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I've had the discussion with Neb before. And this has to be the worst iteration of it.
@Sermokala: just because a company goes from privately/publicly owned to no ownership at all doesn't mean the company can't be sued. Presumably it would have to pay damages and a fine, and amend its business practices to be more inclusive.
Presumably you could also regulate the protective gear required so people don't get sick/die from working in dangerous environments at the company... and just because the majority vote at the company decides that protective gear costs too much and the workers who need it should just go without doesn't make that decision legal, just as the board of directors currently can't overrule the worker protection laws.
Laws continue to exist and compani still need to abide by them, the only difference Neb proposed is that within that system, there is no more private capital investment, and companies pay out their profits to the workers rather than the shareholders, and that therefore the workers *are* the shareholders, and make the decisions, rather than a group of *other* people.
The problems with it are, imho, that it doesn't actually change anything for the better while making some things harder. If Neb claims worker collectives should make decisions that are best for the company, because they are rational actors, then why doesn't that same go for capitalist shareholders? Apparently in Neb's system you cannot underpay engineers, because they will just leave. Why does that same argument currently not apply to blue collar workers? If they are being exploited by the capitalist shareholders' companies they can just quit and go to a different company, right? And that would force the capitalist shareholders to pay their workers more (aka pay more of the profits to them). Except the world doesn't work like that. But for white collar jobs (and for that matter, blue collar jobs), it definitely *will* work like that in coops. Now I'm not claiming coops can't work just as well as private/public owned businesses. They exist all over Europe and don't seem to do worse than other companies in their sector. But they don't do any better either. They also suffer scandals of exploiting workers, needing government bailouts and/or going bankrupt. It's simply a different form of ownership that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.
One area in specific where I see problems for coops is when they need a large injection of capital and cannot get a conventional loan. Currently companies can sell off ownership to raise that money. In coops that is not an option (in current coops it is, btw, they just become less coop-y).
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On April 26 2020 09:40 Sermokala wrote:
These aren't actually arguments. You can't just handwave when someone makes a simple question. If you seriously think coops owning the majority of the economy is a legitimate argument you have to care about the way people would make decisions about how they'd run those coops.
No.
On April 26 2020 06:08 Sermokala wrote:
I'm not afraid to say that as a White straight man I have socio-economic advantages that I don't see the reason why I would hire women, gay people, or people of another ethnicity for inclusion to my company due to the structural advantages that hiring other straight white males would give my company and would be best for me. In the world today the company would be sued, in your world I would either not be punished or the government would have to be in control of my coop making it no different the communism.
First, I don't think this is strictly a rational answer, I think this contains the moral premise that order is more important than justice.
I'm not sure why there is supposed to be a dichotomy where either you get to do everything you want or it's soviet communism, I could very easily see a company get punished for the practice you describe under a worker co-op system. Same as if all of you democratically decided that you wanted to pollute that river, and so on.
Besides, with the whole company doing the hiring rather than just one dude, it's going to be harder to not hire people for bigoted reasons, not easier. It's more likely that some of the workers will have a problem with that.
On April 26 2020 10:35 Belisarius wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2020 06:15 Nebuchad wrote:On April 26 2020 06:08 Sermokala wrote:
Why and how would they democratically decide who gets fired and who doesnt? What's best for the workers is to stay employed and not lose their investment into the company. Why would the majority of the voting base value the minority of the coop when it comes to the intracacies of who to hire or how much to pay people? Don't know, don't care. That's on them. Not gonna tell them how to run their business. On April 26 2020 06:08 Sermokala wrote:
And I'd really like an answer on my sexism and racism question to you. Outside of any morality why would you hire workers from another racial gender or sexual orientation group? Because there is no rational reason not to hire someone from another racial gender or sexual orientation group? Since when have rational reasons ever been relevant to this topic? In the era of Brexit and Trump, with right-wing demagogues popping up all over the world thanks to the votes of the very people they are working to disenfranchise, the burden is on you to explain how democracy in the workplace would function differently to democracy elsewhere. Instead we get "don't know, don't care". Try again.
Lol cool post.
