Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
Community-wise? No idea. I tried Lemmy once and initially they loved me because I argued effectively on their behalf on points we mutually agreed on. Once they found me on the opposite side of them on social issues, I was swiftly banned from that place.
Only on ‘very’ few issues would I be considered left-wing. Years ago I took the political compass test and it placed me on the “authoritarian left-wing,” spectrum. On some issues sure. It’s survey of my views I felt weren’t asking me the right questions though. A single [and slight] word difference would’ve placed me from a moderate to the far right end of the spectrum.
If you’re a lefty though, why object to socialism? The core of socialism is just workers control of production (i.e. industrial democracy). Authoritarianism was always a reluctant ideological instrument of the early communists, when faced with external pressure and mounting enemies against their revolutionary attempts. These regimes of course were authoritarian. They unfortunately had to be. Otherwise counter-revolutionaries come in and undo all the progress you’ve made. These systems weren’t regularly allowed to fail or succeed on their own merits but were always being fucked with by outside actors.
I find that the "authoritarian" axis in political alignment tests is basically meaningless. We have a contested environment where there are four, if not more, obvious potential power centers (government; "the rabble"; the financial elite (business); the social elite (academics/journalists), possibly further pillarised into tribes so you have the Alex Joneses/Charlie Kirks and the NYT journalists), each having framed bringing at least some of the others to heel as a precondition to their own ability to exercise their natural right to live freely.
In this setting, being "libertarian" just ends up meaning "wants more power for the power centers the labeller likes" and being "authoritarian" means "wants more power for the power centers the labeller dislikes". The "tankie left" wants power for the rabble, and a hypothetical government of them, over the others; "yellow lib-right" wants power for the financial elite; traditional auth right wants power for government; "liberals" want power for their social elite, and the Ivermectin circuit essentially forms a sort of shadow liberal set that is excited over Robert Kennedy and probably also vaguely pining for an era when microchurch pastors with weird idiosyncratic beliefs commanded respect in their communities. Each of these groups thinks that it is natural if their respective elites rule, and unjust oppression if they are prevented from doing so.
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At some point you gotta stop blaming outside actors for internal failures, right? The Soviets were large enough to stand their own and engaged in international trade. Still ended up collapsing.
Even China had to adapt to capitalism in the end. Worker control of the means of production simply doesn't work if you get rid of the market signals that influence the means of production -- and if you're adopting a market economy then you're not doing classical socialism anymore anyways.
To add to this, everyone and everything is always being influenced by outside actors. That's part of living in the world, you are not alone. Being able to deal with the rest of the world is simply a requirement.
It's actually quite remarkable how much the Soviets and their satellite states found it necessary to close off their societies. In the modern day, only North Korea does it to that extent.
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First of all I never said it wasn't a failure. It obviously was. Friction is the deciding factor in the success of ideologies because it's where the rubber meets the road. Russia's particular implementation of communism via Marxist-Leninism didn't work, but...
China is a socialist market economy with strong Leninist leanings. So what does that prove? It proves that there are good and bad ways of implementing the program.
WSDE's don't "get rid of" market signals and expressing a preference.
What are the defining features of the Chinese economy that get you to call it "socialist"? Given the state of the Chinese labor market and the bargaining power that Chinese workers have, it does not strike me at all as "worker control over the means of production."
Likewise, I don't see any actual real-life implementations of that that don't seem like they'd be better described by the term "capitalism."
To begin with, China defines themselves along the way I described. This isn't something I just made up. Literally entire textbooks have been written on it. To give it concisely I very much have to abbreviate and abridge the economic and political logic at play here but basically it's a bureaucratic authoritarian system. So some of what I'm going to be misleading for the sake of concision.
In China, once a firm starts making a certain amount of money, the CCP comes in and nationalizes the entire business and takes it over. "Taking it over" in this context means that the business owner becomes a de facto member of the CCP and works in tandem with other actors in a similar position he is in, and with direct CCP officials to "harmonize" business incentives across enterprises to achieve broad political objectives set by the Politburo Standing Committee.
