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There are various new approaches to central planning that may be of interest, such as those in Towards a New Socialism by W. Paul Cockshott. I don't think centr

by ue_ 10y ago

There are various new approaches to central planning that may be of interest, such as those in Towards a New Socialism by W. Paul Cockshott. I don't think central planning is necessarily something bad, and there are certainly sufficient alternatives from both inside and outside Communism. Many Communists such as myself are not attached to one method or another. The idea that some period of authoritarianism is required for Communism is quite a Leninist idea. Sometimes I feel as though Communism would work better as an ideal to strive toward, rather than necessarily something to be acheived. I don't know how others feel on this, though.

camikazeg 10y ago
If communism could just be boiled down to "laborers own the means of production" then what stops that from happening within capitalism? What prevents people from banding together to create factories that they then work in, for example?
- ue_ 10y ago
  These factories must compete with others which value profit as the highest motive. So because there is still a profit motive, the co-op factory must optimise on two fronts: money in order to keep itself afloat and still purchase the required capital (and labour power), and further to operate by "ethical" principles toward the workers (whatever those may be). Thus co-ops will have a tendency to fail within capitalism, because they usually cannot compete sufficiently. In addition, unless everyone worked in co-ops, there would still be worker exploitation, and thus still need for Communism (in the eyes of Socialists). This is especially true in developing countries. Exploitation happens at a class level, not an individual level, nor the co-op level. It is pervasive.
  - Sacho 10y ago
    Okay, but this competition is a benefit to the consumer, so you're arguing that the consumers should eschew this benefit in favor of "ethical" factories. From what you're saying you seem to believe consumers largely refuse to do this, so you would have to remove this choice from them completely. The problem then(also identified by communists of old..) is that you can't compete with forces outside your control - so you either need a global communist revolution, or you need pretty strict isolationism. Since you never convinced your consumers that ethical factories are worth supporting, how do you plan to deal with the resentment they feel when they see the wealth foreigners posses achieved through the harsher competition policies of capitalism? Will you be suppressing information and limiting access to the Internet? Maybe some propaganda pieces about how your ethical factories are better than slavery under capitalism? Maybe the "horror stories" of communism were caused by its flawed leaders more than the ideology itself. But it seems that a lot of stuff that we wouldn't really be happy with needs to happen in order to implement "perfect communism".
  - candiodari 10y ago
    You forget what profit is. Profit is (the monetary value of) the benefit to society of the product being produced. Now when you say "must optimize on two fronts: money in order to keep itself afloat and" ... that first one is NOT optional. If that first one is not a prerequisite to having the factory than that factory (or company, or ...) is a net loss for the economy, society, for the world as a whole. You seem to imply it is tenable for a society to have most or all companies operate under such conditions, and of course it is not. That is of course the alleged problem with communism. Profit in itself is not a necessity, but having profit >=0 over the long run IS a necessity (but obviously for company stability having a decent positive profit most years is very much not optional, and any exceptions must be made for investment purposes, not for any other reason). Otherwise, colloquially, you're "eating your seed grain". That is the problem, right there. Communist economists see communism as a system that can work because people would still generate profit. People, even communist activists themselves, see communism as a system that can deny the real world. And under those circumstances, of course communism fails. Under a communist system as understood in economics departments, profit would still be an existential necessity for any company. So if avoiding profit and "instead get X" is why you're a communist, stop right there. That's not communism, that's fantasy. No matter what X is. Stop defending anything remotely like that as an advantage of a communist system, because it is not. The real world need for more valuable output than input from any long-term process, applies just as much to communism as to capitalism, mercantilism, ...
    - aninhumer 10y ago
      >Profit is (the monetary value of) the benefit to society of the product being produced. No. Monetary value is not perfect measure of utility, because market demand is weighted by wealth. A luxury yacht for one individual clearly provides nowhere near as much utility to them as an equivalently priced quantity of food would provide to a bunch of homeless people, but the market prices it as such because the individual is richer. If we could magically swap the yacht for the food, everything else being the same, society would be better off as a result. We allow this inequality of demand because it is what drives the supply side towards efficiency, and for the most part I think this is a reasonable compromise. But we should not confuse profit with utility.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
I agree on the second paragraph. In general, one cannot decree a better world. It must be a conscious decision for people to work towards their ideals. Authoritarianism cannot fix that and even a benevolent AI overlord would be limited in its ability to manage production and allocate resources as a means to make life better for all people. In general I am dismal at the ability for overthrow to enact lasting change. It often descends into a brutal struggle to keep newfound power, which becomes more important than the ideals themselves. The American Revolution ("All men are created equal") failed to end slavery, among other shortcomings. The French Revolution was a bloody mess that was only pacified by dictatorship and monarchy. Haiti, most tragic of all, was the only successful slave rebellion and they've been paying for it ever since, both as a result of foreign meddling as well as by greed and power-lust from their own leaders.
selimthegrim 10y ago
Cosma Shalizi deals very well with Cockshott's arguments on his blog: http://bactra.org/weblog/919.html http://bactra.org/weblog/919.html

by ue_ 10y ago

camikazeg 10y ago

If communism could just be boiled down to "laborers own the means of production" then what stops that from happening within capitalism? What prevents people from banding together to create factories that they then work in, for example?

