CDZ What is socialism?

[Polly]

Thank you for exposing and sharing your views, Polly. Your rhetoric is excellent from my perspective, and I was truly able to learn with it although I feel I could not really retain anything at the end except by the knowledge and confirmation that communism is indeed a natural progression from accomplished socialism. I did not have that understanding so clear prior to your post.

Would you like, anyhow, to expound on your conception of commercial abolition or otherwise abolition of commerce?

Being already sympathetic to your radical communitarianism and therefore by all practical means also a partisan thereof, I would like to know how the said abolition of commerce would improve the exchange of our relations already completely exempt from state burdens.

If it would help to guide your answer, I am more greatly sympathetic to true anarchism than to true capitalism, although I would not by any means decline any true form of political organization. I see how we can get past socialism, according to your review of socialism and communism. Can you do the same impressive job to show me how we could also get past the economy (perhaps better rendered commerce at this point)?

Thank you. I appreciate this kind of exchange.

Thank you for your kind words!

To answer your core question of "how the said abolition of commerce would improve the exchange of our relations already completely exempt from state burdens", my answer is that a straightforward guarantee of economic insecurity would actually increase the amount of personal initiative in society, perhaps significantly.

To give you a microcosm of what I mean, consider the art world. I think most true veterans of the cinema, collectors of video games, etc., would acknowledge the reality that, taken as a whole, independent productions tend to be more original than corporate productions if only because they tend to be more heartfelt, not being so driven by money, where, by contrast, the aim of properly commercial art is to make money first, to which end the latter typically revolves around well-worn formulas that it's felt guarantee the largest possible audience. So heartfelt versus formulaic. Original versus systematic. Authentic versus plastic ass-kissing. Why? Why doesn't the profit motive, as The Economist says, "inspire innovation" so well as simply not applying it?

I highlight the case of art in this connection because creativity and the expression of heartfelt sentiments are particularly important in that field. Attempts to reduce art to a mass consumption formula (a.k.a. popular culture) cripple all of its mediums because they defy the basic purpose of art, which is self-expression. Yet corporate "art" regularly wins out precisely because it is more profitable. But what if there was no such thing as profit? What if we provided certain economic guarantees to both individuals and firms and other actors that operate within civil society? If society guarantees against the risk-taking that's currently involved with innovation, let me propose to you that it would flourish, and there are studies that back up that assertion!

I propose that we provide, for example, a guaranteed minimum income for everyone. And it's not just for the sake of increasing people's personal initiative -- their willingness to take risks for lack of fear of the bottom falling out -- but also because it's really the only solution to the current course of technology. While I realize that the concerns of luddites about new machines and technologies displacing workers from their jobs have traditionally been dismissed, and rightly so because these new inventions have traditionally created even more jobs than they eliminated, today's era is truly unique in that those concerns actually do appear to have an increasing amount of validity. While there are the ups and downs of recessions and recoveries, there is also today a definite long-term trend toward the size of the labor force as a share of the global economy shrinking. Why? Because today, uniquely, we are seeing high-technology impact essentially all fields of work simultaneously and ever more rapidly, leading to what's looking like a general pattern of increasing worker displacement across the board rather than in a way that's simply confined to one economic sector. It begs the question of whether, as this century progresses, job creation will continue to be a valid answer. Do jobs have a future? I think we would do better to accept the apparent fact that they don't and embrace that as an opportunity for liberation not from work, but from obligatory work. The alternative is something close to universal poverty resulting from mass unemployment.

Yes, I'm proposing that we heavily tax the wealthier layers of the population to supply everyone with economic guarantees, including of a basic income for all. This kind of truly absolute economic security would liberate people from having to perform work they don't want to do for the first time in the history of our species! Now the argument against this kind of social provision has always been that it would surely foster general laziness and, with it, economic decline. (Consider the work ethic of the business owners who advance that theory, for example. ) But that's not what the studies on this subject suggest. Rather, it really does seem that guarantees against loss actually, in aggregate at least, have the exact opposite effect: they increase people's willingness to be bold and take risks! When people are freed to perform the labor they actually want to rather than that which creates the most exchange value, you will see a flourishing of personal initiative that no market system can unleash!

Now you may counter, "Well what about the Soviet Union and Cold War China and even Cold War democratic India or democratic Sweden in the 1980s and all those other cases where socialism, whether under political democracy or not, has led to economic stagnation precisely by stifling human initiative? Doesn't that prove that profits do indeed create more of initiative, and therefore more economic growth?" No, it doesn't. There is a core problem that both of these types of systems have in common, which is that they tend to consolidate economic power. In the one system, said consolidation is affected by armed force that establishes official monopolies, while in the other it is affected more subtly, through the profit system's natural focus on maximizing returns on investment (it's imperialistic "expand or die" logic). The truly key thing here is to acknowledge the fact that out of the three basic sectors of society -- the government sector, the commercial sector, and civil society -- the latter is, in reality, not only by far the most human, but also by far the most naturally innovative, earnest, and hard-working. The arc of human history, moreover, appears to favor the radical expansion of civil society (i.e. the non-profit sector) in this era of technology revolution to the point that, if current trends continue, it will absorb most of the global economy by mid-century. I propose that we accelerate that process by using the government to provide the aforementioned guarantees and others, without also using it to absorb the overall economy. In that way, we can create the world's first truly voluntary economy!

Systematically replacing production for exchange with production for use in this kind of manner can, I think, change the entire value system of our culture in a way that hastens the day when we no longer need things like currency at all because we freely share our abundance with all. That's my case.

 

[sakinago]

Socialism and capitalism are the human reaction against the nature itself.

Socialism is a philosophical reaction
Capitalism is a reactionary reaction

Socialism is theoretical, it requires philosophers and thinkers to come up with solutions
Capitalism on the other hand, because of its reactionary nature, dont require such, comes up with solutions on the fly, as a reaction to the situation throughout history

They both have their strengths and weaknesses

Two of these understandings come together as "social democracy" in most european countries.
The free market approach of capitalism coming together with social government approach of socialism accepted to be the most profound way of governing in modern countries of the 21st century.

I disagree with your characterizations of both. Capitalism is also philosophical by nature, and socialism is reactionary in nature as well. The philosophy of capitalism is that the greatest amount of power possible should be given to the individual. Ensuring that power to the individual requires safeguards in place, safeguards against the government as well as safeguards against the powerful private citizens from bending the rules in their favor. Both the government and the rich and powerful have proven throughout history to have a strong and consistent tendency to siphon power away from individuals for personal gain.

The reactionary nature of socialism sees what it considers a problem and decides it's up to the government to fix it. Usually by stepping in, giving control to themselves of whatever resources are in question, and distributing those resources however they deem fit. The reactionary nature of capitalism is an individual or group of individuals sees a problem, say there has to be a better way to do this, and then they create that better way...but there can be others who also recognize the same problem and create an even better way, then those two (or however many) ideas compete to provide the greatest service to the people.

The same problem arises in both, people in power grant more power to themselves at the expense of the individual. This is usually done by stamping out alternative ideas. The difference is, it's a lot harder to take power away from the government, than it is for people to take power away from corporations by saying I'm no longer going to pay for your inferior product or service. Sure new people get elected into our offices, but if your electing someone who believes that the current power structure of government is just being mis-managed, then that power structure remains in place. There may be debate as to the best way to manage the power structure of government, but it offers up one solution, one idea. What happens if that is not the best solution? More often than not it does not disappear, but gets expanded, requires more and more money, officials, equipment, etc at the expense of the individual citizens. There is generally no alternative idea to the problem added when government takes things into their hands, just an expansion of the original solution.

