The ABCs of Socialism
Jacobin maganize have been doing a series of interviews with Vivek Chibber, a prominent Marxist sociologist whose recently released a couple of pamphlets on the basic orientation of socialist politics, which I think are really nice and gentle introductions to what socialism is. Of particular interest however, is Chibber's effort to distinguish between socialist politics, and the politics of progressive liberalism. I think this is an important project, because a great deal of people who see themselves as left leaning tend, I think, to identify themselves with the progressive liberal side of things, while eschewing, misunderstanding, or even confusing the specificity of what counts as a specifically socialist politics.
So here are the first two videos (there's a third to be posted tomorrow I think) and I'll post a quick summary of the main point for each video after.
(1) The main thrust of the first video begins by marking threefold distinction between neoliberal politics, progressive liberalism, and socialism. The distinction roughly breaks down as follows: Neoliberalism only recognises individuals as political and social actors, and does not give any credence to structural or societal inequalities or injustices. Any issues you have in life, are your faults alone. Progressive liberalism, on the other hand, does recognize structural and societal injustice, and does involve instituting policies designed to mitigate such injustices. Finally, socialism, while sharing with progressive liberalism the recognition of social injustice, adds to the mix an irreducible class element. It's just not just that social injustice exists: it's that it exists, and is primarily driven and perpetuated by, a certain class in society. Conversely, the non-recognition of class is what distinguishes PL from socialism.
(2) This distinction between progressive liberalism and socialism is very nicely cashed out when it comes to the question of the state. For progressive liberals, the state functions as a great equaliser. No matter how much money you have, or your position in society, each person gets one vote. This is supposed to - in theory - diffuse any accumulation of power into any one sector of society. The state is largely 'neutral' and simply adjudicates between multiple, competing interests, from all walks of life. For socialist politics however, political representation always skews in the interests of capital, because, to put it simply, that's where the money is. Capital funds the state, and political representation is always at the mercy of money. The state, in other words, is largely captured by class-interests. So the state is a nice 'case study', as it were, how the absence of presence of class analysis distinguishes progressive liberal politics from socialist ones.
This second point/video is I think especially pertinent, given how often state politics is associated with socialist politics, and especially with the 'co-option' of the name 'socialist' by the recent popularity of the American 'democratic socialists' like Bernie Sanders and the DSA. Anyway, I offer these wayy-too-brief summaries mostly as spurs to discussion. The good stuff is in the videos, which I encourage people to watch, even if just for educational purposes.
So here are the first two videos (there's a third to be posted tomorrow I think) and I'll post a quick summary of the main point for each video after.
(1) The main thrust of the first video begins by marking threefold distinction between neoliberal politics, progressive liberalism, and socialism. The distinction roughly breaks down as follows: Neoliberalism only recognises individuals as political and social actors, and does not give any credence to structural or societal inequalities or injustices. Any issues you have in life, are your faults alone. Progressive liberalism, on the other hand, does recognize structural and societal injustice, and does involve instituting policies designed to mitigate such injustices. Finally, socialism, while sharing with progressive liberalism the recognition of social injustice, adds to the mix an irreducible class element. It's just not just that social injustice exists: it's that it exists, and is primarily driven and perpetuated by, a certain class in society. Conversely, the non-recognition of class is what distinguishes PL from socialism.
(2) This distinction between progressive liberalism and socialism is very nicely cashed out when it comes to the question of the state. For progressive liberals, the state functions as a great equaliser. No matter how much money you have, or your position in society, each person gets one vote. This is supposed to - in theory - diffuse any accumulation of power into any one sector of society. The state is largely 'neutral' and simply adjudicates between multiple, competing interests, from all walks of life. For socialist politics however, political representation always skews in the interests of capital, because, to put it simply, that's where the money is. Capital funds the state, and political representation is always at the mercy of money. The state, in other words, is largely captured by class-interests. So the state is a nice 'case study', as it were, how the absence of presence of class analysis distinguishes progressive liberal politics from socialist ones.
This second point/video is I think especially pertinent, given how often state politics is associated with socialist politics, and especially with the 'co-option' of the name 'socialist' by the recent popularity of the American 'democratic socialists' like Bernie Sanders and the DSA. Anyway, I offer these wayy-too-brief summaries mostly as spurs to discussion. The good stuff is in the videos, which I encourage people to watch, even if just for educational purposes.
Comments (202)
"While voices of the left periodically worry that freedom has been lost irretrievably to the right, there is an ongoing contest in this country between elite claimants invoking freedom as a possession already had and subaltern counter-claimants envisioning freedom as a struggle to be won. Yet the real reason... to defend a politics of freedom is not that it fits into a national narrative or is an available vernacular—there are many of those, after all. The real reason is that it names the problem that an increasing number of people face today: systemic unfreedom in the neoliberal economy. By confronting that unfreedom, the left can do more than identify, in a coherent and cohesive way, the myriad problems that individuals are currently facing. It can offer people an opportunity for acting collectively, for creating the sort of realignment that in the past has reordered the policies and priorities, the broad language, of public life."
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/708919
Absolutely. But I think the reworked notion of freedom that falls out of this - freedom that 'takes care of itself', as you put it - is or can be an incredibly powerful element of political mobilization. As in: let's get to the point where freedom does indeed take care of itself - freedom less as originating principle (arche) from which politics flows (what one might call the 'liberal' understanding of freedom), than as a telos, that towards which we work. A kind of centripetal rather than centrifugal freedom, one that works from the outside-in, rather than the inside-out. Maybe I'm old school like that, but I'm not keen to jettison the vocabulary of freedom, so much as rework it.
"The third conception of “freedom” [in Marx] is the materialist notion that identifies it with power. “I am free” means “I am free to do... ,” and that means concretely that I have the power or ability to do....” To be more exact, Marx seems to think of the full notion of freedom as comprising the conjunction of the ability to determine what one will do and the power to do what one decides to do. Anything less than this is not freedom, but a mere shadow of that concept. This part of Marx’s analysis breaks dramatically with the account which Isaiah Berlin will eventually give of the concept of freedom. Berlin does not even countenance the possibility of construing freedom as power, but rather counts “power” as belonging not to liberty but to a wholly different subject, namely the conditions under which liberty can effectively be used." (Geuss, "A Metaphysics of Right").
Effectively this agrees with your substantive point: freedom to choose, without the freedom to determine the very choices set out, is no freedom at all. But this should not be confused with 'positive freedom', which has a very iffy conceptual history.
