> Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?
It's a pretty well written piece. I think people from all perspectives should take careful note of what he is actually advocating: discussing and figuring out the mechanisms of what a modern society should like rather than blindly following an agenda.
That said, this is a 70+ year old article, based on ideas and problems at the time. Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive? If anything we worry about the opposite problem. College will only be a means to a career? Today academia is powerful and a political force unto itself. And we have so many welfare programs and safety nets and worker protects than Einstein was even able to dream about in 1949. In a way, we are living in a world he was advocating for.
If it was written today, I have no doubt Einstein would still care about inequality and education and politics and common "workers" enjoying life. But I also don't think I would see him caring as much about Marxism and the labor theory of value specifically as a mechanism for understanding it anymore.
> Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive? If anything we worry about the opposite problem.
Well, unemployment is kind of a requirement of capitalism. You can't have the labor force calling the shots, it eats into profits. From the article:
> There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists.
He's being generous here, it's not just that an "army of the unemployed" almost always exists, it's a goal. Captains of industry in the current low-unemployment environment have been saying the quiet part out loud, that we need to increase unemployment. There's generally a target of 5% unemployment, which means capitalism has built-in waste.
College has become mostly just that, a means to a career. It's even begun to wear that out and at higher levels become a means to a career in Academia. That's ultimately the beginnings of a massive ponzi scheme, it is now considerably detached from pure pursuits of knowledge, it's now become cannibalized for pursuits of funding.
If it didn't come from Einstein, nobody would even pay attention. It just states the same gains and problems everybody knows (and did know by decades at that time), and restates the large showstopper without going into how to solve it (what nobody knows how even today).
It's a really good piece of popular communication. He was very good at that. And the situation didn't change much since then (at least the things he describes). So yeah, if you don't know a lot about the subject, the article is for you. Just don't expect to learn anything deep.
Yes, capitalism makes people less productive. Wall Street? The richest of the rich get rich by playing games with paper, not by doing something useful to society. Look at all the stupid skyscrapers in NYC that were simply built to launder wealth, aren’t occupied, and are beyond the means of 99.99% of US citizens, yet the dominate the skyline and shade the public parks. Capitalism is designed to have lazy winners.
> Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive?
\aside: Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations has a story about men who worked themselves into the ground, because they were paid by-the-piece (not per hour). They needed to be protected from themselves. (The psychological mechanism wasn't speculated, but I suspect maybe competition rather than greed.)
I would say that Marx and labor theory of value are still relevant as mechanisms for understanding capitalism. According to Marx, Capitalism is a mode of economics that has unleashed the productive forces, but its internal contradictions give rise to increasing crisises. There is a constant downward pressure on labor costs versus rising costs of living.
Crisis has been averted multiple times, and the productive forces continue to be unleashed. To prevent total collapse, concessions like welfare have been made.
However, there is a real possibility of potential growth being stifled by self interests of powerful economic actors. This bleeds out now into identity politics as people view the liberal system as incapable of providing the growth and future they thought would be delivered. Either unprivileged groups want to be paid high wages or the privileged groups want to protect their high wages from being cut down. This is a form of class warfare that isn't too different from what Marx observed in his days.
This still is far away from achieving the socialist mode of production where the workers become the planner and rulers of the economy to further unleash the productive forces.
We may have more programs by volume but the barriers to entry and weird-ass financial requirements to keep benefits often drives the outcomes those programs are notionally intended to address. The social safety net today is significantly less functional than it was 30 years ago.
> A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child.
Sometimes, the needs of the community are such that the work to fulfill those needs is distasteful to most people. Until such time as such jobs can genuinely be completely roboticized, to whom should janitorial work be distributed? Garbage collection? Plumbing out backed-up toilets? Going out in the freezing cold to plow snow from the roads? Does anyone seriously believe that such work would be happily accepted full-time by anyone over, say, an office job, because why, they'll be socially celebrated for it? Or that it would be politically tenable to draft the wealthy and middle-class to occasionally take shifts for these jobs, as if they were a new kind of jury duty?
