Ask the Socialist candidate for the European Parliament election

[psychonaut]

@Sam_Stone

The price system is the communications bus that our large decentralized supercomputer of humanity needs so that all producers and consumers can receive the information necessary to determine how to efficiently order their consumption and production.

Price are a signal, but they only move at the speed of the market, with modern information technology it is possible to know the precise stocks in the warehouse before market activity occurs. The lag between real and price signals is one of the reasons for modern economic crises.

You can’t rationally decide whether or not you should make hammers until you are forced to choose between hammer production or some other prodution by evaluating the relative prices of the components of production compared to the price you can receive selling the hammer.

You know you need a hammer when you have to bash nails into something. That does not require monetary calculation. Consumer goods do not need monetary calculation; the issue is intermediate goods (does making the chair need a hammer, or could I bash the nails in with the sole of my shoe?). The argument runs that we can’t know, without money how to produce those consumer goods. There are various counter arguments:
[ul]
[li]It doesn’t matter, so long as the ends are met.[/li][li]In a relatively stable economy we would be able to know what the regular requirements of the whole system are.[/li][li]Abundance of supply removes the need to make calculation arguments.[/li][/ul]

Who’s going to know how much copper to mine? In a world of finite copper, who’s going to know whether it’s best put to use in pottery wheels or to make copper-lined pans? Who decides? What happens when someone decides they want to use a massive amount of copper to build their giant copper sculpture, creating a shortage of copper for the magnets of MRI machines?

[ol]
[li]Local communities and individuals would decide their own needs, and place orders for goods.[/li][li]As goods left the common store, they would be replaced to match demand.[/li][li]That would provide a signal for the intermediate parts.[/li][li]This would be handled by statsitical clearing houses that aggregate demand in relation to total supply—that is, supply and demand would be known absolute features.[/li][/ol]
This is regulated stock control. The community as a whole (worldwide) may decide to set priorities so that certain goods get first claim on resources, but the aim would be to match total real demand. Given supply and demand are known, we can economise (and substitute) those goods which are least available and have highest demand.

The Soviet Union didn’t become despotic because there was something uniquely evil about Russians - it became despotic because in the absence of prices, the only thing left is physical coercion and fear.

The Soviet Union did have prices, and wages, and markets (black and otherwise). The collapse of state capitalism in the USSR was down to its difficulties in the intensive exploitation of capital (similar to the issues involved in the Asian Tiger crisis ten years ago).

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Olentzero

Right on the money there, although the state you describe is what we call communism, rather than socialism (see my post with the Marx quote discussing “from each according to his ability, etc.” above).

No, it’s called technology unchained, where every individual has full access to all the means of production that he needs, with no requirement for other men, let alone in a communal system.

Once more: Stalinism is not socialism. Stalinism is a crime against socialism. It is not a logical outcome of the Russian Revolution, nor did the Russian Revolution make Stalinism a foregone conclusion. I completely reject Stalinism, and when I argue for socialism it is in no way a defense of Stalinism.

Well, bully for you, but it’s a valid concern based on the history of what did happen, not social theory of what should happen.

Hi. I’m a scientific socialist. I believe the agent of change is the working class, and that my job is to involve myself in working-class movements in order to convince them that they are and can be the agent of change, and that they are completely capable of building a new world themselves. I belong to organizations that think the exact same way.

Surprised yet?

Hardly. The working man is the agent under your guidance, and you seem to have no clue what to do when the working man gets uppity and goes against the plan, i.e. what to do when the working man approves of capital punishment.

Well yeah, Zimbabwe’s a shining example there. Not only did the land remain in private hands, it went into the hands of people who had far less experience in farming and agriculture, with the attendant collapse of food output.

Land redistribution in and of itself is not socialist, as the Zimbabwe example amply illustrates. What makes it socialist (or not) is a) who does it and b) why it’s being done. Mugabe’s program fails both criteria.

I have my serious doubts that a scientific socialist will hesitate to leave a productive privately-owned farm alone when it fits his theory to transfer it to someone else, with uncertain results.

[psychonaut]

@Grumman

Bullshit. You can also let people choose for themselves, rather than using your numerical advantage to force your views on other people. There’s nothing stopping you and your mates cutting yourselves off from capitalism right now, and setting up some socialist commune somewhere.