Let's call a spade a spade. Any organizational setup of politics is to coordinate how resources are distributed. In ANY system, you still have to coordinate. Coordination implies there will be de facto force. If you do not comply with the way society is setup, you basically end up physically suffering and dying at the end of the day. So, I feel debating socialism and free-market capitalism, or mixed economies, or whatnot is never quite getting at the realities of having to coordinate in general. Nothing really solves the more existential problems. The first decision of being at all, was never even something we had a choice in. No one considers the idea of de facto non-freedoms expressed in all situations of human coordination (which is necessary but due to this is unsolvable).
But isn't this the entire nature of freedom as it is really experienced? Sartre characterizes us as theoretically free, but at the same time constrained to choose within already well-defined material contexts, what he calls praxis.
Isn't the very nature freedom that it must be limited/defined in order to be actualized? Sydney Hook says that the limitation of possibilities is the necessary condition for the liberation of possibilities, and I tend to agree with this view. (Metaphysics of Pragmatism).
That's sort of what I was getting at above with "Coordination implies there will be de facto force".
Another formulation might be, "You are free to choose which form of coordination you would like to see people de facto forced by :).
Edit: So when people want to change from one form to another, but feel they are stifled, they are not stifled from true freedom, but rather stifled from what way to de facto force people to coordinate.
Hence my quote above here:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Not having to coordinate at all.. No conditions needed. It's a non-starter, but who says it has to be :). We can think of things that don't exist all the time. It doesn't mean it's any less of a better situation.
I see you deleted the posts I wrote. That's fine. Your thread. You are the moderator. I accept that.
I'll try to engage you regarding only what you want to talk about. So classes. What type of freedom do you think will happen in the idea socialist society? What salvation do you think will be had? I guess, what is the vision, the goal, etc.?
At the end of the day, it is who works for whom, what are the factors that force you to work for someone else. All of it is necessary due to our own needs and demands. There is no way out of that initial condition. What does it matter if you work for a nameless corporation beholden to shareholders, a small business owner, or some government organization? There might be more bureaucratic red tape, but that is micro-level stuff from management styles. Work is still going to be there. And guess what? You de facto have to do it.
I guess if the concern is with the "freedom" for more people to get to work certain types of jobs. Fine. But that's all that really comes down to. It isn't that interesting a question.. I mean I'm all for people born poor to get to be doctors and lawyers and such. I don't think anyone's going to disagree with that. And if possibly the best way there is redistribution and/or public takeover of certain types of industries. But at the end of the day, it is about people having a "chance" to do certain types of jobs. Goods and services can be redistributed all day, but someone has to make them and distribute them.
It’s nice to see this distinction. Modern liberalism is still liberal. Democratic socialism is still socialist.
The relationship between socialism and the state is an interesting one. Engels spoke of a “withering of the state”, that after people have either absorbed or have been indoctrinated in socialist ideals the state would become obsolete. I would argue that the opposite occurs, that the state only gets bigger and more entrenched after generations have been raised in it. Rosa Luxemburg, I think, predicted this. The gradual introduction of socialism through incremental social control (a la Eduard Bernstein) has proven to be failure for socialists, as it seems to have only made capitalism more palpable for the proles, and the state more powerful, socialism be damned. But I wonder the differences between Engel’s stateless socialist society and an anarchist society, if there are any.
At the end of the day it is still who works for whom. People have to work is the real thing here. Besides allowing more chances for people from different backgrounds to do different types of work, what is the difference between capitalism structure and socialism? Some people are going to naturally be able to create things that are valuable for society. Other people will always demand things that generally make things more healthy, comfortable or will entertain them. Other people will fall in line with whatever specialty skill they can offer based on their experience. It's just reshuffling things for distribution. I don't see how it solves any of the existential things like having to work itself, and having to coordinate and distribute resources itself.
Believe it or not many people want to work, not just out of necessity, but because it provides purpose, dignity, and fulfillment. So I don't see why we'd try to solve work as if it was a problem. Capitalism would, I think, allow the freedom to choose which profession or trade they'd like to pursue, whereas I don't think that is true in socialism, though I could be wrong.
In fact, America could dramatically increase its overall productivity...if it limited the number of people who are allowed to work.
EVERYONE should be provided with "enough"...and "enough" should be defined as the kind of life one could live if earning $50,000 to $60,000 per year.
That should be the basic.
Then...the ones allowed to work...can fight it out the way "getting more" is fought right now.
EVERYONE should be provided with the means to live a decent life without working for it...and then the ones who WANT TO WORK...and who are productive enough not to be a drag on productivity...can duke it out for the MORE.
Yes.
Quoting NOS4A2
No.
The people who are not productive should not be allowed to work.
Why not?
And many do not want to work. Better to give them what they need to live a reasonable life...and keep 'em the hell out of the way.
Right you are. Spending more time with the family...tending more carefully to the house and yard...reading more books...playing more golf...
...all make life just as fulfilling as working.
We've introduce BILLIONS of slaves into our workforce...and we are still struggling to work harder.
Fucking nuts.
It does not have to be that way. One can only live off others for so long.
Sure, some jobs will go the way of the dodo bird as technology advances, but that has been the case throughout history and production has only increased. So I’m not quite worried about that.
I agree totally.
BUT...not wanting to work often results in a person not doing a productive job.
I had a friend who was a night janitor at a YMCA. It was a great job...he loved it...and was good at it. He came in when the Y closed...and worked until morning when it opened.
He was so efficient, he could do all the cleaning (very much to the satisfaction of the Director)...and still have time to shoot some hoops; practice his handball solo; lift some in the weight room; work on the rat-a-tat-tat and heavy bag...and shower before going home.
Trouble was...every once in a while the local magistrate used to sentence some offenders to community service hours...and he would require some of them to satisfy their hours at the Y.
My friend used to end up with 6 - 8 - sometimes 10 "helpers" on some shifts.
On those shifts, the place never got completely cleaned...and he had to work his butt off after they left in order to catch up. Those shifts...no hoops, no handball practice, no lifting, no punching the bags, and no shower before leaving.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Ain't hard to figure out.
Right you are. No machine will ever be able to deliver TLC when needed like a human nurse; no machine will be able to serve up a shoulder to cry on like a good human bartender; and no machine will ever fashion a hand-made tie...or a home-made pasta dish like a competent cook.
But it is amazing how many jobs machines can do better and more productively than humans.
That is something we have to deal with.
Now would be a good time.
Apply the same logic to capital. They can only live on us for so long.
My wife works in a care home, she has a real work ethic but she says some people there just go through the motions...usually not useful motions either. Those people are a minority though.
I'm sure I've read that during war only 10% of troops do anything useful...but I guess as some get killed the less useful become useful..trained personnel fill the void.
Sounds like doublespeak without specifying what sort of exercise and coordination, and why it's necessary. Any group in power is going to be exercising force and coordinating their power. It's how they rule. But what sort of exercise and coordination results in a free society?
