Socialism in an A.I. World

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Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Arguing that an industrial economy that requires inputs from across the globe to function can be organized in a certain manner because small tribal groups relying on hyper-local economies powered by human muscle did it in the distant past is indeed a dubious foundation for a legal system or philosophy.

That there is significant room for improvement in society is hardly debatable but suggesting that "primitive communism" tells us anything particularly meaningful about how to organize a 21st century economy is pretty dubious and I don't blame people for being sceptical. I think there are far better foundations for launching a critique of contemporary capitalism.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2016 19:49

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 01:53

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

HorseLord posted:

That's okay because nobody is doing that.

The world is full of banal people who think they're saying something deep and profound when they poo poo out "it only works on paper, but not in real life because human nature/original sin/scientology-alien-ghosts make us evil." The point of bringing up primitive communism is to disprove that, because that's a whole mandatory era of the development of the human species which could not have happened if it was true.

Literally you couldn't have even a feudal society without first passing through primitive communism, because you have to form some sort of society before you can invent such a thing as money. Or, you know, language.

I agree. There's a pretty interesting book I was reading last year before work and life commitments distracted me called "The Creation of Inequality" in which a couple anthropologists actually worked through the details of how hunter / gatherer or early agricultural societies started to develop fixed social hierarchies and how stuff like the distribution of food or land were handled in early human civilization. It's very interesting stuff and I think there are probably some broad lessons to be learned about human conduct in general.

But, to reiterate, I don't think the existence of primitive communism is a particularly convincing argument for the feasibility of a socialized industrial economy. It's not clear that the loyalty or comradery of a small group of 30-100 people can be scaled up to the regional, national or global level.

I think if anything it's more feasible to point to examples of, say, the World War II era economy, the internal decision making of large corporations, the record of actual socialist societies, etc. as giving us clues about how you could base an advanced economy on something other than price signals and contracts.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2016 20:18

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Flowers For Algeria posted:

Well, Lenin used to say that Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the country.

I'm guessing that we could revise this to say that Socialism is free-market capitalism plus an AI?

"All power to the circuits"

# ¿ Mar 5, 2016 20:18

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