Socialist Planning - 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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User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#14961396
One Degree wrote:
You evolve to socialism (if that is indeed the natural outcome) by having autonomous communities small enough for people to make a personal connection to the community. Otherwise Socialism is a theoretical concept that is not relatable to the individual.



Yes, I tend to agree with this sentiment -- in my model I have the component of 'localities', which may or may not be similar to your conception of 'autonomous communities'.

But keep in mind that the idea of 'communities' tends to connote laid-back, consumeristic groupings based on personal attractions, in a *casual* way. The actual dynamics of marketless egalitarian social production requires more components, such as those from the working class that can *defeat* the bourgeois ruling class in the first place.

Your conceptions, in other words, are *very* simplistic, to the point of being practically *religious*, instead of being *scientific*.



communist administration -- Assets and resources are collectively administered by a locality, or over numerous localities by combined consent [supply]



A *refinement* of that is this, at the FAQ:



The use of labor credits frees everyone from *geography*, so that location itself doesn't determine access-to and use-of any given factories and/or equipment




- Active liberated-labor would control all *ultimate* ('point-of-production') productivity for society, but *not-necessarily-working* people of any intra-voluntary collective 'locality' (or localities) could make and agree-on proposals and final policy packages that contain great *specificity*, as over *exactly* who (which persons) are to be included as active liberated-labor, and also their respective rates of labor credits per hour per discrete work role, and each worker's particular work schedule, as a part of the overall project scheduling. (Consumers vs. liberated-labor)




The use of labor credits frees everyone from *geography*, so that location itself doesn't determine access-to and use-of any given factories and/or equipment -- localities with more of their own *debt-based-issued* labor credits in circulation (issuance of all labor credits is noted publicly at the time of issuance, indexed by discrete serial numbers on the physical units) will have less material-economic social standing, or 'reputation', since they've been *directly* exploiting liberated labor through debt until people of their own locality go out to do work issued by *other* localities, to bring back sufficient numbers of labor credits to undergird / erase *their own* issued debt. (In other words new issuances of new debt-based labor credits from a debt-encumbered locality will not generally be seen by liberated-labor as acceptable, giving that locality far worse chances for future general social acceptance of any proposals or policy packages from it that specify certain nearby equipment for its own use. *Other* localities' policy packages for use of that same equipment would undoubtedly be better-favored as long as those localities weren't too debt-burdened as well.)



And:



On 'Day One', all separate, local localities around the world may initially each begin with their own local objective of being self-sufficient in production, but as this guideline is achieved -- or not -- *meta*-type organizing could take hold after awhile and commonalities of production *across* several neighboring localities would allow those localities to *generalize* mass production at larger scales for greater efficiencies, per type of item -- it would be a kind of 'centralization' but not necessarily having to be fully global, and not necessarily for *every* item produced. (Should *every* person in the world have to devote a significant part of every day for *farming* activities, or could *that* socially-necessary task be increasingly generalized / centralized across larger areas, for more efficient use of people's time and of land / space, for agriculture -- ?)



https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... -Questions



---


One Degree wrote:
Why do volunteer fire/ambulance services work in small communities?
We need to change structure, not propagandize people in a way of thinking. Simply agreeing to a standardized method of people voting for their own autonomy and banning foreign ownership will naturally solve the other issues of capitalism and social/racial divisions. Cultural autonomy ‘trumps’ all other divisions.



Yeah, I guess this is the clean break -- I certainly don't 'believe', or think that 'cultural autonomy' would be the key social factor to displace private property ownership and profit-making on that same basis.

*Any* culture can exist anywhere, but if it's still based on private property ownership then it's going to continue to exploit the working class there, which is just bad economics and bad politics.

I continue to be anti-imperialist, though -- a cultural grouping *should* have collective self-determination, bottom-up, like the Kurds (which Turkey is currently opposing). But any such anti-imperialism wouldn't be based on *culture*, but rather on socio-political grounds of their current oppression by the dominant, hegemonic ruling class and its militaries in the world today.

You're only drawing the line at foreign ownership, which is a *nationalist* (possibly national-liberation) conception of politics, unfortunately.
User avatar
By One Degree
#14961407
@ckaihatsu
‘Freedom from geography’, ‘efficiency’, and ‘class divisions’ appear to be your concerns.
‘Freedom from geography’ is the destroyer of local autonomy. It is why we demand global standards (authoritarianism). We are selfish and demand the entire world accommodates us wherever we wish to go. Community is impossible with this demand. There should be places you don’t want to go.
‘Efficiency’, as I previously pointed out is not a concern for human happiness. It actually prevents happiness. It is an invented necessity by capitalists. Why do we need to prioritize efficiency when we enjoy inefficiency?
‘Class divisions’ disappear in a local community. Everyone eats at the same restaurant, drinks at the same bar, cheers the same teams. This requires communication between the classes that eliminates the worse oppression.
In summary, I am saying your concerns do ‘magically’ disappear in a world of smaller autonomous governments except ‘Freedom of movement’ which is a conceit we should do away with.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#14961413
One Degree wrote:
@ckaihatsu
‘Freedom from geography’, ‘efficiency’, and ‘class divisions’ appear to be your concerns.
‘Freedom from geography’ is the destroyer of local autonomy. It is why we demand global standards (authoritarianism). We are selfish and demand the entire world accommodates us wherever we wish to go. Community is impossible with this demand. There should be places you don’t want to go.
‘Efficiency’, as I previously pointed out is not a concern for human happiness. It actually prevents happiness. It is an invented necessity by capitalists. Why do we need to prioritize efficiency when we enjoy inefficiency?
‘Class divisions’ disappear in a local community. Everyone eats at the same restaurant, drinks at the same bar, cheers the same teams. This requires communication between the classes that eliminates the worse oppression.
In summary, I am saying your concerns do ‘magically’ disappear in a world of smaller autonomous governments except ‘Freedom of movement’ which is a conceit we should do away with.



Yeah, this is absolutely unacceptable -- I'll take these points in reverse order:

- Class divisions *do not* disappear in a local community context. If people eat at restaurants *someone* has to make and serve the food, so then those workers are paid a wage, which is *exploitation* compared to what their labor is sold for -- revenue -- on the market, to customers.


