The Socialism Thread

[Guest boo]

 

 

blegh

That is indeed a knockdown argument.......for state 'socialism'

 

 

 

I mainly posted it for the yucky bit about buying stuff. Pretty sure there was a woman screaming in the audience about them only really arguing against 'state' socialism in the debate.

[Guest boo]

"If you can't afford anything you can still look at it" ew

[LimpyLoo]

"Socialism" is such a vacuous term. It's been abused by all sides as to become essentially meaningless.

 

yeah

when i talk about 'socialism' i either mean

a) exactly what the word means when used as an insult by conservatives (another word that doesn't mean what it means anymore):

that is, someone who prioritizes collectivism over individualism

 

or

 

b) worker-owned and -controlled production

 

 

something i left out of my op rant

was the coming boom of robot automation

and what that would mean in the current economic environment

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-late-great-american-promise-of-less-work-1561753129

 

many thought that robot automation would benefit workers--

reducing the length of work weeks, for instance--

 

but of course there's no reason to think that (say) Walmart getting better automation

would benefit the workers

it would benefit co-ops

but it would completely fuck workers over

 

so yeah

i left all this out of OP

but it's a crucial part of my thesis

just try to play out the next like 200-300 years in your head

of an anarcho-capitalist society with near-total automation...

[caze]

 

State control of prices/production (when there is a scarcity of resources/energy at any rate) is provably wrong. No matter how complicated a computer model we could possibly come up with, it'll simply never work.

 

Japanese and South Korean growth in the 1960s through 1980s would beg to differ. Both of these nations utilized significant state intervention in their economic growth.

 

 

neither were centrally planned economies, they were examples of your standard protectionist Keynesians if anything. externalities can always tip the scale, see Norway for a more modern example. utilizing strategic state intervention is not what I was talking about, though even strategic intervention has it's limitations, and will fail eventually in most cases.

[may be rude]

 

"Socialism" is such a vacuous term. It's been abused by all sides as to become essentially meaningless.

 

yeah

when i talk about 'socialism' i either mean

a) exactly what the word means when used as an insult by conservatives (another word that doesn't mean what it means anymore):

that is, someone who prioritizes collectivism over individualism

 

or

 

b) worker-owned and -controlled production

 

 

something i left out of my op rant

was the coming boom of robot automation

and what that would mean in the current economic environment

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-late-great-american-promise-of-less-work-1561753129

 

many thought that robot automation would benefit workers--

reducing the length of work weeks, for instance--

 

but of course there's no reason to think that (say) Walmart getting better automation

would benefit the workers

it would benefit co-ops

but it would completely fuck workers over

 

so yeah

i left all this out of OP

but it's a crucial part of my thesis

just try to play out the next like 200-300 years in your head

of an anarcho-capitalist society with near-total automation...

 

 

automation will benefit the rich and take jobs from the "middle"

 

class.

[cwmbrancity]

there seem to be very different perspectives on what socialism is and what it does or doesnt provide for depending on which continent you reside in ITT

[chenGOD]

 

 

State control of prices/production (when there is a scarcity of resources/energy at any rate) is provably wrong. No matter how complicated a computer model we could possibly come up with, it'll simply never work.

 

Japanese and South Korean growth in the 1960s through 1980s would beg to differ. Both of these nations utilized significant state intervention in their economic growth.

 

 

neither were centrally planned economies, they were examples of your standard protectionist Keynesians if anything. externalities can always tip the scale, see Norway for a more modern example. utilizing strategic state intervention is not what I was talking about, though even strategic intervention has it's limitations, and will fail eventually in most cases.

 

 

They were not centrally planned economies like the Soviets, or North Korea, but they were also not standard protectionist Keynesians.

Read Alice Amsden's description of how the Korean government directed and disciplined the chaebol. It also goes into some detail about how the government got the prices "wrong".

 

Some would argue that Korean and Japanese growth slowed after the transformation to more market based economies.

 

Of course this is part of the problem - socialism can (and should in my opinion) involve state intervention in the economy - but every time you mention socialism to a committed right-wing, free-market nutjob (not saying you are one by the way), they jump all over it and assume you must be talking about Stalin or Mao and that sort of idiocy.

