How could a socialist economy work?

[Galt]

Hold on a minute, you said that socialism leads to communism, and that socialism requires a MILLION times more democracy than capitalism, whereas communism has no government, and thus no democracy. Now you're saying that they're the same thing, hence according to you:

Government = No government
Lots of democracy = No democracy

[Galt]

So far, this thread has been one big disappointment.

[lowshelf]

The main question is how

How much would a Live 9 Suite and Push bundle cost?

[Sage]

The main question is how would we determine the allocation of resources without the capitalist market? Without 'supply and demand'.

Build it up rather than expect governments and the rich to change. Prove to people that these ideas work in reality rather than on paper and that they can achieve exactly the same themselves.

But socialists seem to prefer standing on street corners handing out flyers telling people the world is shit than doing anything genuinely positive.

[re:dream]

Ok let me start with the very basics. Socialism is the same as communism. It is a system where the economy is publicly owned and democratically controlled by the workers. The end result would be no money, no government, no bureaucracy, no countries, no wars, no classes, no state, no elites, no politicians.

The main question is how would we determine the allocation of resources without the capitalist market? Without 'supply and demand'.

This, indeed, is the question. And Galt, it is the same question you have been asking the Funkster. So don't go sneering at the man just at the moment when you finally seem to be on the same page

[re:dream]

I hope this ain't off topic, so stop me if it is

One of the more thoughtful recent attempts to think imaginatively about how a anarchist, socialist society is in Ursula Le Guin's wonderful novel the Dispossessed

It is well worth reading. In the novel, Le Guin describes two imaginary societies: a perfectly socialist one, and much more capitalist one, and she describes the adventures of a lone scientist who finds himself caught between the two worlds. A lot of the more interesting aspects of the novel is that it highlights both what might be desirable in such a perfectly anarchist, socialist society, and some of the ways in which it may end up being oppressive. The novel doesn't offer any answers, but it thinks through the questions in a reflective and inquiring way.

[Galt]

This, indeed, is the question. And Galt, it is the same question you have been asking the Funkster. So don't go sneering at the man just at the moment when you finally seem to be on the same page

Come now, I'm being reasonable. I only sneered at him because said a bunch of self-contradictory bollocks before he even got started. Y'know.

[Galt]

when no classes, you don't government.

[Sage]

The main question is how would we determine the allocation of resources without the capitalist market? Without 'supply and demand'.

Build it up rather than expect governments and the rich to change. Prove to people that these ideas work in reality rather than on paper and that they can achieve exactly the same themselves.

But socialists seem to prefer standing on street corners handing out flyers telling people the world is shit than doing anything genuinely positive.

You can't build socialism within a capitalist system. However there are some things you can do. You can try to win reforms and improvements. You can propose socially useful production for a weapons factory. In Liverpool the Marxists knocked down slums and built new semi-detached council houses.

Of course you can, just because the theory says otherwise doesn't mean shit. The theory so far has only led to failed attempts to impose socialism on the masses and as we know, wasn't socialism.

The very basis of Marxism is going "This is a bit shit, lets do something else", then doing it, then others going "Oh wait, there is a better way" and then doing that...

[Galt]

The very basis of Marxism is going "This is a bit shit, lets do something else", then doing it, then others going "Oh wait, there is a better way" and then doing that...

Careful now, the man has quotes and he's not afraid to use them.

[Sage]

The very basis of Marxism is going "This is a bit shit, lets do something else", then doing it, then others going "Oh wait, there is a better way" and then doing that...

Careful now, the man has quotes and he's not afraid to use them.

Perhaps he needs to take a new perspective on those quotes then. Unless it is Lenin, who can go fuck himself with his vanguard party bullshit.

[re:dream]

The very basis of Marxism is going "This is a bit shit, lets do something else", then doing it, then others going "Oh wait, there is a better way" and then doing that...

Careful now, the man has quotes and he's not afraid to use them.

Quotes? You want quotes?

Theses On Feuerbach
1

The main defect of all hitherto-existing materialism — that of Feuerbach included — is that the Object [der Gegenstand], actuality, sensuousness, are conceived only in the form of the object [Objekts], or of contemplation [Anschauung], but not as human sensuous activity, practice [Praxis], not subjectively. Hence it happened that the active side, in opposition to materialism, was developed by idealism — but only abstractly, since, of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects [Objekte], differentiated from thought-objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective [gegenständliche] activity. In The Essence of Christianity [Das Wesen des Christenthums], he therefore regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice is conceived and defined only in its dirty-Jewish form of appearance [Erscheinungsform][1]. Hence he does not grasp the significance of ‘revolutionary’, of ‘practical-critical’, activity.

2

The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness [Diesseitigkeit] of his thinking, in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.

3

The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.

4

Feuerbach starts off from the fact of religious self-estrangement [Selbstentfremdung], of the duplication of the world into a religious, imaginary world, and a secular [weltliche] one. His work consists in resolving the religious world into its secular basis. He overlooks the fact that after completing this work, the chief thing still remains to be done. For the fact that the secular basis lifts off from itself and establishes itself in the clouds as an independent realm can only be explained by the inner strife and intrinsic contradictoriness of this secular basis. The latter must itself be understood in its contradiction and then, by the removal of the contradiction, revolutionised. Thus, for instance, once the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must itself be annihilated [vernichtet] theoretically and practically.

5

Feuerbach, not satisfied with abstract thinking, wants sensuous contemplation [Anschauung]; but he does not conceive sensuousness as practical, human-sensuous activity.

6

Feuerbach resolves the essence of religion into the essence of man [menschliche Wesen = ‘human nature’]. But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations. Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence is hence obliged:

1. To abstract from the historical process and to define the religious sentiment regarded by itself, and to presuppose an abstract — isolated - human individual.

2. The essence therefore can by him only be regarded as ‘species’, as an inner ‘dumb’ generality which unites many individuals only in a natural way.

7

Feuerbach consequently does not see that the ‘religious sentiment’ is itself a social product, and that the abstract individual that he analyses belongs in reality to a particular social form.

8

All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.

9

The highest point reached by contemplative [anschauende] materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is the contemplation of single individuals and of civil society [bürgerlichen Gesellschaft].

10

The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society or social humanity.



11

Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.

[Galt]

He's learnt from the best.

[re:dream]

Why are you pasting huge quotes without any explanation, when the relevance to the topic is not obvious?

My interpretation (I may have misunderstood matters) is that Sage was referring to Marx's thought on praxis.

Marx's theses on Feuerbach provide some fascinating observations on this very issue.

I am actually very fond of that particular little bit of his opus. (Marx's, not Sage's). They are eminently worth reading, and do relate quite strongly to some of the trickier aspects of thinking about how theory, action and social change are related.

[re:dream]

I do want to point out, Funken, that I am trying to post in support of your agenda on this thread.

I think the question of how a socialist economy could actually work is a really interesting one. Both Marx and Le Guin have thought deeply on the matter.