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The problem is that socialism doesn't scale without force. Eventually you'll run out of people who willingly go along with doing things for the greater good.

by _mlbt 2y ago

The problem is that socialism doesn't scale without force. Eventually you'll run out of people who willingly go along with doing things for the greater good. Looking at history, once you get larger than a commune or coop it all falls apart. You need force to seize the means of production, and the leaders of this force never give up their "temporary" powers. You also need force to get people to do the necessary but undesirable jobs, usually resulting in a centrally planned economy, which history again tells us results in misery, famine, and failure. It is also human nature that most of us want someone that tells us what to do. Humans consistently organize into social structures where there is a leader in charge, whether it is a patriarchal or matriarchal extended family structure, a tribe, a club, a company, or a government entity a leader always emerges. Capitalism is very much like Democracy. It's the worst system other than all the others that have been tried.

harimau777 2y ago
> Capitalism is very much like Democracy. It's the worst system other than all the others that have been tried. There are other systems that we've tried which work much better than the corporate Capitalism that we have in the United States. Most notably democratic socialism/social democracy/mixed economies (with the exact dividing lines between those three depending a lot on who you ask).
- _mlbt 2y ago
  I completely agree that capitalism as we know it is highly flawed, but history has proven that socialism is not the answer.
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    Think you are mixing up Communism and Socialism. Socialism is alive and well and working. Every major capitalist society today (including US) has a percentage of Socialism sprinkled in to keep it functioning. Pure capitalism leads to a brutish tragic world, so some socialism is added to at least keep people from outright starving and rising up in revolution.
    - _mlbt 2y ago
      Yes you're talking about hybrids of socialism with capitalism, which are absolutely the way to go. History has shown that nation-scale "pure" socialism (which in practice nearly always results in a flavor of Marxism/Communism) is even more brutish and tragic than "pure" capitalism.
      - seabass-labrax 2y ago
        What would you say about President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania? His term in office was characterised by a peaceful transition from British colonialism to such a 'pure' form of socialism (including a full public ownership of all land and enterprise). This survived for three decades of almost completely peaceful, slow, and steady economic growth before the 90s, when it democratically voted itself into the capitalist state it is now. In fact, the only war Tanzania fought in that period was against Idi Amin's Uganda, which was widely regarded as a far more brutish and tragic country than Tanzania could ever have been accused of.
        _mlbt 2y ago
        I would say that it was one of the most successful attempts at nation-scale socialism, but ultimately still a failed experiment. As you said yourself the people themselves democratically voted for capitalism. > Julius Nyerere's leadership of Tanzania commanded international attention and attracted worldwide respect for his consistent emphasis upon ethical principles as the basis of practical policies. Tanzania under Nyerere made great strides in vital areas of social development: infant mortality was reduced from 138 per 1000 live births in 1965 to 110 in 1985; life expectancy at birth rose from 37 in 1960 to 52 in 1984; primary school enrollment was raised from 25% of age group (only 16% of females) in 1960 to 72% (85% of females) in 1985 (despite the rapidly increasing population); the adult literacy rate rose from 17% in 1960 to 63% by 1975 (much higher than in other African countries) and continued to rise.[4] However, Ujamaa decreased production, casting doubt on the project's ability to offer economic growth. > The most prominent ecological consequence during this time in Tanzania was due to the forced settlements by the TANU government and President Nyerere. During the time of forced settlement, TANU provided more artificial means of agricultural aid while cracking down on yield results and as a result, production yield began to decrease and land became underdeveloped. Land was not being utilized to its full potential and therefore, not only were crop yields subpar, but the biodiversity also became inferior. > There were also internal factors that led to the implosion of the Ujamaa program. The first was resistance from the public. During the 1970s there was a resistance from the peasantry to leave their individual farms and move to communal living due to the lack of personal capital that came out of the communal farms. This led President Nyerere to order forced movement to Ujamaa villages. Above quotes were taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ujamaa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ujamaa
piva00 2y ago
