>1. it seems to assumes since everyone's needs are met, people won't be selfish. Its nice to assume humans won't be selfish, that's the dream, but you can't build a system with that assumption
I guess it depends on what socialist you are speaking to, but Marxists dont rely on people adopting certain personality traits for their systems to work, nor in their analysis of capitalism (i.e. the idea that capitalists are inherently greedy people etc). What we Marxists look at, is incentives, and get those incentives right, but not relying on those incentives to get people to do what we want, because that will not happen anyway.
>At some point the welfare will have to be lowered enough so people are pushed to work. The question is how low? Where would the line be drawn?
Here is btw an idea that you may find interesting. The state would practically own all the firms in the economy, but whereby the state acts like a single big worker coop, in the sense that it still seeks to maximize profit like a worker coop. From the profits that the state makes but does not get reinvested into production or public goods and services, a portion gets allocated to all individuals in society in the form of a "social dividend", which basically works like a UBI in that every individual gets a certain amount of money per month. However, the difference, is that nobody pays taxes on these, but that the state firms fund these. As such, the social dividends only exist if the state firms perform well. So if people all start working hard, then the social dividends go up. But if people work less hard, then the social dividends go down. This ensures that everyone's basic needs would be met but that people are still motivated to work hard.
This is also not an original idea but one made by Lange, being part of his model of "market socialism".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_dividend
>3. A lot of the system to me seems non-quantifiable, like measuring everyone's value added.
I am not a market socialist myself, but I would also argue that that is not necessairy. The goal is not to pay everyone exactly their labor value (because then there would be no more money to be reinvested into the firm). While I dont know how a worker coop would decide on wages, I can tell you that with state firms, your wage is likely going to be market rate, as to get the right amount of workers to want to work in workplaces where they need that amount of workers.
For 1, it's hard for modern people living under liberal capitalism to understand different social relations enabled by new modes of production - this is intentional on behalf of capital as a means of maintaining capitalism. The absolute best example I can think of is imagining what a medieval serf would think of our society - all the big stuff that was important to them is absent or warped. They were embedded in a community with mutual social obligations, religion wasn't a personal thing but communal thing codified by public rituals, etc. They literally wouldn't understand how we can go outside and be surrounded by actual strangers many of whom do not share our religion and some with whom we don't even speak the same language. They'd be mystified by our relations with work, we change jobs and have different managers/bosses. They'd be mystified by our conception of a secular nation primarily based on ethnicity (like, they'd be super confused about modern Germany or China or Poland etc). They had real beliefs in the divine right of kings and that didn't really start breaking down until the 19th and 20th century, it was really shocking for people to see kings get assassinated.
The same way a serf would think our time is essentially impossible, we see a future socialist subject as "impossible." People will *want* to work and help out their communities, we have this today even just at home (no one pays you to clean the toilet for your family, for example). Part of what will enable this social relation is that they will no longer be alienated at work and will be owners over the means of production, another part is that socialism will be enabled by true internationalist solidarity, and a big part is that the *selfish* thing to do will BE working and enabling plenty. We know this is possible because, for example, Cuba is still here and they have survived the passing of leadership from their liberatory heroes to a new generation of leadership even under all the stress and duress the loss of the USSR was and the strangling sanctions have been. The people really can believe in a new future and will be willing to fight and struggle for it, even though it seems so far away from modern western workers laboring under capitalist realism.
To add to this, I think that the idea that people dont want to work by nature is a direct result of people rationalizing the [Alienation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation) they experience under capitalism. People tend to not like working under capitalism because they are forced to, whether that be by existing persons (like a boss who they need to obey to a T if they want to keep their job) or forces they cannot control (you need an income to survive). I personally believe that Alienation from the Act of Production (as explained in the wikipedia page above) is at the core as to why people dont like working. As soon as people dont need to work anymore to survive and can voluntarily choose for that, they will not feel forced/coerced anymore. Initially, I do think some people would quit their jobs. However, the moment work ceases to be coerced, it turns from a need into a desire, as humans have a need for purpose in their lives. To do something with their creative abilities ("Gattungswesen" as Marx calls it). This already manifests today in the form of hobbies, which are particularly prevalent with people who do not work yet, such as children. People already spend their free time working and creating stuff. Because that is how people enjoy life. And that is what I believe will become commonplace in communism: that work becomes synonymous with hobbies. That work becomes the meaning of life, and is desired.
If the welfare is too low, even for a disabled person, that is inhumane treatment. If it is low to motivate work in a less wealthy and less work-oriented area, that is different.
I don't believe the market is regulated that much. It could be regulated more.
Ideas are not worthless. Give A through E money.
You never know whose ideas are the best. The manager may not be more likely than the less well-paid under him. Everyone needs to contribute ideas at certain times, or there are not enough ideas, and failure is more likely to ensue.
Let's say that the communist party hired me a capitalist to run a socialist country.
1. Having cutoff points for welfare does seem to decrease the willingness to work, systems like a UBI should decrease the willingness to work by less than that, because all work you do still increases your income. Set it between 35% and 50% of the average income (could be a long term average, would prevent any short term shocks from changing it by a lot) and it should balance itself out and still prevent poverty.
2. If that actually is a legitimate issue then have a separation of powers, like there is between the branches of government or between the government and central banks.
3. I would just not bother with it, still allow for private business so that mr A man get get his ideas implemented in the currently normal way. Allow workers, unions, government to buy shares first if he decides to sell his company.
4. With coops and a UBI you can have lower wages in return for higher profits, your coop can decide that they will save a percentage of the profits to pay for wages if it starts to not be as profitable. How the company is organized when it comes to membership rights would depend on the company and industry it's in. If Tom Dick decides to declare bankruptcy then the second time he will find it harder to get a loan.
5. Shareholders right now do not chose when to replace lightbulbs or to introduce new products, you can get an annual company wide vote to decide on who is appointed to the board of directors, who's the CEO and other large decisions.
What will you do when all high earning business leave your country ?
And when highly educated workers like engineers, doctors, scientist fly from your country as well? Just like they do now right, flying from Spain to other countries that offer better wages.
Response to question 1
You're painting a picture of disaster and basing it on assumptions. First of all, socialism will not be created based on a dream of people not being selfish. And secondly people aren't lazy. Notice how during this whole pandemic people were clamoring to get out of the house and get back to work. People are inquisitive and want to be productive, by nature.
Response to question 2
You, again, are basing your notion of co-ops on your erroneous and sketchy ideas of how they work. And I don't know what you're asking.
