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On February 07 2025 01:17 WombaT wrote:
The cultural and political engagement sphere besides, which I think actively impede IMO, what are the musings in socialist land about technological advancement and socialism, if you’ve encountered them?
It feels to me that we have a much better suite of tools to do something like a planned economy these days than the 20th Century for one, if we so desired.
Of course, much less of socialism consists of a top-down state-led planned economy than some believe, but if one did wish to go that direction it seems much more viable nowadays.
Not sure exactly what you're asking? I agree we have better tools for a "planned economy" that could be as or more dynamic than the existing capitalist one.
The issue with Project Cybersyn wasn't that it wasn't technologically advanced enough though... It was socialist, so the US systematically destroyed it
For those that want a bit longer of a read on Project Cybersyn, I recommend the book the excerpt/adaption is from as well.
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Northern Ireland24853 Posts
On February 07 2025 01:56 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2025 01:17 WombaT wrote:
The cultural and political engagement sphere besides, which I think actively impede IMO, what are the musings in socialist land about technological advancement and socialism, if you’ve encountered them?
It feels to me that we have a much better suite of tools to do something like a planned economy these days than the 20th Century for one, if we so desired.
Of course, much less of socialism consists of a top-down state-led planned economy than some believe, but if one did wish to go that direction it seems much more viable nowadays. Not sure exactly what you're asking? I agree we have better tools for a "planned economy" that could be as or more dynamic than the existing capitalist one. The issue with Project Cybersyn wasn't that it wasn't technologically advanced enough though... It was socialist, so the US systematically destroyed it For those that want a bit longer of a read on Project Cybersyn, I recommend the book the excerpt/adaption is from as well.
Interesting, am checking it out
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I was thinking that one of the first things a socialist country should do is abolish money. If there's money there's trade, and if there's trade, there's a profit motive, which is the antithesis of socialism. So we need to get rid of money. Communism is the obvious solution, but imho brings too many of its own problems, especially if we try to transition immediately. But there are a whole bunch of other ways of doing things without money. But that brings me to my question: why hasn't a single socialist country abolished money?
The Soviet Union had a half-hearted attempt in the veeeeery beginning of their existence, but it got abandoned pretty quickly. And I can't find an honest analysis of what actually went wrong with not having money, as opposed to what went wrong with their economy as a whole which are connected but very much separate things. The economy was obviously in shambles after a 6-year civil war. But I can't really see what was wrong with the moneyless system per se.
But there must be a lesson there, because i can find no accounts of any other socialist countries trying it again. So what went wrong, and how can we build a moneyless society that does not repeat that mistake?
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On February 07 2025 04:06 Acrofales wrote:
I was thinking that one of the first things a socialist country should do is abolish money. If there's money there's trade, and if there's trade, there's a profit motive, which is the antithesis of socialism. So we need to get rid of money. Communism is the obvious solution, but imho brings too many of its own problems, especially if we try to transition immediately. But there are a whole bunch of other ways of doing things without money. But that brings me to my question: why hasn't a single socialist country abolished money?
The Soviet Union had a half-hearted attempt in the veeeeery beginning of their existence, but it got abandoned pretty quickly. And I can't find an honest analysis of what actually went wrong with not having money, as opposed to what went wrong with their economy as a whole which are connected but very much separate things. The economy was obviously in shambles after a 6-year civil war. But I can't really see what was wrong with the moneyless system per se.
But there must be a lesson there, because i can find no accounts of any other socialist countries trying it again. So what went wrong, and how can we build a moneyless society that does not repeat that mistake?
My understanding is we have to transition from capitalism, to socialism, onto communism. There's a lot of steps in between capitalism and abolishing money that if skipped are in all likelihood catastrophic. While we haven't for certain identified all of them, we've identified enough to know that there's many we have yet to achieve.
One aspect that immediately jumps out to me in this ostensible question about "abolishing money" as "one of the first thing a socialist country should do": There's plenty of time, space, and work between deciding to become a socialist country and being the best possible version of that country. It seems you're being reductive and lacking consideration of much of that. International trade being one that comes to mind in this context.
That said, I do think what we see in many intentional communities that are employing socialist teachings (even if not in any particularly strict or doctrinal way) is that money does rapidly fade from their top concerns other than in interacting with people outside of their immediate community.
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Northern Ireland24853 Posts
On February 07 2025 04:06 Acrofales wrote:
I was thinking that one of the first things a socialist country should do is abolish money. If there's money there's trade, and if there's trade, there's a profit motive, which is the antithesis of socialism. So we need to get rid of money. Communism is the obvious solution, but imho brings too many of its own problems, especially if we try to transition immediately. But there are a whole bunch of other ways of doing things without money. But that brings me to my question: why hasn't a single socialist country abolished money?