I answered about rational reasons because I was asked about rational reasons. If we're talking Brexit and Trump I don't see myself in the realm of rational reason, maybe you disagree. If we're just talking about discrimination in general then I refer you to posts by Zambrah, Acrofales or the rest of my answer here.
Don't know don't care refers to something else, but that's okay I understand that reading is hard.
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Hi Acro. I remember 
On April 26 2020 18:10 Acrofales wrote:
The problems with it are, imho, that it doesn't actually change anything for the better while making some things harder. If Neb claims worker collectives should make decisions that are best for the company, because they are rational actors, then why doesn't that same go for capitalist shareholders?
Because it's not true that what's good for shareholders is what's good for the workers under capitalism in the same way that it's true that what's good for the workers is what's good for the company under a worker coop. A simple example of that is that a boss can decide to delocalize in South/Southeast Asia and pay his new workers a fraction of what they paid their old workers, that would be good for them. This is unlikely to happen in a coop.
Firing practices look quite different as well. Remember the dude at Amazon that was fired for organizing? That's one that you're only getting through a board of shareholders, not a collective of workers.
Another clear change is that workers would make more money, especially in large companies. Simply mechanically: you lose the middle man that hoards most of the wealth. This money then can be reinjected into the economy by the workers in a way that Bezos never would, because when you get money as a worker, you spend it, you don't keep it for the next capital investment opportunity.
On April 26 2020 18:10 Acrofales wrote:
Apparently in Neb's system you cannot underpay engineers, because they will just leave. Why does that same argument currently not apply to blue collar workers? If they are being exploited by the capitalist shareholders' companies they can just quit and go to a different company, right?
In the current system the rational thing to do for capitalists is to corner the market. If all of the people who would need blue collar workers agree that they don't need more money, it's very easy to enforce that without giving them a possibility to go work elsewhere. They could form their own company... but the capitalists exert most of the power, so they'd likely get crushed. Class war is class war
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On April 26 2020 19:13 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2020 10:35 Belisarius wrote:On April 26 2020 06:15 Nebuchad wrote:On April 26 2020 06:08 Sermokala wrote:
Why and how would they democratically decide who gets fired and who doesnt? What's best for the workers is to stay employed and not lose their investment into the company. Why would the majority of the voting base value the minority of the coop when it comes to the intracacies of who to hire or how much to pay people? Don't know, don't care. That's on them. Not gonna tell them how to run their business. On April 26 2020 06:08 Sermokala wrote:
And I'd really like an answer on my sexism and racism question to you. Outside of any morality why would you hire workers from another racial gender or sexual orientation group? Because there is no rational reason not to hire someone from another racial gender or sexual orientation group? Since when have rational reasons ever been relevant to this topic? In the era of Brexit and Trump, with right-wing demagogues popping up all over the world thanks to the votes of the very people they are working to disenfranchise, the burden is on you to explain how democracy in the workplace would function differently to democracy elsewhere. Instead we get "don't know, don't care". Try again. Lol cool post. I answered about rational reasons because I was asked about rational reasons. If we're talking Brexit and Trump I don't see myself in the realm of rational reason, maybe you disagree. If we're just talking about discrimination in general then I refer you to posts by Zambrah, Acrofales or the rest of my answer here. Don't know don't care refers to something else, but that's okay I understand that reading is hard.
The question you are professing ignorance to is on the consequence of democracy in the workplace. That is not "something else", it is exactly the same point, and it requires a far better response than ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We're not "talking" brexit and trump. They happened whether you want to talk about them or not. They are clear indicators that the issues you are trying to address will continue to exist in democratic workplaces, and may in fact be exacerbated. You can continue to not care, just as you can continue to avoid talking about Trump, but it does not make this go away.
I am not opposed to coops. I would be fine with some policies to encourage them. However, as acro said, based on the coops that currently exist, they are a slight improvement at best, with many potential downsides. A slight improvement is very poor justification for the enormous changes you want to implement.
