# Ask the Socialist candidate for the European Parliament election **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 31, 2009, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252 "2009-05-31T10:14:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2009, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/221 "2009-06-06T08:10:07Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Just look at what you’re saying. You’re claiming that you are incapable of keeping yourself alive, and that the intervention of your employer is the only thing that will stop you starving to death. You are saying that your employer is offering you something so much better than your natural state that you’d have be an idiot to turn it down. This is _not_ coercion. No, what he’s saying is that in a money-based social system, the only way you can satisfy your needs is through receiving income in the form of money. If you don’t own a business or a company or a factory or a railroad or anything that generates profit for you, the only means for receiving income you have available to you is selling your ability to work - your labor power. In return you receive wages, which enable you (theoretically) to pay rent or a mortgage, buy food and clothing, pay for health care, etc. etc. The problem here is that not everybody who needs to sell their labor power _can_. I forget exactly what the term is, but capitalist economists talk about an acceptable level of unemployment, meaning there will always be people who can’t find jobs because nobody’s hiring. And, of course, in times of economic downturn (which capitalism’s never been able to avoid) the level of unemployment increases, meaning fewer people are now able to find a buyer for their labor power. Their income (and savings, if they had any) dry up and they’re no longer able to satisfy their own needs. > [@](#): > > _And it’s not even true! They don’t possess the ability to tell you “work for me or starve”, because they don’t have a monopoly on the provision of things you need._ Individually, which is the perspective you’re arguing from, no of course they don’t. As a class, however, they most certainly do. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2009, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/222 "2009-06-06T08:11:13Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > You still need electricity, raw materials, design, assembly, and anything that can’t be done using just a simple rapid prototyping setup like RepRap. I’m not going to continue hijacking **psychonaut** ’s thread with this, but suffice to say all of these problems are addressable. **psychonaut** , I’m an anarchist with syndicalist leanings for historic reasons, but I’m coming around to more of a anarchism-without-adjectives stance and dropping the direct action, union-centric ideology of the pure syndicalist. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2009, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/223 "2009-06-06T08:32:26Z")
How did the elections go for your party anyway, **psychonaut**? ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2009, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/224 "2009-06-06T10:00:28Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > How did the elections go for your party anyway, **psychonaut**? The official results are to be announced Sunday night at City Hall. All the candidates have been invited. Not sure if I’ll bother showing up. At any rate, I’ll let everyone know the numbers once I have them. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/225 "2009-06-06T17:24:50Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > It’s interesting that you think that a problem with capitalism is that ‘managerial types’ who know nothing about farming run farms. It’s interesting because one of the root causes of the starvation the Soviet Union faced was that the ‘people’s revolution’ tossed a whole bunch of farmers off their land - the people who knew how to farm it- and the new collective farms were controlled by party hacks and revolutionaries and people who were owed political favors. > > The collectivization of farming in the Soviet Union was an utter disaster. The result was widespread famine in years of better-than-average weather for agriculture. You can cut-and-paste ‘Soviet Union’ with ‘Zimbabwe’ and repeat the paragraph above, in the current day. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/226 "2009-06-06T18:41:39Z")
Yes, and I’ve already addressed that question as well, in a reply to **Grumman**. Trying not to snark, especially since I’m a bit boozed up at the moment, but seriously - reading the thread thoroughly before you pop a post would probably work wonders for you. **psychonaut** , you should go anyway. Might be a good opportunity for a statement to the media, since your purported goal is further exposure to leftist politics of one strips or another. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/227 "2009-06-07T02:34:56Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > Yes, the Danes pay very high taxes. But they are very proud of never having to worry about any kind of health care problem no matter how old they get. And they are relieved not to worry about what happens to them if they lose their jobs in a bad economy. At the same time, they are free to excel in business if that is what pleases them. (And they don’t have to pay for their employee’s health insurance.) By Olentzero’s theories, Denmark could only get _better_ if those who have excelled in business turn their assets (the evidence, presumably, of their excellence) over to the state. I don’t quite see it, myself. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/228 "2009-06-07T08:55:40Z")
