ou can say all you want that they shouldn't get paid more than a school teacher or janitor, but people are still going to go sell out concerts and watch movies — Marchesk

These two things are not the same.

I wonder how some of those wage slaves feel about not being able to go to work. — Marchesk

Pretty bloody good, by all accounts. And to drill it into you again: the point is not to get rid of work. It is to ensure fairly compensated work.

Pretty bloody good, by all accounts. And to drill it into you again: the point is not to get rid of work. It is to ensure fairly compensated work. — StreetlightX

"But who decides and how do they decide what fair compensation is? I mean I agree the differentials in compensation present today in no way are fair; nor are they really necessary to reward industry and innovation. People would work harder for much less of a differential.

But who decides and how do they decide what fair compensation is? — prothero

Ideally, anyone with a stake in how things are run. This means workers, employers, and even the surrounding society and community for whom the work impacts upon - and ideally enriches (and not just in a monetary way). I don't have any easy answers as to the mechanisms by which such principles might be incarnated. It's even possible and likely that the market will still play a role in some manner (markets, after all, are not capitalist: they existed long before capitalism, and will probably exist long after it. The problem with capitalism is the political elevation of a very specific configuration of the market as being the sole arbiter of value).

StreetlightX
5.3k
But who decides and how do they decide what fair compensation is?
— prothero

Ideally, anyone with a stake in how things are run. This means workers, employers, and even the surrounding society and community for whom the work impacts upon - and ideally enriches (and not just in a monetary way). I don't have any easy answers as to the mechanisms by which such principles might be incarnated. It's even possible and likely that the market will still play a role in some manner (markets, after all, are not capitalist: they existed long before capitalism, and will probably exist long after it. The problem with capitalism is the political elevation of a very specific configuration of the market as being the sole arbiter of value). — StreetlightX

The first thing that must go (and probably the first thing that WILL go) is the notion that everyone has to earn their living...earn their food, clothing, shelter, education, communication, reasonable means of travel, reasonable amount of entertainment..

We should be more interested in insuring that everyone have those things without requiring that they work for it, because MANY people are so counterproductive, eliminating them from the productivity process will increase the availability of all those things, thus easier for them to be provided.

That's your value judgement. Millions of sports fans disagree. I wonder if you feel the same way about music. — Marchesk

I saw this in the Daily Mirror the other day: Hooligans STARVING after season tickets CANCELLED.

I didn't really see it. But it's the kind of thing they'd write.

That all said, I'm all in favour of superfluity and excess - only one that is not propped up by socio-economic domination and the entrenchment of structural inequality:

"We hereby reject any form of self-imposed austerity. We posit that we want nice shit for everybody and that is not only feasible but desirable. We will not put forth graphs announcing how much work (or not) will require such a project but will state that such a project is part of our desire for communism. We hereby reject all forms of feigned punk slobbiness, neo-hippie shabby chic, or pajamas in the outdoors. We see the stores of the bourgeois parts of town (& the newly-gentrified ones too) and say that we want that shit and even more. Capitalism is that which stands in the way of us having the shit we want with its hoarding of commodities only to sell them to highest bidder.

We’ve been told to live with less and less by not only Green Capital, but by the Church, by our liberal “friends,” and even by fellow comrades. Fuck that shit. Nah; if we’re going to be putting our shit out on the line it’s definitely not going to be so that I can live simply.

...“I want to shed myself of my first world privilege and not live confined by how capitalism wants me to.” If only it were so simple. We’ve actually read this sentence (though its intent we’ve seen many, many times). This is pure reactionary thought. To run and do the opposite just because capitalism displays certain social features does not make one an anticapitalist. It makes you a petit-bourgeois bohemian. We all want to not pay rent, or pay for food, or have to work so many hours of our lives but there is no outside of capitalism. Asceticism is not revolutionary. Even those nodes of autonomy scattered around the globe, like among the Zapatistas, or Marinaleda, Spain still have to contend with the fact that Capital has them surrounded."

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/l-a-onda-hostis-nice-shit-for-everybody

Say I decide to start a business. I purchase the land, have the building constructed, and buy the equipment. — Marchesk

You've started in the middle. From where did you get the capital to purchase the land, building materials and equipment? By what right did the person selling them to you own them?

Structural decisions determine who owns what, so to start with you owning capital (or land) assumes a certain structure - one, for example where male children inherit, where property is owned by the first person to till it (or steal it by force of arms), where shared assets can be exploited without compensation (such as air and water), where exploitation (such as slavery) is not compensated even when later recognised as such. These are all capitalist structural aspects by which you acquired the capital in the first place. That's why some, at least fundamentally, revolutionary act is required to remove these structures and their effects.

