What did Churchill say about Democracy? It's the worst except all the others? Yea. I'll take all this government mismanagement and markets over Communism and Socialism. The State is never good at managing the means of production.
Churchill's democracy in Britain has social housing and social healthcare. Glad to know you'll take it though, because it looks like lot's of Americans are 'taking it', in a pretty brutal and ugly way.
FYI American police kill more people than any other country at 1100 people a year. Guess that's also 'democracy' and not, you know, just America:
I don't care about criticisms about America. They're not interesting or relevant. Democracy and markets are superior to state owned means of production.
> Churchill's democracy in Britain has social housing and social healthcare.
Well it had those but in the case of housing it was primarily private (as it should be) and in the case of healthcare running a healthcare system is not Communism or Socialism any more than roads are.
Are you really going to sit here arguing that the United Kingdom is a Communist country because they build a few houses and have a taxpayer funded healthcare program?
Socialism isn't when the state manages the means of production, it's when the workers do. What we have now, but without 80% of the value you create getting siphoned off to lazy bums who do nothing all day and collect a fat paycheck.
There's nothing that stops you today from creating a business with your fellow workers and doing just that.
That's the great thing about Democracy. You can do things like found a socialist business model and have it compete in the market and you can respect the rights of others to not do so. If your model is better, or if it works well for you and like-minded folks, then all is well.
If they're just lazy bums siphoning away their fat paycheck, surely your method will be better and you will show the other workers a better way and you can all unite and create similar collective ownership models.
> There's nothing that stops you today from creating a business with your fellow workers and doing just that.
There are significant barriers to that, not least of which is access to capital.
But that's also not socialism, socialism is the economic system where that is true across the whole economy.
> That's the great thing about Democracy. You can do things like found a socialist business model and have it compete in the market and you can respect the rights of others to not do so.
Aside from misunderstanding aocialism as a business model and not an economic system, what you describe (where you are superficially free to do this but obstructed by structural barriers and a politico-economic system geared to favor a different model) has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with capitalism, an economic system that,because political and economic power are fungible and capitalism is centered around around concentrating the latter in a narrow class, is in constant tension with and undermines political democracy.
> There are significant barriers to that, not least of which is access to capital.
That's a barrier to start any business. Life is tough. I'm not sympathetic.
> But that's also not socialism, socialism is the economic system where that is true across the whole economy.
> Aside from misunderstanding aocialism as a business model and not an economic system, what you describe (where you are superficially free to do this but obstructed by structural barriers and a politico-economic system geared to favor a different model) has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with capitalism, an economic system that,because political and economic power are fungible and capitalism is centered around around concentrating the latter in a narrow class, is in constant tension with and undermines political democracy.
Just because it has various definitions and subcategories, can you just explain what Socialism means to you?
What I'm hearing is you want to abolish capitalism and replace it with workers (not the government) owning the means of production. Is that right/fair?
And then Communism we'd define as the government actually owning the means of production. Is that right/fair?
Its an additional barrier in a capitalist economy to starting an equal-ownership labor coop, because the people who do control capital prefer that businesses they fund be owned by the suppliers of capital.
> Life is tough.
And capitalism is organized around making it tougher for the vast majority so that it can be easier for an elite minority.
> I'm not sympathetic.
Clearly, though I’m not sure why you are so proud of that.
> Just because it has various definitions and subcategories, can you just explain what Socialism means to you?
Socialism means that the workers (which is equivalent to the people at large, since without private ownership of the means of production, the capitalist classes do not exist) owning the means of production and exercising control democratically. There are a large numbers of particular eays that this can be structured.
> What I'm hearing is you want to abolish capitalism and replace it with workers (not the government) owning the means of production. Is that right/fair?
The government is a means by which the workers can exercise some part of their control of the means of production, and in any practical socialist system a robustly democratic government will play some role (possibly not much more or much different in broad shape, outside of specifically rules on ownership of particular assets, than in the modern mixed economies that have replaced capitalism in the strict sense in most of the developed world since the mid-20th century, but also possibly significantly more in some areas.)