Where I’m from (in California) the garbage collection is done by a private company, and it looks like a pretty nice job if you’re physically fit. And it’s not looked down on at all, people there know what hauling their own garbage is like.
Snow removal is very high status and pretty, er, cool because of the big machines involved, and its government work with the pay and benefits you’d expect. Probably only the postmaster is as universally appreciated up there.
I’d happily drive the snowplow if it paid half what a software job pays. The only downside is you can’t really drink in the winter.
Plumbing is very entrepreneurial, especially the emergency “unblock my pipe” kind. That person could easily be making more than you and I.
So while surely there are some jobs that are miserable, many of them connected to factory farming of meat, I don’t think “office job” is automatically enticing to everyone. And there is still plenty of social status in necessary jobs, if done in an actual community.
What people would want to do might look different if you took away all the bullshit jobs and jobs tied to peddling endless consumption on people. Both my Grandfathers were janitors, no one looked down on them, they enjoyed their jobs and took pride in it, they both got paid a decent enough for lower-middle-class wage.
Get rid of all the jobs that don't directly benefit your community and what people would want to do for their community would change drastically.
I mean, in America? Right now? Maybe not... okay definitely not but I ask the same thing about Higher-taxes for the betterment of all. No way it would happen here - the people wouldn't accept it but it does work elsewhere and the people there are, by the ways we currently measure, way happier than we are.
I think a culture that teaches the value of community and does a great deal to impart on the youth that we have the nice, comfortable lives (with arguably more freedom) is because we share those burdens and its part of our civic duty... that its patriotic to do so. I could see that working out.
Plus how crazy is it to think that cultures and societies did operate similarly in the past, pre-industrialization? Isn't this the basis for the family unit?
Human social structures don't have to concentrate power, though. At its best, that's the goal of the socialist project. Noam Chomsky makes the spicy take of calling the USSR "state capitalism" for precisly the reason that it is a concentration of power. He argues that the USSR largely just replaced capitalists with the state, but the power imbalance was not significantly changed.
If anything, capitalism provides an alternate path for people craving money and power. If the estates remain sufficiently separated, they will tend towards balancing each other out and creating more stable governments.
Knowing this, we ought to design an economic system accordingly!
The inevitable concentration of power should be out in the open, broadly consented to, and held accountable. We could call it "government".
Instead, in the most "anarchic" corners of capitalism we have "shadow governments" where power is tightly concentrated and undemocratic, but it's okay because "if you can't see it, it doesn't exist". Insurance giants, tech giants, finance giants, etc.
Edward Bernays was writing about this exact phenomenon 100 years ago (Propaganda).
Power isn't the problem. It's an amoral, nebulous concept.
There are no actual -isms in the world.* These are utopian fantasies supported as tribal, jingoist footballs not worth arguing about. Governments are varying degrees of:
1. Influence corruption of the rich directing elected (or military junta) officials
2. Proportion of embezzlement-adjacent and actual embezzlement corruption of officials spending money on their own needs and wants
3. Overall functionality and responsiveness of police and justice extending protections or harm balancing individual and collective interests, including positive and negative rights to liberties, property, trade, and taxation
4. Distribution of competency across government departments
The problem in the US specifically is that money concentrates power because elected officials are beholding to campaign financing. As a consequent, primarily celebrities and public figures are the only ones who are "electable" in 2 flavors of corporate-owned, tribal factions. As John McCain discovered, there is absolutely no will to fix it from within the system. As such, it can only be resolved outside of it through applying great, sustained pressure in a nonviolent manner.
* Communism was attempted but never implemented anywhere because it's either a utopian delusion or was sidetracked by totalitarianism and/or inadequate leadership. Capitalism doesn't exist anywhere except in a libertarian's mind. There is no "pure" "socialism" anywhere. Every political jurisdiction implements a special snowflake blend of regulations, corruption, freedoms, autonomy, and force.
I'd like to highlight one of the previous comments on this article:
>Here's some important things to think about:
>First, socialism is defined as worker or public control of the means of production and distribution. This has been interpreted in both libertarian and authoritarian ways.