I'm guessing anarchists will disagree with this, and libertarians will limit it to a minimum of protecting rights. For the rest of us, what does this mean?
One could argue the various communist countries have attempted this approach, and have noticeably failed on the freedom front. I'm skeptical that freedom can take care of itself, because there are always those would like to have power, or deny it to others. That's why rights have to be explicitly protected.
I suspect that if everyone were guaranteed a decent life...MANY THINGS WOULD CHANGE.
I won't see it. (I'm 83) But my guess is that there are people alive right now who will see the drastic change needed. Capitalism, as now constituted in America, cannot be sustained. Capitalistic entities, by their nature, demand that profits be MAXIMIZED. What that means is that labor will get screwed.
Once we got past the hunter/gatherer societies...labor always has been the factor of production that gets screwed. Kings and nobles were not interested in sharing wealth with peasants any more than absolutely necessary. The rich class is not interested in it either.
Sounds fantastic, but can this be afforded? $50K times the number of adults in the US (rounded down to 200 million) is 10 trillion dollars.
The second part of this is that you're paying people not to work, unless they want to. Question is whether the economy can be productive enough to support the taxation needed to provide everyone with that $50-60K a year.
Sure. And on the other hand, does it seem that Trump is driven by the welfare of his voter base?
No, but luckily Trump is held in check by other branches of government and the Constitution. Despite all his bluster, he can only do so much.
And one could argue his voter base gets what they voted for.
If by that you mean what they deserve, then :up:
3rd and last video out!
Enlightening lectures. :up:
newspeak or doublethink iirc
Not in the slightest - perhaps the central tenant of anarchist politics is mutual aid and communal organization, and perhaps the central cry of all leftist politics is: 'organize!' Libertarians of course can all fall in a bottomless well as far as I'm concerned, but the point is that the augmentation of power by social and collective means is equally the augmentation of freedom. This is probably brought out best in the 3rd lecture of Chibber's above, in which collective action is the royal road to a free society. It's precisely the atomization and isolation of individuals - as is encouraged under neoliberalism, and oiled by the diarrhoea of American liberalism - that leads to the most grotesque destruction of all human freedom.
(Ironically of course, those in power know this very well: the fact that the powerful are 'well-connected' is not a result of power: it is a pre-condition of it. The powerful are the least isolated, most well-organized people on Earth - freedom accrues upwards because of it, even as they sell the snake oil of individually-engendered freedom, which many unwittingly buy into).
I don't think it's too obscure to think of power and freedom as interlinked.
You can only do a thing if you have the ability to do so. It can be more or less hard to do a thing, given the societal circumstances you find yourself in, and which you do not choose. Someone raised in a palace is going to find themselves having more opportunities than some kid thrown out on the street. Someone born in a country where criticising the state will land you in the gulag is going to have less ability to express their political opinions. Someone born without the ability to walk will have less mobility in a society where wheelchairs are not available. Someone born into poverty will have to choose crime to get by more often than someone raised in a palace. Someone born into a rich household with massive social opportunities, like David Cameron, will find themselves in positions of power with much less work; their choices are linked to levers of opportunity just not available for the hoi polloi.
A political idea of freedom that doesn't link to one's ability to exercise choice; regarding what actions they may choose, what effects their actions are likely to have; is one that sees freedom as irrelevant to the likely effects of a person's actions and opportunities. If you are more powerful, your abilities make more waves.
A homeless guy excluded from most opportunities because they can't get a job, so money stops them from doing anything; that guy's powerless. A society that makes that situation likely for some and not for others is one with big power asymmetries; big asymmetries in what people can choose.
If our economy can produce enough for everyone NOW...and we can make it more productive by removing counter-productive people...of course it can be productive enough.
We have much more than enough for everyone already.
We have enough food, enough clothes, enough shelter, enough education, enough healthcare, enough transportation, enough communication devices, enough televisions, enough refrigerators, enough tacos, enough nose hair clippers, enough ear wax removers, enough of EVERYTHING...and we can have even more if we were not forcing unproductive people to work rather than leaving the work to EFFICIENT willing people or machines.
Who is they? If you mean business owners, they are private citizens like us. Workers have, will and do run businesses.
Aye. And the majority of them do not see the majority of the profits their labour facilitates.
So when you're talking about people not getting the full benefit of their labour maybe you need to take a look at who is benefiting most from the labour of others...it ain't just the bosses. Bear in mind that there are half a million teachers in the UK...that's a lot of people like me paying their pensions....and they are getting 100% of their wage during furlough, I get 80%.
The left is so dominant in UK politics that a right populist movement sets policy, an old trade unionist that stood for old left values in Labour was vilified and sabotaged by his own party...
You do not care whether the things you write are true. You just assume they are without checking. Talking with you is a waste of time.
Teachers in the county that I live in are reasonably well compensated, have good benefits, and have a pension plan. They are also unionized.
So to look at it the other way around, you have no problem with not organizing and getting more for your work.
Utopian socialist communities have been tried and usually failed as well over short periods of time.
Democratic Socialism on the other hand (Scandinavian style) seems successful as long as the government sector of the economy is not allowed to become too large.
Unregulated capitalism (while generating wealth) seems to lead to concentrations of economic (hence political power) tends towards monopoly and creates classes (high inequality) within the society (current US).
Clearly we now have international corporations with budgets larger than countries, concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of a few, a supreme court which claims corporations are individuals, money is speech, and therefore allows unlimited influence by them on the political process.
We can perhaps agree on the problems, any solutions?
The problem here is what to do with the people who don't agree. Say I'm a farmer or business owner and you want to organize the community such that my capital is now the community's so I stop exploiting my workers. But I don't want that. So I get together with my other farmer or business friends and arm ourselves.
Now what are you going to do? Organize a larger armed force to overcome mine and take my capital away? Maybe you can convince my workers to strike long enough for me to give in, but what if I don't? Eventually that capital needs to be put to use, particularly if it's something like a farm.
Someone mentioned church. Let's say the community is rather zealous about their faith. But I'm not. Am I now compelled to observe the faith? Or is it just a happy coincidence that anarchists will not be zealots? Because there have certainly been communities in the past who were, and forced their members to comply.
And we can do that for anything a community organizes around. It seems to depend on the community being willing to respect the rights of its members. What if the community is racist or sexist? What if they don't like worshiping Allah or reading libertarian texts?
Old leftist ideas have died???
When did that happen?
Damn, I stay away from the news for a few hours...and history happened.
There is this small country in the far East called China. It has been a socialist/communist country since 1945. During the last 2 - 3 decades, it has made adjustments by borrowing ideas they see as useful from capitalism...while remaining decidedly socialist.
They are now the second strongest economy on the planet...and probably will move into the number one position during the lifetime of people now considered Senior Citizens.
