Why not socialism? (Logan and Wendell)

So I've noticed on the show that you guys clearly are upset with the corruption going on in the government, however it seems that you both still support capitalism even though I would argue that the nature of capitalism is to accumulate wealth into the hands of a few people in such a way that makes this level of corruption possible in the first place.

So I guess I'm just curious to see what you guys think of socialism and what your opinions/understanding are.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm refering to socialism in the sense of a workers democracy in society, and not social democracy as seen in the scandinavian countries

"Socialism." The problem is that word doesn't have a consistent definition. The United States, as most Western Countries are socialist to some degree. It is nearly impossible to have a completely free market economy. It just doesn't work.

That being said I think you're a bit confused about your terms here. You're talking about a "workers democracy." In that respect I guess you're referring to something like I suppose Trotskyism? But in the end you would still end up with really a Socialist Single Party state. It just has to be that way. There is a Vanguard Party it is in charge. It protects the revolution and established a dictatorship of the proletariat. While there may be some democratic ideals in there and possibly elections there aren't choices. You have that one party which is inherently different from true democracy. It isn't freedom.

Additionally you say such a system would be free from corruption. That is hilarious. I'm sorry but it wouldn't be. If anything, it would be worse. Such a system with a small powerful Vanguard Party is inherently more prone to corruption as you have just a few individuals or groups running the show. Additionally, such an economic system isn't very efficient or productive and would limit choice and competition further. 

We have seen states like this in the past. The USSR, GDR, Vietnam, China (to some extent, its complicated. the whole one China two systems. Which tbh should actually be three systems but I digress), Cuba. All of these are "workers democracies." All have been failures (if they haven't adapted like China and Vietnam to a lesser extent). Corruption is rampant, quality of life is low and freedom is pretty much non existent. 

 

Interesting you brought up the Nordic Countries though. Yes they are social democracies however the Nordic System is really something very different and I'd argue the best system there is. You mind find this surprising, but the Nordic countries are some of the most Pro Capitalism and pro market economies in the world. They rank incredibly high in economic freedom. Here the markets are for the most part really free and competition is incredibly high. The issue is crony capitalism that exists in the US and the way these companies distort laws to prevent competition. This is coupled with a strong welfare state. This means that the increased freedom and choice offered by a free market is there as are the safety nets. It is "cuddly capitalism." These countries have some of the lowest corruption and are often regarded as the best governed in the world. So capitalism isn't inherently bad. 

I just wrote this fast and glossed over. I could honestly right a book about it. So sorry for any mistakes or for oversimplifying. 

Ultimately if you live in the US you accept the corruption because of the benefits of being one of the top 2 economies on the planet. There is no point in turning to socialism to any solve problems at this point or ever.

"Socialism." The problem is that word doesn't have a consistent definition. The United States, as most Western Countries are socialist to some degree. It is nearly impossible to have a completely free market economy. It just doesn't work.

While I agree there is definitely much ambiguity attached to the word, in the most basic sense it's pretty clearly understood to be, as defined by dictionary.com, "a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole." Also, I disagree that the US is partially socialist. A country cannot be "partially socialist", either a community collectively own and manage the means of production or they do not. Capitalism with a saftey net is not socialism to me.

That being said I think you're a bit confused about your terms here. You're talking about a "workers democracy." In that respect I guess you're referring to something like I suppose Trotskyism? But in the end you would still end up with really a Socialist Single Party state. It just has to be that way. There is a Vanguard Party it is in charge. It protects the revolution and established a dictatorship of the proletariat. While there may be some democratic ideals in there and possibly elections there aren't choices. You have that one party which is inherently different from true democracy. It isn't freedom.

No, I'm refering to socialism, but I suppose this goes back to the ambiguity of the word. Socialism/communism have at their root in the common democratic ownership of the means of production and an economy that is managed by human oversight. In regards to the single party state, I disagree and infact I would say we already have that today in the US under the guise of democracy because both parties represent monied interests (and in some cases the exact same ones), just different factions. There is no real third party.

