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  • “But what if one day I get generational wealth? I better vote against anything that might reduce poverty and wealth inequality!” - republican voters

  • This cartoon makes some bad assumptions.

    "the workers (aka the proletariat) own their own workplace" That's one way to do it, or you could have that happen indirectly where the workplace is owned by the government and the workers "own" it indirectly. Most firefighters don't work for a for-profit company, but it's also not a firefighter-owned company that goes and sells firefighting services to businesses that don't want to burn down. A worker-owned company might make sense in certain situations, say a clothing store. You wouldn't necessarily want a central government owning all garment manufacturing and sales. A worker-owned collective is probably a better match. You might have a worker-owned sports store that focuses on selling sports gear, and a worker-owned wedding gown store that focuses on that market. Most people are more familiar with the government-owned model, and that's also socialism.

    "production is then planned by elected committees"... why? That's the communist way, but that's not necessarily how a socialist system has to operate. And, in many cases, an "elected committee" is absolutely the wrong way. In countries with state-provided healthcare, there's a government minister who is in charge of health, and their ministry hires the experts needed to run the healthcare system. I definitely don't think that system would be improved if an elected committee were in charge of running things. You might still have worker-representation in those setups. For example, the nurses could belong to a union, and a union rep would be part of decision making. But, an elected committee is a weird fit in many situations.

    "increases in productivity continuously reduce the work week"... that's just not likely. People who have high paying jobs could sometimes demand a shorter work week, and occasionally they do. But, often they want a more luxurious life in their time off rather than a less luxurious life and lots of time off. I'm not talking about CEOs and other people who are workaholics and own multiple mansions. I'm talking about dentists and engineers who are willing to keep working a standard 40 hour week so that they can take trips around the world, or buy a nice cottage near a lake, or treat their kids to nice presents.

    This way of presenting socialism is going to give people the wrong idea.

    • In countries with state-provided healthcare, there's a government minister who is in charge of health, and their ministry hires the experts needed to run the healthcare system. I definitely don't think that system would be improved if an elected committee were in charge of running things

      Maybe not running things, but the input of local committees could be very welcome. Increasing the number of specialists of some kind because of popular desire, putting a clinic in X part of the neighborhood because there are a lot of reduced-mobility people who could benefit from it nearby, transparency meetings where the expenditure is explained to the people...

      "increases in productivity continuously reduce the work week"... that's just not likely. People who have high paying jobs could sometimes demand a shorter work week, and occasionally they do. But, often they want a more luxurious life in their time off rather than a less luxurious life and lots of time off

      Ideally, each worker would be able to decide what they want, and shift between different working hours on different stages of life. Construction worker who only wants to have the basics and a lot of leisure time? 20h workweek. Scientist crazy for research who wants to spend a lot of time in the lab? 40h workweek. Said scientist decides to have a kid and wants to reduce to 25h workweek? Done.

      The idea is that workers would be able to make those decisions themselves instead of relying on the good-will of their corporate overlords, it doesn't mean everybody has to be present in every democratic decision if they don't want to, or that everyone needs to have identical working conditions.

  • Market socialism also exists, just to remind everyone.

    If you Google "define socialism", you'll get a sentence saying socialism is when tve means of production are owned OR regulated by the people.

    So you can still have what we have right now, no need for any sort of fundamental change, except proper regulation, meaning actually good labour laws and proper taxation for the wealthy.

    Finland and other Nordics are arguably market socialist.

    And yes, I know how many will disagree. Here in Finland, less so.

    • Finland and other Nordics are arguably market socialist.

      Absolutely not, they are Social Democracies. They are not progressing towards more worker ownership, but less, Capitalism still drives the system and the bourgeoisie still drives the state.

    • By any reasonable dictionary (as well as classic definition), capitalism is defined by private property of the means of production. Socialism is defined by common/social ownership of the means of production, not "regulation". What you call "market socialism" is just regulated capitalism.

      Nothing wrong with having any position, and we should strive for what's best instead of trying to correspond to certain terms, but what you suggest is not socialism.

      And I kinda hate it when we move the goalposts, especially with American politician calling literally any bit of social policy "socialism". No it's not, and classics have outlined it very, very clearly.

