QFT.
Equality of opportunity should always be the goal, never equality of outcome.
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...
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.
Sunday Times Rich List 2018: Self made fortunes rule the list
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?
1. Sure and we could argue that North Korea is a democratic state as well but the problem with claiming something is that its subjective in the best of cases and in the worst, an outright lie. Socialism/Communism requires worker control as its the fundamental critique of capitalism and the mode of operations. And while we can wax poetically about the failures of socialism in those states that weren't worker controlled you can't deny that the actual reasons for the failures rely on either external pressure (often from Western Powers) or from the replacement of traditional aristocracy with a non-traditional aristocracy. In Russia that was Lenin and co at first, then Stalin and Stalin's notions from '36 onward. Cuba was never socialist and neither was China. You can however tack on whatever language you want to attempt to pass yourself off. But I think the simple way is best, "if it walks like a duck, its a duck." If the workers don't control it, its not Socialism.
And really? Occam's razor? Parsimony applies in the other direction as well. The simplest answer isn't an unsupported bid to suggest hierarchies are genetic but rather an influence of culture which is well documented. I mean, let's be honest here, there's an entire branch of human science of study here examining the inter-workings of human exchange on a broad scale.
As to the issue of corruption, absolutely Russia was corrupt. As a welfare capitalist state that continually suppressed the workers in favor of an imperialist elite they routinely engaged in the same types of anti-social behavior that all capitalist actors engage in. With that said, its very easy to dismiss Russian political and economic history as being the "other" and staying reliant on Western propaganda models to support your position. Russia turned a failing monarchy into an economic and industrial power house in a few short decades. Despite the breadline jokes the CIA admitted that Communists had a better diet and more calorie efficient diets than most of the West. They recovered faster from the effects of World War II than almost any nation that was directly affected including England. And while you might not need lavish displays, what new corrupt dictator lives next to a lorry driver?
With that said, its a particularly bizarred position that every ill that was placed firmly on Communism by Western writers also mysteriously hand waves away the stunningly inhumane effects of Western capitalism. If we are to simply say that Communism was the black mark on history, why is it that we can't look at starvation, police brutality, endless war, homelessness, absolute degredation of the human condition in the climate and pollution as direct effects of Capitalism? A little intellectual honesty needs to be extended here. Which segues into your question about colonialism, imperialism, and slavery. My question is at what juncture did you think that stopped? Slavery certainly exists today in the United States authorized wholeheartedly by the 13th Amendment and is burgeoning growth industry afforded by for-profit prisons. American exceptionalism still drives the ongoing notion of hegemony and imperialism exemplified in our hundred plus military bases. It wasn't too long ago that the United States was activily promoting corporate colonialism with my favorite story of United Fruit. And even those indirect effects of Jim Crow, slavery, and civil rights issues still reverberate today. I'm slightly mystified by the concept that this is old or outdated.
And oh goodness please on the rich "self-made" crowd. Bezos had an investment of 245,000 from his parents. Trump's small loan from his father was estimated to be closer to 450 million than one million. Bill Gates? Family support there as well. Same thing with Zuckerberg. The notion of a "self-made millionaire" is as Mark Twain put it, "show me a self-made man, and I'll show you self-laid egg." And sure, they took an investment and made something of it but the how they got from their beginner to "industry leader" status is always a story of worker exploitation. I mean, heck Trump's father was so bad that Woodie Guthrie wrote a song about him. Dragon hoard Bezos' work practices are some of the most repressive in the industry and have fundamentally destroyed a huge number of small businesses. Gates, Zuckerberg, and Bezos have also massively profited off of the military industrial complex an entire segment of industry whose goal is imperialism and neo-colonialism.
As to your doctor-class issue, you are muddling around in the difference between which position is more socially supportive rather than an issue of class. Class is a distinction the ability to control the means of production. I'm not talking about the general bourgeoisie concept of upper, lower, middle class. That's a conceit of capitalism. Furthermore, the doctors contribution may earn them a higher labor value but its also not an absolute value. You are forgetting the issue of exchange or what is the doctor able to express in turns of labor value relevant to the others. Having more labor value doesn't necessitate an issue of a higher or lower capitalist class. Not only that but value under a labor system isn't merely "this guy produces pianos" and "this guy is a doctor" but rather the sum total of what a society may produce as one homogeneous mass. Labor value can't be stored as wealth from that perspective just as labor power squandered during the production of commodities doesn't add to the value of the commodity.
2. We can agree to disagree but I'm speaking from experience. I've served on two corporate boards as Chief Operations Officer. Nor is it particularly surprising on a board to state that the position of the CEO is one of concern about financialization of the business, not just the products sold. And sure, CEOs have a wealth of knowledge about that particular aspect but that's not industry knowledge, its the knowledge is directly related to their position as someone who drives profits to shareholders. Regardless of the industry, that does not require intimate or even passing knowledge of say, the manufacture of cars. That would be mine most likely as COO. The corporate board functions not as a CEO as, in Naval terms, the Chief Machinist or the Officer of the Deck, but merely the booking agent on shore.
And sure you can do it. CEOs do it all the time. Do you really think Warren Buffet understands the women's garment industry despite serving on the board of Vanity Fair? There are exceptions to that rule, like say Dennis Mullenberg who was an aerospace engineer before he started at Boeing but look how well that worked. The history of the American CEO has vastly changed. Actual working knowledge of the practices of the business are secondary consideration at best of the CEO.
And yes, I absolutely can argue the issue of state inefficiency. Comparisons of state and private business functions as apples and apples is the kind of narrow-scope thinking that shows an inherent bias usually more associated with America Republicans. Public enterprises are run differently, have different expected outcomes. Pigeonholing the two and simply accounting for the most argument-rewarding outcomes is cherry picking. And sure, we can argue all day about specifics but businesses do not have to account for externalities in the same way that publicly funded institution does and then there is the whole idea of public accountability that businesses do not suffer under.
And sure, we can say NHS is big and bloated and etc but what private market is willing to take its internal and external risks and provide a similar service? That's hardly an argument in favor of big business if we aren't cherry picking.
4. This one is simply a tacit misunderstanding of the evolution of capitalism. As rents are sought in cheaper locales something must replace production as a means of creating wealth for people to purchase the things that capitalism makes. When those are exhausted the only viable alternative is consumption based. Its inherent. If you can provide an alternate explanation or an alternate outside of protectionism (also a capitalist panacea to the same issue) then there is a Nobel waiting for you.
5. This one is very simple, because it wouldn't be valuable. A labor based economy has no store of wealth function in the same way that fiat-credit money has. In a labor based economy, the exchange value is labor and labor value degrades over time. Once exchanged they are destroyed, they aren't exchangeable for the means of production, and they can't be transmuted to capital. That's a major feature of the Labor Value system. It makes the notion of stored value obsolete. What in that instance would you trade a clever piece of code for that would only have value as a piece of history? As I said, put it in a museum.
And sure you can't control what is endowed with value but you can easily destruct any notion of things acting as a store of value. If no one will let your extract a value of your labor, there is no notion of profits. You don't need secret police to enforce it either, all you need is the grocer saying, "that has no value to me."
And the old gulag line. Classic.
