Communism vs Capitalism does anyone actually think we'd be better off in a Communist society?

[felice]

10 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

So what? If the choice is between Scandinavia and some communist hell hole, I'll take Scandinavia with the few billionaires.

And if the choice is between bread and water and a bowl of shit, I'll take the bread and water, but that doesn't make it a good meal. East Germany is a straw man, nobody is advocating for anything like it.

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If I can provide people with decent jobs, decent health insurance, the financial ability to start a family, if they wish, and the ability to retire at a reasonable age, I just really don't give a damn too much if there are a few billionaires running around.

How are you defining "decent" and "reasonable"? I think we can do a lot better than we are now. And the whole concept of "insurance" for health is horrible; healthcare should be a public service provided to whoever needs it, not something that individuals get billed for.

38 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I have yet to see a fully socialist system that has been truly democratic.

No, we're calling for something new. "It hasn't happened yet" doesn't mean it's not possible!

The simplest option is to take an existing capitalist democratic state, transfer the entire stock market to government ownership, and change nothing else. Is there any reason to expect that to be any less democratic than what we have now?

[Liffguard]

1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

I'll address some of your stuff later, but I want to address this one now. First, economic growth is important. Economic growth gives us the ability to fund programs for the poor and to continue to raise their standard of living (along with everyone else). Sustained economic growth is something relatively recent, as sustained per Capita GDP growth really didn't happen until the late 18th Century. If that had not occurred, we would all be living shorter and more harsh lives.

I'm not opposed to growth per se. Rather, I'm talking about growth for its own sake. Growth as a goal rather than a means. It's interesting you mention the late 18th century, because that was when growth really kicked off as you mention, and also when most people's lives in the countries so affected actually got worse. It wasn't until the late nineteenth / early twentieth centuries that growth started resulting in improved well-being for most people.

Most developing countries undoubtedly still need to grow more in order to meet the needs of their citizens. But developed countries could undergo managed retraction and still provide a good life to everyone through more equitable distribution.

 

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Secondly, to end economic growth is tantamount to ending knowledge production. Neither labor or capital explain economic growth. It's knowledge production that ultimately drives it.

My understanding is that growth at present is fundamentally linked to physical extraction of resources. Is it possible that one day that may not be the case? I'm skeptical, but willing to be persuaded.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, felice said:

And if the choice is between bread and water and a bowl of shit, I'll take the bread and water, but that doesn't make it a good meal. East Germany is a straw man, nobody is advocating for anything like it.

No it isn't. If you want to be taken seriously, then you really need to explain how you would address these past problems. Just saying "it wasn't the real communism" isn't enough. It doesn't cut it.

1 minute ago, felice said:

How are you defining "decent" and "reasonable"? I think we can do a lot better than we are now. And the whole concept of "insurance" for health is horrible; healthcare should be a public service provided to whoever needs it, not something that individuals get billed for.

Whether to government provides health care, it is still insurance. It just that the government provides it. Its public insurance. For the record, I'm not against the government providing this insurance, at least for people that don't have the ability to pay.

3 minutes ago, felice said:

No, we're calling for something new. "It hasn't happened yet" doesn't mean it's not possible!

It may be possible. But, no theorist has made convincing case how it would work. Explain how you would avoid the problems that have haunted past communist regimes.

5 minutes ago, felice said:

The simplest option is to take an existing capitalist democratic state, transfer the entire stock market to government ownership, and change nothing else. Is there any reason to expect that to be any less democratic than what we have now?

And does, the government in this case control all production and investment decisions? It would seem that we would be back to the same informational problems that alluded to in my previous post.

[OldGimletEye]

4 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

My understanding is that growth at present is fundamentally linked to physical extraction of resources. Is it possible that one day that may not be the case? I'm skeptical, but willing to be persuaded.

No. That is not likely to be correct. Our best evidence and theory highly suggest it is knowledge production and its dissemination that drives economic growth.