ue_ 10y ago
These factories must compete with others which value profit as the highest motive. So because there is still a profit motive, the co-op factory must optimise on two fronts: money in order to keep itself afloat and still purchase the required capital (and labour power), and further to operate by "ethical" principles toward the workers (whatever those may be). Thus co-ops will have a tendency to fail within capitalism, because they usually cannot compete sufficiently. In addition, unless everyone worked in co-ops, there would still be worker exploitation, and thus still need for Communism (in the eyes of Socialists). This is especially true in developing countries. Exploitation happens at a class level, not an individual level, nor the co-op level. It is pervasive.
- Sacho 10y ago
  Okay, but this competition is a benefit to the consumer, so you're arguing that the consumers should eschew this benefit in favor of "ethical" factories. From what you're saying you seem to believe consumers largely refuse to do this, so you would have to remove this choice from them completely. The problem then(also identified by communists of old..) is that you can't compete with forces outside your control - so you either need a global communist revolution, or you need pretty strict isolationism. Since you never convinced your consumers that ethical factories are worth supporting, how do you plan to deal with the resentment they feel when they see the wealth foreigners posses achieved through the harsher competition policies of capitalism? Will you be suppressing information and limiting access to the Internet? Maybe some propaganda pieces about how your ethical factories are better than slavery under capitalism? Maybe the "horror stories" of communism were caused by its flawed leaders more than the ideology itself. But it seems that a lot of stuff that we wouldn't really be happy with needs to happen in order to implement "perfect communism".
- candiodari 10y ago
  You forget what profit is. Profit is (the monetary value of) the benefit to society of the product being produced. Now when you say "must optimize on two fronts: money in order to keep itself afloat and" ... that first one is NOT optional. If that first one is not a prerequisite to having the factory than that factory (or company, or ...) is a net loss for the economy, society, for the world as a whole. You seem to imply it is tenable for a society to have most or all companies operate under such conditions, and of course it is not. That is of course the alleged problem with communism. Profit in itself is not a necessity, but having profit >=0 over the long run IS a necessity (but obviously for company stability having a decent positive profit most years is very much not optional, and any exceptions must be made for investment purposes, not for any other reason). Otherwise, colloquially, you're "eating your seed grain". That is the problem, right there. Communist economists see communism as a system that can work because people would still generate profit. People, even communist activists themselves, see communism as a system that can deny the real world. And under those circumstances, of course communism fails. Under a communist system as understood in economics departments, profit would still be an existential necessity for any company. So if avoiding profit and "instead get X" is why you're a communist, stop right there. That's not communism, that's fantasy. No matter what X is. Stop defending anything remotely like that as an advantage of a communist system, because it is not. The real world need for more valuable output than input from any long-term process, applies just as much to communism as to capitalism, mercantilism, ...
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    >Profit is (the monetary value of) the benefit to society of the product being produced. No. Monetary value is not perfect measure of utility, because market demand is weighted by wealth. A luxury yacht for one individual clearly provides nowhere near as much utility to them as an equivalently priced quantity of food would provide to a bunch of homeless people, but the market prices it as such because the individual is richer. If we could magically swap the yacht for the food, everything else being the same, society would be better off as a result. We allow this inequality of demand because it is what drives the supply side towards efficiency, and for the most part I think this is a reasonable compromise. But we should not confuse profit with utility.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

I agree on the second paragraph. In general, one cannot decree a better world. It must be a conscious decision for people to work towards their ideals. Authoritarianism cannot fix that and even a benevolent AI overlord would be limited in its ability to manage production and allocate resources as a means to make life better for all people. In general I am dismal at the ability for overthrow to enact lasting change. It often descends into a brutal struggle to keep newfound power, which becomes more important than the ideals themselves. The American Revolution ("All men are created equal") failed to end slavery, among other shortcomings. The French Revolution was a bloody mess that was only pacified by dictatorship and monarchy. Haiti, most tragic of all, was the only successful slave rebellion and they've been paying for it ever since, both as a result of foreign meddling as well as by greed and power-lust from their own leaders.

selimthegrim 10y ago

Cosma Shalizi deals very well with Cockshott's arguments on his blog: http://bactra.org/weblog/919.html http://bactra.org/weblog/919.html