It’s funny because it’s the dominant system and any other proposed system would handle the respective situation worse on average but is highly situational. You get into arguments that devolved into, “well, there’s massive starvation and war but at least we are all equal”
You’re expressing the notion of “capitalist realism” which is argued to be an effect of neoliberal ideaology. The idea that not only is capitalism the only viable solution, but you can’t even imagine a viable alternative. There’s a book of the same title that you’d probably get a lot out of since it might make you more critical of ideas you may have taken for granted, which is my personal favorite kind of book.
I can imagine plenty of viable alternatives. There’s plenty of arguments to be made that the USSR was just as productive as the US on a per capita basis. They addressed the productivity issues of decentralized socialism through centralization.
The issue comes down to the lack of dissent within the system. Private ownership provides a natural counterbalance to the power of the state. Even in the most ideal of democratic socialist systems, there is no functional check on the power of the majority to vote in their own benefit over minorities. Every government system regardless of its economic base has resulted in rapid expansion without a check on power, internally or externally.
You are right that I cannot imagine a viable alternative. Neither can you. You just think you have but have not addressed the core power problem. Mark Fisher is great at framing away this issue but it still exists and is the core issue with true leftist ideologies.
Actually the reason USSR failed was the state itself not being very agile. Different state entities would impede each other while fighting for funds, for their project to become standard (the competing projects would become standards as well, there’d be plenty of incompatible standards), for them to be more politically important (Politburo wasn’t a dictatorial institution).
Naturally in such a climate any cooperation between state entities would involve more complex and obscure diplomacy and deals than how it happens between companies in typical market economies.
So this:
They addressed the productivity issues of decentralized socialism through centralization.
is the opposite of reality. Productivity was USSR’s weakest side. It really honestly succeeded in some unexpected aspects, but efficiency is not one of them.
So, I agree. Decentralization of the Soviets was immensely worse early after the revolution though so they centralized early. The CCP early in its creation had the same criticisms of the USSR resulting in a much longer attempt at decentralization and actual famine.
Decentralization of the Soviets was immensely worse early after the revolution though
If NEP is what you mean by “decentralization” (because nothing else makes sense even remotely, Soviets by definition are a vertical structure, like a tree with its root being the center), then it’s generally accepted that NEP was the thing which allowed to restore Soviet Russia from a famished wasteland after the Civil War.
so they centralized early
They had almost a decade of slowly pushing out communist dissenters out of the political field (all non-communist leftists were already banned closer to the end of the Civil War, and the rest - hahaha), which may give you the wrong impression. However, they were heavily centralized from day one. That was part of the ideology. It’s not some European leftists we are talking about.
For these people political competitiveness or pluralism or due process in courts or human rights were not high on the list of priorities. Building industries to arm heavily and “spread the revolution” was.
Their ideal was some sort of a communist version of the German Empire.
Basic points that I have never seen in any book on socialism and you are yet to provide. Maybe you should be the one reading more instead of vaguely suggesting that I do. Maybe then you could provide them.
I mean the most introductory book Blackcoats and Reds deals a lot with this and there’s a whole chapter on the weaknesses of stable socialist/ML states. Whatever you think is stable or good under a capitalist government is merely because the negatives you associate specifically with socialism are exported, but are actually far more severe.
This thought experiment is based on an unrealistic view not only of natural history but also of the human condition and modern economics. It is based on a view of how easy the perceived human condition was before the existence of larger society.
“In prehistoric times our deal seems to have been not so bad. During the Old Stone Age (50,000 years ago) we were only few, food (game and plants) was abundant, and survival required only little working time and moderate efforts.”
This period of hunter-gatherers was largely the experience of 90% of the time looking for food. It was only the emergence of sustained and coordinated agriculture requiring public works that this started to change. Modern industrialized agriculture has enabled populations not sustainable in that text and requires a larger coordination of people than a small commune can support. That text does not cover larger governance and relies on high-output lands to sustain itself, let alone others. If you cannot enable specialization, you cannot scale nor can you provide the lifestyle people are accustomed to enjoying post-WWII.
