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Let's ask some controversial questions and get some debate going that's actually interesting beyond explaining the basics. What do people feel are some legitimate problems with left wing theory? I actually think there are several. A big one though is that I'm not sure how stable Socialism/Comminism is over time. I worry that even if we implement a perfect version of Luxury Gay Communism that over time future generations become comfortable and unaware of the realities of class struggle. They'll de-radicalize and eventually liberal/wealthy factions will start gaining power again as people start carving up the welfare state for their own benefit one tiny piece at a time. The end result might not be capitalism necessarily but some form of class hierarchy would reform and the injustices we fought to unto will begin again. Of course, this is likely a problem in any society, not just Marxist ones, but I still think about it a lot. This is doubly true when talking about Anarchist societies. While good in a lot of ways, Anarchism is actually really dumb as a governing philosophy in much the same ways Libertarianism is. It makes some incredibly unrealistic assumptions about human nature and as a result it's endgame is basically ten thousand mini states with no central organization to keep the district of Los Angeles from annexing Sacramento other than the other districts threatening military action (which might not happen if the attacked district is unpopular). All you've done is take the problems with nation states we have now and multiplied it by ten thousand. It's only a matter before one of them gets the upper-hand and starts doing the empire thing and devours everything nearby. And they'll win too because one of the big services a state provides is a centralized military which doesn't have to coordinate with fifty other factions with their own motivations and agendas. E: Awful snipe. Just terrible.
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Nov 5, 2020 05:29
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Ruggan posted:Sure. That’s fair. But with that answer I still see people clustering into socio-economic classes and there still being quite a few people in an awful position. People taking advantage of their wealth, skills, knowledge to hold a position of power. Jumping in here, but I think Socialism is supposed to solve the problem of gross inequality, like there shouldn't be a janitor who works 80 hours a week in horrible conditions only to go back and watch TV in their hovel while their boss answers emails for 3 hours a week and spends the rest of their time on vacation. So for the doctor/janitor analogy, I think an equitable scenario that can be achieved under Socialism is that the doctor and janitor both enjoy life the same amount. This can be quantified by the percentage of their time that each spend working and their salary. Those two values can be adjusted so over their lifetimes both the doctor and janitor enjoy life the same amount. For instance the doctor would have to spend years in medical school, and to compensate for that lost time they are paid more or work less hours than the janitor once they start working as doctors.
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Nov 5, 2020 05:30
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Oh yeah, I'd say most societies have room for anti-social behavior, because there are lots of antisocial people who still live in those societies. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to suggest that a significant percentage of humanity just wants to be left alone. Treating that as some kind of sickness to be cured, that's the kind of scary stuff I hear people say about socialism, and I don't want to believe it because those people believe all kinds of wacky conspiracy nonsense. But if you're telling me the society's goals will engulf my own if mine are too selfish, that brings up questions of enforcement that lead scary places, and I'm left wondering if there's some truth to the classic suburbanite fears. 1. I read "anti-social" activity as, like, mass shooters and bigots and people who cause a disruption, not as people who prefer solitude. 2. If we are refering to people who prefer to be left alone, there's no reason why Socialism would be worse than Capitalism. Both of them are societies, but while Capitalism coerces you to make a profit for business owners, Socialism necessarily provides everyone with the necessities of life.
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Nov 5, 2020 05:31
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Oh yeah, I'd say most societies have room for anti-social behavior, because there are lots of antisocial people who still live in those societies. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to suggest that a significant percentage of humanity just wants to be left alone. Treating that as some kind of sickness to be cured, that's the kind of scary stuff I hear people say about socialism, and I don't want to believe it because those people believe all kinds of wacky conspiracy nonsense. But if you're telling me the society's goals will engulf my own if mine are too selfish, that brings up questions of enforcement that lead scary places, and I'm left wondering if there's some truth to the classic suburbanite fears. This is sort of a weird question since if you just want to keep to yourself, draw your paycheck or goods voucher, do your work, and punch a clock then the only difference for you under socialism vs capitalism is that the rest of society - the engaged part - is going to try make sure what you are taking home equates to the value you added through your labor.
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Nov 5, 2020 05:31
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readingatwork posted:
I'm curious how this take contacts the reality of the EZLN and survives, or do you not consider them "real" anarchists?
