Why Socialism is Necessary for Civilization - Page 14 - 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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#15078181
late wrote:
It's not pessimism.

The corruption of empire lasts a lot long than the empire itself. Brits still spend too much on the military, for example.



Are you implying that there's such a thing as 'good empire', that's 'not-corrupted'?

Agreed on the no-need for military spending, from *any* country. Nation-states are outmoded and obsolete -- the costs of enforcing arbitrary lines-in-the-sand is just too much these days given the *real* problems facing society.
#15078186
Unthinking Majority wrote:
I don't agree with needs being given to people by government. That's what work is for. Work, you eat. Don't work, you don't eat. If you can't work, ie: you have a disability, then the state can provide for your needs. If you're healthy and there's jobs out there, work. I do agree that workers should have more of the wealth created by the system they take part in.



But then how is the surplus of society to be disposed of? (Who benefits from the sale of commodities produced via mass production / machinery?)

You keep repeating 'redistribution of wealth' but then you don't specify *how* this should be done.

*Your* definition sounds more like Stalinism than anything I've ever said.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
We live in a free economy with freedom of association and assembly. If workers want to create their own company, owned by all the workers, they're free to do that.



Are workers allowed to join together into rank-and-file unions and to strike, if need be?


Unthinking Majority wrote:
Workers do not "create everything". They provide almost all of the labour, but labour isn't worth anything without the money, raw materials, machines, offices/factories, organization, and business plan etc. necessary to produce goods or provide services. It's a partnership between workers and owners.



The money, raw materials (for human use), machines, offices, and factories -- all infrastructure and real estate, basically -- were initially produced due to the efforts of laborers. That's why I say that they 'created everything'.

Yes, I acknowledge that private ownership, under capitalism, provides the social organization, as through business plans, but my contention is that private property (both equity-type and rentier-type) are *disproportionately* / vastly rewarded, in comparison to the productive role of labor. Here's that diagram again:


[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

Spoiler: show
Image



Unthinking Majority wrote:
I don't want any economic revolution unless the system that you and other revolutionaries are proposing is backed by evidence that it will be better than the current capitalist system. The last 175 years since the Communist Manifesto has seen the greatest improvements in all of human history in standard of living, education, life expectancy, infant mortality rates, overall health outcomes etc. In the last 30 years hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of subsistence extreme poverty because of capitalism. Show me a system that will improve on the status quo. Your arrogance assumes someone thing else will be better without evidence, only theory.



The difficulty with my kind of politics is that there *are* no untarnished historical examples to point to -- in every case the nascent revolution has been *stunted* from without, by bourgeois militaristic interventions, and/or constrained to a particular nation-state, without the workers collectively running social production.

I'll counterpose the reality of workers worldwide having objective empirical *interests* in common for overthrowing capitalism / elitist class rule, which is certainly sufficient for a system of politics, meaning for a proletarian revolution. The working class is not trying to 'sell' its collective-interest goal of worldwide revolution, in a bid to seek 'acceptance' from random, possibly bourgeois, people -- it's all about usurping class power, ultimately for the sake of humanity.

I also have to point out that there was never a *referendum* on which kind of political economy, capitalism vs. socialism, was to prevail for the world -- it's been more like a hands-off 'autopilot', arising from world-historical dynamics (class) playing-out over the centuries.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
Only a fool or a madman would suggest replacing the status quo, which hasn't been perfect but has been fairly successful, with another system without testing it on a smaller scale first. You want a worldwide revolution, but you have no data that it would work. Marx was all theory, and so are you. Show me where this has been tried and where it has worked better than capitalism, and then i'll be on board. If it hasn't been tried, then it needs to be. You assume your ideas would be better, but you don't understand that it could turn out worse, and millions or billions could suffer for it.



(See the segment above where I addressed this point.)

You're incorrectly blaming the ideals / goal of socialism, when it was never even *allowed* to be tried in the first place. Here's the quintessential instance, and the standing concern going-forward:


Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War

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


Unthinking Majority wrote:
You're a doctor and you have diagnosed that our current economy has an illness, and you want to prescribe the entire world with a cure to the problem, but the medication you want to prescribe to the world's workers has never been tested in lab trials. You could end up fixing the illness, or you could end up killing the patient. You just don't know. I wouldn't take any medication that's never been tested. It's insane. I also wouldn't ride in a rocket or plane or car or rollercoaster that wasn't tested either. Political science is a social science, and you need data and evidence to back up theories, just like hard science. This is especially true when jobs and livelihoods are on the line.



You're treating the topic, though, as if it were a *fix*, or *reform*, when proletarian revolution is not that at all -- it's the working class acting in its own interests, which is clearly *opposed* by the existing elitist ruling class. Just sayin'.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
Models don't mean shit unless they are tested in the real world. Go implement them, and if they work, provide the evidence and then i'll be on board.



Again, this isn't a *sales pitch* -- I'm merely laying out what the working class' interests are. Many *workers* themselves have 'false consciousness', meaning that they support the capitalist system as it is, as through electoralist participation, when the system does *not* represent their interests as workers.
#15078204
ckaihatsu wrote:
1) Are you implying that there's such a thing as 'good empire', that's 'not-corrupted'?

2) Agreed on the no-need for military spending, from *any* country. Nation-states are outmoded and obsolete -- the costs of enforcing arbitrary lines-in-the-sand is just too much these days given the *real* problems facing society.



1) Of course not.

2) Lovely idea, my thought would be to cut spending in half, 10% a year.
#15078430
ckaihatsu wrote:But then how is the surplus of society to be disposed of? (Who benefits from the sale of commodities produced via mass production / machinery?)


Workers and those unable to work due to disability, age etc.

You keep repeating 'redistribution of wealth' but then you don't specify *how* this should be done.


I already answered this question of yours and was very specific. I'll repeat it:

YOU: You've *said* previously that you're in favor of 'some kind of redistribution', but you haven't followed-up with any proposals or *details* for this. You're being *vague* -- how exactly should it be accomplished?

ME: Mainly what many western countries have done (besides the USA). Although I'd probably tax the very wealthy more. You could reduce taxes on the non-wealthy and/or implement social programs.

This includes implementing universal healthcare operated mostly by the private sector, well regulated, but medical claims paid for my the state. You could introduce universal dental and pharmacare too if there was enough tax money from the wealthy. Also have universal grade-school education and highly subsidized post-secondary education to keep costs low like in Canada. Most education organizations would also either be mandated to be non-profit orgs and/or regulated to keep tuition costs reasonable in comparison to operating costs. Healthcare and post-secondary schools would have low user fees, dispensing costs, and tuition fees in order to make them extremely affordable but not quite free in order to distinctive abuse.


Most middle class workers in Canada have around 35% of their paychecks go to government: 20% taken off for income taxes, unemployment insurance, and government pension, plus another 13-15% or so for sales tax. If most workers are paying that, that's an insane amount of revenue for government. If the very wealthy chip to pay for all or a lot of that and workers keep all or more of their paychecks they're now quite a bit richer. Add the social programs I outlined above and this would be a huge amount of redistribution.

*Your* definition sounds more like Stalinism than anything I've ever said.


