Society/Culture Can a purely socialist society exist?

[IlovethePies]

FTFY.

A business that has become successful enough to sustain itself needs to continue growing; you're in constant competition with everyone else. You grow or you shrink, and survival is predicated on growing; staying put or becoming comfortable is a guaranteed way eventually to fail. Once you've grown enough, monopoly is inevitable because there reaches a point in which the only way to continue growing is to dominate yours and other markets; businesses either figure this out and become global businesses, or they peter out after a period of successes and are consumed by smaller enterprises.

The initial cost/risk of a business is borne by the business owner, but go beyond subsistence and you'll find social networks built around successful enterprises, communities and networks built completely from that business. Other businesses will crop up, connected to your successful enterprise, and those businesses will be impacted when/if you fail; they must find other enterprises to lean on or work with. Diversification is important, but...

All of this is to say that when your business fails, if you are beyond the initial stages in which that failure only affects you - the capitalist - your failure influences that network around you. Other businesses succeed or fail due to you; families and other businesses need seek alternative supply chains, need diversify their sources for the products/services they get from you, and diversification is something that can be done much more easily at scale than in minutae. A family only needs one fridge; a franchise of butchers needs a good deal more. That family is hit a lot harder when their fridge breaks if the place they got it is no longer there.

Imagine if you will Amazon went under. Suddenly, that's a series of supply networks and businesses that would be completely ****ed; unable to actually do their own business. There would be families that starve due to Amazon's failure, entire economic sections that suffer due to it.

While Amazon's failure would absolutely affect Jeff Bezos, the damage would certainly not be limited to him and while he would lose a lot of money he'd still be pretty well off due to the ability wealth brings to diversify. Those who rely on Amazon have no such luxury.

Thus, capital takes initial risk and reaps initial and ongoing reward, but when an enterprise fails the damage is as broad as its reach at its apex.

It is called the contradiction between the socialised nature of modern production and the private ownership of the productive forces. This leads to the fact that under capitalism mankind regularly suffers economic and social catastrophes that he cannot control, despite the fact that the economy is man's own creation.

 

[peetoo]

Yep historians will tell us the systems before capitalism were highly suspicious of merchants. Some of that has taken a racist tone we won’t go into that

 

[Todman]

Parents can start an investment property for their kids when they are small, Turnbull told me.

Crisis, what crisis?

That was the Greek way in this country. Mum and Dad work hard and buy houses for all their kids. When the kids get married they get a house transferred into their name.

 

[IlovethePies]

The concept of "human nature" as a constant is the product ultimately of religious thought. Mankind is forever tainted by the Original Sin, and so:
power will always corrupt is the inevitable corollary.

Fortunately it was the incredible progressive thinkers during the Enlightenment who first began to throw off the shackles of this suffocating, religious concept.

They put forward at that time a remarkable breakthrough in human thought: that it is society, the social conditions that surround man, that determine his nature.

But, very quickly this idea became lost in an apparently insoluble quagmire. Because, if it is social conditions that determine human nature, then to change human nature all we have to do is change the social conditions.

But social conditions cannot be changed unless they are ready to be changed. This was the lesson that Marx drew from the attempts of the Utopian Socialists to change the nature of mankind by setting up small, local "socialist planned economies" which could not survive because the world wide economy of developing capitalism ridiculed their dreams.

But it was Marx who explained that the history of mankind is the class struggle. And the constant dynamic of the class struggle, which in turn is based on the development of the productive forces themselves.

Marx also explained that it is the development of the productive forces themselves which begin to come into conflict with the existing property and class relations, that drives rapid changes in the class struggle and in turn rapid changes in social consciousness - and hence, "human nature".

Therefore, human nature is not some arbitrary constant, embodied by angels who somehow enter the souls of humans. Human nature is a work in progress, conditioned and changed by the class struggle.

The cliche "power corrupts" is simply the recognition that within class society, where there is a wealthy, dominant class, and a conseqeuent scarcity of material goods, the political forces that seize power in the interests of that wealthy class will inevitably pursue its class interests, regardless of their initial intentiolns.

 

[Seeds]

It is called the contradiction between the socialised nature of modern production and the private ownership of the productive forces. This leads to the fact that under capitalism mankind regularly suffers economic and social catastrophes that he cannot control, despite the fact that the economy is man's own creation.

And yet despite these "catastrophes" the rise in human standard of living far outpaces any other economic system.

