Socialism

I recently learned about Socialism after stumbling onto this video. After finding it interesting, I've finished reading this book for a bit more of the basics, Why Socialism? by Albert Einstein and The Soul of Man under Socialism.

This really has liberated my mind and answered a lot of the questions I've had about why the world runs as it is right now.

Now I am reading the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

I thought I'd say hi to any Socialist here in off-topic.

Unfortunately you are about to be disappointed when you realise that in practice socialism and in extend communism and even further left anarchism (and whatever else names people are giving to left-wing ideologies) are flawed in a very basic level, due to their structure that needs collective work, understanding and common goals/similar thinking by every single individual in order for the political and economic system to work.

Its indeed nice in theory but highly impractical to almost impossible to sustain because its based on people being equal economically, socially, educationally etc.

Even in the Soviet Russia and their so called Communism the actual economic system was state capitalism, cause capitalism works and its easy to make it work no matter its own flaws. People were still proletarians working for the state, owning shit while individuals within that state had full ownership of otherwise "common" resourses. In other words glorified oligarchy.

In a utopian society there would be no use of laws, no use of a state, no religions to impose edicts, no conflict of iderests, no differantiation of classes, no social structure etc. Everyone would feel and actually be in the same level (economically, socially, educationally etc) as everyone else working for the good of the community and in extend their country.

Is that possible? Indeed it is. Is it probable, no it isnt, and it has to do with human nature and thus again the reason why actually left-wing ideologies wont work in the level they are supposed to.

People will indeed keep trying to make those ideologies work in a practical level but they will fail again and again, until the point where with the help of the education and experience, every single citizen of a country trying to adopt said ideologies reaches a level were they no longer have certain traits of the human nature that make left-wing ideologies impossible to adopt and already solved every basic need for the population. Then and only then those ideologies can work at the level they are supposed to work.

Another reason why they cant work is the constant population growth as well as the constant drop in number of the people who are actually interested in a participating in politics and civic life. When the basic elements of democracy cant work or malfunction you cant go further into politics and socialeconomic ideologies, especially the left ones cause they are BASED upon the majority of the people caring.

As long as the social/economic/educational structure is shaped like a pyramid left-wing ideologies will never work in a practical level. As long as people dont care about civic life and politics the pyramid will always exist. As long as there are representatives for the people who dont care the people's needs and rights will never be really represented.

Anyway enough rumbling, i tried to keep it shorty\ and light, cause generally politics and ideologies is something i dont stop talking about once i start.

All those above are actually coming from a rather far left individual mind you, its just how things really are (un)fortunately.

p.s. - if you are up for more reading i would suggest the work of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin

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ManicCompression wrote:

I recently learned about Socialism after stumbling onto this video. After finding it interesting, I've finished reading this book for a bit more of the basics, Why Socialism? by Albert Einstein and The Soul of Man under Socialism.

This really has liberated my mind and answered a lot of the questions I've had about why the world runs as it is right now.

Now I am reading the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

I thought I'd say hi to any Socialist here in off-topic.

It is good to be open minded. But i would suggest you dont simply accept new beliefs, but analyze each and every aspect and ask yourself what are the repercussions of each and every aspect. The core issue i have with communism is that the incentives are not in place to promote innovation. Although I think capitalism is far worse in many ways. I would suggest some hybrid between the 2; offering the minimal requirements for living from socialism and granting a large portion of personal power as incentives to those whom contribute to society the most.
A guaranteed minimum income and shared public goods. Yet personal property. A cap on the income of those whom dont produce items/services of functional utility. And automatic rewards for innovation, turning patents into publicly shared free information with compensation from the government rather than the current system of control which limits the use of said innovation. And further incentives for the automating of production from the government, with the aim of some day being utterly free of the bondage of labor.

Socializm or Capitalism, both enslave human in their own ways. There exists companies, where each employee is owner as well and everybody gets same share (yup, charwoman gets same money as driver or CEO). But till we will be using money or credit, there will be no freedom for man as problem are money themselves.. and more..