>Second, if socialism is worker control, then it is fully compatible with free markets. Mondragon and Semco are both worker democracies, and operate successfully in the global market.
>If socialism is public control, this does not equal totalitarianism. Social democracy is a form of democratic public control of resources.
>I understand people's reasoning for preferring capitalism (ownership defined by contract) or socialism (ownership defined by use), and I respect that, but I would love to be able to have political discussions about these issues which take into account the complexity and diversity of these two very broad terms.
I live in an european country with a large social democratic party and it's not socialism, it's a vaguely leftist liberal welfare state party. Democratic socialism can be considered socialism, though, but nothing a single party (which gets around 8% of the vote here) can do to create a socialist state.
"democratic public control of resources" is a nebuluos definitiob, and the meaning of regular non-"democratic" socialism or communism can be interpreted as such. Usually the adjective considers more the means and not the ends, (democratic, revolutionary, but sometimes the ends too as in libertarian, authoritarian).
The Red Scare did such massive damage to the working class in the United States. McCarthyism, the Cuban Missile Crisis (which the US precipitated with MRBMs stationed in Turkey) and of course Ronald Reagan, who spent $3T+ of the Social Security surplus on military build-up. Remember that whenever anyone talks about Social Security going bankrupt and also why SS is even taxed.
Fun fact: Abraham Lincoln was essentially a Marxist too [1]:
> Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
Of course Americans don't know what socialism is because of this history but the more disturbing part is most Americans don't even know what capitalism is yet defend it anyway.
Capitalism is the exploitation of surplus labor value to the hands of the very few, the capital-owning class. It's not markets. Markets occur in every economic system. It's not "free" (no such thing) markets. It's simply the system of exploitation. We've replaced the monarchs of feudalism with oligarchs. That's all.
The Lincoln quote you referenced really blew my mind the first time I read it. No president before or since has encapsulated the issue so clearly.
"It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.
Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.
Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation." [0]
> Fun fact: Abraham Lincoln was essentially a Marxist too
Along these same lines, watch at least the opening statements of first JFK-Nixon debate [1].
Nixon sounds like a Biden or Bush, he could be on the debate stage in 2024. He wouldn't win, but he would sure fit in.
JFK sounds like Xi Jinping. He won, but was assassinated 3 years later.
America is remarkably good at reinventing itself and what it means to be "American". Our history is worth studying in depth, without ideological blinders.
There's so much wrong with this comment but to start: the US didn't cause the Cuban missile crisis by first placing missiles in Turkey. This is known because historians have read documents and talked with people after the fact. The actual Soviet motivation was to use missiles in Cuba as a bargaining chip with respect to Berlin. Militarily, neither missiles in Cuba nor missiles in Turkey made much of any strategic difference.
Any time I hear "Capitalism is [...]", it is when one forces his own, carefully worded definition, so that the subsequent arguments sound natural, logic, simple, irrefutable. "It's simply the system of exploitation".
Let me try that game. Capitalism is what emerges from trade and money. You can fight it, you can embrace it, but you won't eradicate it. Black markets and barter will emerge, which are forms of capitalism. In the end, all you can do is regulate it (or not). Then I would define socialism as an attempt to regulate it so it doesn't turn into the law of the fittest.
Einstein talks of a planned economy towards the end. It's easy to see how someone in 1949 might think it's a good idea, but in 2023 the idea seems antiquated. All of the major economies are largely not planned.
Now I wonder if the idea of a planned economy was just tried too early. Was it missing the quantized world we live in now, with increases in information processing and communication? Is there an AI advancement in our near future that can outperform the free economy?
This observation seems to hold true no matter the time or place:
"Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."
I find socialism amusing. It is best, I think, to consider socialism as a critique of capitalism. My working thesis is that capitalism is unavoidable. Markets do not solve every problem, but they solve many. The fact that socialism creates anger among many capitalists is, in fact, a point in favor of socialism as a critique: The anger wouldn't be there if the critique had no merit.
It is silly to attempt to achieve socialism. Better to use it as a gauge. Otherwise, it ceases to be a good measure and critique. Is the current system everything it could be? If not, then how could it be better and at what cost? This is like asking if a Market accounts for all costs. If it does not, that is, if a Market creates externalities, then it is time to consider, argue over, and politically implement alternatives.
