Workable Socialism

[Br16]

1 hour ago, a good and nice guy said:

why? i mean, i’m all for the dissolution of the nation state, but why should immigration be controlled? do people deserve less just because of the accident of where they are born? i genuinely don’t understand it

Agree, I strongly support freedom of movement and customs unions. For example, Ancient Regime France was filled with internal customs borders, a relic of feudalism, and trading from region to region was as complicated as going to another country, even though it was one (medium sized) country. Then that was abolished and people's lives got a whole lot better. 

Thus, I believe in our international age where specialization of labor, mobility of talent and global commerce has reached such great proportions, we should follow the current historical trend and continue to do away with controls and division. I feel such ease of travel will lead to more prosperity, more happiness and more connectivity/growth. Moreover, instead this focus on long term immigration, why not create a global system where a modified EU style right to move and work is implemented. People need not strive to settle in one place, a lot of people wish to experience various countries on rotational basis. Perhaps a global program where participating countries have open borders and allow each other automatic residency rights for 24 months, not given at landing since no controls, but obtainable at special offices at convenient locations. This will allow seamless movement.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

4 hours ago, DMC said:

Right.  Cuz Warren and Sanders and AOC are all saints of a different kind.  

I have no idea what you mean by this. Killin' it with your hot takes this week, tho. 

[OldGimletEye]

6 hours ago, a good and nice guy said:

well the actual left is for open borders, but that’s neither here nor there

Well no, I wouldn't say that. I think it's more accurate to say there is a dispute within the left about open borders.

 

[all swedes are racist]

16 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Well no, I wouldn't say that. I think its more accurate to say there is a dispute within the left about open boarders.

 

[groundskeeper willie monologue about natural enemies, only with leftists] 

but lol, fair enough. there is a large contingent of the left that would like to see open or porous to the point of nonexistent borders, but it is by no means universal

[OldGimletEye]

6 minutes ago, a good and nice guy said:

[thinking about the fractious and endlessly sectarian intra left conflicts] no that can’t be true

The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.

[felice]

3 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

I'm extremely friendly to immigration to the U.S. and I'm still not open border. That is pretty close to saying you don't believe in nation states. I tend to think we need them, at least until Picard sets up the Federation.

You mean Archer! Yes, I think borders are a necessary evil between countries with greatly disparate standards of living, since if the incentive to move is too great, the numbers who'd do so would be unmanageable. But we should be trying to raise the global standard of living to the point where borders cease to be necessary, and we should be allowing as much immigration as is manageable in the meantime.

[Heartofice]

3 hours ago, a good and nice guy said:

why? i mean, i’m all for the dissolution of the nation state, but why should immigration be controlled? do people deserve less just because of the accident of where they are born? i genuinely don’t understand it

What happens if millions of people from around the world all move to one small place at the same time. How would that work?

[Br16]

11 minutes ago, felice said:

between countries with greatly disparate standards of living, since if the incentive to move is too great, the numbers who'd do so would be unmanageable.

But a lot of people who came and help built the US were even more dirt poor than the people we look down upon now. Such as the Irish Famine victims. 

[Br16]

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

What happens if millions of people from around the world all move to one small place at the same time. How would that work?

I feel they won't, its just a fear we have. People gravitate towards opportunity. If there is demand for their cheaper labor, they'll come either way. If the limit of opportunity is reached, people will go elsewhere. 

[Rorshach]

On 7/5/2019 at 6:57 AM, DMC said:

It's different though in the American context.  All 3 (4 if you count Denmark) Nordic states have been largely homogenous for a very long time. 

Nothing like a nitpick on the internet!

We tend to count five Nordic states - Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.

There are three Scandinavian states - Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

Leaving Denmark out of any of those groups is strange. I also want to know if it was Iceland or Finland you left out completely

[DMC]

19 minutes ago, Rorshach said:

There are three Scandinavian states - Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

 Leaving Denmark out of any of those groups is strange. I also want to know if it was Iceland or Finland you left out completely 

Wait, how did I leave Denmark out completely?  I mentioned them in what you quoted.  Definitely didn't include Iceland though, got me there.

