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This may sound rude, but "democratic socialism" is just wishful thinking. How can regulations stop corruption? Is that really your best bet? I'm a socialist be

This may sound rude, but "democratic socialism" is just wishful thinking. How can regulations stop corruption? Is that really your best bet? I'm a socialist because I know you can't stop it that way. It's simply impossible. They will corrupt/lobby/influence their way around it. They currently do. What is your plan? To REALLY SUPER DUPER trust the next candidate you have zero control over? "Democratic socialism" is not democratic or socialism. Socialism is actually democratic and prevents exploitation. The only way to actually stop it is to not allow individuals to profit off of others. Individuals shall make their OWN assets through their own muscles. No ownership of property that allows you to reap what others sow. It's logically the only way to avoid power imbalances. And it's something that we all enforce and control through local councils. Remember, democracy is not trust, its control.

lazide 1y ago
How do you propose actually implementing that though? Any group larger than a dozen is fundamentally going to have someone else controlling other peoples stuff - de facto or de jure. It’s how things scale.
- Atlas667 1y ago
  Im the person he replied to, check this: "So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state." Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917) So, the goal is that the people must become the state directly and dissolve the divide. And so representative systems are necessary, as you say. And representative systems are not inherently bad. What makes them bad is the other parts of society that allow a small group of people to take advantage of representative systems. That small group is the capitalist class. Their control of production, and their profits give them a front row with the state. Representation is all about context. In order for the people (AKA literally everybody) to become the state we must undo that power imbalance and let people control production themselves.
  - lazide 1y ago
    This is just a restatement of the same non-answer. The ‘steel foundry in every village’ of Maoism didn’t change anything either. Well, it kind of did by causing mass starvation. How do you propose this would actually work?
    - Atlas667 1y ago
      Mass starvation was very, very common in that region of Asia. Refer to this link, but of course dig more into them to learn more. Wikipedia is like average-tier knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China What is interesting to note is that none of the other famines listed is attributed to ideological systems, just the last one even though monarchy ruled for the longest time. Also there has never been another famine in China since. But, anyways, I am not particularly fond of modern China and their affinities for capitalist production. > How do you propose this would actually work? The organization of the masses into our own political force. I dont mean middle class white people, I mean everybody. It literally requires the reorganization of our lives for the creation of mass democracy. It requires proactive participation of all of us that can. It requires physical tools as well as organizational tools. Democracy is something we do, not something that is done for us. We would eliminate the regional bourgeois-state and replace it with the organized peoples representatives with essentially accounting roles FULLY accountable to regional and neighborhood councils. (blockchain could help manage funds) No more politicians with wealthy connections. No more policy groups deciding what goes on. It would be a council of representatives selected and organized by neighborhood councils whose collective aim would be the control of regional production. No more bourgeois-courts, it would be replaced by a peoples courts. And you may say "That's what we have now", but it isn't. Your average citizen is so far removed from any democratic action and money has taken such a hold in politics that even voting is totally nullified in our system. That's why we call it bourgeois-democracy. Candidates are just celebrities/performers for their billionaire constituents and average people have ZERO control over candidates and their policies. Policy does not come from the people. THERE IS NO DEMOCRACY WITHOUT MASS DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION. And the reason that this cannot be taken advantage of within socialism is at the very core of socialism itself: and it is that through revolutionary education, people would learn to spot capitalists and eliminate them from social life. Like a person would stop a thief stealing in your own house. And we're talking about capitalists as a class, not necessarily individuals. No one will be allowed to own production for profits. No one will be allowed to employ other persons for a profit. People would enforce this with an iron fist in order to preserve their own working class power. Just like if you see slavery you would stop it. Right? In the same way that slavery was extinguished and made unacceptable, so would capitalism. We would halt it as one would halt abuse on a street. If someone is using property to make profit from you they would be jailed as the only way to profit would be through