Marxism for beginners

...Thus the state is always invoked in order to drag us into this utopia while claiming it is only a "temporary" measure until we're "ready" for true socialism. The fallacy of this blatant. If an ideology supposedly only works in the pure, absolute execution, then it is an obvious pipe-dream. The converse of this in my opinion is that every (even incremental) de-regulation, real tax cut, or dissolution of government bureaucracy will produce some measurable to the economy and our freedom.

 

Thank you for agree with me that the socialism of a State is valuable to any private sector, merely for existing and providing those goods and services.

 

I don't want to interrupt your little moment (jk), but please enlighten me as to how a public service without profit incentive (and therefore an inevitably inefficient operation) is beneficial to private ones. In other words, how do UPS, Fedex, and DHL benefit from the USPS?

 

Thats easy,they benefit from picking and chosing which areas they want to be involved with ,the most profitable.

Now if the only incentive is profit for humans then what is music or ART?

is that not a worthy human thing ART?

Luckily the profit incentive based system is falling apart .Have you noticed ?

when is recovery coming any predictions 2012,13 or 14 perhaps?

Capitialism went from Profit incentive to credit creation a long time ago ,Credit Creation Incentive sounds about right!

Profit incentive please get into the 21st century.

Oh look the Government is printing Profit.No you are mistaking that which is profit from that which is credit incentive.

 

Who said temporary ?

no Communism brings to a end thats the end of the State dominance of human society of 1000's of years.

The other form of Communism {primative tribal hunter gatherer}the communism of plenty was the most long lived stable governmentless form of human economy.lasted for millenia.

The workers state is destined to its dying away by fact it is for the Abolition of Class based society ,why would society have need of a state when everyone is truely equal ?

the purpose of all states in history is to impose the will of 1 class over others with the armed bodies of society at its disposal above the society on wish it relies.

 

It benefits our economy to the extent there is more competition rather than less competition for those goods and services.

In a similar manner, the private sector is benefited by any complementary goods and services provided by the public sector.

How does your point of view account for natural public sector monopolies where there may not be a sufficient profit motive or sufficient means to accumulate sufficient capital in a manner that could be said to compete with the public sector endeavor known as Hoover Dam.

 

These two statements are opposites. More competition benefits the consumer at the expense of the producer. Therefore the private sector does not benefit from public sector competition. My argument is that neither does the consumer, because they are coerced to support an inefficient industry (like the USPS) with their taxes, whether you use mail or not.

 

I am not certain why you think equal labor for equal product is impossible, but unequal product for unequal labor is possible.

I think people also have a tendency to misunderstand the goal here. I get the impression that people think that under a socialist system they'd be given the same standard quarters and provisions no matter what they're doing or how hard they would work. That's not really what worker self-management is about.

A practical conception of socialist economic practice would be seen in worker cooperatives, where all workers own an equal share in the company and share the burden of running it between themselves. In a socialist society, the workers at that cooperative would get more resources (or money, or however it gets distributed--that's not really important for this basic discussion) if what they did required more effort. Their cooperative would earn more, so their shares would distribute more. They all have an incentive to organize efficiently, because efficient internal organization means they all get more from their equal shares. Everyone benefits when the organization works well. Maybe that means some degree of hierarchy, but that hierarchy would be based on self-expressed demands for efficiency, and would come with fair compensation for the loss of power in the workplace. This differs from investor-owned businesses, because in those businesses external forces (an investor, an owner, etc) impose hierarchies without adequate compensation for the loss of workplace power.

... and even if it was impossible, why would that make it less worthy a goal? It's not like any pure political system is practically achievable. Every sort of system, including the one we have right now, has problems. No doubt a socialist society would have its problems too, but that doesn't make it an unworthy goal. Ideals are never meant to be achieved. They're something to strive for--a vision of what you want, to guide you in selecting between imperfect practicalities.