Socialism has not failed as thoroughly as you are supposing in your opening remarks.
Depending on how one defines it, I am not sure it is a purely "socialist" country either and class divisions are developing. It is clearly not a democracy but appears to be run by an elite who unlike the current US administration rely to a great degree on technical and scientific expertise.
The Chinese government is worthy of discussion and they have lifted millions out of poverty in the last few decades.
So you don’t believe that teachers are worth paying much, if anything, or at least not worth a pension? Is or was your work worth having the ability to comfortably retire?
Quoting Chester
They’re not virtually unfireable. Also, I don’t think that you understand or appropriate the position that public school teachers are in and the kind of protections they may need.
I am hoping they China lead the world to understand that an amalgam between the benefits capitalism has to offer and the benefits socialism has to offer...is the best way to go.
I'd loved for America to have been that leader.
There is no chance of that happening.
Seems like the worst of both worlds. No thanks. China is authoritarian and highly conformist. If you're a Chinese minority, expect forced reeducation. If you criticize the government, expect jail time and a forced apology.
Northern Europe presents a much better balance.
What do you think socialism is defined as?
Really? 'Cause no one asked me, or in fact the majority of the human population, if the current socio-economic arrangement in which vast swathes of humanity are wage slaves for an exploitative capitalist class is OK. That seems to be much more of a problem than your hypotheticals. And if you want to shoot workers for striking or whatever, and you think that the problem with this scenario are workers, then so be it, I've nothing to say to you.
The fact that we are the wealthiest country that has ever existed...yet we have people who struggle to barely make ends meet...is a more scathing comment about us than anything ANY of our enemies has ever said about us.
The most frequent way billionaires become billionaires is to cheat and shortchange the people who work for them...and the customers who buy from them.
The current system sucks like a black hole...and must make major adjustments.
I think there are people alive right now who will see many of those adjustments made.
Wow, that is short!
If only.
Teachers in the UK basically have to fuck the kids to get sacked.
stealing Western ideas whilst sub-contracting for it. China itself is not a place for building and developing new ideas because the state can just take them from the individuals who build them at any time...that's why socialist states end up falling behind Western states.
Socialism kills individual endeavour.
So like... you see a supermarket like the Co-op or that company Mondragon and immediately put it in the same box as Stalin?
Bullshit.
Or if you are a religious person...horse shit.
My mate's son in law worked for them too...awful business, low pay and understaffed.
If you’re going to work with leftists you have to learn all 76 genders and not discount them.
Quoting Chester
You’re talking about the profit motive? Why would it be a bad thing to not have that?
One of the great things about starting a business is that you can apply any business model you like and run it how you see fit, even starting a collective. But socialism is an economic system, not a business model.
I guess that Lilly (co-creator of the Matrix series) is a sassy socialist. :razz:
Something apparently lost on @Chester, why correct me when it's his mistake?
I didn't say anything about shooting striking workers. I said defending my property in the hypothetical scenario if the community organizes to come take it for the common good, like has happened during certain Marxist revolutions in the past.
Point being what to do about those who don't agree with the way a community wishes to reorganize for the common good? Force them to go a long?
I see Mondragon and collectives brought up in conversation about socialism all the time, so I assumed that you were holding them up as exemplars. My apologies.
In some respects they are exemplars of cooperative ownership. But their existence is fully consistent with the usual hierarchical mode of organising a business, obv. There's nothing ensuring that all businesses empower their workers that way.
This is an excellent way to hedge your position and avoid thinking. It seems you've already decided that a socialist worker's movement ends in gulags and firing lines. Even though it was a socialist worker's movement that facilitated FDR's reforms that oversaw the longest period of the growth of people's livelihoods ever. With no gulags, no firing lines, just a heavily unionised and politically involved working class using their collective bargaining power.
That’s an important question. The most common practices as far as I can tell are gulag, re-education, murder and genocide. The threat of these punishments looming over the people’s heads leads to a life like what Ceszlaw Milosz described in The Captive Mind, where a premium is placed on every type of conformist, coward, and hireling. But these are questions champagne socialists refuse to face.
Ah. It seems we cannot even think without doublespeak.
But still, the problem remains concerning what to do with those who don't agree? If the capitalist system is to be dismantled, then how do you get people to give up their capital in favor of a better arrangement? Not everyone is going to be willing to go along.
It was an invitation, I'd've hoped you'd responded to the substantive bit rather than playing the "I'm not playing that game but really I'm still playing that game" game.
Freedom is freedom for those who think differently, to quote a socialist. Unless 100% of the community is in agreement, some sort of injustice or coercion has to occur in order to meet the wants and desires of socialist power. This internal contradiction seems to me why socialist plans always collapse.
I already gave you this:
Quoting fdrake
TLDR; freedom is in part freedom to exercise one's powers, and freedom from preventable sufferings that limit them. If powers are denied people by structural stuff, they would become more free by gaining those. You know, like being able to vote on more stuff, or being able to rely on a healthcare system and education system.
You already chose to respond with a one liner conjuring the fears of gulags and firing lines, then you responded to my frustrated remark that accompanied another substantive post with another one line dismissal (saying that I'm practicing doublethink), now you're saying I'm not engaging in good faith.
Two one line dismissals based off hackneyed crap, another one line dismissal that I'm a dupe, in response to the above and another substantive point. And you've got the nerve to accuse me of engaging in bad faith?
This summed it up well on Elon Musk's site...
I hope socialists don't believe anything like that, but I worry that is the outcome, at least for the sort of Marxist revolutions we've seen. Theres is no such thing as 100% agreement, even among socialists. There are always people in the community who disagree. Either we respect their rights or we coerce them. Problem is that some communities don't value the right to disagree. Religious groups have certainly had this issue in the past.
Is it so difficult to imagine that in a burgeoning organised working class, when they have political institutions and alliances, that they will be able to argue with eachother and come to compromises? And that they will be able to argue with capitalists and come to compromises? I mean, it doesn't always end in gulags. FDR was not the "gulags and firing lines" president, even though he was strongly supported by and strongly supported worker organisation involving outright socialists and communists.
Collective bargaining, I think, has superseded socialism. It can meet the needs of workers without having to violently overthrow this or that “class” (fellow citizens) and seize mob rule.
I’m a little more cynical. Why else would they pooh-pooh freedom unless they were justifying denying it to others, or admitting that they were by nature obedient?
Regulated Capitalism with Democratic Socialism would seem a good compromise.
I don't think the huge differentials in privilege and income we now see in U.S society now are necessary to have an efficient functioning society. Most would work as hard to make a million dollars a year as to make 100 million. At that level it is not the money really it is a competition about "relative worth" a "comparison to my neighbor".
