this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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Socialism
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Sort of. Socialism is simply when public ownership becomes the dominant and driving factor of an economy, typically marked by human supremacy over Capital, rather than the reverse. Since markets naturally centralize, they develop unique forms of planning suitable for their industries and sectors, paving the way for public aquisition and planning. Socialism trends towards full socialization, at which point classes cease to exist and as such class oppression ceases to exist, and "money" becomes superfluous, as there is no trade between institutions.
I think any extreme is probably a bad situation. Thank you for clarifying! I've got some thinking to do now.
Why is an extreme a bad situation? What if said extreme was an eradication of poverty? Eradication of racism? Extremes are not inherently superior to moderatiom, nor is the reverse true.
If you want a reading list, I have one linked on my profile.
An extreme version of capitalism would leave the weak and poor to die. And I'm pretty sure that in any financial/political situation you need some sort of constantly adjusted approach. Any extreme would fail to address the nuances (and humanity) of people, we're not humans after all.
When you say an "extreme Capitalism," what does that mean? That already happens. Moreover, what haooens when all of the companies centralize?
Maybe where you are, here we have tax funded social programs. And that would be called a monopoly, they're usually bad for everyone except the few people at the top.
Yes, how do you avoid that trending towards a monopoly? Competition forces centralization over time, and even extension into hyper-exploiting the Global South. Further, you absolutely have people dying out of being impoverished.
You have a government, and people fighting for their rights, etc. I don't think there is any type of system in which we can just sit back and know it won't need maintaining.
Where I live there's a law that a company without competition has to forcefully close. There's quite a bunch of shops kept alive solely by their competitor, who is forced to drive their prices down and service up because of the competition.
There's a reason regulation exists.
You're suggesting you de-develop companies and make them less efficient, rather than folding them into the public sector and further improving their efficiency. Once markets have done their job and left centralized, internally planned structures, the answer isn't to break them up and repeat the process of misery and squalor, but to further develop by folding it into the public sector. It's like you want to regularly pick up a race car and put it backwards on the track every time it gets close to crossing the finish line.
Competition naturally trends towards monopoly, there is no benefit to perpetually trying to move the clock back. Moreover, even with such laws, your country is still getting more centralized over time, only without worker control.
You need to seriously reconsider why you believe markets to be better than central planning at all stages in development.
I think some corporate shareholders and other private owners might not be too keen about their super profitable property being taken from them.
What you're describing is similar to the situation in china, where the government is able to claim property of random companies. Unfortunately for the chinese government, the world is bigger than china, and shareholders do run off with their stuff.
Yes, the shareholders therefore need to be subject to Proletarian supremacy. Revolution is required to advance.
As for China, part of the reason why it works is because Capitalists can't just up and take their factories, the government can sieze them, plus the size of the market and allowance for the existance of wealthy individuals stems brain drain, which proved to assist in the USSR's downfall.
Proliterian supremacy? You mean worker unionization or something? That's the kind of losing battle currently being fought in the usa.
I suppose we'll see the fall of China soon ish, then? They're not particularly small.
I mean revolution and instating worker supremacy, as has happened in AES states like the PRC, USSR, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, etc.
As per China, I specifically stated that they learned from the USSR and are doing the opposite of what contributed to its downfall. The USSR had very low wealth inequality, and suffered from brain drain where skilled individuals could be paid more in the US. The PRC is not yet developed enough to avoid that same fate if they cracked down even harder on their wealthier individuals, it's a gamble that has so far proved correct.
If you really believe that, you might want to watch the news for a change.
Rather than pulling a groundless act of superiority, can you actually address what I've said? Which part are you skeptical of? Rather than watching the news alone, you should read theory and history.
What china is doing right now, I recognized the similarity in their behaviour from the news. Then you claim they're doing the exact opposite?
The USSR had low wealth inequality by design, and was more publicly owned and centrally planned. This led to numerous benefits, but also drawbacks such as brain drain.
The PRC took the opposite approach. They allow billionaires to remain in the PRC, investing and developing Capital there and not elsewhere. They maintain a balancing act between capitilation and domination so there isn't the same Capital flight and brain drain, because you can still go to China to get extraordinarily rich.
The Chinese path presents a difficult contradiction towards their Socialist goals, but their method of "boiling the frog" has set it on course to continue surpassing the US while remaining entangled in the global economy, rather than isolated like the USSR was.
That makes a lot more sense, thank you for clarifying! China has been doing quite well in certain developments recently.
No problem!