this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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I didn't say that. I actually specifically said "the current system isn't the only one imaginable that can produce that stuff."
I'm just saying that it's highly relevant to me that the societies that have produced this stuff have been largely very capitalist. I know it's not fully a free market; there's always a heavy component of government "intervention" i.e. funding for basic research and picking winners and giving subsidies and whatnot. It's not an argument from philosophy; I actually don't really know why it is that you don't see a ton of worker-owned collective businesses outcompeting the privately-owned ones. It seems like they should; the workers would be happier and the quality of the goods would be better, and they should get support from the community wanting to buy their stuff instead of the EvilCorp stuff. I'm saying that whatever the reason (which, again, I genuinely don't know or really have anything better than a guess about), that's a highly relevant piece of information.
That's why I'm asking, can you give some specific examples? You mentioned worker co-operatives, but that's very different from a whole country organized along non-capitalist lines, and you're arguing for overthrowing the entire system to make that (right? or have I misunderstood?). I'm asking, where is a place where that whole country has run along those lines and it's worked well?
It's not like a sarcastic or rhetorical question, I'm genuinely asking for an example of what you mean. Worker-owned collectives sound great, and I do think our country would be much improved if they replaced a lot of the privately-held businesses. But that's very different from wholesale changing the large-scale aspects of the system.
You directly tied vaccines, supermarkets, and computers to "massive, organized economies" and tied that to Capitalism, so if I misunderstood what you meant by that then fair enough. However, what follows in your comment is not evidence for belief in superiority of one economic system over the other.
Your first major paragraph talks about how, in your vision, highly developed countries tend to be Capitalist, while despite the obvious benefits of Worker Co-operatives, they seem to be rare in these developed countries. I'll answer each bit individually.
Capitalism is a system of exploitation, whereby owners suck up the value workers create. As the world gets increasingly complex, the farther away from the top you are, the more exploited you are. In the modern era, this expresses in totally imperialist control of the global south. Nestle, for example, uses child labor and brutal working conditions to extract necessary resources and profit immensely, despite being headquartered in Nordic Countries, where the quality of life and development are some of the highest in the world. This is by no means an exception, it's the rule.
What drives quality of life is not what economic system you have, but the level of development, largely. Reducing disparity is fantastic as well, but primarily, development determines quality of life. Tying supermarkets, vaccines, and computers to Capitalism, rather than to developed nations, is a bit of a misattribution: The tools and goods present in a country do not care who owns tools, all they care about is investment in industrialization and development.
As for why Worker Co-operatives are not more common, it's fairly simple. Despite being more stable than Capitalist entities, and providing greater worker satisfaction, Co-operatives are more difficult to start than Capitalist entities. As we have previously discussed, it is in Capitalist's interest to keep it that way, and prevent the system from incentivizing these better structures, so that they can maintain power.
Next up, your request for a "specific example" at a country-scale of what I am asking for. The shortest answer is that there isn't one, at least not yet, but that by no means discounts the possibility of its existence in the future, you'd have to explain why you think it impossible. The longer answer is that there have been several examples with radically different structures that modern leftists have all learned from, but none of which were 1 to 1 what leftists seek to replicate. What do I mean? Well, some examples include the EZLN and Revolutionary Catalonia, which are/were Libertarian Socialist and Anarcho-Communist, respectively. They have their own shortcomings, notably the modern lack of existence of Revolutionary Catalonia due to its inability to defend itself, and the EZLN for being very slow at developing, though it works for the people who live there.
There are other examples of more statist countries, organized along the lines of Marxism-Leninism. These include places like Cuba, the USSR, and China. While the latter 2 did manage to skyrocket quality of life with huge investments into development, ultimately the Politburo is unaccountable to the masses, and as such the governments of each have committed atrocities. Cuba is a bit of a unique case, it's nearly completely locked out of global trade, and as such it has had severely stunted development.
So far, I wish to recreate none of those examples, but each has provided extremely valuable information on how to build a future Socialist society. You appear to be rejecting the idea of analyzing the mechanics of Socialism and Capitalism and applying the results of that analysis to the real world, and instead you appear to be in favor of simply "copying whatever country has a higher quality of life," without looking at trends or cost. Again, leftist believe that Capitalism itself is unsustainable and brutal, and therefore needs to be replaced with Socialism. This is not because of vibes, but genuine mechanical analysis.
I have a question for you, if you'll oblige: what is the extent to which you have read leftist theoretical texts, such as from Marx, or even Anarchists like Kropotkin? If none, would you be willing to read?