Nonsense. How so?

Are workers allowed to join together into rank-and-file unions and to strike, if need be?


Yes they should always be allowed. I like unions. Puts power in the hands of workers. If they want more of the cut in company revenue/profit, they should have a say in it. But if they're too greedy and ask for too much and the company can no longer compete, they should have the freedom to do that too. Not ideal of course, which is why collective bargaining is deal between owners and workers to balance each other's interests.

Yes, I acknowledge that private ownership, under capitalism, provides the social organization, as through business plans, but my contention is that private property (both equity-type and rentier-type) are *disproportionately* / vastly rewarded, in comparison to the productive role of labor.


It totally depends on how you define and measure the worth of labour. Has Bill Gates been disproportionately rewarded? Socialists will say yes, how can one man be worth so much? On the other hand, think of it this way: Bill Gates created DOS and Windows, which have run on the majority of computers in the world since the 80's, and these creations have been responsible for vastly increasing the work productively of probably billions of workers, creating ridiculous amounts of wealth for a ridiculous amount of the world's population. He should be the richest man in the world, and FAR richer than virtually everyone in the world. His contributions to society and the global economy are so far beyond anything you and I are likely to accomplish it's almost impossible to even quantity. If anyone deserves to at least be a billionaire, it's him, he's earned it. It's not at all crazy to say that the value of his labour has been literally a million times greater than the guy who loads boxes of software onto the shipping trucks and only makes 40k a year.

How would a socialist system value Bill Gates' labour, and how much would he be compensated for his creations and running the company too?

I also have to point out that there was never a *referendum* on which kind of political economy, capitalism vs. socialism, was to prevail for the world -- it's been more like a hands-off 'autopilot', arising from world-historical dynamics (class) playing-out over the centuries.


Well, every democratic country gets a referendum every time a federal election is held. There's socialist and communist parties in virtually every country. So I don't buy this. Bernie Sanders has been on the ballot in the US twice and hasn't even been able to secure his party's nomination, because most people don't vote for him and don't want him.

You're incorrectly blaming the ideals / goal of socialism, when it was never even *allowed* to be tried in the first place. Here's the quintessential instance, and the standing concern going-forward.


That's what every socialist revolutionary says, that is just hasn't been implemented properly but MY way will be the one that works! LOL. Yes yes i'm sure your way will be the one that finally works LOL. There's been how many communist countries that have existed?:

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

You're treating the topic, though, as if it were a *fix*, or *reform*, when proletarian revolution is not that at all -- it's the working class acting in its own interests, which is clearly *opposed* by the existing elitist ruling class. Just sayin'.


It has to come in the form of a concrete economic and political system. Leninism and Maoism are shit. You have to prove to me Ckaihatsuism isn't shit.

Again, this isn't a *sales pitch* -- I'm merely laying out what the working class' interests are. Many *workers* themselves have 'false consciousness', meaning that they support the capitalist system as it is, as through electoralist participation, when the system does *not* represent their interests as workers.


Ok well telling workers they are being ripped off is the easy part. Marx/Engels did it. I can read the Communist Manifesto again why am I listening to you? The hard part is figuring out and implementing a system that successfully addresses these issues and can be as or more successful as capitalism at raising and maintaining everyone's standard of living. Marx/Engels could do the easy part, not the hard part, in fact they barely laid out any kind of comprehensive plan. At least Lenin did and had the balls to implement it, although on much too big a scale.
#15078490
late wrote:
1) Of course not.

2) Lovely idea, my thought would be to cut spending in half, 10% a year.



Why not *abolish* bourgeois militarism outright, and, more to the point, *how* would this kind of policy be achieved? Do you really think that the ruling class would allow new laws that would curtail its ability to use military violence, for its nation-state and businesses?
#15078499
Unthinking Majority wrote:
I don't agree with needs being given to people by government. That's what work is for. Work, you eat. Don't work, you don't eat. If you can't work, ie: you have a disability, then the state can provide for your needs. If you're healthy and there's jobs out there, work. I do agree that workers should have more of the wealth created by the system they take part in.



ckaihatsu wrote:
But then how is the surplus of society to be disposed of? (Who benefits from the sale of commodities produced via mass production / machinery?)



Unthinking Majority wrote:
Workers and those unable to work due to disability, age etc.



I'm sorry, I'm not being as clear as I'd like to be. What I *mean* is 'Who gets to benefit from the increased productivity of leveraged technology, into mass production.' So if the means of mass industrial production is owned by one person, they're going to be much better off than if they only had their own labor power, for the same kind of production.

From my understanding, you're *defending* private property ownership, which I'm showing to be elitist since such mass-production ownership retains the lion's share of the rewards, simply from ownership, and not from work.

Here's an excerpt from a Wilde essay, for context:



Up to the present, man has been, to a certain extent, the slave of machinery, and there is something tragic in the fact that as soon as man had invented a machine to do his work he began to starve. This, however, is, of course, the result of our property system and our system of competition. One man owns a machine which does the work of five hundred men. Five hundred men are, in consequence, thrown out of employment, and, having no work to do, become hungry and take to thieving. The one man secures the produce of the machine and keeps it, and has five hundred times as much as he should have, and probably, which is of much more importance, a great deal more than he really wants. Were that machine the property of all, every one would benefit by it. It would be an immense advantage to the community. All unintellectual labour, all monotonous, dull labour, all labour that deals with dreadful things, and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery. Machinery must work for us in coal mines, and do all sanitary services, and be the stoker of steamers, and clean the streets, and run messages on wet days, and do anything that is tedious or distressing. At present machinery competes against man. Under proper conditions machinery will serve man.



https://www.marxists.org/reference/arch ... /soul-man/



---


Unthinking Majority wrote:
I already answered this question of yours and was very specific. I'll repeat it:


Unthinking Majority wrote:
Mainly what many western countries have done (besides the USA). Although I'd probably tax the very wealthy more. You could reduce taxes on the non-wealthy and/or implement social programs.

This includes implementing universal healthcare operated mostly by the private sector, well regulated, but medical claims paid for my the state. You could introduce universal dental and pharmacare too if there was enough tax money from the wealthy. Also have universal grade-school education and highly subsidized post-secondary education to keep costs low like in Canada. Most education organizations would also either be mandated to be non-profit orgs and/or regulated to keep tuition costs reasonable in comparison to operating costs. Healthcare and post-secondary schools would have low user fees, dispensing costs, and tuition fees in order to make them extremely affordable but not quite free in order to distinctive abuse.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
Most middle class workers in Canada have around 35% of their paychecks go to government: 20% taken off for income taxes, unemployment insurance, and government pension, plus another 13-15% or so for sales tax. If most workers are paying that, that's an insane amount of revenue for government. If the very wealthy chip to pay for all or a lot of that and workers keep all or more of their paychecks they're now quite a bit richer. Add the social programs I outlined above and this would be a huge amount of redistribution.



Okay, so bring back the 'welfare state' social safety net. I agree with these reforms, especially given the past few decades of government *austerity* regimes.

You've been touting worker-owned businesses, correct? How would workers even be able to *buy* these businesses in the first place, given the paltry wages and meager savings, on average?


