Easy there OP, do you think food is some kind of "human right" or something? Before you know it, people will be saying housing is too.
In 2021, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution that everyone has a right to food and the UN should work to eliminate world hunger. It passed 186 for and 2 against. The two countries that disagreed were the United States and Isreal.
...That there are people who make the decisions to let millions starve, yet we as a society happily throw people in jail or the chair for much less. If some wild gunman were shooting up the neighborhood, the way to stop them is simple. But if some wild suit lets millions starve artificially, "grr I'm so angwy!"
Not to defend them, but that only makes them less hypocritical than others. Talk (and UN resolutions) are cheap, and most countries don't guarantee food or shelter in practice. Finland is the only one that comes to mind as actually achieving this.
Edit: perhaps the downvoters would like to prove me wrong by providing their own examples?
Cuba pretty much manages to eliminate hunger and homelessness, as did the USSR and the entire soviet block
I'm sorry you haven't read a single article with reliable numbers and statistics, and rely on bullshit anti-communist propaganda.
Want some sources on that? Go read "Human rights in the soviet union" by Albert Szymanski, it's an extremely well-sourced book with hundreds of references. Please tell me how many homeless people there were in a country that outlawed unemployment and where housing costed to the average family 3-5% of the monthly income. Please tell me how there could be hungry people in the USSR when the agricultural output of contemporary Russia still hasn't reached the levels of Soviet Russia, and food prices were maintained basically constant since 1940 to 1980.
Hmm, that's weird, why would you specifically pick 1940 as your starting date? I wonder if anything incredibly bad happened in the 30s?
Genius, the USSR was a preindustrial society before the 40s, there were quite literally no tractors on the fields, and the former Russian Empire that they had just barely left behind had 10 famines a century. Before the advent of industrialization of agriculture, pesticides, fertilizers and tractors, humans would go through easily 3 famines throughout their lives, more so in hard to farm areas like the fucking cold Russia. You quite literally can't eliminate famine until you industrialize, but once they did, they eliminated hunger everywhere they had influence... while imperial England kept murdering Indians of hunger by the millions by not industrializing their country (like Soviets did in Central Asia)
And at what cost? 30 years after the regime was changed, these countries are still significantly behind those who were capitalist in pretty much every single aspect.
You are correct that homelessness way tackled but hunger not at all. Take a look at Romania during Soviet era...
So whilst one problem was solved, many, many new arose. We didn't have oranges (and other foreign goods) , considering our wages, everything was super expensive and personal growth was pretty much impossible - unless you became a member of the communist party, of course.
30 years after the regime was changed, these countries are still significantly behind those who were capitalist
How is that the fault of communism? The fact that half of Eastern-European countries have barely grown since the 90s is precisely the fault of capitalism at failing to raise the living standards and economies of those countries at rates similar to what communism achieved, except possibly in Poland and Czech Republic which have received capital investment in industry (ofc not high tech because that would compete against Germany) and grow at the expense of other countries through unequal exchange by relying on the import of cheap agricultural produce and raw materials.
I don't know much of Romania, but how can you blame communism for the fail of the last 30 years of capitalism?
Well, these countries are still behind precisely because of communism. When communism fell, they were significantly behind. Now we are still behind countries like germany, france, england but at least we are getting closer to them.
Funnily enough, if you compare prices of goods relative to the wages, we are in a significantly better situation now than we were during previous regime…
When communism fell, they were significantly behind
How do you think they compared before communism? By the time of the Russian revolution, England, Germany and to a lesser extent France were the colonial and industrial powers of earth, with England having more than 100 years of industrialization and Germany more than 50. That's orders of magnitude more rich and developed than Estonia, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia or Poland at the time.
All the growth from 1920 to 1990 (or 1940 to 1990 for countries that joined communism in the WW2 or after), was carried out in an economy without exploiting third countries. What modern Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Uzbekistan, Czech Republic, and Yugoslavia gained until 1990, was completely free of colonialism, it was through the sheer effort of the workers in those countries. If you compare that to the growth of England, France, Spain, or Germany in that century, their growth is so by engaging in either colonialism, of unequal exchange afterwards, i.e. exploiting the resources and labour or third countries (big chunk of Asia, most of Africa, and most of Latin America). Importing cheap agricultural produce and raw materials at bargain prices at the expense of the workers of the exploited countries, and reselling manufactured and otherwise high value added products at a premium capable of subsidising the rising working rights gained through unionization and labor movements (so, despite capitalism, and not because of it).
