Cool, sweet, perfect. Any concrete pieces of writing to look at or would someone interested have to wage through ten thousand obscure theorists to form my own vague understanding here as well?
What does "giving more power to the soviets" mean in this context? What do they have control over, who has control over what, how does it work. Take a modern car as an example. Every car has hundreds of thousands of hours of work from people who have spent their entire lives working to be the best at a specific thing behind it. How does a society made up of Small Communes, which form Wards which form representative congresses make an actual car? I mean spending an hour watching "how it's made" is already enough to make your head spin at how many interconnected parts everything has.
I bookmarked Rudolf Rocker's book, but a very quick skim wasn't encouraging tbh.
To be honest with you I am still doing research myself and am Unsure if these political ideas fit me, that said I am confident that I am against Universal Basic Income which was the point of this thread. I am not the best representative of socialism so please do not take my ignorance as validation that these ideas do not exist.
As to your post, the things I cited in my post are not some obscure theories as you call them, they are written by pretty informed people and there arent too many to thrift through. If you really want to learn about what a socialist government would look like you can Read stuff by Chomsky, Marx, Lenin etc. Read about how the soviet union actually worked and the ways that the flaws within it Not all of their stuff is just rebuking capitalism.
I recently have picked up a book myself and have ordered a couple more simply because I was curious about the subject, so if at a later time I can answer your question better I will return to the thread.
Also the whole point of this video is UBI is terrifying to violent accelerationists because it reduces the odds of their apocalyptic fantasies from coming true.
What book. What works by Chomsky.
I've studied plenty about how the USSR worked. I'm Estonian, my parents and grandparents were people under the regime, and literally every year in high school and university was spent with a significant portion of Soviet history and economics, the wounds of the USSR were still more than fresh in the minds of all of my teachers. I was born only a few years after the fall of the USSR.
If daily life under the soviet union is what you consider closer to the ideal than the monstrously unfair system we have under this current permutation of capitalism, then I'm inclined to never listen to your opinion on the topic ever again.
The things that worked under the USSR can be achieved under a regulated capitalist system without any bloodshed.
Anarchism could never work but the libertine ethic should better inform the rest of the political canvas IMO
As I said I cant give you a book because I am not informed enough about the subject.
Oh yeah no that's what his life was before he became a self-employed video lecture maker.
Doesn't change the facts, he's still a capitalist to this very second.
People have to live and theres not many better ways I can think of of spreading a message than by youtube.
Just because he makes videos for money doesnt mean he believes in capitalism.
I have, but taxes and wealth are more complicated than just "taxing the rich more". The top 1% already pay a very high income tax rate. Most of the superich's wealth, however, is locked up in assets. This mean's that you have to increase the capital gains tax rate to have any meaningful effect on the collection of their wealth. A lot of these CEOs are famously paid 1 dollar per year as their salary. Amongst other reasons, this is because their stock options aren't typically taxed as regular income and are subject to the much lower capital gains tax rate.
Increasing the capital gains tax rate is tricky, because it discourages economic growth and investment. So it really isn't all that simple. There is a lot of debate by very sophisticated and advanced economists on what the best way of taxing a society is. We don't really have a concrete answer, yet. And, again, there are still a lot of people who think that taxation is theft and disagree with having their hard earned money taken away from them. Sometimes, these people have influence over the people who dictate our tax law.
Yeah none of them seem to.
I've had it up to my neck with platitudes and buzzword phrases, so I'll just keep hoping someone has a model of how a socialist world would work.
you understand, i hope, that most of the books you have recommended are either glorified ideological pamphlets full of abstracted reality and grand detail-less visions (and when details exist they have no bearing on the social and technological realities of modern society anymore), or emotion-laden biased and distorted accounts of such societies by (quite openly) involved individuals?
This is in a nutshell why I disregard Marx and his contemporaries outright. If an idea is a good way to govern and organize society then you shouldn't have to read generalized theoretical texts by writers from a century ago to get up to date.
If the idea truly worked, it would have predictive studies behind it analyzing how the thing would work
Just out of curiosity, since I really haven't done as much classical reading as I should have, but are Capitalist scholarly works really any different in this regard? Are Adam Smith or Milton Friedman's works any more detail oriented? The nature of this sort of work seems much more broad. Although, to be fair, most of these works are analyzing the status quo rather than trying to project a vision of what doesn't exist yet.
I think the reality is that (successful) economic change is hardly, if ever, revolutionary rather than gradual. Political change is somewhat different. Our paradigm reflects a lot of little changes over time spurred on by technological advancements and cultural exchange. Trying to force that change too dramatically in such a short period of time strikes me as risky and not particularly predisposed to success.
Unfortunately I am not qualified to comment on their works, because I have not delved into them as deeply as I have some of the works I did comment on, though I do find that likely (to an extent).
