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Why Socialism?

United States: Socialists make big council gains

Saturday, November 9, 2013
By Raul Connolly
“It’s a far cry from a revolution, but socialists had a surprisingly strong showing in two city council races on Election Day, November 5,” MSNBC.com said the next day. “In Seattle, Kshama Sawant picked up 46% of the vote while challenging 15-year Democratic incumbent Richard Conlin. And in Minneapolis, Ty Moore is only 131 votes behind Democratic candidate Alondra Cano.”

The article said that, while Sawant and Moore both trail their opponents, neither race has been officially called. “And even if they both lose, they will have received an unusual amount of grassroots and institutional support for two avowedly anti-capitalist candidates running in major American cities.”

They both also received union endorsements, with Moore even managing to raise more money than the Democrat in the race.

“This is an indication of how eager people are for real change,” Sawant told MSNBC.com. Sawant and Moore ran as members of Socialist Alternative.

MSNBC.com said: “Among the issues Moore campaigned on: A $15 minimum wage, public ownership of Minneapolis utilities, and declaring housing to be a human right.

“Sawant also focused on low wages and affordable housing as key issues, and was a vociferous supporter of a referendum that raised that town’s minimum wage to $15 per hour.”

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/55339

MPLS is hardly typical. This is the same city that elected a Muslim to Congress. And has instant runoff voting. And tends to occasionally steal best bike city from Portland (a sad, wetter substitute ;)).

It's pretty liberal. Not that it's a bad thing.
 
This is something I find interesting in socialist ideology, but probably for different reasons...could you elaborate on this? And, I'm sure this is supposed to be assumed but I'm unsure- do you see socialism as raising standards of living?(long and short terms)

It's quite simple, really. In order for material wealth and productive capabilities to be commonly owned and more democratically allocated, they have to exist in the first place. Capitalism is very efficient at concentrating these things, and as a consequence, is very efficient in driving forward technological innovation and building the means to sustain a socialist economy. Socialism is a post-capitalist arrangement.

It's much more practical to transition from capitalist relations to socialist relations when the means to do so are already there. For instance, had a more developed nation like Germany or France had a socialist revolution rather than feudal Russia or China, we would have a very different historical perception of socialism in general. Instead, Russia and China relied on revolutionary demagogues to transform backwards, under developed societies into socialist economies before such a transition was even practical. The results were unsavory. Forced collectivization, fumbling efforts to industrialize these countries, unprecedented state authority. The state ended up acting as the exploitative capitalist class as capitalism never took root and flourished there.
 
Instead, Russia and China relied on revolutionary demagogues to transform backwards, under developed societies into socialist economies before such a transition was even practical.

I largely agree with key reservations. How long are we to wait for capitalism to 'mature' so that we may wage revolution? I will agree that socialism doesn't make that much sense in modes of production where means of production are best operated by single individuals. However, in the preface to the Russian edition of the Communist Manifesto, Marx speculated that then present, indigenous forms of collective agriculture could facilitate acceleration of transition, rendering the forced 'collectivization' that followed even more unsavory.

Also, have we yet seen revolution evading cooptation by demagogues?
...
Okay...looks like no one wanted to define capitalism or socialism but rather continue to talk past one another. ;)

At a systemic level:
capitalism: a mode of production dominated by collective operation of mechanized or computational means of production by workers who sell their labor power to owners of said means of production for wages while said owners gear production toward sale for profit. A centralized state of some sort provides the legal framework (and entailed exercise of penal violence) to guarantee proliferation of such social relations (well...this will bear exceptions if a viable 'anarcho'-capitalist enclave ever develops ;))
socialism: any mode of production where workers organize production and distribution through collaborative participation, the means of production held in common in some sense (or 'non-owned'). Socialism might include a state, or it might not (IMO, statist forms usually impel corruption of socialist ends)

At an organizational level, entities operating according to the either schematic outlined above may be appropriately deemed capitalist or socialist. Eg, a legitimate worker's cooperative can be described as a socialist 'firm' operating within a capitalist society. It gets pretty tricky, though, when trying to argue that a particular systemic configuration caused the successes/shortcomings of an organization operating with a model disparate from that of the society in which it's embedded.