There are already communes like this everywhere and nobody is saying that you cannot start one. The only issue is people trying to force others into this system. It starts based on oppression regardless of feasibility.
On what grounds do you think that it’s worse for Workers to democratically control production, rather than a class of owners?
Do you think crops care about who shares ownership of them, and kill themselves if they are shared, rather than owned by 1 dude that employs other people to harvest it?
Workers don’t vote themselves more work for the money. Less work equals less crops. Crops don’t care. This is why socialism as an economic base always devolves into directive work (which I would argue is actual state slavery)
There are other various options for socialism and anarchism of course. Unless you line out specifically which flawed system you propose we cannot address it. Anything that still has private ownership at it’s base is still capitalist though so most Western models such as the Nordics don’t count.
Also, corporations are not owned by one dude. This is the benefit of the corporate model over sole proprietorships at a societal level but whatever is most efficient in the end.
It’s true that people would be paid more for their labor, it’s false to equate that to underproducing food. You’re attaching mysticism to your claim, as though it’s inevitable that starvation would happen unless you have a Capitalist brutally exploiting workers and still having starvation despite food being literally thrown away. Co-operative farming exists and has existed in stable manners for the vast majority of human existence, and this is even easier as industrialization improves.
There are no “other options” for Socialism beyond Worker Ownership of the Means of Production. That is Socialism. If you mean there are other models than Marxism-Leninism, then of course, I’m not an ML myself. I’m anti-tendency and think each country has unique circumstances that will result in different paths to worker ownership, perhaps Syndicalism, or Market Socialism, or Council Communism, etc.
Whether the corporation is owned by a single Capitalist or several, the fact that the Workers have exactly no say and the Capitalists have all of the say remains the problem.
It is inevitable that starvation would happen because all of the systems you mention are inflexible to shocks and periods of instability and we do see this through history in socialist areas. That’s not even to mention the potential for genocide with all economic production in the control of the majority(in the most ideal circumstance)
The issue with claiming for those three systems is that it’s exactly what was attempted to set up in the USSR and under the CCP. Decentralization very quickly led to av massive collapse in production. It was swept under the rug and you don’t learn about it. Then the power consolidation started.
Even the most studied folks in the left will not make the claim that Marx was anything but a guide or an intent so don’t expect me to argue against it directly. I regret to the systems that actually developed and evolved and any recommended system should address their faults. Your three do not and I’ve not heard any that have.
Why is co-operative farming inflexible to shocks and instability? Wouldn’t it be more stable if the group can react democratically, rather than depend on several competing mini-dictators to not price-gouge and take advantage of instability for profit? I’m not just talking off of vibes, here, Worker Co-operatives, ie collective ownership of business, are shown to be far more resistant to economic shocks and more adaptable than Capitalist entities: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/building-and-sustaining-worker-cooperatives-in-the-us/
The USSR and Maoist China were developing countries just coming out of revolution, and both the Russian Federation and modern PRC remain developing countries. France was also highly unstable following the French Revolution, and became headed by Napolean, one of history’s most famous dictators. Pretending decentralization is purely to blame, rather than instability leading to centralization, is a weak point to make.
Why do you believe that no Leftist has attempted to learn from the mistakes of previous Socialist systems? That’s incredibly wrong, modern leftist discourse is oriented around how to achieve Worker Ownership in modern society, and avoid the problems that have plagued previous Socialist systems.
All in all, why are you on a leftist, decentralized site like Lemmy, if you hate Socialism so much? It’s interesting to see such cognitive dissonance, if you like Capitalism, then there’s Reddit.
Coops are perfectly allowed and acceptable in the current system. Literally no one is telling you that you cannot do this and there are many quiet communities doing it already. You simply are not going to be resourced for it unless it will provide something for the state. Neither would any corporation or sole proprietorship.
All of what you said is true but the collapse was so immediate that there was only cause. Additionally, the collapse immediately went away through collectivization. You can argue with myself and the socialist governments at the time but you are making excuses for them unasked.
