All about socialism you wanted to know and feared to ask

[Khan]

only those who really want the sandals would buy them, and everybody would be happny.

Apart from the people who want the sandals but can't afford them, they are not happy.

[Edric O]

Objective parameters? ROTFLMAO.

I'm glad you find it amusing, but "ROTFLMAO" is not an argument. I gave examples of those objective parameters: the value of the goods or services you produce, the level of education necessary for your job, the number of hours you work and the intensity of the effort, etc.

You're not taking into account there will always be fluctuations in demand for certain goods and services because humans will not let their desires and tastes fit into graphs and statistics like economical planners want them too.

Modern capitalist corporations employ whole legions of planners and managers whose job it is to study the desires and tastes of people in order to design an internal economic plan for the corporation. All corporations are planned economies - one Russian friend of mine once remarked that there is more economic planning going on in the corporation he works for than there was in the entire Byelorussian Soviet Republic.

So I'm afraid that economic planning actually works very well. However, corporate planning has the same dark side that Soviet state planning once had: It is undemocratic, dictatorial, oppressive and exploitative. In a word, it is capitalist planning. The core feature of socialism is democracy, and a socialist economy differs from a capitalist one not because it is planned (after all, capitalist economies are planned too - just not by the state). A socialist economy differs from a capitalist one because it is planned democratically, by elected representatives of the people. The people have control over the planners and the plan itself.

[Edric O]

Edrico has answered this before.... he said that a massive jump in technology would be required for us to move into socialism.

[Edric O]

Ok.

[Anathema]

(Edited for more seriousness)

I'm glad you find it amusing, but "ROTFLMAO" is not an argument. I gave examples of those objective parameters: the value of the goods or services you produce, the level of education necessary for your job, the number of hours you work and the intensity of the effort, etc.

I didread your post. The factors you mentioned are objectively discernable, but they're not objectively valuable. 10 years of education for doing something nobody needs and nobody wants still holds no value, because it does not contribute to society in any meaningful way.

The only reliable way to determin the value of an offered product or service is to let free market workings decide it, by factors such as how much can be produced currently and how many people want it, and how badly they want it. If there is a low stock of sandals (to stick with my old example), we should only give (sell) them to the people who have dire need for them or people who like them so much they would give much money for it. Selling them for a lower price then on a free market will mean that the first people who get to a store get one, while those are not necessarily the ones who need/want it the most. On the other hand if you sell it for a higher price because those parameters say so, you might have excess stock (and therefore have wasted recources)

Modern capitalist corporations employ whole legions of planners and managers whose job it is to study the desires and tastes of people in order to design an internal economic plan for the corporation. All corporations are planned economies - one Russian friend of mine once remarked that there is more economic planning going on in the corporation he works for than there was in the entire Byelorussian Soviet Republic.

So I'm afraid that economic planning actually works very well. However, corporate planning has the same dark side that Soviet state planning once had: It is undemocratic, dictatorial, oppressive and exploitative. In a word, it is capitalist planning. The core feature of socialism is democracy, and a socialist economy differs from a capitalist one not because it is planned (after all, capitalist economies are planned too - just not by the state). A socialist economy differs from a capitalist one because it is planned democratically, by elected representatives of the people. The people have control over the planners and the plan itself.

Capitalist planners are held accountable in that sense that they will lose their jobs and income if they make to many faulty predictions.

The only value I can see of democratic planning is that planners would work with the best intentions. However this does not mean it will yield the best results.

Movements in consumption trends and social developments are things humans are not collectively conscious of, and are always a step ahead of those who try to predict them. I don't think that democratic planning will never be as efficient in creating wealth as the laws of supply and demand in a sphere of economical competition.

[Edric O]

I didread your post. The factors you mentioned are objectively discernable, but they're not objectively valuable. 10 years of education for doing something nobody needs and nobody wants still holds no value, because it does not contribute to society in any meaningful way.