Funny, I can’t quite see it either! Maybe because that’s not what I advocate at all. Neither state ownership nor nationalization are socialist in and of themselves, nor can socialism be brought about by initiating them. Again, it depends on who’s doing it and for what purposes. Let’s look at the recent example of GM for a moment. First, though, I’d like to ask: if the titans of American industry and finance were excelling in business, why did they need those billions in bailouts? Back to GM. The US government now has 60% control over the corporation, and predictably the cries from the right are of immanent socialism. But what, exactly, is the Obama administration _doing_ with that control? Cutting jobs, gutting the UAW’s retiree health care fund (they’ve forced UAW to forgive a _$20 billion_ debt owed them by GM, replacing it with a share of stock that isn’t guaranteed to be worth anything), closing plants, denying unions the right to strike (hi **Shodan** ) until 2015, possibly eliminating contract negotiations in favor of arbitration, slashing wages for new hires to half of the current top wage… the list goes on. In fact, the White House Press Office [boasted](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Fact-Sheet-on-Obama-Administration-Auto-Restructuring-Initiative-for-General-Motors/): > [@](#): > > _In virtually every respect, the concessions that the UAW agreed to are **more aggressive than what the Bush Administration originally demanded** in its loan agreement with GM._ None of this benefits the workers, and everything seems to indicate that Obama intends to rid GM of its debts and unwanted assets so that it can sell the company back to private investors at some point. That is _not_ socialism, and the veneer of state ownership doesn’t make it so. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/229 "2009-06-07T14:15:29Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > > [@psychonaut](#): > > > > The residents in each district would be able to communicate their needs through their local democratic body; across broader, say, city wide areas, we may democratically agree a set of priority criteria. But, this is just the basics of how any democratic organisation works, and can be seen in a million bodies now. > > But democratic decisions are currently made by relatively small groups of people. In your system, a million different opinions will have to be heard before every single decision, no matter how small, is made. The inefficiency of this is mindboggling. Nothing would ever get done. I’d advise you to go back and read the message you’re replying to, as well as some of the previous ones which talked about democratic decision-making in socialism. It’s been stated before in this thread that everyone would not take part in every single decision. People would participate in decisions which affect them, or else delegate their decision-making authority to someone they trust. The example of pothole filling was brought up; obviously I, as a resident of London, would not take part in decisions about filling potholes in Bangalore. However, I might take part in pothole-filling decisions for the neighbourhood I live in, or I might simply leave this to the roadworks engineers if I think they’re doing a good enough job already. > [@](#): > > IMHO, many, if not most crimes have nothing to do with money. Well, your opinion would be wrong, at least insofar as one considers crimes actually committed as opposed to those merely on the books. As I said before, most crimes are either property crime, violent crime committed in furtherance of property crime, or social crimes such as drug dealing and prostitution. But let’s take a look at your examples anyway, since they’re legitimate ones. > [@](#): > > Take traffic law - who will make I don’t drive drunk, or race at 100mph in the middle of town, or in general act like a bloody maniac on the road? Well, the first person involved in making sure you don’t drive drunk is yourself. As I mentioned before, socialism is based on some degree of personal responsibility. If someone is unable to exercise such responsibility, and becomes a danger to others, then of course the rest of society will have to do something about it, perhaps including physically restraining or detaining them. Why should this be surprising to you? Is there anything I’ve said which leads you to believe that socialism will allow violent maniacs to run loose in the streets, mowing people down with their cars? > [@](#): > > Or crimes of passion - say I learn that you slept with my girlfriend; I take a knife and stab you both to death. What happens now? What does society do to me, if anything? In a previous post I already cited crimes of passion as one sort of crime that socialism wouldn’t be able to eliminate. I never said that socialism would be a peaceful utopia. I do claim, however, that it would eliminate the crimes most prevalent today. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/230 "2009-06-07T14:38:38Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Communism, the pure communism as envisioned by Karl Marx, is an impossiblity. It assumes a few things that will never happen. it assumes everyone is willing to set aside self interest, to help the common good, forever, and with no hope or pretense of reciprocation ( from each according to his ability, to each according to his need). Communism, or socialism (Marx used the terms interchangeably) is not impossible—at least, not for the reasons that you cite. In fact, humans lived in a state of primitive communism for the vast majority of their history. Pre-agriculture, humans organized themselves into tribal groups where individuals did indeed set aside self-interest and help the common good. And despite the philosophies of individualism and egoism championed in our modern capitalist world, people continue to act kindly and altruistically to one another. > [@](#): > > Share everything, all property and goods are “common”, and no one owns anything. This is a straw-man argument. Nowhere have I claimed that no one would own anything in socialism. I said that the _means of production_—that is, the things like land, factories, machinery, railways, and so on, which we use to produce and distribute wealth—would be owned in common. Socialism is not interested in making you share your home or your toothbrush. (It would, however, make sense to share certain goods which, if owned by any one person, would lie unused for the vast majority of the time, such as vehicles and lawnmowers.) > [@](#): > > Again, it won’t work because people want to keep what is theirs, they want to keep what they worked for So you are saying that in socialism, if you had a job building cars, your natural inclination would be to keep every car you made? Why? What would you possibly do with them all? You do realize, of course, that even under capitalism the workers don’t get to keep what they worked for? > [@](#): > > other people simply want to take it. People want to take things that they need but don’t have. People don’t have things because they can’t afford them. They can’t afford them because of artificial scarcity. Were the reasons for imposing this scarcity removed, people would be able to take what they want, thus satisfying their needs, and would therefore have no desire to take anything further. And besides, without scarcity, your taking a superfluous amount of some particular good is not going to deprive me of the opportunity to take that good as well. > [@](#): > > Everone is equal, like ummmm what? No, everyone is not equal. When did I say that? In fact, you yourself earlier referenced a socialist maxim which shows that socialism does not expect everyone to be equal: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” From this it is obvious that we expect that people will have _different_ abilities and _different_ needs. The only thing equal about people in socialism is that they will have an equal say in the decisions affecting them. > [@](#): > > Finally, history has shown us, that sooner or later, the “common good” becomes The State. No, history has shown us that, at least since the development of civilization, the state has always existed, and that it has never had the common good at heart. The state has always served the interests of the ruling and owning class. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/231 "2009-06-07T16:21:54Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Let’s look at the recent example of GM for a moment. Let’s not. It’s easy to bring up the failures of capitalism, I’m asking if under your theory, you’d feel compelled to meddle in the successes. Already I have the impression that a productive farm isn’t safe if it’s owned by the wrong kind of people, what about a productive corporation? If a manager has never been personally on the assembly line, he apparently “has no business involving himself” in the company. It’ll be the destruction of things that already work but don’t fit the theory that undermines socialism. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/232 "2009-06-07T17:09:34Z")
Now you’re muddying the argument. There’s a difference between saying someone who manages a shipping company has no business running a farm and someone who manages a factory has no business involving himself the company. Secondly, it’s not about the “wrong kind” of people running a company or farm or anything else, it’s the reason _why_ the company/farm/etc. is being run. The basic question: profit or human need? Thirdly, my stance in no way implies doing away with management. Companies, farms, and factories all need to be administered. The point, again, is that under capitalism the management is responsible and accountable to the owners, not the workforce. Under socialism the management would not only be responsible and accountable to the workforce but also _of their ranks_ - meaning they’d come into the job after having worked on the floor and learned the ropes. The only real way to make them responsible and accountable to the workforce is a simple one: elect 'em and subject them to immediate recall. So you’re entrusted to make the decisions, but screw up and you’re out of the job and back onto the floor. That kind of approach is an excellent way for people to learn self-management, and self-management within a cooperative world society is a good way to obviate state involvement of any sort - in fact, the more that’s applied in practice, the less need for a state at all. As an afterthought: Bringing up the failures of capitalism is what socialists _do_. It bolsters the argument that another world is both possible and necessary. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/233 "2009-06-08T10:49:42Z")