The fascist ideal is no more achievable than the socialist goal, nor is the anarcho-capitalist goal, nor the communist goal, nor the monarchist goal. All systems have imperfections and practical differences between what is achieved and what is dreamed. The impossibility of a purely capitalist system is adequately demonstrated by the organization of labor and its violent resistance to the capitalist system. The fascist ideal is shown to be impossible because the people will not bear the social costs it imposes--fascist states inevitably fall to revolution. Socialist collectives, if established, inevitably fall to external aggression or internal accumulations of power. These are all dreams and ideals, never meant to be the actual conditions people exist under. They're like heaven--a goal to strive for, not something you're ever likely to see.

A socialist doesn't say "I must have my ideal or nothing," he uses his dream as a guide for more achievable reforms he can see to fruition. He asks himself "does this policy bring society closer to or further from my vision?"

Coercion cannot be eliminated, but institutional coercion can be resisted.

Socialism does not require selfless action, it requires self-interest and a perspective beyond economics. It requires a desire to be free. If human beings innately lack a desire for freedom, then of course fascism is the only option. If we accept that people can value freedom as much as money, then socialism becomes a possibility.

 

When did I say it was impossible? I don't remember anyone mentioning the principle of equal exchange.

What dictates the value of effort?

If one worker chooses not to work, does everyone not suffer?

This is why I'm so adamant that a system be practical in part as well. Pure systems are impossible because of people, nature, etc. (chaos theory), but in a real world system, the ideal must show advantage incrementally, or it is not a legitimate goal in the first place.

No, this is an example of discontent, which is irrelevant to the practicability of a system. Unions are merely an example of individuals banding together to extort employers. They may be a capitalist's headache, but are perfectly compatible with the capitalist system.

The fascist states fell to the T-34, but whatever.

Explain how relinquishing the concept of property rights and working and earning according to a directive is freedom...

If people are free, if there is no state, no police, what makes anyone behave? What makes them work? What makes them one job over the one they desire?

 

"I know the idea, the concept of communal living where everyone shares equally in labor as well as product but you are simply dead wrong in thinking that it's even possible."

If everyone is sharing equally of labor and of product, that seems very much like equal labor for equal product. Am I misinterpreting the quote, do you think that it is possible to share equally of labor and product?

Negotiation of labor prices. If the value is set too low, there will not be enough people persuaded to do it. You get more accurate valuations of labor if you aren't operating within a threatening context; in other words, you get a more accurate assessment of value when people are not compelled to work to eat. Implied threats of starvation distort the market. If people are free to do what they want, they will only accept fair compensation.

Only if we ignore the frictional costs of employment and the structural costs of a system that requires people to work. It's not really efficient to structure society in a way that forces people to work--it means you have to adopt a number of inefficient social structures in order to do so. It does not even remotely make sense to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in economic rent to an owner in order to build an institution that will compel two dozen people to work at poverty-level jobs. What's the point? If people are only showing up to work so that they can hurry along home to really enjoy their lives, all they're going to do is slow down work in general. They're going to get in other people's way, and you won't even be able to rely on them to do the work correctly. Plus there's the institutional costs of adding more people--more workers means more time spent communicating to each worker, and ultimately it means hiring more managers to manage a larger workforce.

What's the point in building inefficient institutions just so we can force people who don't want to work to work in a meaningless job? It's not like we have some crushing demand for unskilled labor that we've got to fill right now. If anything, companies are struggling to come up with work for them to do anyway. It's probably more efficient to just offer everyone a subsistence-level living merely for breathing. The frictional and structural costs of forcing them to work probably exceed the social cost of their studio apartment and monthly food bill. In other words, someone who doesn't want to work isn't going to contribute enough to the workplace to justify the effort of forcing them to work.

Practical compromises establish themselves. This is the first rule of negotiation; you have to set your initial demands way higher than what you're willing to settle for, if you ever want to find a suitable compromise. When you're haggling over the price for something, you always set the initial price way in your favor, with the understanding that you'll negotiate closer to the other party's goal.

If you go ahead and start from the practical compromise, you won't arrive at a happy compromise--the other party will get more of what they want, and you less.

In other words, don't worry about trying to theorize about what sort of 'practical' ideology you ought to promote... worry about figuring out what you want, fight to achieve it as best you can, and understand that what's really going to happen is going to be between your goal and everyone else's goal.