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Nov 5, 2020 05:39
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human garbage bag posted:Jumping in here, but I think Socialism is supposed to solve the problem of gross inequality, like there shouldn't be a janitor who works 80 hours a week in horrible conditions only to go back and watch TV in their hovel while their boss answers emails for 3 hours a week and spends the rest of their time on vacation. I think an important thing to understand when talking about this stuff is that people are messy bitches and that a perfect utopia isn't possible. In the example you provided there might be a legitimate need for the doctor or janitor to put in more hours or for one to make more money than the other (becoming a doctor takes a lot of work and SOME financial incentive might be necessary), and this will lead to some unavoidable discrepancies in quality of life. So, rather than leaning on socialism as a recipe for a perfect world I think it's better to think of Socialism/Communism/Anarchism as a framework for understanding societies that can help guide you to better outcomes. So while the doctor might always make more than the janitor we can still understand that perhaps doctors are a bit overpaid and janitors underpaid thanks to the way we structure companies and capitalism and adjust the law accordingly to compensate. Still not perfect, but better.
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Nov 5, 2020 05:44
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The Oldest Man posted:This is sort of a weird question since if you just want to keep to yourself, draw your paycheck or goods voucher, do your work, and punch a clock then the only difference for you under socialism vs capitalism is that the rest of society - the engaged part - is going to try make sure what you are taking home equates to the value you added through your labor. Yeah but that's the whole point: what if my work, or even my entire existence, adds only subjective or even dubious value? What then? Let's say I'm a professional entertainer with a niche audience that barely keeps me fed, and I live on the edges of society avoiding people wherever possible, and I'm just barely getting by under capitalism but I'm not dead yet. That describes a lot of even the greatest artists ever, like it's a cliche that artists are only appreciated after they're dead. So under socialism would I be allowed to devote my life to that? Is there gonna be some bureau or office with a chart that determines how much value my work adds to society based on reviews of my latest poetry reading and how much I got in my busking hat (if that's still allowed)? It's very neat and tidy to say we get rewards based on the value of our work, but, to get back to my original question, is value only defined as something that leads towards growth or expansion, or the wellbeing of others? What if my work does zip-all for the material well being of others? What if my entire life is devoted to unpopular art with no provable material value? Am I just not welcome in the socialist society?
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Nov 5, 2020 05:45
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The Oldest Man posted:I'm curious how this take contacts the reality of the EZLN and survives, or do you not consider them "real" anarchists? I don't know what this is but I am interested in hearing more. I'm aware that small Anarchist societies exist successfully. My concern is that the idea doesn't scale well to something the size of the US, where there are multiple large factions that hate each other. Anarchists I've listened to all seem to assume that we'll get to a place where that just won't be the case ~somehow~ and that doesn't seem realistic to me. E: For the record Anarchism is fantastic and a lot of ways, unlike libertarianism which is pure garbage designed to let billionaires dump nuclear waste in the everglades. I just also think it has serious flaws which make it difficult to implement in practice. E2: I'm also not sure how an Anarchist society would deal with other nations which are openly fighting for resources that are in limited supply. To say nothing of a country like the US which is openly hostile to their existence. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Leftist countries that have survived for any length of time are like the USSR or Cuba where there's a strong centralized government and military. readingatwork fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Nov 5, 2020 |
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Nov 5, 2020 05:47
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Yeah but that's the whole point: what if my work, or even my entire existence, adds only subjective or even dubious value? What then? Well, you may be forced to produce works that other people can see. Or you may be asked to spend some time teaching. However, the underpinning of any Socialist society still would require "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" (although, that's technically late stage communism). So you will always receive the necessities for life just like the disabled would be provided with the same even if they unable to labor at all.
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Nov 5, 2020 05:52
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human garbage bag posted:Jumping in here, but I think Socialism is supposed to solve the problem of gross inequality, like there shouldn't be a janitor who works 80 hours a week in horrible conditions only to go back and watch TV in their hovel while their boss answers emails for 3 hours a week and spends the rest of their time on vacation. I'm not sure why the doctor can't enjoy their life during medical school that they need extra compensation later. The logic is not immediately obvious here. The doctors will surely reward themselves with smuggery anyway, and they deserve a lot of it. Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Nov 5, 2020 |
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Nov 5, 2020 05:58
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Well, you may be forced to produce works that other people can see. Or you may be asked to spend some time teaching. However, the underpinning of any Socialist society still would require "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" (although, that's technically late stage communism). So you will always receive the necessities for life just like the disabled would be provided with the same even if they unable to labor at all. Oh wow so I just get a free ride even if my art is singing "gently caress everyone, especially youuuu" to passersby while I play a rubber band guitar and make rude gestures, as long as I have like a Ted Talk about how I tune the rubber bands? Sign me up comrade!
