You can dig into how the NEP functioned and how the current PRC functions (and is trending towards) to see such a system in action, or look at Vietnam and Laos.
Sorry, but I disagree China “has a State designed to serve the Workers” (my requirement). I’d say they are in an “in-between” state towards my ideal “private sector, workers state” society, but not really there…
For example, an important tool (probably necessary requirement) to ensure the Workers are being prioritized is transparency. At the moment, I think the CCP is more concerned about their own reputation than anything else. They are perfectly happy with letting big corpo expoit when it benefits the CCP… to the point that they would sooner acquire the company and become themselves the ones doing the explotaition than actually fixing the issues via policy.
The have a wimpy soft globe when it comes to defending the workers but a long tongue when it comes to licking boots of the powerful. They are definitely NOT what I was talking about.
I haven’t cecked on Laos and Vietnam, but if you are mentioning China among them (and considering they are pretty close and likely friends of the CCP) I don’t have high expectations.
About NEP… I’m searching but I’m finding it hard to find any measures that were taken to control private owners and force them to redistribute profits. I also see that the Workers were unhappy and called it “New Exploitation of the Proletariat”… so again, it looks like an attempt at addressing the wrong problems. It still does not meet my requirement.
Where have you read about China where you get those impressions? Part of why Xi Jinping is so popular is because he ran an anti-corruption campaign. Moreover, I don’t see what you mean by a “private sector, worker state” as an ideal. That doesn’t really exist anywhere, the closest would be the NEP or the PRC’s economy. There’s no functional reason to have a worker owned and controlled state and maintain private ownership except as a method of development in the early stages of Socialism, which is why it existed in the NEP and exists in the PRC, Vietnam, and Laos.
The reason you aren’t seeing much on forcing redistribution of profits of the NEP is because its purpose was to develop the Productive Forces to the point where they could be collectivized. The purpose wasn’t to be private, the purpose was to use markets as a temporary tool for rapid industrialization before collectivizing.
I think you need to do more studying on why AES states function the way they do, rather than try to theorycraft an ideal society.
I was about to say, this person seems to be very idealist, combined with some wrong ideas (e.g. about private ownership for some reason being better?), it leads to some very wonky stuff
Yea, that’s what I’m getting too. This is one of the cases where someone comes in with pre-existing notions about what should be, and allows that to drive the conversation more than learning why Marxists believe what we believe. You hit the nail on the head with private ownership, genuinely don’t see why that would make any sense unless you’re trying to remain linked to the global economy or develop underdeveloped sectors of the economy rapidly, in all other cases and sometimes even in these cases Public Ownership is just better.
I think the private ownership is coming from this:
Also, as a defender of the idea of division of powers, I honestly prefer when executive powers at all levels are distinct from planning/legislative. So if it does really “necessarily trend towards Communism” I’d hope whatever replaces the private owners does the same job of assuming responsibility if/when unfairness happens as it did before the fall. I’d hate if the same level of scrutiny and legal/social pressure wasn’t placed against the ones replacing them.
The liberal idea of… meritocracy, ah, not that’s maybe part of it, but… I know what I want to say, but I forget what it is called, hopefully you can guess it.
I think meritocracy covers it, it’s a very “liberal” idea that doesn’t really make any material sense. Like, private owners don’t assume responsibility, that’s part of the problem. Kinda like noblesse oblige.
No, by “assume responsibility” I mean: be the one who’s executed / imprisoned / their head cut off
It’s the State who should be enforcing that. I’m not saying private owners magically are responsible people… what I sad is that they will be the ones found responsible by the State.
I literally mean punishing the one who is the owner, whenever unfairness is found.
Who would be punished in Communism? and how?
But thanks for the attempt at trying to understand me, even if not very successfully :P
(also thanks @[email protected] )
In Communism, there will be administrators and planners, and the economy will be run more democratically. In the instance that someone is committing a crime, they would be rehabilitated, likely not punished. In Capitalism, business owners aren’t punished, really.
Where have you read about China where you get those impressions?