Yes, we could do so, if we wanted to live under the same sort of primitive communism our pre-agrarian ancestors practiced. Without technology, we would then be subjected to the same ravages of disease and famine they periodically were. But that’s not what we’re advocating. We’re advocating a global system in which we avail ourselves of modern technology to ensure that everyone’s needs are catered for.

[psychonaut]

@Grumman

Yes, I would. Because if a bunch of consenting adults want to pool their resources for the use of the entire group, it doesn’t hurt me one bit. It’s only because Psychonaut wants to force other people into the collective, and dismantle the most vital components of government, that I oppose him.

Remember that we’re proposing to establish socialism only if and when a vast majority of people want it. Assume, then, that socialism as we envisage it were implemented, and it was functioning more or less as expected. Thus there would be at most a tiny minority of people opposed to the system. How would we deal with these people? Well, I suppose if they wanted to maintain a capitalist system amongst themselves, they could. But who would want to be part of such a system? Why would I voluntarily subject myself to servitude to an employer? Why would I constrain myself to what I can afford to buy with my hard-earned money in Capitalist Land when, just down the street in Socialism, I can get free access to goods and services? If anyone decided to set up a capitalist system post-socialism, they’d have a hell of a time stocking their system with employees.

[Shodan]

@MrDibble

People have to do this because it’s the way their society is set up to work, not because of any inherent quality of the perceived value. You admit as much when you say you have to work to live.

The point is that society cannot be set up any other way. A society set up so that you don’t have to work to live is a society where a lot of people don’t work, and therefore the means of life are not supplied.

That’s why socialism cannot work in the real world. You have to posit magic machines that produce everything your heart desires without effort on anyone’s part. Maybe in the Big Rock Candy Moutain the handouts grow on bushes, but that doesn’t happen in the real world.

This is an artifact of history and society - people have gotten on just fine without money in the past.

Again, you are confusing “value” with “money”. Certainly primitive societies get along without money, although not very well. No societies exist where everyone feeds themselves out of the common stew pot, and nobody works in the fields or goes hunting or gathering unless they feel like it.

I am glad you admit it is only your perception.

As pointed out earlier, it is not only my perception - everyone sees what value is. That’s why socialists want to grab it from those who produce it. If it were something that could be created by fiat, then they wouldn’t need to. It would be Mugabe inflating the currency to worthlessness. If value weren’t real, then this would work. Since it doesn’t…

Windows is based on architecture that stretches all the way back to military computers of just post WWII. Follow anything back and eventually you land up in the commons.

Military applications are not in the commons. And think about it for a minute - where did the money - that is, the value - come from to develop ENIAC? Correct - from taxing private enterprise. It wasn’t lying around and someone appropriated it.

I am not disputing the originality of your code, only the origin of the system underpinnings.

Again, you are missing the point. The originality of my code is what adds value, and the value so added is what my company profits from. It is much the same as taking sand off the beach and making a silicon chip out of it. Most of the value of a computer chip is added - sand itself is worthless.

I doubt anyone’s really tried.

They have, often. It always fails, once the group gets bigger beyond the point where everybody knows everybody else, and can enforce work by social pressure.

They did try, in the USSR as Olentzero says. And it was characterized by exactly the sort of terror and mass murder that Stalinism did. Because that is how it always works in the real world.

“From each according to his ability; to each according to his need” doesn’t work. People are always quite happy with the second part. But you need some kind of way to enforce the first. Either thru self-interest, as capitalism, or social pressure, as in the kibbutzim. Or, if you persist in trying it with larger groups, by threatening to shoot people, or drown them in the Volga, if they go on strike, as previously mentioned. And even then, it doesn’t work too well. Contrast the economic development of North and South Korea, East and West Germany, or the USA and the USSR.

Regards,
Shodan

[Olentzero]

@Alessan

They are closed societies, much as the world will be under global socialism.

There is absolutely no parallel here! The world won’t be a closed society because there’s nothing to close it off from. The goal of socialism is not to create cells of small, self-sufficient, completely independent units but a single, mutually interdependent global society. The notion of self-sufficiency is patently absurd; even large countries like the US depend on imports, and the criminally insane Albanian autarky during the Cold War ruined the country. Kibbutzim are no model for socialism to emulate.

