What is Socialism?

[TheSpanishInquisition]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Secondly, all the people will co-operate to produce and distribute all the goods and services which are needed by mankind, each person willingly and freely, taking part in the way he or she feels they can do best.

And this is why it will never work, because there are many people who will never willingly do work they don't enjoy doing; and let's face it: who realistically enjoys running an intensive farm?

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Thirdly, all goods and services will be produced for use only, and having been produced, will be distributed, free, directly to the people so that each person’s needs are fully satisfied.

See above for why this would never make a good society – no one is going to vote for a world in which they have no enjoyment. Enjoyment is a desire, not a need, so in a socialist world it would not be catered for and come entirely from playing victorian-era games with sticks you find on the forest floor, or perhaps board games you found in your grandmother's attic. 

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 The belief that without money nothing can work is flawed. The truth is that production is carried out by people not money. Problems are solved by human beings, not money.

Production is carried out by humans, yes, but money is what makes humans willing to work production lines. Remove money, and all you've got is a hundred people going home and reading a book. 

[Chadwick]

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

Production is carried out by humans, yes, but money is what makes humans willing to work production lines. Remove money, and all you've got is a hundred people going home and reading a book. 

Can you really not see other possible ways of encouraging people to work? Even now, think about your work place. People feel very strongly that they do not want to let the side down. When the clock hits 5, sure, some people bolt for the door, but for the most part it's apologetically. Those who gleefully leave their colleagues hard at work get talked about. There is no reason why, if for example it is recommended that the average working week consist of at least 30 hours in order to meet a decent standard of life for all, any significant proportion of the workforce should shirk their duty to society. Should such a proportion exist and as a result the average working week rose to 35 hours, think how much stronger still those looking to shirk their duties would feel they are being anti-social. Note that it doesn't require a police force to encourage people to conform to acceptable behaviour, the way in which drink-driving is regarded in British society is testament to that.So what happens if nobody volunteers for dustbin collection? Perhaps if, in recognition of the unpleasant nature of the work that such workers were only asked to work 15 hours per week instead of 30 we might get more volunteers. Or perhaps they get their sports car and retirement 5 years earlier. These are just suggestions. Other possible solutions exist.

[Chadwick]

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

It was said earlier that overpopulation was a good thing because it means more hands; but more hands need more space to work in and the only place to put that extra space is where the rainforests and other protected environments currently are. Doesn't sound great for the environment to me. 

What we argue for is a democratically run economy, run therefore to benefit humanity. The problem of over-population, if we all agree it exists, is one we would need to resolve through democratic discussion. What one person suggests now on some internet forum somewhere is neither here nor there. Not to say, mind you, that opinions can't be aired, but we probably need to move away from the minutiae of very specific problems if we are to address your misconceptions (or perhaps ours) regarding Socialism.

[SocialistPunk]

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

Capitalism doesn't aim to meet human needs; it meets human desires, which does coincide with needs on the lower end. Anytime someone wants something, they can probably get it and if they work hard enough (ignoring opportunity, for the minute. Let's pretend it's a world where everyone starts at least average, as is the most desirable world), they can afford to buy it. This is a natural reward system of capitalism, in that the more you contribute to humanity, the more you get out of it, and that's fair because in a world with an equal starting point like the one I hypothesised just now, that is what exists.

When I read this I couldn't stop laughing. I mean, this person thinks the SPGB are fantasists and here we have someone hypothisising about an ideal version of capitalism. What a joke.I live in a mining community where men worked in a deep, dark, dirty, dangerous hole in the ground. Lives were lost, health ruined and when the mines all closed down the town was left in an economic mess for years. I didn't see much balanced reward for the contribution those men and their families made to humanity.But I guess we can see for ourselves what Inquisition thinks.

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

Those billionaires aren't these lazy, useless invalids you think they are. They give huge sums to charity, they invest huge sums in businesses. They're the lifeblood of capitalism. Without them, capitalism would crumble. They're far more important than expendable workers who can just be replaced with another person if they screw up.

   

[robbo203]

   

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

 

robbo203 wrote:

Do you imagine for one moment that the world that exists is one that correlates with your hypothetical dreamworld  of a level playing field? Do you really think that the 62 multibillionaires who  currently own between them more wealth than half the world's population – 3,500,000,000 people – have contributed as much to humanity as the latter?  I would put it to you that the "rewards" that these  62 individuals have received has very little, if anything ,to do with their own effort but overwhelmingly has to do with efforts of those who produce their wealth for them – the working class.  The workers in effect run capitalism from top to bottom but are largely excluded from the means of production However  hard they work it is the owners of capital that reap the benefits simple because they own capital and not because they merited or worked for what they  receive

 Please tell me you're joking right now.   

Nope. The production of goods and services under capitalism is carried out from top to bottom by the working class of wage and salary earners, even though capitalism itself is essentially run in the interests of the tiny nonproductive owning or capitalist class – that is to say, essentially geared to the pursuit of profit from the investments made by the latter class.  What part of this statement do you disagree with or don’t understand?  