If you look at what happened since the 2000s, these formerly world-hegemon countries like France, England or Germany, simply have fallen behind. The GDP per capita of these countries barely has changed since 2008, which is about a decade and a half of stagnation. Capitalism working wonderfully, I see.
So basically you're forgetting about the advantage that western and central Europe already had at the beginning and at the mid of the 20th century when comparing those countries' levels of wealth and development becsuse of colonialism and industrialization. You're forgetting that they kept doing the exact same exploitative behaviours in their process of growth. You're forgetting that the improvements of the quality of life were done by workers fighting capitalism in unions. And you're forgetting that these same countries have been stagnant for the most part of the two last decades.
•
There is a very logical progression of basic human needs. Without oxygen, a human will die in less than an hour. We need clean breathable air. Without water, a human a will die in less than a month. We need clean drinkable water. Without food a human will die in less than a year. Shelter is trickier because people can die of exposure and hypothermia in a matter of hours, but may be able to survive without it.
- Air for profit
- Water for profit <- This exists
- Food for profit <- We are here
- Shelter for profit
Minor correction: You're technically right, but you will die in less than a week without water and less than a month without food.
There is an issue with that approach.
When they say free speech is a right, life is a right, freedom of conscience is a right and so on, they mean that others can't take away from you what's already yours. Our world, eh, is still that bad that this requires clarification and most people disagree with some or all of these.
I'd say in the situation where there are no white spots on the map, and growing food requires land and other such resources, and those have already been shared, - yes, these are rights. But a different kind by different logic.
A bit like the first part is reactive, while the second part is active. I'm bad with words.
During the Great Depression the federal government literally paid farmers to not harvest crops because allowing that much food to be produced would dilute the market and bring down crop prices.
During the Great Depression.
A time when people were starving and there were virtually no forms of welfare.
When millions were thrust into poverty for reasons entirely out of their control.
The federal government paid farmers to create less food to protect profit margins.
Nowadays they largely pay for the food and give it to to people. We got gallons of eggs at one point from that.
Farmers have bills to pay, too. If the price of growing food doesn't cover the cost to make it they'll go out of business. Then there will be one less farm to grow food. If there's no farms and we're totally reliant on imports, that's a strategic weakness.
It's the same reason we prop up carmakers when they go out of business: Manufacturing capacity is a strategic asset just like farmland.
Then subsidize the farmers by the amount you were paying them to not harvest the food ? They don’t make any money when they aren’t selling it at all either, without this intervention…
Which leads to even cheaper food prices and even more subsidies, and then you have a planned economy.
Oh wait.
Are you sure you aren't thinking of crop rotation? Have 4 fields, have one fallow every 4 years to recharge the soil. Keep farming without doing so causes the topsoil to blow and that caused the great dustbowl which preceded the great depression.
My grandpa was offered to be paid to let the harvested corn just rot, so it was after harvest.
It boggles my mind how little people are aware of this kind of practice. The Who even wrote a "joke" song about it in the 70s:
Well, I farmed for a year and grew a crop of corn
That stretched as far as the eye can see
That's a whole lot of cornflakes
Near enough to feed New York till 1973
Cultivation is my station and the nation
Buys my corn from me immediately
And holding sixty thousand bucks, I watch as dumper trucks
Tip New York's corn flakes in the sea
~~
Well, my pick and spade are rusty
Because I'm paid on trust
To leave my square of cornfield bare
Probably to keep from ripping up the top soil during the harvest. Kind of counterintuitive to use less farmland and to produce less when the price is high, but same thing works with oil fields - you get more the slower you pump.
How would letting harvested corn rot in piles use less farmland? Definitely keeps prices high though.