Mondragon's example goes exactly against all of your points. It's a 70k workers company ran as a co-op. You can have co-ops running and trading between them, the only point where capital is necessary is for investments in new businesses lines (in the sense of financing capital, not all capital, financing capital from banks can also come from co-op banks). Undesirable jobs are done either way if people are paid, there's no difference if it's run by capitalists, the government or a co-op, you need to hire people and pay them. A co-op would work the same way. Capitalism is definitely not like Democracy, democracy has been proven since ancient Greece to be a decent system to organise power, and it has evolved over time to be more inclusive. Capitalism has only shown that if left untamed and to grow on its own it will only consume more, exploit more, and remove freedoms of being a human being in the world if you don't pay up. Capitalism is useful but every decade it seems to be reaching the limits of what it can be, no better version of capitalism has emerged, every evolution of capitalism has only magnified its destructive power. Democracy has done the exact opposite.
- _mlbt 2y ago
  To counter you, at nation scale I can list off dozens, perhaps even oven over a hundred highly successful capitalist nations, with generally happy and prosperous citizens, but I can't think of a single successful attempt at communism/socialism at that scale.
- kwere 2y ago
  capitalism is about accountability and trust at scale compared to previous systems that worked on connections that didnt scale well across classes / countries / cultures. Bankruptcy, is probably the best idea came out capitalism. Competition between humans can turn ugly wheter on economic or political fields and "common folks" do ends up as collateral victims. Thats unchecked human nature
feedforward 2y ago
The entire world was socialist from the time of the Lubang Jereji Saleh cave paintings 40,000 years ago until 10,000 years ago. Societies with different classes only sprung up 10,000 years ago. They only scaled with force, and the literature from 4000 years ago to now attests to this. > Capitalism is very much like Democracy. It's the worst system other than all the others that have been tried. Hunter gatherer bands in the Amazon live the way they have for 50,000 years - even prior to crossing the Bering Straits. Whereas societies where the capitalist mode of production predominant were barely even formed less than 500 years ago. Also from the time of the Paris Commune to the Cold War until now, it has been racked with threatening crises. Even in the US we see self-described socialist politicians being elected nowadays. It's hard to make capitalism sound permanent when it has been so impermanent.
- _mlbt 2y ago
  That's not scale though. Socialism works great in small loosely organized tribes, but fails at nation scale every time.
  - namlem 2y ago
    It doesn't even work that well at the local level. The Kibbutzim in Israel were socialist for like 70 years, but now are almost all mixed market capitalist in some form or another.
    - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
      Capitalist internally or externally? Do Kibbutz have highly paid CEO's that earn much more than the members, and subject them to pay cuts? As pointed out in this thread, a Co-op is socialist internally by sharing wealth across more of the labor. But capitalist externally since it sells to a capitalist world.
- adolph 2y ago
  > Hunter gatherer bands in the Amazon live the way they have for 50,000 years As much as “noble savage” is a comforting story, the truth is likely more complicated. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67940671 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67940671 https://www.npr.org/2011/01/12/132853997/Amazon-Once-Was-Home-To-Advanced-Civilizations https://www.npr.org/2011/01/12/132853997/Amazon-Once-Was-Hom... https://davidgraeber.org/books/the-dawn-of-everything-a-new-history-of-humanity/ https://davidgraeber.org/books/the-dawn-of-everything-a-new-...
asimpletune 2y ago
Well, for what it's worth democracy doesn't scale without force either. Somebody, i.e. the state, has a monopoly on violence, to protect our property. In any case, you're just talking about state based socialism, like marxism. But there are other forms of socialism that do just fine and are alive today, like syndicalism. They work because they don't rely on a government to exist, correctly recognizing their power in industry. The best years of America for the middle class were when there was a good balance between decent paying, unionized manufacturing jobs and the customers who chose to pay higher prices and get American products.
- namlem 2y ago
  Syndicalism in practice is closer to capitalism than socialism, and the syndicates are the de facto state.
- sokoloff 2y ago
  There was a time when paying for US-made products was paying for better quality products (among other properties). As offshore manufacturing got better, buying American became much higher percentage “feel good” and much lower percentage “get better product”. Right now, there are some product categories where the highest-quality product in the world is not capable of being produced in the US.
  - _mlbt 2y ago
    Sadly true. There are also major product categories that are literally impossible to buy US made goods in even if you're willing to pay the premium for it. Additionally, many of the "US made" products are merely assembled here from foreign made components.
saalweachter 2y ago
> The problem is that socialism doesn't scale without force. Eh, not a problem unique to socialism, or devoid from capitalism. The history of labor in the United States is rife with both socialist (well, maybe anarchist) bomb-throwers and rich capitalists hiring private armies to gun down striking workers.
- kwere 2y ago
  striking workers usually would occupy factories, property they had no right to "seize". If workers quit / stopped showing on mass, nobody would have done anything

