A curious dichotomy between socialism and capitalism, and misconceptions about socialism...

[Cleobulus]

I found Taverner's OP fascinating, not in the OP itself, but the responses to it. Granted some may have been sarcastic, such as saying "can I have your stuff?" and things of that nature, but it brings up a pretty obvious point about misconceptions of not only socialism but capitalism.

Both systems are, in their modern forms, relatively recent in human civilization, before that we had a mercantile system, barter systems, etc. We also had primitive commune type communities worldwide, that could be called socialistic or communistic, such as hunter/gatherer societies.

Then there's the "purity" argument, on both sides, that "pure" socialism/capitalism don't work, and honestly, they don't, because neither truly exist. This seems rather obvious, but the argument of "purity" is stupid, because no economic or even political system is purely one thing, and one thing only. Its not even an argument as to what works or not, simply because there is no agreement as to what constitutes a "pure" system. Without agreement, nothing can be pure.

Its this black and white thinking that's the problem.

Let's throw out some examples of what I'm talking about, let's say the Federal Government passed a law saying that all for-profit organizations over 15 employees have to organize themselves along co-op lines, worker controlled, worker owned. Now, is this socialism? Yes, in a way, workers controlling the means of production. But are these organizations, these co-ops owned by the Government, no. So this could also be considered capitalism, different co-ops will compete in the market, and capital will still accumulate, just to the workers.

Here's another example, let's say you have a neighborhood association, in charge of a subdivision, but organized along cooperative lines. You could let's say have the group own the property, and the tenants, who are the group, control it through democratic elections, decisions by consensus, etc. No individual in the neighborhood would own the property within the neighborhood, they would rent or pay into a fund to help maintain it. We just abolished private property, but again, not really, because people still have some control over the property they live in, in addition to everyone else's, a check on potential abuses. This also doesn't mean that the stuff in the house is collectively owned, and neither does the government, your TV is still your TV, in other words.

So is this Socialism or Capitalism? Neither and both, change it to a apartment complex, and you can see how things aren't much different than they are now, except for who actually owns the property, instead of a single corporation/developer or landlord, everyone is collectively the landlord. So again, you have collectivism that is not a total abolishing of private property.

So what would we have here, what is the social organization, or the name for this type of economic system? There is none, not really, outside of maybe economic democracy. I just used two examples, there can be many more. I think the problem is that capitalism is associated with Corporations, as if the two are intertwined in a way that makes them inseparable, but Corporations, as a structure for business, aren't necessary in a Capitalistic society. The same is said for Socialism, which is associated with things such as the former USSR, and the abuses therein. And yet, Socialism doesn't need central control by a central Government to exist or thrive. So we can have a mix of the two systems, something that is both and neither, a Democratic Economy.

[provis99]

1. very well argued. You write like a political philosopher.

[Cleobulus]

5. Only part time.

:)

[leftstreet]

2. Can I have your stuff?

:-)

Very interesting OP!

[tavalon]

3. Yeah, I've believed that socialism can only exist in small

groups, with all agreeable to it.

[Cleobulus]

4. I don't think size itself is the problem, or at least, not a problem unique in socialism...

or in cooperative structure that are economic in outlook. Look to large, multi-national corporations. Now they operate as oligarchies at the moment, being controlled, supposedly, by their shareholders, some have hundreds or thousands of shareholders, and in many cases corporations own each other.

Now, when I speak of size, I'm not talking necessary on how much they make, and some corporations, even large ones(in earnings) are owned by a single individual or small groups. But the more dispersed ones also become unwieldy in their own fashion, and in addition, they become less accountable to shareholders and the public, leading to abuses.

There are cooperatives that have thousands of members, or I should say owners as well, and depending on how they are structured, especially how their charter structures them, they could become even larger.

Indeed, perhaps we can take a page from Corporations and adapt it to Cooperatives. Imagine a multi-national cooperative, controlled, over the entire cooperative through an elected body, an executive council, that is elected by all the people who work in the cooperative. In addition, there could be, for example factories within the cooperative that operate through consensus, or through worker's councils, or with an elected manager or foreman. In addition you could have regional councils or directors, etc. This is similar to how Corporations are organized, but with one key difference, instead of one-share, one-vote, it would be one-person, one-vote.

This makes things much more equal, and disperses power within the organization much more readily. Indeed, it could even be more responsive to, for example, local changes in the economy than traditional corporations because of direct worker input.

To say that Economic Democracy can only work in small groups is no different than saying Political Democracy only works in small groups, and we know that is not true. I think we need to think outside the box, the reason cooperatives haven't caught on is very simple, on large scales, it simply hasn't been tried yet.

If we were to compare the distribution of Power between economic structures, then Corporations are oligarchies or dictatorships, and Cooperatives are Democracies.

[readmoreoften]

11. Really? How can small groups exist economically within a capitalist system?

They'd have to be very, very small. I think you're confusing socialism with utopianism. Socialism is an economic system, not a perfect system.

[tavalon]

12. Small groups like my family

We have three adults and three disparate incomes, based on capitalism's valuations of each of our work, even though we all three work as diligently as the other. That money is placed in a common pot and each of us receives a set stipend per month. The same for each of us. Decisions about the "state" funds are made cooperatively - I'm not sure what system that part is. When one of us is hurt or needs something as a requirement for life, it automatically comes out of the "state" funds. I definitely see that as the socialist safety net. Since there are three adults in our house, the "state" often has a surplus but that is where the term, "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" comes in.

