A socialist alternative to a vcommand economy

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Do you want to think about whether you want efficient govt or not?

Oh, I know I wouldn't. Government waste is definetly preferable to dictatorship .

Where did dictatorship come from? I'm asking if you would like the govt to waste your money or use if efficiently. The cost of govt is irrelevent.

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

It seemed to me that you were making this mistake.

Naw, not me . I know there are negative impacts... but my point, in the end, is that people VIEW economics as different than things such as abortion. They'll accept negative impacts much more if the positive impacts outweigh them.

Why do you keep talking about abortion? I'm talking about the difference between democratic govt and corporations work. Abortion is not the way democratic govt works. It's just an issue that govt deals with, the same way that profit or public relations is an issue that corporations deal with.

Ideally democratic govt is efficient because it achieves the desired goals of the populace while using minimal resources. Corporations are only efficient for themselves. Acting in their own self-interest, they only achieve their own goals, not societies.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Where did dictatorship come from

It's the most efficient style of government. No 'other views' to deal with. Just go ahead and do it. Efficency in government has little to do with money, but more to do with accomplishing policy (the goal of government).

Why do you keep talking about abortion?

Abortion is definetly 'social stuff'.

Acting in their own self-interest, they only achieve their own goals, not societies.

And in doing so, they achieve society's goal of being more and more prosperous.

[chequita guevara]

The fact that abortion is social stuff doesn't mean economics isn't social stuff as well.

Efficiency is a meaningless term by itself. It's like saying capitalism is longer. Longer than what? Distance or time? Capitalism is only efficient when you are measuring certain catagories, such as profit. If you're not trying to make a profit, then that's a pointless measurement.

As for creating market socialism, the problem with capitalism isn't individual ownership (most firms are collectively owned by the capitalist class as it is), but decentralized decision making. Because each decision is made in a vacuumm (more or less), resources are over and under allocated. In a market society, corrections are made via recession and war. Either way, lives are disrupted. This is why socialism is necessary and possible.

So why would we overthrow the market only to recreate it and enable the rise of a new capitalist class? Market socialism is just another word for proto-capitalism.

[Sikander]

The coops that do seem to work well aren't coops of workers who decide that they can do a better job at providing something than a corporation, but groups of consumers who think that they can do a better job of supplying themselves with a commodity than a corporation. Examples of this are credit unions, hospitals, electrical coops etc. Often these groups form because there is no alternative for receiving the service from a for-profit company. I work for a community hospital which is a not-for-profit organization which was formed early in the last century to supply health care to this community when no one else was interested in doing it. Well-heeled individuals and civic leaders raised money to start it, and it has been doing its job ever since.

Honestly this is the way to do things, and we ought to look at loosening the regulations that stifle this sort of activity in many areas.

[Ramo]

Syndicalism.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Where did dictatorship come from

It's the most efficient style of government. No 'other views' to deal with. Just go ahead and do it. Efficency in government has little to do with money, but more to do with accomplishing policy (the goal of government).

The bias of your right wing ideology is forcing you to blindly double back and strawmanize.

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Acting in their own self-interest, they only achieve their own goals, not societies.

And in doing so, they achieve society's goal of being more and more prosperous.

There's a reason why you can't understand, no properly apply, the definition of efficiency. You've got your blinders on.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Sikander
The coops that do seem to work well aren't coops of workers who decide that they can do a better job at providing something than a corporation, but groups of consumers who think that they can do a better job of supplying themselves with a commodity than a corporation. Examples of this are credit unions, hospitals, electrical coops etc. Often these groups form because there is no alternative for receiving the service from a for-profit company. I work for a community hospital which is a not-for-profit organization which was formed early in the last century to supply health care to this community when no one else was interested in doing it. Well-heeled individuals and civic leaders raised money to start it, and it has been doing its job ever since.

Honestly this is the way to do things, and we ought to look at loosening the regulations that stifle this sort of activity in many areas.

Capitalism

[Imran Siddiqui]

The bias of your right wing ideology is forcing you to blindly double back and strawmanize.

You are unreal! Efficiency is government is ALL about policy and I have said nothing different. The most efficient government is dictatorship. Policy is quick and easy that way.

You've got your blinders on.

