this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
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Still think something between communism and capitalism would be the best. Both show a lot of problems but both have benefits. A well regulated and equal competition with linear growth(not like capitalism with its exponential growth that produces musks and bezos') sounds right to me. I think UBI would be exploited so just give them the basics in food, shelter, internet access, etc. But of course in the hellscape called modern politics everyone has to be an extremist so only hardcore capitalism, hardcore communism, genocide, etc are represented.
Market economies are actually pretty great for a lot of things. The problems we have in capitalism are 1. the capitalist class, who make their living without contributing anything by min-maxing wages and prices, and 2. the privatization of necessities.
A market economy for non-essentials would work splendidly so long as the income of each business was distributed to the people who actually did the work. The problem is non-working shareholders. Every worker should be a shareholder, every shareholder should be a worker. Market socialism is the way.
Market economies cannot work efficiently for essentials. If the alternative to a purchase is death or serious injury, it ceases to be a voluntary purchase, the downward pressure of abstinence vanishes, and prices skyrocket. We've seen this in healthcare and housing. We need a public option for both.
Profit motive still forces enshittification, unfortunately.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism
There's also a lot to be said about financial norms and systems, for instance regardless of the organization of labor the way we measure GDP is fundamentally a very flawed and arbitrary approximation of "wealth" yet it is the driver behind so many political decisions. My (admittedly unqualified) understanding is thst we could significantly improve quality of life and market efficiency by addressing some of these flaws.
Market Socialism would be a great improvement in stability and quality of life, but it wouldn't solve enshittification outright, because the profit motive is still there. Ideally that would be phased out.
Every improvement is incremental, a stable system is developed by individual steps in the right direction. Overly ambitious changes tend to regress back to the last point of stability.
This is the way
I think if we can steer this burning trash pile into a regulated coop-based economy, with a star-based voting system (I'd settle for ranked choice at this point), whose economy isn't propped up by the cheap exploitation of developing foreign nations, I'll be much happier. While we're at it, solving homelessness and developing more sustainable infrastructures would be great.
You had my interest but now you have my full attention.
Capitalism is very clearly not a one-size-fits-all solution…but if there’s one thing capitalism hates, it’s competition.
capitalism corrupts
Also there's nothing inherently wrong with extreme ideology as a concept. It's only a call for radical change to the current social order. Liberalism which is to say our modern "democratic capitalist" structure would have been considered extremism during feudal times.
The extremist boogie man is a lie peddled by those who benefit from the status quo to insure those who don't are too scared to change it
Extremism usually relies on wishful thinking tbh. Also see this handy chart:
The problem is that some of them don't have to wait for society to collapse, sometimes society is destined to decay into a specific form. The final stage of capitalism is fascism
Why not something like market socialism?
Market Socialism is a great common sense first step, but it leaves enshittification because it keeps the profit motive. Ideally the profit motive should be phased out.
I don't think it's a perfect system, however there are easy ways to prevent this problem. You simply make either the customers or the government one of the parties holding shares of the companies. That way the customers also get to vote on decisions, or the government on behalf of the whole society.
I feel like that's just a less efficient non-market form of Socialism, at that point it might make more sense to just fully socialize.
Fully socialize? Socialist market economy is a true socialist system already. You can't make it more socialist. Your confusing communism with socialism.
I'm aware that it's fully anticapitalist, but full Socialism would imply collective ownership of the Means of Production, not just ownership at an entity level.
Communism would also get rid of the state, so I'm not quite referring to Communism in this instance.
Your confusing Leninism for socialism. Not all socialism even requires a state never mind state ownership.
Isn't market socialism literally just a form of capitalism? Like if you still have markets and a profit incentive then you're not really socialist
Not saying that's bad, just thinking really it has always seemed to me like capitalism with a strong social safety net. Which to me seems ideal, just want to know if I'm missing something?
I think you're confusing social democracy with market socialism.
In market socialism the working class owns the businesses they work for, possibly in conjunction with the government or their customers. There are no people who became shareholders by buying shares, and starting a business doesn't mean you get to own all of it. It's essentially a society where all businesses are worker co-ops.
It has nothing to do with a social safety net. In practice one would probably exist anyway, but it's not a strict requirement of this sort of system like it is in social democracy. Technically you wouldn't have to have free universal healthcare either.