 

However, what you're discribing is the Marxist-Leninist (also called stalinist by some, and abreviated as ML for short) theory of revolution which is specific to a certain epoch in history to a specific communist party which has since past. There are other forms of socialist organization that have sprung forth during revolutions in the past, such as the anarchist communes that arose in certain places during the Spanish civil war. While they were eventually crushed and replaced by the rule of Franco after he took power, what took place was the collective organization of working people (through a revotionary industrial union that I cannot remember the name of atm) to run their communities democratically, and this is what I envision when I advocate for socialist organization of society. A bottom up, democratic government that is actually accountable to their constituents because they are on the same economic footing. The point of this example being, there are different forms of organization relevant to different material circumstances and historical conditions. What happened in 1917 Russia will be FAR different than the globally connected world of today, not to say that it would be flawless or perfect, but simply different in character. Not to mention that the USSR faced much opposition and was never once given a moment of peace to try and develop it's economy (probably because the idea of a successfull socialist state scares the shit out of the capitalist class). Not only that, but I do not agree with the concept of a vanguard party at all, and I feel that the leadership of any party must be made up of working class people with normal daily lives, and not "professional revolutionaries".


Additionally you say such a system would be free from corruption. That is hilarious. I'm sorry but it wouldn't be. If anything, it would be worse. Such a system with a small powerful Vanguard Party is inherently more prone to corruption as you have just a few individuals or groups running the show. Additionally, such an economic system isn't very efficient or productive and would limit choice and competition further.


Actually you said that, not I, so you should read more carefully. I never once said anything about corruption and socialism, I merely stated that the concentration of wealth generated under capitalism allows for such corruption to take place and that's for the simple fact that economic power translates into political power. Keep in mind I'm not advocating for a "vanguard" party, and anyone who isn't a marxist-leninist isn't either. What I am advocating is that people like you and I congregate together to figure out the best way to run society on the community level. We would have to establish some sort of system where community members could come together to affect community decisions (probably something similar to a Workers' Council.) Relevant link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_council

We have seen states like this in the past. The USSR, GDR, Vietnam, China (to some extent, its complicated. the whole one China two systems. Which tbh should actually be three systems but I digress), Cuba. All of these are "workers democracies." All have been failures (if they haven't adapted like China and Vietnam to a lesser extent). Corruption is rampant, quality of life is low and freedom is pretty much non existent.

I will agree that those states were not perfect, but they also had to deal with the real world and their material circumstances. To say that these states were all failures is simply misleading. Yes they had problems, but the fact that the USSR was able to advance from a feudal economy into a robust industrial powerhouse in time for WWII is no small task. In fact, there are surveys where a majority those russians who can remember life under communism prefer it to what they deal with now. Not to say that it was perfect again, but most of those states were already in rough shape before their respective revolutions took place already. I really can't speak for china or the other states because I haven't read much about them, but ultimately I would say that the circumstances were just not there for a successful socialist revolution, and in some cases such as vietnam they did in fact devolve into brutal dictatorships.

Besides, how many times did france fail to establish capitalism before they finally had their bourgeois liberal democracy? There have been plenty of failed capitalist revolutions in history simply because it was not their time due to material circumstance or whatever other limiting factors. I think that now, in a world that is globally connected with the most productive machines man has ever seen built, we can devise and economic system that can provide everyone with at the very least all of life's necessities. Also, there are plenty of capitalist countries in the world where "freedom" (this word gets thrown around too, much like socialism does and is quite ambiguous) is scarce. Mexico and parts of latin america come to mind. Corruption can happen anywhere where a few people control all of the wealth, whether it's a beaurocratic state or a corporation.

Interesting you brought up the Nordic Countries though. Yes they are social democracies however the Nordic System is really something very different and I'd argue the best system there is. You mind find this surprising, but the Nordic countries are some of the most Pro Capitalism and pro market economies in the world. They rank incredibly high in economic freedom. Here the markets are for the most part really free and competition is incredibly high. The issue is crony capitalism that exists in the US and the way these companies distort laws to prevent competition. This is coupled with a strong welfare state. This means that the increased freedom and choice offered by a free market is there as are the safety nets. It is "cuddly capitalism." These countries have some of the lowest corruption and are often regarded as the best governed in the world. So capitalism isn't inherently bad.

I made that distinction for the very fact that the nordic countires aren't socialist and for some reason everyone seems to think so, so I clarified. The nordic countries are also an exception, and most certainly not a rule to capitalism, at least today's neoliberal capitalism.