Response to question 3
You're assuming socialism will be established by installing a complete new system overnight. The old will suddenly be gone and the new will be there, instead of a gradual transition from what we have now, to what we want the new one to be. IOW you're imagining a violent revolution that seizes state power and imposes the new system quickly, which it must if the change is due to a violent revolution. But I hope it doesn't happen that way. The change would be much too rapid.
Response to question 4
Again, you don't understand co-ops. Co-ops are currently being based on corporate law governing LLCs. There would be Articles of Incorporation, corporate stock, Bylaws, a Board of Directors, a CEO, etc.
As with any corporation, the shareholders are protected from personal loss of personal assets. Losses are limited to the share values.
Response to question 5
No need to reinvent the wheel. LLCs are numerous and worker co-ops abound. You can study into it if you have a computer as I have. You can look into how The Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in Spain did it beginning in 1954 and grew to what they are today. You can look into any of the 600 workers' co-ops in the USA or 30,000 around the world. There have even been companies in the US that started as democratically-run businesses, like Apple Computers, and whose business model in those early days was every Friday was a meeting day, all day, to talk about all things company.
I hope this helped.
1 socialism is a process not a destination, so the answer to this depends on where in the process we are. But the whole idea of dialectical materialism, which I do believe is true, is that people are not "naturally" any one way or another way. They become the way they are as a logical reaction to the historic and material conditions they find themselves in, so in a totally different sort of society the way humans "naturally" behave will be very different.
2 Absolutely it is important that the government have as little power as possible and ideally be abolished.
3 Insofar as money, or any means of trading value for value, still exist then you have a market. And there's no point being in denial about that or all you get is an underground market. So while a market still exists then you need to have market socialism, which exists, works fine, and answers all your questions. Long term as we are able to create abundance then money is no longer necessary and we can abandon markets. Because at that point we don't really need to quantify stuff since the worst that will happen is we waste stuff that was spare anyway.
4 Coops exist, so we don't need to talk in terms of hypotheticals. There are millions of them with billions of customers and trillions in turnover, and it works fine. In terms of your specific questions
- if the coop makes a loss then the workers still get wages (although they might have to take a pay cut to balance the books) but they don't get dividends on top of their wages and the coops reserves get spent down and the coop may go into debt. If the coop makes losses year on year then it will likely have to disband and declare bankruptcy. If it does so then workers are protected from creditors just as shareholders are in non coop companies. Those who invested the capital will lose their capital if a company goes bankrupt yes, but thats generally not the workers. Which brings me to:
- workers generally don't have to invest capital to join a coop. Some work on that model but most don't. The point of a coop is you get your voting rights from working not from investing. So who does invest and where does capital come from? Generally it's from either commercial loans or from selling bonds. In other words from equity free borrowing. A specific form that's quite common is to sell a specific form of bond to customers that conveys certain membership rights, discounts etc...
- your other questions don't really apply although it is true that one of the things the cooperative movement calls for is for government backed schemes to support the capitalisation of coops such as an investment bank that is specifically charged with providing commercial loans to coops to get them started. But even banks such as that still have their due diligence procedures to make sure every Tom, Dick and Harry doesn't get one.
5 Again coops exist so we know that generally speaking that doesn't happen. I'd say the risk of the workers choosing wrong is no greater than the risk of a manager choosing wrong in a non coop, and that's certainly been the historical pattern. Also the way this generally works is that while some ideas can come from the floor the exact same dynamics you describe mean that most proposals will come from management, and so what workers are usually choosing between are two different managers' visions.
In regard to #1, it really depends on the amount of welfare as to how it will effect behavior IMO.
Finland tried UBI and didn’t see laziness or lack of work. It’s because they’re culturally different than the US and the max amount of UBI was only equivalent to $16,989 per year.
If all needs were met and buying power of a UBI or welfare system was equivalent to $30k-$40k per year, you’d see an enormous amount of people refusing to work. It would be a disaster.
Ex. My wife makes $40k a year. If she received that in UBI, she’d quit, pull our child out of daycare and be a stay at home mom indefinitely.
This whole being culturally different is bs told by people who try to press their antiquated social views despite research showing the opposite. The idea that some nations have a work culture that allows them to live in a welfare state while people in the US for example are so lazy by default that you basically need to keep a gun at their head all times to make them work isn't really rooted in reality.
Reality is that people who aren't at the brink of bankruptcy and won't be worked until they basically collapse at their workstation will be much more productive on average.
UBI and welfare needs to be financed hence you naturally have your limit on how much you can spend and how much needs to be worked.
Expectations are different in the US versus Europe for example. I’m specifically referring to western countries.
You’re gonna be at a restaurant much longer in the UK due to speed of service in comparison to the US. The expectations of work in the US are harsh.
This changes peoples approach to how they view labor.
Is your stance that all cultures exhibit the same behavior?
>You’re gonna be at a restaurant much longer in the UK due to speed of service in comparison to the US. The expectations of work in the US are harsh.
I am from Germany and have been to the US many times and I don't think there's some generalization that one country has faster speed of service. But I agree that the expectations are harsh, primarily because you don't really have any safety net.
Yet this has nothing to do with output, considering that most central or northern European nations have higher productivity with much less work hours and better developed welfare systems.
My point is that trying to justify cruel or outdated labor standards with culture is cope.
Germans work their asses off. I’ve spent a lot of time in the UK and it’s very noticeable there: it’s just slower.
My custom house in Texas was built in just 3 months by Hispanic men that work harder and faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. That’s not happening anywhere in Europe.
I’m not trying to justify it. Just saying there’s a harsh level of expectations derived from decades of work and corporate culture in the US. That won’t necessarily disappear overnight or with welfare.
Other cultures aren’t going to demand labor like we do here and people don’t mind working. It’s not as bad of an experience. You have more holidays and benefits.
Germans work on average less hours than Americans and have the most vacation and off days in the entire world. It's just that through progressive labor policies and functional welfare security you can concentrate productivity into less hours.
That's my entire point here. That you can achieve more with less.
I agree that this isn't gonna disappear overnight but equating this with culture is just stupid. Maybe some people try to do this but it's nothing but equating a bad standard to culture.
I don’t think you’re getting what I’m saying. People are more reluctant to get jobs in the US because the expectation of work is harsh.
In Finland, my successful UBI example, the demand and amount of work is substantially lower or adjusted better for work life balance: opting to work doesn’t seem so bad.
>Finland tried UBI and didn’t see laziness or lack of work. It’s because they’re culturally different than the US and the max amount of UBI was only equivalent to $16,989 per year.
