Why Socialism is Necessary for Civilization - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#15026921
Palmyrene wrote:So I guess an abusive husband is a victim after his wife calls the cops and his wife is the oppressor?

Fighting against your oppression doesn't make you an oppressor.


Imaginary oppression does not count.

Palmyrene: "I gots no money! I want money! Oi mista give us a job so I can has money!"
Mister: "okay I am sure I can find something for you to do."
Palmyrene: "Sucker, now you is oppressing me, dat means i gestakill yu and take yur stuff and it will be yur fault. TYRANT!"
Mister: "Aaaagh!"
#15026936
Agent Steel wrote:Why is capitalism the "best" system for creating wealth? Granted it's a hell of a lot better than communist dictatorships we've seen in the past, but I see no reason to be content with it when it creates so much misery for so many people.

I can definitely imagine better systems in the future.


Capitalism does not change the fact that some humans are not talented and are destined to be in the lower socioeconomic strata. However, capitalism has given us the most prosperity in world history. In western capitalist nations the poor are now obese and receive cash from the government for subsistence. Up until this era the poor were always thin, emaciated, and cachectic. IN many capitalists nations the poor do not need to work to eat or to have a place to live. That is a first in world history! :D :D Furthermore, in the USA most poor people have smartphones, designer clothing, and large flat TV screens. Are they poor? Sure they are poor compared to productive citizens, but they are better off than the middle class in the 1920s.
#15026942
SolarCross wrote:Well I did say that socialism was a kind of nationalism. If at any point you are selling the idea that there is a group identity to whom you owe something and whose leaders you should obey then that is some kind of nationalism.

Socialism is that in spades but has a very specific narrative that isn't generally found in ordinary natural nationalism.

So whose side are you on now? You did not say.


I don't take sides. I try to be as impartial as possible or much as i can be. Denying the good parts of capitalism, socialism, nationalism is stupid the same way as denying the bad sides of the same.

You see it as a zero sum game of sorts where your ideology must win, i am not of the same view. Stealing good ideas from other ideologies is where it is at.
#15026945
SolarCross wrote:Imaginary oppression does not count.

Palmyrene: "I gots no money! I want money! Oi mista give us a job so I can has money!"
Mister: "okay I am sure I can find something for you to do."
Palmyrene: "Sucker, now you is oppressing me, dat means i gestakill yu and take yur stuff and it will be yur fault. TYRANT!"
Mister: "Aaaagh!"


You've never read any anarchist or communist works have you?

You have no idea what the causes of mass protests or general strikes or peasant revolts were.

"Imaginary oppression" don't make me laugh. For starters, nowadays you can't just go to some rando and ask for a job that doesn't just give you pennies per hour. Idk how it was back in the 'ol days but it's not how it works now.

Secondly, workers are not given the full value of their labor period. Doesn't matter what excuses you make about the business owner needing to take risks or whatever it doesn't matter.

The point is that workers don't get the full value of their labor and this value is the collective force of the labor itself and this is what the business owner unjustly takes because no matter how much "risks" or whatever that business owner takes, the collective force of the job was done by the workers not him.

Capche?
#15026950
SolarCross wrote:Imaginary oppression does not count.

Palmyrene: "I gots no money! I want money! Oi mista give us a job so I can has money!"
Mister: "okay I am sure I can find something for you to do."
Palmyrene: "Sucker, now you is oppressing me, dat means i gestakill yu and take yur stuff and it will be yur fault. TYRANT!"
Mister: "Aaaagh!"


Hmm. This made me laugh SolarCross.

Now how I see capitalism:

Capitalist dude: See this here land? I owns it. Even though it was here for millions of years before I was a gleam in my Daddy's eye? And it is going to be here after I am done dead and kicked the bucket? I got a piece of paper that says I owned this here plot of land and I paid for it with the chain of businesses I done bought and have a bunch of lower ranked people working for me to live off of the suprlus value. And I is smart. And bought this here tract of land. Because I owns it? I am going to get rich off of the fact I have money to buy it and you Palmyrene is a broke one with no cash to buy a damn thing.

So all you got to do is accept I OWN YOU....til you finish your shift there working on my land for a wage that I am gonna pay. You are not my equal.

Palmyrene: But that wage you pay me is not enough for my own apartment and a life. I need more.