My wife is chinese. My sister in law was working for Huawei (just this year she finally quit and came to the EU). I also had China chinese coworkers that were pretty unhappy about how chinese companies they were working for before treated them (eg. AliExpress).
Part of why Xi Jinping is so popular is because he ran an anti-corruption campaign
Do you actually believe it when you see a politician saying they ran an anti-corruption campaign with the goal of actually benefiting the Workers and not themselves? Again, I repeat the statement: “the CCP is more concerned about their own reputation than anything else”.
Do you think being popular is proof of actually being honest / good politician?
Trump won the popular vote… a politician having a lot of fans that make a lot of noise does not mean anything. Specially when you are openly banning people who are critic of you…
If Xi Jinping is so good, why does he need to use dirty methods to silence criticism? why is he, instead of searching for transparency, pushing to hide feedback from the Workers?
Transparency is THE ONE THING that can effectively fight corruption. Taking out leaders of big corpos is just a way to wash your hands so that you can then continue playing with the mud under your opaque curtain, protected by “yes men”.
I don’t see what you mean by a “private sector, worker state” as an ideal. That doesn’t really exist anywhere, the closest would be the NEP or the PRC’s economy
I did not say that it exists. Communist states don’t exist either, you already said that.
its purpose was to develop the Productive Forces to the point where they could be collectivized
So it did not set rules to make sure the workers are not being treated unfairly? Then I would not consider that any closer than any normal social democracy to what I was proposing. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Social Democracies were closer to it.
Having the purpose of collectivizing does not tell me anything about what rules are being set to ensure we “pay more for more skilled jobs” or “pay the same for fewer hours for dangerous jobs”. It looks like an “in-between” experiment towards something else entirely rather than actually trying to attack the root of the problem.
I think you need to do more studying on why AES states function the way they do, rather than try to theorycraft an ideal society.
First of all, you have a very small sample size, but more correctly it’s 100% correct to say that China has issues and problems. The idea that to call a system “Socialist” or to say that a party in power is genuinely working towards xyz aims means that the system doesn’t have problems it needs to work on is flawed. You gave the example of Huawei and AliExpress, both companies run for profit. These companies are going to have similar issues to companies in a Capitalist economy, though the safety nets in China are nicer than in many other countries and there is more accountability from the Workers than most Capitalist countries.
Secondly, as for Xi. No, I don’t blindly believe whatever a politician says, however your rant ended up just saying that being popular isn’t necessarily indicative of someone representing the interests of the people. I’d counter that by saying Trump also lost the popular vote twice, while Xi has maintained much higher popularity levels consistently. This doesn’t mean he’s infallible, but we can look at massive campaigns like the Poverty Eradication Campaign or the resurgance of cooperative firms in China, or the campaigns to lower price of medicine through renegotiation, and more to see why he may enioy the support he does.
As for your system not existing in reality, I am specifically questioning why you want that. There is no benefit to Private Ownership at very high levels of development, there is no reason to maintain them. Communism doesn’t exist yet because it is a predicted form of society based on analyzing trends in Mode of Production, specifically in Capitalism. What you are saying as “ideal” only seems possible as a step on the way there.
As for the NEP, there’s a difference between funneling all of profits in an economy with a large private sector towards social safety nets like you seem to be wanting (at which point public ownership entirely is more efficient) and the NEP. The Soviets, for example, had free healthcare (the first of its kind in the modern world) as early as 1919. They used markets and private ownership purely to build up industry before collectivizing, yet still protected their workers and still collectivized.
I have no genuine idea what you mean by “what rules did they set” to ensure this. They literally codified in law higher pay for more skilled or intense labor, and codified in law lower working hours for more dangerous labor at the same pay. This was a part of the USSR’s legal system, I genuinely don’t know what else you want to “ensure” that.
I have been explaining, and I haven’t thrown link after link at you or told you “you don’t understand Communism” like that other commenter implied. I pointed you to studying AES because if you genuinely want to see how some of your ideas would pan out in society, they are your closest bet, and I think you’d rather do your own research rather than take it all from one person’s words.
As for theorycrafting, it isn’t about “fun.” What you’re doing is Utopianism, trying to imagine a better society to create outright, rather than analyzing where society is heading and how we can best steer that. I told you already, Communists don’t really bother much with this, focusing instead on where we are heading based on what we have observed in reality.
