this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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Welfare capitalism was better than the other ones.
And better than real existing what-was-called-communism (as to not trigger the no true Scotsman leftists)
Listen man I know I'm edging pretty close to "no true Scotsman," but hear me out... it's not that it wasn't "true socialism," but whether something is socialist economically isn't necessarily tied to authoritarianism. Like, fuck tankies, but also I do think that combining market economics and truly representative democracy with proportional representation and freedom of speech and association with socialist ownership structures (as in the abolition of corporate governance from any input from, frankly, absentee "owners") is the move. Socialism doesn't have to be authoritarian, nor does it have to be against market economics. Ya know?
It’s just that that’s not socialism either. You’re no true scotsmaning existing socialism, and idealizing not-socialism. You’re a social democrat, a cooperativist, maybe a mutualist, which is the right thing to be. You seek to manage contradictions, you don’t idealize their synthesis.
That's true, but i don't know if it's fair to say that mandating employee ownership is anything other than socialist. Not Marxist, sure. Certainly leftist. But isn't employee ownership and governance of the means of production, by definition, socialism?
It is not, by definition, socialism. Socialism has other elements. Marx did not think it was socialism. He thought political economy also likely made it impossible, because it didn’t abolish capitalism. Socialism is the global abolition of capitalism in all its forms, capitalism being the private ownership of the means of production (a group of workers still privately owns a factory, its private unless its public), via all means it might re-emerge, it’s not a spectrum of redistribution of wealth or government intervention.
I think your argument might be more convincing if you actually mentioned these elements.
Other people had other definitions even before Marx, so I'm not sure why his should be the only valid definition.
Just my two cents.
I did in other comments. Usually because he utterly destroyed those other socialists in arguments. Proudhon is basically the main pre marx socialist, invented mutualism, I like him, but it’s just easier to say you’re a mutualist, because Marx wrote against him and most socialists see his ideas as primitive or wrong or “utopian”.
Then there were the Christian socialists. They are somewhat accepted. But you know, in Christian circles.
Ah I see. I definitely have more learning to do than. In that case how is libertarian socialism socialism? Doesn't that definition invalidate basically everything but vanguardism?
Libertarian socialism is either what people call market socialism, which simply isn’t socialism, or anarchism, which is actually communism. But anarchists, which market socialists see themselves as being on the spectrum of, are actually a different intellectual tradition than Marxism.
Some groups have historical reasons to use the term socialism that are not Marxists, but if you go to a socialist group around the world and claim you are one of those (like I did) you basically will be stonewalled. These days socialist traditions are the Marxist traditions, and the rest are usually anarchist traditions.
Oh I definitely think my position is more informed by anarchist traditions (eg, see my username lol) than socialist traditions, but it's not exactly anarchism either. I'm never really sure what label to use tbh.
Personally after examining and leaving on the table both Anarchism and Marxism, I went on to study Nietzsche, the Frankfurt school, reformists like Bernstein, and old school socialists like Proudhon. I've just landed far-left-of-liberal. There's plenty of precedent for that too, for example in Rousseau and Rawls.
And going to europe, I basically just want what they have. So that's socdem.
I got a death threat from a tankie today because I suggested that Kamala would have not been as bad as the current administration.
That was fun, don't worry I was banned shortly thereafter from that community
Accelerationism is a hell of a drug. You would have thought they would learn something from Weimar Germany, but no.
Was it that six-sided ursine one..?
yeah I keep hearing how we're a democracy but I've never felt it ever was. We have the technology to do a direct democracy but no one really wants to do it.
I mean state capitalism is by definition not communism. This isn't a no true Scotsman they're just two different things.
Sure but words have philosophical pre-definitions and real world usages. It’s also possible that the pre-definitions are impossible, and that all attempts to achieve them lead to something else, it’s natural then that that something else becomes the new meaning of the word.
If I gave a recipe for bread, and it always came out to be shit, that word “bread” would come to mean “shit”, even if the old book said “bread is not shit”
In that case we'd say "X can't exist", not "X is Y". That's the case for the word utopia, for example. Also non-state capitalism socialism exists and includes for instance the Paris Commune, anarchist Ukraine and for a surviving example Rojava.
Logically you might do that, but linguistically you certainly would not. Words drift in meaning all the time. No other country actively calls itself utopian. Many still actively call themselves communist, and are led by people who call themselves communists, and think they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.
Think of the term Christian. Christian used to mean people who did what Jesus said to do, or maybe what Paul said Christian meant in that book we all have. But now, academically, Christian means any tradition which claims to be following Jesus, which includes Mormons and Jahovas Witnessess and Catholics and that weird doomsday cult down the road. If you wanted to clarify, you’d say “Pauline Christianity” or more likely “Lutheranism” or something. Only Christians clap back and say things like “true Christianity” because of course they would.