I never claimed that modern leftists have not attempted to learn. The entire so called American left is a product of 60s radicals slowly realizing that the way to greater equity is through reform. It simply has capitalism at its base instead of group ownership.
Why are you on a nonprofit run economic alternative to Reddit if you don’t believe that the ultimate power in any market is consumer choice?
if you don’t believe that the ultimate power in any market is consumer choice
Because I believe in open source where I’m not a consumer, but a participant in it’s creation. The ultimate power in the market isn’t consumer choice, it’s the choice over what gets made and who gets paid.
Not everyone wants to be responsible for every aspect of their lives. Can I assume you don’t want to participate in your own food production or waste disposal? Specialization of labor is an important component in this which most respectable leftist texts will at least attempt to answer, even if they cannot solve it without centralization of economic planning.
My point wasn’t that co-ops aren’t allowed. Your point was that co-operative ownership struggles with instability, and therefore would inevitably result in starvation, which is 100% false as proven by me. Moving the goal post doesn’t make you correct, it makes you wrong.
There are no leftist Capitalists, that’s an oxymoron. Leftism is inherently anti-capitalist, and therefore what you likely are hinting at, Social Democracy, is a center-right ideology that is still riddled with issues. It’s certainly better than American Capitalism, but it does away with none of the core issues with Capitalism, it only makes them slightly more tolerable. Socialists have been learning and adapting theory ever since Socialism was founded, it hasn’t stagnated in any way.
I’m on a leftist platform created by a Communist as a direct leftist alternative to Reddit because I believe in the principles of leftist organizational structure, such as a rejection of the profit motive, collective ownership, and decentralization of control.
I was making a new point. You want to force people into your system. The current system based on capitalism allows for innovation. If your system is better at a smaller level, it will succeed.
I did address the definition of left in my language. I’m sorry you are so adversarial to not be coming to this conversation in good faith.
Was the platform created by a communist or was the code created by a communist? Which instance are we on again? Should we go ahead and institute the purges early then?
It’s funny because it’s the dominant system and any other proposed system would handle the respective situation worse on average but is highly situational. You get into arguments that devolved into, “well, there’s massive starvation and war but at least we are all equal”
You’re expressing the notion of “capitalist realism” which is argued to be an effect of neoliberal ideaology. The idea that not only is capitalism the only viable solution, but you can’t even imagine a viable alternative. There’s a book of the same title that you’d probably get a lot out of since it might make you more critical of ideas you may have taken for granted, which is my personal favorite kind of book.
I can imagine plenty of viable alternatives. There’s plenty of arguments to be made that the USSR was just as productive as the US on a per capita basis. They addressed the productivity issues of decentralized socialism through centralization.
The issue comes down to the lack of dissent within the system. Private ownership provides a natural counterbalance to the power of the state. Even in the most ideal of democratic socialist systems, there is no functional check on the power of the majority to vote in their own benefit over minorities. Every government system regardless of its economic base has resulted in rapid expansion without a check on power, internally or externally.
You are right that I cannot imagine a viable alternative. Neither can you. You just think you have but have not addressed the core power problem. Mark Fisher is great at framing away this issue but it still exists and is the core issue with true leftist ideologies.
Actually the reason USSR failed was the state itself not being very agile. Different state entities would impede each other while fighting for funds, for their project to become standard (the competing projects would become standards as well, there’d be plenty of incompatible standards), for them to be more politically important (Politburo wasn’t a dictatorial institution).
Naturally in such a climate any cooperation between state entities would involve more complex and obscure diplomacy and deals than how it happens between companies in typical market economies.
So this:
is the opposite of reality. Productivity was USSR’s weakest side. It really honestly succeeded in some unexpected aspects, but efficiency is not one of them.
So, I agree. Decentralization of the Soviets was immensely worse early after the revolution though so they centralized early. The CCP early in its creation had the same criticisms of the USSR resulting in a much longer attempt at decentralization and actual famine.
If NEP is what you mean by “decentralization” (because nothing else makes sense even remotely, Soviets by definition are a vertical structure, like a tree with its root being the center), then it’s generally accepted that NEP was the thing which allowed to restore Soviet Russia from a famished wasteland after the Civil War.
