Socialism v Capitalism – isn’t it about time we changed the record?
I’m bored. Bored of hearing the tired old argument that socialism provides for the needy and capitalism help people raise to the top in a free market economy. Personally? I think there’s good and bad to each one. I just think that each system is so fundamentally flawed that I think it’s time to change that record disc already.
Socialism is great. As I say I’m an anarcho-socialist. I believe that everyone has that shining light and can be someone of worth. Socialism inspires that, it encourages collectivism, providing for the few, helping the needy. But I find it very rigid in its thinking. There needs to be some sort of authoritarian presence otherwise who will stop anyone taking what they want from who they want? Also, what about those that work hard and want to achieve something in their life? I think people that work hard to achieve what they need should be rewarded accordingly. We see a situation in Britain right now where people have become disenfranchised by a system that rewards people for working, and doing nothing equally.
Just not 45 Million pounds per year. That’s stupid and unequal.
And the same for Capitalism. It’s great to see the rise of quick thinking and entrepreneurial types in the system who devise quite forward thinking and awe inspiring technologies. People taking it upon themselves to join the free market and make a living for themselves, but with this there is such a centralisation on the individual. It promotes wealth, but it also promotes greed. Gross inequality in wages, and certainly towards responsibility and duties taken. The CEO of Walmart makes $16,000 or so per second or something daft like that, whereas his front line works make $10 per hours or near that. Inequality? Greatly so.
Is it so beyond us to devise a system that caters for both collectivism and capitalism? It doesn’t seem hard really. I mean economists and those that lead the country can sit there and think, ok, obviously this isn’t working. So today we’ll scrap everything and start again. Perhaps they won’t, because then that would create a system that doesn’t cater to those that are already profiteering psychopathic amounts from it.
It would be great to devise a system that caters to all walks of life. For those that want to create and manage and be inspired, they should be rewarded. And there also should be remuneration for community focussed activity. I totally get there are all walks of life, and that to make people happy you need to provide enough of what they want – so perhaps instead of weighting a great deal on financial reward, and having the corporate few that hold all the keys to the finances, decentralise the system. Have a system where there is competition where currently there is none. Give back the power of voting to the people, and perhaps we might see the rise of a new build. I don’t know.
What do you think?
Hey sorry for filling up your comments section, I didn't realize how long that reply had gotten and that was rude of me, I apologize.
Literally my response should have been a blog posting on it's own. I've moved my response to my blog so no one has to wade through it unless they want to.
https://steemit.com/anarchy/@williambanks/towards-a-better-tomorrow-part-4-the-final-destination
Excellent post though @gangsta ! I've upvoted and I'm following you now.
what a great read.
Thank you!
Definitely some interesting statements here. Money has been the biggest fallacy around for years. Yet it kind of translates the value of something. Which is why I agree, the perceived value of stuff is based on the type of demand for it. That's where the level of scarcity comes in - or the perceived levels- to accumulate as much money as possible. Based on this we have been able to create this system in Capitalism to create stuff that have perceived value - time tells us all the time that it was not as valuable as we thought though -- and offer the respective amount asked for it. All now knowledge/creativity/time are money. In what you stated it will be more obvious than before (at least I hope so)
Yes that is the readers digest version of it. Thank you for reading it!
maybe you should just stop blaming capitalism for the failures of socialism, and stop praising socialism for the achievements of capitalism
collectivism is the worst thing that can happen to humanity. So no we do not need collectivism. Not a single bit. Humans are not ants in a colony but uniquer individuals. Collectivism leads to blaming "others" for your failures.Collectivism births racism and xenophobia and war and most ills that plague humanity.
The greatest advancements of mankind came from individualism. All of them. It is what we need more of.
Collectivism/individualism is nothing but a false dichotomy. There are aspects of both in most situations in life.
And these words need to be clearly defined, not coloured by personal assciations. Both collectivism and individualism are double edge swords.
If am in a group, I need to balance my personal needs against the needs of the group. If I lose track of other the perspective of other people I have taken the individualist perspective too far.
On the other hand, you can´t see things from the perspective of a group, because a group consists of individuals. So groups are abstract entities based on identification, and this is dangerous,because it opens up the possibility that people lose track of their personal perspective to further the groups interest.
Of course,the reason people work to further a group interest can be as selfish as a pure individualist perspective,as the group is satisfying yourpersonal needs for safety and a feeling of meaning.
In conclusion, it´s complicated.
So, as a Anarcho-Socialist, who considers collectivism and helping the needy a beneficial aspect of socialism, can the rest of assume you will be sharing the payout from this post equally...or will you be contemplating the Anarcho-Capitalist approach of keeping it all to yourself...I'm just curious how this works, because from my personal experience, there is always a bit of hypocrisy associated with those claiming to be "socialist" in some form or another...and please, don't be offended...I am genuinely curious as to how this "socialism" everyone seems to be embracing, is going to work...because I can tell you right now, my money is on you keeping the payout of this post to yourself, rather than sharing it equally as "socialism" would otherwise dictate, and why wouldn't you...it's your work, why should any of the rest of us be entitled to an equal share of it.
Glad to see a post on Steemit that isn't just pro-anarchy actually getting some traction! Gives me some hope for Steemit making it.
I always see Unions and leftists, argue against automation. Many people are fearful about machines taking over their jobs. McDonalds, Walmart, etc. low end jobs. They resist the sign of the times: by protesting, rioting, and sometimes destroying the very machines that will soon replace them. They don't realize that it's not just machines replacing people, it's systems replacing ALL people.
The paradigm shift is a move towards machines and systems. Much like the one we are occupying now. Or more precisely like the blockchain. I'm more enthusiastic to have automation that will replace the middle men, management, administrative jobs. Like smart contracts, blockchain, that can truly adhere to the principals of democracy and reach true free market.