Capitalist Dude: I am not your Daddy and this is not charity. Get to work you lazy moocher...oh, I got my golf game where I love drinking my ice tea....land. I own it. YES. Power owning some dirt.

49 years into the future....the Capitalist is old. He is dying. He says, "I own it. It is MINE." He draws his last breath. His greedy nephews waiting in the ICU at the hospital say, "Thank god that old geezer kicked the bucket. Now we own the land since he did not have any surviving heirs but us...? I say sell that land and go and get us some bling. who gives a shit about going to the funeral? The old geezer only cared about that land because he knew it was about some POWER. Now it is our turn. For the power.....of bling!!

Lol. They fire Palmyrene that has been working the land for years...and he is still not able to scrape enough money to buy his son his own place either....just getting by.....because after all....he wasn't smart enough to buy some dirt on minimum wages.

Foolish how things are.... ;)
#15026964
Palmyrene wrote:The point is that workers don't get the full value of their labor and this value is the collective force of the labor itself and this is what the business owner unjustly takes because no matter how much "risks" or whatever that business owner takes, the collective force of the job was done by the workers not him.


So what do you think determines the value of a worker and how much compensation they get? How do you compare the value of worker A vs worker B? Is it simply how much effort or time they spend to complete a task?

If every worker is paid a portion of all the money the business takes in above costs, what's the incentive for anyone to invest money into that company? Where is the company going to get needed cashflow to expand production?
#15026971
Unthinking Majority wrote:So what do you think determines the value of a worker and how much compensation they get? How do you compare the value of worker A vs worker B? Is it simply how much effort or time they spend to complete a task?


I'm discussing collective force which is the division of tasks and association of laborers produces productive force that would be unavailable to unassociated laborers.

For example, let's say a business hires a group of laborers to build a new office. Even if the business pays each laborer individually, the collective force, the force of all the laborers coming together to build the building, remains uncompensated.

You might start with a simple thesis: In society, no labor is truly individual. As a result, individual compensation on the basis of strictly individual contribution probably doesn't map down onto anything real and quantifiable.

If every worker is paid a portion of all the money the business takes in above costs, what's the incentive for anyone to invest money into that company? Where is the company going to get needed cashflow to expand production?


I think, by that point in time, you may want to move away from the idea of the firm to something far less restrictive.
#15027018
SolarCross wrote:
Imaginary oppression does not count.

Palmyrene: "I gots no money! I want money! Oi mista give us a job so I can has money!"
Mister: "okay I am sure I can find something for you to do."
Palmyrene: "Sucker, now you is oppressing me, dat means i gestakill yu and take yur stuff and it will be yur fault. TYRANT!"
Mister: "Aaaagh!"



This is a common 'tactic', that of *mixing scales*.

SC, or any right-winger, will often *dramatize* overarching socio-political dynamics, by trying to 'personalize' such -- like the strivings to get out from under the institution of private property ownership (over the means of mass production).

This racist characterization of the *objective* reality of capitalism tries to depict the exchange of labor for a wage as being 'clean', a basic daily 'trade', when in fact it's far better described as racism because of how capitalism has been, and is, implemented, socially. People of color, women, immigrants, and other social minorities *have* been specifically denigrated by the state according to imposed-from-above social status, by private property ownership, race, sex, gender, age, ability, etc., because the system is *not* purely mechanical and heaven-sent, as its proponents would have us believe.

The political goal of the proletariat is *not* petty theft, as this caricature depicts, because the goal is actually one that is *collective* in nature. Class rule currently benefits from its political hegemony, so that the military-industrial complex is dominantly socially defined as 'defense' while the U.S. empire benefits from that global 'protection' racket, better-described as *imperialism* over Central America, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

SC is allowing the 'Mister' petty-bourgeois character to have social validity as virtually a 'philanthropist' in the propagandistic scenario by creating-a-job out of otherwise *trivial* tasks, when it's the whole bourgeois *system* that relegates proletarians -- like the 'Palmyrene' caricature of a proletarian -- to having to find economic *sponsors* just to secure the basic necessities of life and living (food, shelter, etc.).