Oh, I thought you were talking about not harvesting the corn once it was ready.
federal government literally paid farmers to not harvest crops
If it was already harvested and then left to rot, that was market manipulation of some sort. Maybe Grangers and breaking the rail monopolies? Though I think they did the whole "left harvested food to rot" bit in the late 1800s, not early 1900s
The reasons behind it are quite simple:
- Food spoils very quickly, so mostly if you don't consume it locally you need to quickly export which is quite expensive. Very often it's simply cheaper to utilize it for example as fertilizer.
- Storing food is costly.
- The best option would be not to produce an excess of food but 1) demand is hard to predict 2) crops output is hard to predict 3) for legal reasons like contractual obligations it's better to produce more than less.
- Current markets are hardly free: see https://www.history.com/news/government-cheese-dairy-farmers-reagan
In today's world every person who starves, who does without, who suffers unnecessarily..
Does so only because someone wants it so . Not because there is not enough
I seriously encourage everyone to read this book, even if you read it back in school and found it boring. It's incredibly topical to this day.
I also just read In Dubious Battle for the first time and recommend it. A great illustration on why it's so hard to get together and organize when it seems like it should be easy.
I seriously encourage everyone to read this book, even if you read it back in school and found it boring. It’s incredibly topical to this day.
I haven't. But I may at some point.
My English teacher would look at me with that demonizing look because I knew how economics work and wanted some explanation of various leftist views with logic in it, not that emotion of hate and envy and indignation and "you stupid capitalism bad meat good stick bad strawberry good mushroom strange", it got especially absurd when I got accused of not watching TV as if that made me dumber. Without such explanations being given, I naturally felt closer towards anarcho-capitalism, because I love freedom and the logic of economics and morals known to me supported it. And they also very clearly didn't love freedom (it takes away the feeling of authority of a certain kind of cowardly people), so I would be kinda hated.
Bad memories, in short.
I wrote a long clumsy text, tldr - one should be very careful with regulations, since in some sense they are what led us here. Strong anti-monopoly regulations - yes, splitting big companies and even franchises - yes, corporate death penalty - yes, reforming (or abolishing) patent and trademark and IP laws - yes, labor regulations - yes, some quality control (not selling "dairy products" completely from palm oil or something) - yes. But any regulatory apparatus is a target for bribes and regulations working in the opposite direction.
I knew how economics work
you mean you knew that it is a system of myth making by the preistly class, with no predictive power?
I naturally felt closer towards anarcho-capitalism, because I love freedom and the logic of economics
oh. you're just a religious fanatic.
you mean you knew that it is a system of myth making by the preistly class, with no predictive power?
Basic laws of supply and demand and subjective equivalence and so on work and have predictive power.
oh. you’re just a religious fantastic.
Where I live socialists are like US Republicans in, well, US. You may disagree or agree or play some emotion like you just did, thinking that makes for an argument, this doesn't change the fact that you will go fuck yourself.
You present yourself as above emotional displays, then tell a stranger to go fuck themselves over some mildly worded casual internet debate, presumptivly displaying your anger at the inconsequential judgement of your words.
Moreover, you reference "basic laws of supply and demand", as if reciting words without adding any substance to your argument proves your point and displays your intellect/knowledge. Well, it certainly does one of those things. Probably not in the way you think it does.
The point I'm making is; you are clearly lacking in self-awareness, which is understandable given that you seem to be fresh out of high school (you reference English class, which is something typically only done by kids/young adults). You may want to work on your critical thinking skills and your ability to formulate logically structured arguments if you want to engage in good faith debate while presenting yourself as some sort of expert. Just a suggestion. Take it or leave it.
You present yourself as above emotional displays,
No, I present myself as above using them instead of arguments, which is not the same. One more such cheat move and I block you to avoid more emotional displays from my own side.
You may want to work on your critical thinking skills and your ability to formulate logically structured arguments if you want to engage in good faith debate while presenting yourself as some sort of expert.
I may want to say that you are the one not arguing in good faith, first of all because you've cheated again. Fool blocked.
Basic laws of supply and demand and subjective equivalence and so on work and have predictive power.
no, they don't. those are tautologies.
oh, well maybe you could try to show me an economic story errr.... "theory" that is not just a tautology.