You have to see it the way socialists see it. "Workers control," can mean it's "controlled" by them in a number of different ways. It can be controlled directly by them. It can be controlled by a "dictatorship of the proletariat" (though we've seen how that goes), it can be controlled by the government, it depends on what thread of socialism you subscribe too. Most socialists today that I "know" of somewhat, reject state socialism outright. They see examples like Russia as a God that failed and China as an example of one that works. Plus all the worker co-op's scattered throughout the world.
Call it what you want. Just as there are different flavors and varieties of capitalism, there are different flavors and varieties of socialism.
Right, but is a country's self-definition the best way to understand it? North Korea defines itself as a democratic people's republic, when it's obviously neither democratic nor for the people.
Interesting. The internet socialists I've been in contact with in the past were the type to bemoan that China had lost its socialist way.
Fair enough. How is one to differentiate between a capitalist versus socialist economy then, when there can apparently be many shared characteristics across both? As I've mentioned, I'd like something more objective than "They claim to uphold the ideals of their ruling ideology."
How do you want to define “best” in this discussion? If you think it’s easier and want to lead under your paradigm go ahead. I have no problem operating within their established framework. Labels have their uses but I’m not dogmatically attached to them. In fact, all the better as far as I’m concerned. If you want someone stubborn to accept the brilliance of your philosophy the best way isn’t to argue with them but to convince them it was their idea in the first place, and then roll your eyes once their head is turned around.
Well. I don’t know who these “internet socialists” are. I don’t spend that much time living my life online and this is pretty much the only social media account I actively use on occasion. They clearly aren’t the ones I talk to that have actually read a book down that alley.
You examine the characteristics of these systems, the same as you do for anything else. Capitalism is a system where the means of production are privately owned. Socialism is a system where the means of production are controlled by the workers. Now how both of these different systems go about trying to enact and carry out their aims is multifaceted.
Good question. I suppose that would be, what gives me the most accurate mental model to work with? Modeling NK as "democratic," for example, would not be very accurate at all for any reasonable common understanding of the word "democratic." You'd have to construct so many epicycles to make that model work that it's much easier to model NK as simply being a very undemocratic dictatorship.
Right, and when "private ownership" and "worker control" start blending into each other, what use do the labels have anymore? To go back to the beginning of this thread,
Well that depends on what is meant by "socialism", no? If by "socialism" you mean a Chinese-style economy where you can have more billionaires than the US, but the billionaires are explicitly subordinate to the state, then yeah I'm sure that's more palatable to a lot of people. It sounds pretty similar to a fascist Nazi Germany or modern Russia where the state has overwhelming power to direct industrial titans to work towards the state's goals, and neither of those were/are communist states.
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What? Maybe you
Take your pick. I’m sure there are plenty of other reasons why a reasonable leftist would think socialism isn’t actually a good thing.
Leftists are the ones who are most gung-ho about “the system,” which is why it’s a little confusing to me that he refers to himself as a leftist but isn’t against capitalism. That’s the whole crux of all the herp derp about “conservatives not knowing the difference between a liberal and a leftist.” Liberals want to reform capitalism. Leftists want to abolish it for another system.
Your fourth point is more about the harmony that social democracy’s try to achieve by having a mixed system that accomplishes both ends to some extent and mitigates the excesses of the other.
Marx himself is actually a real pain in the ass to read unless you’re familiar with the labor context of the international economy at the time he was writing. And his obtuse writing style makes it all the worse when you’re trying to adapt his observations to the system today. I’ve only read the Communist Manifesto, volume 1 of Capital and the Grundrisse of his directly. I’ve read much more exegesis on his work than him. Personally I’m Catholic so we’re obviously ideological enemies but that doesn’t mean everything he wrote was nonsense. He had many interesting and I’d say correct observations.
I’ve never bought into the post-scarcity argument. Unless you can outsource economic production into space and you’re talking about things on a cosmic scale.
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