TL;DR
The shift is coming. To replace ALL middle men(banks, politicians, brokers, beuracrats etc..)
A very interesting post; can you explain to me how all of the innovation the world has enjoyed which progressively increased the standard of living for everyone has been bad? How much of that innovation happened under authoritarian socialist societies? Nations that encouraged individual creativity, and industry have flourished creating great societies. When group think has been encouraged the world has witnessed the worst forms of oppression. We should encourage those who are disadvantaged to invest in their human capital and increase their self worth instead of working towards dragging all of society to the same miserable place.
Hmmmm not sure how to unpack your questions. I'm not advocating for a socialist society. In fact, I'm pro free market. What I am more excited is the elimination of bureaucrats from both the public and private sphere. Those two groups have led us to have capitalism and socialism run a muck. What I want is a system that we can TRUST and that doesn't get corrupted by semi erudite bureaucrats
Apologies for hitting the wrong reply button I was directing my comments against gansta. However I agree wih you except for the fact I don't believe auotmation will fix the bureaucratic problems. Nor do I think we can build a system we can trust. Nor do I want to trust bureaucrats or machines. I do agree the machine running a smart contract is more trust worthy.
Sounds good but people do not understand it, the ultra-super rich. Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates, Allen. They hold stock, not cash. They received the stock because when their companies were new they awarded themselves stock. And as the WorldCom trial showed with Jeffrey Schilling, sell too much of your stock as an executive, even if you want to retire and do something else completely, the company and the stock price can collapse! An executive will be imprisoned for it, fast. Other executives who also own a vast amount of stock, might just commit suicide.
Buffet and Gates decided to donate 15 billion for AIDS care in Africa, nothing wrong with that except, they had to sell stock in order to do it and when they did...
Every system has its flaws, problems, crooks, and total heroes. As far as collectives capitalism, they are everywhere in the United States, especially in Rural Agricultural areas. It is legal to start them and they can be profitable.
Where do you find collectives in America that are huge? If you go to a town and the gas station says 'COOP' it does not mea chicke coop. Everything in the town might just be owned by the Co-op, everybody.
So, did you know that? Did you know that like trade guilds, agricultural coops go back thousands of years around the entire planet?
really good. musing aloud: decentralisation is the key to being able to reconcile the tension between liberty and equality. IT has the potential to do this because it could link myriad human scale local communities across the world. this potentiality was massively multiplied by the invention of the blockchain.
I think you have the right idea,apart from the part about the authoritarian presence. That is the opposite of what we need. We need flat,local governance structures. And we need a post-scarcity society,because economy is at the roof of most of our problems. So much of politics is about the distribution or redistribution of resources. This will be solved,production costs will eventually go so low that most basic needs can be purchased cheaply. And then the next step is collaborative ownership of the means of production,including many services that will be automated. I belive this will happen naturally, because it cuts costs.
A very central point here is that we can only produce as much much as our environment can take,i.e the economy has ecological constraints. This needs to be a central premise in our philosophy as a society.
Now for those services that can´t be automated, we have different models. My wiew is that the remaining work should be divided in a kind of collective gift economy.
Alternatively, and this might agree with you more, capitalism will continue in limited fashion, but the goods and services that we trade will be ever more based on information and attention. This is already happening.
My conclusion is that socialists, anarcho-communists and anarcho-capitalists should agree to disagree for now. If we really want to create a better society, let´s accelerate events, and fight for the post-scarcity society,and then go from there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Scarcity_Anarchism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy
there's no such thing as a post-scarce society. Discussing about how to plan for one now is the equivalent of discussing how to survive a zombie apocalypse, it's fun, but completely unrealistic.
Give some arguments please, captainpuppy. I mean we can claim things all day, to no avail.
I disagree. In fact there are historical examples of 'abundant' economies. PreColumbian NorthWest Indians for example.
I agree with the need for any 'centralized' authority. How about a 'decentralized authority' instead? One where you could choose which group you want to pay tribute (taxes) to (if at all) for various services like protection, fire fighting services, etc.
interesting idea, can you explain more? I would rather have a non monetary system,as I think money will be redundant in the future, but this future might be far off still. Meanwhile we need transition models. Your idea could fit there. This reminds me of a project called resilience, made by a swedish guy called Johan nygren,who is also on Steemit
Please check this link and compare it to your idea;
https://resilience.press/taxemes-voluntary-wealth-redistribution-through-natural-selection-d1f586987c71#.a2xsxnp7s
I meant -- I agreed with your comment that a central authority is not needed.
Basically, the idea behind a 'decentralized authority' is that the power structure exists and you cannot remove / dismantle it completely, as then something else would naturally form in its place in the wake of the vacuum.
Instead, decentralization of power should be the goal; how that can be accomplished, or even what that is are another matter.
this is very thought provoking. automation, AI and robotics will increase the amount of liesure to the point that a gift - busking economy will be possible, greatly enhancing conviviality, the development of the unique human individual and the releasing to the greater good of the concomitant creativity and enquiry. concentrations of power, pyramid, style would be inimical to this possibility. decentralisation would be its very condition which is why blockchain technology is so important.
Yes, the blockchain is a key technology. Decentralisation is extremely exciting, because it seems to change the nature of the game, giving power to the people. THese are very exciting times.
Also the safe network is a key technology.
Sorry for the long rant, maybe it was out of place. I think your post was good, and we are definitely on the same side.
I am following you now, and I´m hoping to collaborate with you in the future, to try to improve the sorry state of our society.
Thanks! I didn't see that as a rant. I'm always up for a conversation. It's one that we need to have.