You can't have a stable political system with mass discontent. Regular waves of revolts are not practical. If your 'practical' system makes everyone so unhappy that they won't stand to have you as their ruler, that's not a practical system.

Only as long as unions limit themselves to negotiation of wages and benefits. As soon as unions start talking about reforming workplace power relationships, or establishing worker self-management, they step well outside of the capitalist system... and get slapped down for it. That's why today's unions are the tamed, well-conditioned organizations they are. The modern union does fit well into the capitalist system... but they bear little practical relationship to the unions of the 19th century.

You can see how this is acknowledged even by the elites; look at the one thing that they will allow public sector unions to negotiate. They're perfectly happy to let unions negotiate wages.

The Soviet Union became a very twisted sort of fascist state after the Bolsheviks took power. It lost its socialist character soon after the revolution. That much was obvious when they started crushing worker cooperatives and instituting mandatory participation in state institutions. The Soviet Union organized its agencies very much along corporate lines. They even maintained their own supply chains. It was a very strange sort of state, not really similar to any ideological ideal. It wasn't communist, it wasn't socialist, nor really state capitalist in the traditional way. It was party capitalism.

Property is nothing more than a claim of privilege to control some portion of society's resources. This has the effect of restricting everyone else's right to work; people are not allowed to perform labor except by the consent of property owners. This wouldn't be a problem except that property owners require payment of rent to use their property; payment in the form of rent for real estate, 'profit' for business ownership, 'dividends' for shares, and so on. It all boils down to the same economic rent though. This is a profound and incredibly burdensome inefficiency, and has extreme negative social consequences.

And they have the gall to claim that welfare recipients and the poor are the leeches on society, when the wealthy do nothing but extort money out of people for the privilege of working.

Do you really require threats to behave yourself?

What's the point in forcing people to work? That's just slavery by less obvious means. If people are not willing to work to better their standard of living, then what gives you the right to force them to do it? Just because you think that producing more is better does not mean that everyone is going to agree with you, or that it is fair to privatize social resources in order to force people to do so.

I happen to think that most people would work even if not forced to do so. Maybe they would work less, produce less, but they would produce enough to be happy. It wouldn't make any sense to work more or less than required to be happy--being unhappy would be an incentive to work more or less, as required. If supply and demand of goods and services can reach an equilibrium without top-down control, then what makes you think that labor cannot reach an equilibrium as well without top-down control?

Why should they take a job they don't desire? What's the point? A society organized in a way that purposely makes people miserable does not seem like something we ought to strive for. What is it about production that makes it such a god that we ought to subsume our lives in the name of it?

Why would you even think that it was alright to compel someone to work in a job they don't want to do?

 

Why are you resorting to special pleading regarding the private sector? Both consumers and producers are part of the private sector. Why would producers not benefit from something the rest of the private sector could benefit from.

In any case, public sector intervention in the market for labor could solve for a natural rate of unemployment. We could be lowering our tax burden by ending our over thirty year War on Poverty.

 

When I said equal I was thinking equality between workers as opposed to equal value of work and pay. I guess what I would consider impossible here is the method of determining what anything is worth. A market does this naturally, people pay what they believe something is worth, and therefore trade occurs... but if prices, wages, labor quotas, etc. are to be equal, they must be fixed by something. I just haven't heard any good explanation for who does that.

Wait a minute, I thought there wasn't money involved in this picture... now we have a competitive wage? If everyone has everything they need, what are they deciding to work for?

I don't even know what to say here. You just dodged the question and ranted for two paragraphs about the supposed inefficiency of the institution of business...

Again, this is nothing I disagree with, merely a misdirection of my question. When I hear people say "socialism can't work now because of all the outside influences", or "because people aren't ready for it" or the context just isn't right", they are just acknowledging that it is a pipe-dream. If incremental moves toward socialism are detrimental to the economy then I consider that evidence against it as a viable theory, though purists keep saying "that's because it's compromised by capitalism" or whatever. I hope I'm not offending you by assuming your opinions reflect a purist attitude, but that's my impression...

