7 ms·

Is it, though? It seems to me like you can't have a command economy without authoritarianism.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Nasrudith 6y ago
You technically can but it requires pretty fantastic conditions as prerequisites right now. Theoretically if it was known that obeying lead to better outcomes than anything you could do on your own people would follow them without coercion. Actually being that right on their own would be difficult for the same reasons it would for a command economy period, and proving it enough to gain followers would be difficult but it would be possible. Give a reliable "crystal ball" and predictions always being clear and right where those that obey see outcomes accordingly the sensible would start to follow the commands without any force behind it. There is no need to use force to punish jumping off of a cliff essentially. It implies the reason it depends upon authoritarianism is because as a model it cannot compete.
- johnday 6y ago
  > Theoretically if it was known that obeying lead to better outcomes than anything you could do on your own people would follow them without coercion. Anti-mask-wearers and anti-vaccinators have conclusively shown that this cannot happen in practise.
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    I think the answer there is that the anti-mask-wearers and anti-vaccinators might not know that obeying leads to better outcomes. (they're almost certainly wrong, but that's still what they know)
claudiawerner 6y ago
This won't be a very popular response, but: generally the answer to this has been to question the framing of authoritarianism. Marx spoke of a society in which labour is no longer alienated, but "man's prime want". His assumption (true or false) was that people wouldn't be need to be pressured to work. His claim was that in capitalism, itself an authoritarian system descended from previous class systems, authority lurks behind free rights and duties, in which he commented that under capitalism the worker must be free - free to sell his labour, and free from the means of production. In summary, to anti-capitalists the question is not only how to have an economy without authoritarianism, but also how to rework the very concept of labour, how it is thought of, practised, etc. What is it about labour in class societies, they ask, which means that it can only be seen as something which needs to be compelled, either by holding the means of survival (a wage) over the worker's head, or by placing them in a state-industry job for labour tokens? Both the capitalist and 'socialist' solutions are authoritarian. Why? Unfortunately a lot of the popular discourse around Marx's actual works has been obscured or discounted. Yet it is impossible to validate the USSR, Cuba, China, etc. as 'Marxist' or not without knowing what he wrote himself. It's just as rare to find a leftist who's read Marx as it is to find a right-libertarian who's read Marx.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

You technically can but it requires pretty fantastic conditions as prerequisites right now. Theoretically if it was known that obeying lead to better outcomes than anything you could do on your own people would follow them without coercion. Actually being that right on their own would be difficult for the same reasons it would for a command economy period, and proving it enough to gain followers would be difficult but it would be possible. Give a reliable "crystal ball" and predictions always being clear and right where those that obey see outcomes accordingly the sensible would start to follow the commands without any force behind it. There is no need to use force to punish jumping off of a cliff essentially. It implies the reason it depends upon authoritarianism is because as a model it cannot compete.

johnday 6y ago
> Theoretically if it was known that obeying lead to better outcomes than anything you could do on your own people would follow them without coercion. Anti-mask-wearers and anti-vaccinators have conclusively shown that this cannot happen in practise.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  I think the answer there is that the anti-mask-wearers and anti-vaccinators might not know that obeying leads to better outcomes. (they're almost certainly wrong, but that's still what they know)

claudiawerner 6y ago

This won't be a very popular response, but: generally the answer to this has been to question the framing of authoritarianism. Marx spoke of a society in which labour is no longer alienated, but "man's prime want". His assumption (true or false) was that people wouldn't be need to be pressured to work. His claim was that in capitalism, itself an authoritarian system descended from previous class systems, authority lurks behind free rights and duties, in which he commented that under capitalism the worker must be free - free to sell his labour, and free from the means of production. In summary, to anti-capitalists the question is not only how to have an economy without authoritarianism, but also how to rework the very concept of labour, how it is thought of, practised, etc. What is it about labour in class societies, they ask, which means that it can only be seen as something which needs to be compelled, either by holding the means of survival (a wage) over the worker's head, or by placing them in a state-industry job for labour tokens? Both the capitalist and 'socialist' solutions are authoritarian. Why? Unfortunately a lot of the popular discourse around Marx's actual works has been obscured or discounted. Yet it is impossible to validate the USSR, Cuba, China, etc. as 'Marxist' or not without knowing what he wrote himself. It's just as rare to find a leftist who's read Marx as it is to find a right-libertarian who's read Marx.