5 ms·

I submit that the chief difference between capitalism and Socialism/Communism is one of cardinality: Either we have a single public sector overlord, or a varie

I submit that the chief difference between capitalism and Socialism/Communism is one of cardinality: Either we have a single public sector overlord, or a variety of private sector ones. As someone's slashdot sig held, years ago: "Under capitalism, man oppresses man; under Communism, it's the other way around."

Ar-Curunir 5y ago
Did you read the article in the least? Anarchism literally opposes both a “single public sector overlord” and “multiple private sector overlords”
- PixyMisa 5y ago
  And works about as well as any other perpetual motion machine.
- petrocrat 5y ago
  What good is being opposed to both of those things if there is no way to implement a situation without at least one of them? The single public sector monopoly on violence is the least bad alternative, because if it were to vanish the vacuum it leaves would quickly and inevitably be filled by the first strongmen who can raise an army via whatever means at their disposal. And that would be far worse than the single public sector overlord.
oh_sigh 5y ago
Who are my capitalistic overlords in America?
- thescriptkiddie 5y ago
  literally the owners of the the company you work for how are you this dense
  - dang 5y ago
    Attacking another user like that will get you banned here, no matter how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Please review the rules and don't do anything like this on HN again: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. In addition, would you please stop posting flamewar comments generally (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28749013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28749013)? That's not what HN is for, and we've already had to ask you about this more than once.
- culi 5y ago
  If you're a member of the largest workforce (service sector) in America, when you go to work every day what say do you actually have in the way things are done? Is there any real democracy happening there? The ideal of democracy has been abstracted away from the personal and lived realities of many people to getting to vote for one of two options for president every 4 years (obviously you can vote in more elections, but whose got time to look into that you got work the next day?) For many people capitalism is just a reincarnation of feudalism for the industrial age
  - smitty1e 5y ago
    What's unclear is whether shrinking everything to state control actually improves matters. Possibly concentrating all the power worsens the situation.
    - wyre 5y ago
      Anarchism implies no state control. Dictatorships, monarchies, oligarchies, and corrupt politicians worsen situations. Putting power back into the hands of the community and it’s workers shouldn’t do that.
      - jessaustin 5y ago
        Some people have a hole in their brain that makes anarchism invisible to them. The only way they can respond to a critique of authority is to ask "have you considered the benefits of this other authority?"
        smitty1e 5y ago
        You say "benefits", I say "inevitability". Neither Communism and anarchism seem to model well the requirement for a management layer, or its effects. These negatives are only transparent in capitalism, somehow.
        jessaustin 5y ago
- bccdee 5y ago
  For one, investment in the US is directed by wealthy private investors. Which means that the entire bearing of its economy is undemocratic. It doesn't matter if a majority of the public favour heavy investment in (eg) green energy; if it's not profitable, it won't get done, and the government is paddling upstream any time it tries to resist the motivating flow of private investment. At a narrower scale, who decides how many hours you work? Did you elect that person, or were they forced upon you? Sure, you could quit & move to another company, but I could say the same of a citizen living in a tyrannical country. It doesn't make that country any less tyrannical. And at whichever company you switched to, you still wouldn't have any democratic input in the workplace. If you don't like your overlord, you can take a mulligan, but it's not easy to switch jobs, and all you end up with is a new overlord. Contrast this with a society in which investment was public and the workplace was democratic. Obviously it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be a substantial improvement on the current state of affairs in terms of overlords or the absence thereof.
