What's your kind of revolution?
- Thread starter ymu
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ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
But that inevitably requires rationing, and loss of freedom, and state direction of people's lives and a degenerated bureaucratic capitalist state, albeit a highly benevolent one.
People should earn more as they acquire more skills, experience, responsibility and dependents. Everyone gets a £10k automatic tax rebate paid in cash regardless of earnings, with £5k for every dependent child. People will be free to choose to earn little with no fear of current or future destitution, but their reward for working, in terms of purchasing power, is significant despite high tax rates.
Check the transitional manifesto comrade. It is something 99% of us would want to sign up to, and improvements can be made as we learn to work together.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
You're familiar with the concepts of lists and commas?
discokermit
Well-Known Member
discokermit
Well-Known Member
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Well, I said in the OP that I'm not scholarly enough for Marx nor imaginative enough for Kropotkin, so you'll have to walk me through it. But here's where I'm coming from.
1. No money just means another means of exchange, be it barter or rationing book. Allowing everyone to help themselves to everything worth having isn't an option, especially if you want to allow geeks, gadget freaks and hobbyists to have access to quality equipment beyond the reach of those who prefer to spend their disposable income on other things.
2. Money is just an easy way to keep track. Abolish the shenanigans of the stock market and investment banking, and it's quite a benign little tool.
3. I'm outlining a process for a peaceful transition to economic democracy, with the odds stacked in favour of ever more equal wages for effort expended. Worker-owned non-profit enterprises will have significant advantages over the private sector, which would be expected to wither and die except in a few specialist and highly entrepreneurial sectors, which would still face significant worker-owned competition.
Tell me where I'm wrong. I'm not making statements I don't believe and can't back up. But I've not studied as much as you guys and I'm always willing to learn something.
1. No money just means another means of exchange, be it barter or rationing book. Allowing everyone to help themselves to everything worth having isn't an option, especially if you want to allow geeks, gadget freaks and hobbyists to have access to quality equipment beyond the reach of those who prefer to spend their disposable income on other things.
2. Money is just an easy way to keep track. Abolish the shenanigans of the stock market and investment banking, and it's quite a benign little tool.
3. I'm outlining a process for a peaceful transition to economic democracy, with the odds stacked in favour of ever more equal wages for effort expended. Worker-owned non-profit enterprises will have significant advantages over the private sector, which would be expected to wither and die except in a few specialist and highly entrepreneurial sectors, which would still face significant worker-owned competition.
Tell me where I'm wrong. I'm not making statements I don't believe and can't back up. But I've not studied as much as you guys and I'm always willing to learn something.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Needs: stuff you need to live a safe and healthy life.
Wants: stuff you need to make it more fun.
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
discokermit
Well-Known Member
why is allowing everyone to help themselves not an option, at least for most things. if we need more stuff, we'll make more stuff. to be honest, whether or not gadget geeks get the latest iphone is pretty low down the list of what most people give a fuck about.
ever since there has been money there has been exploitation and oppression. money itself is just a token that some fucker's been ripped off.
no you haven't, you've outlined how you'd like it to be afterwards. there will be no peaceful transition.
why are the ruling class going to give everything up voluntarily? what's to stop them just shooting you? or imprisoning you? or just ignoring you?
who decides what's a fair wage for 'effort expended'? how do you even judge objectively 'effort expended'? time? joules?
so state enterprise and private enterprise will 'compete'? how does that work?
odds, enterprises, advantages, private sector, entrepreneurial, competition? all buzzwords of capitalism, a system based on exploitation.
Not having a dig, so don't tell me to 'fuck off,' but what gets me is that by pointing to past examples of failed attempts to establish a different kind of society (say, obviously the USSR and its reluctant satellites), which are now consigned forever to history, it's a bit silly projecting their faults into an unwritten future where they'll 'inevitably' be repeated if an alternative to capitalism is tried again, so instead let's try and make what we've got a bit more nice and fluffy.
Even your well-presented proposals would be met by cynical manoeuvring and violence, for which there are very deep pockets. I'm doubtful of a peaceful transition, even to something that doesn't completely ex-appropriate what the big capitalists have stolen from the vast majority.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
I'm not pointing to past failures. I think there was a great deal that was successful about the USSR and other 'communist' countries. But there has never been an actual workers' state, not an enduring one, anyway. Don't tell me youse are all fighting for a state capitalist bureaucracy cos I won't believe you.