Funny, because around 90% of human history was cooperative hunter-gatherer societies, so I wonder what nature we are actually denying.
Quoting prothero
The true reward for industry, innovation, and hard work is becoming clearer by the day. :death:
Quoting Chester
Money facilitates trade, fundamentally, and says nothing of wants. Beyond the basics, our culture largly trains our wants. We don't have to want what we're trained to want.
But people have been trading for wants, like silk and spices, as long as groups lived near enough each other to exchange goods, or travel to other lands was possible. It's true we don't have to want what we're being advertised, but we do still want more than just the minimum to survive.
How much collective bargaining from workers can do is in a reciprocal relationship with the relative power of capital and labour.
I think the relative power of labour and capital largely comes down to how steep the costs labour can practically impose through collective action are. It's in the interest of every employer to lessen what costs employees can impose; so you want big reserves of workers to hire from, and make it easy to fire people for organizing. Or in business speak; you want talent acquisition to have a big pool to scout and you want lean and responsive command chains.
The degree to which a society's politics will reflect its working class's interests scales with how much the working class can leverage their positions and what they value. If returns on capital investment dwarf returns on labour; and that's generally a thing; wealth concentrates. Wealth buys influence, wealth lets you do landscaping in the terrain of ideas, wealth gets to decide what is common sense and what is ideological blinker. Economic power and political influence tend to consolidate under state capitalism; and the two are essentially equivalent under hypothetical stateless capitalism.
So I see socialism as something like a point of no return in the trajectory of the political power (read: self determination) of the working class. Up until it's reached, the counterveiling tendencies of capital's self consolidating power will undermine worker's efforts to organize; either structurally through economic mechanisms, softly through media and education, or with outright warfare like installing preferred dictators and selectively neutering or subjugating leftist political agents or groups (even when they've got mainstream support). Capitalism places pretty steep costs on worker's organisation whenever it can and however it can get away with.
Ah, the "myth of the noble savage" was not the kind of pastoral peace and cooperation you envisage, I think. There was plenty of trouble within groups and between groups just not the kind of weaponry and resources found in modern times. IMHO
In any case, Chibber seems to be advocating the formation of working class “tribes” to organize (unionize, i.g.) and exert their collective power to essentially better compete for resources. This seems to be inline with your vision of human nature.
Marx never suggested anything like this and Elon never read Marx because he's not intelligent.
Say you own a factory under the current regime. Then a revolution happens and the law says you don't anymore, that whoever works there owns it now. The law continues to make it illegal for people to shoot people and take their property.
So the morning that law goes into effect, the workers of the factory come in to work as usual, then have some meetings about how to divide up the proceeds of their labor in the factory, now that they're in charge of that, not you. You "fire" them for plotting to "steal" from you, and tell them to get out, but nobody complies. So you call the police, as you usually would, to have them stop the employees from stealing your profits, but they say sorry, they can't help you, the factory belongs to the people who work there, they can divvy up the profits however they like. So you... come in with a gun, and tell them to give you the money they owe you or get the fuck out?
Who is "coming to take" anything from anyone in this scenario?
That scenario works. Other scenarios might require force, like collectivizing family farms. It has in the past. But going back to the factory. What if the factory owner hires a bunch of goons to guard the factory before the workers come in the next day to take ownership? Now the state has to step in and apply force.
Not everyone is gong to just hand their property over. Not everyone wants to join the revolution. They're fine being wage slaves at the factory. They don't even want to be in a union. So what to do with them? Force them to be good comrades?
Only to stop the goons from committing assault.
Hm, I'm not super familiar with Marx's writings on this topic specifically, but On The Jewish Question has some great stuff on what Marx calls 'emancipation', where he contrasts the liberal conception of rights with a more properly 'human emancipation'. Wendy Brown has a great treatment of that essay in her States of Injury, chapt 5 ("Rights and Losses").
That has happened as well, like with union busting. But in this case the property now belongs to the workers, so the state needs to back that when some of the capitalists are unwilling to hand their former property over.
What does liberation mean in context of the first page discussion on freedom where you concluded:
Quoting StreetlightX
Organizing people to push for reforms and better deals sounds good. But the Marxist rhetoric tends to carry a certain baggage when it comes to past revolutions, some of it involving the "exercise of force and coordination of power".
And capitalism kills people everyday by means of the exercise of force and coordination of power. What's your point?
I mean, you just have to look at this dystopian nightmare video, and the idea that collective bargaining is just fine as it is, or that corporations aren't shit scared of unions, can be seen for the joke it is. Or just watch American Factory and see union-busting at work. Or else consider Walmart, the US's biggest employer:
Both videos making the point to champion 'direct relationships' with 'associates' - i.e. no mediation or collective bargaining pls, we like our overbearing asymmetry of power exactly as it is.
Leftists are obsessed with money, they see it as an expression of power...so Marx explaining time through the concept of making money from clocks is a bit of a laugh.
The use of that phrase that I’m familiar with is in contrast to “minimum wage”, i.e. not just the least pay legally allowed, but enough to actually get by on.
Yeah I'd be rich too if my white parents made their money through exploitation in apartheid South Africa
Quoting Chester
a knee slapper for sure!
"Your three pamphlets, The ABCs of Capitalism, have just been published in Germany. In the introduction, we find the sentence, “capitalism is complex, but not difficult to understand”. Is that true?
Yes. Every aspect of social reality under capitalism has several dimensions, which is why it appears complex. However, it is very easy to understand the essence of capitalism: there is a small group of people who own almost everything, while the vast majority of people own almost nothing. This vast majority has to go to work for the propertied class every day. Take this as the starting point, and from there you can explain everything else – you just need to follow the tracks.
[I]You demand simplicity. Then explain in a few simple words: why overcome capitalism?[/i]
So we can live under conditions in which people thrive because they have autonomy over their lives. That is, in principle, a liberal conception. But it cannot be realised under capitalism, because most people spend most of their day under somebody else's supervision and control - namely at work. Every day, they sell not only their labour power but also their autonomy for a certain number of hours. Thus, they lose freedom, which in turn means a loss of self-determination. The power that the capitalists exert over workers doesn't benefit workers, it benefits the enterprise, which often enough turns against the workers. If you depend on someone else for your survival for the rest of your life, you are constantly forced to ensure that you remain competitive, i.e. cheaper and more productive than others. Your entire social environment is influenced and shaped by this competition, which extends into leisure time too."
So as much as I agree with his assessment, I don't see any way out of not working for something. You may not work for someone but you will work for something. That is what he doesn't seem to say. So what really changes? A group of people are on top instead of one guy in a business? I mean usually organizations, though hierarchical are dispersed in various departments with various people in those departments running them. At the end of the day there is a drone in sector G who is punching stuff into a computer, or punching stuff out of plastic, or painting fences, or digging up queries (digital or rock). It's not just about the power distribution, it's about the work. And because that itself is not even on the table, what does it matter at the end? More vacation days?