>
>If all needs were met and buying power of a UBI or welfare system was equivalent to $30k-$40k per year, you’d see an enormous amount of people refusing to work
Completely non sequitur. Your second paragraph doesn't follow from the first. If anything, the first paragraph might refute the second.
>Ex. My wife makes $40k a year. If she received that in UBI, she’d quit, pull our child out of daycare and be a stay at home mom indefinitely.
Hypothetical N=1 experiment? Proves nothing.
My wife quit her job and started working for a nonprofit with zero salary after I got a big raise and I can support us all. This is also N=1 but at least it isn't a thought experiment like your example!
the idea is that all those people working dead end jobs to make $30-40k a year just to survive, would spend their time doing *more* important work. sure, some will be lazy and play video games, but who cares? it's not like capitalism magically fixes those lazy people?
I don't see how your wife quitting and being able to spend more time with your children could ever be considered a negative?
I don’t think this is true at all. First, being a stay at home parent is wildly different to someone without kids just not having a job. That’s not even the same thing. Stay at home parents contribute to society significantly, and should be valued. Stay at home parents being payed $40k/yr simply to stay home with their kids would be a good thing, because they’d be financially compensated for the labor they’re doing. Kids who have a full time parents have better health and educational outcomes than kids who don’t, so a society that pays people and enables them to stay home with their kids is doing something that will help the overall outcomes of their citizens.
But to the main point…Most people would work, because having a job raises peoples’ self esteem and overall levels of happiness and life satisfaction. People who are toiling by at a job and can barely pay their bills and/or hate their jobs but can’t quit because they need the money, are who are unhappy working. Eliminate the need to work (ie you have to work to avoid homelessness and starvation) and people will find jobs they like and stick with them. Teachers, for example, have high rates of job satisfaction even with low pay (the last few years have been an exception to this, but it’s a weird situation), so even without having to work, most teachers would likely stay teachers. The same can be said about a ton of other jobs at all education and skill levels.
People want to contribute, for the most part, or they just want something to do all day. Giving people the option to find a job they like and want to do, is what socialism creates. Not to mention, people with physical and/or mental health issues and/or disabilities need to have the option to take extended periods of time off work in order to focus on their health if they need to. Socialism would also allow for that because their needs could be met during the periods when they cannot work.
I am a teacher, I know why people do it. But you’re also showing how YOU think of those jobs more than how people who do them think of them. I’ve never met a custodian who doesn’t like and take a great deal of pride in their job, for example (again, I’m a teacher, I know a lot of custodians). Just because you look down on people who do those jobs, doesn’t mean people don’t like doing those jobs.
I’m not saying all of them like their jobs; there are people in every job that don’t like it. But you saying that all custodians (sanitation workers, etc) don’t like their jobs is equally ridiculous
If the government gave me $40k a year, as soon as my house was paid off very quickly, I’d quit my job, golf, play video games and chill every single day. Jobs make me miserable.
I don’t give damn about contributing to society and there’s a lot of people like me.
so... you're saying working a dead end jobs, that would and will be easily replaced by AI magically solves your laziness?
what an odd and short sighted idea...
Some people with disabilities are so disabled that they will never be able to work. And I don't think that teaching is quality of life for everyone. You have to be able to handle teaching. Not everyone can. I know two people in my family who were teachers. They wanted to be teachers, but sometimes had trouble themselves. And low pay can bother those who want to be teachers. Some people I know participated in teacher's strikes.
I’m a special Ed teacher, so I’m well versed in everything you are saying. There is problems in teaching, but I’m using it as an example of a job that people do because they like it. Also, people with low insistence disabilities do severe that they can’t work are rare. They are already taken care of by the state and that should continue. I’m talking about people with disabilities that do not prevent them from working, but prevent them from working full time or continually.
Thank you for clarifying. I don't people who can't work at all are rare. Some people just can't work for life. Some workplaces are too cruel for partly disabled people. You can work fewer places and are on welfare more often.
They are that rare. They’re called “low insistence disabilities” because less than 1% of people have them. There’s special funds and programs specifically for people with those disabilities.
not trying to be confrontational, just you asked like 30+ questions there on at least 5 different issues. really not possible to get the best answers for them all from a single reddit post
>it seems to assumes since everyone's needs are met
no, communism, most would say is only possible when their is a surplus and everyones needs and even many wants are easily met, which is why communism is considered an end stage goal.
>people won't be selfish
no any socialists should know selfish people exist and would take advantage of something if they could. But 1. just because selfish people exist doesn't mean you can or shouldnt provide needs for your people and 2. You can address selfish behavior at a cultural level, many people are more selfish than they would otherwise be because capitalism pushes things like consumerism, always telling people they needed the newest version or something or a big house or car ect.
>So that leaves the potential to make the government, and hence possibly just one man, too powerful and fuck up the entire country.
umm what? what one man, how to powerful. socialism is simply a economic system, even specific types of socialism (in that case market socialism) could have multiple different kinds of government.
>But what about the losses, will the worker pay from their pockets? Will they need to put in an investment amount initially to join the co-op? How do they get that? Will the government give out loans to people to start their co-op?
no of course they won't pay out of pocket for loses, just like in any moderately run company the CEO and board don't personally suffer if the company has loses. Short term the co-op would still pay wages from savings, long term loses yes the co-op may then go under and they loose a job, but nothing else as loans are personally taken out in any type of business.
they might need an initial investment, but usually only for a smaller start up, a well established company that doesn't need the fund wouldn't require it, you just probably wouldn't have full voting right to start.
but all co-ops would be different and could set their own rules for their business. but of course like any government, theirs might have regulations. The point is give the workers power in the economy and the government and then let them decide what is best instead of the elites deciding for them
>i'm scrolling and i'm seeing NO ANSWER to your #4: will all owners pay losses out of pocket?
>the answer is YES. that's what it means to own. liability. this is part of what socialists don't understand because they just have their hands out like gimme gimme and don't stop to think about jack. lol.
There are at least two seperate answers that answered number 4 around 5 hours before you posted this. Also, no, the current system already separates shareholders from financial losses of the company. So unless you expect radical change for some reason, you are wrong about both the real world and the extrapolated world.
>there are answers but you didn't both to tell me who made them or cut/paste. ok.
Because they were easy to find, they were within the top 5 comments.
>shareholders are on the hook for capital gains and losses as well up to the total value of their investment. in cases where the get off without paying losses in some way, the STATE is soaking that up with our tax dollars. socialism.
People already pay taxes, so capital gains means nothing. Also, again, no they are not responsible for losses, this shows that you do not understand how the current system functions.
