Anti-Capitalist Sentiment (with some morality)

[wufwugy]

wuf, very good write-up, but I still contend that true socialism is as viable of a goal as the pure libertarian pipe dream of an absolute free market. Socialism or communism never failed-- we failed to reach them. This is mostly because reaching them would abolish the power which the inner party had snapped up post-revolution.

This is a common view. I disagree with it, however, for a few reasons. It's sorta like a goalpost shifting or no true Scotsman fallacy. "Why didn't it work? Because it wasn't the real thing!" I think we don't need a pure form to analyze the elements, and then better judge what a pure form would look like. Regardless, why even ask for a "pure" form anyways. What does that even mean?

I think what's going on is that people are trying to reinvent socialism. Originally, it was a stark contrast to capitalism, virtually an exact opposite, and it was created as a philosophical counterpart. But these days people are trying to change it so it looks more like some form of cooperative capitalism or maybe a capital-welfare state. Actually, the current ideas look more like anti-aristocracy than anything else (which is strange since we don't have an aristocracy). Anyways, I digress

I think I'm gonna have to disagree that "pure" socialism hasn't been tried. I think Russia tried it. Socialism was basically a counter to the bourgeoisie as contrasted to the proletariat. Russia did everything it could to create a classless society that empowered the proletariat and eliminated the bourgeoisie

In a similar vein, I'd like to point out that while capitalism got us here, that fact does not necessitate capitalism's continued implementation as the winning social structure for the future. It could just be a stepping stone, and here you are, imploring us all to stay, because, "look, we're perfectly dry!"

I think the trend may be opposite of this, but I honestly don't know, and it will probably always be about a balance. It's like how I think economies work best when they start out as state capitalism and gradually move to free market capitalism. The more dynamic the economy gets and the greater the technology, the easier the markets can provide for wishes and needs. We don't live in a world where it provides for all, but it provides for way more it otherwise would. The only real problems I can see with free market capitalism is it doesn't seem to work well when resources are fixed and limited (truly fixed and limited, not just perceived as such) or when there are no incentives for something. My two main examples would be health coverage for the chronically ill and anything that requires a whole bunch of land

Perhaps the future will be about a mix of free market and cooperative capitalism with virtually no state intervention. I could see this happening, as the value of cooperative efforts is increasing now like it didn't in the past

[boost]

This is a common view. I disagree with it, however, for a few reasons. It's sorta like a goalpost shifting or no true Scotsman fallacy. "Why didn't it work? Because it wasn't the real thing!" I think we don't need a pure form to analyze the elements, and then better judge what a pure form would look like. Regardless, why even ask for a "pure" form anyways. What does that even mean?

Again, illustrating my point, the exact same argument can be made in defense of a pure free market system. Renton has done so itt.

I think I'm gonna have to disagree that "pure" socialism hasn't been tried. I think Russia tried it. Socialism was basically a counter to the bourgeoisie as contrasted to the proletariat. Russia did everything it could to create a classless society that empowered the proletariat and eliminated the bourgeoisie

Again, patently false. The USSR never made it but a step past the violent revolution phase, a phase which was thought to be necessary, but likely isn't-- and in actuality probably serves as an obstacle of the ultimate goal. The USSR pushed the idea of a classless society in propaganda, as that was the ideology which allowed the power hubs to entrench themselves. Reading anything about the Soviet era will make it clear that if that was ever a goal of people capable of pushing the society towards it, it wasn't a goal for long.

A good modern day parallel to Stalin's USSR is N. Korea. It's the same "classless" nonsense being drilled into the public, but with no action to back it up. You wouldn't make the same statements regarding N. Korea, so I'm not sure why you'd make them about Soviet era Russia.

I think the trend may be opposite of this, but I honestly don't know, and it will probably always be about a balance. It's like how I think economies work best when they start out as state capitalism and gradually move to free market capitalism. The more dynamic the economy gets and the greater the technology, the easier the markets can provide for wishes and needs. We don't live in a world where it provides for all, but it provides for way more it otherwise would. The only real problems I can see with free market capitalism is it doesn't seem to work well when resources are fixed and limited (truly fixed and limited, not just perceived as such) or when there are no incentives for something. My two main examples would be health coverage for the chronically ill and anything that requires a whole bunch of land

Perhaps the future will be about a mix of free market and cooperative capitalism with virtually no state intervention. I could see this happening, as the value of cooperative efforts is increasing now like it didn't in the past

This is intriguing to me, and I'd be interested in exploring this idea, as well as seeing it explored by those with the relevant expertise.

[wufwugy]

A good modern day parallel to Stalin's USSR is N. Korea. It's the same "classless" nonsense being drilled into the public, but with no action to back it up. You wouldn't make the same statements regarding N. Korea, so I'm not sure why you'd make them about Soviet era Russia.

Um, I partly would, but NK is very different from the USSR. USSR didn't destroy its farms and it wasn't set up to serve one man. The USSR grew its primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors a whole bunch. It grew them through socialist means. But it wasn't sustainable because costs weren't set to value. Eventually the chickens came home to roost. It really is that simple. It isn't the manufactured famines that killed the Soviet economy, it was the command economics

Check out these two pics







What we're looking at here is an awesome distinction between capitalism and socialism. The US map shows how the manufacturing belt was grown on capitalist principles. All factories were built for peak efficiency. Raw materials for production and energy are in the Minnesota region and the Erie Canal was dug to the New York harbors. This allowed every area around the Great Lakes peak efficiency in transportation for all necessary material. It kept costs as low as possible and value as high as possible. The results are evident today, and this is still the most powerful region in the world.

Compare that to the USSR map, where manufacturing regions make no sense. They're in a stupid inefficient line topography that's more spread out than the map suggests, far away from any consumers, far away from energy and raw materials. In addition, the US factories functioned on what could be sold for a profit, while the USSR factories did not. Why didn't the USSR operate on costs and values? Because they were socialist. Socialism ignores costs and values, it ignores the rules of supply and demand. When it was more expensive for these USSR factories to make more shoes than the value they received after distribution, they still did it because of the "need" for those workers to work. It took a few decades of this for the greatest national failure of modern history.


Perhaps the pro-socialist counter is that socialist economies don't have to operate on inefficiencies. But that isn't true because the principle of socialism is to prop up the workers regardless of inefficiencies. This means that a pure socialist society is by definition inefficient and doesn't apply supply and demand

My response to your claim that USSR wasn't classless due to Stalin and the corrupt ruling class is that Stalin et al still created that classless society. There was still an enormous mass of USSR citizens operating on socialist principles. If those principles worked then we would have seen it, regardless of whether or not there was a Stalin and cronies to initiate it