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On April 26 2020 20:55 Belisarius wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2020 19:13 Nebuchad wrote:On April 26 2020 10:35 Belisarius wrote:On April 26 2020 06:15 Nebuchad wrote:On April 26 2020 06:08 Sermokala wrote:
Why and how would they democratically decide who gets fired and who doesnt? What's best for the workers is to stay employed and not lose their investment into the company. Why would the majority of the voting base value the minority of the coop when it comes to the intracacies of who to hire or how much to pay people? Don't know, don't care. That's on them. Not gonna tell them how to run their business. On April 26 2020 06:08 Sermokala wrote:
And I'd really like an answer on my sexism and racism question to you. Outside of any morality why would you hire workers from another racial gender or sexual orientation group? Because there is no rational reason not to hire someone from another racial gender or sexual orientation group? Since when have rational reasons ever been relevant to this topic? In the era of Brexit and Trump, with right-wing demagogues popping up all over the world thanks to the votes of the very people they are working to disenfranchise, the burden is on you to explain how democracy in the workplace would function differently to democracy elsewhere. Instead we get "don't know, don't care". Try again. Lol cool post. I answered about rational reasons because I was asked about rational reasons. If we're talking Brexit and Trump I don't see myself in the realm of rational reason, maybe you disagree. If we're just talking about discrimination in general then I refer you to posts by Zambrah, Acrofales or the rest of my answer here. Don't know don't care refers to something else, but that's okay I understand that reading is hard. The question you are professing ignorance to is on the consequence of democracy in the workplace. That is not "something else", it is exactly the same point, and it requires a far better response than ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
No it doesn't ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
On April 26 2020 20:55 Belisarius wrote:
We're not "talking" brexit and trump. They happened whether you want to talk about them or not. They are clear indicators that the issues you are trying to address will continue to exist in democratic workplaces, and may in fact be exacerbated. You can continue to not care, just as you can continue to avoid talking about Trump, but it does not make this go away.
That is true. Thank you for defeating the argument that worker coops would solve racism, an argument that was definitely made by many people in the thread and elsewhere, including, of course, me.
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I will repeat myself, since that is the level of effort you are down to.
As acro said, based on the coops that currently exist, they are a slight improvement at best, with many potential downsides. A slight improvement is very poor justification for the enormous changes you want to implement.
You're welcome to continue ignoring everyone who tries to engage with you, but you should not surprised when we continue to dismiss you as a result.
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On April 26 2020 08:30 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2020 08:24 Stratos_speAr wrote:
At a certain point, playing semantics becomes useless.
"But that isn't truly [insert system in question]!" Is used by every side of the political debate to try to trivialize the historical failures of their preferred system. Communists, libertarians, socialists, capitalists, you name it.
These discussions invariably fail to take into account human behavior and how it will warp a given system. It isn't a "but that isn't truly" situation nor are the wholly unscientific appeals to human nature/behavior appropriate or convincing to anyone who isn't already a devout adherent of capitalism.
Calling the concept of human nature "wholly unscientific" just makes you look incredibly ignorant. I suggest you read "Human Universals" by Donald Brown. He compiled an extensive list of features of human culture, behavior, language and modes of thinking that are common for all peoples studied by science thus far.
Here are some excerpts from Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" which discuss the book:
+ Show Spoiler +Value placed on articulateness. Gossip. Lying. Misleading. Verbal humor. Humorous insults. Poetic and rhetorical speech forms. Narrative and storytelling. Metaphor. Poetry with repetition of linguistic elements and three-second lines separated by pauses. Words for days, months, seasons, years, past, present, future, body parts, inner states (emotions, sensations, thoughts), behavioral propensities, flora, fauna, weather, tools, space, motion, speed, location, spatial dimensions, physical properties, giving, lending, affecting things and people, numbers (at the very least "one," "two," and "more than two"), proper names, possession. Distinctions between mother and father. Kinship categories, defined in terms of mother, father, son, daughter, and age sequence. Binary distinctions, including male and female, black and white, natural and cultural, good and bad. Measures. Logical relations including "not," "and," "same," "equivalent," "opposite," general versus particular, part versus whole. Conjectural reasoning (inferring the presence of absent and invisible entities from their perceptible traces).
