Why Socialism?

[Axulus]

Put it all together and what do you got?

bippity-boppity-boo?

 

[Bomb#20]

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work ... The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

What do you mean when you say "socialism"?

Those who work in a certain sector also own the means of production in that sector.

State owned means of production?

Not necessarily. Socialism does not require that the State own the means of production. It also does not require a command economy.

But your quotation shows Einstein disagrees with you about those things. He says the only way is for the means of production to be owned by society; having the workers in a given sector own them would be a different way. And in his version of socialism there's a far-reaching centralization of economic power; that's what it means to have a command economy. So your vision of a decentralized form of socialism, where each group of workers own and manage whatever equipment and inputs they use to produce stuff, is evidently incompatible with Einstein's view of what form of socialism is necessary. Which raises the question, why did you start a thread advocating your vision of socialism with an essay by a genius with a contrary vision of socialism?

 

[Bomb#20]

The money to build it. Oh, wait, did you outlaw money too?

Money doesn't have to be outlawed to become obsolete.

In any case I assume even in ksentopia resources are required to build things like pipelines?

Yes.

How are they obtained?

You go get them.

How did they decide they wanted to build it in the first place?

I would assume it was decided to build a new interstate pipeline because some analysis was done and the conclusion was that an interstate pipeline was needed.

"It was decided" is a bizarrely passive tense. Who decided?

The committe in charge of analysing infrastructure needs I suppose.

...

Why will they decide to do it?

Becuase it will be useful to society.

Where will they get the resources required to build a cellphone factory from?

Same place they get them from now but without capitalists involved.

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Those who work in a certain sector also own the means of production in that sector.

So in highly capital intensive industries, such as microprocessor manufacture, steel production, aluminum production, oil extraction, etc. the few workers in relation to the amount of capital get to own all those means of production? And those sorry saps who work in careers that require little capital, such as academia, authors, journalists, barbers, massage parlors, bookkeeping, among many others, are just SOL, those suckers should've worked in the oil patches?

Why would that be a problem?

Unless you're stuck in the mindset that things are still being done to obtain profit.

So let's imagine you get the people to vote to reorganize the U.S. like this; and let's imagine this doesn't turn the U.S. into an impoverished hellhole foreigners don't want to move to any more. Let's say immigration from India continues enough to lead to a demographically significant rise in the popularity of cricket at the expense of baseball. So it will now be useful to society for some outfit currently making baseball bats to switch to making cricket bats. What happens next in ksentopia? Do the workers at one of the baseball bat factories vote to switch to cricket bats, or does the committee in charge of analyzing recreation needs use math and stuff, and then tell some group of baseball bat makers to start making cricket bats?

Also, you can't make a cricket bat on an ordinary lathe; you need some sort of fancy milling machine. So the new cricket bat workers go get one. What happens if the workers at the milling machine factory don't agree that it will be useful to society for their machine to start turning out cricket bats? (Maybe they feel that their machines are doing more good in their primary use -- making wooden components for low-income housing -- and sporting goods are an extravagance. Or maybe they're just a bunch of rabid baseball fanatics.) Do they simply vote to turn down the cricket bat workers' request for a milling machine, and send their next machine off to another prefab house factory? Or do they pass the request up the chain to the committee in charge of heavy machinery deployment?

If it's the latter option, that committee is going to ask the recreation committee and the low-income housing committee to submit grant applications justifying why the milling machine would be more useful to society serving in one role or the other. Applications in hand, does the heavy machinery committee decide which application makes the better case, or do they kick the competing proposals upstairs to the political authorities?

 

[Blahface]

I think socialism can work (and by socialism, I do mean the state owning the means of production). I don't think it can work though with the current US government or any other government in existence right now. We don't have enough transparency or accountability to make it work. At the very least, we need a voting system that is competitive and we need to make better use of information technology for elections and general government transparency.

I also think government needs to prove itself to be competent before it starts nationalizing businesses.

 

[Harry Bosch]

this is why ultimately socialism will never work: in order for it to exist on a society-wide scale, the powerful in that society have to give up their power, and that will never happen, period, end of discussion.
and even if somehow miraculously a singular body of humans managed to start up a socialist system on a smaller community scale, it would: A. only exist at the pleasure of non-socialists with more power who allow it to, and B. be sustainable until some member within the group got greedy, which would inevitably happen.

socialism is a pretty great idea in theory and about as realistic as "hey man, make love not peace" is realistic as a viable foreign policy.

Good post. Yes, the central issue is that people who own things aren't going to peacefully give up their shit.

 

[Axulus]

this is why ultimately socialism will never work: in order for it to exist on a society-wide scale, the powerful in that society have to give up their power, and that will never happen, period, end of discussion.
and even if somehow miraculously a singular body of humans managed to start up a socialist system on a smaller community scale, it would: A. only exist at the pleasure of non-socialists with more power who allow it to, and B. be sustainable until some member within the group got greedy, which would inevitably happen.

socialism is a pretty great idea in theory and about as realistic as "hey man, make love not peace" is realistic as a viable foreign policy.

Good post. Yes, the central issue is that people who own things aren't going to peacefully give up their shit.

I think that is a problem but not a very big one - it's been done before.