This inherent *oppression* is *real*, not imaginary, because the employer / owner-of-capital has enormous social *power* over who gets a wage-paying job, and who doesn't, and can arbitrarily sub-divide all job applicants according to *favoritism*, and by demographic qualities such as ownership, race, gender, social minority status, etc., thereby manifesting *oppression* in all proletarians' treatment according to the prevailing bourgeois social power structure.


Julian658 wrote:
Capitalism does not change the fact that some humans are not talented and are destined to be in the lower socioeconomic strata. However, capitalism has given us the most prosperity in world history. In western capitalist nations the poor are now obese and receive cash from the government for subsistence. Up until this era the poor were always thin, emaciated, and cachectic. IN many capitalists nations the poor do not need to work to eat or to have a place to live. That is a first in world history! :D :D Furthermore, in the USA most poor people have smartphones, designer clothing, and large flat TV screens. Are they poor? Sure they are poor compared to productive citizens, but they are better off than the middle class in the 1920s.



While the wealthier have condominiums, large castle-like estates, stock portfolios, private personnel, planes, cars, social connections, ties into government, etc., in addition to good food, smartphones, designer clothing, and large flat TV screens.

Capital itself, btw, is *not* inherently productive -- it's only economically 'productive' to the extent that it can exploit commodified labor, so as to realize new monetary *gains* from the *exploitation* of that labor and its labor value.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
So what do you think determines the value of a worker and how much compensation they get? How do you compare the value of worker A vs worker B? Is it simply how much effort or time they spend to complete a task?

If every worker is paid a portion of all the money the business takes in above costs, what's the incentive for anyone to invest money into that company? Where is the company going to get needed cashflow to expand production?



See, these are the problematic implications resulting from a social *hierarchy*, of any kind, whether based in *power* (the capitalist state), or in *wealth* (economics).

Workers are *commodified* in the process of working for life and living, and can then be formally officially compared against one another according to their respective relative positions on the world power structure / hierarchy.

You're also glossing-over that 'profit' is a *cost* to funding, and is *withdrawn* from the materially productive M-C-M' cycle.

If / when the workers of the world all control social production *collectively*, *they* / we would also be the natural *benefactors* of that arrangement, with no exchange values required whatsoever -- insteading of a system that abstracts 'values' (exchange values) away from societal availability, into private hands, all of the material benefits produced by liberated-labor would be available to any and all who *needed* that stuff, be it food or land or technology or leisure. A communist gift economy would enable those who *want* to work, to work, and those who want to consume, to consume -- or any mixture of the two -- as is organically appropriate to those respective empirical material roles. (My 'labor credits' model framework happens to address the potential issue of how a post-capitalist social order could deal with liberated-labor being *scarce* in relation to mass needs for socially-necessary social production: https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/200014-Labor-credits-Frequently-Asked-Questions).


Agent Steel wrote:
Why is capitalism the "best" system for creating wealth? Granted it's a hell of a lot better than communist dictatorships we've seen in the past, but I see no reason to be content with it when it creates so much misery for so many people.

I can definitely imagine better systems in the future.



Yeah, capitalism *was* historically progressive at one point in time, *for* its quality of centralizing accumulated value into currency, and away from the feudal aristocracy, but that was well over 200 years ago. Now capitalism can't move past this dynamic, even though the social reality it's produced is one of systematic *overproduction*, and benefits to a wealthy ownership elite, over all other people.

All of the right-wing attacks on Stalinist states are ill-founded, because these quasi-collectivized, nationally-circumscribed societies wouldn't even have *been* necessary if it wasn't for capitalist imperialist military meddling *within* such socio-politically revolutionized states, in the first place:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_in ... _Civil_War


As a result, the right-wing ideology is ideologically *dependent* on (mis-)portraying socialism as being equivalent to these historically battered class- and popular- founded revolutionizings of how social production is structured ('mode of production') (beyond capitalism) ('soviets', or worker councils).


JohnRawls wrote:
Nationalism was/is present in USSR, PRC, DPRK, Cuba, Vietnam. What do you think they fought for in most of those places? PRC, DPRK, Cuba and Vietnam specifically were nationalist who fought for their independence. The difference is that they were communists along with being nationalists.



Yes, and they were successfully *anti-imperialist* as well, which is more-to-the-point historically.