Nonlinguistic vocal communication such as cries and squeals. Interpreting intention from behavior. Recognized facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt. Use of smiles as a friendly greeting. Crying. Coy flirtation with the eyes. Masking, modifying, and mimicking facial expressions. Displays of affection."
"Sense of self versus other, responsibility, voluntary versus involuntary behavior, intention, private inner life, normal versus abnormal mental states. Empathy. Sexual attraction. Powerful sexual jealousy. Childhood fears, especially of loud noises, and, at the end of the first year, strangers. Fear of snakes. "Oedipal" feelings (possessiveness of mother, coolness toward her consort). Face recognition. Adornment of bodies and arrangement of hair. Sexual attractiveness, based in part on signs of health and, in women, youth. Hygiene. Dance. Music. Play, including play fighting."
"Manufacture of, and dependence upon, many kinds of tools, many of them permanent, made according to culturally transmitted motifs, including cutters, pounders, containers, string, levers, spears. Use of fire to cook food and for other purposes. Drugs, both medicinal and recreational. Shelter. Decoration of artifacts.
A standard pattern and time for weaning. Living in groups, which claim a territory and have a sense of being a distinct people. Families built around a mother and children, usually the biological mother, and one or more men. Institutionalized marriage, in the sense of publicly recognized right of sexual access to a woman eligible for childbearing. Socialization of children (including toilet training) by senior kin. Children copying their elders. Distinguishing of close kin from distant kin, and favoring of close kin. Avoidance of incest between mothers and sons. Great interest in the topic of sex."
"Status and prestige, both assigned (by kinship, age, sex) and achieved. Some degree of economic inequality. Division of labor by sex and age. More child care by women. More aggression and violence by men. Acknowledgment of differences between male and female natures. Domination by men in the public political sphere. Exchange of labor, goods, and services. Reciprocity, including retaliation. Gifts. Social reasoning. Coalitions. Government, in the sense of binding collective decisions about public affairs. Leaders, almost always nondictatorial, perhaps ephemeral. Laws, rights, and obligations, including laws against violence, rape, and murder. Punishment. Conflict, which is deplored. Rape. Seeking of redress for wrongs. Mediation. In-group/out-group conflicts. Property. Inheritance of property. Sense of right and wrong. Envy.
Etiquette. Hospitality. Feasting. Diurnality. Standards of sexual modesty. Sex generally in private. Fondness for sweets. Food taboos. Discreetness in elimination of body wastes. Supernatural beliefs. Magic to sustain and increase life, and to attract the opposite sex. Theories of fortune and misfortune. Explanations of disease and death. Medicine. Rituals, including rites of passage. Mourning the dead. Dreaming, interpreting dreams.
Many of these are found in other primates (or even more generally mammals in some cases), which would suggest they have an evolutionary origin.
A sense of fair exchange is part of that. So is a drive to improve your own condition and that of your kin/your in-group. There is no indication that you could socially engineer people to be motivated to selflessly work for some greater good as long as their basic needs are met.
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On April 26 2020 21:09 Belisarius wrote:
You are certainly making the argument that they will solve wealth inequality.
That is true, yes. I did say some things, and then there are others things that I didn't say. I meant the things I said and not the things I didn't say. Most people speak like that.
On April 26 2020 21:09 Belisarius wrote:
You're welcome to continue ignoring everyone who tries to engage with you, but you should not surprised when we continue to dismiss you as a result.
This isn't me ignoring his engagement, this is me answering honestly. My honest answer as to how people would deal with firing people and most other organizational questions in worker coops is that as long as they don't break the law I don't care and I want it to be on them, not on me. If I had an answer to this question and I wanted to apply it to all worker coops, then my system would be authoritarian, which I suspect is a large part of why I get questions like this, because people can't wait to jump on me and call me an authoritarian so that they can finally discard what I'm saying (or "dismiss me", as you said in your edit, funnily enough) and stop thinking about whether or not there are better systems than capitalism that are attainable out there.
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Your argumentation is utterly unconvincing. You keep deflecting and ignoring the various issues people have raised. Do you intend to convince people to get on board with your proposed solutions or just preach from your ivory tower?
