Exactly. Capitalism isn’t bad because of free markets, free markets are great and arguably way better than planned economies in most applications (minus things like healthcare, if you can’t reasonably choose not to buy a product then prices will inflate out of control).
The problem with Capitalism is the concentration of capital which inevitably leads to oligarchy. Put profits in the hands of workers instead of investors and watch the problems melt away. Hell, I can see the merits of totally replacing wages with proportional stake in the company. When everyone gets a percentage of the profits, they’re way more motivated to work efficiently with less waste and higher productivity.
I’d argue that the emergence of capitalists and capitalist ideology, and the amassing of currency is just a natural tendency of currency itself. Currency itself is a tool of transactional thought, and I’d argue that if we could move away from transactional trade and focused more on mutual wellbeing, we could do without currency entirely.
That requires a basically unanimous raising of class consciousness. I just don’t see that happening anytime soon. We’re just not wired that way on a scale above small communities. Even without currency, hoarders gonna hoard. Before we had currency, we had people hoarding resources directly. It works in Star Trek because they’re post-scarcity.
Until we’re post-scarcity, we need a way to exchange goods and services on a scale larger than a neighborhood.
As an aside, idealistic free market is impossible to achieve without regulation. At the very least, contracts need to be enforced. Free market also demands price forming to happen through bids on the market, needing protection from extra-market negotiations. As an elastic system, it can also be broken by a concerted application of force and needs protection from such actions.
Whatever is being sold as free market sounds like a myth at best.
PS: Coop corporations should really become the norm. Trickle up systems create concentrations of power by design, and concentration of power is how you stretch elastic system beyond its deformation limits.
Howso? Capitalism is when non-worker investors own the means of production. In a co-op the workers literally own the means of production, so the workers are getting their fair share of the profit.
And despite the corrupt character[,] AES brought forth massive progress in all fields of society. Free education up to university for everyone who didn’t slack at school. Millions of emancipated people learned to read for the first time ever. Massive scientific progress. Access to culture for millions. Making things like theatre, operas, ballet, cinema and chess accessible (and affordable !) for the masses. Making sure everyone had a place to work, sleep, smth to eat and clean water. Giving women the right to work, vote, choose whom or even if to marry, to go through life unveiled and just generally choose their own lives.(but this is one of the errors again. Patriarchal social structures were still kept and social conservatism took hold, which is why women rarely if ever had the rly high positions and were barred from the military f.e.) Making sure every child had a place at a crib or kindergarten. Making good quality healthcare accessible to all free of charge. Including vaccinating even the furthest regions, that had never even seen a doctor before.
[…]
TL;DR: dismissing state socialism [and thus planned economies] as “something that didn’t work for the people” is disingenuous and disregards the fact that it did work and that, despite its flaws, it worked for hundreds of millions of people.
[…]
And all that without exploitation that is required for capitalism to get even close to that (e.g. China rn). Historically centrally planned economies struggled at larger scales (which is why decencralizing/devolving into regions might have been a good remedy). But they excelled at creation of industry or rather primitive capital accumulation but without all the horrible effects capitalism had at those stages.
Computers at our advancement lvl change all that or rather make them even more feasible
I’m glad you agree that they didn’t work well at larger scales, and I’m open to trying newer, computerized versions in narrow cases. The more experiments the better to find an improved economic system. But in general I think you are massively overstating their benefits. Yes, economic planning works alright for some things. Utilities where competition basically can’t exist can’t have markets, so some level of planning is needed there, although there are still market forces at play to some extent. But they also had catastrophic failures in food provision in particular that market food distribution usually didn’t have. And large, centralized economies are vulnerable to seizure by centralized power structures, who then turn them to their own ends.
But even ignoring those issues, a lot of this is just the same argument apologists for capitalism use. “Life got better and it was all thanks to our ideology!” A lot of this is conflated with general technological progress and other social changes, and the fact that human welfare was shockingly low in the economies that preceded modern ones. Being better than despotic feudalism isn’t too impressive in my book.