SolarCross wrote:
No it isn't because you want to kill all the capitalists. Technically that is almost everyone including yourself. Where is the solidarity in wanting to butcher humans for being human?



Here's another knee-jerk *personalizing* of class politics -- even *if* killing-of-capitalists was to happen, it would only be in response to actual *empirical* conditions playing-out, such as the resistance of counterrevolutionaries to the nascent workers state. In other words it would be a *tactic* to fit overall political conditions, and not would not be something for you to take *personally*.

Your type indulges in such scarce-tactics with your knee-jerk hand-waving over such issues -- it's *not* a revolutionary-ideological *precept*, that 'all capitalists must be killed', as you're currently misrepresenting.


Agent Steel wrote:
Throughout history, nations that have attempted strict communist philosophies have not worked because inevitably someone will take all the power for themselves and then use it to regulate the lives of everyone else.



This, again, isn't due to *ideology*, but rather to do the overarching *capitalist* class power structure that prevailed, and continues to prevail, over all left-leaning countries.

Economics is inevitably *global*, and the nationalist circumscribing of a relatively more-collectivist social order within any given country *won't* ultimately be successful while the overarching global capitalist power relations of production continue to prevail -- a left-leaning country then has to *manage* its internal affairs *within* the larger wealth- and exchange-value-based global social order, and it has historically done this by creating its *own*, national power structures internally, as with one-party states and dictatorial-type rulers (more socially progressive than the major capitalist nations, but still hierarchical internally).


Agent Steel wrote:
However, it seems to me that this scenario is not exclusive to communism. This exact same scenario will inevitably come to exist in a pure free-market system where there's no government regulations at all. It would be total anarchy, much like a post-apocalyptic scenario where one corrupt ruler would step into power. And the very reason this has not been able to happen in the USA is because the USA is NOT a pure free-market economy. USA is and has always had elements of socialism, and it is those elements that have prevented dictatorships from forming.



And due to U.S. *exceptionalism*, in which its military imperialism prevails, thus setting the hegemonic standard by which all lesser world powers must conform-to.


Agent Steel wrote:
In fact, since the dawn of civilization, mankind has lived under some form of socialism. Libertarians and anarchists who want to abolish all government interference have a delusional idea that they are free and independent and that they are wholly responsible for their economical achievements, whilst living under a safety net which has provided them with the opportunities they have to go out and make a living for themselves. You might think you are wholly independent but in fact you almost certainly would fare poorly without some form of government to protect you.



This formulation is yet-*another* attempt at a personalization of the social protection racket -- the capitalist state is *not interested* in any given *person*, normally. You're also *mixing contexts* -- we currently live under capitalist-type private-property-based commodification of labor, with a few remaining welfare-state-type reforms, which are *not* a 'given'. The regular proletarian in society does not *need* 'protection' from the ruling-class bourgeois state, since there is no such *objective interest* for such on the part of the state. What the working class needs is the *non-intervention* of either capitalism (capital) (private property), or the capitalist state (imperialism).


Agent Steel wrote:
No man is an island. We have always been social animals, and the idea that we can survive totally on our own is an idea that can only arise once we are already living under a system that has provided us with some stability and protection.



'Stability'? 'Protection'? Workers today, as always, do not *have* any economic stability or 'protection' from the bourgeoisie because the bourgeoisie's ruling-class interests do *not* include the well-being of the workers that it facelessly exploits, day-in and day-out.


Agent Steel wrote:
Most other developed countries are laughing at us. We seem to have a bizarre obsession with "freedom", as if only we uniquely have freedom. We have a paranoid fear that if we socialize healthcare it will take away our freedom. That is a myth. We also have this false idea that the reason why our healthcare costs more than it does in other countries is because it’s higher quality. This is also a myth. In Canada for example, a person can get the same quality healthcare they get in the USA for a fraction of the cost. Those in the USA who control the price of healthcare care only about themselves and their ability to make a profit. They can raise the cost of care to insanely high levels because they know that it being a necessity for many people they can still make a profit. This type of exploitation of people’s desperate needs to get treatment is deeply immoral.

What is currently being presented in the form of socialized democracy is nothing new. A socialized democracy is essentially what the USA is and has ALWAYS been. Our military is an exercise in socialized democracy. Without it we cannot survive. And yet, a common mindset many Americans have is that socialized democracy is evil. I think anyone who believes that is oblivious.