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Nov 5, 2020 05:59
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Yeah but that's the whole point: what if my work, or even my entire existence, adds only subjective or even dubious value? What then? However, all the people in your community for whom you busk are continuously impoverished by the value extraction of capitalism. They might want to put more in your hat or to provide other benefits to the community at large (like make access to the hospital something they make free for all by communally paying the doctors and the nurses and janitors, or provide free meals to all no questions asked by providing a communal fund to the cooks), but they lack the economic means to make those things real without destituting themselves. Or they might not - socialism as an economic order to things doesn't solve every problem that exists. For example, as an economic order socialism in a vacuum doesn't address things like bodily autonomy, racism, and so on. That's generally why "socialism" in common parlance is usually hiding a few other descriptors that attach a political ordering to the economic component. Ultimately, the basic needs of society like food, water, and so on need to be provided for the society to be stable. Some societies are so impoverished that they will struggle to provide those even in a perfectly equitable distribution method. However, the amount of surplus modern society generates that is siphoned off by the owning class is so staggeringly huge that recapturing it for labor allows the possibility - though not the guarantee - of a society that can easily fund programs of universal kindness (for food, housing, medical care, and a no-questions-asked stipend) such that an artist who wants to just do a walkaway and go paint in their apartment is free to do that.
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Nov 5, 2020 06:09
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Yeah but that's the whole point: what if my work, or even my entire existence, adds only subjective or even dubious value? What then? I think you're touching on a legitimate blind spot in Marxist thinking. Marxism can be very utilitarian in it's single minded focus on economics and material equality and wellbeing. And while this is incredibly important (I mean, gently caress, look at the US right now) it doesn't really have a place in itself (that I know of) for work that's not really essential but is still fun or enjoyable to others like creating art. It doesn't explicitly say these professions *can't* exist, mind you, it just doesn't seem to have thought about it all that much. Which is a big problem if you ask me because one of Capitalism's biggest selling points is that you can do the stupid thing you like and potentially make ten million dollars doing it. What does Communism offer a YouTube video creator? or a cartoonist? Or even a philosopher? I think that if we on the left want to get people on board we need to have a good answer for that. The answer exists btw. It's to just say "fine, you can make and sell your stupid bullshit within certain limitations but you will never become a billionaire or leverage your work into being a megacorp, sorry". Small businesses could still exist to a point in Communism. They would just be a side show rather than the driving force of society.
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Nov 5, 2020 06:14
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readingatwork posted:Reserved. Basically this but digital, eh?  ^ You sure about that? Marx was pretty enthusiastic about workers under socialism laboring beyond material necessity for the sake of self-fulfillment. He expected that people would pursue many hobbies, some productive and some purely recreational, through their daily lives: quote:For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. Ruzihm fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Nov 5, 2020 |
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Nov 5, 2020 06:20
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readingatwork posted:Which is a big problem if you ask me because one of Capitalism's biggest selling points is that you can do the stupid thing you like and potentially make ten million dollars doing it. What does Communism offer a YouTube video creator? This is a prime example of all the value of work (that in this case being ad revenue) being siphoned off by the capital owners who then then pay a pittance to the laborers in comparison. You can make the exact same comparison to professional sports teams. Labor is labor. If the art is valued (this being in direct contradiction to the example above where no one values the art being produced), that value is being stolen right now.