So what of the successes of state-led endeavors in capitalist societies? I don't find it coherent to deem such socialist, as capitalist states often function to ensure the long term stability of capitalism; seemingly collectivized production and distribution merely placates subordinated classes set in conditions of class-struggle, latent or overt, and is subject to elite control. However, it's also a bit odd to argue that the fruits of non-capitalistically ordered organizations stem from capitalism itself without further causal qualification.

ebola
 
I largely agree with key reservations. How long are we to wait for capitalism to 'mature' so that we may wage revolution? I will agree that socialism doesn't make that much sense in modes of production where means of production are best operated by single individuals. However, in the preface to the Russian edition of the Communist Manifesto, Marx speculated that then present, indigenous forms of collective agriculture could facilitate acceleration of transition, rendering the forced 'collectivization' that followed even more unsavory.

I think this is largely speculative and would involve a good deal of trial and error. Obviously, the developed world is in a much better position to sustain a socialist society right now than it was in 1848 (or rather when the Russian preface was written). As it stands right now, could the most developed nations of the world produce enough food or supply enough aid to help underdeveloped nations develop their own sustainable food sources to feed the entire global population? I'm sure we can agree that the scarcity of needs must be largely reduced or eliminated before any truly socialist society can develop and flourish on a global scale. With food and water being the most basic and obvious scarce need, it would seem this question would be a good starting point in determining when the world is "ready" for a socialist transformation.

I don't think every corner of the globe would need to develop to the point where it can sustain it's own socialist economy independent from the rest of the world, but the question will be at what point can the most developed nations on Earth collectively sustain themselves and the rest of the world until the most under developed regions are capable of self sustenance?

Also, have we yet seen revolution evading cooptation by demagogues?

Not any successful revolutions :P

The attempted Spanish revolution preceding WWII seemed to operate on a level without any demagoguery. Then again, the leftist resistance was closely aligned with the Republicans in parliament, so this may not be entirely accurate.
 
I am interested to find that Nixon interview? I tried searching around a bit but couldn't find it. Do you know where I could find it?

The origins of the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 are presented using a taped conversation between John Ehrlichman and President Richard Nixon on February 17, 1971; Ehrlichman is heard telling Nixon that "...the less care they give them, the more money they make", a plan that Nixon remarked "fine" and "not bad". This led to the expansion of the modern health maintenance organization-based health care system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicko

I am not sure where a link to the original is, but I heard the original from Nixon's mouth in Michael Moore's Sicko. Say what you will about Moore, but finding these little gems within history sort of balances out his d-baggery I suppose.
 
Ah, good to see definitions of things not seen for awhile.

As you say ebola? it is a complex mix of both systems throughout the many layers of society, with capitalism playing lead fiddle. A problem is that we place too much value in capitalism, and forget the good that comes from the socialist parts within. Moreover, by regulating capitalism I mean altering wealth distribution so that the the top 1% fall back into that ~10% figure that lasted from the 1950s to the 1980s (with tweaks to the rest).

A centralized state of some sort provides the legal framework (and entailed exercise of penal violence) to guarantee proliferation of such social relations

I find this sentence to be very important with regard to our current predicament. What happens when the centralized state has been corrupted to benefit certain entities? It can no longer guarantee the proliferation of such social relations. As we see today profit is skyrocketing within certain industries which obviously have a leg up on everyone else due to their relation with this centralized state. Wages on the other hand have stagnated through both purposeful inaction and inflation. The balance the centralized state is supposed to uphold has been upended.

Most in the US would probably call this form of wealth distribution (top 1% from 23.5% -> ~10% of income share) socialism, but framed within the definition of capitalism it makes good sense however classified.
 
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bardeaux said:
I think this is largely speculative and would involve a good deal of trial and error. Obviously, the developed world is in a much better position to sustain a socialist society right now than it was in 1848 (or rather when the Russian preface was written). As it stands right now, could the most developed nations of the world produce enough food or supply enough aid to help underdeveloped nations develop their own sustainable food sources to feed the entire global population? I'm sure we can agree that the scarcity of needs must be largely reduced or eliminated before any truly socialist society can develop and flourish on a global scale. With food and water being the most basic and obvious scarce need, it would seem this question would be a good starting point in determining when the world is "ready" for a socialist transformation.