They had almost a decade of slowly pushing out communist dissenters out of the political field (all non-communist leftists were already banned closer to the end of the Civil War, and the rest - hahaha), which may give you the wrong impression. However, they were heavily centralized from day one. That was part of the ideology. It’s not some European leftists we are talking about.
For these people political competitiveness or pluralism or due process in courts or human rights were not high on the list of priorities. Building industries to arm heavily and “spread the revolution” was.
Their ideal was some sort of a communist version of the German Empire.
Otherwise pretty basic points that any decent book on socialism or alternatives to capitalism basically addresses in the first chapter.
Basic points that I have never seen in any book on socialism and you are yet to provide. Maybe you should be the one reading more instead of vaguely suggesting that I do. Maybe then you could provide them.
I mean the most introductory book Blackcoats and Reds deals a lot with this and there’s a whole chapter on the weaknesses of stable socialist/ML states. Whatever you think is stable or good under a capitalist government is merely because the negatives you associate specifically with socialism are exported, but are actually far more severe.
I’m going through this one now, it’s framed as a thought experiment for a bottom up society: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/p-m-bolo-bolo
This thought experiment is based on an unrealistic view not only of natural history but also of the human condition and modern economics. It is based on a view of how easy the perceived human condition was before the existence of larger society.
“In prehistoric times our deal seems to have been not so bad. During the Old Stone Age (50,000 years ago) we were only few, food (game and plants) was abundant, and survival required only little working time and moderate efforts.”
This period of hunter-gatherers was largely the experience of 90% of the time looking for food. It was only the emergence of sustained and coordinated agriculture requiring public works that this started to change. Modern industrialized agriculture has enabled populations not sustainable in that text and requires a larger coordination of people than a small commune can support. That text does not cover larger governance and relies on high-output lands to sustain itself, let alone others. If you cannot enable specialization, you cannot scale nor can you provide the lifestyle people are accustomed to enjoying post-WWII.
There are already communes like this everywhere and nobody is saying that you cannot start one. The only issue is people trying to force others into this system. It starts based on oppression regardless of feasibility.
It does cover how larger industry would be coordinated, it is not advocating for communes. Feel like we’re reading two different things…
On what grounds do you think that it’s worse for Workers to democratically control production, rather than a class of owners?
Do you think crops care about who shares ownership of them, and kill themselves if they are shared, rather than owned by 1 dude that employs other people to harvest it?
This doesn’t really address what he said.
Workers don’t vote themselves more work for the money. Less work equals less crops. Crops don’t care. This is why socialism as an economic base always devolves into directive work (which I would argue is actual state slavery)
There are other various options for socialism and anarchism of course. Unless you line out specifically which flawed system you propose we cannot address it. Anything that still has private ownership at it’s base is still capitalist though so most Western models such as the Nordics don’t count.
Also, corporations are not owned by one dude. This is the benefit of the corporate model over sole proprietorships at a societal level but whatever is most efficient in the end.
It’s true that people would be paid more for their labor, it’s false to equate that to underproducing food. You’re attaching mysticism to your claim, as though it’s inevitable that starvation would happen unless you have a Capitalist brutally exploiting workers and still having starvation despite food being literally thrown away. Co-operative farming exists and has existed in stable manners for the vast majority of human existence, and this is even easier as industrialization improves.
There are no “other options” for Socialism beyond Worker Ownership of the Means of Production. That is Socialism. If you mean there are other models than Marxism-Leninism, then of course, I’m not an ML myself. I’m anti-tendency and think each country has unique circumstances that will result in different paths to worker ownership, perhaps Syndicalism, or Market Socialism, or Council Communism, etc.
Whether the corporation is owned by a single Capitalist or several, the fact that the Workers have exactly no say and the Capitalists have all of the say remains the problem.
It is inevitable that starvation would happen because all of the systems you mention are inflexible to shocks and periods of instability and we do see this through history in socialist areas. That’s not even to mention the potential for genocide with all economic production in the control of the majority(in the most ideal circumstance)
The issue with claiming for those three systems is that it’s exactly what was attempted to set up in the USSR and under the CCP. Decentralization very quickly led to av massive collapse in production. It was swept under the rug and you don’t learn about it. Then the power consolidation started.
