clicks on a product, computer algorithms calculate the likelihood of them buying the product, and send signals to their warehouses to prepare their products for delivery, and in turn they send signals to their distributor or the manufacturer to supply or produce some more, all in the blink of an eye. The power that we, as workers, could harness if we made that ours, is unimaginably strong. Imagine a planned economy where direct input from consumers modifies the manufacturing quantities of the goods produced, without Amazon selling your data and appropriating all the surplus value of all workers in the process.
Imagine wanting to open a small business, and instead of having to be rich from the start, going to the local council to see if the community is interested in having such a business, let’s say a cafe. You make a pitch, they like they idea, and they fund your project because, after all, it will be good for the neighborhood, with a part of the money they’re allocated by the state for such purposes. You run your business in a risk-free fashion, since the community is already interested and has funded the project, and the better it works, the more money you can earn since you have productivity bonuses.
Imagine facing climate change, and making collectively as a society a 20-year plan subdivided in 5-year intervals to decarbonise the main sectors of the economy responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, all with the collaboration of experts in the science of climate change, experts in said sectors working not to maximise the profit of shareholders but for the betterment of humanity, and computer programmers managing absurd amounts of data that allow for very precise estimations of the state of the economy in 5 years time.
That’s the future I want, and it’s doable. We have the technology, we have the knowledge, we have the people. The only thing left is to eliminate the cancerous property structures of productive property.
“51% of the population decided to wear a blue shirt so only blue shirts are made” isn’t at all a good representation of the possibilities of democratic planning of the economy.
I understand it doesn’t highlight the benefits like better working conditions but I feel that it illustrates my point well in that individualism is affected negatively in a democratic planned economy and forced to conform to the majority.
While it would be nice for individuals to get funding for whatever businesses ideas they think are profitable, in reality it comes down to trying to sell a product you haven’t produced yet.
Going by your cafe example, what if there was a Diner nearby that sold some coffee/tea on its menu. You have to convince the majority that your shop is a worthwhile investment with them never even tasting the product, and even if it is low cost enough that you would still make profit.
What if there was a sub-par cafe with lazy employees already in town and you want to make a cafe that takes pride in its work. Would people want two cafes in the same town? If not then you are competing with a store without even able to sell a product of your own.
It’s ultimately the taxpayers that are taking the risk on your product instead of the individual so they won’t want to pay for a service they won’t use or care for. Even if the minority of people can make it profitable.
Maybe a hybrid system where company can be owned by both private and public funding, but the private would win as they exploit their workers to cut down costs.
Ultimately I believe people should be able to start a private business on a product they believe in, as there is more diversity in products and more freedom for creativity that way. While at the same time believe that employees should have a voice that can disrupt profitability if they are mistreated. Either via Union or otherwise.
Going by your cafe example, what if there was a Diner nearby that sold some coffee/tea on its menu. You have to convince the majority that your shop is a worthwhile investment with them never even tasting the product, and even if it is low cost enough that you would still make profit.
That problem still takes place in capitalism. It’s just that, instead of having to convince people for funding, you risk going into bankruptcy when you try your business idea.
What if there was a sub-par cafe with lazy employees already in town and you want to make a cafe that takes pride in its work. Would people want two cafes in the same town?
Great, so you run you business in capitalism, and run the other cafe into bankruptcy because that’s wonderful for everyone, very efficient and humane. How about the local council decides that the other cafe is shit, and they give a warning to the place that they need to improve the quality of their work?
It’s ultimately the taxpayers that are taking the risk on your product instead of the individual so they won’t want to pay for a service they won’t use or care for. Even if the minority of people can make it profitable.
This can very easily be compensated by bigger, not so local, councils. Maybe specialized in more weird and experimental business ideas. Located in densely-populated ideas so that one of these weirder businesses can give cover to a high amount of population.
Really, you seem to be coming up with increasingly-complicated problems on the implementation on the spot. My point is that all of these problems can be outsourced to direct democracy instead of “consumer democracy”, in a more efficient, fair, and risk-free way for everyone.