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Nov 5, 2020 06:23
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readingatwork posted:A big one though is that I'm not sure how stable Socialism/Comminism is over time. I worry that even if we implement a perfect version of Luxury Gay Communism that over time future generations become comfortable and unaware of the realities of class struggle. They'll de-radicalize and eventually liberal/wealthy factions will start gaining power again as people start carving up the welfare state for their own benefit one tiny piece at a time. The end result might not be capitalism necessarily but some form of class hierarchy would reform and the injustices we fought to unto will begin again. Of course, this is likely a problem in any society, not just Marxist ones, but I still think about it a lot. I'm a Marxist but have only read so much theory, so take this with a grain of salt, but as I understand it there are some elements of Marxist thought that I think are particularly relevant to this: The first is that the process from capitalism to communism through socialism resolves that sort of greed-first drive to start hoarding wealth or carving up parts of the state. Post-capital subjects shouldn't really have the sorts of goals that capital subjects do (eg. gently caress you got mine). We, as capital subjects, for the most part aren't wandering the countryside looking for manor lords to give farmed produce to, and I'd imagine in a post-capital world someone trying to hoard wealth would be seen as just as nutty: You want three houses? What are you going to do with three houses? You can't be in three places at once, why can't anyone stay there when you're not there etc. etc. This is Actual Communism, though, not socialism/"lower communism", which is the sort of transitional state where the means of production is controlled by the public or worker cooperatives, as opposed to "higher communism"'s communal ownership. Before resolution into higher communism we still have to deal with class antagonism as the state (the world, really) reorients away from capitalism, and it seems unlikely to me that you'd ever have a period therein where the class-conscious workers are able to forget about class conflict but still aren't able to make the transition. Which leads me in to the other idea of this all being part of a dialectical process: the contradictions of capitalism are resolved in socialism, and the contradictions of socialism are resolved in communism (or you might formulate it as the contradictions of capitalism are resolved in communism through socialism) -- but! -- that doesn't mean history is over and the ultimate apex of humanity has been reached. I mean, maybe it is, but it seems weird to me that we just happen to find ourselves at the penultimate step of human civilization a mere few thousand years from the start of recorded history. Instead, I (and I think the vast majority of Marxists) think new contradictions will arise and new ideas about how to structure society will arise to resolve those contradictions. None of it is ever "stable" because it's never an end state; it's all moving in a direction. Unfortunately as capital subjects I think it's incredibly difficult, if not outright impossible, to make anything better than a guess as to what those contradictions or resolutions might be. If pressed, I think I'd say that if the process from lopsided wealth distribution in pre-communist societies to post-scarcity communist societies resolved the problems of the distribution of material needs, then I'd bet the process from communism to post-communism resolves issues around identity, relationships, spirituality, that sort of stuff. Maybe we finally hash out the meaning of life while going from post-post-post-communist to post-post-post-post communist? Who knows!
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Nov 5, 2020 06:27
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readingatwork posted:One of Capitalism's biggest selling points is that you can do the stupid thing you like and potentially make ten million dollars doing it. What does Communism offer a YouTube video creator? or a cartoonist? Or even a philosopher? I think that if we on the left want to get people on board we need to have a good answer for that. This. Everybody wants to dump on Horatio Alger rags-to-riches thinking because it's unsustainable and self-destructive, which are totally valid points, but they fail to address the key benefit on the other side which is drat what a sexy premise!. Do whatever I want and get rich!?!? Yes please!!!! There's a reason that one of the classic anti-soviet views was "their art is ugly and joyless", because a lot of it really really was. If the only art that is allowed is big inofensive concrete sculptures of fearless leader, that's not a very appealing pitch. But I agree there is an answer out there for this, and it probably involves some kind of UBI that treats avant garde artists as essentially disabled people, freeing them to do whatever crazy thing they want and not starve. And a larger society that sees the value in this and doesn't whine about the "lazy artists" getting access to medicine and such. What a lovely world that would be.
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Nov 5, 2020 06:29
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readingatwork posted:I don't know what this is but I am interested in hearing more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Zapatista_Autonomous_Municipalities They're an anarchist-adjacent popular indigenous insurgent movement in Mexico that's managed to more or less take control of about half of the state of Chiapas through ultra-low-intensity warfare.
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Nov 5, 2020 06:37
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Oh wow so I just get a free ride even if my art is singing "gently caress everyone, especially youuuu" to passersby while I play a rubber band guitar and make rude gestures, as long as I have like a Ted Talk about how I tune the rubber bands? In any socialist society, or any communist society that hasn't totally conquered scarcity, if no one likes what you're doing, sooner or later the community is going to come around in one way or another and tell you to knock it off because there's real work that needs to be done. Socialism doesn't imply an end to all forms of coercion, and you probably won't be allowed to just do your dumb bullshit all day because people will get pissed off because you're not helping anything, or making anyone's life better or more enjoyable. The difference between this and capitalism is that, one, in a socialist society you'll probably have much more leisure time to pursue your passion of being a weird rear end in a top hat with a rubber band guitar (if that's what you really want to do with your life), two, in a socialist society you'll get in trouble for not pulling your weight instead of getting in trouble for not making the boss sufficient profits, and three, the "trouble" you'll get into in a socialist society will be being forced to actually do something useful, whereas in a capitalist society the trouble you'll get into is starving to death a ditch.
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Nov 5, 2020 06:37
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Pentecoastal Elites posted:
Actually under capitalism it's pretty likely that some monied individuals will dial 911 and have their bought-and-paid for goon squad come and gently caress you up if you do a single thing they don't like. The economic asymmetry of the society allows the Haves to dictate everything to the Have Nots; they don't need to wait for loud artists to die.