It was rather radicalizing finding out that the world makes three times as many calories per person than is necessary to feed every person on this planet, but because we're idiots living in a class society in the year 12024 HE, luxury restaurants regularly dump slightly subprime ingredients in the trash while thousands starve.
This specifically talks about food.
According to health.com, the average person needs between 1600 to 3000 kilocalories a day depending on sex and age.
According to Our World In Data, even Africa, the continent with the least food reserves, has enough to give everyone roughly 2500 kcal, which ought to be more or less enough given how people with higher and lower caloric needs balance out. Seeing as how developed countries have more than enough, if a portion of that went to Africa and Asia, everyone could eat.
Calories are a rough measure, and according to Bahadur et al. we are overproducing grains but underproducing fruits, but the wretched of the Earth and the prisoners of starvation are not even getting that grain.
Edit: I have been informed that "calories" in nutrition are in fact "large-C calories", A.K.A. kilocalories. On the other hand, the OWiD numbers, which document the number of kcal available per day, still suggest that we have enough to feed everyone. I have altered the comment accordingly.
That's not small! That is something that can falsify my comment. I must run the maths again.
Only half of the world’s croplands are used to grow crops that are consumed by humans directly. We use a lot of land to grow crops for biofuels and other industrial products, and an even bigger share is used to feed livestock.
This is a beef and corn problem fueled by subsidies.
Even if all crops went directly to the stores, the problem would remain. Food is sold to make a profit, not fulfill human needs. It is unprofitable to provide food for all who need it. It is far more profitable to provide luxurious feasts for the wealthy.
It, unfortunately, is an efficient distribution of labor, at least relative to other systems. Not because wasting food for profit isn't fucking heinous, but because the mobility of investor capital and responsiveness of market prices is less inefficient than reciprocal economies or central planning.
However, we are at a point in human society where raw efficiency is no longer the bottleneck for our quality of life. Capitalism was an ugly solution to a real problem, but we can probably bid it farewell at this point, if only we can dislodge the elites who benefit from perpetuating it.
All we need is something that could realistically replace it, and a complete rewriting of all of our laws to allow for it to happen.
Easy enough.
Seems like you could get most of the way there by just keeping the current system but adding a social dividend which would form a basic income for everyone. If the dividend is pegged to economic growth then it should also be fairly resistant to inflation.
Seems like you could get most of the way there by just keeping the current system but adding a social dividend
We don't even need to go that far (although it would be nice). We could just make it illegal for stores to throw out perfectly good food and instead force them to donate it to food banks. They can even get a charity write-off as a treat.
The owner class will never willingly give up power, their actions are why capitalism is a religion.
I tend to lean more towards 'consume' and 'mulch', myself. Though I understand why others would find that distasteful.
Has to happen every few hundred years it seems, slave uprisings. When the owner class gets too fat and cruel towards the hands that make their wealth, those hands have to pick up some stones sometimes to remind them why noblesse oblige was once not considered optional.
I dislike dividing people into owning and worker classes. If the workers save up their earnings to make their living in the old age, does it make then "owner class"? Should they stay penniless in your world vision? It's the utopian world you propose
I'm not arguing semantics or gradients, eat/compost the rich to save the planet. Period.
I'm not proposing a utopian world, those are words you are shoving in my mouth.
I"m proposing a world where the global temp is slowed down enough that our grandkids have a chance at a life on a planet that isn't an ecological disaster.
It's not semantics as you try to portray. It's the real life case that simply negates your "solution" if any.
The old couple sitting on 2 mil and pacing it out so they can enjoy their retirement are not owner class.
The shitstain owner of the local car lot that is using his friends on the city council to change local zoning laws so he can force his competition out and buy their land is EXACTLY the stripe of shitstain I want to mulch.
And it doesn't negate any solution, history has proven the effectiveness of slave uprisings.
The shitstain owner of the local car lot that is using his friends on the city council to change local zoning laws so he can force his competition out and buy their land is EXACTLY the stripe of shitstain I want to mulch.