And all that without exploitation that is required for capitalism to get even close to that
without all the horrible effects capitalism had at those stages
Looking at history I don’t see much difference. Both systems centralized wealth and goods into fewer hands at the expensive of those that lacked political power, often with horrific consequences. Both destroyed the environment as they industrialized, and continue to do so. We need to do better if humans are going to survive long-term.
Sorry, but your comment is based on vibes and not on evidence.
But they also had catastrophic failures in food provision
Not the case. The famines suffered in the USSR were preindustrial, and a consequence of difficulties during collectivisation together with bad crops. After the industrialisation of the country, hunger was abolished.
And large, centralized economies are vulnerable to seizure by centralized power structures, who then turn them to their own ends
You’re conflating centralisation with bureaucracy. There’s such thing as democratic centralism, and it’s arguably as resilient to corruption as decentralised competing structures.
But even ignoring those issues, a lot of this is just the same argument apologists for capitalism use. “Life got better and it was all thanks to our ideology!” A lot of this is conflated with general technological progress and other social changes, and the fact that human welfare was shockingly low in the economies that preceded modern ones.
You’re saying all of that as if the industrial development in these areas is something independent of the ideology. Latin America and the Russian Empire in 1917 were in very similar stages of development. By 1970, the USSR was the second world power and brought immense welfare state while Latin america was left underdeveloped and exploited. Eastern Europe would most likely be on the level of development (and capital participation by western countries) of Latin America if it weren’t for actually-existing socialism. The only other countries that managed to industrialise meaningfully since the early 20th century have been Japan and South Korea by being geostrategic US allies that directed immense aid towards industrialisation (a possibility not all countries, especially not socialist ones, have the luxury of); and China, first through planned economy and after the Sino-Soviet split again through opening the floodgates to western capital mixed with central decision-making. Technology doesn’t improve everyone’s lives, go to Guatemala or to Peru, or go ask immigrant workers in Saudi Arabia, or farmers in Sri Lanka. It’s precisely socialism that allows everyone to enjoy these benefits.
Looking at history I don’t see much difference. Both systems centralized wealth and goods into fewer hands
Laughably false. You say “looking at history” but you patently haven’t researched any serious economic analysis of inequality in AES countries.
at the expensive of those that lacked political power, often with horrific consequences.
Then please explain to me whether there was a marked reduction in income disparity between farmers and white collar workers in the Soviet Union after the 1950s. I’ll look for the numbers in a second (a good source is Albert Szymanski’s “Human Rights in the Soviet Union”). Edit: found the numbers:
Both destroyed the environment as they industrialized, and continue to do so
Both don’t continue to do so because most AES countries are gone, but you’re right, we need to have a model of countries with high human development and sustainable carbon footprints… as is the case of Cuba, the only country in the world to my knowledge with both high HDI and sustainable carbon footprint. Concerns for the climate and for ecology are very much a 21st century thing, and it’s to be expected that a power such as the USSR which was in a constant struggle for survival, didn’t prioritize that. We can and should do better in the future.
Seriously, you are showing a clear lack of knowledge in the material and social conditions in actually existing socialist countries, and you should reconsider how much of what you know about them is factual and how much is a consequence of the power structures in your particular country telling you that.
oh boy do i have a new suggestion for you (I think it’s mostly new, or not in common discourse). Haven’t read through all their reasoning or evidence. It’s just extremely out of left field.
Seems to be that while trade was helpful in the past, it is now an obsolete practice that creates power imbalances and should be abolished as a practice entirely.
So, mutual aid instead of exchange, is that the basic idea? I love mutual aid but I am not sure sure the structure to support it at scale has really been developed yet. Then again, we’ve barely tried so some experimentation is definitely in order. If it can be made to work it does seem like the ideal solution, but there’s still the question of how people will know how much of a given good to produce.
By and large, no. So-called capitalist economies are actually mixed economies and do contain some elements of economic planning. Some industries are more amendable to centralized planning than others. But these economies are still largely market oriented on the whole. Even the supposedly socialist economies in the USSR and China have participated in world markets, which is one of the reasons they weren’t even more dysfunctional than they were.