wage theft, meaning paying employees less than what they worked for. Wage theft would be made a serious crime. Unlike today. This is the "grandiose" check and balance of socialist representative democracy that through the democratization of production we dont allow individuals to leverage production. There shall be no profit-market from production. We would then start reigning in that production and use production solely for the sake of satisfying needs, not generating private profits. Work would be a right, guaranteed. More workers is only better (except if you're producing for profits). Think about that, capitalism is the only economic system where more workers is worse because for-profit-production cant handle so many workers. These are just thoughts I have from actually reading communist literature. At least read something. I've read about everything before making up my mind. Its called being intellectually honest. Read about past revolutions from the perspective of people who were there, not the perspective of ideologues fear-mongering funded by millionaire think tanks. What is also very important to understand is that these 20th century revolutions were never "induced" by communists. They truly did arise from mass discontent, what the communists leaders did was guide the discontent into an organized form through teaching people who didn't even know how to read how to liberate themselves from for-profit-production. Democracy is not something some dude on the internet writes into a chat box. We will decide on the best way to organize ourselves when the time comes, but private production ALWAYS leads to authoritarianism.
ben_w 1y ago
> How can regulations stop corruption? Regulations enforced by courts are the only tool functioning societies are willing to use to limit corruption, including under communism. Some forms of communism are anarchic and just assume it will work without it, but then I can say this about anarch-capitalism too, and it's just as wrong there. > The only way to actually stop it is to not allow individuals to profit off of others. There are many kinds of profit besides the currencies broadly recognised today. Money itself is a fungible token of power, and the very same corruption works just as effectively when it's any other form of power. It's even possible just by barter, as demonstrated by that guy who swapped his way from a paperclip to a house: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip To actually stop corruption would require an incorruptible omniscient surveillance system, and I know of nobody who wants one of those even in principle due to the downside of what "omniscient" means, and in practice it doesn't matter anyway due to the lack of incorruptible people to act in this role. > And it's something that we all enforce and control through local councils. Ah, the small-commune model of communism. For reasons too long to go into, this limits you to roughly the tech level of the Late Bronze Age collapse. Even then, this is only even stable until someone outside your council comes along with an army, and at best they insist you use modern tech you previously couldn't import because you abolished money, at worst you're working for a 1700 AD equivalent to the Spartans.
- Atlas667 1y ago
  Regulations themselves are not bad, but regulations without changing any of the power/property relations in society politically means NOTHING for the masses (you and I are part of the masses btw). You are doing wishful thinking. The world is not ideas the world is real. Regulations meets deregulation backed by billionaires. They can completely fund political candidates and judges. They can carry out conspiracies to avoid and circumvent regulations. In fact they do. The powerful already are the law, dont you see? They cant do everything they want, but they do almost all of it. Do you think politics is as it seems? The very existence of the massive power imbalance requires you to think deeper about how politics works and not believe the illusion of modern democracies. > There are many kinds of profit besides the currencies broadly recognised today. Your mentioning of "many kinds of profits" is ignorant, we're talking about profits and capital, it doesnt matter what the currency is. The rule is still exactly the same: The accumulation of profits from the work of others leads to power imbalances. The type of currency is irrelevant. And the red paperclip thing was a stunt, it is not an inherent part of modern economies. Its not "real". > To actually stop corruption would require an incorruptible omniscient surveillance system Nah. Blockchain can be used for managing funds. In fact the function of the state should be reduced to accounting, which almost anyone could do. > Ah, the small-commune model of communism. Im not talking about that. Read Lenin, real democracy requires local councils. Small communes dont work. Honestly, dude, I can tell you know nothing about communism, marxism or even power dynamics in politics. I'm not being rude. Read about it, because if not youre just hating because someone told you to. Like I said before: Marxism is a framework that describes the progression of society through socioeconomic theories. It implies the democratization of production. Thats whats so bad about it, according to the rich and their state. Thats why they made you hate it without you even knowing what it is.