[goDel]

Actually, that douchey pharma CEO is a great example of bad-regulation, it's not a good example of the evils of free market capitalism. He can only get away with that shit because it's too costly for anyone else to enter the market for that pill - despite the fact that the patent has expired. This isn't a problem in the EU, where a generic version of the drug could be fast tracked for little up-front investment, and the price would come down to a reasonable level pretty quickly. But the US has onerous FDA regulation, even for new generic versions of already approved drugs, and so it's just not economical for anyone else to enter the market. This would be true for all R&D if it weren't for the patent system, which protects the profits for a certain time allowing them to pay off the massive R&D investments they put in.

Not sure why this would matter when a producer of a generic could sell globally. The fact there isnt any generic nowhere says that fda regulation is not that relevant in this case.

 

The best solution in this case would be that either the government starts to produce its own low volume generics, or it starts to subsidize private companies to produce these low volume generics. Fda regulation could stay the way it is.

 

And somewhere down the line i hope some lawmakers realize that the market for potentially li fe saving drugs isn't a free market. Producers of life saving drugs shouldn't be allowed to behave like they are Apple selling iphones.

Edited September 23, 2015 by goDel

[Guest Atom Dowry Firth]

Boing

 

[Tricone RC]

 

Some would argue that Korean and Japanese growth slowed after the transformation to more market based economies.

 

They're some of the highest-developed countries in the world - doesn't growth pretty much inherently slow down once you reach that stage? The highest growth rates are in developing countries in the industrial stage, e.g. the West in the 50s, and China until recently. I assume the slowdown is related to some kind of saturation in domestic markets, as opposed to anything political, but I have no idea me no economist lol

[caze]

 

They were not centrally planned economies like the Soviets, or North Korea

 

Then your reply to my point is irrelevant, as that specific bit was about centrally planned economies.

 

 

Of course this is part of the problem - socialism can (and should in my opinion) involve state intervention in the economy - but every time you mention socialism to a committed right-wing, free-market nutjob (not saying you are one by the way), they jump all over it and assume you must be talking about Stalin or Mao and that sort of idiocy.

 

I didn't do this, I gave various flavours of socialism and discussed the pros and cons of each.

Edited September 23, 2015 by caze

[chassis]

there seem to be very different perspectives on what socialism is and what it does or doesnt provide for depending on which continent you reside in ITT

Yup

[poblequadrat]

 

 

 

State control of prices/production (when there is a scarcity of resources/energy at any rate) is provably wrong. No matter how complicated a computer model we could possibly come up with, it'll simply never work.

 

Japanese and South Korean growth in the 1960s through 1980s would beg to differ. Both of these nations utilized significant state intervention in their economic growth.

 

 

neither were centrally planned economies, they were examples of your standard protectionist Keynesians if anything. externalities can always tip the scale, see Norway for a more modern example. utilizing strategic state intervention is not what I was talking about, though even strategic intervention has it's limitations, and will fail eventually in most cases.

 

 

They were not centrally planned economies like the Soviets, or North Korea, but they were also not standard protectionist Keynesians.

Read Alice Amsden's description of how the Korean government directed and disciplined the chaebol. It also goes into some detail about how the government got the prices "wrong".

 

Some would argue that Korean and Japanese growth slowed after the transformation to more market based economies.

 

Of course this is part of the problem - socialism can (and should in my opinion) involve state intervention in the economy - but every time you mention socialism to a committed right-wing, free-market nutjob (not saying you are one by the way), they jump all over it and assume you must be talking about Stalin or Mao and that sort of idiocy.

 

 

the worst side of this is that you can't seriously discuss stalin or mao, and i feel there's a lot to be said about both, good and bad. mao's "on contradiction" had a huge impact on french philosophy for example, but most people are probably not willing to read a paper that cites mao as a source. likewise, reading about the history of the first 2 or 3 years of the cultural revolution in parallel to the history of the french revolution can give you lots of insight on what went wrong and also what was done right and is inherent to the project of popular intervention in "state affairs"

 

my opinion is that socialism is primarily a political project - namely, that labour is something that should be open to democracy and that workers can run a country on their own. the exact economic formula is secondary, and actually i'm not sure you can even find it without the political structures that are needed to properly investigate/encourage it.

