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>but it's close enough that we can tweak the existing system through optimised taxes and regulations Optimised taxes and regulations do not stop exploitation[0

• beaconstudios 10y ago
  OK, I'll bite: > the structure of unjustified authority of the State Socialism in all real world implementations has been in the form of an all-encompassing state. The idea that socialism can exist as a form of anarchy seems to be busted - the Soviets (as in the unions that initially formed during the Russian revolution) quickly formed into a hierarchal structure of abstract Soviets that looked just like government departments. I don't agree with the extent that the State has power either, but fundamentally it can provide security from criminal behaviour via the police, protection from outside groups via the military, and welfare via taxation. Those are all positives, imo. > the exploitation of labour "Ownership of the means of production" has less and less meaning every year. Everyone can start a business from a laptop, this isn't the Victorian era where most working class are forced to work in factories to escape the poor-house. It would seem that business people do provide real value after all - managing people and structuring organised work between individuals with separate skills is an incredible value-add to a workforce. Plus, the idea of the 1% owning the vast majority of the wealth in society can in large part be attributed to their owning a large share of their own businesses, which are built with their own work and hiring people at mutually-agreed-upon wages. > the class system The class system is becoming less and less relevant. I don't have to toil away as a serf on some rich noble's land any more. I started out very much lower-middle to working class, and now I live a very comfortable life. Economic mobility is pretty good these days, we don't live in Marx's time any more. > the internal contradictions and crises of capitalism ... can be well-managed by a more competent state. Tragedy of the commons, neocolonialism, and such could be drastically reduced by improvements to the state. We know this because countries like Norway have good social standards and are military non-interventionist, and the USA is pretty much the only Western country that invades others any more. > being forced by threat of starvation to sell labour-power to the class of property owners You mean being forced to be a productive member of society? Work still needs to keep the world going, and if sitting at home consuming goods and providing absolutely no value were a viable option everyone would do it and society would collapse. For those who can't due to disability or unemployability we have welfare benefits to allow them to do exactly that. Consider this - if people don't have to sell labour-power to earn money to buy things, but can still consume the fruits of others' labour, are they not being exploitative themselves? > A better analogy would be if your web app is only serving 5% or less of customers, and the rest get an extremely slow connection, which they complain about to the web app owner, and you respond "We just need to make the website a few kB/s slower for the 5% and give that speed to you!" You, like every other socialist I've spoken to, seem far more preoccupied with punishing the wealthy than actually helping the poor. If we can establish a dignified baseline for all people to live off of, what's wrong with those who are willing to work hard and sacrifice to provide better services to their customers being able to earn more? Without incentives we wouldn't have any innovation because people don't make sacrifices without incentives. Most innovation is born of personal sacrifices.
  • ue_ 10y ago
    >Socialism in all real world implementations has been in the form of an all-encompassing state. The idea that socialism can exist as a form of anarchy seems to be busted I think it could exist as a distributed network of communes, no particular commune with authority over any other, voluntarily exchanging resources where needed. I'm against strengthening the State; at most the State should take the form of a government, having all its other powers handed away. >and welfare via taxation I don't think taxation can be justified, unless it is optional and agreed to by everyone paying and receiving the taxes. > Everyone can start a business from a laptop Yes, but that laptop only becomes social means of production when you start to hire other people to work on it in the form of wage labour. It's fine to be an artisan or "self-employed", because in that case, the only exploitation happening is exploitation of yourself (depends on the point of view). >managing people and structuring organised work between individuals with separate skills is an incredible value-add to a workforce Property owners are distinct from managers; there's no reason why one must cease being a manager when they cease owning property. Managers are workers, and their management would probably be decided via a democratic vote in a Socialist co-operative. Management is cruical, nobody is arguing against it; engineers etc. add value to products of course. >which are built with their own work and hiring people at mutually-agreed-upon wages. Very few businesses reach the kind of scale they are today from the labour of the owners; in fact, they reach that status due to the labour of the workers. Agreeing upon wages doesn't mean anything at all, because that agreement almost always happens in a case where one must sell his labour-power in order to survive. The