The problem has been and always will be poor production and allocation decisions being made. Extreme inefficiency due to lack of knowledge about peoples wants/desires (and the strength of them) and also using other criteria to make decisions other than people's and society's wants/desires. Such extreme inefficiency breeds corruption and lawbreaking as it provides an opportunity to make a profit on the black market. The more inefficient the decisions being made, the larger the profit opportunity that becomes available. Then you have something like enforced equality (or inequality kept to an "acceptable" level), giving the ambitious even more reason to turn to the black market to get wealthy (as it is one of the only few ways to become wealthy in such a society).

 

[Harry Bosch]

Good post. Yes, the central issue is that people who own things aren't going to peacefully give up their shit.

I think that is a problem but not a very big one - it's been done before.

The problem has been and always will be poor production and allocation decisions being made. Extreme inefficiency due to lack of knowledge about peoples wants/desires (and the strength of them) and also using other criteria to make decisions other than people's and society's wants/desires. Such extreme inefficiency breeds corruption and lawbreaking as it provides an opportunity to make a profit on the black market. The more inefficient the decisions being made, the larger the profit opportunity that becomes available. Then you have something like enforced equality (or inequality kept to an "acceptable" level), giving the ambitious even more reason to turn to the black market to get wealthy (as it is one of the only few ways to become wealthy in such a society).

I totally agree. My point is that socialists can only take over and maintain their power with a brutal police state.

 

[untermensche]

I totally agree. My point is that socialists can only take over and maintain their power with a brutal police state.

That's funny because the US is a brutal police state.

With more people per capita in prison than any other industrialized nation.

And constant acts of aggression overseas.

Countless stories of people being assaulted and even killed by the police.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Good post. Yes, the central issue is that people who own things aren't going to peacefully give up their shit.

I think that is a problem but not a very big one - it's been done before.

The problem has been and always will be poor production and allocation decisions being made. Extreme inefficiency due to lack of knowledge about peoples wants/desires (and the strength of them) and also using other criteria to make decisions other than people's and society's wants/desires. Such extreme inefficiency breeds corruption and lawbreaking as it provides an opportunity to make a profit on the black market. The more inefficient the decisions being made, the larger the profit opportunity that becomes available. Then you have something like enforced equality (or inequality kept to an "acceptable" level), giving the ambitious even more reason to turn to the black market to get wealthy (as it is one of the only few ways to become wealthy in such a society).

Yup. The more government-enforced equality the more corruption etc involved.

For example, long ago my parents were trying to rent an apartment in an area with rent control. There were no unfinished apartments available, period--all you could get were "finished" apartments with a few scraps of low quality furniture--which was more expensive than the apartment.

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I totally agree. My point is that socialists can only take over and maintain their power with a brutal police state.

That's funny because the US is a brutal police state.

With more people per capita in prison than any other industrialized nation.

And constant acts of aggression overseas.

Countless stories of people being assaulted and even killed by the police.

You have obviously never been a real police state.

 

[untermensche]

That's funny because the US is a brutal police state.

With more people per capita in prison than any other industrialized nation.

And constant acts of aggression overseas.

Countless stories of people being assaulted and even killed by the police.

You have obviously never been a real police state.

Which state has more people in prison than the US?

How is tyranny not being expressed by putting people in prison?

And with a racial bias too.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You have obviously never been a real police state.

Which state has more people in prison than the US?

How is tyranny not being expressed by putting people in prison?

And with a racial bias too.

"Police state" refers to the relationship between the people and the police.

I've previously told of our encounter with a real police state in Romania. Look at the old post.

 

[ksen]

Such extreme inefficiency breeds corruption and lawbreaking as it provides an opportunity to make a profit on the black market.

Because there's no corruption or lawbreaking happening in our current non-socialist economy.

 

[Axulus]

Such extreme inefficiency breeds corruption and lawbreaking as it provides an opportunity to make a profit on the black market.

Because there's no corruption or lawbreaking happening in our current non-socialist economy.

False dichotomy - we aren't choosing between corruption and law breaking vs no corruption and no lawbreaking.

 

[ksen]

Because there's no corruption or lawbreaking happening in our current non-socialist economy.

False dichotomy - we aren't choosing between corruption and law breaking vs no corruption and no lawbreaking.

Then what was your point?

 

[arkirk]

Why socialism? Because human beings are social animals. Humans take many times as long as the nearest animals in our evolutionary tree to grow to maturity. We will continually socialize our common functions. It is more a matter of getting it right than a choice between doing it or not doing it.

 

[Axulus]

False dichotomy - we aren't choosing between corruption and law breaking vs no corruption and no lawbreaking.

Then what was your point?

Corruption and lawbreaking can be worse, _much_ worse, than what we currently experience.

 

[ksen]

Or it could be much much better if more people aren't feeling so desperate that they have to resort to the black market or engage in law breaking just to survive.

I don't buy your premise that it will automatically be worse.

 

[untermensche]

Which state has more people in prison than the US?

How is tyranny not being expressed by putting people in prison?

And with a racial bias too.

"Police state" refers to the relationship between the people and the police.

I've previously told of our encounter with a real police state in Romania. Look at the old post.

Answer the questions.

 

[dismal]

Such extreme inefficiency breeds corruption and lawbreaking as it provides an opportunity to make a profit on the black market.

Because there's no corruption or lawbreaking happening in our current non-socialist economy.

Did you ever answer how ksentopia will be different than the Soviet Union?

If so I must have missed it.

 

[ksen]

Because there's no corruption or lawbreaking happening in our current non-socialist economy.

Did you ever answer how ksentopia will be different than the Soviet Union?

There's been examples of how it'd be different all through the thread.

If so I must have missed it.

You must have.