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On April 26 2020 21:20 maybenexttime wrote:
Your argumentation is utterly unconvincing. You keep deflecting and ignoring the various issues people have raised. Do you intend to convince people to get on board with your proposed solutions or just preach from your ivory tower?
Preach, definitely.
I mean, that makes the most sense to me anyway. When I start my conversation with someone who thinks the workers are so ignorant and dumb that they are incapable of handling a democracy and we need leaders to lord over them, but has the gall to tell me that I speak from an ivory tower WHILE THEY SAY THAT, who is willing to just throw it out there that my system would be less egalitarian than neoliberalism which is just about as absurd a statement as I can think of, and who in other contexts told me in PM that they thought I was more dangerous than their fascist friends, I generally don't expect to convince them personally about the benefits of socialism or any eroding of social hierarchies.
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I will repeat myself, since that is the level of effort you are down to.
As acro said, based on the coops that currently exist, they are a slight improvement at best, with many potential downsides. A slight improvement is very poor justification for the enormous changes you want to implement.
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On April 26 2020 22:07 Belisarius wrote:
I will repeat myself, since that is the level of effort you are down to.
As acro said, based on the coops that currently exist, they are a slight improvement at best, with many potential downsides. A slight improvement is very poor justification for the enormous changes you want to implement.
The enormous change is the one from neoliberalism to social democracy, which I believe you also support. Once we're there, we can just create more and more incentives for worker coops so that it's harder and harder to thrive as a capitalist. Seems fairly manageable.
Regardless, I obviously don't agree with your assessment that the improvement is small.
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On April 26 2020 21:24 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2020 21:20 maybenexttime wrote:
Your argumentation is utterly unconvincing. You keep deflecting and ignoring the various issues people have raised. Do you intend to convince people to get on board with your proposed solutions or just preach from your ivory tower? Preach, definitely. I mean, that makes the most sense to me anyway. When I start my conversation with someone who thinks the workers are so ignorant and dumb that they are incapable of handling a democracy and we need leaders to lord over them, but has the gall to tell me that I speak from an ivory tower WHILE THEY SAY THAT, who is willing to just throw it out there that my system would be less egalitarian than neoliberalism which is just about as absurd a statement as I can think of, and who in other contexts told me in PM that they thought I was more dangerous than their fascist friends, I generally don't expect to convince them personally about the benefits of socialism or any eroding of social hierarchies.
Saying that ordinary workers wouldn't know what's best for the company or wouldn't vote in their short-term interest is hardly controversial. They do that all the time in democracies. They do that in co-ops as well.
As for inequality, it depends on how you want to measure it. In relative wealth or in terms of how many people can afford to live a comfortable life vs. how many can't? I am not convinced that socialism would produce better results than neoliberalism in the latter case. It has a rather poor track record when it comes to generating wealth.
Regarding "my" "fascist friends", you're being deliberately disingenuous. We were talking about you condoning physical political violence against people you arbitrarily label as fascists. Contrary to the self-described nationalists I have talked to. I don't find political violence against people you consider the enemy of the people acceptable and have good reason to consider you more dangerous than people who don't condone that.
Edit: It's not uncommon for progressives to label people who do not uphold the blank slate view (debunked by science) as fascists. I have been called one on many occasions.
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On April 26 2020 23:30 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2020 21:24 Nebuchad wrote:On April 26 2020 21:20 maybenexttime wrote:
Your argumentation is utterly unconvincing. You keep deflecting and ignoring the various issues people have raised. Do you intend to convince people to get on board with your proposed solutions or just preach from your ivory tower? Preach, definitely. I mean, that makes the most sense to me anyway. When I start my conversation with someone who thinks the workers are so ignorant and dumb that they are incapable of handling a democracy and we need leaders to lord over them, but has the gall to tell me that I speak from an ivory tower WHILE THEY SAY THAT, who is willing to just throw it out there that my system would be less egalitarian than neoliberalism which is just about as absurd a statement as I can think of, and who in other contexts told me in PM that they thought I was more dangerous than their fascist friends, I generally don't expect to convince them personally about the benefits of socialism or any eroding of social hierarchies. Saying that ordinary workers wouldn't know what's best for the company or wouldn't vote in their short-term interest is hardly controversial. They do that all the time in democracies. They do that in co-ops as well.