> [@Lantern](#): > > The LTV isn’t an fundamental aspect of economics and hasn’t been for at least 130 years. Today it is a mostly a historical curiousity. If you want a biological analogy it would be comparable to Lamarckism rather than Darwin’s theories. The problems with the LTV are legion and modern microeconomic theory can tackle many issues that it can’t: like combining demand and supply analysis, doing short-run and long-run analysis, analyzing human capital, market structure and so on. Well, there are a number of modern economists, socialist and otherwise, who would disagree with that assertion. They continue to publish—yes, sometimes in (shock, horror!) peer-reviewed journals! If you are interested, a rebuttal of the argument that Marxian economics is obsolete or has been disproven comprises an entire chapter in _Marxian Economics and Globalization_, published only two months ago by Avenel Press. It was coauthored by Binay Sarkar, the retired head of the Department of Economics at Ramananda College, University of Burdwan. (Note to **Sam Stone** : by referring to this book I am in no way claiming that I have “won the argument”.) ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/234 "2009-06-08T11:06:12Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > How did the elections go for your party anyway, **psychonaut**? OK, the results are now available. [According to the BBC](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/elections/euro/09/html/ukregion_39.stm), they are as follows: ```auto Party Votes % ----- ------- ---- Conservative 479,037 27.4 Labour 372,590 21.3 Liberal Democrats 240,156 13.7 Green Party 190,589 10.9 UK Independence Party 188,440 10.8 British National Party 86,420 4.9 Christian Party 51,336 2.9 Jan Jananayagam (Ind.) 50,014 2.9 English Democrat 24,477 1.4 No2EU 17,758 1.0 Socialist Labour Party 15,306 0.9 Libertas 8,444 0.5 Jury Team 7,284 0.4 Steven Cheung (Ind.) 4,918 0.3 Socialist Party of Great Britain 4,050 0.2 Yes 2 Europe 3,384 0.2 Sohale Rahman (Ind.) 3,248 0.2 Gene Alcantara (Ind.) 1,972 0.1 Haroon Saad (Ind.) 1,603 0.1 ``` A disappointing result, to be sure, but it’s much as we expected. As I mentioned before, though, running did give us an opportunity to send our literature to hundreds of thousands of people, and we did get some much-needed media attention by BBC TV and the newspapers, which makes the £5000 deposit well spent. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/235 "2009-06-08T15:41:45Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Let’s look at the recent example of GM for a moment. First, though, I’d like to ask: if the titans of American industry and finance were excelling in business, why did they need those billions in bailouts? In large part because of the excessive demands of the UAW. > [@](#): > > denying unions the right to strike (hi **Shodan** ) until 2015 Hi, **Olentzero**. I am not sure of your point. Which do you allege - [ul][li]Workers have an absolute right to strike[/li][li]Workers have a right to strike, unless a socialist government says they don’t[/li][li]Workers have a right to strike, unless a non-socialist government says they don’t[/li][li]Workers have no right to strike[/ul][/li] > [@](#): > > :None of this benefits the workers It does it they want to be workers rather than unemployed. But I think that is sort of emblematic of the kind of thinking that socialists and union folks tend to use. It’s like the old recipe for rabbit stew - > [@](#): > > First, catch a rabbit The socialist cookbook skips over that step. They assume a certain level of productivity, and start talking about how to divvy it up. And they assume that however they divvy, it will have no effect on how hard people work. Same with big labor - they begin by assuming that the benefits available from the company are infinite, and see about how they can get as much as they can. Then when the costs of paying all these benefits becomes excessive, they act surprised when they are asked to scale back. I doubt union types will learn anything from this, any more than socialists will learn from the constant failures of socialism every time it is tried. No true Scotsman has ever tried socialism. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/236 "2009-06-08T15:43:38Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Now you’re muddying the argument. There’s a difference between saying someone who manages a shipping company has no business running a farm and someone who manages a factory has no business involving himself the company. Where’s your line of demarcation? Who determines who has any “business” running a farm or a company or anything else? If an enterprise is successful, in which it generates goods and services with reasonable efficiency, what business does the state have in probing into the backgrounds of the managers or owners? > [@](#): > > Secondly, it’s not about the “wrong kind” of people running a company or farm or anything else, it’s the reason _why_ the company/farm/etc. is being run. The basic question: profit or human need? Why can’t someone make a profit by serving human needs? > [@](#): > > Thirdly, my stance in no way implies doing away with management. Companies, farms, and factories all need to be administered. The point, again, is that under capitalism the management is responsible and accountable to the owners, not the workforce. Under