There will be cynical manoeuvring and violence from those who will lose. But a battle of ideas where 99.9% can see that they will be better off, in terms of both purchasing power and security, if one side wins, is a battle where the other side has no chance.
I've proposed half of income to come from a Land Tax. This is an idea originally expounded by Adam Smith, on the basis that: rentiers are not productive; taxes on rents are passed on to tenants and thence to their customers so it is a self-balancing system where people pay tax according to the extent that they have the means to do so; it is easily valued, and cannot be hidden or expatriated.
I think the proposal for interest-free state bank loans to worker-owned non-profit enterprises will effectively kill the private sector because it has to be able to provide a premium for idle owners whilst the non-profit sector won't; it can't compete. I also think it will be self-balancing in terms of pay, because all workers will have an equal say in the way that their businesses are run. That doesn't just mean strength of numbers for the low paid, it means that everyone in the organisation is aware of the work done by, and contribution of, everyone else.
As I said, I want a gentle revolution. And I think this proposal works to give most people an offer they couldn't possibly refuse. It is based on utterly sound economic principles, recognisable by both neo-classical and Marxist traditions, is a fucking brilliant structure for a successful productive economy (even if I do so myself), and it tends to progressive evolution in much the same way as capitalism tends to regressive evolution.
There is nothing artificial about this economic structure. It's pretty much what a group of social democratic collectivists might draw up if they were going to establish a new society, assuming they understood the role of profit, investment and saving in the engine of an economy. It has similar in-built defences to capitalism; if the majority understand, believe in and support the basic principles, it is very hard to think of any other system emerging to challenge its logic It is based on efficient economic structures (non-profits) and wealth maximisation (collective purchasing). It's hard to attack, on economic or political grounds.
There will be cynical manoeuvring and violence from those who will lose. But a battle of ideas where 99.9% can see that they will be better off, in terms of both purchasing power and security, if one side wins, is a battle where the other side has no chance.
I've proposed half of income to come from a Land Tax. This is an idea originally expounded by Adam Smith, on the basis that: rentiers are not productive; taxes on rents are passed on to tenants and thence to their customers so it is a self-balancing system where people pay tax according to the extent that they have the means to do so; it is easily valued, and cannot be hidden or expatriated.
I think the proposal for interest-free state bank loans to worker-owned non-profit enterprises will effectively kill the private sector because it has to be able to provide a premium for idle owners whilst the non-profit sector won't; it can't compete. I also think it will be self-balancing in terms of pay, because all workers will have an equal say in the way that their businesses are run. That doesn't just mean strength of numbers for the low paid, it means that everyone in the organisation is aware of the work done by, and contribution of, everyone else.
As I said, I want a gentle revolution. And I think this proposal works to give most people an offer they couldn't possibly refuse. It is based on utterly sound economic principles, recognisable by both neo-classical and Marxist traditions, is a fucking brilliant structure for a successful productive economy (even if I do so myself), and it tends to progressive evolution in much the same way as capitalism tends to regressive evolution.
There is nothing artificial about this economic structure. It's pretty much what a group of social democratic collectivists might draw up if they were going to establish a new society, assuming they understood the role of profit, investment and saving in the engine of an economy. It has similar in-built defences to capitalism; if the majority understand, believe in and support the basic principles, it is very hard to think of any other system emerging to challenge its logic It is based on efficient economic structures (non-profits) and wealth maximisation (collective purchasing). It's hard to attack, on economic or political grounds.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
I was in Poland around the time they joined the EU, in Krakow - a city so naturally anarchist even the architecture screams it at you.
There were several Poles I spoke to who had spent years working in the West since the collapse of the iron wall, and in Poland before and after. They all said something like: "you are all so rich, and you work so hard, and you're all so miserable!" But they also said that, under communism, life was safer but also sometimes depressing. There was no need to go to work because you got paid anyway, so lots of people didn't bother. Some industries worked well, others ... not so well.
I'm trying to bridge that, whilst bringing an extra 75% of the country with us to the barricades.
There were several Poles I spoke to who had spent years working in the West since the collapse of the iron wall, and in Poland before and after. They all said something like: "you are all so rich, and you work so hard, and you're all so miserable!" But they also said that, under communism, life was safer but also sometimes depressing. There was no need to go to work because you got paid anyway, so lots of people didn't bother. Some industries worked well, others ... not so well.