So it means you never lived in communist or socialist countries. I did
They can go in the mulcher too, everyone who abuses others to increase their own personal wealth and power. IDGAF what their government or economic label of the decade is, every power structure becomes toxic when abusers are shielded from justice.
•
Postcapitalist systems can use market prices and, in principle, be Pareto optimal on non-institutionally described states of affair
It, unfortunately, is an efficient distribution of labor
Uh... No. I feel like half the fucking western world works on finance, which is quite literally just maximizing the revalorization of capital for the few at the top. Besides, how can be the only system in history to have millions of people unemployed, be efficient at distributing labor?
responsiveness of market prices is less inefficient than reciprocal economies or central planning
This is empirically false. You can't provide a scientific source for this because it's wrong. Central planning is the most efficient tool, that's why Amazon and Walmart (extremely centrally planned systems which have power to control their supply chains at will) systematically outcompete all other businesses. Amazon doesn't outcompete other stores being "a competitive market of warehouses", it's a digitalised, centrally-planned behemoth that can so much as smell when a customer is going to conceive making a purchase, and generate all the immediate responses in the supply chain from manufacturing to distribution to optimise the whole thing.
If you wanna talk about countries, please explain how the transition from planned economies to free markets plunged the entirety of Eastern Europe into a deep crisis that killed millions and ruined millions more of lives, to the point of many countries like Belarus, Russia or Ukraine not really having recovered from the impact in 30+ years. So much for the efficiency of capitalism, amirite? A centrally planned economy is what brought the USSR from being a poor, backwards-ass agrarian country in 1917, to defeating the Nazis and being the second power of the world by the 60s.
Read some theory, buddy. Marx in particular. I know he's probably a capitalist pig by your estimations, but it might do you some good.
Dude I'm a Marxist-Leninist. Saying that Amazon is a centrally planned behemoth of efficiency amounts to saying that the capitalist will sell us the very rope with which they'll hang them, you're misunderstanding my comments
Also, where does Marx talk about the efficiency of markets and inefficiency of central planning????
Dude I’m a Marxist-Leninist
Yes, hence why I believe you've read very little Marx.
This is empirically false. You can’t provide a scientific source for this because it’s wrong. Central planning is the most efficient tool, that’s why Amazon and Walmart (extremely centrally planned systems which have power to control their supply chains at will) systematically outcompete all other businesses.
Jesus Christ. That's not what central planning means.
Also, where does Marx talk about the efficiency of markets and inefficiency of central planning???
Holy shit. Thank you for demonstrating "hence why I believe you've read very little Marx."
Under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
...
The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
...
We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.
Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.
A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.
The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.
But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class — the proletarians.
In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.
The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
The revolutionary nature of the capitalist mode of production and its importance in developing capital to the point where it is possible for the proletariat to seize power is fucking core to Marx's writing. This is not advanced stuff.
Fucking MLs, talking about historical dialectics and materialism and then demonstrating an utter lack of basic knowledge on the subject.
Jesus Christ. That's not what central planning means
You not being able to understand central planning beyond USSR technology, doesn't mean it's not what central planning means. That IS central planning, it's just evil one, with the intent of maximizing profit and surplus value extraction, and in the most antidemocratic fashion possible. But the tools to modernize central planning of the economy, and to make it democratic and worker-based are pretty much already there for us to take. If you want to actually get educated in modern conceptions of socialist central planning, you could pick up a book like "People's Republic of Walmart" or listen to experts talk about it (you can listen to a "deprogram podcast" about central planning they made a while ago), because, believe it or not, modern computing has solved the "economic calculation program".
Holy shit. Thank you for demonstrating "hence why I believe you've read very little Marx."
Uh... Where in the wall of text that you've sent me does Marx talk about the inefficiency of central planning? Because I've read through it twice just in case and it's absolutely not talking about that. It's a text about the evolution of feudalism into capitalism, about capitalism absorbing all other pre-capitalist systems, and eventually capitalism's contradictions making it collapse. Please enlighten me as to where in this text you've copied and pasted Marx talks about central planning and what arguments he uses against it.
You not being able to understand central planning beyond USSR technology, doesn’t mean it’s not what central planning means.