That problem still takes place in capitalism. It’s just that, instead of having to convince people for funding, you risk going into bankruptcy when you try your business idea
Capitalism is still seeking funding, but there is more freedom in how to get it. You can self-fund or seek investors and the option to fund publicly via crowdsourcing. Funds that are invested in a company is the only cost that you are liable for. E.g. If you invest £1000 the maximum you could lose is that £1000. (unless it is an LLP I think).
Bankruptcy is a protection of capitalism in that the owner cannot be liable for the debts of the company. Yes, there are scummy abusers of this protection, but it is a protection no the less
Great, so you run you business in capitalism, and run the other cafe into bankruptcy because that’s wonderful for everyone, very efficient and humane. How about the local council decides that the other cafe is shit, and they give a warning to the place that they need to improve the quality of their work?
Lets assume that the council actually gives a crap on the quality actually issues this warning? This implies the council has the final say on how a business should be run, further proving that individualism is restricted.
What if it still doesn’t improve? I’m assuming they’d shut down the business for ignoring the warning? So in this hypothetical there is no cafe and no jobs. When in capitalism there is at least a competing better store left over with presumably the same number of jobs.
Do they fire the manager and the staff and replace them? I suppose this is job neutral still and probably the quality improves, but ignoring the difficulties finding a replacement then it will be the same store and same equipment used. There is no development or improvement or creativity because there isn’t any incentive or “freedom” to do so because the council has the final say on how your store is run.
This can very easily be compensated by bigger, not so local, councils. Maybe specialized in more weird and experimental business ideas. Located in densely-populated ideas so that one of these weirder businesses can give cover to a high amount of population.
I’d consider this worse as it widens the divide of urban and rural areas.
Again it is still the taxpayer that is taking this risk, and not the individual, so there is no reason why a council would bother with anything that isn’t an easy win for the public approval (or a selfish grift done under the table).
For example: A council member that a approves a sex shop could easily be labelled a pervert by his opponent in the next election so why would he take the risk on it?
I’m sure there are other businesses too that are punished in this system as the need to go through government means it needs easily positive public approval before it is considered, and there is no option to do it on your own as private owned businesses aren’t allowed.
Really, you seem to be coming up with increasingly-complicated problems
Have you considered that its maybe because it is an increasingly-complicated issue?
I could accuse you of giving increasingly-easy answers too. Though to be honest I don’t think that. I think you have thought through the benefits in great detail but not reflecting on the negatives and who could get hurt.
My point is that all of these problems can be outsourced to direct democracy instead of “consumer democracy”, in a more efficient, fair, and risk-free way for everyone
I don’t think it is that simple. As I said before democracy is the will of the majority and thus only majority-approved cases are considered leaving little room for freedom of expression (or at least in terms creating a business and diversity of products)
Democracy is NOT “efficient”, but it is “effective”. It is a slow tedious process with 9001 rules, with the goal that the end of it, the only possible candidates are people that serve the majority’s best interest. It works well for governments (well…for the most governments) but it results in an economy only serving majority interests. Capitalism with all it’s flaw still provides products to the minority as long as demand outweighs production. It is a fair, and risk-free way for the majority, not everyone
Saying that I don’t think the current state of capitalism is acceptable in anyway. It has turned into large companies bullying smaller ones via mass produced goods/ large user bases/brand recognition/etc, and thus accumulating power and wealth in which no human should have.
Capitalism thrives with competition, as new ideas and higher quality products are a survival pressure for the businesses to thrive. However there is little/no survival pressure to treat employees well (aside from rare/ high skill jobs) and also large companies do not have any significant competition meaning they have no need to incentivise better consumer experiences. In fact it turns to the opposite where they try to squeeze value from customers instead. This is made worse with how public trading incentivises investing in a small company then demanding unsustainable growth until it is sold at the peak market price and left to rot.