Judging even by the mainstream polls I would consider America in the middle of extreme discontent. However, all evidence points to the extreme stability of its government. We keep electing war-mongering money-pandering clones, and I have yet to see the armed revolutionaries hitting the streets. I'm not saying that America is a correct system, or that it is a capitalist or socialist system, just that it is stable because people are both afraid of the government (reliable justice system) and comfortable (comfort is not satisfaction).

Exactly. The unions can't destroy the system because it doesn't need them. They get "slapped down" and membership dwindles, because most people just want to work.

We won't be able to debate this if our arguments are based on polar opposite assumptions. My assumption is that if I make something it's mine. If you assume that everything in existence is the "possession" of society, then there's nothign to discuss. Very few people would accept that concept as inherent. I refuse to consider myself a "tenant" of society, that I "owe" society my life and effort.

I would love to say of course not, but do you consider driving 90 mph behaving myself? Because I (*)(*)(*)(*) sure would in the absense of traffic laws.

You said "socialist" right? That does mean that labor and product are guaranteed right? Are you now completely denying the concept of collective action? If I take the day off, I won't notice any drop in my perceived standard of living... now everybody try it! If you doubt that people think like that, then I don't know what to tell you friend, maybe start observing some real people...

Some jobs are hated but pay well. Others are easy and don't. If standard of living is guaranteed, who would volunteer to take a miserable job? I do not consider it reasonable to compel anyone to work... that's exactly why I doubt the socialist model. Production is a collective goal, but it is only by incentivising someone with greater wealth in return that any system can convince people to do miserable jobs. By the way, no amount of technology can remove the existence of bad jobs...

 

Who's pleading?

I'm explaining basic economics. It's really some of the simplest math you can come up with... public competition benefits the consumer, not the producer, therefore not the entire "private sector". Lower prices are bad for business, good for consumers.

Brilliant. We'll just increase tax revenue by paying people wages out of the state budget, which in turn get taxed... everybody wins right?

 

I'm typing this out on an iPad, so forgive any typos or autocorrect issues.

I'm not really seeing why you think that prices or wages would be equal across society, or why that is even relevant to the discussion. A socialist society could use markets to determine value as easily as capitalist societies can. The equality that traditional socialized are talking about seems from equal distribution of earnings to workers. All workers share the effort, and so share the benefits equally. This differs from the private model, where one person (or a small number of persons) takes all the benefits and rents the labor of the others (through wages) to accomplish it. Under a socialist model, if a company of ten employees earned $100,000, each would get $10,000 in compensation. This does not need to be equal relative to workers somewhere else. If the labor one company does is worth less, it ought to earn less. That isn't the core issue of the socialist objection--the issue is disproportional compensation within organizations.

Valuation can happen with markets just as easily under this model as it can under a capitalist model. I think that you are probably laboring under the common misconception that all people, regardless of what they do, would be paid equally under a socialist system. That is not even remotely true. Fair compensation for fair labor is a cornerstone of socialist thought.

I never said anything about abolishing money. In fact, I'm not even talking about about abolishing inequality in results. I'm asking about abolishing systemic inequalities. Yes, people would be provided what they need... But if people were content only with their needs, the capitalist system wouldn't work either. Society would provide for needs, because you cannot accurately value labor in a climate of fear and implied threats to a workers survival, but you'd have to work if you wanted your wants taken care of. To revise the old Marxist phrase... From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, but wants are his own business.

The equality that traditional socialists are talking about is structural equality--genuine equality of opportunity. You're trying to frame that as equality of results, which is what leninists try to achieve. There is and ought to be a difference in lifestyle between those who work and those who don't, but that does not justify the creation of systemic inequalities in the workplace. The inequalities in results ought to be founded upon the principle of fair compensation for fair labor--not property ownership and the collection of economic rent. You ought to be paid for your own labor... Not paid because you own rights over portions of other people's labor.

I didn't dodge the question at all, read again. You asked what might compel people to work, and I responded with a critique of the idea that people ought to be compelled to work at all. I explained why it would be preferable not to force people to work, by pointing out some structural inefficiencies stemming from a desire to force people to work. Your question presupposes that people ought to be compelled to work, and I disagreed with that presupposition.