Again I will quote Kant.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Those guardians who have kindly taken supervision upon themselves see to it that the overwhelming majority of mankind--among them the entire fair sex--should consider the step to maturity, not only as hard, but as extremely dangerous. First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them. Then they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at last, learn to walk. However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

When have we ever seen capitalism in it's purist form? Is there a difference between capitalism and cronyism ?

And so you believe fair based on outcomes?

Red:
There are quite a few years from which one can choose. Prior the Gilded Age's early excesses and injustices , laissez faire capitalism had a free hand, and capitalists pursued profits with impunity -- controlling markets, exploiting workers, and just generally holding everyone and anyone they could under their thumb, profits serving as both the means and the end of their doing so.

• The 2nd Industrial Revolution, the Gilded Age, Laissez-Faire Capitalism & Social Darwinism
  
• The Dark Side of the Gilded Age

It's true that governments regulated businesses prior to the Gilded Age, but much of that regulation was more "window dressing" and/or the result of one or a few big firms obtaining offical nihil obstat and imprimatur from the government against a competitor than were they acts to constrain businesses' (and their owners') efforts to impose their will on, well, everything and anything they wanted to. It wasn't until between 1876 and 1890 that we saw the imposition of substantive regulatory constraints on the hand of capitalism.

• 1876 -- Munn v. Illinois -- SCOTUS determines that states can regulate private interests if doing so avails the public good.
• 1886 -- Wabash -- Declared that it was unconstitutional for states to regulate interstate commerce. Showed need for Federal regulation of interstate commerce.
• 1877 -- Interstate Commerce Commission -- Congress grants the federal and state governments express authority to regulate commerce.
• 1890 -- Sherman Antitrust Act -- Prohibits monopolies

Those are just a few examples. Obviously there are more. The point I'm making is that regardless of whether there ever was an era of 100% laissez faire capitalism, there does not need to have been one, for we can see the consequences of unbridled capitalism's by looking at times when the reigns on it were extant but but marginally so.

Blue:
Of course there is. One may often find the two in unison, but they certainly can exist apart. Consider the USSR or the PRC. Surely you don't think their political leaders rejected cronyism as a means for building and solidifying their authority? Yes, one can implement cronyism in selecting a firm's board members, but it can also be implemented to shore up one's political power.

Again not calling for unbridled capitalism. The guilded age was wrought with cronyism. And you can point out all the bad you want when looking at our transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one, there was a lot of bad in hind sight, don't get me wrong. But there was a lot of good. Especially when considering we were transitioning from agrarian, where you and your entire family (kids as soon as able) worked from dawn to dusk, 6 days a week farming. Farms then slowly shifted to factory jobs (for a reason, bc there was money to be made), where you worked dusk till dawn, 6 days a week. Let's not forget that there wasn't much of a middle class until capitalism came into the picture. Not only did it bring a larger middle class but it brought affordable luxuries from the upper class to the middle class. In other words it raised the standard of living. There are so many tangible and intangible positives that the industrial era brought, and the proof is in the population explosion around the world and the increase standard of living for the majority of people.

If you want more socialism in this country like there is in Europe, ok, but you have to take in account the standard of living. Most in Europe are living in 900 sq ft apartments. As a worker your giving on average 2.5 days pay to the government (obviously depending on the country, some less, some more). At the end of the month, w near half your paycheck gone, you can only afford so much (which is why you rent a 900 sq ft apartment). I love my single family, 1.6 k sq ft, 200 year old farmhouse on 1.1 acres. As a nurse, the only reason I can comfortably afford to OWN that and all the repairs it needs (in the north east mind you), is thanks to capitalism, and the constant competition it brings.

If you want to look to country to learn lessons from...China is probably the last one to look at. Not only are they on the verge of collapse, their standard of living is chicken sh*t compared to ours. China is the prime example of modern day slavery. One country to look up too however, a country we're largely based off of, is probably the longest standing government in existence, consistently has the highest standard of living, overall citizen happiness, highest education scores, extremely safe place, and tops probably any other category you can think of... Is Switzerland. They've obviously been doing something right over there, and have kept it up for the past 500 years. All thanks to William Tell shooting the apple off his sons head, and no thanks to socialism since comparatively they are the least socialistic Western European country. You'll probably try to attribute their success on them holding everybody's gold...but we have held the oil backed USD standard of currency for some time, and we're not doing too hot. And also I should point out, not everyone in Switzerland is a rich banker, so to say it's because they charge everyone for holding their gold, isn't the total truth.

This is a strange take on the development of society.

Houses in Europe are smaller as a rule because there is less land. It has nothing to do with socialism. As America filled up you just headed west and killed a few more of the locals.
In Europe the majority of land ownership was held by Princes and other trash who operated a feudal society.We had nowhere to move to.

Socialism helped many to move out of this state as Unions helped people fight for better pay and conditions.

Pensions,health,education and housing were all fought for against strong opposition from the capitalists who told us we could not afford a decent standard of living.

There would still be infants going up chimneys if capitalism was not checked.

I've been to Europe twice. It's not one big city, there is plenty of land...you just can't afford it.

I understand the lure of socialism. You have to put out minimal effort to gain basic goods and services. You have protection under the authority of others. As a scared rabbit you can trade opportunity for safety. It helps you feel more intelligent, because real measurements of success are removed. Participation yields rewards. As a weak member of society you appear strong. That is why under capitalism you are a low wage earner, unskilled and powerless.

I dont understand any of this. Are you saying that people dont have to work as hard under socialism as they do under capitalism ?

I think this is what they were saying.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Those guardians who have kindly taken supervision upon themselves see to it that the overwhelming majority of mankind--among them the entire fair sex--should consider the step to maturity, not only as hard, but as extremely dangerous. First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them. Then they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at last, learn to walk. However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.

Certainly in the UK land is limited.It used to be owned by the entitled upper classes but now it is increasingly owned by offshore tax dodgers.
Only nine pay council tax in enclave for super-rich

 

[sakinago]

Thank you for exposing and sharing your views, Polly. Your rhetoric is excellent from my perspective, and I was truly able to learn with it although I feel I could not really retain anything at the end except by the knowledge and confirmation that communism is indeed a natural progression from accomplished socialism. I did not have that understanding so clear prior to your post.

Would you like, anyhow, to expound on your conception of commercial abolition or otherwise abolition of commerce?

Being already sympathetic to your radical communitarianism and therefore by all practical means also a partisan thereof, I would like to know how the said abolition of commerce would improve the exchange of our relations already completely exempt from state burdens.

If it would help to guide your answer, I am more greatly sympathetic to true anarchism than to true capitalism, although I would not by any means decline any true form of political organization. I see how we can get past socialism, according to your review of socialism and communism. Can you do the same impressive job to show me how we could also get past the economy (perhaps better rendered commerce at this point)?

Thank you. I appreciate this kind of exchange.

Thank you for your kind words!

To answer your core question of "how the said abolition of commerce would improve the exchange of our relations already completely exempt from state burdens", my answer is that a straightforward guarantee of economic insecurity would actually increase the amount of personal initiative in society, perhaps significantly.

To give you a microcosm of what I mean, consider the art world. I think most true veterans of the cinema, collectors of video games, etc., would acknowledge the reality that, taken as a whole, independent productions tend to be more original than corporate productions if only because they tend to be more heartfelt, not being so driven by money, where, by contrast, the aim of properly commercial art is to make money first, to which end the latter typically revolves around well-worn formulas that it's felt guarantee the largest possible audience. So heartfelt versus formulaic. Original versus systematic. Authentic versus plastic ass-kissing. Why? Why doesn't the profit motive, as The Economist says, "inspire innovation" so well as simply not applying it?