We see the stores of the bourgeois parts of town (& the newly-gentrified ones too) and say that we want that shit and even more — StreetlightX

I don't think I agree with this. One of the ways capitalist businesses distort the market is by deluge advertising and flooding the media. Nike don't secure a high profit on their trainers because people all rationally decided that's what they wanted. If that were the case advertising need do no more than simply infrequently display the qualities of the product. But they don't, they saturate the media with messages designed carefully to generate demand (I know there are a few studies indicating that advertising doesn't work so I'm not declaring this as gospel or anything).

As such we're left with two options of the author. Either they're claiming an, as yet, undeserved ability to remain unaffected by the influences us lesser mortals succumb to (such that their own desire for material goods is independent of their capitalist culture), or they're claiming that such market distortion doesn't take place (or is insignificant) and Nike trainers sell so well purely because they really have tapped into some primal desire for a particular style of footwear. I don't buy either.

If removing the structures of capitalism is essential (and I think it is) then we have to at least acknowledge that huge sections of our culture have been defined by the dominance of capitalist institutions over the media. We could 'take ownership' of such cultural elements and go from there, but I don't see any compelling reason why we should.

These are all capitalist structural aspects by which you acquired the capital in the first place. That's why some, at least fundamentally, revolutionary act is required to remove these structures and their effects. — Isaac

There is where the question of force comes in for a Marxist revolution. You can't abolish the capitalist system without having people give up all their capital. Unless you plan a generational thing where there is a gradual redistribution through heavier taxes, outlawing inheritance and what not.

Assuming the generational approach can work, given that the capitalists will have time to influence the system back in favor of owning capital.

We’ve been told to live with less and less by not only Green Capital, but by the Church, by our liberal “friends,” and even by fellow comrades. Fuck that shit. Nah; if we’re going to be putting our shit out on the line it’s definitely not going to be so that I can live simply. — StreetlightX

I agree with this sentiment. If you're going to create the Marxist "utopia", then aim for one that offers the same perks as the capitalist one. The majority of us don't want to go back to lifestyle of peasants or monks. That's not a good selling point.

Do revolutions start at the beginning? Because as it stands, we're already in the middle, with people owning lots of various things and having different amounts of wealth. How would you change that? — Marchesk

That's the point of revolution (by which I mean a radical structural change, not necessarily 'up against the wall' red tides). It is because we are 'in the middle' that we cannot simply tweak things here and there. If, for example, current patterns of property ownership are simply accepted then existing power relationships will never change.

This is where the question of force comes in for a Marxist revolution, because you can't start over at the beginning without making everyone give up their possessions. — Marchesk

I think @StreetlightX dealt with this perfectly well so I'm not going to repeat the whole thing. Force is being used to maintain ownership of possessions as they are. If I set up camp in a corner of your estate the police would force me off. And as @fdrake has already said, force need not be bloody. Just increasing top-level taxation forces people to give up their possessions. No guillotines needed.

Would the revolution be a generation thing where the restructuring of society is to ban inheritance? I'm not sure that's enough, because in the meantime you still have tons of capital at play — Marchesk

Probably not enough on its own no, but I'm broadly in favour of 100% inheritance tax (above a reasonable threshold). I think it would be a start.

FYI: I updated my reply before you finished typing your post, but you replied to the points I was making. Bad habit of mine.

The problem with many of the communist revolutions is that the communist party replaces the capitalists, because that's seen as a necessary step to force society to restructure. But you end up with an authoritarian government, a command economy, and those in the party being more equal than everyone else.

Force is being used to maintain ownership of possessions as they are. If I set up camp in a corner of your estate the police would force me off. — Isaac

Which I would say is a good thing in general, because people want to own their own shit. It's bad when there's an excess of wealth and poverty. So I don't really need that corner of the estate, and thus raise my taxes to provide the poor family nearby more of a means to escape poverty or a better place to live.

What's not good is deciding I should have no estate, because it all belongs to the community. If you want to wreck an economy, that's a good way to go about it.

Which I would say is a good thing in general, because people want to own their own shit. — Marchesk

If modern hunter-gatherer communities are anything measure of how we used to live (which is, of course uncertain) then for the vast majority of human history we did not particularly "want to own our shit". Again, as I said in my earlier post, capitalist institutions have dominated influence over our culture for hundreds of years. Either you'd have to argue that such influence has no effect whatsoever (which would be quite a radical argument) or you have to acknowledge that "what people want" is not a fixed factor and is to a greater or lesser extent, determined by the the very institutions who benefit from those desires.

What's not good is deciding I should have no estate, because it all belongs to the community. If you want to wreck an economy, that's a good way to go about it. — Marchesk

You'll have to spell that out. I'm not an economist but I don't think it would wreck the economy, and I'm pretty sure at least a few people who are economists agree, so apart from saying "no it won't" I don't have much to argue against unless you detail the way in which declaring property to be owned by the community would bring about this economic disaster.