They are incorrectly assessing the purpose of the socialist idea. It is not a prescription to solve society's ills, it is an ideal goal to strive for. That it is not achievable is irrelevant. It is a vision for what should be, not a recipe for what will be. It is as unachievable as any pure political ideal; it is just as much a pipe-dream as idealized capitalism.

Why is that evidence against it? I don't think there are many socialists who propose that socialism would be good for private business, or even necessarily improve productive output. Is about achieving a bit more happiness in our lives, not improvements in material output. Though I would question whether there are any actual examples of a movement towards socialism. There certainly have not been in the US or western Europe. I'm not aware of an substantial movement to reform the nature of property or return control of the means of production to the workers who use them. I think you are confusing socialism for statism--you are noting that movements towards centralized authority harm the economy. I would not disagree with that, which is why I oppose centralization of power. Socialism is about decentralizing power, not concentrating it in the hands of he government.

Could you, perhaps, cite some of these examples of socialist reform that have harmed the economy? I'm not aware of an socialist forms at all so I'm skeptical about the authenticity of the claim.

You don't consider that the tendency to oppose incumbents might well evolve not a tendency to oppose the government? I'm sure our government does. They certainly view it as a long term threat. It takes time for conditions to reach the point where you will see armed revolutionaries.

If you acknowledge that people just want to work, why did you ask me earlier how I thought a socialist society would compel is workers to work?

Then why do you support the capitalist system, which is built upon the idea that labor is divorced from ownership? If you work in a factory, the product of your labor is owned by the company you work for, and ultimately that companies owners. Very few people are self-employed, and even they must pay a portion of their labor to the person who first claimed rights over the natural resources their product was produced from. Socialism is the only economic system where all people do actually own the product of their labor, because anyone doing labor is at least a partial owner of the company for whom he works. The assumption that you own what you make is very much a socialist assumption; from it comes more complex ideas like fair compensation for fair labor, and so on.

I have to think that in a socialist society, people would be raised with a much stronger sense of personal and civic responsibility... And that would include driving safely. However, if people did wish to drive at that speed in general, then that would become the speed limit.

To a certain point, yes. You could live a subsistence living if you did to wish to work. But if you wanted more than that, you would need to work. There would be a certain minimum standard of living, but it would probably not be at the level that people would want. Requirements are, after all, much less than desires.

Continued.

 

If you were working, then decided to stop, your standard of living would fall to the nonworking level over time as your savings ran out. That seems like reason enough to keep doing what you would presumably want to do anyway, because there would pretty much be no reason to take work you didn't want. Again, this is why I spent so much space talking about structural inefficiencies in systems designed to compel people to work. This is one of those structural inefficiencies. Are you seriously suggesting that society really requires vast amounts of unskilled labor today?

Which would not change in he system I propose. The jobs no one wants would pa better than those that everyone does want. Again, the problem socialists have with the present system is not higher pay for more work, it is higher pay for less work. It would change pay scales a bit though; servers at a restaurant would probably make more than the manager, for example (in the sense that any actual administrative needs would be subcontracted).

Because presumably the would want more than the minimum guaranteed standard of living. Just because you establish a liable minimum does not mean people would not be incentivized by offers of higher standards of living. You're confusing the socialism I'm asking about for the comment proposal. They aren't even remotely similar. The guarantee I propose is a minimum livable standard, not he mandatory level that everyone would suffer. If you actually do more work, you would actually have more stuff to show for it. Again, the core socialist complaint with the current system are structural inequities, not more pay for more work. If the wealthy were becoming wealthy because of their own individual labor, it would not be a problem for socialists. We object because they become wealthy by using private property to collect economic rent from other people's labor.

 

Happy Revolutionary new Year comrades ,remember no government standing will not be challenged by the insurrectionary proletariet in 2012,goody no more Gillard ALP Crap by Next new year goody no Republican \tea Party by next year and possiby no Obama either.

No Assad,no Imf Controlled Government [Italy ,Greece,Spain,Portugual,irelnd,Australia,]

Even economic recession for wait for it ........CHINA.

or

capitialism is saved by the 'Booming "brazilian and" venezualian" economies,thus dodging its day of Revolutionary Reckoning.