I hate to say it but small and or temporary implementations of “true communism” do not break the trend. Let them fight a war against overwhelming capitalist powers and then call me back.
Because it's half way to socialism?
It's the most left of the right-wing scope that is pro-capitalism, but doesn't address the underlying contradiction and will inevitably backslide to the right. It'll take longer, but will eventually side with fascism as capitalism historically does
All human systems contain contradictions. They don’t synthesize. The very act of system building by humans is the act of manipulating nature into a box it wasn’t made to fit into. Socialism has contradictions: global planning of the economy vs somehow not centralizing power and being susceptible to oligarchy, the overwork of the “from each according to their abilities” when everyone is motivated to exaggerate “to each according to their needs”. Among many others.
What we need is multipolarity. All systems need to be actively tried and tested in the fire of competition. People need to be allowed to vote with their feet. For instance, European capitalism is CLEARLY superior in every way to American capitalism, while simultaneously being more free than Chinese “communism”.
I'm referring more to as a Mode of Production, where the Socialist Mode is the democratic organization of the workers who together control all aspects of the business such as wages and investment. Richard Wolff explains it well. Socialism doesn't mean exclusively using central planning or centralization of power.
The contradictions I'm talking about are between the workers and the capitalist owners. That exists whether the capitalism is state or private, and whether the capitalism is laissez-faire or social democracy.
That contradiction will always lead to the capitalists accumulating wealth and using that wealth to improve the mechanisms of which they are able to accumulate wealth. High taxation, while an improvement over laissez-faire, does not change that reality. Wealth will still be accumulated by capitalists, who will then use that wealth to change the laws for their benefit. Democracy will backslide as corporate influence grows year over year. We see this backsliding all over Europe to various degrees, despite them having significantly more social safety nets than America. There is no type of capitalism that won't lead to Fascism.
China is a mix of capitalism and socialism. Richard Wolff also explains this well. It doesn't matter if they claim to be communist or not, or if they claim to be on that path or not, the current system is a mix
I think you are talking about cooperativism. That’s a form of capitalism. Again, it would be great to have a multipolar world where we could try that out. But it doesn’t not have contradictions, it just has new ones. Every politicial system has dialectical contradictions, and we simply flow from old ones to new ones as material conditions change. I recommend reading the deluzian criticism of dialectics.
No, I'm talking about Modes of Production. I linked videos explaining it more in depth for a reason.
A workers cooperative is using a socialist mode of production to organize and run a private business.
You didn't provide what the contradictions of the socialist mode of production are. You gave critiques of planned economy and authoritarianism.
The contradiction of a capitalist mode of production is between the owner, who wants to maximize exploitation, and the workers, who want to minimize their exploitation. A socialist mode of production makes a democratic organization of all the workers replace that capitalist owner. The workers are in full control. There is no contradiction between the owner and workers because the workers are now also the owners.
This is about philosophy, not a critique of marxian economics or dielectical materialism
If we can't agree on the definitions of Capitalism and Socialism, then we can't really have a conversation. I provided the videos by Richard Wolff so that the definitions being used are clear.
I… did… what? The critiques were in the form of contradictory forces: central planning (seeks to centralize power) and democracy (seeks to distribute power), those who work “according to their ability” (incentive to minimize work) those who receive “according to their need” (incentive to maximize receipt of goods) (contradiction comes from the added premise max work -> max goods). These are as contradictory as the class differences between capitalist and worker, even moreso since they are contradictions between the worker and himself. Society and itself.
Which are we talking about again? Philosophy or Marxism? Wait, Marxism and dialectical materialism are philosophies. Wait, Deleuze comments on them. Wait… wtf are you talking about?
Those aren't contradictory. Centralized planning refers to organizing aspects of the economy, in particular things with inelastic demand, through the government (the public sector). It's run as a business, same as in the private sector, except profit is not the point. It can be organized based on a capitalist mode or a socialist mode. If it's organized in a socialist mode, the entire body of workers have a say in the process of the central planning.
Centralized planning is critical for inelastic demand, such as housing, healthcare, and for the most part food. It is not a replacement of markets, it is supplementing them to ensure basic necessities are available to everyone. The private market can still exist just fine, it's the organization within the companies that change. The ratio of public to private, and planned economy to market economy, depends on a significant amount of factors, internal and external.
Marx’s critique of political economy says you can’t have a half capitalist half socialist system like that. If there is any form of money or profit it will pool. It will become political power. It will oppress the socialist tendencies, and just like you see in America, it will privatize them over time. It will eventually destroy any gains you made socializing the economy.
Capitalism is a centralizing/monopolizing force, and under Marxism the goal is to benefit from that centralization materially, simply bring it under the dictatorship of the proletariat. There are so many passages in Marx and Engels about “economic anarchy” (describing free markets, not anarchism) vs the prosperity that comes from central planning, the nationalization of the imperialist monopolies.
I just don’t think you’ve read anything. I’m not even that read and I know this shit.