The idea that to call a system “Socialist” or to say that a party in power is genuinely working towards xyz aims means that the system doesn’t have problems it needs to work on is flawed
Like capitalism, the problem is embedded in the way the system works, it is systemic. They definitely need to work on it, it needs more than a wash. even replacing the government would not work. Because the problem has never been who’s the one in control, but what safeguards are in place to ensure the control isn’t abused, the problem of capitalism isn’t the mere existence of private owners, but that there are no forms of control being put in place that prevent abuse… which is exactly the problem China has. If China finds a solution to solve this, I don’t see why it would not be applicable to a private ownership system.
I’d counter that by saying Trump also lost the popular vote twice
He’s popular now, though. Historically, most fascists have been overwhelmingly popular when they have won elections too. And they often pushed to keep their popularity through dirty manipulation tactics and unrestrained control over the state that places primary importance on their own reputation…
Like I said, being popular is no proof of being honest / good.
As for your system not existing in reality, I am specifically questioning why you want that.
Ah, you should have asked that then.
There’s more than one reason:
I want to test whether it’s true that your ideal utopic Communism really works BECAUSE of the ban on private ownership, or does it only work (if it does, it has not been proven) regardless of it (or maybe even in spite of it). If it’s true that banning primary ownership is a necessary piece to achieve freedom for the Workers, then it should be impossible to postulate a position where a strong government enforces extreme regulation against private owners that forces them to become (in essence) executors of the will of the State, not much different than a well regulated official that is forced to behave.
I said it before, I’m a defender of the separation of power. I think it would be much more difficult to ensure people responsible get punished by their bad acts if they are friends of the ones doing the punishing. I’d say that feel that removing the figure of the independent person responsible of distribution (responsible as in, the one who would be scrutinized) to replace it with a person who is no longer independent might actually make it harder to ensure the scrutiny is actually effectively carried out.
there’s a difference between funneling all of profits in an economy with a large private sector towards social safety nets like you seem to be wanting (at which point public ownership entirely is more efficient)
Can you explain how is it more efficient?
I have no genuine idea what you mean by “what rules did they set” to ensure this
I think I can respond that in the other thread, since that’s the same question I was asking (over and over, in multiple parts of this thread), I hope this time you can understand what I mean.
What you’re doing is Utopianism, trying to imagine a better society to create outright, rather than analyzing where society is heading and how we can best steer that.
You are doing it backwards if you think you can steer without first having a goal/destination. Why do you want me to explain how would I steer the society if you don’t even seem to agree with me on what is the root of the problem that needs to be fixed?
Historically, fascists have not been that popular. You don’t really have a point ubless you think being popular is bad.
That doesn’t really make much sense to me, it isn’t about banning private property but publicly owning and collectivizing all property. There would be no real mechanisms for aquiring private property or outcompeting the rest of society. Moreover, it isn’t a utopia, there will be problems and issues that people have to work through.
Recall elections.
It’s more efficient because you have, rather than competing individuals, a common cooperative plan and the ability to make calls from a larger view of how the economy is functioning. There’s no need for profit, either.
The thing is, the question you have been asking over and over is vague. “Fairness” means a million different things, “exploitation” means a million different things. You were never specific until this comment.
Communists speculate on what a future society may look like, but focus on the present systems and present trajectories. If part of it is wrong or impossible, then it won’t be implemented. You can only know something through practice. Utopians focus on what a perfect society should be, rather than analyzing trends and movements in society to predict the course it will take. Communism isn’t describes the way it is because that’s “ideal,” but as a prediction of what will happen as humanity develops beyond the confines of Capitalism, which cannot last forever.
How do you know you need to recall elections if the system is opaque? how do you recall elections if those who even suggest that’s needed are silenced via dirty means? How do you ensure alternatives cannot be pushed down by the ruling government? In a system where reputation is placed as the most important thing, how do you ensure that reputation is fair and the ruling party is not manipulating the information in order to mudden the opposition’s reputation and strengthen their own?
