@Rob100 @neptune22222
That's essentially what I am doing with my many posts and reposts by others about unions and working-class solidarity. Those two things are what will bring society closer to the abolition of capitalism.
Unions and working-class solidarity are ways of working within capitalism to regulate capitalism. It's not an escape from capitalism.
@neptune22222 @Rob100
Did you not read my previous post to you? Unions and working-class solidarity destroy the isolation that capitalism's division of labor creates making it easier for workers to unite into a strong enough force to abolish capitalism. I never claimed that unions or solidarity alone would abolish capitalism.
@Radical_EgoCom @neptune22222 @Rob100
If only it were that easy!
@starran @neptune22222 @Rob100
It's not going to be easy. It will probably be the hardest thing Humanity will ever try to do, but it is possible.
@Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100
I don't see the problem of developing a utopia as hard or easy. I see it as unrealistic.
@neptune22222 @starran @Rob100
I have already explained why what I've proposed isn't utopian. What do you find so unrealistic about it?
@Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100
I see no historical precedent for a gift economy that does not include money, or ownership, i.e. capital. That's why I cannot imagine what you are talking about and I continue to refer to it as utopian.
Chomsky argues that abolishing money is a technical distraction. The important thing is democratically regulating tyranny.
@neptune22222 @starran @Rob100
You not having seen a historical precedent for a moneyless gift economy with no private ownership of the means of production isn't proof that it's impossible. Can you list any reasons why such a system couldn't work?
@Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100
There are 8 billion people on Earth and I'm unclear why you don't like money as a way for people to exchange goods. Money seems pretty useful to me.
I see that you don't have a clear plan for accomplishing what sounds like an unclear goal.
@neptune22222 @starran @Rob100
I don't see what the number of people on Earth has to do with anything, I don't like money because of how it divides people into classes of wealthy and unwealthy, and you still haven't answered my question. Can you list any reasons why the system I proposed couldn't work?
@Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100
I don't think you've proposed a system.
I mention 8 billion people because that's the complexity of the problem to solve.
@neptune22222 @starran @Rob100
Regardless of what you think, I have proposed a system multiple times now, that is a decentralized and non-hierarchical system of collective ownership and management of the means of production and resources. What is impossible about that?
@Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100
I don't think that paragraph will be enough to manage the complexity of the problem. We have an existing system that does have a lot of value, and I think a system that includes money could also be what you describe because what you describe is so vague and abstract.
@neptune22222 @starran @Rob100
I didn't propose a specific system with all of the details and intricacies figured out, I proposed a possible alternative to the existing system. What exactly is it about a decentralized and non-hierarchical system of collective ownership of the means of production that you think makes it less possible than the current private ownership of the means of production within a hierarchical and centralized system?
@Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100
It's not clear what you mean by "decentralized". What is decentralized?
It is not clear what you mean by "non-hierarchical". What is non-hierarchical?
What is wrong with hierarchy? Even the most anarchistic systems include hierarchies that are elected democratically.
You are talking about "ownership" but you don't like money or capital so it's not clear what you mean by ownership.
It is really not clear what you are talking about.
@neptune22222 @starran @Rob100
I've been more than clear with what I've been talking about and it's not my fault that you're having difficulty understanding what the words I've used mean. You're on the internet. If you don't know what "decentralized", "non-hierarchical", or "ownership" means then you can look them up. Once you've done that then you can answer my question that I've asked twice already.
@Radical_EgoCom @neptune22222 @starran @Rob100@sakurajima.moe Dear old Karl said very little about this imaginary regulated capitalism earlier in this thread.
Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.
From each according to his ability, to each according to their needs.
Philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point, however is to change it.
1/
@Radical_EgoCom @neptune22222 @starran @Rob100@sakurajima.moe
In volume 1 he says capitalist society had to force capitalists in general to stop killing the working class before it could reproduce itself. Cites places where average mortality was 17.
The only freedom capitalist relations grant is be exploiter or exploited.
Utopian comes from Engels’ book “Socialism, Utopian and Scientific”. The worker class must be in charge or any gains can
2/
@Radical_EgoCom @neptune22222 @starran @Rob100@sakurajima.moe
be taken away, as we’ve had for 50 years of individualist neoliberalism.
Things are in a constant state of change, and the only way to fix it permanently is to take the capitalists’ toys away.
The Green Plenty stuff on my profile talks about this in more detail than I can fit here, fwiw.
/fin
@francis @Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100
Thank you Francis, this is really helpful. How do we "take the capitalists toys away"? That's where I see regulation, e.g. making laws to take capital away from the capitalists and give it to workers, i.e. force selling corporations to workers and converting to worker-owned coops, as the answer, but are you proposing another method that is not legislation, which I see as regulation?
@neptune22222 @Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100@sakurajima.moe
I'm not gonna ignore this question, it's really interesting and useful to talk about. I will write an article to explain my position if you don't mind. This might take me a little while.
You're right, but there's a whole pile of things we need to think about that go with it.
@neptune22222 @Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100@sakurajima.moe
I hope this helps, it's my view. https://www.greenplenty.info/take-their-toys-away/
@francis @Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100
OK. This quote from your article answers my question:
"What happens when we try and take the toddler's toys away? We will have a real fight on our hands, and it may well be bloody."
@neptune22222 @Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100@sakurajima.moe if anyone would like to do a reading group of the Engels text, DM me and let’s see if we can get something going.