It helps to know that the definition of socialism I am using is based on the marxist one: a society where the workers own the means of production.
Edit: Profit still exists in this system but it's shared more or less equally between the workers of that business. This means workers actually have a concrete incentive to work well, not just the vague possibility of a promotion. It also means you will probably see less short term profit making and less overwork hopefully.
Market postcapitalism with worker coops doesn't mean the workers own the means of production. That idea of what postcapitalism looks like is Marxist baggage that needs to move into the dustbin of intellectual history. A worker coop can, for example, lease means of production from another worker coop or individual without violating the workers' inalienable rights to workplace democracy or to get the fruits of their labor @lemmyshitpost
How do you get your initial capital to start the co-op? Like you can't have investors, so is every worker required to buy in the the initial venture?
By the way you are entirely free to structure companies this way under a social democracy
You can set that up in any capitalist society, not just social democracy. It even happens in the US. That's one of the major advantages of worker co-ops. It's not true socialism though unless every business is run that way. I don't really want social democracy. I want real socialism.
As for funding I am not sure. Real worker co-ops must get funding from somewhere I would look into that. In a full market socialist economy the government could have a role in that. After all the current scheme of needing Capital to start a business isn't fair at all.
Right, but why do you require every person in the country to work under a co-op? Is it not enough to let them choose?
In your socialist society if a group of people agreed that they would like to set up businesses under a different model what would you do?
And further, if you're calling for an enormous change to the way we structure our economy then shouldn't you be able to articulate how that system will work?
Look around you my guy. Capitalism doesn't work. Most people who have the money needed to start or invest in a business are only in it to make themselves richer and to exploit others. My system prevents all of that.
I imagine the same thing we do now with people who have illegal businesses or businesses that go against regulations.
You have never talked to marxists before have you? They don't even know what economic system they want to use most of the time, because they don't consider that detail to be important and think we can figure it out after or during the revolution. If I started asking them these questions they probably wouldn't give me a straight answer and it would probably turn into an argument.
Meanwhile I am missing a couple of small details. Ones you can find yourself if you are willing to do more research than I have.
That is a wholly unsatisfactory response
Firstly capitalism does work, it is extremely efficient at what it does which is allocating capital, which I've never heard of a good alternative. Central planning seems pretty trash as an alternative example But where "capitalism" falls over isn't to do with it at all. Capitalism is an economic system, it doesn't dictate anything about how we setup things like welfare or even ubi if you want. Look at Europe, seems pretty chill to me in a lot of countries that are capitalist
Right so you would make any other structure of company illegal. I don't like that particularly, but from your moral system I get it. But then we probably have a fundamental disagreement there that can't be resolved easily
What really annoys me about socialists/communists is you always want to handwave your bullshit system. You don't even know how to start a business under your system but want to advocate for it! Being better than a moronic Marxist in this respect doesn't excuse you of understanding what your system entails Also please don't tell me to do my own research on your proposed system, you should be able to explain if you want entire countries to switch economic models
I don't owe you a "satisfactory" response. I have been trying to explain what system I favour and why given you hadn't heard of it before. This isn't a debate and I can't debate someone who didn't even know the thing I am talking about even existed before we had this conversation, so stop treating it like one. I am not an expert in any economic system, nor are most people and I doubt you are either. What I do know is that the current one definitely isn't good for many reasons. I also know that economics is largely pseudoscience and should be treated as such.
I actually live in Europe. That argument won't work on me. It's actually so absurd that Americans think Europe is this perfect place just because we aren't a third world country. There is a cost of living crisis ongoing where I live. I can't even find a job in my field despite having a masters degree (computer science), and had to move back in with my parents. There are homeless people on the streets. People regularly can't afford to heat their homes. There are loads more issues if you care to look for them too. Many of these are caused by capitalism.
I can't say anything about allocating capital because I am not an economist. I can say though the damage that has been caused to people and the environment. There is also no reason why something like market socialism would be less efficient to my knowledge as it uses many of the same ideas that capitalism does including the profit motive. I don't think it's a perfect solution by any means, and I am not confident a perfect solution is even possible. I do think it's something that's worth a shot.
