And if you want to shoot workers for striking or whatever, and you think that the problem with this scenario are workers, then so be it, I've nothing to say to you. — StreetlightX

I didn't say anything about shooting striking workers. I said defending my property in the hypothetical scenario if the community organizes to come take it for the common good, like has happened during certain Marxist revolutions in the past.

Point being what to do about those who don't agree with the way a community wishes to reorganize for the common good? Force them to go a long?

I see Mondragon and collectives brought up in conversation about socialism all the time, so I assumed that you were holding them up as exemplars. My apologies.

In some respects they are exemplars of cooperative ownership. But their existence is fully consistent with the usual hierarchical mode of organising a business, obv. There's nothing ensuring that all businesses empower their workers that way.

In practice, though, I think we all understand what is meant, and what lies at the end of the road. I'd prefer if people just specify who they want to tax, kill, etc., instead of doing the whole "X is actually not X" thing.

I'd prefer if people just specify who they want to tax, kill, etc., instead of doing the whole "X is actually not X" thing. — Snakes Alive

This is an excellent way to hedge your position and avoid thinking. It seems you've already decided that a socialist worker's movement ends in gulags and firing lines. Even though it was a socialist worker's movement that facilitated FDR's reforms that oversaw the longest period of the growth of people's livelihoods ever. With no gulags, no firing lines, just a heavily unionised and politically involved working class using their collective bargaining power.

The problem here is what to do with the people who don't agree.

That’s an important question. The most common practices as far as I can tell are gulag, re-education, murder and genocide. The threat of these punishments looming over the people’s heads leads to a life like what Ceszlaw Milosz described in The Captive Mind, where a premium is placed on every type of conformist, coward, and hireling. But these are questions champagne socialists refuse to face.

This is an excellent way to hedge your position and avoid thinking. — fdrake

Ah. It seems we cannot even think without doublespeak.

I take it StreetlightX is not found of such options and is not in favor of utilizing the power of the state if it can be avoided. The question I'm raising though is how does freedom fall out of community arrangement when there are going to be people who disagree with those arrangements? The communist party answer has been to use the power of the state to force them. That's not a good choice for anarchists.

But still, the problem remains concerning what to do with those who don't agree? If the capitalist system is to be dismantled, then how do you get people to give up their capital in favor of a better arrangement? Not everyone is going to be willing to go along.

Ah. It seems we cannot even think without doublespeak. — Snakes Alive

It was an invitation, I'd've hoped you'd responded to the substantive bit rather than playing the "I'm not playing that game but really I'm still playing that game" game.

If your position forces you to accuse people of not thinking unless you accept some intuitively absurd proposition like 'actually, the enforcement of power is what is necessary for freedom,' stop and have a think about the coherency or good faith of your commitments.

Freedom is freedom for those who think differently, to quote a socialist. Unless 100% of the community is in agreement, some sort of injustice or coercion has to occur in order to meet the wants and desires of socialist power. This internal contradiction seems to me why socialist plans always collapse.

You asked why it would be bad not to have a profit motive...money can be seen as a way to store wants, in such a view the will to profit is no different to any other desire.

I already gave you this:

I don't think it's too obscure to think of power and freedom as interlinked.

You can only do a thing if you have the ability to do so. It can be more or less hard to do a thing, given the societal circumstances you find yourself in, and which you do not choose. Someone raised in a palace is going to find themselves having more opportunities than some kid thrown out on the street. Someone born in a country where criticising the state will land you in the gulag is going to have less ability to express their political opinions. Someone born without the ability to walk will have less mobility in a society where wheelchairs are not available. Someone born into poverty will have to choose crime to get by more often than someone raised in a palace. Someone born into a rich household with massive social opportunities, like David Cameron, will find themselves in positions of power with much less work; their choices are linked to levers of opportunity just not available for the hoi polloi.

A political idea of freedom that doesn't link to one's ability to exercise choice; regarding what actions they may choose, what effects their actions are likely to have; is one that sees freedom as irrelevant to the likely effects of a person's actions and opportunities. If you are more powerful, your abilities make more waves.