[Liffguard]

2 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Whether to government provides health care, it is still insurance. It just that the government provides it. Its public insurance. For the record, I'm not against the government providing this insurance, at least for people that don't have the ability to pay.

 

There's no insurance system in the UK.* The healthcare itself is nationalised.

 

* Okay not strictly true. It exists but it's supplemental, not a replacement.

[Liffguard]

1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

No. That is not likely to be incorrect. Our best evidence and theory highly suggest it is knowledge production and its dissemination that drives economic growth.

My point was less about what drives it and more about it's results. Regardless of which factor is the prime mover, growth and resource extraction are currently linked.

[OldGimletEye]

1 minute ago, Liffguard said:

There's no insurance system in the UK.* The healthcare itself is nationalised.

Correction. There is no private insurance in the UK.

[Liffguard]

1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

Correction. There is no private insurance in the UK.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding. Under a system of public insurance, the care providers themselves are mostly still private, but the government picks up the bill. Am I wrong? In the UK, the hospitals themselves are public. There's no intermediary (although GPs operate a bit differently).

[OldGimletEye]

3 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding. Under a system of public insurance, the care providers themselves are mostly still private, but the government picks up the bill. Am I wrong? In the UK, the hospitals themselves are public. There's no intermediary (although GPs operate a bit differently).

The UK system is still insurance, it just that it is publicly funded. Healthy people pay into the system, which covers the cost to treat people who need healthcare.

[OldGimletEye]

12 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

My point was less about what drives it and more about it's results. Regardless of which factor is the prime mover, growth and resource extraction are currently linked.

Even if you passed a whole bunch conservations laws (many of which I'm not against by the way), the only way you would probably shut down economic growth is by shutting down knowledge production. Of course if that is your goal a communist regime would be the way to go, as I would submit one of the reasons for their poor growth record is that weren't able to disseminate and use new technical developments quickly.

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, Liffguard said:

Worker ownership, workplace democracy. I think people who do the work at an organisation should have a say in how that organisation operates. I don't forsee any one template by which this would be implemented, and different organisations could implement it differently.

Germany does this to some extent, but it's tough to do. Management is in and of itself a full-time job and even in a small company, it's hard to give everyone a say because they don't have the time to fully understand a situation. In a large one, it's even harder because you can't put every decision to a vote. The usual solution is for labor to elect one or more representatives who sit on the corporate board, but this has its own problems (like all human beings, the representatives are not incorruptible). Also, modern corporations already have a good idea of how to avoid labor laws and this will exacerbate that tendency.

3 hours ago, Liffguard said:

Decouple the basic necessities of life from labour.

This is mostly done in Western countries. It's often done resentfully, vindictively, in a patchwork manner and not far beyond the bare minimum, but people don't die of starvation or exposure to the elements in large numbers anymore and some measure of healthcare, education, internet access and other non-immediate necessities are also provided.

3 hours ago, Liffguard said:

An end to policing and prisons, as currently constituted. Whilst there are some aspects of both that will probably have to exist in any society, pretty much everything about the way they're currently implemented in most first-world nations should be changed. Take prisons for example, whilst there might be some need to isolate the tiny proportion of genuinely sick and dangerous people whose violence doesn't stem from material conditions, I see no reason for these places to be places of punishment. Similarly, police; why is emergency mental health response, community de-escalation, traffic regulation, armed response teams, and crime investigation all carried out by the same body?

There is a wide variety of policing and imprisonment practices across various countries and while some are disliked by a larger fraction of the policed population than others, none are universally liked (or anywhere near it) and the best ones only work in uncommon cultural environments. We can't get rid of them entirely because there are always people who will break the rules if it gives them an edge (or sometimes just because they can). No country in the world (capitalist or communist) has found a good solution to this.

3 hours ago, Liffguard said:

An end to growth as an economic goal for its own sake.

As OldGimletEye already said, this is a bad idea. It's one thing to ask for better distribution of the results of economic growth or limits on what can be done to the environment in the name of economic growth, but we need it (among other things, how do you think we'll solve the climate crisis?).

3 hours ago, Liffguard said:

Open borders.

