In a mixed economy, it would be funded out of progressive taxation. In a fully socialist, post-capital economy, it would not have to be "paid for" because money as we know it would be nothing like we know it today.
Discussion
If I don’t want to pay (or work) for someone to take classes for their whole life, will I be forced to pay/work for it?
In a socialist society, people would be expected to work and there would be incentives to work, but you would be guaranteed a level of basic provisions, healthcare and education from birth as a human right. They do a semi-decent job of this in the social democratic EU! We can do a similar thing here. If most people contribute to the pot, you don't have to worry because there will be enough to go around.
That’s what they always say though, and there never is. I’d love it if there were, but every time socialism has been tried it seems to indicate that there doesn’t end up being enough to go around!
That's because democratic socialism has never been tried. Leninism is inherently dictatorial, and social democracy is a good start on the road to socialism. If socialism is ever adopted, it will be by the radicalization of social democratic parties around the western world that unite with leftists around the globe. We would have to imitate the neoliberal movement and Globalize Electoral Leftism.
Third way is not democratic socialism.
Democratic socialists always get gulaged when the revolution comes.
"Democratic socialism has never been tried". Both India and Israel were founded as democratic socialist states and both gave up that ideology.
The problems with post soviet Russia and the current USA are the democracy part, not capitalism. Huge amounts of govt corruption waved away with talk of "our sacred democracy". Countries like China and Vietnam that have retained authoritarian govt but introduced capitalist market reforms have lifted huge swathes of their people out of poverty.
Are you an opponent of democracy? Oh boy. You remind me why libertarians aren't actually interested in equality and just want kids to work in the coal mines.
nostr:npub1grd6pp385tevd8psx9nxzjd4vutg7pycjj49cs3q8gujpg77sjps4752zz can you confirm that is what you want?
I'm e/acc so I want robots in the coal mines. I am not anti democracy.
Who said I'm a libertarian? Limiting who is allowed to vote safeguards democracy. Leftists such as yourself are always trying to reduce the age requirement for voting as well as allowing resident non citizens to vote in elections. Additionally not allowing voter id is a leftist policy. You know these damage democracy and that's why you support it.
Another problem is that democracy requires a homogenous society. If you have a perpetual underclass of victims (cough cough) it’s not going to go well.
If there was a need to track who was working, labor vouchers would be used.
Do you think there wouldn’t be a need? Seems to me like there is no way there wouldn’t be a need. People don’t like to work when they don’t have to as far as I’ve been able to tell.
What’s the difference between labor vouchers and money?
Labor vouchers could only be earned by your own work, not by taking money from others
First, it sounds like if I don’t want to pay for something that the social democracy in its infinite wisdom says I should, I’ll be forced to pay for it. That seems morally objectionable to me, maybe the ends justify the means?
Second, I’ve never understood the framing of “taking money from others” when they are freely giving it away in the US. People happily empty their pockets of their own volition.
And third, some people are 100x more productive than others as it is, and that will only be more so when everyone gets an hour’s credit for an hour of work - what would stop people from gaming the system and doing the least energetic hour of “work” rather than something productive?
The idea of this hypothetical society is not to maximize profits, it is to produce enough to satisfy need. If you produce sufficient work, you should get compensated and if you produce a significant amount more work you get more compensation.
Oh interesting.. so some people might get 100 hours of vouchers for 1 hour of work? Maybe I misunderstood
nostr:note12rhqdfmey5v0ra68dc40yz99x4n0alans6vr0t23zeuprjn3qu7scx7un6
Kind of
It sounds like money so far to my hopelessly capitalistic ears :) - but what do you mean?
There are 3 options forward imo:
A capitalist mixed economy with social democratic Nordic reforms
Labor vouchers
"From each according to their own ability, to each according to their own need"
That kind of voucher then doesn’t help avoid the collapse of the 100x or more difference in person to person productivity? Sounds like there may be different pay - but it won’t be because of what the person is capable of.
Maybe the idea should not be to give people that "work harder" more money because what about the disabled, elderly and children that can't work? Maybe instead you allocate resources by devising a way to determine people's needs so then you ensure that everyone is fed.
That can be done without coercion. If the reason to do a form of socialism is to take care of the poor, I think we can do that without the caustic government and capitalism-nerfing economic controls.
Let’s just take care of each other. If your close friends or family don’t do that, they aren’t respected. If the leaders of the companies you like don’t do that, you switch loyalty. Sounds like the best of both worlds, no?
But capitalism IS coercive. The police and other agencies are needed to protect the capitalist class and preserve this form of economic governance! Capitalism is by its very nature coercive, but in a way more subtle than what came before it. As a matter of fact, any state-based ideology is coercive to some degree, regardless of if it is a democracy or a dictatorship, or if it is socialist or capitalist. The idea should be, who is coercing who? The capitalists coercing workers, or the people deciding the laws that all coerce them equally?
I’m loving this conversation
I agree that state-based systems are coercive, that’s not what i’m suggesting though. I just mean people freely interacting or not. Selling and buying or not, all completely freely. Does that clarify that there wouldn’t be coercion?