      • No it isn't.

        Capitalism doesn't have a monopoly on privately owned businesses.

        "By any reasonable definition" you seem to mean "this is what I think for some reason I'm not even entirely sure of, and I'm too lazy to even Google what you said".

        Now see, which should I believe, the actual consensus of the literature on economics and political philosophy... or some random dude online who's rhetoric of "byaah no no that's just capitalism socialism is communism" I've seen literally thousands of times?

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_ownership

        However, the articulation of models of market socialism where factor markets are utilized for allocating capital goods between socially owned enterprises broadened the definition to include autonomous entities within a market economy.

        Cooperatives, while not being owned by a single private person, are still held by private people.

        You can cry all you want but capitalism isn't synonymous with market economy.

        Well regulated capitalism is just socialism. Capitalism strives for the least regulation possible, because it enables maximising profits, which actually is the definition of it as a political ideology. Striving for more capital.

        Here's something which will rustle your jimmies even more.

        You know we Nordics are social democracies right?

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy

        Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism[1]

        Social democracy has been described as the most common form of Western or modern socialism.[11][12]

        In the 21st century, it has become commonplace to define social democracy in reference to Northern and Western European countries,[39] and their model of a welfare state with a corporatist system of collective bargaining.[40] Social democracy has also been used synonymously with the Nordic model.[

  • Question. How can we be sure to trust that the elected committees do not turn society into an authoritarian regime? Would it work like standard western democracy, i.e. electing a party / parties to form a "government" (in this case committee; semantics)?

    Edit: I truly appreciate everybody who takes the time to write elaborate answers pertaining to my question. I will read and respond once I have the opportunity and in that case, I hope eventual followup questions are welcomed. :)

    • The key is in one of the words you've said:

      ELECTED committee

      You don't have to trust that they won't turn authoritarian. If you see authoritarian tendencies and you don't like them, you vote them out.

      Would it work like standard western democracy, i.e. electing a party / parties to form a "government"

      That depends on who you ask. An anarchist will tell you no, a communist will tell you a different answer, etc. I'm a Marxist-Leninist so I'll answer to that as a Marxist-Leninist.

      In a Marxist-Leninist state, there is only one party. In the same way that your country only have one justice system, your country only has one socialized system of healthcare (if at all), etc, there would be need only for one party: the party that represents the interests of the workers. This party would have a vanguard of communist intellectuals (liable to being removed from their position by popular vote), who would be in a constant back-and-forth democratic dialogue with the workers and their representation in worker-councils. The needs and demands of the workers would be translated to Marxist ideology, which is flexible depending on the circumstances, the culture, and the society it's applied to, and policy would be drafted, approved and adopted.

      A good example of this in action is detailed in a book called "how the workers' parliaments saved the Cuban Revolution", by Pedro Ross. It details the immense level of popular participation in the drafting, approval, implementation and execution of policy in Cuba during the 1990s "periodo especial", a huge economic crisis precipitated by the dissolution of their biggest trading partner, the USSR. Literal millions of people, through their unions and through worker councils, participated democratically in deciding which sectors of the economy they wanted to preserve most, which ones least, which workers are redundant and which aren't, which goods and services should be prioritised in the planned economy, how to organize local organic farms everywhere (including workplaces) in order to minimize food imports... All of this happened in a back-and-forth, multi-year exercise, between the top representatives of the government, the specialists (e.g. economists, hospital directors, transit company directors, etc.), and the direct representatives of the people through the worker's councils. It's truly one of the most explicit and overwhelming examples of democracy that I've ever encountered.

    • All committees are authoritarian regimes, if they have any power. Making any decisions with power to back it up is authoritarian.

      The question is whether you want decisions made by 500 bankers and some military conteactors or by collective deliberative organs that respond to the needs of the people at large, and assuming the latter, how do you make them function robustly?

      A smart approach would borrow from the successes of others while allowing a bit of experimentation. Most real-world sociakist systems have implemented both a bottom-up local governance system for some domains and top-diwo national level policies for other domains. There is a real-world practical need for both.