But I’m personally an incrementalist and not a radical revolutionary, so while “abolish capitalism” is in a sense technically correct, what I’d mostly prefer is continued incremental steps to reduce the structural favoritism granted to the capitalist class and to distribute increasing power to the working class (either directly as such or by democratically empowering the people without regard to class).
> And then Communism we'd define as the government actually owning the means of production. Is that right/fair?
“Communism” is a proposed utopian end state beyond socialism that some socialists (who are also known as “Communists” for this reason) believe is the ultimate goal, and also a name for the set of socialists who believe in one of the various schools of thought that have that as their end goal.
What you are describing as “Communism” is, ideally, state socialism, wherein the people at large control the means of production through robustly democratic state institutions. In practice, though, attempts to implement an economic system around it have actually ended up being, and mostly getting stuck in state capitalism [0], wherein a narrow and self-perpetuating elite controls both the state and, through the state, the means of production and society more generally.
The extent to which this is an inherent failure of state socialism versus a failure of the particular adaptations of Marxism made in Leninism to bypass (private) capitalism and the frequently associated development of democratic norms to attempt to implement state socialism in environments that are pre- or early-capitalist is a matter of some debate among the socialists outside of the schools that are willfully blind to the problem.
It is popularly associated with “Communism” because movements that have been successulf in taking control of regimes and which call themselves Communist have invariably been from Leninism or one of its derivatives which favor this model, but it isn't centrally what distinguished Communist schools of thought from other socialist ones, nor is it inherent in Communism at all; the relationship is incidental.
[0] there are some cases, like the PRC, that have “escaped” simple state capitalism for something more like fascist corporatism, but whether that's an improvement over being stuck in state capitalism is debatable. It is certainly better from the point of view of private capitalists, but...
> And capitalism is organized around making it tougher for the vast majority so that it can be easier for an elite minority.
How easy is it to start a business in America (or pick another capitalist economy like Denmark or the UK or Japan or something) versus any communist state that has existed?
We could compare over any given time period the number of businesses started in a capitalist country and compare that with Communist or Socialist states that have existed. To better drive the point home we could compare first-time business owners.
> Socialism means that the workers (which is equivalent to the people at large, since without private ownership of the means of production, the capitalist classes do not exist) owning the means of production and exercising control democratically. There are a large numbers of particular ways that this can be structured.
Ok but since you also live in a democracy you have to live with people like, say, me who prefer a different arrangement. Right?
Democracy and even capitalism allows you without any additional barriers to create the business ownership model that you want. Today, you and 50 people can start a new business and you can all share in the ownership of the means of production. You can grow that business and hire 50 more people and give them an equal share too. 100 people, 1% each.
In fact, we've seen co-ops, public benefit corporations, and other models come into existence and thrive!
> What you are describing as “Communism” is, ideally, state socialism, wherein the people at large control the means of production through robustly democratic state institutions. In practice, though, attempts to implement an economic system around it have actually ended up being, and mostly getting stuck in state capitalism [0], wherein a narrow and self-perpetuating elite controls both the state and, through the state, the means of production and society more generally.
Seems to me that it's possible that "getting stuck in state capitalism" is just the actual end result of the implementation of Communist ideology within the nation state framework. Empirically that's what we've seen so far, and Communists seem to recognize this too and they break down the existing nation state (regardless of form, monarchy or democracy), but people don't want to get rid of all of their stuff (airlines, nice watches, whiskey, you name it) and we just wind up with wars and millions dead.
And in the case of most of the Communist nations that have existed that has been what we have seen. You'd have to forgive one for reading a bit about history, and then looking around a country like Sweden or Australia and saying you know this capitalism and free markets thing isn't so bad. Sent from my iPhone
> Seems to me that it's possible that "getting stuck in state capitalism" is just the actual end result of the implementation of Communist ideology within the nation state framework.
Its possibly (and my opinion is that this is likely the case) the unavoidable result of attempting to implement nearly pure state socialism.
There is no real reason to think that other approaches to socialism have this problem, and, again, “Communist” denotes a distinction within socialism that is orthogonal to the form of socialism sought but related to utopian end-goal past socialism, and there's even less reason to think that has any bearing on the outcome being discussed.