Don’t you think there are rules / safeguards that need to be placed to make sure that can work at all?
Also: do you think any of this (including the election bit) is incompatible with my proposal? why?
Historically, fascists have not been that popular
The objective fact is that they have had enough popularity, multiple times, to actually win elections.
So, again: is popularity PROOF of good will? … or is it (like you previosly admitted before, despite being defensive about it) only an “indication”?
Because there are all sort of things that it could be an indication of. Not just good will, it could also be an indication that censorship and social pressure of a party of powerful people that don’t act in good will does work at keeping up a good reputation for a big enough section of the population.
That doesn’t really make much sense to me, it isn’t about banning private property but publicly owning and collectivizing all property
Does that mean that you agree with me that doing it would not fix the problem?
There would be no real mechanisms for aquiring private property or outcompeting the rest of society
I feel you are just playing with words. Would you be banning “the establishment of State-driven mechanisms of acquiring private property”? or would you be actually allowing the State to put rules to allow/enforce those mechanisms?
Do I need to start saying “State-driven mechanisms for individuals to acquire private property” instead of “private ownership” from now on to satisfy the way you wanna use the term?
Moreover, it isn’t a utopia, there will be problems and issues that people have to work through.
Yea, that was my point, it’s the problems and issues are what needs to be addressed to make it “a utopia”.
Recall elections.
Ah, so you don’t think the separation of power is useful if there already are elections? Because that’s what point 2 was… either you are not addressing it, or you legitimately think elections make it so that separation is not useful.
Note that in my ideal state, after a private owner is destituted, I would not see a problem with calling for elections on who should be the next owner. Again, this is not something that is incompatible with “State-driven mechanisms for individuals to acquire private property”.
The thing is, the question you have been asking over and over is vague. “Fairness” means a million different things, “exploitation” means a million different things. You were never specific until this comment.
Yes, because it’s something that touches on morality, it is difficult to determine, just the same as how it’s difficult to determine that “good” means.
But you did not put this term into question before. It’s the first time you asked, even though you used the term as well. What do you think counts as fairness for you?
Specifically, the kind of “Fairness” you used in this comment, what did you mean there?
“Capitalism is categorized by a Mode of Production where Private Ownership and Markets are primary, Socialism is categorized by Public Ownership and planning being primary, and Communism specifically is a Mode of Production where all property has been collectivized globally, and Class therefore erased, with the State alongside it, leaving a world republic. It isn’t a “one drop” rule or about which is more common, but which is primary. Fairness is indeed not the determining characteristic.”
You said here that fairness is not the “determining characteristic” of Capitalism/Socialism/Communism. What kind of fairness were you thinking here?
In my case, what I was referring to is following rules that are designed for the benefit of the people.
In retrospect, after seeing what you meant by “primary”, I’m really wondering what did you mean, since later you told me that the State not working for the people was, for you, a determining characteristic of Capitalism… so I’m expecting you have a different definition of “fairness”, otherwise there would seem there’s a contradiction.
Communists speculate on what a future society may look like, but focus on the present systems and present trajectories. […]
You did not answer the question:
“Why do you want me to explain how would I steer the society if you don’t even seem to agree with me on what is the root of the problem that needs to be fixed?”
Do focus on the present trajectory, please… you cannot set a proper trajectory if your plan leads to the wrong target.
The biggest issue with your attitude in discussion here is an absolute heap of pre-existing notions and assumptions that don’t align with reality. Like, you say “in a system where reputation is the most important thing” but that’s not evident.
Fascists have historically taken power not through elections, but through seizure of power.
Moreover, I listed many things Xi has done, like healthcare improvements and poverty reductions. You haven’t proven any of your claims that he is a secret evil dude, this is becoming silly. You’d rather not employ Occam’s Razor and instead rely on conspiracy theories.
I can’t say I agree with you, no, because I have no idea what you’re talking about. You keep vaguely gesturing and speaking of hypotheticals that are contradictory or don’t make sense to me.
There is no reason to have Private Ownership in your hypothetical “social democracy on steroids.” There is no benefit, nor a reason for the position to exist. There isn’t a Private “owner” of the USPS, and yet it functions well. I don’t know why you think you need private ownership.