      Re: The councils in this cartoon, they are referring to, more or less, workplace democracy. Practically speaking, this requires a similar system: workers deciding how to run their company but also there is a need for national/regional coordination, for capital investment, and to balance against the bourgeois tendencies of what is basically a wirkers' cooperative.

      A key promise of socialism is not to immediately establish utopia, but to set the groundwork for how we may develop society for ourselves. There may be a form of workers' councils that you prefer but that I might critique as unworkable in the current world. But it would surely be something made possible by socialist steuggle over time, as the comic explains: we would work to decrease necessary work time, to live our lives more how we want to. Once free if, say, imperiakist wars and expensive dirty energy, perhaps local workers' council politics can adopt a simpler, more fair and autonomous form.

      Basically, deconstructing oppressive systems would be an ongoing process that would have to be weighed against what is "more important" (e.g. not getting nuked), not one leap. So the form taken would depend on the context of how we win, what threats we face, borroeing from others' successes, and how our experiments go.

    • I'll jump in with an extra question here if I may:

      So say you have two companies, doing more or kess the same thing, company A and company B.

      If the workers in those companies detain their respective means of production, why wouldn't they want to do what we see today:

      "Hire" the best ones from the other company, grow so they all get more of it, intimidate concurrence etc? I mean it's not just because there are lots of bosses instead of just some, that it will solve those problems?

      Also, if company A does well, won't people apply for work there, but ot for company B that (say) does less well? Wouldnt company A try to limit hired if they don't fall in line with what they are thinking/doing etc.?

      I just see the same system but with artificial blocks for the most obvious things, blocks people (who want it, I mean those crazy prycopathic bosses will still be around, they're just not a CEO any more) will just work around.

    • Yes and no. Most Marxists advocate for a form of Whole-Process People's Democracy, or Soviet Democracy. Essentially, the idea is that, rather than just having state, local, and federal elections (as a brief example), there are far more rungs you can directly elect and participate in. This ideally holds people accountable better than western democracies do.

  • i thought the crying guy was Hatsune Miku at first LOL

  • So it's all nice in theory, but I have questions...

    the workers own their workplace

    Based on previous discussions, I understand the commonly proposed model here would be a workers' collective of some sort. People involved in the collective's production share the proceeds - we made N number of tractors and took them to market and received X value units; we spent Y value units in the production process, so we can distribute (X - Y) value units among the members of the collective. The workers own the equipment and infrastructure used by the collective and share responsibility for production. If a worker moves from workplace A to workplace B for whatever reason, they cease to share in the proceeds and responsibility of workplace A's collective and take on the responsibilities of workplace B's collective and share in its proceeds.

    (Aside: What if X is smaller than Y? Should members then add back the difference for the next production cycle, so production materials can be procured?)

    Let's look at the (X - Y) part a bit more closely. This defines the benefit that members of the collective derive from the enterprise, so they are collectively incentivised to make the difference as big as possible - to benefit themselves rather than a capital owner. Let's assume that all collectives can procure production materials equally with no supply and demand market forces (unlikely). Let's further assume that the market value for the goods produced is fixed (questionable, but OK). So anyone involved in producing tractors pay the same number of value units for raw materials and components and can only ever sell tractors for the same number of value units as everyone else. This means that an individual collective is heavily incentivised to reduce the raw materials needed per tractor (production efficiency), make better tractors than other collectives (market attractiveness), or increase the number of tractors they take to market in a given time period (increased production). Each collective, and ultimately its members, thus stand to benefit from having the most skilled tractor builders, innovative tractor designers, and an all-round hardworking membership. A more successful collective would draw more workers with such beneficial traits and become even more successful in the process. It would also be in the interest of the collective to either push out members that do not contribute according to their full ability, or reduce their share of the proceeds. The former would result in some workers not being accepted into any collective after a while and thus not contributing to any production, the latter in performance-based remuneration that creates societal inequality.

    Congratulations! You just created market forces in the labour market that will have winners and losers.

    a.k.a the means of production

    Can someone explain to me what this means in today's world, beyond factories making physical goods (such as tractors) using physical machines and manual human labour?

    production is then planned by elected committees

    There are some details missing here. Who elects these committees - workers, or society in general? What are the requirements for being electable for such a role? How are these committees held accountable for failures? Do they plan production at a society-wide level, each in a specific industry, or down to regions or specific production facilities? Do they serve only a planning role, or are they also responsible for execution?

