Giving everyone a fair break is more important than engineered equality.
QFT.
Equality of opportunity should always be the goal, never equality of outcome.
Actually, there is direct correlation between having money and happiness. I’m not saying that you can’t be poor and happy or that money will buy happiness, statistically the more money one has the happier they are - up to a point.
This is only true up to a point. The research is actually quite clear that once you have enough money for necessities + some disposable income for luxuries, anything above that does not add to your happiness.
There's also phenomena like people committing suicide after sudden windfalls of cash, e.g. winning the lottery or making a lot of money from an IPO. The stress is what is largely behind this.
That said, if you have huge amounts of money you
can buy shitloads of drugs...
Warning, this will likely be long. If I miss a point, blame that.
1. Have there been any socialists states really though? The primary indicator of a socialist state is the worker's controlling the means of production. Barring a few notable examples that were overwhelmed by monarchists, fascists, or capitalists such as the French Commune or the Spanish Free State, most socialist movements have been as quickly dispatched as to make them mostly a footnote in history. I'd argue that this is fairly indicative of what a threat non-hierarchical systems pose to entrenched power and the status quo. And yes, there is a distinction between those who claim communism or socialism and those who practice it. The ones that practice it (or attempt to), as I said above, have been erradicated wholesale. Whereas those who are non-threatening SocDem systems like Scandinavian model and even the ones who claim socialist/communist tendencies but refrain from the "means of production" being transferred to the workers are both mostly welfare capitalist systems at best.
And again, the "privileged few" are a problem and one of the reasons Marxist-Leninists have departed from vanguard politics because it was the last vanguard of the Bolshveiks who ended up betraying the workers to become the privileged few. As to the issue of hierarchies being natural our ancestry tends to largely debunk this myth as well. Better to say that hierarchies are what they are, a negative feedback loop that increase disparity and inequality, the very social-ill that Gramsci was particular obsessed with. And again, those hierarchies are socially constructed, not genetic. If hierarchies were genetic heritage, then what would you call the increasing irrelevance of patriarchical hierarchies? The MeToo movement isn't an evolutionary trait, its a social one. That's not to say that hierachies don't form in social settings because they do and in turn the reflexive Marxist tendency to revert to the notion democracy. In the simplest terms, the greatest threat to hierarchical stratification is the absolute collective will of a proletariat protecting themselves.
One of the biggest and most longstanding arguments that comes up against communism/socialism is the one you keep circling back to, the notion of the "elites" and yet, why I absolutely will state that this is one of the biggest failings of Russian, Cuban, and Maoist communism attempts, its also predicated on a good deal of propaganda. The elite in Russia for example? The President's dacha, which is hilariously portrayed in some grandiose tones is actually a fairly simple affair. Brezhnev's and Andropov's neighbor during their time was a truck driver, not exactly the lavish expectations of a Bond film. The Party's greatest corruption as a whole was the abandonment of a worker's state, not in ostentatious displays.
So then on to Capitalism and their opportunities for achievement. While there is no denying that capitalism has achieved quite a few positives, the most prosperous achievements come from externality rather than capitalism as a system. I spoke on this when I noted that the biggest achievers under capitalism did so not on the merits of capitalism but on imperialism, slavery, and war. And when did capitalism, especially in the United States start aiming towards instability? My guess is when slavery ended. I'd go further and note that the more equitable the progressive improvement, the more unstable the system became. The Civil Rights era, women entering the workforce enmasse, and a more equitable social system means less and less unprotected by exploitative practices. The United States hasn't seen a real quality of life improvement nor a buying power improvement since the 1970s. By what measure then would you argue that opportunity is really prevailing? For that matter, every economic dataset available correlates remarkably to bargaining power, rather than hard work. Don't labor on the misconception that your willingness to work or your ethic is what guides your compensation, its your ability to bargain for your worth.
As a small aside, yes, the whole point to communism/socialism is giving the worker's the means of production which yes, destroys the notion of the class system. History up until then is always a long story of class against class, of the haves against have-nots. And let's also dispense with the notion of the state as the elitist buearcrats in socialism, that's a conceit of capitalist systems. Communist/socialist systems rely on the "state" being the dictatorship of the proletariat.
2. I'd be glad to tell you quite clearly that CEOs do no real work. They are, for the most part, another set of financial instruments used not as leaders of the business world, because its very rare for CEOs to have actual industry knowledge but rather as guides for the financialization of their business. For example, CEOs who constantly self-promote their work ethic have been found, world wide, to contribute a percentage roughly equal to 6% of their time with rank and file employees and only 3% of their time with customers. Yes, they claim 60 hours a week average but that's not "doing the job," that's in issues of financial capital and shareholders. While I'm sure that many people would say, "well that's the job of the CEO" I'd argue conversely that someone making 100s of times the pay of their line employees to do so little to lead them or to work with customers isn't "working" in any traditional sense as a leader of a company. Their concern is financialization. Not only that, paying them in stock ensures this continued monetization of their work force leading to very, very anti-social behavior and risk taking.