Must every socialist experiment embrace complete diversity (which means that 1/4 of the inhabitants must be Chinese, I assume) for it to be legitimate in your eyes? Or are you one more engaging in One True Scotsmanism?

The goalposts remain firmly in place - Israel is not a socialist experiment by any stretch of the imagination. The high standard of living Israeli workers enjoy is more subsidized by billions in US aid than supported by domestic production. The state was founded by UN decree and partition, not a workers’ revolution. Most of the half of Palestine mandated to the Palestinians by the UN in 1947 was forcibly taken by Israel. None of those are the building blocks of socialism.

Furthermore, embracing diversity doesn’t mean an enforced quota of Chinese in every locale. It means giving anyone and everyone involved in a particular effort an equal voice in the matter, regardless of their race, skin color, sexual orientation, religious creed, or what have you.

Bryan - there are definite historical and political reasons why Stalinism is not socialism or communism, not just theoretical arguments. Obviously you can choose not to accept them as valid, but then it just becomes me saying “Not what I’m talking about at all” every time you mention five-year plans and the KGB.

you seem to have no clue what to do when the working man gets uppity and goes against the plan, i.e. what to do when the working man approves of capital punishment.

Sure I do. Build the anti-death penalty movement now, and work to link it with other fights so that eventually working people understand accept abolition of the death penalty as a necessary component of the socialist revolution. Revolution made, death penalty abolished, the idea of it no longer has currency in society and it doesn’t come back.

I have my serious doubts that a scientific socialist will hesitate to leave a productive privately-owned farm alone when it fits his theory to transfer it to someone else, with uncertain results.

Mugabe gave the farmland to members of the government and their families so they got to do what they liked with it. A socialist society would give the farmland to the people who actually work on it and know how to work on it instead of the people who ran it just to make a buck. I’d place my trust in those results any day of the week.

[psychonaut]

@Lantern

Except that Capital doesn’t describe in detail how exactly a socialist economy would work. And of course Marx’s economics was thoroughly refuted more than a 100 years ago and the theory of value on which he based his work largely abandoned as well. We aren’t talking about state of the art economics here.

Well, if reject out of hand the labour theory of value and other fundamental aspects of economics, then I concede there’s nothing I can do to convince you of the feasibility of socialism. However, I do dispute your assertion that Marx’s economics have been refuted. Certainly much of what he wrote was applicable only to his time, and some of what he wrote may have been flat-out incorrect. We’re not dogmatic Marxists; we recognize that Marx was not infallible and that there have been developments and refinements to economic theory since his time. The same, of course, can be said of many major social or scientific theories; Darwin’s theory of evolution failed to account for the mechanism of heredity (i.e., genetics), and had a number of other failings, but it was still more or less correct, and its gaps and mistakes have been filled in and corrected over time.

[Grumman]

@psychonaut

Well, I suppose if they wanted to maintain a capitalist system amongst themselves, they could.

How are they supposed to maintain a system that revolves around the consensual exchange of goods and services, when their neighbors use their military superiority to steal the means of production for their own use?

[IdahoMauleMan]

@Shodan

In socialist systems, it is the collective who decides, and generally chooses to benefit itself more than the individual. In capitalism, the individual who creates it gets to decide, and generally chooses to benefit himself more than the collective.

I have enjoyed your posts.

But the line above also exposes a fatal flaw in socialism. The collective doesn’t really decide anything, does it?

Can individual citizens of Venezuela sell their shares of the state oil company, or exchange them, or borrow against them for their own purposes? Can an individual citizen have a say on the hiring and firing of management, or next year’s capital expenditures?

Of course not. The collective doesn’t own anything. The collective doesn’t decide anything. The only people who decide anything are the government officials who wield power. If a citizen has no say in how any asset is used, he doesn’t really ‘own’ anything, does he?

It’s the same for Mexico’s Pemex or any industry in the former USSR. The notion that ‘the people’ own those industries or assets is a joke. They have no say in any matters of business. They have no means to exercise the conversion of their assets into some other form, like cash. Therefore they own nothing.