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Nov 5, 2020 06:40
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Muke made a video that touched on mandatory work under socialism in marxist theory and some practice. might be worth a watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3vbRNM5Pw8
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Nov 5, 2020 06:42
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Ruggan posted:This. Or the 99 doctors agree to pay the janitor a pittance and the janitor has no real say - but they can’t get any other job in the area. This method doesn’t seem to help minority disenfranchised groups. Workplace democracy doesn't solve all issues inherent to markets, but as long as we're having a society that still has things like money and markets it still represents an unequivocal improvement over the status quo. And ideally you'd have a reasonable minimal level of wages/benefits set by the government. There's also an advantage to the situation you describe over "random high level executives make these decisions in a way where it's difficult to pinpoint where the responsibility lies" - the janitors will know exactly who made the decision to pay them a pittance. It would be easier to find ways to make the doctors' lives difficult. And broadly speaking I imagine that most companies have more low-level employees than high-level ones; hospitals are probably a unique situation where more well-compensated nurses/doctors might outnumber people like janitors (I have no idea if this is actually the case).
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Nov 5, 2020 06:50
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Okay a bunch of people are using similar arguments about art that has "value" vs art that doesn't, and I want to stop y'all for a moment and ask you, who gets to determine which art has value and which doesn't? By what rubric, and with what extent of authority? If you're gonna have laws in your society that hinge on this, you better get it down. And that is not historically an easy task. The example I always think of is Nocturne in Black and Gold by Whistler:  What do you see when you look at this painting? Do you see a bunch of dribbles and drops? Or do you see a photorealistic portrayal of fireworks over a body of water at night? Both views were fiercely defended during a famous 1878 libel case where art critic John Ruskin defended his right to say Whistler was "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face", and thereby drastically devaluing Whistler paintings at the time, pushing him to destitution. It also didn't help when a prominent gallery displayed the painting upside-down. Spoiler alert- Whistler wins the but goes bankrupt anyway because it was only a "gentleman's sum" of 1 farthing. My point is, art is not only highly subjective, it's also constantly trying to be ahead of the culture that's judging it, and therefore the goal is actually to skirt unpopularity. That doesn't mesh well with the idea of objective values being attached to things. The advent of widespread cheap photography and the changes it made to the shared public aesthetic made paintings like Nocturne in Black and Gold far more relatable for the average person, Whistler was ahead of his time. But if criticisms like Ruskin's can tank a painter's career in a capitalist society like Victorian England, what hope is there when that kind of judgement has been institutionalized? How do you assure fair judgement of a field that intentionally defies expectations and spits back at all judgements?
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Nov 5, 2020 06:54
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The Oldest Man posted:This is a prime example of all the value of work (that in this case being ad revenue) being siphoned off by the capital owners who then then pay a pittance to the laborers in comparison. You can make the exact same comparison to professional sports teams. Labor is labor. If the art is valued (this being in direct contradiction to the example above where no one values the art being produced), that value is being stolen right now. Agreed. Let's nationalize YouTube! Ruzihm posted:
You're talking about hobbies. And I agree that people would be much more free under Communism to pursue side-hobbies that they actually enjoy simply by virtue of having the time to do so and not having every "wasted" moment feel like a personal failure. I'm talking about small businesses which are basically what everybody dreams of doing. I have no doubt I could write a novel under communism, but could I make it my day job? BoldFrankensteinMir posted:This. Everybody wants to dump on Horatio Alger rags-to-riches thinking because it's unsustainable and self-destructive, which are totally valid points, but they fail to address the key benefit on the other side which is drat what a sexy premise!. Do whatever I want and get rich!?!? Yes please!!!! A better option I think is to just let small businesses be a thing but severely limit their influence (you exist on the whims of the economy, the economy does not serve you), cap how much they can make and require them to become worker-owned/non-profit at a certain point. Also if somebody makes the next Twitter or whatever it gets nationalized and distributed freely. This way you can still make selling furry porn your day job if you want and you still get your free healthcare and SS check, but you don't get rich or powerful doing it which I think will be fine for a lot of people who just like making smut.
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Nov 5, 2020 06:54
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Ytlaya posted:
A hospital contains a few highly compensated doctors (attending physicians and medical directors), a few more slave-labor doctors typically poo poo money (residents and fellows), a lot of RNs, PAs, nurses, PTs, therapists, pharmacy techs, and other para-doctory type skilled labor who earn less than the top echelon of doctors but frequently more than the residency/fellowship chain gang doctors, and a lot of support staff like receptionists, cafeteria workers, schedulers, orderlies, and so on.