And this isn't a controversial take either, its the standard understanding of the changes to corporate structure following the merging of commercial and investment banking after the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
I feel I'm repeating myself now on the issue of the state-boogeyman point. This notion of state run businesses being inefficient is more of an issue of perspective. Does a state run organization propose to operate at a loss to dominate a market or does it do so to provide a service equitably? I'd counter that a vast majority of the scientific research done to promote our current technological level were operated under that "state inefficiency" which was quickly commodified by the private sector. The private sector, in the case of Capitalism, requires the state as an externality for research, roads, waterways, defense, etc. And yet its the State that's ineffective? Seems like a fairly biased argument does it?
3. Response Above
4. Oh now, come on, you can't merely wave a way the consumerist functions of capitalism and pretend that they are a different animal. Nor can you ignore rent-seeking as without the ability to buy-low and sell-high in labor as well as products, the classic capitalist outcome would be impossible. Our cultures are consumerist because capitalism drives us to continually consume, to create customers, to expand markets. When rent-seeking reverts most of the working class in the West from producers (as those producers are now paid less in Asia, Africa, and Central/South America) to continue drive capitalism we must invariably paid just enough to consume. What is assumed to be the separate animal of "consumerist largesse" is really just capitalism reaching a fever pitch.
5. Sorry no, the financialization of gold or cryptocurrency would have little to no value except its intrinsic value under a labor value system. Gold would be pretty and cryptocurrency would merely be a clever algorithm with nothing to exchange it with. Maybe as a museum piece.
Also no, labor value systems aren't difficult but let's also stop assuming that those are set globally. Sales value systems aren't set globally either and often dependent on sovereign issuance of debt-money as its currently done, prices aren't set on some global scale. There would be no need to tie it in as there is no need to tie it in now. You'd be replacing the trade value of a commodity based on the labor required to produce it relative to the labor process. To trade in kind, commodity exchange would be traded across commodity or in consequent labor output. This would be exchange value denoted as Marx called it, socially necessary labor time. Or its relation to from one commodity to another. And that's not really all that difficult to calculate as its done on commodity exchanges all day, every day.
1.
Yes there have been and are socialist states. The success of those countries in implementing the ideal behind them is a matter that we could debate until the end of the time, but there were and are states that call themselves socialist and create policy in pursuit of socialist ideals. In the same way we could argue how efficient various states are at being capitalist, but we still regard them as being so.
I'd argue the fact that so many attempts at socialism failed so quickly only demonstrates the failure of socialist ideals. Socialist states either die before they begin or they continue onto a path of state controlled authoritarianism. If a project either fails or has to become a ruthless dictatorship in order to continue, maybe you should start questioning whether that project is viable, no?
To use my previous analogy again, if I started ten different sand retailers and they just kept failing, I should probably move onto something different. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
The Scandinavian model is only ever claimed to be socialist by Americans simply because they are less capitalist than the USA, or socialists who want to show success of socialism even though Scandinavia isn't socialist. Funny how socialists point to the mixed market economy of Scandinavia as proof socialism works but then ignore the failed socialist economy of Venezuela where inflation is crazy and there's food shortages. Anyway, Scandinavia is definitely not socialist, no one informed thinks otherwise.
Can you point to any large scale society in human history where absolutely no type of hierarchy existed at all? If not, you may wish to consider Occam's razor. Either every single human civilisation to ever exist independently socially constructed the same artificial ideals, or maybe, just maybe, what you call "socially constructed" is simply an innate part of human nature.
You defend the corruption of the USSR by stating the lavishness is exaggerated propaganda. Even if this is true, corruption is still corruption, the people at the top still have all the power and abuse it. You don't need lavish displays to be corrupt. Many developing countries have huge problems with corruption yet there are no lavish displays.
On what basis do you believe that "the biggest achievers under capitalism did so not on the merits of capitalism but on imperialism, slavery, and war"? This seems like a statement that's rather outdated by a few centuries. You could make this argument about the British Empire sure but how is it relevant in 2020? Can you explain how the success of modern day businesses, for example Google, were founded outside of capitalism and instead on imperialism, slavery, and war?
Right now the data shows very clearly that the richest people in the UK are almost entirely self-made new money, while the bulk of the old money aristocrats have fallen off the list. And who are richest people in the US? Tech CEOs like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg. Again self-made fortunes.