3 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

I have no idea what you mean by this. Killin' it with your hot takes this week, tho. 

Of course you don't.

[Rorshach]

31 minutes ago, DMC said:

Wait, how did I leave Denmark out completely?  I mentioned them in what you quoted.  Definitely didn't include Iceland though, got me there.

You included it as in (four if you include Denmark), which - for nitpicking purposes - left it out of the original three. Which should have been five.

Don't mess with the Nordic countries, man!

ETA: If we want to nitpick more, Finland is the obvious one to leave out, as it is the one most different in culture, political style and language group. 

[Rippounet]

9 hours ago, Altherion said:

What are these reasons? As far as I can tell, the capitalists are firmly in control and only getting more powerful as time goes on.

As I said I'm not optimistic for the near future, so I don't think I could write anything convincing at the moment. Or it would take me way too much time and I'd rather focus on other aspects of the problem right now.

For instance:

5 hours ago, a good and nice guy said:

well the actual left is for open borders

No, it isn't. The original left-right divide originated in France and had nothing to do with open borders, a concept that was completely alien to most people on the left until quite recently. And even though it could be argued that some prominent leftist/socialist thinkers were in favor of a world without borders, this was never really part of 20th century socialist thinking since the dominant strain of socialism was based on nationalizing the means of production. 
As a matter of fact, for most of recent history French socialists (to speak of what I know) were very much against open borders and mass immigration, both of which were viewed as means for the capitalists to further their interests at the expense of the workers. The difference with today's illiberal movements however is that French socialists traditionally viewed immigrants as brothers in the fight against the oppression of the global capitalist order ; immigrants were poor folk (often uneducated) forced to move away from their roots for economic reasons. Socialists thus saw it as natural to help them, educate them (well... ) and enlist them to fight against the capitalists, the "bosses" (les patrons, which today would be translated as "CEOs") that were trying to divide the workers. Conversely, the CEOs were hoping for the very opposite: that massive arrivals of uneducated immigrant workers would dilute the power of the unions and weaken socialist thinking and class consciousness (racism and cultural divides would help, of course).
Lots of things happened to get us where we are, but obviously one of these strategies achieved incredible success. In France the rise of the far-right pushed the left to tone down its opposition to immigration in order to fight anti-immigrant sentiments. It's more complicated when one looks at policies though, especially since cynical political strategies were involved... But all that's off-topic. What matters is that at this point in time, any genuine socialist (I'm tempted to say "leftist" ) should still be opposing the idea of open borders. While free circulation of people may be desirable in the long-term, free trade agreements are an environmental, legal and socio-economic disaster for the people.
It's not hard to understand: almost all forms of economic liberalism are anathema to socialism and vice-versa. And this is like... by definition.

5 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

*The US already has a much more progressive tax system than Germany, the Nordics, etc.  Only France’s short-lived wealth tax made their taxes briefly as progressive as the US, but they could not sustain it politically or practically.

Uh... You might want to check your sources. Every single one of these bits of information is factually wrong.

The first bit interestingly is not plain wrong, just misleading. Yes, the US tax system is surprisingly progressive, though there are many caveats to that claim (others here would be much better than I am at explaining those). It doesn't matter though because the overall system is still one of the worst at redistributing wealth ; to quote an OECD report, "Redistribution through income taxes and cash transfers is considerably lower in the United States than in most other OECD countries."
What the US tax system is really good at is hiding how unequal US society actually is. In a nutshell: it's basically the most unequal of all OECD countries.

France's wealth tax was certainly not "short-lived" it has existed under different names since 1945. It was briefly abolished under Sarkozy's government, but the abolition was so unpopular that it was reinstated under Hollande's. Now Macron has partially abolished it, but this is still an incredibly unpopular measure, and its reinstatement is one of the main demands of the yellow vests movement, supported by 70 to 80% of the population (depending on which survey you use). Not sure what "practically" unsustainable is supposed to meanhere  and I'd rather not speculate.

[DMC]

LOL fair enough.

23 minutes ago, Rorshach said:

Don't mess with the Nordic countries, man!