Demonstrably useful theories usually escape the books they are based in originally, and are taken and expanded by qualified academics with the help of additional data, obviously absent at the time of a book's writing. Naturally, books are dead and static texts which can and should be questioned as our vision of reality expands both in scope and in detail, and as previous details prove to have been mere inadequate naive abstractions, or even outright falsehoods.
With people who worship dead texts, be they religious or ideological zealots, this sort of thing is absent, and what takes its place instead is the attempt to bend the meaning of the text to fit the new visions of reality, so as to have them appear having been right all along.
Properly scientific models can (and should be) replaced by better ones when the time is right, because to fail to do so is to fall into the trap of blind ideology and charming rhetoric.
The theorizing can be as wide as you want, but capitalist economic theory has concrete definitions and data behind it. I haven't seen the science of socialist economics.
I think the idea behind the continued relevance of these works is that they're more or less observing fundamental realities and dynamics that remain consistent even with technological change. Those who own the means of production are still going to own the means of production - whether that's a factory or an amazon warehouse doesn't really matter.
I don't know if your analogy to adequate scientific models is relevant in the way you're suggesting. As far as I know, Newton's laws of motion are still applicable today. These understandings are built on, yes, but the fundamentals will always apply unless something radically changes our understanding. I don't really think the socioeconomic paradigm has shifted so much that these texts have lost their relevance.
I do understand the frustration with a seeming lack of, practical, solution-oriented works for this sort of ideology, though, and I'll keep my eyes peeled for it as such.
You are correct, and indeed books that observe seemingly fundamental dynamics (such as to remain relevant to some extent in a modern context vis-a-vis new modern understandings) do not become wholly obsolete, a good example being Das Kapital, which remains recommended reading for sociologists even today.
There is a fine line however between a book saying things that remain to be applicable in modern times by still having explanatory power, and a book remaining more or less unquestioned, instead having the interpretation changed - a thing that has sadly happened with some marxists much more than it should have, even as their contemporaries recognized where he might have gotten things wrong.
The details matter significantly, but so does the way they are framed. Indeed, as you say - Newtonian mechanics remain useful, yet their status in the comprehensive model of modern physics has changed since Newton's times. That being said, I wholly agree with the rest of what you say. I am just wary of the tendency of ideological purity getting in the way of proper scientific understanding.
The issue I have with UBI in the US specifically, is that we don't increase income according to inflation. There is no way this won't happen to UBI as well. It'll eventually become worthless.
Einstein's relativity superseded the laws of motion, the laws of motion in their original form are inadequate (aka incorrect) for many reference frames and situations.
There's problems with relativity as well, as far as I know. I don't think the analogy matches. We learned that there were errors in the models through formally phrased hypotheses/predictions and then comparing them to reality. As far as I know, no socialist system has any of these formal hypotheses and predictive models. Even in a hypothetical world where capitalism wasn't implemented, you can still theorize about its effects and predict how something would actually practically play out.
From socialist literature I see a lot of "people will form groups to hand out coats" as Kropotkin wrote. He also handwaved away the subject of luxury goods entirely by essentially saying people will want them less anyway. Well shit, nig, what if they don't? There's a century of technological advancement that's seemingly unaccounted for in how demand would be met, no ideas on concrete regulatory bodies to maintain standards of production, no nothing. It's a bunch of intellectuals writing down "capitalism is bad" and "surely things will work out if we practically destroy our way of life, honest" instead of providing models.
This seems like a very bold (and vague) claim to just throw out. There are huge bodies of economic analysis behind both. I really doubt that there isn't a single piece of socialist theory that doesn't take into account "concrete definitions (whatever that means) and data".
If I had to place an explanation on whatever phenomenon you're observing here, it's that the nature of these two bodies of work is likely fundamentally different. An analysis of capitalist market forces is an observation of what is, and socialist theory is a projection of what could be. It's hard to have data on something that doesn't exist.
Anyway, I'd be hesitant to turn this into strictly a dichotomy of capitalism v socialism because I disagree with that dichotomy in the first place. There is a much greater breadth of anti-capitalist thought outside of just what you consider to be "socialism" (also, a much greater depth within that term as well).
I made no claims. Please read again, I said "I haven't seen" which implies one of two things: Either the amount of research I've done is inadequate, or the availability of the source materials is shit. I'm leaning more towards the latter.
No disagreements from me here. Really, the more I've delved into this realm of ideology, the more I think that "proper scientific understanding" is impossible. So much of it is subjective and moral-driven.
The problem with morality in economics is that the course of economic history hardly contains an element of morality at all (as opposed to political theory, which is almost entirely moral and philosophical). As much as we'd like to pretend that feudalism went away because people just didn't enjoy being serfs anymore, it's more that industrial capitalism was a more efficient means of producing and distributing commodities and more or less asserted itself organically through an indeterminate period of time.
I would argue that socialism and capitalism are not exclusive. In fact, they pretty much require each other. With a complete expropriation of means of production government can rule people with both policies and product distribution, resulting in complete control. Opposite is also true - complete usurpation of power by a handful private owners results into means of production and policy making power being concentrated in small amount of hands, again, resulting into large amount of power. In both situations, neither democracy or free market are necessary for power, they are pretty harmful for it even.