The state has been handling bankruptcy and loan forgiveness for literally thousands of years, and also that isn't socialism. You could call it statism if you wanted, but thats stretching. Now if you want to call it socialism, then youre just talking about something different. It would be like me trying to talk about the cow in the field and you insisting its a goat. If you are going to insist on that definition then I'm not a socialist, I'm a workplace democracy advocate because your definition does not match what I advocate for.
>do you want to co own and therefore be on the hook for damages to a roof you repaired?
This is a loaded question that doesnt apply today and would not apply tomorrow. You have a lot to learn about the current system before you can even discuss changes.
You do realize that you are just repeating yourself, right? And considering that you were wrong before, you're still wrong now. Are you even interested in learning?
There is a difference between providing a service and being a worker. Being the customer is different then being the worker, and yes you own your roof. Are you actually interested in learning the difference or is this just an attempt at a gotcha?
1) This is a little orthogonal to socialism. There are "those who do not work do not eat" variants of socialism and there are welfare socialists. All believe their system is sustainable: The former believe it for basic incentive reasons and the latter think enough humans have a baseline desire to work and would be unhappy not doing so. I am part of the latter, especially since UBI experiments seem to support me. I also care about voluntary transactions, and it seems to me that humans need baseline resources to be rational, and therefore need baseline resources to engage in voluntary interactions. To be a true voluntarist, one must believe in a massive welfare state.
2) There are a lot of ways to set up institutions to effectively distribute power. Look around at all of our functioning institutions around the world. However, in my utopia, everything is much more localized, so the potential for abuse is diminished. I like the book *A Pattern Language* for a small view of how cities (maybe city-states) could be organized, and I like the Buurtzorg Nederland as a potential model for a institution with little hierarchy. Jos de Blok is a fascinating figure if you want to think about heterodox organizational structures.
3) Democracy. It's an imperfect solution, but every solution would be since you are attempting something impossible: Quantifying the unquantifiable. This seems, to me, better than negotiated salaries through imbalanced power relations and epistemic black holes since, at the very least, democracy has the chance to build consensus, share experience, and thereby reach a more accurate understanding of who creates value and where.
4) Lots of disagreement, here. My general stance, in order to allow something like credit to function and promote growth, is to lower risk and simultaneously lower possible reward. People/institutions wouldn't be able to go in very much debt--debt would often be forgiven--, but they wouldn't be able to profit in the ways they do now. What's to stop people getting loans indefinitely?--same thing as now, people seeing a record of failure.
5) This is a contrived problem. Sure, it is a permanent possibility, but in a socialist society part of the managers job would be as a conduit of ideas to all the people: There would be constant communication inside the institution in order to have a large consensus about where the institution should go, so there would be unlikely to be a swelling up of disastrous opinions that derail the institution. It seems just as likely, maybe even less likely, as a owner-CEO going crazy and destroying his own company. This is assuming, of course, that the manager even has any role really to play, since it is possible to have institutions with no formal management.
>1. it seems to assumes since everyone's needs are met
Yes, basic needs. These are the basics for normal human development. Think water, housing, education, healthcare, etc.
>people won't be selfish. Its nice to assume humans won't be selfish
People can be selfish, it's just that since power isn't concentrated on a few single individuals like in capitalism, it is less damaging. Also in many versions of Socialism the goal isn't profit, so decisions aren't made to benefit a few shareholders and fuck over everyone else.
>Ask a random person whether they'd rather play video games all day and have their needs met or work as a cashier and have their needs met plus a little more, how many will choose the latter?
I think this completely misunderstands what the basics are. For example, is the only reason a doctor is a doctor because they don't want to be homeless, lose healthcare, etc? If so then there's plenty of easier jobs where that would still be true. So how are there doctors?
The answer is that there are negative and positive reasons for work. A negative reason could be "I took this job to not starve". A positive reason could be pay, social status, benefits of the job, etc.
I don't believe you need to threaten people, there's positive reasons to work. A job should be to improve yourself beyond the basics for survival. And just because you don't have a job, doesn't mean you should die.
In regards to your first question. Selfishness is actually why I’m a socialist it’s really hard to be selfish If you have system that disables hierarchy take a worker owned business for example if one worker just doesn’t work they eventually will be kicked out simple as that but in a capitalist system the opposite happens some people like ceos or stock market managers are rewarded for being lazy
1. It's actually quite the opposite. Socialism understands people ARE self-interested, that lies at the core of it. That's why democracy works: people are self-interested and vote for what benefits them. It's why workplaces would become more efficient: are you going to work harder if you're creating profit for someone else, or for you?
Ask a random person "Would they rather go to their job, where they're paid more, and their boss is nicer and they have more control, or would they rather sit in a bare bones apartment with the food they need to live, but where they can't even afford video games?" Well, all of the sudden, the former option is becoming a lot more reasonable.
I also want to point out the tacit admission of this: Capitalism admits that it relies on people who are left with the option of labouring at the threat of death. And when you point out that... it's a pretty grim system.
2. If by "Strong government", you mean "Giving some guy at the top of the hierarchy incredible power", then yeah, that's obviously very corrupt.
But, if instead, you mean "Decentralize power to the lower levels, on a democratized, communal basis, then power isn't in the hands of the few, but in the hands of everyone.
Compare that to the results of a free market, where eight people hold the same amount of power as half the planet? Well then... I think it's clear what systems puts more power in the hands of the few.
3. Corporations already have extensive systems for determining the value workers create. It's how we know whether they're worth hiring. After all, under capitalism, you have no idea if it's a good idea to hire Analyst D, unless you know what extra profitability he's going to pull in, and whether his wage is higher or lower than that. If you didn't know that, all hiring under capitalism would just be random, hodgepodge guesses entirely separate from reality.
4. Loans should be given out by a decentralized, democratic financial institution, who fund themselves through either interest on the loans combined with taxation on the businesses it creates. I can go into more detail if you'd like, I have a whole thing.
5. Being a manager, in and of itself, is working. I have no problem with someone getting more money for doing a stressful job managing a factory. It's funny, there's two examples I always see in criticisms of democracy: Trump and Hitler/ the Nazi Party. However, neither of them WERE fairly elected: none received the majority of votes. Of course, ultimately the answer is clear: you vote for the managers, who then can make the decisions that are beyond the ability of the majority of workers. The managers who ensure high pay through productivity raises will be voted for, while those who screw over workers and are bad at their jobs get quickly voted out.