... says the Communist. I could direct you to compare GDP growth after the capitalist revolution and see how it has shot up exponentially. And I can also have you compare GDP/capita for 0, 1500 and 2000. For someone to say that individuals acting in their own self interest do not, together, acheive society's goal of prosperity is not only being blind, but utterly ignorant.

[anti patriot]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The fact that abortion is social stuff doesn't mean economics isn't social stuff as well.

Efficiency is a meaningless term by itself. It's like saying capitalism is longer. Longer than what? Distance or time? Capitalism is only efficient when you are measuring certain catagories, such as profit. If you're not trying to make a profit, then that's a pointless measurement.

As for creating market socialism, the problem with capitalism isn't individual ownership (most firms are collectively owned by the capitalist class as it is), but decentralized decision making. Because each decision is made in a vacuumm (more or less), resources are over and under allocated. In a market society, corrections are made via recession and war. Either way, lives are disrupted. This is why socialism is necessary and possible.

So why would we overthrow the market only to recreate it and enable the rise of a new capitalist class? Market socialism is just another word for proto-capitalism.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

The bias of your right wing ideology is forcing you to blindly double back and strawmanize.

You are unreal! Efficiency is government is ALL about policy and I have said nothing different. The most efficient government is dictatorship. Policy is quick and easy that way.

I've already said, and I believe you agreed, that in order for something to be efficient it must achieve DESIRED goals. Dictatorship doesn't do that. It can't be efficient. But you have successfully avoided the real argument. It's the best you could have done. So good job.

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

You've got your blinders on.

... says the Communist. I could direct you to compare GDP growth after the capitalist revolution and see how it has shot up exponentially. And I can also have you compare GDP/capita for 0, 1500 and 2000. For someone to say that individuals acting in their own self interest do not, together, acheive society's goal of prosperity is not only being blind, but utterly ignorant.

Let's get back to the debate. As Che mentioned you can't compare a govt to a corporation, because a comparation tends to opperate in it's self-interest. A democratic govt acts in the interest of society. For example, the voters frequently vote for the govt to go into the red (to use the language of business). The govt doesn't go into debt becuase of inefficiency. It does so because it is efficient. That is, it is acting in the societies interest to achieve societies desired goals.

The corporation on the other hand, acting in it's own interest, makes decisions to achieve only it's goal. Left alone it makes all kinds of decisions to go against societies desired goals. Govt has to step in and regulate it to make it efficient. But by doing so it doesn't make business efficient, it makes it's own self efficient.

[Bosh]

Keep the free market, but replace Corporations with Co-ops; the employees should control the capital.

There's quite a few good books on the subject. For a more mainstream approach try A Preface to Economic Democracy by Robert Dahl, Against Capitalism by David Schweickart is good too if a big on the statist side (he proposes used tax-funded financial institutions to fianance the setting up and expantion of co-ops).

Keep the free market, but replace Corporations with Co-ops

Well if you had enough consumer co-ops on the consumer side you could move away from capitalism on that side too. Of course the most interesting bit is the financial side, which has been an important part of left-libertarian theory all the way back to Proudhon.

Who would force companies to adopt this system?

You wouldn't need laws, you'd need good unions with backbones that are dedicated to real social change (ie anarcho-syndicalism with a bit of a new spin). If a company is unionized and the union really wants the workers to take over the company it would be rediculously easy to do so.

co-ops and not for profit deallys have their own set of problems though.

That because many of them are set up by hippies who don't have an ounce of business sense. Think about something more on the line of Partnerships (but with more people being partners), which seem to work fine for even such money-grubbing people as Lawyers.

What's to stop employees from voting for the manager who will gurantee all the profits get paid out in salaries? Where's the reinvestment?

Well if there's no reinvestment then the people aren't going to have jobs for long. If co-ops are set up properly (which most aren't, sadly) then the workers have an incentive to take a long-term view since now only is the value of their stake in the company on the line the same as it is for any other investor but their job too.

I could very easily see the dock workers voting for the guy who will raise pensions and overtime rather than voting for the guy who will have the where with all to point the company in more profitable directions.

This is no different from saying that some regular investors would vote for someone who'd pay out big dividends now, rather than someone who'd look to the long term. No good reason for this to apply to a co-operative that's set up properly any more than any other kind of business.

From Kim Stanley Roberts to Iain M. Banks in 22 posts... economics through science fiction!