When I say “fairness” isn’t a determining characteristic, I mean that it doesn’t matter from a point of definition. I don’t care about “moral justifications,” I am not trying to hand-paint an ideal society. The ones who did so in the past, the Owenites, Saint-Simone, etc all failed because such an approach has no connection to material reality.
Modes of Production have trajectories, Feudalism created the conditions for Capitalism, which creates the conditions for Socialism, which creates the conditions for Communism. There isn’t a reasonable alternative to that general path not because of morality, but because of the progression of industry and production requiring more centralization as time goes on.
Why don’t you start over from the beginning. Tell me what your approach is, what your Utopia looks like, why it’s a good thing, and why it will come to be.
You can dig into how the NEP functioned and how the current PRC functions (and is trending towards) to see such a system in action, or look at Vietnam and Laos.
Sorry, but I disagree China “has a State designed to serve the Workers” (my requirement). I’d say they are in an “in-between” state towards my ideal “private sector, workers state” society, but not really there…
For example, an important tool (probably necessary requirement) to ensure the Workers are being prioritized is transparency. At the moment, I think the CCP is more concerned about their own reputation than anything else. They are perfectly happy with letting big corpo expoit when it benefits the CCP… to the point that they would sooner acquire the company and become themselves the ones doing the explotaition than actually fixing the issues via policy.
The have a wimpy soft globe when it comes to defending the workers but a long tongue when it comes to licking boots of the powerful. They are definitely NOT what I was talking about.
I haven’t cecked on Laos and Vietnam, but if you are mentioning China among them (and considering they are pretty close and likely friends of the CCP) I don’t have high expectations.
About NEP… I’m searching but I’m finding it hard to find any measures that were taken to control private owners and force them to redistribute profits. I also see that the Workers were unhappy and called it “New Exploitation of the Proletariat”… so again, it looks like an attempt at addressing the wrong problems. It still does not meet my requirement.
Where have you read about China where you get those impressions? Part of why Xi Jinping is so popular is because he ran an anti-corruption campaign. Moreover, I don’t see what you mean by a “private sector, worker state” as an ideal. That doesn’t really exist anywhere, the closest would be the NEP or the PRC’s economy. There’s no functional reason to have a worker owned and controlled state and maintain private ownership except as a method of development in the early stages of Socialism, which is why it existed in the NEP and exists in the PRC, Vietnam, and Laos.
The reason you aren’t seeing much on forcing redistribution of profits of the NEP is because its purpose was to develop the Productive Forces to the point where they could be collectivized. The purpose wasn’t to be private, the purpose was to use markets as a temporary tool for rapid industrialization before collectivizing.
I think you need to do more studying on why AES states function the way they do, rather than try to theorycraft an ideal society.
I was about to say, this person seems to be very idealist, combined with some wrong ideas (e.g. about private ownership for some reason being better?), it leads to some very wonky stuff
Yea, that’s what I’m getting too. This is one of the cases where someone comes in with pre-existing notions about what should be, and allows that to drive the conversation more than learning why Marxists believe what we believe. You hit the nail on the head with private ownership, genuinely don’t see why that would make any sense unless you’re trying to remain linked to the global economy or develop underdeveloped sectors of the economy rapidly, in all other cases and sometimes even in these cases Public Ownership is just better.
I think the private ownership is coming from this:
The liberal idea of… meritocracy, ah, not that’s maybe part of it, but… I know what I want to say, but I forget what it is called, hopefully you can guess it.
I think meritocracy covers it, it’s a very “liberal” idea that doesn’t really make any material sense. Like, private owners don’t assume responsibility, that’s part of the problem. Kinda like noblesse oblige.
No, by “assume responsibility” I mean: be the one who’s executed / imprisoned / their head cut off
It’s the State who should be enforcing that. I’m not saying private owners magically are responsible people… what I sad is that they will be the ones found responsible by the State.
I literally mean punishing the one who is the owner, whenever unfairness is found.
Who would be punished in Communism? and how?