Revolutionary New Year 2012 comrade Philxx.

Who wants a Revolution we do ,

When YESTERDAY you stinking Corrupt Pathetically stupid Capitialist Governments .

hey ,give me a year of Global thinking and I will give you Socialism .

no wars ,no money,no slavery,no debt,just happy humans with enough food to feed 10 billion with a population of 7billion.

Universal Global education 1-18 years of age ,as the right of all human Children bar NONE.

application of state of the Art sanitation and building resources ,presently in the Possession of Mr 1%,My New years revolution ,sorry resolution is to redouble myself to the point of losing all individual Identity ,Total Imersion in the Laboratory of Revolution .

My party of the Intergrated Global proletariet.

 

Look can you and your rude nationalist friends ,before they go off on tangents come and ask me what a "Socialist"thinks as your predjudiced against socialism thinking belongs in 'Cold war" days of revolutionary Stagnation for the International proletariet .

That was when stalinism Reigned and things were static everywhere.Good riddence to bad rubbish I say ,now the other people you call socialist who are not ,the Social reformist party's like Social democracy and "Liberalism" are collapsing more like Imploding .

The proletariet needs its political expression ,Hello!

Goody I already have a Globally Intergrated party.capitialism has no political union except national.

We win if we want to build the party of Humanity against capitialism ,Hello we need revolutionary minded humans .Ones not like this stupid uneducated [except by Marxism]worker ,and to all middle class manipulative wankers keep telling yourselves that all workers are stupid.

I am the manager of capitialism and all workers are stupid . Oh i alrady got that one covered.Sorry ,I am just a stupid worker that left school at 16,i am stupid oh great god of capitialism ,the Dollar is your messanger,forgive me oh god called Rupert Murdoch.

All hail Ruperts health,god save Rupert.

Make rupert monarch of Australia or Govenor General i say.

 

Wages are to be determined by a 2 teir system in the USA.

 

You didn't actually read what I wrote, did you?

 

Democratic, worker owned corporations... we're really just talking business model at this point right?

So really all you care about is ownership? You're describing basically a competitive system where the only changes are really that people are guaranteed educational opportunity and a job?

Not at all! I am criticizing the aspect of collectivism which requires compulsion for everyone to do his part. I don't believe in it (compulsion). My question is exactly the opposite--if no one is compelled, how does any work get done? You still haven't addressed the incentive problem. If you still say that no one is compelled, then I say you have no theory. No one is going to produce in your future, because there's no need to, everyone is guaranteed a safety net.

This I don't agree with. Capitalism is not a pipe-dream because it makes no guarantees. If we could experience a political system with zero state ownership of production, it would literally be 100% capitalist. This says nothing about the form of government nor the role of police or military in ensuring property rights. Capitalism at its most literal means private ownership. It would become a pipe-dream if I said no one would be poor or unemployed, but I do not need to make such claims. The system would still enjoy tremendous growth and technological advances, and the standard of living would consistently improve.

Again you're making use of a fringe definition of socialism, but I can deal with that. The mainstream left wants the government to build socialism (state ownership kind), and I'm pretty sure you want it to come naturally. You question whether anyone has tried it, but if coming naturally were possible, then where are the examples? If it is not desirable enough to a large enough group of people that no one tries it, then maybe it it's really only viable for those back woods subsistence living type groups.

So you do admit that socialism is political concept! Those "reforms" consist of the thousands of laws which shift production from private control to state control, i.e. minimum wages, maximum working hours, working age, social security, welfare, medicare, medicaid, agriculture subsidy, geez I could go forever with this. If you are holding to the arrogant position that none of these are true socialism, then we just have no discussion.

Reality check! People in the real world want to work because they need to eat! Remember we still live in a world where most people still have to make an effort or they starve.

First of all capitalism doesn't care who owns what. What makes it capitalism is that private property is yours to do with as you please (obviously the current US only partially like this). In fact there are plenty of examples where a few guys get together and share in an investment, and therefore own a business jointly. The difference here is that even though a socialist worker "owns" the the product of his labor, it is only a share, and he cannot strike his tent and take that possession somewhere else to do with as he pleases. I consider that little more than slavery.