by _mlbt 2y ago

harimau777 2y ago

> Capitalism is very much like Democracy. It's the worst system other than all the others that have been tried. There are other systems that we've tried which work much better than the corporate Capitalism that we have in the United States. Most notably democratic socialism/social democracy/mixed economies (with the exact dividing lines between those three depending a lot on who you ask).

_mlbt 2y ago
I completely agree that capitalism as we know it is highly flawed, but history has proven that socialism is not the answer.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  Think you are mixing up Communism and Socialism. Socialism is alive and well and working. Every major capitalist society today (including US) has a percentage of Socialism sprinkled in to keep it functioning. Pure capitalism leads to a brutish tragic world, so some socialism is added to at least keep people from outright starving and rising up in revolution.
  - _mlbt 2y ago
    Yes you're talking about hybrids of socialism with capitalism, which are absolutely the way to go. History has shown that nation-scale "pure" socialism (which in practice nearly always results in a flavor of Marxism/Communism) is even more brutish and tragic than "pure" capitalism.
    - seabass-labrax 2y ago
      What would you say about President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania? His term in office was characterised by a peaceful transition from British colonialism to such a 'pure' form of socialism (including a full public ownership of all land and enterprise). This survived for three decades of almost completely peaceful, slow, and steady economic growth before the 90s, when it democratically voted itself into the capitalist state it is now. In fact, the only war Tanzania fought in that period was against Idi Amin's Uganda, which was widely regarded as a far more brutish and tragic country than Tanzania could ever have been accused of.
      - _mlbt 2y ago
        I would say that it was one of the most successful attempts at nation-scale socialism, but ultimately still a failed experiment. As you said yourself the people themselves democratically voted for capitalism. > Julius Nyerere's leadership of Tanzania commanded international attention and attracted worldwide respect for his consistent emphasis upon ethical principles as the basis of practical policies. Tanzania under Nyerere made great strides in vital areas of social development: infant mortality was reduced from 138 per 1000 live births in 1965 to 110 in 1985; life expectancy at birth rose from 37 in 1960 to 52 in 1984; primary school enrollment was raised from 25% of age group (only 16% of females) in 1960 to 72% (85% of females) in 1985 (despite the rapidly increasing population); the adult literacy rate rose from 17% in 1960 to 63% by 1975 (much higher than in other African countries) and continued to rise.[4] However, Ujamaa decreased production, casting doubt on the project's ability to offer economic growth. > The most prominent ecological consequence during this time in Tanzania was due to the forced settlements by the TANU government and President Nyerere. During the time of forced settlement, TANU provided more artificial means of agricultural aid while cracking down on yield results and as a result, production yield began to decrease and land became underdeveloped. Land was not being utilized to its full potential and therefore, not only were crop yields subpar, but the biodiversity also became inferior. > There were also internal factors that led to the implosion of the Ujamaa program. The first was resistance from the public. During the 1970s there was a resistance from the peasantry to leave their individual farms and move to communal living due to the lack of personal capital that came out of the communal farms. This led President Nyerere to order forced movement to Ujamaa villages. Above quotes were taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ujamaa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ujamaa

piva00 2y ago

Mondragon's example goes exactly against all of your points. It's a 70k workers company ran as a co-op. You can have co-ops running and trading between them, the only point where capital is necessary is for investments in new businesses lines (in the sense of financing capital, not all capital, financing capital from banks can also come from co-op banks). Undesirable jobs are done either way if people are paid, there's no difference if it's run by capitalists, the government or a co-op, you need to hire people and pay them. A co-op would work the same way. Capitalism is definitely not like Democracy, democracy has been proven since ancient Greece to be a decent system to organise power, and it has evolved over time to be more inclusive. Capitalism has only shown that if left untamed and to grow on its own it will only consume more, exploit more, and remove freedoms of being a human being in the world if you don't pay up. Capitalism is useful but every decade it seems to be reaching the limits of what it can be, no better version of capitalism has emerged, every evolution of capitalism has only magnified its destructive power. Democracy has done the exact opposite.