    What checks would be in place to prevent professional popularity contest participants (those we call politicians at the moment) from adopting a facade of ideological purity and getting elected on popularity rather than merit? How would they be insulated from outside influence by those affected by their decision making? Do we really need more tractors, or do they still have friends in Worker's Collective 631 that makes tractors?

    Congratulations! You just created a managerial class (at best) or just the usual corrupt cabal that run things to their own benefit.

    increases productivity as workers are more happy and committed

    That's a big assumption. Anyone have any data from wide sampling across multiple industries to support this as a long-term sustained effect?

    work to better ourselves and humanity

    If you replace "humanity" with "our close community" this might be realistic. I don't think the "and humanity" has ever happened at a macro level.

    • Congratulations! You just created market forces in the labour market that will have winners and losers.

      Yes. Market Socialism (which would have supply and demand and competing worker-owned firms) doesn't solve everything. I advocate for it because I think it's a good, achievable medium-term goal that would be a vast improvement over what we have now. Something we could see in my lifetime. Once we get things there, workers are in a better position to advocate for further changes, like dumping money altogether.

      However, there's plenty of people who think we should jump right past that and into the Anarco-Communist end goal.

    • Based on previous discussions, I understand the commonly proposed model here would be a workers' collective of some sort. People involved in the collective's production share the proceeds - we made N number of tractors and took them to market and received X value units; we spent Y value units in the production process, so we can distribute (X - Y) value units among the members of the collective. The workers own the equipment and infrastructure used by the collective and share responsibility for production. If a worker moves from workplace A to workplace B for whatever reason, they cease to share in the proceeds and responsibility of workplace A's collective and take on the responsibilities of workplace B's collective and share in its proceeds.

      This is Market Socialism, not Marxism. Marxism is what is depicted in the above graphic. Marxists aim to satisfy the needs of the whole using the production of the whole, not just competing cooperatives.

      Can someone explain to me what this means in today's world, beyond factories making physical goods (such as tractors) using physical machines and manual human labour?

      All Capital, ie everything used in the commodity production process. If your aim is to get into the weeds about what is considered Capital, edge cases can be decided by committees.

      There are some details missing here. Who elects these committees - workers, or society in general? What are the requirements for being electable for such a role? How are these committees held accountable for failures? Do they plan production at a society-wide level, each in a specific industry, or down to regions or specific production facilities? Do they serve only a planning role, or are they also responsible for execution?

      The society in general is the workers. Requirements can be decided by the people. These committees are held accountable via election, and a recall election can be held at any time. There are multiple rungs of planning, from society wide to regional to facility levels, with committees for each. They can serve planning and execution, as workers participate.

      What checks would be in place to prevent professional popularity contest participants (those we call politicians at the moment) from adopting a facade of ideological purity and getting elected on popularity rather than merit? How would they be insulated from outside influence by those affected by their decision making? Do we really need more tractors, or do they still have friends in Worker's Collective 631 that makes tractors?

      Recall elections. Why would producing more tractors in collective 631 benefit that collective if the goal is to satisfy the whole from the whole?

      Congratulations! You just created a managerial class (at best) or just the usual corrupt cabal that run things to their own benefit.

      Managers are not a class, they are an extension of the workers.

      That's a big assumption. Anyone have any data from wide sampling across multiple industries to support this as a long-term sustained effect?

      Yes, across numerous studies worker participation in steering companies has resulted in higher satisfaction and stability.

      If you replace "humanity" with "our close community" this might be realistic. I don't think the "and humanity" has ever happened at a macro level.

      You're arguing against a chimera of random mish-mashed ideas from several different strains of Socialism that argue for different forms as though they are one and the same.

      • This is Market Socialism, not Marxism. Marxism is what is depicted in the above graphic.

        The graphic with the big caption "SOCIALISM". But fair point on me not addressing the specific implementation suggested with the presence of the Marx and Lenin characters.

        If your aim is to get into the weeds about what is considered Capital, edge cases can be decided by committees.