> And in the case of most of the Communist nations that have existed that has been what we have seen.
Every “Communist” nation has been an attempt to implement Leninism or one of its derivatives (e.g., Maoism) in a state without developed capitalism, notionally attempting to implement state socialism and often overtly accepting state capitalism as an interim measure (the name “state capitalism” literally comes from the USSR’s own description of what it presented as a temporary measure.)
> You'd have to forgive one for reading a bit about history
Yeah, a lot of ignorance is grounded in reading only a little bit of history and mistaking modern mixed economies (an actual application of a mix of market and state socialist ideas to a mature capitalist starting point, largely through the efforts of socialists including Communists, and which has largely displaced the system originally named “capitalism" by its socialist critics) as defining “capitalism" and the failure mode of state capitalism in Lenninist-derived regimes as the sole form of “socialism" or “Communism”, and drawing conclusions about the relative merit of socialism and capitalism from that mistaken set of premises.
The solution to that problem is to read more than a little bit of history.
> Its possibly (and my opinion is that this is likely the case) the unavoidable result of attempting to implement nearly pure state socialism.
> There is no real reason to think that other approaches to socialism have this problem, and, again, “Communist” denotes a distinction within socialism that is orthogonal to the form of socialism sought but related to utopian end-goal past socialism, and there's even less reason to think that has any bearing on the outcome being discussed.
But we also have to deal with the world as-is for any ideology being implemented or tried. I'm not sure how you move away from state socialism as you have defined it without destroying the state and existing government first.
As you noted already, attempts to implement Communist ideology or Socialist offshoots regardless of flavor have resulted in the state continuing to exist but a narrow and self-perpetuating elite continues to control both the state and, through the state, the means of production and society more generally.
We've already seen this play out. Equally there's no reason to think that other approaches to socialism, regardless of flavor, will play out any differently unless you're also going to advocate for overthrowing the government and destroying the nation state first. Nobody is going to give up their airlines and watches and whatever other things, so you're going to have to seize those.
> mistaking modern mixed economies... mature capitalist starting point, largely through the efforts of socialists including Communists,
You're just doing the same thing so it's only fair.
> The solution to that problem is to read more than a little bit of history.
> As you noted already, attempts to implement Communist ideology or Socialist offshoots regardless of flavor have resulted in the state continuing to exist but a narrow and self-perpetuating elite continues to control both the state and, through the state, the means of production and society more generally.
No, that's exactly not what I said.
What I said was that regimes that are identified as Communist have done that, but that they have also all been one particular flavor (Leninism and its derivatives, which explicitly and centrally focus on extreme and pure form of state socialism -- there are other common factors in Leninism and its descendants, like vanguardism, that have some relevance here, too, but I didn't mention them before and won't go into them in detail now, because its a bit afield.)
I also mentioned that the modern mixed economy that has displaced capitalism stricto sensu throughout the developed world itself is also a (more incremental, and less narrowly focussed on a particular pole of socialist systemic theory) implementation of socialist (incl. Communist) ideals, but with elements of both market socialism and state socialism, implemented largely in places that (in line with Marxist theories of the prerequisites for moving on to the socialist phase) had mature capitalist systems, democratic institutions, and working class consciousness, and that continuing to incrementally build on the progress already made in the modern mixed economy was the best road forward.
> Equally there's no reason to think that other approaches to socialism, regardless of flavor, will play out any differently
Sure there is, because there are other approaches to socialism playing out differently today. That's a pretty good reason to think that other approaches to socialism play out differently than Leninism and its descendants.
> What I said was that regimes that are identified as Communist have done that, but that they have also all been one particular flavor (Leninism and its derivatives, which explicitly and centrally focus on extreme and pure form of state socialism -- there are other common factors in Leninism and its descendants, like vanguardism, that have some relevance here, too, but I didn't mention them before and won't go into them in detail now, because its a bit afield.)
Ah right, we just haven't tried the right style of Communism yet. Fascism works too, we just have to try the right flavor. Benevolent dictators are a thing. I'm not going to give Communism a pass here unless you're willing to also embrace that other ideologies get to have their "we haven't tried the right one yet" examples too.
