I think it’s more constructive to interpret what someone means, rather than with our own definitions that occasionally go against the common vernacular.
That’s why pointing out that today’s authoritarian dictatorships aren’t communism - while correct - is always interpreted as a True Scotsman. They’re differentiating “crony” capitalism because they haven’t been convinced that capitalism inevitably leads to the rich buying laws. They think we just need the right people in charge.
But the same applies the other way. Libertarians argue that centralizing power (redistribution, workers owning production, etc) in any manner inevitably leads to oppression.
How are redistribution and workers owning production centralization? I mean from a “libertarian perspective”.
Can 300 million people collectively run an economy and be focused on making those decisions? No.
Then a group of representatives are needed to do it for them, but wait, isn’t that the same thing as a government owning and operating the economy? Like in fascism? Oh no!
Then a group of representatives are needed to do it for them, but wait, isn’t that the same thing as a government owning and operating the economy? Like in fascism? Oh no!
Sure, if you ignore all the differences that makes it entirely different, such as:
Democratic control
Local level decision making toward central goals being done by workers and not capitalist overseers
The lack of a profit motive
Claes consciousness, aka we understand how things actually work and we don’t have to blame misfortunes on a scapegoat like under capitalism
I’m going to take the Libertarian perspective here again. If you remove profit motive in any sense, how can a group allocate resources effectively or incentivize work? Price/profit margin signal more than just greed. The market self corrects based on prices.
you remove profit motive in any sense, how can a group allocate resources effectively or incentivize work?
Empirical response: How did the soviet economy grow 50 percent during the Great depression?
Theory based response: when you remove profit seeking workers are no longer alienated from their labor, as the harder they work the more it benefits them and their community and not some rich fuck.
If I’m working a job now, what incentive do I have to be as productive as possible? The potential for promotion? If I wanted to optimize my chances for that, I’d be more interested in learning to be a kissass than to improve my work.
Price/profit margin signal more than just greed. The market self corrects based on prices.
Price is a very low information density signal. It isnt actually rational to do economic planning (as all firms do in market economies) off of price, why do you think non-hostile corporate espionage is a thing?
Remember that growth is relative. GDP per capita in the mid 30s was still three times higher in countries like the states, UK, and Switzerland compared to the Soviet Union. This trend continued into the next decades. Pretty much all of Europe had a stronger economy. And there weren’t mass famines and rampant scarcity issues to the same extent in the west. Yes the Soviet economy did grow, but the libertarian argument is about efficiency.
And sure, price in isolation isn’t a super useful indicator. But many factors influence price (competition from profit seeking, availability of resources, etc). As for the latter part, companies do run market research, including non hostile espionage, to find what consumers want most. I personally don’t see where that would be irrational. It directly fills needs.
Capitalism! How fun!!
“Capitalism” is a tankie cope.
Capitalist realism is liberal cope.
Its not my fault you see everything as capitalism.
Progressive liberals like Bernie Sanders aren’t much different and only marginally better, critiquing “crony capitalism” / “neoliberal capitalism” / “uber-capitalism”, without directly challenging capitalism itself.
Political efficacy, in my opinion, is a better strategy than fruitless idealism.
Reformism keeps not working, as evidenced by the last 45 years of ever-worsening neoliberalism, but liberals will keep trying anyway.
Marxists are not idealists; they are materialists, specifically, dialectical materialists.
Okie doke. What’s your suggestion then? You think a Marxist candidate can win one of the two primaries? You think a Marxist candidate can beat both parties in the general? What exactly is your alternative to incrementally progressive policy?
That’s not rhetorical, if you have a serious alternative I’m sincerely eager to hear it.
No socialist State has ever been won at the ballot box, though electoralism has its tactical uses in the interim. It’s mostly done through helping the working class develop class consciousness, through labor organizing and militant labor action, through developing dual power, and then ultimately replacing the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie with the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Few people remember that Communists and other socialists helped us win the weekend and the eight hour workday, and these weren’t won through elections but through labor militancy. They don’t remember because we were purged and memory-holed by two red scares and a cold war.
No socialist State has ever been won at the ballot box
https://archive.org/stream/ClassStruggleInSocialistPoland/page/n48/mode/1up
https://archive.org/stream/ClassStruggleInSocialistPoland/page/n51/mode/1up
I appreciate all the links you’re posting in this thread, I’m learning a lot.
No socialist State has ever been won at the ballot box
Which are the socialist states in existence right now? Are European countries socialist? Nordics? I know these classifications are subjective but I would love to hear what you and others think.
Actually Existing Socialisms (AES): The five predominantly recognized AES states are China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and, [North] Korea.
The Nordic model is a social democratic one, which is still fundamentally a capitalist one. This is what someone like Bernie Sanders claims to want.
Sanders gets away with calling himself a socialist because Americans have forgotten what socialism actually means: “social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.” Americans have forgotten what socialism means because the American socialists were persecuted into obscurity in the 20th century. So now even the vocabulary for socialism is lost in Orwellian fashion.
Now, is north korea socialist? Do the workers there enjoy democratic control over the means of production? Or really democratic control over anything? I’ll admit that info from North Korea is mostly not great but it seems to me that they are run only by the one ruling family.
I have similar doubts about china and have always seen it as more state-capitalist than anything else. Simply because it seems to me that individual workers do not own the companies they work at. It seems to me that China has corporations structured almost exactly like our own in the west. Unless I’ve been misled and these massive Chinese corps really are co-ops with the workers having an equal say in the decisions of the company.
Isn’t the slogan “workers of the world unite?”
Sure, but it’s a question of praxis.
What’s the question? Whether or not to unionize?
Unions still operate under capitalism? Not sure how unionizing plays into dismantling capitalism. This is a conversation about politicians like Bernie not going far enough to fundamentally disavow capitalism completely. The question is, what is an effective alternative to incremental, foot-in-the-door political baseline? What could Bernie be doing differently, that would actually be effective?
Marxists, Anarchists, and any other form of leftist stands to gain real traction not from electoralism (outside of highlighting the soon to be mentioned actions), but from organization, such as Unionization.
Cool, I agree. But moderately better politicians like Bernie calling out crony capitalism is better than not. Labor is still free to organize.