"Central planning as an economic system is when a corporation vertically integrates, and the more it vertically integrates, the more centrally planned the economy is."
Lord.
But the tools to modernize central planning of the economy, and to make it democratic and worker-based are pretty much already there for us to take. If you want to actually get educated in modern conceptions of socialist central planning, you could pick up a book like “People’s Republic of Walmart” or listen to experts talk about it (you can listen to a “deprogram podcast” about central planning they made a while ago), because, believe it or not, modern computing has solved the “economic calculation program”.
Cool, so we're just ignoring where I said
However, we are at a point in human society where raw efficiency is no longer the bottleneck for our quality of life. Capitalism was an ugly solution to a real problem, but we can probably bid it farewell at this point, if only we can dislodge the elites who benefit from perpetuating it.
Uh… Where in the wall of text that you’ve sent me does Marx talk about the inefficiency of central planning? Because I’ve read through it twice just in case and it’s absolutely not talking about that. It’s a text about the evolution of feudalism into capitalism, about capitalism absorbing all other pre-capitalist systems, and eventually capitalism’s contradictions making it collapse. Please enlighten me as to where in this text you’ve copied and pasted Marx talks about central planning and what arguments he uses against it.
This you?
Also, where does Marx talk about the efficiency of markets and inefficiency of central planning???
Ask one of your more patient comrades to explain Marx to you, if they can; I don't have the patience to hold your hand through an explanation. We're done here.
Dude, I'm sorry but you're being purposefully obtuse. Your initial comment was a simple and lazy "go read Marx" when I'm responding saying that central planning being better than market-based economy. I ask about where Marx talks about central-planning and market-based economies, and you answer with a tirade that has nothing to do with central planning whatsoever, as if I were defending that the Feudalist mode of production and distribution were more efficient than markets in capitalism. It's just not the topic we were talking about, we were clearly engaged from the start on a conversation about central planning versus market economies, and you suddenly shift to "markets take over pre-capitalist societies". Please just admit Marx never said that markets are better than central planning.
"Central planning as an economic system is when a corporation vertically integrates, and the more it vertically integrates, the more centrally planned the economy is."
And again, purposefully reductionist and obtuse. I explicitly mentioned using the techniques for central planning devised by behemoths the size of countries like Amazon or Walmart, to make better central planning than your outdated 50-year-old USSR idea of it, as many socialists propose (again showing you haven't read about ideas of central planning in socialism from the past 30 years), in a democratic fashion. I bet my ass again that you haven't read a single modern text on possibilities of economic planning, which is cool, but don't try to teach others how bad it is when you haven't even done the most superficial research beyond "USSR bad". The idea isn't "let's copy what Amazon does", it's "the historical critique against planned economies is based on the economic calculation problem (which you're proving you've never even heard of before), and modern digital behemoths prove beyond refutal that the problem is already solved, so let's use this knowledge and these tools to bring about a better, more efficient, more democratically organised economy for everyone". Your reductionist point basically amounts to "companies are bad therefore we shouldn't take their innovations", as if capitalism hadn't been the one to invent the industrial revolution. Big capitalist companies providing us with the tools of economic planning is exactly one of the contradictions of capitalism.
Capitalism was an ugly solution to a real problem
Not really, though. I mean, if you want to stick to looking at the last 2000 years, we still have cities that were fed in a feudal rather than capitalist system. Not that those systems were better or more efficient mobilizing labor, but the problem you're referring to wasn't really there.
That's not to mention at least several examples in the anthropological and archaeological record of large scale societies that did not rely on what we define as capitalism to feed their people.
I think it's a pretty crazy oversimplification to say capitalism just popped up as a solution to a problem.
Not really, though. I mean, if you want to stick to looking at the last 2000 years, we still have cities that were fed in a feudal rather than capitalist system. Not that those systems were better or more efficient mobilizing labor, but the problem you’re referring to wasn’t really there.
Feudal societies are notably horrendous at efficient resource distribution, and don't get me started on the weird fetishization of reciprocity economies.
There's a reason that capitalist economies exploded in growth once the main features of modern capitalism took root, and it sure as shit ain't because capitalists are just that eager to contribute to the national good.