Well in that case you have to hit the Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin

rather rely on the people who have been chosen for the definite reason they know how things should run, if only for the express reason I want to keep getting paid.

Do you really think that enough people wouldn't feel the same way (especially if their jobs were on the line) for this sort of view to prevail? It definately has prevailed in all major co-operatives that I know of.

co-ops tend to be mismanaged and go bankrupt with a few exceptions.

Many co-operatives go under because the majority of serious co-operatives (not hippie coffee shops or whatever) are formed when a company is going under and the workers, in a last-ditch attempt to save their jobs, buy the company out. Considering that they're trying something so new with companies that are usually complete wrecks that nobody but their workers are willing to pay money for, its amazing that they ever succead.

the problem with capitalism isn't individual ownership (most firms are collectively owned by the capitalist class as it is), but decentralized decision making

Ugh, the last thing we need is more economic centralization. I beg to differ.

Market socialism is just another word for proto-capitalism.

Depends on which kind of Market socialism (big difference between, say, China and what Marxists tend to cause "Worker Capitalism" ie what we're talking about).
It'll make me happy when Marxists finally fade away so leave room on the left for a saner kind of socialism.

but groups of consumers who think that they can do a better job of supplying themselves with a commodity than a corporation. Examples of this are credit unions, hospitals, electrical coops etc.

Those are just as important. You need stuff on the demand side just as much as the supply side.

Honestly this is the way to do things, and we ought to look at loosening the regulations that stifle this sort of activity in many areas.

Yeah laws are not set up with any kind of co-operative in mind, often making it necessary to have torturous (and expensive) legal frameworks in place to make things function properly.

One of the best real world examples of a Co-operative is the Mondragon Co-operative in Spain http://www.mondragon.mcc.es/ which someone manages to have grown considerably since it was founded in1956, which other industrial firms all around it tanked. They have 9.6 billion Euros in annual sales and an associated banking institutuion (the Caja Laboral) with over 9 billion Euros in assets.

What's interesting is that none of the one or two GOOD and logical reasons to oppose co-operatives (ie the financial end of things) have been brought up by anyone in this thread.

[Al B. Sure!]

damn... this was going down that, "what the hell, Odin? this is stupid" road until Boshko showed up and rebutted every charge against Odin. thank you Boshko for forcing this into a serious debate, you son of a...

[Al B. Sure!]

i dont get this... can't it be assumed that the workers do not have business administration and management skills? i mean, chances are, we're dealing with workers without even basic college educations. these people wouldn't know how to run a company.

[Az]

a) worker corporations work. I have little doubt about that. They've worked in Israel for ages. However, it doesn't mean that they're good, for the reasons che stated.

[Agathon]

For someone to say that individuals acting in their own self interest do not, together, acheive society's goal of prosperity is not only being blind, but utterly ignorant.

Except that he's right. Markets only work in certain specified situations. If everyone acted in their own self interest universally the market could not function. After all, it is in my self interest to try and defraud and rip others off as long as there is little chance of being caught. That's why we have a state to enforce compliance with the laws of exchange.

What is completely ignorant is to accuse Marxists of believing that markets never work. Marx is quite clear that capitalism will produce an incredible amount of wealth (yes he does say this) by unleashing productive forces on a heretofore unseen scale.

The Marxist point is that capitalism is inherently unstable and gnaws away at its own foundations. It is quite easy to see that this is true. Capitalism only remains palatable to the masses as long as there are reasonably democractic or responsible governments to regulate it so that it doesn't result in mass poverty, pollution and immiseration. But the concentrated wealth that capitalism generates means that it is in the interest and in the power of the wealthy to subvert this system, which they do in spades by effectively bribing politicians in various ways. That's why Americans have the wonderful choice between two versions of the same right wing agenda. The capitalists aren't going to stop this as it is in their individual interest to do it, but it will screw them, and perhaps us, eventually whether by economic or environmental means.

I can't see what is so difficult to understand. Francis Fukuyama has argued that welfare state capitalism is the final development of history because he thinks that all those which came before were inherently unstable and prone to self destruction. Marxists agree with the notion of a dialectical process of elimination, they just disagree about welfare state capitalism being a stable end to the developmental process.


And what is it with you righties? You've become increasingly shrill and dogmatic lately. Could it be that Shrub's prospects are not looking so good? Or could it be the humiliation from the commies being right on almost every point about the war?