(And giving)
The market itself exerts a peculiar tyranny, as you are dooming people's futures to be determined by a chaotic, nonlinear system. I would vastly prefer a form of democratic planning that utilizes technology to aid decision making. In a socialist system, the individual would have an obligation not to their boss or employer like in capitalism, but an obligation to their community and their fellow human beings. A capitalist society is not free. No political or economic system is completely free. You will always be beholden to someone.
Huh. I’ve never thought about the whims of the market as being tyranny. Let’s break that down. The whims of the market are just the sum total of the whims of each person. It’s not tyrannical for someone to say “I no longer want to use my time to acquire the widget you make”. That’s just them deciding to live their life differently. Would you agree with that?
In the society I’m thinking of, people still have a social duty to their community. That obligation just doesn’t have a gun on the other side.
Someday maybe AI will plan everything for us. It’ll probably be doing everything cognitive good. And like we’ve talked, eventually manual.
I hope there can be a way for people who agree with you to test your ideas out! If I get what I hope for, there will be. I’m hope you’d agree that forcing them on unwilling people is unseemly.
It is tyrannical when the selfish behavior of a few powerful actors ends up punishing those that behave in a good manner.
Help me out with an example, what are you thinking about here?
2008
Greedflation
The great depression
The entire US healthcare system
Mass incarceration
Forever wars
Union busting throughout history
Savings and loan crisis
Theranos
Climate change
Planned obsolescence
COVID 19 vaccine price gouging from Moderna
Homelessness problem
And this is all stuff off of the top of my head. The iceberg is deep.
Haha, that’s a lot of examples. Maybe I can choose one?
Planned obsolescence - assuming that’s where the device is made to break after x time - doesn’t punish anyone. You’re just buying a time bomb. If they don’t tell you about it (as has been the case recently), that’s antisocial behavior, and capitalist systems correct that naturally with no added structures as consumers get angry and choose alternatives.
You are assuming healthy competition.
True, which I think is a safe assumption on a long enough timescale where people are free. No?
Unregulated Capitalism inevitably leads to a situation where a couple of bad apples corrupt the entire system. Point me to proof disproving my assumption here.
Haha I’m game to try. What’s our definition of “corrupt the entire system” and what time horizon should we be thinking on?
Twitter: look at is right. We are the Twitter now
Typos lol
“Look at us. We are the Twitter now”
Mass incarceration: this is a democracy problem not a capitalism problem imo
Get the profits out of the prison system, so the prison industry cannot pay off politicians.
Hey I fully agree - that is one way.
Freedom works too, but both can work for this.
The freedom route would be recognizing that it’s not cool to give people power to arm and send bands of armed dudes to incarcerate people for peacefully smoking or selling some weed.
The freedom route I think in this case might be resistant to more forms of influence than just the private prison money.
I also think that we should expand the social safety net to reduce addiction and help the poor and marginalized.
đź’Ż
Course I want to do it freely rather than coercively
But that’s so minor a point that I almost crossed it out. I so totally agree with this point. We could help so much more if we didn’t have such a ME culture.
Feel free to ping any that I didn’t chose btw
I do agree that forcing an unpopular idea is contrary to democratic principles, which I support.
Democratic principles = forcing the minority to do what the majority thinks
Also what about automation? Automation is making work itself easier. Once automation makes work fast enough, and you scrap the capitalist notion of infinite growth, eventually you could structure society to be fully mechanized.
Ok this is a fascinating split of this thread here to me. I think humans have infinite demand - which is why automation and the advancement of science doesn’t seem to be making our lives easier. We just do more. Take for example the fact that we feel compelled to have stuff that didn’t exist 30 years ago. Do we need it? Idk. Does it soak up our increase in productivity? Absolutely. Yeah I think it’d be amazing to live with people who have quenched the desire for new stuff. Imagine how early you could retire if you just made do with what humans thought was amazing 200 years ago.
Humans cannot possibly have infinite demand. There are physical, social and physiological limits that cap the total ability of humans to use what they produce. We probably hit that limit in some areas of the world.
Who or where has hit it? Everyone I see would prefer to have 100x more at their disposal.
I believe personally that society on a fundamental level is falling prey to the idea of "Me me me" where capital accumulation is prioritized over happiness and freedom, and unchecked it is causing our society to crumble and splinter. Just look at the fall of Twitter and the RHEL drama going on as simple examples. The mentality that should be how we govern society is that of the Social contract: " I give up my right to be a greedy asshole so I get representation in government, college, healthcare and the resources needed to enjoy positive freedom". I propose this in place of the capitalist idea of self interest and of social darwinism. Cooperation and the democratic decentralization of power is the key to solving the world's problems and maybe getting off of this rock one day before the sun blows up.
Haha I hear you. There absolutely are people like that. But what if someone genuinely doesn’t want to sign the social contract? Like, I don’t want to. Yet I am forced to. And it’s not because I’m greedy or self interested - I want to not sign it so I can be free to do what my conscience and study tells me is the most effective way to help humanity. I’m an effective altruism dedicated individual.