[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

Spoiler: show
Image



*You're* the one advocating localist groupthink with your statement that 'Everyone eats at the same restaurant, drinks at the same bar, cheers the same teams.'


- Efficiency is a concern for *any* productive activity, because more can be done in less time when there's greater cooperation among workers, across geography, using more-productive machinery. Happiness requires *wanting* to do whatever it is that one is doing, and greater efficiencies can free up workers to their own free time which is a rather good material basis -- assuming their needs are met -- for a possible 'happiness'. Ultimately it's *automation* that needs to be collectively controlled by the workers, so that 'efficiency' can be done by machinery, for people's 'inefficiency', or free time.

- 'Freedom from geography' means that any given locality won't necessarily be able to use whatever factories and equipment are *geographically* closest to it, for social production. For example, a locality may already be producing more farming implements than it can use itself, so the collectivized factories and equipment should be geography-*independent*, allowing more-needed social production on it by *other* localities that may be further-away from it.

Here's from the previous post that addresses this dynamic directly:



On 'Day One', all separate, local localities around the world may initially each begin with their own local objective of being self-sufficient in production, but as this guideline is achieved -- or not -- *meta*-type organizing could take hold after awhile and commonalities of production *across* several neighboring localities would allow those localities to *generalize* mass production at larger scales for greater efficiencies, per type of item -- it would be a kind of 'centralization' but not necessarily having to be fully global, and not necessarily for *every* item produced. (Should *every* person in the world have to devote a significant part of every day for *farming* activities, or could *that* socially-necessary task be increasingly generalized / centralized across larger areas, for more efficient use of people's time and of land / space, for agriculture -- ?)



https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... -Questions



And:


Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy

Spoiler: show
Image



---


And, finally, since *capital* is allowed the freedom of international movement, then *people* should be allowed the same freedom of movement across borders, as for finding jobs (or not) in other countries with better labor markets.
User avatar
By One Degree
#14961416
Please explain how Freedom of movement and local autonomy can both be achieved? People should have ‘freedom to leave’, but unlimited ‘freedom to enter’ without adapting to the local culture is totally incompatible with any local autonomy. You can not have both.
We do imagine efficiency gives us more free time, but this only matters if you don’t like what you are doing. What person, doing something he enjoys, worries about doing it faster? Is it better to eat your food as fast as possible so you will have more time for something else? Should chess only be enjoyable if played as rapidly as possible? Again, I contend this is an invented necessity and is not of any real importance.
I am old now and can see there was never any real hurry to do anything. You choose to enjoy or not. Time has nothing to do with it.

Edit: @ckaihatsu BTW. I was always an efficiency nut. I loved planning the most efficient methods, but their implementation never made my life better. It just didn’t really matter that much.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#14961450
One Degree wrote:
Please explain how Freedom of movement and local autonomy can both be achieved? People should have ‘freedom to leave’, but unlimited ‘freedom to enter’ without adapting to the local culture is totally incompatible with any local autonomy. You can not have both.
We do imagine efficiency gives us more free time, but this only matters if you don’t like what you are doing. What person, doing something he enjoys, worries about doing it faster? Is it better to eat your food as fast as possible so you will have more time for something else? Should chess only be enjoyable if played as rapidly as possible? Again, I contend this is an invented necessity and is not of any real importance.
I am old now and can see there was never any real hurry to do anything. You choose to enjoy or not. Time has nothing to do with it.

Edit: @ckaihatsu BTW. I was always an efficiency nut. I loved planning the most efficient methods, but their implementation never made my life better. It just didn’t really matter that much.



Okay, excuse the delay -- I'm trying to find a particular treatment / definition of 'locality' that I'd posted over at the now-frozen RevLeft discussion board. I'll return to address your initial point once I find it.

I won't quibble with you on the remainder of your post since it involves subjectivities / opinions. I'll reiterate the following from my previous post as my position on this topic:


ckaihatsu wrote:
Ultimately it's *automation* that needs to be collectively controlled by the workers, so that 'efficiency' can be done by machinery, for people's 'inefficiency', or free time.



And, more informally, on the latter part, have you tried using TaskWarrior -- ? I recommend it.
User avatar
By One Degree
#14961459
ckaihatsu wrote:Okay, excuse the delay -- I'm trying to find a particular treatment / definition of 'locality' that I'd posted over at the now-frozen RevLeft discussion board. I'll return to address your initial point once I find it.

I won't quibble with you on the remainder of your post since it involves subjectivities / opinions. I'll reiterate the following from my previous post as my position on this topic:





And, more informally, on the latter part, have you tried using TaskWarrior -- ? I recommend it.


Of course my comments are subjective/opinions. We are discussing political philosophy. This basically means the preferred method of living. Not a very objective topic.
Why did our increased efficiency result in planned obsolescence? What is efficient about buying 5 cheap machines in a lifetime instead of one at a higher price? Did we not see a relationship between shoddy products and socialist efficient production?
What does it even mean to be efficient?
You defined it as saving time. You can’t save time. You can only change your activity. Whether or not it is beneficial to use your time doing one activity or another is highly subjective. I actually believe women enjoy work more than men because they are not as concerned by this. They make better 9-5 workers because they find ways to enjoy their work. Things that drive me crazy, but are actually beneficial. Pot luck meals for example.
All I am arguing is very subjective based upon my observations of humans and how they determine their own happiness. I don’t see efficiency playing much of a role in this. It results in cheaper products made to fail and aggravate us.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#14961470
One Degree wrote:
Please explain how Freedom of movement and local autonomy can both be achieved? People should have ‘freedom to leave’, but unlimited ‘freedom to enter’ without adapting to the local culture is totally incompatible with any local autonomy. You can not have both.



Okay, I've been unable to find the portion I was looking for over at RevLeft.

Basically my treatment is this: A locality would depend on collective consensus -- that all of the members of that locality would *want* to be there, and would be participating consistently in the political issues / matters of that locality, all the way to a possibly-socially-necessary final consensus on any given matter, for the locality's formal position on such, available to everyone else in the world.

