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”.
When I say redistribution, I mean someone taking from one person and distributing what they took to others. In practical terms that means taxes and government programs. That centralizes power to the government to make decisions how redistribution happens and who benefits. Or so is the Libertarian argument.
The workers owning production is a bit more complex. I think most libertarians would point to the like of Soviet Communism where state power organized labor. Again, centralization. But private co-ops and such exist so I don’t think they can mark it across the the board.
libertarians believe wholeheartedly in freedom of association and the right to voluntary exchange. As soon as you start talking forced anything, you’ve lost us.
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.
I think if a Libertarian considered workers owning production in good faith but using their own terms, they’d see that a bunch of people owning production is more decentralized than one dude owning the whole factory. And then become a left libertarian.
Are you advocating for co-ops or am I missing the point?
I was incorrectly assuming that’s what you meant by workers owning production, but I see in your reply to the other post that you also include state power organized labor.
So I guess my point is that a Libertarian would use the meme above with a punchline of “we just say communism” instead of Soviet Communism, when most here would not agree that’s the inevitable result of all communism.
Yeah, I get that. That’s actually what I was saying in my first post. A libertarian would see any form of communism as the path to tyranny, much like the meme does toward capitalism.
I’m just asking what form of collectivization best argues against that point? You mentioned left libertarianism.
Libertarians tend to say things like democracy, a well informed populace, and a strong constitution would reduce government growth and therefore abuse (cronyism). How can that same problem of abuse be avoided in a real collective society?
I’m not going to pretend like I have all the answers there. Personally I don’t think goverments are helpful; the vanguard state has failed repeatedly. Those weren’t “crony” vanguard state. But unions and co-ops have worked out much better. If everybody is voting, then elites would need to coerce everyone instead of just whoever is in charge. One Stalin can’t ruin everything.
This can cause its own problems (like voter fatigue), but those can be mitigated in various ways (like with liquid democracy). And if/when it becomes corrupt and your voice goes unheard, then creating or joining a new union is much easier than doing so with a new government.
Hey look! Changing the subject to communism! Liberals are very good at this!
One could easily point out Libertarian misconceptions about anarchism or what libertarianism actually means, too. I’m using communism in this example because we’ve all seen them use Soviet straw men.
is always interpreted as a True Scotsman
Only by people who don’t understand that NTS is about moving goalposts when a generalization is challenged and think it means “anyone who claims to be part of a group is part of that group”.
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.
Revolution doesn’t exactly have a good history either. If anything, it’s shown to be a significantly worse option. It’s a pipe dream to believe that a revolutionary party would relinquish political power after gaining it.
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.
Cool. You can directly criticize capitalism. Do your grassroots. Don’t hate on Bernie because he is using the most effective tools at his disposal. What he’s doing is, probably, better overall for the general state of socialist thought in this country than any alternative at his disposal.
You can take direct labor action without denigrating the man for following his path: trying to move the window from inside the system. If you think you can do better, do it. As it stands, do you think you’ve done more, to actually shift overall labor sentiment in this country to the left, than he has through his “marginally better” moderate progressivism?
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.
Great thank you for the info and links.
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.
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?
Capitalism! How fun!!
“Capitalism” is a tankie cope.
Capitalist realism is liberal cope.
Its not my fault you see everything as capitalism.
You don’t know what any of those words mean.
And I’m including “a.”
Ditto, mate.
Layer two of ‘nuh uh, no u.’
Dull.
Ah yes and the “you’re stupid” approach is the height of intellectual conversation.
Layer three.
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