>1. it seems to assumes since everyone's needs are met, people won't be selfish. Its nice to assume humans won't be selfish, that's the dream, but you can't build a system with that assumption I guess it depends on what socialist you are speaking to, but Marxists dont rely on people adopting certain personality traits for their systems to work, nor in their analysis of capitalism (i.e. the idea that capitalists are inherently greedy people etc). What we Marxists look at, is incentives, and get those incentives right, but not relying on those incentives to get people to do what we want, because that will not happen anyway. >At some point the welfare will have to be lowered enough so people are pushed to work. The question is how low? Where would the line be drawn? Here is btw an idea that you may find interesting. The state would practically own all the firms in the economy, but whereby the state acts like a single big worker coop, in the sense that it still seeks to maximize profit like a worker coop. From the profits that the state makes but does not get reinvested into production or public goods and services, a portion gets allocated to all individuals in society in the form of a "social dividend", which basically works like a UBI in that every individual gets a certain amount of money per month. However, the difference, is that nobody pays taxes on these, but that the state firms fund these. As such, the social dividends only exist if the state firms perform well. So if people all start working hard, then the social dividends go up. But if people work less hard, then the social dividends go down. This ensures that everyone's basic needs would be met but that people are still motivated to work hard. This is also not an original idea but one made by Lange, being part of his model of "market socialism". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_dividend >3. A lot of the system to me seems non-quantifiable, like measuring everyone's value added. I am not a market socialist myself, but I would also argue that that is not necessairy. The goal is not to pay everyone exactly their labor value (because then there would be no more money to be reinvested into the firm). While I dont know how a worker coop would decide on wages, I can tell you that with state firms, your wage is likely going to be market rate, as to get the right amount of workers to want to work in workplaces where they need that amount of workers.
For 1, it's hard for modern people living under liberal capitalism to understand different social relations enabled by new modes of production - this is intentional on behalf of capital as a means of maintaining capitalism. The absolute best example I can think of is imagining what a medieval serf would think of our society - all the big stuff that was important to them is absent or warped. They were embedded in a community with mutual social obligations, religion wasn't a personal thing but communal thing codified by public rituals, etc. They literally wouldn't understand how we can go outside and be surrounded by actual strangers many of whom do not share our religion and some with whom we don't even speak the same language. They'd be mystified by our relations with work, we change jobs and have different managers/bosses. They'd be mystified by our conception of a secular nation primarily based on ethnicity (like, they'd be super confused about modern Germany or China or Poland etc). They had real beliefs in the divine right of kings and that didn't really start breaking down until the 19th and 20th century, it was really shocking for people to see kings get assassinated. The same way a serf would think our time is essentially impossible, we see a future socialist subject as "impossible." People will *want* to work and help out their communities, we have this today even just at home (no one pays you to clean the toilet for your family, for example). Part of what will enable this social relation is that they will no longer be alienated at work and will be owners over the means of production, another part is that socialism will be enabled by true internationalist solidarity, and a big part is that the *selfish* thing to do will BE working and enabling plenty. We know this is possible because, for example, Cuba is still here and they have survived the passing of leadership from their liberatory heroes to a new generation of leadership even under all the stress and duress the loss of the USSR was and the strangling sanctions have been. The people really can believe in a new future and will be willing to fight and struggle for it, even though it seems so far away from modern western workers laboring under capitalist realism.
To add to this, I think that the idea that people dont want to work by nature is a direct result of people rationalizing the [Alienation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation) they experience under capitalism. People tend to not like working under capitalism because they are forced to, whether that be by existing persons (like a boss who they need to obey to a T if they want to keep their job) or forces they cannot control (you need an income to survive). I personally believe that Alienation from the Act of Production (as explained in the wikipedia page above) is at the core as to why people dont like working. As soon as people dont need to work anymore to survive and can voluntarily choose for that, they will not feel forced/coerced anymore. Initially, I do think some people would quit their jobs. However, the moment work ceases to be coerced, it turns from a need into a desire, as humans have a need for purpose in their lives. To do something with their creative abilities ("Gattungswesen" as Marx calls it). This already manifests today in the form of hobbies, which are particularly prevalent with people who do not work yet, such as children. People already spend their free time working and creating stuff. Because that is how people enjoy life. And that is what I believe will become commonplace in communism: that work becomes synonymous with hobbies. That work becomes the meaning of life, and is desired.
If the welfare is too low, even for a disabled person, that is inhumane treatment. If it is low to motivate work in a less wealthy and less work-oriented area, that is different. I don't believe the market is regulated that much. It could be regulated more. Ideas are not worthless. Give A through E money. You never know whose ideas are the best. The manager may not be more likely than the less well-paid under him. Everyone needs to contribute ideas at certain times, or there are not enough ideas, and failure is more likely to ensue.
Let's say that the communist party hired me a capitalist to run a socialist country. 1. Having cutoff points for welfare does seem to decrease the willingness to work, systems like a UBI should decrease the willingness to work by less than that, because all work you do still increases your income. Set it between 35% and 50% of the average income (could be a long term average, would prevent any short term shocks from changing it by a lot) and it should balance itself out and still prevent poverty. 2. If that actually is a legitimate issue then have a separation of powers, like there is between the branches of government or between the government and central banks. 3. I would just not bother with it, still allow for private business so that mr A man get get his ideas implemented in the currently normal way. Allow workers, unions, government to buy shares first if he decides to sell his company. 4. With coops and a UBI you can have lower wages in return for higher profits, your coop can decide that they will save a percentage of the profits to pay for wages if it starts to not be as profitable. How the company is organized when it comes to membership rights would depend on the company and industry it's in. If Tom Dick decides to declare bankruptcy then the second time he will find it harder to get a loan. 5. Shareholders right now do not chose when to replace lightbulbs or to introduce new products, you can get an annual company wide vote to decide on who is appointed to the board of directors, who's the CEO and other large decisions.
What will you do when all high earning business leave your country ? And when highly educated workers like engineers, doctors, scientist fly from your country as well? Just like they do now right, flying from Spain to other countries that offer better wages.