“The entire body of workers have a say in the process of central planning” - you can have a democratic system where you vote on planning, true, but it’s hardly non-authoritarian. Imagine if our democracy decided all the material goods you could consume and all the work you must do? Would you be satisfied? No, because democracy at its best is slow, ineffective, and ultimately authoritarian. It’s how you do things when you have no other choice, not how you want to live, eat, and breathe each day of your life. Democracy is not freedom. Anarchy is freedom. It’s only benefit is its not literal fascism.
You are a Bernstein-esq social democrat with Proudhon-esq mutualist and cooperativist elements. Not a Marxist. Not a socialist under any modern use of the term.
Marx didn’t think so. You still produce commodities for the purpose of profit. You just become your own capitalist.
I made this a separate comment because it’s so common and also so absurd. Richard Wolff is wrong about this. A socialist mode of production where workers produce commodities for profit 🤣
You fundamentally misunderstanding capitalism if that's what you think.
Profit exists in both modes of production. The difference is that in a capitalist mode, workers are over-exploited to maximize profit for the owner. In a socialist mode, workers are not over-exploited and the profit is shared between the workers. In a capitalist mode, increasing profits are prioritized above all else, while wages are minimized as much as possible. In a socialist mode, workers decided democratically how much to put towards their wages and how much to reinvest back into the business; increasing profits year over year is not the priority, the well-being of the workers and business is.
I think you are the one who fundamentally misunderstands Marx’s critique of capitalism if that is all you think capitalism is.
Sure there is a contradiction between the classes, in the form of their conflicting interests, but there is also a contradiction in commodity production itself, in the materialist superstructure that makes up the concepts of money, wage, profit, etc. The ultimate goal of socialism is to do away with the value-form. Because the value form produces a contradiction between the exchange value and the use value of a product. Things are exchange values of each other under Marxist theory if they both contain the same socially necessary labor time. However, not all things which contain the same socially necessary labor time are necessarily of the same use value, indeed use value is not a quantitative metric but a qualitative one, and is the actually useful metric for human flourishing contained in an item. Diamonds and Uranium might both take the same labor time to get out of the ground, but how much of each do we need? Socialism ultimately hopes to provide people with use values, things they need, not simply trade things of equal labor values. If you don’t handle this you get into crises of overproduction.
The second contradiction in cooperativism (again these are textbook Marxist critiques not things I pulled out of my ass, you can actually search for the word cooperativism in Marx’s work, that’s what he calls it) is that workers still participate in a race to the bottom competing on working conditions. Two firms both make X. They each compete each other down in their profits until the profit is near 0, that is the tendency of profit to fall. Now how do they outcompete each other? On wages. On hours. On safety standards. Etc. one corporation willing to work harder, for less, less safely, will outcompete the other. That’s what he means when he says the workers become their own capitalists, and thus their own oppressors. They will democratically choose this even as a cooperative, because the system of capitalism oppresses them to do so, else they are outcompeted and go out of business.
So no, I understand this material. You do not.
What about bioregionalism? A system that is designed primarily around fitting in to nature, instead of trying to manipulate it?
By nature in this case what I assume you mean is the biosphere. What I mean by nature includes psychology, sociology, political science, etc. I do not believe that humans have a primary duty towards the biosphere, that is not what I mean when I say “human systems fit nature into a box”. Humans try to fit themselves into boxes. They are “homo economicus” completely devoid of feeling or passion, purely game theoretic rational actors. Or humans are primitive communists forced into a modern world, altruists of the highest degree except under capitalism. Or humans are tabula rasa, whatever they are socialized to be they become, or whatever material conditions force them to be they become. Or humans are children of god, or one with nature, or whatever. None of these things are true, yet we build systems assuming they are. They each only approach some truth, and then we watch as contradictions emerge and destroy one formalism of nature via its own absurdity.
I don't see psychology, sociology etc. as something separate to nature. They are part it of it, because they are aspects of us humans, and we are part of nature.
Agreed. Or perhaps I'd say some of us build systems using those unrealistic abstractions as excuses for oppression and extractivism.
I don't think fact that those approaches have been dominant for centuries (millenia in a few locations) means that they are the only approach. It seems that, given we have the ability to reflect on those and realise how unrealistic they are, now would be a good time to try building systems that are NOT based on unrealistic assumptions.
And yes, I realise we'll never have a perfect understanding of our place in the world, and there will always be flawed assumptions of varying degrees of importance underlying our world view. But we can absolutely do better, and a perfect place to start would be to avoid the assumptions that we've just spent a long time testing and found to be untrue.
Yes that’s what I said. Re separating “nature” and “biosphere”
The formalization of things into oppression and extractivist categories is also a system of morals and also contains absurdities. Of course we need to extract food from our environment, and of course we need to oppress oppressors, just for example.
It is already socialism by definition. It just isn't an eastern dictatorship.