This locality group's political cohesion is especially important for the function of issuing new debt-backed labor credits, since those go into general circulation and reflect a locality-collective debt (representing the received efforts of liberated labor, with debt-out-of-thin-air-backed reciprocation, meaning that liberated labor has been internally direcly exploited by that locality, until sufficient numbers from that locality go out to do projects for *other* localities, to earn sufficient numbers of labor credits to erase the locality's debt, per batch).

Labor credits generally function to enable a per-labor-hour *quantification* of each active or proposed work-role, at varying multipliers per-hour to reflect varying hazard / difficulty / distastefulness per work role, with liberated laborers being able to *use* liberated-labor-hours-representing labor credits from project to project. Ditto for pre-budgeting certain poolings of labor credits, to fund incoming liberated laborers as explicitly stated in finalized policy packages.

If some *members* of a locality wanted to *leave*, they *should* be able to -- but perhaps their individual proportion of the locality's outstanding debt would be conferred onto them, as a result, to be paid-back and closed-out as soon as possible wherever they go. (Individual labor credits are issued in batches and each labor credit has a unique serial number that allows it and its 'cohort' batch to be researched and tracked at any time, for individuals to self-determine whether to *use* those particular batches of labor credits, or not. Localities that have issued debt-backed labor credits without paying them off will consequently have a *lower* relative socio-political *reputation* than those localities that *have no* outstanding debt-ridden labor credits out in circulation. Those *entering* a debt-burdened locality would be implicitly agreeing to take part in that locality's outstanding debt.)


One Degree wrote:
Of course my comments are subjective/opinions. We are discussing political philosophy. This basically means the preferred method of living. Not a very objective topic.



I think *you're* discussing your own subjective opinions, which doesn't aid the purpose of a feasible political economy *at all*. Since you're not responding to several points that I've been making, don't expect reciprocity from *me* for whatever tangents you happen to be talking about at the moment.


One Degree wrote:
Why did our increased efficiency result in planned obsolescence? What is efficient about buying 5 cheap machines in a lifetime instead of one at a higher price? Did we not see a relationship between shoddy products and socialist efficient production?
What does it even mean to be efficient?
You defined it as saving time. You can’t save time. You can only change your activity. Whether or not it is beneficial to use your time doing one activity or another is highly subjective. I actually believe women enjoy work more than men because they are not as concerned by this. They make better 9-5 workers because they find ways to enjoy their work. Things that drive me crazy, but are actually beneficial. Pot luck meals for example.
All I am arguing is very subjective based upon my observations of humans and how they determine their own happiness. I don’t see efficiency playing much of a role in this. It results in cheaper products made to fail and aggravate us.



You're saying all of this within the context of existing exploitative *capitalism*, and you're still not addressing the dynamic of *labor exploitation* -- your ranting is serving to apologize-for and support status quo social relations.
User avatar
By One Degree
#14961485
Okay, I've been unable to find the portion I was looking for over at RevLeft.

Basically my treatment is this: A locality would depend on collective consensus -- that all of the members of that locality would *want* to be there, and would be participating consistently in the political issues / matters of that locality, all the way to a possibly-socially-necessary final consensus on any given matter, for the locality's formal position on such, available to everyone else in the world.

Correct except there is very, very little that needs world consensus. Trade between individual communities need not have any agreement except the ratio of trade.
This locality group's political cohesion is especially important for the function of issuing new debt-backed labor credits, since those go into general circulation and reflect a locality-collective debt (representing the received efforts of liberated labor, with debt-out-of-thin-air-backed reciprocation, meaning that liberated labor has been internally direcly exploited by that locality, until sufficient numbers from that locality go out to do projects for *other* localities, to earn sufficient numbers of labor credits to erase the locality's debt, per batch).

Where does this debt come from? Why does it require going to other communities to settle it?
Labor credits generally function to enable a per-labor-hour *quantification* of each active or proposed work-role, at varying multipliers per-hour to reflect varying hazard / difficulty / distastefulness per work role, with liberated laborers being able to *use* liberated-labor-hours-representing labor credits from project to project. Ditto for pre-budgeting certain poolings of labor credits, to fund incoming liberated laborers as explicitly stated in finalized policy packages.

If some *members* of a locality wanted to *leave*, they *should* be able to -- but perhaps their individual proportion of the locality's outstanding debt would be conferred onto them, as a result, to be paid-back and closed-out as soon as possible wherever they go. (Individual labor credits are issued in batches and each labor credit has a unique serial number that allows it and its 'cohort' batch to be researched and tracked at any time, for individuals to self-determine whether to *use* those particular batches of labor credits, or not. Localities that have issued debt-backed labor credits without paying them off will consequently have a *lower* relative socio-political *reputation* than those localities that *have no* outstanding debt-ridden labor credits out in circulation. Those *entering* a debt-burdened locality would be implicitly agreeing to take part in that locality's outstanding debt.)

You seem to be describing electronic currency and calling it labor credits to justify socialism.



I think *you're* discussing your own subjective opinions, which doesn't aid the purpose of a feasible political economy *at all*. Since you're not responding to several points that I've been making, don't expect reciprocity from *me* for whatever tangents you happen to be talking about at the moment.

Yes, economy should not determine politics. That is capitalism you are promoting without paper money. As soon as you bring the economy into it you have abandoned the needs and wants of the people. You are saying they must be subservient to the economy.



You're saying all of this within the context of existing exploitative *capitalism*, and you're still not addressing the dynamic of *labor exploitation* -- your ranting is serving to apologize-for and support status quo social

There is no labor exploitation if you are willingly serving a role for the community. It should not matter to you if your role requires 12 hours a day and someone else’s only requires 8. You are inserting ‘individual rights’ into socialism/community. You can’t switch back and forth which one is your goal. Does the community come first or the individual? A lot of political debate is based upon ignoring this critical factor.

Now, my turn. Why are you arguing the importance of ‘efficiency’ on Pofo? My guess is boredom, enjoyment of debate, anger, just because you want to, etc. None of these are efficient uses of your time in convincing people of the importance of efficiency. It would be much more efficient to browbeat one real person into becoming a believer and then expand through multiplication. Efficiency is simply not very important to our lives. Finding something to entertain us is. Why base a world on something we don’t really care about?
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#14961777
One Degree wrote:
Correct except there is very, very little that needs world consensus. Trade between individual communities need not have any agreement except the ratio of trade.