Even the most studied folks in the left will not make the claim that Marx was anything but a guide or an intent so don’t expect me to argue against it directly. I regret to the systems that actually developed and evolved and any recommended system should address their faults. Your three do not and I’ve not heard any that have.
Why is co-operative farming inflexible to shocks and instability? Wouldn’t it be more stable if the group can react democratically, rather than depend on several competing mini-dictators to not price-gouge and take advantage of instability for profit? I’m not just talking off of vibes, here, Worker Co-operatives, ie collective ownership of business, are shown to be far more resistant to economic shocks and more adaptable than Capitalist entities: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/building-and-sustaining-worker-cooperatives-in-the-us/
The USSR and Maoist China were developing countries just coming out of revolution, and both the Russian Federation and modern PRC remain developing countries. France was also highly unstable following the French Revolution, and became headed by Napolean, one of history’s most famous dictators. Pretending decentralization is purely to blame, rather than instability leading to centralization, is a weak point to make.
Why do you believe that no Leftist has attempted to learn from the mistakes of previous Socialist systems? That’s incredibly wrong, modern leftist discourse is oriented around how to achieve Worker Ownership in modern society, and avoid the problems that have plagued previous Socialist systems.
All in all, why are you on a leftist, decentralized site like Lemmy, if you hate Socialism so much? It’s interesting to see such cognitive dissonance, if you like Capitalism, then there’s Reddit.
Coops are perfectly allowed and acceptable in the current system. Literally no one is telling you that you cannot do this and there are many quiet communities doing it already. You simply are not going to be resourced for it unless it will provide something for the state. Neither would any corporation or sole proprietorship.
All of what you said is true but the collapse was so immediate that there was only cause. Additionally, the collapse immediately went away through collectivization. You can argue with myself and the socialist governments at the time but you are making excuses for them unasked.
I never claimed that modern leftists have not attempted to learn. The entire so called American left is a product of 60s radicals slowly realizing that the way to greater equity is through reform. It simply has capitalism at its base instead of group ownership.
Why are you on a nonprofit run economic alternative to Reddit if you don’t believe that the ultimate power in any market is consumer choice?
Because I believe in open source where I’m not a consumer, but a participant in it’s creation. The ultimate power in the market isn’t consumer choice, it’s the choice over what gets made and who gets paid.
Not everyone wants to be responsible for every aspect of their lives. Can I assume you don’t want to participate in your own food production or waste disposal? Specialization of labor is an important component in this which most respectable leftist texts will at least attempt to answer, even if they cannot solve it without centralization of economic planning.
My point wasn’t that co-ops aren’t allowed. Your point was that co-operative ownership struggles with instability, and therefore would inevitably result in starvation, which is 100% false as proven by me. Moving the goal post doesn’t make you correct, it makes you wrong.
There are no leftist Capitalists, that’s an oxymoron. Leftism is inherently anti-capitalist, and therefore what you likely are hinting at, Social Democracy, is a center-right ideology that is still riddled with issues. It’s certainly better than American Capitalism, but it does away with none of the core issues with Capitalism, it only makes them slightly more tolerable. Socialists have been learning and adapting theory ever since Socialism was founded, it hasn’t stagnated in any way.
I’m on a leftist platform created by a Communist as a direct leftist alternative to Reddit because I believe in the principles of leftist organizational structure, such as a rejection of the profit motive, collective ownership, and decentralization of control.
I was making a new point. You want to force people into your system. The current system based on capitalism allows for innovation. If your system is better at a smaller level, it will succeed.
I did address the definition of left in my language. I’m sorry you are so adversarial to not be coming to this conversation in good faith.
Was the platform created by a communist or was the code created by a communist? Which instance are we on again? Should we go ahead and institute the purges early then?
Because capitalism has famously prevented mass starvation and warfare.
Edit: Also communism has nothing to do with a vague notion of equality.