Markets have a lot of flaws (at least as currently designed) but they are very efficient ways to aggregate information and make collective decisions without any top-down decision-maker. There’s no clear and obvious replacement for them. I think if there was we would have adopted it already. But they are also drivers of tremendous environmental destruction and human suffering, so I do encourage discussion of alternatives… just not ones that are well understood to not work for most use cases.
they are very efficient ways to aggregate information and make collective decisions without any top-down decision-maker
Macroeconomic decisions are made by certain people who in most cases belong to a specific class to favour the interests of the market, so there is no such idea of “making collective decisions”, collective for the market is only the class it serves and we know which class it is
Planned economies don’t have a great track record. Why not suggest something new instead of the same tired old ideas?
Market socialism with an emphasis on genuine co-ops. It’s not hard, it works, and you don’t necessarily build an immutable heirarchy.
Exactly. Capitalism isn’t bad because of free markets, free markets are great and arguably way better than planned economies in most applications (minus things like healthcare, if you can’t reasonably choose not to buy a product then prices will inflate out of control).
The problem with Capitalism is the concentration of capital which inevitably leads to oligarchy. Put profits in the hands of workers instead of investors and watch the problems melt away. Hell, I can see the merits of totally replacing wages with proportional stake in the company. When everyone gets a percentage of the profits, they’re way more motivated to work efficiently with less waste and higher productivity.
I’d argue that the emergence of capitalists and capitalist ideology, and the amassing of currency is just a natural tendency of currency itself. Currency itself is a tool of transactional thought, and I’d argue that if we could move away from transactional trade and focused more on mutual wellbeing, we could do without currency entirely.
That requires a basically unanimous raising of class consciousness. I just don’t see that happening anytime soon. We’re just not wired that way on a scale above small communities. Even without currency, hoarders gonna hoard. Before we had currency, we had people hoarding resources directly. It works in Star Trek because they’re post-scarcity.
Until we’re post-scarcity, we need a way to exchange goods and services on a scale larger than a neighborhood.
We are post scarcity, on basic needs.
Don’t think that’s gonna be enough.
As an aside, idealistic free market is impossible to achieve without regulation. At the very least, contracts need to be enforced. Free market also demands price forming to happen through bids on the market, needing protection from extra-market negotiations. As an elastic system, it can also be broken by a concerted application of force and needs protection from such actions.
Whatever is being sold as free market sounds like a myth at best.
PS: Coop corporations should really become the norm. Trickle up systems create concentrations of power by design, and concentration of power is how you stretch elastic system beyond its deformation limits.
The market will just force coops to behave like capitalist companies again…
Also:
But without checks and balances then we could end up with corrupt plutocrats like the Soviets had.
The heart of Marxism is spreading power out as much as possible by giving the working class control over our resources and economy.
Howso? Capitalism is when non-worker investors own the means of production. In a co-op the workers literally own the means of production, so the workers are getting their fair share of the profit.
From an older comment of mine:
And all that without exploitation that is required for capitalism to get even close to that (e.g. China rn). Historically centrally planned economies struggled at larger scales (which is why decencralizing/devolving into regions might have been a good remedy). But they excelled at creation of industry or rather primitive capital accumulation but without all the horrible effects capitalism had at those stages.
Computers at our advancement lvl change all that or rather make them even more feasible
I’m glad you agree that they didn’t work well at larger scales, and I’m open to trying newer, computerized versions in narrow cases. The more experiments the better to find an improved economic system. But in general I think you are massively overstating their benefits. Yes, economic planning works alright for some things. Utilities where competition basically can’t exist can’t have markets, so some level of planning is needed there, although there are still market forces at play to some extent. But they also had catastrophic failures in food provision in particular that market food distribution usually didn’t have. And large, centralized economies are vulnerable to seizure by centralized power structures, who then turn them to their own ends.
But even ignoring those issues, a lot of this is just the same argument apologists for capitalism use. “Life got better and it was all thanks to our ideology!” A lot of this is conflated with general technological progress and other social changes, and the fact that human welfare was shockingly low in the economies that preceded modern ones. Being better than despotic feudalism isn’t too impressive in my book.