A homeless guy excluded from most opportunities because they can't get a job, so money stops them from doing anything; that guy's powerless. A society that makes that situation likely for some and not for others is one with big power asymmetries; big asymmetries in what people can choose. — fdrake

TLDR; freedom is in part freedom to exercise one's powers, and freedom from preventable sufferings that limit them. If powers are denied people by structural stuff, they would become more free by gaining those. You know, like being able to vote on more stuff, or being able to rely on a healthcare system and education system.

You already chose to respond with a one liner conjuring the fears of gulags and firing lines, then you responded to my frustrated remark that accompanied another substantive post with another one line dismissal (saying that I'm practicing doublethink), now you're saying I'm not engaging in good faith.

Two one line dismissals based off hackneyed crap, another one line dismissal that I'm a dupe, in response to the above and another substantive point. And you've got the nerve to accuse me of engaging in bad faith?

It seems that socialists are obsessed by money, to them it all comes down to money and how unfair it is that some have more than others...whereas people like me really don't give a fuck if others have more than me.

This summed it up well on Elon Musk's site...

Freedom is freedom for those who think differently, to quote a socialist. Unless 100% of the community is in agreement, some sort of injustice or coercion has to occur in order to meet the wants and desires of socialist power. This internal contradiction seems to me why socialist plans always collapse. — NOS4A2

I hope socialists don't believe anything like that, but I worry that is the outcome, at least for the sort of Marxist revolutions we've seen. Theres is no such thing as 100% agreement, even among socialists. There are always people in the community who disagree. Either we respect their rights or we coerce them. Problem is that some communities don't value the right to disagree. Religious groups have certainly had this issue in the past.

I hope socialists don't believe anything like that, but I worry that is the outcome, at least for the sort of Marxist revolutions we've seen. Theres is no such thing as 100% agreement, even among socialists. There are always people in the community who disagree. Either we respect their rights or we coerce them. Problem is that some communities don't value the right to disagree. Religious groups have certainly had this issue in the past. — Marchesk

Is it so difficult to imagine that in a burgeoning organised working class, when they have political institutions and alliances, that they will be able to argue with eachother and come to compromises? And that they will be able to argue with capitalists and come to compromises? I mean, it doesn't always end in gulags. FDR was not the "gulags and firing lines" president, even though he was strongly supported by and strongly supported worker organisation involving outright socialists and communists.

It's not difficult to believe in a country that already has a constitution protecting rights. Are we arguing over lower case socialism which reasonable compromises to soften the excesses and abuses of capitalism, or the full-on upper case socialism that sees capitalism as inherently bad and wishes to demolish it?

Collective bargaining, I think, has superseded socialism. It can meet the needs of workers without having to violently overthrow this or that “class” (fellow citizens) and seize mob rule.

I hope socialists don't believe anything like that, but I worry that is the outcome.

I’m a little more cynical. Why else would they pooh-pooh freedom unless they were justifying denying it to others, or admitting that they were by nature obedient?

I have always thought one of the reasons socialism (particularly in the communist form) fails is because it denies the true, competitive, acquisitive nature of humans. Systems which substitute ideals for actualities are destined to fail (a problem with progressive liberalism as well). If there is no true reward for industry, innovation and hard work other than the "betterment of society" the result is predictable.

Regulated Capitalism with Democratic Socialism would seem a good compromise.
I don't think the huge differentials in privilege and income we now see in U.S society now are necessary to have an efficient functioning society. Most would work as hard to make a million dollars a year as to make 100 million. At that level it is not the money really it is a competition about "relative worth" a "comparison to my neighbor".

I have always thought one of the reasons socialism (particularly in the communist form) fails is because it denies the true, competitive, acquisitive nature of humans. — prothero

Funny, because around 90% of human history was cooperative hunter-gatherer societies, so I wonder what nature we are actually denying.

Systems which substitute ideals for actualities are destined to fail (a problem with progressive liberalism as well). If there is no true reward for industry, innovation and hard work other than the "betterment of society" the result is predictable. — prothero

The true reward for industry, innovation, and hard work is becoming clearer by the day. :death:

...money can be seen as a way to store wants, in such a view the will to profit is no different to any other desire. — Chester

Money facilitates trade, fundamentally, and says nothing of wants. Beyond the basics, our culture largly trains our wants. We don't have to want what we're trained to want.

