4 ms·

> Also, there's the perennial example of Burning Man Which is a temporary outlet for a select very affluent few Westerners (non-affluent person wouldn't even b

by smsm42 8y ago

> Also, there's the perennial example of Burning Man Which is a temporary outlet for a select very affluent few Westerners (non-affluent person wouldn't even be able to afford transportation and supplies, not mentioning $500 entrance fee) who drive there for a week (increasingly accompanied by air-conditioned tents and personal chefs), frolic in costumes or negligee, burn stuff down for fun and return to their regular lives. A lot of fun, but I can't see how any sane person can see it as a model for a society. > The real objective of Socialism is human brotherhood Somehow in the real socialism it happens in exactly the opposite way (the famous joke is that under capitalism man exploits man, and under socialism it's the other way around). Socialism always produces the nomenklatura (note that I have to use a Russian word for it, because it is so inherent to the largest Socialist experiment in history) and the privilege networks (another Russian word, "blat") which create a complex network of inequality and privileged access to formally "equal" benefits. In a capitalist society, most inequality is monetary - through class, sex and race play its role, ultimately money usually overcomes most of it (especially in a modern society, where things like open racism are frowned upon). In a socialist one, not only money can't do much without privilege, if you are outside the privilege network, the mere attempt to make this money (or otherwise route around the privilege network) would get you imprisoned or executed. Some brotherhood it is.

panarky 8y ago
Proof by example is a logical fallacy. I know that x, which is a member of group X, has the property P. Therefore, membership in X causes property P. I can play this game too. Haiti, Ethiopia, Liberia, India, Honduras and Somalia have market economies, and they are poor. Therefore, market economies make nations poor. There's really not much to learn from this kind of argument.
- krustyburger 8y ago
  It seems that the phenomena the parent describes were or are present in all instances of fully implemented socialism to date, not just in the USSR. Since you edited to add your counter-examples, I’ll edit to point out that socialism is a system that has been deliberately implemented by its instantiators in each case I’m aware of. To compare it to capitalism, but only those capitalist countries that have suffered lawlessness or other calamity, is to compare apples to oranges.
  - panarky 8y ago
    You don't need to speak Russian to understand the nomenklatura. It's a group of privileged people who are appointed to positions of power based on their personal loyalty to the leader or to the party. Seems like a very familiar concept ripped from today's headlines, certainly not restricted to archaic economic systems. I usually find that apples and oranges are quite easy to compare.
    - krustyburger 8y ago
      You seem to have a habit of dramatically changing your comments after you’ve posted them, without noting that you’ve done so. In this case, you originally posted only what now seems to be your final sentence, the one about apples and oranges, then added everything that now precedes it. I have the sense that you are hoping for a political argument.
    - pm90 8y ago
      Not only are you not answering the parents genuine questions, you are trying to distract attention by attempting to be clever. You are not making an argument in good faith. Please stop.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  If you want another, more benign, example, look at American military bases. You've got base housing, base grocery store, base furniture, base movie theater, base bookstore, base clothing store, base restaurants, base barber shop. You are issued things like housing. There's a pecking order based on rank. If ranks are equal, there is an alternative barter economy based on who owes who favors (instead of money). Although all your needs are provided for (at massive cost to the taxpayer), it isn't a happy way to live.
- smsm42 8y ago
  > Therefore, market economies make nations poor. No, because there's USA, Germany, France, etc. Which has much bigger market economies and not poor. But all major socialist economies has been a disaster (no, China is not a socialist economy and hasn't been for a while, neither is Sweden, Denmark etc.), and socialist societies has been even worse disaster in non-economic sense (see gulags, Pol Pot killing fields, Cultural Revolution, North Korea, etc.). > Proof by example is a logical fallacy. Some people call learning from example empirical research and scientific method. Others ignore all the examples and keep claiming the real perpetual motion engine just hasn't been tried yet.
CptFribble 8y ago
Socialism is like capitalism, or democracy: there are a lot of ways to do it. It doesn't necessarily require going money-free.
- smsm42 8y ago
  You are confusing socialism and communism. Communism is where money is gone. Socialism is where money is very well present, but the capital, the means of production and the economic planning is controlled by the state. The workers still can get paid (and some may even have certain freedom in where to work, though that tends to shrink very fast as central planning is not possible if you can't force people to work where you want them for salary that you want to pay them) and still can buy stuff (provided the central planners thought in advance of producing this stuff in enough quantity), but the overall control of the economic processes rests firmly in the hands of the state.
jchrisa 8y ago
If we use social media to make the privilege networks more transparent, maybe we can avoid the Tyranny of Structurelessness results you describe.
- SOMMS 8y ago
  But then there's the small matter that social media doesn't actually make anything better...it just makes a bunch of things worse.
dtoma 8y ago
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "socialism". France is a very socialist country (esp. compared to the US of A), yet we are nothing like the USSR. Same goes for many EU countries. Aren't you talking about oligarchies rather than socialist regimes? The fact that some oligarchies were born under the pretense of socialism doesn't mean socialism was the cause.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  It is one of the great debates of our generation wether democratic socialism will show plenitude or the road to serfdom. Although I am not as grim as classical libertarians, im not positive those organizations will last.
  - smsm42 8y ago
    It is profoundly sad that after all that happened in 20th century it's still a debate. The biggest history's lesson seems to be that nobody ever learns from history.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      So far the scandinavian countries have shown success, while still keeping liberty indexes very high. The US is not the free-est country in the world.
- smsm42 8y ago
  > France is a very socialist country (esp. compared to the US of A), Compared to the USA - yes, compared to the USSR - no. France is largely capitalist economy with a lot of socialist policies. As long as the engine of the capitalist economy (private ownership, private initiative, private capital, substantial competition, etc.) is intact, it can bear a lot of socialist policies without breaking down (even at the cost of some slowdowns and inefficiencies). Once you break that, there's pretty much no chance. > Aren't you talking about oligarchies rather than socialist regimes? No, unless you choose to redefine what has been always known as socialism as "oligarchy" and what has been always known as capitalist economy with substantial government intrusions as "socialism". This would make conversation very awkward, as any non-traditional term usage tends to do, but will not change anything of the substance. USSR economy and French economy (and both societies of course) were different in principle, not in degree, and you can not ignore that while staying in the realm of reality and outside of fairy-land economics. > The fact that some oligarchies were born under the pretense of socialism doesn't mean socialism was the cause. USSR was one of the largest and most complete and consistent implementations of socialism ever attempted. If they didn't do it right, on your opinion, then nobody could do it right, ever.
RangerScience 8y ago
> [Burning Man] I completely disagree with your impression, but that all is beside my point. The part of the Burning Man culture I'm pointing to is the one where people go co-create all this shit anyway, when they don't have to, when it doesn't solve any need, when it's not about a contrast with somewhere else. Not everyone needs a problem to solve to get off their arse and make something amazing, and you can see that multiple times a year around the world if you look at these events.
- SOMMS 8y ago
  The point still stands: soldering-iron wielding neo-hippies having an orgy in the desert for a week isn't a model for society. It's more of an indication of boredom in a society blessed with extreme abundance, yet lacking a clear sense of purpose.
  - RangerScience 8y ago
    It could stand, if it wasn't so woefully off-base. But, as they say, haters gonna hate soooo whatevs dude, spill the haterade all over yourself.
  - GFischer 8y ago
    Funnily enough, the second part of your post could serve as a one-line description for Iain Bank's "Culture" ...