---


Unthinking Majority wrote:
I don't agree with needs being given to people by government. That's what work is for. Work, you eat. Don't work, you don't eat. If you can't work, ie: you have a disability, then the state can provide for your needs. If you're healthy and there's jobs out there, work. I do agree that workers should have more of the wealth created by the system they take part in.



ckaihatsu wrote:
*Your* definition sounds more like Stalinism than anything I've ever said.



Unthinking Majority wrote:
Nonsense. How so?




[T]he Soviet Union adapted the formula as: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work (labour investment)".[21] This was incorporated in Article 12 of the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union, but described by Leon Trotsky as "This inwardly contradictory, not to say nonsensical, formula". [22]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each ... _his_needs



I'll expand on this to say that I'm critical of *this* approach:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_do ... all_he_eat


The reason being, again, our current advanced state of productive technology, which enormously leverages human labor to great productive outputs. Obviously one person in a factory produces far more per hour of work than they could possibly consume over the same period of time -- mass production. How is this technological bounty of goods (and services) to be distributed in our present-day?



Karl Marx, in a section of his Grundrisse that came to be known as the "Fragment on Machines",[22][23] argued that the transition to a post-capitalist society combined with advances in automation would allow for significant reductions in labor needed to produce necessary goods, eventually reaching a point where all people would have significant amounts of leisure time to pursue science, the arts, and creative activities; a state some commentators later labeled as "post-scarcity".[24] Marx argued that capitalism—the dynamic of economic growth based on capital accumulation—depends on exploiting the surplus labor of workers, but a post-capitalist society would allow for:

The free development of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them.[25]

Marx's concept of a post-capitalist communist society involves the free distribution of goods made possible by the abundance provided by automation.[26] The fully developed communist economic system is postulated to develop from a preceding socialist system. Marx held the view that socialism—a system based on social ownership of the means of production—would enable progress toward the development of fully developed communism by further advancing productive technology. Under socialism, with its increasing levels of automation, an increasing proportion of goods would be distributed freely.[27]

Marx did not believe in the elimination of most physical labor through technological advancements alone in a capitalist society, because he believed capitalism contained within it certain tendencies which countered increasing automation and prevented it from developing beyond a limited point, so that manual industrial labor could not be eliminated until the overthrow of capitalism.[28] Some commentators on Marx have argued that at the time he wrote the Grundrisse, he thought that the collapse of capitalism due to advancing automation was inevitable despite these counter-tendencies, but that by the time of his major work Capital: Critique of Political Economy he had abandoned this view, and came to believe that capitalism could continually renew itself unless overthrown.[29][30][31]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy



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Unthinking Majority wrote:
Yes they should always be allowed. I like unions. Puts power in the hands of workers. If they want more of the cut in company revenue/profit, they should have a say in it. But if they're too greedy and ask for too much and the company can no longer compete, they should have the freedom to do that too. Not ideal of course, which is why collective bargaining is deal between owners and workers to balance each other's interests.



Okay, good to hear. You may be interested in this:


AFL-CIO, Mexican government seek to chain renewed struggles across Matamoros to “independent” trade unions

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/1 ... a-d12.html


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Yes, I acknowledge that private ownership, under capitalism, provides the social organization, as through business plans, but my contention is that private property (both equity-type and rentier-type) are *disproportionately* / vastly rewarded, in comparison to the productive role of labor.



Unthinking Majority wrote:
It totally depends on how you define and measure the worth of labour. Has Bill Gates been disproportionately rewarded? Socialists will say yes, how can one man be worth so much? On the other hand, think of it this way: Bill Gates created DOS and Windows, which have run on the majority of computers in the world since the 80's, and these creations have been responsible for vastly increasing the work productively of probably billions of workers, creating ridiculous amounts of wealth for a ridiculous amount of the world's population. He should be the richest man in the world, and FAR richer than virtually everyone in the world. His contributions to society and the global economy are so far beyond anything you and I are likely to accomplish it's almost impossible to even quantity. If anyone deserves to at least be a billionaire, it's him, he's earned it. It's not at all crazy to say that the value of his labour has been literally a million times greater than the guy who loads boxes of software onto the shipping trucks and only makes 40k a year.



But Bill Gates' wealth was premised on his *ownership* of certain software code, and the legal ('superstructural') protections for such:



Microsoft's Altair BASIC was popular with computer hobbyists, but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked out and was being widely copied and distributed. In February 1976, he wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter in which he asserted that more than 90% of the users of Microsoft Altair BASIC had not paid Microsoft for it and the Altair "hobby market" was in danger of eliminating the incentive for any professional developers to produce, distribute, and maintain high-quality software.[52] This letter was unpopular with many computer hobbyists, but Gates persisted in his belief that software developers should be able to demand payment. Microsoft became independent of MITS in late 1976, and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems.[51] The company moved from Albuquerque to Bellevue, Washington on January 1, 1979.[50]

Gates said that he personally reviewed and often rewrote every line of code that the company produced in its first five years. As the company grew he transitioned to a manager role, then an executive.[53]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#BASIC



So you're making a meritocratic-type argument, based on the forward-propagating utility / use-value of developed software code, to all users of it, but my own position happens to be *opposite* to that: The *distribution* of any digital-based work is *effortless*, due to the inherent leveraging / copying function of all computers, which means that the labor required for any given digital work should be treated economically as a *service*, and not as producing a good. (The reason is that the private-property *owner* of any digital work should not be able to benefit from this pre-existing *perfect* distribution system of digital-based goods -- networked computers / the Internet -- like the BASIC programming language.


---


Unthinking Majority wrote:
How would a socialist system value Bill Gates' labour, and how much would he be compensated for his creations and running the company too?



Yeah, I would say that all white-collar types of labor, including programming, should be considered as a *service*, and *separate* from the infinite-copies function of *distribution*, over computer networks.

I advocate (as you can see in my proffered diagrams) a communist-type *gift* economy, so that all post-capitalist liberated labor is optional, and fully voluntary, and directly uncompensated. At the same time as long as there's a 'critical mass' of these sheerly voluntary efforts for the common good, there will be a 'commons' available from which to take for individuals' self-determined consumption (for personal needs and wants). It's basically what you've already outlined, but taken to the full logical extent.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
Well, every democratic country gets a referendum every time a federal election is held. There's socialist and communist parties in virtually every country. So I don't buy this. Bernie Sanders has been on the ballot in the US twice and hasn't even been able to secure his party's nomination, because most people don't vote for him and don't want him.



No, the electoralist practice of voting for candidates is very *substitutionist* in function -- I think, in our Internet age, we now have the logistical potential to directly discuss (as we're doing here) and vote on a policy-by-policy basis, as with 'socialism-versus-capitalism'. (This would also bypass political institutionalism, turf, establishment parties, lobbying, kickbacks, patronage networks, careerism, dynasties, etc.)