 

Also, there's no need to discern between crony capitalism and regular capitalism as I would argue that they're both the same captialism. The only difference is that in the past the level of corruption was more tolerable and less transparent to the general public because the internet wasn't around to expose all the fraud going on the minute it happened, and there was an organized labor movement that could put capital in check to make sure that workers had some bargaining power. However since then the capitalist class has vehemently attacked any gains made by the labor movement, as it has been declining over the years, while enshrining the doctrine of austerity and neoliberalism into law to ensure their rule. Perhaps the nordic countries were able to establish some pretty strong laws in favor of labor or still has strong unions (you tell me, I'd honestly like to know), but I hear that austerity and neoliberalism is knocking on the door over there too. It is in the rest of Europe anyway, so enjoy it while it lasts I suppose.


Anyway, this discussion seems to be going better than the reddit comments section, because I haven't had the urge to flame the shit out of you like I do there, so that's good (that's why I came here, to get away from that). But yes, I bet we could both write books about it haha.

 


Just to clairfy though, what I understand to be socialism would be regular people coming together to collectively plan on how they want to run their communities and the means of production, and building a bottom-up infrastructure of government. Is this possible? Well we've seen embryos of it happen and there are examples in the Wikipedia page I linked earlier, but obviously it hasn't yet been implemented fully on a national scale. At the end of the day, I think the only way we'll see our interests represented in any government is if we as working people come together to form an organization that represents and pushes for those interests.

Transparency, independent court system and news media is what you need to combat corruption. The United States have problems in all those departments, and it seems to get worse. Transparency have taken big hits, terrorism laws like the PATRIOT act make thousands of little changes here and there to make this worse, for example. News media consolidation and direction is also getting worse. But I think you all know this, preaching to the choir. There are tried and true solutions, but you need people to give a damn too. Not that it is getting any better here, heck I could easily argue that we are worse off here now.

Perhaps the nordic countries were able to establish some pretty strong laws in favor of labor or still has strong unions (you tell me, I'd honestly like to know), but I hear that austerity and neoliberalism is knocking on the door over there too. It is in the rest of Europe anyway, so enjoy it while it lasts I suppose.

The unions pull all the strings here in Fin, and they're pretty much the only players in town. Altho legislations to safeguard employees and their income is written, from a workers perspective unions are crucial because they provide that last-mile insurance (mainly free legal services).

For a reference point; there's even a "unions union".

As for austerity and neoliberalism, if you're referring to "every man for themselves", then they're just rumors. Sure some of the unions has been critizised for causing blips in the economy and gets cursed to hell, but the main goal they have is to assure continuous work, not high income, and they play by those tactics.

There is no perfect system. Period. All systems can be corrupted, either by system insecurity or propaganda and such. In the United States, it's much more the latter - both people and politicians have a lot of ignorance to technical issues. That's part of the issue of democracy, but it doesn't help that the politicians are basically paid to be ignorant. It doesn't help that lobbying doesn't really have any consequences for either lobbyist or politician. Other than that, the system is pretty secure, as long as each branch of government works to preserve its power. Once any branch gets any more power than the others or tries to pass system safeguards (i.e. memorandums, *cough*Obama*cough*), we can call farce on that.

Either way, and this is just speculation, I think the global economy would falter if every country converted to a single system like socialism or capitalism+democracy or republic. They prevent as sort of extremism among any sort of political front, and arguably keep their powers in check, in a Cold War sense ("arguably"). Each provide a different sense of economic support, and in a sense provide a global sense of personal choice as far as choosing which system is, in your opinion, the "best." That entirely depends on whether you can actually move successfully between said systems, but that's a different issue. Since the global powers are a check-and-balance of each other, the biggest threat is, again, money. Bribes and lobbyists.

Did I mention that we have wayy too many agencies in the US? FBI (okay), CIA (alright), NSA (umm), DoHS (uhhh)... And those are just the popular ones.

The issue with social workers democracy is that in normally reduces personal freedoms. Because of the central planning the party decides what is fair pay,  prices and compensation which can lead to some strange imbalances. 

Imbalances do occur in capitalism such as a market trader makes way more than a scientist, for example.

Now taking socialist democracy to a more local (municipality) level could fix some of those issue because imbalances could be spotted and fixed much faster. But the same could be said of a market economy.

The issue with a planned economy is that it mainly cares about needs over want which causes black and grey markets to take rise which under cuts the whole thing.

Capitalism make getting wants easier but needs are normally much more expensive due to artificial scarcity.

I think that focusing on small scale solutions on better than huge bureaucracies.

I do think socialism would be better for society. The problem is people like they are sacrificing freedom when in theory they didn't have it to begin with. In the US our president is elected by the electoral college, so even with mass rule, an idiot will be elected anyway. 