You get to either think that or you get to talk about how ivory towers are bad, gonna have to choose one of the two. But obviously you're siding with the ivory towers and when you talked about ivory towers being bad earlier that was just rhetorical, I understand that.
On April 26 2020 23:30 maybenexttime wrote:
As for inequality, it depends on how you want to measure it. In relative wealth or in terms of how many people can afford to live a comfortable life vs. how many can't? I am not convinced that socialism would produce better results than neoliberalism in the latter case. It has a rather poor track record when it comes to generating wealth.
We're talking social democracy with worker coops instead of capitalists, I'm not sure why you keep bringing up a track record as if there was a large amount of countries that tried this. We're talking "wealth inequality" so I'm not sure why you have trouble figuring out what kind of wealth stat we're measuring: it's the "inequality" one. Or would that be "semantics" again?
On April 26 2020 23:30 maybenexttime wrote:
Regarding "my" "fascist friends", you're being deliberately disingenuous. We were talking about you condoning physical political violence against people you arbitrarily label as fascists. Contrary to the self-described nationalists I have talked to. I don't find political violence against people you consider the enemy of the people acceptable and have good reason to consider you more dangerous than people who don't condone that.
The explanation that you provided doesn't make my description disingenuous. Yours however is a little bit, because you referenced people that are considered fascists specifically in the PM. Regardless, as I said, I am not surprised that someone who has these opinions on humans and on politics wouldn't be convinced by what I have to offer, that seems logical.
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At this point my only response can be 'America could do worse'.
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On April 26 2020 21:12 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2020 08:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 26 2020 08:24 Stratos_speAr wrote:
At a certain point, playing semantics becomes useless.
"But that isn't truly [insert system in question]!" Is used by every side of the political debate to try to trivialize the historical failures of their preferred system. Communists, libertarians, socialists, capitalists, you name it.
These discussions invariably fail to take into account human behavior and how it will warp a given system. It isn't a "but that isn't truly" situation nor are the wholly unscientific appeals to human nature/behavior appropriate or convincing to anyone who isn't already a devout adherent of capitalism. Calling the concept of human nature "wholly unscientific" just makes you look incredibly ignorant. I suggest you read "Human Universals" by Donald Brown. He compiled an extensive list of features of human culture, behavior, language and modes of thinking that are common for all peoples studied by science thus far. Here are some excerpts from Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" which discuss the book: + Show Spoiler +Value placed on articulateness. Gossip. Lying. Misleading. Verbal humor. Humorous insults. Poetic and rhetorical speech forms. Narrative and storytelling. Metaphor. Poetry with repetition of linguistic elements and three-second lines separated by pauses. Words for days, months, seasons, years, past, present, future, body parts, inner states (emotions, sensations, thoughts), behavioral propensities, flora, fauna, weather, tools, space, motion, speed, location, spatial dimensions, physical properties, giving, lending, affecting things and people, numbers (at the very least "one," "two," and "more than two"), proper names, possession. Distinctions between mother and father. Kinship categories, defined in terms of mother, father, son, daughter, and age sequence. Binary distinctions, including male and female, black and white, natural and cultural, good and bad. Measures. Logical relations including "not," "and," "same," "equivalent," "opposite," general versus particular, part versus whole. Conjectural reasoning (inferring the presence of absent and invisible entities from their perceptible traces).
Nonlinguistic vocal communication such as cries and squeals. Interpreting intention from behavior. Recognized facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt. Use of smiles as a friendly greeting. Crying. Coy flirtation with the eyes. Masking, modifying, and mimicking facial expressions. Displays of affection."
"Sense of self versus other, responsibility, voluntary versus involuntary behavior, intention, private inner life, normal versus abnormal mental states. Empathy. Sexual attraction. Powerful sexual jealousy. Childhood fears, especially of loud noises, and, at the end of the first year, strangers. Fear of snakes. "Oedipal" feelings (possessiveness of mother, coolness toward her consort). Face recognition. Adornment of bodies and arrangement of hair. Sexual attractiveness, based in part on signs of health and, in women, youth. Hygiene. Dance. Music. Play, including play fighting."