 

[maarsen]

I have, for the most part avoided posting here since many more knowledgeable have done so. One thing I do want to put out is that people seem to think there is a static balance point between capitalism and socialism. If anything the point seems to be in a dynamic balance and therefore we need to have a different way of visualizing it. We could go back to the old Xand Y axes  with socialism and capitalism on one axis and totalitarianism and libertarianism on the other axis. Again this does not show how a system can be in a dynamic balance. It also supposes that the traits are diametrically opposed.  Instead consider a tetrahedron with each vertex corresponding to one of the traits. using geometry or vectors on can thus see that each has an effect on the other when trying to find a balance.  Once this is understood , we have to realize that there is no best system but there can be a point where it balances according to given starting conditions.

[Martell Spy]

2 hours ago, maarsen said:

I have, for the most part avoided posting here since many more knowledgeable have done so. One thing I do want to put out is that people seem to think there is a static balance point between capitalism and socialism. If anything the point seems to be in a dynamic balance and therefore we need to have a different way of visualizing it. We could go back to the old Xand Y axes  with socialism and capitalism on one axis and totalitarianism and libertarianism on the other axis. Again this does not show how a system can be in a dynamic balance. It also supposes that the traits are diametrically opposed.  Instead consider a tetrahedron with each vertex corresponding to one of the traits. using geometry or vectors on can thus see that each has an effect on the other when trying to find a balance.  Once this is understood , we have to realize that there is no best system but there can be a point where it balances according to given starting conditions.

Well, back to the idea that the Nordic model is just an overlay that was put on a capitalist system. That may be so. What I was trying to get at with the example of nationalizing Facebook you can make some pretty massive changes to parts of a capitalist system. There must be some point where enough changes are made in a society that was already based on the Nordic model that people start looking at the overall thing and thinking, "We are no longer in a capitalist system."

It might take a long time and certainly while changes were happening to the system, most of those involved in it would still think of it as a capitalist system. What if workers still worked 40 hour weeks, but 20 of those hours were in a volunteer service of some sort? Pretty radical change to a system, but you'd still say that was a capitalist system. 

 

The General Store of the U.S.A.
Do Walmart and Amazon's logisitics triumphs reveal a path forward for a centrally planned economy?

https://prospect.org/article/general-store-usa

Quote

 

The analogy of corporate giants’ internal operations to central planning is tantalizing but limited. One reason is due to what economists call survivorship bias. Walmart is successful, but what about firms with internal planning that are no longer with us, or that were never able to scale up in the first place? The authors offer one counterfactual bit of evidence: the failure of Sears, whose attempt to organize competition among different subdivisions of the firm ended in fiasco.

Second, one feature of Walmart’s operations vociferously rejected by the authors—the squeezing of labor costs and the suppression of workers’ voices at work—could inform its success. It’s true that “flatter” organizational pyramids with bottom-up participation can function effectively, but if such alternatives are more profitable, why don’t more firms resort to them?

Third, another egregious practice that helps Walmart and Amazon to succeed is a feature of their scale and dominance: the ability to grind down the prices paid to their suppliers. A large share of these suppliers operates in nations that suppress labor costs in ways that the most rapacious American robber baron might envy. Neither state-owned nor worker-managed enterprises would necessarily be immune to such temptations.

Fourth, Walmart and Amazon are in large part intermediaries—they don’t manufacture the products they sell. As large as they are, so too are the worlds of their suppliers and customers. The planning problem is largely solved for them. They can obtain information on costs of production and consumers’ willingness to pay by surveying external markets. They are similarly informed on whether to contract out some component of their production, such as custodial services. They know the prices offered by outside vendors. This information would be lacking under central planning, if not under market socialism.

Fifth, one feature of corporations is that decisions are made in a hierarchy. The results may be unlovely from a social standpoint, but they are arrived at more quickly. A drawback to the authoritarianism of extinct communist governments was the tendency for the information flow to be stifled. The authors urge the replacement of hierarchy by democratic procedure: “Democracy is the beating heart of socialism.”