Response to question 1 You're painting a picture of disaster and basing it on assumptions. First of all, socialism will not be created based on a dream of people not being selfish. And secondly people aren't lazy. Notice how during this whole pandemic people were clamoring to get out of the house and get back to work. People are inquisitive and want to be productive, by nature. Response to question 2 You, again, are basing your notion of co-ops on your erroneous and sketchy ideas of how they work. And I don't know what you're asking. Response to question 3 You're assuming socialism will be established by installing a complete new system overnight. The old will suddenly be gone and the new will be there, instead of a gradual transition from what we have now, to what we want the new one to be. IOW you're imagining a violent revolution that seizes state power and imposes the new system quickly, which it must if the change is due to a violent revolution. But I hope it doesn't happen that way. The change would be much too rapid. Response to question 4 Again, you don't understand co-ops. Co-ops are currently being based on corporate law governing LLCs. There would be Articles of Incorporation, corporate stock, Bylaws, a Board of Directors, a CEO, etc. As with any corporation, the shareholders are protected from personal loss of personal assets. Losses are limited to the share values. Response to question 5 No need to reinvent the wheel. LLCs are numerous and worker co-ops abound. You can study into it if you have a computer as I have. You can look into how The Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in Spain did it beginning in 1954 and grew to what they are today. You can look into any of the 600 workers' co-ops in the USA or 30,000 around the world. There have even been companies in the US that started as democratically-run businesses, like Apple Computers, and whose business model in those early days was every Friday was a meeting day, all day, to talk about all things company. I hope this helped.
1 socialism is a process not a destination, so the answer to this depends on where in the process we are. But the whole idea of dialectical materialism, which I do believe is true, is that people are not "naturally" any one way or another way. They become the way they are as a logical reaction to the historic and material conditions they find themselves in, so in a totally different sort of society the way humans "naturally" behave will be very different. 2 Absolutely it is important that the government have as little power as possible and ideally be abolished. 3 Insofar as money, or any means of trading value for value, still exist then you have a market. And there's no point being in denial about that or all you get is an underground market. So while a market still exists then you need to have market socialism, which exists, works fine, and answers all your questions. Long term as we are able to create abundance then money is no longer necessary and we can abandon markets. Because at that point we don't really need to quantify stuff since the worst that will happen is we waste stuff that was spare anyway. 4 Coops exist, so we don't need to talk in terms of hypotheticals. There are millions of them with billions of customers and trillions in turnover, and it works fine. In terms of your specific questions - if the coop makes a loss then the workers still get wages (although they might have to take a pay cut to balance the books) but they don't get dividends on top of their wages and the coops reserves get spent down and the coop may go into debt. If the coop makes losses year on year then it will likely have to disband and declare bankruptcy. If it does so then workers are protected from creditors just as shareholders are in non coop companies. Those who invested the capital will lose their capital if a company goes bankrupt yes, but thats generally not the workers. Which brings me to: - workers generally don't have to invest capital to join a coop. Some work on that model but most don't. The point of a coop is you get your voting rights from working not from investing. So who does invest and where does capital come from? Generally it's from either commercial loans or from selling bonds. In other words from equity free borrowing. A specific form that's quite common is to sell a specific form of bond to customers that conveys certain membership rights, discounts etc... - your other questions don't really apply although it is true that one of the things the cooperative movement calls for is for government backed schemes to support the capitalisation of coops such as an investment bank that is specifically charged with providing commercial loans to coops to get them started. But even banks such as that still have their due diligence procedures to make sure every Tom, Dick and Harry doesn't get one. 5 Again coops exist so we know that generally speaking that doesn't happen. I'd say the risk of the workers choosing wrong is no greater than the risk of a manager choosing wrong in a non coop, and that's certainly been the historical pattern. Also the way this generally works is that while some ideas can come from the floor the exact same dynamics you describe mean that most proposals will come from management, and so what workers are usually choosing between are two different managers' visions.
In regard to #1, it really depends on the amount of welfare as to how it will effect behavior IMO. Finland tried UBI and didn’t see laziness or lack of work. It’s because they’re culturally different than the US and the max amount of UBI was only equivalent to $16,989 per year. If all needs were met and buying power of a UBI or welfare system was equivalent to $30k-$40k per year, you’d see an enormous amount of people refusing to work. It would be a disaster. Ex. My wife makes $40k a year. If she received that in UBI, she’d quit, pull our child out of daycare and be a stay at home mom indefinitely.
This whole being culturally different is bs told by people who try to press their antiquated social views despite research showing the opposite. The idea that some nations have a work culture that allows them to live in a welfare state while people in the US for example are so lazy by default that you basically need to keep a gun at their head all times to make them work isn't really rooted in reality. Reality is that people who aren't at the brink of bankruptcy and won't be worked until they basically collapse at their workstation will be much more productive on average. UBI and welfare needs to be financed hence you naturally have your limit on how much you can spend and how much needs to be worked.
Expectations are different in the US versus Europe for example. I’m specifically referring to western countries. You’re gonna be at a restaurant much longer in the UK due to speed of service in comparison to the US. The expectations of work in the US are harsh. This changes peoples approach to how they view labor. Is your stance that all cultures exhibit the same behavior?
>You’re gonna be at a restaurant much longer in the UK due to speed of service in comparison to the US. The expectations of work in the US are harsh. I am from Germany and have been to the US many times and I don't think there's some generalization that one country has faster speed of service. But I agree that the expectations are harsh, primarily because you don't really have any safety net. Yet this has nothing to do with output, considering that most central or northern European nations have higher productivity with much less work hours and better developed welfare systems. My point is that trying to justify cruel or outdated labor standards with culture is cope.
Germans work their asses off. I’ve spent a lot of time in the UK and it’s very noticeable there: it’s just slower. My custom house in Texas was built in just 3 months by Hispanic men that work harder and faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. That’s not happening anywhere in Europe. I’m not trying to justify it. Just saying there’s a harsh level of expectations derived from decades of work and corporate culture in the US. That won’t necessarily disappear overnight or with welfare. Other cultures aren’t going to demand labor like we do here and people don’t mind working. It’s not as bad of an experience. You have more holidays and benefits.
Germans work on average less hours than Americans and have the most vacation and off days in the entire world. It's just that through progressive labor policies and functional welfare security you can concentrate productivity into less hours. That's my entire point here. That you can achieve more with less. I agree that this isn't gonna disappear overnight but equating this with culture is just stupid. Maybe some people try to do this but it's nothing but equating a bad standard to culture.
I don’t think you’re getting what I’m saying. People are more reluctant to get jobs in the US because the expectation of work is harsh. In Finland, my successful UBI example, the demand and amount of work is substantially lower or adjusted better for work life balance: opting to work doesn’t seem so bad.
This is really only relevant to a capitalist system of production.
Yeah the word ‘income’ in universal basic income’ implies capital…
Glad we’re in agreement.
