this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Leftism
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Capitalism, in theory and in practice, guides behavior be providing incentives for producing value.
However, REGULATION is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to remove incentives from antisocial things, and incentivize pro social behavior that isn't profitable.
People keep fucking up that second part, and then wonder why corruption is so widespread. Corruption is perfectly predictable. We need to build incentives to reward and promote good behavior.
Edit: corruption exists in every system and it's why things like pure communism and socialism don't work.
I'd actually love to hear more about your perspective. I totally agree with the idea that regulation is required to disincentivize antisocial behavior, but how does that relate to "pure" socialism? What do you mean by that phrase?
It's just the "trust me bro" thing.
In capitalism the system is supposed to work like:
-private ownership of value producing assets -individuals seek profit -legal system/government force protects the individuals -competing for market share protects the consumers -market forces regulate prices and spending -logistics become the responsibility of the businesses, incentivized by profit - ie don't let people starve because you make money by selling food.
Under socialism and communism, the people or the state own the value producing assets...
-now the state is supposed to pursue profit, instead of the individuals. -now protecting the people is against the interests of the state -there is no competition against the state because it's all state-owned monopoly -there are no market forces regulating prices and spending, it's just committees or something? And it's an impossible problem -because black markets form for valuable things that aren't available -etc etc etc
We just have too many examples of systems that promise the population that they will be rewarded for "trusting the party" and "working hard for your neighbors" but in the end it's state propaganda, policing our neighbors, starving by the millions, etc.
Capitalism can be shit too, because there are problems that are profitable to ignore. Like the housing crisis.
-houses and rent extremely profitable -buy more properties and rent them for profit -as population grows and density increases, value increases -market says just raise rents
In this situation:
-I don't want traffic to improve. Because I don't want people to be able to move further from the city center where my over valued properties are. -i don't want people to be able to work from home -i don't want more houses built, because I don't want to dilute the market and reduce my value -the only incentive for developers to come in and build more homes is ... The price they can sell the homes for. So the system keeps the problem in place.
Consumers want to buy homes. The government wants votes. So we get policies like George Bush letting families but homes with no down payment, which just raises prices because now there are more shoppers but not more product.
There are many solutions to the housing crisis, but all of them require owners and landlords to take a haircut. I'm probably a fan of decentralizing cities and shifting to increased work from home with zoning improvements for mixed commercial/residential in suburban environments. That shifts the market away from the dense areas it's currently focused. That could (hopefully) interest developers to build commercial/residential properties in these areas, so everyone wins in the long run.
The other issue is this development needs to be fast. The push for green buildings with fully sealed envelopes and intense insulation, etc, makes it harder for Joe schmo to get into the homebuilding business, or just build his own home. We need grants and other incentives to promote that kind of behavior, too.
Etc etc.
Michael Parenti has written several books and given a lot of speeches on how neoliberal countries in the imperial core use imperialism to force countries in the global south to accept unequal exchange. I highly recommend him as a source. I posted a few of his speeches here about a month ago if you want to watch them
There is no particular way that capitalism is "supposed to work".
It is a system occurring in a particular historic period, having emerged from particular historic antecedents.
You seem to be characterizing capitalism as though it has some kind of character that is natural, metaphysical, or even teleological.
Anyone extolling capitalism as essentially benevolent, as framed around some set of pure ideals, is engaged in apologetics.
As for your characterizations of socialism, I think you are emphasizing specific historic developments more than the broader history and objectives of the movement.
It might be helpful for you to investigate the differences between statist and anti-statist tendencies within socialism.
Can you define capitalism, real quick?
Capitalism is the societal system that began to take form within the historic period following the gradual collapse of the feudal order in Europe, but that became truly well formed in the wake of the industrial revolution.
Capitalism is characterized by the unbounded accumulation of private wealth by a small cohort of society, by asserting exclusive control over the means by which wealth is generated, and by claiming as profit a share of the value generated by the labor of the rest of society, depriving them from realizing the full value of their labor.
Alright so we're talking about different things.
Capitalism is private ownership of capital.
Capital is a revenue producing asset.
You're describing the social systems that form around capital and capitalism, which I agree are largely both presently and historically bad.
"Should" statements are moral statements. When it say capitalism should work a certain way, I mean that it must work a certain way in order to be moral.
What we have doesn't work that way.
Socialism and communism treat capital differently. As far as I understand the definitions:
Socialism refers to social/government ownership of capital, which is then supposed to benefit all members of the society.
Communism refers to no ownership of capital, or community ownership of capital the the broadest sense. All revenue produced is distributed to the people based on their needs.
I use these definitions outside of structure or information or morality, because we can talk about those once we agree on what we're talking about.
Private ownership of the means of production leads to division of society into classes with mutually antagonistic interests, boundless accumulation of private wealth, and workers being deprived of the full value of their labor.
Such are the inevitable structural consequences following from the protection of private property.
They cannot be wished away. If you accept private property, then you also accept a fantasy, from not understanding the material criticism of capital as a totalizing societal system, or you accept the consequences as I have identified them.
Socialism, and equivalently communism, is the political movement seeking the abolition of private property, and the class antagonisms that it requires and produces, toward the development of a classless society, in which the public asserts direct cooperative control over the economy.
Some movements have invoked the strategy that substantial state control over the economy would characterize a transitional stage occurring before the economy would be directly managed by the public.
However, socialists broadly reject state control of the economy as an ultimate objective, because state bureaucracy simply reproduces the same kinds of class antagonisms characteristic of capitalism, placing those within the state against those outside.
Anti-statist tendencies of socialism seek for the public to develop direct control of the economy without the control of the state.