You're still continuing to assume 'governance', when that's *not* the purpose here -- rather, it's about *social production*, particularly the mass-industrial kind. That's what's at-stake.

Some basics: Exchanges, as with barter or currency, are 'hands-off' and inherently lead to crises of overproduction, but it's *convenient* for those with money since social reality just kind of 'comes together' for the sake of purchases, without needing prior planning. Whereas a mass-consciously-political workers state would be far more 'hands-on', but any such hands-on administration would tend to create bureaucracies of specialized and detached roles over the group-subjective valuations of this-or-that, leading into elitism and a class-like separation on that basis, even if things *started out* fairly egalitarian otherwise.

So a post-capitalist order wouldn't be looking for *consensus* (as over "governance" issues), but rather *centralization* over per-item production, a political and logistical task which *doesn't* require a standing bureaucracy / administration, because the workers at the workplaces involved could just coordinate, locally-to-globally, at whatever geographic scopes are appropriate, to make finished goods and services, for the sake of pre-planned recipients / end-users, by formal individual daily demands lists, sorted by predefined geographic area.

This 'direct distribution' communistic gift-economy method would eliminate all need for exchanges and trade, so there would no longer be any objective need for money / finance / etc. (In other words if online sites like Amazon and eBay became collectivized under workers control, those former corporations could handle all of the *logistics* of any and all formal orders put-in from the public since it's effectively *centralization* within material-economics.)


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
This locality group's political cohesion is especially important for the function of issuing new debt-backed labor credits, since those go into general circulation and reflect a locality-collective debt (representing the received efforts of liberated labor, with debt-out-of-thin-air-backed reciprocation, meaning that liberated labor has been internally direcly exploited by that locality, until sufficient numbers from that locality go out to do projects for *other* localities, to earn sufficient numbers of labor credits to erase the locality's debt, per batch).



One Degree wrote:
Where does this debt come from? Why does it require going to other communities to settle it?



I was hoping that paragraph of mine would be sufficient to explain it, but I'd be open to any *specific* follow-up questions you may have.


One Degree wrote:
You seem to be describing electronic currency and calling it labor credits to justify socialism.



The labor credits are *not* currency, because there's no *commodification*, or commodities, whatsoever. The labor credits can only represent past liberated-labor labor hours worked, times a multiplier for each particular kind of work role -- necessary since not all work roles are objectively the same in hazard, difficulty, and distastefulness, not to mention availability. Here's from the FAQ:


Labor credits FAQ wrote:
-> So labor credits are just *money*! Communism is supposed to be moneyless!

No, the labor credits are actually *not* money, because they don't *function* like money -- there's no commodity-production, no finance, and no M-C-M' cycle of exchange-use valuations for profit-making. The work done by liberated labor per hour can simply be *fully valuated* in relation to other kinds of work-role-efforts, through the use of circulating labor credits being paid-forward for each work role, typically specified in a finalized policy package. All of the output of goods and services, to supply chains and the end-user / consumer, have already been planned-out in advance, through the iterations of proposals and then finalized policy packages that specify all work roles required, per project, with pooled labor credits to *organize* the participation of available-and-willing liberated laborers themselves.



---


One Degree wrote:
Yes, economy should not determine politics. That is capitalism you are promoting without paper money. As soon as you bring the economy into it you have abandoned the needs and wants of the people. You are saying they must be subservient to the economy.



Allow me to introduce my 'mindset' behind all of this -- my understanding is that a post-capitalist communistic gift-economy would still have varying objective interests *in tension* with one another, but since the whole society would be post-*class* these 'tensions' would be far more mild and resolvable than the class-based tensions and tragedy that we have today under capitalist rule.

Here's from the intro, at the FAQ:



What's called-for is a system that can match liberated-labor organizing ability, over mass-collectivized assets and resources, to the mass demand from below for collective production. If *liberated-labor* is too empowered it would probably lead to materialistic factionalism -- like a bad syndicalism -- and back into separatist claims of private property.

If *mass demand* is too empowered it would probably lead back to a clever system of exploitation, wherein labor would cease to retain control over the implements of mass production.

And, if the *administration* of it all is too specialized and detached we would have the phenomenon of Stalinism, or bureaucratic elitism and party favoritism.

I'll contend that I have developed a model that addresses all of these concerns in an even-handed way, and uses a system of *circulating* labor credits that are *not* exchangeable for material items of any kind. In accordance with communism being synonymous with 'free-access', all material implements, resources, and products would be freely available and *not* quantifiable according to any abstract valuations. The labor credits would represent past labor hours completed, multiplied by the difficulty or hazard of the work role performed. The difficulty/hazard multiplier would be determined by a mass survey of all work roles, compiled into an index.

In this way all concerns for labor, large and small, could be reduced to the ready transfer of labor-hour credits. The fulfillment of work roles would bring labor credits into the liberated-laborer's possession, and would empower them with a labor-organizing and labor-utilizing ability directly proportionate to the labor credits from past work completed.



https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... -Questions



And:



[O]ne could reasonably ask 'What if humane-need demand for social production *outstrips* the pool of available-and-willing liberated labor that could see the demands through to completion?' Perhaps no one on the *entire planet* wants to do livestock farming or be an artist's assistant for the sake of someone's *else's* artistic conceptions. Yet the society would have the general objective *capacity*, or material *potential*, to accomplish the provision of ham and yogurt, or a landscape artwork, for the general social good. The social use of the 'labor credits' vehicle would bridge this gap, and would also allow for keeping the material-economic and socio-political realms *separate*, so that one would *not necessarily* have to be personally invested in what they're doing as (liberated) labor, as would be inherently necessary in a strictly-voluntary communist-type gift economy. (One could work at *whatever* work roles are available, if allowed-to by whatever project, simply to amass *labor credits* instead of necessarily having to 'like' a work-role both personally *and also* for its material output to the social good, as would happen in a non-labor-credits communistic gift economy.)