An interesting take - not without it's problems - from a comrade:

All the discourse about small-time landlords reminds me of something I think a lot about small businesses, which is that most of the time when you hear "oh but if you did [good leftist thing] what about small businesses?" it's a good argument for why the left shouldn't particularly want many small businesses. Like, if a business is too small to pay minimum wage / endure burdensome regulation / offer family leave then maybe we want it to be replaced by a bigger business that can offer those things. Likewise, when people are like "oh well some landlords are so small-scale they'll go bankrupt if they miss one month's rent"--okay well, is there some kind of social interest in having rental units be owned by a business that's probably too undercapitalized to replace a boiler in an emergency? Should we avoid attempting policies we otherwise think would be socially desirable to keep that landlord afloat? Maybe they should sell their buildings to someone who can operate at scale.

Leftists spend a lot more time railing against big business than small business because big business runs the world, but from the perspective of a worker or tenant big business is easier to regulate, easier to organize, better able to concede to demands, etc. and all else equal it's often preferable from a worker or tenant perspective.

@Issac I owe u a reply but it'll have to wait till tomorrow. Need sleep.

If modern hunter-gatherer communities are anything measure of how we used to live (which is, of course uncertain) then for the vast majority of human history we did not particularly "want to own our shit". — Isaac

I think it was more of what worked as a survival strategy for hunter-gatherers. Either way, I don't think using hunter-gatherers as a guide for of a high tech economy in a world of 7.8 billion people and global trade is very useful.

unless you detail the way in which declaring property to be owned by the community would bring about this economic disaster. — Isaac

The argument would be is that it destroys incentive. But I was more thinking about the short term chaos of declaring all property public. A lot of people will not be in favor of that, for starters. And then you'd have arguments over how to fairly divide everything up, and what happens to all the former capitalists. And you'd have the poorer people who think it's their turn to own shit instead of sharing the wealth.

In my view those tiny landlords who can’t afford to miss a month of rent (because they’re still paying a mortgage) and tiny businesses and so on are in many ways still in the underclass harmed by capitalism, they’re just trying to claw their way into the overclass instead. That doesn’t excuse any abuse of their tiny power that they so use, but I think a good strategy is to recognize those kinds of people as more aligned (whether they know it or not) with the workers than with the true capitalists, and emphasize strategies that will benefit them as well as their employees and tenants. (While not undermining the eventual goal of having people own their own homes and businesses. On which note: small investors just trying to save for retirement or for a down payment on a house also fall into this category of “bourgeoisie so petit they’re basically proles”).

While not undermining the eventual goal of having people own their own homes and businesses. On which note: small investors just trying to save for retirement or for a down payment on a house also fall into this category of “bourgeoisie so petit they’re basically proles”) — Pfhorrest

Question: are socialists for private property in general as long as it isn't being used for capital to exploit workers?

It depends of the variety of socialism. Most of them will distinguish between “private property” and “personal property”, where “private property” is the bad kind (privately owned means of production etc) and “personal property” is fine (stuff like your toothbrush). I’ve always found the technical distinction between them rather nebulous, but I gather it’s supposed to mean that things belong to whoever uses them for so long as they use them, not in perpetuity until transferred. I also find that too fuzzy a line though: if I leave my house, how long until it’s been disused long enough that it stops being mine? A day? A week? A month? A year?

So I prefer to not make that distinction, and to instead focus on making it in people’s interests not to buy more than they’re going to need for their own use, and to sell off excess that they’re not using. Achieving the same ends — people only own the things they use — without any of those procedural problems. I think getting rid of rent (and interest) would accomplish that.

I think it was more of what worked as a survival strategy for hunter-gatherers. Either way, I don't think using hunter-gatherers as a guide for of a high tech economy in a world of 7.8 billion people and global trade is very useful. — Marchesk

I wasn't suggesting it as a guide, merely pointing out that the idea of humans "just being" some way or other is wrong. We are mostly whatever our culture makes us, change the culture, you change who we are.

But I was more thinking about the short term chaos of declaring all property public. — Marchesk

I don't think it need be chaotic, we have infrastructure which can handle complex multinational trade, armed conflicts, domestic security... Why would economic transition suddenly be irredeemably chaotic, it's not significantly more complex than other aspects of government.