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
You're incorrectly blaming the ideals / goal of socialism, when it was never even *allowed* to be tried in the first place. Here's the quintessential instance, and the standing concern going-forward:


Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War

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



Unthinking Majority wrote:
That's what every socialist revolutionary says, that is just hasn't been implemented properly but MY way will be the one that works! LOL. Yes yes i'm sure your way will be the one that finally works LOL. There's been how many communist countries that have existed?:

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



Well, again, 'socialism-in-one-country' is correctly termed 'Stalinism'. I simply advocate for the original proposal, which is outlined in the Communist Manifesto -- proletarian revolution and collective workers control of social production.


ckaihatsu wrote:
It has to come in the form of a concrete economic and political system. Leninism and Maoism are shit. You have to prove to me Ckaihatsuism isn't shit.



I haven't created any kind of *new* ideology -- I advocate for the communistic gift-economy, as I described above. My models are meant to address the *finer points* of how this communist-type gift economy could potentially function, namely the realistic possible situation of a lack of available-and-willing voluntary post-capitalist liberated-labor. (What if everyone just wants to be a rock star after the revolution?)

You may want to address the theory of a post-capitalist communist-type *gift economy*, going-forward.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
Ok well telling workers they are being ripped off is the easy part. Marx/Engels did it. I can read the Communist Manifesto again why am I listening to you? The hard part is figuring out and implementing a system that successfully addresses these issues and can be as or more successful as capitalism at raising and maintaining everyone's standard of living. Marx/Engels could do the easy part, not the hard part, in fact they barely laid out any kind of comprehensive plan. At least Lenin did and had the balls to implement it, although on much too big a scale.



You're saying that the development of soviets / workers councils, and the Bolshevik Revolution, was 'much too big a scale' for communist-minded efforts? You understand that communism as outlined in the Communist Manifesto, is meant to be *worldwide*, right?

On this trajectory I think you'd really be interested in taking a look at the framework models I developed and provided links to. They're quite relevant to this part of our discussion and would be worth your time and consideration.
#15078505
Research has been casting doubt as to the veracity of the Free Rider Problem.

The experience during the economic crisis a decade ago, in the Nordic countries, suggests strongly that a robust social safety net is good for the economy.

No need to get the panties in a twist.
#15078743
ckaihatsu wrote:From my understanding, you're *defending* private property ownership, which I'm showing to be elitist since such mass-production ownership retains the lion's share of the rewards, simply from ownership, and not from work.


Well there's not inherently wrong with private property. The only problem that really needs to be solved within capitalism is the 100% control of the distribution of profits that owners have, and of course they usually distribute all of the profits either to themselves or reinvest them back into the company to increase its production and worth (again for their financial benefit). Unions help in that workers get leverage to control distribution of profits.

You've been touting worker-owned businesses, correct? How would workers even be able to *buy* these businesses in the first place, given the paltry wages and meager savings, on average?


I've not been touting worker-owned businesses. I've been saying if you want them, then go start one. You don't need to buy someone else's business, just start your own. You want to steal the business from the owners and give it to the workers. That's Stalinism. It's also Leninism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_shall_he_eat


From your above link: "Criticizing Stalin, Leon Trotsky wrote that: "The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: who does not obey shall not eat."

The reason being, again, our current advanced state of productive technology, which enormously leverages human labor to great productive outputs. Obviously one person in a factory produces far more per hour of work than they could possibly consume over the same period of time -- mass production. How is this technological bounty of goods (and services) to be distributed in our present-day?
----

I advocate (as you can see in my proffered diagrams) a communist-type *gift* economy, so that all post-capitalist liberated labor is optional, and fully voluntary, and directly uncompensated. At the same time as long as there's a 'critical mass' of these sheerly voluntary efforts for the common good, there will be a 'commons' available from which to take for individuals' self-determined consumption (for personal needs and wants). It's basically what you've already outlined, but taken to the full logical extent.
---

I haven't created any kind of *new* ideology -- I advocate for the communistic gift-economy, as I described above. My models are meant to address the *finer points* of how this communist-type gift economy could potentially function, namely the realistic possible situation of a lack of available-and-willing voluntary post-capitalist liberated-labor. (What if everyone just wants to be a rock star after the revolution?)

You may want to address the theory of a post-capitalist communist-type *gift economy*, going-forward.


I think this type of economy is a terrible idea. We have resentment now between the rich and the working masses. This gift economy of volunteers is just going to replace that resentment to that between working people busting their ass and people who don't want to work that hard or work in fields of little value. I don't want to give my labour away for free. I want to be the master of my own reality. Right now I owe nobody else anything besides paying my taxes and living up to the contract I signed with my employer.

"Man does not live by bread alone". In other words, the struggle is worth as much as the result. Everyone needs a reason to get up in the morning. It keeps us from sleeping in and then sitting on our butts all day watching TV. Everyone needs something to do, and being forced to work to eat is a good thing. This has been the case for man for 100,000 years, beware of changing it. Human nature depends on it. Gifting people the necessities of life rots their souls if they don't have to earn it.

Industrial society of mass production is the worst thing to ever happen to humanity. It has made health outcomes and life expectancies much better, but it has also taken away many people's reasons to struggle. I know friends who still live with their parents into their late 30's because their parents are well-off and have the financial means to take care of them. They are lazy, spoiled, not independent as every adult should be, and not motivated. They are a leech and contribute little to society.

People shouldn't envy the rich, they should feel sorry for them. Their children are the most spoiled, never have to struggle for anything, never have to work a day in their life many of them, never have to make anything of themselves, contribute to society, or become independent. Even as "adults" these people are always children, because they are dependents...of their parents. A fully grown adult leaves the nest like a grown bird and is able to survive on their own. Millennials are so spoiled and soft that every word or idea that doesn't align what they've been taught offends them into rage & tears. Is this utopia, or is this hell? Being worried about paying for the roof over their head instead of daddy paying for it will toughen them up fast.

So I say, let the rich have their money, it's their own bane. Humans lived 100,000 years in relative poverty, without super-abundance, and they did well, have achieved amazing things. Your average worker is comfortable now compared to then, they're spoiled enough. House, food, car, food...what else does one need?

If I could I would turn the world back to a pre-industrial time, a time of struggle and not comfort. Technology (washing machines, dishwashers, , microwaves, birth control) has finally freed women of domestic duties and allowed them to limit the number of children they have and finally have careers. Seems good on the surface, but now we have strangers raising our kids (daycare workers), strangers taking care of our elderly parents who live longer than ever (retirement homes), women raising maladjusted dogs as their replacement "children", and fully industrialized Western countries have far too few children below replacement rate to the point that Western Civilization is slowly going extinct & replaced by migrants from other civilizations. Meanwhile we are destroying the environment burning energy that has been locked in the ground for millions of years.

Pre-industrial revolution human populations were stable, infants and children died regularly, as did mothers, and men from war and disease, and people didn't live as long. There was no global overpopulation or environmental destruction. We were still part of the cycle of the natural world, using wood for fuel and relying on the sunlight energy of the year's 4 seasons, rather than the millions of years of sunlight energy stored within fossil fuels unleashed to great havoc.

In other words, be careful what you wish for. Our society and culture is decaying, mental health worsening, Western Civilization is quickly going extinct...literally, because we've been removed from the natural order of things. A society of abundance, Marx's utopia, is a curse I want no part of. Equality of outcome is a disgusting goal. We should always strive to be better. When there's nothing else to strive for, decay sets in. Look at any rock band that's hit the top of the charts and gets rich...they soon start to suck. They're too busy screwing hot girls and doing drugs in their mansions to give a fuck about their jobs anymore. Fuck that.