        Well yea, the devil is in the detail so it can't just be waved away. The "commodity production process" still implies physical goods made from physical resources and that it's the production facilities and resources that should be seized. (Side note: this assumes all the underlying resources are present within the area controlled by the proletariat.) Not seen any ideas proposed beyond that, but perhaps I'm not hanging around in the right places... Hopefully the committees will have people available that can figure it out after the fact?

        Requirements can be decided by the people. These committees are held accountable via election, and a recall election can be held at any time. There are multiple rungs of planning, from society wide to regional to facility levels, with committees for each. They can serve planning and execution, as workers participate.

        Yea, you've clearly never worked in a "design by committee" or "management by consensus" situation. Nothing ever gets done, and when some decision is finally made on anything it tends to be the shittiest common denominator option that thinly and evenly spreads the collective responsibility. Not the best option, but the one that everyone can kind of agree on and thus be collectively accountable for. The exception might be when a very small number of people that are agreed on an end goal and share the same vision for reaching it work together. But I assure you, that does not scale - even if people are in full agreement on the end goal.

        Why would producing more tractors in collective 631 benefit that collective if the goal is to satisfy the whole from the whole?

        Because human beings.

        Managers are not a class, they are an extension of the workers.

        Fair point. I guess I was a bit caught in the popular narrative where managers are the enemy of the workers.

        Yes, across numerous studies worker participation in steering companies has resulted in higher satisfaction and stability.

        Of course, and I'm a fan. I'm not disputing that places where extensive consultation happens with the people responsible for delivering are nice places to work at. But that consultation process is usually very closely managed and the ideas to take forward are cherry picked to give enough "they listen to me" feel good vibes, while also not interfering too much with the business' priorities. Really taking the inputs of large employee groups seriously on the things that matter cannot happen outside of an adversarial setting, because the interests of the worker and those who benefit most from their labour are fundamentally in conflict. The point I'm rambling towards is that I doubt there are studies that looked at situations where employee inputs in decision making (beyond window dressing) was sustained over very long periods of time at a scale relevant to what you envision. (There are exceptions, but only in small groups of highly-aligned people in a horizontal structure that are deeply vested in the success of the venture.)

        You’re arguing against a chimera of random mish-mashed ideas from several different strains of Socialism that argue for different forms as though they are one and the same.

        I guess you're right on that, yes. The thing is that I've been thinking about details like these (and many more) for at least 25 years (beyond "edgy teenager" or "social media fad" or "my parents are fascists" stages), since I would prefer that the fruits of my labour (to at least some degree) benefit other people rather than feed a system that heavily incentivises the shittiest parts of human beings and is also inherently cruel. Over the years I've also read pretty widely on this topic - from the purist theoretical ideologies to the practical compromises to the counterpoints to the criticisms. (Hell, I even lived in what was basically a workers' collective for almost a year, but it only worked because it was a small community of ~100 people with close social and familial ties.) So in my mind the lines between specific flavours of socialism are pretty blurry these days, while the common fundamental challenges keep standing out.

        What truly frustrates me is the constant arguments about which is the best flavour, while ignoring how to actually realistically practically progress towards something better. Spending the day fighting about which flavour of ice cream to buy instead of figuring out how to get to the ice cream shop on the other side of the city in the first place.

        That, and I am yet to see something proposed that doesn't completely ignore predictable human reactions or result in some degree of authoritarianism. (Nordic-flavour (kind of but not really) Market Socialism is perhaps the closest to something that might work, but it also heavily relies on a fairly homogenous society with a culture that sees value in the interests of that society over total individualism.)

        You're not liberating literal serfs that never knew personal agency from a literal monarch. You're trying to get people that are exploited by a system while also benefitting from it to willingly abandon that system for something that might be better (if it worked) or might not be - the plans for the "something" are fuzzy at best so who knows. The details matter, and interrogating the details is not reactionary behaviour.

  • Socialism

    A system of government where the country's wealth is concentrated into a small, ruling class of billionaires, who use the media they own to keep the lower classes fighting with each other while they . . . the rich . . . run off with all the farking money.

    Oh wait. that's capitalism. I don't know how I got those two systems confused.

351 comments