GONE are the days when old money ruled in Britain - almost all of the 1,000 richest people in the country are self-made, it was revealed yesterday. Ninety-four per cent of those on this year's Sunday Times Rich List built their fortunes, compared with just 43 per cent when the first list was...
www.express.co.uk
Finally, you speak a lot about giving means of production to the people. Clearly this is the ideal, but I'm asking about practical application. In reality, every socialist state has simply tried to control everything itself. The reality has never been giving control to the people, but instead giving control to the state. You yourself argued that to have the form of democracy you want, you would need no class system to exist. That will never happen in a million years. If you believe otherwise I ask again: if in your ideal world a doctor gets more credits or labour vouchers or whatever form of new currency you invent for this work than someone picking up rubbish on the street, how is the doctor not of a higher class?
2.
We will simply have to agree to disagree regarding CEOs, it seems your view of a CEO's job comes from boogyman ideas shown in movies criticising Wall Street than what the actual CEO of a real world company does. If you truly think they do no work I'd love to see you attempt to be one for a week, you will learn how wrong you are very quickly.
On what basis do you believe most CEOs have no knowledge of their industry? Do you have a source for that? And yes of course they focus on financial plans, a CEO of a large company answers to the board and often to shareholders, so that is literally them doing their job. Running the business as efficiently as possible while making the maximum amount of profit is literally what a CEO is paid to do. But you can't really do that without industry knowledge...
You claim most scientific research comes from the state. Again I'd like to see a source for that. Historically WWII was the source of a lot of medical research, but that was a result of unethical experiments carried out in concentration camps - is that the great contribution to science you are defending the state for? If so it can keep its hand out of science if you ask me. The state very often seeks to use science for death and destruction far more than most private companies. The CIA will conduct research into creating unwitting mind controlled assassins, the army will conduct research into how to create a bomb capable of killing millions of people... private companies will conduct research into how to make next year's new smartphone camera better so they can make some money. Who is evil?
As for state inefficiency, this is a matter of objective fact. You can argue that it's a good thing because state institutions provide useful services, but you can't argue they match the efficiency of the marketplace because they simply don't and they have no motive to do so. For example the NHS, which is the UK's state run healthcare system, is objectively less efficient than private healthcare. I can tell you this with no uncertainty right now. Wait times for specialists on the NHS often take years, privately you can see any doctor tomorrow. Now you can also argue (and I'd agree) that the net benefit of the NHS is still positive as it means everyone has access to a basic level of healthcare, even if it's imperfect, and this is certainly better than being in the US as a poor person who needs medical treatment. But the fact the NHS is bloated, inefficient, and full of problems is still a fact.
4.
Consumerism exists within capitalism but is not intrinsic to capitalism. As I've already said, it is a very recent phenomenon. The advent of the global economy is what made our current consumerist culture possible. Turn the clock back just 100 years and you didn't have everything being made in China, you couldn't order pretty much anything to your door from around the world at a click of the button, a regular person with a laptop couldn't contract a factory on the other side of the planet to produce branded goods for him. Modern post-industrial society has good and bad sides. It is what has enabled a far lower barrier to entry in order to own things that only kings used to possess and advanced technology the richest people 100 years ago could only dream of, but at the same time the over-saturation of mass-produced goods has created a culture of consumerism.
I don't see much way around this unless the entire world economy shuts down or you pull a North Korea and isolate yourself from every other country. Since we can probably agree NK is not a good model to follow, and the whole world isn't about to evolve backwards any time soon, it comes down to increased regulation to prevent exploitation and individual consumers being educated on what they buy.
Another issue is frankly getting people to care in the first place. Pretty much everyone is aware that certain goods are made in poor conditions but pretty much no one cares. This is a big error in socialist thinking: it is too optimistic about human empathy. People don't care about strangers on the other side of the planet. They just want their own lives to be more convenient. Market follows demand, so we are where we are. Consumers cannot absolve themselves of responsibility here as without demand there would cease to be supply.
5.
How could you possibly prevent anything other than your own currency from holding value? That is literally impossible. What holds value is down to groups of individuals, not what is sanctioned by the state. No state has sanctioned bitcoin with value, indeed I'm pretty sure governments around the world would rather it didn't exist, and the mainstream media keeps attacking it, calling it a scam, a fad, and pushing for it to die. And yet one bitcoin is still currently worth over $8,000.
You could have the power of the state and all media outlets on your side but you still cannot control what individuals choose to endow with value. If your new currency did not act as a store of value, something would replace it. Maybe it would be gold, maybe cryptocurrency, maybe something else entirely. In much of history we had barter economies where goods that were in demand were effectively treated as currencies. You can't prevent that either. Even if you went to the extreme authoritarian side and made an oppressive law stating that citizens can only trade with "labour tokens" and nothing else, that wouldn't stop a black market trade in goods opening up. Then you'd need to send in the secret police to throw people trading goods into the gulag and we're back to that good old socialist authoritarianism I warned about aren't we?