No, the electoralist practice of voting for candidates is very *substitutionist* in function -- I think, in our Internet age, we now have the logistical potential to directly discuss (as we're doing here) and vote on a policy-by-policy basis, as with 'socialism-versus-capitalism'. (This would also bypass political institutionalism, turf, establishment parties, lobbying, kickbacks, patronage networks, careerism, dynasties, etc.)


I'm totally for voting on a policy-by-policy basis. It's more democratic. We should have the control, not politicians.

Well, again, 'socialism-in-one-country' is correctly termed 'Stalinism'. I simply advocate for the original proposal, which is outlined in the Communist Manifesto -- proletarian revolution and collective workers control of social production.


That goal is really, really hard. You'd need some kind of terrible global economic crisis that couldn't be recovered easily, like the Great Depression.
#15078838
Unthinking Majority wrote:
Well there's not inherently wrong with private property. The only problem that really needs to be solved within capitalism is the 100% control of the distribution of profits that owners have, and of course they usually distribute all of the profits either to themselves or reinvest them back into the company to increase its production and worth (again for their financial benefit). Unions help in that workers get leverage to control distribution of profits.



Okay, then where do you stand on the capitalist state's use of physical *force* against such union organization and labor actions? We have a recent example:



The fundamental issue in France—as in the mass strikes and protests in Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Lebanon and Iraq and the strikes by US and Mexican autoworkers and British rail workers—is the malignant level of social inequality produced by capitalism.



The ruling elite’s response can be summed up as: So much for democracy! On Thursday, Macron sent armored cars, water cannon and thousands of heavily-armed riot police to attack strikers marching in cities across France. A government operating without any popular support is mobilizing paramilitary police to crush protests against policies opposed by 70 percent of the population.

In France, as in every country, the capitalist state is a thinly veiled dictatorship of the financial elite.



https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/1 ... s-d07.html



---


Unthinking Majority wrote:
I've not been touting worker-owned businesses. I've been saying if you want them, then go start one. You don't need to buy someone else's business, just start your own. You want to steal the business from the owners and give it to the workers. That's Stalinism. It's also Leninism.



Hmmmm, you're not getting it -- there are *costs* associated with starting or buying a business, and then running it. And, as mentioned already, those workers would have to *self-exploit* for the sake of the business entity that they're running. It's a non-starter. (Others are unable to resolve *how* ownership would be transferred to the workers, as though the government would have an interest in financing this.)

No, you're conflating Stalinism -- which was the result of Bolshevism, mitigated by imperialism -- with workers control, when in fact under Stalin the workers were *not* politically in control.

The crux of the issue is *how* workers are supposed to get control over their own labor efforts, and the productive infrastructure that they built, now in private hands. I can find no other realistic option than for the productive infrastructure to be *seized* by the working class, worldwide, because otherwise the workers run into *financing* issues, which just keeps them trapped within capitalism anyway, which is certainly not proletarian control.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
From your above link: "Criticizing Stalin, Leon Trotsky wrote that: "The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: who does not obey shall not eat."



You're leaving out the *context*:



According to Vladimir Lenin, "He who does not work shall not eat" is a necessary principle under socialism, the preliminary phase of the evolution towards communist society. The phrase appears in his 1917 work, The State and Revolution. Through this slogan Lenin explains that in socialist states only productive individuals could be allowed access to the articles of consumption.

The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products. This is a "defect" according to Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. (Chapter 5, Section 3, "The First Phase of Communist Society")

In Lenin’s writing, this was directed at the bourgeoisie, as well as "those who shirk their work".[5][6]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_do ... viet_Union



---


Unthinking Majority wrote:
I think this type of economy is a terrible idea. We have resentment now between the rich and the working masses. This gift economy of volunteers is just going to replace that resentment to that between working people busting their ass and people who don't want to work that hard or work in fields of little value. I don't want to give my labour away for free. I want to be the master of my own reality. Right now I owe nobody else anything besides paying my taxes and living up to the contract I signed with my employer.



Well, with *that* attitude it's never going to happen -- ! (grin)

As I mentioned, it's just an extension of the social safety net politics that you espouse. For the most critical / basic / common of 'living supplies' this kind of proletariat-collectivized liberated-work and egalitarian distribution would be a world-historical *improvement*. I think enough people would care about this aspect to take up work efforts for the public good, once productive implements have been collectivized by the workers themselves.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
"Man does not live by bread alone". In other words, the struggle is worth as much as the result. Everyone needs a reason to get up in the morning. It keeps us from sleeping in and then sitting on our butts all day watching TV. Everyone needs something to do, and being forced to work to eat is a good thing. This has been the case for man for 100,000 years, beware of changing it. Human nature depends on it. Gifting people the necessities of life rots their souls if they don't have to earn it.



Wow. I didn't initially think you were a moralist, but here we are. So you're in the camp of 'Stalinist busywork for all, and let the surplus rot.'

I think *a lot* of people fall into this trap, and they forget that we live in an *industrial* age that produces a vast surplus that isn't even used. To urge people to work their lives away in vain, under a bureaucratic elitist caste (like today), while food rots and goods sit unused in warehouses, is *monstrous*, as monstrous as the historical Stalinism that you decry.

Wilde puts it well:



Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less. For a town or country labourer to practise thrift would be absolutely immoral. Man should not be ready to show that he can live like a badly-fed animal. He should decline to live like that, and should either steal or go on the rates, which is considered by many to be a form of stealing. As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg. No: a poor man who is ungrateful, unthrifty, discontented, and rebellious, is probably a real personality, and has much in him. He is at any rate a healthy protest. As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid. I can quite understand a man accepting laws that protect private property, and admit of its accumulation, as long as he himself is able under those conditions to realise some form of beautiful and intellectual life. But it is almost incredible to me how a man whose life is marred and made hideous by such laws can possibly acquiesce in their continuance.



But it may be asked how Individualism, which is now more or less dependent on the existence of private property for its development, will benefit by the abolition of such private property. The answer is very simple. It is true that, under existing conditions, a few men who have had private means of their own, such as Byron, Shelley, Browning, Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, and others, have been able to realise their personality more or less completely. Not one of these men ever did a single day’s work for hire. They were relieved from poverty. They had an immense advantage.



https://www.marxists.org/reference/arch ... /soul-man/



---


Unthinking Majority wrote:
Industrial society of mass production is the worst thing to ever happen to humanity. It has made health outcomes and life expectancies much better, but it has also taken away many people's reasons to struggle. I know friends who still live with their parents into their late 30's because their parents are well-off and have the financial means to take care of them. They are lazy, spoiled, not independent as every adult should be, and not motivated. They are a leech and contribute little to society.