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

As for the rest: Those billionaires aren't these lazy, useless invalids you think they are. They give huge sums to charity, they invest huge sums in businesses. They're the lifeblood of capitalism. Without them, capitalism would crumble. They're far more important than expendable workers who can just be replaced with another person if they screw up. 

It is not part of my argument that the billionaire class consists of “lazy, useless invalids”.  Actually, even if they all worked their socks off 24/7 and 365 days of the year it would still be the case that overwhelmingly the money they have acquired to invest in business or give away to charity would have come from the efforts of the working class, not them  They have acquired this money simply by virtue of the fact that they have ownership rights over the means of production and are thus able to exploit the excluded property-less  majority by paying the latter significantly less in wages and salaries than the value of the goods and service the latter provide or make As Ray B. Williams notes:Some of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in North America say there is no such thing as the "self-made man." With more millionaires making, rather than inheriting, their wealth, there is a false belief that they made it on their own without help, a new report published by the Boston-based non-profit United For a Fair Economy, states. The group has signed more than 2,200 millionaires and billionaires to a petition to reform and keep the U.S. inheritance tax. The report says the myth of "self-made wealth is potentially destructive to the very infrastructure that enables wealth creation."  The individuals profiled in the report believed they prospered in large part due to things beyond their control and because of the support of others. Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the world said, "I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I've earned." Erick Schmidt, CEO of Google says, "Lots of people who are smart and work hard and play by the rules don't have a fraction of what I have. I realize that I don't have my wealth because I'm so brilliant."  ("The myths of the "self-made man" and meritocracy"  Psychology TodayJune 13, 2010)Also, your views on the nature and motive force behind philanthropocapitalism strike me as a little naïve and gullible.  Check this out  https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/george-soros-philanthrocapitalism-millennium-villages/  

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

 You ignored the problem. Your argument against the existence of banks is that they take up unnecessary space and resources. I was simply pointing out that the use of those resources would just be replaced by the administration necessary in socialism. You need the administration to figure out rations and make sure people aren't taking more than their fair share. You also need the administration to keep track of who has what. Socialist society requires people be able to obtain what they need, but how are they supposed to do that if no one knows where the item in question actually is? Just walk around until you find someone who has it? Your counter to the rations argument will be to say that people will only take what they need out of 'good will'. To this, I direct you to Denmark in 2012, a welfare state in which only 73% of independent citizens had any kind of employment, and a lot of this employment had very short work hours too. This includes people who work only because working is necessary to have the money to live properly. Imagine how much that willingness to work would decrease if Denmark were to abolish money and give everyone, even if you don't work, the resources necessary to live comfortably. 

  This is an absurd argument you are presenting here.  Once again – where is the need for the  administration "to keep track of who has what” in a socialist society and what on earth has this got to do with banking and the provision of finance which would not exist in a socialist society?  By socialism we mean quite literally a society based on the common ownership of the means of producing wealth.  Common ownership necessarily means the absence of economic exchange or to put it differently economic exchange = markets – implies the existence of private property and hence the absence of common ownership. Given common ownership of the means of production what this also means is people have direct free access to the wealth that is produced which in turn implies that the wealth that is produced is done so on a completely voluntary unpaid basis. All of these features are logically interconnected: common ownership, no economic exchange, free access, volunteer labour.  You can’t have one without the other. The administration required for a socialist society to operate will be a tiny fraction of the size of capitalism’s sprawling bloated bureaucracies.  What will need to be kept track of is not what individuals consume but broad patterns of consumption in respect of the aggregate demand for specific lines of goods to ensure there is an adequate supply to meet future demand.  This is something that is already done today in the guise of a self-regulating system of stock control based on calculation in kind e.g. numbers of tins of baked beans on the shelves.  However, alongside calculation in kind we also find today, monetary calculation.  Socialism will dispense with the latter but retain the former so simple logic will tell you that in terms of its administrative apparatus socialism will be vastly more streamlined than capitalism. On the question of work incentive, it is a complete myth to suggest that without monetary incentives individuals will be less inclined to work.  Actually there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that monetary incentives (so called) actually have the effect of undermining the intrinsic motive to work.  See for example "Does Pay Motivate Volunteers?"  (Review of Economics and Statistics, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich , Working Paper Series , ISSN 1424-0459 , Working Paper No. 7, May 1999) which is a classic study in that field. A further point to make in this regard is that most of the work that we do even in capitalism is unpaid.  This is what constitutes what is called the grey economy which is counterposed to the official white market economy and the unofficial black market economy. Studies undertaken by social reearhers and bodies like UN  have shown that in terms of total hours worked , the grey economy is marginally larger than both the white and black economies combined  

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

So a socialist state's production would be only enough to meet human needs, and not human desires. Sounds like a horrible world to live in if the food available to you is only what is necessary to live, where entertainment is scarce because you don't need it; only want it. Where no one can go on holiday because they don't need to; only want to.