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Nov 5, 2020 06:56
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The Oldest Man posted:Actually under capitalism it's pretty likely that some monied individuals will dial 911 and have their bought-and-paid for goon squad come and gently caress you up if you do a single thing they don't like. The economic asymmetry of the society allows the Haves to dictate everything to the Have Nots; they don't need to wait for loud artists to die. The social order created by capitalists carving divides in the working class in order to hamper challenges to their power has resulted in "musicians" being shuffled to the bottom of the social totem pole and as a result you were beaten to death by a drunken gang of your fellow workers one night while busking with your rubber band guitar. Whoops! BoldFrankensteinMir posted:This. Everybody wants to dump on Horatio Alger rags-to-riches thinking because it's unsustainable and self-destructive, which are totally valid points, but they fail to address the key benefit on the other side which is drat what a sexy premise!. Do whatever I want and get rich!?!? Yes please!!!! This is the sort of... I don't know... toxic memetic colonization capitalism does to its subjects. It's never "I want dedicate my life to doing this thing I love, and I don't want to worry about material needs or my or my family's health and safety". It's always "yeah yeah I want to be a singer or whatever and I want to GET RICH." To what end? To get more stuff you don't need? Better stuff? Social prestidge? After a point it's just about hoarding wealth. And that wealth doesn't come from nowhere, it's part and parcel of the entire system. One of the most important ideas in Marxist economic thought is that all this poo poo is inexorably linked -- if Murcielagos just spontaneously appeared every so often it'd be one thing, but that car you bought as part of your wealth hoard is built on a chain of labor that starts at horrifically exploited people mining ore and doesn't get much better for quite a while up the chain, with profits squeezed from labor every step of the way. Why? So a few thousand people can live in outrageous, decadent luxury at the immiseration of billions? Who except for the most broken sociopaths would ever want that? Why do we have to organize society in this way?
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Nov 5, 2020 07:00
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Okay a bunch of people are using similar arguments about art that has "value" vs art that doesn't, and I want to stop y'all for a moment and ask you, who gets to determine which art has value and which doesn't? By what rubric, and with what extent of authority? If you're gonna have laws in your society that hinge on this, you better get it down. And that is not historically an easy task. I assume you are angling to argue against communism as it appeared in the Soviet Union but that's not what we're talking about here. To answer your question, though: the people. The communities involved with the creation and appreciation of art. This is objectively better than what we have in currently-existing capitalism because the people who decide the value of art right now are not "the people", they are "the rich people", a very, very, very small minority.
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Nov 5, 2020 07:05
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Pentecoastal Elites posted:The social order created by capitalists carving divides in the working class in order to hamper challenges to their power has resulted in "musicians" being shuffled to the bottom of the social totem pole and as a result you were beaten to death by a drunken gang of your fellow workers one night while busking with your rubber band guitar. Whoops! You're correct, there is absolutely no logical reason to want it. But logic is only a third of a convincing argument. The other two thirds, emotion and ethics, overpower it completely with most people, because the only feelings they really engage with are the emotional triggers associated with consumption, and the only ethics they deal with are mangled protestant-work-fetish stuff that tells them hard work = good behavior. So yeah, being rich makes little sense logically, but it sounds fun and it has society's approval. Two against one!
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Nov 5, 2020 07:05
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I've already addressed that (twice), but to spell it out more clearly: those desires are generated by capitalism, and the project of overthrowing capitalism will necessarily include work to dismantle the general sentiment of maniacal greedy hoarding that capitalism upholds as its principal virtue (which is not anywhere near as universally felt as you want to paint it as, by the way)
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Nov 5, 2020 07:08
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Pentecoastal Elites posted:I've already addressed that (twice), but to spell it out more clearly: those desires are generated by capitalism, and the project of overthrowing capitalism will necessarily include work to dismantle the general sentiment of maniacal greedy hoarding that capitalism upholds as its principal virtue (which is not anywhere near as universally felt as you want to paint it as, by the way) I see your point, and I respect your optimism! Personally, I think people don't need to have greedy desires "generated" by anything, it's the natural state of man, but that could still wind up in us overcoming it some day. Different directions but the same destination. This is all very fascinating and I'm prepared to move to your new country as soon as it's open to settlement. I will be taking the "insane artist living off the state" package please. Line starts here.