The Soviet Union had a half-hearted attempt in the veeeeery beginning of their existence, but it got abandoned pretty quickly. And I can't find an honest analysis of what actually went wrong with not having money, as opposed to what went wrong with their economy as a whole which are connected but very much separate things. The economy was obviously in shambles after a 6-year civil war. But I can't really see what was wrong with the moneyless system per se.
But there must be a lesson there, because i can find no accounts of any other socialist countries trying it again. So what went wrong, and how can we build a moneyless society that does not repeat that mistake?
Money is quite efficient would be my best guess? There’s that intermediary mechanism that makes asymmetric trades smooth.
I wanna buy your high end motorbike, it’s pretty cool. But on my side all I’ve got to trade is my house, some nick-knacks and my Xbox and TV. You don’t want your house full of nick-knacks, and my Xbox and TV aren’t cutting it. But my house is just way too much to trade.
Depends how socialist we’re going of course.
I imagine we’ll see socialism within some kind of market context way before we see an earnest attempt at Communism, or moneyless society anyway
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On February 07 2025 03:53 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2025 01:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 07 2025 01:17 WombaT wrote:
The cultural and political engagement sphere besides, which I think actively impede IMO, what are the musings in socialist land about technological advancement and socialism, if you’ve encountered them?
It feels to me that we have a much better suite of tools to do something like a planned economy these days than the 20th Century for one, if we so desired.
Of course, much less of socialism consists of a top-down state-led planned economy than some believe, but if one did wish to go that direction it seems much more viable nowadays. Not sure exactly what you're asking? I agree we have better tools for a "planned economy" that could be as or more dynamic than the existing capitalist one. The issue with Project Cybersyn wasn't that it wasn't technologically advanced enough though... It was socialist, so the US systematically destroyed it For those that want a bit longer of a read on Project Cybersyn, I recommend the book the excerpt/adaption is from as well. Interesting, am checking it out
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
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On February 07 2025 04:41 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2025 04:06 Acrofales wrote:
I was thinking that one of the first things a socialist country should do is abolish money. If there's money there's trade, and if there's trade, there's a profit motive, which is the antithesis of socialism. So we need to get rid of money. Communism is the obvious solution, but imho brings too many of its own problems, especially if we try to transition immediately. But there are a whole bunch of other ways of doing things without money. But that brings me to my question: why hasn't a single socialist country abolished money?
The Soviet Union had a half-hearted attempt in the veeeeery beginning of their existence, but it got abandoned pretty quickly. And I can't find an honest analysis of what actually went wrong with not having money, as opposed to what went wrong with their economy as a whole which are connected but very much separate things. The economy was obviously in shambles after a 6-year civil war. But I can't really see what was wrong with the moneyless system per se.
But there must be a lesson there, because i can find no accounts of any other socialist countries trying it again. So what went wrong, and how can we build a moneyless society that does not repeat that mistake? My understanding is we have to transition from capitalism, to socialism, onto communism. There's a lot of steps in between capitalism and abolishing money that if skipped are in all likelihood catastrophic. While we haven't for certain identified all of them, we've identified enough to know that there's many we have yet to achieve. One aspect that immediately jumps out to me in this ostensible question about "abolishing money" as "one of the first thing a socialist country should do": There's plenty of time, space, and work between deciding to become a socialist country and being the best possible version of that country. It seems you're being reductive and lacking consideration of much of that. International trade being one that comes to mind in this context. That said, I do think what we see in many intentional communities that are employing socialist teachings (even if not in any particularly strict or doctrinal way) is that money does rapidly fade from their top concerns other than in interacting with people outside of their immediate community.
Foreign trade seems a bit irrelevant. At a state level, you'll need to deal in disgusting stuff like money, but that is a problem for the state. That doesn't mean you need money internally, just that for the state to procure commodities, they will need to deal with their capitalist neighbours on a free market. That will work mostly the same way we do now, except that the state would necessarily have a monopoly on foreign trade, although the state would not function as it does now: it would be entirely at the service of the people. If the American people want Chinese cars, then the state is tasked to obtain them. Ideally the Chinese would also drop their capitalist ways and would happily send the Americans their surplus of cars, while the Americans send the Chinese their surplus of GPUs, totally free and willingly. If the Americans and the Europeans both want Chinese cars, then we have a joint system of deciding the needs of these people and they are allotted in order. Or something. Clearly international trade is not very well fleshed out, because socialists fairly early on realized that the state is not really a useful concept, and with that national borders kinda cease to make sense. But I agree with the fact that we will need to transition there from capitalism.