"Manufacture of, and dependence upon, many kinds of tools, many of them permanent, made according to culturally transmitted motifs, including cutters, pounders, containers, string, levers, spears. Use of fire to cook food and for other purposes. Drugs, both medicinal and recreational. Shelter. Decoration of artifacts.
A standard pattern and time for weaning. Living in groups, which claim a territory and have a sense of being a distinct people. Families built around a mother and children, usually the biological mother, and one or more men. Institutionalized marriage, in the sense of publicly recognized right of sexual access to a woman eligible for childbearing. Socialization of children (including toilet training) by senior kin. Children copying their elders. Distinguishing of close kin from distant kin, and favoring of close kin. Avoidance of incest between mothers and sons. Great interest in the topic of sex."
"Status and prestige, both assigned (by kinship, age, sex) and achieved. Some degree of economic inequality. Division of labor by sex and age. More child care by women. More aggression and violence by men. Acknowledgment of differences between male and female natures. Domination by men in the public political sphere. Exchange of labor, goods, and services. Reciprocity, including retaliation. Gifts. Social reasoning. Coalitions. Government, in the sense of binding collective decisions about public affairs. Leaders, almost always nondictatorial, perhaps ephemeral. Laws, rights, and obligations, including laws against violence, rape, and murder. Punishment. Conflict, which is deplored. Rape. Seeking of redress for wrongs. Mediation. In-group/out-group conflicts. Property. Inheritance of property. Sense of right and wrong. Envy.
Etiquette. Hospitality. Feasting. Diurnality. Standards of sexual modesty. Sex generally in private. Fondness for sweets. Food taboos. Discreetness in elimination of body wastes. Supernatural beliefs. Magic to sustain and increase life, and to attract the opposite sex. Theories of fortune and misfortune. Explanations of disease and death. Medicine. Rituals, including rites of passage. Mourning the dead. Dreaming, interpreting dreams. Many of these are found in other primates (or even more generally mammals in some cases), which would suggest they have an evolutionary origin. A sense of fair exchange is part of that. So is a drive to improve your own condition and that of your kin/your in-group. There is no indication that you could socially engineer people to be motivated to selflessly work for some greater good as long as their basic needs are met.
I wouldn't cite an heavily old and outdated book and the guy who quoted that book heavily in his own as a core of your argument mate.
Especially when even Pinker or people who lean more strongly towards the "nature" side wouldn't defend such a vague and broad term as human nature.
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On April 27 2020 01:02 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2020 21:12 maybenexttime wrote:On April 26 2020 08:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 26 2020 08:24 Stratos_speAr wrote:
At a certain point, playing semantics becomes useless.
"But that isn't truly [insert system in question]!" Is used by every side of the political debate to try to trivialize the historical failures of their preferred system. Communists, libertarians, socialists, capitalists, you name it.
These discussions invariably fail to take into account human behavior and how it will warp a given system. It isn't a "but that isn't truly" situation nor are the wholly unscientific appeals to human nature/behavior appropriate or convincing to anyone who isn't already a devout adherent of capitalism. Calling the concept of human nature "wholly unscientific" just makes you look incredibly ignorant. I suggest you read "Human Universals" by Donald Brown. He compiled an extensive list of features of human culture, behavior, language and modes of thinking that are common for all peoples studied by science thus far. Here are some excerpts from Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" which discuss the book: + Show Spoiler +Value placed on articulateness. Gossip. Lying. Misleading. Verbal humor. Humorous insults. Poetic and rhetorical speech forms. Narrative and storytelling. Metaphor. Poetry with repetition of linguistic elements and three-second lines separated by pauses. Words for days, months, seasons, years, past, present, future, body parts, inner states (emotions, sensations, thoughts), behavioral propensities, flora, fauna, weather, tools, space, motion, speed, location, spatial dimensions, physical properties, giving, lending, affecting things and people, numbers (at the very least "one," "two," and "more than two"), proper names, possession. Distinctions between mother and father. Kinship categories, defined in terms of mother, father, son, daughter, and age sequence. Binary distinctions, including male and female, black and white, natural and cultural, good and bad. Measures. Logical relations including "not," "and," "same," "equivalent," "opposite," general versus particular, part versus whole. Conjectural reasoning (inferring the presence of absent and invisible entities from their perceptible traces).