I gave examples of several factors (the value of the goods or services you produce, the level of education necessary for your job, the number of hours you work and the intensity of the effort, etc.) and I thought I made it clear that a person's salary will be determined based on ALL those factors, not just one of them. Education by itself means nothing. But education coupled with the fact that you make a valuable product results in you having a high salary.

The only reliable way to determin the value of an offered product or service is to let free market workings decide it, by factors such as how much can be produced currently and how many people want it, and how badly they want it.

You are only half right. The only reliable way to determine the value of an offered product or service is indeed by taking into account factors such as how much can be produced currently and how many people want it, and how badly they want it. But who says that you have to rely on the market to do it? The market does not always work (monopolies, oligopolies, unequal knowledge, etc.), and even when it does work, the result is not always the best from a human point of view (because, for example, the market makes no distinction between a starving man who is willing to pay everything he has - $100 - for a certain product, and a rich man who is also willing to pay $100 for that product).

Now let's make one thing clear: A planned economy doesn't mean there is no market. It only means that markets are restricted to the distribution of non-vital retail goods. Most of the planning in a planned economy refers to things on a large scale - industrial production is planned, for example, and so is the demand for industrial raw materials. Overall, supply is almost entirely planned and demand is half planned and half predicted (some demand can be planned, for example the demand for crude oil; the demand for consumer products, on the other hand, must be predicted).

If there is a low stock of sandals (to stick with my old example), we should only give (sell) them to the people who have dire need for them or people who like them so much they would give much money for it. Selling them for a lower price then on a free market will mean that the first people who get to a store get one, while those are not necessarily the ones who need/want it the most. On the other hand if you sell it for a higher price because those parameters say so, you might have excess stock (and therefore have wasted recources)

This is a situation where a planned economy and a market economy would work in exactly the same way. Sandals are a non-vital consumer product, so, even in a planned economy, they would be sold on the retail market in much the same way as in a market economy. If stocks are too low to fully meet demand, prices will rise and this will give a signal to the planners to increase the production of sandals.

You see, a planned economy sets prices by controlling production. When you take a single product into account (like sandals), a planned economy will act in just about the same way as a market economy. But things start to change when you take into account more complex economic relations. For example, let's say there are two products: sandals and winter boots - each being sold in different parts of the country (sandals in the south, winter boots in the north). And let's say that stocks in both products are too low to meet demand. In a market economy, this will cause shoe companies to start making more sandals and winter boots. But which of the two kinds of footware will attract more investment? The one with the highest demand, of course. If there are many rich people willing to pay a lot of money for fashionable sandals, shoe companies will make more sandals than winter boots - even if there are at the same time many poor people who really need winter boots to protect themselves from frostbite, but who don't have so much money to spend. On the other hand, in a planned economy, the fact that winter boots are more vital than sandals will be taken into account, and the shoe industry will produce more winter boots than sandals.

Capitalist planners are held accountable in that sense that they will lose their jobs and income if they make to many faulty predictions.

Yes, and exactly the same thing happens with planners in a democratic planned economy.

The only value I can see of democratic planning is that planners would work with the best intentions. However this does not mean it will yield the best results.

If they don't yield good enough results, they will be voted out of office by the people at the next elections. Not every single planner is elected by the people, of course, but the "big planners" who are in overall charge of the economy are elected by the people. And it is in their interest to make sure that the "smaller" planners who are beneath them on the "chain of command" do a good job, because if they don't, the "big planners" will lose the next elections.

Movements in consumption trends and social developments are things humans are not collectively conscious of, and are always a step ahead of those who try to predict them.

No they aren't. If these movements were always a step ahead, markets would be completely unpredictable, and corporations would never manage to build any good strategies for production and marketing.

I don't think that democratic planning will never be as efficient in creating wealth as the laws of supply and demand in a sphere of economical competition.

That's your opinion. ;) I believe democratic planning would be far more efficient than any market.