So your only real politics is a subjective, *moralistic* one -- as though 'society' suffers more from a population of 'non-contributing' workers, rather than from the capitalist dynamic of labor exploitation and wealth engorgement.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
People shouldn't envy the rich, they should feel sorry for them. Their children are the most spoiled, never have to struggle for anything, never have to work a day in their life many of them, never have to make anything of themselves, contribute to society, or become independent. Even as "adults" these people are always children, because they are dependents...of their parents. A fully grown adult leaves the nest like a grown bird and is able to survive on their own. Millennials are so spoiled and soft that every word or idea that doesn't align what they've been taught offends them into rage & tears. Is this utopia, or is this hell? Being worried about paying for the roof over their head instead of daddy paying for it will toughen them up fast.



Let me ask you this: Do you think that 'might makes right'? I think you have some liberal sympathies, but that your politics mostly consists of a 'law of the jungle' mentality, unfortunately.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
So I say, let the rich have their money, it's their own bane. Humans lived 100,000 years in relative poverty, without super-abundance, and they did well, have achieved amazing things. Your average worker is comfortable now compared to then, they're spoiled enough. House, food, car, food...what else does one need?



You're also ageist -- you're okay with *adults* having riches, but not for younger generations, if they happen to have that privilege. Somehow, in your moralistic mindset, everything's okay and morally just once people reach adulthood. Whatever....


Unthinking Majority wrote:
If I could I would turn the world back to a pre-industrial time, a time of struggle and not comfort. Technology (washing machines, dishwashers, , microwaves, birth control) has finally freed women of domestic duties and allowed them to limit the number of children they have and finally have careers. Seems good on the surface, but now we have strangers raising our kids (daycare workers), strangers taking care of our elderly parents who live longer than ever (retirement homes), women raising maladjusted dogs as their replacement "children", and fully industrialized Western countries have far too few children below replacement rate to the point that Western Civilization is slowly going extinct & replaced by migrants from other civilizations. Meanwhile we are destroying the environment burning energy that has been locked in the ground for millions of years.



And you blame *technology* itself for this state of affairs? Machinery of any kind is just *inert* and doesn't have any internal self-motivation of its own. It has to be put into motion, in one way or another, by *people* who are conscious of what they're doing. I myself would add *warfare* to the list, as with the two world wars of the twentieth century.

All of these social concerns of yours -- some more valid than others -- are *social* issues, and are caused by capitalism's dynamic of personhood *commodification*, I would argue. As Wilde notes, under capitalism *people* become machines (due to the commodification of labor roles).


Unthinking Majority wrote:
Pre-industrial revolution human populations were stable, infants and children died regularly, as did mothers, and men from war and disease, and people didn't live as long. There was no global overpopulation or environmental destruction. We were still part of the cycle of the natural world, using wood for fuel and relying on the sunlight energy of the year's 4 seasons, rather than the millions of years of sunlight energy stored within fossil fuels unleashed to great havoc.



Oh, okay, you're a *primitivist* -- that explains a lot of your politics and overall mentality. Well, just as you would advise me, you can go ahead and *live* that way, if you like.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
In other words, be careful what you wish for. Our society and culture is decaying, mental health worsening, Western Civilization is quickly going extinct...literally, because we've been removed from the natural order of things. A society of abundance, Marx's utopia, is a curse I want no part of. Equality of outcome is a disgusting goal. We should always strive to be better. When there's nothing else to strive for, decay sets in. Look at any rock band that's hit the top of the charts and gets rich...they soon start to suck. They're too busy screwing hot girls and doing drugs in their mansions to give a fuck about their jobs anymore. Fuck that.



Yeah, who would want *that* kind of lifestyle? Best that we *deter* others from the same 'mistake', with our sagely advice and remonstrations. You're a garden-variety moralistic lifestylist.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
I'm totally for voting on a policy-by-policy basis. It's more democratic. We should have the control, not politicians.



Okay, good to hear -- you may want to elaborate on this further. What kind of policies would you argue for if the world's population could vote on a policy-by-policy basis?


Unthinking Majority wrote:
That goal is really, really hard. You'd need some kind of terrible global economic crisis that couldn't be recovered easily, like the Great Depression.



Hmmmmm, I don't see how. Aren't living and working conditions bad enough already (as you've delineated) to 'motivate' workers to take-over and control social production for themselves?
#15079446
annatar1914 wrote:Wrong. Israel as presently constituted won't exist to celebrate it's 100th year in 2048 AD, on the demographics alone.


They'll be fine. After all, the future is big data, robotics and AI. If it's possible for Israel to infiltrate the US, use it like a whore and basically sell it off to the highest bidder just so Israel can become the center of the Belt & Road, you don't have much to worry.

Image

I worry a lot more about Western Europe in regards to the demographics. Israel radically wants to remain a Jewish state. Germany (or any other Western European country for that matter) doesn't want to remain German, even the kosher populists on the right aren't really pushing for it.

annatar1914 wrote:Arabs can wait a long time too, and take the money (not being stupid after all) and wait the West out...


Arab countries, like African countries, aren't serious countries. The Arabs really don't do much besides burning flags and yelling some naughty things. They hurt each other a lot more than Israel. So Israel is in no serious danger.

annatar1914 wrote:Superhuman, huh? Sounds like an ironic anti-semitic trope to me; ''Jews rule the world!"...


How could you possibly deny that Israel is a technological juggernaut?

annatar1914 wrote:Source quote for context please.




annatar1914 wrote:Do they? Sure about that?


Yes.

annatar1914 wrote:Can it?


Yes.

annatar1914 wrote:Israelis or Diaspora Jews?


The UN in this case.
#15079536
ckaihatsu wrote:Okay, then where do you stand on the capitalist state's use of physical *force* against such union organization and labor actions? We have a recent example:


I don't know anything specific about that case, nor do I care enough to learn, but people should have freedom of speech, protest, and assembly. People should be free to organize and protest peacefully without state violence.

Hmmmm, you're not getting it -- there are *costs* associated with starting or buying a business, and then running it. And, as mentioned already, those workers would have to *self-exploit* for the sake of the business entity that they're running. It's a non-starter. (Others are unable to resolve *how* ownership would be transferred to the workers, as though the government would have an interest in financing this.)

The crux of the issue is *how* workers are supposed to get control over their own labor efforts, and the productive infrastructure that they built, now in private hands. I can find no other realistic option than for the productive infrastructure to be *seized* by the working class, worldwide, because otherwise the workers run into *financing* issues, which just keeps them trapped within capitalism anyway, which is certainly not proletarian control.


Ok Let's say there's a proletariat revolution. Where would new businesses, owned by workers, get investment money, and what would be the rewards for such risks be?

As I mentioned, it's just an extension of the social safety net politics that you espouse. For the most critical / basic / common of 'living supplies' this kind of proletariat-collectivized liberated-work and egalitarian distribution would be a world-historical *improvement*. I think enough people would care about this aspect to take up work efforts for the public good, once productive implements have been collectivized by the workers themselves.


Who gets to work as an usher at a sports stadium (awesome job) and who gets to work as a garbage collector (shitty job)? Do we reward someone who works harder or more productively? What's the incentive for doing such?

Wow. I didn't initially think you were a moralist, but here we are. So you're in the camp of 'Stalinist busywork for all, and let the surplus rot.'


How is the current system Stalinist if the government isn't forcing anyone to do anything?