There is no socialist state in socialism.  In the classical definition of socialism the state disappears since it is an instrument of class rule whereas with socialism classes cease to exist in the Marxian sense.  Hence, Engel’s observationThe people’sstatehas been flung in our teeth ad nauseamby the anarchists, although Marx’s anti-Proudhon piece and after it the Communist Manifesto declare outright that, with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear. (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_03_18.htm On the question of needs and desires – who said anything about socialism providing just a bare minimum to sustain life?  This is purely your invention and projection onto socialism what you imagine it to be. Quite simply, socialism will provide whatever the people of a socialist society will want it to provide – not a nanny state, not a corporation but the people themselves, freely and voluntarily. Socialism is all about the removal of barriers to what human beings desire not adding to the already substantial barriers presented by the market.  “Need” is, in any case, a socially and historically variable concept.  100 years ago we did not “need” television or washing machines. Can the same be said today?

[Anonymous]

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

I mean, we have hard evidence that capitalism works.

. 

[Chadwick]

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

 – no one is going to vote for a world in which they have no enjoyment. Enjoyment is a desire, not a need, so in a socialist world it would not be catered for and come entirely from playing victorian-era games with sticks you find on the forest floor, or perhaps board games you found in your grandmother's attic. 

Necessities will be given precedence over desires, yes. How is that any different to now? Why the baseless assertion that there will be no enjoyment in a Socialist society? It has already been pointed out that much of the 'work' done in our economy now is of no real value. It is reasonable to assume that we will enjoy comparable standards of living with a shorter working week, so there will likely be more enjoyment, not less. Furthermore, take away the stresses and anxieties caused by our current inequitable distribution of resources (Will I ever afford my own house? What will I do if I get too sick to work?) and the depression that so many people feel doing a soul-destroying job (telephone sales and the like), and standards of mental and physical wellbeing will doubtless improve.Once necessities are met, more resources can be put into recreational activities. There is no reason why we cannot enjoy the same kinds of activities we do now. You mention above the possibility of owning a yacht. In reality, you must conceed that the chances of you doing so are vanishingly small. It is not beyond the wit of humankind to establish similar rewards in a democratically run economy. A reward for exeptional service to society might be a year's (or ten years…) ownership of a yacht, or living in a castle. Or it could be won through a lottery. In our present economic system, such rewards go to those who exploit the workforce – is that truly worthy of reward? Are the fat cats and yacht owners of today the true heroes of the economy, the true innovators and ingenious individuals? No. What have Donald Trump or Rupert Murdoch or Fergus Wilson actually done for society? James Dyson is about the only worthwhile rich man I can think of, and even he is motivated more by the opportunities he has to further the cause of engineering than by the material wealth he is able to accrue.

[SocialistPunk]

What I've come to realise is the people defending the ideology of some imaginary idealised capitalism, don't give a toss about the harsh realities. It just doesn't register with them.

[jondwhite]

SocialistPunk wrote:

What I've come to realise is the people defending the ideology of some imaginary idealised capitalism, don't give a toss about the harsh realities. It just doesn't register with them.

I think it is just that they dispute the connection between a free market distributing food and people starving and dying of malnourishment. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism and swap 'Communism' for 'command economy' and by deduction they deduce 'command economy' = bad, therefore 'non-command economy' / 'free market' = freedom = good. This way it can seem more rationally concluded and socialists can be dismissed as moralising dreamers / totalitarians / both.

[alertnewz]

About Science &socialism http://www.alertnewz.com/science-and-socialism/

[jondwhite]

Jacobin on personal possessions under socialismhttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/02/socialism-marxism-private-property-person-lennon-imagine-kenny-loggins/

[Anonymous]

Lbird, this thread asks 'What is Socialism?'AS you claim to be the only real marxist on this forum then you owe it to us to give us your definition. 

[Bijou Drains]

Vin, I think that's an excellent point. Come on then L Bird, we're all waiting.

[Anonymous]

We have a seconder, LBird 

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

jondwhite wrote:

Scientific socialism is democratic control.Scientific socialism is common ownership.By far the best work on this is Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels or if you fancy something longer The German Ideology by Marx.

I think that it's a mistake to recommend Engels' book, jdw.It does not mention 'democratic control' by the direct producers.In fact, it's one of the sources of Engels' 'materialism', and is a serious departure from Marx's concerns about workers actively building their own socialism.

Engels pamphlet on Scientific socialism is much better than all the others books on socialism written by others sources, even more, it is much better than the Communist Manifesto which in some way it is a reformist document with several state capitalist measures.Engels made several mistakes,  but it does not mean that we must reject everything that he wrote. His book on the Conditions of the working class it is a very well documented book  

[Author]

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