And by the way, keep in mind that the purpose of the economy is not to create wealth for wealth's own sake. Equitable distribution is just as important. For example: Let's say two groups of 100 people each are producing apples. Group A produces 1000 apples, but gives 901 of them to a single man and only 1 apple to each of the other 99 people. Group B produces only 500 apples, but gives 5 apples to each of the 100 people in the group. So 99% of people are better off in group B than in group A, even though group B produces only half as much wealth as group A.

[Caid Ivik]

New fronts for the socialist movement open. Forget the Capital.

http://kyberia.sk/id/1483077/

[Muniin]

Hey everyone jus got registered to this forum, big dune fan, and to my suprise here I find this lovely politics/philosophy/religion board... My god its beautiful, no flaming or nothing... Plus I dont hear the term COMMIE GO BACK TO RUSSIA, every time I use the word proliteriat... and thats always good.

So as for the examples of socialism (not yet to communism though) there are some successful examples.  First, sweden.  Now many leftists (im farrr left so dont complain you lefties out there) use Sweden as the poster child of Socialism and would be communism. However sweden is no paradise, its generally clean and its not falling apart, so yes it is a succesful country.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/dieteman/dieteman33.html

Very good example of how sweden is not all the left makes it out to be, its just one account and not a big picture or very broad, but its another point of view you don't see every day.  Now I dont agree with most of the ending of that paper in that it seems to give the worst of socialism/communism with the best/dream state of capitalism.  Capitalism is not "Hey we will all work to make this country great!"  Hell I would say capitalism dosnt have much to do with what makes america america except the economy and even then we arnt the strongest when it comes to international economics.  Nationalism is what makes america what you see in every friggin commercial in this country.  "Patriotism", same thing as nationalism.  Thats not bad in any way, it produces loyalty, blind faith in the government, hell it produces most everything a country needs to keep going.  Also Russia, some of the reason (as stated earlier if I recall) that it failed so miserably you might say, is that it was one large communist nation in a world of capitalist governments that would do anything to stay in power. All those anti-communist acts back in trumans days had nothing to do with protecting us from communists, it was to protect corperations and the capitalist controlled government from a political system that would basically abolish them.  Basically what im saying it USA VS USSR back in the cold war is not a portryal of true communism vs true capitalism.  Just to clear that up, im sure most of you had reached that point yourselves however to often im encountered by some rightwing american telling me the USA won the cold war so therefor capitalism will always be better. 

As for the technilogical development correlating to the development and sucess of socialism... No i wouldnt think so.  Yes that would solve the point that humans SEEM to be habitually lazy and greedy, hell just make the robots do it, I dont want to take out the trash.  But then we'd end up being hollow shells of our former civlizations and would probobly end up like the Matrix, Minus the revolution/zion/neo.  To put it frankly it'd suck.  However it is plausible that socialism could help develop many south american and african countries.  A sudden switch anywhere else would be basically impossible at this point.  (You couldnt suddenly make G.B. Socialist and expect it to work)  An example of this is Venezuela under President Hugo Chavez.

2 views

The Right:

http://www.fightthebias.com/Resources/Rec_Read/Dictator_In_The_Making.htm

The Left:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php4?article_id=5826

Wikipedia/Friggin Encyclopedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez

So you can decide for youself on what to think about the developing socialist Venezuela.

However now Im tired of typing on this subject and am gonna go play some more emperor since I just found/installed that game again.

Edit by Edric: fixed link URL

[Edric O]

*sigh* First of all, we need to clarify what you mean by "socialism". The socialist movement, which was born in the 19th century, gave rise to a number of branches and spin-offs. The word "socialism" itself can either refer to an economic system or to a political movement and ideology which supports that system. Read the rest of this topic (and the links in my signature) for more information.

Secondly, Sweden is clearly and definitely not a socialist country. It has a mixed economy (capitalism with socialist elements), and, of course, it has the world's most comprehensive welfare state. It is closer to socialism than most (perhaps all) other countries in the world, but calling it a "socialist country" is a gross exaggeration.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/dieteman/dieteman33.html

Very good example of how sweden is not all the left makes it out to be, its just one account and not a big picture or very broad, but its another point of view you don't see every day.  Now I dont agree with most of the ending of that paper in that it seems to give the worst of socialism/communism with the best/dream state of capitalism.