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Nov 5, 2020 07:11
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Harold Fjord posted:I'm not sure why the doctor can't enjoy their life during medical school that they need extra compensation later. The logic is not immediately obvious here. The doctors will surely reward themselves with smuggery anyway, and they deserve a lot of it. I think we can both agree that it takes more training to be a doctor than to be a janitor. So the doctor needs to be compensated for the extra time they spend training compared to the janitor. Or the doctor could be paid for training as if they were actually working. And if the doctor has to work more hours than the janitor because there is a shortage of doctors then they should be compensated for the time they are working.
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Nov 5, 2020 07:11
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Ruzihm posted:Muke made a video that touched on mandatory work under socialism in marxist theory and some practice. might be worth a watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3vbRNM5Pw8 I think there's truth to the idea that a job is way less lovely when you don't feel coerced into doing it and that we can create a much more healthy relationship to the work we do. That said I find the idea that all work can be 100% consensual and a thing of passion to be a bit naive. While watching this I had a question in mind: "in the ideal society how do the toilets get cleaned?" and I never got a great answer. Nobody is going to go around town cleaning toilets for fun*. You will need to goose people into doing it somehow either through coercion or (more ideally) though increased compensation. Even then it's not exactly something you'll love doing. *Well this one guy might but he's a weirdo: 
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Nov 5, 2020 07:22
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The Oldest Man posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation Thanks for these I'll check it out later.
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Nov 5, 2020 07:26
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readingatwork posted:While watching this I had a question in mind: "in the ideal society how do the toilets get cleaned?" and I never got a great answer. Nobody is going to go around town cleaning toilets for fun*. You will need to goose people into doing it somehow either through coercion or (more ideally) though increased compensation. Even then it's not exactly something you'll love doing. One partial answer to this could be automation. Full luxury gay space communism could develop some kind of toilet-roomba, and then the job would be baby-sitting the robot rather than scrubbing the bowl yourself. It might be a pretty chill job if that's all it was, you could just watch cat videos on nationalized Youtube while the robot does its thing, but perhaps efficiency would demand that you'd need to do other janitorial work too.
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Nov 5, 2020 07:38
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Oh wow so I just get a free ride even if my art is singing "gently caress everyone, especially youuuu" to passersby while I play a rubber band guitar and make rude gestures, as long as I have like a Ted Talk about how I tune the rubber bands? you'll get your work assignment (not your loving arty poo poo, actual work), do it, and what you do after that is your business
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Nov 5, 2020 08:20
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:This. Everybody wants to dump on Horatio Alger rags-to-riches thinking because it's unsustainable and self-destructive, which are totally valid points, but they fail to address the key benefit on the other side which is drat what a sexy premise!. Do whatever I want and get rich!?!? Yes please!!!! this is more based on propaganda than any basis in reality. soviet society had abundant and highly creative/innovative/beautiful art, especially music and cinema. Catgirl Al Capone fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Nov 5, 2020 |
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Nov 5, 2020 12:09
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Rappaport posted:One partial answer to this could be automation. Full luxury gay space communism could develop some kind of toilet-roomba, and then the job would be baby-sitting the robot rather than scrubbing the bowl yourself. It might be a pretty chill job if that's all it was, you could just watch cat videos on nationalized Youtube while the robot does its thing, but perhaps efficiency would demand that you'd need to do other janitorial work too. This is mostly my response, but even this path has bizarre problems. I was at two different stores last month where an employee was paid to follow an automated floor cleaner. These cleaners had seats, but they were ordered not to sit in them. They just walked beside it the entire time. We're being denied the alleviation of effort that technology brings because capitalism is a religion that demands the working class must suffer.