That said, you've been studying this considerably longer than I have, and will take your word for it that we can't abolish money on day 1. But if we have money, we have profit. And if we have profit, we have capital. And if we have capital, we have capitalism. And as i've said before, I am not actually opposed to a system with limited capitalism, but where the state keeps a tight lid on it. But that isn't what this thread is about. I don't see any Swedish moves toward full socialism, so I am quite hesitant to point to collaborative capitalism as the way to get to socialism. I'd say the socialism has to come first, and it needs to be an earnest attempt. We can't just say "well, lets be socialist" and then not do anything. There has to be a plan that starts at "now" and ends at some form of profit-free economy. That includes, somewhere along the way, abolishing money. Lets take Wombat's example I might want to sell him my motorbike. But why should I only want to sell one motorbike? I consider myself a pretty savvy businessman, so I'll happily take the money and buy both your and Neb's motorbikes. They're clankers, but I can fix them up, and then sell them at a neat profit. So clearly we need to make buying and selling things illegal. But then what need do we have for money?
And yes, I get that maybe we don't want to make trade between individuals illegal on day one, but it shouldn't take too long, because as long as there is money, there is a profit motive. So how has nobody done that? What is the deal with Cuba? They have been kinda isolated from the rest of the world for the last 30 years or so, and interntional trade just really doesn't seem to factor into their economy much. And while they were right vicious cunts, the Castros and their friends seemed pretty sincere about making a go of socialism. So why keep the peso around? What is the motivation for a long-time socialist regime to keep money around? Mostly without even having markets. Prices for most goods are regulated. If it's too have a choice on what to spend your monthly allotment of goods on, food stamps (non-transferrable tokens) seem like the way to go. Especially since the digital age can make it so that digital food stamps are truly untransferrable. If we as a nation decide everybody gets 20 tokens a month, and you try to give me yours, that simply won't work. There are hundreds of technologies that could allow this, but blockchain almost seems tailor-made for it. Allowing full transparancy and auditing, and democratically changing the rules. Sure, that's a bit too newfangled for Cuba's geriatric government, but personalized foodstamps don't seem too wild. In a police state like Cuba, you would simply be required to use your id in combination with the food stamps, it is registered, and if it turns out you used more than your allotment in a month, you are penalized. Ezmode got rid of money. Obviously didn't get rid of a thriving black market which uses gold/sea shells/bitcoin as the currency of choice, but that's an illegal trade and they can shut it down.
But Acro, Wombat asks, how would I go about acquiring your snazzy motorbike in a post-money world? Well, I'd first hand it back in to the motorcycle repurposing center. We would then have a sophisticated system to calculate its remaining value, and as a good citizen who is providing the state with material goods, Acro will be rewarded with non-tradeable tokens equivalent to that value. Wombat would then simply be able to hand in the same number of non-tradeable tokens to obtain that old motorbike. Or something similar. I'm just making this up in a stream-of-thought kinda way. And why is this better than money? Because you cannot make a profit. At no point is it possible to go to the clanker store, buy clankers, fix them up and sell them back. You can definitely dedicate hours to working at fixing up clankers. And you will be paid for those hours of labor. The same way you can work at anything else and be paid for your hours of labor. But an hour fixing up clankers will pay the same as an hour plugging away at numbers in a spreadsheet, or taking care of chickens at the local farm: there is no capital and there is no profit, there is just labor, which is all worth the same.
E: oh, and in my examples I do say state, but it's not necessarily a state as we understand it. It's just what we have self-organized our governance structure into, of course  But in the case of Cuba (and other existing socialist states), the state is a very real, very totalitarian entity that I would definitely not want to have in charge.
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On February 07 2025 08:38 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2025 04:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 07 2025 04:06 Acrofales wrote:
I was thinking that one of the first things a socialist country should do is abolish money. If there's money there's trade, and if there's trade, there's a profit motive, which is the antithesis of socialism. So we need to get rid of money. Communism is the obvious solution, but imho brings too many of its own problems, especially if we try to transition immediately. But there are a whole bunch of other ways of doing things without money. But that brings me to my question: why hasn't a single socialist country abolished money?
The Soviet Union had a half-hearted attempt in the veeeeery beginning of their existence, but it got abandoned pretty quickly. And I can't find an honest analysis of what actually went wrong with not having money, as opposed to what went wrong with their economy as a whole which are connected but very much separate things. The economy was obviously in shambles after a 6-year civil war. But I can't really see what was wrong with the moneyless system per se.