The Lew Rockwell Institute? Heh, that's a famous outlet of right-wing libertarian propaganda. In the case of the article you posted, it's not even good propaganda. Even assuming all the facts they present are entirely accurate (which is assuming a lot), their logic is still painfully bad.

You've got to love non-sequiturs:

1. Person A does X, Y, and Z.

2. Z is bad.

3. Therefore X, Y, and everything else person A ever did is also bad.

In other words, "anything that isn't perfectly good is evil". Libertarians love to use this fallacy against governments - since no government (or any other organization) is perfect, you will always find something objectionable in its history if you dig hard enough. I'd refute the article point by point, but it's too much of a piece of crap to be worth it. Basically, it comes down to 2 assertions:

a. "Socialism" is defined as "any system we don't like". This is very convenient, since it allows them to put the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Sweden, Europe, and pretty much the whole world with the exception of a handful of countries into one single "socialist" category. As Hitler said, "It belongs to the genius of a great political leader to make even adversaries far removed from one another seem to belong to a single category".

b. Anything bad that happens in a country is proof that its political and economic system is absolutely horrible and needs to be replaced with something that more closely resembles the government and economic system of the United States - because, as we all know, nothing bad never happened in the United States. In particular, the US government was a shining model of perfection during the period of laissez-faire capitalism in the 19th century. It's not like such wonderful capitalist governments ever endorsed slavery or anything. ::)

The article isn't even consistent:

As Ludwig von Mises writes in The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, it is capitalism

[gunner154]

Okay, several more concerns.

1.) You say that a gradual move from Capitalism to Communism via Socialism is more desirable than a direct transition. The gradual transition would require the nationalisation of private property. However, how can the country counter the cult personalities that have been known to result? eg. Stalin

2.) Yes, it is true that in Communism, one works to benefit society and this benefit is translated into self-benefit. However, this is not very obvious and the result might not be very palpable (let's leave out car-making and other inventions for a minute and think about people performing more mundane jobs like sewing or car manufacturing, assuming there are such mundane jobs that have yet to be replaced by technology). Wouldn't people still prefer to work selfishly holding some other job or repropose Capitalism seeing that a benefit to society by his own work would be divided among the entire population such that he only receives a minute proportion of the fruits of his work?

3.) Whatever happened to your Communism FAQ? I'm waiting to see it!

[Edric O]

1.) You say that a gradual move from Capitalism to Communism via Socialism is more desirable than a direct transition. The gradual transition would require the nationalisation of private property. However, how can the country counter the cult personalities that have been known to result? eg. Stalin

You should be asking how to avoid dictatorship, since a cult of personality is just a side effect of (some) dictatorships. And the answer is relatively simple: Keep the state democratic at all times. Remember, the whole reason for nationalizing the means of production (not "private property" in general - only the means of production are nationalized in socialism) is to put the economy under the (indirect) control of the people. This is only possible as long as the state is democratic: The people elect representatives, and those representatives control the means of production. Soviet Russia started out as a democracy, but then the Civil War began and Lenin delegated emergency powers to his government. This was a grave mistake; it did not destroy Soviet democracy, but it made it weak enough for Stalin to destroy it later.

Russia also had a number of very specific problems, which I've discussed before (the lack of a democratic tradition and adequate infrastructure, the fact that it was underdeveloped and barely out of feudalism, etc).

2.) Yes, it is true that in Communism, one works to benefit society and this benefit is translated into self-benefit. However, this is not very obvious and the result might not be very palpable (let's leave out car-making and other inventions for a minute and think about people performing more mundane jobs like sewing or car manufacturing, assuming there are such mundane jobs that have yet to be replaced by technology). Wouldn't people still prefer to work selfishly holding some other job or repropose Capitalism seeing that a benefit to society by his own work would be divided among the entire population such that he only receives a minute proportion of the fruits of his work?