As it stands, this is a difficult assessment to make, as many commodity chains are thoroughly globalized, so even thinking of national economies is a bit of a convenient fiction. It is clear that enough food is currently produced worldwide to adequately feel all humans, and agricultural productivity is focused in the global North.

I don't think every corner of the globe would need to develop to the point where it can sustain it's own socialist economy independent from the rest of the world, but the question will be at what point can the most developed nations on Earth collectively sustain themselves and the rest of the world until the most under developed regions are capable of self sustenance?

This presents a bit of a catch-22 though. The capitalist world system is structured such that core and semi-peripheral nations retain a greater proportion of surplus value than peripheral nations, and through material concessions targeted to maintain hegemony, even subordinate classes in the core enjoy a portion of these spoils. Thus, we should expect class-struggle to be most fervent in the semi-proletarianized portions of the global South (that is, portions of the periphery involved in global commodity chains but not industrial in a general sense), but we should also expect conditions of scarcity to pose the greatest obstacles to successful socialist practice in these regions.

However, how 'poor' are semi-proletarianized countries, really, if we consider the possibility that debt burdens be disregarded and factory (or resource extraction operation) occupations be established, precluding disproportionate acquisition of surplus value by multinationals? In this way, apparent food scarcity is not truly a paucity of production of wealth, so the lack of capacity to produce mere sustenance, namely food, becomes similar to this same lack of capacity seen in various global Northern nations, eg Japan.

I also wonder why scarcity of necessities poses an obstacle for socialism not present in other modes of production. Sure, I don't think we'll be seeing socialist revolution in outright agrarian locales where fertile land is lacking, but this stems as much from the absence of means of production requiring wide collaboration as it does from social unrest. Can capitalism even function adequately in these types of conditions (physical force is the most inefficient means of domination)?

ebola
 
As it stands, this is a difficult assessment to make, as many commodity chains are thoroughly globalized, so even thinking of national economies is a bit of a convenient fiction. It is clear that enough food is currently produced worldwide to adequately feel all humans, and agricultural productivity is focused in the global North.

This is a step in the right direction in analyzing the practicality of global socialism, then.

However, how 'poor' are semi-proletarianized countries, really, if we consider the possibility that debt burdens be disregarded and factory (or resource extraction operation) occupations be established, precluding disproportionate acquisition of surplus value by multinationals? In this way, apparent food scarcity is not truly a paucity of production of wealth, so the lack of capacity to produce mere sustenance, namely food, becomes similar to this same lack of capacity seen in various global Northern nations, eg Japan.

Taking into account regions like Latin America, which really generates tremendous amounts of surplus in relation to it's population and has an infrastructure capable of making a socialist transition, it would be theoretically possible for this region to function autonomously within a global socialist framework. It's regions like much of Africa and parts of south eastern Asia, that don't have the infrastructural capacity, productive means or capital to expropriate and use commonly. These regions would require a tremendous amount of help in getting to that stage.

Then there is the question of regions with enormous populations, like China and India. Hypothetically speaking, if all debts were eliminated, all infrastructure, production centers and capital were held commonly today, would these regions be able to support such a vast number of citizens, or would they also require heavy support from regions with much more concentrated capital to build up an infrastructure and productive capacity to sustain them?


I also wonder why scarcity of necessities poses an obstacle for socialism not present in other modes of production. Sure, I don't think we'll be seeing socialist revolution in outright agrarian locales where fertile land is lacking, but this stems as much from the absence of means of production requiring wide collaboration as it does from social unrest. Can capitalism even function adequately in these types of conditions (physical force is the most inefficient means of domination)?

ebola

Well, capitalism thrives on scarcity. It's the engine that drives this particular mode of production. Scarcity within capitalism in an opportunity for exploitation and domination, scarcity within socialism is an obstacle that can't be disregarded. Also, capitalism isn't particularly interested in equitable distribution systemically, it needs these inequitable conditions to function as it's designed to function.
 