But there must be a lesson there, because i can find no accounts of any other socialist countries trying it again. So what went wrong, and how can we build a moneyless society that does not repeat that mistake? My understanding is we have to transition from capitalism, to socialism, onto communism. There's a lot of steps in between capitalism and abolishing money that if skipped are in all likelihood catastrophic. While we haven't for certain identified all of them, we've identified enough to know that there's many we have yet to achieve. One aspect that immediately jumps out to me in this ostensible question about "abolishing money" as "one of the first thing a socialist country should do": There's plenty of time, space, and work between deciding to become a socialist country and being the best possible version of that country. It seems you're being reductive and lacking consideration of much of that. International trade being one that comes to mind in this context. That said, I do think what we see in many intentional communities that are employing socialist teachings (even if not in any particularly strict or doctrinal way) is that money does rapidly fade from their top concerns other than in interacting with people outside of their immediate community. + Show Spoiler + Foreign trade seems a bit irrelevant. At a state level, you'll need to deal in disgusting stuff like money, but that is a problem for the state. That doesn't mean you need money internally, just that for the state to procure commodities, they will need to deal with their capitalist neighbours on a free market. That will work mostly the same way we do now, except that the state would necessarily have a monopoly on foreign trade,although the state would not function as it does now: it would be entirely at the service of the people. If the American people want Chinese cars, then the state is tasked to obtain them. Ideally the Chinese would also drop their capitalist ways and would happily send the Americans their surplus of cars, while the Americans send the Chinese their surplus of GPUs, totally free and willingly. If the Americans and the Europeans both want Chinese cars, then we have a joint system of deciding the needs of these people and they are allotted in order. Or something. Clearly international trade is not very well fleshed out, because socialists fairly early on realized that the state is not really a useful concept, and with that national borders kinda cease to make sense. But I agree with the fact that we will need to transition there from capitalism.
That said, you've been studying this considerably longer than I have, and will take your word for it that we can't abolish money on day 1. But if we have money, we have profit. And if we have profit, we have capital. And if we have capital, we have capitalism. + Show Spoiler + And as i've said before, I am not actually opposed to a system with limited capitalism, but where the state keeps a tight lid on it. But that isn't what this thread is about. I don't see any Swedish moves toward full socialism, so I am quite hesitant to point to collaborative capitalism as the way to get to socialism. I'd say the socialism has to come first, and it needs to be an earnest attempt. We can't just say "well, lets be socialist" and then not do anything. There has to be a plan that starts at "now" and ends at some form of profit-free economy. That includes, somewhere along the way, abolishing money. Lets take Wombat's example I might want to sell him my motorbike. But why should I only want to sell one motorbike? I consider myself a pretty savvy businessman, so I'll happily take the money and buy both your and Neb's motorbikes. They're clankers, but I can fix them up, and then sell them at a neat profit. So clearly we need to make buying and selling things illegal. But then what need do we have for money? And yes, I get that maybe we don't want to make trade between individuals illegal on day one, but it shouldn't take too long, because as long as there is money, there is a profit motive. So how has nobody done that? What is the deal with Cuba? They have been kinda isolated from the rest of the world for the last 30 years or so, and interntional trade just really doesn't seem to factor into their economy much. And while they were right vicious cunts, the Castros and their friends seemed pretty sincere about making a go of socialism. So why keep the peso around? What is the motivation for a long-time socialist regime to keep money around? Mostly without even having markets. Prices for most goods are regulated. If it's too have a choice on what to spend your monthly allotment of goods on, food stamps (non-transferrable tokens) seem like the way to go. Especially since the digital age can make it so that digital food stamps are truly untransferrable. If we as a nation decide everybody gets 20 tokens a month, and you try to give me yours, that simply won't work. There are hundreds of technologies that could allow this, but blockchain almost seems tailor-made for it. Allowing full transparancy and auditing, and democratically changing the rules. Sure, that's a bit too newfangled for Cuba's geriatric government, but personalized foodstamps don't seem too wild. In a police state like Cuba, you would simply be required to use your id in combination with the food stamps, it is registered, and if it turns out you used more than your allotment in a month, you are penalized. Ezmode got rid of money. Obviously didn't get rid of a thriving black market which uses gold/sea shells/bitcoin as the currency of choice, but that's an illegal trade and they can shut it down. But Acro, Wombat asks, how would I go about acquiring your snazzy motorbike in a post-money world? Well, I'd first hand it back in to the motorcycle repurposing center. We would then have a sophisticated system to calculate its remaining value, and as a good citizen who is providing the state with material goods, Acro will be rewarded with non-tradeable tokens equivalent to that value. Wombat would then simply be able to hand in the same number of non-tradeable tokens to obtain that old motorbike. Or something similar. I'm just making this up in a stream-of-thought kinda way. And why is this better than money? Because you cannot make a profit. At no point is it possible to go to the clanker store, buy clankers, fix them up and sell them back. You can definitely dedicate hours to working at fixing up clankers. And you will be paid for those hours of labor. The same way you can work at anything else and be paid for your hours of labor. But an hour fixing up clankers will pay the same as an hour plugging away at numbers in a spreadsheet, or taking care of chickens at the local farm: there is no capital and there is no profit, there is just labor, which is all worth the same. E: oh, and in my examples I do say state, but it's not necessarily a state as we understand it. It's just what we have self-organized our governance structure into, of course But in the case of Cuba (and other existing socialist states), the state is a very real, very totalitarian entity that I would definitely not want to have in charge. I'm having a hard time reading this as good faith engagement, but as far as I'm familiar, it is reasonable that you have to shift away from money having practical use over time. Which is to say the infrastructure for eliminating money doesn't exist, nor does a population that has grown up without it conceptually.