Well.. I live in a post-socialist country and I say no more of this bs. Even 22 years after switching to democracy many former members of the Party are in the government and they are the greediest, most corrupt bastards there are. All of the post-socialist countries in Europe suffer from debilitating corruption, which massively slows our otherwise good economic growth. For example, since we joined EU and started siphoning money from other, wealthier countries (Germany, mostly), 90% of the money EU provided to us is unaccounted for. I think, that only person, who never suffered through socialism or it's aftermath can suggest it as a viable alternative.

For now, capitalism is the best thing we have. As of now we are just waiting on technology to catch up and change the way we do everything (AI) and thus for capitalism to run it's course.

I know the flaws in capitalism, I know it is broken from the start, but right now, in today's world, there is no other existing system I would want to live under.

+1 for transparency.

Read a book many years ago about Stalin,Lennon and the rise of the USSR. It was fascinating. They put scientists and engineers in charge of important things and gave them a kind of power and those people worked to hang on to that power.. To keep the knowledge secret and to undermine younger workers they felt threatened by. It was a very interesting read. 

Capitalism with a basic income may be interesting. Would society be better with more work product from just those who do for the sake of doing? Certainly open source has taught us there are many out there who do for the sake of doing... 

It may have an interesting effect on journalism. Journalists who do for the sake of doing. I just hope we are not too late. There is an older generationof Pulitzer level writers just languishing in all the manufactured tripe... 

 

 

The US of A could try it's own version* of some social democracy as in Germany, Sweden, Japan and other such countries for a start... that would make more sense than some Leninist (or Trotskyist) regime or an alternative experiment in theoretical marxism that ignores what we have learnt in the past 30 years about economics and politics.

OP, we know where and how markets fail and what to do about it. Talk to, or read, any real economist (i.e. not TV talking head). Joseph Stiglitz would be a good place to start from a mainstream economics point of view. This is a critique from within economics itself (he's a nobel winning economist and a former chief economist at the World Bank). Also read What Money Can't Buy, by Michael Sandel for a discussion on the moral limits of markets in our lives and in the political economy. Both perfectly fine examples from the mainstream academic world but don't make regular headlines or shape debate in the US because the corporate takeover of media and professional journalism is nearly complete there. The result is that Instead of expertise and fact-based rigour we only have corporate propaganda and an internet-enabled amateurish crowd media of rumour and populism. There are minor exceptions where people with expertise aim to get the truth out in an honest manner, but it is far from what a well funded, independent, fact based journalism would look like.

 

* The US freedom of speech and such is far more advanced then those countries. There are many other things that American culture and society can retain and still have a functioning democracy and more egalitarian political economic system.

First of all, thank you for the response.

Read a book many years ago about Stalin,Lennon and the rise of the USSR. It was fascinating. They put scientists and engineers in charge of important things and gave them a kind of power and those people worked to hang on to that power.. To keep the knowledge secret and to undermine younger workers they felt threatened by. It was a very interesting read.

This sounds like a very interesting read and if you have a link to the piece I would love to read it.

Capitalism with a basic income may be interesting. Would society be better with more work product from just those who do for the sake of doing? Certainly open source has taught us there are many out there who do for the sake of doing...

 

I'm glad you mentioned this! The UBI movement is also something I've been following as well, and this is pretty much the only way I can see capitalism (and realistically society at large) being saved in the coming years. I feel it greatly depends on who is implementing the UBI and to what ends. If it's mostly the tech elites and venture capitalists of today pushing for it, then it could just be a means to cut costs in government spending, which isn't inherently bad as that's part of the goal, but I fear that in this case the UBI measures would not go far enough and potentially leave many people short-handed. Would it still be better than what we have today? Potentially, we would at least have our foot in the door at that point. On the flip side, if it's implemented with pressure from working people out mobilizing then I feel like it could turn out wonderfully. But who knows, maybe there are smart rich people in power who understand that if they want to keep their privelege they're going to have to respond to the current income gap or else face the consequences.

 

As for journalism, I think that UBI would be beneficial for that as well. In fact, I see you guys as a form of journalism and that's why I decided to come to this community, because you watch what's going on in the world while providing commentary that (at least for me) explains a great deal of what's going on with great accuracy. So kudos to you and logan! Plus I've been getting sick of reddit and the seemingly more mature community here is refreshing, so there's that.