What moral system do you think I follow exactly? All I want is a world where we don't have to exploit each other to survive, where everyone is looked after and the planet isn't dying. To be given the opportunity to improve yourself. Being rewarded for working hard or gaining skills would be good too, but not as important as the rest. Currently I am not getting any of these things and I am rightfully angry about that.
If you actually have a solution that would work better than I am all ears. I don't think social democracy and welfare can fix all that though, because I have lived in countries with those things and seen them fail. Even the ones that appear to do it well are normally exploiting the planet or other countries to do so.
If we humans can't work out how to make a system that works for everyone and for the planet then we don't deserve to be alive frankly. We deserve to go extinct and be replaced by something else.
That's actually one of the main issues I had with marxists funnily enough. That and some authoritarian tendencies. Though there are definitely some who have ideas on how to run an economy, and you might find some of these of interest.
Man I just find it frustrating that not a single socialist I've met or talked to can accurately explain their system given any amount of pushback
I can understand wanting to restructure your entire economy because you're currently facing issues with your current system. But in my opinion the failing isn't of the economic system but the system built around it. I truly believe with a well implemented tax system and regulations we could keep everyone's needs met Meaning potentially negative taxation for those of low income and higher taxation as you move upwards
I don't feel we can blame our economy for the way we're currently fucking over the plant it terms of climate. Many socialist projects were massively damaging to the environment as well, in both systems the only real fix is regulation. Which I wish we could pass but unfortunately the reality is that in a lot of places voters simply don't want it (which is dumb)
If you truly want to critique capitalism I think it would be beneficial to understand how it works and some level of the economics Which by the way if you can come up with a cohesive plan for socialism I'd love to see it. As I think fundamentally we want the same things, and I don't mind which way we go, it's just thus far socialism doesn't seem to be very practical
I dunno man, billionaires are a big failure of this economic system. So is alienation of labour. No one should profit from someone else's work. Even so I could forgive all that of it meant everyone had enough money from working say 20 or 30 hours a week, but that isn't the case.
I know capitalism isn't purely to blame for the environmental problems we have, but it is a major component. You can see this with oil companies and their owners lobbying governments not to pass legislation, producing propaganda, and funding bad science.
I actually understand some level of how capitalism works already. Maybe I could learn more, but honestly what I have learned already I find disgusting. How anyone who actually understands it doesn't find it irredeemable I struggle to understand. That being said it's certainly a complex system, that certainly seems efficient if you don't actually look too hard. I think that's what stops people seeing the very obvious flaws.
You would find David Ellerman's work interesting. He provides strong arguments against capitalism and in favor of a worker coop market economy, and he also addresses the problem of capital allocation. I would recommend to you his book, The Democratic Firm. Here is a link to the book from the author's website: https://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/DEMOFIRM.pdf @lemmyshitpost
Out of curiosity what is this system you are describing called? I am guessing it's not truly socialism if it allows for entrepreneurship. I have to say I've not run into this exact system before. Would I be correct in thinking that unlike in market socialism it's possible to directly own parts of a business you don't work for or are a customer for?
The system is usually called economic democracy because it democratizes the economic sphere. All firms in economic democracy are required to be worker coops. As a result, voting shares are exclusively held by those that are actually working the firm. Non-voting preferred stock can be free floating property rights that can be held by outside investors. it is democratic because only the people actually governed in the firm (i.e. workers) have voting rights over management
Wouldn't that allow people to profit who put in no work? I think this becomes a moral issue on some level as I don't generally agree with people making money off of the work of others.
The payment to investors in this case isn't based on a non-worker solely appropriating the fruits of labor. The payment is satisfaction of the liability workers jointly appropriate as part of the negative product. Paying covers the costs of the negative product. It is compensation to the investors for the capital they supplied and the work they did building up that much capital @lemmyshitpost
There can be investors in market-based postcapitalist society. They just can't hold voting shares, so they hold non-voting preferred stock.
Freedom to structure one's own company as a worker coop doesn't undo the systematic violations of workers' inalienable rights in all the other capitalist firms. The only way to fix that would be turn those firms into worker coops as well
See that isn't very consistent is it? If you hold non voting stock you can't vote on company decisions. But the company does now need to pay you a dividend, which according to you would be immoral as it would mean a third party is profiting from their labour correct?