Workers are free to start their own businesses, become contractors, seek other employment, or work their way up the ladder. According to Google there are 30.2 million small businesses. One would think that if capitalism was the great evil of the modern world that the North Korean people would be flourishing. But guess what? The communist party there has had to allow a black market to spring up because it can't quite provide for the needs of the people.
Meanwhile, the evil capitalism has raised the standard of living over the past couple centuries for many, while the number of overalll poor are decreasing as they're finally able to take advantage of global markets.
It's not a perfect system and needs various protections and corrections, but it sure beats the alternatives humans have come up with so far. But maybe the next Marxist revolution will work out and deliver on its promises.
At any rate, as schopenhaur1 posted while I was typing this, people are still going to have to do work under any economic system, and some of that work is undesireable. At least until the robots are ready to do all the work for us.
Yes, because he's unconcerned with anti-natalist/pessimist bullshit. I said it before and I'll say it again, try to steer this thread in that direction and I will continue to delete your comments. You can peddle that crap elsewhere.
Blazin' saddles you're being touchy! It doesn't have to do with antinatalism. It may have to do with the fact that the problem lies in a) the work itself and b) that if not the current powers, then someone or something is going to tell people what to do. It is a critique. It seems like you don't like something I say or disagree and you threaten "Antinatalism and delete!". Now, would you like to address what I actually mentioned rather than red herring this about antinatalism?
I hope the government you are striving for won't run like this.
"Free" on pain of death or starvation. And again, the point is power asymmetries: the costs of doing these things are infinitely higher for workers than they are for employers, despite value being created by workers. In any case, the point is not to do away with work, but to work, if necessary, so that the benefits accrue to the workers, and not their employers. Hence the strategic goal of socialism: that workers own the means of production. And if you're seriously using North Korea as some kind of counter-example - it's about as socialist or communist as Trump's left arse-cheek - then come back when you're ready to take the topic seriously.
Fine, so say Lebron James leads a socialist revolution in the NBA. The slave owners are pushed out and now the teams are owned by all the various employees. So they show up the next day to figure out how to divvy up the billions of profit. But the players want most of it because fans come to watch them play, not the janitor sweeping the floors or the trainer wrapping an ankle.
So are things that much different for most of the employees? The problem is there is a huge asymmetry in what work is valued. Fans and media value the players. They don't care about any of the supporting staff. Yeah, someone needs to be scanning tickets at the door, but who cares what they make? I'm here to watch Lebron and the Lakers.
That's more of an extreme example, but you can imagine that Amazon programmers would think they deserve a higher share than the warehouse workers, since they're writing the code the business runs on, and there's no shortage of people you can hire to work in a warehouse, unlike skilled engineers.
You could argue that the majority of the employees can just outvote the players and programmers, but because of the asymmetry of value and the shortage of skill, the programmers and players can shut the business down if they don't get what they want. They can start their own business. You can always hire more ticket scanners and forklift operators.
And the fact that your example defends just about the biggest fucking waste on money on the planet - the exorbitant paychecks of sports stars - says everything you need to know about the utter inefficiency and waste that capitalism engenders.
You seem to miss the part where the skill of an NBA player or top engineer is rare, and people are willing to pay more for that. If everyone gets the same cut, then you've distorted the value of the market, and that's where shortages and starvation enter the picture.
The idea is that instead of some non-working owner deciding how much to pay the players and the janitors and keeping the rest for himself, the players and the janitors etc all get together and decide how much to pay each other -- and don't cut some non-working "owner" anything.
If it's much easier to find cheaper janitors than cheaper players, then sure, everyone involved in that decision will have motive to pay more for players than for janitors. Because the more money the business saves, the bigger a pie for everyone's piece to be cut out of, janitors included. But they get to make that decision; someone else doesn't get to make it for them all.
Back to the factory example. Say I decide to start a business. I purchase the land, have the building constructed, and buy the equipment. So now I offer you $25 an hour to operate the machinery. You say that you don't want to be a wage slave. I say, well that's what people get paid to work in other factories of this kind in this part of the world. You reply that you should share in the profits. Okay, so then I ask if you're willing to pay your share of the investment needed to get the business started, and take on that risk. If so, you can be part owner.
Is there something fundamentally wrong with that? What's the alternative? That the would-be employees all chip in to make the investment? Or that they take ownership as soon as I make my money back?
What's my incentive to start a business?
Considering that the NBA was among the first industries shut down as being entirely superfluous in the wake of COVID, I'd say the market is plenty distored as is. And of course, that we as a society decide to 'value' the rarity of some guy who can juggle his balls well is an entirely political deicison - it's not written in the stars, and to the degree that what and how we value is open to reassesment and reevaluation, we can well afford not to waste gargantuan sums of money on, effectively, an entirely useless activity - one that operates at the expense of others.
In my view, a solution to the problem would involve other facets of society being different such that businesses are more often formed by people coming together making mutual investments and mutually operating the business. Cooperatives, basically. That requires that average people have capital to invest in the first place, though. My objections to capitalism aren't so much the workplace stuff directly -- that's just a symptom -- but the deeper, more abstract, systemic features that lead to the imbalances of capital that lead to the workplace stuff. I identify the enforcement of contracts of rent (including interest, which is rent on money) as the source of that problem, in the absence of which the kind of capital concentration that gives rise to the workplace problems under discussion would tend to naturally dissolve under normal market forces.
Again, COVID has demonstrated this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
People value entertainment. Sports are just one example of that. There are other highly profitable entertainers. You can say all you want that they shouldn't get paid more than a school teacher or janitor, but people are still going to go sell out concerts and watch celebrities perform.
Quoting StreetlightX
The current situation is temporary. Sports will resume being played within a few months. One would hope a socialist revolution is aiming for a longer term solution.
Quoting StreetlightX
That's your value judgement. Millions of sports fans disagree. I wonder if you feel the same way about music.
Quoting StreetlightX
You mean provides employment. One wonders how some of those wage slaves feel about not being able to go to work during C-19.
These two things are not the same.
Quoting Marchesk
Pretty bloody good, by all accounts. And to drill it into you again: the point is not to get rid of work. It is to ensure fairly compensated work.
"But who decides and how do they decide what fair compensation is? I mean I agree the differentials in compensation present today in no way are fair; nor are they really necessary to reward industry and innovation. People would work harder for much less of a differential.