 

[Seeds]

This is precisely what happened in the Stalin dictatorship that ruled the Soviet union. Every national program leads to inequality, because the productive capacity within the borders of a single country will always be incapable of satisfying the social needs of everyone.

Hence, the bureaucracy within the Soviet Union did rule with a revolver to the head of the working class.

Just like Hitler's fascist dictatorship ruled in the same manner.

Just like Pinochet's fascist government ruled in the same manner.

You see where I am going with this? Every capitalist government, because it is based on a national program, enforces social inequality through one means or another.

IN so called bourgeois democracies, social inequality is enforced through capitalist law, jails, the police and a trade union apparatus which constantly betrays the social demands of the working class and enforces the interests of the corporations.

Howver, as the social crisis deepens, and class polarisation reaches a level of intensity not seen since the 1930's, once again throughout the world we see a general trajectory towards authoritarian and fascist forms of rule. Throughout Europe, neo-fascists are either taking political power, or in the position of dictating to governments (France, Italy, Germany...) and of course in the US we are witnessing the attempts by Trump to create a paramilitiary fascist movement to seize political power. We also see a fascist government in Israel carrying out genocide in Gaza and now attempting to spread this to a regional war in Lebanon and ultimately against Iran.

The only way out of this is for the international working class to resume its struggle, begun under the leadership of the Bolsheviks in 1917, for world socialist revolution.

This is completely illogical to me. I cant reason with it. It appears to be nonsense. Can only provide a couple of comments.

Jails existed before capitalism. They arent a capitalist construct and they tend to be employed in much greater use in non capitalist societies.

Capitalism isnt national. Its international. Anti capitalist policies constrain capitalism to be national.

The housing crisis and social equities that result isnt a function of capitalism. Its a function of dumb govt policies constraining land. Nothing about capitalism advocates for resources to be constrained.

How did you end your post advocating for a system that inevitably leads to stalinism? Within the first 6 months the bolsheviks rejected marxism because lenin realised it was impossible to implement. Thus they had to change path which could only be sustained with the gun.

Reducing inequality involves redistribution of unearned wealth (inheritance, capital gains obtained through luck etc) and free high quality education. Not eliminating the price system and taking choice away from the people.

 

[barreness]

Yes. I can literally start a Nazi party or a Communist party in Australia. Lawfully and openly. We can run candidates for elections.

Something you ironically cant do in a Communist or National Socialist State.

Liberalism assures people of freedoms they simply would not have in Socialism/ Communism or National Socialism/ Fascism.

As long as you're not harming anyone else, live your life how you please.

Communist party was banned for a period but yeh you can atm. Fascist policies are banned under incitement to violence and race hate laws, idk how you do a nazi party without these things but I guess a few blokes are trying under a 'saving the white race' type argument

What (non-harmful to other people thing) can't you do in Australia, the USA, UK, Canada, France, New Zealand etc that the State stops you from doing?

Reporting on our war crimes(or anything classified), protesting climate change, and sympathising with 'terrorist' organisations all seem like imprisonable crimes atm

If you want to get libertarian about it; not paying taxes, possessing arms and all that

You can work in whatever you want, start whatever business you want, travel where you want, vote for who you want, worship who you want, marry who you want etc.

Most of these are debatable, and the laws have changed over time. Could the people of Iraq decide these things after we invaded? or Vietnam, Korea etc etc. You can do whatever you want as long as you dodge the bombs probably

If you want to you can also start your own Socialist collective in any of those countries. Grab some like minded people and move out to a communal farm, with communal property, and have your own little socialist utopia.

As a hint people dont do this with any frequency.

Well they kinda do, many communal groups do exist. They regularly fail, living under the dictatorship of global capitalists makes this difficult

 

[barreness]

I think this is a strange question because a I don't think a 'purely' anything society exists. It depends a lot on definitions, of course.

I'm going to define capitalism firstly as 'a system where productive resources are privately controlled, for profit'. Capitalism is often associated with markets, but markets exist before and after capitalism (that said, it has brought in markets more broadly, particularly financial and labour markets that didn't really exist before in the same way). Capitalism is also often associated with competition. This is, of course, a complete furphy: most capitalists will do everything in their power to avoid competition, and the most successful examples of corporations (from the East India company to Tesla) have defined their operations by obtaining monopolies and extracting maximum profit, often with huge levels of government rent-seeking.