Marxian analysis says that exploitation isn't a matter of wages, it's a matter of receiving the value of labour. Without exploitation, the companies would not make profit. Yes, the worker has options as to who to sell himself to piecemeal, but that does not mean that the transactions are free; considering the class of property owners as a whole, they force people knowingly by societal structure to work for them. >Economic mobility is pretty good these days, we don't live in Marx's time any more. Economic mobility is irrelevant. There are roughly three classes, which some people are able to move between: the proletariat, who must sell their labour-power for wage in order to survive, the petit-bourgeoisie who take the form of artisans or those self-employed, i.e bourgeois in potential, and the bourgeoisie who are a class of property owners. It is possible to be a property owner and work, too. For example, many small businesses have the property owner work. But that does not mean that the property owner should be entitled to the fruits of others' labour. Many (most?) people do not have sufficient capital, or have no way of accumulating sufficient capital, to move from proletarian to petit bourgeois. Even fewer have the ability to move from proletarian to bourgeois. The system is stacked agaisnt them, it's not a matter of choice and some hard work. >You mean being forced to be a productive member of society? I see no reason why one must sell labour-power in order to be a productive member of society, at least, a productive member of a society. Of course one must work to survive, but that work need not be compensated with wages, at least in jobs where goods are produced. One can work for himself, and decide how much surplus product to give to others; this kind of decision making at a large scale can be managed by a voluntary council which manages production. For example, workers may agree to give a certain percentage of their product to those who are less fortunate or unable to work. > if people don't have to sell labour-power to earn money to buy things, but can still consume the fruits of others' labour, are they not being exploitative themselves? The fruits of others' labour is never appropriated; the workers individually own it and decide what to do with it; in a society in which there are no wages, and automation is scaled up, my idea is that many people would be happy to give some amount of product as charity to those who cannot work. It's up to each individual worker whether to contribute in such a scheme. This is the fairest way I can think of doing it which doesn't involve coercion or force (like taxes). Nobdoy has the right to demand the product of your labour. >You, like every other socialist I've spoken to, seem far more preoccupied with punishing the wealthy than actually helping the poor. The analogy I was using wasn't in favour of Socialism, rather I was trying to depict what taxation for welfare is like within capitalism. I have no problem at all with people owning wealth; I have issue with people owning capital and simultaneously exploiting people using wage labour. I want to eliminate the conditions which cause this to happen. It's not even about the poor - it's about the workers as a whole; the poor are an example of the workers who have been maximally shafted by this system of capital accumulation. I don't propose redistribution of wealth or punishing people for hard work. I accept that many who are rich are there as the result of hard work, and if it's their own labour, they deserve the fruits of it. >Without incentives we wouldn't have any innovation because people don't make sacrifices without incentives. Possible incentives in a Socialist society other than money include the desire to do something, mastery, the desire for credit and recognition, to create a society that you and your family wish to live in, to help those less fortunate, to have a sense of purpose, and also that one receives what one works for - if one does not work, he must rely upon charity. For service jobs, perhaps some kind of labour voucher may be used, such that the labour voucher is given for one hour of work, adjusted for the difficulty of the job; such vouchers being untransferable because they are stamped with the receiver's name, and they are destroyed upon exchange for goods at a bank of items contributed to voluntarily by workers who produce physical items. The maximum number of vouchers one can obtain per year is equal to 365 * 24 (or rather, less than that because it is impossible for someone to work during the entire year). I'm rather undecided on this idea myself, I haven't read enough about it. It has problems such as differentiating between the work of say an electronic engineer or scientist and a street cleaner, for which one hour of work will of course carry different values (SNLT takes this into account, though). I see no way around this problem of having to work to live a good life. But the problem can be minimised by using automation for the benefit of workers, to reduce the number of labour-hours they need to perform. At the moment, automation is used against the workers, to displace them and force them into poorer jobs or no job at all. Capitalism cannot head toward full automation, because in that case, there are few people working, thus few people with wages, fewer people with money, and thus few people to buy all these products being produced by help of automation. Socialist writers such as Kropotkin have long predicted that people would have to be working less than 10 hours a week if automation would be used to help people.