This presents a bit of a catch-22 though. The capitalist world system is structured such that core and semi-peripheral nations retain a greater proportion of surplus value than peripheral nations, and through material concessions targeted to maintain hegemony, even subordinate classes in the core enjoy a portion of these spoils. Thus, we should expect class-struggle to be most fervent in the semi-proletarianized portions of the global South (that is, portions of the periphery involved in global commodity chains but not industrial in a general sense), but we should also expect conditions of scarcity to pose the greatest obstacles to successful socialist practice in these regions.

I'm trying to figure out if your second line is problematic, or if I'm misunderstanding it.

Would it be correct to say that the core capitalistic nations tend to be nations with a long history of capitalistic economies (usually with government regulations and bits of socialism thrown in there - such as the US and EU?)

Would it also be correct to say that these core nations, having benefited from such a system in the past, will continue to benefit from it?

Or am I misunderstanding this?

Because it sounds like "successful capitalistic nations will continue to be successful".
 
Bardo said:
Capitalism is very efficient at concentrating these things, and as a consequence, is very efficient in driving forward technological innovation

And yet this doesn't apply to the development of the Apollo spacecraft? I think you just don't realize that the Apollo spacecraft was designed by contractors. The command module was created by North American Rockwell and the lunar module by Northrop Grumman. I'm sorry but you can't say that a man was put on the moon by a non-profit. It was the US military working in conjunction with contracted corporations that put a man on the moon. Likewise, you can't say a non-profit created the internet. A non-profit created something that was dramatically altered by profit-seeking entities.

What do you think will happen to South America if it undergoes a socialist transition? How will it not perpetually be a step behind its capitalist competitors and thus perpetually subject to their hegemony? The reason that capitalism is so successful is because it pits humans against each other for survival. People are extremely innovative when their livelihood depends on it. That was the case for employees of North American Rockwell and Northrop Grumman as they put a man on the moon. Tell me, in a future technological race similar to the space race that involved a socialist South America versus other capitalist nations, what would make South America innovate more efficiently than capitalist nations? The answer would require the entities working on the project to be highly motivated. The capitalist nations have it guaranteed that their entities will work very hard on the project because their success is the only thing ensuring their survival. How do you replicate this innovation in South America?
 
And yet this doesn't apply to the development of the Apollo spacecraft?

Who was the consumer in this transaction? The market didn't reach a point to where space travel to the moon was a direct consequence of capitalist relations of production. The US government ordered that a spacecraft be built, and it was built. It wasn't built out of the race for profits, companies happened to profit off of the demand for a spacecraft. Had the US government not thrown billions of dollars to these corporations, there would have been no space travel. To this day, market driven means to practically apply space travel are still very theoretical.

How much net profit did the US government earn in it's efforts to explore space?

What do you think will happen to South America if it undergoes a socialist transition? How will it not perpetually be a step behind its capitalist competitors and thus perpetually subject to their hegemony? The reason that capitalism is so successful is because it pits humans against each other for survival. People are extremely innovative when their livelihood depends on it. That was the case for employees of North American Rockwell and Northrop Grumman as they put a man on the moon. Tell me, in a future technological race similar to the space race that involved a socialist South America versus other capitalist nations, what would make South America innovate more efficiently than capitalist nations? The answer would require the entities working on the project to be highly motivated. The capitalist nations have it guaranteed that their entities will work very hard on the project because their success is the only thing ensuring their survival. How do you replicate this innovation in South America?

I didn't mention anything about a coexistence between "socialist countries" and "capitalist countries". Only a global transformation to socialist society. I'm not sure what you're asking me has anything to do with the above conversation between ebola? and I.
 
shimmer.fade said:
As you say ebola? it is a complex mix of both systems throughout the many layers of society, with capitalism playing lead fiddle.

In some sense, but within a capitalist context, most 'socialist' tendencies in organizations function to reinforce capitalist hegemony.

I find this sentence to be very important with regard to our current predicament. What happens when the centralized state has been corrupted to benefit certain entities? It can no longer guarantee the proliferation of such social relations.

But this is what the state is--it monopolizes legitimated violence to reinforce social relations of domination. It's rare (perhaps unprecedented) for these means to be directed otherwise due to the dynamics of status privilege emergent in bureaucracies and the influence of class-elites.

bardeaux said:
It's regions like much of Africa and parts of south eastern Asia, that don't have the infrastructural capacity, productive means or capital to expropriate and use commonly. These regions would require a tremendous amount of help in getting to that stage.