It's continually amazing to me that more than 100 years after Marx and Engels wrote their papers on Socialism and Capitalism, people can't see past much more than those choices. Which seems to be very much a false dichotomy.
We have so much more, significantly more data and analytical and modeling capability, and no alternative proposals are taken seriously? It's not like they don't exist, they just never make it as part of the conversation.
It's almost religious with which people limit themselves to the most known options and ignore any alternatives.
It seems most -isms inevitably leads to the superficially similar situation of a tiny elite either having total power or owning (almost) all resources, and thus power. Most would still prefer capitalism as at least it offers more personal freedoms and a chance of upward mobility.
I think the recent rise of anti-capitalism gets it wrong. Capitalism within the context of a nation can be made to work in a way that whilst imperfect has a reasonable balance.
It is specifically global capitalism (globalization) that is the problem. It allows for corporate super structures where workers nor governments have any leverage. Worker's rights cannot be defended so it's a race to the bottom. De-industrialization has hollowed out the middle class. Corporations pay little to no taxes. The triangle of government, business and worker that would ordinarily come to some kind of workable balance is gone. It's a never-ending stretch in one direction only: business.
Similarly, global capitalism allows corporations to hide all their dirty externalities. Dumping toxic trash in other countries, sweatshops, wrecking the environment, you just place that shit out of sight.
You would have considerable more outrage if a company would do that in their home country, close to their customer base.
I'll end with the uncomfortable truth that the above has led to the stagnation of the West and various global problems. At the same time it has significantly uplifted the general wealth of many developing nations.
I wonder how many people here have genuinely read and comprehended the works of Marx. While he remains a controversial figure, his theories offer valuable insights into the complexities of capitalism and socialism. Marx provided a framework for understanding how the capitalist system operates and how it creates class contradictions through components like rent, interest, and profit. These ideas continue to be relevant today, especially in identifying and addressing the societal issues caused by large banks, major corporations, and big landlords, which collectively place burdens on us all.
>I am convinced there is only one way ... a socialist economy... In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion.
There you have the problem. Things are controlled by 'society itself' and practical decisions such as who to hire to do what for how much have to be made by humans and we end up with iffy corruptish politicians doing that.
Maybe a way forward would be to have an AI make the decisions. At least that could be open source and non corrupt. I'd vote to give that a try providing you could vote it out again if it screws up.
As to socialism, unless it is international to the extent of producing a World Government which controls all military power, it might more easily lead to wars than does capitalism, because it represents a still greater concentration of power.
> I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger.
I believe that this is fundamentally the same opinion that Oppenheimer held, that resulted in the establishment seeing him as an enemy and a threat. I would like to resurrect these two gentlemen, bring them up to date on the history of the United Nations, and ask them if their opinions have altered.
My favorite sentence in his article still rings completely right-on:
"the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society."
Half unconsciously: Explains a lot. You've got your Joseph II's and you've got your Suhartos.
[+] [-] legitster|2 years ago|reply
It's a pretty well written piece. I think people from all perspectives should take careful note of what he is actually advocating: discussing and figuring out the mechanisms of what a modern society should like rather than blindly following an agenda.
That said, this is a 70+ year old article, based on ideas and problems at the time. Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive? If anything we worry about the opposite problem. College will only be a means to a career? Today academia is powerful and a political force unto itself. And we have so many welfare programs and safety nets and worker protects than Einstein was even able to dream about in 1949. In a way, we are living in a world he was advocating for.
If it was written today, I have no doubt Einstein would still care about inequality and education and politics and common "workers" enjoying life. But I also don't think I would see him caring as much about Marxism and the labor theory of value specifically as a mechanism for understanding it anymore.
[+] [-] mullingitover|2 years ago|reply
Well, unemployment is kind of a requirement of capitalism. You can't have the labor force calling the shots, it eats into profits. From the article:
> There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists.