Got a lot going on in there but Cuba's economy is significantly people bringing money into the country to spend as tourists, sooo...
Also socialists recognize that different labor is compensated differently. Socialism comes before communism.
The main objection to your (seemingly still capitalist, despite the spirit of this thread) preference is you're arguing (against socialism and) for compassionate capitalism. That's different than the socialist intent of phasing out aspects of capitalism and replacing them with socialist practices over time until we've completely supplanted one with the other.
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I don't hate trade or money. Seems those are fine. A future in which abolishing those becomes a real question seems so far away that I can't really project myself there. I'm not really into utopias in general.
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On February 07 2025 14:35 Nebuchad wrote:
I don't hate trade or money. Seems those are fine. A future in which abolishing those becomes a real question seems so far away that I can't really project myself there. I'm not really into utopias in general.
I also basically agree with this, there's plenty for the US to worry about ahead of abolishing money as a concept nationally.
That said, as I mentioned, intentional communities tend not to organize resources (originating from within the community) by who in the community has money to spend on them. So it doesn't really feel so utopian to me in that sense. Just seems like a reasonably low priority at best.
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On February 07 2025 15:55 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2025 14:35 Nebuchad wrote:
I don't hate trade or money. Seems those are fine. A future in which abolishing those becomes a real question seems so far away that I can't really project myself there. I'm not really into utopias in general. I also basically agree with this, there's plenty for the US to worry about ahead of abolishing money as a concept nationally. That said, as I mentioned, intentional communities tend not to organize resources (originating from within the community) by who in the community has money to spend on them. So it doesn't really feel so utopian to me in that sense. Just seems like a reasonably low priority at best.
Okay, good for them. Wouldn't be me though  I guess they're to my left
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Northern Ireland24853 Posts
On February 07 2025 08:38 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2025 04:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 07 2025 04:06 Acrofales wrote:
I was thinking that one of the first things a socialist country should do is abolish money. If there's money there's trade, and if there's trade, there's a profit motive, which is the antithesis of socialism. So we need to get rid of money. Communism is the obvious solution, but imho brings too many of its own problems, especially if we try to transition immediately. But there are a whole bunch of other ways of doing things without money. But that brings me to my question: why hasn't a single socialist country abolished money?
The Soviet Union had a half-hearted attempt in the veeeeery beginning of their existence, but it got abandoned pretty quickly. And I can't find an honest analysis of what actually went wrong with not having money, as opposed to what went wrong with their economy as a whole which are connected but very much separate things. The economy was obviously in shambles after a 6-year civil war. But I can't really see what was wrong with the moneyless system per se.