That’s not to mention at least several examples in the anthropological and archaeological record of large scale societies that did not rely on what we define as capitalism to feed their people.
And those societies, much like any pre-modern societies, did not feed their people particularly reliably. Notably, when the Roman Empire united the Mediterranean under a unified proto-capitalist market, famine conditions drastically reduced (though very much were not completely eliminated, mind you). Not because the Roman Empire was particularly concerned about the plight of the poor - it very much was not. But because market economies and capitalist (or proto-capitalist) investment behaviors can redirect excess resources from Region A, to Region B which lacks them, with astounding speed and responsiveness, and with minimal additional labor or material investment (at least compared to alternative methods).
I think it’s a pretty crazy oversimplification to say capitalism just popped up as a solution to a problem.
The problem was inefficient methods of resource distribution. Capitalism was the solution. Modern technology, both material and organizational, allows us other choices now, but capitalism didn't spread because it was just the chic aesthetic of the time. Capitalism spread because it is significantly more efficient than feudal or guild/mercantilist economies.
David Graeber has written two ~700 page anthropology books that pretty much debunk this entire line of thinking, one of them a collaboration with archaeologist David Wengrow. That latter includes an almost immediate refutation of the utopian egalitarian hunter gatherer bands that so many pop scientists love to idealize, the same fetishization that you're talking about. They're pretty rigorous about it.
You should really check them out. 'Debt: the first 5000 years' and 'The Dawn of Everything', if you want I can pop the audiobooks on google drive and DM you the link.
I literally just came off listening to both of them in the span of 2 weeks, which is why I see such a generalized statement as "Capitalism was a solution to inefficient resource distribution" as a bit silly, because no one just thought, "oh you know what we need? Capitalism! It will be the solution!"
It has an insanely long history originating from pre-coinage, debt-based societies, some of which had huge populations. They definitely rail against the "agricultural revolution > cities" line of thinking, noting that archaeological evidence across the globe for agriculture shows the whole process took something around 3000 years, during which, again, there were mega-sites (essentially cities) that relied on a mix of agrarian and hunting and gathering.
The second book is, granted, more about hierarchical structures in ancient civilizations and Debt is more about social inequality when it comes to money, but I really really suggest you check em out. Lmk if you want that google drive link, I just gotta upload em
We may be miscommunicating a bit here, because I don't mean to imply that capitalism sprung into being wholly formed, or that it was something that was consciously pursued; rather, that capitalism, once the main features that we would recognize came into being, put down roots and spread because it was a more efficient solution to an extant problem, or, if 'solution' sounds too final, a more efficient alternate means to tribal/feudal/guild/mercantilist economies of addressing the problem of resource distribution inherent to complex societies.
Like how traditions of banking spread because they're more efficient than allowing money to be hoarded - not because the ruling class up and says "Banking, what a wonderful idea!", but because polities whose institutions tolerate, mesh with, or allow for the innovation, ceteris paribus, end up in a superior position over those which do not, because they are in possession of a solution (to hoarding, in the case of banking) of increased efficiency than non-banking solutions, making polities which have banking or banking-like institutions the norm over time.
That being said, I've put both of those books on my to-read list, because they sound excellent.
We might be, and I'm definitely not an expert or that immediately knowledgeable (hence, why I just listened to two long-ass books in two weeks), but even your banking example doesn't really satisfy me. I get what you're saying -- not that banking or capitalism were a spontaneous solution or decision or conscious at all, but moreso that they solved a certain problem many human societies had, and therefore it was further adopted, and further, and further, an almost natural propensity to spread. In some sense, there must be some underlying force that's pushing capitalism and banking along, because otherwise we wouldn't have their dominance, today.
But that is still the core idea the authors push back against in those two books. I'd probably argue that banking didn't spread because it solved the problem (hoarding money), but that it emerged out of early hierarchical societies whose states, themselves, hoarded primitive "money" (grain) and lent it out to farmers at interest, and that the underlying force we're looking for that caused it's eventual spread is the concept of debt or becoming whole, itself. But then I am also getting into the territory of banking as some natural sociological phenomenon that was destined to be furthered and furthered , which is, again, exactly what those two books seek to dispel, especially Debt.