“Pure” capitalism left us with this mess. But I think proper regulation to tweak these survival pressures are key to turning things around.
All employees should have the right to affect the profitability of a company, either through unions or otherwise. This incentivises a company to treat the employees well.
Investers in the stock market should be liable for selling “at risk” stock for up to 3 months since the transaction date and the buyer of this stock can then sue for any damages from the base price. This incentivises investors to invest in stable long-term businesses rather than “pump and dump” a new fad.
The potential for regulatory capture and corruption, as well as the inherent inefficiency of having a limited number of decision makers. I wouldn’t trust the 2028 Trump Administration to thoughtfully determine which businesses are allowed to exist for 4 years.
It’s more democratic to let anyone start a business, rather than having a gatekeeper. But more importantly I think it makes more sense to let the capitalists take the losses if their business idea sucks, and then socializing the gains once we know it works.
I’m sad that when you use the word “democracy”, the best future people can imagine is the modern American system of “democracy”…
I’d argue that yes, it is, because markets entail private ownership, which goes against the basic notion of socialism
The closest you can get to socialism with the market system is worker’s cooperative - but market forces do not stop accumulation of power in the form of land and capital, as well as mergers and acquisitions. At the end of the day, you just reset capitalism for a while if you give businesses a free reign.
If you want to maintain a market system under socialism you need to separate it from public production. We would need to democratically decide what is a public good (e.g. housing, food, medicine, etc.) and what is a market good (essentially luxury goods). The private market would also have to be heavily regulated to prevent capital accumulation and associated power concentration. It’s a really difficult problem.
One of the reasons the Soviet economy failed is because computers were not advanced enough in the 1950s-80s to automate the kind of consumer goods production that a command economy would require to be able to compete with a market system. I think if we tried this again today we would have an easier time of it, and if you look at a large vertically integrated corporation like Walmart, they’ve more or less figured it out already.
I agree that automatization would greatly help.planned economies and that was one of the issues with Soviet economy in particular. Just too many variables to control manually. Nowadays, corporations do exactly that.
I wonder how can market be regulated in a way that doesn’t create capital accumulation. Isn’t that the very point of starting an enterprise?
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Socialism probably won’t be moneyless. Communism is moneyless but that’s a long ways away and there are no shortcuts. In any case, the value form is a nightmare, and has to be overcome. Ever heard of alienation, like from a Marxist perspective? The idea is that the extrinsic social relation we call “value,” has become so internalized that we can’t tell the difference between ourselves and commodities. On some level, we are always comparing things to other things, a new vacuum cleaner holds more value than a used pencil for an extreme example. Everything is reduced to what it is worth money-wise, which is a development that is unique to capitalism. And we even do it to ourselves and each other, comparing ourselves based on how much money we make, or how much cool stuff we have. So much so that Marx simplified this whole complex social clusterfuck called alienation as, “material relations between people, social relations between things.” And this is all tied to the value form, which is not a social necessity, but under our current system it is. Capitalism steals our humanity and turns it into value which is a measurement taken in dollars. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not too keen on having my time, labor and humanity robbed from me, but more importantly I’ll never get it back unless we take it back, all of the workers together demanding only what we already own, and what was taken from us.
The very concept of money has changed a lot for the past 200 years. In Marx’s time, the dominating view of money was that of a trading good like any other. Economists wrongly believed that money had appeared through barter, that primitive economies were barter economies, and that money, originally as fragments of precious metals, appeared from its convenience of being small and relatively weightless, easy to divide, long-lasting and impervious to rotting, etc. properties. Nowadays we understand that money appeared as a quantifier of debt, in centralized economies where one central authority would request goods and services to be provided by the subjects of that authority. These debt-notes would eventually turn into money.