In this way the labor credits framework has a dynamic of checks-and-balances among the three 'realms' of inherently different objective interests in a post-capitalist socio-political-material environment -- that of [1] liberated labor for more control, and even hegemony, over the social productive process, that of [2] mass consumption for easy / free access to satisfy any and all personal needs imaginable, and [3] administrative interests in institutionally overseeing all aspects of the material-economic world, as over all production and consumption, liberated-labor and all implements of mass production.



I'm *not* saying that people / consumers need to be 'subservient' to a workers state / planned economy, because there's a component within the framework that *aggregates* daily individual demands, by individual priority-rankings (#1, #2, #3, etc.):



...Some of the readily apparent *checks-and-balances* dynamics enabled with the labor-credits system are:



- Active liberated-labor would control all *ultimate* ('point-of-production') productivity for society, but *not-necessarily-working* people of any intra-voluntary collective 'locality' (or localities) could make and agree-on proposals and final policy packages that contain great *specificity*, as over *exactly* who (which persons) are to be included as active liberated-labor, and also their respective rates of labor credits per hour per discrete work role, and each worker's particular work schedule, as a part of the overall project scheduling. (Consumers vs. liberated-labor)



- Any given finalized policy package will include a formal announcement of key proponents, politically responsible for that project's implementation, if satisfactory participation to cover all the necessary components of it is present. There is never any *standing*, *institutional* administration over everything, as we're used to seeing historically at the nationalist level. If a project *isn't* performing up to formal expectations (as detailed in its policy package), the proponents can be replaced with a mass-approved (exceeding in ranking over the initial policy package) proposal that 'tweaks' those details that need changing, such as which personnel, exactly, are deemed to be the formal 'proponents' of that project. (Consumers vs. administration)



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One Degree wrote:
There is no labor exploitation if you are willingly serving a role for the community. It should not matter to you if your role requires 12 hours a day and someone else’s only requires 8.



You're using an *informal* meaning of 'labor exploitation', while I'm referring to the empirical discrepancy that exists between the market value of hours worked under capitalism, and the wage received for those same hours worked. I'll reference the following:



Types of alienation



Alienation of the worker from their product



Alienation of the worker from the act of production



Alienation of the worker from their Gattungswesen (species-essence)



Alienation of the worker from other workers



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_ ... alienation



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One Degree wrote:
You are inserting ‘individual rights’ into socialism/community. You can’t switch back and forth which one is your goal. Does the community come first or the individual? A lot of political debate is based upon ignoring this critical factor.



I see the resolution of this *scale*-based social dimension as being on a *per-item* basis -- in other words it will *vary* depending on the material issue at-hand.

Of *course* people in a socialism-type society / community would have their own individual 'rights', or personal autonomy / consciousness, which we can politically term as 'self-determination', on a bottom-up basis.

Within a *collective*, communistic gift-economy context, what would matter is that there simply is *enough* available-and-willing liberated labor for the completion and fulfillment of any given task / project, for common benefit. I introduce my framework of labor credits to provide a logistical fallback for any case where there *isn't* sufficient socio-material incentive from the gift-economy itself (*zero* labor credits per hour), for some socially necessary production.


One Degree wrote:
Now, my turn. Why are you arguing the importance of ‘efficiency’ on Pofo? My guess is boredom, enjoyment of debate, anger, just because you want to, etc. None of these are efficient uses of your time in convincing people of the importance of efficiency. It would be much more efficient to browbeat one real person into becoming a believer and then expand through multiplication. Efficiency is simply not very important to our lives. Finding something to entertain us is. Why base a world on something we don’t really care about?



Well, if you'll note, I'm not *predicating* any aspect of my proposed political-economy -- the 'labor credits' framework -- on 'efficiency'. Efficiency isn't a *required* dynamic / function of the model, but rather, the model *allows-for* and *enables* efficiencies-of-scale in liberated-production, if actual participants of that kind of society *organize* it that way (as with degrees-of-centralization, per-item, at any scales from local to global).

Regarding *entertainment*, that would be a 'service' then, as it is now. One critical socio-political issue that crops up in a post-capitalist societal context is the question of 'Who gets to attend a concert?'

I'll posit that this domain of 'semi-rare' goods and services can be handled politically adequately with my 'additive prioritizations' approach / method:



-> What about the proletarian-revolutionary *redistribution* of existing 'wealth' -- sure, there'd be no more money in usage, but who gets *what* from the world's already-produced bounty as it exists today, and why?

I think this is an often-overlooked issue, especially since socialism is often touted as *being* a process of redistribution-of-wealth in the immediate stages of world revolutionary upheaval.

My model framework can be readily adapted to this task, and it confers the benefits of retaining a *fully mass-intentional* political process, instead of better-known, *non*-politically-conscious methods such as 'first-come-first-served', any other kind of time-based rationing, or a randomocracy-type lottery system. For any singular, *non*-divisible or *non*-replicatable context, like that of today's mansions, the item should be turned into a museum for full public admittance.

For finite, though *numerous* identical existing items, as for cultural collections, there may be *many* people who would like to personally possess some or all of those items from the days of capitalist commodity production -- this kind of competition, if left raw and unaddressed, would *not* be good for a post-capitalist society since there'd be no established way of deciding who-gets-what-and-why.



'additive prioritizations'

Better, I think, would be an approach that is more routine and less time-sensitive in prioritizing among responders -- the thing that would differentiate demand would be people's *own* prioritizations, in relation to *all other* possibilities for demands. This means that only those most focused on Product 'X' or Event 'Y', to the abandonment of all else (relatively speaking), over several iterations (days), would be seen as 'most-wanting' of it, for ultimate receipt.

My 'communist supply and demand' model, fortunately, uses this approach as a matter of course:

consumption [demand] -- Every person in a locality has a standard, one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination

consumption [demand] -- A regular, routine system of mass individual political demand pooling -- as with spreadsheet templates and email -- must be in continuous operation so as to aggregate cumulative demands into the political process

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174


I'm also realizing that this model / method of demand-prioritization can be used in such a way as to lend relative *weight* to a person's bid for any given product or calendar event, if there happens to be a limited supply and a more-intensive prioritization ('rationing') is called-for by the objective situation:

Since everyone has a standard one-through-infinity template to use on a daily basis for all political and/or economic demands, this template lends itself to consumer-political-type *organizing* in the case that such is necessary -- someone's 'passion' for a particular demand could be formally demonstrated by their recruiting of *others* to direct one or several of *their* ranking slots, for as many days / iterations as they like, to the person who is trying to beat-out others for the limited quantity.