But thanks for the attempt at trying to understand me, even if not very successfully :P (also thanks @[email protected] )
In Communism, there will be administrators and planners, and the economy will be run more democratically. In the instance that someone is committing a crime, they would be rehabilitated, likely not punished. In Capitalism, business owners aren’t punished, really.
My wife is chinese. My sister in law was working for Huawei (just this year she finally quit and came to the EU). I also had China chinese coworkers that were pretty unhappy about how chinese companies they were working for before treated them (eg. AliExpress).
Do you actually believe it when you see a politician saying they ran an anti-corruption campaign with the goal of actually benefiting the Workers and not themselves? Again, I repeat the statement: “the CCP is more concerned about their own reputation than anything else”.
Do you think being popular is proof of actually being honest / good politician?
Trump won the popular vote… a politician having a lot of fans that make a lot of noise does not mean anything. Specially when you are openly banning people who are critic of you…
If Xi Jinping is so good, why does he need to use dirty methods to silence criticism? why is he, instead of searching for transparency, pushing to hide feedback from the Workers?
Transparency is THE ONE THING that can effectively fight corruption. Taking out leaders of big corpos is just a way to wash your hands so that you can then continue playing with the mud under your opaque curtain, protected by “yes men”.
I did not say that it exists. Communist states don’t exist either, you already said that.
So it did not set rules to make sure the workers are not being treated unfairly? Then I would not consider that any closer than any normal social democracy to what I was proposing. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Social Democracies were closer to it.
Having the purpose of collectivizing does not tell me anything about what rules are being set to ensure we “pay more for more skilled jobs” or “pay the same for fewer hours for dangerous jobs”. It looks like an “in-between” experiment towards something else entirely rather than actually trying to attack the root of the problem.
Why can’t you explain it? (this makes me feel a bit like this comment wasn’t that far off)
Is theorycrafting only fun when it’s about exploring solutions that reject private ownership?
Oh, didn’t get the notification for this.
First of all, you have a very small sample size, but more correctly it’s 100% correct to say that China has issues and problems. The idea that to call a system “Socialist” or to say that a party in power is genuinely working towards xyz aims means that the system doesn’t have problems it needs to work on is flawed. You gave the example of Huawei and AliExpress, both companies run for profit. These companies are going to have similar issues to companies in a Capitalist economy, though the safety nets in China are nicer than in many other countries and there is more accountability from the Workers than most Capitalist countries.
Secondly, as for Xi. No, I don’t blindly believe whatever a politician says, however your rant ended up just saying that being popular isn’t necessarily indicative of someone representing the interests of the people. I’d counter that by saying Trump also lost the popular vote twice, while Xi has maintained much higher popularity levels consistently. This doesn’t mean he’s infallible, but we can look at massive campaigns like the Poverty Eradication Campaign or the resurgance of cooperative firms in China, or the campaigns to lower price of medicine through renegotiation, and more to see why he may enioy the support he does.
As for your system not existing in reality, I am specifically questioning why you want that. There is no benefit to Private Ownership at very high levels of development, there is no reason to maintain them. Communism doesn’t exist yet because it is a predicted form of society based on analyzing trends in Mode of Production, specifically in Capitalism. What you are saying as “ideal” only seems possible as a step on the way there.
As for the NEP, there’s a difference between funneling all of profits in an economy with a large private sector towards social safety nets like you seem to be wanting (at which point public ownership entirely is more efficient) and the NEP. The Soviets, for example, had free healthcare (the first of its kind in the modern world) as early as 1919. They used markets and private ownership purely to build up industry before collectivizing, yet still protected their workers and still collectivized.
I have no genuine idea what you mean by “what rules did they set” to ensure this. They literally codified in law higher pay for more skilled or intense labor, and codified in law lower working hours for more dangerous labor at the same pay. This was a part of the USSR’s legal system, I genuinely don’t know what else you want to “ensure” that.
I have been explaining, and I haven’t thrown link after link at you or told you “you don’t understand Communism” like that other commenter implied. I pointed you to studying AES because if you genuinely want to see how some of your ideas would pan out in society, they are your closest bet, and I think you’d rather do your own research rather than take it all from one person’s words.