by smsm42 8y ago

panarky 8y ago

Proof by example is a logical fallacy. I know that x, which is a member of group X, has the property P. Therefore, membership in X causes property P. I can play this game too. Haiti, Ethiopia, Liberia, India, Honduras and Somalia have market economies, and they are poor. Therefore, market economies make nations poor. There's really not much to learn from this kind of argument.

krustyburger 8y ago
It seems that the phenomena the parent describes were or are present in all instances of fully implemented socialism to date, not just in the USSR. Since you edited to add your counter-examples, I’ll edit to point out that socialism is a system that has been deliberately implemented by its instantiators in each case I’m aware of. To compare it to capitalism, but only those capitalist countries that have suffered lawlessness or other calamity, is to compare apples to oranges.
- panarky 8y ago
  You don't need to speak Russian to understand the nomenklatura. It's a group of privileged people who are appointed to positions of power based on their personal loyalty to the leader or to the party. Seems like a very familiar concept ripped from today's headlines, certainly not restricted to archaic economic systems. I usually find that apples and oranges are quite easy to compare.
  - krustyburger 8y ago
    You seem to have a habit of dramatically changing your comments after you’ve posted them, without noting that you’ve done so. In this case, you originally posted only what now seems to be your final sentence, the one about apples and oranges, then added everything that now precedes it. I have the sense that you are hoping for a political argument.
  - pm90 8y ago
    Not only are you not answering the parents genuine questions, you are trying to distract attention by attempting to be clever. You are not making an argument in good faith. Please stop.
skookumchuck 8y ago
If you want another, more benign, example, look at American military bases. You've got base housing, base grocery store, base furniture, base movie theater, base bookstore, base clothing store, base restaurants, base barber shop. You are issued things like housing. There's a pecking order based on rank. If ranks are equal, there is an alternative barter economy based on who owes who favors (instead of money). Although all your needs are provided for (at massive cost to the taxpayer), it isn't a happy way to live.
smsm42 8y ago
> Therefore, market economies make nations poor. No, because there's USA, Germany, France, etc. Which has much bigger market economies and not poor. But all major socialist economies has been a disaster (no, China is not a socialist economy and hasn't been for a while, neither is Sweden, Denmark etc.), and socialist societies has been even worse disaster in non-economic sense (see gulags, Pol Pot killing fields, Cultural Revolution, North Korea, etc.). > Proof by example is a logical fallacy. Some people call learning from example empirical research and scientific method. Others ignore all the examples and keep claiming the real perpetual motion engine just hasn't been tried yet.