lazide 1y ago

How do you propose actually implementing that though? Any group larger than a dozen is fundamentally going to have someone else controlling other peoples stuff - de facto or de jure. It’s how things scale.

Atlas667 1y ago
Im the person he replied to, check this: "So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state." Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917) So, the goal is that the people must become the state directly and dissolve the divide. And so representative systems are necessary, as you say. And representative systems are not inherently bad. What makes them bad is the other parts of society that allow a small group of people to take advantage of representative systems. That small group is the capitalist class. Their control of production, and their profits give them a front row with the state. Representation is all about context. In order for the people (AKA literally everybody) to become the state we must undo that power imbalance and let people control production themselves.
- lazide 1y ago
  This is just a restatement of the same non-answer. The ‘steel foundry in every village’ of Maoism didn’t change anything either. Well, it kind of did by causing mass starvation. How do you propose this would actually work?
  - Atlas667 1y ago
    Mass starvation was very, very common in that region of Asia. Refer to this link, but of course dig more into them to learn more. Wikipedia is like average-tier knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China What is interesting to note is that none of the other famines listed is attributed to ideological systems, just the last one even though monarchy ruled for the longest time. Also there has never been another famine in China since. But, anyways, I am not particularly fond of modern China and their affinities for capitalist production. > How do you propose this would actually work? The organization of the masses into our own political force. I dont mean middle class white people, I mean everybody. It literally requires the reorganization of our lives for the creation of mass democracy. It requires proactive participation of all of us that can. It requires physical tools as well as organizational tools. Democracy is something we do, not something that is done for us. We would eliminate the regional bourgeois-state and replace it with the organized peoples representatives with essentially accounting roles FULLY accountable to regional and neighborhood councils. (blockchain could help manage funds) No more politicians with wealthy connections. No more policy groups deciding what goes on. It would be a council of representatives selected and organized by neighborhood councils whose collective aim would be the control of regional production. No more bourgeois-courts, it would be replaced by a peoples courts. And you may say "That's what we have now", but it isn't. Your average citizen is so far removed from any democratic action and money has taken such a hold in politics that even voting is totally nullified in our system. That's why we call it bourgeois-democracy. Candidates are just celebrities/performers for their billionaire constituents and average people have ZERO control over candidates and their policies. Policy does not come from the people. THERE IS NO DEMOCRACY WITHOUT MASS DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION. And the reason that this cannot be taken advantage of within socialism is at the very core of socialism itself: and it is that through revolutionary education, people would learn to spot capitalists and eliminate them from social life. Like a person would stop a thief stealing in your own house. And we're talking about capitalists as a class, not necessarily individuals. No one will be allowed to own production for profits. No one will be allowed to employ other persons for a profit. People would enforce this with an iron fist in order to preserve their own working class power. Just like if you see slavery you would stop it. Right? In the same way that slavery was extinguished and made unacceptable, so would capitalism. We would halt it as one would halt abuse on a street. If someone is using property to make profit from you they would be jailed as the only way to profit would be through wage theft, meaning paying employees less than what they worked for. Wage theft would be made a serious crime. Unlike today. This is the "grandiose" check and balance of socialist representative democracy that through the democratization of production we dont allow individuals to leverage production. There shall be no profit-market from production. We would then start reigning in that production and use production solely for the sake of satisfying needs, not generating private profits. Work would be a right, guaranteed. More workers is only better (except if you're producing for profits). Think about that, capitalism is the only economic system where more workers is worse because for-profit-production cant handle so many workers. These are just thoughts I have from actually reading communist literature. At least read something. I've read about everything before making up my mind. Its called being intellectually honest. Read about past revolutions from the perspective of people who were there, not the perspective of ideologues fear-mongering funded by millionaire think tanks. What is also very important to understand is that these 20th century revolutions were never "induced" by communists. They truly did arise from mass discontent, what the communists leaders did was guide the discontent into an organized form through teaching people who didn't even know how to read how to liberate themselves from for-profit-production. Democracy is not something some dude on the internet writes into a chat box. We will decide on the best way to organize ourselves when the time comes, but private production ALWAYS leads to authoritarianism.

ben_w 1y ago

> How can regulations stop corruption? Regulations enforced by courts are the only tool functioning societies are willing to use to limit corruption, including under communism. Some forms of communism are anarchic and just assume it will work without it, but then I can say this about anarch-capitalism too, and it's just as wrong there. > The only way to actually stop it is to not allow individuals to profit off of others. There are many kinds of profit besides the currencies broadly recognised today. Money itself is a fungible token of power, and the very same corruption works just as effectively when it's any other form of power. It's even possible just by barter, as demonstrated by that guy who swapped his way from a paperclip to a house: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip To actually stop corruption would require an incorruptible omniscient surveillance system, and I know of nobody who wants one of those even in principle due to the downside of what "omniscient" means, and in practice it doesn't matter anyway due to the lack of incorruptible people to act in this role. > And it's something that we all enforce and control through local councils. Ah, the small-commune model of communism. For reasons too long to go into, this limits you to roughly the tech level of the Late Bronze Age collapse. Even then, this is only even stable until someone outside your council comes along with an army, and at best they insist you use modern tech you previously couldn't import because you abolished money, at worst you're working for a 1700 AD equivalent to the Spartans.

Atlas667 1y ago
Regulations themselves are not bad, but regulations without changing any of the power/property relations in society politically means NOTHING for the masses (you and I are part of the masses btw). You are doing wishful thinking. The world is not ideas the world is real. Regulations meets deregulation backed by billionaires. They can completely fund political candidates and judges. They can carry out conspiracies to avoid and circumvent regulations. In fact they do. The powerful already are the law, dont you see? They cant do everything they want, but they do almost all of it. Do you think politics is as it seems? The very existence of the massive power imbalance requires you to think deeper about how politics works and not believe the illusion of modern democracies. > There are many kinds of profit besides the currencies broadly recognised today. Your mentioning of "many kinds of profits" is ignorant, we're talking about profits and capital, it doesnt matter what the currency is. The rule is still exactly the same: The accumulation of profits from the work of others leads to power imbalances. The type of currency is irrelevant. And the red paperclip thing was a stunt, it is not an inherent part of modern economies. Its not "real". > To actually stop corruption would require an incorruptible omniscient surveillance system Nah. Blockchain can be used for managing funds. In fact the function of the state should be reduced to accounting, which almost anyone could do. > Ah, the small-commune model of communism. Im not talking about that. Read Lenin, real democracy requires local councils. Small communes dont work. Honestly, dude, I can tell you know nothing about communism, marxism or even power dynamics in politics. I'm not being rude. Read about it, because if not youre just hating because someone told you to. Like I said before: Marxism is a framework that describes the progression of society through socioeconomic theories. It implies the democratization of production. Thats whats so bad about it, according to the rich and their state. Thats why they made you hate it without you even knowing what it is.