Agree
Massive agree
Agree
I didn't say at all that it was impossible. In this and a lot of your following argument, you seem like you think I'm saying the outcomes I talk about are inevitable as an absolute. I'm perfectly open to the idea that a non-capitalist society would work better. What I'm saying is that, in the observed real world I have observed so far, it seems like it has significant drawbacks. That doesn't have to be the end of the story but it does seem relevant to bring to the table if someone's going to argue that the US needs to change itself to a totally non-capitalist society. No?
I think we'll probably agree very hard that the current US system is too capitalistic and exploitative. It's out of control plutocracy or borderline feudalism like the US at the turn-of-the-20th-century, or if you wanted to oversimplify a little, like China or Russia before their revolutions. My argument is that the labor movement in the US, leading to massive reform like the New Deal within a still-capitalist framework, worked way better for the quality of life of the people in the US than did the full-on transition to non-capitalism in Russia and China.
Surely these outcomes are relevant? Again, I'm not saying it's impossible for it to work if done right, or that the US's currently-hypercapitalistic-to-the-point-of-black-comedy system needs to stay the same.
...
Millions of dead of starvation people in both countries would disagree with you
I think this is very important to keep in mind, when talking about the (absolutely wholly unacceptable I agree with you) level of hunger and misery in the United States, is that it can also get much much worse.
Yeah. There's a certain amount of realpolitik involved, that the US and the West in general like to "punish" socialist countries economically or militarily and then use their suffering as a way to claim that socialism doesn't work. Cuba's a really interesting example because even under the boot of significant oppression under that philosophy, it still does some things really well (education and medicine), arguably better than some of the countries doing the oppressing.
That's a counterbalancing factor against a whole lot of what I'm saying, I recognize, yes. There's a book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" where someone closely involved in that system explains it in absolutely horrifying living color.
Not at all at all -- like I say, I'm not at all closed to the idea that they can work. I just think too much analysis purely based on theory without looking at instructive examples is a bad idea. The current world is not the end of the story but you do need a balance of both.
I have basically read none; for what reason I honestly don't know. Sure, I'm open to it.
I'll skip past where we agree, and move to where we disagree.
You make a few small errors with your judgement that lead to massive misunderstandings of the mechanisms at play here, and thus the outcome of your analysis is flawed. Again, only a few errors, but the implications are massive.
You see a correlation, and see fit to assume a causation, without digging into it further yourself. Case in point: You claiming that non-Capitalist countries tend to have worse outcomes than Capitalist countries, without looking any further.
You claim that the US New Deal worked better for its people than the USSR did for Tsarist Russia or Maoist China did for the fascist KMT, which is similarly false, and it's absolutely critical that you listen very carefully to what I say without brushing me off, here. I am absolutely NOT denying that famine took the lives of millions of people directly as a consequence of mishandled and horribly botched collectivization. I am, however, pointing to the very real facts that post-collectivization and Socialization of the economy, Life expectancy doubled in both China and the USSR, and wealth inequality was cut massively. This is important.
I am adding on to point 2 here. In the US's case, a developed economy that was struggling massively expanded Social Safety Nets for great results. The floor itself, however, started much, much, much higher than the squalor that Tsarist Russia and KMT-dominated China had. The actual, comparative leap was far greater in the USSR and Maoist China because the floor was far, far lower, even if the New Deal US had a far higher quality of life. It's like starting the US at 100, and it jumping to 125, but starting Russia at 20 and jumping to 70, and China at 10 and jumping to 60. I cannot understate how much of a dramatic improvement both countries had to their metrics.
This entire time, I know you've probably been shocked that I have been pointing this out, so I want to take the time to make this entirely clear: I DO NOT WANT A RECREATION OF THE USSR OR MAOIST CHINA, AND MILLIONS PERISHED DIRECTLY BECAUSE OF THE ACTIONS OF STALIN AND MAO, THAT WERE ENTIRELY AVOIDABLE AND TRAGIC. However, let's take a look at food security over the long term. In both Maoist China and the USSR, food stability rose steadily alongside industrialization until it became a non-issue. The starvation period for the USSR, for example, was during collectivization, and during WWII, when the Nazis invaded Ukraine. For Maoist China, it was early on, and happened because a massive overpopulation of rice-eating pests ate all of the rice, because Mao thought that the birds that ate both rice and the pests were the problem, and ordered his men to kill the birds. None of these problems are a necessary factor for collectivization, and can be entirely avoided by anyone halfway competent.