[SteveG1]

@Olentzero

Which takes us back to my earlier argument that people who are convinced of the need for a social revolution are going to understand the effort needed to build the new post-revolution society. They will therefore a) have no problems with stepping up to the task; and b) convincing others by force of argument and example to do the same.

They will step up to the task, sure.

They will be convginced up to a point, by argument and example. But, when they realize they are still sacrificing generations later, when they realize some party bigwig or dictator is taking all the spoils while they are being told to sacrifice more and more and more, then instead of argument and example, they get the Gulag, tanks, executions, and people disappearing without a trace.

Socialism and Communism have a horrible track record. They are empty promises that are never delivered, oppression, aggression, and in the end, failure.
Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Sung Il, Ceausescu. This is the track record, the “legacy” of socialism and communism.

Social revolution, as it is/was used, means the mass extermination of anyone who will not knuckle under to the “new order”. Call it blood purge, cultural revolution, or the Killing Fields. It’s all the same to me.

[Lantern]

@psychonaut

Well, if reject out of hand the labour theory of value and other fundamental aspects of economics, then I concede there’s nothing I can do to convince you of the feasibility of socialism. However, I do dispute your assertion that Marx’s economics have been refuted. Certainly much of what he wrote was applicable only to his time, and some of what he wrote may have been flat-out incorrect. We’re not dogmatic Marxists; we recognize that Marx was not infallible and that there have been developments and refinements to economic theory since his time. The same, of course, can be said of many major social or scientific theories; Darwin’s theory of evolution failed to account for the mechanism of heredity (i.e., genetics), and had a number of other failings, but it was still more or less correct, and its gaps and mistakes have been filled in and corrected over time.

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.

In any event the LTV and Marxism doesn't tell you how you would organize a non-capitalist economy; the techniques of central planning were developed much later. Of course not only was central planning a flop, it would not be possible in your version of socialism. So in effect there is absolutely no economic model for how an economy without money or a central authority can even begin to solve the problems of allocating scarce resources among competing ends.

[jayjay]

@Lantern

So in effect there is absolutely no economic model for how an economy without money or a central authority can even begin to solve the problems of allocating scarce resources among competing ends.

You’ve apparently forgotten the second step in all of these socialist/communist theories… “Then, a miracle happens” and scarcity disappears.

[MrDibble]

@Shodan

That’s why socialism cannot work in the real world. You have to posit magic machines that produce everything your heart desires without effort on anyone’s part.

There’s nothing “magic” about the technology posited. I think, given human nature (especially the laziness y’all seem to think is so endemic), the development of replication technology of some sort is inevitable, and elements of it will be in place in decades, not even centuries. And once that happens, one of the major underpinnings of the capitalist economy fall away. If all it takes is some plans and $20 worth of motors I can cadge from some old VCRs today, to make a machine that can make everything I need or want from a copy of itelf down to computers and its own power supply, what then? The only labour really needed will be agrarian and service industries.

[Shodan]

I prefer economic theories that are based less on Star Trek reruns. But that’s just me.

Regards,
Shodan

[MrDibble]

@Shodan

I prefer economic theories that are based less on Star Trek reruns. But that’s just me.

You have to at least try to plan for the future, or risk being left in the dust of history. Look at all the brick&mortar stores blindsided by the Internet. Or how Microsoft was caught flat-footed by Linux, especially in the server market. Or the poor response of entertainment industries to the shift from hard to soft storage media.

You may try and ad hominem ideas like RepRap as a Trekkie pipe dream, but it’s going to be the thin edge of the wedge. And it’s the OS community doing it because they want to, not for money.

[SteveG1]

@MrDibble

You have to at least try to plan for the future, or risk being left in the dust of history. Look at all the brick&mortar stores blindsided by the Internet. Or how Microsoft was caught flat-footed by Linux, especially in the server market. Or the poor response of entertainment industries to the shift from hard to soft storage media.

You may try and ad hominem ideas like RepRap as a Trekkie pipe dream, but it’s going to be the thin edge of the wedge. And it’s the OS community doing it because they want to, not for money.

Look at the various businesses or projects that failed because they were sure that the technology, the NEW TOOL, the Magic Bullet, would be invented just in time to fit their grand plans and projections. That’s the “Dilbert School of Management”.