Nonlinguistic vocal communication such as cries and squeals. Interpreting intention from behavior. Recognized facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt. Use of smiles as a friendly greeting. Crying. Coy flirtation with the eyes. Masking, modifying, and mimicking facial expressions. Displays of affection."
"Sense of self versus other, responsibility, voluntary versus involuntary behavior, intention, private inner life, normal versus abnormal mental states. Empathy. Sexual attraction. Powerful sexual jealousy. Childhood fears, especially of loud noises, and, at the end of the first year, strangers. Fear of snakes. "Oedipal" feelings (possessiveness of mother, coolness toward her consort). Face recognition. Adornment of bodies and arrangement of hair. Sexual attractiveness, based in part on signs of health and, in women, youth. Hygiene. Dance. Music. Play, including play fighting."
"Manufacture of, and dependence upon, many kinds of tools, many of them permanent, made according to culturally transmitted motifs, including cutters, pounders, containers, string, levers, spears. Use of fire to cook food and for other purposes. Drugs, both medicinal and recreational. Shelter. Decoration of artifacts.
A standard pattern and time for weaning. Living in groups, which claim a territory and have a sense of being a distinct people. Families built around a mother and children, usually the biological mother, and one or more men. Institutionalized marriage, in the sense of publicly recognized right of sexual access to a woman eligible for childbearing. Socialization of children (including toilet training) by senior kin. Children copying their elders. Distinguishing of close kin from distant kin, and favoring of close kin. Avoidance of incest between mothers and sons. Great interest in the topic of sex."
"Status and prestige, both assigned (by kinship, age, sex) and achieved. Some degree of economic inequality. Division of labor by sex and age. More child care by women. More aggression and violence by men. Acknowledgment of differences between male and female natures. Domination by men in the public political sphere. Exchange of labor, goods, and services. Reciprocity, including retaliation. Gifts. Social reasoning. Coalitions. Government, in the sense of binding collective decisions about public affairs. Leaders, almost always nondictatorial, perhaps ephemeral. Laws, rights, and obligations, including laws against violence, rape, and murder. Punishment. Conflict, which is deplored. Rape. Seeking of redress for wrongs. Mediation. In-group/out-group conflicts. Property. Inheritance of property. Sense of right and wrong. Envy.
Etiquette. Hospitality. Feasting. Diurnality. Standards of sexual modesty. Sex generally in private. Fondness for sweets. Food taboos. Discreetness in elimination of body wastes. Supernatural beliefs. Magic to sustain and increase life, and to attract the opposite sex. Theories of fortune and misfortune. Explanations of disease and death. Medicine. Rituals, including rites of passage. Mourning the dead. Dreaming, interpreting dreams. Many of these are found in other primates (or even more generally mammals in some cases), which would suggest they have an evolutionary origin. A sense of fair exchange is part of that. So is a drive to improve your own condition and that of your kin/your in-group. There is no indication that you could socially engineer people to be motivated to selflessly work for some greater good as long as their basic needs are met. I wouldn't cite an heavily old and outdated book and the guy who quoted that book heavily in his own as a core of your argument mate. Especially when even Pinker or people who lean more strongly towards the "nature" side wouldn't defend such a vague and broad term as human nature.
Sure, it's an old book, but outdated how? There is plenty of evidence supporting it. Have you read Pinker's "The Blank Slate"? Because in it he's explicitly referring to several scientific disciplines like neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics and such as sciences of human nature.
An example of a trait that seems to have a biological foundation is gender identity. The fact that gender dysphoria exists or that boys who had their penises accidentally removed and were raised as girls do not identify as such clearly shows that we are not blank slates in that regard. There are more examples.
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EPT