  - zajio1am 5y ago
    > At a narrower scale, who decides how many hours you work? I during work contract negotiation? > Sure, you could quit & move to another company, but I could say the same of a citizen living in a tyrannical country. That is not really true, for two reasons: First, many tyrannical countries forbade that, with border guards shooting people trying to flee the country. That was common e.g. in eastern bloc communist countries. Second, work is just one of many dimensions of life, so having multiple separate and independent 'domains' is better than all-encompasing state/community. Therefore, switching work is just switching one of several dimensions, not a complete change as leaving a country. > but it's not easy to switch jobs, and all you end up with is a new overlord. If you do not want overlords, you can just be independent contractor offering services to public. I do not know about US, but where i live there is permanent shortage of these (so no worry about getting customers) and i knew people who do that exactly because they would not fit to typical corporate structure. > Contrast this with a society in which investment was public and the workplace was democratic. Current society says a little about how corporations are internally organized. You could have democratic workers' cooperatives competing in the market. The fact that they make just a small part of economy suggest they are not really effective or interesting.
pram 5y ago
Reductionist, there’s simultaneously many public and private sector “overlords” in capitalist liberal democracy. Sometimes a private company can also resemble a public utility through government granted monopolies as well (Bell System)
bccdee 5y ago
At least the public sector is nominally democratic. Obviously the Easter Bloc never was, but that doesn't mean that some flavour of socialism couldn't be. Meanwhile, capitalism rejects even the principle that democracy could be the primary decision-making tool of society.
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  Such a society is no different from a mob.
  - bccdee 5y ago
    No, that's very silly. A mob isn't a democracy; democracy is structured. If a democracy votes not to permit vandalism and then I vandalize something, I'm going to get sanctioned. A mob has no structure and no restrictions.
    - Dracophoenix 5y ago
      Democracy in and of itself is not inherently considerate of man's inalienable rights. If a group of people decide to strip you of your right to live merely on the basis of majority vote, that's democracy in action. Majority rule is prescriptivism by way of the ballot. A mob with extra steps, if you will. It's not bound by legal precedent or logic. It can so far as to invent fictions to justify its existence. Democracy must be tempered with the recognition of individual rights. That, regardless of what the majority hold or believe, the individual has the sole prerogative to go far as his own ability allows him and on his own terms.
dredmorbius 5y ago
FWIW, the quote appears to be a Polish joke, popularised by John Kenneth Galbraith in the late 1950s. The canonical form seems to be "Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." I've traced it to a couple of late-1950s books, though their content isn't available online or searchable. (The Polish Review is at the Internet Archive, but text search doesn't find the phrase in 1959: https://archive.org/search.php?query=%22the%20polish%20review%22 https://archive.org/search.php?query=%22the%20polish%20revie...) https://www.google.com/search?q=%22under+capitalism%2C+man+exploits+man%22&nfpr=1&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F1900%2Ccd_max%3A12%2F31%2F1959&tbm=bks https://www.google.com/search?q=%22under+capitalism%2C+man+e...
- smitty1e 5y ago
  Thanks!