Instead I think it makes more sense to use empirical evidence.
When Communist systems are implemented, they by and large fail, except China, and to the extent China hasn't failed - the Chinese Miracle [1] the progress that was made to improve the quality of life of the Chinese people stems not from CCP policies and their implementation of Communism (regardless of minor differences around philosophy) but instead from their embrace of capitalism and markets.
> I also mentioned that the modern mixed economy that has displaced capitalism stricto sensu throughout the developed world itself is also a (more incremental, and less narrowly focussed on a particular pole of socialist systemic theory) implementation of socialist (incl. Communist) ideals, but with elements of both market socialism and state socialism, implemented largely in places that (in line with Marxist theories of the prerequisites for moving on to the socialist phase) had mature capitalist systems, democratic institutions, and working class consciousness, and that continuing to incrementally build on the progress already made in the modern mixed economy was the best road forward.
You're just hand-waving the things you agree with or good as being socialist or communist and the things you disagree with as being functions of capitalism. Of course capitalist economies can adopt programs and policies that are run by the government - that doesn't necessarily make them "socialist". Of course, when we spend a few minutes continuing our examination we find that part of the reason that capitalism and markets are so successful is because they are able to embrace policies and procedures that work regardless of whether they adhere to any specific ideology, other than free trade (obviously this is a loaded term, but I mean it in the most basic sense). Capitalist economies allow communist businesses. You can start one today. In a Communist country I can't own the means of production. One is tolerant of new and different ideas (Capitalism), another is not (Communism).
The intolerance and violence of Communist ideology and Socialism to the extent they overlap, is one of the reasons it fails. People are required to adhere to the ideology, whereas in Capitalist systems the best business, the best ideas, the best ideologies tend to win out. Though of course like any system you can get stuck in a local minimum.
When you think back to China this is precisely what we see happen. The Chinese Communist Party, and they are Communists by any definition, cannot allow business owners or political dissidents who speak out to "gain power" and they operate various spy apparatus and other control mechanisms because they can't permit ideology that threatens the existence of the CCP.
Why is that?
You would probably argue that it's because they are implementing state capitalism. Horse shit.
China wasn't a developed capitalist country when the Communists took over [2]. And as I mentioned previously, any attempt at implementing Communism that we have observed requires seizure of the means of production that exist in the real world today: airliners, factories, financial systems - so either you destroy those things to avoid "state capitalism", or the inevitable result of the implementation of Communism on the nation state, as we have observed, is just state fascism or Communism (not capitalism as you attempt to misdirect blame toward) or it requires a destruction of the nation state and the very means of production else they be seized.
In the real world you are stuck in a loop. You can't implement whatever flavor of Communism you'd like to, because it requires people giving up their stuff to the State and nobody wants to do that. You can implement it politically, but then you just end up with state fascism/Communism (honestly they are really two sides of the same coin in practice and we should oppose authoritarian regimes regardless of whether they are fascist or communist or otherwise) because the State has to seize all this stuff from people. But once they seize it, as we have seen, they just keep it for themselves while everyone else has to work without real ownership.
> Sure there is, because there are other approaches to socialism playing out differently today. That's a pretty good reason to think that other approaches to socialism play out differently than Leninism and its descendants.
Is there a socialist country in existence you would point to that we can examine and compare it with, say, Sweden or the United Kingdom or other developed capitalist countries?
[1] We're strangely quick to give the CCP credit for the miracle, which was opening of their markets, but we're blind to the fact that the poverty and mass death that occurred in China was precisely because of the same group. So it's fair to not really give the CCP any credit here.
[2] You said: "Every “Communist” nation has been an attempt to implement Leninism or one of its derivatives (e.g., Maoism) in a state without developed capitalism, notionally attempting to implement state socialism and often overtly accepting state capitalism as an interim measure (the name “state capitalism” literally comes from the USSR’s own description of what it presented as a temporary measure.)"
> Democracy and even capitalism allows you without any additional barriers to create the business ownership model that you want
That's not true - the main one is paying rent. You have to keep selling labor to capitalists in exchange for non-robbery vouchers, which you give right back to capitalists so they won't burgle you and throw you out of your home.