_mlbt 2y ago
To counter you, at nation scale I can list off dozens, perhaps even oven over a hundred highly successful capitalist nations, with generally happy and prosperous citizens, but I can't think of a single successful attempt at communism/socialism at that scale.
kwere 2y ago
capitalism is about accountability and trust at scale compared to previous systems that worked on connections that didnt scale well across classes / countries / cultures. Bankruptcy, is probably the best idea came out capitalism. Competition between humans can turn ugly wheter on economic or political fields and "common folks" do ends up as collateral victims. Thats unchecked human nature

feedforward 2y ago

The entire world was socialist from the time of the Lubang Jereji Saleh cave paintings 40,000 years ago until 10,000 years ago. Societies with different classes only sprung up 10,000 years ago. They only scaled with force, and the literature from 4000 years ago to now attests to this. > Capitalism is very much like Democracy. It's the worst system other than all the others that have been tried. Hunter gatherer bands in the Amazon live the way they have for 50,000 years - even prior to crossing the Bering Straits. Whereas societies where the capitalist mode of production predominant were barely even formed less than 500 years ago. Also from the time of the Paris Commune to the Cold War until now, it has been racked with threatening crises. Even in the US we see self-described socialist politicians being elected nowadays. It's hard to make capitalism sound permanent when it has been so impermanent.

_mlbt 2y ago
That's not scale though. Socialism works great in small loosely organized tribes, but fails at nation scale every time.
- namlem 2y ago
  It doesn't even work that well at the local level. The Kibbutzim in Israel were socialist for like 70 years, but now are almost all mixed market capitalist in some form or another.
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    Capitalist internally or externally? Do Kibbutz have highly paid CEO's that earn much more than the members, and subject them to pay cuts? As pointed out in this thread, a Co-op is socialist internally by sharing wealth across more of the labor. But capitalist externally since it sells to a capitalist world.
adolph 2y ago
> Hunter gatherer bands in the Amazon live the way they have for 50,000 years As much as “noble savage” is a comforting story, the truth is likely more complicated. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67940671 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67940671 https://www.npr.org/2011/01/12/132853997/Amazon-Once-Was-Home-To-Advanced-Civilizations https://www.npr.org/2011/01/12/132853997/Amazon-Once-Was-Hom... https://davidgraeber.org/books/the-dawn-of-everything-a-new-history-of-humanity/ https://davidgraeber.org/books/the-dawn-of-everything-a-new-...

asimpletune 2y ago

Well, for what it's worth democracy doesn't scale without force either. Somebody, i.e. the state, has a monopoly on violence, to protect our property. In any case, you're just talking about state based socialism, like marxism. But there are other forms of socialism that do just fine and are alive today, like syndicalism. They work because they don't rely on a government to exist, correctly recognizing their power in industry. The best years of America for the middle class were when there was a good balance between decent paying, unionized manufacturing jobs and the customers who chose to pay higher prices and get American products.

namlem 2y ago
Syndicalism in practice is closer to capitalism than socialism, and the syndicates are the de facto state.
sokoloff 2y ago
There was a time when paying for US-made products was paying for better quality products (among other properties). As offshore manufacturing got better, buying American became much higher percentage “feel good” and much lower percentage “get better product”. Right now, there are some product categories where the highest-quality product in the world is not capable of being produced in the US.
- _mlbt 2y ago
  Sadly true. There are also major product categories that are literally impossible to buy US made goods in even if you're willing to pay the premium for it. Additionally, many of the "US made" products are merely assembled here from foreign made components.

saalweachter 2y ago

> The problem is that socialism doesn't scale without force. Eh, not a problem unique to socialism, or devoid from capitalism. The history of labor in the United States is rife with both socialist (well, maybe anarchist) bomb-throwers and rich capitalists hiring private armies to gun down striking workers.

kwere 2y ago
striking workers usually would occupy factories, property they had no right to "seize". If workers quit / stopped showing on mass, nobody would have done anything