He's being generous here, it's not just that an "army of the unemployed" almost always exists, it's a goal. Captains of industry in the current low-unemployment environment have been saying the quiet part out loud, that we need to increase unemployment. There's generally a target of 5% unemployment, which means capitalism has built-in waste.
[+] [-] hattmall|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcosdumay|2 years ago|reply
It's... Pretty mundane and usual.
If it didn't come from Einstein, nobody would even pay attention. It just states the same gains and problems everybody knows (and did know by decades at that time), and restates the large showstopper without going into how to solve it (what nobody knows how even today).
It's a really good piece of popular communication. He was very good at that. And the situation didn't change much since then (at least the things he describes). So yeah, if you don't know a lot about the subject, the article is for you. Just don't expect to learn anything deep.
[+] [-] dmn322|2 years ago|reply
Not really, in the 40's and 50's the programs were stronger
[+] [-] demondemidi|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperthesis|2 years ago|reply
\aside: Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations has a story about men who worked themselves into the ground, because they were paid by-the-piece (not per hour). They needed to be protected from themselves. (The psychological mechanism wasn't speculated, but I suspect maybe competition rather than greed.)
[+] [-] CrackerNews|2 years ago|reply
Crisis has been averted multiple times, and the productive forces continue to be unleashed. To prevent total collapse, concessions like welfare have been made.
However, there is a real possibility of potential growth being stifled by self interests of powerful economic actors. This bleeds out now into identity politics as people view the liberal system as incapable of providing the growth and future they thought would be delivered. Either unprivileged groups want to be paid high wages or the privileged groups want to protect their high wages from being cut down. This is a form of class warfare that isn't too different from what Marx observed in his days.
This still is far away from achieving the socialist mode of production where the workers become the planner and rulers of the economy to further unleash the productive forces.
[+] [-] forgetfreeman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jtode|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LordDragonfang|2 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182518 (2010) (66 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315391 (2011) (45 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4653939 (2012) (19 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384600 (2019) (28 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30676628 (2022) (19 comments)
[+] [-] dang|2 years ago|reply
Why Socialism? Albert Einstein (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30676628 - March 2022 (16 comments)
Why Socialism? Albert Einstein (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384600 - Oct 2019 (27 comments)
“Why Socialism?" by Albert Einstein (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21187870 - Oct 2019 (1 comment)
Einstein: Why Socialism? (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8745873 - Dec 2014 (12 comments)
Einstein: "Why Socialism?" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4653939 - Oct 2012 (19 comments)
Albert Einstein: Why Socialism? (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315391 - March 2011 (44 comments)
Albert Einstein: Why Socialism? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182518 - March 2010 (66 comments)
[+] [-] solatic|2 years ago|reply
Sometimes, the needs of the community are such that the work to fulfill those needs is distasteful to most people. Until such time as such jobs can genuinely be completely roboticized, to whom should janitorial work be distributed? Garbage collection? Plumbing out backed-up toilets? Going out in the freezing cold to plow snow from the roads? Does anyone seriously believe that such work would be happily accepted full-time by anyone over, say, an office job, because why, they'll be socially celebrated for it? Or that it would be politically tenable to draft the wealthy and middle-class to occasionally take shifts for these jobs, as if they were a new kind of jury duty?
This is not a serious suggestion.
[+] [-] biztos|2 years ago|reply
Snow removal is very high status and pretty, er, cool because of the big machines involved, and its government work with the pay and benefits you’d expect. Probably only the postmaster is as universally appreciated up there.
I’d happily drive the snowplow if it paid half what a software job pays. The only downside is you can’t really drink in the winter.
Plumbing is very entrepreneurial, especially the emergency “unblock my pipe” kind. That person could easily be making more than you and I.
So while surely there are some jobs that are miserable, many of them connected to factory farming of meat, I don’t think “office job” is automatically enticing to everyone. And there is still plenty of social status in necessary jobs, if done in an actual community.
[+] [-] threetonesun|2 years ago|reply
Get rid of all the jobs that don't directly benefit your community and what people would want to do for their community would change drastically.