[yowzayowzayowza]

6. 2007 Nobel Economics Prize: Mechanism Design Theory

Nobel(pdf)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/oct/15/ukeconomy.economics2

In its statement announcing the award, the Nobel committee said: "The theory allows us to distinguish situations in which markets work well from those in which they do not. It has helped economists identify efficient trading mechanisms, regulation schemes and voting procedures."

While highly abstract and mathematical, mechanism design theory has concrete applications in the real world. It can provide important justifications for government intervention in the operation of markets such as health care, as well as helping to construct rules that attempt to avoid the disparity in information between groups of buyers and sellers.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2007/db20071015_488815.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

But mechanism design theory finds that free markets have their own problems with misaligned incentives. Myerson, the co-Nobelist from the University of Chicago, says the biggest incentive problem in free markets is "adverse selection," also known as the lemon problem. Health insurers, for example, suffer from this because the only people who sign up for high-cost policies are the ones who secretly know they have big health problems, for whom the cost of the coverage is worthwhile. Myerson, while acknowledging that he is not a health-care economist, said in an interview that the adverse selection problem gives "fundamental reasons why everybody or almost everybody might be better off with universal, compulsory health insurance."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_design

[Odin2005]

7. It's called Market Socialism. I'm a big fan of it.

For too long Socialism has been equated with the epic fail that this Economic Planning, and the PTB have used this to bludgeon Socialism, but socialism is perfectly compatible with markets and entrepreneurship.

[girl gone mad]

8. The "can I have your stuff?" responses..

are also kind of funny when you consider that so many people don't even own their own stuff these days - the bank owns it.

[readmoreoften]

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[readmoreoften]

9. .

[readmoreoften]

10. Nope. You can throw Keynesianism into the mix, but it's really nothing more than capitalism

consolidated and directed by the capitalist state (which Marx covers.) Socialism is worker-control of the economy. And no, it doesn't exist anywhere on the planet because, in the 21st century, it can only work in an international fashion--the same way capitalism does.

And this is capitalism. If it were Friedman-style "pure" capitalism, it might be worse (after all, Keynesianism isn't just "social program" capitalism, there is also Military Keynesianism, which is what we have now.

The idea that we don't live under a capitalism system is purely academic, and frankly, garbage. Socialism is a worker controlled economy. It can be anarcho-syndicalist or bureaucratic or democratic, but if it's not controlled by the workers, capitalism eventually emerges from the reconstruction of class society (see: Stalin, Mao, Castro).

Without the total destruction of CAPITAL and the REAL EXISTING CLASS (the plutonomy, as they now call themselves--see Michael Moore's C.A.L.S. for more proof) by SOME entity. You can imagine that entity being a serious of mass strikes and immediate peaceful reconstruction based on collective factories (anarcho-synd.), mass strikes and party organization as a bulwark against reaction (Leninism/Trotskyism), guerilla action (Maoism/"third world nationalisms"), or as a peaceful arrangements where the plutonomists (yes, they're capitalists) just get voted out and they slink away with their tails between their legs (Bernsteinism/Late German Social Democracy), or slow movement into "market socialism" (total nonsense and highly likely to degenerate into capitalism if it ever even existed for 30 seconds--unless you're talking about China. Which is capitalism.)

Any nation-state socialism is doomed in the 21st century. The global economy is too interwoven. There will only be international economic systems from here on out: it will be capitalist or it will be socialist.

[zipplewrath]

13. You're close

What you seem to be arguing is that as long as the "political" system is "controlled" by the monied classes, you don't have socialism. I understand what you are getting at, because at the root, in order for it to be any form of socialism, the "working class" has to be in control.

I do think though you are stumbling over your own "purity" issue however. What we have is fairly close to "regulated socialism", i.e. the control of production through bureaucratic regulation. This is in opposition to say more direct control and "ownership", at least of primary aspects of production. The recent move towards "deregulation" has been an attempt to move away from that, and therefor supports your assertion that the working classs DOESN'T control the politics of this country.

Problem is, the vast majority of our governmental structures, save at the federal level, are fairly "democratic", so there is a fair amount of "direct control". Yet over our history, and even in times of rampant populism, we've never really seen much in the way of a "workers uprising" or a french revolution style redistribution of wealth. You can try to explain that many different ways, but in the end the reality is that despite many opportunities to do so, we have not. So the suggestion is that the workers DO control the economy, and this is what they have chosen for themselves. The Great Society programs, and the New Deal, as well as historical events from the various land distributions of the west, to the GI bill tend to suggest that when we choose to, we are more than capable of controlling our government and economy.

Again, obviously not "pure" but in the end it would seem it is the "plurality" position.

[izzybeans]

14. People forget that Marx (and others) thought socialism was just one notch up on the evolutionary

scale of history, thus requiring the institutions of capitalism to run (e.g. that whole supplying the tools of your own demise is a kind of off shoot of that). The government was supposed to become unnecessary as the economy became more sophisticated and was able to govern itself without exploitation (through various forms of democratic governance at the level of trades and firms). Thus, markets and business firms would still be the primary engines of commerce, it is just they are transformed into democratically run institutions rather than the authoritarian fiefdoms that they are now (both markets and firms).