You can try to read about philosophy and how was developed through centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie%27s_World

Even I understand what you talking about, I would be careful to say hello to socialists.. Everybody who belongs to some group, has tendencies to convince others to join their matter.. :). And once man become part of group (or for example become engineer), he will die like part of group (or like engineer)..

gl hf :)

If you take the time to read history you'll see:


everything we have in the western civilization was built upon Capitalism, our very laws, our societies our democraties, economies and industries everything is from Capitalism.


Meanwhile, socialism always failed

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diablofdb wrote:

If you take the time to read history you'll see:


everything we have in the western civilization was built upon Capitalism, our very laws, our societies our democraties, economies and industries everything is from Capitalism.


Meanwhile, socialism always failed

What is western world?

I've already laid out my 5 basic principles in this post (and one which follows shortly in the same thread).

That said, onto Einstein in 1949. I'll cover other readings in later posts (if I'm not lazy).

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<snip>

I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration.

I actually agree with Einstein up to this point. Another work from around that time, The Fountainhead (1943), was also critical of the division between the self-driven aspects of man and the social aspects, which both see as widening with increasing dissonance. So both an advocate for socialism and one of its strongest opponents both saw essentially the same symptoms in the same era.

Where they differ is diagnosis. Let's go on...

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Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil.

In the middle of a paragraph, right where I did a quote break, Einstein brings in the concept of selfishness as evil. The ego, a part of the self, as a jailer for... well, the rest of the self, I suppose. Given his anti-self position, it should surprise no one that blaming capitalism is his very next move.

In contrast, Aristotle believed that self-love was not only important for personal happiness, but for helping other people as well. He said (paraphrased) that one cannot love another person more than one loves oneself. This perspective is the opposite of Einstein's; where Einstein sees love as a limited quantity, where love for the self spends love which could be spent on others, Aristotle sees self-love as the fountainhead from which love for others comes; he sees self-love as the means of production for the love of others.

I find it amazing that Einstein wrote this, as it would seem that he, more than perhaps anyone, would understand Aristotle's point. Einstein's work in physics was such a magnificent gift to humanity. Did it come about as a consequence of Einstein's lack of love for himself? Did he spend all his love on others such that his inner egotist would free him from his prison? Did he find no form of intense, personal joy in physics? Did Einstein delve into the hidden truths of our universe, not out of love for knowledge, but out of love for his fellow man?

The social stigma of self-love as sin was strong then (and not to be underestimated now). It was a sin, and for enjoying his own work, Einstein's superego chastised him as a sinner. There's a reason so many celebrities endorse selfless causes: they are wildly successful, and ashamed of it.

Good social systems do not fight selfishness; they use it, in much the same way a hydroelectric power plant uses the rushing water of a river. Self-love is not our eternal enemy, but our greatest renewable resource. It need but be harnessed by the appropriate social infrastructure... which, given the symptoms Einstein described, wasn't happening.

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[Under capitalism,] what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.

Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

Well, I definitely can't fault Einstein here. Good points. My only defense of laissez-faire capitalism here is this: the moment the elite grab the reins of government, it isn't laissez-faire anymore. A government which meddles in economic affairs, especially in a corrupt, biased manner, should no longer fit the definition.

I think the key point of weakness is the bargaining power of labor. While it's true that "the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product," this doesn't mean labor couldn't demand more compensation for its contribution. The core issue has always been this: supply for laborers has always been considerably higher than demand, and that situation has been maintained by the "few hands." If there's always another laborer to replace you, it's difficult to successfully haggle for a better wage. The more oligarchal the ownership of capital, the easier it is to suppress competitors who would increase demand for labor. The elites win by keeping the people poor.

That's a big problem, but his solution to it isn't ready yet... which, to Einstein's credit, he understands.

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I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

Good questions. Potentially questions without answers; the task may be impossible under socialism, requiring new theoretical constructs. But I am confident that, whatever the solution is, it will find a way to leverage individual self-love and self-interest in a new way, powering a new furnace of liberty that even all of the guns of the USSR couldn't set alight.

@ScrotieMcB

Thanks for taking time to write up your reply. I'm currently reading up on self-love The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle so I can better understand; although I'm finding it difficult to read such text. Will take time to catch up.