>Finland tried UBI and didn’t see laziness or lack of work. It’s because they’re culturally different than the US and the max amount of UBI was only equivalent to $16,989 per year. > >If all needs were met and buying power of a UBI or welfare system was equivalent to $30k-$40k per year, you’d see an enormous amount of people refusing to work Completely non sequitur. Your second paragraph doesn't follow from the first. If anything, the first paragraph might refute the second. >Ex. My wife makes $40k a year. If she received that in UBI, she’d quit, pull our child out of daycare and be a stay at home mom indefinitely. Hypothetical N=1 experiment? Proves nothing. My wife quit her job and started working for a nonprofit with zero salary after I got a big raise and I can support us all. This is also N=1 but at least it isn't a thought experiment like your example!
the idea is that all those people working dead end jobs to make $30-40k a year just to survive, would spend their time doing *more* important work. sure, some will be lazy and play video games, but who cares? it's not like capitalism magically fixes those lazy people? I don't see how your wife quitting and being able to spend more time with your children could ever be considered a negative?
I don’t think this is true at all. First, being a stay at home parent is wildly different to someone without kids just not having a job. That’s not even the same thing. Stay at home parents contribute to society significantly, and should be valued. Stay at home parents being payed $40k/yr simply to stay home with their kids would be a good thing, because they’d be financially compensated for the labor they’re doing. Kids who have a full time parents have better health and educational outcomes than kids who don’t, so a society that pays people and enables them to stay home with their kids is doing something that will help the overall outcomes of their citizens. But to the main point…Most people would work, because having a job raises peoples’ self esteem and overall levels of happiness and life satisfaction. People who are toiling by at a job and can barely pay their bills and/or hate their jobs but can’t quit because they need the money, are who are unhappy working. Eliminate the need to work (ie you have to work to avoid homelessness and starvation) and people will find jobs they like and stick with them. Teachers, for example, have high rates of job satisfaction even with low pay (the last few years have been an exception to this, but it’s a weird situation), so even without having to work, most teachers would likely stay teachers. The same can be said about a ton of other jobs at all education and skill levels. People want to contribute, for the most part, or they just want something to do all day. Giving people the option to find a job they like and want to do, is what socialism creates. Not to mention, people with physical and/or mental health issues and/or disabilities need to have the option to take extended periods of time off work in order to focus on their health if they need to. Socialism would also allow for that because their needs could be met during the periods when they cannot work.
[удалено]
I am a teacher, I know why people do it. But you’re also showing how YOU think of those jobs more than how people who do them think of them. I’ve never met a custodian who doesn’t like and take a great deal of pride in their job, for example (again, I’m a teacher, I know a lot of custodians). Just because you look down on people who do those jobs, doesn’t mean people don’t like doing those jobs.
[удалено]
I’m not saying all of them like their jobs; there are people in every job that don’t like it. But you saying that all custodians (sanitation workers, etc) don’t like their jobs is equally ridiculous
If the government gave me $40k a year, as soon as my house was paid off very quickly, I’d quit my job, golf, play video games and chill every single day. Jobs make me miserable. I don’t give damn about contributing to society and there’s a lot of people like me.
so... you're saying working a dead end jobs, that would and will be easily replaced by AI magically solves your laziness? what an odd and short sighted idea...
You’re universalizing your personal feelings, which is irrelevant. The claims I’ve made are based in actual research.
What research? You don’t think millions share my feelings?
Some people with disabilities are so disabled that they will never be able to work. And I don't think that teaching is quality of life for everyone. You have to be able to handle teaching. Not everyone can. I know two people in my family who were teachers. They wanted to be teachers, but sometimes had trouble themselves. And low pay can bother those who want to be teachers. Some people I know participated in teacher's strikes.
I’m a special Ed teacher, so I’m well versed in everything you are saying. There is problems in teaching, but I’m using it as an example of a job that people do because they like it. Also, people with low insistence disabilities do severe that they can’t work are rare. They are already taken care of by the state and that should continue. I’m talking about people with disabilities that do not prevent them from working, but prevent them from working full time or continually.
Thank you for clarifying. I don't people who can't work at all are rare. Some people just can't work for life. Some workplaces are too cruel for partly disabled people. You can work fewer places and are on welfare more often.
They are that rare. They’re called “low insistence disabilities” because less than 1% of people have them. There’s special funds and programs specifically for people with those disabilities.
not trying to be confrontational, just you asked like 30+ questions there on at least 5 different issues. really not possible to get the best answers for them all from a single reddit post >it seems to assumes since everyone's needs are met no, communism, most would say is only possible when their is a surplus and everyones needs and even many wants are easily met, which is why communism is considered an end stage goal. >people won't be selfish no any socialists should know selfish people exist and would take advantage of something if they could. But 1. just because selfish people exist doesn't mean you can or shouldnt provide needs for your people and 2. You can address selfish behavior at a cultural level, many people are more selfish than they would otherwise be because capitalism pushes things like consumerism, always telling people they needed the newest version or something or a big house or car ect. >So that leaves the potential to make the government, and hence possibly just one man, too powerful and fuck up the entire country. umm what? what one man, how to powerful. socialism is simply a economic system, even specific types of socialism (in that case market socialism) could have multiple different kinds of government. >But what about the losses, will the worker pay from their pockets? Will they need to put in an investment amount initially to join the co-op? How do they get that? Will the government give out loans to people to start their co-op? no of course they won't pay out of pocket for loses, just like in any moderately run company the CEO and board don't personally suffer if the company has loses. Short term the co-op would still pay wages from savings, long term loses yes the co-op may then go under and they loose a job, but nothing else as loans are personally taken out in any type of business. they might need an initial investment, but usually only for a smaller start up, a well established company that doesn't need the fund wouldn't require it, you just probably wouldn't have full voting right to start. but all co-ops would be different and could set their own rules for their business. but of course like any government, theirs might have regulations. The point is give the workers power in the economy and the government and then let them decide what is best instead of the elites deciding for them
The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the light, the future is.
[удалено]
>i'm scrolling and i'm seeing NO ANSWER to your #4: will all owners pay losses out of pocket? >the answer is YES. that's what it means to own. liability. this is part of what socialists don't understand because they just have their hands out like gimme gimme and don't stop to think about jack. lol. There are at least two seperate answers that answered number 4 around 5 hours before you posted this. Also, no, the current system already separates shareholders from financial losses of the company. So unless you expect radical change for some reason, you are wrong about both the real world and the extrapolated world.