But there must be a lesson there, because i can find no accounts of any other socialist countries trying it again. So what went wrong, and how can we build a moneyless society that does not repeat that mistake? My understanding is we have to transition from capitalism, to socialism, onto communism. There's a lot of steps in between capitalism and abolishing money that if skipped are in all likelihood catastrophic. While we haven't for certain identified all of them, we've identified enough to know that there's many we have yet to achieve. One aspect that immediately jumps out to me in this ostensible question about "abolishing money" as "one of the first thing a socialist country should do": There's plenty of time, space, and work between deciding to become a socialist country and being the best possible version of that country. It seems you're being reductive and lacking consideration of much of that. International trade being one that comes to mind in this context. That said, I do think what we see in many intentional communities that are employing socialist teachings (even if not in any particularly strict or doctrinal way) is that money does rapidly fade from their top concerns other than in interacting with people outside of their immediate community. Foreign trade seems a bit irrelevant. At a state level, you'll need to deal in disgusting stuff like money, but that is a problem for the state. That doesn't mean you need money internally, just that for the state to procure commodities, they will need to deal with their capitalist neighbours on a free market. That will work mostly the same way we do now, except that the state would necessarily have a monopoly on foreign trade, although the state would not function as it does now: it would be entirely at the service of the people. If the American people want Chinese cars, then the state is tasked to obtain them. Ideally the Chinese would also drop their capitalist ways and would happily send the Americans their surplus of cars, while the Americans send the Chinese their surplus of GPUs, totally free and willingly. If the Americans and the Europeans both want Chinese cars, then we have a joint system of deciding the needs of these people and they are allotted in order. Or something. Clearly international trade is not very well fleshed out, because socialists fairly early on realized that the state is not really a useful concept, and with that national borders kinda cease to make sense. But I agree with the fact that we will need to transition there from capitalism. That said, you've been studying this considerably longer than I have, and will take your word for it that we can't abolish money on day 1. But if we have money, we have profit. And if we have profit, we have capital. And if we have capital, we have capitalism. And as i've said before, I am not actually opposed to a system with limited capitalism, but where the state keeps a tight lid on it. But that isn't what this thread is about. I don't see any Swedish moves toward full socialism, so I am quite hesitant to point to collaborative capitalism as the way to get to socialism. I'd say the socialism has to come first, and it needs to be an earnest attempt. We can't just say "well, lets be socialist" and then not do anything. There has to be a plan that starts at "now" and ends at some form of profit-free economy. That includes, somewhere along the way, abolishing money. Lets take Wombat's example I might want to sell him my motorbike. But why should I only want to sell one motorbike? I consider myself a pretty savvy businessman, so I'll happily take the money and buy both your and Neb's motorbikes. They're clankers, but I can fix them up, and then sell them at a neat profit. So clearly we need to make buying and selling things illegal. But then what need do we have for money? And yes, I get that maybe we don't want to make trade between individuals illegal on day one, but it shouldn't take too long, because as long as there is money, there is a profit motive. So how has nobody done that? What is the deal with Cuba? They have been kinda isolated from the rest of the world for the last 30 years or so, and interntional trade just really doesn't seem to factor into their economy much. And while they were right vicious cunts, the Castros and their friends seemed pretty sincere about making a go of socialism. So why keep the peso around? What is the motivation for a long-time socialist regime to keep money around? Mostly without even having markets. Prices for most goods are regulated. If it's too have a choice on what to spend your monthly allotment of goods on, food stamps (non-transferrable tokens) seem like the way to go. Especially since the digital age can make it so that digital food stamps are truly untransferrable. If we as a nation decide everybody gets 20 tokens a month, and you try to give me yours, that simply won't work. There are hundreds of technologies that could allow this, but blockchain almost seems tailor-made for it. Allowing full transparancy and auditing, and democratically changing the rules. Sure, that's a bit too newfangled for Cuba's geriatric government, but personalized foodstamps don't seem too wild. In a police state like Cuba, you would simply be required to use your id in combination with the food stamps, it is registered, and if it turns out you used more than your allotment in a month, you are penalized. Ezmode got rid of money. Obviously didn't get rid of a thriving black market which uses gold/sea shells/bitcoin as the currency of choice, but that's an illegal trade and they can shut it down. But Acro, Wombat asks, how would I go about acquiring your snazzy motorbike in a post-money world? Well, I'd first hand it back in to the motorcycle repurposing center. We would then have a sophisticated system to calculate its remaining value, and as a good citizen who is providing the state with material goods, Acro will be rewarded with non-tradeable tokens equivalent to that value. Wombat would then simply be able to hand in the same number of non-tradeable tokens to obtain that old motorbike. Or something similar. I'm just making this up in a stream-of-thought kinda way. And why is this better than money? Because you cannot make a profit. At no point is it possible to go to the clanker store, buy clankers, fix them up and sell them back. You can definitely dedicate hours to working at fixing up clankers. And you will be paid for those hours of labor. The same way you can work at anything else and be paid for your hours of labor. But an hour fixing up clankers will pay the same as an hour plugging away at numbers in a spreadsheet, or taking care of chickens at the local farm: there is no capital and there is no profit, there is just labor, which is all worth the same. E: oh, and in my examples I do say state, but it's not necessarily a state as we understand it. It's just what we have self-organized our governance structure into, of course But in the case of Cuba (and other existing socialist states), the state is a very real, very totalitarian entity that I would definitely not want to have in charge.
The example I used was meant to illustrate an example where you either have too valuable a singular commodity to trade, or too many invaluable ones too. Granted, not perfect, I’ve come up with better. Your hypotheticals just seem like money but with more steps.