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Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil.

When I read this, my understanding was that people are simply misguided on how to enjoy life and are imprisoned by this confusion. This video on Epicurus on how to enjoy life talks about this.

From the other essay I linked:

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When Jesus talks about the poor he simply means personalities, just as when he talks about the rich he simply means people who have not developed their personalities. Jesus moved in a community that allowed the accumulation of private property just as ours does, and the gospel that he preached was not that in such a community it is an advantage for a man to live on scanty, unwholesome food, to wear ragged, unwholesome clothes, to sleep in horrid, unwholesome dwellings, and a disadvantage for a man to live under healthy, pleasant, and decent conditions. Such a view would have been wrong there and then, and would, of course, be still more wrong now and in England; for as man moves northward the material necessities of life become of more vital importance, and our society is infinitely more complex, and displays far greater extremes of luxury and pauperism than any society of the antique world. What Jesus meant, was this. He said to man, ‘You have a wonderful personality. Develop it. Be yourself. Don’t imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your affection is inside of you. If only you could realise that, you would not want to be rich. Ordinary riches can be stolen from a man. Real riches cannot. In the treasury-house of your soul, there are infinitely precious things, that may not be taken from you. And so, try to so shape your life that external things will not harm you. And try also to get rid of personal property. It involves sordid preoccupation, endless industry, continual wrong. Personal property hinders Individualism at every step.’ It is to be noted that Jesus never says that impoverished people are necessarily good, or wealthy people necessarily bad. That would not have been true. Wealthy people are, as a class, better than impoverished people, more moral, more intellectual, more well-behaved. There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else. That is the misery of being poor. What Jesus does say is that man reaches his perfection, not through what he has, not even through what he does, but entirely through what he is. And so the wealthy young man who comes to Jesus is represented as a thoroughly good citizen, who has broken none of the laws of his state, none of the commandments of his religion. He is quite respectable, in the ordinary sense of that extraordinary word. Jesus says to him, ‘You should give up private property. It hinders you from realising your perfection. It is a drag upon you. It is a burden. Your personality does not need it. It is within you, and not outside of you, that you will find what you really are, and what you really want.’

If you want to get stuff, read Capital. It's the foundation. Will give you insights on the current economic situation, capitalism and the general course of development of human history too. Will also explain to you why all the socialist experiments in the 20th century failed and why Marx himself said he wasn't a communist in one of his letters.

The TLDR version: his theory has always been misunderstood and/or abused. You can't rush economic development and you can't get communism if you don't go through all stages of capitalism first. Trying to build communism in a country with a late medieval / early capitalistic economy is absurd by definition. It can also be summed up by the words of one of Lenin's teachers (forgot the name, my memory isn't what it was), who said Lenin liked many things in Marxist theory, but he didn't like the part where you have to wait if the conditions aren't right. That's why all countries in the former Soviet bloc adopted the so-called 'Marxism - Leninism', which basically said 'all Marx said was right and good, but we don't want to wait.'

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ManicCompression wrote:

I recently learned about Socialism after stumbling onto this video. After finding it interesting, I've finished reading this book for a bit more of the basics, Why Socialism? by Albert Einstein and The Soul of Man under Socialism.

This really has liberated my mind and answered a lot of the questions I've had about why the world runs as it is right now.

Now I am reading the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

I thought I'd say hi to any Socialist here in off-topic.

It's good that you are reading them with an open mind. My suggestion would be to continue your exploration of various different socio-political-economic systems. Then explore how versions of them were applied in the real world and what the results were.

Depending on how much you already know, this might be a great time to do some thought experiments. Pick a country that you don't know much about that chose socialism, then find some older published books before they went socialist and during the early years. Then make some predictions of your own, based on what you read and your interpretation.

Now, look up the actual history of what happened with socialism in that country and contrast it with expectations, and consider what might have impacted or helped the progression of socialism in that particular place and time.

Do this with a couple other places and see if there is a pattern. Now look at current locations and make a few predictions in a notebook, and then watch as history unfolds.

In any case - good luck with your exploration of new information!