 

also, state socialism isn't necessarily grim and scary. we've lost decades not thinking about the extremely important problem of the relation between the masses and the state

[caze]

'workers' will soon be a thing of the past. we're currently dealing with the final stages of the industrial revolution, marx and his followers have no relevance in a post-industrial world (though in truth their ideas were actually pretty much irrelevant as soon as they were invented - he completely failed to predict, and thus take into account, modern technological advances, that and his faulty ideas on human nature are the reasons). also, having an influence on french philosophy isn't something to be proud of.

[LimpyLoo]

'workers' will soon be a thing of the past. we're currently dealing with the final stages of the industrial revolution, marx and his followers have no relevance in a post-industrial world (though in truth their ideas were actually pretty much irrelevant as soon as they were invented - he completely failed to predict, and thus take into account, modern technological advances, that and his faulty ideas on human nature are the reasons). also, having an influence on french philosophy isn't something to be proud of.

lolwat

 

I don't even know where to start

...I mean, the fact that he "failed to predict...modern technological advances"

Is a truly insane criticism

He wasn't a futurist

He was a critic/theorist of capitalism

He also failed to predict beanie babies

And Marilyn Manson

How the fuck is that even a criticism?

[coax]

'workers' will soon be a thing of the past. we're currently dealing with the final stages of the industrial revolution,

 

What happens though if they can't figure out AI or possibly worse than that, they figure out some type of intelligence but it's a less diverse and more controlled type of commercialized intelligence leading to a general decline in the imagination and acting power of the population? Or we could end up with a collapse and then we find out we're really alone and no-one can save us but ourselves - back to square one. This planet and humans is kind of like a campfire, it needs constant new wood to burn and the default situation is for there to be no fire.

 

This is probably way too pessimistic for me, but I'm having extreme difficulty trying to imagine what 50-100 years from now will look like.

[coax]

[caze]

 

'workers' will soon be a thing of the past. we're currently dealing with the final stages of the industrial revolution, marx and his followers have no relevance in a post-industrial world (though in truth their ideas were actually pretty much irrelevant as soon as they were invented - he completely failed to predict, and thus take into account, modern technological advances, that and his faulty ideas on human nature are the reasons). also, having an influence on french philosophy isn't something to be proud of.

lolwat

 

I don't even know where to start

...I mean, the fact that he "failed to predict...modern technological advances"

Is a truly insane criticism

He wasn't a futurist

He was a critic/theorist of capitalism

He also failed to predict beanie babies

And Marilyn Manson

How the fuck is that even a criticism?

 

It wasn't a criticism per se, just pointing out that his economic predictions were predicated on industrial revolution era tech, and immediately invalidated by modernity.

[LimpyLoo]

 

 

'workers' will soon be a thing of the past. we're currently dealing with the final stages of the industrial revolution, marx and his followers have no relevance in a post-industrial world (though in truth their ideas were actually pretty much irrelevant as soon as they were invented - he completely failed to predict, and thus take into account, modern technological advances, that and his faulty ideas on human nature are the reasons). also, having an influence on french philosophy isn't something to be proud of.

lolwat

I don't even know where to start

...I mean, the fact that he "failed to predict...modern technological advances"

Is a truly insane criticism

He wasn't a futurist

He was a critic/theorist of capitalism

He also failed to predict beanie babies

And Marilyn Manson

How the fuck is that even a criticism?

It wasn't a criticism per se, just pointing out that his economic predictions were predicated on industrial revolution era tech, and immediately invalidated by modernity.

what were his 'economic predictions'?

 

Marx was certainly wrong about a lot

But like Freud, Darwin, etc

There is a huge baby among the bathwater

To call his ideas "immediately irrelevant"

Darwin didn't predict DNA

And Freud knew nothing of modern neuroscience

But that doesn't mean their contributions are thus irrelevant

[caze]

Ha Freud was a quack

[poblequadrat]

 

'workers' will soon be a thing of the past. we're currently dealing with the final stages of the industrial revolution, marx and his followers have no relevance in a post-industrial world (though in truth their ideas were actually pretty much irrelevant as soon as they were invented - he completely failed to predict, and thus take into account, modern technological advances, that and his faulty ideas on human nature are the reasons). also, having an influence on french philosophy isn't something to be proud of.

lolwat

 

I don't even know where to start

...I mean, the fact that he "failed to predict...modern technological advances"

Is a truly insane criticism

He wasn't a futurist

He was a critic/theorist of capitalism

He also failed to predict beanie babies

And Marilyn Manson

How the fuck is that even a criticism?