If you're still following along, I'll simplify. If you suspect that an outcome may be due to a certain cause, you must actually analyze the causes and see if they are necessarily repeatable if tried again, or if they can be implemented in a far better manner. Everything about Socialism that has failed seems to be entirely due to mismanagement and a lack of development, which any country should be able to learn from and avoid in their transition to Socialism.
Following that, I think getting a sound idea of theory would be fantastic for you personally. You don't have to agree with everything, or even with me, but I think it would help you greatly.
For pure leftist theory, I'll point you to Wage Labor and Capital and Value, Price, and Profit by Karl Marx, found here: https://www.marxists.org/
I'll also point you to reading An Anarchists FAQ found here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/special/index
I personally find myself agreeing more with Anarchists on certain issues, and don't consider myself a Marxist-Leninist, for what it's worth, though I try to be as unbiased as possible when reading theory I am not familiar with.
Additionally, The Wretched of the Earth is a fantastic book on colonialism and Capitalism, as well as Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Fall of Communism in the USSR, which is a fantastic book on misconceptions about the USSR, why it fell, and the dangers of fascism and how it rises.
Pretty sure I was, though? I talked about e.g. with Cuba, some of the reasons why it has worse outcomes economically and briefly touched on some areas where its outcomes are fine.
I haven't been digging into it in detail for the USSR or China for a few different reasons, but first and foremost is I'm not even sure if that's the type of thing you're advocating for. That's why I keep asking for an example of a country (or a detailed description I guess, if you're saying it's never happened before) which could be the model which you're saying would work here, and then I can say more about the beyond-simple-correlation outcomes and reasons.
Yeah, I can agree with this. I guess I should ask, am I right in even thinking that you think non-capitalism would be better in the US, as compared with the system right now? Before I say anything else.
Pretty sure this isn't true. Relative to starvation, sure. Relative the the US's current level of food insecurity, I would take the current US level above any historical level from the USSR at any point, and the current US level is absolutely inexcusable in a wealthy-as-a-whole first world country.
So it's completely easy to do if you're competent, but it hasn't worked and there have been problems including mass starvation the two times it was tried in a US-sized country, but if we did it this time it would definitely work because it's easy?
I'm making fun a little bit. I'm happy to talk in more deeper detail if you hold up either a detailed description of what you think should replace capitalism in the US, or an example country.
So as an example -- you talked about worker-owned collectives; does that mean Target would be owned collectively by the cashiers? Who makes decisions about the direction of the company; the democratically elected government, or a manager class (how are managers chosen?), or the cashiers directly by voting, or how?
Happy to. I can't promise anything in particular as I already have a reading list but do you want to send me anything in particular to prioritize I can take a look at it first.
(Side note, this is exactly what the Republicans said would happen; OH GOD HE WENT ON THE INTERNET AND NOW HE'S READING MARX; I CAN'T WAIT TO BRING THIS UP AT THE HEARING) 😀
I just skimmed a little bit of "Wage Labor and Capital," not really enough for it to be fair for me to say anything about it. To me though it looks like a lot of the conclusions in the little tiny piece I read, don't apply if the working class has a strong union which can fight to be included in the distribution of wealth from increasing profits. It looks like a pretty accurate description of what happens and what's at work in the modern US, in the (currently accurate) situation where capital can do whatever it wants and labor is isolated from acting collectively to address unfairness. But like I say, that's only just sort of poking into one piece at random at a first glance.
-I'm not advocating for the USSR or Maoist China, correct. I avoid making specific claims because each country is different, and their road to Socialism will be different. What will remain common is Worker Ownership.
-Socialism would be better for the current US, yes.
-Depends on what period of time you're referring to. Even at the most developed, the USSR was still not able to be considered a developed country, and it was behind where China is today, and China today is still a developing country. There's a huge difference there. Compare the country to itself, and Capitalist countries with a similar level of development, not the literal most developed country in history.
-It's worth noting that WLaC and VPP are both incredibly short, introductory texts, and will skim over the vast majority of Marxism. They make up 10% or so of what Capital's first volume of 3 covers, Marxism is incredibly dense and developed. Still, reading WLaC and VPP put you ahead of 90% of leftists.
-I'll answer your Target question now. The short and correct answer is that it depends on the type of Socialism, whether it's Market Socialism, or Syndicalism, or even Marxism-Leninism. The general idea is that the Workers can vote, in more Anarchist forms that's sufficient, in ML structures they would be a part of a Soviet and there would be no indivodual Target entity, and vote on issues and vote on a representative to represent them in the higher Soviet, in Market Socialism they would likely elect a manager that they can oust if they deem necessary, etc. This is where you will find leftism splinters dramatically.