Cuba isn't perfect but they're probably the best concrete example of a people that have successfully resisted global capitalism, especially when comparing them to their neighbors in the Caribbean and other nations that have dealt with colonization. They've built an incredible healthcare framework, have and continue to implement strong environmental policies, use a pretty robust democratic process and foster local communities, and plenty of other examples of tangible good policy while the most powerful nation in the world exists less than 100 miles away and constantly attempts to undermine them. Then I have limited knowledge on them but the syndicalists in Bangladesh have seemingly found success. Liberation theology and its systems of mutual aid throughout Latin America have had many successes. Burkina Faso under Thomas Sankara had wildly successful economic and civil improvements for most people. That government's rule was obviously imperfect and paranoia of global intervention among other things led to power structures put together that were still vulnerable to corruption, but life for most was dramatically better. Though not existing as a socialist nation, Uruguay has had a socialist coalition in power for years now and has made great strides - even seemingly dodging the global recession - that are worth checking out. Socialists parties with majority rule in nations isn't uncommon, and so there are many examples of reform policies their.
With the ratification of the Treaty of Westphalia, which spurred development of the modern nation state, and the subsequent colonization of the rest of the world that imported that structure everywhere, straying from the nation state would be one of the most difficult tasks of any movement. There are a few current places to look to. Many of the (incredibly small) communes in Virginia have been able to keep themselves going for a few decades now. Again, I don't know many of the specifics, however the Zapatista controlled area in Mexico at a glance looks to be doing well compared with the rest of their state. It could also be worth it to look into some of the more egalitarian societies that existed before capitalism i.e. how they governed, what their land use looked like, how were roles viewed both "domestic" and "public", how was society stratified and what may have limited stratification, how were the needs of folks determined and how were those needs met, in what ways were their injustices similar to today's, in what ways were injustices worse, and in what ways may they have been better.
The core of socialist thought for me is an acknowledgment that society can be better, the people at large are the one's that should have the democratic power (including over the economy) to work towards improvements, there exists a general guideline and framework of policies that can be implemented to make it better, and then there must be a constant reevaluation of where improvement is still needed and what has worked. I think most all of that would seem agreeable to most folks, but the part that trips them up is the extent of democratic power. Nearly everyone I know believes we can work towards a better world, but I think power should be radically dispersed in order to achieve that world. Society is large and complex but communities have been able to figure out their needs and work to achieve them for ages. The global economy is increasingly complex, and so no matter what in many ways we will be entering uncharted territory no matter what. I would much rather the solutions we develop to it be done under the power of the people as a whole and not by the power of the increasingly smaller capitalist class, especially after their highly unsustainable policies have set in motion the collapse of the biosphere.
Writers who tackle the ideas of socialism often do so from an angle of attacking capitalism because their first goal is to show the inherent instability and contradictions within the system people currently exist so that they can think outside of that system. Usually they will then direct those thoughts towards some general conceptualization of socialism and do so by going over political theory of power structures and how those interplay with social relations. It's an extensive task and still not specific. The Wealth of Nations and other works on capitalist theory, though comparatively extensive, also only look at the systems in a broad manner. Describing the exact interplay between even one complex good in the economy is simply such an overwhelmingly complex task that it's unlikely to be feasible, at least without access to some of the most powerful simulation technology available, and I imagine the folks writing books are going to be hard pressed to find themselves with access to that. As this technology becomes more widely available though there are some present day academics and groups looking into developing more of the hard calculations on specific circumstances. You might also be able to find some specific answers from a theoretical standpoint in Modern Monetary Theory (which still has plenty of critiques from various groups of leftists). Then there are people who pretty much entirely agree with socialists' criticisms of capitalism, and just don't believe a better system is possible, however I find that line of thinking incredibly defeatist and ignorant of just how brutal it is to the global poor.
I tried to condense a few different points here and it's university finals week for me so I'm a little short on time and the writing is admittedly somewhat scatterbrained because of that. I hope this was useful as a good start to answer some of your questions though.
Well also take into account that whenever socialist experiments arise around the world america seems intent to crush or sanction the shit out of them until they fall to dictatorship or just go back to capitalism so its really hard for the theories to translate.
EX: Cuba, Vietnam, Korea, Chile
Some of Adam Smith's predictions were laughably wrong. He thought dangerous or hazardous jobs would be high paying when that couldn't be further from the truth.
Socialism literally means democratic control of workplaces though
Implying that the rich won't just let the poor people die and reap even more resources for themselves.
The more likely outcome in all honesty
Then perhaps the application of ideology should be tempered by the likely realities of politics and outside state interventions, both by military and market means - things that are necessary to consider.
A system working in theory but consistently failing in practice should not be attempted again in similar conditions as previous failed attempts. This is a problem that is easy to see both with state based communism, as with anarchist communism.
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