I'm mostly with you on much of sub-Saharan Africa. However, what would happen when workers seize the mining and drilling operations? Also, a lot of SE Asia performs intensive contracted manufacturing. So there truly is productive capacity in these locales, but much of it is not geared toward 'necessities'. But again, this is as much of an issue in the global North.

As you know (and have expressed), successful revolution will need be in some sense international.

Then there is the question of regions with enormous populations, like China and India. Hypothetically speaking, if all debts were eliminated, all infrastructure, production centers and capital were held commonly today, would these regions be able to support such a vast number of citizens, or would they also require heavy support from regions with much more concentrated capital to build up an infrastructure and productive capacity to sustain them?

I think China would fare well, as much of their capital is oriented toward production of capital goods. India's a weird case, as they in some sense skipped from agrarian focus to specialization in service industries.

Well, capitalism thrives on scarcity. It's the engine that drives this particular mode of production. Scarcity within capitalism in an opportunity for exploitation and domination

To an extent, but it fares pretty poorly when scarcity is so stark as to require production oriented primarily toward weapons to protect goods or facilitate theft. The capitalist also can't exploit too effectively when there's just a meager amount of bread to be squabbled over. Innovation proves challenging when industrial (or otherwise collaborative) means of production or the means to produce such means aren't there.

Escher said:
Would it be correct to say that the core capitalistic nations tend to be nations with a long history of capitalistic economies (usually with government regulations and bits of socialism thrown in there - such as the US and EU?)

This is true, but I would argue that this long history of success depended crucially on colonial pillage, and now post-colonial exploitation. I also wouldn't call even Scandinavian economies "socialist".

Would it also be correct to say that these core nations, having benefited from such a system in the past, will continue to benefit from it?

This is what I expect to happen, varied crises excepted. Exceptions include tendencies toward specialization in financial capital and whatever scenario comes to pass when there are no longer new unproletarianized zones for the world system to expand into.

I'm not sure what's being misunderstood. Maybe I wasn't clear that I consider socialist revolution in the near future quite unlikely (I'm an 'anarcho-pessimist' :P).

ebola
 
So how does this global revolution come about, guys? Show me a plan. Surely it doesn't just spontaneously happen? Surely there is a plan for overcoming the intense suppression of the capitalists (who have by the way united globally already). The fundamental problem I'm trying to point out to you guys is that there is a real lack of power on the side of people who want socialism. Capitalism is already established and has powerful people backing it up. Socialism doesn't have that and it also is less powerful as an economic engine. The one thing that can be learned from history more than anything else is that a more powerful system always beats out a less powerful system. In this case it doesn't look like there is much hope for socialism (unless, as I described earlier, some of its principles are used to fortify a capitalist economy).
 
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So how does this global revolution come about, guys?

The short answer is that as far as I can tell, it doesn't. The longer answer is that I can only envision this kind of transformation occurring via the convergence of global economic crisis and some sort of widespread ideological transformation whereby the exploitative and dominating nature of capitalist social relations and the international scope of their character become apparent. People will need to connect the dots between the rise of financialization and increasing prominence of low-wage service-sector jobs in the global North and drastically exploitative manufacturing labor in the global South. I envision some sort of combination of interstitial experiments (consciously directed, autonomous communities) and 'legitimately recognized' worker cooperatives arising within capitalism's shell and direct occupation of factories and government offices, implementing self-directed production and distribution rooted in mutual aid. Depending on just how effective guerrilla warfare actually proves, participation of or at least lacking intervention by police and military forces will be required (this isn't TOO pie in the sky--this has been observed in other revolutions).

But I don't see this happening any time soon.

ebola
 
It's quite simple, really. In order for material wealth and productive capabilities to be commonly owned and more democratically allocated, they have to exist in the first place. Capitalism is very efficient at concentrating these things, and as a consequence, is very efficient in driving forward technological innovation and building the means to sustain a socialist economy. Socialism is a post-capitalist arrangement.
So, in a nutshell, capitalism can get society to a certain place - a 'standard of living' as it were - from which point it becomes advantageous to shed capitalism and go socialist. Why? I guess I just cannot understand the mechanisms that are supposed to make this better, the simpler this could be explained to me the better, lol.

