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Socialism is completely incompatible with free markets. Free markets typically stop being opinionated beyond the concept of enforcing contracts/consent, i.e. pe

by ralusek 2mo ago

Socialism is completely incompatible with free markets. Free markets typically stop being opinionated beyond the concept of enforcing contracts/consent, i.e. people are allowed to structure their economic relationships with one another however they want, they just have to respect their agreements. Socialism is a prescriptive ideology, it is concerned precisely with the nature of the economic relationships people make. Labor theory of value. "From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs." Workers own the means of production. To the degree that people are able to freely structure their economic relationships with one another, then the vast majority of those relationships will look nothing like the prescriptions of socialism. To the degree that the economic relationships are made to look like the prescriptions of socialism, then the economic model would fail to be described as a free market. This is why in a free market/"capitalist" economy, communes can exist, Mondragon can exist...because you can structure your relationships with one another however you want. It's just that most people don't like that structure. "Capitalism" itself doesn't care at all if that's the way people want to distribute equity and control of the corporation. Now, if you want to structure an arbitrary economic relationship in a socialist communist country...good luck.

rapnie 2mo ago
>> Capitalism is ... OTOH socialism ... > No, socialism is not ... and capitalism is ... I often wonder if these classifications have long outlived their usefulness, and only lead to endless, often heated, ideological discussions about their definition. To the extent that those benefiting most from observably-broken-form-of-global-capitalism can use that as a tool to sow division and strife and ensure nothing changes. The gist of your and parent's comment is the interesting bit, where new systems and mechanisms are discussed.
- bit-anarchist 2mo ago
  I don't think it's a tool for sowing division. There is a significant group of self-proclaimed socialists who proudly stan the Soviet Union and Mao's China, so I think it's more of a case of ideologies being more messy than they seem. Personally, I don't care as much about the label themselves as I do about the relationships they describe behind.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    Socialism isn't well-defined except that it's Not Capitalism and claims to be better than capitalism. Even Hitler called himself a socialist!
bit-anarchist 2mo ago
Not sure why this comment is downvoted. In the context of Marxian Socialism and Command Economies, it's very much true that socialism is incompatible with free markets. Going even further, without a free market for labour, there's no true worker emancipation. Even with "worker-ownership" (read corporate-ownership under a democratic governance), each worker's power is still diluted by the governing body (which, funnily enough, means socialism strengthens capitalism as "control by those who own capital" while weakening capitalism as "free markets").
- js8 2mo ago
  > Not sure why this comment is downvoted I didn't downvote it (obviously), but, for starters, it confuses socialism with communism (and also makes a typical categorical error in assuming that FEATTATEATTN is an implementation rather than desired value). Second, it confuses capitalism (existing systems) with free market (some kind of ideal). It also pretends "free market" is a value neutral proposition. That completely ignores real-world role played by property, information, money and other multiparty relationships that socialism (and other regulations) try to address. Third, it ignores the fact that socialism has been, not extensively, but successfully, implemented in the real world. (Mondragon and other worker coops, postwar tripartity models of worker participation in company control, etc.) Lastly, it treats "free market" as an all-or-nothing proposition, which is never the case. There is, for example, no free market for nuclear bombs or for human children, and for a good reason. Which brings us to your second paragraph, why rejecting free market can emancipate the workers. Treating labor as a commodity means that the person who performs the labor loses their decision power to the market, and so they lose freedom. Thus socialism demands that you do not separate human from the labor, and so they should always have a say over conditions in which they perform the labor. (This is different from other commodities, which, being inanimate objects, do not have a say about how they are used.) Accepting that free market for labor shouldn't exist is not really that different from accepting that free market for slaves shouldn't exist; in both cases there is human freedom attached which shouldn't be simply subjugated to the decisions of the "free market". I would also say that worker coops show that your 2nd paragraph is empirically untrue. (Which is also bad for that model, because they often struggle to find capital, most of it being owned by capitalists who demand control over it.)

by ralusek 2mo ago

rapnie 2mo ago

>> Capitalism is ... OTOH socialism ... > No, socialism is not ... and capitalism is ... I often wonder if these classifications have long outlived their usefulness, and only lead to endless, often heated, ideological discussions about their definition. To the extent that those benefiting most from observably-broken-form-of-global-capitalism can use that as a tool to sow division and strife and ensure nothing changes. The gist of your and parent's comment is the interesting bit, where new systems and mechanisms are discussed.

bit-anarchist 2mo ago
I don't think it's a tool for sowing division. There is a significant group of self-proclaimed socialists who proudly stan the Soviet Union and Mao's China, so I think it's more of a case of ideologies being more messy than they seem. Personally, I don't care as much about the label themselves as I do about the relationships they describe behind.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  Socialism isn't well-defined except that it's Not Capitalism and claims to be better than capitalism. Even Hitler called himself a socialist!

bit-anarchist 2mo ago

Not sure why this comment is downvoted. In the context of Marxian Socialism and Command Economies, it's very much true that socialism is incompatible with free markets. Going even further, without a free market for labour, there's no true worker emancipation. Even with "worker-ownership" (read corporate-ownership under a democratic governance), each worker's power is still diluted by the governing body (which, funnily enough, means socialism strengthens capitalism as "control by those who own capital" while weakening capitalism as "free markets").

js8 2mo ago
> Not sure why this comment is downvoted I didn't downvote it (obviously), but, for starters, it confuses socialism with communism (and also makes a typical categorical error in assuming that FEATTATEATTN is an implementation rather than desired value). Second, it confuses capitalism (existing systems) with free market (some kind of ideal). It also pretends "free market" is a value neutral proposition. That completely ignores real-world role played by property, information, money and other multiparty relationships that socialism (and other regulations) try to address. Third, it ignores the fact that socialism has been, not extensively, but successfully, implemented in the real world. (Mondragon and other worker coops, postwar tripartity models of worker participation in company control, etc.) Lastly, it treats "free market" as an all-or-nothing proposition, which is never the case. There is, for example, no free market for nuclear bombs or for human children, and for a good reason. Which brings us to your second paragraph, why rejecting free market can emancipate the workers. Treating labor as a commodity means that the person who performs the labor loses their decision power to the market, and so they lose freedom. Thus socialism demands that you do not separate human from the labor, and so they should always have a say over conditions in which they perform the labor. (This is different from other commodities, which, being inanimate objects, do not have a say about how they are used.) Accepting that free market for labor shouldn't exist is not really that different from accepting that free market for slaves shouldn't exist; in both cases there is human freedom attached which shouldn't be simply subjugated to the decisions of the "free market". I would also say that worker coops show that your 2nd paragraph is empirically untrue. (Which is also bad for that model, because they often struggle to find capital, most of it being owned by capitalists who demand control over it.)