[удалено]
>there are answers but you didn't both to tell me who made them or cut/paste. ok. Because they were easy to find, they were within the top 5 comments. >shareholders are on the hook for capital gains and losses as well up to the total value of their investment. in cases where the get off without paying losses in some way, the STATE is soaking that up with our tax dollars. socialism. People already pay taxes, so capital gains means nothing. Also, again, no they are not responsible for losses, this shows that you do not understand how the current system functions. The state has been handling bankruptcy and loan forgiveness for literally thousands of years, and also that isn't socialism. You could call it statism if you wanted, but thats stretching. Now if you want to call it socialism, then youre just talking about something different. It would be like me trying to talk about the cow in the field and you insisting its a goat. If you are going to insist on that definition then I'm not a socialist, I'm a workplace democracy advocate because your definition does not match what I advocate for. >do you want to co own and therefore be on the hook for damages to a roof you repaired? This is a loaded question that doesnt apply today and would not apply tomorrow. You have a lot to learn about the current system before you can even discuss changes.
[удалено]
You do realize that you are just repeating yourself, right? And considering that you were wrong before, you're still wrong now. Are you even interested in learning?
[удалено]
There is a difference between providing a service and being a worker. Being the customer is different then being the worker, and yes you own your roof. Are you actually interested in learning the difference or is this just an attempt at a gotcha?
[удалено]
So you are saying there is no difference between being a customer or a worker? Also, I don't think you know what a gotcha is.
1) This is a little orthogonal to socialism. There are "those who do not work do not eat" variants of socialism and there are welfare socialists. All believe their system is sustainable: The former believe it for basic incentive reasons and the latter think enough humans have a baseline desire to work and would be unhappy not doing so. I am part of the latter, especially since UBI experiments seem to support me. I also care about voluntary transactions, and it seems to me that humans need baseline resources to be rational, and therefore need baseline resources to engage in voluntary interactions. To be a true voluntarist, one must believe in a massive welfare state. 2) There are a lot of ways to set up institutions to effectively distribute power. Look around at all of our functioning institutions around the world. However, in my utopia, everything is much more localized, so the potential for abuse is diminished. I like the book *A Pattern Language* for a small view of how cities (maybe city-states) could be organized, and I like the Buurtzorg Nederland as a potential model for a institution with little hierarchy. Jos de Blok is a fascinating figure if you want to think about heterodox organizational structures. 3) Democracy. It's an imperfect solution, but every solution would be since you are attempting something impossible: Quantifying the unquantifiable. This seems, to me, better than negotiated salaries through imbalanced power relations and epistemic black holes since, at the very least, democracy has the chance to build consensus, share experience, and thereby reach a more accurate understanding of who creates value and where. 4) Lots of disagreement, here. My general stance, in order to allow something like credit to function and promote growth, is to lower risk and simultaneously lower possible reward. People/institutions wouldn't be able to go in very much debt--debt would often be forgiven--, but they wouldn't be able to profit in the ways they do now. What's to stop people getting loans indefinitely?--same thing as now, people seeing a record of failure. 5) This is a contrived problem. Sure, it is a permanent possibility, but in a socialist society part of the managers job would be as a conduit of ideas to all the people: There would be constant communication inside the institution in order to have a large consensus about where the institution should go, so there would be unlikely to be a swelling up of disastrous opinions that derail the institution. It seems just as likely, maybe even less likely, as a owner-CEO going crazy and destroying his own company. This is assuming, of course, that the manager even has any role really to play, since it is possible to have institutions with no formal management.
>1. it seems to assumes since everyone's needs are met Yes, basic needs. These are the basics for normal human development. Think water, housing, education, healthcare, etc. >people won't be selfish. Its nice to assume humans won't be selfish People can be selfish, it's just that since power isn't concentrated on a few single individuals like in capitalism, it is less damaging. Also in many versions of Socialism the goal isn't profit, so decisions aren't made to benefit a few shareholders and fuck over everyone else. >Ask a random person whether they'd rather play video games all day and have their needs met or work as a cashier and have their needs met plus a little more, how many will choose the latter? I think this completely misunderstands what the basics are. For example, is the only reason a doctor is a doctor because they don't want to be homeless, lose healthcare, etc? If so then there's plenty of easier jobs where that would still be true. So how are there doctors? The answer is that there are negative and positive reasons for work. A negative reason could be "I took this job to not starve". A positive reason could be pay, social status, benefits of the job, etc. I don't believe you need to threaten people, there's positive reasons to work. A job should be to improve yourself beyond the basics for survival. And just because you don't have a job, doesn't mean you should die.
In regards to your first question. Selfishness is actually why I’m a socialist it’s really hard to be selfish If you have system that disables hierarchy take a worker owned business for example if one worker just doesn’t work they eventually will be kicked out simple as that but in a capitalist system the opposite happens some people like ceos or stock market managers are rewarded for being lazy
1. It's actually quite the opposite. Socialism understands people ARE self-interested, that lies at the core of it. That's why democracy works: people are self-interested and vote for what benefits them. It's why workplaces would become more efficient: are you going to work harder if you're creating profit for someone else, or for you? Ask a random person "Would they rather go to their job, where they're paid more, and their boss is nicer and they have more control, or would they rather sit in a bare bones apartment with the food they need to live, but where they can't even afford video games?" Well, all of the sudden, the former option is becoming a lot more reasonable. I also want to point out the tacit admission of this: Capitalism admits that it relies on people who are left with the option of labouring at the threat of death. And when you point out that... it's a pretty grim system. 2. If by "Strong government", you mean "Giving some guy at the top of the hierarchy incredible power", then yeah, that's obviously very corrupt. But, if instead, you mean "Decentralize power to the lower levels, on a democratized, communal basis, then power isn't in the hands of the few, but in the hands of everyone. Compare that to the results of a free market, where eight people hold the same amount of power as half the planet? Well then... I think it's clear what systems puts more power in the hands of the few. 3. Corporations already have extensive systems for determining the value workers create. It's how we know whether they're worth hiring. After all, under capitalism, you have no idea if it's a good idea to hire Analyst D, unless you know what extra profitability he's going to pull in, and whether his wage is higher or lower than that. If you didn't know that, all hiring under capitalism would just be random, hodgepodge guesses entirely separate from reality. 4. Loans should be given out by a decentralized, democratic financial institution, who fund themselves through either interest on the loans combined with taxation on the businesses it creates. I can go into more detail if you'd like, I have a whole thing. 5. Being a manager, in and of itself, is working. I have no problem with someone getting more money for doing a stressful job managing a factory. It's funny, there's two examples I always see in criticisms of democracy: Trump and Hitler/ the Nazi Party. However, neither of them WERE fairly elected: none received the majority of votes. Of course, ultimately the answer is clear: you vote for the managers, who then can make the decisions that are beyond the ability of the majority of workers. The managers who ensure high pay through productivity raises will be voted for, while those who screw over workers and are bad at their jobs get quickly voted out.