I'm also hoping to understand an important part of this: are those promoting socialism convinced it will raise society's standard of living? How about its rate of progress?
(and who 'allocates' everything, from the means of production like tools/factories, to the products produced? The idea of any practical sense of 'ownership' for purposes of allocation seems like a nightmare here)

Okay...looks like no one wanted to define capitalism or socialism but rather continue to talk past one another. ;)

At a systemic level:
capitalism: a mode of production dominated by collective operation of mechanized or computational means of production by workers who sell their labor power to owners of said means of production for wages while said owners gear production toward sale for profit. A centralized state of some sort provides the legal framework (and entailed exercise of penal violence) to guarantee proliferation of such social relations (well...this will bear exceptions if a viable 'anarcho'-capitalist enclave ever develops ;))
socialism: any mode of production where workers organize production and distribution through collaborative participation, the means of production held in common in some sense (or 'non-owned'). Socialism might include a state, or it might not (IMO, statist forms usually impel corruption of socialist ends)
ebola
^too elaborate. How about:
Capitalism: Voluntary trade/enterprise amongst consenting individuals.
Socialism: A state-system of controlling the aforementioned trading.


Well, capitalism thrives on scarcity. It's the engine that drives this particular mode of production. Scarcity within capitalism in an opportunity for exploitation and domination, scarcity within socialism is an obstacle that can't be disregarded. Also, capitalism isn't particularly interested in equitable distribution systemically, it needs these inequitable conditions to function as it's designed to function.
"scarcity within capitalism is an opportunity for exploitation and domination"...wow what a hysterical way of acknowledging "shit's finite". And capitalism was never 'designed to function' (like so many seem to be doing w/ socialism, to no avail), capitalism represents nothing more than a trade.
 
So, in a nutshell, capitalism can get society to a certain place - a 'standard of living' as it were - from which point it becomes advantageous to shed capitalism and go socialist. Why? I guess I just cannot understand the mechanisms that are supposed to make this better, the simpler this could be explained to me the better, lol.

Well, if there becomes a point where either A) production is so efficient that goods can be produced and exchanged for next to nothing, private control over the means of this production will become irrelevant and will be expropriated by the public after a global crisis. B) Production becomes so efficient through technological means that goods can be produced and distributed for next to nothing without much human labor, but the capitalist class remains keen on maxing it's growth potential, there will be a very small minority who control these means of production while reaping their benefits, with a vast majority of unemployed and subordinate consumers with no means to consume unless production is held in common. It doesn't take a logical somersault to understand that this won't last forever and the level of crisis this will create globally.

Think Marie Antoinette.


I'm also hoping to understand an important part of this: are those promoting socialism convinced it will raise society's standard of living? How about its rate of progress?
(and who 'allocates' everything, from the means of production like tools/factories, to the products produced? The idea of any practical sense of 'ownership' for purposes of allocation seems like a nightmare here)

There are vast amounts of capital that 99.9% of any population has no access to. Like I argued earlier, Citigroup alone has $2.5 trillion in total assets. The total household assets for planet Earth are about $223 Trillion. 23 million individuals own about $88 Trillion or 40% of all global household assets. This means 40% of the global assets are owned by .06% of the global population. By 2017 this number is expected to reach $330 trillion.

To put that into perspective, hypothetically speaking, if all of Earths assets were divided up perfectly by it's 7 billion inhabitants, each adult in the world would own a $49k stake. Obviously this direct allocation of global assets isn't the objective we're getting at, but I fail to see how expropriation of these assets across the world wouldn't lead to massive gains in living standards across the globe. Especially in areas where an average income is less than $1000 annually, while their employer is pulling in billions.

"scarcity within capitalism is an opportunity for exploitation and domination"...wow what a hysterical way of acknowledging "shit's finite". And capitalism was never 'designed to function' (like so many seem to be doing w/ socialism, to no avail), capitalism represents nothing more than a trade.