Ok, first of all I need to make one thing clear: When I say that technological advancement is required for communism, I DO NOT mean that we need robots to do all our work for us or Star Trek-style replicators. Such technology could in fact take us beyond communism, into the realm of post-scarcity economics.

By the way, as far as socialism is concerned, we certainly do not need any more technology than we have today. I've long suspected that the Computer Revolution and the Internet can do for socialism what the Industrial Revolution did for capitalism, and I've recently started reading a number of academic articles that support this very same idea:

http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/

Computer processing power can greatly increase the efficiency of economic planning, and internet-like communications can serve to expand democracy to unprecedented levels (by allowing large-scale direct democracy for the first time in history; I envision a socialist system using a combination of representative and direct democracy, with the people setting generic goals - such as "more funding for education" - via direct vote, and the representatives working out the details). For a better explanation of what I have in mind, read the NSwiki article on my fictional NationStates country:

http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Constantinopolis

:)

But let's go back to your question. Let's say there's a very selfish man, living in communism, and comparing the pros and cons of capitalism and communism. Now, communism is a very egalitarian system. People don't all get the exact same wealth, but differences between them are very small. Capitalism, on the other hand, is extremely unequal: The richest 10% of people hold more than half of all wealth (in fact, they hold around 60-70% of all wealth in reality, but, for the sake of the argument, let's assume a more just form of capitalism in which they hold only 50%). Now let's compare two countries, A and B, where A is communist and B is capitalist, that have the same total wealth and the same population. Let's say, for example, that the total wealth is $1000 and there are 100 people in each country.

In country A, which is communist, every person has either $9, $10, or $11. Equality isn't perfect, but it's close.

In country B, which is capitalist, the richest 10 people hold $500 between them (in other words, they have an average of $50 each), while the poorest 90 people hold the other $500 between them (an average of $5.5 each).

Now let's go back to our selfish man. He lives in country A, where he has $10, and thinks about moving to country B. But then he looks at the statistics, and realizes that he has a 90% chance of being poorer in the capitalist country B than in the communist country A. Sure, there is a 10% chance that he will greatly increase his wealth, but if he already has a comfortable life in communist country A, the risk just isn't worth taking. From a rational selfish point of view, communism is better than capitalism.

3.) Whatever happened to your Communism FAQ? I'm waiting to see it!

Well, actually I finished it a long time ago, but I've learned many new things since then and I'm no longer happy with the FAQ's quality, so I'll have to rework it. :)

[gunner154]

Aaahhh.... makes a lot of sense. Thanks! Be sure to provide us with first-hand information about your FAQ once it is completed!

[Dude_Doc]

Well, it seems America would have a lot to use from socialism and communism. Maybe, in these turulent times, the revolution is not too far off. We can only hope.

[gunner154]

You DO know that many associate Communism with an oppressive government? I don't believe a revolution will be coming anytime soon. "Communism is evil".

[Edric O]

A bad reputation is the least of our worries. Revolutionary groups have always been under attack by ruling class propaganda and have always suffered from a bad reputation as a result.

Communism had a bad reputation to begin with, long before there were any stalinist governments to point fingers at. That didn't stop communist revolutions from happening anyway. I've read anti-communist arguments from the early 20th century, and they're almost identical to the anti-communist arguments used today.

[Caid Ivik]

Sociologist A.Giddens wrote a book about double hermeneutics, which is in core about legitimity of government. His premises are similar to most of the european liberal tradition, close to Marx in that politics should be taken as technology of sociological research. But that's only primary hermeneutical aspect, second is how the affected population reacts on it...

[Dude_Doc]

You DO know that many associate Communism with an oppressive government?

Of course I do. Just like anarchism is associated with people running around and killing and raping each other, performing satanistic rituals, doing anything to get rid of freedom, democracy and all that, eating their own children, betraying (but only limited to) America (even if they don't live there), well.... you get the point.

(Heh, I know, overreaction.... nothing personal...) :D