Workers do *not* benefit from nationalistic militarism because our foes are *not* workers in other, foreign countries -- our collective foe is the *bourgeois* *ruling class* here at home (U.S. or whatever), *and* the bourgeoisie of *other countries, whatever those other countries are.

Even a purported 'socialized democracy' doesn't help the working class of the U.S. because that 'socialized democracy' will have to inevitably conform to the interests of the ruling-class *state* -- a plutocratic oligopoly of the *corporations* of that capitalist state, against all other plutocratic oligopolies the world over, again not-representing or resembling the interests of the U.S.' -- or the world's -- working class.


Julian658 wrote:
There is no such thing as equality among humans. Some humans are destined to to go to the gutter and others accumulate wealth and go to the top. The rest of the people align themselves in the middle.

The best system is capitalism for the creation of wealth. Some of the wealth can be used to help those that are low in the strata of competence and achievement. If no help is provided we have a revolution and no one wants a revolution.

Those that still favor socialism are fools and do not understand history, the human condition, or economics.



I've just outlined the reality of *class society* -- yes, the working class of the world has an empirical, objective interest in *working class revolution* since the bourgeois class has no objective interest in working class interests.

Here's a graphic in two varying versions:


‭History, Macro-Micro -- politics-logistics-lifestyle

Spoiler: show
Image



[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision

Spoiler: show
Image
#15027027
ckaihatsu wrote:This inherent *oppression* is *real*, not imaginary, because the employer / owner-of-capital has enormous social *power* over who gets a wage-paying job, and who doesn't, and can arbitrarily sub-divide all job applicants according to *favoritism*, and by demographic qualities such as ownership, race, gender, social minority status, etc., thereby manifesting *oppression* in all proletarians' treatment according to the prevailing bourgeois social power structure.

Humans exist in a natural hierarchy. The elimination of this hierarchy is not a good idea since there is no equality among humans. If you were by to make everybody economically equal that situation would be short lived as the less talented would head back to the gutter and the more talented would find a way to accumulate wealth and reach the top. The only way to keep everybody equal is by the oppression of an authoritarian state. IN a state of freedom humans will align themselves in a hierarchy of talent and competency.

While the wealthier have condominiums, large castle-like estates, stock portfolios, private personnel, planes, cars, social connections, ties into government,

This is a common theme used by socialists. Do you actually think most people live like that? You are describing a very tiny elite portion of the population. Most people are regular Joes . The portion of the population that achieves as above is extremely small. That in itself is a problem, but most folks are just average. Within that average you still find that talent is not evenly spread and many head to the gutter and others become mid to upper class. The biggest factor is often intelligence and luck.

Capital itself, btw, is *not* inherently productive -- it's only economically 'productive' to the extent that it can exploit commodified labor, so as to realize new monetary *gains* from the *exploitation* of that labor and its labor value.

To employ a worker is technically slavery and a sign the hierarchy among humans is real. And the employer needs the surplus wealth created by the worker. There is no point in paying an employee the entire value of the wealth created by his labor. What would be the purpose of employing people if there was no monetary gain for the employer? In fact, employers are heading to robotics and there will not be a need to employ humans to do the work.

See, these are the problematic implications resulting from a social *hierarchy*, of any kind, whether based in *power* (the capitalist state), or in *wealth* (economics).

Hierarchies are also based on talent such as intelligence, artistry, athletics, looks, etc. These differences often lead to economic hierarchies. Power hierarchies are clearly tyrannical and sadly humans tend to do that in any system including communism.

Workers are *commodified* in the process of working for life and living, and can then be formally officially compared against one another according to their respective relative positions on the world power structure / hierarchy.

That is quite true, life is a bitch. But, if you try to make everything equal the only ones that benefit are the ones that are low in the hierarchy. If you live in the gutter you have nothing to lose with communism. Anyone else will be massively oppressed.

If / when the workers of the world all control social production *collectively*, *they* / we would also be the natural *benefactors* of that arrangement, with no exchange values required whatsoever -- insteading of a system that abstracts 'values' (exchange values) away from societal availability, into private hands, all of the material benefits produced by liberated-labor would be available to any and all who *needed* that stuff, be it food or land or technology or leisure. A communist gift economy would enable those who *want* to work, to work, and those who want to consume, to consume -- or any mixture of the two -- as is organically appropriate to those respective empirical material roles.