Recall:

[A]ggregating these lists, by ranking (#1, #2, #3, etc.), is *no big deal* for any given computer. What we would want to see is what the rankings are for milk and steel, by rank position. So how many people put 'milk' for #1 -- ? How many people put 'steel' for #1 -- ? How many people put 'milk' for #2 -- ? And how many people put 'steel' for #2 -- ? (Etc.)

*This* would be socially useful information that could be the whole basis for a socialist political economy.

So, by extension, if someone was particularly interested in 'Event Y', they might undertake efforts to convince others to *donate* their ranking slots to them, forgoing 'milk' and 'steel' (for example) for positions #1 and/or #2. Formally these others would put 'Person Z for Event Y' for positions 1 and/or 2, etc., for as many days / iterations as they might want to donate. This, in effect, would be a populist-political-type campaign, of whatever magnitude, for the sake of a person's own particularly favored consumption preferences, given an unavoidably limited supply of it, whatever it may be.

tinyurl.com/additive-prioritizations
User avatar
By One Degree
#14961791
“The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.”


― Albert Einstein

@ckaihatsu
This is basically my argument. All I see is using semantics and unnecessary guidelines to call ‘basic society structure’ something that agrees with a political ideology. The structure is still all the same but has restrictions placed upon it to only serve one political ideology. The same structure is used by all ideologies with different restrictions applied. We then add a ‘commonly accepted viewpoint’ everyone must adhere to such as “money is bad, labor credits don’t actually serve an identical purpose.” Nothing but an attempt to corral human choices.
It makes no difference whether you use money or labor credits to get people to do undesirable jobs. The job is still undesirable for the individual but desirable for the community. All ideologies come back to this fundamental choice of which is more important. Once accepted, people will make any ideology work to achieve the chosen goal. The corruption enters when you are confused about which is your primary goal.
Any ideology people choose to apply can be made workable because it is basically all dependent upon their agreement to it. Name an ideology that some people did not see the benefits from? They are just artificial attempts to control human choices and therefore all lead to authoritarianism if not geographically limited to allow other alternatives as competition.
In summary, no matter how detailed and ‘pseudo intellectually justified’ your ideology is, it is just a demand for conformity of thought. We humans can simply choose to enjoy or not enjoy anything. It doesn’t really matter what the ideology is.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#14961809
One Degree wrote:
@ckaihatsu
This is basically my argument. All I see is using semantics and unnecessary guidelines to call ‘basic society structure’ something that agrees with a political ideology. The structure is still all the same but has restrictions placed upon it to only serve one political ideology. The same structure is used by all ideologies with different restrictions applied. We then add a ‘commonly accepted viewpoint’ everyone must adhere to such as “money is bad, labor credits don’t actually serve an identical purpose.” Nothing but an attempt to corral human choices.



You know, your attitude is unwelcome.

You continue to impute that there would be one single dictatorial ruler, when that's *not* what communism is about, at all -- and it's not for the sake of ideology, it's for the sake of meeting everyone's basic human needs, something that capitalism has proven to be unable to do.


---


One Degree wrote:
It makes no difference whether you use money or labor credits to get people to do undesirable jobs. The job is still undesirable for the individual but desirable for the community. All ideologies come back to this fundamental choice of which is more important. Once accepted, people will make any ideology work to achieve the chosen goal. The corruption enters when you are confused about which is your primary goal.



You're just making stuff up here -- I don't appreciate the out-of-the-blue *accusations*, for which you're giving no evidence. Just because you can *accuse* someone doesn't mean that you're correct.

There's no '[getting] people to do undesirable jobs' -- either it happens, or it doesn't. My proposed labor-credits system just provides a societal *incentive* for those work roles that *no one* wants to do.

Here's from the FAQ:



-> Why should anyone give a shit about labor credits?


Let's say that 'work-from-home mattress testing' is the *easiest* work role ever known, and so the multiplier for it is a '1' -- one hour of liberated-labor yields 1 labor credit.

'Spreading manure on a field' happens to be a '4' according to the mass work-role exit survey, but, as things turn out, people have *not* yet automated this kind of farmwork, yet *many* people are demanding beer, which requires this role, and other kinds of farmwork, for its production.

While engineering students and a worldwide legion of hobbyists unobtrusively work in the background on automating this task once-and-for-all, some others note the disparity between supply and demand and opportunistically announce that *they* will do this kind of work, to produce an abundance of beer for the greater region, but only at a multiplier rate of '6'.

Why would *anyone* give a shit about labor credits and agree to do shitwork, even for an increased rate of labor credits, you ask -- ?

Because anyone who can command a *premium* of labor credits, as from higher multiplier rates, are effectively gaining and consolidating their control of society's *reproduction of labor*. Most likely there would be social ('political') factionalism involved, where those who are most 'socially concerned' or 'philosophically driven' would be coordinating to cover as much *unwanted* work territory as possible, all for the sake of political consolidation. Increased numbers of labor credits in-hand would allow a group to *direct* what social work roles are 'activated' (funded), going-forward.

Perhaps it's about colonizing another planet, or about carving high-speed rail networks that criss-cross and connect all seven continents underground. Maybe it's a certain academic approach to history and the sciences, with a cache of pooled labor credits going towards that school of educational instruction. Perhaps it's an *art* faction ascending, funding all kinds of large-scale projects that decorate major urban centers in never-before-seen kinds of ways.

Whatever the program and motivation, society as a whole would be collectively *ceding ground* if it didn't keep the 'revolution' and collectivism going, with a steady pace of automation that precluded whole areas of production from social politics altogether. Technology / automation empowers the *individual* and takes power out of the hands of groups that enjoy cohesiveness based on sheer *numbers* and a concomitant control of social reproduction in their ideological direction. The circulation and usage of labor credits would be a live formal tracking of how *negligent* the social revolution happened to be at any given moment, just as the consolidation of private property is today against the forces of revolutionary politics and international labor solidarity.