CptFribble 8y ago

Socialism is like capitalism, or democracy: there are a lot of ways to do it. It doesn't necessarily require going money-free.

smsm42 8y ago
You are confusing socialism and communism. Communism is where money is gone. Socialism is where money is very well present, but the capital, the means of production and the economic planning is controlled by the state. The workers still can get paid (and some may even have certain freedom in where to work, though that tends to shrink very fast as central planning is not possible if you can't force people to work where you want them for salary that you want to pay them) and still can buy stuff (provided the central planners thought in advance of producing this stuff in enough quantity), but the overall control of the economic processes rests firmly in the hands of the state.

jchrisa 8y ago

If we use social media to make the privilege networks more transparent, maybe we can avoid the Tyranny of Structurelessness results you describe.

SOMMS 8y ago
But then there's the small matter that social media doesn't actually make anything better...it just makes a bunch of things worse.

dtoma 8y ago

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "socialism". France is a very socialist country (esp. compared to the US of A), yet we are nothing like the USSR. Same goes for many EU countries. Aren't you talking about oligarchies rather than socialist regimes? The fact that some oligarchies were born under the pretense of socialism doesn't mean socialism was the cause.

conanbatt 8y ago
It is one of the great debates of our generation wether democratic socialism will show plenitude or the road to serfdom. Although I am not as grim as classical libertarians, im not positive those organizations will last.
- smsm42 8y ago
  It is profoundly sad that after all that happened in 20th century it's still a debate. The biggest history's lesson seems to be that nobody ever learns from history.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    So far the scandinavian countries have shown success, while still keeping liberty indexes very high. The US is not the free-est country in the world.
smsm42 8y ago
> France is a very socialist country (esp. compared to the US of A), Compared to the USA - yes, compared to the USSR - no. France is largely capitalist economy with a lot of socialist policies. As long as the engine of the capitalist economy (private ownership, private initiative, private capital, substantial competition, etc.) is intact, it can bear a lot of socialist policies without breaking down (even at the cost of some slowdowns and inefficiencies). Once you break that, there's pretty much no chance. > Aren't you talking about oligarchies rather than socialist regimes? No, unless you choose to redefine what has been always known as socialism as "oligarchy" and what has been always known as capitalist economy with substantial government intrusions as "socialism". This would make conversation very awkward, as any non-traditional term usage tends to do, but will not change anything of the substance. USSR economy and French economy (and both societies of course) were different in principle, not in degree, and you can not ignore that while staying in the realm of reality and outside of fairy-land economics. > The fact that some oligarchies were born under the pretense of socialism doesn't mean socialism was the cause. USSR was one of the largest and most complete and consistent implementations of socialism ever attempted. If they didn't do it right, on your opinion, then nobody could do it right, ever.

RangerScience 8y ago

> [Burning Man] I completely disagree with your impression, but that all is beside my point. The part of the Burning Man culture I'm pointing to is the one where people go co-create all this shit anyway, when they don't have to, when it doesn't solve any need, when it's not about a contrast with somewhere else. Not everyone needs a problem to solve to get off their arse and make something amazing, and you can see that multiple times a year around the world if you look at these events.

SOMMS 8y ago
The point still stands: soldering-iron wielding neo-hippies having an orgy in the desert for a week isn't a model for society. It's more of an indication of boredom in a society blessed with extreme abundance, yet lacking a clear sense of purpose.
- RangerScience 8y ago
  It could stand, if it wasn't so woefully off-base. But, as they say, haters gonna hate soooo whatevs dude, spill the haterade all over yourself.
- GFischer 8y ago
  Funnily enough, the second part of your post could serve as a one-line description for Iain Bank's "Culture" ...