Ah, yes, the utopia. Marx analysis of capitalism was brilliant, he was on the money and correctly pointed out the deficiencies. That is why in every generation people fall in love with communism. The problem with marx was NOT the analysis. The problem with marx was the proposed solution: IT DOES NOT WORK! Hence all commies always say when confronted with failure" "That was not real communism" :knife: :knife: :knife: .
#15027050
The Soviet Union could be described as capitalist, western societies are not capitalist and its absurd to describe them as such. In a capitalist society the owners of capital hold the large majority of the power. In the Soviet Union the party leaders had that power. Labour shortages don't push up wages and they certainly don't push up real wages, i.e. money that can be exchanged for goods of a reasonable quality.

Compare that to Britain after the Black Death, there was a labour shortage and wages went up. The owners of capital were powerless it stop it. They could moan about unfair and unreasonable high wages, but there was nothing much they could do. Similarly in nineteenth century America, the constant movement of workers westward, pushed up wages to what many East Coast Capitalists thought were unfair and unreasonable levels. They wanted to introduce compulsory indentured labour for all new immigrants. In the Soviet Union the mass of people were indentured labour, effective slaves of the party leaders.

In the modern West workers are even higher paid. workers have more power in the market than any time in history. George Clooney was paid $239 million. That's just an astounding amount worse than the worst night mares of 14th century British or nineteenth century East Coast capitalists.

Now there are certainly problems with the winner takes all economy. We need to address this problem. Inequality can reach pathological levels. This is what brought down the Roman Republic. I expect it was also what destroyed Sparta. Communism is the pathological search for equality that actually leads to the worst inequality. A healthy society need a balance between extreme inequality and the hunt for extreme equality.
#15027057
Rich wrote:The Soviet Union could be described as capitalist, western societies are not capitalist and its absurd to describe them as such. In a capitalist society the owners of capital hold the large majority of the power. In the Soviet Union the party leaders had that power. Labour shortages don't push up wages and they certainly don't push up real wages, i.e. money that can be exchanged for goods of a reasonable quality.

Compare that to Britain after the Black Death, there was a labour shortage and wages went up. The owners of capital were powerless it stop it. They could moan about unfair and unreasonable high wages, but there was nothing much they could do. Similarly in nineteenth century America, the constant movement of workers westward, pushed up wages to what many East Coast Capitalists thought were unfair and unreasonable levels. They wanted to introduce compulsory indentured labour for all new immigrants. In the Soviet Union the mass of people were indentured labour, effective slaves of the party leaders.

In the modern West workers are even higher paid. workers have more power in the market than any time in history. George Clooney was paid $239 million. That's just an astounding amount worse than the worst night mares of 14th century British or nineteenth century East Coast capitalists.

Now there are certainly problems with the winner takes all economy. We need to address this problem. Inequality can reach pathological levels. This is what brought down the Roman Republic. I expect it was also what destroyed Sparta. Communism is the pathological search for equality that actually leads to the worst inequality. A healthy society need a balance between extreme inequality and the hunt for extreme equality.


Great post!

I want to add that Marx made a very compelling analysis of the flaws of capitalism and in every generation young people fall in love with socialism. The theme of socialism compelling and highly attractive to the masses. The main problem with marx is that the proposed solution does not work. That is painfully obvious and yet the attraction for socialism is so strong that the advocates simply say " THAT WAS NOT REAL SOCIALISM". The rationalization is very extreme and likely fuel by envy. I say envy because those that are very low in the socioeconomic hierarchy think they have nothing to lose with socialism.

Meanwhile, thanks to capitalism we are living in the most prosperous time in world history.
#15027059
Julian658 wrote:
Humans exist in a natural hierarchy. The elimination of this hierarchy is not a good idea since there is no equality among humans. If you were by to make everybody economically equal that situation would be short lived as the less talented would head back to the gutter and the more talented would find a way to accumulate wealth and reach the top. The only way to keep everybody equal is by the oppression of an authoritarian state.


Julian658 wrote:
IN a state of freedom humans will align themselves in a hierarchy of talent and competency.