---


One Degree wrote:
Any ideology people choose to apply can be made workable because it is basically all dependent upon their agreement to it. Name an ideology that some people did not see the benefits from? They are just artificial attempts to control human choices and therefore all lead to authoritarianism if not geographically limited to allow other alternatives as competition.



See -- you're too *pessimistic*. You'd rather gloss over the *alternative* that I'm providing right here, right now, to instead throw up your hands and give up for the sake of your feudal-like localist constraints. The world is way *past* that, and we can do far better than the limited horizons that you're hearkening back to.


One Degree wrote:
In summary, no matter how detailed and ‘pseudo intellectually justified’ your ideology is, it is just a demand for conformity of thought. We humans can simply choose to enjoy or not enjoy anything. It doesn’t really matter what the ideology is.



Hey, *I'd* like to live in whatever abstract paradise you're indicating here, but the world runs on *labor*, and that's the basic problematic -- in the form of society's class divide -- that you're not even *addressing* whatsoever.

If you're not going to be open to alternatives then don't bother responding.
User avatar
By One Degree
#14961815
@ckaihatsu
You seem to misunderstand. I am not saying your views are better or worse than anyone else’s. I am not being pessimistic. I am simply pointing out that, like all others, it’s success depends upon conformity of thought.
This is simply disguised with economic, moral, ‘natural’, etc. justifications why people should conform to this thought. If they choose to do so, then it will work.
Once you decide it deserves universal acceptance then you have decided to force conformity of thought no matter how nicely you phrase it. This is simply because humans are not going to universally agree to anything.
I don’t care if you have the absolutely perfect plan, some people have the right to reject it for other plans. I understand your arguments you are not going to force anyone, but you are lying to yourself. You care too much for your plan to let some community screw it up. You will be authoritarian to get your way.
It is only by totally rejecting the idea we can devise such a plan that we can achieve society without conflict.
Why not be satisfied with just your community accepting your plan if you have no intentions of being authoritarian? Simply saying it is the way for everyone is authoritarian thinking.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#14961818
One Degree wrote:
@ckaihatsu
You seem to misunderstand. I am not saying your views are better or worse than anyone else’s. I am not being pessimistic. I am simply pointing out that, like all others, it’s success depends upon conformity of thought.



This is not true at all -- my politics do *not* rely on groupthink of any kind.

I'll repost this diagram for you, hopefully so that you'll understand that workers everywhere in the world are being continually ripped-off of their labor value, for every hour of work:


[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

Spoiler: show
Image



This is how I phrased it, earlier:


ckaihatsu wrote:
If people eat at restaurants *someone* has to make and serve the food, so then those workers are paid a wage, which is *exploitation* compared to what their labor is sold for -- revenue -- on the market, to customers.



viewtopic.php?p=14961413#p14961413



---


One Degree wrote:
This is simply disguised with economic, moral, ‘natural’, etc. justifications why people should conform to this thought. If they choose to do so, then it will work.



No, you're describing *religion* -- I've backed-up every statement of mine with references to the underlying empirical dynamics for each.


One Degree wrote:
Once you decide it deserves universal acceptance then you have decided to force conformity of thought no matter how nicely you phrase it. This is simply because humans are not going to universally agree to anything.



And this statement of yours can rightly be called *pessimistic*, since you're purporting to speak for so-called 'human nature'.


One Degree wrote:
I don’t care if you have the absolutely perfect plan, some people have the right to reject it for other plans.



There's no universal 'blueprint'-type *plan*, and it's not up to *me*, anyway. I propose a certain framework for a post-capitalist society that may or may not be adopted on a mass basis by revolutionary workers.


One Degree wrote:
I understand your arguments you are not going to force anyone, but you are lying to yourself. You care too much for your plan to let some community screw it up. You will be authoritarian to get your way.



How *dare* you -- you don't bother looking at what I'm proposing and then you have the *gall* to make up some more bullshit, to throw in my direction. Just stop with the baseless accusations, because your aggressiveness has nothing to do with anything.


One Degree wrote:
It is only by totally rejecting the idea we can devise such a plan that we can achieve society without conflict.
Why not be satisfied with just your community accepting your plan if you have no intentions of being authoritarian? Simply saying it is the way for everyone is authoritarian thinking.



The only 'authoritarian' thing about socialism is that it would be the *prevailing* social policy.

You continue to make strawman formulations, for a pessimistic 'boogeyman' scare tactic.

Just because you make false accusations doesn't mean that you're correct. Stop it.
User avatar
By One Degree
#14961825
@ckaihatsu
You are being defensive when I am not attacking you. I think I know why, do you?
Workers are not exploited unless they decide they are exploited. You are assuming everyone thinks the same way. I have known many happy waitresses. How are they exploited if they are content?
All ideologies are religions.
As I tried to explain, you think your justifications are the important element, but they are not. Their importance is in winning a consensus of opinion. The ‘conformed view’ is what makes or breaks a political philosophy in practice. If people lose faith in the philosophy, it collapses. Your justifications are meaningless without the people’s agreement.
How is an ideology not ‘group think’? Without group think, all you have is a theory.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#14961828
One Degree wrote:
@ckaihatsu
You are being defensive when I am not attacking you.



But you *are* / have-been attacking me with your baseless accusations. Now you want to forget history. This is all *abusive* behavior and cannot be done again. You're already on thin ice.


One Degree wrote:
I think I know why, do you?
Workers are not exploited unless they decide they are exploited. You are assuming everyone thinks the same way. I have known many happy waitresses. How are they exploited if they are content?



'How' -- ? You're asking me 'how' when I've already provided an explanation -- ? Just go back and review.


One Degree wrote:
All ideologies are religions.



No, they're all *not* -- again your contention is *incorrect*, because I've backed-up all of my statements with references to the underlying empirical dynamics for each.


One Degree wrote:
As I tried to explain, you think your justifications are the important element, but they are not. Their importance is in winning a consensus of opinion. The ‘conformed view’ is what makes or breaks a political philosophy in practice. If people lose faith in the philosophy, it collapses. Your justifications are meaningless without the people’s agreement.
How is an ideology not ‘group think’? Without group think, all you have is a theory.