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Nov 5, 2020 12:14
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Cpt_Obvious posted:This is all an interesting idea, and I like it a lot. However, we can't leave out hire and fire power. The workers should be in charge of who hires and fires, not a supervisor unless there is some sort of election to decide on who should in charge of hiring and firing, a sort of elected Republic of supervisors. I do feel like I swing more to the idea of there being someone who is taking an executive position as a sort of check OR there should be agreed upon norms and an incredible enrichment of everyone's legal and ethical capacity. For example, community based hiring boards usually have guiding rubrics to support their capacity in hiring. I feel like it's worth noting that a democratized group can still make poor decisions, especially if they are asked to make reactionary uniformed decisions. An example would be if an employee sexually harasses another employee. If the harasser is popular and generally seen as a good person, a just pure reactionary vote may not end well from an ethical standpoint. Either a single executive or group of executives with high ethical capacity could simply be in charge of swiftly dealing with the situation OR the workplace community was already creating systems to increase everyone's capacity around workplace norms and ethics. But I think the latter also undercuts the needs of the harassed in this specific situation. There is a reason that HR Departments try to function as an independent third party, almost like workplace supreme court. The harassed might want their needs met in terms of not being harassed, but their privacy also preserved. I guess it creates the question of if we democratize firing, should ALL firing necessary be democratized? I think electing a board in charge of hiring/firing or community hiring creates a good compromise. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Nov 5, 2020 |
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Nov 5, 2020 12:39
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The Oldest Man posted:A hospital contains a few highly compensated doctors (attending physicians and medical directors), a few more slave-labor doctors typically poo poo money (residents and fellows), a lot of RNs, PAs, nurses, PTs, therapists, pharmacy techs, and other para-doctory type skilled labor who earn less than the top echelon of doctors but frequently more than the residency/fellowship chain gang doctors, and a lot of support staff like receptionists, cafeteria workers, schedulers, orderlies, and so on. Even if you assume that lower-paid workers are always going to outnumber the workers who are currently highly paid (which probably makes sense for every business I can think of), couldn't demand for labour create inequalities that companies (in the worker-owned, democratic sense) are forced into? Let's assume there's a high demand for people with specialized knowledge to create a certain type of widget. Let's also assume that learning how to make these widgets is a pretty complex process that requires a lot of training, and for whatever reason, there's a growing need for these widgets, and so there just aren't enough people to make them. Widget makers in that scenario would have a lot of leverage when deciding which company they wanted to work for. They'd easily be able to say "I'll work for whoever wants to give me an outsized share of the profits of the company (or better wages / less hours / whatever they want). From the perspective of the company, it makes sense to do this - otherwise they can't produce widgets, and their company can't function. Given the choice between accepting inequality, or being completely unable to produce anything of value, they'll begrudgingly accept inequality. I don't think this is a particularly wild edge case - this is probably the situation for certain fields right now - if you're a software developer in San Francisco, this basically describes reality today.
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Nov 5, 2020 13:12
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readingatwork posted:I worry that even if we implement a perfect version of Luxury Gay Communism that over time future generations become comfortable and unaware of the realities of class struggle. They'll de-radicalize and eventually liberal/wealthy factions will start gaining power again as people start carving up the welfare state for their own benefit one tiny piece at a time. The end result might not be capitalism necessarily but some form of class hierarchy would reform and the injustices we fought to unto will begin again. Of course, this is likely a problem in any society, not just Marxist ones, but I still think about it a lot. But that isn't how Marx saw it. I recently wrote an article on the subject, but communism is considered a logical end-point of historical development: slavery existed until it was no longer compatible with the growing productive forces of society, so it was overthrown by feudalism; feudalism had a pretty good run until the expanding productive forces of society couldn't be handled by feudal ties anymore and were conflicting with ascendant capitalism, hence bourgeois revolutions were carried out overthrow feudalism; capitalism has (in Marx's words) "created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together," yet it will meet the same fate as slavery and feudalism since the continued growth of the productive forces causes the capitalist system to enter into ever greater economic crises, which can only be resolved by proletarian revolution and transition to a post-capitalist society (i.e. the lower and higher phases of communism, the former being what Marxists mean when referring to socialism.) In other words, the maintenance of communism has nothing to do with whether people "want" it or not, but whether things have reached the point where communism is the only way society can effectively function given the incredibly high level of productive forces. Private property will have become a blatant hindrance to productivity, much as how capitalist agriculture has rendered the slave plantation and feudal estate obsolete. I think the most you can say is that a communist society at any given time may have "bad" elements, but the mode of production will still be a communist one with or without these elements, which can be peacefully or violently removed by the inhabitants of said society in their quest to improve things. For example, Thomas More's Utopia (traditionally considered by Marxists to be the first significant depiction of a communist society, albeit literally a utopian one) answered the question of "who will do unwanted work under communism" in his own 16th century manner by society enslaving certain persons for various offenses and forcing these to do "unsavory" tasks like clean animal carcasses. Yet the fictional island of Utopia was still characterized by the abolition of private property, and production and distribution of goods based on needs. So if a future communist society somewhere did for some reason actually implement a form of slavery like in More's text, there's no reason why the population couldn't put up with it (to say nothing of peacefully abolishing or forcibly overthrowing it) while still remaining within the communist mode of production. But there would be no material basis for a restoration of capitalism any more than there's a material basis for a restoration of slavery or feudalism today. Enver Zogha fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Nov 5, 2020 |
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Nov 5, 2020 13:15
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