As for theorycrafting, it isn’t about “fun.” What you’re doing is Utopianism, trying to imagine a better society to create outright, rather than analyzing where society is heading and how we can best steer that. I told you already, Communists don’t really bother much with this, focusing instead on where we are heading based on what we have observed in reality.
Like capitalism, the problem is embedded in the way the system works, it is systemic. They definitely need to work on it, it needs more than a wash. even replacing the government would not work. Because the problem has never been who’s the one in control, but what safeguards are in place to ensure the control isn’t abused, the problem of capitalism isn’t the mere existence of private owners, but that there are no forms of control being put in place that prevent abuse… which is exactly the problem China has. If China finds a solution to solve this, I don’t see why it would not be applicable to a private ownership system.
He’s popular now, though. Historically, most fascists have been overwhelmingly popular when they have won elections too. And they often pushed to keep their popularity through dirty manipulation tactics and unrestrained control over the state that places primary importance on their own reputation…
Like I said, being popular is no proof of being honest / good.
Ah, you should have asked that then.
There’s more than one reason:
I want to test whether it’s true that your ideal utopic Communism really works BECAUSE of the ban on private ownership, or does it only work (if it does, it has not been proven) regardless of it (or maybe even in spite of it). If it’s true that banning primary ownership is a necessary piece to achieve freedom for the Workers, then it should be impossible to postulate a position where a strong government enforces extreme regulation against private owners that forces them to become (in essence) executors of the will of the State, not much different than a well regulated official that is forced to behave.
I said it before, I’m a defender of the separation of power. I think it would be much more difficult to ensure people responsible get punished by their bad acts if they are friends of the ones doing the punishing. I’d say that feel that removing the figure of the independent person responsible of distribution (responsible as in, the one who would be scrutinized) to replace it with a person who is no longer independent might actually make it harder to ensure the scrutiny is actually effectively carried out.
Can you explain how is it more efficient?
I think I can respond that in the other thread, since that’s the same question I was asking (over and over, in multiple parts of this thread), I hope this time you can understand what I mean.
You are doing it backwards if you think you can steer without first having a goal/destination. Why do you want me to explain how would I steer the society if you don’t even seem to agree with me on what is the root of the problem that needs to be fixed?
There’s the option of recall elections.
Historically, fascists have not been that popular. You don’t really have a point ubless you think being popular is bad.
That doesn’t really make much sense to me, it isn’t about banning private property but publicly owning and collectivizing all property. There would be no real mechanisms for aquiring private property or outcompeting the rest of society. Moreover, it isn’t a utopia, there will be problems and issues that people have to work through.
Recall elections.
It’s more efficient because you have, rather than competing individuals, a common cooperative plan and the ability to make calls from a larger view of how the economy is functioning. There’s no need for profit, either.
The thing is, the question you have been asking over and over is vague. “Fairness” means a million different things, “exploitation” means a million different things. You were never specific until this comment.
Communists speculate on what a future society may look like, but focus on the present systems and present trajectories. If part of it is wrong or impossible, then it won’t be implemented. You can only know something through practice. Utopians focus on what a perfect society should be, rather than analyzing trends and movements in society to predict the course it will take. Communism isn’t describes the way it is because that’s “ideal,” but as a prediction of what will happen as humanity develops beyond the confines of Capitalism, which cannot last forever.
How do you know you need to recall elections if the system is opaque? how do you recall elections if those who even suggest that’s needed are silenced via dirty means? How do you ensure alternatives cannot be pushed down by the ruling government? In a system where reputation is placed as the most important thing, how do you ensure that reputation is fair and the ruling party is not manipulating the information in order to mudden the opposition’s reputation and strengthen their own?
Don’t you think there are rules / safeguards that need to be placed to make sure that can work at all?
Also: do you think any of this (including the election bit) is incompatible with my proposal? why?
The objective fact is that they have had enough popularity, multiple times, to actually win elections.
So, again: is popularity PROOF of good will? … or is it (like you previosly admitted before, despite being defensive about it) only an “indication”?