Ar-Curunir 5y ago

Did you read the article in the least? Anarchism literally opposes both a “single public sector overlord” and “multiple private sector overlords”

PixyMisa 5y ago
And works about as well as any other perpetual motion machine.
petrocrat 5y ago
What good is being opposed to both of those things if there is no way to implement a situation without at least one of them? The single public sector monopoly on violence is the least bad alternative, because if it were to vanish the vacuum it leaves would quickly and inevitably be filled by the first strongmen who can raise an army via whatever means at their disposal. And that would be far worse than the single public sector overlord.

oh_sigh 5y ago

Who are my capitalistic overlords in America?

thescriptkiddie 5y ago
literally the owners of the the company you work for how are you this dense
- dang 5y ago
  Attacking another user like that will get you banned here, no matter how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Please review the rules and don't do anything like this on HN again: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. In addition, would you please stop posting flamewar comments generally (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28749013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28749013)? That's not what HN is for, and we've already had to ask you about this more than once.
culi 5y ago
If you're a member of the largest workforce (service sector) in America, when you go to work every day what say do you actually have in the way things are done? Is there any real democracy happening there? The ideal of democracy has been abstracted away from the personal and lived realities of many people to getting to vote for one of two options for president every 4 years (obviously you can vote in more elections, but whose got time to look into that you got work the next day?) For many people capitalism is just a reincarnation of feudalism for the industrial age
- smitty1e 5y ago
  What's unclear is whether shrinking everything to state control actually improves matters. Possibly concentrating all the power worsens the situation.
  - wyre 5y ago
    Anarchism implies no state control. Dictatorships, monarchies, oligarchies, and corrupt politicians worsen situations. Putting power back into the hands of the community and it’s workers shouldn’t do that.
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      Some people have a hole in their brain that makes anarchism invisible to them. The only way they can respond to a critique of authority is to ask "have you considered the benefits of this other authority?"
      - smitty1e 5y ago
        You say "benefits", I say "inevitability". Neither Communism and anarchism seem to model well the requirement for a management layer, or its effects. These negatives are only transparent in capitalism, somehow.
        jessaustin 5y ago
bccdee 5y ago
For one, investment in the US is directed by wealthy private investors. Which means that the entire bearing of its economy is undemocratic. It doesn't matter if a majority of the public favour heavy investment in (eg) green energy; if it's not profitable, it won't get done, and the government is paddling upstream any time it tries to resist the motivating flow of private investment. At a narrower scale, who decides how many hours you work? Did you elect that person, or were they forced upon you? Sure, you could quit & move to another company, but I could say the same of a citizen living in a tyrannical country. It doesn't make that country any less tyrannical. And at whichever company you switched to, you still wouldn't have any democratic input in the workplace. If you don't like your overlord, you can take a mulligan, but it's not easy to switch jobs, and all you end up with is a new overlord. Contrast this with a society in which investment was public and the workplace was democratic. Obviously it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be a substantial improvement on the current state of affairs in terms of overlords or the absence thereof.
- zajio1am 5y ago
  > At a narrower scale, who decides how many hours you work? I during work contract negotiation? > Sure, you could quit & move to another company, but I could say the same of a citizen living in a tyrannical country. That is not really true, for two reasons: First, many tyrannical countries forbade that, with border guards shooting people trying to flee the country. That was common e.g. in eastern bloc communist countries. Second, work is just one of many dimensions of life, so having multiple separate and independent 'domains' is better than all-encompasing state/community. Therefore, switching work is just switching one of several dimensions, not a complete change as leaving a country. > but it's not easy to switch jobs, and all you end up with is a new overlord. If you do not want overlords, you can just be independent contractor offering services to public. I do not know about US, but where i live there is permanent shortage of these (so no worry about getting customers) and i knew people who do that exactly because they would not fit to typical corporate structure. > Contrast this with a society in which investment was public and the workplace was democratic. Current society says a little about how corporations are internally organized. You could have democratic workers' cooperatives competing in the market. The fact that they make just a small part of economy suggest they are not really effective or interesting.

pram 5y ago

Reductionist, there’s simultaneously many public and private sector “overlords” in capitalist liberal democracy. Sometimes a private company can also resemble a public utility through government granted monopolies as well (Bell System)

bccdee 5y ago

At least the public sector is nominally democratic. Obviously the Easter Bloc never was, but that doesn't mean that some flavour of socialism couldn't be. Meanwhile, capitalism rejects even the principle that democracy could be the primary decision-making tool of society.

Dracophoenix 5y ago
Such a society is no different from a mob.
- bccdee 5y ago
  No, that's very silly. A mob isn't a democracy; democracy is structured. If a democracy votes not to permit vandalism and then I vandalize something, I'm going to get sanctioned. A mob has no structure and no restrictions.
  - Dracophoenix 5y ago
    Democracy in and of itself is not inherently considerate of man's inalienable rights. If a group of people decide to strip you of your right to live merely on the basis of majority vote, that's democracy in action. Majority rule is prescriptivism by way of the ballot. A mob with extra steps, if you will. It's not bound by legal precedent or logic. It can so far as to invent fictions to justify its existence. Democracy must be tempered with the recognition of individual rights. That, regardless of what the majority hold or believe, the individual has the sole prerogative to go far as his own ability allows him and on his own terms.

dredmorbius 5y ago

FWIW, the quote appears to be a Polish joke, popularised by John Kenneth Galbraith in the late 1950s. The canonical form seems to be "Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." I've traced it to a couple of late-1950s books, though their content isn't available online or searchable. (The Polish Review is at the Internet Archive, but text search doesn't find the phrase in 1959: https://archive.org/search.php?query=%22the%20polish%20review%22 https://archive.org/search.php?query=%22the%20polish%20revie...) https://www.google.com/search?q=%22under+capitalism%2C+man+exploits+man%22&nfpr=1&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F1900%2Ccd_max%3A12%2F31%2F1959&tbm=bks https://www.google.com/search?q=%22under+capitalism%2C+man+e...

smitty1e 5y ago
Thanks!