I think *a lot* of people fall into this trap, and they forget that we live in an *industrial* age that produces a vast surplus that isn't even used. To urge people to work their lives away in vain, under a bureaucratic elitist caste (like today), while food rots and goods sit unused in warehouses, is *monstrous*, as monstrous as the historical Stalinism that you decry.


It's not realistic to think we won't be wasteful under another system. Sometimes supply outstrips demand. Businesses now have every incentive to eliminate that.

Let me ask you this: Do you think that 'might makes right'? I think you have some liberal sympathies, but that your politics mostly consists of a 'law of the jungle' mentality, unfortunately.


I believe in liberalism, so I don't think might makes right.

You're also ageist -- you're okay with *adults* having riches, but not for younger generations, if they happen to have that privilege. Somehow, in your moralistic mindset, everything's okay and morally just once people reach adulthood. Whatever....


I'm not saying youth can't have money, i'm saying they shouldn't be spoiled, and they should earn it. Letting any child have a hefty allowance without doing work teaches them nothing except that if they do nothing they'll get rewarded for it.

And you blame *technology* itself for this state of affairs? Machinery of any kind is just *inert* and doesn't have any internal self-motivation of its own. It has to be put into motion, in one way or another, by *people* who are conscious of what they're doing. I myself would add *warfare* to the list, as with the two world wars of the twentieth century.


Sure, they do need people to do it. We are not adapting well though, it's sad. The West is filled with overweight fatties who take in too many calories and have everything at their fingertips. We have to go to "the gym" to not be fat, whereas up until the 20th century we simply put in a solid day's work and that was it because we walked everywhere and ate better food. Now we sit in front of computers in cubicles all day and then drive or bus home and have to "count our steps".

All of these social concerns of yours -- some more valid than others -- are *social* issues, and are caused by capitalism's dynamic of personhood *commodification*, I would argue. As Wilde notes, under capitalism *people* become machines (due to the commodification of labor roles).


Consumerism has something to do with it. But people will be addicted to their phones and social media under any economic system. Society is fundamentally ill and I believe technology is the main cause:

https://theconversation.com/teens-have-less-face-time-with-their-friends-and-are-lonelier-than-ever-113240

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/09/11/end-young-love-dating-decline-among-i-generation-study-finds/

Oh, okay, you're a *primitivist* -- that explains a lot of your politics and overall mentality. Well, just as you would advise me, you can go ahead and *live* that way, if you like.


This is true. As someone who believes in liberalism, I would never *force* anyone to live the way I think is ideal. I think we can handle technology but we have to adapt with it, and the you can't put the cat back in the bag anyways. I think technology has moved so quickly that we haven't been able to adapt well enough to it.

It seems very likely that a technological singularity will occur some time in the next 50 years, and the bourgeoisie will be replaced by a machine hivemind overlord of some kind, making this convo moot, and humans being rendered essentially useless: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Yeah, who would want *that* kind of lifestyle? Best that we *deter* others from the same 'mistake', with our sagely advice and remonstrations. You're a garden-variety moralistic lifestylist.


You call me a moralist but you're also a moralist. You're making moral statements about our economy ("it's exploitative") and want to change it for moral reasons, to increase "fairness" and reduce suffering etc.

Okay, good to hear -- you may want to elaborate on this further. What kind of policies would you argue for if the world's population could vote on a policy-by-policy basis?


That's a big question, too big for our convo i think.
#15079631
Unthinking Majority wrote:
I don't know anything specific about that case, nor do I care enough to learn, but people should have freedom of speech, protest, and assembly. People should be free to organize and protest peacefully without state violence.



Good to hear. I'd just like to point out that this is standard operating procedure for the state, *any* state -- as soon as organized rebellion, like from the 'Yellow Vests' in France, begins to challenge its power, the state uses violence and physical force. Consider Palestine, etc. The use of violence from the state is inherent to the capitalist state's interest in maintaining its own rule.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
Ok Let's say there's a proletariat revolution. Where would new businesses, owned by workers, get investment money, and what would be the rewards for such risks be?



Well this, too, is a misnomer -- while *some* advocate an ill-conceived 'market socialism', my position is that markets, and all currency / exchange values need to be eliminated as quickly as possible, since that's a 'hands-off' approach to economy, the 'invisible hand'. As seen in my 'Emergent Central Planning' illustration, there can be individual / consumer daily *prioritization* of ranked items (#1, #2, #3, etc.), which, mass-aggregated, can reveal to the public information about where people's political and consumer preferences are, over any given geographical area(s). This information can then be used by liberated laborers for their decision as to what production policy to actually fulfill, through their gifted efforts for the public good. (All productive machinery / factories would be *collectivized*, so what would remain is policy-by-policy decisions and scheduling for who gets to use what factories, for the fulfillment of what policy package.)


Unthinking Majority wrote:
Who gets to work as an usher at a sports stadium (awesome job) and who gets to work as a garbage collector (shitty job)? Do we reward someone who works harder or more productively? What's the incentive for doing such?



Yes. This is why I developed the 'labor credits' instrument, which is basically an 'IOU' that applies to liberated-labor work hours *only*, at some rate of labor credits per hour, per work role (a 'multiplier'). If the communistic gift economy can operate entirely without the use of labor credits, then fine, but if not, then the passing-forward of labor credits from liberated laborers to liberated laborers confers a kind of *political* power in that post-capitalist context, since it provides the work-role organizing / 'funding' function that is done by wealthy capitalist investors today, under capitalism.

The idea here is that if really no one wants to work around garbage -- and society would then have a *collective* incentive to *automate* all such work roles, to eliminate the need for human labor around them -- then the labor credits multiplier for such would ultimately *float* higher, to provide a supply-and-demand dynamic that means those who *do* do those roles, at higher rates of labor credit compensation, would receive proportionately greater social organizing power in that society, going-forward. Here's an excerpt from the F.A.Q.:


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

Spoiler: show
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.


https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... ost2889338


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Wow. I didn't initially think you were a moralist, but here we are. So you're in the camp of 'Stalinist busywork for all, and let the surplus rot.'



Unthinking Majority wrote:
How is the current system Stalinist if the government isn't forcing anyone to do anything?



I didn't say the *current* system is Stalinist -- I was referring to the socio-political values that you were expressing. The current system is *capitalist*, with private profits being the motivating factor for all productive / economic activity.



Overproduction is the accumulation of unsalable inventories in the hands of businesses. Overproduction is a relative measure, referring to the excess of production over consumption. The tendency for an overproduction of commodities to lead to economic collapse is specific to the capitalist economy. In previous economic formations, an abundance of production created general prosperity. However, in the capitalist economy, commodities are produced for monetary profit. This so-called profit motive, the core of the capitalist economy, creates a dynamic whereby an abundance of commodities has negative consequences. In essence, an abundance of commodities disrupts the conditions for the creation of profit.

The overproduction of commodities forces businesses to reduce production in order to clear inventories. Any reduction in production implies a reduction in employment. A reduction in employment, in turn, reduces consumption. As overproduction is the excess of production above consumption, this reduction in consumption worsens the problem. This creates a "feed-back loop" or "vicious cycle", whereby excess inventories force businesses to reduce production, thereby reducing employment, which in turn reduces the demand for the excess inventories. The general reduction in the level of prices (deflation) caused by the law of supply and demand also forces businesses to reduce production as profits decline. Reduced profits render certain fields of production unprofitable.