A lot of people will not be in favor of that, for starters. — Marchesk

As per above. I don't think there's a lot of evidence for the idea that humanity as a whole are 'into' any set thing. People are 'into' property ownership at the moment because we have a culture which marks it as a symbol of status (among other factors). If we change that culture there's no theoretical reason why people would not be in favour. There'll always be dissent, but there's dissent now, domestic security handles it perfectly adequately.

you'd have arguments over how to fairly divide everything up, and what happens to all the former capitalists. And you'd have the poorer people who think it's their turn to own shit instead of sharing the wealth. — Marchesk

Again, how are these not issues society already deals with. We already have disagreements about how resources should be allocated, we vote or reach consensus on it. We already have people who think they should own what's not legally theirs, they're called theives and the police deal with them (sort of). None of this is more challenging than what we already deal with, we're hardly living in utopia.

As per above. I don't think there's a lot of evidence for the idea that humanity as a whole are 'into' any set thing. People are 'into' property ownership at the moment — Isaac

By "at the moment", you mean the history of civilization?

We are mostly whatever our culture makes us, change the culture, you change who we are. — Isaac

We're not ants, as someone once said regarding socialism.

If we change that culture there's no theoretical reason why people would not be in favour. — Isaac

Good luck with that. I can see Northern Europe style socialism/capitalism. I can't see the full blown thing becoming mainstream in places like the US.

By "at the moment", you mean the history of civilization? — Marchesk

Not entirely what I meant, but even so it would be a fraction of human history.

We're not ants, as someone once said regarding socialism. — Marchesk

Well, I'd be interested to discuss what empirical support you'd be using for any argument that our desires are not heavily influenced by our culture.

Good luck with that. I can see Northern Europe style socialism/capitalism. I can't see the full blown thing becoming mainstream in places like the US. — Marchesk

They said the same about democratic parliaments, abolishing slavery, religious freedom, emancipation of women... Basically every major societal change has been preceded by a chorus of "that'll never work, society will crumble/rebel/regress" from the conservative old guard. What makes you think community ownership is any different?

What makes you think community ownership is any different? — Isaac

The 20th century. Communism has been tried.

Communism has been tried. — Marchesk

I wasn't talking about Communism, but yes, it's been tried. So's capitalism. Rising inequality, unprecedented suicide rates and it looks like we might very well make the world uninhabitable in the next 100 years...so where does that leave us?

Worth reading all the way through:

"Cutting through the culture war was Sanders’s gift. Unfortunately, since his exit from the race it has come roaring back with even greater stupidity: liberal lockdowners versus freedom fighters in open-up USA; faux outrage at Nancy Pelosi calling Trump obese; China-virus versus COVID-19. The only thing all of these fights have in common is that none of them deal with socialist politics, none of them advocate for a particular policy or social reform that would help regulate our economy in working people’s interests, none of them help organize the have-nots together by virtue of their shared economic interest against the haves. In fact, all of them succeed in burying any analysis of political economy beneath an avalanche of cultural commentary."

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/05/we-need-a-class-war-not-a-cultural-war

I agree with that quote, however, the article by Nagle and Tracey is far more persuasive in explaining how much of a failure the Bernie campaign was. Right after Trump won the election, I was sure Bernie would come back as unstoppable in the 2020 race. But I didn't forsee just how much the political landscape would change in 3 years and now with Covid-19 in the picture. Democratic voters simply wanted a return to a "normalcy" that was comfortable under Obama, and Biden by association is the perfect pick. They want an end to the daily chaos. All of the loud online Bernie supporters represent such a small percentage of the electorate.

We’ve been told to live with less and less by not only Green Capital, but by the Church, by our liberal “friends,” and even by fellow comrades. Fuck that shit. Nah; if we’re going to be putting our shit out on the line it’s definitely not going to be so that I can live simply.
— StreetlightX

I agree with this sentiment. If you're going to create the Marxist "utopia", then aim for one that offers the same perks as the capitalist one. The majority of us don't want to go back to lifestyle of peasants or monks. That's not a good selling point. — Marchesk

Along the lines of what Isaac may have been suggesting, the capitalist imperative of economic growth is baked into our culture, is baked into us, and it is simply unsustainable. Also, a cultural shift is possible whereby the meaning of ‘well-being’ is more eudaemonic than economic.

Given the apparent lack of real well-being in our capitalist world, true well-being should be an attractive selling point.

Along the lines of what Isaac may have been suggesting, the capitalist imperative of economic growth is baked into our culture, is baked into us, and it is simply unsustainable. Also, a cultural shift is possible whereby the meaning of ‘well-being’ is more eudaemonic than economic. — praxis

Claims of unsustainability have been made since Malthus, but so far technological progress has outstripped worries about carrying capacity, energy and resource shortages. And there's more to come with AI , nanotech, biotech, 3D printing, ubiquitous bandwidth and progress in fusion.

In the long run, we have a giant ball of nuclear energy in our sky, and the rest of the solar system for resources. We just need to make it through this century.

Here's a counter question. How do you know that tapping the brakes on economic growth doesn't halt progress in fields needed to address climate change, pollution or feeding 10 billion people by 2050?