Alfie Kohn?
This is just silly. Nothing stops anyone from working for free and those who want to do it can volunteer to do it. But you only have to open your eyes to know most people would not work if they can avoid it. Me? I’d rather go sailing. How big a yacht will the socialist revolution give me? Because I want it twice as large. And a second one in the Caribbean. And a third one just for show. Who decides how much I can ask for?
They had a saying in the Soviet Union: They pretend like they pay us and we pretend to work.
Even the Soviets pretended like they paid people for their work, even if it was with worthless rubles with which you could buy little.
Underlining added.
Can you DO that? PLEASE? I want to break even, I really do!!! :p:cool:
How is that ironic? Besides, I assume Shodan’s retirement fund doesn’t consist of burying gold in his backyard - it’s likely in some kind of investment plan that holds shares and/or bonds of corporations - so he does own capital, albeit on the small scale.
Heck, my own retirement fund has a share of Berkshire Hathaway B (Warren Buffet’s second-tier mutual fund), among other holdings.
Not only is your pithy observation not ironic, it’s also not true. I guess you could try to hide behind your “usually” weasel-word, but I propose instead that the staunchest defenders of capital usually are the ones who, if they don’t have a lot of capital now, are working toward getting it.
Besides, you have no business implying Shodan (or anyone else sharing his views) has been suckered when your own beliefs are based on willful ignorance, doublethink and appeals to emotion.
I propose we immediately begin agitating for that ! We should push for a new Amendment and have it declared unconstitutional.
And put in the maximal work for those wages. You know, live to work, not work to live.
Of course, even if people were all like that, they’d fare just as well in a market-based society. Or any other; I mean, if all people want is the bare minima for survival, and are content to maximally toil to give things to others, pretty much any form of government will work out.
If humans are so great, then how did they invent capitalism?
There’s a simple, logical fact you’re overlooking here: production, even now, exceeds demand. In a thread I participated in in 2004 I showed that according to UN statistics, the world was producing 4 pounds of food per capita daily. And that was with current land use approaches, which haven’t remotely begin to maximize soil potential. Even that much food, in a society organized to meet human needs instead of profit, would go a long way towards establishing that permanent surplus of goods.
Labor is a renewable resource - both individually and socially. You eat, you sleep, you occupy yourself with relaxing activities, you’re ready to work another day. You have kids, raise a family, there’s another generation of people capable of work. As long as the human race continues to exist, there will be a steady supply of labor.
Perhaps working towards a level of social development where nearly anyone could do nearly any necessary job would be a good approach, then. This isn’t to say that society could completely do away with specialization, but a lot of jobs today don’t require a whole lot of training, either. We build a society of people who could take care of every step in the process from growing a potato to whipping up a batch of vichyssoise for a dozen hungry families in a restaurant, then I think we’ve got this labor scarcity problem tackled.
That is exactly what I’m saying. Full-on workplace democracy in action. Now that doesn’t mean that every single issue that arises every single day on every single corner of the planet should be subject to a worldwide referendum. But if the issue directly affects you, you should have a say in the decision.
There’s an Internet right in front of me that enables me to discuss political issues with a hardcore skeptic probably half a world away. I’m sure that power of communication could be put to good use in that area.
Well, I’ve mentioned several elements throughout this thread of what a democratic workers’ society would entail:[ul]
[li]direct election and recall of all positions of power[/li][li]direct exchange of goods for labor[/li][li]wages for politicians exactly the same as normal worker’s wage[/li][/ul]Where would the opaque bureaucracy arise? The potential for graft and/or corruption? And how would such politicians remain in power in the remote chance such things do arise?
Let me put this phrase up so that it commands your attention for a moment:
This is not a new slogan; it was first put forth by Marx and Engels in the 1860s and is a litmus test for examining whether or not a revolution is genuinely socialist. The charge of ‘true Scotsman’ thinking fails because the goalpost has been standing in the exact same place for almost 150 years.
In only two cases - the Paris Commune and the Russian Revolution - has the working class taken steps to try to emancipate itself, and in both those cases there were very specific historical reasons, which have nothing to do with the theoretical content of socialism, why things turned out the way they did. All other examples you point to fail the very simple litmus test of Marx’ and Engels’ formulation - the working class was a passive observer of events rather than an active participant.
I don’t. There may be details in which the journey differs from the arrival because of the conditions in which the people building socialist society find themselves, but the overall general form will be the same - the working class controlling the means of production democratically with the stated goal of meeting global human need.
And without further comment, this is where I stop. Y’all have fun with psychonaut.
Fair enough. I appreciate your responses, and think you’ve been a good sport with so many people coming at you. Obviously no minds have been changed, but it’s been interesting.
I’ve also been quietly following this thread with interest. Thanks for your contributions to the thread, it has been a good read overall. It’s appreciated.
No, capitalism at its root is theft. I have something I stole from the commons, if you want access to it, you have to pay. All the “added value from my own labour” arguments are a smokescreen. Without the initial theft, there would be nothing there to add value to. Anyone who owns property they didn’t make themselves (so, the Dutch polders, parts of Tokyo and the like*) had to have had it expropriated from the commons somewhere down the line, and so is either a thief or a fence. I know, I am one too.
*and even there, the fill material had to come from somewhere
Nonsense. Pure nonsense. Most people sell their labor for a living. How anyone can defend that you should not be allowed to freely sell your own work I do not understand. Will you force people to work? As in slavery?
If I own a house it is a mixture of labor and some real estate. Let us look at the real estate. It is society (the commons) who endorses my right to own it as long as I pay my taxes. There is no such thing as unlimited and unqualified ownership. There are forms of limited ownership depending on the jurisdiction. And they are limited by the state who solely has unlimited ownership. You could say that the state allows me to enjoy my property in exchange for the payment of taxes and with the legal limitations in force (zoning, use, etc.).
Of course, thinking in terms of land being the primary form of wealth is quite outdated and most wealth owned and created today is much more about accumulated labor than about land. Labor that was sold and bought freely. I and most people happen to like freedom. Anything else would be some form of slavery.
No, that’s simply not the case. None of the value that I add ever belonged to the commons. It’s mine, because I created it. Nor did I use any open source software to create it. When I started programming, there was no such thing.
Then why doesn’t socialism ever work?
Olentzero seems to be arguing that the 100% failure rate for true socialism is anomalous.
What’s your excuse?
Regards,
Shodan
I’ve helped total strangers free their cars from snowbanks.
I never thought this entitled me to part-ownership of the car.
Defining theft that broadly makes it effectively meaningless. By a definition that loose, I’m “stealing from the commons” every time I inhale some air. By a definition that broad, you can also argue that holding anything in common is stealing from private individuals; it works as well as an argument for ultra-capitalism as it does for one against capitalism.
It makes no sense to say private property is stolen from the community when it is the community who is endorsing and guaranteeing that very right to private property.
It makes perfect sense one you assume the community has been suckered by greedy bloated plutocrats.
Why do you hate bananas?
They’re yellow…you racist swine you;)
So the community has been “suckered”? People are unhappy without knowing it? And a dictator is ready to set things to where they should be? And people will now be happy but believe they are unhappy? Like in Cuba?
Plutocrats? More like Goofycrats if you ask me.
Sure, as long as they’re greedy and bloated.