Many modern economists understand money not as yet another commodity, but as a debt-measuring utility. Money would be, in short, a quantification of the right to request something from society. “Moneyless” society was understood at a time where money was poorly understood. For example, if you fix the prices of most goods and services, or even provide them at no cost, then what’s the point of money? Many people argue that the Rouble in the late USSR (70s onward) wasn’t really a currency at all. If money stops being a good indicator of the amount of goods and services that you can obtain, is it really money anymore?
This just goes to say that Marxism is open to discussion, and that everything should be analyzed with the most current and applicable knowledge, and be subjected to the harshest scrutiny. You’re very welcome to discuss the implications of a moneyless society, I just suggest that you do it in a more well-versed and less authoritative way than you did in your last comment.
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Are you familiar with the bartering system? Rather than money, you would judge the value of the object by how much you needed it. If you really wanted the avocados, you would ask the person who had avocados what they would trade. If you didn’t have what they wanted, you can bargain or try someone else who has avocados who wants what you currently have.
Basically, a money less society goes back to a very simplified society. You won’t be able to get everything you want and will have to, sometimes, settle for what you currently have. It also gives you the ability to trade your skills.
So, you go back to the avocado trader and tell them that you’ll build an avocado shed for them in exchange for a crate of avocados. You both negotiate, exchange and then move on.
It’s more work because you have seized the means of production by making things yourself in order to trade, rather than off shoring to someone else who is likely not getting paid at all. This is why the wealthy absolutely don’t want this system because it’s more work for them, while in the lower class it’ll give more control back. When balancing, there will always be people who lose and people who gain.
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Hey so the barter system never really existed, not in any real way. There were absolutely communal living pockets, like peasant villages in Russia, but barter would not work as a basis for a socialist society. You seem to have some interest in this stuff, so I think you should read Marx and Engels, and work your way through some of their economic stuff till you can work through Capital. Its a fucking fantastic book, but its pretty difficult, especially solo. Lots of great resources out there though, like David Harvey’s lectures and the Reading Capital With Comrades podcast. But start with Socialism: Utopian and Scientific which will prepare you for their analytical style, then read Wage Labor and Capital, or Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Sorry if you’re already familiar with some of this work but I figured from reading your comment that this stuff might still be new to you.
It sucks we were taught about the barter system in school, but that’s just some shit Adam Smith made up, he didn’t have any historical or material basis for it. Yet they still teach it as part of the liberal illusions about capital and private property.
You provided a bit of information about money but you didn’t provide any insight into what a moneyless society might look like and you didn’t provide any information to convince someone that this is a feasible concept
That’s simply because I’m not particularly well-versed into the advantages or disadvantages of moneyless societies, and I’m not particularly for or against them, if anything I’m im favour of the existence of a centralized currency as we have now. My point was only that discussion is l best done when nuanced and interested, and not “but avocado”. My point was also that Marxist terms are to be discussed and revised at all times, and maybe you’re right and moneyless societies aren’t the best alternative given our modern knowledge of money.
Regarding the second half of your paragraph, my problems with IOUs are a bit different. The problem with non-centralized, promise-based forms of money, is that they’re very prone to being violated, and that barter is a very inefficient form of exchange of goods and services. I’m not well-versed in the concept of a moneyless economy, but I’m a bit more well-versed in the nature of money. For example, money’s worth doesn’t come from “everyone agreeing that it’s worth something for some reason”. It comes from taxation. A central authority, in this case the state, imposes compulsory taxes using the monopoly of violence, in a given currency. The fact that people will have to pay their taxes in that particular currency, means that they need to obtain that currency in the first place to pay said taxes. This makes people more likely to engage in economic activity with that currency, since it’s suddenly very useful for everyone in order to pay their compulsory taxes. Taxes are also very useful as a redistribution mechanism. All in all, a central currency whose monetary policy is decided collectively by the workers in a democratic fashion, can be argued to be a useful thing for a democratic communist society. I’m sure there are arguments against this but I’m not very well versed in the critique as I said.
Conclusion: question everything, but let’s do it in a serious way to improve our knowledge and to possibly envision better societies.