It barely works in the relatively homogeneous and prosperous European Union. What do you think is going to happen when extremely poor people from radically different cultures pour into places like the EU and the US? Especially if basic necessities are decoupled from labor as you mention above (i.e. the natives are paying for all of these people).

3 hours ago, Liffguard said:

Universal lifelong education access, that isn’t premised on education being nothing but a job-training program (but with vocational job training very much also available).

We kind of have this already in the form of the various online courses (edX, Coursera, etc.). I tried a couple of these during the pandemic and they're quite good -- and free assuming you don't want the certificate. Of course, there's a reason the certificate costs money: most people aren't interested in education for the sake of education, they want it for the opportunities it provides.

[OldGimletEye]

8 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Germany does this to some extent, but it's tough to do. Management is in and of itself a full-time job and even in a small company, it's hard to give everyone a say because they don't have the time to fully understand a situation. In a large one, it's even harder because you can't put every decision to a vote. The usual solution is for labor to elect one or more representatives who sit on the corporate board, but this has its own problems (like all human beings, the representatives are not incorruptible). Also, modern corporations already have a good idea of how to avoid labor laws and this will exacerbate that tendency.

I do support co-determination, like Germany does. Fact is Germany does a lot smart things (like work sharing during recessions), which I wish we would do here.

[Liffguard]

9 hours ago, Altherion said:

As OldGimletEye already said, this is a bad idea. It's one thing to ask for better distribution of the results of economic growth or limits on what can be done to the environment in the name of economic growth, but we need it (among other things, how do you think we'll solve the climate crisis?).

I plan to discuss the other points, but this one I want to respond to immediately. I don't think we can grow our way out of the climate crisis any more than we can eat our way out of obesity. The incessant pursuit of growth is the climate crisis's primary driving force.

The climate crisis is a political problem, not a technical one. We have all the tools to start meaningfully mitigating it right now. Today. That we don't is a failure of decision making, not a deficit of technology.

I mentioned in the climate thread reading Less is More by Jason Hickel. It makes, I think, a very strong case for why the pursuit of growth is the main cause of ecological breakdown and climate change. Most importantly, it points out that in developed nations, we've long since passed the point whereby our use of resources is proportional to our increase in well being. We can pursue degrowth and improve human wellbeing through better distribution.

[OldGimletEye]

18 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

I mentioned in the climate thread reading Less is More by Jason Nickel. It makes, I think, a very strong case for why the pursuit of growth is the main cause of ecological breakdown and climate change. Most importantly, it points out that in developed nations, we've long since past the point whereby our use of resources is proportional to our increase in well being. We can pursue degrowth and improve human wellbeing through better distribution.

Does Mr. Nickel object to the use of wind power or solar power on the grounds it uses too many resources? How about advances in medical care or software development? How about more efficient production processes that figures out how to do more with less. How about finding ways to deliver education more cheaply?

Mr. Nickel is right in some sense that we need to slow down the use of carbon based energy sources and conserve other resources. He's wrong, however, that growth simply implies using up resources.

[OldGimletEye]

6 hours ago, Liffguard said:

- Worker ownership, workplace democracy. I think people who do the work at an organisation should have a say in how that organisation operates. I don't forsee any one template by which this would be implemented, and different organisations could implement it differently

I think the best way to handle this is by putting labor representatives on corporate boards. I like the idea of worker ownership, but the problem I have with it is that if a worker only has ownership in his own company he subject to a lot of financial risk. Put this way: I hope nobodies retirement account consist solely of stock of their employer. If the employer does badly, you might end up losing your job, while at the same time seeing all your wealth evaporate. You want to diversify your holdings.