Well I agree that leninism or trotskyism today doesn't make sense because those are two very specific modes of thinking tied with a certain revolutionary epoch, so while we can learn from them and where they went wrong. However, I disagree that marxism is irrelevant today, as Marx's insights into the workings of capitalism are playing out pretty similarly to how he described them hundreds of years ago, and there's plenty that we can learn from it. This is not to say we should form another vanguard party and try USSR 2.0, but we as working people are going to have to come together to fight for our shared interests, because if we let the current neoliberal regime keep going ahead full force then the planet will very well be destroyed in the next couple of decades.

 

Of course we know the markets aren't perfect. I'll have to check this Stiglitz out someday, thanks for the rec. I also agree with the corporate takeover of media (don't have to tell me twice), and the state of journalism at large. I don't know what the solution there is for sure, but we definitely need better journalism.

 

Also US freedom of speech is slowly being eroded just like any other protections of the poor from the rich. Look at the people who get cops sent to their house for posting a facebook message or a tweet, and look at the attempts at curbing political dissent by setting up "free speech zones". I think that we should retain the good things we've gained from american capitalism: the produtive power of our factories, the bill of rights (well the ideas behind them, of course given a revolution the constitution would be rewritten), and other things that benefit everyday people.

Actually, if we just "wait for the technolog to catch up", I garauntee you that we will see the destabilization of our current economy as we're already seeing happen right before us.

If we leave the current technology advancements to their courses we'll see millions of workers displaced from the remaining vestiges of work that remain with no organization to turn towards that represents them, no food on their tables, and no money to pay for their houses. Not only that, but as workers are thrown out of work, they will have no means to support themselves financially, which means they can no longer buy the products that keep the motors of the market moving, which will turn into a crisis for the capitalist class as well who can no longer sell products because the people who would buy them no longer have money.

 

And if we wait for the current elites to use that technology to fix those problems without any organization from below then we'll most certainly see 1984 develop right before our very eyes, because the technology and the motives to implement it as such are in power right now.

Actually by neoliberalism and austerity I'm refering to the current drive to privitize crucial government functions such as healthcare, school, and the prisons, as well as cutting funding to those services (well except the prisons of course because we know that those will be important for the ruling class in the coming years.)

Usually the excuse is that "we don't have money for all this!", but anyway. Thanks for the reply, that's kind of what I figured, because without strong working class organization, the capitalist class of any country is not afraid to cut back whatever benefits were conceded.

The issue with social workers democracy is that in normally reduces personal freedoms. Because of the central planning the party decides what is fair pay,  prices and compensation which can lead to some strange imbalances.

I'm not advocating for a vanguard party lead state, I'm adovacting for a bottom up workers' council styled comminism (read more on wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_council ). This would be able to respond to the needs of the people while also providing a real basis for a democratic forum.

Imbalances do occur in capitalism such as a market trader makes way more than a scientist, for example.

Imbalance is literally the whole basis of capitalism, equilibrium is an exception, not a rule. Just look at the wealth gap right now, look who has the money and then you'll understand whose interests are being represented here.

Now taking socialist democracy to a more local (municipality) level could fix some of those issue because imbalances could be spotted and fixed much faster. But the same could be said of a market economy.

I mean that's more or less what I'm advocating, while also expanding that outwards to the rest of the world.

The issue with a planned economy is that it mainly cares about needs over want which causes black and grey markets to take rise which under cuts the whole thing.

I'm not advocating for a planned economy in the sense that we predetermine the amount of lettuce each person gets to put on their burger, I think we need to plan the economy on the basis of what's necessary for human survival. If we're putting out too many green house gases in the atmosphere then we need to be able to respond to that by putting our research and efforts into clean energy. If we have a distribution problem where people in a certain area aren't getting enough food then we need to reallocate some of our food and other resources to those areas while building the infrastructure to distribute it. The market cannot take care of these problems because those people do not have the money to create effective demand and solutions, so human planning must come into play. Plus with human planning we could prevent market crashes that are built into the market. Notice the boom and bust cycle.

Capitalism make getting wants easier but needs are normally much more expensive due to artificial scarcity.

This isn't even true. Capitalism only makes these things easier to obtain if you have the money, if you don't have the money then tough shit.

 

I'm not advocating for more bureaucracies, I'm advocating for community control over it's own affairs.

I'm voting for Bernie Sanders.

lol, you goofball. As far as congress critters go, I suppose he's like the least of the evils, so that's fair enough, but it's so hard for me to trust anyone in congress right now that I'm skeptical of the whole thing itself.


Thanks for the response though.