So laws are non-existent, the speed limit is democratically determined or what?

I don't know how you inferred that, but there is plenty of unskilled labor still. Machines can't harvest certain types of food, people still take out the trash, etc. What you haven't explained is what is this magical hand that serves as motivation? What makes your standard of living fall? I thought your "wage" was guaranteed?

This is precisely because they are intelligent enough to do this. Excluding fraud and illegal methods, the rich either inherit the fruits of their ancestors' labor or they create it themselves. The reason a business leader should make more money is that he is more responsible for the success of the system. If they were forced to take such a difficult job at less than the worker (restaurant scenario), they would probably quit. At least those with the smarts to manage would simply do other things that paid more... and the system would fall on its face for lack of skilled management.

 

GD, we look like best friends with context like this...

I do appreciate your thoughtful debate style, far less stressful than with most. I am mainly trying to understand the socialist psyche in order to modify my own opinions if warranted and of course so I don't make ignorant assumptions when responding to you guys.

 

Actual democratic worker-owned corporations act and perceive the world around them quite differently from investor-owned corporations. For example, outsourcing is totally nonsensical from their point of view. They have a much longer-term view towards planning; they're more willing to sacrifice short-term gain to maintain a workplace standard comfortable for the workers.

I'm describing a nominally competitive system where people are entitled to a share of ownership over the means of production they're using. Property as occupation, rather than property as government-protected privilege.

The capitalist system is based on compulsion, and you admit as much when you note that you believe people would not work if they were not threatened with starvation. People have a hierarchy of needs; you can persuade them to work by appealing to their higher wants, not just by threatening their lower needs. In an environment where workers' survival is threatened, labor valuation becomes severely distorted in favor of capital. This inefficiency exceeds the cost of just assuring them a basic standard of living. It's not that expensive to assure a subsistence living, but the distortions in the pricing of labor cost society a lot.

And it would quickly accumulate into states again, either when one corporation dominates the others, or when the people get so sick and tired of being exploited that they organize one for their own protection. This is possible in the same sense that a purely socialist society is also briefly possible, before an aggressive fascist neighbor rolls in with the tanks.

The idealized capitalism you describe is not possible because it would be unstable. It would leave an obvious and natural power vacuum that someone would take advantage of. The only way to avoid that is to deny concentrations of power entirely; be they public or private.

For the people at the very top, everyone else will be reduced to a state little better than chattel slavery. This has always been the case when unrestrained capitalism rules the day. Labor suffers and capital benefits.

I am using the definition of socialism described by Proudhon, or Steiner, or Bakunin, or Kropotkin. The left-libertarian type of socialism is as old as the Marxist type, perhaps older. It's certainly not been the 'fringe' definition any more than socialism in general is a fringe concept.

No, I know it has been tried. It just hasn't really been tried on a wide scale in the west since the Spanish Civil War. On smaller scales, it is more common and has been used as the organizational principle behind plenty of small businesses. It is hard for a small group of people to resist organized power that is almost psychologically compelled to oppress you if you break their yoke.

The threat of force by capitalists is pervasive. Any time states move in that direction, they are ruthlessly put down, often by the United States government. Why do you think we prop up violent, murderous oligarchies in the third world?

Yes, definitely, I never denied that. Socialism requires that the state be dismantled, or at least fatally weakened. It requires the end of private property, and other government-protected privileges that stem from property. There's definitely a political component, because the state is a natural enemy of socialism. "Socialist reform" is basically synonymous with weakening the power of the state. This is why some left-libertarians call themselves anarchists. Anarchism and traditional socialism are basically the same political movement. Some right-libertarians also try to use the derogatory "anarcho-communist" label.

They aren't part of the goals of the traditional socialist branch of left-libertarians. We have traditionally acknowledged that if we break the state's power over the workplace, unions would be able to establish workplace rights on their own. If you correct the structural inequalities, the practical inequalities will decrease pretty quickly. What you're describing are left-authoritarians, like communists, or social democrats, or political philosophies in that range.