6 hours ago, Liffguard said:

- Decouple the basic necessities of life from labour. I think food, shelter and medicine should be considered fundamental rights rather than commodities. Whilst I concede that a certain amount of labour is required to provide for all human needs, I think we're long past the point where everyone must labour full-time in order to meet that provision. And more importantly, I don't think anyone should be compelled to sell their labour. Again, the exact practicalities of this are open to debate. UBI? Direct universal provision of goods? I'm open to different suggestions

I agree that in wealthy country nobody should lack basic necessities like shelter, food, and healthcare. Where I depart company is the idea people should have these things without working, if they are capable of working. The old left worried a about full employment and sought to put in policies that would make sure that finding a decent job would be easy. As Joan Robinson put it, "The only thing worse than being exploited is being unexploited." The new left seems to have other ideas. At the current time, I seriously doubt UBI will be sufficient to provide most people with the basic necessities. Things may change with AI technology.

6 hours ago, Liffguard said:

- Open borders. Not too much to add here, and this is already getting long.

Perhaps. But if the left screws this up, it may find itself out of power for a long time. In order to make this work, you would have to make large fiscal transfers (ie borrowing) upfront and then convince citizens that they will pay off in the long run.

6 hours ago, Liffguard said:

- Universal lifelong education access, that isn’t premised on education being nothing but a job-training program (but with vocational job training very much also available).

Resources aren't unlimited. And if I'm going to use resources to fund education, I'm mainly interested that they result in a decent job for people.

 

6 hours ago, Liffguard said:

Massive wealth taxes. Maybe even a wealth cap. Progressive inheritance tax with a very steep curve. Restrictions on discrepancy of resources in legal representation (maybe all lawyers are public servants, assigned randomly to argue either side of a legal dispute or criminal case). Etc etc.

I certainly support progressive inheritance taxes. With regard to your idea about lawyers, interesting idea. Not sure how I feel about it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

13 hours ago, A wilding said:

Sorry, that was mostly written for the benefit of @Ser Scot A Ellison who is interested in that sort of thing.

I will cease my thread hijack.

Thank you.  Perhaps start another thread to discuss? (Your point about the repeated claims of Computers coding themselves is exactly what I was driving at).

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 hours ago, Liffguard said:

- Worker ownership, workplace democracy. I think people who do the work at an organisation should have a say in how that organisation operates. I don't forsee any one template by which this would be implemented, and different organisations could implement it differently.

I fully and emphatically support employee owned businesses.  It gives employees the benefit of their labor, discourages unsustainable wage differentials, as well as encouraging a better “product” because it is a direct benefit to those making that “product”.

[Altherion]

4 hours ago, Liffguard said:

I plan to discuss the other points, but this one I want to respond to immediately. I don't think we can grow our way out of the climate crisis any more than we can eat our way out of obesity. The incessant pursuit of growth is the climate crisis's primary driving force.

The climate crisis is a political problem, not a technical one. We have all the tools to start meaningfully mitigating it right now. Today. That we don't is a failure of decision making, not a deficit of technology.

I mentioned in the climate thread reading Less is More by Jason Hickel. It makes, I think, a very strong case for why the pursuit of growth is the main cause of ecological breakdown and climate change. Most importantly, it points out that in developed nations, we've long since past the point whereby our use of resources is proportional to our increase in well being. We can pursue degrowth and improve human wellbeing through better distribution.

I will look at the book, but from recent experimental evidence, I very much doubt that we can solve the climate crisis without improvements in technology. As I mentioned in the climate thread, the coronavirus provided a test of how much emissions can be reduced by cutting on back on things that we can do without. At the very height of the pandemic closures in individual countries, the reduction in CO₂ emissions was only about a quarter (26%). With dramatic changes to society (e.g. the criminalization of planned obsolescence, usage of clothes, shoes, electronics and all other consumer goods to destruction, everyone going vegetarian, etc. etc.), it might be possible to go further and push emissions down by about half. However, a substantial fraction of them are simply the consequences of billions of human beings living an industrialized lifestyle and no amount of redistribution will get rid of them.

Given that we need to not only reduce the emissions to zero, but actually take some of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, we almost certainly need new technology as well as a massive round of construction of renewable energy sources. Of course, there is a political problem here too and if it had been solved a few decades ago, it might have been possible to to make do with the tech we have now, but that possibility vanished long ago. Even if every politician agreed to tackle global warming today, we would still need a colossal amount of growth to do it without war or famine.

