Reply To: Someone else has a go at refuting socialism

“The closest society to true socialism then was the ancient San of the Kalahari. There was no private ownership for example of say an ostrich egg or anything else. One took what one needed ( a gazelle) without over consuming. If one needed something you crafted it, for example a bow and arrow, which then was shared when others needed it. So it can and did work for 10 000 years or more with small clans of 10 or 20 people. What it lacks is progress though. And it could never work with 60 million people.”

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Well, clearly, Ivo cannot then use the argument that socialism is “against human nature” because if hunter-gatherer groups like the San are representative of our paleolithic past – that is to say, over 95% of our existence – then you could argue that if anything socialism is the expression of our human nature, far more so than say capitalism which is only a few hundred years old. Except, of course, we don’t really say “socialism is just human nature” like the exponents of “capitalism say is in our human nature”. What we do say is that our human nature shows us to be a highly adaptable species capable of living under a wide variety of social arrangements including capitalism and socialism and much more besides…

Which begs the question – why then does Ivo say socialism cannot work for 60 million people?

This refers to what is called the “scaling up” problem. Socialistic or communistic relations are feasible on a small scale characterized by face-to-face interactions – like the family unit or a commune – but not, goes the argument, on a large scale among complete strangers. I have never really understood what it is about the fact that socialism is a large-scale society that makes it impractical. What are the people who make this kind of argument actually assuming about socialism? Are they saying for socialism to work relations between members of a socialist society have to be face to face – or direct – otherwise society will simply collapse? But the argument doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.

People who argue along these lines fall back on concepts such as Dunbar’s number named after the British anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, who are argued that there cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships – about 150. Beyond that, you need more impersonal mechanisms – like the market – to mediate and coordinate large numbers of people.

Granted a socialist society, being a global society, will be one in which everyone in that society will be technically a “stranger” to almost everyone else. But why is this a problem? I don’t see this as being a problem at all. If we can characterize a socialist society as a system of generalized reciprocity without any quid pro exchanges then are plenty of examples of large-scale pro-social behaviour involving strangers.

The Internet itself has been compared to a gift economy. There are other examples such as the custom of hospitality towards strangers such as practiced by people living in harsh environments like the Bedouin or the Inuit. This is not entirely altruistic. There is an element of enlightened self-interest involved insofar as you never know when you might have to rely on the hospitality of strangers next time you find yourself stuck in a desert running out of water. You will thank your lucky stars that the local culture is one that values hospitality towards strangers.

It does not really matter whether the population is 6 million, 60 million, 600 million, or 6 billion. It’s the principle that counts. Are you willing to in effect cooperate with complete strangers you will never get to meet to provide for your and their means of subsistence? Of course, you will. Gawd, if people today succumbing to the mental disease of nationalism are willing to give their lives for the “imaginary community” that is the capitalist Nation State, they sure as hell won’t have any problem cooperating with each other globally to sure their own mutual benefit!