[+] [-] shadowfoxx|2 years ago|reply
I think a culture that teaches the value of community and does a great deal to impart on the youth that we have the nice, comfortable lives (with arguably more freedom) is because we share those burdens and its part of our civic duty... that its patriotic to do so. I could see that working out.
Plus how crazy is it to think that cultures and societies did operate similarly in the past, pre-industrialization? Isn't this the basis for the family unit?
[+] [-] fallingknife|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyleyeats|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] UtopiaPunk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brigadier132|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legitster|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pphysch|2 years ago|reply
The inevitable concentration of power should be out in the open, broadly consented to, and held accountable. We could call it "government".
Instead, in the most "anarchic" corners of capitalism we have "shadow governments" where power is tightly concentrated and undemocratic, but it's okay because "if you can't see it, it doesn't exist". Insurance giants, tech giants, finance giants, etc.
Edward Bernays was writing about this exact phenomenon 100 years ago (Propaganda).
[+] [-] 1letterunixname|2 years ago|reply
There are no actual -isms in the world.* These are utopian fantasies supported as tribal, jingoist footballs not worth arguing about. Governments are varying degrees of:
1. Influence corruption of the rich directing elected (or military junta) officials
2. Proportion of embezzlement-adjacent and actual embezzlement corruption of officials spending money on their own needs and wants
3. Overall functionality and responsiveness of police and justice extending protections or harm balancing individual and collective interests, including positive and negative rights to liberties, property, trade, and taxation
4. Distribution of competency across government departments
The problem in the US specifically is that money concentrates power because elected officials are beholding to campaign financing. As a consequent, primarily celebrities and public figures are the only ones who are "electable" in 2 flavors of corporate-owned, tribal factions. As John McCain discovered, there is absolutely no will to fix it from within the system. As such, it can only be resolved outside of it through applying great, sustained pressure in a nonviolent manner.
* Communism was attempted but never implemented anywhere because it's either a utopian delusion or was sidetracked by totalitarianism and/or inadequate leadership. Capitalism doesn't exist anywhere except in a libertarian's mind. There is no "pure" "socialism" anywhere. Every political jurisdiction implements a special snowflake blend of regulations, corruption, freedoms, autonomy, and force.
[+] [-] intalentive|2 years ago|reply
Einstein of all people should understand that “real value” is relative to one’s reference frame.
[+] [-] orthecreedence|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LordDragonfang|2 years ago|reply
>Here's some important things to think about:
>First, socialism is defined as worker or public control of the means of production and distribution. This has been interpreted in both libertarian and authoritarian ways.
>Second, if socialism is worker control, then it is fully compatible with free markets. Mondragon and Semco are both worker democracies, and operate successfully in the global market.
>If socialism is public control, this does not equal totalitarianism. Social democracy is a form of democratic public control of resources.
>I understand people's reasoning for preferring capitalism (ownership defined by contract) or socialism (ownership defined by use), and I respect that, but I would love to be able to have political discussions about these issues which take into account the complexity and diversity of these two very broad terms.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315657
[+] [-] FireInsight|2 years ago|reply
"democratic public control of resources" is a nebuluos definitiob, and the meaning of regular non-"democratic" socialism or communism can be interpreted as such. Usually the adjective considers more the means and not the ends, (democratic, revolutionary, but sometimes the ends too as in libertarian, authoritarian).
[+] [-] jmyeet|2 years ago|reply
Fun fact: Abraham Lincoln was essentially a Marxist too [1]:
> Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
Of course Americans don't know what socialism is because of this history but the more disturbing part is most Americans don't even know what capitalism is yet defend it anyway.
Capitalism is the exploitation of surplus labor value to the hands of the very few, the capital-owning class. It's not markets. Markets occur in every economic system. It's not "free" (no such thing) markets. It's simply the system of exploitation. We've replaced the monarchs of feudalism with oligarchs. That's all.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Organized_Labour/Featur...
[+] [-] celtoid|2 years ago|reply
"It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.
Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.
Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation." [0]
[0] https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeche...
[+] [-] pphysch|2 years ago|reply
Along these same lines, watch at least the opening statements of first JFK-Nixon debate [1].