Yes, but that wouldn't be at-issue -- the component of society that's in need of egalitarianism is our *productive* capacities, primarily.

You're making it sound as though 'human nature' -- a formulation of *idealism* -- is naturally and necessarily in a mode of operation that conforms to *capitalist* social values (like the ceaseless primitive accumulation of material exchange values).

So the goal isn't some abstract, anal-retentive, perfectionistic 'make everybody equal', because we both know that such is unrealistic. What *can* be addressed is how our human societal mode-of-production *operates* -- currently it's based in the institution of private property, so that those with capital will be rewarded with *more* capital, however absurd the size of the mountain of accumulation.

If we start with the basics that human labor creates material benefits, and that consumption should be driven by individual *need*, by the individual consumer, then it follows that the things society produces should be distributed to those with actual *need* for them -- those who would be able to *consume* those materials, for their own humane ends. That's *not* how the economy operates under capitalism, because of the go-between 'realm' of *exchange values* -- one can either *afford* what one needs and/or wants, or else one cannot.

And, yet, even within the social context of dog-eat-dog capitalism, there *are* some instances of distribute-for-need, such as through charities and food banks. And, obversely, there are jobs that don't pay any wages, but rather welcome those who are able and willing to *volunteer* their labor efforts, at whatever extents.

Once capitalist norms are overthrown, and the practice of exchange values *eliminated* (no markets whatsoever), society could then concentrate on *mass-consciously* organizing social tasks so that production and consumption (and overall *administration* of the same) can take place *rationally*, by those most concerned with any of these three main material components of society.

In this way no authoritarian / hierarchical power structure would be necessary, nor would there be any form of personal or institutional 'wealth', thus yielding a society that *functioned* in an egalitarian way, even if everyone didn't work and consume strictly equally. (And my previously mentioned 'labor credits framework' would provide a distinct societal *incentive* for the contribution of formally-needed work-efforts to society, through the receipt of tangible labor credits per work role, per work hour, which would only apply to liberated-labor work role-hours from *others* going-forward, and not to any products or materials themselves, since that would be commodification. Follow the link through to see details on that.)


Julian658 wrote:
This is a common theme used by socialists. Do you actually think most people live like that? You are describing a very tiny elite portion of the population. Most people are regular Joes . The portion of the population that achieves as above is extremely small. That in itself is a problem, but most folks are just average. Within that average you still find that talent is not evenly spread and many head to the gutter and others become mid to upper class. The biggest factor is often intelligence and luck.



You *really* think that, don't you? That the world operates according to sheer merit, and that there's no *politicization* (as through favoritism) of work roles.

The *problem* is that there's a very tiny elite portion of the population that receives *disproportionate* material rewards, for their inputs to society. It's because of exchange values, in capitalism, as well as social dynamics.

For some reason you blithely dismiss the *principle* of egalitarianism, even though it's a fine social principle, *and* that I've developed a model framework that *operates* in a mode of egalitarianism. I pity you for your pessimistic, fatalistic politics.


Julian658 wrote:
To employ a worker is technically slavery and a sign the hierarchy among humans is real.



Yes, I agree with this part.


Julian658 wrote:
And the employer needs the surplus wealth created by the worker. There is no point in paying an employee the entire value of the wealth created by his labor. What would be the purpose of employing people if there was no monetary gain for the employer? In fact, employers are heading to robotics and there will not be a need to employ humans to do the work.



What's the point of a landscape of balkanized private companies in constant wasteful competition with each other when we now have the capacities / productivity for just simply satisfying all critical human need -- ?

The reason socialists look to *government* in the near-term (as for health care, transportation, etc.) is because government, despite all of *its* wastefulness and bureaucracy, is because it's objectively *better organized* than the private sector. Even the private sector goes to *government* in chaotic times, as it did in 2008 for bank bailouts.

You're trying to make it sound like society *needs* the private sector / employers, when actually a more-*governmental* kind of social organization is logistically *better*, by being more materially efficient, especially for the sake of standards and even-handed ('egalitarian') treatment of all, by that approach.