[Knight Of Winter]

11 hours ago, Liffguard said:

That said, I can give a few examples of the kinds of thing I would like to see implemented.

OldGimletEye and Altherion addressed specifics - and I agree with them for most part - but here I want to emmphasize one global point regarding the points you make.

Having read your argument (well written and presented, btw), I found myself thinking that all of these are characteristics of a truly great society. A country which successfully implemented them would prosper and achieve both social justice and progress on a unprecedented scale - on paper. I praxis, however, I think that some of your points unfortunately contradict with each other.

There's a lot of awesome lefty stuff that both you and I are in favour of - free healthcare and education, strong welfare state, state support for the poor etc. - but these are expensive as hell. In order to finance them, you need a large percentage of population that works and pays taxes. You need an environment where entrepreneurs are free to start their businesses and profit from them if they're successful. Arguing for a free education society on one hand, and for society where noone is forced to sell their labor on the other - well, it seems to me that you can't have both.
 

11 hours ago, Liffguard said:

Restrictions on discrepancy of resources in legal representation (maybe all lawyers are public servants, assigned randomly to argue either side of a legal dispute or criminal case).

Just want to quickly address this one, for fact of the matter is that some lawyers are good while others are not. Would you be willing to lose a court case (and all the repercussions that go with it - jail, fines, social shame etc.) because RNG assigned you a crappy lawyer?

And on a larger point, this seems inconsistent with the way we live our daily lives. You can choose which bread to buy, which career to pursue and which company you work for. These are not randomly assigned by the state, but chosen by you according to your preferences, personality and needs. Why should legal representation be any different?

[Alarich II]

12 hours ago, felice said:

No, we're calling for something new. "It hasn't happened yet" doesn't mean it's not possible!

The simplest option is to take an existing capitalist democratic state, transfer the entire stock market to government ownership, and change nothing else. Is there any reason to expect that to be any less democratic than what we have now?

The problem with socialism is that while most sane people agree that they don't want a system like the GDR, unfree and inefficient, they don't really tell us how this will put into reality and instead, one must read about easy solutions.

Like the simplest option is to "take" an existing democratic state. Suppose those states are just up for grabs, you just have to take one. And then you just have to disappropriate all publicly traded companies (if you took the right state, if you picked wrong, there is no meaningful stock exchange within your jurisdiction). And then, when state has become the greatest capitalist of all, boom, socialism. So easy.

But the new socialism is not going to be an authoritarian nightmare, just a few missteps and unintended consequences.

The problem is that we already have seen the real life outcome of this approach to socialism - taking a state, massive disappropriation, a few missteps and unintended consequences, it's all been there. Do you really think that the German communists and socialists that were persecuted by the Nazis and came back to East Germany didn't want to build a new and better society? It's not as if they sat down and said, okay, let's build a police state and a wall around it, put all opposition into jail, let IKEA exploit our workers and create massive environmental damage. But nonetheless, this was the outcome.

So of course people will wonder what your actual plan is. What your specific policies are going to be and how it's going to affect their lives. Especially in western democracies, because we actually have something to lose. Those who are lucky enough to live in countries where you can vote your government out of office, will probably have made at some point in their lives the experience of living under governments that do not aling with their social and political preferences; and that, too, will have to be accounted for. What happens if this new all powerful, all possessing and directing state is taken by the political opposition, how is this going to affect the new socialist state?

Which is not to say that we can't or shouldn't advocate for better policies to improve the common welfare; strong unions and co-determination can work in capitalist democratic societies, public funded healthcare works - and of all places in Great Britain, the birthplace of capitalism. Tight regulation of financial markets - it can work, antitrust regulation works; Cooperative societies exist already (I am a member of a registered cooperative with over 40.000 members and 800 million annual turnover), we can regulate finances of political parties and their election campaigns. I fully support a lot of policies to improve the common welfare, but I am very wary of new socialist utopias.