 

 

[Conflicting Thought]

10 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Right wing populists promise to reverse globalism (which is part of the cause for middle class stagnation, but hard to reverse), 

Can you expand as to what do you mean by globalism. I thought that concept was now a far right dog whislte. 

[Conflicting Thought]

Sorry for the double post, but i think discussing socialism and capitalism as just economic systems is oversimplifying things. 

They are as much a cultural "ideology" as a economic one. The cultural and the economic aspects are intertwined. 

In latin america there are a lot of examples of socialism, and none of the look exactly the same. Have you heard of Jose Mujica?. President of Uruguay untill 2015. He is a socialist and had a socialist goverment. And very very different (for me sooo much better) in respects of human right, workers, redistribution, etc... Than the neo liberal capitalist goverments of, for example my country Chile. 

 

[Zorral]

Like everybody with whom I associate through consensual pleasure in their company -- I am for immigration but not for open borders.  I am for providing aid and assistance and asylum for those who need asylum due to the sheer violence of corruption, gangsterism, warlordism, war, etc.  Though it needs a real program or set of programs, that are fully funded and staffed to do it properly and with less confusion than is inevitable when dealing with large groups of people at the same time.  We did a terrific job with this in Europe after defeating the Axis.  We should be able to do that here and now.  Of course we should be working hard on such planning and programs, because this isn't going to stop, no matter what walls and depravity TVholes try to put in their way (but of course that's all about him and his anyway, to keep his base fired as hell with hatred and opportunity to shoot).

That people seem to think there is no room for them here -- somebody's got to start rebuilding infrastructure and building housing that isn't for the billionaire bloat ownership.  Public programs -- we could do that in the 30's and 40's too.  I guess that's socialism.  Can't have that, because even back then, all the political 'compromise' for getting these programs through the southern blockades in the House and Senate had to do with making sure African Americans couldn't get any (despite Eleanor Roosevelt's heroic efforts).   So that's why we can never have socialism here -- the uniting principle is racism, and without that in full operation decade-after-decade, century-after-century, the racists would lose the power to harness hatred and thus lose power.

But then, we can't do anything at all these days except swipe.  Can't even build airplanes that don't fall out of the sky because the corporation prefers a cheap ass design and implementation, temp workers team for the navigation system.  Not at joke: Boeing paid $9 an hour to a bunch temp workers in India to do that entire failure of a system to keep the plane in the air.

 

[Martell Spy]

8 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Like everybody with whom I associate through consensual pleasure in their company -- I am for immigration but not for open borders.  I am for providing aid and assistance and asylum for those who need asylum due to the sheer violence of corruption, gangsterism, warlordism, war, etc.  Though it needs a real program or set of programs, that are fully funded and staffed to do it properly and with less confusion than is inevitable when dealing with large groups of people at the same time.  We did a terrific job with this in Europe after defeating the Axis.  What can't we do it here, and do it now?

That people seem to think there is no room for them here -- somebody's got to start rebuilding infrastructure and building housing that isn't for the billionaire bloat ownership.  Public programs -- we could do that in the 30's and 40's too.  I guess that's socialism.  Can't have that, because even back then, all the political 'compromise' for getting these programs through the southern blockades in the House and Senate had to do with making sure African Americans couldn't get any (despite Eleanor Roosevelt's heroic efforts).   So that's why we can never have socialism here -- the uniting principle is racism, and without that in full operation decade-after-decade, century-after-century, the racists would lose the power to harness hatred and thus lose power.

But then, we can't do anything at all these days except swipe.  Can't even build airplanes that don't fall out of the sky because the corporation prefers a cheap ass design and implementation, temp workers team for the navigation system.  Not at joke: Boeing paid $9 an hour to a bunch temp workers in India to do that entire failure of a system to keep the plane in the air.

 

There is plenty of physical space in America for enormous amounts of people. The main issue is jobs have been clustering in a few areas, then everyone naturally wants to live in those areas. And those same areas have all sorts of things people like being near, like hospitals and universities.

I am fine with immigration quotas. I just prefer modest ones. It's partly just to have an orderly system. Even if you were POTUS and happened to be in favor of open borders, you would still want to have some sort of plan for letting people, the logistics and timing of it.