Nixon sounds like a Biden or Bush, he could be on the debate stage in 2024. He wouldn't win, but he would sure fit in.
JFK sounds like Xi Jinping. He won, but was assassinated 3 years later.
America is remarkably good at reinventing itself and what it means to be "American". Our history is worth studying in depth, without ideological blinders.
[1] - https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/TNC/TNC-172...
[+] [-] jrpt|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oconnor663|2 years ago|reply
Voting occurs in every political system too, but who gets to vote and what the votes are about is important.
[+] [-] splitstud|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] brigadier132|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qsdf38100|2 years ago|reply
Let me try that game. Capitalism is what emerges from trade and money. You can fight it, you can embrace it, but you won't eradicate it. Black markets and barter will emerge, which are forms of capitalism. In the end, all you can do is regulate it (or not). Then I would define socialism as an attempt to regulate it so it doesn't turn into the law of the fittest.
[+] [-] hx8|2 years ago|reply
Now I wonder if the idea of a planned economy was just tried too early. Was it missing the quantized world we live in now, with increases in information processing and communication? Is there an AI advancement in our near future that can outperform the free economy?
[+] [-] celtoid|2 years ago|reply
"Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."
[+] [-] WBrentWilliams|2 years ago|reply
It is silly to attempt to achieve socialism. Better to use it as a gauge. Otherwise, it ceases to be a good measure and critique. Is the current system everything it could be? If not, then how could it be better and at what cost? This is like asking if a Market accounts for all costs. If it does not, that is, if a Market creates externalities, then it is time to consider, argue over, and politically implement alternatives.
[+] [-] PrimeMcFly|2 years ago|reply
We have so much more, significantly more data and analytical and modeling capability, and no alternative proposals are taken seriously? It's not like they don't exist, they just never make it as part of the conversation.
It's almost religious with which people limit themselves to the most known options and ignore any alternatives.
[+] [-] dahwolf|2 years ago|reply
I think the recent rise of anti-capitalism gets it wrong. Capitalism within the context of a nation can be made to work in a way that whilst imperfect has a reasonable balance.
It is specifically global capitalism (globalization) that is the problem. It allows for corporate super structures where workers nor governments have any leverage. Worker's rights cannot be defended so it's a race to the bottom. De-industrialization has hollowed out the middle class. Corporations pay little to no taxes. The triangle of government, business and worker that would ordinarily come to some kind of workable balance is gone. It's a never-ending stretch in one direction only: business.
Similarly, global capitalism allows corporations to hide all their dirty externalities. Dumping toxic trash in other countries, sweatshops, wrecking the environment, you just place that shit out of sight.
You would have considerable more outrage if a company would do that in their home country, close to their customer base.
I'll end with the uncomfortable truth that the above has led to the stagnation of the West and various global problems. At the same time it has significantly uplifted the general wealth of many developing nations.
[+] [-] tap-snap-or-nap|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wellanyway|2 years ago|reply
Go, be a socialist. Africa is waiting. 99.9% of people visiting this website is orders of magnitude more wealthy than average african citizen.
Eat the rich? You people are the rich. Set an example. Lead the way. Be the first communist to actually practice what they preach.
[+] [-] tim333|2 years ago|reply
There you have the problem. Things are controlled by 'society itself' and practical decisions such as who to hire to do what for how much have to be made by humans and we end up with iffy corruptish politicians doing that.
Maybe a way forward would be to have an AI make the decisions. At least that could be open source and non corrupt. I'd vote to give that a try providing you could vote it out again if it screws up.
[+] [-] 1970-01-01|2 years ago|reply
https://archive.ph/5mXgz
[+] [-] hirundo|2 years ago|reply
I believe that this is fundamentally the same opinion that Oppenheimer held, that resulted in the establishment seeing him as an enemy and a threat. I would like to resurrect these two gentlemen, bring them up to date on the history of the United Nations, and ask them if their opinions have altered.
[+] [-] Deprogrammer9|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|2 years ago|reply
"the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society."
Half unconsciously: Explains a lot. You've got your Joseph II's and you've got your Suhartos.
[+] [-] hyperthesis|2 years ago|reply