I think you’ve got a fundamental misconception here. That hypothetical socialism isnt bothered about profits.
It very much is, in a ‘get more out than you put in sense’. If you can’t do that everything ceases to function.
Who profits and how is the socialist question. Perhaps substitute that word for surplus, or a net gain or something else.
You could have a full market economy in a polity, but all the companies within were equitably controlled by their workers who all had stakes in them.
Some may wish to go further still, but the former is still socialism. Perhaps at the ground floor so to speak.
Not saying even that viable anytime soon, seems unlikely!
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On February 07 2025 14:35 Nebuchad wrote:
I don't hate trade or money. Seems those are fine. A future in which abolishing those becomes a real question seems so far away that I can't really project myself there. I'm not really into utopias in general.
Some say money is the root of all evil. I have a deeper question: "what is the root of money?"
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Biff:
"To me the problem is that at the foundation of this discussion, there is an unrecognized fact, which is that the political offer in the US reflects the American people, the American mentalities and the American culture."
=> I see the angle from which someone could consider this to be true, but I still think we should push back against this. American exceptionalism is wrong, and it's also wrong when people try instead to claim that Americans are exceptionally bad. Americans are just a grouping of people, every grouping of people everywhere has had leftists, liberals and conservatives, the idea that America is different just doesn't make any sense.
I hate to bring this back (that's a lie I love to bring this back), but recently some CEO ghoul for an insurance company was murdered, and Americans on both sides celebrated. How much celebration was there? Well, it wasn't universal celebration obviously, but it was much more than liberals and conservatives were comfortable with, as we saw from the reaction of the media and that of Ben Shapiro clones. I believe I saw some polls around 40%?
Very simple argument that cannot be incorrect as far as I know: 1) the political offer for Americans is liberals and conservatives. 2) Liberals and conservatives think the system is good, and you should respect order. 3) A very significant percentage of Americans cheered someone going against the system and its order. 4) Those american people's voices aren't reflected.
There is a reason why both parties pretend to be populist during elections and then govern in a very elitist fashion. They both support elitism, and they both understand that the public does not, and that they aren't truly representing Americans.
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The ideas of socialism are deeply rooted in the deception of dogmatic ideas that exactly the same as any religion is. When you look at the format and the real output that matters - it is that it shuts down questions, promotes taking sides to already presented positions and very actively works on a blanket of deception to cover this fact and look authoritative and normal. It's virus-like. Shame on you, people.
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On February 07 2025 03:53 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2025 01:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 07 2025 01:17 WombaT wrote:
The cultural and political engagement sphere besides, which I think actively impede IMO, what are the musings in socialist land about technological advancement and socialism, if you’ve encountered them?
It feels to me that we have a much better suite of tools to do something like a planned economy these days than the 20th Century for one, if we so desired.
Of course, much less of socialism consists of a top-down state-led planned economy than some believe, but if one did wish to go that direction it seems much more viable nowadays. Not sure exactly what you're asking? I agree we have better tools for a "planned economy" that could be as or more dynamic than the existing capitalist one. The issue with Project Cybersyn wasn't that it wasn't technologically advanced enough though... It was socialist, so the US systematically destroyed it For those that want a bit longer of a read on Project Cybersyn, I recommend the book the excerpt/adaption is from as well. Interesting, am checking it out
Just want to follow up on this if you don't mind? Did learning about Cybersyn alter your understanding in any way you care to describe?
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On February 05 2025 08:54 Nebuchad wrote:
Thoughts on the thread, it is (obviously) not true that Americans have chosen racism. They're being faced with a choice between not racism and racism, and every four years they keep changing their pick. If racism was the important factor in their pick, they would either always pick Democrats (because of antiracism) or Republicans (because of racism). Clearly the fact that they keep changing their vote demonstrates that this isn't very important to them and they are dissatisfied with something else, perhaps the one thing that both parties have complete agreement on, which is gross, open neoliberal elitism?
Wanted to harp on this a little because it's such an important point. For some reason the Georgia town hall didn't make it to the main thread, here are a bunch of republicans who aren't satisfied with their elected officials even though they still promise them that they'll hurt Mexicans and trans people.
Now I understand that around october 2023 Kwark's brain broke a little and on some topics he can't think straight anymore, and that's a shame, but for everyone else it is seriously insane that you think what happened in that election is the US public agreed with republicans on social issues. First of all, the US public isn't a thing, people will vote for one candidate or the other for absolutely different reasons, most of them very bad. That's every election. The idea that there is a direct correlation between candidates' platforms and the will of the voters is childish. Second, the american public ISN'T VOTING FOR REPUBLICANS, why is this discussion even happening am I going crazy? You elect a guy from the other party every four years, and even then you need serious levels of gerrymandering and voter suppression for Republicans to be competitive. What was happening in 2020, was the american public suddenly protrans and antiracist, but in the last four years they changed their mind? The theory doesn't even match the facts.