The difference between groupthink and theory is that the former is *group-subjective*, while the latter has an actual basis in the overall *real world*. Not everyone in the world believes in Ahura Mazda, but Marx's theory of alienation refers to consistent *real actions*, or dynamics, in the world of work that we all live in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahura_Mazda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_ ... alienation


Worldview Diagram

Spoiler: show
Image
User avatar
By One Degree
#14961833
I am on thin ice? :) For what and from whom?
My only objection to your ideology is it is self destructive to believe in it being universal.
Your arguments of empirical data are again placing the importance on the ‘justifications’ which don’t matter unless “you win the hearts and minds”.
Proving something empirically does not require everyone to accept it. This is why any universal ideology will only result in conflict and failure.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#14961835
One Degree wrote:
I am on thin ice? :) For what and from whom?



Look back and see all of the baseless bullshit you've been making up out of thin air. *That's* the issue between us, personally. If you stick to the political *issues* at-hand you'll be okay.


One Degree wrote:
My only objection to your ideology is it is self destructive to believe in it being universal.



You haven't even demonstrated *knowledge* of 'my ideology'. All you're doing is making empty accusations.


One Degree wrote:
Your arguments of empirical data are again placing the importance on the ‘justifications’ which don’t matter unless “you win the hearts and minds”.
Proving something empirically does not require everyone to accept it. This is why any universal ideology will only result in conflict and failure.



Again more shitty advice from you -- you're obviously greatly underestimating the importance of *theory*.

You're concerned with 'hearts and minds' -- ?

Hearts-and-minds for *what*, exactly?
User avatar
By One Degree
#14961842
Sorry you have an issue with me. I don’t have one with you. I don’t even know you. I was arguing philosophy.
I will leave you alone for now since I am upsetting you.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#14961848
One Degree wrote:
Sorry you have an issue with me. I don’t have one with you. I don’t even know you. I was arguing philosophy.
I will leave you alone for now since I am upsetting you.



Yes, thank you, I think that would be appropriate at this point.

The issue I have with you is that your posts tend to get one-sided to the point where you're accusing my politics of being this-or-that without even bothering to *understand* where I'm coming from. If you can fix this bad habit of yours there could then be an actual, point-by-point *discussion* / argumentation, as did happen occasionally here.
By SSDR
#14969404
Here are some of my ideas:

City Planning

- Vast construction of apartment flats composed of studio apartments to ensure that if anyone wants to live alone, they can live alone
- Vast construction of apartment flats composed of multi story apartments for families, every child has their own bedroom
- Vast construction of townhomes and condos in less populated areas
- Jobs are of shorter walking distance for most people
- Public transportation such as subways, locomotives, taxis, and buses are extremely common place
- Warehouse like grocery centers that have everything for everyone, and something for everyone
- Mining and agricultural towns and communities are strongly connected to bigger cities via locomotives, semi trucks, and media communications
- More hotels for travelers, moving labourers, and traveling researchers
- Waste the least amount of land as possible

Economic

- The abolition of currency
- A credit points system that tracks how much one contributes to society
- If one works at least 30 hours a week, they get all basic necessities to survive unless if they are disabled, young, old, or are parenting young children
- Everyone must work unless if they are too disabled, old, young, or are parenting young children
- Those who refuse to work are put in labour camps
- Those who refuse to work in labour camps are executed
- Job placement guaranteed according to what society needs

Education

- Mandatory grades Kindergarten to the 8th grade
- Universities and other colleges provide housing, food, utilities, water, and public transportation
- Universities teach only what is needed, shorter timing needed to get degrees
- Open note and book exams because humans forget things
- Smaller, more local schools for the young to be spread out to prevent lots of busing to save gasoline and time
- Primary and secondary schools have no janitors, making the children clean the schools themselves to teach self determination and self disipline
- More apprentices and hands on experienced based learning courses

Law Enforcement

- A large police force that about half would be undercover
- A large military
- Lots of traffic control units
- No prisons, only labour camps to extract as much labour out of humanity as possible
- Jails are temporary, for small crimes or for to temporarily house criminals before deciding what to do with them
- Law would be strict against workplace harassment, domestic abuse, bullying, and slackation
- Law would protect every individual's rights to prevent dispute in society

Religion

- Banned at public level
- No one is allowed to enforce religion on anybody
- Cannot be taught in any school nor be promoted in workplaces for the protection of each person

Transportation

- Pubic transportation services available for anyone living in urban areas
- Anyone who works for an automobile enterprise can own an automobile from that enterprise because if they helped make it, they should personally possess one (all Mercedes Benz staff can personally possess a Mercedes Benz for example)
- Anyone who does not live in an urban environment can possess a car
- Towing services are very common place everywhere
- Snow plowing services are very common place everywhere
- Long distance taxis would operate Maybachs
- A vast highway system that has many resting stops, and diesel gas stations
- No speed limit for rural highways
- Ban of stop signs, they are not efficient, and demote self management in driving
- Driver's Licenses would not exist, one must be at least 18 years of age to possess a personal car, if one can drive, they can drive
- Two accidents in one year for a driver would result in labour camp sentence
- Other traffic violations within a certain time frame, depending on the violations, would result in labour camp sentence

Here are some general values on culture:

- No celebrities, every human is socially equal
- No hyper sexualization, women are people, NOT sex slaves
- No human is to be looked up to or worshipped
- Women are equal to men
- No social competition, this can lead to alienation
- No hyper masculinity
- No promoted rituals
- All fraternities are banned because no human should be left out of any group that may be useless
- Animal rights are strongly supported
- Marriage does not exist

In my world, the socialist society would have a very strong industry. There would be a lot of factories, manufacturing centers, machine centers, and mining sites. Education would be very important to help advance technology. Science would be strongly supported. Research centers would be very common. And although the minimum work requirement is 30 hours a week, most occupations would work 50-60 hours a week.

The "state" is a production and wealth coordinator that coordinates what is to be done. Since humans are different, anarchy cannot work unless if every human was exactly the same because there would be dispute since different people want different things, so there must be a neutral state that can protect the desires of each person. The state is protected by the law enforcement, which is composed of the military, and the police. And a Socialist constitution would determine all of the rules, so that no one is above the law. Corruption and bribery would not exist.
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