 

 

the thing is marx

1) didn't have to predict technological advances because that isn't what he set out to do, although it should be noted Engels did own a factory and thus was well-versed in how to produce more for less

2) did take them into account - see the fragment on what he even calls the "fundamental law of capitalism" (ie. that capitalism always needs a reserve of unemployable people and that such reserve will always grow as long as capitalism exists), or the fragment on machines, etc. marx's understanding of capitalism doesn't differ that much from the classical economics that liberalism is built on - in fact that's where the marxist theory of value comes from, he just views such economy as a historical phenomenon with internal contradictions that came to be and will come to pass, rather than as a scientific law. capital volume one is as valid as liberal economics, because they talk about the same thing really.

 

also marx didn't really make economic "predictions" - he made economic analyses that for the most part do hold, and political predictions that were pretty much always wrong (although he was particularly interested in Russia at the end of his life!). you must also specify which marx you're talking about, because he radically changed his views as the XIXth century developed.

 

i didn't even mention marx ffs

Edited September 26, 2015 by poblequadrat

[coax]

Why does there always have to be unemployable people though and why does it have to grow? Seems to me like that's more related to what kind of technology is created and how it's being used. For example inventing the car and car factory enabled a lot of workers to work in those factories. You could envision a kind of modern form of car factory where some really simple to use technology can employ a bunch of people. It's kinda happened with software that has gotten easier to use all across the board but it's not all-inclusive still. What the economy really is I would argue is either manufacturing / production OR "accounting" / management / use of technology and so how that's set up is important. I don't see the inevitability.

 

Also for limpyloo, check out this video of Peter Thiel, he no longer subscribes purely to the libertarian view it feels like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZhCIXIyWtw

[poblequadrat]

Why does there always have to be unemployable people though and why does it have to grow? Seems to me like that's more related to what kind of technology is created and how it's being used. For example inventing the car and car factory enabled a lot of workers to work in those factories. You could envision a kind of modern form of car factory where some really simple to use technology can employ a bunch of people. It's kinda happened with software that has gotten easier to use all across the board but it's not all-inclusive still. What the economy really is I would argue is either manufacturing / production OR "accounting" / management / use of technology and so how that's set up is important. I don't see the inevitability.

 

Also for limpyloo, check out this video of Peter Thiel, he no longer subscribes purely to the libertarian view it feels like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZhCIXIyWtw

 

it's all in capital book 1, part 7. basically on the one hand, capital isn't just money but accumulation, so you need to extract more and more surplus from the same (or less) amount of labour in order to sustain the economy; on the other hand, capital, the demand for labour, the supply of labour and the volume of the working class don't grow at the same rate at all (contrary with the obsession that laissez-faire economics is "good for employment" as if that was all there is to it). in fact, when capitalists reinvest money they can create the demand for labour, but they also invest in technology so they have to employ less people, ie. capitalists regulate both supply and demand to their liking. lastly, as liberals love to point out, under liberalism "if everyone could live a decent life then nobody would work!!!!11!11!" ie. the working class wouldn't have to be competing against itself and accepting ludicrous conditions, which is essential because capitalism needs to extract more and more surplus from less and less labour

 

i'm not a luddite though - i fully agree that the effect of technology entirely depends on whose hands it's in. which is a good argument for socialism and collective control of research and production!

also, marx himself wrote the famous "fragment on machines" where he talks about how technological advances would make the production of knowledge (ie immaterial labour) the central driving force of economy, which would in turn have huge utopian potential. italian marxists are obsessed with that fragment and consider it the key to understanding what they call "post-fordist society", but people who have never read Marx thinks he's just Dickens minus the plot twists