I *look forward* to the arrival of more automated processes, like driverless cars, even if jobs are lost because of it -- what matters most is fewer deaths due to human error in driving through traffic, etc. -- but the social question will still be outstanding, as to the 'ownership' of these fully-automated processes. These technologies should be fully *collectivized* since they confer mass *benefits*, and should definitely *not* benefit private interests, as through commodification and profit-making, when all the owner had to do was flip an 'on' switch (no one employed).


See:


BASTANI'S _FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY COMMUNISM_

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=176863


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Julian658 wrote:
Hierarchies are also based on talent such as intelligence, artistry, athletics, looks, etc. These differences often lead to economic hierarchies. Power hierarchies are clearly tyrannical and sadly humans tend to do that in any system including communism.



So you seem to be acknowledging that societal benefits do *not* operate solely according to individual merits -- there's a *power structure* that rules over any and all industries, irrespective of the participants within, in *non-democratic* ways, with institutional secrets, etc.

Capital-'C' 'Communism' was basically a branding exercise (they were *all* revisionist), and no historical Stalinist states should be conflated with the *politics* / principles of communism, as originally delineated in _The Communist Manifesto_.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/w ... manifesto/


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Workers are *commodified* in the process of working for life and living, and can then be formally officially compared against one another according to their respective relative positions on the world power structure / hierarchy.



Julian658 wrote:
That is quite true, life is a bitch. But, if you try to make everything equal the only ones that benefit are the ones that are low in the hierarchy. If you live in the gutter you have nothing to lose with communism. Anyone else will be massively oppressed.



Hmmmm, I don't think you're really understanding the motivations *for* communism that objectively exist -- first off, there would be no empirical need for *any* kind of state to exist, and definitely not an authoritarian, Stalinistic kind, once capitalism is fully overthrown worldwide. You're more-likely thinking of the *transitional* period, towards communism, when the forces of the proletariat would be proactively struggling in common against the organizations of the bourgeoisie, meaning mainly the militaries of various countries (see what happened in Sudan recently).

Lower-'c' 'communism' *implies* that there are no private interests *separate* from the collective interests of *everyone*, in society.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
If / when the workers of the world all control social production *collectively*, *they* / we would also be the natural *benefactors* of that arrangement, with no exchange values required whatsoever -- insteading of a system that abstracts 'values' (exchange values) away from societal availability, into private hands, all of the material benefits produced by liberated-labor would be available to any and all who *needed* that stuff, be it food or land or technology or leisure. A communist gift economy would enable those who *want* to work, to work, and those who want to consume, to consume -- or any mixture of the two -- as is organically appropriate to those respective empirical material roles.



Julian658 wrote:
Ah, yes, the utopia. Marx analysis of capitalism was brilliant, he was on the money and correctly pointed out the deficiencies. That is why in every generation people fall in love with communism. The problem with marx was NOT the analysis. The problem with marx was the proposed solution: IT DOES NOT WORK! Hence all commies always say when confronted with failure" "That was not real communism" :knife: :knife: :knife: .



Marx didn't really get into 'possible implementations' -- that didn't interest him at all. It *does* interest me, though, and I read Bastani's treatment of the same as soon as I could get my hands on that book. (See that thread for more detail on that topic.)

My favorite retort for your kind of line here is to say that Stalin himself was a *historical accident*:


ckaihatsu wrote:
Unfortunately most people think 'Stalinism' and 'Stalin' when they hear the term 'socialism', when Stalinism was actually a historical *accident* -- no one in 1917 (the Bolshevik Revolution) was saying 'All power to Joseph Stalin', they were actually saying 'All power to the soviets', meaning collective workers councils, and it really happened that way for a sliver of historical time before Russia was invaded by the Whites / counterrevolutionaries, destroying much of the country's infrastructure and economy, necessitating a more-emergency-type approach to the running of the country, opening the door for Stalin and his infamous dictatorial-type rule and socialist revisionism, which is *not* socialism-as-originally-intended.



viewtopic.php?p=15001643#p15001643



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SSDR wrote:
Those are SHITTY diagrams. :lol:



Like how? Or are you just being recklessly *disparaging* and *dismissive* -- ?
#15027061
ckaihatsu wrote:Like how? Or are you just being recklessly *disparaging* and *dismissive* -- ?

I don't have to explain *how.* Those diagrams are shitty sources to use, They are useless.

No one is being "dismissive," contrary to your paranoid assumptions.
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