Inevitability

Karl Marx outlined the inherent tendency of capitalism towards overproduction in his seminal work, Das Kapital.

According to Marx, in capitalism, improvements in technology and rising levels of productivity increase the amount of material wealth (or use values) in society while simultaneously diminishing the economic value of this wealth, thereby lowering the rate of profit—a tendency that leads to the paradox, characteristic of crises in capitalism, of "reserve army of labour" and of “poverty in the midst of plenty”, or more precisely, crises of overproduction in the midst of underconsumption.



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



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Unthinking Majority wrote:
It's not realistic to think we won't be wasteful under another system. Sometimes supply outstrips demand. Businesses now have every incentive to eliminate that.



Yes, I agree that capitalism tends to do better under conditions of *scarcity*, but it also ultimately leads to an elitist *abundance* of goods and services, as outlined in the 'overproduction' entry above.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
I believe in liberalism, so I don't think might makes right.



Would you care to address the dynamic of capitalist *imperialism*, then? Just as with the state's domestic use of force and violence against organized labor strikes, it uses force and violence to oppress and subjugate *foreign* workers, through its militaries. Take a look at what the U.S. did to Iraq and Libya in the past two decades, under protection-racket pretexts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya#Pos ... _Civil_War


Unthinking Majority wrote:
I'm not saying youth can't have money, i'm saying they shouldn't be spoiled, and they should earn it. Letting any child have a hefty allowance without doing work teaches them nothing except that if they do nothing they'll get rewarded for it.



My argument is that since there's no level playing field ('equality') in the economy, it's the wealthy who are the *most* spoiled, since they merely socialize around business matters to provide the social-organization for how and what kinds of production are greenlighted, and they profit off of this. There's no 'earning' going on there, since the rich don't do any commodity-productive work. Until there's some kind of economic equality and a societal ethos of economic egalitarianism, there *isn't* any, because it's a *plutocracy* that prevails as to who gets to use capital, and who doesn't.


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Unthinking Majority wrote:
If I could I would turn the world back to a pre-industrial time, a time of struggle and not comfort. Technology (washing machines, dishwashers, , microwaves, birth control) has finally freed women of domestic duties and allowed them to limit the number of children they have and finally have careers. Seems good on the surface, but now we have strangers raising our kids (daycare workers), strangers taking care of our elderly parents who live longer than ever (retirement homes), women raising maladjusted dogs as their replacement "children", and fully industrialized Western countries have far too few children below replacement rate to the point that Western Civilization is slowly going extinct & replaced by migrants from other civilizations. Meanwhile we are destroying the environment burning energy that has been locked in the ground for millions of years.



ckaihatsu wrote:
And you blame *technology* itself for this state of affairs? Machinery of any kind is just *inert* and doesn't have any internal self-motivation of its own. It has to be put into motion, in one way or another, by *people* who are conscious of what they're doing. I myself would add *warfare* to the list, as with the two world wars of the twentieth century.



Unthinking Majority wrote:
Sure, they do need people to do it. We are not adapting well though, it's sad. The West is filled with overweight fatties who take in too many calories and have everything at their fingertips. We have to go to "the gym" to not be fat, whereas up until the 20th century we simply put in a solid day's work and that was it because we walked everywhere and ate better food. Now we sit in front of computers in cubicles all day and then drive or bus home and have to "count our steps".



Maybe it's just a period of *adjustment* for the advanced world -- I think you're being too moralistic and *dismissive* of this advanced productivity that we now have, thanks to technological development. Revolutionaries *appreciate* technological advances because that materially paves the way for *non-elitist* control over the same, to benefit *everyone* (as with full automation), and not just the elitist 'ownership' class, under capitalism.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
All of these social concerns of yours -- some more valid than others -- are *social* issues, and are caused by capitalism's dynamic of personhood *commodification*, I would argue. As Wilde notes, under capitalism *people* become machines (due to the commodification of labor roles).



Unthinking Majority wrote:
Consumerism has something to do with it. But people will be addicted to their phones and social media under any economic system. Society is fundamentally ill and I believe technology is the main cause:

https://theconversation.com/teens-have-less-face-time-with-their-friends-and-are-lonelier-than-ever-113240

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/09/11/end-young-love-dating-decline-among-i-generation-study-finds/



Well, again, I think you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater -- there are tremendous social *advances*, like this message board, due to present-day technology. Offhand I think the greatest is that we're now able to find social interactions based on personal *interest*, whereas that wasn't the case in the past, even with the telephone, fax machine, and photocopier.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
This is true. As someone who believes in liberalism, I would never *force* anyone to live the way I think is ideal. I think we can handle technology but we have to adapt with it, and the you can't put the cat back in the bag anyways. I think technology has moved so quickly that we haven't been able to adapt well enough to it.

It seems very likely that a technological singularity will occur some time in the next 50 years, and the bourgeoisie will be replaced by a machine hivemind overlord of some kind, making this convo moot, and humans being rendered essentially useless: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity



Oh, that's too bad to hear -- please be careful that you don't allow your attitude to trap you into a self-fulfilling prophecy. As things are now I think there's still a lot of *social accountability* (due to the instant communications of the Internet) for what kinds of tech are brought into the world, nation-state militaries excepted, unfortunately, but I'll point out that humanity, and even capitalism, doesn't *need* an AI-based governance so I don't think that there's any inherent *motivation* to implement such, even with baby steps.


Unthinking Majority wrote:
You call me a moralist but you're also a moralist. You're making moral statements about our economy ("it's exploitative") and want to change it for moral reasons, to increase "fairness" and reduce suffering etc.



Yes, I do make *value judgments* over the macroscopic aspects of political economy, but you're focusing more on *socio-cultural* aspects rather than material-originating ones (like political economy, etc.). Per my 'History: Macro-Micro" diagram, I think there are *scale*-indexed 'levels' of lifestyle, logistics, and politics, so the more one is looking at *lifestyle* / moralism, the less they're looking at the overarching 'superstructure' / politics of society, including its mode-of-production and economic 'base' of production.


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

Spoiler: show
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, good to hear -- you may want to elaborate on this further. What kind of policies would you argue for if the world's population could vote on a policy-by-policy basis?







Here we are discussing on the Internet -- something that wasn't even *possible* a few decades ago -- and you're *demurring* to advocate for certain political policies on a *political* message board?

You obviously have some concerns and critiques about society the way it is. Don't you want to *specify* what should be improved, from bottom-up mass concerns and movements? (There was recently a *global* series of populist-type movements that did just that.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_of_2019
#15080256
The richest man in the world—who makes $6.5 billion each month, or a little under $150,000 every minute, and owns his own apparel, aeronautics, supermarket, software, newspaper, robotics and digital companies—claims he is incapable of organizing the production of masks for workers who are processing and delivering food and other essential goods.

Amazon yesterday announced that it had fired an employee who had helped to organize the action.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/0 ... s-m31.html
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