I highlight the case of art in this connection because creativity and the expression of heartfelt sentiments are particularly important in that field. Attempts to reduce art to a mass consumption formula (a.k.a. popular culture) cripple all of its mediums because they defy the basic purpose of art, which is self-expression. Yet corporate "art" regularly wins out precisely because it is more profitable. But what if there was no such thing as profit? What if we provided certain economic guarantees to both individuals and firms and other actors that operate within civil society? If society guarantees against the risk-taking that's currently involved with innovation, let me propose to you that it would flourish, and there are studies that back up that assertion!

I propose that we provide, for example, a guaranteed minimum income for everyone. And it's not just for the sake of increasing people's personal initiative -- their willingness to take risks for lack of fear of the bottom falling out -- but also because it's really the only solution to the current course of technology. While I realize that the concerns of luddites about new machines and technologies displacing workers from their jobs have traditionally been dismissed, and rightly so because these new inventions have traditionally created even more jobs than they eliminated, today's era is truly unique in that those concerns actually do appear to have an increasing amount of validity. While there are the ups and downs of recessions and recoveries, there is also today a definite long-term trend toward the size of the labor force as a share of the global economy shrinking. Why? Because today, uniquely, we are seeing high-technology impact essentially all fields of work simultaneously and ever more rapidly, leading to what's looking like a general pattern of increasing worker displacement across the board rather than in a way that's simply confined to one economic sector. It begs the question of whether, as this century progresses, job creation will continue to be a valid answer. Do jobs have a future? I think we would do better to accept the apparent fact that they don't and embrace that as an opportunity for liberation not from work, but from obligatory work. The alternative is something close to universal poverty resulting from mass unemployment.

Yes, I'm proposing that we heavily tax the wealthier layers of the population to supply everyone with economic guarantees, including of a basic income for all. This kind of truly absolute economic security would liberate people from having to perform work they don't want to do for the first time in the history of our species! Now the argument against this kind of social provision has always been that it would surely foster general laziness and, with it, economic decline. (Consider the work ethic of the business owners who advance that theory, for example. ) But that's not what the studies on this subject suggest. Rather, it really does seem that guarantees against loss actually, in aggregate at least, have the exact opposite effect: they increase people's willingness to be bold and take risks! When people are freed to perform the labor they actually want to rather than that which creates the most exchange value, you will see a flourishing of personal initiative that no market system can unleash!

Now you may counter, "Well what about the Soviet Union and Cold War China and even Cold War democratic India or democratic Sweden in the 1980s and all those other cases where socialism, whether under political democracy or not, has led to economic stagnation precisely by stifling human initiative? Doesn't that prove that profits do indeed create more of initiative, and therefore more economic growth?" No, it doesn't. There is a core problem that both of these types of systems have in common, which is that they tend to consolidate economic power. In the one system, said consolidation is affected by armed force that establishes official monopolies, while in the other it is affected more subtly, through the profit system's natural focus on maximizing returns on investment (it's imperialistic "expand or die" logic). The truly key thing here is to acknowledge the fact that out of the three basic sectors of society -- the government sector, the commercial sector, and civil society -- the latter is, in reality, not only by far the most human, but also by far the most naturally innovative, earnest, and hard-working. The arc of human history, moreover, appears to favor the radical expansion of civil society (i.e. the non-profit sector) in this era of technology revolution to the point that, if current trends continue, it will absorb most of the global economy by mid-century. I propose that we accelerate that process by using the government to provide the aforementioned guarantees and others, without also using it to absorb the overall economy. In that way, we can create the world's first truly voluntary economy!

Systematically replacing production for exchange with production for use in this kind of manner can, I think, change the entire value system of our culture in a way that hastens the day when we no longer need things like currency at all because we freely share our abundance with all. That's my case.

Good post. I agree with some, and also disagree with some. I don't think the so called "corporate art" is flourishing as much as you think. The box office has been producing flops left and right. People are steadily growing weary of the formulaic sequels, and stale ideas that we are constantly getting from Hollywood . Same with television, people are growing tired of the same cop, medical, and mystery dramas. Both industries are in their death rattles, but are being kept on life support by the regulation of the industry. Why is it we cannot just say hey, I only want to pay for these select channels, I don't want the other 100 I have no intention of watching? It's because the cable industry is so regulated, it has made it extremely difficult for any alternatives to come into existence. So, we are left with Comcast, verizon, direct, etc who tells us what we're going to buy. These cable companies, with the help of corporate television stations have very effectively maintained the status quo that has made them very profitable. They've done so by stomping out alternatives with the help of government. But, alternatives are still emerging, look at the online streaming industry. Netflix, amazon, etc have produced some dynamite shows. They have created a new median for art where it can once again flourish. Much like uber is quickly taking over the taxi industry, mind you the taxi industry is also heavily regulated. When automobiles came into existence, cab company owners got together went to the government, and said regular joes can't go around giving people rides, it's hurting our business, make them pay for that privilege...btw here's a nice big campaign donation. Did you ever wonder why you just can't go to a Walmart or something, and pick out a new car from a bunch of different brands? No, you have to go to a select brand dealer that's been a family business that keeps getting passed down generation to generation, whose always bragging about their "insanely low prices". It's because of the industry regulation has set these dealers up as the necessary middle man by law. They actually have territories where you cannot open up a competing dealership in their territory by law! These middle men make the average American over pay by 18,000$ when buying a new car, which is why they brag about "insane price gouges", when actually your still getting ripped off no matter what.

Sorry I got off topic a bit there. But if you want to look to history to find explosions in art, look at the renaissance era. An era where the old structure of feudalism was no longer necessary, and the age of the empowered individual was given birth. I bring this up, bc I think it's the corporations and governments that want us to think that the only answer to the coming age of robotics is a standard income for all. Once corporations obtain the monopoly of labour that robotics will bring, the wage gap will increase exponentially. It will bring about a new age of feudalism. We're most of us are surfs, get enough just to live, but have no or very limited ways of climbing the ladder up and out of modern day serfdom. How do we protect ourselves from the monopoly of labour? My idea is to have a law requiring that automation and robotics must be privately owned by individual citizens, to be rented out by corporations.

 

[320 Years of History]

To answer your core question of "how the said abolition of commerce would improve the exchange of our relations already completely exempt from state burdens", my answer is that a straightforward guarantee of economic insecurity would actually increase the amount of personal initiative in society, perhaps significantly.

To give you a microcosm of what I mean, consider the art world. I think most true veterans of the cinema, collectors of video games, etc., would acknowledge the reality that, taken as a whole, independent productions tend to be more original than corporate productions if only because they tend to be more heartfelt, not being so driven by money, where, by contrast, the aim of properly commercial art is to make money first, to which end the latter typically revolves around well-worn formulas that it's felt guarantee the largest possible audience. So heartfelt versus formulaic. Original versus systematic. Authentic versus plastic ass-kissing. Why? Why doesn't the profit motive, as The Economist says, "inspire innovation" so well as simply not applying it?

I highlight the case of art in this connection because creativity and the expression of heartfelt sentiments are particularly important in that field. Attempts to reduce art to a mass consumption formula (a.k.a. popular culture) cripple all of its mediums because they defy the basic purpose of art, which is self-expression. Yet corporate "art" regularly wins out precisely because it is more profitable. But what if there was no such thing as profit? What if we provided certain economic guarantees to both individuals and firms and other actors that operate within civil society? If society guarantees against the risk-taking that's currently involved with innovation, let me propose to you that it would flourish, and there are studies that back up that assertion!