You don’t build your plans or your future on something that doesn’t, and may never, exist. You plan, based on what you know is possible now, and if better tech comes along, then you borrow it. You don’t just sit and hope the magic will happen. It won’t.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Olentzero

Bryan - there are definite historical and political reasons why Stalinism is not socialism or communism, not just theoretical arguments.

Well, then you’re going to need a definite historical and political test case of full-blown socialism working without descending into Stalinism or something like it. What would you consider to be the single best historical example of socialism working in a population of a million or more?

Sure I do. Build the anti-death penalty movement now, and work to link it with other fights so that eventually working people understand accept abolition of the death penalty as a necessary component of the socialist revolution. Revolution made, death penalty abolished, the idea of it no longer has currency in society and it doesn’t come back.

Really. So the “working people” are that malleable, huh? Will they still be able to modify their laws, or will the socialist framework actively prevent it? Attitudes toward the death penalty vary wildly among the developed countries, with (I guess) Iceland being the most firmly opposed and the United States being the most in favour. How long do you think it’ll take to bring these two together, let alone the Middle East and Africa?

Mugabe gave the farmland to members of the government and their families so they got to do what they liked with it. A socialist society would give the farmland to the people who actually work on it and know how to work on it instead of the people who ran it just to make a buck. I’d place my trust in those results any day of the week.

How do you honestly think anyone could “make a buck” on a farm without having a very good idea of how to work on it? Or is “work” limited to physical labour in your definition?

[begbert2]

@MrDibble

You have to at least try to plan for the future, or risk being left in the dust of history. Look at all the brick&mortar stores blindsided by the Internet. Or how Microsoft was caught flat-footed by Linux, especially in the server market. Or the poor response of entertainment industries to the shift from hard to soft storage media.

You may try and ad hominem ideas like RepRap as a Trekkie pipe dream, but it’s going to be the thin edge of the wedge. And it’s the OS community doing it because they want to, not for money.

This technology will just change what’s in demand - the owners of the raw materials will become gods and rule the planet - especially since this thing doesn’t look like it could be used to make interesting chemicals like explosives, which I’m sure will be hoarded by those defending the raw materials.

Also, you won’t be able to fab drain cleaner or gasoline - admittedly this doodad would kill a lot of markets and reduce a lot of technological development to the speed and scope of unfunded hobbyism (which isn’t zero, but still), but there will still be large segments of the market that would be unaffected by its use, and which would still need some active mechanism for regulating scarcity.

[MrDibble]

@SteveG1

You don’t build your plans or your future on something that doesn’t, and may never, exist. You plan, based on what you know is possible now, and if better tech comes along, then you borrow it. You don’t just sit and hope the magic will happen. It won’t.

Which is why I don’t actively campaign for worldwide anarchism today. I don’t believe the world is ready for it in any way. Kind of like worldwide atheism.

Doesn’t mean I won’t advocate it as an ideal for living on messageboards, though.

@begbert2

This technology will just change what’s in demand - the owners of the raw materials will become gods and rule the planet - especially since this thing doesn’t look like it could be used to make interesting chemicals like explosives, which I’m sure will be hoarded by those defending the raw materials.

The RepRap guys are trying to settle on a feedstock that can be made from biopolymers rather than just petrochemicals. And you can bet that plans for fermentation vats for those biofeedstock will not be far behind.

And no, explosives are ridiculously easy to make. I’ve made enough to know.

Also, you won’t be able to fab drain cleaner or gasoline

No, but you will be able to fab the parts for the machines that let you brew your own bio-diesel and other chemicals, or recover it from recycleables. That’s the beauty of fabbing - you just need the plans to get from what you have to what you want. Once power-fabbing (the ability to fabricate cheap solar or wind power modules) takes off, I believe things will really accelerate.

[Grumman]

@MrDibble

If all it takes is some plans and $20 worth of motors I can cadge from some old VCRs today, to make a machine that can make everything I need or want from a copy of itelf down to computers and its own power supply, what then? The only labour really needed will be agrarian and service industries.

You still need electricity, raw materials, design, assembly, and anything that can’t be done using just a simple rapid prototyping setup like RepRap.