It's not hysterical, it could be taken straight out of a macroeconomics textbook. Scarcity allows for comparative advantages, which allow for exploitation and domination. Capitalism has a design, as does everything else. It's privately held productive means with a working class who sells their labor in exchange for a wage to purchase the goods and services produced by the very same means of production.

A socialist mode would eliminate this pyramid scheme and allow the workers who produce these goods to also OWN the goods they create, as they would be the owners of the production itself. Rather than having a middle man between actual production and ownership of it's products and means of production.
 
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Without getting into the future where production may be so efficient as to cause extreme unemployment I've a few thoughts on best implementation of socialism in our current environment.

Anytime we can improve any facet of our infrastructure which will spur job growth or more our country more competitive we should do it. I'd include people as a portion of our infrastructure which is why I believe funding for education and single payer healthcare make sense. If the most expensive single payer system in France where to be implemented in the US exactly as it is in France our government healthcare spending would decline in a 6% chunk of GDP. This also happens to be the same % if GDP the government receives from the Fed individual income tax. It's just an investment in our infrastructure.

Another easy example is running Fiber to every address in the US and leasing access to the telecoms. Such an investment would make us way more globally competitive and cost little relative to the economic gains we'd enjoy. Not to mention the speed and customer service we'd suddenly enjoy with 30 odd firms competing for our business as consumers.

Capitalism is still the most efficient solution for most of our problems. We rightly lack trust in government to make the economic decisions on a scale which can displace capitalism. People like to own stuff including businesses and they'll purse those aims in any system.
 
bmx said:
too elaborate.

I consider your simplified definitions downright misleading.

Capitalism: Voluntary trade/enterprise amongst consenting individuals.

This is just one side of capitalism, one that I think functions primarily ideologically. The system of free exchange of commodities among juridical equals conceals the exploitation and domination that is rooted in the laboring process, made possible by legal enforcement of disparities of wealth that set the context for class-oppression (namely disparities in claims of ownership of the means of production).

Socialism: A state-system of controlling the aforementioned trading.

The whole aim of socialism is collective, participatory ownership and control of production and distribution (in some socialist variants, via wholesale nonownership). Various societies have attempted to implement such via statist control of economic activity, but I think that these attempts have failed, due to the tendency of the state to function as a tool of class-rule rather than authentically represent collective interests.

ebola
 
So, in a nutshell, capitalism can get society to a certain place - a 'standard of living' as it were - from which point it becomes advantageous to shed capitalism and go socialist. Why? I guess I just cannot understand the mechanisms that are supposed to make this better, the simpler this could be explained to me the better, lol.

I'm also hoping to understand an important part of this: are those promoting socialism convinced it will raise society's standard of living? How about its rate of progress?
(and who 'allocates' everything, from the means of production like tools/factories, to the products produced? The idea of any practical sense of 'ownership' for purposes of allocation seems like a nightmare here)

Capitalism as much as it fucks over everyone but the very wealthy was necessary especially during the industrial revolution to essentially modernize nations and produce enough wealth to be able to distribute any in the first place. Capitalism is a ruthless system where the few benefit endlessly at the expense of the endless misery of the working class caused by these conditions. Once capitalism has served it's purpose wouldn't it be to the advantage of society as a whole to see that the wealth was redistributed equally among the people instead of just more wealth going to the most well off bourgeois? Socialism would raise the standard of living among all the people while capitalism just keeps raising the standard of living of a very few people. So i think it is pretty obvious which economic system benefits society as a whole.

As for who would redistribute the wealth the workers would as they would own the means of production

Capitalism: Voluntary trade/enterprise amongst consenting individuals.
Socialism: A state-system of controlling the aforementioned trading.

How is wage slavery voluntary? A worker has no choice but to sell his labour to employers at their set terms under capitalism and he owns nothing and has no say in what he produces. I don't see that as a voluntary contract among individuals at all. Socialism on the other hand is voluntary as all who produce the good would have a equal say in how they are distributed. There is no perfect democracy but i think Socialism is far more democratic then capitalism.
 
yo

in the natural universe ...
we got the power laws and shit

some of if goes in 80-20
some is different

people are subject to the same shit.

we just fairly intelligent primates. we invented money to replicate the power system.
 
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