@francis @Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100
Promoting a "bloody" "fight" is a dangerous and lazy approach to politics and economics. This promotes fear, which funds the police state. If there is violence and war, this will result in more poor workers being killed in the conflict. This promotes the funding of the military industrial complex and works against the socialist agenda.
I think what you are proposing is lazy, incompetent, and irresponsible, especially if you are well educated, white, and a member of a majority Christian first world nation.
#socialism #antifa #workers #workersrights #fear #violence #economics #politics #militaryindustrialcomplex #policestate
@neptune22222 @Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100@sakurajima.moe
Promoting?
Warning.
Straw man.
Back in the 80’s my government put people in wheelchairs who were fighting for their jobs.
In the US you have gun battles and the murder of union activists in the early to mid 20th century, the civil rights struggle. More recently the mysterious deaths of the leaders of Ferguson. Now we have the suppression of the campus protests.
@neptune22222 @Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100@sakurajima.moe
Without a well organised mass movement to take them on you’re going to get nowhere. That’s hard work, not wishing.
Our owners will not let us legislate them away. They smashed the post war social democratic consensus to smithereens. It’s done.
They’ve been free to do whatever they like for the last 50 years. You think you can put that blood soaked murder machine back in its box?
@neptune22222 @francis @Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100 It seems contradictory to support socialism and yet claim to want to preserve ‘existing democracies’, when existing democracies have shown themselves to be willing to use extreme force to prevent the success of socialism.
@neptune22222 @francis @Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100 Like, it’s not that socialists *want* a bloody fight. As far as I know most socialists would be happy if socialism could be established without any violence. Unfortunately in the real world attempting to do so leads to being targeted by a CIA-backed coup, no matter how democratic and gradual your process is.
@neptune22222 @francis @starran @Rob100
If communism, or even socialism, is to be achieved our existing "democracies" (quotations added because they're not democracies, more like oligarchies) must be abandoned.
@Radical_EgoCom @francis @starran @Rob100
I think it is childish to call for a bloody fight as a solution to violence.
@neptune22222 @francis @starran @Rob100
I didn't say anything about a bloody fight as a solution to violence.
@neptune22222 @francis @starran @Rob100
How come when I suggested that we abandon our current political/economic system you interpreted that as "childish" and me "wanting to start a bloody fight as a solution to violence"?
@Radical_EgoCom @francis @starran @Rob100
Francis was the one that said we need a "bloody" "fight".
I've heard a lot of people in this thread say that we need to abolish the current system and give up on the existing democracy. I interpret this as cynical and lazy and childish. I'm sorry if I'm confusing one bad idea from one person for another bad idea from another person.
@neptune22222 @francis @starran @Rob100
What exactly is "childish", "lazy", and "cynical" about believing that the current system needs to be abolished?
@Radical_EgoCom @francis @starran @Rob100
"Cynical" because it is negative and pessimistic view of the current system.
"Lazy" because it shows that you have not done the work in the current system in order to change it.
"Childish" because the proposed plans by some in this thread of unionizing and forming worker-owned coops require and depend on the current system and laws being enforced, which shows a superficial thought process with obvious contradictions.
Some in this thread have an egotistical desire to argue over terminology and prove others wrong, and others want to form reading groups of ancient texts, which are largely irrelevant to current politics and struggles, while proposing "bloody" "fights" from their own positions of white and first world privilege.
I've also heard some people in this thread express a righteous pride in their disconnection from all existing politics, which shows me that they and their thoughts are irrelevant to the current discourse and struggles.
@neptune22222 @francis @starran @Rob100
People should have a pessimistic view of the current system because it's shown itself to be ineffective, people have done work for decades to change the current system and they've failed to, so people have ample reason to seek alternatives, and...
@neptune22222 @francis @starran @Rob100
...I fail to see how using unions and workers' cooperatives that just so happen to rely on the current capitalist system to build up the working class into a strong enough force to overthrow capitalism is childish; I see it as tactical and strategic.
@Radical_EgoCom @francis @starran @Rob100
Unions and worker-owned coops depend upon the existing system.
If you abolish the existing system, you can't have unions or worker-owned coops.
It's a contradiction.
@neptune22222 @francis @starran @Rob100
A union is an organized association of workers in a particular industry or occupation who come together to collectively represent and advocate for their interests, rights, and working conditions, and a workers' cooperative is a business that is owned and operated by its employees. There's nothing about these two things that makes them impossible to exist outside of a capitalist system, and for anything,...
@neptune22222 @francis @starran @Rob100
...these two forms of organization would thrive within a communist system since such a system would prioritize worker solidarity and shared ownership of businesses.
@Radical_EgoCom @neptune22222 @starran @Rob100@sakurajima.moe and you’ve got housing cooperatives, food, credit unions. Syndicalism in general. Creating democratic dual power structures as a transitional move to protect and help each other. Learning how to do mutual aid.
It’s a completely different way of thinking from acting like a temporarily embarrassed billionaire we’ve had rammed into our heads for years on end.
@neptune22222 @Radical_EgoCom @francis @starran @Rob100 if by the existing system they mean capitalsim, you can still have unions without capitalism, if workers feel their rights are being suppressed.
Worker cooperatives it seems to be a decades lasting debate on whether they are capitalism or not. Although, it might depend on circumstances.
@francis @Radical_EgoCom @starran @Rob100
You are the one calling for a bloody fight, not me.
Yes, I think our existing democracies are worth saving.
#socialism #democracy #nonviolent #nonviolence