 

also, it's a global economy. saying we're a "post-industrial" society when we rely on mexican maquilas, chinese industrial estates and south asian sweatshops for even the most basic stuff is a fucking joke

Edited September 26, 2015 by poblequadrat

[coax]

 

 

it's all in capital book 1, part 7. basically on the one hand, capital isn't just money but accumulation, so you need to extract more and more surplus from the same (or less) amount of labour in order to sustain the economy; on the other hand, capital, the demand for labour, the supply of labour and the volume of the working class don't grow at the same rate at all (contrary with the obsession that laissez-faire economics is "good for employment" as if that was all there is to it). in fact, when capitalists reinvest money they can create the demand for labour, but they also invest in technology so they have to employ less people, ie. capitalists regulate both supply and demand to their liking. lastly, as liberals love to point out, under liberalism "if everyone could live a decent life then nobody would work!!!!11!11!" ie. the working class wouldn't have to be competing against itself and accepting ludicrous conditions, which is essential because capitalism needs to extract more and more surplus from less and less labour

 

i'm not a luddite though - i fully agree that the effect of technology entirely depends on whose hands it's in. which is a good argument for socialism and collective control of research and production!

 

 

Right yeah, but I also think, like Peter Thiel alludes to in the video (though its long i dont expect anyone to watch all of that its just interesting) that technology is about ideas. The capitalists don\t have some kind of omnipotent power to create whatever they want that will steer supply/demand how they want. All that has to be researched, developed, and in many cases, a technology isn't even possible to do. So an argument could be made that how we got to where we are today and the problem of demand we have today is an accident and lack of foresight plus a lack of goals. Capitalism can have any goal short term and long term, so it's kind of neutral on that topic. It's more about the people and the physical capabilities they have at the time.

The only problem I have with your paragraph is that in theory new technology will create new opportunities for labor. Only some kind of AI or automation system OR a lack of technological innovation could prevent labor from always being in need. It seems like you'd always have opportunity for new markets. There's also a push for the unemployable to create their own markets with a whole new set of technology. In this way, capitalism always increases the pressure to innovate and expand which to me sounds very much like the properties of a tool and not an end goal

 

In some weird sense, it may be possible to argue for a universal path for humanity that is independent of any social or economic system, since the end goal will be steered by the needs and wants of a population combined with the knowledge they have of themselves and the ecosystem they are in. In such a system, both capitalists and socialists would be "out of luck" as their goals would be the same.

 

It is conceivable that such a truth exists, that there is enough information in the physical system to warrant such a truth. The very basics of the system would be access to food, shelter, clothing and so forth, but then you would go into the creative, competitive and social aspects. Maybe only an AI with immense knowledge could design it, and maybe that would be best as it would be separate from us. Science fiction but I like it.

Capitalists generally fear self-serving lying socialists, and socialists fear self-serving lying capitalists roaming free, so, that's a problem. I much rather like to think systemically and statistically. Take the people out of the equation and run with science. I hope advanced models and simulations are possible in the future.

 

 

 

 

also, marx himself wrote the famous "fragment on machines" where he talks about how technological advances would make the production of knowledge (ie immaterial labour) the central driving force of economy, which would in turn have huge utopian potential. italian marxists are obsessed with that fragment and consider it the key to understanding what they call "post-fordist society", but people who have never read Marx thinks he's just Dickens minus the plot twists

also, it's a global economy. saying we're a "post-industrial" society when we rely on mexican maquilas, chinese industrial estates and south asian sweatshops for even the most basic stuff is a fucking joke

Right I agree with that first paragraph, but it doesn't come by itself. It takes actual mental effort to think and learn, and not enough people are doing it. I'm not trying to separate myself I am just as dumband just trying to learn, but there are people who don't even want to learn... Maybe we need the utopia before we get the utopian people, maybe there are traces of it already in our culture, i don't know.

[cwmbrancity]

have any of you spent any length of time in a country like Denmark & to a lesser extent France?

 

rather than use a model like Cuba for health/efficiency, Denmark is a beacon of a modern mixed economy, which would prob be conceived as borderline communism by some here

 

go there, let the culture & high income tax & quality infra-structure show you a different path.....