Money facilitates trade, fundamentally, and says nothing of wants. Beyond the basics, our culture largly trains our wants. We don't have to want what we're trained to want. — praxis

But people have been trading for wants, like silk and spices, as long as groups lived near enough each other to exchange goods, or travel to other lands was possible. It's true we don't have to want what we're being advertised, but we do still want more than just the minimum to survive.

Collective bargaining, I think, has superseded socialism. It can meet the needs of workers without having to violently overthrow this or that “class” (fellow citizens) and seize mob rule. — NOS4A2

How much collective bargaining from workers can do is in a reciprocal relationship with the relative power of capital and labour.

I think the relative power of labour and capital largely comes down to how steep the costs labour can practically impose through collective action are. It's in the interest of every employer to lessen what costs employees can impose; so you want big reserves of workers to hire from, and make it easy to fire people for organizing. Or in business speak; you want talent acquisition to have a big pool to scout and you want lean and responsive command chains.

The degree to which a society's politics will reflect its working class's interests scales with how much the working class can leverage their positions and what they value. If returns on capital investment dwarf returns on labour; and that's generally a thing; wealth concentrates. Wealth buys influence, wealth lets you do landscaping in the terrain of ideas, wealth gets to decide what is common sense and what is ideological blinker. Economic power and political influence tend to consolidate under state capitalism; and the two are essentially equivalent under hypothetical stateless capitalism.

So I see socialism as something like a point of no return in the trajectory of the political power (read: self determination) of the working class. Up until it's reached, the counterveiling tendencies of capital's self consolidating power will undermine worker's efforts to organize; either structurally through economic mechanisms, softly through media and education, or with outright warfare like installing preferred dictators and selectively neutering or subjugating leftist political agents or groups (even when they've got mainstream support). Capitalism places pretty steep costs on worker's organisation whenever it can and however it can get away with.

Funny, because around 90% of human history was cooperative hunter-gatherer societies, so I wonder what nature we are actually denying. — praxis

Ah, the "myth of the noble savage" was not the kind of pastoral peace and cooperation you envisage, I think. There was plenty of trouble within groups and between groups just not the kind of weaponry and resources found in modern times. IMHO

In any case, Chibber seems to be advocating the formation of working class “tribes” to organize (unionize, i.g.) and exert their collective power to essentially better compete for resources. This seems to be inline with your vision of human nature.

This summed it up well on Elon Musk's site... — Chester

Marx never suggested anything like this and Elon never read Marx because he's not intelligent.

Anyway, good posts and thread @StreetlightX, will have to check out the Jacobin videos. By the way was there a specific work you recommend that delves into Marx's concept of freedom?

I didn't say anything about shooting striking workers. I said defending my property in the hypothetical scenario if the community organizes to come take it for the common good, like has happened during certain Marxist revolutions in the past. — Marchesk

Say you own a factory under the current regime. Then a revolution happens and the law says you don't anymore, that whoever works there owns it now. The law continues to make it illegal for people to shoot people and take their property.

So the morning that law goes into effect, the workers of the factory come in to work as usual, then have some meetings about how to divide up the proceeds of their labor in the factory, now that they're in charge of that, not you. You "fire" them for plotting to "steal" from you, and tell them to get out, but nobody complies. So you call the police, as you usually would, to have them stop the employees from stealing your profits, but they say sorry, they can't help you, the factory belongs to the people who work there, they can divvy up the profits however they like. So you... come in with a gun, and tell them to give you the money they owe you or get the fuck out?

Who is "coming to take" anything from anyone in this scenario?

Who is "coming to take" anything from anyone in this scenario? — Pfhorrest

That scenario works. Other scenarios might require force, like collectivizing family farms. It has in the past. But going back to the factory. What if the factory owner hires a bunch of goons to guard the factory before the workers come in the next day to take ownership? Now the state has to step in and apply force.

Not everyone is gong to just hand their property over. Not everyone wants to join the revolution. They're fine being wage slaves at the factory. They don't even want to be in a union. So what to do with them? Force them to be good comrades?

What if the factory owner hires a bunch of goons to guard the factory before the workers come in the next day to take ownership? Now the state has to step in and apply force. — Marchesk

Only to stop the goons from committing assault.