socialism the management would not only be responsible and accountable to the workforce but also _of their ranks_ - meaning they’d come into the job after having worked on the floor and learned the ropes. The only real way to make them responsible and accountable to the workforce is a simple one: elect 'em and subject them to immediate recall. So you’re entrusted to make the decisions, but screw up and you’re out of the job and back onto the floor. So if a manager is very productive but unpopular (because he demands the workers be punctual, reliable, efficient, etc.) he can be voted into a demotion. Or is there yet another magic assumption that under socialism, workers will not allow personal bias to affect their vote? And what standard are the workers supposed to use? Without profit, it’s not like a manager can say “Under my administration, the farm/factory is earning more money and your wages have gone up accordingly.” Besides, you overstate the need to “learn the ropes”. When a farm or factory passes a certain size, it’ll be necessary to being in accountants to manage the farm’s/factory’s assets. Do the accountants have to apprentice on the workfloor before they have any “business” working there? > [@](#): > > That kind of approach is an excellent way for people to learn self-management, and self-management within a cooperative world society is a good way to obviate state involvement of any sort - in fact, the more that’s applied in practice, the less need for a state at all. You’re essentially promising that once the state comes in and takes control of everything, everything can be set right (even if it was already working reasonably well) and then the state will cheerfully step aside, which is charmingly naive of you. > [@](#): > > As an afterthought: Bringing up the failures of capitalism is what socialists _do_. It bolsters the argument that another world is both possible and necessary. And the logical response is to bring up the failures of socialism, and not be swayed by socialists who claims the failures aren’t the result of _real_ socialism, despite their inability to point out examples of _real_ socialism in action. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/237 "2009-06-08T16:37:11Z")
Psychonaut, Sure there are a few Marxist economists but they are a very small minority in the profession especially in the best universities. And I would bet most Marxist economists would support some kind of central planning. The number of economists who would support your brand of socialism without central authority or even a medium of exchange would be vanishingly few if any. Could you point to some eminent economists who supports socialism as defined by your party? ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/238 "2009-06-08T19:20:52Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Why can’t someone make a profit by serving human needs? In order to generate a profit, a certain amount per unit sale must be demanded in exchange (aka the price). Below that price profit is unacceptably reduced at best or disappears at worst. Therefore, supply can only meet the part of overall demand that can afford the price. As overall demand is always greater than the part that can afford the price, human need therefore goes unmet. Meeting human need and making a profit are therefore incompatible - either you feed everyone, for example, and lose money, or make a profit feeding only those who can afford to buy. > [@](#): > > _You’re essentially promising that once the state comes in and takes control of everything, everything can be set right (even if it was already working reasonably well) and then the state will cheerfully step aside, which is charmingly naive of you._ Revolutions aren’t made by the state, they’re made against the state - ultimately with the goal of overthrowing it and replacing it with something new. As I said before, state intervention is not socialism, especially state intervention under capitalism. A socialist revolution involves the overthrow and smashing of the capitalist state by the working class and the creation of a temporary state run by and for the working class, _not on their behalf_. Under such conditions, state intervention in any project (farm, factory, and the like) will be on the initiative of the workers affected and under terms set by them. They will have control over when the state steps in and steps back, not the state itself. And it’s that control over both the state and production that will provide the answers to your more specific questions. > [@](#): > > _And the logical response is to bring up the failures of socialism, and not be swayed by socialists who claims the failures aren’t the result of **real** socialism, despite their inability to point out examples of **real** socialism in action._ Sounds like we’ll just be talking past each other if this conversation continues, then. My standpoint’s always been the same: Socialism cannot be built in one country. Even with Trotsky at the helm after Lenin’s death, socialism wouldn’t have stood a snowball’s chance in hell of being established without the Russian revolution spreading to Europe and the States. Your not being swayed is your choice, of course - but don’t expect me to accept your terms of debate simply because you reject mine. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/239 "2009-06-08T21:55:21Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > In order to generate a profit, a certain amount per unit sale must be demanded in exchange (aka the price). Below that price profit is unacceptably reduced at best or disappears at worst. Therefore, supply can only meet the part of overall demand that can afford the price. As overall demand is always greater than the part that can afford the price, human need therefore goes unmet. Meeting human need and making a profit are therefore incompatible - either you feed everyone, for example, and lose money, or make a profit feeding only those who can afford to buy. That, to me, suggests a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of economic profit. If profit levels drop to zero, what it means is that it is no more efficient for the supplier to supply the good than it is for the buyers to provide it for themselves. Instead of buying potatoes at the market, everybody grows them themselves. But when potatoes are profitable, any profit the supplier makes is a cut, a commission if you like, from the efficiency they introduce into the arrangement. What I’m saying is that it is not like suppliers are adding to the cost of goods by imposing a profit on top of some imagined base price. They are reducing the cost of goods, but taking a cut out of the reduction, which is their reward for achieving the reduction. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/240 "2009-06-08T23:01:53Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > In order to generate a profit, a certain amount per unit sale must be demanded in exchange (aka the price). Below that price profit is unacceptably reduced at best or disappears at worst. Therefore, supply can only meet the part of overall demand that can afford the price. As overall demand is always greater than the part that can afford the price, human need therefore goes unmet. Meeting human need and making a profit are therefore incompatible - either you feed everyone, for example, and lose money, or make a profit feeding only those who can afford to buy. What is the alternative, though? Suppose for a moment that you compelled all businesses, and all individuals, to reduce their profits to 0. (Do this at all levels - nobody gets paid, because that’s personal profit; nobody pays rent, because that’s profit. Etcetera.) Throw in their raw materials costs for free, and _poof_ - it’s socialism, right? Everything is now free, because nobody along the way collects any profits or payment and there are no raw materals costs collected either. But. There is now no profit to be made by working. None. At all. This means that for every given person it now costs them more to go to work than to stay home - opportunity cost, that is. They get nothing for going to work, and the cost is all the stuff they can’t do because they’re at work instead of at home. People aren’t dumb. First the lazy ones, then the selfish ones, then the rational ones, and then the ones that are bitter about everyone else riding high on the dole, are one by one going to stop coming to work. Why shouldn’t they? There’s no reason _to_ come to work, except for the enjoyment of a job well done, which they can get by building a model boat, and the realization that if nobody works society will collapse, which many people aren’t going to think of as a personal problem. So society will be held up on the backs of socialist idealists, valiantly struggling on while the rest of society is at home playing with the kids. How many socialist idealists do you think there will be? How long do you think this can last? Now, I assume you haven’t overlooked this little problem. My question is, how do you plan to solve it? I sure as heck am not going to come to work without a reason - I’d rather be at home. What are you going to do to convince me to go to work? > [@Olentzero](#): > > Sounds like we’ll just be talking past each other if this conversation continues, then. My standpoint’s always been the same: Socialism cannot be built in one country. Even with Trotsky at the helm after Lenin’s death, socialism wouldn’t have stood a snowball’s chance in hell of being established without the Russian revolution spreading to Europe and the States. Your not being swayed is your choice, of course - but don’t expect me to accept your terms of debate simply because you reject mine. This doesn’t make any sense to me. Why _can’t_ socialism be built in one country? What _possible_ effect could the existence of other countries have on the socialist collective? (Aside from showing them how much better life is in capitalist countries, I mean - but presumably you assume it _won’t_ be better there so that shouldn’t be a factor.) Seriously, by what actual mechanism would a neighboring capitalist country effect your socialist regime? And would any of the following situations allow for socialism, and if not, why not? 1. All the world except for Australia has gone unified socialist. 2. All the world except for Australia has gone unified socialist, and there is a complete two-directional trade embago between it and the rest of the world. 3. All the world except for Australia has gone unified socialist, and there is a complete two-directional wall between it and the rest of the world, banning any sort of trade, travel or communication between whatsoever. 4. All the world except for Australia has gone unified socialist, and nobody in the rest of the world knows that Australia exists. There is no contact whatsoever. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252.md?page=13)