Communism isn’t really when all workers get the same regardless of the work done, the difference with social democracy is in who owns the factories and buildings and machines and computers that we work with, who decides how and what work is done, and who decides the prices and the salaries.
In social democracy, people maintain the right to own capital (i.e. to privately invest their money in a business expecting a return, and to hire others through this ownership of capital). In communism, workers collectively (whether directly through coops or indirectly through the state) collectively own the factories and buildings and computers that are used to actually produce goods and services).
This doesn’t just translate to formal ownership, but to actual decision making in the workplace and to salaries. In capitalism (social democracy is a type of capitalism), a company owner will only hire someone if they can profit from it, which means they’re getting a part of the worker’s production and appropriating it for themselves, which communists call by the word “exploitation”. In communism, since the capital is owned collectively, so are the fruits of labor. This doesn’t mean everyone earns the same, it’s not the case in theory nor in practice. If workers elect a manager to direct some things at the company, the manager may make more in the form of for example increased production bonuses, or if a worker exceeds the quota, they can also very bonuses, as well as salary increases with different positions and level of training, studies and experience. As an example, a university professor in the soviet union made maybe 3 times as much as an entry level job at a supermarket. If you care about salaries per profession, Albert Szymanski’s “human rights in the soviet union” does interesting analysis of the evolution of salaries by sector in th USSR over the 50s and 60s.
Regarding innovation I have to disagree. In my opinion, innovation is mainly led by the investment in innovation that you make and how you manage the investment. Most innovation in the world for example already comes from the public sector: universities, research institutes, military, space agencies… It’s just that when some publicly researched concept gets profitable after all the research, a company will pick it up, make some improvements through investment, patent it, and live the good life of the monopoly. Then again I’m a communist and that’s my view, but looking at things like the transistor, the internet, the space sector, medicine, biology, astrophysics, material science… Most of those are advancements and disciplines either completely or overwhelmingly public funded in their inception and still today. It’s just that we experience a bias in consuming technology ultimately researched by companies because we live in a system where almost all we consume is by definition made by companies. Research and innovation can happen, in my opinion arguably better, under communism than capitalism.
Regarding the basic material needs as you mentioned: healthcare, housing, nutrition, even energy for heating and cooking, mobility with public transit, fuck, the right to work! All of those should in my humble opinion be guaranteed for everyone. Again, I could point to historical examples like the Soviet Union: housing costed 3% of the average household income on average and homelessness was entirely abolished, healthcare and education were completely free to the highest level and of excellent quality, especially for the level of development; public transit never changed prices from the 40s to the 70s, basic foods were heavily subsidised and very affordable, entertainment and sports were widely available through unions, everyone had paid vacation, the retirement age was 60 for men and 55 for women… My point with this isn’t “all hail Stalin”. My point is, if a socialist system born from the violence of tsarism and World War 2 such as the soviet union achieved all of that by 1970, what the fuck are we doing?
I could go on to talk about the problems with social democracy and imperialism in the third world, but I think this is a long enough comment. Please let me know it you find it interesting or wanna discuss anything inside
Most of those are advancements and disciplines either completely or overwhelmingly public funded in their inception and still today.
For a more modern example: all those chatbot we are hyping nowadays are based on many decades of publicly funded research. They literally did maybe the last 0.01% of the research and are cashing out big now.
But I always thought that is one of the problems of communism. The final step of getting to a desired consumer good is a thing that capitalism really excells at and communism struggles with. The DDR really struggled with that and it could be argued partially destroyed their industrial system with it. Communism excelled at optimizing products, because they didn’t need to think about “the next sell”, so stuff like almost unbrekable glasses became a thing in the DDR.
Hey, fellow communist here and Hexbear enjoyer.
Communism isn’t really when all workers get the same regardless of the work done, the difference with social democracy is in who owns the factories and buildings and machines and computers that we work with, who decides how and what work is done, and who decides the prices and the salaries.
In social democracy, people maintain the right to own capital (i.e. to privately invest their money in a business expecting a return, and to hire others through this ownership of capital). In communism, workers collectively (whether directly through coops or indirectly through the state) collectively own the factories and buildings and computers that are used to actually produce goods and services).
This doesn’t just translate to formal ownership, but to actual decision making in the workplace and to salaries. In capitalism (social democracy is a type of capitalism), a company owner will only hire someone if they can profit from it, which means they’re getting a part of the worker’s production and appropriating it for themselves, which communists call by the word “exploitation”. In communism, since the capital is owned collectively, so are the fruits of labor. This doesn’t mean everyone earns the same, it’s not the case in theory nor in practice. If workers elect a manager to direct some things at the company, the manager may make more in the form of for example increased production bonuses, or if a worker exceeds the quota, they can also very bonuses, as well as salary increases with different positions and level of training, studies and experience. As an example, a university professor in the soviet union made maybe 3 times as much as an entry level job at a supermarket. If you care about salaries per profession, Albert Szymanski’s “human rights in the soviet union” does interesting analysis of the evolution of salaries by sector in th USSR over the 50s and 60s.
Regarding innovation I have to disagree. In my opinion, innovation is mainly led by the investment in innovation that you make and how you manage the investment. Most innovation in the world for example already comes from the public sector: universities, research institutes, military, space agencies… It’s just that when some publicly researched concept gets profitable after all the research, a company will pick it up, make some improvements through investment, patent it, and live the good life of the monopoly. Then again I’m a communist and that’s my view, but looking at things like the transistor, the internet, the space sector, medicine, biology, astrophysics, material science… Most of those are advancements and disciplines either completely or overwhelmingly public funded in their inception and still today. It’s just that we experience a bias in consuming technology ultimately researched by companies because we live in a system where almost all we consume is by definition made by companies. Research and innovation can happen, in my opinion arguably better, under communism than capitalism.
Regarding the basic material needs as you mentioned: healthcare, housing, nutrition, even energy for heating and cooking, mobility with public transit, fuck, the right to work! All of those should in my humble opinion be guaranteed for everyone. Again, I could point to historical examples like the Soviet Union: housing costed 3% of the average household income on average and homelessness was entirely abolished, healthcare and education were completely free to the highest level and of excellent quality, especially for the level of development; public transit never changed prices from the 40s to the 70s, basic foods were heavily subsidised and very affordable, entertainment and sports were widely available through unions, everyone had paid vacation, the retirement age was 60 for men and 55 for women… My point with this isn’t “all hail Stalin”. My point is, if a socialist system born from the violence of tsarism and World War 2 such as the soviet union achieved all of that by 1970, what the fuck are we doing?
I could go on to talk about the problems with social democracy and imperialism in the third world, but I think this is a long enough comment. Please let me know it you find it interesting or wanna discuss anything inside
For a more modern example: all those chatbot we are hyping nowadays are based on many decades of publicly funded research. They literally did maybe the last 0.01% of the research and are cashing out big now.
But I always thought that is one of the problems of communism. The final step of getting to a desired consumer good is a thing that capitalism really excells at and communism struggles with. The DDR really struggled with that and it could be argued partially destroyed their industrial system with it. Communism excelled at optimizing products, because they didn’t need to think about “the next sell”, so stuff like almost unbrekable glasses became a thing in the DDR.