Capitalism has been associated with political rights; in contrast to prior systems, those with power have wanted input into political processes. It's also seen political rights gradually extended: from property-owners to all men, then to include women, minorities, etc. This is all good.

A lot of people seem to think socialism = government control of everything, but I think that really just represents the result of decades of anti-socialist propaganda

Socialism more broadly just means the socialisation (rather than privatisation) and democratisation of the means of production, with three key tenets that I think are important.
1. nationalisation of key industries and where natural monopolies exist; this ensures these are run for the good of everyone, not just used for profit extraction
2. provision of an equitable level of basic services to all - education, health, food, housing etc; this ensures all people have equitable opportunity, and a basic safety net.
3. where private businesses exist, a range of systems in place that support worker influence over the means of production and prevent exploitation and excess profits


We know that #1 can work, and already have it in place for some industries. At times in the past we had it for others as well - and in hindsight, the privatisation of electricity/telecommunications was stupid, and has made the market worse. Almost everyone accepts SOME level of nationalisation - the question would be around what is right to nationalise (and when and how...). Some industries I think could over time benefit from nationalisation would be: electricity/telecommunications (obviously), banking and finance, insurance, mining, etc. Whether you fully nationalise them, or have a hybrid model (a la the current health/education systems) could also be up for debate.

We know that #2 works as well. In Australia we have a basic level of healthcare and education, and some support to ensure everyone gets a base level of food/housing. That's being stretched by a range of factors right now, but it also isn't hard to seeing it exist in a stronger capacity.

#3 is probably the area that requires the most thought. I don't think 'pure' socialism requires the abolition of markets - in fact, I think markets are a necessity in a range of industries where there are limited economies of scale and where competition really helps drive innovation and efficiency. But this could be done SO much better, and a move towards a socialist system might involve something like:

• rethinking corporations. These already represent an example of collective ownership. Create a new, democratised version that includes workers - maybe to start with via mandatory profit-sharing, worker representation on boards, etc.
• adjusting the 'playing field' to promote the success of small (and ideally worker-run, but not necessarily so) businesses. In doing so, promote competition in industries where this is beneficial.
• replacing the 'profit motive' with something broader: a requirement for corporations to act in the best interests of their stakeholders. That means customers, workers and the broader community. Some companies have already implement 'triple bottom line' reporting and it's just an extension of that.

Naturally this would have to evolve over time; laws would have to be adjusted, and you can't do it all at once. But I think it is feasible.

An absolute MUST for a socialist state is both political and economic rights. Political rights have been so important and hard-fought over the past 200 years or so, and things like freedom of speech, freedom of association - they all matter. Ideally socialism would extend this tot eh economic sphere: the right to a basic standard of living, right to work, right to keep the profits of your labour, etc. It shouldn't be about 'taking away'.

So yeah, I think it is possible to envisage a world where we shift from being 'profit-driven' to thinking more broadly about wellbeing and happiness, particularly given the level of material abundance we all have access to.

Bravo

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what socialists actually think could work

Rather than the murder millions and steal your jocks

 

[barreness]

And yet despite these "catastrophes" the rise in human standard of living far outpaces any other economic system.

Really? The rise in standard of living under the USSR/CCP has been far quicker than their capitalists counterparts as far as I know. Give me some stats seeds?

 

[barreness]

This is completely illogical to me. I cant reason with it. It appears to be nonsense. Can only provide a couple of comments.

Your whole post is unreasonable

Jails existed before capitalism. They arent a capitalist construct and they tend to be employed in much greater use in non capitalist societies.

The US, the bedrock of capitalism, is the highest jailing county in the world. A functional police state

Capitalism isnt national. Its international. Anti capitalist policies constrain capitalism to be national.

That's the point, how does a anti capitalist state exist in this world, as you go on to later

The housing crisis and social equities that result isnt a function of capitalism. Its a function of dumb govt policies constraining land. Nothing about capitalism advocates for resources to be constrained.

So which capitalist economy doesn't have a housing crisis and inequality? surely there's smart govts out there

How did you end your post advocating for a system that inevitably leads to stalinism? Within the first 6 months the bolsheviks rejected marxism because lenin realised it was impossible to implement. Thus they had to change path which could only be sustained with the gun.

Reducing inequality involves redistribution of unearned wealth (inheritance, capital gains obtained through luck etc) and free high quality education. Not eliminating the price system and taking choice away from the people.

Somewhat agree