Ideally, anyone with a stake in how things are run. This means workers, employers, and even the surrounding society and community for whom the work impacts upon - and ideally enriches (and not just in a monetary way). I don't have any easy answers as to the mechanisms by which such principles might be incarnated. It's even possible and likely that the market will still play a role in some manner (markets, after all, are not capitalist: they existed long before capitalism, and will probably exist long after it. The problem with capitalism is the political elevation of a very specific configuration of the market as being the sole arbiter of value).
The first thing that must go (and probably the first thing that WILL go) is the notion that everyone has to earn their living...earn their food, clothing, shelter, education, communication, reasonable means of travel, reasonable amount of entertainment..
We should be more interested in insuring that everyone have those things without requiring that they work for it, because MANY people are so counterproductive, eliminating them from the productivity process will increase the availability of all those things, thus easier for them to be provided.
I saw this in the Daily Mirror the other day: Hooligans STARVING after season tickets CANCELLED.
I didn't really see it. But it's the kind of thing they'd write.
"We hereby reject any form of self-imposed austerity. We posit that we want nice shit for everybody and that is not only feasible but desirable. We will not put forth graphs announcing how much work (or not) will require such a project but will state that such a project is part of our desire for communism. We hereby reject all forms of feigned punk slobbiness, neo-hippie shabby chic, or pajamas in the outdoors. We see the stores of the bourgeois parts of town (& the newly-gentrified ones too) and say that we want that shit and even more. Capitalism is that which stands in the way of us having the shit we want with its hoarding of commodities only to sell them to highest bidder.
We’ve been told to live with less and less by not only Green Capital, but by the Church, by our liberal “friends,” and even by fellow comrades. Fuck that shit. Nah; if we’re going to be putting our shit out on the line it’s definitely not going to be so that I can live simply.
...“I want to shed myself of my first world privilege and not live confined by how capitalism wants me to.” If only it were so simple. We’ve actually read this sentence (though its intent we’ve seen many, many times). This is pure reactionary thought. To run and do the opposite just because capitalism displays certain social features does not make one an anticapitalist. It makes you a petit-bourgeois bohemian. We all want to not pay rent, or pay for food, or have to work so many hours of our lives but there is no outside of capitalism. Asceticism is not revolutionary. Even those nodes of autonomy scattered around the globe, like among the Zapatistas, or Marinaleda, Spain still have to contend with the fact that Capital has them surrounded."
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/l-a-onda-hostis-nice-shit-for-everybody
You've started in the middle. From where did you get the capital to purchase the land, building materials and equipment? By what right did the person selling them to you own them?
Structural decisions determine who owns what, so to start with you owning capital (or land) assumes a certain structure - one, for example where male children inherit, where property is owned by the first person to till it (or steal it by force of arms), where shared assets can be exploited without compensation (such as air and water), where exploitation (such as slavery) is not compensated even when later recognised as such. These are all capitalist structural aspects by which you acquired the capital in the first place. That's why some, at least fundamentally, revolutionary act is required to remove these structures and their effects.
Quoting StreetlightX
I don't think I agree with this. One of the ways capitalist businesses distort the market is by deluge advertising and flooding the media. Nike don't secure a high profit on their trainers because people all rationally decided that's what they wanted. If that were the case advertising need do no more than simply infrequently display the qualities of the product. But they don't, they saturate the media with messages designed carefully to generate demand (I know there are a few studies indicating that advertising doesn't work so I'm not declaring this as gospel or anything).
As such we're left with two options of the author. Either they're claiming an, as yet, undeserved ability to remain unaffected by the influences us lesser mortals succumb to (such that their own desire for material goods is independent of their capitalist culture), or they're claiming that such market distortion doesn't take place (or is insignificant) and Nike trainers sell so well purely because they really have tapped into some primal desire for a particular style of footwear. I don't buy either.
If removing the structures of capitalism is essential (and I think it is) then we have to at least acknowledge that huge sections of our culture have been defined by the dominance of capitalist institutions over the media. We could 'take ownership' of such cultural elements and go from there, but I don't see any compelling reason why we should.
There is where the question of force comes in for a Marxist revolution. You can't abolish the capitalist system without having people give up all their capital. Unless you plan a generational thing where there is a gradual redistribution through heavier taxes, outlawing inheritance and what not.
Assuming the generational approach can work, given that the capitalists will have time to influence the system back in favor of owning capital.
I agree with this sentiment. If you're going to create the Marxist "utopia", then aim for one that offers the same perks as the capitalist one. The majority of us don't want to go back to lifestyle of peasants or monks. That's not a good selling point.
That's the point of revolution (by which I mean a radical structural change, not necessarily 'up against the wall' red tides). It is because we are 'in the middle' that we cannot simply tweak things here and there. If, for example, current patterns of property ownership are simply accepted then existing power relationships will never change.
Quoting Marchesk
I think @StreetlightX dealt with this perfectly well so I'm not going to repeat the whole thing. Force is being used to maintain ownership of possessions as they are. If I set up camp in a corner of your estate the police would force me off. And as @fdrake has already said, force need not be bloody. Just increasing top-level taxation forces people to give up their possessions. No guillotines needed.
Quoting Marchesk
Probably not enough on its own no, but I'm broadly in favour of 100% inheritance tax (above a reasonable threshold). I think it would be a start.
The problem with many of the communist revolutions is that the communist party replaces the capitalists, because that's seen as a necessary step to force society to restructure. But you end up with an authoritarian government, a command economy, and those in the party being more equal than everyone else.
Which I would say is a good thing in general, because people want to own their own shit. It's bad when there's an excess of wealth and poverty. So I don't really need that corner of the estate, and thus raise my taxes to provide the poor family nearby more of a means to escape poverty or a better place to live.
What's not good is deciding I should have no estate, because it all belongs to the community. If you want to wreck an economy, that's a good way to go about it.
If modern hunter-gatherer communities are anything measure of how we used to live (which is, of course uncertain) then for the vast majority of human history we did not particularly "want to own our shit". Again, as I said in my earlier post, capitalist institutions have dominated influence over our culture for hundreds of years. Either you'd have to argue that such influence has no effect whatsoever (which would be quite a radical argument) or you have to acknowledge that "what people want" is not a fixed factor and is to a greater or lesser extent, determined by the the very institutions who benefit from those desires.
You'll have to spell that out. I'm not an economist but I don't think it would wreck the economy, and I'm pretty sure at least a few people who are economists agree, so apart from saying "no it won't" I don't have much to argue against unless you detail the way in which declaring property to be owned by the community would bring about this economic disaster.
I think it was more of what worked as a survival strategy for hunter-gatherers. Either way, I don't think using hunter-gatherers as a guide for of a high tech economy in a world of 7.8 billion people and global trade is very useful.