They're the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' types; left-libertarians propose skipping that step entirely and aiming for our true objective from the start. We recognize that the communist state would be just as dangerous and oppressive as the capitalist state; that it is no better to be dictated your wage by a state agency as it is to be dictated it by your private owner.

Sure, and I'm saying that incentive is a perverse and unnecessary incentive.

Very true; that's why it is morally abhorrent.

That's the purpose of money; it allows you to liquidate shares of real property effectively. If I own a thousandth of a factory, I ought to be able to exchange that for a flexible representation of value that I can use for other purposes. That's not really in question here. Only crazy communists are actually opposed to money; it's a very convenient abstraction for value.

Think of interstate driving in large cities; the speed limit is, for all intents and purposes, democratically decided by the people on the road at the time. I mean, the idea that you're asking whether it ought to be democratically decided is kind of telling, isn't it? If you think it's safe and reasonable to drive at 90 mph, I guess you ought to be entitled to do so. I think that's probably not a very good idea, and wouldn't do it even if there were no speed limits.

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What, you think the only kind of material motivation you can offer someone is the promise that they won't starve? I'm not even sure what you're confused about. If you work, you move on up from the HUD-like standard housing of the nonworking types. If you work, you get more than the standard box of food everyone's entitled to. If you work, you get cable television and toys to entertain yourself. Whatever. Material benefits above the very basic subsistence standard that everyone would be entitled to as a minimum standard. Providing a persons needs is very different than providing them what they want. All this would do is remove the violence and coercion inherent in the threat of starvation. You say you hate coercion, but here you're arguing that it's necessary that we coerce people with threats of starvation. It doesn't make much sense to me.

I happen to think that you can effectively encourage people to participate in society by offering them some material benefits for doing so. I don't think you have to threaten their survival to persuade people that working is a good idea.

That's some marxist nonsense that I have not once proposed. A minimum standard of living would be guaranteed under my proposal, but there would certainly be higher standards of living for people who did more for society. Again, the wide gulf between needs and wants.

And immoral enough to organize society to force others to comply.

That seems particularly absurd. In what way is the owner more responsible for success than the workers who actually produce the goods and services? Owners don't get wealthy based on their own labor; they get wealthy because they can collect rent from everyone else's labor. No CEO is actually payed in proportion to his actual labor. They invent this fiction about risk and responsibility, but it's pretty nonsensical. The reward for investment ought to be the right to work at something you enjoy, not the government-enforced privilege of charging other people for the right to work.

Management is not a particularly difficult job in most cases. It only becomes difficult when there are pressures from above to meet unrealistic expectations with inadequate resources. In a socialist society or organization, the pressures would be bottom-up, and probably wouldn't extend much more than group-level management. It would be a communication job, not some high-stress resource management job.

 

Yeah, from what I have gathered he is a hard core marxist-leninist. Traditional socialists (or anarchists, if you'd rather--I prefer the socialist definition) usually get along very poorly with marxist-leninists. About as well as right-libertarians and marxist-leninists get along. It's a strange sort of definition that throws anarchists and communists together.

Thank you. I enjoy having the opportunity to talk about left-libertarian views.

Well, it's important to find out what sort of socialist you're talking with. As you might have gathered, there is some division. Socialists from the left-libertarian tradition are very different from the Marxist-leninists in their goals and methods.

 

Unfortunately I don't have the leisure time to continue rebutting every point, but I think it boils down to that each of our moral systems looks upside down to the other... that said much of what you idealize fits perfectly in the world I do:

I find it ironic that your theory as I understand it would actually work best in what could be called ultra libertarian or essentially free-capitalist society, where whatever government is left is reduced to enforcement of contract and national defense (assuming those fascist or communist nations still exist outside whatever state we're imagining).

You've established that your form of socialism is not state ownership, so technically it's private, though of a collective nature (in contrast to state ownership which is via legalized violence). Therefore I see no reason why you feel (if you do) that your socialist collective system is unable to operate adjacent to a free-market one, providing that there isn't market interaction between them. Without letting it be state sponsored, I see no other realistic possibility, and no real reason you would deny capitalism the right to exist within the same state protection... as long as we're still assuming this state exists within an uncontrolled global system.