Looking at history I don’t see much difference. Both systems centralized wealth and goods into fewer hands at the expensive of those that lacked political power, often with horrific consequences. Both destroyed the environment as they industrialized, and continue to do so. We need to do better if humans are going to survive long-term.
Sorry, but your comment is based on vibes and not on evidence.
Not the case. The famines suffered in the USSR were preindustrial, and a consequence of difficulties during collectivisation together with bad crops. After the industrialisation of the country, hunger was abolished.
You’re conflating centralisation with bureaucracy. There’s such thing as democratic centralism, and it’s arguably as resilient to corruption as decentralised competing structures.
You’re saying all of that as if the industrial development in these areas is something independent of the ideology. Latin America and the Russian Empire in 1917 were in very similar stages of development. By 1970, the USSR was the second world power and brought immense welfare state while Latin america was left underdeveloped and exploited. Eastern Europe would most likely be on the level of development (and capital participation by western countries) of Latin America if it weren’t for actually-existing socialism. The only other countries that managed to industrialise meaningfully since the early 20th century have been Japan and South Korea by being geostrategic US allies that directed immense aid towards industrialisation (a possibility not all countries, especially not socialist ones, have the luxury of); and China, first through planned economy and after the Sino-Soviet split again through opening the floodgates to western capital mixed with central decision-making. Technology doesn’t improve everyone’s lives, go to Guatemala or to Peru, or go ask immigrant workers in Saudi Arabia, or farmers in Sri Lanka. It’s precisely socialism that allows everyone to enjoy these benefits.
Laughably false. You say “looking at history” but you patently haven’t researched any serious economic analysis of inequality in AES countries.
Then please explain to me whether there was a marked reduction in income disparity between farmers and white collar workers in the Soviet Union after the 1950s. I’ll look for the numbers in a second (a good source is Albert Szymanski’s “Human Rights in the Soviet Union”). Edit: found the numbers:
Both don’t continue to do so because most AES countries are gone, but you’re right, we need to have a model of countries with high human development and sustainable carbon footprints… as is the case of Cuba, the only country in the world to my knowledge with both high HDI and sustainable carbon footprint. Concerns for the climate and for ecology are very much a 21st century thing, and it’s to be expected that a power such as the USSR which was in a constant struggle for survival, didn’t prioritize that. We can and should do better in the future.
Seriously, you are showing a clear lack of knowledge in the material and social conditions in actually existing socialist countries, and you should reconsider how much of what you know about them is factual and how much is a consequence of the power structures in your particular country telling you that.
oh boy do i have a new suggestion for you (I think it’s mostly new, or not in common discourse). Haven’t read through all their reasoning or evidence. It’s just extremely out of left field.
What is their general thesis? I don’t have time to watch a whole documentary right now.
Seems to be that while trade was helpful in the past, it is now an obsolete practice that creates power imbalances and should be abolished as a practice entirely.
The tagline they have on trade-free.org is:
"the ones who offer, should not ask anything in return
the ones who receive, should not have to give anything in return"
So, mutual aid instead of exchange, is that the basic idea? I love mutual aid but I am not sure sure the structure to support it at scale has really been developed yet. Then again, we’ve barely tried so some experimentation is definitely in order. If it can be made to work it does seem like the ideal solution, but there’s still the question of how people will know how much of a given good to produce.
Breaking news, capitalism operates off of planned economies. More at 10.
By and large, no. So-called capitalist economies are actually mixed economies and do contain some elements of economic planning. Some industries are more amendable to centralized planning than others. But these economies are still largely market oriented on the whole. Even the supposedly socialist economies in the USSR and China have participated in world markets, which is one of the reasons they weren’t even more dysfunctional than they were.
Markets have a lot of flaws (at least as currently designed) but they are very efficient ways to aggregate information and make collective decisions without any top-down decision-maker. There’s no clear and obvious replacement for them. I think if there was we would have adopted it already. But they are also drivers of tremendous environmental destruction and human suffering, so I do encourage discussion of alternatives… just not ones that are well understood to not work for most use cases.
Macroeconomic decisions are made by certain people who in most cases belong to a specific class to favour the interests of the market, so there is no such idea of “making collective decisions”, collective for the market is only the class it serves and we know which class it is