I'd like to continue, but this would definitely work better as an in-person conversation where we could push back and forth against ideas, but I do have to work :/
Or it's because of nitrogen fertilizers and the scientific method vastly improving productivity.
One of the two.
Nitrogen fertilizers don't date to the early 17th century, when this trend of explosive economic growth becomes apparent in early capitalist states, unless you're counting four-field rotation farming, itself only adopted because of the market-driven demands of early capitalist societies.
I tend to draw a distinction between mercantilism and capitalism, and I think you're brushing over the economic rape of half the world for that explosion of Colonial European wealth, but it's certainly true that the line can get blurry when you're discussing the exact difference between a noble offering an early chemist patronage and a capitalist paying an employee to come up with ideas he can exploit while paying them a fraction of its value.
That goes beyond capitalism. People are just selfish. The hoarding of wealth was a thing way before capitalism. I think the left sort of shoots itself in the foot by obsessing over capitalism and ignoring the much deeper cause of a lot of societal ills. Being evil is part of human nature, just as much as being benevolent is.
Not really.
There have been extensive sociological studies over this. Condition in a capitalist society and the promotion of the “homo economicus” model continually reinforces “greediness” and leads to people in capitalist societies being far “greedier” on average.
It isn’t a natural thing, it is conditioned. Obviously everyone is greedy to an extent. But in anthropological examinations of different forms of societies, altruism scored far higher than greediness in non-capitalistic societies.
Kate Raworth, Oxford Economist, wrote an excellent chapter about this in her book called “doughnut economics”. The chapter is “Nurture Human Nature”.
The view that all humans are greedy and rational was promoted by Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill and is the precursing foundation of capitalism. But modern economics have rejected this view as it has been proven to be inaccurate, and increasingly rely on theoretical models built within behavioural economics.
Of all the meme images to use, Dr Manhattan would know that it isn't Capitalism manufacturing scarcity, Capitalism is just indifferent to scarcity.
Yeah I don't think talking about food production and distribution is a good method to promote socialism given how many people starved in socialist countries.
Seems to me this would be a subject socialists would want to avoid.
Critical of capitalism ≠ Socialist
There’s a lot of nuance you’re missing out on in this simplistic statement.
I obviously oppose any authoritarian regime regardless of the economic system.
All hunger in the origins communist countries happened in preindustrial societies. Once agriculture was mechanised, hunger disappeared forever in USSR/China (countries that I assume you refer to). That's not the case in industrialized capitalist countries or their colonies. To quote Chomsky:
"in India the democratic capitalist “experiment” since 1947 has caused more deaths than in the entire history of the “colossal, wholly failed … experiment” of Communism everywhere since 1917: over 100 million deaths by 1979, tens of millions more since, in India alone"
Not quite true. Lysenkoism was a completely unforced error all on its own whose failures couldn't have been conquered by more tractors, but that was ultimately a failing of authoritarianism, not socialism. A mad king or fascist dictator whose advisors feared to tell him the truth, that his ideas were shit and didn't work, would have resulted in the same thing.
Failures of applying science aren't exempt in capitalism, we've literally had climate change denialism for what, 5 decades now?
And anyway, the peak of Lysenkoism (first time I hear about it btw) according to the article you sent, was on the 40s, which is after the last famine of the USSR, kinda proving my point that once the agriculture was mechanised, hunger disappeared in socialist countries.
Except from gulags where they were starving to death. I come from the " behind the iron curtain" countries. Gulags are not myths and the prisoners not punished with death pebalty should be fed with at least minimal provisions making them able to survive ( I am not against either death penalty or work in prisons )
Gulag repression and hunger took place during a very specific and limited period of time in the late 30s and early 40s. The Stalinist great terror was unjustified and horrific, and it served no purpose and was purely a consequence of paranoia. After WW2 and for the rest of the USSR, the reeducational ideal of gulags was restored, and conditions in gulag were better than in normal prisons, to the point gulag inmates earning a low but significant wage for their labour, and normal prison being used as punishment for gulag inmates who kept violating the rules.