The argument would be is that it destroys incentive. But I was more thinking about the short term chaos of declaring all property public. A lot of people will not be in favor of that, for starters. And then you'd have arguments over how to fairly divide everything up, and what happens to all the former capitalists. And you'd have the poorer people who think it's their turn to own shit instead of sharing the wealth.
Question: are socialists for private property in general as long as it isn't being used for capital to exploit workers?
So I prefer to not make that distinction, and to instead focus on making it in people’s interests not to buy more than they’re going to need for their own use, and to sell off excess that they’re not using. Achieving the same ends — people only own the things they use — without any of those procedural problems. I think getting rid of rent (and interest) would accomplish that.
I wasn't suggesting it as a guide, merely pointing out that the idea of humans "just being" some way or other is wrong. We are mostly whatever our culture makes us, change the culture, you change who we are.
Quoting Marchesk
I don't think it need be chaotic, we have infrastructure which can handle complex multinational trade, armed conflicts, domestic security... Why would economic transition suddenly be irredeemably chaotic, it's not significantly more complex than other aspects of government.
Quoting Marchesk
As per above. I don't think there's a lot of evidence for the idea that humanity as a whole are 'into' any set thing. People are 'into' property ownership at the moment because we have a culture which marks it as a symbol of status (among other factors). If we change that culture there's no theoretical reason why people would not be in favour. There'll always be dissent, but there's dissent now, domestic security handles it perfectly adequately.
Quoting Marchesk
Again, how are these not issues society already deals with. We already have disagreements about how resources should be allocated, we vote or reach consensus on it. We already have people who think they should own what's not legally theirs, they're called theives and the police deal with them (sort of). None of this is more challenging than what we already deal with, we're hardly living in utopia.
By "at the moment", you mean the history of civilization?
Quoting Isaac
We're not ants, as someone once said regarding socialism.
Quoting Isaac
Good luck with that. I can see Northern Europe style socialism/capitalism. I can't see the full blown thing becoming mainstream in places like the US.
Not entirely what I meant, but even so it would be a fraction of human history.
Quoting Marchesk
Well, I'd be interested to discuss what empirical support you'd be using for any argument that our desires are not heavily influenced by our culture.
Quoting Marchesk
They said the same about democratic parliaments, abolishing slavery, religious freedom, emancipation of women... Basically every major societal change has been preceded by a chorus of "that'll never work, society will crumble/rebel/regress" from the conservative old guard. What makes you think community ownership is any different?
The 20th century. Communism has been tried.
I wasn't talking about Communism, but yes, it's been tried. So's capitalism. Rising inequality, unprecedented suicide rates and it looks like we might very well make the world uninhabitable in the next 100 years...so where does that leave us?
"Cutting through the culture war was Sanders’s gift. Unfortunately, since his exit from the race it has come roaring back with even greater stupidity: liberal lockdowners versus freedom fighters in open-up USA; faux outrage at Nancy Pelosi calling Trump obese; China-virus versus COVID-19. The only thing all of these fights have in common is that none of them deal with socialist politics, none of them advocate for a particular policy or social reform that would help regulate our economy in working people’s interests, none of them help organize the have-nots together by virtue of their shared economic interest against the haves. In fact, all of them succeed in burying any analysis of political economy beneath an avalanche of cultural commentary."
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/05/we-need-a-class-war-not-a-cultural-war
Along the lines of what Isaac may have been suggesting, the capitalist imperative of economic growth is baked into our culture, is baked into us, and it is simply unsustainable. Also, a cultural shift is possible whereby the meaning of ‘well-being’ is more eudaemonic than economic.
Given the apparent lack of real well-being in our capitalist world, true well-being should be an attractive selling point.
Claims of unsustainability have been made since Malthus, but so far technological progress has outstripped worries about carrying capacity, energy and resource shortages. And there's more to come with AI , nanotech, biotech, 3D printing, ubiquitous bandwidth and progress in fusion.
In the long run, we have a giant ball of nuclear energy in our sky, and the rest of the solar system for resources. We just need to make it through this century.
Here's a counter question. How do you know that tapping the brakes on economic growth doesn't halt progress in fields needed to address climate change, pollution or feeding 10 billion people by 2050?
Not really, peak oil may have already occurred, and economic growth is dependent on energy that is relatively cheap. Increased efficiency, substitution, and technological progress may not be able to compensate for a declining supply of cheap energy. Clearly there's still a lot of oil, minerals, and water in the world, but all the low lying fruit has been picked, so to speak, and it will become increasingly costly to extract more in the future, not to mention more hazardous to the environment.
How can money be based on future growth if it looks like the future will be more expensive?
Quoting Marchesk
There's no technology in existence today where this can compare with oil or minerals and clean water found on earth. This points to an inevitable downturn. I can't imagine what a society/economy would look like where economic growth was possible with the enormous cost of harvesting minerals off-world, if that's the sort of thing you're suggesting.
Quoting Marchesk
We already possess the technology to address climate change, pollution, and feeding every mouth on earth today. So why don't we use it? In other words, technology won't save us, we have to somehow decide to save ourselves.
Suddenly I do not give a flying hoot about most burglary or "looting".
My country sucks ass
As they put it here, wage theft in Australia is a business model, not an accidental bit of economic fallout. This no doubt applies across the ocean too. And this is to say nothing of the social distribution of who this affects in the main - usually the poorest and most precariously perched workers. Fuck.
Do you not care about local businesses? What about when the businesses (local or chain) relocate, leaving their area more destitute?
God forbid people have a places to work and shop.
You can look it up yourself. I'm not here to answer every shit objection you pose which you subsequently abandon after being shown wrong. Its bad faith and shit and you should stop being shit.
Clearly they don’t. Why fret about flesh and blood human beings when you can making sweeping generalizations? That’s why human beings are often the brick and mortar of socialist schemes. Can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
Do they dock your rubles for going off-script? I think you’re supposed to say that ‘blue lives matter’. Anyway, indeed, change isn’t always easy, especially when the deck is stacked against you.
"A categorical error is made in any media narrative resting on the idea that protests “turn” violent, or counterprotesters instigate violence in these circumstances. The error exists in the tacit suggestion that there was a situation of nonviolence, or peace, from which to turn. Any circumstance in which cops take black life with impunity, any context in which it is still necessary to state that Black Lives Matter, any situation where neo-Nazis march and murder, is a background state of constant violence. Yet the media consistently attributes the act of turning to violence to people who literally cannot turn from it, whose lives and deaths are organized by it. In the book, I cite the late philosopher Bernard Williams who wrote, “To say peace where there is no peace is to say nothing.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/natasha-lennard-fascism-book/
In case who or what Antifa is confuses anybody.
It's OK, I already know it's the devil because some conservative dickwad on Fox told me so. :lol: :fire: