Opinion of Socialism
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Poll
Question: Whats your opinion of Socialism?
#1
FI
 
#2
HI
 
#3
Too diverse to categorize as one ideology
 
#4
Dunno
 
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Total Voters: 74

Author Topic: Opinion of Socialism  (Read 9905 times)
politicus
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« Reply #50 on: June 11, 2012, 09:42:47 AM »
« edited: June 11, 2012, 10:33:37 AM by 中国共产党=criminals »

Like I said earlier there are numerous potential problems associated with the concept, like how to benefit from economy of scale without destroying the democratic element, how to fire unnecessary/redundant workers and how to compensate public employees, who doesnt directly "produce" anything, that can be sold on a market.
But it is still surprising, that so few left wingers are working with the development of an alternative economic model.

Anyway it would be interesting if you could elaborate a bit on your two points. Too much guess-work when you present them in such an ultra short form.

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opebo
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« Reply #51 on: June 11, 2012, 11:05:10 AM »

Yes, nearly everyone, like you, believes that about the social order.  Looks rather like propaganda viewed from the bottom up though, n'est-ce pas?

If one were to ask my grandmother whether life got better over the last century I don't think she would consider it propaganda.

Sorry, Gustaf, I had understood that in this thread we were being called upon to analyze systems of social control, not historical time periods.
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tpfkaw
wormyguy
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« Reply #52 on: June 11, 2012, 11:10:51 AM »

The "decentralized model of Socialist control" has been tried, most notably in Yugoslavia, and produced this crap:



Admittedly, it produced better results than contemporary fully centrally-planned systems, but that says more about those systems than "decentralized Socialist control."
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opebo
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« Reply #53 on: June 11, 2012, 11:21:04 AM »
« Edited: June 11, 2012, 11:24:40 AM by opebo »

The "decentralized model of Socialist control" has been tried, most notably in Yugoslavia, and produced this crap:



The 'Yugo' was a good car, wormy, and more to the point it was anyway a near-exact copy of the Fiat 127, also a good car and the product of a capitalist economy:

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tpfkaw
wormyguy
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« Reply #54 on: June 11, 2012, 11:27:49 AM »

The car that scored last in the J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey every year it was sold?  Whatever you want to believe, peebs.  (And Zastava had even worse quality control than "Fix It Again Tony").
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politicus
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« Reply #55 on: June 11, 2012, 11:31:10 AM »

The "decentralized model of Socialist control" has been tried, most notably in Yugoslavia, and produced this crap:



The 'Yugo' was a good car, wormy, and more to the point it was anyway a near-exact copy of the Fiat 127, also a good car and the product of a capitalist economy:



Thats not at all what we are talking about here. Yugoslavia was not a democracy and its model was not market based (even if it did have some market elements).

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opebo
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« Reply #56 on: June 11, 2012, 12:07:06 PM »

The "decentralized model of Socialist control" has been tried, most notably in Yugoslavia, and produced this crap:



The 'Yugo' was a good car, wormy, and more to the point it was anyway a near-exact copy of the Fiat 127, also a good car and the product of a capitalist economy:



Thats not at all what we are talking about here. Yugoslavia was not a democracy and its model was not market based (even if it did have some market elements).

No, if you read my post you will see that the point was that the Yugo was a copy of the Fiat 127, which did originate from a capitalist economy - Italy.
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opebo
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« Reply #57 on: June 11, 2012, 12:26:52 PM »

The car that scored last in the J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey every year it was sold?  Whatever you want to believe, peebs.  (And Zastava had even worse quality control than "Fix It Again Tony").

wormy, J.D. Power surveys American new car buyers, a group whose opinion has no bearing on whether a car is 'good' or not.  Its like asking the people leaving McDonalds to rate Michelin's stars.

Fiat, Renault, Citroen, Peugeot - while Italian and French automobile companies have poor reputations in America, they produced some of the most durable, cleverly designed cars in history.   And in point of fact their East European emulators did a much better job than they are given credit for - many East European cars were rugged and effective basic transportation.
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The Mikado
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« Reply #58 on: June 11, 2012, 07:04:22 PM »

Voted FI assuming we're talking about the principles behind it - public ownership, greater social equality, redistribution of wealth etc.
You are missing the most important part of the principle, democratic control of production which is probably the most Freedom part of the Ideology.
Are we talking about actual Socialism and not some American GOP boogeyman? Well in that case, then while some Socialist parties around the world are good, from an economic standpoint, it's hard not to see it as discredited.
Explain how democratic control of production is discredited?

If by 'democratic control' you mean central planning and/or abolition of private property...really? How is it not discredited?
Everyone (well, almost everyone) agrees central planning has been discredited, but a model with workers ownership - either alone or combined with community ownership (municipalities, cooperatives etc.) - has not. There are numerous potential problems with such a model, but since it hasn't been tried full scale in a whole society, you cant say it has been discredited.

Anarcho-syndicalism?  Considering that that's not at all what most people (even most socialists) think of when they hear "Socialism..."
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tpfkaw
wormyguy
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« Reply #59 on: June 11, 2012, 08:02:32 PM »

The car that scored last in the J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey every year it was sold?  Whatever you want to believe, peebs.  (And Zastava had even worse quality control than "Fix It Again Tony").

wormy, J.D. Power surveys American new car buyers, a group whose opinion has no bearing on whether a car is 'good' or not.  Its like asking the people leaving McDonalds to rate Michelin's stars.

Fiat, Renault, Citroen, Peugeot - while Italian and French automobile companies have poor reputations in America, they produced some of the most durable, cleverly designed cars in history.   And in point of fact their East European emulators did a much better job than they are given credit for - many East European cars were rugged and effective basic transportation.

New car buyers were the only people available to poll, since Yugos generally didn't make it to their second buyer (for that matter, most people leaving McDonalds would say that they were satisfied with their meal).  While I have seen plenty of Geo Metros and Volkswagen Rabbits and even Dodge Omnis on the road, I can't say I've seen too many Yugos (or French and Italian cars, for that matter).  The reason why is because they were pieces of crap that fell apart.  As for Eastern European cars, while copying 10-year-old crappy (and capitalist) econoboxes occasionally produced something semi-reliable, that would be cold comfort to the worker who had to save for ten years to afford one and then wait another decade for it to be delivered.
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Redalgo
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« Reply #60 on: June 11, 2012, 11:48:14 PM »
« Edited: June 12, 2012, 12:34:36 AM by Redalgo »

Everyone (well, almost everyone) agrees central planning has been discredited, but a model with workers ownership - either alone or combined with community ownership (municipalities, cooperatives etc.) - has not. There are numerous potential problems with such a model, but since it hasn't been tried full scale in a whole society, you cant say it has been discredited.

Anarcho-syndicalism?  Considering that that's not at all what most people (even most socialists) think of when they hear "Socialism..."

Anarcho-syndicalism is usually the first or second thing I think of first when I hear "communism," but I am actually pretty sympathetic to what Politicus has talking about here.

For instance, if you'll pardon me rambling for a few moments, the sort of socialism I've got in mind is not about nationalization or even having a bunch of parastatal industries. Instead I'd like to see cooperatives owned by their workers, and run either by those same people or by administrators and/or managers they elect, compete with one another in moderately regulated markets, while a social democratic welfare regime exists not to massively redistribute assets from the rich to poor for the sake of "equality of outcomes" so much as to guarantee a basic - not necessarily comfortable, much less lavish - level of human dignity, make certain strategic, long-term investments that the cooperatives themselves are unlikely to make out of rational self-interest (i.e. take externalities into account), and aim for increasing equality of opportunity so people who want to work hard can more readily do so, flourish from it, and in the process enrich society as a whole.

Meaningful human development - that which benefits and can be enjoyed by all without having to wait for new privileges to slowly "trickle down" - demands a fairer competitive environment. Also, I would want to mold a widespread perception of classlessness amongst the people (despite our inherent inequality) as part of a larger, secular approach to building solidarity and wholesome cultural values that are conducive to preserving a respectable work ethic. But to make it work, there must be incentives for good behavior. The Left must broaden its focus on social justice and caring for the victims of oppression to pragmatically include means of coping with the fact that part of human nature (regardless of ones socioeconomic background) is not exactly coated in sunshine and sprinkles. In a sense, though I'm bound to make many mistakes in my reasoning along the way, I want socialism to put markets to even better use than did liberalism or mercantilism before it. Past experiments have yielded valuable information that can be used for doing better next time.

Some people are probably going to say I am talking about social democracy, the Third Way, or some twisted form of capitalism, but I am more inclined to agree with Mr. Gorbachev, who once said, "The market came with the dawn of civilization and it is not an invention of capitalism. If it leads to improving the well-being of the people there is no contradiction with socialism." Someday if people really want to tinker with collectivization again that's fine but for the time being I feel socialism - an economic system which as its highest priority is designed to have capital utilized so as to advance the material interests of all people - can best ensure the general welfare, deliver social rights, and provide life-improving opportunities to us by harnessing individualism, and better mediating - not trying to end - forms of conflict for control, and privilege-bestowing use, of capital.

Perhaps I don't make a whole lot of sense when I go on about such things though. I am not exactly known for neatly, concisely (or at times even coherently) expressing complicated thoughts - especially if I don't set aside hours to ruminate about it in advance. Oh well, I'm sure someone well tear me a new one over this tomorrow! O.o
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Gustaf
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« Reply #61 on: June 12, 2012, 07:02:21 AM »

Like I said earlier there are numerous potential problems associated with the concept, like how to benefit from economy of scale without destroying the democratic element, how to fire unnecessary/redundant workers and how to compensate public employees, who doesnt directly "produce" anything, that can be sold on a market.
But it is still surprising, that so few left wingers are working with the development of an alternative economic model.

Anyway it would be interesting if you could elaborate a bit on your two points. Too much guess-work when you present them in such an ultra short form.



Essentially, I think it's pretty clear that a lot of production requires quite a bit of hierarchy as well as clearly defined property rights.

I don't know if you're familiar with the old libertarian "Pen" thing where you analyze how many people contribute to making a pen. I think there is a youtube clip where Friedman talks about it. The point (no pun intended) of that is to demonstrate that production in the modern world is extremely complex. You have to combine hundreds of people to create the goods we use every day. Thus, these people have to be coordinated. The market has turned out to do a pretty good job of that - the oft-ridiculed invisible hand works quite well at coordinating people via prices into efficient production and cooperation.

Planned economies have turned out to do so much less effectively. It seems to me that it would be very unfeasible, under most circumstances, to produce things without either state imperatives or price mechanisms.

I think that what people like you envision is something like 10 people working on a field. But the global economy is extremely interconnected. The production chain of any normal good would include hundreds, if not thousands, of people spread all over the globe. They can't form a collective for production.
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opebo
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« Reply #62 on: June 12, 2012, 11:09:37 AM »

While I have seen plenty of Geo Metros and Volkswagen Rabbits and even Dodge Omnis on the road, I can't say I've seen too many Yugos (or French and Italian cars, for that matter).  The reason why is because they were pieces of crap that fell apart.

Actually no, the reason you didn't see them is because they sold a tiny fraction of the numbers of Geo Metros and Dodge Omnis sold.  You hardly ever saw them when they were brand new.  (don't get me started on Volkswagens - terrible cars).

However it is true that Eastern European, Italian, and French cars were not ideally suited to american driving conditions, and were also very ill-supported by dealer networks, repair shops, and parts suppliers.  Many of these cars had good reputations for robust durability back home where there was a support network, the roads were not heavily salted, and most driving was done at lower speeds on twistier roads.
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tsionebreicruoc
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« Reply #63 on: June 17, 2012, 11:47:39 AM »

The counter-part of Capitalism.

Would have its future, and the one of its declination, tied to the future of Capitalism and of its declinations then.

And since I don't give a lot of future to Capitalism...
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tsionebreicruoc
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« Reply #64 on: June 17, 2012, 12:29:20 PM »

and French cars were not ideally suited to american driving conditions, and were also very ill-supported by dealer networks, repair shops, and parts suppliers.

Yeah, it's not as if they hadn't a wonderful design ^^:



Very few French attempts in America, mainly Renault (I found all the cars they sold there here, scroll for pics), and the one I posted seems to have been the biggest attempt.
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« Reply #65 on: June 18, 2012, 04:18:29 PM »

I wanted to vote "Option 3", but I voted "Option 1" as socialism infers the subscribers basic belief of an intrinsic optimism when it comes to humanity... which is where I see the human race naturally heading towards over the course of thousands of years (if we can make it through the age of culture/religious/political conflict while we have destructive weapons at our disposal).

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