.......

I'm addressing only the above piece of your essay because I think it's offered as the foundation for what followed and I see gaps in those foundational premises and propositions. (You referred to some studies that support the premises you shared. Can you point me to some of them, please?)


I sense that your introductory remarks conflate profit and risk. I think that because so-called "corporate art" producers and sellers prioritize the profit motive over making a statement they feel needs to be heard; moreover, the statement they specifically aim to make is "we are making money; we are profitable," more so than any other. In contrast, "non-corporate art" producers and sellers have the exact opposite prioritization. They aim to first make their statement, and profit by dint of others valuing their mode of expressing the ideas in that statement.

Why the varying priorities? Risk. The profit potential is higher in direct proportion to the risk taken, but the probability of making any profit at all is inversely proportional to the risk taken. Also, greater extents of innovation require one to take more risk in using one's resources to achieve that innovation. Profit doesn't dissuade innovation or innovative expression, it encourages it by providing greater profit for more innovative ideas and products that are seen/experienced as being of greater value -- simply because they are new and different, or by improving on what came before -- than less innovative ones.

I get how that may inspire removing profit from the equation, for it appears to be the evil influencer, but in removing profit, one must also remove loss, and the need for profit, from it as well. Quite simply, if one invests something -- time, effort, material, thought, etc....resources. -- into making a statement, getting nothing in return for that expenditure of resources is necessarily a loss, be it measured by money (or its surrogates) or by the fact that one has consumed/expended one's resources and received no suitably compensating "anything" in return, if not specifically profit, at least enough by which one breaks even. Accordingly, it seems impossible to actually remove loss (or potential loss) from the equation. It is that impossibility which necessitates profit; somehow, the opportunity cost of any use of resources must be recovered.

The concept your articulating implies that all expressions, contributions, be deemed of equal value by society. They are not. Because they are not and because everyone, or at least most folks, can tell they are not, more desirable ones obtain more compensation.

 

[alpine]

Socialism and capitalism are the human reaction against the nature itself.

Socialism is a philosophical reaction
Capitalism is a reactionary reaction

Socialism is theoretical, it requires philosophers and thinkers to come up with solutions
Capitalism on the other hand, because of its reactionary nature, dont require such, comes up with solutions on the fly, as a reaction to the situation throughout history

They both have their strengths and weaknesses

Two of these understandings come together as "social democracy" in most european countries.
The free market approach of capitalism coming together with social government approach of socialism accepted to be the most profound way of governing in modern countries of the 21st century.

I disagree with your characterizations of both. Capitalism is also philosophical by nature, and socialism is reactionary in nature as well. The philosophy of capitalism is that the greatest amount of power possible should be given to the individual. Ensuring that power to the individual requires safeguards in place, safeguards against the government as well as safeguards against the powerful private citizens from bending the rules in their favor. Both the government and the rich and powerful have proven throughout history to have a strong and consistent tendency to siphon power away from individuals for personal gain.

The reactionary nature of socialism sees what it considers a problem and decides it's up to the government to fix it. Usually by stepping in, giving control to themselves of whatever resources are in question, and distributing those resources however they deem fit. The reactionary nature of capitalism is an individual or group of individuals sees a problem, say there has to be a better way to do this, and then they create that better way...but there can be others who also recognize the same problem and create an even better way, then those two (or however many) ideas compete to provide the greatest service to the people.

The same problem arises in both, people in power grant more power to themselves at the expense of the individual. This is usually done by stamping out alternative ideas. The difference is, it's a lot harder to take power away from the government, than it is for people to take power away from corporations by saying I'm no longer going to pay for your inferior product or service. Sure new people get elected into our offices, but if your electing someone who believes that the current power structure of government is just being mis-managed, then that power structure remains in place. There may be debate as to the best way to manage the power structure of government, but it offers up one solution, one idea. What happens if that is not the best solution? More often than not it does not disappear, but gets expanded, requires more and more money, officials, equipment, etc at the expense of the individual citizens. There is generally no alternative idea to the problem added when government takes things into their hands, just an expansion of the original solution.

Again I will quote Kant.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Those guardians who have kindly taken supervision upon themselves see to it that the overwhelming majority of mankind--among them the entire fair sex--should consider the step to maturity, not only as hard, but as extremely dangerous. First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them. Then they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at last, learn to walk. However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.

I didn't say capitalism does not have a philosophy
Every knowledge has a philosophy inside

What I said was that capitalism is not philosophical.
Meaning; not rely on philosophy

These have very different meanings

Let me try to explain further using your approach in your post;


"The reactionary nature of socialism sees what it considers a problem and decides it's up to the government to fix it."

Meaning; there is government in peoples lives, there is a central authority that could and would dictate the right and wrong choices for people to fix problems.

Therefore; a socialist government need philosophers, thinkers, people who actually get together and theorize ideas that they think would work better for the people, to use them during their governance.

Like; Bernstein, Engels, Marx, Hegel, Kant....



"The philosophy of capitalism is that the greatest amount of power possible should be given to the individual."

Meaning; there is no government in peoples lives, there is no central authority, there is no authority at all that could and would dictate the right and wrong choices to people.

Therefore; a capitalist government don't need to have a group of people, coming together and deciding what is right and what is wrong. They don't need philosophers and thinkers, because their whole assessment of the nature is based on, as you alluded, individualism, for people to decide themselves


Therefore; socialism is philosophical, studied, theorized, and on the other hand capitalism is just reactionary
They have to be this way, because of their very nature...


But as I said; these doctrines can be mixed and matched in this century.
Because both have historically proven weaknesses and strengths...

 

[DonaldFG]

Is the Stock Market Socialist when a stockholder takes a workers profits? Is a right to work scab, socialist when he takes from Union Workers?

BTW, you can't do Capitalism right, it always fails.

Why does it fail, is it because it just does?

And are you ignoring the good that capitalism brings? It brought us mass production, affordable luxuries such as cars, PCs, smartphones, single family homes, medical advancements, safety, delicious food, hygienic care etc. Capitalism is a system where to make money you have to provide a desirable service or product to people, at a value they deem worthy. Not saying there can't be flaws, I feel like your demonizing a system unfairly.

Well, I believe many (if not all) of those good things would happen anyway as long as government did not restrict its citizens too much. What we have ended up with is not exactly a glowing report for capitalism. Mass production was adjusted to make products with limited life to promote continuing the need for replacements (and for people to spend their hard-earned money). Although better building materials have been invented, we continue to use wood for family housing and destroy our rain forests - a major contributor to global warming. Medical advancements are slow in coming due to misdirection of funds into destructive wars caused by elected leaders not listening to the people. Public safety and food quality suffer by starving the government of funds to pay the enforcers of our laws (USDA, FDA, and other agencies, etc.).

The capitalist promise fails more often than not. And that is because us citizens are not in control.

 

[DonaldFG]

A constitutional republic is a form of government to protect the individual from the government and the democratic mob rule. Does that mean ours is perfect, no. And the founding fathers admitted that, and said it was up to the future generations to be vigilante and correct and search out our mistakes. Could it be based on race, sure...but I wouldn't call that a constitutional republic

As far as socialism as its set of principles, those principles are based on consequentiality. On outcomes, as opposed to, or maybe even with conjunction to a guiding set of principles. But still based on what are the outcomes that we want to happen, and do what it takes to reach those outcomes.

It always irritates me when democracy is defined as mob rule. It just ain't so. The larger the number of folks included in a decision, the better the decision provided everyone is properly informed.

Donald Grbac's answer to What is democracy? What about a bad majority? - Quora

 

[320 Years of History]

Is the Stock Market Socialist when a stockholder takes a workers profits? Is a right to work scab, socialist when he takes from Union Workers?

BTW, you can't do Capitalism right, it always fails.

Why does it fail, is it because it just does?

And are you ignoring the good that capitalism brings? It brought us mass production, affordable luxuries such as cars, PCs, smartphones, single family homes, medical advancements, safety, delicious food, hygienic care etc. Capitalism is a system where to make money you have to provide a desirable service or product to people, at a value they deem worthy. Not saying there can't be flaws, I feel like your demonizing a system unfairly.

Well, I believe many (if not all) of those good things would happen anyway as long as government did not restrict its citizens too much. What we have ended up with is not exactly a glowing report for capitalism. Mass production was adjusted to make products with limited life to promote continuing the need for replacements (and for people to spend their hard-earned money). Although better building materials have been invented, we continue to use wood for family housing and destroy our rain forests - a major contributor to global warming. Medical advancements are slow in coming due to misdirection of funds into destructive wars caused by elected leaders not listening to the people. Public safety and food quality suffer by starving the government of funds to pay the enforcers of our laws (USDA, FDA, and other agencies, etc.).

The capitalist promise fails more often than not. And that is because us citizens are not in control.

The failings of capitalism are well understood. (See the attachment to this post.) Citizens being in control or not is not one of the reasons.

The content in the attachment is nothing more than the basic "stuff" that is part of any collegiate course on microeconomics or macroeconomics. Heck, it's the stuff my own kids (all three of them) covered in high school economics class.

 

[DonaldFG]

The capitalist promise fails more often than not. And that is because us citizens are not in control.

The failings of capitalism are well understood. (See the attachment to this post.) Citizens being in control or not is not one of the reasons.

The content in the attachment is nothing more than the basic "stuff" that is part of any collegiate course on microeconomics or macroeconomics. Heck, it's the stuff my own kids (all three of them) covered in high school economics class.

The attachment seems to be a very good explanation of the problems of capitalism. And by the way, it does basically agree with my statement. You really cannot separate politics from the economic system. Therefore, who is in control of government is indeed key. Elite political leaders determine the rules, in other words the regulations. If the people do not have complete control over those leaders, the economic system (whatever kind) is almost guaranteed to fail.

Your reference has the following statements concerning capitalism:

The problem is that free markets tend to lead to concentrations of wealth in the form of personal fortunes and, even more significantly, the large mega-corporation. It is an inherent feature of market dynamics that winners in competition will tend to become larger and larger, and when they become very large they exert real power inside of the market (as well as in the political arena).

A crucial question for sociology and for politics is thus how our institutions either reinforce or undermine different kinds of values and traits. Or to say it even more simply: the kind of people we get in a society is not given by nature, but by the ways our institutions encourage some traits and discourage others. In our present context, the question thus becomes: what kinds of people and traits does a highly competitive, individualistic capitalist society foster?

 

[DonaldFG]

...

I get how that may inspire removing profit from the equation, for it appears to be the evil influencer, but in removing profit, one must also remove loss, and the need for profit, from it as well. Quite simply, if one invests something -- time, effort, material, thought, etc....resources. -- into making a statement, getting nothing in return for that expenditure of resources is necessarily a loss, be it measured by money (or its surrogates) or by the fact that one has consumed/expended one's resources and received no suitably compensating "anything" in return, if not specifically profit, at least enough by which one breaks even. Accordingly, it seems impossible to actually remove loss (or potential loss) from the equation. It is that impossibility which necessitates profit; somehow, the opportunity cost of any use of resources must be recovered.

I disagree. When an individual, or a group of individuals, creates something, all of society benefits including the ones who created the product. Society is enriched in general. No losses are involved.

 

[320 Years of History]

...

I get how that may inspire removing profit from the equation, for it appears to be the evil influencer, but in removing profit, one must also remove loss, and the need for profit, from it as well. Quite simply, if one invests something -- time, effort, material, thought, etc....resources. -- into making a statement, getting nothing in return for that expenditure of resources is necessarily a loss, be it measured by money (or its surrogates) or by the fact that one has consumed/expended one's resources and received no suitably compensating "anything" in return, if not specifically profit, at least enough by which one breaks even. Accordingly, it seems impossible to actually remove loss (or potential loss) from the equation. It is that impossibility which necessitates profit; somehow, the opportunity cost of any use of resources must be recovered.

I disagree. When an individual, or a group of individuals, creates something, all of society benefits including the ones who created the product. Society is enriched in general. No losses are involved.

I agree, but what about when one attempts to create something and it, for lack of a better phrase, "fixes what isn't broken," and thus isn't seen as something desirable? Not everything an innovator, a risk taker, effects is wanted, needed, or useful. People do fail sometimes. When that happens, the creators endures an unavoidable loss.

In other words, loss is always part of the equation. What changes is the value/extent of the loss. Gains - losses = net gain/loss. The equation is still the same, no matter whether the medium of measurement is time, money, both, or something else.

 

[sakinago]

The capitalist promise fails more often than not. And that is because us citizens are not in control.

The failings of capitalism are well understood. (See the attachment to this post.) Citizens being in control or not is not one of the reasons.

The content in the attachment is nothing more than the basic "stuff" that is part of any collegiate course on microeconomics or macroeconomics. Heck, it's the stuff my own kids (all three of them) covered in high school economics class.

The attachment seems to be a very good explanation of the problems of capitalism. And by the way, it does basically agree with my statement. You really cannot separate politics from the economic system. Therefore, who is in control of government is indeed key. Elite political leaders determine the rules, in other words the regulations. If the people do not have complete control over those leaders, the economic system (whatever kind) is almost guaranteed to fail.

Your reference has the following statements concerning capitalism:

The problem is that free markets tend to lead to concentrations of wealth in the form of personal fortunes and, even more significantly, the large mega-corporation. It is an inherent feature of market dynamics that winners in competition will tend to become larger and larger, and when they become very large they exert real power inside of the market (as well as in the political arena).

A crucial question for sociology and for politics is thus how our institutions either reinforce or undermine different kinds of values and traits. Or to say it even more simply: the kind of people we get in a society is not given by nature, but by the ways our institutions encourage some traits and discourage others. In our present context, the question thus becomes: what kinds of people and traits does a highly competitive, individualistic capitalist society foster?

When they "start to exert real power" is that still free trade anymore. Is that still a market place where ideas compete? This type is stuff is no longer in the realm of free trade in my book, and is not what capitalism stands for. Capitalism is giving the greatest amount of power to the individual. Once it crosses over into certain individuals exerting extra powers infringing on other individual's powers, then it is no longer capitalism, free trade, constitutional republic, or whatever you want to label it as.

The problem here is that both sides agree that power is bad. We seem to have disagreements on the forms of power that are bad. I agree that when big mega corps start throwing their political, financial, or whatever weight around unfairly shutting down the little guy, that is wrong. It is also not free trade. No one seems to be getting that point. But governmental power is also bad, in fact it's been proven through history that it's an even worse power. Our own goverment has shown that many times in the past. I can get into slavery, interment camps, Jim Crow, segregation, and all that...but let's look at something more recently, gay marriage. Yay it's legal now...but the question should never have been legal or illegal, it should have been why does government even have the power to tell two consenting adults who they can and can't love? Our government turned it into the binary legal or illegal, let us rip each other's throats out, and still retained the same power they had before. The only reason government gave themselves the power to "grant a marriage license" was to stop interracial marriage. Let's look at another issue, data mining. Now they govt can say all they want it's for our security and safety...that's just not the case. What it's for is the same reason Google does it, to see inside our minds, things we don't even know about ourselves. That is a tremendous power that even people well versed in the subject can't completely comprehend what can be accomplished wielding that power. The difference is Google does it for advertisement, and not on even close to the same scale out government can. Our government can use it in a way to sway us to where they want us, or enough of us where they want us. Believe me I can go on and on if you want, with things like why this administration doesn't really give a rats a** about global warming. But, If you're not familiar with Stephen milgram and his famous experiments, look into them now. If you don't feel like researching, then there's a good movie on netflix called the experimenter about him, that should suffice. What socialism does is it gives the reigns of our destiny to a select few. Even if those select few are beneficent, it doesn't last for long. What happens when the next guy comes in, does anybody here want Donald trump to be in charge of out department of education? The pendulum in politics, culture, etc. Is always swinging. A borderline fascist , la pen, almost and should have won in France, a pretty socialized country. This is why it is important to limit the power of the select few, and make certain we are all equally empowered. Socialism is just a transfer of power to a select few

 

[320 Years of History]

The capitalist promise fails more often than not. And that is because us citizens are not in control.

The failings of capitalism are well understood. (See the attachment to this post.) Citizens being in control or not is not one of the reasons.

The content in the attachment is nothing more than the basic "stuff" that is part of any collegiate course on microeconomics or macroeconomics. Heck, it's the stuff my own kids (all three of them) covered in high school economics class.

The attachment seems to be a very good explanation of the problems of capitalism. And by the way, it does basically agree with my statement. You really cannot separate politics from the economic system. Therefore, who is in control of government is indeed key. Elite political leaders determine the rules, in other words the regulations. If the people do not have complete control over those leaders, the economic system (whatever kind) is almost guaranteed to fail.

Your reference has the following statements concerning capitalism:

The problem is that free markets tend to lead to concentrations of wealth in the form of personal fortunes and, even more significantly, the large mega-corporation. It is an inherent feature of market dynamics that winners in competition will tend to become larger and larger, and when they become very large they exert real power inside of the market (as well as in the political arena).

A crucial question for sociology and for politics is thus how our institutions either reinforce or undermine different kinds of values and traits. Or to say it even more simply: the kind of people we get in a society is not given by nature, but by the ways our institutions encourage some traits and discourage others. In our present context, the question thus becomes: what kinds of people and traits does a highly competitive, individualistic capitalist society foster?

When they "start to exert real power" is that still free trade anymore. Is that still a market place where ideas compete? This type is stuff is no longer in the realm of free trade in my book, and is not what capitalism stands for. Capitalism is giving the greatest amount of power to the individual. Once it crosses over into certain individuals exerting extra powers infringing on other individual's powers, then it is no longer capitalism, free trade, constitutional republic, or whatever you want to label it as.

The problem here is that both sides agree that power is bad. We seem to have disagreements on the forms of power that are bad. I agree that when big mega corps start throwing their political, financial, or whatever weight around unfairly shutting down the little guy, that is wrong. It is also not free trade. No one seems to be getting that point. But governmental power is also bad, in fact it's been proven through history that it's an even worse power. Our own goverment has shown that many times in the past. I can get into slavery, interment camps, Jim Crow, segregation, and all that...but let's look at something more recently, gay marriage. Yay it's legal now...but the question should never have been legal or illegal, it should have been why does government even have the power to tell two consenting adults who they can and can't love? Our government turned it into the binary legal or illegal, let us rip each other's throats out, and still retained the same power they had before. The only reason government gave themselves the power to "grant a marriage license" was to stop interracial marriage. Let's look at another issue, data mining. Now they govt can say all they want it's for our security and safety...that's just not the case. What it's for is the same reason Google does it, to see inside our minds, things we don't even know about ourselves. That is a tremendous power that even people well versed in the subject can't completely comprehend what can be accomplished wielding that power. The difference is Google does it for advertisement, and not on even close to the same scale out government can. Our government can use it in a way to sway us to where they want us, or enough of us where they want us. Believe me I can go on and on if you want, with things like why this administration doesn't really give a rats a** about global warming. But, If you're not familiar with Stephen milgram and his famous experiments, look into them now. If you don't feel like researching, then there's a good movie on netflix called the experimenter about him, that should suffice. What socialism does is it gives the reigns of our destiny to a select few. Even if those select few are beneficent, it doesn't last for long. What happens when the next guy comes in, does anybody here want Donald trump to be in charge of out department of education? The pendulum in politics, culture, etc. Is always swinging. A borderline fascist , la pen, almost and should have won in France, a pretty socialized country. This is why it is important to limit the power of the select few, and make certain we are all equally empowered. Socialism is just a transfer of power to a select few

Whoa, Nelly....Slow down hos'.

The first sentence of the second paragraph is as far as I've read, but I feel obliged to point out that I am not of the mind that "power is bad." Nor will I assert that "power is good." I will, as did Plato, say, "The true measure of a man is what he does with power." Power itself is not a problem.

 

[Holos]

Thank you for exposing and sharing your views, Polly. Your rhetoric is excellent from my perspective, and I was truly able to learn with it although I feel I could not really retain anything at the end except by the knowledge and confirmation that communism is indeed a natural progression from accomplished socialism. I did not have that understanding so clear prior to your post.

Would you like, anyhow, to expound on your conception of commercial abolition or otherwise abolition of commerce?

Being already sympathetic to your radical communitarianism and therefore by all practical means also a partisan thereof, I would like to know how the said abolition of commerce would improve the exchange of our relations already completely exempt from state burdens.

If it would help to guide your answer, I am more greatly sympathetic to true anarchism than to true capitalism, although I would not by any means decline any true form of political organization. I see how we can get past socialism, according to your review of socialism and communism. Can you do the same impressive job to show me how we could also get past the economy (perhaps better rendered commerce at this point)?

Thank you. I appreciate this kind of exchange.

Thank you for your kind words!

To answer your core question of "how the said abolition of commerce would improve the exchange of our relations already completely exempt from state burdens", my answer is that a straightforward guarantee of economic insecurity would actually increase the amount of personal initiative in society, perhaps significantly.

To give you a microcosm of what I mean, consider the art world. I think most true veterans of the cinema, collectors of video games, etc., would acknowledge the reality that, taken as a whole, independent productions tend to be more original than corporate productions if only because they tend to be more heartfelt, not being so driven by money, where, by contrast, the aim of properly commercial art is to make money first, to which end the latter typically revolves around well-worn formulas that it's felt guarantee the largest possible audience. So heartfelt versus formulaic. Original versus systematic. Authentic versus plastic ass-kissing. Why? Why doesn't the profit motive, as The Economist says, "inspire innovation" so well as simply not applying it?

I highlight the case of art in this connection because creativity and the expression of heartfelt sentiments are particularly important in that field. Attempts to reduce art to a mass consumption formula (a.k.a. popular culture) cripple all of its mediums because they defy the basic purpose of art, which is self-expression. Yet corporate "art" regularly wins out precisely because it is more profitable. But what if there was no such thing as profit? What if we provided certain economic guarantees to both individuals and firms and other actors that operate within civil society? If society guarantees against the risk-taking that's currently involved with innovation, let me propose to you that it would flourish, and there are studies that back up that assertion!

I propose that we provide, for example, a guaranteed minimum income for everyone. And it's not just for the sake of increasing people's personal initiative -- their willingness to take risks for lack of fear of the bottom falling out -- but also because it's really the only solution to the current course of technology. While I realize that the concerns of luddites about new machines and technologies displacing workers from their jobs have traditionally been dismissed, and rightly so because these new inventions have traditionally created even more jobs than they eliminated, today's era is truly unique in that those concerns actually do appear to have an increasing amount of validity. While there are the ups and downs of recessions and recoveries, there is also today a definite long-term trend toward the size of the labor force as a share of the global economy shrinking. Why? Because today, uniquely, we are seeing high-technology impact essentially all fields of work simultaneously and ever more rapidly, leading to what's looking like a general pattern of increasing worker displacement across the board rather than in a way that's simply confined to one economic sector. It begs the question of whether, as this century progresses, job creation will continue to be a valid answer. Do jobs have a future? I think we would do better to accept the apparent fact that they don't and embrace that as an opportunity for liberation not from work, but from obligatory work. The alternative is something close to universal poverty resulting from mass unemployment.

Yes, I'm proposing that we heavily tax the wealthier layers of the population to supply everyone with economic guarantees, including of a basic income for all. This kind of truly absolute economic security would liberate people from having to perform work they don't want to do for the first time in the history of our species! Now the argument against this kind of social provision has always been that it would surely foster general laziness and, with it, economic decline. (Consider the work ethic of the business owners who advance that theory, for example. ) But that's not what the studies on this subject suggest. Rather, it really does seem that guarantees against loss actually, in aggregate at least, have the exact opposite effect: they increase people's willingness to be bold and take risks! When people are freed to perform the labor they actually want to rather than that which creates the most exchange value, you will see a flourishing of personal initiative that no market system can unleash!

Now you may counter, "Well what about the Soviet Union and Cold War China and even Cold War democratic India or democratic Sweden in the 1980s and all those other cases where socialism, whether under political democracy or not, has led to economic stagnation precisely by stifling human initiative? Doesn't that prove that profits do indeed create more of initiative, and therefore more economic growth?" No, it doesn't. There is a core problem that both of these types of systems have in common, which is that they tend to consolidate economic power. In the one system, said consolidation is affected by armed force that establishes official monopolies, while in the other it is affected more subtly, through the profit system's natural focus on maximizing returns on investment (it's imperialistic "expand or die" logic). The truly key thing here is to acknowledge the fact that out of the three basic sectors of society -- the government sector, the commercial sector, and civil society -- the latter is, in reality, not only by far the most human, but also by far the most naturally innovative, earnest, and hard-working. The arc of human history, moreover, appears to favor the radical expansion of civil society (i.e. the non-profit sector) in this era of technology revolution to the point that, if current trends continue, it will absorb most of the global economy by mid-century. I propose that we accelerate that process by using the government to provide the aforementioned guarantees and others, without also using it to absorb the overall economy. In that way, we can create the world's first truly voluntary economy!

Systematically replacing production for exchange with production for use in this kind of manner can, I think, change the entire value system of our culture in a way that hastens the day when we no longer need things like currency at all because we freely share our abundance with all. That's my case.

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts in such great detail as you provided your coalescing perspective for the question I was looking to have finally and comprehensively answered.

As I mentioned previously, I side with you invariably in the goals we want to achieve as global citizens. In this particular case, the process you call the abolition of commerce, and what I will call economic fulfilment for the sake of history, education and general public accomodation.

However, even as we can all agree on the final appropriate stage to live peacefully and abundantly with the fundaments of stable, accesible and fully functional public global guarantees by government regulated provision of health and occupation, I greatly disagree with everything you have stated in your previous post as it relates to the way to get there or even to begin approaching the endeavor.

If you will permit me, I will share my perspective as I have been thinking of the issue since I had first raised the question in response to your beginning provision of a simple summarian delineation of socialism and communism, which I had studied at a distance but continued to be greatly unfamiliar with until very recently when I decidedly began my political activism.

Before going through the mechanics of it, or so how I understand them to be functional, I will make clear the last component which is essential for the entire operation: ecology. The economy, as continuous and revolving relations between diverse individuals, proceeds from and gives way to the ecology, also as continuous and revolving relations between individuals but most importantly as between diverse groups of differing individuals.

With that aspect already exposed, I think we should focus now on consumption and money.

I find money is not necessarily an altricating factor. It is just a transaction facilitator in case the parties may be too foreign and too busy to sit together and know each other, comes from the word mono because it may be a common factor even between people who really do not or cannot be together (if we consider how many people currently inhabit the planet and how each of them has their own preferences after needs are already provided for). It doesn't need to be used in the whole of a perfectly functioning economy but it is useful for the whole of a perfectly functioning economy.

The seeming problem that turns the possibility of unemployment and poverty as only the hypothetical possibility that it really is (because of course we exclude that possibility from ocurring once we comprehend how economics and ecology function with their essential aspects already mentioned) is consumption.

Consumption itself is not a problem. The problem is how we understand consumption for the functioning of economics and how it can actually come to sabotage specific niches or trade zones within the economy if consumption is raised above all economic aspects together when it is either bought, exchanged or taken. Now, the problem is not what form consumption should be for consumers (plastic, paper, metal, or whatever other creative product is made and passed on, even if that comes to be so agreeable to a population as to be made automatic and industrial), the problem is if consumers cannot use the products they consume to continue the continuous creative contribution that is the economy in essence, and instead indulge in their preferred experiences of consumption to the point of neglecting, ignoring, forgetting or being in contempt to not only the preference of others but the ways in which those prefered products were created and consistently sustained to the point of autonomy then their own ways and prefered products assumed better or greater than the whole economy will tend to dismantle (not altogether disrupting the entire established economy, as it's been planned, constructed and kept being improved for every participant thereof by those various relating groups that we currently know as nations and that have been or are still also tribes, empires, families, ethnicities and so on also beyond humanity and into every other form of ecological life (either as consumer, producer, sourcer, distributor, generator, or any other laborer, and so forth...throughout history that continues to unfold so diversely and prolifically because of these individual and group relations that contribute to and extend the experience of being alive as it comes to be most appropriate towards programmed, set and improving cooperation).

What do you think?

 

[sakinago]

The capitalist promise fails more often than not. And that is because us citizens are not in control.

The failings of capitalism are well understood. (See the attachment to this post.) Citizens being in control or not is not one of the reasons.

The content in the attachment is nothing more than the basic "stuff" that is part of any collegiate course on microeconomics or macroeconomics. Heck, it's the stuff my own kids (all three of them) covered in high school economics class.

The attachment seems to be a very good explanation of the problems of capitalism. And by the way, it does basically agree with my statement. You really cannot separate politics from the economic system. Therefore, who is in control of government is indeed key. Elite political leaders determine the rules, in other words the regulations. If the people do not have complete control over those leaders, the economic system (whatever kind) is almost guaranteed to fail.

Your reference has the following statements concerning capitalism:

The problem is that free markets tend to lead to concentrations of wealth in the form of personal fortunes and, even more significantly, the large mega-corporation. It is an inherent feature of market dynamics that winners in competition will tend to become larger and larger, and when they become very large they exert real power inside of the market (as well as in the political arena).

A crucial question for sociology and for politics is thus how our institutions either reinforce or undermine different kinds of values and traits. Or to say it even more simply: the kind of people we get in a society is not given by nature, but by the ways our institutions encourage some traits and discourage others. In our present context, the question thus becomes: what kinds of people and traits does a highly competitive, individualistic capitalist society foster?

When they "start to exert real power" is that still free trade anymore. Is that still a market place where ideas compete? This type is stuff is no longer in the realm of free trade in my book, and is not what capitalism stands for. Capitalism is giving the greatest amount of power to the individual. Once it crosses over into certain individuals exerting extra powers infringing on other individual's powers, then it is no longer capitalism, free trade, constitutional republic, or whatever you want to label it as.

The problem here is that both sides agree that power is bad. We seem to have disagreements on the forms of power that are bad. I agree that when big mega corps start throwing their political, financial, or whatever weight around unfairly shutting down the little guy, that is wrong. It is also not free trade. No one seems to be getting that point. But governmental power is also bad, in fact it's been proven through history that it's an even worse power. Our own goverment has shown that many times in the past. I can get into slavery, interment camps, Jim Crow, segregation, and all that...but let's look at something more recently, gay marriage. Yay it's legal now...but the question should never have been legal or illegal, it should have been why does government even have the power to tell two consenting adults who they can and can't love? Our government turned it into the binary legal or illegal, let us rip each other's throats out, and still retained the same power they had before. The only reason government gave themselves the power to "grant a marriage license" was to stop interracial marriage. Let's look at another issue, data mining. Now they govt can say all they want it's for our security and safety...that's just not the case. What it's for is the same reason Google does it, to see inside our minds, things we don't even know about ourselves. That is a tremendous power that even people well versed in the subject can't completely comprehend what can be accomplished wielding that power. The difference is Google does it for advertisement, and not on even close to the same scale out government can. Our government can use it in a way to sway us to where they want us, or enough of us where they want us. Believe me I can go on and on if you want, with things like why this administration doesn't really give a rats a** about global warming. But, If you're not familiar with Stephen milgram and his famous experiments, look into them now. If you don't feel like researching, then there's a good movie on netflix called the experimenter about him, that should suffice. What socialism does is it gives the reigns of our destiny to a select few. Even if those select few are beneficent, it doesn't last for long. What happens when the next guy comes in, does anybody here want Donald trump to be in charge of out department of education? The pendulum in politics, culture, etc. Is always swinging. A borderline fascist , la pen, almost and should have won in France, a pretty socialized country. This is why it is important to limit the power of the select few, and make certain we are all equally empowered. Socialism is just a transfer of power to a select few

Whoa, Nelly....Slow down hos'.

The first sentence of the second paragraph is as far as I've read, but I feel obliged to point out that I am not of the mind that "power is bad." Nor will I assert that "power is good." I will, as did Plato, say, "The true measure of a man is what he does with power." Power itself is not a problem.

And what history had shown us that unequal power turns on the people. Yes good things can be done with power. Occasionally heros rise up and do the right thing, but they are few and far between in our sad history. Even fewer relinquish the power that was given to them once it's no longer needed. Power corrupts, it causes you to look no longer at people as individuals, but statistics. Just like big corps do with they're employees, government officials are guilty of doing the same. To put your trust in people, philosophers, etc is is putting your trust in flawed and ever changing people. People who are guilty if hubris, and thinking they know everything. Plato was ok, I always preferred Socrates, who Plato didn't really take after. Although he scribed the trial and death of Socrates. He never seemed to get his Socrates' final message, which was I am the wisest man alive, because I know how much that I know nothing. Do you remember why Socrates died?

 

[320 Years of History]

Do you remember why Socrates died?

What I don't know I why you asked me that question. I'm not sure what to make of your having done so. Honestly, taking mild umbrage was my first reaction upon reading it, thinking to myself, "Hugh? Does Sakinago perceive me as one who's yet to finish high school? What on Earth inspired that question? Perhaps it's rhetorically asked, but I cannot be sure."

In the end, I decided, out of simple courtesy, recognition that you probably don't literally think me a juvenile, and regard for the fact that it was asked, I'll just answer the question and see what happens.


Yes, I know why Socrates died. He died because his fellow citizens in Athens perceived his, for want of a more apt term, Socratic questioning of his students on matters philosophical -- the natures of goodness, piety, morality, and so on -- as a threat to the Athenian sociopolitical doctrine which held that the gods protected Greek cities from floods, storms, plague and other natural disasters, as well as from invasions by others. Thus, reasoned his accusers, if Socrates were, in fact, teaching disrespect for the gods, then there was a risk of danger to the Athens from these calamities. Accordingly, Socrates was charged with disrespect for the gods and thus for the wellbeing of Athens and Greece.

As detailed in Apologies, Socrates stood before a jury of some 500 or so Athenians who were ostensibly his peers and presented his defense. He lost by a vote of something on the order of about a 3:2 ratio. His sentence was death, which he effected by imbibing hemlock poison.

 

[sakinago]

Do you remember why Socrates died?

What I don't know I why you asked me that question. I'm not sure what to make of your having done so. Honestly, taking mild umbrage was my first reaction upon reading it, thinking to myself, "Hugh? Does Sakinago perceive me as one who's yet to finish high school? What on Earth inspired that question? Perhaps it's rhetorically asked, but I cannot be sure."

In the end, I decided, out of simple courtesy, recognition that you probably don't literally think me a juvenile, and regard for the fact that it was asked, I'll just answer the question and see what happens.


Yes, I know why Socrates died. He died because his fellow citizens in Athens perceived his, for want of a more apt term, Socratic questioning of his students on matters philosophical -- the natures of goodness, piety, morality, and so on -- as a threat to the Athenian sociopolitical doctrine which held that the gods protected Greek cities from floods, storms, plague and other natural disasters, as well as from invasions by others. Thus, reasoned his accusers, if Socrates were, in fact, teaching disrespect for the gods, then there was a risk of danger to the Athens from these calamities. Accordingly, Socrates was charged with disrespect for the gods and thus for the wellbeing of Athens and Greece.

As detailed in Apologies, Socrates stood before a jury of some 500 or so Athenians who were ostensibly his peers and presented his defense. He lost by a vote of something on the order of about a 3:2 ratio. His sentence was death, which he effected by imbibing hemlock poison.

Yes those are some of the reasons, but take in mind the bigger picture, it was a political execution. The politics at the time was Sparta inserting their own tyrannical lackeys in charge of Athens, and the PEOPLE of Athens put a man to death who was simply saying, question these leaders.

Every civilization has had it's moral blind spots including our own. To ensure that happens less is to make the individual has the greatest amount of power. To make sure scales are not tipped in anyone's favor, whether that be those in the wealthy class, or political class. To say that this country is happy over all with our political class is wrong. The republican establishment is being stripped if it's power by it's constituents, and the democratic establishment is hanging on by a thread. The European far right (not to be confused with the American right) is gaining power every day. And as Europe continues to head towards the financial cliff, that's only going to get worse.

 

[Militants]

Money and old Communism that really justice in America and I belief that was America Communism exit. Old Soviet were real buisness for Socialism in America ?? Thinks old portion's in elections house were Republican and Independent ??

 

[Skull Pilot]

If you go too far in either political direction, you end up in a situation in which most or all of the political power lies only in a few hands. The just state must strike a balance between power held by each individual, and power held by society collectively. "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition."

In the European political spectrum where you have fascism at one end, and communism at the other, yes that is the case. Not in the American spectrum though where one end is dang near anarchy and the other absolute tyranny.

But where do you stand as far as is socialism good of many vs good of few? And whether or not you like that set up?

Socialism by definition is a sociopolitical construct where the state owns operates and controls the entirety of the means of both production an distribution and has been an abject failure that results in the neediest people being ground to dust under the boot heels of a monstrous bureaucracy.