Because there are all sort of things that it could be an indication of. Not just good will, it could also be an indication that censorship and social pressure of a party of powerful people that don’t act in good will does work at keeping up a good reputation for a big enough section of the population.
Does that mean that you agree with me that doing it would not fix the problem?
I feel you are just playing with words. Would you be banning “the establishment of State-driven mechanisms of acquiring private property”? or would you be actually allowing the State to put rules to allow/enforce those mechanisms?
Do I need to start saying “State-driven mechanisms for individuals to acquire private property” instead of “private ownership” from now on to satisfy the way you wanna use the term?
Yea, that was my point, it’s the problems and issues are what needs to be addressed to make it “a utopia”.
Ah, so you don’t think the separation of power is useful if there already are elections? Because that’s what point 2 was… either you are not addressing it, or you legitimately think elections make it so that separation is not useful.
Note that in my ideal state, after a private owner is destituted, I would not see a problem with calling for elections on who should be the next owner. Again, this is not something that is incompatible with “State-driven mechanisms for individuals to acquire private property”.
Yes, because it’s something that touches on morality, it is difficult to determine, just the same as how it’s difficult to determine that “good” means.
But you did not put this term into question before. It’s the first time you asked, even though you used the term as well. What do you think counts as fairness for you?
Specifically, the kind of “Fairness” you used in this comment, what did you mean there?
“Capitalism is categorized by a Mode of Production where Private Ownership and Markets are primary, Socialism is categorized by Public Ownership and planning being primary, and Communism specifically is a Mode of Production where all property has been collectivized globally, and Class therefore erased, with the State alongside it, leaving a world republic. It isn’t a “one drop” rule or about which is more common, but which is primary. Fairness is indeed not the determining characteristic.”
You said here that fairness is not the “determining characteristic” of Capitalism/Socialism/Communism. What kind of fairness were you thinking here?
In my case, what I was referring to is following rules that are designed for the benefit of the people.
In retrospect, after seeing what you meant by “primary”, I’m really wondering what did you mean, since later you told me that the State not working for the people was, for you, a determining characteristic of Capitalism… so I’m expecting you have a different definition of “fairness”, otherwise there would seem there’s a contradiction.
You did not answer the question:
“Why do you want me to explain how would I steer the society if you don’t even seem to agree with me on what is the root of the problem that needs to be fixed?”
Do focus on the present trajectory, please… you cannot set a proper trajectory if your plan leads to the wrong target.
The biggest issue with your attitude in discussion here is an absolute heap of pre-existing notions and assumptions that don’t align with reality. Like, you say “in a system where reputation is the most important thing” but that’s not evident.
Fascists have historically taken power not through elections, but through seizure of power.
Moreover, I listed many things Xi has done, like healthcare improvements and poverty reductions. You haven’t proven any of your claims that he is a secret evil dude, this is becoming silly. You’d rather not employ Occam’s Razor and instead rely on conspiracy theories.
While the CCP is seemingly under no imminent threat of popular upheaval, it cannot take the support of its people for granted. Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread, our survey reveals that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being.
Straight from a western poll.
I can’t say I agree with you, no, because I have no idea what you’re talking about. You keep vaguely gesturing and speaking of hypotheticals that are contradictory or don’t make sense to me.
There is no reason to have Private Ownership in your hypothetical “social democracy on steroids.” There is no benefit, nor a reason for the position to exist. There isn’t a Private “owner” of the USPS, and yet it functions well. I don’t know why you think you need private ownership.
When I say “fairness” isn’t a determining characteristic, I mean that it doesn’t matter from a point of definition. I don’t care about “moral justifications,” I am not trying to hand-paint an ideal society. The ones who did so in the past, the Owenites, Saint-Simone, etc all failed because such an approach has no connection to material reality.
Modes of Production have trajectories, Feudalism created the conditions for Capitalism, which creates the conditions for Socialism, which creates the conditions for Communism. There isn’t a reasonable alternative to that general path not because of morality, but because of the progression of industry and production requiring more centralization as time goes on.
Why don’t you start over from the beginning. Tell me what your approach is, what your Utopia looks like, why it’s a good thing, and why it will come to be.