this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Okay so we've reached the "yeah capitalism sucks but doesn't everything suck" stage of the conversation. It's wild to me how similarly all these play out.
No, not everything is as fundamentally flawed as capitalism. People said the same thing about slavery, "yeah slavery sucks but who will pick the cotton?".
We don't need to setup society in a way to coerce people to do work they don't want to do. People don't believe it until they see it, and I'm sure those slave owners really did think the cotton industry would collapse without slaves. There have been societies with millions of people that are setup without coercive capitalist "incentives", and believe it or not people don't just crawl out into the streets and die because they don't feel like making food.
That's your interpreration. I don't think that it (= having to work if one wants anything from society) sucks or is wrong. I still think there is no society where you don't have to do anything and get everything you wish for (that would be working 100% out of free will) but whether it exists or not: I don't see how it would be fair anyway.
Socialism isn't about some utopic vision of a labor-free society. On the contrary, socialism is a rational response to seeing capitalists siphon away the vast majority of constructed wealth for no work (some capitalists might work, and some don't, but none of them get paid on the basis of their work, they get paid on the basis of their ownership).
Socialism is about the proper and fair distribution of wealth on the basis of labor, not property rights. People who work get wealth, not the people who own. This removes issue with runaway wealth accumulation (capital allows generation of capital in a capitalist society, this is a fundamentally flawed way to structure society), among other issues (often symptoms of this condition).
But then your criticism of our capitalist system would also apply to your proposed socialism. You said that it "sucked" that under capitalism, people dont work out of their free will but rather because society demands it from them if they want food/shelter/etc.
You may find other things fair than I do but I think it's fair that with my wealth I can choose to e.g. lend it to somebody and get back more in return (if both parties agree). I think it's fair that I own the means of production if I created them. I think it's fair that I can sell them to somebody and subsequently that someone can buy them from me (and own them).
Everyone has a different concept on what is fair and what isn't. It was interesting hearing your opinion on this though. You have really given me some great insights and I can see where you're coming from, even though I don't always agree.
To be fair I had several critiques of capitalism, by far the most frequent and important being about wealth distribution, accumulation, and extraction under capitalism.
But yes, in a socialist society you generally have basic necessities exist not as commodities but rather as guaranteed services. This looks different depending on the specific type of socialism (communism, mutualism, etc.). Even in a pure market socialist society, they would still be priced substantially different than in a capitalist society.
Under a capitalist system (as commodities), these goods/services are not priced at the labor value required to output them, they're priced at their market value. This is why in the U.S, shelter pricing (mortgage/rent, utilities, repairs, etc.) account for 50-75% of an average person's income. In the USSR it was 5-10%. Not to say the USSR was entirely socialist, but rather that the way they setup housing was the same way a (state) socialist society could setup housing.
Under a socialist system where these goods/services are decommodified, they could still have their value calculated as a product of labor time, and instead of being bought/sold on a market, they'd be instead provided for by the state. That way laborers would still be compensated if that was the work they wanted to do, as their products have value to society.
The common capitalist critique to this is "what if nobody works" then we start to get into the idea of socially necessary labor and not necessary labor. Working for an ad agency, for example, is socially unnecessary behavior. It's actually socially harmful (encouraging greater consumption, often of harmful substances like high sugar drinks or in the past tobacco). Socially necessary labor would be construction, food, etc. This distinction would be an early step in democratizing the economic sector, prying it out of the hands of authoritarian capitalists.
If there aren't enough people volunteering for socially necessary labor, then the state mandates it the same way it's mandated in many countries to go through a couple years of military service. But instead of learning how to effectively bomb kids in some middle eastern country, you're instead building houses for homeless people or making food for starving children.
This is a very idealist way to look at the world. Socialists are materialists, capitalists are idealists. What this means is capitalists will have some principle that they use as a foundational concept, like "property rights exist" and then use that to determine your concept of fairness. Socialists look at real outcomes in the real world. We see what capitalism actually creates, what real, physical conditions exist in the world because of this so-called "fair" presumption of property rights, and we come to the determination that there's nothing fair about a dozen people having as much wealth as 4 billion poor people, even though that's a natural outcome of what capitalists call a "fair" system.
Would I be allowed to build my own house? If so, would I be allowed to sell it? If so, am I forced to sell it at "labour value" or can I choose freely (that would be market value)?
Pricing it at "labour value" would also mean if I'm a bad builder and take a huge amount of time to build it, I'm entitled to more money, right? Or if there were huge amounts of people wanting to move into a home because they need one, is the faster builder payed at best the same as a slow builder that finishes their house 1 year later when nobody needs it anymore?
Market value means that people pay whatever it is worth to them (or don't buy it). Now, you may argue that surviving is worth indefinite money to a person so let's assume that we have some very basic accomodation provided by the state if needed.
About that last paragraph: Unequal does not necessarily mean unfair. If I (literally) threw away all my money and then you started looking at only the physical outcome (e.g. the distribution of wealth) without it's backstory, then you may also come to the conclusion that it's unfair that I don't have any money. But the way of acquirement does matter. Not just the end result. Or is it unfair that I don't have any money after the hypothetical scenario?
Yup
Nope, houses would be decommodified. You could move out of it, and someone else who needed it could get it, so they could still be exchanged, but there wouldn't be a market for it. Same way we approach organs, sometimes people don't need organs, and they give organs away, and we have systems for managing organ transplants etc, but we don't have an organ market because the material effects of having an organ market are bad (of course there's still a black market for organs, and there'd be a black market for houses, but it wouldn't be an open market and would be severely less harmful as a result).
The next couple paragraphs are based on the idea that housing is still commodified and being bought/sold, so I won't address those because my above comment already does.
Correct, but ~10 people having the same wealth as 4 billion people happens to actually be a result of unfairness in the system. We will soon live in a world with trillionaires (estimates are within the next 10-15 years). This means a single person will be able to give a million people a million dollars worth of capital. That's a symptom of a failed system, not a cause of it. It's not unfair because it's unequal, but it is unequal because it's unfair. Capital shouldn't be a method by which you can accumulate more capital. It allows infinite feedback loops of extraction that end up materially hurting the vast majority of humans. Wage stagnation is a real thing that has happened for the last 40 years as we eased restrictions on capital. Stock buybacks for example were illegal from 1920->1980, now stock buybacks are used more than ever and allow massive amounts of capital accumulation for corporations without reinvestment of capital into materially beneficial avenues like R&D. There are many ways unrestricted capital allows for exploitation and materially detrimental outcomes.