I'm trying to bridge that, whilst bringing an extra 75% of the country with us to the barricades.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Wawel Castle. More of a citadel than a castle, with people living and working within the walls, some state functions and conferencing facilities.
And a glorious, sprawling, practical, higgeldepiggeldy mess of different stone used to repair existing walls with no silly messing about with straight lines for the new stone - keep what's good and use whatever is to hand to mend it. No messing.
The river-side promenades around the castle are full of street hawkers and street artists, doing a thriving trade with tourists and locals alike, respected, not just tolerated, by everyone. The taxi-driver who took us to Auschwitz too late to go to Birkenau after, wouldn't drive us home without going to at least look at the place. He wasn't being paid for it - he just told us it was too important and took the turning. He had had to wait around for us as three more people than expected decided to come at the last minute and we agreed that we'd all pay the same as our original share to give the guy a good tip. When we gave it to him, he danced around, hugged and kissed everyone he could reach, and was generally adorable. There is zero expectation of tips - you do a good job, and you get paid for it.
There's a freedom about the place. Like no other place I've ever been. And like no other place in Poland, either. It's uniquely wonderful.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
It's not an anarchist city now, and hasn't been in the past. It wasn't a literal statement.
I see anarchism as a very practical polity. It doesn't have to be primitive - it positively encourages ingenuity and invention - but it isn't wasteful. It doesn't tear down the old castle to build a shiny new one, or waste materials making it look a bit prettier, and there is no contradiction in allowing the styles to contradict each other as a record of changing human history and a statement of future intent: to keep making what we have more fit for purpose using whatever means we have to hand.
That's how being in Krakow makes me feel. That's all.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Heh. I was there for the Cochrane Collaboration conference, and we had a garden party hosted by Lech Walensa, hosted in the gardens at Wawel Castle. He is the most incredible speaker. He spoke in Polish, with occasional pauses for the interpreter to catch us up on the action. But I understood half of it without the interpreter. I learnt a few words whilst I was out there and can't discern any similarity with English, and I am a poor student of languages, but I knew what the guy was saying. Incredible.
He's very, very funny too.
He's very, very funny too.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Did any doctors attack Walesa for the prosecution of doctors in the 1990s under his presidencies?
is a false and misleading picture. Sacking was a part of life. Except it was hidden as transfer to small scale production which operated on piece rate and not much work to go round or to agricultural work where different rules applied. The 1980-82 strike wave was a response to unemployment and people not being paid, which the military government only sort of got a hold over by massive foreign borrowing and a new pension scheme in 1983.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I knew what a Malthusian was from second year secondary school history lessons. We covered Malthus (as well as our history and drama teachers joining forces to have us act out Cobbett's anti-Malthusian satirical play "Surplus Population") as part of the standard history syllabus. I was hardly "well-educated" when I learned it. More like "spotty, with supremely unfocused mind".
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
I doubt many of them were particularly well-versed in Polish political history.
You can't sum up any society in a few short sentences. Of course there were lots of different effects of communism, many good, some not so good and some outright bad. It's a good economic model for some industries and not such a good one for others. If you allow competing models to exist the better ones will flourish.
I'm basically chucking free market capitalism back in its own face here. Competing workplace models have had the most restrictive market of all. Let's see what happens when they're encouraged to compete.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
So we're actually fucked because of resource allocation, same as always.
One of the greatest factors driving the problem, in my opinion, is "choice". There's so much "choice" (by which I mean basically-similar goods and services dressed up as individual and unique "products"), and so much of self-identity tied in with the "choice" you make, that people often don't purchase or use rationally.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
How will this planning work? afaict it hasn't worked anywhere else yet ..
How will this cope with the fact that half of new businesses fail within 2 years
Presumably the tax payer will have to foot the bill?
"interest-free loans and non-repayable grants from the state" sounds like printing money to me.
"and for worker buy-outs of failing private sector companies." why would workers want to take on the risk of a failing company, why would they want to risk their own positions and perhaps pensions, unless you are saying you will remove all risk. But if you remove all risks there will be masses of failing businesses government supported producing stuff that customers don't want.
You mention elsewhare a claim that there will be no waste .. I can't see that.
Capitalism goes a long way to reduce waste because waste is lost profits or businesses that are non competitive and therefore fail.
The only way to reduce waste in a command style economy is to ration and that leads where the DDR ended up, a four year waiting list for a Wartburg that in truth no one would have wanted were any decent alternatives available.
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