What is actually happening is that both parties are offering a governance that the public isn't satisfied with, so every time they get an opportunity to tell them that, they do. Obviously. Isn't it absolutely amazing to you guys that the Democrats are willing to give up on immigrants and trans people before they are willing to try any populist policy? Doesn't it tell you that what they care about above all is maintaining capitalism, as opposed to making sure that the capitalist system we are under espouses liberal values?
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About the post above, it was mostly me getting mad because I read Sermo talking about how accepting that your politicians won't do shit for you is being an adult.
I guess I'll just write about populism since that's something important that the thread often misunderstands.
Populism is often used interchangeably with demagoguery because liberals absolutely love thinking that the far left and the far right are the same thing, it's the only way they can feel morally superior. And because liberalism is the main ideology in societies today, the press and most other outlets that have audiences are willing to further this flawed understanding.
Populism is the view that there is on one side the elites, and on the other side the people, and that those two groups are at odds with each other. Wiki backs me up as usual: "Populism is a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of the common 'people' and often position this group in opposition to a perceived 'elite'.[1] It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment.[2]"
Now what can we say about this, well, one, this is simply an observation, it's not an opinion. It is true that elites and the people are opposed to each other under capitalism, because elites make their money from the work of the people, and then they try and increase their wealth by using their power and influence to crush us more, rather than to improve our lives. That's maybe the first interesting thing: that an ideology that is often used in a derogative way starts by describing reality accurately.
The second point is of course that it isn't populist to go after migrants, or trans people, or to do any fascism. Again, obviously. Migrants and trans people aren't elites. Fascism will espouse the aesthetic of populism during elections because it is easy to get support for attacking elites in a political context that doesn't have a leftist party, but fascism doesn't actually hate elites. A lot of the elite understands this - or at the very least believes this to be true -, and this is why they are more comfortable with fascists being the opposition to liberals than they are with leftists being the opposition to liberals.
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Northern Ireland24853 Posts
On February 22 2025 08:38 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2025 08:54 Nebuchad wrote:
Thoughts on the thread, it is (obviously) not true that Americans have chosen racism. They're being faced with a choice between not racism and racism, and every four years they keep changing their pick. If racism was the important factor in their pick, they would either always pick Democrats (because of antiracism) or Republicans (because of racism). Clearly the fact that they keep changing their vote demonstrates that this isn't very important to them and they are dissatisfied with something else, perhaps the one thing that both parties have complete agreement on, which is gross, open neoliberal elitism? Wanted to harp on this a little because it's such an important point. For some reason the Georgia town hall didn't make it to the main thread, here are a bunch of republicans who aren't satisfied with their elected officials even though they still promise them that they'll hurt Mexicans and trans people. Now I understand that around october 2023 Kwark's brain broke a little and on some topics he can't think straight anymore, and that's a shame, but for everyone else it is seriously insane that you think what happened in that election is the US public agreed with republicans on social issues. First of all, the US public isn't a thing, people will vote for one candidate or the other for absolutely different reasons, most of them very bad. That's every election. The idea that there is a direct correlation between candidates' platforms and the will of the voters is childish. Second, the american public ISN'T VOTING FOR REPUBLICANS, why is this discussion even happening am I going crazy? You elect a guy from the other party every four years, and even then you need serious levels of gerrymandering and voter suppression for Republicans to be competitive. What was happening in 2020, was the american public suddenly protrans and antiracist, but in the last four years they changed their mind? The theory doesn't even match the facts. What is actually happening is that both parties are offering a governance that the public isn't satisfied with, so every time they get an opportunity to tell them that, they do. Obviously. Isn't it absolutely amazing to you guys that the Democrats are willing to give up on immigrants and trans people before they are willing to try any populist policy? Doesn't it tell you that what they care about above all is maintaining capitalism, as opposed to making sure that the capitalist system we are under espouses liberal values?
I largely agree, I think you underestimate quite how effective things like trans scaremongering have been over the years though, and quite deliberately injected.
Quite serious flips can happen, quite bloody quickly.
One obvious example would be Muslims in the Western world pre and post 9/11, and we’re still feeling those effects to this day. Many an average Joe is still tolerant of our Muslim brothers and sisters, but for others well, 9/11 opened up a gate of prejudice that’s never been closed.
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EPT
